Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of IrelandFolk Magic / White MagicLegend / Oral TraditionEnglish with Irish folklore source materialShareAncient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 1051919 edition - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 available1919 editionLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 1Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 2Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 3Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 4Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 5Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 6Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 7Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 8Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 9Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 10Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 11Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 12Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 13Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 14Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 15Ancient Legends and 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Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 226Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 227Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 228Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 229Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 230Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 231Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 232Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 233Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 234›Medical Superstitions And Ancient Charms.Ancient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 105ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1The healing art in all the early stages of a nation’s life, and amongst all primitive tribes, has been associated with religion. For the wonderful effects produced by certain herbs and modes of treatment were believed by the simple and unlettered people to be due to supernatural influence acting in a mystic and magical manner on the person afflicted. 2The medicine men were therefore treated with the profoundest awe and respect. And the medicine women came in also for their share of veneration and often of superstitious dread; for their mysterious incantations were supposed to have been taught to them by fairies and the spirits of the mountain. 3The Irish from the most remote antiquity were devoted to mystical medicine, and had a remarkable knowledge of cures and remedies for disease, obtained through the power and action of herbs on the human frame. 4The physicians of the pagan era formed a branch of the Druid priesthood, and were treated with distinguished honour. They had special places assigned to them at the royal banqueting table at Tara, and a certain revenue was secured to them that they might live honourably. 5When in attendance on a patient the doctor was entitled by law to his diet, along with four of his pupils; but if he failed to cure from deficiency of skill, he was obliged to refund the fees and pay back all the expenses of his keep; a measure which no doubt greatly stimulated the serious attention of the learned ollamhs of healing to the case in hand. 6So great, indeed, was the importance attached to the healing art in Ireland, that even prior to the Christian era, a building of the nature of an hospital was erected at Tara, near to the palace of the king. This was called “The House of Sorrow,” and the sick and wounded were provided there with all necessary care. 7On one occasion it is recorded that a great chief and prince out of Munster was brought to “The House of Sorrow” to be treated of wounds received in battle, but the attendant, through treachery, placed poison in the wounds, and then closed them so carefully that there was no external sign, though the groans of the wounded man were terrible to hear. Then the learned Fioneen was sent for, “the prophetic physician,” as he was called, from his great skill in diagnosis; and when he arrived with three of his pupils at the hospital they found the chief lying prostrate, groaning in horrible agony. 8“What groan is that?” asked the master of the first pupil. 9“It is from a poisoned barb,” he answered. 10“And what groan is that?” asked the master, of the second pupil. 11“It is from a hidden reptile,” he answered. 12“And what groan is that?” asked Fioneen of the third pupil. 13“It is from a poisoned seed,” he answered. 14Then Fioneen set to work, and having cauterized the wounds with red hot irons, the poisonous bodies were extracted from beneath the skin, and the chief was healed. 15In later times the Irish physicians were much celebrated for their learning, and numerous Irish medical manuscripts are in existence, both in Ireland and England, and are also scattered through the public libraries of the continent. They are chiefly written in Latin, with a commentary in Irish, and show a thorough knowledge on the part of the writers of the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and others as celebrated. For after the introduction of Christianity Latin was much cultivated in the Irish schools, and the priests and physicians not only wrote, but could converse fluently in Latin, which language became the chief medium of communication between them and the learned men of the continent. But the most ancient mode of procedure amongst the Irish ollamhs and adepts was of a medico-religious character; consisting of herb cures, fairy cures, charms, invocations, and certain magical ceremonies. A number of these cures have been preserved traditionally by the people, and form a very interesting study of early medical superstitions, as they have been handed down through successive generations; for the profession of a physician was hereditary in certain families, and the accumulated lore of centuries was transmitted carefully from father to son by this custom and usage. 16Many of the ancient cures and charms are strange and mystic, and were accompanied by singular mysterious forms, which no doubt in many cases aided the cure; especially amongst a people so imaginative and susceptible to spiritual influences as the Irish. Others show a fervent faith and have a pathetic simplicity of expression, such as we find in “The Charm against Sorrow,” and others, from the original Irish, of equal pathos and tenderness, to be quoted further on. The utterance evidently of a people of deep, almost sublime, faith in the Divine power of the Ruler of the world, and of the ever-present ministration of saints and angels to humanity. 17Every act of the Irish peasant’s life has always been connected with the belief in unseen spiritual agencies. The people live in an atmosphere of the supernatural, and nothing would induce them to slight an ancient form or break through a traditional usage. They believe that the result would be something awful; too terrible to be spoken of save in a whisper, should the customs of their forefathers be lightly interfered with. 18In the Western Islands especially, the old superstitions that have come down from the ancient times are observed with the most solemn reverence, and the people in fact, as to their habits and ideas, remain much the same as St. Patrick left them fourteen hundred years ago. The swift currents of thought that stir the great centres of civilization and impel the human intellect on its path of progress, have never reached them; all the waves of the centuries drift by their shores and leave them unchanged. 19It is therefore in the islands and along the western coast that one gathers most of those strange legends, charms, mysteries, and world-old superstitions which have lingered longer in Ireland than in any other part of Europe. 20Many of those included in the following selection were narrated by the peasants, either in Irish, or in the expressive Irish-English, which still retains enough of the ancient idiom to make the language impressively touching and picturesque. The ancient charms which have come down by tradition from a remote antiquity are peculiarly interesting from their deep human pathos, blended with the sublime trust in the Divine invisible power, so characteristic of the Irish temperament in all ages. A faith that believes implicitly, trusts devoutly, and hopes infinitely; when the soul in its sorrow turns to heaven for the aid which cannot be found on earth, or given by earthly hands. The following charms from the Irish express much of this mingled spirit of faith and hope:— ‹Previous chapterAncient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 104Next chapterAncient Legends and Mystic Charms of Ireland 106›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg