steach gus an tigh againne ‘nuair a bhitheamaid a’ maistreadh dhe nach
biodh m’athair ro chinnteach, ghabhadh e eibhleag as an teine agus
chuireadh e ann an soitheach uisg’ e, agus ghleidheadh sin an toradh._”
(“If a person of whom my father would not be quite sure would come into
our house when we would be churning, he would take a live ember from
the fire and put it in a dish of water, and that would preserve the
produce.”)
As a mere suggestion, a guess for what it is worth, knowing that
the old process of preparing hot water by immersing heated stones
in it was practised by Highlanders, we here may have the ordinary
method of scalding the churn and dishes, at one time common, become a
superstitious formula.
The power of iron as protective against witchcraft, fairies, and all
supernatural powers is too widespread to need special consideration.
We must not however always conclude that when what is used as a means
of cure is composed of iron that the iron is the principal matter. A
reciter near Campbeltown gave the following information:—
“Mattie Lavarty used to be going about the country here makin’ _eolas_.
I mind yince a coo belongin‘ tae yin Neil R. took ill before calfing,
an’ they sent for Mattie Lavarty. She worked aboot the coo wi’ water,
an’ said her paternoster or somethin’ else o’er’t an left a horseshoe
in front o’t. But the next mornin’ whan Neil gaed intae the byre the
calf was lyin’ deed in the greep (byre gutter). That pit Neil frae gaun
near Mattie or the like o’ her ever after.”
Our business here is not with Mattie’s success or failure, but with
the subject matter used in her attempted cure. The illness of the cow
was probably a protracted labour, and Mattie put before it what was
symbolical of a free passage for the expected calf. It was no mere
placing of something for luck, but a use of the symbol of reproduction
on an appropriate occasion.
WOOD AND WATER
The reciter in this case was a native of Tarbert, Kintyre. Believing
his cow to be suffering from the Evil Eye, he sent for a practitioner
of _eolas_. When she arrived, the first thing she did was to procure
various kinds of wood and “different kinds of water.” She made circles
with a stick, repeating “words” the while. This done, she requested
the owner to go out of the byre, she remaining alone in it for a
considerable time. She put the water in which the wood had been steeped
on the cow. The animal recovered.
It seems reasonable to conclude that the _iubhar beinne_ (the
juniper) would be one of the woods used, but no exact information was
obtainable. (See page 119)
SALT AS CURE AND PREVENTATIVE
Salt is employed as a cure and preventative. The following experience
of a Kintyre farmer’s wife, recited by herself, gives considerable
detail of the process carried out. “I mind yin o’ oor ain coos was ill,
an’ I sent for M. McC., that was a woman beside us that had _eolas_. As
shune as she seen the coo she said M. McS. was here. That was a woman
folk didna’ like, for they thocht she had a bad e’e. Says I: ‘Ay, she
was here.’ ‘Weel, she did harm to the coo.’ She gied to the march burn
and lifted water oot o’t in three pairts. The first she lifted in the
name o’ the Father, the second in the name o’ the Son, and the third
in the name o’ the Holy Ghost. Then she got salt and did the same wee
hit. She pit the first taitie intae the bottle in the name o’ the
Faither, the second in the name o’ the Son, and the third in the name
o’ the Holy Ghost. She then gied tae a corner o’ the byre and prayed
some prayer. When that was finished she pit the water in the coo’s ears
and some on her back, an’ then said, ‘She has plenty noo.’ The coo
shune got better. Peter, Paul, and Mary’s names war in the prayer. She
offered to learn me that _eolas_, but I didna want tae learn’t.”
From an Islay reciter who saw the performance we have the operation
described as follows. She (the professor) first went on her knees and
repeated words, then put salt on a paper. This salt she measured with
a thimble painted blue in the inside. She then put it into a cloth,
poured water through it into a bottle, after which she repeated words
over it and gave the bottle to the man who had come to consult her
about the cow.
