Also called Eolas, Highland charms of healing
Gaelic healing charms and prayers collected in the Scottish Highlands and Islands by Alexander Carmichael, spoken over sprains, toothache and other ills with the names of Christ, Mary and Saint Bride. Folk tradition only; see a doctor for any injury or illness.
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Take care: Folk tradition only, not medical treatment: see a doctor for any sprain, pain or illness. Ask before laying hands near anyone, and do not press on an injury.
Saint Bride is said to go out early with her pair of horses, and when one sprains its leg she heals it, joining bone, flesh and sinew in turn. The speaker then asks that the same healing come to the present hurt. It is a close Gaelic cousin of the Merseburg horse charm.
Christ comes down to earth or goes out in the early morning, finds a horse with a broken or wrenched leg, and restores marrow, sinew, flesh and blood one by one. Carmichael's manuscript notes give other Gaelic words for a sprain and record that the charm was said three times over the limb.
In many districts the charm was said while a worsted or linen thread, sometimes knotted, was tied around the injured limb. The thread carried the words after the healer left.
Uses: worsted thread
Alexander Carmichael (1832 to 1912) was an excise officer whose work took him around the Hebrides and Highlands from the 1860s. In crofts and on boats he wrote down hymns, blessings, charms and stories from Gaelic speakers, many of them elderly, at a time when the language and its oral culture were under heavy pressure. The first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica appeared in 1900, with Gaelic and English on facing pages.
The healing charms, called eolas, show a world where Christian saints stepped into older patterns of word magic. Charms for sprains, toothache, jaundice and the evil eye were often kept in families and passed from a man to a woman or a woman to a man. Scholars have since debated how much Carmichael polished the English, but his manuscripts at the University of Edinburgh preserve his field notes.
An Old English sung charm that names nine herbs and calls on their power against poison, infection and flying venom. It is folk tradition and history, not medical care: for any illness or wound, see a doctor.
A short Old High German verse in which gods heal a horse's sprained leg, joining bone to bone and blood to blood. Recited today as a folk blessing for mending; it is not medical care, so see a doctor or vet for any injury.
A Scottish Highland New Year rite of blessing a house with water and the smoke of burning juniper. It is an open European alternative to white-sage smudging, which belongs to closed Indigenous ceremonial practice.
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