’These are the best of the herbs; but they are all good, and there isn’t one among them but would cure seven diseases.  I’m all the days of my life gathering them, and I know them all; but it isn’t easy to make them out.  Sunday afternoon is the best time to get them, and I was never interfered with.  Seven Hail Marys I say when I’m gathering them; and I pray to our Lord, and to St. Joseph and St. Colman.  And there may be some watching me; but they never meddled with me at all.’

A neighbour whom I asked about Bridget Ruane and her brother said:—­’Some people call her “Biddy Early” (after a famous witch-doctor).  She has done a good many cures.  Her brother was away for a while, and it is from him she got her knowledge.  I believe it’s before sunrise she gathers the herbs; any way no one ever saw her gathering them.  She has saved many a woman from being brought away when her child was born by whatever she does; and she told me herself that one night when she was going to the lodge gate to attend the woman there, three magpies came before her and began roaring into her mouth to try and drive her back.

Another neighbour, who has herself some reputation as an herb-doctor, says:—­’Monday is a good day for pulling herbs, or Tuesday—­not Sunday:  a Sunday cure is no cure.  The Cosac is good for the heart.  There was Mahon in Gort—­one time his heart was wore to a silk thread, and it cured him.  And the Slanugad (ribgrass) is very good:  it will take away lumps.  You must go down where it is growing on the scraws, and pull it with three pulls; and mind would the wind change when you are pulling it, or your head will be gone.  Warm it on the tongs when you bring it in, and put it on the lump.  The Lus-mor is the only one that’s good to bring back children that are “away."’

Another authority says:—­’Dandelion is good for the heart; and when Father Quinn was curate here, he had it rooted up in all the fields about to drink it; and see what a fine man he is.  The wild parsnip (Meacan-buidhe) is good for the gravel; and for heart-beat there’s nothing so good as dandelion.  There was a woman I knew used to boil it down; and she’d throw out what was left on the grass.  And there was a fleet of turkeys about the house, and they used to be picking it up.  At Christmas they killed one of them; and when it was cut open, they found a new heart growing in it with the dint of the dandelion.’

But an old man says there are no such healers now as there were in his youth:—­’The best herb-doctor I ever knew was Connolly up at Kilbecanty.  He knew every herb that grew in the earth.  It is said he was away with the fairies one time; and when I saw him he had the two thumbs turned in; and it was said it was the sign they left on him.  I had a lump on the thigh one time, and my father went to him, and he gave him an herb for it; but he told him not to come into the house by the door the