over the horse its name was to be repeated three times. The necessity
for this was expressly laid down by a Sutherlandshire reciter who said,
“The person or beast to be cured is made to drink some of this (silver
water), and is also sprinkled all over with some of it. The sprinkling
is done in the name of the Trinity, and the name of the person or beast
being operated upon must also be mentioned. This is all that is needed
if it is a case of Evil Eye.”
Of course there is a certain amount of pure swindle in some of these
performances.
A lad was sent some miles in Islay for _eolas_ for a sick cow. He gave
his account of the case to the man, who then promised him a bottle.
Having got the bottle and directions for its use, the messenger put it
in his pocket and took his way home. Before he had got quite half-way,
he fancied he heard a “commotion” in the bottle, which was still in his
pocket. He then discovered that the bottle had burst (?) and what had
been in it had all gone. Thinking this was not as it should be, after
standing for a minute or two wondering what he should do, he made up
his mind to go back and tell the scientist what had happened. Back
he went, made his report, and the man said to him: “Did they manage
to do that to you? I’ll give you a bottle they cannot break.” He got
another bottle ready, waved his hands over it before giving it to the
lad, saying as he did so, “Here, _they_ cannot break this one, but
the cow will not be saved.” He told the boy who had injured the cow.
_They_ were the doers of the evil, evidently supposed to be acting with
intention to do injury; so this case might be considered as one of
witchcraft by those concerned in it.
WATER, WHERE APPLIED
There has been already occasion to mention that the instruction given
with the healing water was to make the animal swallow some of it,
but yet more frequently to sprinkle it on the beast. The most usual
locality, however, to which it is ordered to be applied is that of the
ears.
A reciter’s father-in-law had a sick horse which was supposed to have
eaten or drunk nothing for some days. A woman in the neighbourhood was
consulted, who, when she came into the stable, put some water (?) in
the ear of the horse, saying some words at the same time. The horse,
which was lying down, rose to its feet, began to eat, and recovered.
Another reciter told of her own husband, who got something in a bottle,
which he was ordered to put a portion of in the horse’s ears, and to
sprinkle some all over its body. As soon as he came home he did what he
had been ordered, the sick horse rose to its feet, began to eat, and
completely recovered.
In another case the reciter’s father had a grey horse which he
described as not being _uamhasach bochd_ (frightfully bad), but it
would not eat. To tempt the horse it was allowed in among their
standing oats, but it would not bend its head to eat a bite. His
father, taking the advice of another, went to J. R.’s grandmother and
told her how the matter was. She assured him she would not be long
in giving him what was wanted; she then gave him a bottle with the
instruction, “_A chuir a cheud da spuit dhe na bha ’sa bhotal, aon
anns gach cluais dhe ’n t-ainmhidh, agus an corr a chrathadh sios air
a mhuidh, agus air a dhruim agus leigeil leis sruthadh sios air_.” (To
put the first two spouts of what was in the bottle one in each ear of
the horse, and to sprinkle the remainder down on his mane and on his
back, and allow it to run down on him.) In this case also the horse
gave himself a shake, began to eat, and recovered.
The same formula was applied to cattle. A Kintyre farmer had a sick
cow, and was advised to consult an _eolas_ woman in the neighbourhood.
Having no faith in that sort of thing, it was some time before he
consented, but he did at last on the plea that it could do no harm.
The woman being sent for, procured water and salt; these she put into
the cow’s ear, reciting some unintelligible form of words. The cow
seemed to brisk up at once, and the result was so satisfactory that
the owner’s sister-in-law, who was present at the performance and had
previously taken up a position of unbelief, said to him, “I think, J.,
there is something in it after all.”
We have already given the particulars of how two beautiful quey calves
were affected by the Evil Eye of a woman who stared at them over the
field dyke. One died, but the other was cured by what appeared to be
pure water which the owner was told to put in the ear of the sick calf.
When this was done it shook its head, got on its feet, and recovered.
