"Will this dreadful cure do him any good?"
"Like enough, sir," said the old man, showing where a tooth was sewed in the lining of his waistcoat. "It's five year since I pulled that ane the same way, an' never a touch o' the toothache had I since."[1]
Next day the same tourist passed a tidy housemaid on the staircase in his hotel, and in greeting her remarked that she wore a pretty ring. "It was bestowed on me, sir," she replied, but without the blush that would have accompanied the confession of a sweetheart's gift, and added,—"I wear it for the toothache, sir."[2] To wear a ring that has been presented is a charm against toothache, and certainly a pleasanter cure than to swallow nine hairs pulled out of a black cat's tail,—the charm most strongly recommended in some parts of Donegal.
"Go to the schoolmaster, and ask him to cure you. He will give you a paper carefully folded up, directing you not to read what is written therein, and saying that, if you disobey, the cure will not do you any good."[3]
Another cure for this most common of earthly ills is not to shave on Sunday. Shave instead upon Saturday, and you will never again have toothache. "Is that a certain cure?" I asked my informant. "It is, Miss M'Clintock. My son James did it, an' he never had a taste o' the toothache after he stopped shaving on the Sabbath."
Whooping-cough charms.—One of the charms most highly recommended by wise women is to procure a lock of hair from the head of a posthumous child. Some years ago every child in my neighbourhood was coughing terribly. "How is Sandy to-day?" I asked. "Bad enough, miss. But he'll be better to-morrow, for we ha' got a wee lock o' hair frae Donnel Teague." "A lock of hair! What will you do with that?" "The weans 'll wear it, miss, an' they'll soon be better." Much puzzled, I persisted,—"But why Donnel Teague's hair more than any other man's hair?" "Becase Donnel's a boy that never seen his father, an' it's allowed
