Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

TABOO WHEN IN POSSESSION OF WATER

In accordance with all the traditions of magical observance, we must expect to find the use of this curative water made dependent upon the observance of certain rules laid down by the professor. In one case already cited, a young person going with an old woman to a well for water, was ordered to keep silence, even though he himself was not carrying the water; and this was insisted upon rigidly. This was in Sutherland.

This insisting on silence is a very common taboo in other cases.

From an Arran reciter, in the case of an unmarried woman being sent for the pisearachd, as it is there called, the professor instructed her to go straight home, no further particulars being mentioned. This daughter of Eve and Adam sat down at the roadside and indulged her curiosity in examining what she had got from the eolas woman. Our reciter said, “After this, of course, it was of no use; for anything these eolas people give for curing should never be opened till it is going to be used. If it is opened before that, it will lose its virtue.” At any rate in this case it did no good, for the cow died.

Anything approaching careful reasoning in folklore matters is not to be expected, as in religion, faith takes the first place, and reason, if admitted at all, quite a back seat. Sometimes, however, things occur which tend to diminish superstitious faith and reassert the advantage of applied reason.

In Arran, a horse was supposed to be suffering from cronachadh. The farmer sent a woman to get the advice of a professor, W. She had to take care of a young child at the time, and probably it was not convenient for her to leave the child at home, anyhow, she took it with her in a shawl. Having told her errand to the eolas man, he gave her a bottle with instructions how to use it. On her way home, constantly hitching up the child on her back, the cork came out of the bottle, and all that had been put in it was spilled. When she found this was the case she was in a “great stew” and wondered what she should do. She made up her mind that she would fill the bottle from the burn and say nothing of what had happened on reaching home if the horse did not get better; if it did she could tell the truth. She refilled her bottle, retailed the eolas man’s instructions, the water was applied to the horse in accordance with these, and recovered. The woman now let out the secret, which, as may be supposed, somewhat shook the confidence of the public in the powers of that individual professor of piscarachd.

We have to take these stories as we get them. Cross-questioning the reciter has various results, from complete silence and a consequent drying-up of all information, to an acquiescence in anything they think will satisfy their interrogators. One is inclined to believe that in the following case a cracked bottle was deliberately given to the messenger so as to lead up to what happened. Our reciter said, “It was just last week I was speaking to R. G. about the man in R. One of his cows was ill, and a boy was sent to a man who cured cattle that had been air an cronachadh. The boy got a bottle with instructions, and was told, “I am not sure whether you will get back in time, but if the bottle does not break on the way and you can reach home before the cow dies, this will cure her.” The boy went as fast as he could, but when almost home the bottle broke in halves, and all that was in it was lost. He turned back and went as quick as he could to the eolas man, who told him: “I knew the bottle would break, but I will make another that will not break, only I’m afraid you will not be in time.” The boy hurried home to find the cow dead.

One would have supposed that any one not a fool would have looked upon this as a trick, but the reciter, a tradesman who can read and write, really an intelligent man and shrewd in other matters, added, “Was it not wonderful that he knew the bottle would break?” The collector asked him what he supposed had caused it to break. “Oh, just the strength of the evil that was inside it. One evil trying to beat another evil; the man that gave the bottle, you see, was a strong wizard.” Asked to explain his idea as expressed by the one evil trying to beat the other, and was not the man who professed to cure as bad as the one who had done the harm, he explained his position by saying: “Well, no, it is right to do good and to beat the wicked one.”

The spilling of the water, and consequently the impossibility of recovering it from the ground, would naturally put an end to any hope of cure from it, but it would appear that even laying it down while in the bottle deprived it of its virtue, as already pointed out.

“When myself and my father,” said a reciter, “were in service at E——, I was the herd, and one of the milch cows was attacked and not a drop of milk was left with her, but there was nothing to be seen wrong. We had a suspicion of what it was, and I went up to a worthy, clever man (duine corr gasda) that would be at work curing beasts that were air an cronachadh. When I told him what was wrong he took a bottle from the corner, while I sat by the fire. It is not known what he said on the bottle, but when giving it to me, he said: ‘Air na chunnaic mi riomh gun am botal a leigeil ris a ghrunnd gus an ruiginn dhachaidh’ (‘Upon what I had ever seen not to let the bottle touch the ground until I would reach home’), and upon reaching to put what was in the bottle in the cow’s two ears, and he said that this would make her that she would have plenty of milk that same night. When I got home we did exactly as he had said, and the creature had plenty milk after that.”