These cases all get the credit of being recoveries. But a
Dumbartonshire case was less successful. When the reciter was in
service one of the cows took ill, and old J. W., who was always in the
byres and well acquainted with cattle, insisted that the beast was ill
from the influence of some one _aig am bheil droch shuil_ (who had an
Evil Eye). Nothing would satisfy him till a woman, A. T., was sent for.
She did not find it convenient to come herself, but sent a bottle with
water in it, instructing the messenger how to put it in the cow’s ear.
The instructions were carefully carried out, but the cow died.
Any person who had been made to shudder by the inside of the ear being
tickled, would see at once how the animal was recalled to activity.
The following, from a native of Tiree, shows either that he had
forgotten the instruction given to put the water directly into the
ears, or the professor, while still remembering the shaking of the head
as sign of returning activity, had contented himself with the simple
sprinkling. It was the reciter’s cousin who went to the _eolas_ man,
and who, having “made up a bottle,” told him to sprinkle it on the
horse when he would reach home; and if it would shake its ears when the
stuff would go on it, he said it would live, but if not they need do
no more, for it would die. Our information was that the thing was done
according to the directions given, as soon as the horse felt the water
it shook its ears, and as the _eolas_ man had said, recovered.
ODD CURES
There are some odd cures mentioned in individual cases.
HONEYSUCKLE CURE
From a good correspondent in the North of Argyllshire comes the
following account of a clerk in a factor’s office. He complained at
times, and certainly did not look very well, but not much attention
was paid to him, as any illness he had did not seem serious. “A frail
old woman came into his parents’ house one evening as the lad returned
to supper. She looked at him keenly, waited till he went out, and
then asked, ‘What is he complaining of?’ His mother was surprised,
but answered that he was feeling the confinement in his office a good
deal, but that there was not much wrong. ‘You need not tell me that,’
said the old woman, ‘I can easily see there is something very real
the matter with him. Some one has laid their Evil Eye upon him. I’ll
tell you what you should do. Go to the woods, get a good long bit of
the _iadh-shlait_, take it and twist it this way round his whole body,
repeating the following words, and you will see your son hale and
hearty soon.’ The lad’s mother did not believe in the cure and did not
try it, nor could she give the words recommended to be used.” The plant
here is the honeysuckle, the Gaelic name given being used for it alone
in the district. Dictionaries, however, say that it is also used for
“ivy,” which in those parts as elsewhere is called _eitheann_.
CAT CURE
The reciter, a probationer of the Free Church and well up in folklore
matters, when in Harris, of which he was a native, heard of the
following. A man’s cow was taken suddenly ill, and the only conclusion
they could come to was that it was a case of Evil Eye. The owner of the
cow, acting on advice, took a cat and rubbed it on the cow. The cow
recovered.
RUBBING HAIR THE WRONG WAY
The reciter’s grandfather was a Stratherrick man (Loch Ness), and when
attending the market there, was approached by another man to sell him a
stirk. There was a good deal of bargaining. No agreement was come to,
the offerer leaving as if dissatisfied. Before the market closed the
stirk fell to the ground and could not be got to rise. F.’s suspicions
of course fell upon the rejected offerer. An acquaintance who also was
attending the market, and was supposed to have eolas, happened to come
about, and seeing F. in distress reassured him: “_Cha’n eagal do’n
bheachan a laochain_.” (“No fears of the beast, my lad.”) He then drew
the palm of his hand up the stirk’s back against the hair, repeating
words which the reciter, however, had never heard. The stirk got on its
feet and was soon brisk and well.
CHANGING THE FIREPLACE
“There was a man living in Machri whose cattle and horses were dying,
and things generally going against him. He knew quite well it was the
Evil Eye, so he consulted a _buidseach_. The _buidseach_ told him to
change his fire to the other end of the house. Having done this his
cattle recovered, and he was prosperous ever after.”
Unfortunately this is the whole information available. The cattle not
improbably were housed beneath the same roof as himself; but it would
be of no benefit speculating as to the effect of changing the fireplace
nearer to or farther from his stock. All that can be said is that the
change of position of the fireplace was credited with a change in the
man’s luck.
