Sacred Texts  Sagas and Legends  Celtic  Index  Previous  Next 

For Chin-Cough

A griddle cake made of meal, to be given, not bought or made; but a cake qiven of love or of charity, not for begging; a cake given freely, with a prayer and a blessing; and from the breakfast of a man and his wife who had the same name before marriage; this is the cure.

The touch of a piebald horse. Even a piebald horse pawing before the door helps the cure.

The child to be passed seven times under and over an ass while a red string is tied on the throat of the patient.

Nine hairs from the tail of a black cat, chopped up and soaked in water, which is then swallowed, and the cough will be relieved.

"One day when out, snipe shooting," a gentleman writes, "I saw a horrid-looking insect staring up at me. I called to a man close by, and asked him the name of it. He told me it was called the Thordall, and was reckoned a great cure for the chin-cough; for if any one got it safe in a bottle and kept it prisoner till it, died, the disease would go away from the patient. It was just the time to try the cure, for my child was laid up with the epidemic. So I bottled my friend and daily examined the state of his health. It lasted for a fortnight, and at the end of that time the child had quite recovered, and the horrible-looking insect creature lay dead."