I used a term in the post the other day and the same person who emailed me about my “witchiness” came back at me saying that leighseanna is an Irish word for a witch’s spell and if I don’t want people to call me a witch, I shouldn’t use words like that.
The short reply is no, it is not. It has never meant that. It is a word still used in Irish today. It is the plural of leigheas. It means remedies. People trying to make it something more than that are pushing the “herbal remedies equals witchy” trope.
When it comes to discussing language though, I am never content with just giving a short answer. Pisreóg, piseog or pishogue might be the closest word we have to that. In the Dineen dictionary, the variations of this term were defined as having to do with witchcraft. He might have retrieved that from an older British dictionary written by William Shaw in 1780,1 as a lot of the entries seem to line up.
pisreóg, pisreogach, pistreog. See piseog, piseogach.
piseog, -oige, -oga, f., witchcraft, sorcery; a charm, a spell; lucht piseog, wizards, diviners;
Dineen Dictionary’s entries
piseoga, pl., superstitious acts, witchcraft.
piseogach, -aighe, a., like a witch or wizard; belonging to witchcraft.
piseogacht, -a, f., act of bewitching, of setting charms or spells,
little bit; dim. of píosa).
The word witchcraft, however, was widely overused; usually as an effort to criminalize Indigenous practices and oppress people. Dineen did not bother to take the time to distinguish between a witch and a service magician. To his religious sensibilities anyone who used “magic” was a witch and working with evil forces. You see this attitude often when members of the clergy wrote about cunning folk and wise women in the 1600s.
I choose my language very carefully so that it lines up with historical practice in a way that is least influenced by colonizers. The word “witch” is an English word, derived from the old English words “wicca” and “wicce” which are probably tied to the Old English word “wǽcan” meaning to weaken, oppress, or trouble “wác.”
A witch is a worker of maleficence, and this practice is not synonymous with other cultures’ ritual healing specialists or service magicians people might consult for help. Even in England, there were other words for benevolent practitioners such as magi, fortune teller, cunning person, or wise woman.
You will find in the oral narrative of most cultures both workers of maleficence and magic workers whose job it is to negate the effects of that magic. Irish culture is a bit different in that there was more focus on the aes sídhe (the Fae or fairies lit. “people of the mounds”) as the protagonist and truly little mention of witches.
I recently had an interesting conversation with one of my history nerd friends. They had read that as belief in fairies waned, old women and witches replaced them in seanscéal. That seems plausible based on how similar the stories are. I even found one story of a witch stealing a human child and replacing it with a baby witch. The butter “witches” that I mentioned Mooney talking about in my last post would fit in this hypothesis as well since the Fae were well known for stealing the butter.
That is all conjecture though. What I know is that I grew up around people who were very much into their folk beliefs including the throwing around of curses and blessings and no one ever once mentioned the idea that they were witches. Even the most devoutly Catholic of old-timers could tell you about the pisreóga of their region or call down mallacht (curses) or beannacht (blessings), and that common use is what sets these practices apart from witchcraft.
So, what do those words mean? Pisreóga is also spelled piseoga or you might see the Hiberno-English spelling pishogue. It varies by region. In Co. Mayo where they speak a variant of the Connaught dialect, we read about Pisreóga of the Parish. In Co. Waterford, where they speak a variant of the Munster dialect, we read about Old Customs And Piseoga. Because the Munster dialect is often taught as “standard” learners Irish, that spelling seems to be winning out these days, especially in academic circles.
Today pisreóga are most often defined as a superstitious belief, but I really hate the negative connotation the word superstition carries with it. Every culture has its own unique folk beliefs. It is what accounts for our divergent customs and traditions. It is unacceptable that scholars continue to identify Indigenous beliefs as superstition and witchcraft. It is a type of cultural erasure due in part to colonization tactics perpetuated by academia.
I grew up believing piseog or pishogue was the specific term for an action while pisreóga spoke more of the general beliefs, and Dineeen’s entries seem to back that up, but I think even if it was that way once, it’s all mixed up now. One explanation of the meaning is that these words are related to the word piseach which means improvement or increase and that these terms drew their name “from the idea of increase and good fortune” that using them brought about. 2
Pisreóga could be believing in a portent such as a lucky black cat or the bad luck that meeting a pig on the way to the market might bring you. A piseog might involve putting coals under the churn to keep the fairies away from the butter or marking settings of hatching eggs with a cross.
