Part 14

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).

To another, an Islay lady, the remark was made that cronachadh was a strange thing. In answer she said: “Yes, but beannachadh was quite as strange.” “What is that?” “Fiosrachadh or eolas.” (Knowledge the result of inquiry, and knowledge apparently arrived at in any way, say by revelation.)

That is one side of the picture. We see the other in the following:—

“There was a lad at service at one time with Malcolm here beside us. He was one of the T’s. He was in the habit of coming to this house, and my father said to myself, I should not have too much to do with him, for that there was something bad in him. It was maintained that his father had eolas, and people would be going to him when a beast or person was unwell, but those that have the one thing, the knowledge of healing, it is usual for them to have the other thing, knowledge to cause injury also.” The reciter believed that this lad deliberately did them an injury, and after recounting the particulars said, “My father advised us not to show any anger to the lad for fear he might do something worse to us, if he were to know that we were angry. ‘That is the way the like of these people have. If they do harm to a person and he shows anger they will do him more harm.’”

A domestic servant, speaking of an old woman that she knew very well, said: “She was known as Mairi Siath (Mary of sprains?) and was looked upon as one who had a great deal of secret power by which she could do both harm and good. People were afraid to offend her, and would give her almost anything she would ask rather than offend her.” The said Mary, having been consulted about unsuccessful churning, “brought back the butter every bit that should have been on the churn from the time it had been taken away, and there was so much that the mistress was afraid to use it in the house, for she said it could not have come in a right way. She gave it away, and after that they always got butter on the churn.”

There is no doubt that the girl who repeated this believed what she was telling as of her own knowledge. The only explanation that occurs to one is that the milk, having been for some reason poor for a time from bad feeding or some such thing, the food having become better and richer, the milk was thereby improved to such an extent as to give the appearance, especially in comparison with the small yield before, of a somewhat supernatural supply.

The same belief in the power of hurting and healing being united in one person has been already mentioned in connection with an Arran shepherd on page 19.

One other case as reported was that of an Islay farmer who, on one occasion riding along the road, passed a man ploughing with a pair of horses. Shortly thereafter the horses lay down, having become to all appearance unwell. A messenger was immediately despatched after the farmer, who, hearing what had happened, returned, and at any rate got the credit of curing the animals.

TRANSMISSION OF EOLAS

It has already been mentioned how a woman who possessed a toothache cure was willing to impart the necessary formula (incantation) to a “relative” who was a male, but could not do it to a female. That case was in Islay.

The following information from Skye shows the belief that eolas is imparted in the same way and under like circumstances there. This Skye woman was believed to have the Evil Eye, and to have the power of taking away the produce (an toradh) from other’s cows. When she was on her deathbed, and when she came very near her end, she said to those about her that she was anxious to see her husband. He happened at that particular time to be out looking after something, and they sent for him, but all the time till he came in she kept crying for him, and urging that she wished to see him. When he came in she requested that all the others should withdraw, and when they had done so she said to her husband to shut the door that there might be nobody there but themselves alone. What took place between them there nobody ever knew, but one thing people firmly believed, that was that she gave the skill that she had to her husband, for after that he could take away the toradh from other people’s cows, and did take it away too.

However, authorities do not always agree as to changing the sex in the transmission of this magic.

A native of Harris, a woman of about forty, has no English, and can neither read nor write. When asked as to her experiences, and if she had ever seen a thread tied round a child’s neck to preserve it from the effects of the Evil Eye, she said: “I did see it; wasn’t there one on my own child? and that was for A. McE.‘s Evil Eye. She has an Evil Eye (Droch shuil), and one day she came into the house and began to praise the child greatly. She was only a short time gone when the child began to vomit. ‘O Kate,’ said I to my sister, ‘my child is air a cronachadh with the Evil Eye of that woman.’ ‘If that is all that is wrong, we won’t be long putting it right,’ said Kate, and she took a red thread, and when she had said the word, she tied the string on the child’s neck, and there was no time till it was quite well.” She was asked whether Kate had the words, and she replied, “Oh yes, my mother had them and she taught them to Kate.”

The general trend of belief is that the hereditary transmission of eolas is from father to daughter, and from mother to son. A reciter said: “A woman still lives in the neighbourhood, said to have obtained her eolas secret from her father. She is often requisitioned, and her skill to cure fully believed in.”

Another said: “You know A. McE. His mother had eolas a chronachaidh, and he said that she left the secret with him before she died.” These were “unprovoked” statements of the reciters, and in the latter case the interest of the story was in pointing out the method taken to determine whose Evil Eye had affected a sick horse. The owner was told to watch the colour of the hair of the first woman that passed the house, which would be the same as that of the person wanted. The result was given in the following terms, “Now she is blaming Mrs. MacD.”

