Part 18

Putting all this together, it is not difficult to see why part at least of the magic fluid would lose its effect if it touched the ground, the place it most naturally reaches, if we accept Burt’s statement, in Highland houses, and even in a recognised house of entertainment. “But I had like to have forgot a Mischance that happened to me the next Morning, for rising early, and getting out of my Box pretty hastily, I unluckily set my Foot in the Chamber-pot, a Hole in the Ground by the Bed-side, which was made to serve for that Use in case of Occasion.” When the next bottle reached the house and not the ground, the effect was quite satisfactory. The reciter of this openly professed belief in the whole story, even to the recovery of the missing butter.

Many will rise up in arms against my suggestion that the water to be used, and which was used, and which is called water, was in many cases and in its origin urine. In the Clonmel witch-burning case in Ireland in 1895, Mrs. Cleary, the victim, had “water” thrown over her, fetched by her cousin from an adjoining room. This was brought three or four times, and the process of sprinkling lasted at intervals over a period of ten or twenty minutes. This water, according to the Cork Examiner and other reports, was called “a certain noxious fluid.” According to accounts given by Leitrim people, the most effective way of disenchanting folk was to throw over them a concoction of strong urine and hens’ excrement. Compare with this the Arran man’s charm against the Evil Eye mentioned on page 18.

Burt’s “Letters from the North of Scotland,” vol. ii. p. 65.

See “Folk-Lore,” vol. vi. p. 378.

The general protective power of stale urine is curiously illustrated in the following from a Mackay. The reciter said when he was young it was a general custom throughout the Reay country to have a tub of stale wash placed at the door cheek with a little stick always standing in it. The stick was preferably, if it could be got, of blackthorn—sloe. The object of this was that visitors might stir up the contents of the tub before going into the house, a process intended to protect the house and its inmates from being injured by any bad luck or misfortune, or evil of any kind, that otherwise might accompany the visitor. To comply with this condition was reckoned a sufficient passport for any caller, and no matter who he was, or on what business he had come, he was expected to do the stirring before crossing the threshold. The reciter said that he had done it himself regularly in his youth.

The conclusion arrived at that the water supplied in some cases, and in any case what ought to be supplied by the practitioner of eolas, was diluted urine, seems to get important endorsation from the following on the authority of John Kerr, LLD., late her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools:—

“A man had a child suffering from water in the head, and carried him on his back in a blanket from Lochcarron to Lochbroom and back—over a hundred and twenty miles—to see a man who professed to cure such ailments. He got a bottle of water, a spoonful of which was to be given several times a day. The doctor found the water absolutely putrid.”

“Memories Grave and Gay,” John Kerr, LLD., p. 323.

Dr. Kerr having this from a medical man, one is inclined to fancy that the description of the dose is given in a method corresponding to an ordinary prescription; spoonful doses remind one of the regular practitioner. The diagnosis ‘hydrocephalus’ is the doctor’s; the man consulted was not a curer of water in the head, but of the results of witchcraft or the Evil Eye. This, there can scarcely be any doubt of, or that that also was the father’s idea of the cause of the child’s illness—it had been air a chronachadh. Here the important point is the putridity of the water. If it had been pure water it might have been vapid enough, but we may be certain that no licensed practitioner would have said that the fluid was absolutely putrid without sufficient cause. The diagnosis is that its putridity was occasioned by containing a greater or less quantity of stale urine.

A BURNT OFFERING

The following is vouched for by an intelligent and educated young lady resident in Orkney, though as it is from a non-Gaelic island it takes us to a different people from those we have been occupied with.

In one of the islands there a farmer was losing his cattle one after another. The general opinion, in which the farmer himself concurred, was that the fatality arose from some person’s Evil Eye having lighted on the stock. It was also considered, as the best means of putting an end to this, to burn one of the remaining animals alive. This was done, and report has it that everything went well enough after that. This case seems sufficiently notorious, though no more exact information has been procured; but the Evil Eye is strongly believed in in Orkney, and our informant herself knew a man who, on finding things “going back” with him, as they say, confidently attributed his unprosperity to some one having put his Evil Eye in his effects. Many of his neighbours, knowing the circumstances, were of the same opinion as himself.

CHARMS. (STRING)

“No Christian shall attach short strings to the neck of women or of animals, even if you see this practised by churchmen, and they should tell you that this custom is a pious one.” Such was the pronouncement of St. Eloi of the Abbey of Luxeuil, in the seventh century, the successor of Columban, as reported by St. Ouen (Audoenus) in the “Nos Origines.”

Les Influences Celtiques, by Charles Roessler, p. 59.

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.

This must have been something of the nature of an ubag, a thing which takes the form generally of what, referring to American Indians, is spoken of as a “medicine bag,” but which the Dictionaries translate as a charm—an incantation. A much more common protective is the sreang a chronachaidh, or snathainn cronachaidh (string or thread of hurting).

The form that this took differed considerably. One reciter says it was made of different colours of yarn, an incantation was said over it while being made, and when finished it was tied round the child’s neck. She has often seen these in use, and did not think that it mattered anything what colours were used, provided that there were different colours in it.

