There are many important bits of advice among the Irish that you need to remember if you need ‘Good Luck’ in your life, and God knows none of us want ‘Bad Luck.’ So listen now to what you are being told.
Never put a boot on your foot until you have two socks on. Now, not two sock on the one foot, but one on each. You will say goodbye to your luck if you neglect this bit of advice, for St. Columbcille once put a sock and a boot on one foot, with the intention of doing the same to the other. But his enemies who were pursuing him came upon him just as he was putting on the second sock. He was unable to run away and was caught. He then gave the curse to the person who should do as he had done.
If you are driving any animals to market and you meet a person who does not ‘bless’ them, remember that you should say before the person passes on. “God Bless your heart, your eye, and my share.” The evil eye of the person cannot then ‘blink’ the animals.
The ploughman, too, needs to guard his horses from the same dreadful evil of blinking. When he is approaching the end of the field, if he observes any person standing there to whom he must speak, let him on no account allow the horses to stand until he has turned their faces towards the other end, with their tails to the person. They will be quite safe in that position.
The foregoing are preventatives, and we are all pretty familiar with the adage “Prevention is better than cure.” But is there no ‘cure’ for ‘blinking’? Indeed, there is, why wouldn’t there?
Quick is a glance of the eye under any circumstance, but quicker far is the glance of the blinker’s eye. The harm may be accomplished before we can guard against it. To counteract the spell should then be our aim. There is an antidote. Remember it. Strike, first, the affected animal with any part of your apparel or, to be accurate, with, as we say in Gaelic, the “tail of your coat,” and next the ground. Repeat the operation three times and you have affected a complete cure.
When travelling along a lonely road at night take the centre and walk between the ruts so that you can keep in the tracks which horses have made. Nothing can harm you while you follow the horses’ tracks.
Don’t give anything away on New Year’s Day. If, however, it is unavoidable, make the person who gets it bring something to you first. For instance, if your neighbour’s fire happens to be dead in the morning, don’t give a coal until you receive a turf first. Never on any account allow a coal to be removed from your house if there is any person sick within; and do not under any circumstance allow a coal out on a Monday morning.
Give no milk from the first churning. The person to whom you give milk from your dairy should ‘bless’ the milk and the cow that gave it.
Do not, as it is said in the North, “dung the byre” after sunset. It is strictly forbidden to re the manure after that hour also to put out the house sweepings. Such things should be attended to during the day, “After the sun has risen, and before he has set.”
Put out no ashes or slops on New Year’s Day. Also have all the water required for domestic use in before dark on New Year’s Eve.JW
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