School: Cluain Leith Áird (roll number 12530)

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1. Further Pishogues (continued)

   

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   him the harm. What these "Black books" were, or where they were kept, the people of this locality could not tell me; but they generally believed that they were in possession of freemasons.

   It was said, too that the parish was not in the better of the opening of these books, for seven years - that is, the parish where the man who got them opened lived, and the priests of the parish denounced severely those responsible for such work.

   To counter-act those pishogues, many other pishogues were worked. Thus while the charm was being made, a piece of iron was struck in the fire.

   When a young calf was born, a piece of the cow's dung was put in its mouth. This was done to destroy the power of any pishogue that may be worked on the cow or calf. It was thus thought that if the cow's butter was being "carried", the person carrying it would have dung instead of butter!. A piece of soot was put into a newly-born baby's mouth, to counteract any pishogues that may be worked.

   A peculiar pishogue was worked in this district, in connection with the death of a person. Its aim was to "turn" the death on some other

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. belief (~391)
         1. folk belief (~2,535)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Mrs Mary Griffin

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   67

   Address

   Bauraneag, Co. Limerick