Piseog – sometime pisreog – might well be the most regularly used, yet obscure and misused word within common Hiberno-English parlance. Most Irish people use the word casually in its meaning of superstition or omen.

There are numerous examples of piseogs of this nature such as never putting shoes on a table, always going out the same door that you came in or never handing anyone a knife.

These beliefs make practical sense because the shoes treading on the ground will be dirty and carry disease, while a knife, when badly handled, could easily result in injury.

We are all bound somewhat by these inherited observances, myself included, and we prefer to observe them rather than tempting fate. Waving to magpies, throwing salt over our shoulder or nailing an old horseshoe over the door are second nature to us.

The great Irish lexicographer, Rev Patrick Dineen, in his seminal dictionary of the Irish language renders it: ‘piseog, - oige, - oga, f., witchcraft, sorcery; a charm, a spell’. A piseog was a specific entity used in magic by one person on another designed to inflict bad luck on the recipient while bringing benefit to themselves.

A few entries above his entry on piseog, Dineen includes the word pis, the Irish word for the vulva, from which the term piseog ultimately derives. The casting of piseogs was very often carried out by older women, usually using items that had distinct female and fertility associations and specifically at this junction of the year, Bealtaine, 1 May.

May morning

On May morning, the fecundity of the crops and animals was still in the balance. This is the time, for example, when the blossom is on the fruit trees and if the weather is kind and the bees active, a great crop might be expected. Equally, a bout of wet and windy weather around May Day will result in a dismal fruit year.

The significance of this turning point was even more critical for the cereal and potato crops, along with the milk yield and the resultant quantities of butter.

Much of the May morning magic centred on getting rid of any malevolence or ill-fortune that had befallen a family or farm. If, for example, a calf was stillborn, not only did this result in the loss of a calf but it also affected the milk yield of the cow.

Consequently, the calf was sometimes buried in the manure heap and the farmer waited until May morning to take it and throw it away from the farm.

It was best to cast it into no-man’s land where its negativity was cancelled, but if it was thrown onto another’s land, the bad luck was transferred with it.

Sometimes, when malice was intended to another, the dead calf was eviscerated and its putrid organs hidden on the farm. It was common to put such piseogs in the well so that the water was contaminated and would harbour disease.

Much of the May morning magic centred on getting rid of any malevolence or ill-fortune that had befallen a family or farm

In pre-industrial Ireland, the water from the spring well was vital for everything on the farm. It was used for cooking and washing and, when butter was churned in the dash-churn, fresh, cold water was needed to wash out any buttermilk that otherwise caused the butter to go rancid.

Such was its significance, many farmers got up before dawn on May morning, to guard the barra bua an tobair, – the first water from the top of the well’.

The water on May morning was considered at its most efficacious and was therefore the focus for malicious piseogs.

Various items embodying female potency, or lack of it, were deposited there. Many may remember the piseogs that came in the form of eggs, usually infertile ‘glugger’ eggs, on which the hen sat but had never hatched out.

As an act of malintent, a cluster of these sterile eggs might be left at the well. They were also frequently hidden in the hay rick or secreted in the potato drills.

Rags soaked with menstrual blood were amongst the most potent piseogs, while the well was similarly adulterated by urine and faeces.

Finding these piseogs had a terrible effect on people as they immediately associated them with subsequent misfortunes that invariably came their way in the form of illness, disease or poor yields.

I think many readers will agree that it’s one of our many May Day traditions best confined to the distant past.

Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: slehane@ucc.ie