The daily life of the Gael was full of blessings, prayers and charms. There are many charms, some to get rid of a particular ailment, others used preventively from helping cure illnesses or childlessness, toothache or swellings, to repelling the evil eye.
The local Wise Woman was a woman skilled in the ways of healing, different women worked in their different modalities. Scholar Gearoid O Crualaoich explains the role of the Wise Woman as the following:
- Locating stolen and lost animals
- Makes diagnoses and prescribes for physical ailments
- Diagnoses otherworld ailments and prescribes their cure
- Diagnoses otherworld injuries and prescribes cure (while claiming to have prevented far more serious harm)
- Foretells of death and diagnoses an otherworld ailment which results in death
- Diagnoses otherworld abduction of adults, explains and describes the procedures by which the abduction can be reversed (such as a person being taken by the fairies)
This is St Bride’s Charm taken from the Carmina Gadelica invoking Brighid’s protection on herds of goats, sheep, cows, and horses against predators.
Invoking Brighid
The wise woman invoked a higher power while she worked, invoking the wisdom and power of Brighid and Mary. In this aspect, she could be viewed as a practitioner reaching out to the otherworld as she brought divine inspiration and insight into her work, which she carried out for the good of her community.
The Wise Woman was consulted for everyday scrapes and sprains. Following is a charm to heal a sprain invoking Brighid in its healing, I like to imagine saying this charm while putting a bandage on my leg, even if it is just muscle sprain.
Brigid went out
In the dawn of day
With a pair of horses
And one broke a leg.
That was trouble and fuss, that
Was tearing and loss but
She put bone to bone,
She put flesh to flesh,
She put sinew to sinew,
She put vein to vein. As she healed that, Let me heal this.
Charm of the Sprain, Carmina Gadelica Hymn/Incantation #13
At the edge of the Burren, Ireland looking out to Galway Bay.
There is powerful poetry and imagery in the Charm of the sprain, invoking ancient magic, something sacred we can’t quite understand but recognize as divine. It also invokes generations and generations of women past who worked with this energy, who delivered babies, help set bones, applied cooling poultices. These were the women who knew the right vegetables and herbs to make ointments to draw out and heal an infection. They were also the women who brought babies into this world and midwifed souls on their journey out of this world and onto the next world. They were also the communicators with the otherworlds, the ones who knew when there was faery magic afoot and could devise the ceremonies that had to be undertaken in order to set things right again.
There is powerful poetry and imagery in Charms that evoke ancient magic, something we might not fully ‘get’ yet recognize as sacred. It also invokes generations of women who worked with this energy, who delivered babies, help set bones, applied cooling poultices. These were the women who knew the right vegetables and herbs to make ointments to draw out and heal an infection. They were also the women who brought babies into this world and midwifed souls on their journey out of this world and onto the next world. They were also the communicators with the otherworlds, the ones who knew when there was faery magic afoot and could devise the ceremonies that had to be undertaken in order to set things right again.
Writing Your Own Charm
The power lies in feeling our connection to these women, women who also lived a relationship with Brighid, women who wove Brighid into their lives through prayers and charms as they asked for protection and used them to honor and in giving thanks.
An Element of Balance
There are some wonderfully descriptive charms in the Carmina Gadellica, such as the charm below for a chest seizure. In those days people were completely sustainable, they fished from the sea and grew their own food and so charms were used to bring balance back where there was an imbalance.
The following charm is doing is recreating a balance in the natural world so that might bring a balance within the body and repair the damage.
Charm for chest seizure
Power of moon have I over thee,
Power of sun I have over thee,
Power of rain I have over thee,
Power of dew I have over thee,
Power of sea I have over thee,
Power over land I have over thee,
Power of stars I have over thee,
Power of the planets I have over thee,
Power of the universe I have over thee,
Power over skies I have over thee,
Power of saints I have over thee,
Power over heaven I have over thee,
Power of heaven and power of God have I over thee,
Power of heaven and power of god over thee.
A part of thee on the grey stones,
A part of thee on the steep mountains,
A part of thee on the swift cascades,
A part of thee on the gleaming clouds,
A part of thee on the ocean – whales,
A part of thee on the meadow-beasts,
A part of thee on the fenny swamps,
A part of thee on the cotton-grass moors,
A part of thee on the great surging sea –
She herself has best means to carry,
The great surging sea,
She herself has best means to carry.
Charm for Chest Seizure, Charms for Healing, Carmina Gadelica #448
A charm is particularly useful regarding something that you experience regularly. Something niggling that keeps coming around, wither physical or mental. I find it particularly useful in recognizing those days and acknowledging you need extra help. The following charm is one I have written for help on those days. Days when I’m just feeling down, part of its power lies in the images it evokes, engaging the imagination.
Brighid went out and found a woman feeling dark and unsure,
like the weather of Imbolc and it’s biting cold.
So she took a thread here and a thread there,
and like the weaver woman Brighid was,
she wove the woman back into life,
mother to mother,
ancestor to ancestor,
The woman found new strength in her relations,
And a sense of place and of her lineage.
In creating your own personal charm, which you may wish to bring in a simple gesture of ritual. Here are some options to consider:
- A good starting point is to consider something you personally would like help with such as a physical illness or even something psychological.
- Adding ritual. This can be something very simple and as small as a gesture or, something more elaborate if you prefer. Example: If it is eye-related, maybe you might want to add in something soothing such as bathing your eye in water or using watery imagery.
- You may want to add or be inspired by some of the imagery from the Charm for a Chest Seizure. (You might want to evoke imagery from the landscape you live in).
- Imagine that lineage of healers assisting you as you work (these could be ancestral ancestors).
- The charm only needs to make sense to you personally so add in personal motifs and imagery.
Taking time to work on a particular personal ritual brings awareness; it might lead you to look at how this issue relates to other parts of your life.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Jude Lally