Piseogs

dmcronin

I'm sure this is a more appropriate area for this rather than Paranormal.

Has it died out or is it still going on? Is/was it a purely rural thing or did it ever get into urban areas?

cormacocomhrai

Define pisreog. In my experience people in the West of Ireland tend to me more superstitious than the rest of the country. I would say that I've met very superstitious people from inner city Dublin.

It's broadly died out but most people still wouldn't damage a fairy fort. An old woman in Galway is supposed to have been asked one time by an anthropologist "Do you believe in fairies?" Answer: "No but they're there anyway."
People who still rely on chance fishermen, sports people etc. tend to be much more superstitious than other people. Older fishermen would be aware of a lot of the old beliefs. Whether or not they fully believe or disbelieve them is another question.

Dostoevsky

I'm not into piseoga at all - but I'm not going to tempt things by walking under a ladder! Would anybody else?

I guarantee if you left a ladder on a street and recorded people walking by loads of ostensibly unsuperstitious people would go around it rather than walk under it. Last week some 15 of us were walking down a street and all of us went around that ladder without giving it much thought.

Piseoga are much more alive in rural areas, where béaloideas is naturally stronger. There are urban exceptions, such as the plethora of piseoga connected with the Hellfire club in Dublin. North Dublin/Fingal, which is still wonderfully rural, also has many legends if not piseoga. There are, if you look for them, piseoga linked to almost every castle in the Dublin area. Piseoga connected with the fairy tree are still very strong across Ireland, particularly the refusal of workmen to remove one for fear of consequences. Also, respect for fairy forts generally and on Oíche Shamhna in particular would have been very well known in my youth. I remember one story in particular of a boy who was playing hurling and he hit the sliothar into a fairy fort by accident, went in to get it and never came back. That fascinated me on the hearing of it as a gasúr.

Generally, though, most of us don't seem to be passing on our local lore even though kids absolutely love hearing such things. Why be fascinated with your surroundings and the haunted house down the road when you have the x-box!

dmcronin

Apologies for being not more specific. 'Piseog' as in witchcraft-like practices to (usually) bring harm to others rather than superstition in general. i.e. placing eggs in hay and that sort of thing. Typically went on in rural areas, the effects supposedly being sickness/loss of livestock, bad health and death in extreme cases.

Tabnabs

I don't mean to drag the thread off topic, but I have just finished reading Malachi Horan Remembers by Dr George A Little (first printed in 1945).

The book contains many examples of piseogs (both superstitions and "witchcraft") that belonged to the mountain areas of south west Dublin and over the border into Wicklow. I am amused by the description of the Hellfire Club as urban, stand at the top of Montpelier hill and turn you back from the city (far in the distance) and it's as rural and desolate a location as any in Ireland. It's difficult in 2012 to understand just how small Dublin was and how rural the hinterlands were.

Anyway, if you're from Dublin and know the areas of Bohernabreena, Seechon, Saggart etc. then you will find this little book absolutely fascinating and very eye opening.

Fuinseog

dmcronin wrote: »

Apologies for being not more specific. 'Piseog' as in witchcraft-like practices to (usually) bring harm to others rather than superstition in general. i.e. placing eggs in hay and that sort of thing. Typically went on in rural areas, the effects supposedly being sickness/loss of livestock, bad health and death in extreme cases.

its rare for people to place curses these days. You can of course wish misfortune on someone. You have the mallacht in Irish, which again is used sparingly- things like 'I wish you a death by drowning' to 'may your penis explode'.

dubhthach

Well according to my mother there were still people carrying on like this in North Clare in the 1950's/60's. Eggs among the new potatoes/hay. Pig's head on someones door etc.

Then again it is Biddy Early country after all

dmcronin

I had heard one method was make a pinhole in an egg, rub egg to a stillborn calf and hide eggs in someone else's hay. When the eggs were broken when the hay was being fed to cattle that was supposed to spread stillbirths through the herd.

Other ones involved parts of animals or whole dead animals (i.e. calves being more easily transportable) being left on neighbours' lands. Possibly some sort of primitive germ warfare?? Widowed or spinster women were believed to be the most adept practitioners.

