Dr Gillian Kenny

That is an Irish witch.

They steal your butter, which is probably the least threatening witch you've ever heard.

There's a couple of ways you can do it.

You can go to a blacksmith.

They will help you curse.

A blacksmith's curse was really powerful.

You can go to places where there are cursing stones.

There are actual places in the Irish landscape where they set up cursing altars, and you could go and touch them in an anti-clockwise direction while uttering the curse.

So it's a huge ritual.

Gerald of Wales described Irish saints as having a particularly vindictive cast of mind, and they were very, very good at cursing, and they used props.

So they used their bells, their hand bells, and what were called their buckles or croziers.

And they used to use them in these spectacular displays of cursing.

And there's all these crazy stories where they took their buckle and struck it and killed druids and fell dragons.

So there's a total tradition of that.

They're basically a magic wand.

They could use those.

Nice.

Anti-clockwise to curse.

Clockwise to send good thoughts.

But who is going to travel out to one of these places and go, yeah, I love my neighbour.