ancient celtic cursesis bill bruns still alive

The words for curses and cursing did not really overlap with the vocabulary for witchcraft and piseogs, as evil spells were sometimes called. It began with dress. Maria Trotter and Robert De Bruce Trotter, Galloway Gossip Sixty Years Ago: Being A Series of Articles Illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and Peculiarities of the Aboriginal Picts of Galloway, ed. Michael L. Doherty, The Folklore of Cattle Diseases: A Veterinary Perspective, Baloideas, lxix (2001), 556. 36871; Kimberly B. Stratton, Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World (New York, 2007), esp. They received many different answers, but one thing was clear. Yet it is probably safe to assume that, in nineteenth-century Ireland as in the ancient world and elsewhere, special curses existed for attacking penises, breasts, vaginas and arses. But cursing songs were not a dying art, part of a vanishing Gaelic folk culture. The curse was known in Scotland too, and may have been brought to Ireland centuries ago by Presbyterian settlers (though the transmission could have been the other way).147 One of the most baleful curses known in Ulster, the folklorist Jeanne Cooper Foster was stunned to learn that, as late as the 1940s and 1950s, the fire of stones curse was still used.148 It was always levied in connection with evictions, she discovered, with cases occurring in Downpatrick, Bushmills, County Down, and even on Belfasts famously Protestant Shankill Road. Here's our pick of some top ancient Irish curses: 1. J. M. Synge, The Aran Islands (Dublin, 1907), 1434. Some men interviewed by Irish Poor Law Commissioners in the early 1830s admitted this. May his neck get stiff, they mumbled.44, More serious were musical curses, stinging ballads calling for uncanny retribution. La Llorona III. May you fade into nothing, like snow in summer. Bath curse tablets - Wikipedia Copy of the Minutes of the Evidence Taken at the Trial of the Galway County Election Petition (1872), pt 1 (House of Commons, 1872), 173. Ellen Collins of Ballina, for instance, who thought a curse killed her mother, made her child disabled and gave her depression. It was the scariest manifestation of a well-established but increasingly controversial tradition, of sharp-tongued females using fearful words to scold, defame and assert themselves.139 Irish popular culture had long paid special heed to womens voices, in moments of crisis, from the cry of the keening mourner to the wail of the banshee. George Borrow, Wild Wales: Its People, Language, and Scenery, 3 vols. Particular thanks to Dr Crostir Mac Crthaigh and Mr Jonny Dillon of the magnificent National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin. One of the more charmingly bitter traditions of ancient Greece and Rome were "curse tablets"spells written on lead, wax or stone that laid out the ways in which people had been wronged. 5 Like in other loosely Celtic societies, in pre-modern Ireland cursing was regarded as a legitimate activity, a form of supernatural justice that only afflicted guilty It also reminds us that not all types of magic share the same chronology of rise and fall, growth and decline, enchantment and disenchantment. Rituals and a certain style were required to launch maledictions, to give them energy as the antiquary William Carleton put it.62. For example: Mark C. Taylor, Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago, 1998); Christine D. Worobec, Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages, Russian Review, liv (1995); Sarah Tarlow, Ritual, Belief and the Dead in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 2011), chs. Cursing was demanding, sophisticated, formidable and imposing. To use sociological parlance, there was a certain amount of path dependency, with Irish imprecators drawing on well-established conventions and precedents, just as people do in other cursing cultures, such as the Okiek of Kenya.79 Yet when Irish folk uttered maledictions, they recreated and renewed certain (not all) cursing techniques. The heaviest curse at the present, wrote a teacher from the same county in the same year, is Marbhadh Fisg ort the squeeze band of Death on you.145. Some female beggars wore their hair down, as if to imply that they were already in the cursing pose. Roman Curse Tablets 3. Yet in Ireland, a proclivity for this dark kind of cursing goes back millennia. Folklorists interviewees, such as Patrick Feeney of Gurrane of Ballyhea in County Cork, said that the generations growing up from the 1960s knew little of maledictions.150. If potatoes, grain or a few pennies still were not forthcoming, they could begin hinting at more mysterious powers. 7 Ancient Roman Curses You Can Work into Modern Life I would never have spoken of the occurrence at all only that the priest cursed those who knew about it off the altar for not exposing it, a witness admitted.120 Well into the twentieth century, priests threw imprecations at land-grabbers, who rented or purchased estates from whence the previous tenants had been evicted.121 A priests curse was useful in a boycott because it meant that neither the grabber nor his or her customers would prosper. Curses in the Bible ), Bob Norberry; or, Sketches from the Note Book of an Irish Reporter (Dublin, 1884), 228. In this dangerous environment, it was best to be cautious. Widows were certainly plentiful and needful of power. The most dangerous malediction, Irish commentators and ordinary people agreed, was a priests.98 I mind nothing but the priests curse, one of Lady Anne Dalys tenants told her in 1872, when describing how he could endure any intimidation from his neighbours except that.99. Cosmology | Exploring Celtic Civilizations Curses were part of many peoples begging strategies. ), Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland. 2 and 3. With outstretched arms and windswept hair, they roared maledictions using magnificent words and gestures that were totally uncharacteristic