Part 4

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.

A parallel case was mentioned as happening in Islay. “I remember it was a few days before the market a man came the way and wanted to buy a beast from A. McI. The drover was very anxious to get it, but they would not sell. The drover left, and before the sun went down that evening that beast was dead and buried. The reciter of this, a man of about fifty and a good workman, living by himself, is a piper, and possibly the addition of the beast’s hurried burial may be the result of a natural tendency to ‘blow,’ as they say. Anyhow, the piper said that it was believed that it was the drover’s eye that had killed the cow.”

Another reciter tells that a farmer in Islay had two good horses which some dealers wished to buy. The farmer would not sell either, and the following day one of them died. It was believed to be a case of Evil Eye.

The risk of refusing purchasers is not solely in the case of drovers. “Many are of opinion that it is risky for a person to refuse to sell any animal he may have to any one who shows a great desire to purchase it; some would sell at a sacrifice rather than run the risk. A native of Killean, Kintyre, tells of a fine cow his father had, and on which the family set a considerable value. A man who had known something about the cow came all the way from Campbeltown purposely to buy her, but the owner declined to sell her. “If he did, he hardly got any good of her thereafter, for in a short time she became unwell, and lingering for a time, died. The neighbours thought it was a real case of Evil Eye.”

From the mainland of Argyllshire a lady relates: “An uncle had a farm five miles from Oban. A neighbour on his way to attend a funeral, thinking her uncle might drive along with him, called. As he was passing the cow-fold the calves were being let out to their mothers, and one of the cows had a beautiful calf. The neighbour fixed his eyes on them and kept looking at and admiring them. He then asked her uncle if he would sell him the calf, but the proprietor refused, saying he did not intend to sell either cow or calf. That very week the calf was dead, and they never doubted but that it was the man’s Evil Eye that had killed it.”

A native of Applecross in Ross-shire told he had bought a fine horse, but before the purchase another man had been looking at it and been very anxious to have it, and praised it as a splendid beast. It was not long in the reciter’s possession until it had some complaint from which it died. The people—the reciter does not himself say he shares the feeling—believe that it was killed by the Evil Eye, for it had been known to everybody how anxious the disappointed man had been to get it, and how highly he had spoken of it.

SYMPTOMS IN ANIMALS ASCRIBED TO EFFECT OF EVIL EYE

One naturally asks what are the symptoms which, when present in animals, have given rise to the supposition that they were affected by the Evil Eye.

A woman gives the following account of what happened to her mother. She had been married very young, and was sitting by the fire suckling her first child with her breasts bare. The child had fallen asleep on her left arm. “My mother heard something behind her, and when she turned her head, there was a tall, grey-haired, ill-favoured-looking woman standing. My mother got up hurriedly, and having a great deal of milk, the milk spouted from her right breast into the fire. The _cailleach_ gave an unpleasant laugh and said, ‘The milk has gone along with the pee.’ My mother answered pleasantly enough, ‘Oh no, the milk and pee will be all right,’ and gave the _cailleach_ what she wanted. She was a Tiree _cailleach_, and they were all looked upon as being bad ones. The next time my mother was going to give her baby a drink she found she had not a drop of milk for him. The baby was crying, and when he would cry she would cry too, and what was to be done? This state of things lasted for a day, and my father then went for assistance from a person supposed to be skilled.”

The expression used by the Tiree woman was understood by the reciter to mean the milk that should have nourished the child was to turn into water in the mother’s system, and be so discharged.

Yawning has been ascribed to the effect of the Evil Eye.

An Islay man said: “_Bha piuthair aig an te nach maireann agus bha i cho boidheach ’sa chunnaic sibh riomh. Aon uair thainig boireannach a stigh agus thoiseach i air a chaileag a mholadh gu ro mhor. Well, cha robh a bhean sin ach gann air dol amach nur a thoiseach a chaileag air meunanaich, agus cha robh fad gus an robh i cho dona agus gun robh iad a saoilsinn gum bitheadh i air falbh._”

(“My late wife had a sister, and she was as pretty as ever you saw. Once a woman came in and commenced praising the girl excessively. Well, scarcely was that woman gone out of the house when the girl began to yawn, and it was not long till she was so bad that they thought that she would be away (die).”)