There are also piseog that involve bringing misfortune to a neighbor to bring yourself good fortune. It was usually in the form of charms that stole butter or crops from a neighbor. The belief in stealing butter was very strong in all parts of Ireland. It was attributed to the fairies, old women who turned themselves into hares, or neighbors.
There are specific service magicians thought to be especially knowledgeable of healing pisreóga in the form of cures, charms, or prayers. I have seen them called many things in the past, including cailleach luibh [herb hag], fairy doctors, lucht piseog, fear piseog, and bean feasa. There’s an interesting entry in the Schools collection written by a teacher in Co. Limerick who used the term piseog doctor.3
“They say that the most suitable place that the piseog doctor (the man who practises piseoga) could find to work his charms and practises is a double ditch that is a boundary, between two parishes. I am not sure now is it between two parishes or two townlands or two baronies. They (the piseog doctors) had some particular power there. (Dick Butler) – (Any connection between the site of the piseog doctors special potency and the erection of oghamh stones on the tuath boundary i Sean-Éirinn? D.O.C)1
It is crucial to point out that these people still exist in Ireland and the diaspora, and don’t associate their practice with witches or witchcraft. The Irish Times just published an interesting article about this back in December.2 I was surprised the people agreed to be interviewed.
The Irish and their diaspora are also known for their really elaborate mallacht (curses). They are the flipside of all the Irish beannacht (blessings) we read about. Some people like to assert that this is some leftover remnant of Ireland’s pagan past, but the truth of the matter is that no one knows that for sure and there’s plenty of folk magic in the Bible, so I don’t want to make claims I can’t substantiate.
Some mallacht are all in playful fun while others wished harm on the receiver, but not to worry because you can send back a curse and it is often said that you should be careful of bringing a curse on someone because “curses like hens come home to roost.”
It isn’t just about people cursing people. If February has nice weather, it’s said to curse the other months. People cursed the winds back to hell during a storm. My great-grandma taught me that the blackbird curses you if you steal from their nest. (She had a thing for blackbirds, she named my grandpa Merle even though most people thought it was a girl’s name.)
Some historians will tell you the difference between pisreóga and mallacht is that curses are only meant to bring harm to evildoers. That is a highly debatable statement that most of the old-timers I knew would have just laughed at. I’ve seen plenty of curses called out in the heat of the moment on people who were not deserving of them, but I worked for some time as a bartender at a bar where the local priest came to drink and watch Notre Dame play basketball.
Curses are often brought down on landlords, bankers, and judges. Since I am a proper peasant, I really don’t have a problem with that. However, when your priest throws out a curse just because you marry someone who isn’t Catholic, I am going to call foul on that. My great-grandfather was presumably born with his club foot because of a curse placed on our family. Looking back on the family history it’s not hard to understand why they believed that.
So in summary, no I don’t believe you should be substituting the word witch for the appropriate names for service magicians who are benevolent. I do not even believe we should be using the term witch outside of certain cultures.
It is also not respectful to appropriate the name of another culture’s deities, magic workers, or rituals, so please don’t come at me with the whole Celtic Shaman nonsense either.
1. Maclagan, Robert Craig. Evil Eye in the Western Highlands. D. Nutt, 1902.
2. Specia, Megan. ‘The New York Times Came to Ireland to Look for Secret Charms and Seventh Sons. This Is What It Found’. The Irish Times. Accessed 23 December 2021.https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-new-york-times-came-to-ireland-to-look-for-secret-charms-and-seventh-sons-this-is-what-it-found-1.4761862.
3. Shaw, William. A Galic and English Dictionary: Containing All the Words in the Scotch and Irish Dialects of the Celtic, … Vol. 1–2. W. and A. Strahan, 1780.
