Mother Mountain @placesandthyme - Tumblr Blog

…

travellingsession

“Irish cursing was a potent art. Stemming from moral indignation, the virtuoso but also shocking technique required knowledge, composure, practice and wit. For victims, it was threatening, disturbing and humiliating. For the imprecators, cursing could be a means of coercion, a cathartic fantasy of their enemies’ destruction, or merely a way of showing off. This psychologically powerful form of magic was deeply rooted in Irish cosmology, tradition and history. However, it thrived in the modern world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because it functioned not only as a potent weapon but also as a gruesome therapy and misanthropic coping strategy in fraught times. Cursing was demanding, sophisticated, formidable and imposing. A magical art like this deserves neither our condescension nor a staid and lifeless dissection, but our (perhaps begrudging) respect.”

— Thomas Waters, Irish Cursing and the Art of Magic, 1750-2018