Dr Gillian Kenny

So they are grotesque and they are doing... Just please Google it, not your work one.

And... LAUGHTER

The idea is that these vulvas of old ladies are so powerful that they can avert the evil eye.

And the older I get, the more I begin to agree with it, I've got to tell you.

Yeah.

All the hugs.

All the hugs from the audience.

Yeah, that's a handy segue.

99 butter churning problems.

Okay, that was a big problem in medieval Ireland because people liked their dairy.

So, Sean, sounds like you've got a butter witch on your hands.

That's a true thing.

These were beings who, in the Irish tradition, transformed into hares to steal milk from cows and to prevent your butter from being churned.

To drive away a butter witch, Sean, what you have to do is burn the thatch from a suspected butter witch's house.

You needed to be sure, or not, if you didn't like her, don't care.

You could also drive the cattle through the ashes or smoke of bonfires on May Eve, or you could try shooting some hares and waiting to see the inevitable, horribly hurt old woman staggering around after it.

LAUGHTER

Because she turned back into an old woman, not because he was shooting old women.

He's shooting hairs.

So they are Irish witches.