Folk Healing in Rural Wales The Use of Wool Measuring

• Published in: Folk Healing and Health Care Practices In Britain and Ireland p. 80
• Main Author: Susan Philpin
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Berghahn Books 15.06.2010
• Edition: NED - New edition, 1
• Subjects: Agricultural products; Agriculture; Animal fibers; Animal products; Anthropology; Applied sciences; Arts; Behavioral sciences; Biological sciences; Biology; British literature; British studies; Clergy; Clinical psychology; Communities; Cordage; Cultural identity; Depressive disorders; Diseases; Ethnography; Ethnology; European studies; Fiction; Folk literature; Group identity; Healers; Healing; Health sciences; Human societies; Literary genres; Literature; Materials; Materials science; Medical conditions; Mental illness; Mood disorders; Physiological processes; Physiology; Practical theology; Psychology; Religion; Social groups; Social psychology; Sociology; Spiritual leaders; Textiles; Theology; Wool; Yarns
• ISBN: 1845456726; 9781845456726

Wool measuring refers to a particular type of folk healing described in Welsh folk literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but rooted in antiquity, which has survived in parts of rural mid Wales to the present day. Although the folk literature from earlier periods describes the practice in relation to a number of illnesses, the most common form of illness for which wool measuring is currently sought is the condition that people in the communities studied define as ‘depression’¹ or, to use the Welsh expression,clefyd-y-galon, being ‘sick at heart’. This chapter explores the ways in which