In the case of a child which was quite quiet and looking well, with the mother sitting nursing it, a neighbouring woman, who is not much liked in the place, came in. She sat a little while, and was no time away until the child began to cry. It cried long and bitterly, and its mother got into a fearful state, protesting of the other woman: “_Co fior’s tha mi beo, chronaich i mo phaisde_” (“As true as I am alive she injured my child”). It is interesting to note that in this case “a little white powder” prescribed by a qualified practitioner counteracted that Evil Eye.

Another case in which a child was ill was told as follows:—A woman went to inquire after a man who had just lost his wife in the Low Country, and brought their child home to his relations. She was told that the child was “not but poorly.” “What is the matter with him?” I asked. My informant answered me, that his mother had been sitting at the fire and the child in her bosom, when two women came to ask for the child’s father. The child was quite well and brisk when they came in, but before they went away he began to cry and groan. “He was quite sure,” he said, “that one or other of them had injured the child, but why they should do that he did not know, for they both had families of their own.” This case was cured by an unlicensed practitioner.

The following is from a woman of her own experience in the case of her own son. She told that his sister went out with him one day to a neighbour’s house. He was sitting in her lap, when the neighbour’s daughter called her mother’s attention to the white beauty of the child’s legs. The mother agreed, and something more was said praising the child, and he then got a drink of milk. Well, as soon as he took the milk, he began as if he were singing, “Do re do, do re do.” This he continued to do for a good while, and was very fretful. This child was cured by a magic thread which stopped the “humming.”

Cattle, in popular belief, are much more liable to damage from the Evil Eye than other animals, judging from the greater number of instances related of it in their case. “Two of M. McN.’s cattle died within a short time of each other, and all the old people of the place persisted in saying they were injured by some Evil Eye.” A reciter told of her mother, who had married the elder of two brothers occupying a farm in common, getting the credit of the Evil Eye because, shortly after her marriage, the cattle on the farm “began to die right away.”

In the following case motive is given, and if any overt act of a magical nature had been said to occur, it would certainly have to be classified as witchcraft, but seeing there is no such history, it is one of those cases in which the action of an Evil Eye was evidently not supposed to be involuntary. The heir to a tenant who had fallen into arrears, having paid what was owing, got possession from the superior. Meanwhile a woman had been living in the house. She was warned to leave, but paid no heed to the warning, and it became necessary to turn her out by force. She got shelter from a relative near by, while the new tenant went to live in the house from which she had been ejected. “But if he did, he soon suffered for it, for he was not long there until he had lost nine of his cattle by death, and he and every one else believed that they had been “_air an cronachadh_” by the woman from spite.

There are no symptoms recounted in these general losses.

More rarely than of cows, we hear of stirks being affected. This is rather an old story, and the authority for this is the reciter’s father, who told it of his own father. He was at market in Stratherrick, and refused to part, after considerable bargaining, with a stirk he had to a would-be buyer. “Before the market-day closed, down fell the stirk on the ground and nothing could make it get up.”

In a quite recent case, however, a stirk, said to be affected by the Evil Eye, “was very ill; its horns were quite cold, and it could not eat anything. The beast recovered.”

By far most commonly, evil from a “bad eye” comes to cows. A reciter tells of an instance that occurred to himself, where in a farm previously occupied, his mother had a particularly good cow. “One day my sister was in a neighbour’s house, and she was telling the woman about the lot of milk this cow had. The next day when my mother went out at the usual hour to milk the cow, she had scarcely begun when this woman passed close to where she was milking. Well, not a drop of milk could my mother get from that cow. The cow became suddenly unwell and fell to the ground. The skin came off her udder and not a bit of skin was on it after that. There was not the least doubt but that it was the other woman that had injured her.”

