AVOIDING SUSPICION OF EVIL EYE
People have not always the candour to accuse the suspected.
A lady engaged in teaching gives the following information: “You would hear of Mrs. McG.? She is making a great noise because, as she says, the milk is being taken from her cow, and not long ago her horse and some other beast of hers died, and she thinks it is because they were air an cronachadh by some person. She blamed a girl that was keeping house with a neighbour, and she went to the girl’s sister and said to her to say to her sister not to be taking away the milk from her cow.” This was not supposed to be a case of witchcraft.
So far we have been dealing with women, but it must not be supposed that such accusations are rarely made against men.
A small farmer, Alexander ——, having got into difficulties, lost his farm. A neighbour, better able to stock it, entered into possession. Soon, however, a cow died, and it was concluded that it was a case of cronachadh, an opinion in which its owner agreed, declaring: “Well, cho fad’s bhios bo bheo agam, cha dean mise rithist namhaid de Alasdair” (“Well, as long as I have a living cow I will not again make an enemy of Alexander”).
Men are also as cautious to avoid suspicion as women. Recently a servant-girl in Islay, having the charge of attending to the feeding of a pig, requested a man who had never been suspected of possessing a hurtful eye to look at the pig to see how it was thriving. The man refused, adding quite seriously that he did not like to look at a beast that way, in case of any harm being done. When she persisted that there could be no harm, he replied that not long ago M. McL. had a litter of young pigs, and a man came that way and was looking at them one evening, and the next morning they were all dead.
The reasons ascribed for the action of some are doubtless influenced by the reciter’s own beliefs. Thus, it was often said of a gentleman farmer in Rothiemurchus, well known in the countryside, that he would never praise any beast of his own, and this was supposed to be owing to his belief that he himself had an Evil Eye. It does not seem to have occurred to his neighbours that it was native modesty.
To show the hold that belief in an Evil Eye has on certain minds, a native of Ross-shire tells how he went to see a neighbour, who asked his assistance in putting a ring in the nose of a pig to prevent it rooting. “There was another neighbour of his there too, who had come forward when he saw us, one W. M., an intelligent man, and one that I would never have thought would give in to these superstitions; but he was a man that believed in the Evil Eye, although nobody suspected him of having it himself.” Accidentally the pig’s leg was broken. It was understood to belong to the wife of the man who proposed to ring it, who said:—
“Man, what will we say to the wife? But come away in and see what she has got to say.” When we went in the wife asked us if we had got the ring in the pig, and her man answered, “No, and I am sorry to tell you the pig has broken her leg.”
“How did that happen?” she asked, and her husband said, out of pure fun, “Oh, I don’t know, unless W. M.’s eye has fallen upon her.” That was enough. Up W. got in a wild rage, and said he would not sit under such a suspicion, and off he marched, terribly offended.
At the time of writing a reciter, a woman, admits that at K. in A. a man is living whom his neighbours believe to have the Evil Eye, and people not only do not like to meet him, but go out of their way to avoid him when going on important matters. It is told of him that a donkey belonging to a woman kicked his horse. The donkey’s owner expressed a hope that he would not come to know of it, lest he should hurt her beast. Her fear was justified, as it turned out, for the man saw the donkey kick the horse, and however he managed it, people believed that he put cronachadh on the donkey, for it turned ill and shortly died.