Go n-ithe an tochas thú! – May you be eaten by an awful itch!

Go n-ithe an tochas thú! – May you be eaten by an awful itch!

*Except no! No cursing, just information :) You’re all lovely! 

This curse is diabolical!! Everytime I read it I scratch my head, my arm, my knee!! It just gets under the skin!

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So in my first post where I went on and on about my own superstition about curses I mentioned the rebounded curse. In more than one source I read that if a curse was unjustly proclaimed the curse would rebound back on the speaker with even worse consequences! This was taken very seriously within cursing culture. That's not to suggest there weren't harmless or somewhat lighthearted curses like this english one:

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‘Bad luck to your own soul for the head-ache you gave me yesterday, with laughing at your old stories, and drinking your new wine’ 

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I mean I’ve a few friends I could use this one on ;) 

Less serious curses might have been said during arguments like ‘the divil’s luck to you’. 

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Counter curses were also a thing, such as ‘bad luck to you’ getting the response  ‘good luck to you, thin; but may neither of them ever happen’. I can imagine these getting pretty elaborate depending on the speakers. It brings to mind ‘flyting’ an Old English / Old Norse term for trading insults which if anyones played the recent Assassin's Creed Valhalla, will be familiar with these poetry slam battle vibes! (yep I’d lose immediately in a game of counter curses....can I counter with a pretty picture? No? Ah well!

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Irish Cursing and the Art of Magic, 1750–2018* by Thomas Waters