A saint's curse was esteemed a most formidable
thing. If unjustly pronounced, it recoiled like a
boomerang against him who had hurled it. Once
pronounced, it must produce its effect, and the only
means of averting its fall was to turn it aside against
a tree or a rock, which it shivered to atoms. In
this the Celtic saint merely stepped into the
prerogatives of the Druid.
In Cormac's Glossary of Old Irishisms—and Cormac, king-bishop of Cashel, died in 903—is a curious instance of the force of a curse in pagan times.
The wife of Caier fell in love with Neidhe the bard, her husband's nephew. Now a bard had the privilege of hurling a curse if a request made by him should be refused, but not else. So the woman, desiring to be rid of her husband, bade the bard ask of the king a knife which had been given to him in Alba, on condition that he never parted with it. Neidhe demanded the knife.
"Woe and alas!" said Caier, "it is prohibited to me to give it away."
Neidhe was now able to pronounce a glam dichinn, or curse. Here it is:—
"Evil, death, and short life to Caier!
May spears of battle slay Caier;
The rejected of the land be Caier;
Buried under mounds and stones be Caier!"
Caier went out next morning to wash at the well, when he found that boils and blains had broken out over his face, disqualifying him for reigning, as a king must be unblemished. He accordingly