Another reciter says that the strings before being put on were soaked in something, but does not mention if they were coloured, while two others mention the fact, of their personal knowledge, that the threads they had seen worn were red.

In one of the last cases the thread had been put on to cure a child supposed to be already suffering. In the other, while the thread was used as a protection, the reciter mentioned as a curative where something had gone wrong with the first child of a marriage, especially if there was any suspicion of cronachadh, that some article of clothing which had been worn by the mother on the first night of marriage, was put round the child three times, and “There are some,” said he, “who take the precaution to do this as a preventative even where no injury is suspected as having already taken place.”

One of our reciters quotes the following verse of a song as an authority for the efficacy of the red thread:—

“Snathainn dearg, is snuim air, Bi sud air ceann a’ chrandachan; Ged thigeadh Buidseach Henderson, Cheannsaicheadh Ailean e.”

(“A red thread, and a knot on it, That will be on the top of the churn staff, Though Henderson the witch should come, Allan would subdue him.”)

There can be no doubt that it is our old acquaintance the Witch of Endor who here again appears as Henderson.

The following is the account given by a man suspected of the Evil Eye, who watched secretly through a chink in the door the performance by a professor of eolas who was supposed to have inherited his skill from his deceased wife. The Evil Eye doctor went direct to the churn, which stood very much on the middle of the floor, and walked round about it several times, “six or seven,” says D. McF. Then taking a ball of yarn from his pocket he wound it round about the churn-staff, putting a good many turns on it. This done, he gave the staff two or three turns as hard as he could, as if churning. He then came out, but in a short time returned, and D., securing his point of observation, saw him take the yarn off the churn-staff and wind it round the churn itself. Again he gave a few turns at churning, and finally left. The reciter was uncertain whether or not any benefit accrued to that churning itself.

The following method in the case of a lad on the one hand, and of a cow on the other, demonstrates pretty fully the method of using the red yarn in Harris. The skilled woman, having assured a sick lad that she knew what was wrong, and that it could soon be put right, having requested all present, except of course the patient, to leave the room, procured a ball of three-ply yarn and wound it round the points of her thumb, middle finger, and ring finger of her left hand, holding the thread between the thumb and mid-finger of the right hand. Having done this she took a small piece of burning stick and passed it three times through the circle formed by the thread on her fingers. She then put a knot on the cord, bringing it close to her mouth, and repeating a lengthy incantation commencing, “Ni mi an obair so” (“I do this work”), in which were references to the “eye.” The knot having been put on and the incantation finished she took the yarn off her finger, and commencing at the crown of the head, she rubbed him with it in a round and round way all over. At this stage there was a knock at the door to which the performer replied: “You are there, I know you,” and without opening the door, put the knot into the fire, saying, “An galar ’s caslainnte chuirinn air mulach an teine.” (“The disease and the illness I would put on the top of the fire.”) She repeated this three times, and on the third occasion, instead of putting the thread in the fire (it would appear from this that she had made three knots, and not one as the description would lead us to suppose) she tied it round the lad’s neck. The thread is always tied, said the reciter, where it will not be seen, but it must be on the skin. Some wear such a thread as a precaution against the Evil Eye. It was explained that the knock at the door was done by the individual causing the illness.

The following is the information as to the conduct of the operation in the case of a cow, and our reciter saw this herself. The eolas operator first asked for yarn in which alum had been used in the dyeing. Our informant explained that it was necessary that any yarn to be used should have had alum applied to it, and as alum is always used in dyeing red (as a mordant), red is very generally what is taken on such occasions. Having got the little ball of red yarn, the thread was wound round the fingers as above described, and here we learn categorically that the forefinger must not be allowed to touch the yarn throughout the performance. There was no burning stick here used, but having taken the yarn off her finger, a knot was put on the thread, the knot put to her lips, and an incantation alluding to the eye muttered with it in that position. This winding, muttering, and knot-tying was gone through altogether three times with equal care. Commencing then with one of the horns of the animal, she rubbed the cow down with a circular motion all over till she came to the other horn, and then tied the first knot on the cow’s tail, taking care to have it out of sight, the three knots being tied one after the other to the under hairs of the cow’s tail. When the cow showed signs of improvement the first knot was taken off and burned with the words used above. The same performance being carried through with the second knot, but the third knot was allowed to remain on the cow’s tail. This woman refused to impart the incantation formula to any but a member of her own family, and it is believed that the greater the admiration of the operator for the person affected the more effectual the cure.

A native of South Uist said that while different methods were employed to cure the Evil Eye, the most common, so far as she could judge, was the Snaithnean (thread). This was so well known that when the Evil Eye was suspected in the case of an animal, faigheamaid snaithnean dhi (dha) (get a thread to it), and away they would go to an eolas person. The snaithnean is simply a red woollen thread four or five inches long. The giver of it says some good words over it, hands it to the messenger with instructions to go straight home and tie the thread round the animal’s tail till it recovers. In more important cases the professor may deem it advisable to fasten the string on himself. The reciter, though not admitting belief in the charm as such, has seen this done several times with good effect.