Introductory.
Of the many remarkable characters that have been formed by the spirit and
habits of Irish feeling among the peasantry, there is not one so clear,
distinct, and well traced, as that of the Midwife. We could mention
several that are certainly marked with great precision, and that stand
out in fine relief to the eye of the spectator, but none at all, who
in richness of colouring, in boldness of outline, or in firmness and
force, can for a moment be compared with the Midwife. The Fiddler for
instance lives a life sufficiently graphic and distinct; so does the
Dancing-master, and so also does the Matchmaker, but with some abatement
of colouring. As for the Cosherer, the Shanahie, the Keener, and the
Foster-nurse, although all mellow toned, and well individualized by the
strong power of hereditary usage, yet do they stand dim and shadowy, when
placed face to face with this great exponent of national temperament.
It is almost impossible to conceive a character of greater
self-importance than an Irish Midwife, or who exhibits in her whole
bearing a more complacent consciousness of her own privileges. The
Fiddler might be dispensed with, and the Dancing-master might follow him
off the stage; the Cosherer, Shanahie, Keener, might all disappear, and
the general business of life still go on as before. But not so with her
whom we are describing; and this conviction is the very basis of her
power, the secret source from which she draws the confidence that bears
down every rival claim upon the affections of the people.
Before we introduce Rose Moan to our kind readers, we shall briefly
relate a few points of character peculiar to the Irish Midwife, because
they are probably not in general known to a very numerous class of our
readers. This is a matter which we are the more anxious to do, because
it is undeniable that an acquaintance with many of the old legendary
powers with which she was supposed to be invested, is fast fading out of
the public memory; and unless put into timely record, it is to be feared
that in the course of one or two generations more, they may altogether
disappear and be forgotten.
One of the least known of the secrets which old traditionary lore
affirmed to have been in possession of the Midwife, was the knowledge of
how beer might be brewed from heather. The Irish people believe that the
Danes understood and practised this valuable process, and will assure
you that the liquor prepared from materials so cheap and abundant was
superior in strength and flavour to any ever produced from malt. Nay,
they will tell you how it conferred such bodily strength and courage upon
those who drank it, that it was to the influence and virtue of this alone
that the Danes held such a protracted sway, and won so many victories
in Ireland. It was a secret, however, too valuable to be disclosed,
especially to enemies, who would lose no time in turning the important
consequences of it against the Danes themselves. The consequence was,
that from the day the first Dane set foot upon the soil of Ireland, until
that upon which they bade it adieu for ever, no Irishman was ever able to
get possession of it. It came to be known, however, and the knowledge of
it is said to be still in the country, but must remain unavailable until
the fulfilment of a certain prophecy connected with the liberation of
Ireland shall take away the obligation of a most solemn oath, which bound
the original recipient of the secret to this conditional silence. The
circumstances are said to have been these:--
On the evening previous to the final embarkation of the Danes for their
own country, the wife of their prince was seized with the pains of
childbirth, and there being no midwife among themselves, an Irish one
was brought, who, as the enmity between the nations was both strong and
bitter, resolutely withheld her services, unless upon the condition of
being made acquainted with this invaluable process. The crisis it seems
being a very trying one, the condition was complied with; but the midwife
was solemnly sworn never to communicate it to any but a woman, and never
to put it in practice until Ireland should be free, and any two of its
provinces at peace with each other. The midwife, thinking very naturally
that there remained no obstacle to the accomplishment of these conditions
but the presence of the Danes themselves, and seeing that they were on
the eve of leaving the country for ever, imagined herself perfectly safe
in entering into the obligation; but it so happened, says the tradition,
that although the knowledge of the secret is among the Irish midwives
still, yet it never could be applied, and never will, until Ireland shall
be in the state required by the terms of her oath. So runs the tradition.
There is, however, one species of power with which some of the old
midwives were said to be gifted, so exquisitely ludicrous, and yet at the
same time so firmly fixed in the belief of many among the people, that
we cannot do justice to the character without mentioning so strange an
acquisition. It is this, that where a husband happens to be cruel to his
wife, or suspects her unjustly, the Midwife is able, by some mysterious
charm, to inflict upon him and remove from the wife the sufferings
annexed to her confinement, as the penalty mentioned by holy writ which
is to follow the sex in consequence of the transgression of our mother
Eve. Some of our readers may perhaps imagine this to be incredible, but
we assure them that it is strictly true. Such a superstition did prevail
in Ireland among the humbler classes, and still does, to an extent which
would surprise any one not as well acquainted with old Irish usages and
superstitions as we happen to be. The manner in which the Midwife got
possession of this power is as follows:--It sometimes happened that
the “good people,” or _Dhoine Shee_--that is, the fairies--were put
to the necessity of having recourse to the aid of the Midwife. On one
of those occasions it seems, the good woman discharged her duties so
successfully, that the fairy matron, in requital for her services and
promptitude of attendance, communicated to her this secret, so formidable
to all bad husbands. From the period alluded to, say the people, it
has of course been gladly transmitted from hand to hand, and on many
occasions resorted to with fearful but salutary effect. Within our own
memory several instances of its application were pointed out to us, and
the very individuals themselves, when closely interrogated, were forced
to an assertion that was at least equivalent to an admission, “it was
nothing but an attack of the cholic,” which by the way was little else
than a libel upon that departed malady. Many are the tales told of cases
in which midwives were professionally serviceable to the good people;
but unless their assistance was repaid by the communication of some
secret piece of knowledge, it was better to receive no payment, any other
description of remuneration being considered unfortunate. Some of those
stories have been well told, and with others of them we may probably
amuse our readers upon some future occasion.
