but before the purchase another man had been looking at it and been
very anxious to have it, and praised it as a splendid beast. It was
not long in the reciter’s possession until it had some complaint from
which it died. The people—the reciter does not himself say he shares
the feeling—believe that it was killed by the Evil Eye, for it had been
known to everybody how anxious the disappointed man had been to get it,
and how highly he had spoken of it.
SYMPTOMS IN ANIMALS ASCRIBED TO EFFECT OF EVIL EYE
One naturally asks what are the symptoms which, when present in
animals, have given rise to the supposition that they were affected by
the Evil Eye.
A woman gives the following account of what happened to her mother. She
had been married very young, and was sitting by the fire suckling her
first child with her breasts bare. The child had fallen asleep on her
left arm. “My mother heard something behind her, and when she turned
her head, there was a tall, grey-haired, ill-favoured-looking woman
standing. My mother got up hurriedly, and having a great deal of milk,
the milk spouted from her right breast into the fire. The _cailleach_
gave an unpleasant laugh and said, ‘The milk has gone along with the
pee.’ My mother answered pleasantly enough, ‘Oh no, the milk and pee
will be all right,’ and gave the _cailleach_ what she wanted. She was a
Tiree _cailleach_, and they were all looked upon as being bad ones. The
next time my mother was going to give her baby a drink she found she
had not a drop of milk for him. The baby was crying, and when he would
cry she would cry too, and what was to be done? This state of things
lasted for a day, and my father then went for assistance from a person
supposed to be skilled.”
The expression used by the Tiree woman was understood by the reciter to
mean the milk that should have nourished the child was to turn into
water in the mother’s system, and be so discharged.
Yawning has been ascribed to the effect of the Evil Eye.
An Islay man said: “_Bha piuthair aig an te nach maireann agus bha i
cho boidheach ’sa chunnaic sibh riomh. Aon uair thainig boireannach a
stigh agus thoiseach i air a chaileag a mholadh gu ro mhor. Well, cha
robh a bhean sin ach gann air dol amach nur a thoiseach a chaileag air
meunanaich, agus cha robh fad gus an robh i cho dona agus gun robh iad
a saoilsinn gum bitheadh i air falbh._”
(“My late wife had a sister, and she was as pretty as ever you saw.
Once a woman came in and commenced praising the girl excessively. Well,
scarcely was that woman gone out of the house when the girl began to
yawn, and it was not long till she was so bad that they thought that
she would be away (die).”)
In the case of a child which was quite quiet and looking well, with
the mother sitting nursing it, a neighbouring woman, who is not much
liked in the place, came in. She sat a little while, and was no time
away until the child began to cry. It cried long and bitterly, and
its mother got into a fearful state, protesting of the other woman:
“_Co fior’s tha mi beo, chronaich i mo phaisde_” (“As true as I am
alive she injured my child”). It is interesting to note that in this
case “a little white powder” prescribed by a qualified practitioner
counteracted that Evil Eye.
Another case in which a child was ill was told as follows:—A woman went
to inquire after a man who had just lost his wife in the Low Country,
and brought their child home to his relations. She was told that the
child was “not but poorly.” “What is the matter with him?” I asked.
My informant answered me, that his mother had been sitting at the fire
and the child in her bosom, when two women came to ask for the child’s
father. The child was quite well and brisk when they came in, but
before they went away he began to cry and groan. “He was quite sure,”
he said, “that one or other of them had injured the child, but why they
should do that he did not know, for they both had families of their
own.” This case was cured by an unlicensed practitioner.
The following is from a woman of her own experience in the case of
her own son. She told that his sister went out with him one day to a
neighbour’s house. He was sitting in her lap, when the neighbour’s
daughter called her mother’s attention to the white beauty of the
child’s legs. The mother agreed, and something more was said praising
the child, and he then got a drink of milk. Well, as soon as he took
the milk, he began as if he were singing, “Do re do, do re do.” This he
continued to do for a good while, and was very fretful. This child was
cured by a magic thread which stopped the “humming.”