In all these cases we see that the eolas was kept in the family, or at least believed to be so. The deathbed scene of the wife and husband may be a most uncharitable suggestion of heathenism, but the recital was made in good faith.

The witch doctor sometimes apparently requires assistance. A horse being taken ill while ploughing, supposed to be hurt by the Evil Eye, the farmer refused to have anything to do with these irregular practices. The horse died. Not long after a second took ill, and as the ploughman, the reciter, said, “We were all about it saying it could be cured.” At last the master said if there was any person who could do it they might try it, it would do no harm at any rate. There was a man there that had eolas, and he took another man out with him, and they made the eolas outside. They did nothing to the horse, but while they were out making the eolas the horse got up, shook itself, and was better at once.

In Arran, as elsewhere, cronachadh seems to be regarded as hereditary. One reciter said of a man at Loch Ranza that it did not matter what he would look at, his look would cronach it. A lad from another part of the island went to ask a daughter of this man to marry him, and when the nearest neighbour heard of his courtship she became exceedingly angry, and protested against any of that man’s daughters being brought there “to cronaich everything about the place.”

FORMS OF INCANTATION

For specimens of these incantations the reader should refer to “Gaelic Incantations, with Translations,” W. Mackenzie, Inverness, 1895; and to “Carmina Gadelica,” A. Carmichael, Edinburgh, 1900. Above we have already given one as recited, but they are hard to get, there being many reasons why the user is shy of repeating them. One thing is certain, that a complete performance of any of these rites requires the repetition of “words,” as they say, of some sort. In far the majority of cases, the words are what are called “good” words, having a sanction of Christianity about them, being generally invocations of the Trinity and of Mary. As a native of Morven said, describing a cure in which water is used at a certain stage, “The person making the eolas kept saying good words.” Another woman from Mull, describing a cure done by herself, said: “I remember a child I cured myself with good words that I have. It was very ill, and nearly gone when I took it and placed it in my bosom and cured it. I said the words over it, but after curing it I was very much exhausted until I got a cup of tea, and then I felt myself getting better.” When requested to repeat the words, she affirmed that they were all good words, and that it was in the name of the Trinity she did it; but she went over the words in such a low voice, and with so indistinct a pronunciation and so fast, that the collector found it quite impossible to follow.

The writer was mentioning these circumstances to a lady visiting him who gave the following example, which aptly illustrates how the performance of some ceremony can form a foundation for belief in their beneficial activity. Her sister’s child of three weeks old was lying exceedingly ill and two medical men were in attendance, one having been called in as a consultant.

They told my visitor themselves that the child could not live. The family are Scotch, but this occurred in the neighbourhood of London. The monthly nurse suggested and urged baptism. The clergyman was sent for, and while going through the ceremony the child, who had been lying motionless, made some slight movement. Within two days that child had recovered, and is at the time of writing this as many years old as it was then weeks. The consultant subsequently expressed his dissatisfaction with the infant for having belied his prognosis.

In a case from Mull a servant, having been sent for a means of cure to a woman supposed to have skill, she found her in bed. She sat up, took the bottle containing water which had been sent for, put the mouth of it to her own mouth, and began to say some words over it. The words were spoken in a low tone, but so far as was recognised they were all “good” words.

In the case of a sick horse already quoted, the man who saw it went at once for G. T., then herding in the neighbourhood. The description of the interview is as follows: “When I reached him he said, ‘Peter, you need not tell me your business here.’ I said, ‘No.’ We went together to a little stream, and he said that I might now tell him what had brought me. When I told him, he asked me if I had tobacco. They do nothing without pay; not money, but tobacco and things like that. I knew he would ask for it, and I had it with me, and when I gave it him he asked if I had a bottle. I had a good notion of every turn he had, and so had taken a bottle with me, and when I gave it to him he turned his back to me and began lifting the water and saying the words. There was not a bad word in all he said, no, no. He said to me when he gave me the bottle and told me how to use it, ‘Your horse will be all right, Peter, as soon as you use it.’” His statement came true.

Things are not, however, always reported as of such an innocent and Christian character. A collector happened to be present at a conversation between two believers in the Evil Eye. One of them said, “Those who are working at such as that, applying eolas, are not helped but by the ‘bad one,’ for if it were that they were doing good they would not need to be hiding themselves when they would be at it. P. McL., a decent man, said his cow was injured, and sent for A. T. The cow was in a little hut, and when A. went in where the cow was P. put his ear to a little window that was in the wall, and he said, that when he heard such language as A. had, he would never again send for her should every cow he would have be unwell. She put her cap under her two knees—she was bare-headed and with her knees bare, but kneeling on her cap apparently—and she prayed to the vile one. (‘Ghuidh i ris an fhear mhosach.’) B. said, ‘Was that the time she said that my father’s brother injured the cow?’ That was the very time. You were living beside P. then.”

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.”