The salt seems sometimes to be used dry. We have mentioned George ——,
described as a worthy man, who was consulted to cure a cow so ill that
the schoolmaster had already advised its owner to send for a man to
flay it. George required that it should be put in the byre, and it had
to be pulled in by main force with a rope round its horns. This being
accomplished, he told the boys that they might go now and he would do
the rest himself. He then asked my mother if she had salt, and when
she replied that she had, he ordered her to give him the full of her
hand. She gave him that, and said if there was anything he would like
to have one of the children would go for it. But he answered, “This
will do my business.” He went back to the _bothan_ (byre), and he began
to work the salt in the palm of his hand. After a good while he came
out and said to my mother, “Your cow is dressed now, Flora.” They then
went to take her out of the _bothan_, but still she would not walk, and
they had to drag her out and leave her again on the green. With this
my father was after coming back, and a man along with him, to take the
skin off the cow. George advised her to let her alone, for she would be
all right yet. The cow recovered.
The use of urine as a preventative has been considered already. The
following from an intelligent woman of about fifty, a farmer’s wife in
Kintyre, a well-read woman who takes an interest in things which she
admittedly does not believe in, tells that when she was young, in one
farm in Kintyre where she was in service, her mistress was regularly in
the habit of sprinkling urine (house slops) on every cow after calving,
and before she was allowed to go out, the intention being to protect
the cow from the effects of the Evil Eye.
In another farm, however, in Kintyre, at the same time and for the
same purpose, salt was sprinkled on every cow’s back as soon as she
had calved. It was an encouraging sign if the cow licked off the salt,
which was specially sprinkled on either side of the rump.
It seems quite fair here to consider the salt as a more civilised
representative of the other fluid, though in fact the latter is of
considerable value as a cleanser under certain circumstances.
Another native of Kintyre informs us that it was a common custom
at farms when the cattle were being put out on the 1st of May for
the mistress to stand and throw a handful of salt on each as they
passed out of the byre. She saw this done in a farm in the parish of
Campbeltown, and was well aware of it being a common practice. It was
avowedly done against _cronachadh_.
The writer having no skill in churning, has no knowledge what result
would come from putting of salt in the churn, but an Arran woman is
responsible for the statement that she had herself often seen salt put
into a churn as a protection against any evil influence.
A careful observer in Islay tells how that at one time their butter
having left them and they had got none for some weeks, they sent for
a woman, a professor in the neighbourhood. When she came they had a
churning ready to commence with, but on examining it she advised that
it should be thrown to the pigs, and added that they must clean and
scrub well all the dishes used for gathering the milk, and that she
would return on the next day they were ready for a churning. That day
having come, the _eolas_ woman returned, and the first thing she did
was to sprinkle a little salt on the bottom of the empty churn. The
milk was then poured in and the churning commenced, with unexpectedly
satisfactory results. The practitioner here was an _eolas_ woman
of a very good sort, and set about her operations in a manner well
calculated to be successful. On the farm, however, they regarded that
butter with suspicion and sold it.
To judge from what we are told in the following as having occurred in
the north of Ireland, so strong is the action of salt that it will put
matters right with a bad churning, even though it neither touch cream
nor churn. Failing one day to get their butter properly, the reciter’s
master sent for an old woman in the immediate neighbourhood. When she
came she just glanced at the churn, and seeing at once what was wrong,
she said to the farmer, “If you like I will show you the one who has
done the harm.” He assured her that he did not wish that, but would be
pleased if she could do anything with the churning. Without more ado,
so far as W. could see, she took a handful of salt, which she threw
into a pot boiling on the fire. She then gave a turn or two at the
churn, and sure enough the butter came all right.
We have already mentioned the use of salt in connection with sugar as
put in milk given to a woman suspected of influencing her source of
supply, and from which the dairymaid took the first mouthful as a sure
preventative of evil, not only for the quantity immediately given, but
also for any that would be supplied subsequently during the season.
One other instance of the use of salt we give on the authority of an
Arran man of about sixty-five years of age, a shrewd business man, but
of whom the collector says that to judge from appearances he thinks his
knowledge of the island and his family connection with it extends about
as far back as the origin of the island itself.
He said his father was a great believer in the Evil Eye. One day a
neighbour, walking with him while ploughing, had spoken in praise of a
brown horse that was in the plough. His acquaintance had hardly left
when the horse turned ill, and lay down and kicked and groaned. It was
unyoked and taken home, and the Evil Eye being suspected N. R.’s wife
was sent for. She came and got a mixture of salt, soot, and a lot of
other things which she rubbed on the horse. She felt it all over with
her hand to find out the particular spot where the eye had struck.
