Drimial Agus Thorial

Lady Jane Francesca Wilde

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland

1888

When a girl wishes to gain the love of a man, and to make him marry her, the dreadful spell is used called Drimial Agus Thorial. At dead of night, she and an accomplice go to a churchyard, exhume a newly-buried corpse, and take a strip of the skin from the head to the heel. This is wound round the girl as a belt with a solemn invocation to the devil for his help.

After she has worn it for a day and a night she watches her opportunity and ties it round the sleeping man whose love she desires; during which process the name of God must not be mentioned.

When he awakes the man is bound by the spell; and is forced to marry the cruel and evil harpy. It is said the children of such marriages bear a black mark round the wrist, and are known and shunned by the people, who call them "sons of the devil."

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