OPINION:Our folk traditions are something harmless, enduring, non-divisive and unique to each of us, writes DAVID ADAMS
GROWING UP in the country, the farmers I knew were laughingly dismissive, in their gruff agricultural way, of the myth of the fairy tree – yet I never met one who wouldn’t rather plough round a fairy tree than remove it.
Even today, on my travels about Ireland, North and South, I often see lone hawthorn trees standing in the middle of good, productive-looking fields, taking up valuable space to no useful purpose. No doubt the owners of these fields would still laugh at the idea of bad luck befalling anyone who disturbs such a tree, but they leave them be nonetheless.
Lamentably, the poor corncrake has all but succumbed to the indiscriminate might of the combine harvester and the silage cutter. Likewise, the Irish hare seems headed for oblivion, in constant retreat from the ruthless cultivation of every inch of arable soil. But the fairy tree at least, it appears, is alive and well.
The Irish notion of a “charm” to cure minor ailments hasn’t gone the way of the hare and the corncrake either.
When I was young, the potato was routinely advocated as a remedy for warts. This involved cutting a potato in two, and rubbing one part on the wart before burying it. Supposedly, as the half-potato rots away, so does the wart.
Never having tried it, I can’t say for sure whether this cure works or not, but some people maintain that it does. They don’t consider this or any other charm as an alternative to conventional medicine, but rather as something to turn to if all else fails.
For most of us, it is easy to dismiss the notion of ancient folk remedies as superstitious nonsense – but impossible for me, I’m afraid, since I once resorted to the charm school of medicine myself.
About 10 years ago, I suffered a bad bout of shingles, and was at my wits’ end over a very painful rash on my neck that showed no signs of going away. Eventually, on a friend’s advice, I made an appointment to see a man who specialised in charms.
I don’t know quite what I expected when I arrived at his house, on the outskirts of Ballynahinch, Co Down, but certainly not to find that he was so popular. His living room was packed with clients – each as sheepish looking as I felt – and his phone hardly stopped ringing throughout the time I was there.
Eventually, when it came my turn, the “charmer” looked me over, asked a few mundane questions, and then disappeared into a back room.
After a short while, he returned with a small pouch and instructed me to keep it under my pillow for a week, following which I was to throw it away. On no account was I to open the pouch. I thanked him, parted company with the required half-bottle of whiskey, and left. Within three days, the rash had completely gone.
Possibly it was due to disappear at that point anyway, or perhaps the cure owed more to psychosomatics than the mysterious pouch. Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less what the reason was: all that mattered was that it had worked.
Less than a week ago I came across more evidence, albeit second-hand, of our enduring faith in charms. An elderly neighbour asked my wife whether she would take her in the car to visit two locally popular donkeys.
Unable to walk any distance because of breathing problems, and having without success “tried every doctor in the country” for some ease, the old woman wanted to try a charm that had been recommended by a friend. This involved her cutting some hairs from the cross on a donkey’s back and sleeping with them under her pillow for a week.
Off my wife and the neighbour duly went, armed with carrots and a pair of scissors, and, not without some difficulty I’m told, relieved one of the donkeys of the required strands of hair.
I haven’t received any reports on whether or not the charm worked, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it had.
It is not, in itself, our continuing regard for fairy trees, folk remedies and the like that I find heartening – all things equal, I would much prefer the survival of the corncrake and the Irish hare – but, rather, what it represents.
Right across the English-speaking world, there is a growing cultural homogeneity that is sweeping away local customs and traditions.
It seems increasingly likely that everyone will end up speaking in a mid-Atlantic drawl with end-of-sentence upward intonations – calling scallions “spring onions” like the TV chefs, and writing in a badly spelt, barely punctuated text-message-style mixture of slang and English.
However, as long as these Irish folk traditions endure, we will still have something left that’s harmless and non-divisive – at least where our usual dividing lines are concerned – that is unique to us.