the Ordeals. Of this class, probably, are the following: "May this be
poison to me!"--"May I be roasted on red hot iron!" Others of them,
from their boldness of metaphor, seem to be of Oriental descent. One
expression, indeed, is strikingly so. When a deep offence is offered
to an Irishman, under such peculiar circumstances that he cannot
immediately retaliate, he usually replies to his enemy--"You'll sup
sorrow for this!"--"You'll curse the day it happened!"--"I'll make you
rub your heels together!" All those figurative denunciations are used
for the purpose of intimating the pain and agony he will compel his
enemy to suffer.

We cannot omit a form of imprecation for good, which is also habitual
among the peasantry of Ireland. It is certainly harmless, and argues
benevolence of heart. We mean such expressions as the following:
"Salvation to me!--May I never do harm!--May I never do an ill
turn!--May I never sin!" These are generally used by men who are
blameless and peaceable in their lives--simple and well-disposed in
their intercourse with the world.

At the head of those Irish imprecations which are dreaded by the people,
the Excommunication, of course, holds the first and most formidable
place. In the eyes of men of sense it is as absurd as it is illiberal:
but to the ignorant and superstitious, who look upon it as anything but
a _brutum fulmen_, it is terrible indeed.

Next in order are the curses of priests in their private capacity,
pilgrims, mendicants, and idiots. Of those also Paddy entertains a
wholesome dread; a circumstance which the pilgrim and mendicant turn
with great judgment to their own account. Many a legend and anecdote do
such chroniclers relate, when the family, with whom they rest for