Part 8

The lad’s forecast was correct. His master’s eye lost its gloom, and shaking his hand to them, he said: “Never mind, never mind; put in the horses, and do not say a word about it to anybody in case he may do more harm. If the horses are safe, we will not be long in dressing the plough.”

It is perfectly clear that an interesting instance of the influence of the Evil Eye was established here, so far as the farmer was concerned, and doubtless the belief in it generally owes not a little to equally fanciful stories.

MORAL SOURCE OF THE EVIL EYE

Though the action of the Evil Eye is accepted as involuntary, in the majority of cases, this is not the accepted doctrine in all districts. From Ross-shire (Strathpeffer) a reciter says:—

“It is a power which they are in some cases supposed to exercise involuntarily, but oftener intentionally and with mischievous design.”

From somewhat the same locality, Dores (near Inverness), a reciter “thinks that the involuntary kind that is often met with in certain other parts of the Highlands is not recognised, but in every case in which injury arises from an Evil Eye, it is to be referred to active covetousness and greed of gain at other people’s expense.” But even in Kintyre, where the involuntary action is accepted, a native tells us: “I believe in what people call the Evil Eye, and I have known very many who believed in it just as much as I do; not that every man has it, for there are only some that I would be afraid of. If I see a man that thinks highly of what belongs to himself, and would not exchange it with any man, that is the man I would like to have dealings with, for although he might do injury to himself, or to any living thing he might possess, he would do no harm to another. If I saw a man envying everything he saw, and thinking what belonged to other people was better than what belonged to himself, I would be afraid of that man, and if I had cattle I would not like him to come among them, for if he came I would be sure something would happen.”

A Mull woman said: “Cronachadh is quite common. It is done usually by a person that has an Evil Eye. It is just an eye with great greed and envy.”

An Islay man says: “Tha cronachadh ann. Se ‘n droch cridhe tha dol thun na sul, agus a’ deanadh droch suil.” (“Cronachadh exists. It is the evil heart going to the eye and causing an Evil Eye.”) The suggestion thus is that an Evil Eye is but the result of the natural man who has not rooted out of his nature what is forbidden in the Tenth Commandment, and so a native of Ross-shire (Tarbat) shows how strong the belief was that mischief might come “through the Evil Eye or ill wish of another.” A certain aunt of his formed a strong dislike to him when he was a boy, simply because it was known that his grandfather favoured him to the disadvantage of this aunt, as she thought, and he well remembered how anxious his mother was for a long time, lest the aunt’s known ill-will should cause some blight to come on him.

The following from Islay shows that though the belief there that it is involuntary is strongly held, those who have the power may exercise it deliberately. “There was a woman in Islay who had a sow that had a litter of young pigs. One morning a neighbour came to her, and seeing the teapot at the fire, asked if she would give her a drop of the tea. This was given to her. She then said, ‘You have fine young pigs there.’ ‘Yes, but they are all sold,’ answered the other. With that the visitor turned towards the door to go, and said, ‘Well, you sold a pig to me that died.’ That was all that passed, and she went her way; but the following morning two of the pigs were dead, and the owner was quite certain that the woman had done the mischief. The reciter who gives the information is of the same opinion, and he adds that it was an unkind thing to do on a poor woman.”

The strength of the Evil Eye, according to some, is to be gauged by the following remark by an old man: “B’abhaist gu’m biodh e air a radh le sean daoine, gun sgoilteadh an t-suil sanntach eadhon na creagan fein o cheile.” (“It used to be said by old people that the greedy eye would split asunder the very rocks.”)

Another says cronachadh is just envy, and it is said that envy will break the very stones. A man who wishes to have everything for himself will do harm to whatever he sees.

THINGS THAT SPECIALLY ATTRACT

A woman of twenty-eight, whose information is quite reliable, the daughter of a respectable man in one of the inner islands, remembers when young people talked a great deal about these things, and many were very much afraid of them. “The idea was that it was always the best and prettiest of beast or body that was most liable to be injured by a bad eye. Her youngest brother was awfully pretty when a child. They used to have him dressed in a red frock and white pinny, and with his fair skin, fair curly hair, and red cheeks, he was the nicest-looking child in all the place. Many a time, when my father would take him out, the neighbours would be warning him to take good care lest some one might do the child harm, and some would advise my father to go in and take the frock and pinny off him, so that he might not draw one’s attention so much.”

From Ross-shire we hear the same thing. A native “remembers when he was young, people believed in the Evil Eye and were afraid of it.” It was supposed that pretty children were specially liable to be injured by it, and it was a common device with some mothers, in circumstances where there was any suspicion of danger, to take care that at least some article of the child’s dress would be at fault, either in respect of neatness or cleanness, or better still, to have one of the child’s stockings turned outside in when being worn. These were supposed to form a protection to the child against injury.

The reciter remembers quite well a woman who in her own person and house was the pink of neatness, but full of superstition, and he cannot remember ever having seen her children without something untidy about them. Always a stocking or something else wrong on, and this was done intentionally by their mother to keep away the Evil Eye.

A native of Bernera (Harris) testified: “When a person appears well dressed and good-looking, it is supposed that she is in danger of being affected by the Evil Eye. A recommendation in such a case is to wear some article of clothing with the wrong side out, as a preventative of harm.”

