Part 9

The application of hot pitch to open wounds in ancient surgery is a well-known fact. It may have acted as an antiseptic, and like its congener tar applied for skin eruptions, may have so got into popular use as a preventative of evil. In the island of Islay tar was well known as an application against the Evil Eye, but its use seems to have been restricted to Beltane night, May Eve. One of our reciters, a man now of about fifty, when herding cattle as a boy remembers how all the time he was on the farm of C. at a fixed hour on _Oidhche Bhealtuinn_ he went to the byre with the farmer and his son. They took with them a small pot of tar and a bit of stick, little larger than an egg-spoon. Our reciter held the dish while the son took hold of the ears of each of the cattle in turn and the old man put a little tar into each ear with the stick. If any words were spoken the boy did not hear them.

Another old man, a man of eighty, can neither read nor write, without any English, adds to the putting it in the ears that it was also put on the noses of the cattle for the purpose of “preventing injuries from the Evil Eye.”

Another, a woman of about fifty-five, says her father was regular in the habit of putting tar on the horns of his cows on May Eve to protect the beasts from the Evil Eye.

A fourth reciter says he has often seen it put on the horns and ears, and also rowan berries tied to the cows’ tails on the same occasion, and adds that this was usually accompanied with the repeating of some good words to protect the beasts from being hurt with the Evil Eye.

The germicide powers of tar products seem to have been further reaching, and even more highly appreciated in those days than they are now.

NICKING THE EAR

The ears, we now see, played a prominent part in the treatment of _cronachadh_, and we learn on the authority of a minister how that in the case of a quey supposed to be affected by the Evil Eye, the owner loosed it from its stall, cut a slit in its ear, repeating some incantation the while.

From a man of about fifty-five, a joiner, we have confirmation of this. He remembers of a beast dying where he lived when he was a boy, and of seeing the woman to whom the animal belonged and another _cailleach_ sitting over the dead beast cutting a piece out of its ear. They kept the piece they cut. On asking why the women were handling the dead animal, he was told that the piece cut from its ear would prevent an Evil Eye affecting the rest of the cattle.

Weak or unhealthy eyes are in popular belief cured by piercing the ear (and wearing earrings).

URINE AS PREVENTATIVE

The detergent, and let us say with all gravity, the cleansing power of stale urine, is well known, and it is hardly to be wondered at when we find this used to clear away, as it were, evil influences.

“There was at one time a farmer in Gruinart who used regularly to sprinkle his cows when putting them out with the contents of the chamber pot. This was with the view of protecting them against witchcraft, and I have done that myself.”

Our informant for this was a woman of about sixty. This is supported by another reciter in Islay, who said it was done in the morning.

Two other reciters tell that it was done in spring, or the early part of summer, when they were put out on the grass “for the first time that season.” The sprinkling was done with a broom from the chamber pot as the cattle were passing out of the byre.

What was good for cows was also considered good for horses; they also got their share of attention. Finally, in this particular, an intelligent crofter’s wife who can read, and is of about seventy years of age, informs us that it was customary to collect the bedroom slops for a day or two before the birth of a child. So soon as the child was born, to prevent any mischief from _cronachadh_, the house was sprinkled both outside and in. She saw this done in her mother’s house.

The remark that this sprinkling was done when the cattle were first turned out, and of a statement that it was common among farmers to have the services of a man believed to have _colas_ to notch the ears of cattle on May Eve against witchcraft, have to be taken together, May Day being supposed to be a specially active moment for the witch sisterhood. Two reciters mention this sprinkling with “salt” and “urine” in connection with each other. That they were looked upon as having somewhat the same action there can be no doubt, whatever analogy drawn between the two may have existed in the mind of the reciter. One of the two reciters gave an instance which, though undoubtedly unperceived by the narrator, throws a sidelight upon the ideas connected with it. The mother of our reciter consulted an _eolas_ man for the bettering of defective churning. He gave her a bottle, directing her to hold it in her hand all the way on her journey home, and on no account to let it touch the ground. When she got home she was to sprinkle some of it on the cow and the outside of the churn, and round about it. On her way home she rested for a minute, and forgetting about the instructions, put down the bottle. Sprinkling the cow did no good, and the scientist was again consulted. _“Leig thu leis fheum a chall,” ars S._ (“You allowed it to lose its usefulness,” said S.) “_Rinn i gair bheag ag’radh gun do leig i sios e car mionaid._” (“She smiled, saying that she had let it down for a minute.”) “_Chaill thu e mata._” (“You have lost it, then.”) Now comes the incident mentioned on page 119 of his retiring to the back of the house and giving his consulter the slip of _iubhar-beinne_ (juniper), the flavouring matter of gin, the most diuretic of stimulants.

