It was once widely believed that rats could be got rid of by cursing them steadily in rhyme. Reginald Scot wrote that the Irish thought they could rhyme any beast to death, though in general the power was believed to work on rats. Shakespeare has Rosalind in As You Like It say she was never so berhymed since she was an Irish rat, and Chambers takes the line as a reference to the belief.
Rhyming Rats to Death
Printed under 22 July · Ireland
Lore and belief
It was a prevalent notion in past ages, that you might extirpate rats by a persevering course of anathematising in rhyme.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 103. Read the original
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