From this source also was derived another most valuable quality said to
be possessed by the Irish Midwife, but one which we should suppose the
virtue of our fair countrywomen rendered of very infrequent application.
This was the power of destroying jealousy between man and wife. We forget
whether it was said to be efficacious in cases of guilt, but we should
imagine that the contrary would rather hold good, as an Irishman is
not exactly that description of husband who would suffer himself to be
charmed back into the arms of a polluted wife. This was effected by the
knowledge of a certain herb, a decoction of which the parties were to
drink nine successive times, each time before sunrise and after sunset.
Of course the name of the herb was kept a profound secret; but even if it
had been known, it could have proved of little value, for the full force
of its influence depended on a charm which the Midwife had learned among
the fairies. Whether it was the _Anacampserotes_ of the middle ages or
not, is difficult to say; but one thing is certain, that not only have
midwives, but other persons of both sexes, gone about through the country
professing to cure jealousy by the juice or decoction of a mysterious
herb, which was known only to themselves. It is not unlikely to suppose
that this great secret after all was nothing more than a perverted
application of the Waters of Jealousy mentioned by Moses, and that it
only resembled many other charms practised in this and other countries,
which are generally founded upon certain passages of Scripture. Indeed,
there is little doubt that the practice of attempting to cure jealousy by
herbs existed elsewhere as well as in Ireland; and one would certainly
imagine that Shakspeare, who left nothing connected with the human heart
untouched, must have alluded to the very custom we are treating of, when
he makes Iago, speaking of Othello’s jealousy, say,
“Look where he comes! not poppy nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou hadst yesterday.”
Here it is quite evident that the efficacy of the “syrups” spoken of
was to be tried upon the mind only in which the Moor’s horrible malady
existed. That Shakspeare, in the passage quoted, alluded to this singular
custom, is, we think, at least extremely probable.
We have said that the Midwife stood high as a matchmaker, and so
unquestionably she did. No woman was better acquainted with charms of
all kinds, especially with those that were calculated to aid or throw
light upon the progress of love. If for instance young persons of
either sex felt doubt as to whether their passion was returned, they
generally consulted the Midwife, who, on hearing a statement of their
apprehensions, appointed a day on which she promised to satisfy them.
Accordingly, at the time agreed upon, she and the party interested
repaired as secretly as might be, and with much mystery, to some lonely
place, where she produced a Bible and key, both of which she held in
a particular position--that is, the Bible suspended by a string which
passed through the key. She then uttered with a grave and solemn face
the following verses from the Book of Ruth, which the young person
accompanying her was made to repeat slowly and deliberately after her:--
“And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following
after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I
will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so
to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”
If at the conclusion of these words the Bible turned, she affirmed, with
the air of a prophetess, not only that the affection of the parties was
mutual, but that their courtship would terminate in marriage. If, on the
contrary, it remained stationary, the passion existed only on one side,
and the parties were not destined for each other. Oh, credulous love! not
to see that the venerable sybil could allow the Bible to turn or not,
just as she may have previously ascertained from either party whether
their attachment was reciprocal or otherwise! We dare say the above charm
is seldom resorted to now, and of course this harmless imposition on the
lovers will soon cease to be practised at all.
The Midwife’s aid to lovers, however, did not stop here. If they wished
to create a passion in some heart where it had not previously existed,
she told them to get a dormouse and reduce it to powder, a pinch of
which, if put into the drink of the person beloved, would immediately
rivet his or her affections upon the individual by whose hands it was
administered. Many anecdotes are told of humorous miscarriages that
resulted from a neglect of this condition. One is especially well
known, of a young woman who gave the potion through the hands of her
grandmother; and the consequence was, that the bachelor immediately
made love to the old lady instead of the young one, and eventually
became grandfather to the latter instead of her husband. Indeed, the
administering of philtres and the use of charms in Ireland were formerly
very frequent, and occasionally attended by results which had not been
anticipated. The use especially of _cantharides_, or French flies, in the
hands of the ignorant, has often been said to induce madness, and not
unfrequently to occasion death. It is not very long since a melancholy
case of the latter from this very cause appeared in an Irish newspaper.