Also there are 'cursing stones', but none local to me afaik.

riffmongous

dubhthach wrote: »

Well according to my mother there were still people carrying on like this in North Clare in the 1950's/60's. Eggs among the new potatoes/hay. Pig's head on someones door etc.

Then again it is Biddy Early country after all

I remember that happening in my villages about 10 years ago, I just thought at the time the point of it was to do something disgusting, does it have a deeper significance dubhthach?

slowburner

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

Define pisreog.

I would say pisreóg too, but I see everyone else uses piseóg.

Fuinseog

slowburner wrote: »

I would say pisreóg too, but I see everyone else uses piseóg.

ni doigh liom go bhfuil fada ar an o. is feidir leat pisreog no piseog a ra.

bron orm nach bhfuil aon sine fada le fail ar mo riomhaire.

dubhthach

PotaFocal has both Piseog and Pisreog. As does Dineen, main explanation under Piseog, with the entry for Pisreog saying to look at entry for Piseog.

http://glg.csisdmz.ul.ie/index.php?find_simple=Irish
(Page 843 and 844). Perhaps it's a case of dialectical difference?

cormacocomhrai

Don't forget the difficulty the Galway-Limerick motorway had because of this fairy tree near Crusheen in Co. Clare.

Somebody mentioned cursing there. Mayday was supposed to have been the best fay of the year for cursing something.

A trace of superstition is found in some expressions that we use: touch wood, itchy feet, I'll kiss it better. Also saying "God bless him" or "Bail ó Dhia air" after a compliment is a product of a fear of the evil eye.

Pisreog/Piseog is down to dialect.

2rkehij30qtza5

Putting the infant of Prague outside to get good weather the following day, burying a headless St. Joseph upside down in your garden if trying to sell your property, looking in the mirror at midnight and you'll see the banshee..just a few I can think of from my neck of the woods.

cormacocomhrai

Speaking of the banshee there's one living in a handball alley down in Limerick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X764d7yCQFs

slowburner

Fuinseog wrote: »

ni doigh liom go bhfuil fada ar an o. is feidir leat pisreog no piseog a ra.

bron orm nach bhfuil aon sine fada le fail ar mo riomhaire.

Maith go leor.

slowburner

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

Also saying "God bless him" or "Bail ó Dhia air" after a compliment is a product of a fear of the evil eye.

If you were doing a job in public view, it was thought that the evil eye was upon you.
It was counteracted by the passer by saying, 'God bless the work'.

Fuinseog

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

Don't forget the difficulty the Galway-Limerick motorway had because of this fairy tree near Crusheen in Co. Clare.

Somebody mentioned cursing there. Mayday was supposed to have been the best fay of the year for cursing something.

A trace of superstition is found in some expressions that we use: touch wood, itchy feet, I'll kiss it better. Also saying "God bless him" or "Bail ó Dhia air" after a compliment is a product of a fear of the evil eye.

Pisreog/Piseog is down to dialect.

a lot of folks are wary to talk about a piseog for fear of ridicule. its still frowned upon to take a branch from a hawthorn indoors.

Fuinseog

Bruce Prickly Pickax wrote: »

Putting the infant of Prague outside to get good weather the following day, burying a headless St. Joseph upside down in your garden if trying to sell your property, looking in the mirror at midnight and you'll see the banshee..just a few I can think of from my neck of the woods.

the child of Prague goes under the hedge the day of the wedding. neighbours light bonfires after the wedding ceremony.

cormacocomhrai

Fuinseog wrote: »

a lot of folks are wary to talk about a piseog for fear of ridicule. its still frowned upon to take a branch from a hawthorn indoors.

What kind of irresponsible lunatic would bring a whitethorn branch into their house?

