PREVENTING BY A SMALL GIFT
A well-informed woman, an innkeeper, said that in cases where a person possessed of the Evil Eye admired anything belonging to another, no injury could follow if some little present were given to the suspected person on leaving.
Another, the daughter of a farmer, an office-bearer in the Church, in the same island, gave the same information, but quoting an older authority. Beside her father’s house was a woman who firmly believed in the Evil Eye, and the power of preventing it by this gift. The house commanded a view of the road, so that, for the most part, an old woman suspected who lived in the neighbourhood could generally be seen approaching. The woman, to whom the latter was a special object of suspicion, never failed to advise our reciter’s people of the visitor’s advent. Her advice was invariably given earnestly and in the same form: “A ghraidh thoir ni eigin dhi, cha’n eil odds cho beag no cho suarach a bhios e, ach thoir ni eigin dhi agus an sin cha’n urrainn i do chron a dheanamh.” (“Dear, give her something, no odds how little or how trifling, but give her something, and then she cannot do you an injury.”)
In the case of churning the small present naturally takes the form of a drink of milk to be given to any one suspected of the Evil Eye, and so a reciter said that one should always, for safety’s sake, give a visitor a drink of milk, and stated further that the beneficial effect was added to if the one who gives it first take a little of it herself before handing it to the stranger. As an illustrative incident the reciter told how Black Colin of Balinaby when out hunting happened to go to Balimony at the milking time. Not one of them offered him a drink of milk, “Ach coma leat” (But all the same) the following morning when the girls went to milk the cows not a drop of milk could they get, while the cows kept running and roaring as if they were mad. At once the man of Balimony, concluding that the mischief had been done by Black Colin, saddled a horse, rode to Balinaby and took all the milk from the Balinaby cows, transferring it to his own. When Colin saw this he wrote to Balimony to this effect: “Leig leamsa agus leigidh mise leatsa” (equivalent to “Let a be for let a be”). The reciter added that the milk was properly distributed thereafter, and that the incident was one of Black Art.
To a student of the old Bardic Irish stories the continual mention of those who are recommended for their liberality to the poetic class simply shows how they used their office for their own advantage. The tricks of the non-producers continue the same now as they were in the days of Cairbre. A poor Bodach passed the house of the manager of a detached farm. He asked if he could get a drink. The manager’s wife, who was churning at the time, left her churn and gave him a drink of water. The Bodach took his drink and went away, the woman went back to her churn, but let her churn ever so much not a bit of butter could she get. The milk became merely froth, and swelled up so that she filled all her spare dishes. That churning was no good, nor the next, nor many succeeding ones, till she was afraid to look at her churn. So things were when who should appear but the same old man with the same request. The manager himself being in, translated the request liberally and gave him plenty both to eat and drink. After resting a little the old man rose to go away, and thanking them for their hospitality, added, “If a poor man ask for a drink, do not give him a drink of water.” The significant tone suggested to the manager to ask him for advice as to bringing back the butter, offering him any reasonable reward and putting a piece of money into his hand. This he said he would soon do, and told him to tell his wife to clean her dishes and put a piece of money in the churn and churn the next day. The story goes on to say that every scrap that had been lost was got back in one churning.
As the story is told the product of each churning must have been but a small matter, but there can be little doubt that this, if not a Bardic praise of hospitality, is a beggar’s one, and the story of course no better than an ursgeul. The reciter added a comment of her own: “Anns na laithean sin cha bhiodh daoine a beannachadh an cuid, agus le sin bha e furasda gu leor an cronachadh.” (“In those days people were not in the habit of blessing their effects, and so it was an easy matter to do them harm.”) No doubt those were the days before the existence of a Free Church, but it is doubtful if there was much less expression of blessings then than in the present.