THE POWER OF A CHILD’S MUTCH
Whether the child in this case was suffering directly from the Evil Eye
the reciter was not prepared to say.
In the neighbourhood of Tayinloan, Kintyre, there were several women
who professed to be able to cure sicknesses arising from the Evil Eye.
One of these women was sent for in the case of a child thought to be
dying. When she arrived the household were gathered round the child,
thinking he was approaching immediate death. When the woman looked at
him she said nothing, but asked for a child’s mutch (close cap), and
when it was given her she went outside, repeated a charm over it, and
returning, put the mutch on the child’s head and said he would soon be
well. In a little while he kicked and stretched himself, and it was not
long till he was all right.
WHISKY CURE
In only one case have we heard of this universal solvent of misfortune
being used as a cure for the Evil Eye. The churning was unsuccessful;
the dairymaid was convinced that it was a case of Evil Eye, and advised
that a glass of whisky should be put in the churn. The advice was not
taken, so we have still to learn the effects of whisky in like case.
This was in Caithness-shire, where belief in the Evil Eye is very
common.
LEAD DROPPING
We have already considered the reference of the diagnosis to the augury
of a piece of silver sticking to the bottom of a dish. All sorts of
prognostications are got by pouring albumen of eggs into water as well
as melted lead; the latter was used in the following instance of what
it disclosed as a case of Evil Eye.
The reciter was a well-educated sick-nurse, of middle age and
thoroughly reliable. A girl had taken suddenly ill. A young man in the
neighbourhood was desirous of marrying her, but the suitor was not
acceptable, and the girl took every opportunity of letting this be
seen. A neighbour, supposed to have special skill and whose method of
hanky-panky was the dropping of melted lead into water, was consulted.
She went through her performance and showed the lead, part of it at
least, in the form of a heart with a hole through it. She explained to
the sick girl, “Look at that, his eye is in you and you are far better
to take him.” The match was made, and the girl recovered her health.
The same woman, going through the same performance with reference to a
sick lad, showed to his aunt and sister some of the lead in the form of
a coffin, and from that pronounced the case hopeless. The lad shortly
thereafter died.
In the case of the pierced heart, there is no doubt, the idea on the
part of the reciter was that actual illness was brought on by the
desirous eye of the young man, not merely that the lad had an eye to
her as a satisfactory partner.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
We have pointed out that the belief in an Evil Eye is founded upon
a literal acceptance apparently of the validity of the commandment
“Thou shalt not covet.” To the writer this seems the hardest of the
Decalogue. It forbids thoughts which pass involuntarily through the
mind. A person to whom Nature has given an ambitious and acquisitive
disposition breaks this commandment necessarily, however openhanded
may be his practice. With all reverence, the commandment seems to be a
pushing into the region of thought what has been forbidden in practice
by the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” No doubt to covet means
more than a simple liking to possess, and it is the inordinate, the
excessive desire which is forbidden. The theory of the Evil Eye as
demonstrated in the beliefs of the West Highlanders shown here may have
sprung entirely, and owe their origin to, if not the tenth commandment
of the Decalogue, an acceptance as valid of the instruction therein
contained. The acceptance of this commandment as binding, demonstrates
that there is a power for evil in thought alone. The covetous man’s eye
is “in it,” let him do as he likes. This power is shown vividly by the
belief so often expressed that admiration of one’s own possessions will
result in evil to them.
To counteract this deleterious result the possible sufferer has to
be put under the protection of a higher Power, and so, if the person
coveting remembers, a simple “God bless” will ward off evil. But the
Evil Eye is not the sole property of the active-minded Christian, and
even when it is so it is not necessarily a simple matter to suggest to
him that he is breaking the tenth commandment; in fact there may be a
difference of opinion on the matter, and it will not do to leave to the
other’s goodwill your security from loss and damage. A curative ritual
has been excogitated. In these ceremonies the Trinity is frequently
made, or, let us say, called on to take a part. The curative water is
prepared on three metals—gold, silver, and copper—the magic thread has
three knots on it, and sickness thus divided into three is destroyed,
say by burning two portions, one in the name of the Father, the other
of the Son, while that given over to the influence of the Holy Spirit,
which may be naturally supposed to counteract the covetous instinct,
remains attached to the sufferer in the third and unburned knot.
