In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to trace the progress of witchcraft in Ireland from its first appearance to the present day, and as well have introduced some subjects which bear indirectly on the question. From the all too few examples to be obtained we have noted its gradual rise to the zenith (which is represented by the period 1661-1690), and from thence its downward progress to the strange beliefs of the day, which in some respects are the degenerate descendants of the witchcraft-conception, in others represent ideas older than civilisation. We may pay the tribute of a tearful smile to the ashes of witchcraft, and express our opinion of the present-day beliefs of the simple country-folk by a pitying smile, feeling all the time how much more enlightened we are than those who believed, or still believe, in such absurdities! But the mind of man is built in water-tight compartments. What better embodies the spirit of the young twentieth century than a powerful motor car, fully equipped with the most up-to-date appliances for increasing speed or lessening vibration; in its tuneful hum as it travels at forty-five miles an hour without an effort, we hear the triumph-song of mind over matter. The owner certainly does not believe in witchcraft or pishogues (or perhaps in anything save himself!), yet he fastens on the radiator a “Teddy Bear” or some such thing by way of a mascot. Ask him why he does it—he cannot tell, except that others do the same, while all the time at the back of his mind there exists almost unconsciously the belief that such a thing will help to keep him from the troubles and annoyances that beset the path of the motorist. The connection between cause and effect is unknown to him; he cannot tell you why a Teddy Bear will keep the engine from overheating or prevent punctures—and in this respect he is for the moment on exactly the same intellectual level as, let us say, his brother-man of New Zealand, who carries a baked yam with him at night to scare away ghosts.
The truth of the matter is that we all have a vein of superstition in us, which makes its appearance at some period in our lives under one form or another. A. will laugh to scorn B.’s belief in witches or ghosts, while he himself would not undertake a piece of business on a Friday for all the wealth of Crœsus; while C., who laughs at both, will offer his hand to the palmist in full assurance of faith. Each of us dwells in his own particular glass house, and so cannot afford to hurl missiles at his neighbours; milk-magic or motor-mascots, pishogues or palmistry, the method of manifestation is of little account in comparison with the underlying superstition. The latter is an unfortunate trait that has been handed down to us from the infancy of the race; we have managed to get rid of such physical features as tails or third eyes, whose day of usefulness has passed; we no longer masticate our meat raw, or chip the rugged flint into the semblance of a knife, but we still acknowledge our descent by giving expression to the strange beliefs that lie in some remote lumber-room at the back of the brain.
But it may be objected that belief in witches, ghosts, fairies, charms, evil-eye, &c. &c., need not be put down as unreasoning superstition, pure and simple, that in fact the trend of modern thought is to show us that there are more things in heaven and earth than were formerly dreamt of. We grant that man is a very complex machine, a microcosm peopled with possibilities of which we can understand but little. We know that mind acts on mind to an extraordinary degree, and that the imagination can affect the body to an extent not yet fully realised, and indeed has often carried men far beyond the bounds of common-sense; and so we consider that many of the elements of the above beliefs can in a general way be explained along these lines. Nevertheless that does not do away with the element of superstition and, we may add, oftentimes of deliberately-planned evil that underlies. There is no need to resurrect the old dilemma, whether God or the Devil was the principal agent concerned; we have no desire to preach to our readers, but we feel that every thinking man will be fully prepared to admit that such beliefs and practices are inimical to the development of true spiritual life, in that they tend to obscure the ever-present Deity and bring into prominence primitive feelings and emotions which are better left to fall into a state of atrophy. In addition they cripple the growth of national life, as they make the individual the fearful slave of the unknown, and consequently prevent the development of an independent spirit in him without which a nation is only such in name. The dead past utters warnings to the heirs of all the ages. It tells us already we have partially entered into a glorious heritage, which may perhaps be as nothing in respect of what will ultimately fall to the lot of the human race, and it bids us give our upward-soaring spirits freedom, and not fetter them with the gross beliefs of yore that should long ere this have been relegated to limbo.
INDEX
Acts of Parliament, [57], [61], [66], [67]
Antrim man bewitched in England, [101]
Apparitions, at Castleconnell, [94];
at Loughill, [95];
at Portadown, [95];
in co. Tipperary, [150];
to insurgents, [101]
Bed-clothes pulled off, [201], [205-6];
made up like a corpse, [205-6]
Blackamoor executed, [60]
Blair, Rev. Robert, [88] ff.
Burning alive, [39], [40], [48], [50]
“Burying the sheaf,” [246]
Butter stolen, [236], [242]
Butters, Mary, [224] ff.
Carnmoney, [156], [159], [160], [225], [227]
Carrigfergus, [143], [174], [213], [224]
Cattle bewitched, [68], [225], [240];
cured by charms, [227], [232], [240]
Charmed lives, [97]
Charms, ingredients used in making of, [28], [29], [37], [227], [232]
Chest opens mysteriously, [104]
Child bewitched in co. Antrim, [195];
in co. Cork, [171]
Clergy incriminated, [35], [78]
Colville, Rev. Alex., [82] ff.
