_Charms._--_The Evil Eye._--Going one day into a cottage in the village
of Catterick, in Yorkshire, I observed hung up behind the door a
ponderous necklace of "lucky stones," i.e. stones with a hole through
them. On hinting an inquiry as to their use, I found the good lady of
the house disposed to shuffle off any explanation; but by a little
importunity I discovered that they had the credit of being able to
preserve the house and its inhabitants from the baneful influence of the
"evil eye." "Why, Nanny," said I, "you surely don't believe in witches
now-a-days?" "No! I don't say 'at I do; but certainly i' former times
there _was_ wizzards an' buzzards, and them sort o' things." "Well,"
said I, laughing, "but you surely don't think there are any now?" "No! I
don't say at ther' are; but I _do_ believe in a _yevil_ eye." After a
little time I extracted from poor Nanny more particulars on the subject,
as viz.:--how that there was a woman in the village whom she strongly
suspected of being able to look with an evil eye; how, further, a
neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge
owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining
sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the
poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died,
nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong belief that she had
pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got
from her an account of how any one who chose could themselves obtain the
power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as nearly as I can
recollect, as follows:--
"Ye gang out ov' a night--ivery night, while ye find nine
toads--an' when ye've gitten t' nine toads, ye hang 'em up ov' a
string, an' ye make a hole and buries t' toads i't hole--and as
't toads pines away, so 't person pines away 'at you've looked
upon wiv a yevil eye, an' they pine and pine away while they
die, without ony disease at all!"
I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of
gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine
piece of Folk Lore.
The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an
ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated
as follows:--
"From witches and wizards and long-tail'd buzzards,
And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,
Good lord, deliver us."