Cattle, in popular belief, are much more liable to damage from the Evil
Eye than other animals, judging from the greater number of instances
related of it in their case. “Two of M. McN.’s cattle died within a
short time of each other, and all the old people of the place persisted
in saying they were injured by some Evil Eye.” A reciter told of her
mother, who had married the elder of two brothers occupying a farm in
common, getting the credit of the Evil Eye because, shortly after her
marriage, the cattle on the farm “began to die right away.”
In the following case motive is given, and if any overt act of a
magical nature had been said to occur, it would certainly have to be
classified as witchcraft, but seeing there is no such history, it is
one of those cases in which the action of an Evil Eye was evidently not
supposed to be involuntary. The heir to a tenant who had fallen into
arrears, having paid what was owing, got possession from the superior.
Meanwhile a woman had been living in the house. She was warned to
leave, but paid no heed to the warning, and it became necessary to turn
her out by force. She got shelter from a relative near by, while the
new tenant went to live in the house from which she had been ejected.
“But if he did, he soon suffered for it, for he was not long there
until he had lost nine of his cattle by death, and he and every one
else believed that they had been “_air an cronachadh_” by the woman
from spite.
There are no symptoms recounted in these general losses.
More rarely than of cows, we hear of stirks being affected. This is
rather an old story, and the authority for this is the reciter’s
father, who told it of his own father. He was at market in
Stratherrick, and refused to part, after considerable bargaining, with
a stirk he had to a would-be buyer. “Before the market-day closed, down
fell the stirk on the ground and nothing could make it get up.”
In a quite recent case, however, a stirk, said to be affected by the
Evil Eye, “was very ill; its horns were quite cold, and it could not
eat anything. The beast recovered.”
By far most commonly, evil from a “bad eye” comes to cows. A reciter
tells of an instance that occurred to himself, where in a farm
previously occupied, his mother had a particularly good cow. “One day
my sister was in a neighbour’s house, and she was telling the woman
about the lot of milk this cow had. The next day when my mother went
out at the usual hour to milk the cow, she had scarcely begun when this
woman passed close to where she was milking. Well, not a drop of milk
could my mother get from that cow. The cow became suddenly unwell and
fell to the ground. The skin came off her udder and not a bit of skin
was on it after that. There was not the least doubt but that it was the
other woman that had injured her.”
A native of Skye, in whose younger days the belief in the Evil Eye was
very common there, and who remembers seeing “a general turn up” in the
township in which she was brought up, caused by the alleged effect of
one person’s Evil Eye upon the cattle of the neighbours, tells how
her father had a fine Ayrshire cow. She was such a good milker that
it was necessary to milk her three times every day. “All of a sudden
her milk left her, and they never could account for it, except on the
supposition of the action of an Evil Eye, and in fact were quite sure
that this was the case.”
The reciter of the following says she remembers a Sutherlandshire
minister telling it to her mother. He said that one time his cows were
not giving the right milk. The milk was more like water than milk, and
as for butter, not a bit could he get, no matter how well it might be
churned. The minister here, on the advice of his housekeeper, resorted
to witchcraft for a cure.
Another reciter says: “When my sister and myself were lumps of lasses
we were down the road one day with a cow of my father’s. When we
brought her home the milk was running from her, and she lay down on the
floor and she wouldn’t rise. When they tried to put her up she would
make as if she would climb up the wall.”
In fact, as another reciter in Rothiemurchus said: “It used to be a
very common experience to have cows going off their milk, and sometimes
dying from the effects of a person possessed of an Evil Eye looking
upon them, and it is still believed that cases of this kind happen.”
A cow that was “kicking and would let nobody milk her,” being cured by
one of the processes against the Evil Eye, the cure was understood to
certify the diagnosis.
Mrs. McN. was milking her cow. A woman passing at the time remarked,
looking at the cow the while, “That is a grand cow, and she gives a
great deal of milk.” “Yes, she is a good cow,” replied the owner, and
the woman having passed on there was no more about it, until a little
while after the milking was done the cow lay down on the ground and
began to roll in great pain. There never was any doubt but that it was
a case of injury by the Evil Eye. The cow was cured by magic.
Another cow “grew to be unwell, and she was rolling herself upon the
ground.” She was so unwell that the schoolmaster, who was a great
friend of her owner’s, advised him to send for a man to flay her. She
recovered.