Seeing as somebody mentioned weddings, off topic, but am I the only one here to have strawboys at their wedding?

slowburner

Any idea why Whitethorn is called white, and Blackthorn is called black when both produce white flowers?

byhookorbycrook

Ok, a run through some of my 90 year old mammy's more common piseóga:
If you meet a funeral you must turn and walk three steps with it.
If a bee keeper dies, the bees must be told or the hive will swarm away elsewhere.
At midnight on Christmas Eve all animals have the power of speech but it is bad luck to try to hear them
If someone dies, the clock must be stopped at the hour of the passing, all mirrors in the house covered and the window of the room where the death occured opened so that the soul can escape.
If some one dies between the 8th of Dec and St Stephen's day, they go straight to heaven. This is known as "Cuireadh Na Nollag", literally the Christmas invitation.
Snowdrops brought into the house cause bad luck.
A robin coming into a house is a prediction of death.

Fuinseog

Niall Mac Coitir has two books out, one on plants and one on trees and their folkloric associations. well worth reading.

Fuinseog

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Ok, a run through some of my 90 year old mammy's more common piseóga:
If you meet a funeral you must turn and walk three steps with it.
If a bee keeper dies, the bees must be told or the hive will swarm away elsewhere.
At midnight on Christmas Eve all animals have the power of speech but it is bad luck to try to hear them
If someone dies, the clock must be stopped at the hour of the passing, all mirrors in the house covered and the window of the room where the death occured opened so that the soul can escape.
If some one dies between the 8th of Dec and St Stephen's day, they go straight to heaven. This is known as "Cuireadh Na Nollag", literally the Christmas invitation.
Snowdrops brought into the house cause bad luck.
A robin coming into a house is a prediction of death.

a funeral should always take the longest route to the graveyard.

cormacocomhrai

Fuinseog wrote: »

a funeral should always take the longest route to the graveyard.

I've also heard that the family should take a different route back in case the ghost follows them. To be fair the pisreogs can be very localised as well.

The robin is a common one, also knocking on the wall of a house or a picture falling of a wall both signify death. It was also said about certain people that they would "see" somebody before they died. Widowers and widows were also said to dream about their lost partners before they died themselves, as in the spouse was coming for them.

Fuinseog

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

I've also heard that the family should take a different route back in case the ghost follows them. To be fair the pisreogs can be very localised as well.

The robin is a common one, also knocking on the wall of a house or a picture falling of a wall both signify death. It was also said about certain people that they would "see" somebody before they died. Widowers and widows were also said to dream about their lost partners before they died themselves, as in the spouse was coming for them.

the elderly speak of the coiste bodhar coming to get them.

Fuinseog

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

I've also heard that the family should take a different route back in case the ghost follows them. To be fair the pisreogs can be very localised as well.

The robin is a common one, also knocking on the wall of a house or a picture falling of a wall both signify death. It was also said about certain people that they would "see" somebody before they died. Widowers and widows were also said to dream about their lost partners before they died themselves, as in the spouse was coming for them.

the elderly speak of the coiste bodhar coming to get them.


there is also something about carrying a coffin out of the house head or feet first so that the spirit cannot go back into the house.

ciarriaithuaidh

Lets cut to the chase here...who has heard the Banshee? :eek:

slowburner

I was in a house the other day where the elderly owner stopped me from exiting the house through a different door to the one I had entered.
On the way out, she asked me to pick up a glove that she had dropped a few days previously - no way was she going to pick it up.

When making butter, it was the custom to stick a knob of it to the inside of the door frame.

There seems to be a fair bit of superstition attached to thresholds.

Fuinseog

slowburner wrote: »

I was in a house the other day where the elderly owner stopped me from exiting the house through a different door to the one I had entered.
On the way out, she asked me to pick up a glove that she had dropped a few days previously - no way was she going to pick it up.

When making butter, it was the custom to stick a knob of it to the inside of the door frame.

There seems to be a fair bit of superstition attached to thresholds.

its not an Irish piseog but Eastern Europeans will never shake hands at the threshold.

Fuinseog

ciarriaithuaidh wrote: »

Lets cut to the chase here...who has heard the Banshee? :eek:

The coiste bodhar is not quite the banshee. I heard about it from a relative who worked in a nursing home and watched a lot of people die.They come out with some strange things before they pass on and one is that they can see a coach coming to pick them up.

There is a thread on the banshee in the mythology section.