A native of Skye, in whose younger days the belief in the Evil Eye was very common there, and who remembers seeing “a general turn up” in the township in which she was brought up, caused by the alleged effect of one person’s Evil Eye upon the cattle of the neighbours, tells how her father had a fine Ayrshire cow. She was such a good milker that it was necessary to milk her three times every day. “All of a sudden her milk left her, and they never could account for it, except on the supposition of the action of an Evil Eye, and in fact were quite sure that this was the case.”

The reciter of the following says she remembers a Sutherlandshire minister telling it to her mother. He said that one time his cows were not giving the right milk. The milk was more like water than milk, and as for butter, not a bit could he get, no matter how well it might be churned. The minister here, on the advice of his housekeeper, resorted to witchcraft for a cure.

Another reciter says: “When my sister and myself were lumps of lasses we were down the road one day with a cow of my father’s. When we brought her home the milk was running from her, and she lay down on the floor and she wouldn’t rise. When they tried to put her up she would make as if she would climb up the wall.”

In fact, as another reciter in Rothiemurchus said: “It used to be a very common experience to have cows going off their milk, and sometimes dying from the effects of a person possessed of an Evil Eye looking upon them, and it is still believed that cases of this kind happen.”

A cow that was “kicking and would let nobody milk her,” being cured by one of the processes against the Evil Eye, the cure was understood to certify the diagnosis.

Mrs. McN. was milking her cow. A woman passing at the time remarked, looking at the cow the while, “That is a grand cow, and she gives a great deal of milk.” “Yes, she is a good cow,” replied the owner, and the woman having passed on there was no more about it, until a little while after the milking was done the cow lay down on the ground and began to roll in great pain. There never was any doubt but that it was a case of injury by the Evil Eye. The cow was cured by magic.

Another cow “grew to be unwell, and she was rolling herself upon the ground.” She was so unwell that the schoolmaster, who was a great friend of her owner’s, advised him to send for a man to flay her. She recovered.

Of course a recognised wizard may have the Evil Eye as much as a more innocent person. The reciter of this, a credulous man, no doubt, and uneducated, with the gift of the gab and a good deal of natural shrewdness, a distillery workman, is detailing his own experience. “The cows were all tied in the byre, and we were looking in the window and saw the _Buidseach ruadh_ (the red wizard) standing at the byre door. The door was in two halves, the upper half was open at the time, the lower closed, and he was leaning on it and gazing with all his might at one of the cows. The kitchen was at the end of the byre, and they always came straight down from the kitchen when they were going to milk. The women just came down then, and when they came to the cow that he had been looking at, not a drop of milk could they get. When they untied her to let her out she gave a loud bellow, and running up by the kitchen door made for the fire and tried to go up by the chain through the roof of the house. They had nothing for it but tie her up again, and for some days they did not get a drop of milk from her, and her skin became so loose on her it looked as if hardly sticking to her flesh at all. When the day for churning came they found the butter was gone also.”

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.”

A farmer of the name of M. had the farm of B., near Campbeltown. He had a favourite cow which he would not part with for anything. 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. The writer of this, having opened the window in the parlour widely, the door being shut to prevent it going into the house, was trying to drive out a strange cat. There was a lighted fire in the chimney, but the cat, without trying the window, went up the chimney. The fire being damped down and a dustpan put on the top of it, the cat returned to civilisation, and then disappeared through the window.