of their usually reticent temperament.66 Flowing hair, incidentally, was important. Following decades of debate, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883 at last outlawed the using of undue spiritual influence during elections, meaning clerical curses.118 Priests still threw imprecations, and many people still credited them. In 1786, for example, Munsters Catholic bishops announced their determination to sanction clerics who habitually poured forth from the altar the most shocking curses and imprecations.23. May you be accursed in the sight of God, and hated by your fellow man. Mal de Ojo of Mexico 2. Geasa are common in Irish and Scottish folklore and mythology, as well as in modern English-language fantasy fiction. In court, the officer explained how it made her feel very uncomfortable, though the defendants promised it was a load of nonsense.161 Even worse was the lurid curse an arrested driver threw at a Garda officer in Ennis in May 2018: I am putting a curse on you. She died in torture, of kidney disease: it come back on herself, back on herself Im telling you she suffered for the curse she gave to other people.151 Michaels trembling words underscore the powerful emotions swirling around this topic. Curses in Ireland come from the usual roots, folk magic and charms, mythology, and religion (the good versus evil model is simple and always popular) with famous examples of spell curses in folklore (eg the spell placed on Etain that turned her into various animals or the curse placed on the children of Lir.) Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives (Santa Barbara Cal., 2005); Carmen Kuhling, The New Age Movement in the Post-Celtic Tiger Context: Secularisation, Enchantment and Crisis, tudes Irlandaises, xxxix (2014); Richard Jenkins, The Transformations of Biddy Early: From Local Reports of Magical Healing to Globalised New Age Fantasies, Folklore, cxviii (2007); Catherine Maignant, Alternative Pilgrimages: Postmodern Celtic Christianity and the Spatialisation of Time, Nordic Irish Studies, vi (2007); Jenny Butler, 21st Century Irish Paganism: Worldview, Ritual, Identity (Farnham, 2019). Irish Independent, 5 Dec. 1919; Freemans Journal, 4 Dec. 1919; Connacht Tribune, 17 Jan. 1920. OFallon, Irish Curses, 32; Robin Flower, The Western Island or Great Blasket ([1944] Oxford, 1979), 49. The decline was partially compensated for by the increasing popularity of folklore books and pamphlets, where malediction stories were told and racy curses listed. Newry Telegraph, 9 Oct. 1851; Limerick Chronicle, 11 Oct. 1851. Driver Jailed After Placing Lurid Widows Curse on Garda that Her Family Would Die, Irish Examiner, 8 Jan. 2019, . Cuchulain in Battle" by Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951) shows the famous Irish warrior flanked by a crow, often thought to be a manifestation of the Morrgan or badh. Trasna ort fin. Virginia Crossman, Politics, Pauperism and Power in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Manchester, 2006), 915, 119222; Caitrona Clear, Homelessness, Crime, Punishment and Poor Relief in Galway 18501914: An Introduction, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, l (1998). 6 Famous Curses and Their Origins - HISTORY Roman Catholic Questions: Church of Rome in Ireland, British Critic, v (1829), 1867; Wexford Conservative, 28 Oct. 1835. They, after all, were immersed in the Judeo-Christian cursing tradition, trained in practice of solemn ritual and public prayer, and possessed of sacred objects like chalices, church bibles and vestments. Why then was the righteous art of cursing so heavily cultivated in Ireland, in the commercial and increasingly sophisticated world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? These Celtic literary maledictions thus appear closer in style to a third type of Greek and Roman imprecation - other than katadesmoi and conditional curses - one known only from ancient literary sources. If we want to appreciate how magic can move people in these ways, we need to better appreciate how accomplished, skilful and imposing it is. Flower, Western Island or Great Blasket, 49. Irish maledictions can be usefully analysed using familiar academic categories such as belief, ritual, symbolism, mentality, tradition, meaning and discourse.17 Cursing contained all those things: but it was also something fundamentally more lively, active and affecting. But evidence from other sources confirms not only that priests deployed their curses politically, but also that some Catholic bishops actively encouraged them. The consequences were catastrophic: the curse didnt fall on the people she give it too but it fell on herself. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, with Appendix (A) and Supplement (hereafter First Report from His Majestys Commissioners) (House of Commons, 1835), 496. There was another difference, between turn of the twenty-first-century curses and the maledictions of the 1800s. Everybody knew what a beggars curse was: it was a regular and familiar part of life, in pre-famine Ireland. [Anon. Yet cursing did not always work that way. Yet though their utterers may have been unconscious of it, non-literal curses were also vital preparation for the high art of real cursing. Janet K. TeBrake, Irish Peasant Women in Revolt: The Land League Years, Irish Historical Studies, xxviii (1992). A Home Rule candidate John Philip Nolan trounced his unionist opponent, the Conservative William Le Poer Trench, before the result was overturned on appeal. Stemming from moral indignation, the virtuoso but also shocking technique required knowledge, composure, practice and wit. Another clerical curse victim was Thomas Mahon, a retired policeman and possible child killer from Carna in County Galway. The first drop of water to quench your thirst may it boil in your bowels. To make a curse stick, it was best to say something dreadful, complex and difficult to rebut. Common Brittonic (Welsh: Brythoneg; Cornish: