Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/204

 i8o Miscellanea.

This was tried with a female donkey of C. L.'s on two of her labourer's children, who are grown man and woman now, and the donkey is alive and kicking.

Afwther. — Find a married couple, who are first cousins ; if one gives the child solid food and the other liquid, in the name of the Trinity, for three mornings fasting, the child will recover quickly.

C hay m for Aptha or Thrush. {This disease is very common ivith children.) — Get a gander and make him breathe or hiss into the child's mouth ; or if this cannot be done, get a person born after his or her father's death, and he or she must blow down the child's throat for four mornings fasting, in the name of the Trinity.

A garden boy we had here earned many shillings by blowing into the mouths of children.

Kate Lawless Pyne.

The Cottage., Coachford., Co. Cork.

A Burial Superstition in County Cork.

When two corpses come to the same graveyard the same day, the last to enter will be employed drawing water to wet the lips of all the souls in Purgatory. Two persons were to be buried at South Kilmurry the same day, and the relatives of one determined to be first. So they locked the gate and gave the key to the sexton with orders to let no one in. The two funerals arrived together, each trying to be first, but the gate was locked. The first tried to put their cofiin over the ditch, but number two struck them, so they put down their cofiin and went in search of the key. The moment their backs were turned the others threw their own coffin feet first over the wall, thus securing the entree to the churchyard, and leaving the others to get in as best they could. They gave a wild cheer as they got in, the first intima- tion their rivals had of what happened. (Told to me by one present at funeral.)

Kate Lawless Pvne.