Piseógs – An Irish Curse
Irish curses vary from simple incantations such as:
May you be afflicted with an itch and have no nails to scratch it with,
May you be a load of four before the year is out (it usually takes at least 4 people to carry a coffin),
May you find the bees but not the honey,
May you scratch a beggarman’s back one day (may you be poor).
There is a whole other type of curse in Ireland however – the Piseóg (pishogue) and this is where things get interesting. While some people use the word piseóg when referring to general superstitions, the word actually refers to a curse.
There are two main reasons a person might put or lay a piseóg on someone. The first is simply to cause ill fortune. The second, and perhaps more common reason, is to take someone’s luck for oneself. There was a belief in Ireland, which is dying out now, that there is only a certain amount of luck to go around. By this reasoning, to improve your own luck you should take someone else’s.
Traditionally piseógs are rooted in Ireland’s agricultural economy and are most powerful if cast on May Eve, especially between the hours of midnight and dawn. They can be put on land and animals to cause crop failure, stillbirths in livestock or, perhaps, to cause a cow’s milk to dry up. Like all spells and curses the intention behind a piseóg is enough to work your magic. However, piseógs are usually designed to cause terror in the intended victim. If someone knows they have been cursed they will quite often hasten their own misfortune and this obviously adds power to the piseóg. For this reason a catalyst is often used. It is intended that the victim sees this catalyst and is therefore aware that they have been cursed. Eggs are by far the most common catalyst used in piseógs.
Some of the more common piseógs – old fashioned perhaps, but still adaptable to modern life/situations.
If you wish to cause stillbirths or disease in your neighbour’s cattle rub an egg on one of your own stillborn calves, pierce a whole in it and leave it in the hay that your neighbour’s cattle feed from. To ruin someone’s crop, place raw meat in their field.
Raw eggs symbolize fertility and, so, rotten eggs symbolize infertility. If you place raw eggs on a person’s land you are cursing their crops to fail. A friend related to me recently how she was cursed by a piseóg around twenty years ago. She and her husband had recently purchased a field and were clearing stones from it. They had left the stones in three mounds in one corner of the field. When they returned the next day they found that someone, presumably a jealous neighbour or someone they had outbid for the field, had left a piseóg on the ground in the centre of the three mounds of stones. The piseóg consisted of six rotten eggs left in the base of an egg carton. A beautifully created súgán (sue-gawn) had been placed in a ring around the eggs. A súgán is a hand-twisted rope made of straw. To make it takes time, effort and skill. While making the súgán the person casting the piseóg concentrates their will on their intention and usually recites a spell they have prepared.
There was no mistaking this for anything other than a piseóg and it was the intention of whoever left it there that my friend and her husband would be distressed by the sight of it. Many people in this situation would be too afraid to touch the eggs and the súgán, but my friend’s husband, wishing to return the malevolence from where it came, used a fork to pitch them into his neighbour’s land. He thought no more about it. The very act of pouring scorn on the curse lessened its power over him. There were no crops planted in that field that year. However, a short time later, this couple’s cows failed a TB test, for the first and only time.
Piseógs can easily be adapted to a non-agricultural setting. After all we all have access to raw eggs! The only difficulty is getting the raw eggs, or whichever catalyst you choose to use, onto someone’s property without them knowing. It is worth also taking some time over the placement and setting of the piseóg. A piseóg that has a strong visual impact, as is the case with the one pictured or the one my friend found with the beautiful súgán around it, will have a stronger impact on the victim than if you simply throw some eggs over a wall onto their property. You also need to think carefully about what ill fortune you wish to befall your victim. Your intention needs to be very clear.
Protection against Piseógs
Piseógs are becoming less common, but they are still feared throughout the countryside. There are two principle ways to protect your property from piseógs. The first, and most common, is to sprinkle water on the four corners of your property on May Eve. Christians believe that the water blessed in a church at easter works best. Others use water from Cumann na dTrí nUisce that has been empowered by a witch, or they have blessed themselves. Cumann na dTrí nUisce is very powerful water that comes from any place where 3 things meet – 3 waters, 3 townlands, 3 roads etc. Another, less common, protection involves dragging a gorse/furze bush around the boundaries of your property. Whichever method is used the aim is to protect the boundaries.
In times past farmers would stay up all night on May Eve to protect their land and cattle. Cattle can also be protected with sprite traps in the form of red ribbons tied around their necks.
What can you do if a piseóg is cast on you?
I believe that a witch bottle is the best counter to a piseóg as, if done correctly, they are always effective. Witch bottles, however, deserve a post of their own and so I will come back to them another day.