An old man of eighty-seven, uneducated, but full of information, somewhat difficult to understand from the loss of his teeth and the weakness of his voice, telling his experiences in the most pathetic manner, said: “Bu nighean a’ cheud duine cloinne bha riomh agam, agus bha deigh mhor agam oirre. Ach de thachair, ach latha bha ‘n sin, bha i amach aig taobh an tighe, agus bha neach a’ dol seachad aig an robh droch shuil, agus chaidh an droch shuil anns an leanabh, agus bha i air a chronachadh. O’n am sin chaidh an creatur air a h-ais co mor gus aig a cheann mu dheireadh cha robh i air a cumail beo ach le beagan fion a bha air a chuir ann a beul le spain ti.” (“The first one of my family was a daughter. She was a pretty child, and I was very fond of her. But what happened but a day that was there, she was out at the side of the house and a person passed who had an Evil Eye, and the Evil Eye went into the child and she was injured. From that time the creature went back so much, until at last she was only kept alive by a little wine put into her mouth with a teaspoon.”)

“When people had occasion to go to farmer R.’s house, having children with them, they contrived to put some attractive article of clothing on the children, so that the gay clothes might divert his eye from the wearers and save them from injury.”

A native of Knockando (Elgin) says that there is an impression that the young, either of man or beast, are very liable to receive injury from an Evil Eye fastening upon them, if that should be the first eye that sees them after their birth. This belief makes people take great care often to secure that any one supposed to possess an Evil Eye will not be the first to see an infant immediately after birth, or any other young animal.

Using short texts separated from the context leads undoubtedly to misapprehensions on the part of the unlearned. In Isaiah xiii. 18, he says of the Medes, alluding to physical injury alone, “their eye shall not spare children.” That text has influenced not a few.

Without any suspicion of the owner of a beast having the Evil Eye himself, his desire to retain it is supposed to render it specially liable to the evil influence of any one possessed of the power. A Kinlochbervie man remembers well how very common, in his youth, was belief in the Evil Eye, and vividly recalls the terror his mother had when any unknown vagrant came the way, lest, being possessed of an Evil Eye, he might leave a blight on the house or anything belonging to it. She would give almost anything they might ask so as to get them away in a good mood.

STRANGERS SPECIALLY LIABLE TO BE ACCUSED OF THE POSSESSION OF THE EVIL EYE

Acquaintances might be divided into two classes. The Evil Eyes and the Non-Evil Eyes. Precautions should be taken against the former, and with them it was safe to class strangers. The daughter of a tradesman, a clever, intelligent woman, a farmer’s wife, whose husband’s people and her own mother are very superstitious, having moved from one district to another, her new neighbours, not long after she had came to live beside them, lost a number of geese. The owners made a great “ado,” and the position they took up relative to our reciter, the suspected one, was: “Faicibh fein an droch shuil tha aice. Cha deachaidh na geoidh air seachran riomh roimhe, ach ghabh iad fuath ‘nuair a’ dh’ amhairc ise orra.” (“See for yourself the Evil Eye she had; the geese never before wandered, but took fright when she looked at them.”)

The owners of these geese seem to have had a very lively faith in the Evil Eye. The collector having mentioned the experience to another neighbour, she said: “That’s not so bad as I got. I went to inquire for a friend if they would sell a goose. They said they would not sell, and there was no harm in that; but shortly after all the geese flew away, and if I did not catch it. They were in a fearful rage, blaming me for putting my Evil Eye in them. Another time their hens ceased laying, and they blamed my eye for that also.”

It is scarcely to be wondered at, the jealous ascription of the Evil Eye to strangers, though Highland publications speak largely of the noble characteristics of Highlanders at large, and the writer is the last man to deny them credit due. It must be confessed there is a large quantity of a ‘parochial’ feeling of jealousy in the Highlands generally. It is not necessary to go into the question whether this is or is not the modern aspect of previous district quarrels. Tramps trade upon this fear of strangers in other Gaelic places than the Scottish Highlands. A minister relates the following, which came under his own observation in Antrim. A tramp was passing a house, and he went and asked the housewife for a drink of milk. She said she had no milk, but the tramp was sure she had, but did not want to part with it. He said, “Oh, very well, I’ll take a drink of water, and let what will happen to the cows.” This was enough; she was sure that this was a challenge that he would have the milk in spite of her, so she repented and gave him as good a drink of milk as he could wish for, no doubt in this way escaping evil consequences.

PEOPLE SHOULD GIVE WHEN ASKED

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. Having been informed by the farmer that he had refused to give a barrel of potatoes to the woman, he said it was that that had done the harm. His advice was a little peculiar, not in that he recommended the sending the potatoes to the woman, but that they should be sent on the injured horse, with evidently a view to its cure. The potatoes were got into a bag, the bag lifted on the horse’s back, and away it went quite briskly, and they were delivered at the woman’s house, and thereafter the horse was quite well.

Drovers are not, of course, complete strangers in the districts in which they do business, but as a class they are looked on with some suspicion. Thus we are told, “Some drovers are possessed of the Evil Eye, and in consequence it is reckoned foolish not to sell any animals to them if they appear anxious to have them.” The reciter’s father had a good cow, and some drovers coming about wanted to buy her. His father refused to sell. The drovers persisted, but still met with a refusal. At last the drovers left, but shortly after the cow sickened, died, and nothing remained of her value to the owner but her skin.