Many strange spells are effected by the means of a dead man’s
hand—chiefly to produce butter in the churn. The milk is stirred round
nine times with the dead hand, the operator crying aloud all the time,
“Gather! gather! gather!” While a secret form of words is used which
none but the initiated know.
* * * * *
Another use is to facilitate robberies. If a candle is placed in a dead
hand, neither wind nor water can extinguish it. And if carried into
a house the inmates will sleep the sleep of the dead as long as it
remains under the roof, and no power on earth can wake them while the
dead hand holds the candle.
* * * * *
For a mystic charm, one of the strongest known is the hand of an
unbaptized infant fresh taken from the grave in the name of the Evil
One.
* * * * *
A dead hand is esteemed also a certain cure for most diseases, and many
a time sick people have been brought to a house where a corpse lay that
the hand of the dead might be laid on them.
* * * * *
The souls of the dead who may happen to die abroad, greatly desire to
rest in Ireland. And the relations deem it their duty to bring back the
body to be laid in Irish earth. But even then the dead will not rest
peaceably unless laid with their forefathers and their own people, and
not amongst strangers.
A young girl happened to die of a fever while away on a visit to some
friends, and her father thought it safer not to bring her home, but to
have her buried in the nearest churchyard. However, a few nights after
his return home, he was awakened by a mournful wail at the window, and
a voice cried, “I am alone; I am alone; I am alone!” Then the poor
father knew well what it meant, and he prayed in the name of God that
the spirit of his dead child might rest in peace until the morning. And
when the day broke he arose and set off to the strange burial ground,
and there he drew the coffin from the earth, and had it carried all the
way back from Cork to Mayo; and after he had laid the dead in the old
graveyard beside his people and his kindred, the spirit of his child
had rest, and the mournful cry was no more heard in the night.
* * * * *
The corner of a sheet that has wrapped a corpse is a cure for headache
if tied round the head.
* * * * *
The ends of candles used at wakes are of great efficacy in curing burns.
* * * * *
A piece of linen wrap taken from a corpse will cure the swelling of a
limb if tied round the part affected.
* * * * *
It is believed that the spirit of the dead last buried has to watch in
the churchyard until another corpse is laid there; or has to perform
menial offices in the spirit world, such as carrying wood and water
until the next spirit comes from earth. They are also sent on messages
to earth, chiefly to announce the coming death of some relative, and
at this they are glad, for then their time of peace and rest will come
at last.
* * * * *
If any one stumbles at a grave it is a bad omen; but if he falls and
touches the clay, he will assuredly die before the year is out.
* * * * *
Any one meeting a funeral must turn back and walk at least four steps
with the mourners.
* * * * *
If the nearest relative touches the hand of a corpse it will utter a
wild cry if not quite dead.
* * * * *
On Twelfth Night the dead walk, and on every tile of the house a soul
is sitting, waiting for your prayers to take it out of purgatory.
* * * * *
There are many strange superstitions in the western islands of
Connemara. At night the dead can be heard laughing with the fairies and
spinning the flax. One girl declared that she distinctly heard her dead
mother’s voice singing a mournful Irish air away down in the heart of
the hill. But after a year and a day the voices cease, and the dead are
gone for ever.
* * * * *
It is a custom in the West, when a corpse is carried to the grave, for
the bearers to stop half way, while the nearest relatives build up a
small monument of loose stones, and no hand would ever dare to touch or
disturb this monument while the world lasts.
* * * * *
When the grave is dug, a cross is made of two spades, and the coffin is
carried round it three times before being placed in the clay. Then the
prayers for the dead are said, all the people kneeling with uncovered
head.