Part 13

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.

When in doubt, the professor, in some cases at any rate, acquires by examination assurance of the presence of an individual to accuse. Having put the string on a sick cow and the cow being cured apparently, “she (the _eolas_ woman) came to the lassie that had been herding the cow and said to her: ‘You saw a man among the cows to-day, and you heard him saying that that cow was a good one.’” The girl said, “Yes.” The woman then said: “The man was J. G.,” and the girl again said, “Yes.” The woman then told them that it was the said J. G. who had done the harm. They all knew him quite well. “And now,” added Mrs. M. in telling her story, “if that woman had no knowledge, how could she have known who had been among the cows on that day, or who had done the mischief.”

In some cases a description is given of a method of identification of the owner of the Evil Eye. Formerly we described how a woman consulted shut her eyes, and opening them after an interval, informed her interrogator that anything she saw of the nature of a burden was what was pressing on the sick animal. In that instance it was said to be a horse collar.

Probably in this case the woman satisfied herself of the gravity of the illness by comparing it with the relative weight of the burden.

In another case in which Thursday and Sunday were said to be the lucky days for the preparation of the _uisge a chronachaidh_, and it took from Wednesday to Sunday to prepare the stuff, the blame was at the end of that time laid to the charge of a stranger from Tiree. One can scarcely doubt that in that case the time was utilised to make inquiries.

In addition to these more crude methods there are indications of the dark-room business carried on in more civilised places almost to the present day. There was a man who lived at Balloch in the island of Lewis much consulted, and believed to be specially skilful in dealing with cases of the Evil Eye. “For a consideration he would produce the likeness of those who had done the harm, showing it to the injured. He would take them into a little room he had, where he would show them the likeness of the owner of the Evil Eye.”

Another traditional method of identification was “to make some one pass before the inquirer, and the one who had done the harm would be of the same name.” We say traditional in this case, because we have no information about smoke-raising, crystal balls, or anything of the kind, and are therefore inclined to refer it back to the Biblical account of Saul’s interview with Samuel.

That the story of the magic mirror has found its way into the Western Highlands, however, is made clear by the following. A lighthouse-keeper is our informant.

Five men meeting his neighbour outside the lighthouse stopped him and informed him that having left their boat on the beach, when they went back to it they found it had a hole, and they wished to see in the looking-glass who had done the mischief. When the lighthouse-keeper assured them that he had no such looking-glass, and expressed astonishment that they would believe in such nonsense, they seemed somewhat displeased. In recounting this incident afterwards the light-keepers learned that an impression had gone abroad in the place that there was a particular mirror at the station that had the property of showing who those were that had taken part in cases of witchcraft. It is easily comprehensible how the reflectors in a lighthouse might be spoken of as of peculiar efficacy, with the usual “Three Crows” result.

The difficulty of course is to distinguish between claims advanced of the possession of a power, of which, under the circumstances, a demonstration cannot be demanded, and the actual carrying out of some impressive hanky-panky. The following is an illustration:—

A messenger being sent for a cure, and having received it, the scientist told him that if the cow had been his own she could make the shadow (_faileas_) of the one who had done the mischief to pass before him, or, if the woman who was the owner of the cow had come, she could have done it for her.

One can scarcely be accused of a want of Christian charity if he suggests that if the professor had had the owner before him he would not have claimed the powers he did.

In the story already related of Campbell of Skipness showing the injurious one in a carefully darkened barn, the reciter, also a Campbell, had all the appearance of believing in the story, but as it was told of a relative of his great-grandfather’s, no one can say what are the accretions time has added to the facts of the case.

We have pointed out that even the Church has been brought in contact with the Evil Eye scientist, and the following information from a well-informed, clever, middle-aged lady, the sister of a clergyman whose father took an interest in traditional Gaelic matters, as she does herself, was heard from a Sutherlandshire minister who recited it to her mother. The milk of their cows being unsatisfactory, the housekeeper asked leave to consult an _eolas_ man. The minister was very angry, but the housekeeper stuck to her text and carried out her purpose, telling the minister, “_Na gabhadh sibhse gnothuch sam bith leis, agus chi mise de ni mi_.” (“Take you nothing to do with it, and I’ll see what I’ll do.”) She got the _eolas_ man, and he asked for a basin of the sort of watery stuff they were getting instead of milk. When he got it he closed up every hole and crevice, even stuffing up the key-hole. Then he put the milky water on the fire, and when it was hot he took a knife and began to cut with it through the pot of milk. While at this work a woman came to the door, screamed, and wanted to get in; but he cried to her that he would give her plenty of it, and he continued cutting away through the milk. Still she screamed and begged him to let her come in, but he said he would not until she would promise to give up her wicked work and give the _toradh_ back to the minister’s cow, all the time continuing cutting with the knife. She answered she would promise everything he wanted, for every cut of the knife was going through her heart. The man then opened the door and took the pot off the fire, and from that time the supply of milk, both for quantity and quality, was satisfactory. In this case also, though the authority is thoroughly respectable, it is impossible to say what actually took place. In fact it may be that our informant may have mistaken a traditional recitation as the experience of the reciter himself. Though told àpropos of the Evil Eye, looking at the story in all its bearings, it looks as if it had been, if it happened at all, a case of pull devil pull baker between two witches, one of whom was supposed to be taking the minister’s milk.