There are some people living in rural Ireland you're bound to hear about before too long...those who have 'the cure'.
Maybe you suffer from persistent headaches that no amount of doctoring relieves and you happen to mention your problem to a neighbour...they'll suck their teeth and have a bit of a think before whispering...'I know a man with the cure for headaches' and they'll fish a scrap of paper out of their pocket and a stub of a pencil and write out the telephone number for you...
What the harm? So you make an appointment and follow the direction's to the man's cottage...probably down a rough boreen with irate Collies snapping at your car wheels then you reach a perfectly normal sort of a small farm with a muddy front yard and a few chickens pecking on a muck heap.
An ordinary looking old fellow appears from round a corner...swears at the dogs...the chickens scatter in alarm and he invites you into the kitchen...where you sit on a hard wooden chair and wonder whatever you've let yourself in for. He might have a chat about the weather or the price of hay this year and then he'll ferret about in one of his pockets and produce a length of thin scarlet cotton...like embroidery thread. He ties that around your head...fastens it at the back quite tightly so it won't slip off, tells you not to touch it or take it off, but to come back to see him in ten days.
And that's it.
There is never any money exchanging hands...that is really frowned upon...but if it works and you are pleased with the results, then a Porter cake would be acceptable...or a sack of tatties. Even some bones from the butcher for the farm dogs...
It's easy enough to scoff of course it is, but so many people...and young ones as well...still seek out the person with the 'cure' whether it's for their small child with eczema or asthma or for themselves should they have an outbreak of warts.
Kevin...the young man who installed our shower...had the cure for burns and scalds. Because he'd kissed a Lizard. He used to sit down and have his lunch with us while he was working here and he told me about how that it came to be. The cure for burns and scalds was already in his family going way back into the mists of time...and he 'knew' he'd be the person for this generation...but he couldn't go out and look for a Lizard...that wouldn't work at all. He needed to find a Lizard quite by chance. Which he did eventually and he kissed it and the Lizard immediately died...they're supposed to. Now Kevin has the cure...passed on to him through his family and through the Lizard. He said he tried it out when one of his little girls touched a hot pan on the stove...he kissed the burn and it went away.
We used to keep a small herd of milking goats and word spread that I usually had a pint or two to spare should anyone like to have it. A woman called one day and asked for a small bottle of goats milk for her son...he was going bald and hated losing his hair but he'd heard rubbing your scalp with goats milk brought the hair back...I'm not sure whether it worked or not 'cos she never came back.
Perhaps the idea of certain people holding 'the cure' to whatever might ail you, is passed on through a collective memory of the times when there were wise men and women in every parish who had the gift of healing...Doctors were few and far between and much too expensive for the average household...
These are not those charlatans who hold healing sessions in village halls and claim they can cure everything from arthritis to insomnia and rake in loads of money...these are perfectly ordinary people who live in remote farms or town bungalows...they never ever advertise...in fact they can be secretive to a degree and you only find out about them through word of mouth...and sometimes 'the cure' works.
I've kissed a few dragons in my time so I wonder what healing powers I may have had passed on to me.
Great story once again vashti and one that's true of course, who do you know that can fix broken lungs cus I think I might know a few people who would like to pay them a visit .
Believe you me Tony if I'd ever heard of a person with the cure for lungs I'd have been there in a shot...with bones for the dogs...a huge Porter cake and a sack of Tatties!
You could be the first in a very very long cue, Ha Ha and I would be second close behind you.
they certainly are not when I was a nipper I had a weak chest grandma used to lather on goose grease and tie brown paper round me I had to stay this way from the end of September to the spring and the bathing as it was called was done in Glenichiquin Lough no other lough would do as I was told the banshee who live there would take away all my illnesses for the coming year. Me whether it worked or not was glad to get the stuff off it was rife by April time.
Hi Vashita, reading your story (which as usual was very good) made me think of when i was a little girl, my granny was Irish, my mother was very proud of it so we were bought up with a lot of Irish cures and sayings......I had forgotten all about them till your story stirred my memories. If you were low in iron I seem to remember you put a red hot poker into your beer to build your iron up (think Iv'e got it right) and forgotten for what reason but, my auntie would clean her teeth with soot and salt ? (yuk)
I read your comment out to Himself and he knows about 'Poker' beer...soot was used in Ireland until relatively recently to dose the farm animals to prevent them from having worms...
But soot and salt as a sort of toothpaste...think I'd rather have dirty teeth...lol
Fascinating stuff as usual vashti. There have been "cures" for many things over the years and when I was younger I used to call them old wives tales, but now I am not so sure. Thanks for keeping me enthralled. xxxx
It certainly makes you think. We often dismiss these 'old wives tales' but like anything there could be a grain of trueth in them !! Sometimes bits are lost as they come down through the generations xx
I think the mind has more to do with it than anything, but should not be dismissed at all.
Slightly off road but my father and myself never have any trouble with real gypsy's If any came in to sell their wears or services in our shop to our lady staff. They would always say hello and say you will be all right and leave? I have had this at my front door too when they have come and I answer. I had one cut some trees to a better hight on an agreed price and when he finished I gave him the money for him to give me some back?
I was bought up in a Welsh mining community during the late thirties and fourties. During those early days I don't recall many visits to a doctor but an 'Auntie' who lived alone in a bungalow was the first port of call in an emergency. She used to mix up all sorts of medicine and her salves were magical on burns or any other skin problems. I don't know if money changed hands, I suppose so but the community had total faith in her healing capabilities for minor ailments.
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