Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

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.