Of course a recognised wizard may have the Evil Eye as much as a more
innocent person. The reciter of this, a credulous man, no doubt, and
uneducated, with the gift of the gab and a good deal of natural
shrewdness, a distillery workman, is detailing his own experience. “The
cows were all tied in the byre, and we were looking in the window and
saw the _Buidseach ruadh_ (the red wizard) standing at the byre door.
The door was in two halves, the upper half was open at the time, the
lower closed, and he was leaning on it and gazing with all his might
at one of the cows. The kitchen was at the end of the byre, and they
always came straight down from the kitchen when they were going to
milk. The women just came down then, and when they came to the cow
that he had been looking at, not a drop of milk could they get. When
they untied her to let her out she gave a loud bellow, and running up
by the kitchen door made for the fire and tried to go up by the chain
through the roof of the house. They had nothing for it but tie her up
again, and for some days they did not get a drop of milk from her, and
her skin became so loose on her it looked as if hardly sticking to her
flesh at all. When the day for churning came they found the butter was
gone also.”
A Kintyre man recites the following of an authority consulted for
the cure of the Evil Eye. “Her cow, put out for the first time after
calving, became wild and jumped against everything like to kill
herself. There was nothing for it but just to put her back into the
house. Everybody was sure the beast had been _air a cronachadh_ by
some person’s Evil Eye, or bewitched by witchcraft. When the woman to
whom the cow belonged came to know of it she came up, and going up to
the cow, gave her a clap or two on the back, said something, and in a
minute or two the cow was as quiet as she had ever been.”
A farmer of the name of M. had the farm of B., near Campbeltown. He
had a favourite cow which he would not part with for anything. Some
drovers wished to buy this cow, but M. refused, and though the drovers
persisted, he would not part with her. They went to the cow and began
to soothe and fondle her. When they left the cow began to go about in a
circle, and could not be got out of that circle. At length the farmer
was forced to kill her. This was told by an educated and reliable
gentleman, without prejudice, so to say, to his belief or disbelief in
the origin of the illness.
One is apt to smile at any one talking of an animal going up the
chimney by the pot chain; frightened animals do curious things. The
writer of this, having opened the window in the parlour widely, the
door being shut to prevent it going into the house, was trying to drive
out a strange cat. There was a lighted fire in the chimney, but the
cat, without trying the window, went up the chimney. The fire being
damped down and a dustpan put on the top of it, the cat returned to
civilisation, and then disappeared through the window.
One other symptom comes from the Black Isle, Ross-shire. H. says that
belief in the Evil Eye was very common in his native place, and has a
good hold still on people’s minds. It was said to do injury to beasts,
in many ways, among others that they could be blinded by it. His father
had a striking case while living in the Parish of Redcastle. One of
his cows died of what was considered a natural trouble, no Evil Eye
influence being thought of. He had a quey grazing on the farm of a
friend on the opposite side of the Beauly Firth, so he went for her
and brought her home by Kessock Ferry, where some people examined her
and admired her. She was a dun, and a fine-looking animal. Having
reached home the quey was tied in the byre, apparently in good health.
They however soon noticed that she had a habit of standing back in her
stall to the full extent of the tether rope, and do what they would
they could not get her to stand forward. A woman with knowledge of
Evil Eye cases was consulted. After examining the beast in the byre
by herself she told them the quey was blind, because some one’s eye
had fallen on her. She recommended the following procedure to cure the
animal and find out who had done the injury. She was to be let out and,
no one going before her or trying to turn her, allowed to go where she
liked. If this were done she said the quey would, of her own accord, go
to the house of the person who had made her blind, and that she would
go three times round the house bellowing, and then come back to her own
byre quite well with recovered sight. This procedure was carried out.
She went straight for a neighbour’s house, went round it three times,
bellowed, and came back quite well and seeing. The reciter added, “Now
the woman that could do that and find out things of that kind must have
had some power herself, quite as much as the one whose eye had fallen
upon the heifer.” The reciter of the above is an uneducated man, and
superstitious in other ways.
