Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos[10].
‘Some jealous eye “o’erlooks” my tender lambs.’
And the pernicious influence makes itself felt in even a lower scale of life. In the neighbourhood of Sparta, where there is a considerable silk industry, the women believe that silk-worms are susceptible of mischief from the evil eye; and the same superstition is recorded by de Magnoncourt from Chios.
Of inanimate things, those most easily damaged in a similar way are leaven, salt, and vinegar,—as being possessed of quickening or preservative properties to which the blighting, destructive power of the evil eye or of the stars is naturally opposed. The precautions to be observed in carrying leaven from house to house have already been noticed. Equal care is required in the making of the bread. It often happens, so I have been told, that when a woman is kneading, some malicious neighbour will come in, ostensibly for a chat, and put the evil eye upon the leaven; and unless the woman perceives what is going on and averts disaster by a special gesture which turns the evil influence against the intruder, nothing to call bread will be baked that day. Similarly it is unwise to borrow or to give away either salt or vinegar at night[11]; but if it is necessary, it is prudent to take precautions to prevent its exposure to the stars, which may even be cheated of their prey by some such device as calling the vinegar (ξεῖδι) ‘syrup’ (γλυκάδι) in asking for it[12]. Further, an object which has been exposed to the stars may even carry the infection, as it were, to those who afterwards use it. For this reason the linen and clothes of a mother and her new-born infant must never be left out of doors at night[13].
The precaution, as I have said, most commonly adopted is the wearing of amulets. The articles which have the greatest intrinsic virtue for this purpose are garlic, bits of blue stone or glass often in the form of beads, old coins, salt, and charcoal: but many other things, by their associations, may be rendered efficacious. The stump of a candle burnt on some high religious festival, or a shred of the Holy Shroud used on Good Friday, is by no means to be despised; and the bones of a bat or a snake’s skin over which a witch has muttered her incantations acquire thereby an equal merit. But such charms as these are objets de luxe; the ordinary man contents himself with the commoner articles whose virtue is in themselves. No midwife, I understand, would go about her business without a plentiful supply of garlic. It is well that the room should be redolent of it, and a few cloves must be fastened about the baby’s neck either at birth or immediately after the baptism. Blue beads are in general use for women, children, and animals. If men wear them, they are usually concealed from view. But mothers value them above all, because in virtue of their colour—γαλάζιος is modern Greek for ‘blue’—they ensure an abundant supply of milk (γάλα) unaffected by the evil eye or any other sinister potency. Salt and charcoal are most conveniently carried in little bags with a string to go round the neck. An effective charm consists of three grains of each material with an old coin. But many other things are also used; when I have been permitted to inspect the contents of such a bag, I have found strange assortments of things, pebbles, pomegranate-seeds, bits of soap, leaves of basil and other plants, often hard to recognize through age and dirt and grease. One scientifically-minded man recommended me sulphate of copper.
Special occasions also have special precautions proper to them. At a wedding, the time of all others when envious eyes are most likely to cause mischief, the bridegroom commonly carries a black-handled knife slipped inside his belt[14], and the bride has an open pair of scissors in her shoe or some convenient place, in order that any such evil influence may be ‘cut off.’ But some of these magical safeguards concern not only the evil eye, but ghostly perils in general, and will claim notice in other connexions.
If, however, through lack of precautions or in spite of them, a man suspects that he is being ‘overlooked,’ he must rely for protection on the resources with which nature has provided him. The simplest thing is to spit,—three times for choice, for that number has magical value,—but on oneself, not at the suspected foe. Theocritus was scrupulously correct, according to the modern view, in making his shepherd spit thrice on his own bosom. Another expedient, though no garlic be at hand to give effect to the words, is to ejaculate, σκόρδο ’στὰ μάτι̯α σου, ‘garlic in your eyes!’ Or use may be made of an imprecation considered effective in many circumstances of danger, νὰ φᾶς τὸ κεφάλι σου, ‘may you devour your own head!’ Lastly there is the φάσκελον, a gesture of the hand,—first raised with the fist closed and then suddenly advanced either with all the fingers open but bent, or with the thumb and little finger alone extended,—which returns the evil upon the offender’s own head with usury.
But, in spite of these manifold means of defence, the evil eye has its victims; some malady seizes upon a man, for which no other cause can be assigned; and the question of a cure arises. Here the Church comes to the rescue, with special forms of prayer, commonly known as βασκανισμοί, provided for the purpose. The person affected goes to the church, or, if the case be serious, the priest comes to his house, the prayers are recited, and the sufferer is fumigated with incense. Also if there happens to be a sacred spring or well, ἅγι̯ασμα as it is called, in the precincts of any church near,—and there are a fair number of churches in Greece which derive both fame and emolument from the possession of healing and miracle-working waters[15],—the victim of the evil eye is well-advised to drink of them. There are some, however, who rate the powers of a witch more highly than those of a priest, and prefer her incantations to the prayers of the Church. She knows, or is ready to improvise, forms of exorcism (ξόρκια, ξορκισμοί) for all kinds of affliction. A typical example[16] begins, as do many of the incantations of witchcraft, with an invocation of Christ and the Virgin and the Trinity and the twelve Apostles; then comes a complaint against the grievous illness which needs curing; next imprecations upon the man or woman responsible for causing it; and finally an adjuration of the evil eye to depart from the sufferer’s ‘head and heart and finger-nails and toe-nails and the cockles of the heart, and to begone to the hills and mountains[17]’ and so forth; after all which the Lord’s prayer or any religious formula may be repeated ad libitum. During the recitation of some such charm, the witch fumigates her patient either with incense, or,—what is more effectual where a guess can be made as to the identity of the envious enemy,—by burning something belonging to the latter, a piece of his clothing or even a handful of earth from his doorway[18]. Or again, if the patient is at a loss to conjecture who it is that has harmed him, recourse may be had to divination. A familiar method is to burn leaves or petals of certain plants,—basil and gillyflower being of special repute[19],—mentioning at the same time a number of names in succession. A loud pop or crackling denotes that the name of the offender has been reached, and the treatment can then proceed as described above.
No less widespread in Greece than the belief in the evil eye, and equally primitive in character, is the practice of magic. Few villages, I believe, even at the present day do not possess a wise woman (μάγισσα). Often indeed, owing to the spread of education and the desire to be thought ‘European’ and ‘civilised,’ the inhabitants will indignantly deny her existence, and affect to speak of witches as things of the past. But in times of illness or trouble they are apt to forget their pretensions of superiority, and do not hesitate to avail themselves of the lore inherited from their superstitious forefathers. For the most part women are the depositaries of these ancient secrets, and the knowledge of charms, incantations, and all the rites and formularies of witchcraft is handed down from mother to daughter. But men are not excluded from the profession. The functions of the priest, for example, are not clearly distinguished from those of the unconsecrated magician. At a baptism, which often takes place in the house where the child is born and not at the church, the priest opens the service by exorcising all evil spirits and influences from the four corners of the room by swinging his censer, but the midwife, who usually knows something of magic, or one of the god-parents, accompanies him and makes assurance doubly sure by spitting in each suspected nook. Moreover if a priest lead a notoriously evil life or chance to be actually unfrocked, the devil invests him with a double portion of magical power, which on any serious occasion is sure to be in request. But, apart from the clergy who owe their powers to the use or abuse of their office, there are other men too here and there who deal in witchcraft. They are usually specialists in some one branch, and professors of the white art rather than of the black,—one versed in popular medicine and the incantations proper to it, another in undoing mischievous spells, another in laying the restless dead. The general practitioners, causing disease as often as curing it, binding with curses as readily as loosing from them, are for the most part women.