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.”[8] 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.[9]

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

[9] 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.”[10]

[10] “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.”[11]

[11] _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.

The above statement was thoroughly corroborated by another from the same locality, who “has often seen the red thread on beasts’ tails.” She spoke of the injury as _gonadh_ (wounded).

An Islay woman remembers as a girl, in the case of a cow of her mother’s, where a string was put on the cow that was ill, but as they were all turned out of the byre she does not know what else was done.

Another reciter in the same island, in the case of one of his own horses, which was said to have been injured by the evil eyes of drovers, had it cured by a woollen thread being tied round its tail.

Before leaving the red thread, a reciter in Islay, whose aunt lived next to a professor, said that when this woman was consulted in cases of Evil Eye, she took a bottle containing a red thread and water, and for the purpose of discovering the cause of the animals’ illness she closed her eyes and repeated an incantation. This done she would open her eyes, and the first living creature bearing any burden or weight, that weight, whatever it might be, she maintained she saw pressing upon the animal. A case in point is the following. Having gone through her performance when consulted about a sick cow, on lifting up her eyes they rested on a man carrying a horse collar. She told the owner of the cow that the spirit of that man with the collar was pressing on the animal, and would continue so until the water which was in the bottle, over which she had repeated the incantation, was sprinkled on her. If after that the cow shivered all over she would not get better, but if she merely shook her ears she would be all right. The people about, the reciter added, had great confidence in this woman’s professions.

Another reciter said that when a child was not thriving a red thread was tied round its neck and allowed to remain on night and day. He has seen this where he knew both the child and its parents very intimately.

It must not, however, be supposed that red thread alone was used. Another Argyllshire reciter has seen on Hallowe’en different colours of worsted thread tied on cattle as a prophylactic.

The mother of the child, in which the symptom of injury by the Evil Eye was its seeming to sing “do re do,” gives the following account of the thread tied on it which cured it. His father went to an _eolas_ woman and told her his business. She took some lint that she had ready to be put on the spindle and twisted a little bit into a thread. It must always be green lint that is used for these threads. She made a string that would go three times round his neck, and getting the man’s knife she wound the thread round the steel, and handing it to him ordered him to hold it in his hand all the way home, and not to open his hand or speak to anybody till he would reach home. He was then to put the string three times round the child’s neck, and as he was getting better one string at a time was to be taken off and thrown into the fire. This was all done as directed, the “humming” stopped, and the child got quite well.

A native of Strontian gave the following as his own experience of the use of a green thread. When a boy he had a “fallen” uvula, and was sent to a woman who was said to be able to “lift” it. She took him into a corner of the house and commenced manipulating the outside of his throat and below his chin, speaking all the time as if to herself. At all events he could not follow what she said, though he heard the words _Sheumais, Eoin, ‘s Pheadair_ (James’, John’s, and Peter’s) frequently. Having done this some time, she tied a green thread about his neck and sent him away, saying it would be all right. Mr. McD. added the remark that he had nothing to give the operator, though it is essential that something pass from your hand into theirs. A reason for this was given by a native of Fort William, that “unless the curer got something for putting the trouble away the trouble would go on him- (her) self.”

A curer of cases of Evil Eye in the neighbourhood of Ballachulish, though her method of treatment was not wholly known to the reciter, part of it consisted in giving water and two threads (three articles), one black and one white. The threads were to be twisted in a prescribed manner round the person or animal affected, and if the threads showed any tendency to knot, it was taken as a sure sign that it was a case of the Evil Eye, _i.e._ apparently if they formed _eyes_ on the thread.