4. The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0507, Page 141 Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD
I was surprised that I have gotten some emails since I went “live” with the new site and just thought I would answer the questions here. Yes, I am still pulling in posts from the old blog, and it takes a bit because they must be reformatted to this latest version of WordPress. No, I am not going to pull them all in. For now, at least, I am going to leave the NSL website as my “work” blog. The old site is down as of 1 Apr 2023.
Finally, I heard from a couple people who told me that I should be capitalizing on my “witchy aesthetic” and writing more about Irish witchcraft. “You are sooo witchy and that’s hot right now.”
About that…
If I have an aesthetic, its dark academia mixed with a good dose of dragon core which is goblin core mixed with a good dose of DnD memorabilia.
Secondly… the history of witchcraft is not at all what people think it is. It’s frustrating to me that just because I am knowledgeable about cultural folkways people want to label me that way. This whole website is a pushback against the idea. Using herbal remedies is something that every caregiver used to do for their family and not some witchy ritual.
What Is a Ritual?
Some of you may be aware of Paul Grossman as the researcher who finally put the faulty physiology that is used to support polyvagal theory to rest. He is the Emeritus Research Director of Psychosomatics at Universitätsspital Basel. (It’s a terrible shame that the word psychosomatic has become seen as being dismissive when what it really speaks to is the interaction between the body and the mind and how that impacts our health.) Grossman has aptly summarized the way that ritual is a valid method of improving well-being.
Improvements in psychological wellbeing don’t rely very much at all upon the method (or, perhaps, ritual would be a better word) chosen: improvement has more to do with having some ritual one believes in, a practitioner of it who seems competent to the client, a joint plan and goals, and maybe most importantly an atmosphere of trust and compassion.
Paul Grossman Universitätsspital Basel
I can engage in rituals that benefit my well-being without framing them in magical or religious context. I have a stress-busting ritual in which I put on some relaxing music, light some candles, run a hot bath, add infused oils, and soak for awhile. This doesn’t have blessed thing to do with magic, but it will absolutely help my body to shift into the parasympathetic state of rest and respose. I believe in my ritual because I know the science behind my actions is valid.
Some ritual components of early service magic such as Saxon and Gaelic charms, crossed over into popular practice and I will undoubtedly mention them at times. It’s worth pointing out though that this took many forms. Some practitioners chose to associate their magic with the Fae while others asked for the blessing of St. Brighid or a Christian deity and those people’s beliefs should also be respected.
Irish and Scottish Gaelic charms were an enchanting mishmash of pagan and Christian beliefs and I truly prefer to see them left in their original form. I see no reason to muck around with making those “witchy” when there has already been an unseemly amount of “re-paganization” of things that were more than likely never pagan, to begin with. Take the following blessing from Mackenzie’s Gaelic Incantations (1868):
Gu’m beannaicheadh Dia mo shùil,
’S beannaichidh mo shùil na chì;
Beannaichidh mise mo nàbuidh,
’S beannaichidh mo nàbuidh mi.
Let God Bless my Eye,
And my eye will bless all I see,
I will bless my neighbor,
And my neighbor will bless me.
It is sweet and simple and evidence that the tenents of Christianity once involved loving thy neighbor, even if it has gone off the rails in modern times.
There are certainly ritual healing specialists1 or service magicians as Hutton calls them who mix their herbal remedies with magical intention in every culture. Service magicians often perform ceremonies using plants. They utilize the power of performance and ceremony to create in those watching a mental predisposition toward healing.
I am not the first person to propose that these folk are aware of and purposefully cultivate their image in a way that draws attention to and cultivates respect for their knowledge. In the Lacnunga post, I mentioned a couple who had clearly become known in the 1930s for their abilities.
Ritual healing specialists tick all Grossman’s boxes, just as surely as a therapist does. What I don’t understand is why people get upset when I make statements like this and see it as discounting magic. Compassionate service magicians have learned to connect with their clients on a deep and meaningful level.
I don’t care what they choose to call that connection, but I also don’t want to see herbal medicine defined this way. There is nothing witchy about clinical herbal practice. I worked hard to obtain an education which included a solid foundation of A&P, biochemistry, pathology, phytochemistry, and nutrition. I don’t appreciate being compared to people who use crystals to heal people, so please don’t call me witchy.
Domestic Medicine 
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