The Midwife was also a great interpreter of dreams, omens, auguries, and
signs of all possible sorts, and no youngsters who ever consulted her
need be long at a loss for a personal view of the object of their love.
They had only to seek in some remote glen or dell for a briar whose top
had taken root in the ground; this they were to put under their pillow
and sleep upon, and the certain consequence was, that the image of the
future wife or husband would appear to them in a dream. She was also
famous at cup-tossing; and nothing could surpass the shrewd and sapient
expression of her face as she sat solemnly peering into the grounds
of the tea for the imaginary forms of rings, and love-letters, and
carriages, which were necessary to the happy purport of her divination,
for she felt great reluctance to foretell calamity. She seldom, however,
had recourse to card-cutting, which she looked upon as an unholy
practice; the cards, as everyone knows, being the only book on which
the devil says his prayers night and morning. Who has not heard of his
_prayer-book_?
We are now to consider the Midwife in the capacity of a woman not only
brimful of medicinal knowledge, but possessed of many secrets, which the
mere physician or apothecary could never penetrate. As a doctress, she
possessed a very high reputation for all complaints incident to children
and females; and where herbal skill failed, unlike the mere scientific
man of diplomas, she could set physical causes and effects aside, and
have recourse at once to the supernatural and miraculous.
For instance, there are two complaints which she is, beyond any other
individual, celebrated for managing--that is to say, headache, and
another malady which is anonymous, or only known to country folk by
what is termed “the spool or bone of the breast being down.” The first
she cures by a very formal and serious process called “measuring the
head.” This is done by a ribbon, which she puts round the cranium,
repeating during the admeasurement a certain prayer or charm from
which the operation is to derive its whole efficacy. The measuring is
performed twice--in the first instance, to show that its sutures are
separated by disease, or, to speak more plainly, that the bones of the
head are absolutely opened, and that as a natural consequence the head
must be much larger than when the patient is in a state of health. The
circumference of the first admeasurement is marked upon a ribbon, after
which she repeats the charm that is to remove the headache, and measures
the cranium again, in order to show, by a comparison of the two ribbons,
that the sutures have been closed, the charm successful, and the headache
consequently removed. It is impossible to say how the discrepancy in the
measurement is brought about; but be that as it may, the writer of this
has frequently seen the operation performed in such a way as to defy
the most scrutinising eye to detect any appearance of imposture, and he
is convinced that in the majority of cases there is not the slightest
imposture intended. The operator is in truth a dupe to a strong and
delusive enthusiasm.
When the Midwife raises the spool of the breast, the operation is
conducted without any assistance from the supernatural. If a boy or
girl diminishes in flesh, is troubled with want of rest or of appetite,
without being afflicted with any particular disease, either acute or
local, the Midwife puts her finger under the bone which projects over the
pit of the stomach, and immediately feels that “the spool of the breast
is down”--in other words, she informs the parents that the bone is bent
inwards, and presses upon _the heart_! The raising of this precisely
resembles the operation of cupping. She gets a penny piece, which she
places upon the spot affected, the patient having been first laid in
a supine posture; after this she burns a little spirits in a tumbler
in order to exhaust the air in it; she then presses it quickly against
the part which is under the penny piece; and in a few moments, to the
amazement of the lookers-on, it is drawn strongly up, and remains so
until the heart-bone is supposed to be raised in such a manner as that it
will not return.
The next charm for which she is remarkable among the people, is that
by which a mote is taken out of the eye. The manner of doing this is
as follows:--A white basin is got, and a jug of the purest water; the
midwife repeatedly rinses her mouth with the water, until it returns
as pure and clear as when she took it in. She then walks to and fro,
repeating the words of the charm, her mouth all the time filled with the
water. When the charm is finished, she pours the water out of her mouth
into the clean basin, and will point out the mote, or whatever it may
have been, floating in the water, or lying in the bottom of the vessel.
In fact, you could scarcely mention a malady with which the Midwife of
the old school was not prepared to grapple by the aid of a charm. The
toothache, the cholic, measles, childbirth, all had their respective
charms. The latter especially required one of a very pithy cast. Every
one knows that the power of fairies in Ireland is never so strong, nor so
earnestly put forth, as in the moment of parturition, when they strive by
all possible means to secure the new-born infant before it is christened,
and leave a changeling in its stead. Invaluable indeed is the midwife who
is possessed of a charm to prevent this, and knows how to arrange all
the ceremonies that are to be observed upon the occasion without making
any mistake, for that would vitiate all. Many a time on such occasions
have the ribs of the roof been made to crack, the windows rattled out,
the door pushed with violence, and the whole house shaken as if it would
tumble about their heads--and all by the fairies--but to no purpose: the
charm of the midwife was a rock of defence; the necessary precautions had
been taken, and they were ultimately forced to depart in a strong blast
of wind, screaming and howling with rage and disappointment as they went.
