There was a woman here used to do cures with herbs—a midwife she was. And if a man went for her in a hurry, and on a horse, and he'd want her to get up behind him, she'd say, "No," that she was never on horseback. But no matter how fast he'd go home, there she'd be close after him.


There was a child was sick and it was known itself wasn't in it. And a woman told the mother to go to a woman she told her of, and not to say anything about the child but to say, "The calf is sick" and to ask for a cure for it. So she did and the woman gave her some herb, and she gave it to the child and it got well.


There was a man from Cuillean was telling me how two women came from the County Down in his father's time, mother and daughter, and they brought two spinning wheels with them, and they used to be in the house spinning. But the milk went from the cow and they watched and saw it was through charms. And then all the people brought turf and made a big fire outside, and stripped the witch and the daughter to burn them. And when they were brought out to be burned the woman said, "Bring me out a bit of flax and I'll show you a pishogue." So they brought out a bit of flax and she made two skeins of it, and twisted it some way like that (interlacing his fingers) and she put the two skeins round herself and the daughter, and began to twist it, and it went up in the air round and round and the two women with it, and the people all saw them going up, but they couldn't stop them. The man's own father saw that himself.


There was a woman from the County Down was living up on that mountain beyond one time, and there was a boy in the house next to mine that had a pain in his heart, and was crying out with the pain of it. And she came down, and I was in the house myself and I saw her fill the bowl with oatenmeal, and she tied a cloth over it, and put it on the hearth. And when she took it off, all the meal was gone out of one side of the bowl, and she made a cake out of what was left on the other side, and ate it. And the boy got well.


There was a woman in Clifden did many cures and knew everything. And I knew two boys were sent to her one time, and they had a bottle of poteen to bring her, but on the road they drank the poteen. But they got her another bottle before they got to the house, but for all that she knew well, and told them what they had done.