Luck o'the Dead

So I came across something while looking for something else for a blog entry, oh the random tangents we go on in life.  Superstitions are always ingrained into society and when it comes to the dead there are a lot of them.  The Irish I must say have some of the most interesting uses for people after they are dead and superstitions I have come across.

So cutting off and using dead the hand of the dead is very popular in superstitions. 

It can be used for:

-Making butter (not kidding)

 -Facilitating effective robberies with a candle placed in a dead hand if carried into the house when the inhabitants are asleep, the inhabitants will not wake as long as the hand is under their roof.

-A Dead unbaptized infants hand taken fresh from the grave is apparently a powerful charm

-A dead hand can also cure most diseases if it is laid on the ill

The Other thing that is taken from the dead is a corner of the shroud in which they are placed in the ground with.  This is said to be used to cure headaches if tied around the head, and cure-swollen limbs if tied around the affected area.

A piece of skin taken from the arm of a corpse is a powerful love charm if tied to the arm of the person whom the practitioner fancies.  The skin is then removed after a time before the sleeper wakes.  As long as the skin is with the practitioner the love will hold.  

The skin can also be used by being placed under a pillow and if so is done the sleeper will see their future spouse in a dream. 

 After all this I think it is archaeologically relevant to note that after the unburial to gain these morbid objects, there is a reburial or secondary burial of the corpse, absent of something that it had before.