To show that this symbolism is carried out fairly consistently, we
would call attention here to the use of the three-knot charm in the
procuring for sailors of a favouring breeze. Readers must take it on
our authority that there are numberless accounts of the giving of a
three-knotted thread for this purpose, and the usual instructions for
its use fully bear out our contention. After starting one knot is to
be unloosed, and the breeze will be favouring and probably gentle. To
expedite matters the second knot may be untied, and the result will be
increase in the force of the favouring wind, but on no account must the
third knot be interfered with, or the breeze will rise to a gale, and
none will be able to answer for the effect. Compare the above statement
with what appears in the Gospel of St. John iii. 8: “The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is
born of the Spirit.” Add to this Genesis i. 2: “And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.”
This is not to be considered as a reasonable deduction from the texts
quoted. It merely shows that the authority may seem to give support to
a connection being suggested as existing between the Spirit of God, and
the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, and the uncertainty and force of the
wind which is put under its governance.
But when we come to symbols and metaphors we open a wide field which
need not be restricted by what is within the domain of the Church.
The fact stares us in the face that the _uisge a chronachaidh_ (the
water of (against) injury) is more frequently prepared from one
metal—silver—even than from three. It is in fact frequently called
Silver Water. There can be here no traceable connection with a Trinity.
The idea seems to be that the white metal represents an eye. Seeing
that the principal medium of exchange among the people is silver, as
things go, it is not very far fetched to make a silver coin stand
for what is acknowledged to be hurtful from the point of view of
covetousness, seeing that St. Paul tells us, 1 Timothy vi. 10, that
“the love of money is the root of all evil.” Having this in mind, we
can easily see how the adherence of a silver coin to the bottom of a
wooden or other vessel comes to be relied on as settling the cause of
an illness, whether it be the Evil Eye or something else. The round
white coin staring at you, as it were, from the bottom of the cogue
says “Eye” as distinctly as it is possible. If it does not adhere no
suggestion of an eye is made, consequently the sickness in question
arises from something else. We do not hear of a copper, and very rarely
of a gold coin being used by itself. We hear of gold being used in the
form of the marriage ring, but the symbolism here is the same as in the
serpent stones and the honeycombed stones in Kintyre, it represents an
eye by its form.
A reciter from the Chanonry, Ross-shire, says he has frequently seen
women take the ring off their finger, and hurriedly putting water on
it in a dish, dash the water over their children if they saw a person
coming to call about whom they had any suspicion. This was with a view
to prevent _cronachadh_, either witchcraft or the Evil Eye.
This connection with an eye explains also how the giving away of a
darning needle means the giving away of one’s luck. This seems somewhat
peculiar to the island of Arran. We give the following as a sample:—
An Arran reciter said: “Bettie many a time tells me of a woman they
have beside them who never darns stockings or anything else. One day
this woman came in and asked Bettie for a darning needle. Bettie
suspected it was for no good end she wanted it and would have refused
it, but the woman having seen it went and took it with her. For some
time thereafter Bettie was very unlucky. Things were going against her,
and one night she dreamed that somebody came to her and said, ‘Why
did you give away your darning needle? You have given away your luck
with it.’ When she got up in the morning she just went into the woman’s
house, and seeing the darning needle stuck in a pincushion, she went
and took it with her.”
Bettie here had given away the magic eye of its owner, which acted as
a counter charm to the Evil Eyes of others. The above is not the only
power inherent in a darning needle in Arran. There, stuck in the cap
or bonnet, it is as complete protection against the under-world as
represented by fairies, as elsewhere a knife is frequently quoted as
being.