Brythonek; Breton: Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany.. This may explain why, despite growing anxieties amongst Irish elites about the unruly conduct of verbally abusive females, Irish women continued to curse until the era of the Second World War and beyond. For victims, it was threatening, disturbing and humiliating. They would rebound on their casters, unless they quickly cancelled their maledictions with a blessing formula such as agus crosaim th in Gaelic or its English translation: I cross you.36 Proverbs in Gaelic and English reiterated the point: Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.37, Whether uttered in English, Irish or Ulster-Scots, not all maledictions were magical. NFC, MS 548, 242; Schools Collection: vol. With the legal system generally trusted to provide fair outcomes, perhaps there was little need for a justice-based supernatural punishment. Vol. Douglas Hyde, Beside the Fire: A Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories (London, 1890), 187; P. W. Joyce, English as We Speak It in Ireland, 2nd edn (London, 1910), 38. Curses were thrown at Protestant evangelists and their converts too, with notable victims being the Reverend Edward Nangle (180083) and his mission on the island of Achill.111 Their tongues would fall out, local Catholics were warned, if they failed to bellow abuse at the heretics.112. The Irish farmer, Donal Bohane, owns a 30-acre (12.1 ha.) Inspiration for a fuller, more dynamic understanding of cursing, and perhaps other forms of magic too, can be derived from the way that magicians since classical times have imagined the ars magica the art of magic.18 Although pioneering anthropologists like Bronisaw Malinowski acknowledged the art of magic, this understanding of the controversial topic has been forgotten by many recent studies in which, as one not unsympathetic critic puts it: all too often a sense of magic is lost.19. Bathed in righteous power, steeped in the Holy Spirit, it was obvious that they should possess awesome imprecations. Catholic priests were well placed to excel at the theatrical art of cursing. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Yale, 1990), 423. Catholic Emancipation Petition of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland, Hansard, xvi, col. 796 (2 Mar. Pg mo thin. Ronald Hutton, Pagan Britain (Yale, 2013), viiviii. Imprecating servants, labourers, soldiers and sailors were to be fined a shilling, and everyone else two, with escalating fines for subsequent offences and non-payers pelted in the stocks or whipped.21 Beyond the legal crackdown, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century churchmen sermonized and wrote tracts attacking not just common swearing but also the very near akin yet much graver habit: the monstrous cuftom of cursing.22 Mostly it was Protestants who spoke out, during moments of evangelical revival, but not exclusively. Kevin Danaher, Irish Country People (Cork, 1976), 14. ), The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2017); Bettina N. Kimpton, Blow the House Down: Coding, the Banshee, and Womans Place, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, xiii (1993); Sneddon, Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland; Jenny Butler, The Sdhe and Fairy Forts, in Simon Young and Ceri Houlbrook (eds. Cursing was rife in nineteenth-century Ireland because many people valued it, not only poor peasants and beggars, but priests, parents, and others needful of influence and consolation. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, metaphorical curses peppered Irish peoples conversations, jokes, songs and angry outbursts. K. Theodore Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland, 18321885 (Oxford, 1984), 21213. It was simpler, informed more by biblical imagery than oral tradition, yet it did have elements of public performance. Following Holy Communion, Father Loftus stood at the altar, holding a chalice. But this general point also needs qualifying. Cursing was not only an intimidating magical weapon, but also a dark therapy. Carleton, An Essay on Irish Swearing, 348. Archaeologists Find Ancient Magic Curse Tablet in Jerusalem In a world where people firmly believed in the existence of gods and goddesses, it is possible that the curse tablets made potential criminals think twice before committing a crime. Dublin Weekly Nation, 4 July 1857; Advocate, 17 Feb. 1858. In this contested environment, for the first time perhaps since the Middle Ages, priests curses became political. Female tenants joined the Land League (187981), the organization that fought for tenants rights, but were barred from leadership positions and from speaking at public meetings. To illustrate: in a classic essay about anonymous threatening letters, sent to English farmers and grain-dealers in the late 1700s and 1800s, E. P. Thompson noticed that these letters were often rhymed in a spell-like style, as if to imply a bit of magical menace.60 Irish threatening letters, by contrast, were far more supernaturally explicit, teeming with the direst maledictions of the sort contained in a letter sent to a County Limerick landlord in 1886: may you wither up by the fire of hell soon and sudden, may the flesh rot off your bones, and fall away putrid before your eyes, and may the consolation of eternal flames come to be your consolation in your last illness, and the hearthstone of hell be your pillow for ever.61 That missive was pure literary cursing. These tablets served to curse enemies and other undesirable people, asking the gods to intercede and affect the person in question. Nothing was more feared than a really venomous malediction, commentators on Irish manners claimed, without much exaggeration.10 Yet this intriguing form of modern magic remains almost entirely unstudied.11 Antiquarians and folklorists were only marginally interested in it, with the exception of a lively essay by William Carleton (17941869).

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