I20 



I'll make the incantation tliat Peter made for Paul, 



With the herbs that grew on the ground : 

 Seven paternosters in the name of priest and pope, 



Applied like a plaster around. 



"And if the dislocated joints did not at once jump into their 

 proper places during the recitation, the practitioner never failed 

 to augur favourably of the comfort to the patient. There were 

 similar incantations for all the ills that flesh is heir to : the 

 toothache could not withstand the potency of Highland magic ; 

 dysentery, gout, Szc, had all their appropriate remedies in the 

 never-failing incantations." — M'Kenzie. See 'Beauties of High- 

 land Poetry,' p. 268, where several of the "orations" repeated 

 as incantations are given. 



Plants and Fairy Superstitions. — A large number of 

 plant -names in Gaelic have reference to fairy influence. At 

 births many ceremonies were used to baffle the fairy influence 

 over the child (see page 57), otherwise it would be carried off 

 to fairyland. The belief in fairies as well as most of these 

 superstitions, is traceable to the early ages of the British Druids, 

 on whose practices they are founded. The foxglove {Meuran 

 sithe), odhran, the cow-parsnip, and copagach, the docken, were 

 credited with great power in breaking the fairy spell; on the 

 other hand, some plants were supposed to facilitate the fairy 

 spell, and would cause the individual to be fairy " struck " or 

 ^^ buillife." The water-lily was supposed to possess this power, 

 hence its names, Bidllite^ and Rab/iagach, meaning beware, 

 warning. Rushes found a place in fairy mythology : Schoejiiis 

 nigricans (Sei7nhean) furnished the shaft of the elf arrows, which 

 were tipped with white flint, and bathed in the dew that lies on 

 the hemlock. 



Nettles — " They also used the roots of nettles and the roots 

 of reeds as cures for coughs." In some parts of Ireland there 

 is a custom on May eve and May day amongst the children, 

 especially the girls, of running amuck with branches of nettles, 

 stinging every one they meet. They had also a belief that steel 

 made hot and dipped in nettle-juice made it flexible. Camden 

 says " that the Romans cultivated nettles when in Britain in 

 order to rub their benumbed limbs with them, on account of the 

 intense cold they suff"ered when in Britain." A remedy worse 

 than the disease. 



