Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland (c. 1890) - Lady Wilde

Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland (1890)

By Lady Wilde (Jane Francesca Wilde)
Contributions to Irish Lore

Enter a world where herbs grew from a physician's grave, fairy enchantments were feared, the dead were called upon to heal the living, and ancient charms passed from generation to generation.

First published in London in 1890, Lady Wilde's Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland is a captivating collection of Irish folk medicine, supernatural beliefs, healing charms, seasonal customs and traditional stories. Blending accounts of older Irish practices with the author's nineteenth-century interpretations, it preserves an extraordinary range of lore associated with everyday life, illness, the landscape and the unseen world.

Inside this historical collection

• Herbal healing and ancient Irish physicians: tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the healer Dian Cécht, and a legendary bath of herbs said to restore wounded warriors after battle.
• Plants born from the dead: the story of healing herbs springing from the grave of a physician murdered by his jealous father.
• Spoken charms and folk remedies: traditional formulas for sprains, bleeding, toothache, fever and other ailments, including an elder-twig necklace once associated with epilepsy.
• Strange cures: accounts involving water from a human skull, a dead hand, and other unsettling objects of folk belief.
• Witchcraft and the evil eye: charms, maledictions, suspected enchantments and protective customs.
• Fairies and spirits: the nature of fairies, the banshee, the leprechaun, spectral brides and eerie tales of the dead.
• Sacred nature: beliefs surrounding trees, briars, birds, omens and the Irish countryside.
• Seasonal traditions: May Day, May Eve, St Patrick's Day, Hallowtide, Garland Sunday, wakes and village customs.
• Irish storytelling and heritage: legends, peasant tales, old sayings, proverbs and historical reflections.

One of the book's most fascinating qualities is the way medicine, religion and magic overlap: a healing charm might invoke Christian saints while preserving the structure of an older folk tradition, and a plant might be valued as much for its legend as for its supposed medicinal power.

Perfect for readers interested in Irish folklore, traditional herbalism, witchcraft history, fairy lore, folk magic, cultural history and the old ways of healing.

The Ancestral Library | Hearthwise Herbals

Digital historical facsimile · English · Originally published 1890 · 282-page edition with the modern promotional cover removed.

Historical research notice: This work records folklore, historical beliefs and remedies, not verified medical treatments. Some practices described are unsafe; the material is supplied for historical, cultural and educational study only. The author's nineteenth-century interpretations should not be mistaken for established facts about ancient Ireland.