The above occurred in Islay, but the same taboo was laid on the carriage of a like medicament in Rothiemurchus. The reciter said: “My mother was for a while that she could not get any butter. Whenever she would try to gather it, it would run like sand. At last her suspicions fell on a woman in the neighbourhood believed to have the Evil Eye. My mother was advised to consult a woman supposed to have skill in these things, then resident in the parish of Rothiemurchus. When she spoke of it to my father he did not object, and said he would speak about it to the woman’s husband, both being at that time at work about the laird’s house. Next day the woman’s husband promised my father that he would tell his wife, which he did, and she made something. I remember quite well being sent to the woman’s house for the thing that was to cure the cow; my sister was with me, and the woman gave us a bottle, and what was in it was just like clear water. When giving it to us she cautioned us to be careful of it, for it must not be allowed to touch the ground until it would reach the cow; and I remember how very carefully we carried it home, and how feared we were for it. The cow was made to swallow it, and whether it was that that did it, I cannot tell, but I know they believed it was. In any case, after that the butter came all right.”

The reciter of this, a woman aged about thirty-eight, was a crofter’s daughter, fairly well educated and more than usually intelligent.

A very full account of the taboos to be observed by the carrier of an eolas cure comes from a reciter at Whiting Bay in Arran.

Two men, each having but one horse, were in the habit of doing their ploughing by uniting the pair in one team. One day both horses took ill and the Evil Eye was diagnosed. One of the owners sent for eolas and his horse began to recover; the other man, who at first expressed disbelief, seeing his neighbour’s horse improving while his own did not, sent his niece, on the “sly,” to the same practitioner, Bean A., for pisearachd. It is the niece who gives us the information. “Well, I went, and I told her my errand. I had a shawl on my head. When she heard my errand she went and put her hand up the lum and took something from there, and then she went into a corner and took out three wee pokes as black as soot and took something out of them. She was in the dark, but I knew that there were stones in the pokes, for I heard them rattling. She then gave me a paper with something in it, and told me that I was on no account to open the paper or let light or air into it till I would reach home. As soon as I would reach I was to tell my uncle to put what was in the paper into a bottle of water, and that he was to sprinkle the water over the horse, repeating its name three times while sprinkling it. He was then to pour a little into each of its ears, and the rest, if there should be any over, he was to put in its food. These were her directions, and I went away with the paper; but two people met me on the road and spoke to me. I did not answer them properly, for I was afraid, but just said I ‘iim,’ keeping my mouth shut all the time. I had a strong wish to see what was in the paper, but was afraid if I would let in light or air it might be of no use. I resisted the temptation till I was nearly home, and then, getting behind a dyke, I put the shawl over my head in such a way that neither light nor air could get into the paper, as I thought. When I opened the paper what I saw were three wee black balls, black as soot, just like balls of soot. I never let on at home that I had opened the paper, and my uncle did all as he was ordered to do, and after a while the horse began to get better. I do not know whether it was the bottle that cured it, but it took a good while before it came to be quite well. People used to say that when a beast or body was air a’ cronachadh it would take as long to complete the cure after the application of the eolas as had been between the injury and the application of the cure. Bean A. assured my uncle afterwards that it was a person of the name of Stewart that had done the harm, and there were only three of that name in the place at that time. Suspicion fixed on one of them, and by-and-by they began to cast it up to her. She got angry and went to check my aunt for reporting a thing of the kind about her. This was the first my aunt had heard of the cure, for my uncle wanted to conceal it from her, and she was very angry with him for having sent to the eolas woman.”

In the above an express proviso was that while sprinkling the water over the horse its name was to be repeated three times. The necessity for this was expressly laid down by a Sutherlandshire reciter who said, “The person or beast to be cured is made to drink some of this (silver water), and is also sprinkled all over with some of it. The sprinkling is done in the name of the Trinity, and the name of the person or beast being operated upon must also be mentioned. This is all that is needed if it is a case of Evil Eye.”

Of course there is a certain amount of pure swindle in some of these performances.

A lad was sent some miles in Islay for eolas for a sick cow. He gave his account of the case to the man, who then promised him a bottle. Having got the bottle and directions for its use, the messenger put it in his pocket and took his way home. Before he had got quite half-way, he fancied he heard a “commotion” in the bottle, which was still in his pocket. He then discovered that the bottle had burst (?) and what had been in it had all gone. Thinking this was not as it should be, after standing for a minute or two wondering what he should do, he made up his mind to go back and tell the scientist what had happened. Back he went, made his report, and the man said to him: “Did they manage to do that to you? I’ll give you a bottle they cannot break.” He got another bottle ready, waved his hands over it before giving it to the lad, saying as he did so, “Here, they cannot break this one, but the cow will not be saved.” He told the boy who had injured the cow. They were the doers of the evil, evidently supposed to be acting with intention to do injury; so this case might be considered as one of witchcraft by those concerned in it.