Elf-Shot and the Cure for it

transcribed at

Elf-Shot and the Cure for it  [duchas:4408503]

When a cow is "elfshot" it is said that the "fairies" have shot her with flint. That is the way the fairies have of shooting

Elf-Shot and the Cure for it  [duchas:4408504]

If they throw it at a cow and hit her, she will, after a time, die.
This is the way "elfshot" cows are cured. There was an old man in Tullyhullion long ago named Patrick Mc Daid, he is dead forty years. He could cure "elfshot".
He collected the outside "scrapings" of the bottoms of nine pots, and scraped some of the cow's hooves and horns and clipped some hair off her back up to her nose.
He then measured the cow three times from the point of the tail to the nose, with the length from his elbow to his finger.
Then he put all the scrapings and hair in

Elf-Shot and the Cure for it  [duchas:4408505]

a plate and put a light to it and burned it under the cow's nose. While it was burning he said some secret words.
This is the real cure, because a man in Tullyhullion once had an "elfshot" cow and this cured her.
Any person whom the fairies want to take, they will throw "flint" at them. there was a woman once saw the fairies throwing flint at her.