was cured by accusing the person who had it of theft. This stands somewhat to reason in the case of children. If they be ingenuous, such an accusation skilfully made rouses their nature to such an extent that the hiccup disappears.
HOOPING-COUGH (an trigh, an trîugh).
It was a saying: “Whoever drinks mare’s milk with an aspen spoon will have hooping-cough but slightly” (Fear sam bi dh’ òlas bainne capuill le spàin chrithionn, cha ghabh e’n trigh ach aotrom).
STIFF NECK,
such as may be got from sleeping with too high a pillow or the head awry, was cured by squeezing the neck between the legs of the tongs.
TOOTHACHE (Déide).
This excruciating disease was supposed to be capable of cure by putting a dead man’s finger or a coffin nail in the mouth, and people have been known in their agony to try both expedients. The person resorting to this cure must go for the nail or dead man’s finger to the graveyard (roluig), though very likely this part of the experiment was rarely tried. As in the case of those who go to have a tooth pulled, the pain disappeared on the way.
FALLING SICKNESS (an tuiteamas).
When a new-born child is being washed, a straw rope (sioman) twined round it, and then cut in pieces, is a safeguard during life against epilepsy, falling sickness (tinneas tuiteamas), or as it was euphemistically called, “the out sickness” (an tinneas a-muigh). In Sutherlandshire, a second attack was supposed to be prevented by burying a cock alive when the first occurred.