she had within her reach a very decent pharmacopoeia, perhaps as harmless as that of the profession itself.  Lying on the top of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and sewed in the folds of her own scapular was the dust of what had once been a four-leaved shamrock, an invaluable specific “for seein’ the good people,” if they happened to come within the bounds of vision.  Over the door in the inside, over the beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of withered palm, that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday; and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being overlooked by evil eyes, or elf-shot* by the fairies, who seem to possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the period of parturition.  It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, the toothache, headache, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let it suffice to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them; and that, in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing forever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife.  Whether it produced this desirable object or not our readers may conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to disappear from the neighborhood, in order to avoid meeting with Bartley, who had a sharp lookout for him, not exactly on his own account, but “in regard,” he said, “that it had no effect upon Mary, at all, at all;” whilst Mary, on the other hand, admitted its efficacy upon herself, but maintained, “that Bartley was worse nor ever afther it.”

* This was, and in remote parts of the country still is, one of the strongest instances of belief in the power of the Fairies.  The injury, which, if not counteracted by a charm from the lips of a “Fairy-man,” or “Fairy-woman,” was uniformly inflicted on the animal by what was termed an elf-stone—­which was nothing more nor less than a piece of sharp flint, from three to four or five ounces in weight.  The cow was supposed to be struck upon the loin with it by these mischievous little beings, and the nature of the wound was indeed said to be very peculiar—­that is, it cut the midriff without making any visible or palpable wound on the outward skin.  All animals dying of this complaint, were supposed to be carried to the good people, and there are many in the country who would not believe that the dead carcass of the cow was that of the real one at all, but an old log or block of wood, made to resemble it.  All such frauds, however, and deceptions were inexplicable to every one, but such as happened to possess a four-leaved shamrock, and this enabled its possessor to see the block or log in its