westward to Ards and Mace. Mr. P. Mongan and Mr. Cahill near Carna told us that, besides the prophylactic "God save all here," it was usual to spit on entering a house where a person had met with an accident to dispel any reputed evil influence in the case.
In Aran, David O'Callaghan, a National schoolmaster, told Professor Haddon that it was regarded dangerous to omit the "God bless it!" when praising a person or animal. One informant said that over thirty years before when dancing he fell under the evil eye and lay like one dead. Everyone ran to spit and say "God bless you!" but to no purpose. At last, after a while, the sufferer recovered as suddenly as he took ill and got up, but, as he added pointedly, he did not marry the girl he was courting at that dance.
Lieut. Henri gives a curious case (hard to classify as to its belief) before 1839.[1] One Terence O'Dowd summoned to petty sessions a local wise woman, Biddy Lavelle, whom he accused of killing his donkey. She, on pretence of charming toothache, asked leave to kiss the animal, but he suspected her and refused; she drove the ass by night to her own door, and it soon after died. She confessed to have held its head to the lucky horse shoe on her door and kissed the beast three times on the teeth; it gave a screech and fell dead. It being found that she had also given it a glass of spirits, the magistrate gave O'Dowd thirty shillings damages. Henri's careful noting of the particulars, names and dates, and (fortunately) Caesar Otway's transferring the notes uninjured to his book, give one every confidence. It would be most desirable if any representative of Lieut. Henri still possesses his invaluable note-book that it should be made known to folklorists and published in extenso. Alas! rarely does such a man's successor care to preserve or even give to a library such irreplaceable material.
Protective Charms. Besides those we have already recorded as against the evil eye, fairies are hunted from cattle and horses by spitting, and the spittle of a fasting person has reputed powers of healing. In 1840 a wise woman, Biddy Garvior, used to spit three times on an animal's neck, whisk
- ↑ Erris and Tyrawly, p. 394.
