Robert Craig Maclagan

“ Rory at once thinking of the Evil Eye, seized his stick and rushed at him, threatening to break his head if he would not at once bless the cow. The suborned perpetrator of the joke, it need scarcely be said, at once took the method demanded to counteract his injudicious praise. How many of us are, not in the belief of the Evil Eye, but in other beliefs, just as touchy as our friend Rory. ”

“ When any one is churning and a visitor enters to whom any suspicion is attached of the power of interfering with the butter, any such power can be taken from her by getting her to do a spell of the churning. A woman, a strong believer in witchcraft and the Evil Eye, invariably if she happens to go into a house where churning is going on, takes the churn staff and gives a pull at the churn, believing, by this means, that she frees herself from suspicion if the churning go wrong. ”

“ A farmer’s wife, an old woman, but smart and intelligent, and showing no failure of memory, expressed the following opinion:—
The power to do injury to beast or person, and the power to cure such an injury appeared to have been given to different classes of people. Those who did injury were supposed to be malevolent, and of course held in bad repute, while the curers were looked upon as for the good of people and to be respected. What the one did was called cronachadh, and what the other did beannachadh (blessing) . ”

“ The Evil Eye is a superstition arising not from local circumstances, or peculiarity of a great or small division of the human family, but is a result of an original tendency of the human mind. The natural irritation felt at the hostile look of a neighbour, still more of an enemy, is implanted in the breast of all, however much they may be influenced by moral teaching. When we add to this the feeling that some valued possession has attracted the coveteous desire of another, the fear of loss is added to the irritation of mere anger. ”

“ Unless faith in the Evil Eye were already present, there seems hardly ground for any person with experience of cattle and their ailments to evolve a theory of the existence of any such latent power in the individuals accused. So little critical people became, that everything unexpected was referred to the Evil Eye. As a Kintyre man said, “If anything went wrong with the beef when the winter supply was cured, it was attributed to the Evil Eye of some one or other.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ To show the hold that belief in an Evil Eye has on certain minds, a native of Ross-shire tells how he went to see a neighbour, who asked his assistance in putting a ring in the nose of a pig to prevent it rooting. “There was another neighbour of his there too, who had come forward when he saw us, one W. M., an intelligent man, and one that I would never have thought would give in to these superstitions; but he was a man that believed in the Evil Eye, although nobody suspected him of having it himself.” ”

“ It is in the barn that we gather the milk, and a man who has not got a cow of his own came the way one day and he looked on the milk in the barn, and we were making out that it was he who had done the harm. The friends were advising me not to be allowing people to see the milk, but that I should remember that every person is not like myself. Well, from that time we are taking care that nobody will get an opportunity to go where the milk is, and now we are getting as much butter as we ought to get on every churning. ”

“ Where the incidents of life are less crowded, and individual experiences are rarer and at longer intervals, that is, in country districts and especially in the more mountainous and less closely populated, the Evil Eye has yet in Scotland many believers, and consequently considerable influence. Such a remark as the following, made to a minister, is not so rare as one might suppose: “Nae doot whatever Mac had the Evil Eye, that’s certain. I have known many cases when a calf, or even a cow, died the day after he looked at her.” ”

“ But a distinction is made between possessing an Evil Eye and doing mischief with it. A native of Glen Urquhart, Inverness-shire, among others says that there it is understood a person may possess an Evil Eye and do mischief with it without intending it, and without knowing that he has done it. When a person knows that he has an Evil Eye, and does mischief with it intentionally, the ill-doing is usually supposed to be more or less connected with witchcraft.
Many believe the injury from the Evil Eye is quite independent of the will of the possessor. ”

“ The expression of a blessing seems to be merely a preventative, which of course is better than curative, if we accept the general proverb. Another preventative, when the expression of praise seems likely to be hurtful, is to miscall the animal spoken of. A man ploughing, who thought very well of his horses, said to his master on seeing another he knew approaching, “Here comes ——, and he will ruin both the horses if he can, for he has the Evil Eye.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 203] 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. ”

“ The danger of refusing a request is great, not so much from the purely Christian-charity point of view, as from that of escaping the Evil Eye. A native of Knapdale, a believer, tells of a woman notorious in that neighbourhood. She went to a farmer for a barrel of potatoes, which he refused her. No more was said, but she had not long gone when the best horse he had fell down and could not rise. It was foaming at the mouth. A man skilled in counteracting the Evil Eye was consulted, and declared that the horse had been injured by it. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ In towns, and among those who read many books, the constant friction of man against man hinders the survival of a belief in such a thing as the Evil Eye, now that a certain quantity of education is common property. ”

“ The persons among whom this belief is most usual are undoubtedly to be found principally among the agricultural and fishing population, though it is not unknown, by any means, even in such a town as Oban, where a reciter of Evil Eye incidents says “it is pretty common.” When one speaks of a farmer in many parts of the Low Country, one naturally thinks of well-educated men with comparatively large holdings, and such men, of course, are to be met with in the Highlands in appreciable numbers. ”

“ So far we seem to have seen that the damage done by the Evil Eye was a malign dispensation of Providence, for which the owner was only to blame to the same extent that one is to blame for a natural defect, but the processes of cure being the result of science, so to say, eolas, fios, are in reality magic processes. One of the most common of the preventive charms is something to be worn by the person to be protected, and one reciter, an elder in the church, assures us that he knows a family every member of which wears such a charm suspended round the neck. ”

“ In the following study of the belief of an Evil Eye among the Gaelic-speaking peoples of Scotland at the present day, an attempt is made neither to disguise nor to improve upon what those in contact with believers have learned from their mouths. The writer is a believer in the Evil Eye only in so far as it may be a term for the natural selfishness of the human being, as a “tender heart” is a recognised way of speaking of a nature apt to sympathy. Selfishness, natural to all of us, is apt to find expression in our habits, however much we may disguise it by religious or charitable profession. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Allusion has already been made, on an Islay authority, to the efficacy of burning a piece of the clothing to avert injury from any one bringing bad news (page 15) . A Tiree reciter gives the same information a little more fully, and says it protects against witchcraft or the Evil Eye. “If any woman comes into a house who is suspected, those of the house should try to get a small piece of some article of her clothing, without letting her know that they have got it, and throw it on the fire; that will prevent her from taking anything away with her or leave any mischief when she goes away. ”

“ The Isle of Man, from a Gaelic point of view, may be considered as likely to be much the same as the islands of Argyll, and a lighthouse-keeper, stationed there for some time, tells us he heard a good deal about the Evil Eye, and that belief in it is pretty common. “If a person is seen to look closely at a cow when passing her he is at once suspected, and is likely to be requested by the owner of the beast to take certain steps to prevent injurious consequences.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before leaving the red thread, a reciter in Islay, whose aunt lived next to a professor, said that when this woman was consulted in cases of Evil Eye, she took a bottle containing a red thread and water, and for the purpose of discovering the cause of the animals’ illness she closed her eyes and repeated an incantation. This done she would open her eyes, and the first living creature bearing any burden or weight, that weight, whatever it might be, she maintained she saw pressing upon the animal. ”

“ FORM OF PAYMENT
“The labourer is worthy of his hire.” A case has been already given where the reciter said that nothing was done without pay, but not of money. We must not generalise in that way. A native of Tiree says, speaking of his experience in the cure of a horse of his father’s, “All these eolas folk must get a piece of silver. It may be a shilling or two shillings. This they say makes the cure more certain, and they cannot promise a cure without it. The lad took with him a two-shilling piece and went to an eolas man who lived five miles away.” ”