SHOWING WHO IS THE MISCHIEF MAKER
We are so easily content to waive aside these superstitions when they
come in our way, as if they were the unconsidered dreamings of the
insane. Not one of them but has its origin, generally no doubt in
a misguided fancy, but still based on something real enough to the
mind of the believer, even if it be a mind of childlike simplicity.
But when _eolas_ men and women take on themselves to find out for
the instruction of their clients to whom the Evil Eye damaging them
belongs, one begins to doubt but that there is more of the wisdom of
the serpent than of the simplicity of the dove in this part of their
performance. We have already mentioned a case in which the _eolas_
woman described to the reciter’s cousin “exactly” the man and woman who
had harmed her child, though neither man nor woman had been mentioned
to her, and the reciter expressed wonder at the knowledge so displayed.
This spotting the doer is evidently a little more difficult of belief
to many than the other notions they entertain about the Evil Eye. Thus,
a reciter says that one professor confirmed the owner’s suspicions, a
fact openly admitted, but added, “It was said that she told them whose
eye had taken the milk away.” In another, “It was believed he could
also tell who had done the mischief?”
But in some cases the individual is straightforwardly given. Five
reciters at least mentioned that, and in one of these the reciter
accepted the nomination as indubitable because they had met “the very
man she mentioned on the road.”
There can be no doubt that some of these _eolas_ people have
deliberately offered to disclose the personality of the one doing
the harm. The owners of the sick animal have refused to have such
information given them, stating that they would be entirely content
with a cure without knowing any ill of a neighbour. Refinement of
feeling of this sort is foreign to many, however, and indeed it is to
be excused in a thorough believer, if for no other reason than the
well-known principle that “prevention is better than cure.” Some of the
indications are particularly vague.
“He asked if a dark-haired man had been praising the cow, and when they
said that they didn’t know, ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it was a man with black
hair (_ceann dubh_) that injured your cow, with the Evil Eye!’”
In another case the identified doer, as previously mentioned, had brown
hair.
In some cases, though no names are mentioned, it is quite clear that
identification was intended. Thus, in one of the cases cured by a cord,
the professor stated that the child had been injured by a mother and
her daughter. “My man said that that was quite true, but that they had
no ill-will to us, and why should they do that?” To that the woman
said, “That it was likely that they did not know themselves that they
were doing it.”
In another thread-cured case, the man operating said that it had been
injured by drovers who wanted to buy the animal in question. We
may conclude that the _eolas_ man knew that drovers had been in the
neighbourhood.
Similar cases have already been mentioned, the particularity of the
description pretty clearly demonstrating that the professor would have
been more candid if, instead of asking whether a dark and a fair woman
with a blue shawl had been calling, they had said there had been, and
that they were responsible.
But this describing the individual without naming him is evidently a
trick of the trade. A farmer’s wife consulting an _eolas_ man without
at first the consent of the farmer, the professor described to the
couple the appearance of the man who had done the mischief. We then
learn that from the description they knew at once who the man was, and
also that he had been in the byre shortly before the cow had taken ill.
It was probably a safe enough decision to credit strange drovers with
an injury of the sort, their stay in the district being of course but a
temporary one; but one suspects local jealousy in the following case,
when a woman, desirous of getting back her vanished butter, was told
that those doing the injury were not a musket-shot from her house. This
was in Islay, and some Jura people staying in the neighbourhood, it was
concluded they were those pointed at.
A parallel appears in the case already mentioned, where all Tiree
_cailleachs_ are slumped as dangerous. One suspects that in the
following case an undesirable neighbour had been suggested.
There were three farmers side by side in the parish of Kilbrandon. The
one in the centre was not nearly so successful as his neighbours. The
unfortunate farmer went to A—— to consult a certain _eolas_ man. By him
he was told it was no wonder he was not getting on, for he had on each
side of him “those who were doing him harm, and until he would remove
he would never get on.” Taking the hint he looked about him, removed to
another farm, and succeeded very well.