There were also charms for the diseases of cattle, to cure which there
exist in Ireland some processes of very distant antiquity. We ourselves
have seen elemental fire produced by the friction of two green boughs
together, applied as a remedy for the black-leg and murrain. This is
evidently of Pagan origin, and must have some remote affinity with the
old doctrines of Baal, the ancient god of fire, whose worship was once so
general in Ireland.
Of these charms it may be said that they are all of a religious
character, some of them evidently the production of imposture, and others
apparently of those who seriously believed in their efficacy. There is
one thing peculiar about them, which is, that they must be taught to
persons of the opposite sex: a man, for instance, cannot teach a charm to
a man, nor a woman to a woman, but he may to a woman, as a woman may to a
man. If taught or learned in violation of this principle, they possess no
virtue.
In treating of the Irish Midwife, we cannot permit ourselves to overlook
the superstition of the “lucky caul,” which comes so clearly within her
province. The caul is a thin membrane, about the consistence of very fine
silk, which covers the head of a new-born infant like a cap. It is always
the omen of great good fortune to the infant and parents; and in Ireland,
when any one has unexpectedly fallen into the receipt of property, or any
other temporal good, it is customary to say “such a person was born with
a ‘lucky caul’ on his head.”
Why these are considered lucky, it would be a very difficult matter
to ascertain. Several instances of good fortune, happening to such as
were born with them, might by their coincidences form a basis for the
superstition; just as the fact of three men during one severe winter
having been found drowned, each with two shirts on, generated an opinion
which has now become fixed and general in that parish, that it is unlucky
to wear two shirts at once. We are not certain whether the caul is in
general the perquisite of the Midwife--sometimes we believe it is; at all
events, her integrity occasionally yields to the desire of possessing it.
In many cases she conceals its existence, in order that she may secretly
dispose of it to good advantage, which she frequently does; for it is
considered to be the herald of good fortune to those who can get it into
their possession. Now, let not our English neighbours smile at us for
those things until they wash their own hands clear of such practices. At
this day a caul will bring a good price in the most civilized city in the
world--to wit, the good city of London--the British metropolis. Nay, to
such lengths has the mania for cauls been carried there, that they have
been actually advertised for in the Times newspaper.
Of a winter evening, at the fireside, there can be few more amusing
companions than a Midwife of the old school. She has the smack of old
times and old usages about her, and tastes of that agreeable simplicity
of manners which always betokens a harmless and inoffensive heart.
Her language is at once easy, copious, and minute, and if a good deal
pedantic, the pedantry is rather the traditionary phraseology and antique
humour which descends with her profession, than the peculiar property or
bias of her individual mind. She affects much mystery, and intimates
that she could tell many strange stories of high life; but she is always
too honourable to betray the confidence that has been reposed in her good
faith and secrecy. In her dress she always consults warmth and comfort,
and seldom or never looks to appearance. Flannel and cotton she heaps on
herself in abundant folds, and the consequence is, that although subject
to all the inclemency of the seasons both by night and day, she is hardly
ever known to be sick. The cottage of the Midwife may in general be
known by the mounting-stone which is beside her door, and which enables
her without difficulty or loss of time to get on horseback behind the
impatient messenger. The window of her bedroom is also remarkable for its
opening on hinges like a door, a thing not usual in the country. This
is to enable her to thrust forth her well-flannelled head without any
possible delay, in order to inquire the name of the party requiring her
aid, the length of journey before her, and such other particulars as she
usually deems necessary. The sleep of the Midwife is almost peculiar in
its character to herself. No person sleeps more soundly and deeply than
she does, unless to a knock at the door or a tap at the window, to both
of which it may be said she is ever instinctively awake. We question if a
peal of cannon discharged at her house-side would disturb her; but give
on the other hand the slightest possible knock or tap at either her door
or window, and ere you could imagine she had time to awaken, the roll of
flannel that contains her head is thrust out of the window.
Having thus recited everything, so far as we could remember it, connected
with the social antiquities of her calling, and detailed some matters not
generally known, that may, we trust, be interesting to those who are fond
of looking at the springs which often move rustic society, we now close
this “Essay on Midwifery,” hoping to be able to bring the Midwife herself
personally on the stage in our next, or at least in an early number.