There’s them kin work the Black Art of the Divil and there’s not a word of lie in that. It cud be done before and it can still be done. I heared a priest in Dundalk the other week preaching that it cud be done!
There’s several ways of doing it. A man cud sell his soul to the devil and be free and rich and merry for seven years and then the devil wud come till claim him. But he cud make the devil sweep the bottom of the seven seas for him before he’d go and all the time the money pouring out of the tops of he’s boots.
There was some way of swearing on an anvil in a blacksmith’s forge. Sure Willy the Wisp was a blacksmith in the first place that sold himself till the Divil an’ beat him in the end. An’ they cud hold up the Ace of Hearts at the Consecration of the Mass and they’d get the Black Art. Or gather the seeds of the bracken on black plates on Hallow Eve at midnight. And ye cud read some book that came from foreign parts: it was a book with black pages and white writing and you had to read it from back to front and from right till left. They called it the Book of Harry Stotle. And it warned you
‘Read me through
Peruse me not
Or Hell’s Fire
Will be your lot.’
Sure I’ll tell ye more the next time ye call on your ceili!