One other symptom comes from the Black Isle, Ross-shire. H. says that belief in the Evil Eye was very common in his native place, and has a good hold still on people’s minds. It was said to do injury to beasts, in many ways, among others that they could be blinded by it. His father had a striking case while living in the Parish of Redcastle. One of his cows died of what was considered a natural trouble, no Evil Eye influence being thought of. He had a quey grazing on the farm of a friend on the opposite side of the Beauly Firth, so he went for her and brought her home by Kessock Ferry, where some people examined her and admired her. She was a dun, and a fine-looking animal. Having reached home the quey was tied in the byre, apparently in good health. They however soon noticed that she had a habit of standing back in her stall to the full extent of the tether rope, and do what they would they could not get her to stand forward. A woman with knowledge of Evil Eye cases was consulted. After examining the beast in the byre by herself she told them the quey was blind, because some one’s eye had fallen on her. She recommended the following procedure to cure the animal and find out who had done the injury. She was to be let out and, no one going before her or trying to turn her, allowed to go where she liked. If this were done she said the quey would, of her own accord, go to the house of the person who had made her blind, and that she would go three times round the house bellowing, and then come back to her own byre quite well with recovered sight. This procedure was carried out. She went straight for a neighbour’s house, went round it three times, bellowed, and came back quite well and seeing. The reciter added, “Now the woman that could do that and find out things of that kind must have had some power herself, quite as much as the one whose eye had fallen upon the heifer.” The reciter of the above is an uneducated man, and superstitious in other ways.

A believer, a native of Knapdale, tells the following. For a considerable time none of her cows had quey calves, but at length she got one, a nice beast, of which she was particularly careful. When it was first let out she went herself to watch it. At that time she had a neighbour who had an ill-will to her, although they were on speaking terms, though without having much to do with each other. While she was watching the calf this neighbour came out of her own house, and putting her hands on each of her sides, stood and gazed for a few seconds at the calf. While she was staring at it the calf gave a ‘loup,’ rushed as if it were mad through the place, and when, with a deal of difficulty it had been caught and put into the byre, it kept leaping straight up, and seemed as if it could not rest. The person consulted said he could do nothing in the case, and that it was ill from the other woman looking at it. Subsequently she had two more quey calves of which she was very proud and pleased to have them, and as they were grazing in a park near the road, many people admired them. One day the same objectionable neighbour went, and placing her two arms on the dyke, stared at the calves for some time. “I saw her with my own eyes and did not like it, but said nothing.” Not long after her daughter came in and said that the white calf was lying dead among the nettles. “On hearing this I trembled, but spoke quite calmly and said, ‘Is it?’” On examination, sure enough the calf was dead, and the other was ill also. She consulted a skilled woman, and the remaining calf got better. This reciter added that since then she had lost beasts through the same person’s Evil Eye, and is in terror when she sees her coming about the house.

A woman who lived on Loch Awe-side, who was believed to have the Evil Eye, and whose father was also credited with it, was exchanging brood hens with a neighbour. She brought her own hen, and was going to take away the one to be exchanged. In the absence of the mistress, the girl who was keeping the house was going to give the cow a drink, and the woman accompanied her. There was nothing wrong with the cow then, but later in the day the cow’s calf died, and the cow herself began to take some kind of fits, and though she lived for a while never got well. When night came the hens were crowing, and next morning two of them were found dead. The hen that had been brought was put on the eggs, but if she was, it was not long that she remained on them. She took to the hills and was never caught, and all this was the consequence of the Evil Eye.

Even more common than injury to cows and calves is the deterioration of milk. Mrs. McL., appealing to her husband for confirmation, told how that in the winter-time she began to churn sometime after dark. Her husband helped her with it, and they had just finished, and she was going to stop and take off the butter, when a young man came in. When he went away she went back to her churn, but not a bit of butter could she get. To gather it she took another turn of churning, but the milk only swelled and went over the churn mouth. The butter was all gone. It was this young man’s Evil Eye.

Another nearly similar case to the above, and they could be considerably added to, happened to the mother of the reciter, who was churning, and a woman, supposed to possess an Evil Eye, and also suspected of a measure of witchcraft, coming in, “the butter got scattered into a kind of grainy substance, and do what she would the churner could not get it to gather again.”