In
Celtic mythology, a Joint-eater, Just-halver or Alp-luachra (Ireland) is a type of
fairy who sits invisibly and consumes half of their victim's food.
[Briggs, Katharine (1976). ''An Encyclopedia of Fairies''. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 243 ] When a person falls asleep by the side of a spring or stream, the Alp-luachra appears in the form of a
newt
A newt is a salamander in the subfamily Pleurodelinae. The terrestrial juvenile phase is called an eft. Unlike other members of the family Salamandridae, newts are semiaquatic, alternating between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Not all aqua ...
and crawls down the person's mouth, feeding off the food that they had eaten. In Robert Kirk's ''Secret Commonwealth of Fairies'', this creature feeds not on the food itself, but on the "pith or quintessence" of the food.
A man haunted by a joint-eater will never grow fat, because the pith or quintessence of the food is consumed by the fairy.
[.] People who consume newts are thought to be plagued in this way.
In
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Ross Hyde ( ga, Dubhghlas de hÍde; 17 January 1860 – 12 July 1949), known as (), was an Irish academic, linguist, scholar of the Irish language, politician and diplomat who served as the first President of Ireland from June 1938 t ...
's collection of folk tales, ''
Beside the Fire'',
a farmer, who was starving from an Alp-luachra, was eventually rid of the fairy. He was instructed to eat large amounts of
salted meat and, when he could eat no more, lie still with his mouth open just above the surface of a stream. After having been driven to thirst by the salt, the offspring of the Alp-luachra, and eventually the Alp-luachra mother herself, jumped into the water. Hence, to rid one's self of an Alp-Luachra, one should eat a large quantity of salt beef, without drinking anything, and then lie by a running stream with their mouth wide open; after a long wait, the Alp-Luachra will become thirsty, and will jump into the stream to drink.
See also
*
Tapeworm
Eucestoda, commonly referred to as tapeworms, is the larger of the two subclasses of flatworms in the class Cestoda (the other subclass is Cestodaria). Larvae have six posterior hooks on the scolex (head), in contrast to the ten-hooked Cesto ...
References
Aos Sí
Fairies
Fantasy creatures
Irish folklore
Irish legendary creatures
Legendary amphibians
Tuatha Dé Danann
Fictional parasites and parasitoids
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