HONEYSUCKLE CURE
From a good correspondent in the North of Argyllshire comes the following account of a clerk in a factor’s office. He complained at times, and certainly did not look very well, but not much attention was paid to him, as any illness he had did not seem serious. “A frail old woman came into his parents’ house one evening as the lad returned to supper. She looked at him keenly, waited till he went out, and then asked, ‘What is he complaining of?’ His mother was surprised, but answered that he was feeling the confinement in his office a good deal, but that there was not much wrong. ‘You need not tell me that,’ said the old woman, ‘I can easily see there is something very real the matter with him. Some one has laid their Evil Eye upon him. I’ll tell you what you should do. Go to the woods, get a good long bit of the iadh-shlait, take it and twist it this way round his whole body, repeating the following words, and you will see your son hale and hearty soon.’ The lad’s mother did not believe in the cure and did not try it, nor could she give the words recommended to be used.” The plant here is the honeysuckle, the Gaelic name given being used for it alone in the district. Dictionaries, however, say that it is also used for “ivy,” which in those parts as elsewhere is called eitheann.