Irish Cures, Mystic Charms and Superstitions
By Lady Wilde
Introduction
All nations and races from the earliest time have held the intuitive
belief that mystic beings were always around them, influencing ,
though unseen, every action of life, and all the forces of nature.
They felt the presence of a spirit in the winds, and the waves,
and the swaying branches of the forest trees, and in the primal
elements of all that exists. Fire was to them the sacred symbol
of the divine essence, ever striking towards ascension; and water,
ever seeking a level, was the emblem of the purification that should
cover all daily life; while in the elemental earth they reverenced
the power that produces all things, and where all that lives finds
a grave, yet also a resurrection.
Thus to the primitive races of mankind the unseen world of mystery
was a vital and vivid reality; the great over-soul of the visible,
holding a mystic and psychic relation to humanity, and ruling it
through the instrumentality of beings who had a strange power either
for good or evil over human lives and actions,
We turn back the leaves of the national legends of all countries
and peoples, and find stamped on the first page the words "God
and Immortality," These two ideal are at the base of all the
old-world thought and culture, and underlie all myths, rituals,
and monuments, and all the antique usages and mystic lore of charms,
incantations, and sacrificial observances.
The primal ideal may be degraded, debased, and obscured by the
low instincts of savage man; yet, religious faith is the basis of
all superstitions, and in all of them can be traced the ceaseless
and instinctive effort of humanity to incarnate and make manifest
this prescience within the soul of the unseen dominating the seen,
with the desire, also, to master the forces of nature through the
aid of these invisible spirits.
It is worthy of note, also, that the mythology of superstitions
of a people are far more faithful guides as to the origin and affinity
of races than language, which, through commerce and conquest, is
perpetually changing, till the ancient idiom is at last crushed
out and lost by the dominance of the stronger and conquering nation.
But the myths, superstitions, and legends (which are the expression
of a people's faith), remain fixed and fast through successive generations,
and finally become so inwoven with the daily life of the people
that they form part of the national character and cannot be dissevered
from it.
This is especially true of the Irish who, having been wholly separated
from European thought and culture for countless centuries, by their
language and insular position at the extreme limit of the known
world, have remained unchanged in temperate and nature; still clinging
to the old traditions with a fervour and faith that cannot be shaken
by any amount of modern philosophic teaching. They are also, perhaps,
indebted to Egypt for the wonderful knowledge of the power of herbs,
which has always characterised the Irish, both amongst the adepts
and the peasants.
Back
|
