Fairy sickness in Ireland

Camden recorded that when an Irishman fell he sprang up, turned round three times to the right, dug the earth with a sword or knife and took up a turf, believing the ground had given back his shadow or that a spirit was in the earth. If he fell ill within two or three days a woman skilled in such things was sent to the spot, where she called him back from the four quarters and from groves, woods, rivers and marshes, and from the fairies white, red and black. At home she whispered a prayer in the sick man’s ear and dropped burning coals into a cup of clear water, to judge whether he had the illness the fairies were thought to inflict.