The imprecations of the poets had often also a mysterious and fatal
effect.
King Breas, the pagan monarch, was a fierce, cruel, and niggardly man,
who was therefore very unpopular with the people, who hate the cold
heart and the grudging hand.
Amongst others who suffered by the king’s inhospitality, was the
renowned Carbury the poet, son of Eodain, the great poetess of the
Tuatha-de-Danann race; she who chanted the song of victory when her
people conquered the Firbolgs, on the plains of Moytura; and the stone
that she stood on, during the battle, in sight of all the warriors, is
still existing, and is pointed out as the stone of Eodain, the poetess,
with great reverence, even to this day.
It was her son, Carbury the poet, who was held in such high honour by
the nation, that King Breas invited him to his court, in order that he
might pronounce a powerful malediction over the enemy with whom he was
then at war.
Carbury came on the royal summons, but in place of being treated with
the distinction due to his high rank, he was lodged and fed so meanly
that the soul of the poet raged with wrath; for the king gave him for
lodgement only a small stone cell without fire or a bed; and for food
he had only three cakes of meal without any flesh meat or sauce, and
no wine was given him, such wine as is fit to light up the poet’s soul
before the divine mystic spirit of song can awake in its power within
him. So very early the next morning, the poet rose up and departed,
with much rage in his heart. But as he passed the king’s house he
stopped, and in place of a blessing, pronounced a terrible malediction
over Breas and his race, which can still be found in the ancient books
of Ireland, commencing thus—
“Without fire, without bed, on the surface of the floor!
Without meat, without fowl, on the surface of the dish.
Three little dishes and no flesh thereon,
A cell without bed, a dish without meat, a cup without wine,
Are these fit offerings from a king to a poet?
May the king and his race be three times accursed for ever and
for ever!”
Immediately three large blisters rose on the king’s forehead, and
remained there as a sign and mark of the poet’s vengeance.
And from that day forth to his death, which happened not long after,
the reign of Breas was a time of sore trouble and disaster, for he
was three times defeated by his enemies, and from care and sorrow a
grievous disease fell on him; for though hungry he could not swallow
any food; and though all the meat and wine of the best was set before
him, yet his throat seemed closed, and though raging with hunger yet
not a morsel could pass his lips; and so he died miserably, starved
in the midst of plenty, and accursed in all things by the power and
malediction of the angry poet.
DRIMIAL AGUS THORIAL.
(A WICKED SPELL.)
When a girl wishes to gain the love of a man, and to make him marry
her, the dreadful spell is used called _Drimial Agus Thorial_. At
dead of night, she and an accomplice go to a churchyard, exhume a
newly-buried corpse, and take a strip of the skin from the head to the
heel. This is wound round the girl as a belt with a solemn invocation
to the devil for his help.
After she has worn it for a day and a night she watches her opportunity
and ties it round the sleeping man whose love she desires; during which
process the name of God must not be mentioned.
When he awakes the man is bound by the spell; and is forced to marry
the cruel and evil harpy. It is said the children of such marriages
bear a black mark round the wrist, and are known and shunned by the
people, who call them “sons of the devil.”