#duchas

Local Heroes

In Kilreecle there lived a woman named Mrs Broderick. She used to walk to Galway and back again the same day a distance of fifty miles back and forth. On her way to Galway she used to knit a sock and on her way home knit an other. When she reached home she had her pair of socks knitted.

Egg to steal crops:

"One day he found in his turnip drills a boiled goose-egg. The superstition in connection with this is that the person who puts the egg in the crop will be able to steal the crop."

Source

"Certain families are believed to be able to take a great lot of the profit from a field of corn by planting eggs in each corner of the cornfield on May Day.

The people suspected of butter taking are suspected of working magic with the eggs."

Source

"Dheir sé soiléir annsan gur do phiseogaibh a bhí sé ag tagairt agus mhinigh se gur scaipeadh uibheacha go fóir leathan i ngairdínibh prátaí agus sna móinfheárachaibh comh maith, agus sna cocaibh agus sna giobólaibh féir,"

Source

"It happened one day about that time, however, that a stranger came into the place from a good distance away and spend some time about the district. From that day on the practice of planting eggs, pig's heads, slings (aborted calves) and the clearings of slinger cows, and other things too, in the soil of the gardens, and in the meadows and wynds of hay, as well as dumping the (?) articles in bags on farms, grew for years until it destroyed itself."

Source

¿Alguna vez te has preguntado con qué frecuencia deberías realmente ducharte? La respuesta no es tan simple como parece y depende de varios factores como tu tipo de piel, tipo de cabello, rutina de ejercicios y hasta la estación del año. Descubre en este artículo cómo adaptar tus hábitos de higiene para mantener tu piel y cabello en óptimas condiciones, mientras disfrutas de todos los beneficios…

The Use of Willow in Magical Protection

Do those books say for what purpose the willow is placed there?

Willow or Sally, as it's often called, could be used to make churns so there are many references to that but I'm assuming there is a magical component you're looking for. Most refer to a gad of willow.

I can find a reference to willow and butter together for containers in folklore on duchas.ie in the schools collection, this one is from Galway (link). It seems to be preventive here.

"On Hallow Eve the fairies have power to extract the following year's butter form the churn. To prevent this the churn is encircled by a "gad", a willow rod, which is put on so that the lid cannot be lifted off."

I've also found this being used offensively in form of witchcraft to steal someone's good butter (link)

"In olden times witchcraft was practised very much by evil doers. One of these practices was to take the butter off the milk. The person who was guilty of these acts would go out on a Summer's morning at the break of day and walk in and out through the neighbouring farmer's cattle and take a strug of milk from each milch cow into a cup or vessel and bring it home to her own house. She would be usually about to churn when this would take place. She would then start her black magic. She would get a gad and tie it around the churn dash which would then be fixed and ready to churn her own cows milk. It was said that the whole magic lay in the gad that was around the churn dash. The gad was made of young sally rods. Then the churning would proceed and heaps and heaps of butter would rise on and in the churn with the result that before the churning was competed portion of the butter would have to be removed to make room for the remainder of the butter to come on the churn."

While not specified to be willow I do find more references to fairies, gads and Lá bealtaine (link)

"Long ago when the people churned on May Day they would put a "caoráin gad" round the churn to prevent the good people from bringing the butter"

What is a gad? It seems to be a stick or more of flexible sticks stripped of their bark, crushed and made and twisted together then possibly into a circle. (Link)

"The round berry gad was put on the top of the lid. Here is how the round berry gad was made. On May eve the people went out and cut the round berry rods. Then the people peeled the rods and then they twisted the rods and made a gad out of them"

"made of rods crushed and twisted to form what is called a "gad""

Though I did also find this one from Wexford which is unrelated but implies a connection between dairy and willow (link)

"Long ago when old people were putting out their cows, they hit each cow with a willow stick between the horns. The reason was that nobody would be able to take their butter from them then"

While gads seem to typically be willow I did find one for Rowan as well (link)

"Some people as well as going through all the other doings which I have mentioned, put "gads" of rowan tree up over their doors and they also supposed to prevent the losing of the butter."

I hope this was in anyway helpful. This seems to be reasonably well attested to. Willow seems to be used on dairy containers to prevent the Othercrowd from taking it and can also be used to steal it. This seems to be a practice year round but done especially at Lá Bealtaine but also in some places on Oíche Shamhna.