Satire

[Terence]

See Britannica for an excellent Introduction: 

Old  Irish literature is laced with accounts of the
extraordinary power of the poets, whose satires brought
disgrace and even death to their victims:

     . . . saith [King] Lugh to his poet, "what power can
you wield in battle?"

     "Not hard to say," quoth Carpre. . . ."I will satirize
them, so that through the spell of my art they  will not
resist warriors."

-- "The Second Battle of Moytura," trans. by W. Stokes,
Revue Celtique, XII [1891], 52-130.)

 According to saga, when the Irish poet uttered a satire
against his victim, three blisters would appear on the 
victim's cheek, and he would die of shame. One story will
serve as illustration: after Deirdriu of the Sorrows came 
to her unhappy end, King Conchobar fell in love again--this
time with the lovely Luaine. They were to be married;  but,
when the great poet Aithirne the Importunate and his two
sons (also poets) saw Luaine, they were overcome  with
desire for her. They went to Luaine and asked her to sleep
with them. She refused. The poets threatened to  satirize
her. And the story says:

     The damsel refused to lie with them. So then they made
three satires on her, which left three blotches on her
cheeks, to wit, Shame and Blemish and Disgrace . . . .
Thereafter the damsel died of shame. . . .

     ("The Wooing of Luaine . . . ," trans. by  W. Stokes,
Revue Celtique, XXIV [1903], 273-85.)

 An eminent 20th-century authority on these matters adduces
linguistic, thematic, and other evidence to show a 
functional relation between primitive "satire," such as that
of Carpre and Aithirne, and the "real" satire of more 
sophisticated times. Today, among various preliterate
peoples the power of personal satire and ridicule is 
appalling; among the Ashanti of West Africa, for example,
ridicule is (or was recently) feared more than almost  any
other humanly inflicted punishment, and suicide is
frequently resorted to as an escape from its terrors. 
Primitive satire such as that described above can hardly be
spoken of in literary terms; its affiliations are rather
with the magical incantation and the curse.

The blistering (literaly branding) of Irishman on the face
continued for centuries and was a regular practice during
the American Civil War.