De Ledrede, Bishop, [26] ff., [47], [48]
Demons, sacrifice to, [27], [29], [48]
Desmond, fourth Earl of, [53];
sixteenth Earl of, [69] ff., [95];
rides round Lough Gur, [72];
appears as a black horse, [75]
Devil, the, method of raising, [81];
cheated in bargains, [84], [133];
incites to homicide, [90];
appears as a huntsman, [135];
as a raven, [173];
in various shapes, [156]
Dunbar, Miss Mary, [207] ff.
Evil spirit appears as a boy, [202] ff.
Exorcism practised in Ulster, [93]
Eye-biters, [68]
Fairies, [3], [237];
annoy a butler, [163] ff;
king of, [86]
Familiar spirit, a: Huthart, [55-6];
Robin, son of Art, [27], [29], [38], [40];
appears to a witch, [183];
appears as an old man, [108];
appears as a greyhound, [118], [120]
Fits, people seized with strange, [161], [179], [187] ff., [195], [208], [209], [214] ff.
Greatrakes, Valentine, [118], [122], [127], [165], [167]
Ghost, a, [136] ff., [144] ff., [164], [168];
hand of in a law-court, [143];
vanishes to sound of music, [141], [147];
brings medicine, [165];
appears as a goat, [198]
Girdle, devil’s, [39]
Glover, Mrs., [179] ff.
Haltridge family, [201] ff.
Hand of Glory, [232]
Haunted house in Dublin, [148]
Healing powers, [244]
Heresy, [47], [48], [50]
Hutchinson, Francis, [11], [222]
Images of rags, [182]
Irish language spoken in Boston, [182], [186]
Irish prophetess in Scotland, [54]
Island Magee, [201] ff.
J.P.’s Commission, clause in, [248]
Judges: Sir Wm. Aston, [112], [130];
Sir F. Brady, [239];
John Lindon, [170];
Jas. Macartney, [170], [213], [220];
Anthony Upton, [213], [220]
Kiss, bewitched by a, [108], [111], [117], [123], [126]
Knots mysteriously tied, [208], [215], [216]
Kyteler, Dame Alice, [25] ff.;
her husbands, [26];
her confederates, [35]
Literature, absence of, in Ireland, [10], [11]
Longdon, Mary, [107] ff.
Lord’s Prayer, used as a test, [115], [125], [184];
said by supposed witches, [220]
Mather, Rev. Cotton, [178] ff.;
Rev. Increase, [129], [177]
Midwife bewitches people, [160]
Money turns to leaves, [75]
Newton, Florence, [105] ff.
Nobleman accused of sorcery, [57]
Orrery, Lord, [163]
Over-looking, [117], [120]
Petronilla of Meath, [18], [35], [38], [39]
Pillory, the, [64], [221]
Pins stuck in a girl’s arm, [110];
in a straw body, [247]
Pishogues, [236], [240]
Pope John XXII, [44]
Portents at Limerick, [100];
on entry of James II, [194]
Presbyterian clergyman bewitched, [156]
Prophecies of Mr. Peden, [174]
Quakers, the, [155], [172]
Red cap worn, [233]
Red pigs, their sale forbidden, [67]
Relic cures spells, [80]
Riding on a staff, [39], [234]
Scot, Michael, [52]
Scotch girl delated, [199]
Scotland, [19], [54], [81], [85], [90], [147]
Sorcery and witchcraft, difference, [21]
Sorrel-leaf causes witchcraft, [195]
Stones thrown, [109], [157], [158], [201], [204]
Storm attributed to witches, [99]
Strange knowledge of deaf and dumb man, [87]
Stroking of images, [182];
of a stone, [186]
Swimming a witch suggested, [122];
the process, [107]
Tate, Rev. Dr., [98]
Taverner, Francis, [136] ff.
Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, [140], [144]
Torture, not judicially used, [18];
rough-and-ready application of, [38];
employed on Continent, [20]
Transference of disease, [245]
Treasure-seeking at Cashel and Mellifont, [78];
made penal, [64]
Ulster colonists, their influence, [14]
Usher, Archbishop, [93], [102]
Vomiting of strange substances, [80], [109], [113], [195], [218]
Wafer with devil’s name, [39]
Williams, Rev. Daniel, [148]
Witch examined, [59];
curious tests of guilt of, [118], [119], [121];
tries to disembowel a boy, [185];
rescued by the Devil, [148];
murdered by a mob, [198];
supposed, murdered by a lunatic, [237]
Witch-burning (so called) near Clonmel, [237]
Witchcraft still a legal offence, [248]
Witches executed, [60], [68], [69], [148], [186], [196];
placed in pillory, [221];
appear as cats, [156];
suck cows under form of hares, [241]
Youghal, suspected witches at, [117], [122]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh
Footnotes: