‘A Gospel,’… is a text of scripture written in a particular manner, and which has been blessed by a priest. It is sewed in red cbth, and hung round the neck as a cure or preventive against various diseases, &c Few Irish peasants will be found without ‘a gospel’; or, as in the vicinity of Holy Cross, a blessed string, a blessed stone, or a blessed bit of wood, about their persons, which they consider to be an infallible safeguard against evil. Crofton-Croker, II, 163