Whatever did it, the horse recovered and was quite well afterwards.
The passing the hand over the animal to feel for material damage is
peculiar. This is a usual proceeding in cases of elf-shot, but not of
the Evil Eye; however, of course the woman was thoroughly entitled to
make her own diagnosis in her own way.
MOST SUITABLE WATER
In the course of the preceding, various sources for water used to cure
Evil Eye have been mentioned. “A certain well.” This may have been a
holy well of some sort, consecrated by traditional connection with some
saint, though after all it may have been chosen merely to fulfil the
condition mentioned elsewhere that a spring is preferable. A narrowing
of the choice of springs from which water could be taken was shown in
the case where one of our reciters told us that, believing the water
_a bhiodh air a thoirt a tobar o’n taobh deas_ (should be taken from
a south well), he proceeded to take it from a well south of his own
house, while another mentioned that the water required to be taken from
a spring facing the south.
While roughly one-half of our reciters have expressed a preference for
well or spring water, the other half prefer running water. One said
“it should come from a march burn,” and two mentioned “that it should
be from a running stream,” not mentioning any advantage to be derived
from its dividing two properties. One pointed out that a piece of bread
must be in the possession of the taker. In two other instances the
information was given that it must be taken where the living and the
dead pass. The condition further annexed that it must be from under a
bridge is probably merely an expression of the reciter’s own for this
same idea. He would probably have considered stepping-stones, or a
commonly used ford which led to a burial-place, as equally effective.
The specified qualifications really cover all the usual sources from
which water can be drawn. From a native of Kintail, we hear of a case
which was considered the result of the Evil Eye, though she spoke of
the patient, a boy, having been “injured by some spell.” He was quickly
cured by the sprinkling of water from a “certain well.”
An Islay reciter was very clear upon the necessity of choosing “_uisge
fior_” (spring water).
From the same island, in a case where a cow was said to be suffering
from “_buidseachas_” (witchcraft), which in this case seems to mean
Evil Eye, the water was taken in a small tub from the Saligo River.
The cow recovered, so if there is any doubt in any one’s mind as to a
proper source of supply, he can always procure it in the river running
from Lochgorm to the west of Islay.
Another reciter said that water would be more efficacious if taken
from a point where three parishes touched each other, or failing that,
from a spot from which three parishes could be seen, and that he knew
of water being frequently taken from a spot which answered these
conditions for healing purposes of the sort we are considering. This is
again an invocation of the Trinity by suggestion.
A woman who herself practised _eolas_, when asked whether it mattered
what sort of water she used, said “Oh yes, it must be water from a
march over which the living and dead pass.” The use of this water need
not apparently be accompanied by incantations and other formulæ.
A reliable informant mentioned a case which came under her own notice
of a Skye woman living at Kenmore, who, having taken it into her
head that a passing tramp had injured her child with the Evil Eye,
“hurriedly bundling up her child, went with him to a little river near
her house, and washed the boy under the bridge which was on the main
road there, and the regular thoroughfare, alike for ordinary passengers
and funeral processions.” In fact, a running water over which the
living and the dead passed.
For dwellers in towns these instructions, if carried out, might mean
considerable trouble, but in one case at any rate, in Campbeltown,
Kintyre, a firm believer in the Evil Eye, with a view to her own
protection, “used to stand over the water tap in her own kitchen and
allow the water to run while she repeated some words over the running
water.”
The position of some wells undoubtedly makes them fashionable. One
of our informants who has lived at Crianlarich says that within the
last thirty years she has known people come considerable distances
to take water from a well between the old Priory and the Kirkton
burying-ground, over which the “living and the dead” were wont to pass.
It was taken for the purpose of curing cattle injured by an Evil Eye.
A silver coin was generally in the vessel in which they carried away
the water. The efficacy of this cure was commonly, if not universally,
believed in by the people of the place.