A believer, a native of Knapdale, tells the following. For a
considerable time none of her cows had quey calves, but at length she
got one, a nice beast, of which she was particularly careful. When it
was first let out she went herself to watch it. At that time she had
a neighbour who had an ill-will to her, although they were on speaking
terms, though without having much to do with each other. While she was
watching the calf this neighbour came out of her own house, and putting
her hands on each of her sides, stood and gazed for a few seconds at
the calf. While she was staring at it the calf gave a ‘loup,’ rushed as
if it were mad through the place, and when, with a deal of difficulty
it had been caught and put into the byre, it kept leaping straight
up, and seemed as if it could not rest. The person consulted said he
could do nothing in the case, and that it was ill from the other woman
looking at it. Subsequently she had two more quey calves of which she
was very proud and pleased to have them, and as they were grazing
in a park near the road, many people admired them. One day the same
objectionable neighbour went, and placing her two arms on the dyke,
stared at the calves for some time. “I saw her with my own eyes and
did not like it, but said nothing.” Not long after her daughter came
in and said that the white calf was lying dead among the nettles. “On
hearing this I trembled, but spoke quite calmly and said, ‘Is it?’”
On examination, sure enough the calf was dead, and the other was ill
also. She consulted a skilled woman, and the remaining calf got better.
This reciter added that since then she had lost beasts through the same
person’s Evil Eye, and is in terror when she sees her coming about the
house.
A woman who lived on Loch Awe-side, who was believed to have the Evil
Eye, and whose father was also credited with it, was exchanging brood
hens with a neighbour. She brought her own hen, and was going to take
away the one to be exchanged. In the absence of the mistress, the girl
who was keeping the house was going to give the cow a drink, and the
woman accompanied her. There was nothing wrong with the cow then, but
later in the day the cow’s calf died, and the cow herself began to take
some kind of fits, and though she lived for a while never got well.
When night came the hens were crowing, and next morning two of them
were found dead. The hen that had been brought was put on the eggs, but
if she was, it was not long that she remained on them. She took to the
hills and was never caught, and all this was the consequence of the
Evil Eye.
Even more common than injury to cows and calves is the deterioration of
milk. Mrs. McL., appealing to her husband for confirmation, told how
that in the winter-time she began to churn sometime after dark. Her
husband helped her with it, and they had just finished, and she was
going to stop and take off the butter, when a young man came in. When
he went away she went back to her churn, but not a bit of butter could
she get. To gather it she took another turn of churning, but the milk
only swelled and went over the churn mouth. The butter was all gone. It
was this young man’s Evil Eye.
Another nearly similar case to the above, and they could be
considerably added to, happened to the mother of the reciter, who
was churning, and a woman, supposed to possess an Evil Eye, and also
suspected of a measure of witchcraft, coming in, “the butter got
scattered into a kind of grainy substance, and do what she would the
churner could not get it to gather again.”
Horses, of course, are liable to the malign influence of the Evil
Eye. —— had a nice white horse which he used to lend on hire to
the minister. It was much admired, and one day when it came home a
neighbour, who bore the owner no goodwill, came forward and, standing
beside the horse, said in Gaelic, “You have got fine limbs;” he then
walked away. Shortly afterwards the horse threw itself down on the
ground and kicked as if in great pain. It was at first supposed to be
an attack of colic, and the son walked it out a little, but so soon as
it entered the stable it fell down and was like to die. A woman with
skill being consulted, cured the horse and confirmed their suspicion of
it being a case of Evil Eye.
Ministers’ horses do not escape any more than those of laymen. A Mull
woman related the following:—The minister, whose grave you may see
there, had a fine horse. His man had it out ploughing, and without
previous illness or warning of any kind, it fell down and could not
plough another furrow. The minister came to see it.
“_A mhinistear, tha an t-each air a chronachadh. Feumaidh mi dhol
airson eolas a chronachaidh._”
“_Eisd, eisd, cha dean thu sin. Tha fios agad nach eil mise a’
creidsinn ann a leithid sin._”
“_Direach falbhaidh sibhse a steach, agus managie mi fein an t-each._”
(“Minister, the horse is _air a cronachadh_, and I must go for _eolas
a chronachaidh_.” “Hush, hush, you will not do that; you know that I
do not believe the like of that.” “Just you go in, and I’ll manage the
horse myself.”)
