Day 4: Green Cures

All items taken from: A Pot o' Gold - A Treasury of Irish Stories, Poetry, Folklore, and (of course) Blarney, Selected and Adapted by Kathleen Krull

To Cure a Child Under a Fairy Spell

Make a good fire and throw into it a handful of herbs used by fairies.  When a great smoke rises, carry the child three times around the fire, reciting a charm against evil.  Keep the doors tightly closed, or the fairies will come in to see what you are doing.  Continue reciting until the child sneezes three times, and you will know the child has been released from fairy spells forevermore.

Ancient Irish Folk Cures

For chills and fever, roll up a small live spider in a cobweb, put it into a lump of butter, and eat.

Another cure for fever:  Lie down on the sandy shore as the tide is coming in.  The retreting waves will carry away the fever.

For a stomachache:  Tie a bunch of mint around your wrist.

For simple earache:  Take some wool from a black sheep and wear it constantly in the ear.

For deafness:  Fold up two eels in a cabbage leaf, place them on the fire until they're soft, press out the juice, and drop it into the ears.