More Folklore from the Hebrides. 57
Na barrin is a children's illness that shows itself beneath the tongue, and is accompanied by diarrhoea. There is a charm for it still used in Mingulay, and in Uist a young man aged thirty testifies to having been cured by it when a child. The ceremony consists of putting nine green leaves about the neck of the child with a charm.
An intelligent schoolmaster relates that when the whoop- ing-cough was in his family, a friendly neighbour asked his mother to send her any child that had not yet taken it. The eldest boy was sent, and the woman, who had an ass, passed him three times over the back and under the belly of the creature in the Name of the Blessed Trinity, and then took a piece of bread, which she broke in half, and gave one part to the boy and one to the donkey, and the boy never took the whooping-cough.
An old woman stated that she was once cured of illness many years ago by having cold water made to trickle over a sickle on to her bare back.
If the nature of an illness is not understood, it is a good plan to give the patient three strong pinches of snufT or pepper, and if he does not sneeze the case is undoubtedly fever.
There are many ailments which can only be removed by charms. The following is in use by nursing mothers : " Look Thou, O Christ, at the breast,
How painful it is.
Tell it to gentle Mary,
Since it was she who bore the Son.
Whole may the breast be,
Small may the swelling be,
Run away, O (giving the name of the complaint)."
Our Lord was walking with His Mother one day by the side of a stream, when a trout was seen jumping out of the water which had lost one eye. Our Lady restored the eye at the intercession of Her Son — hence the charm for the Greinn Giilmain, or acute pain in the eye. Three Hail Marys are said, the eye is anointed with spittle put on