We may finish the incident which tells how the minister did as was
suggested, and how, as soon as he was out of sight, off the lad set for
what he considered skilled assistance. Having got it, in less than
three hours the horse was quite well and ploughing. When the minister
was again looking on, the lad remarked on the rapid recovery from the
process used, but the minister was unconvinced.
“_Cha’n eil mi dol a thoirt creideas da leithid sin idir._”
_Thuirt an gille: “Well, tha mi fein ‘s an t-each a’ creidsinn ann.”_
(“I am not going to give credence to the like of that at all.” The lad
replied: “Well, both I and the horse believe in it.”)
A like case. “You remember A. B. He had a braw mare; everybody was
praising her, and there wasn’t the likes of her to be seen about the
place. A man who was passing waited to look at her, and praised her for
being a splendid beast. But if he did, when she reached home she fell
down and would neither rise nor eat.”
Mrs. G. said: “One of our horses, a fine beast, was going past the barn
when all at once it fell on the ground. They got it into the stable. In
a little time it could not move its body, but was tossing its head from
side to side and seemed to be in great pain. It was striking its head
on the ground so much that we thought it would kill itself.”
A case in which the illness had lasted for some time before skilled
advice was got, is the following: “D. D.’s father-in-law had a horse
unwell and not expected to recover. It was lying in the stable quite
stiff, and had neither eaten nor drunk anything for some days.”
A farmer who had two fine horses told the reciter to put the saddle on
one of them and meet him on his way home from a visit he had to pay. D.
McT., as instructed, saddled the better of the two horses and started
to meet his father. He was very careful, leading the horse instead of
riding it. He met his father within three miles of home driving in a
cart with a neighbour. When they met, his father said, “You have killed
that beast. Why did you ride it so hard?” D. told his father, what was
the fact, that he had not ridden at all, but walked all the way from
home. “Look at the horse,” said his father, and the horse was pouring
of sweat and trembling. He turned home, but could not keep up with the
cart, and only managed to make it crawl back with difficulty. As soon
as it was got into the stall, it lay down and commenced kicking as if
in great pain. The horse was cured.
A man of whom we have already spoken as injuring animals with his Evil
Eye unintentionally, as a reciter tells us, “was at this time threshing
with my father. They had no threshing-mill, and did it all with flails.
One day my father had been out ploughing, and had the best mare ever
they had in the plough. Coming home, he had to pass the barn to go to
the stable, and McA., of the Evil Eye, came to the door and looked
after the mare. That was enough; before the mare reached the stable
door she began to shake and tremble, and it was with great difficulty
they managed to get her into the stall. They knew quite well what was
the matter.”
One other horse case. The reciter says: “One Sunday I was standing
there on the little hill at C., and I saw a man coming towards me from
Gartachara. I knew the man and waited till he passed. He went down to
C. I never thought of anything being wrong, but when I turned down the
way the man had come up, what did I find but a beautiful brown horse I
had at the time, lying on his belly in the water where the horses used
to take their drink. He could not stand on his feet, but I got help,
and we managed to get him into the kailyard, where he lay groaning.”
The horse recovered.
* * * * *
Fowls are said to be affected. A certain woman had been suspected of
hindering the butter from coming at a churning. The case was being
reported to a collector, when a bystander expressed doubts as to the
existence of an Evil Eye. The reciter then said that her own experience
had proved the truth of the accusation in the case of this individual.
“She was living for a year beside me, and all that year, although I had
most beautiful hens, they laid nothing but soft eggs. They would be
found in the mornings all scattered here and there on the floor. Indeed
I thought they dropped more eggs than was natural. It was only when
talking about the hens to another neighbour that it was suggested to me
that her Evil Eye was the cause. Then I knew that there would be no use
keeping hens while that woman was beside me, so I sold them all. I got
clear of her at the end of the year. I never said anything to her about
it, for I was afraid.”
The reciter of the following said that he was positively certain that
the facts were as stated, though it had not occurred to himself. “A
certain man once called at a house, and a beautiful brood of chickens
were going about on the kitchen floor. He was not right out when a
stool fell on them and smothered every one of them. From the kitchen he
went to the byre, and saw there a beautiful quey, which he professed
to admire very much. He was not long gone when the quey became unwell.”
The belief was firmly established that the chickens and the quey had
been _air an cronachadh_.