TABOO WHEN IN POSSESSION OF WATER
In accordance with all the traditions of magical observance, we must
expect to find the use of this curative water made dependent upon the
observance of certain rules laid down by the professor. In one case
already cited, a young person going with an old woman to a well for
water, was ordered to keep silence, even though he himself was not
carrying the water; and this was insisted upon rigidly. This was in
Sutherland.
This insisting on silence is a very common taboo in other cases.
From an Arran reciter, in the case of an unmarried woman being sent
for the _pisearachd_, as it is there called, the professor instructed
her to go straight home, no further particulars being mentioned. This
daughter of Eve and Adam sat down at the roadside and indulged her
curiosity in examining what she had got from the _eolas_ woman. Our
reciter said, “After this, of course, it was of no use; for anything
these _eolas_ people give for curing should never be opened till it
is going to be used. If it is opened before that, it will lose its
virtue.” At any rate in this case it did no good, for the cow died.
Anything approaching careful reasoning in folklore matters is not to be
expected, as in religion, faith takes the first place, and reason, if
admitted at all, quite a back seat. Sometimes, however, things occur
which tend to diminish superstitious faith and reassert the advantage
of applied reason.
In Arran, a horse was supposed to be suffering from _cronachadh_.
The farmer sent a woman to get the advice of a professor, W. She had
to take care of a young child at the time, and probably it was not
convenient for her to leave the child at home, anyhow, she took it with
her in a shawl. Having told her errand to the _eolas_ man, he gave her
a bottle with instructions how to use it. On her way home, constantly
hitching up the child on her back, the cork came out of the bottle, and
all that had been put in it was spilled. When she found this was the
case she was in a “great stew” and wondered what she should do. She
made up her mind that she would fill the bottle from the burn and say
nothing of what had happened on reaching home if the horse did not get
better; if it did she could tell the truth. She refilled her bottle,
retailed the _eolas_ man’s instructions, the water was applied to the
horse in accordance with these, and recovered. The woman now let out
the secret, which, as may be supposed, somewhat shook the confidence of
the public in the powers of that individual professor of _piscarachd_.
We have to take these stories as we get them. Cross-questioning the
reciter has various results, from complete silence and a consequent
drying-up of all information, to an acquiescence in anything they think
will satisfy their interrogators. One is inclined to believe that in
the following case a cracked bottle was deliberately given to the
messenger so as to lead up to what happened. Our reciter said, “It was
just last week I was speaking to R. G. about the man in R. One of his
cows was ill, and a boy was sent to a man who cured cattle that had
been _air an cronachadh_. The boy got a bottle with instructions, and
was told, “I am not sure whether you will get back in time, but if the
bottle does not break on the way and you can reach home before the cow
dies, this will cure her.” The boy went as fast as he could, but when
almost home the bottle broke in halves, and all that was in it was
lost. He turned back and went as quick as he could to the _eolas_ man,
who told him: “I knew the bottle would break, but I will make another
that will not break, only I’m afraid you will not be in time.” The boy
hurried home to find the cow dead.
One would have supposed that any one not a fool would have looked upon
this as a trick, but the reciter, a tradesman who can read and write,
really an intelligent man and shrewd in other matters, added, “Was it
not wonderful that he knew the bottle would break?” The collector asked
him what he supposed had caused it to break. “Oh, just the strength
of the evil that was inside it. One evil trying to beat another evil;
the man that gave the bottle, you see, was a strong wizard.” Asked to
explain his idea as expressed by the one evil trying to beat the other,
and was not the man who professed to cure as bad as the one who had
done the harm, he explained his position by saying: “Well, no, it is
right to do good and to beat the wicked one.”
The spilling of the water, and consequently the impossibility of
recovering it from the ground, would naturally put an end to any hope
of cure from it, but it would appear that even laying it down while in
the bottle deprived it of its virtue, as already pointed out.
“When myself and my father,” said a reciter, “were in service at E——,
I was the herd, and one of the milch cows was attacked and not a drop
of milk was left with her, but there was nothing to be seen wrong. We
had a suspicion of what it was, and I went up to a worthy, clever man
(_duine corr gasda_) that would be at work curing beasts that were _air
an cronachadh_. When I told him what was wrong he took a bottle from
the corner, while I sat by the fire. It is not known what he said on
the bottle, but when giving it to me, he said: ‘_Air na chunnaic mi
riomh gun am botal a leigeil ris a ghrunnd gus an ruiginn dhachaidh_’
(‘Upon what I had ever seen not to let the bottle touch the ground
until I would reach home’), and upon reaching to put what was in the
bottle in the cow’s two ears, and he said that this would make her that
she would have plenty of milk that same night. When I got home we did
exactly as he had said, and the creature had plenty milk after that.”
