Old-Fashioned Headache Tips
Here are 16 “sure-fire” folk remedies for headaches. Back then, they didn’t have that warning, “Don’t try these at home”! (But we do now, so proceed with caution!)
It may stretch the imagination but these are real folk remedies for headaches back in the day. As an aside, we’ve heard that humor is a great way to relieve stress so maybe these weird ways to cure a headache will tickle your funny bone, if nothing else!
- Place leeches on your forehead.
- Rub cow dung and molasses on your temples.
- Tie a buzzard’s head around your neck.
- Use powdered moss as snuff.
- Have someone else rub your head; the headache will be transferred to that person, but it will be less severe.
- Have a relative read chapters of the Bible to you.
- Stand on your head or spin around until you are dizzy.
- Soak your feet in hot water to draw blood from your head.
- Run around the house three times.
- Ask a seventh child to blow in your ear.
- Put a buckwheat cake on your head.
- Rub your head with a piece of stone containing iron ore.
- Wrap damp cloths around your head and burn scented wood.
- Plait a handful of hair very tightly on top of your head.
- Lean your head against a tree and have someone else drive a nail into the opposite side of the tree.
- Tie a leather thong tightly around your head. (If this fails, you may tell your friends, “The thong is over, but the malady lingers on,” which will give them headaches.)
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Heidi Stonehill
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Here is an old-time cure from Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow (Braucherei) that I consistently use with success:
A self-Powwowing charm to heal oneself from a headache:
One sits in a chair facing East, with the Bible on one's lap, and one's right hand upon it. One then repeats the following charm 3x.
"Dies Wasser und dies Feuer
Dies Wasser und dies Feuer
Dies Wasser und dies Feuer
Dies ist ein grosse Dinge
In dies grosses geheilige land
Unser shoene Frau Maria.
+ + +"
Translation:
This water and this fire,
This water and this fire,
This water and this fire,
This is a big thing,
In this big holy land
Our pretty lady, Maria.
+ + +
Upon coming to "Our pretty lady Maria" - Wring/rub your hands almost like you are wringing out a towel to get rid of the pain and throw it away.
This charm should be done as described, two more times, with 15 min intervals between treatments (for a total of the charm being repeated 9 times over 3 treatments).
15 min intervals because biblically, 5 is a number of freedom, and 3 is the number of the Trinity; thus, 5x3 or freedom declared in the Name of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) =15.
+ + + is the sign of the Three Holy Names (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost) of which we end nearly all of our charms in. There is no need to say Amen afterword.
Some state the charm should be done in the dialect, but I have had much success with the translation, so feel free to use either the dialect or English at your discretion.
Blessings,
+ + +
Jason David
Number 5. Not the transfer part. But science has proven that touch from another person stimulates the production of endorphins, your bodies natural painkillers. It even works a little to rub your own head, gently of course. Good luck...
Wow... some of these look like they would make it worst.
The French never-fail remedy was the guillotine.
Mom told us to press a penny to our forehead and concentrate the pain to the penny. :-)
When I was a child my step-father would tie a strip of cloth around my head as tight as it would go when I had a migraine. Started getting them at 9 years old. It worked. Doesn't work now that I am older and the pain is more severe. Strange, huh?
the cow dung worked well but a prefer the leather thong
