The healing art in all the early stages of a nation’s life, and amongst
all primitive tribes, has been associated with religion. For the
wonderful effects produced by certain herbs and modes of treatment were
believed by the simple and unlettered people to be due to supernatural
influence acting in a mystic and magical manner on the person afflicted.
The medicine men were therefore treated with the profoundest awe
and respect. And the medicine women came in also for their share of
veneration and often of superstitious dread; for their mysterious
incantations were supposed to have been taught to them by fairies and
the spirits of the mountain.
The Irish from the most remote antiquity were devoted to mystical
medicine, and had a remarkable knowledge of cures and remedies for
disease, obtained through the power and action of herbs on the human
frame.
The physicians of the pagan era formed a branch of the Druid
priesthood, and were treated with distinguished honour. They had
special places assigned to them at the royal banqueting table at
Tara, and a certain revenue was secured to them that they might live
honourably.
When in attendance on a patient the doctor was entitled by law to his
diet, along with four of his pupils; but if he failed to cure from
deficiency of skill, he was obliged to refund the fees and pay back all
the expenses of his keep; a measure which no doubt greatly stimulated
the serious attention of the learned ollamhs of healing to the case in
hand.
So great, indeed, was the importance attached to the healing art in
Ireland, that even prior to the Christian era, a building of the nature
of an hospital was erected at Tara, near to the palace of the king.
This was called “The House of Sorrow,” and the sick and wounded were
provided there with all necessary care.
On one occasion it is recorded that a great chief and prince out of
Munster was brought to “The House of Sorrow” to be treated of wounds
received in battle, but the attendant, through treachery, placed
poison in the wounds, and then closed them so carefully that there was
no external sign, though the groans of the wounded man were terrible to
hear. Then the learned Fioneen was sent for, “the prophetic physician,”
as he was called, from his great skill in diagnosis; and when he
arrived with three of his pupils at the hospital they found the chief
lying prostrate, groaning in horrible agony.
“What groan is that?” asked the master of the first pupil.
“It is from a poisoned barb,” he answered.
“And what groan is that?” asked the master, of the second pupil.
“It is from a hidden reptile,” he answered.
“And what groan is that?” asked Fioneen of the third pupil.
“It is from a poisoned seed,” he answered.
Then Fioneen set to work, and having cauterized the wounds with red hot
irons, the poisonous bodies were extracted from beneath the skin, and
the chief was healed.
In later times the Irish physicians were much celebrated for their
learning, and numerous Irish medical manuscripts are in existence,
both in Ireland and England, and are also scattered through the public
libraries of the continent. They are chiefly written in Latin, with a
commentary in Irish, and show a thorough knowledge on the part of the
writers of the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and others as
celebrated. For after the introduction of Christianity Latin was much
cultivated in the Irish schools, and the priests and physicians not
only wrote, but could converse fluently in Latin, which language became
the chief medium of communication between them and the learned men of
the continent. But the most ancient mode of procedure amongst the Irish
ollamhs and adepts was of a medico-religious character; consisting
of herb cures, fairy cures, charms, invocations, and certain magical
ceremonies. A number of these cures have been preserved traditionally
by the people, and form a very interesting study of early medical
superstitions, as they have been handed down through successive
generations; for the profession of a physician was hereditary in
certain families, and the accumulated lore of centuries was transmitted
carefully from father to son by this custom and usage.
* * * * *
Many of the ancient cures and charms are strange and mystic, and were
accompanied by singular mysterious forms, which no doubt in many
cases aided the cure; especially amongst a people so imaginative and
susceptible to spiritual influences as the Irish. Others show a fervent
faith and have a pathetic simplicity of expression, such as we find in
“The Charm against Sorrow,” and others, from the original Irish, of
equal pathos and tenderness, to be quoted further on. The utterance
evidently of a people of deep, almost sublime, faith in the Divine
power of the Ruler of the world, and of the ever-present ministration
of saints and angels to humanity.
Every act of the Irish peasant’s life has always been connected
with the belief in unseen spiritual agencies. The people live in an
atmosphere of the supernatural, and nothing would induce them to slight
an ancient form or break through a traditional usage. They believe
that the result would be something awful; too terrible to be spoken of
save in a whisper, should the customs of their forefathers be lightly
interfered with.
In the Western Islands especially, the old superstitions that have
come down from the ancient times are observed with the most solemn
reverence, and the people in fact, as to their habits and ideas, remain
much the same as St. Patrick left them fourteen hundred years ago. The
swift currents of thought that stir the great centres of civilization
and impel the human intellect on its path of progress, have never
reached them; all the waves of the centuries drift by their shores and
leave them unchanged.
It is therefore in the islands and along the western coast that one
gathers most of those strange legends, charms, mysteries, and world-old
superstitions which have lingered longer in Ireland than in any other
part of Europe.
Many of those included in the following selection were narrated by
the peasants, either in Irish, or in the expressive Irish-English,
which still retains enough of the ancient idiom to make the language
impressively touching and picturesque. The ancient charms which
have come down by tradition from a remote antiquity are peculiarly
interesting from their deep human pathos, blended with the sublime
trust in the Divine invisible power, so characteristic of the Irish
temperament in all ages. A faith that believes implicitly, trusts
devoutly, and hopes infinitely; when the soul in its sorrow turns to
heaven for the aid which cannot be found on earth, or given by earthly
hands. The following charms from the Irish express much of this mingled
spirit of faith and hope:—