The above occurred in Islay, but the same taboo was laid on the
carriage of a like medicament in Rothiemurchus. The reciter said: “My
mother was for a while that she could not get any butter. Whenever she
would try to gather it, it would run like sand. At last her suspicions
fell on a woman in the neighbourhood believed to have the Evil Eye. My
mother was advised to consult a woman supposed to have skill in these
things, then resident in the parish of Rothiemurchus. When she spoke of
it to my father he did not object, and said he would speak about it to
the woman’s husband, both being at that time at work about the laird’s
house. Next day the woman’s husband promised my father that he would
tell his wife, which he did, and she made something. I remember quite
well being sent to the woman’s house for the thing that was to cure the
cow; my sister was with me, and the woman gave us a bottle, and what
was in it was just like clear water. When giving it to us she cautioned
us to be careful of it, for it must not be allowed to touch the ground
until it would reach the cow; and I remember how very carefully we
carried it home, and how feared we were for it. The cow was made to
swallow it, and whether it was that that did it, I cannot tell, but I
know they believed it was. In any case, after that the butter came all
right.”
The reciter of this, a woman aged about thirty-eight, was a crofter’s
daughter, fairly well educated and more than usually intelligent.
A very full account of the taboos to be observed by the carrier of an
_eolas_ cure comes from a reciter at Whiting Bay in Arran.
Two men, each having but one horse, were in the habit of doing their
ploughing by uniting the pair in one team. One day both horses took
ill and the Evil Eye was diagnosed. One of the owners sent for _eolas_
and his horse began to recover; the other man, who at first expressed
disbelief, seeing his neighbour’s horse improving while his own did
not, sent his niece, on the “sly,” to the same practitioner, Bean A.,
for _pisearachd_. It is the niece who gives us the information. “Well,
I went, and I told her my errand. I had a shawl on my head. When she
heard my errand she went and put her hand up the lum and took something
from there, and then she went into a corner and took out three wee
pokes as black as soot and took something out of them. She was in the
dark, but I knew that there were stones in the pokes, for I heard them
rattling. She then gave me a paper with something in it, and told me
that I was on no account to open the paper or let light or air into
it till I would reach home. As soon as I would reach I was to tell my
uncle to put what was in the paper into a bottle of water, and that
he was to sprinkle the water over the horse, repeating its name three
times while sprinkling it. He was then to pour a little into each of
its ears, and the rest, if there should be any over, he was to put in
its food. These were her directions, and I went away with the paper;
but two people met me on the road and spoke to me. I did not answer
them properly, for I was afraid, but just said I ‘_iim_,’ keeping my
mouth shut all the time. I had a strong wish to see what was in the
paper, but was afraid if I would let in light or air it might be of
no use. I resisted the temptation till I was nearly home, and then,
getting behind a dyke, I put the shawl over my head in such a way
that neither light nor air could get into the paper, as I thought.
When I opened the paper what I saw were three wee black balls, black
as soot, just like balls of soot. I never let on at home that I had
opened the paper, and my uncle did all as he was ordered to do, and
after a while the horse began to get better. I do not know whether it
was the bottle that cured it, but it took a good while before it came
to be quite well. People used to say that when a beast or body was
_air a’ cronachadh_ it would take as long to complete the cure after
the application of the _eolas_ as had been between the injury and the
application of the cure. Bean A. assured my uncle afterwards that it
was a person of the name of Stewart that had done the harm, and there
were only three of that name in the place at that time. Suspicion fixed
on one of them, and by-and-by they began to cast it up to her. She got
angry and went to check my aunt for reporting a thing of the kind about
her. This was the first my aunt had heard of the cure, for my uncle
wanted to conceal it from her, and she was very angry with him for
having sent to the _eolas_ woman.”