Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

In fact, as another reciter in Rothiemurchus said: “It used to be a very common experience to have cows going off their milk, and sometimes dying from the effects of a person possessed of an Evil Eye looking upon them, and it is still believed that cases of this kind happen.”

A cow that was “kicking and would let nobody milk her,” being cured by one of the processes against the Evil Eye, the cure was understood to certify the diagnosis.

Mrs. McN. was milking her cow. A woman passing at the time remarked, looking at the cow the while, “That is a grand cow, and she gives a great deal of milk.” “Yes, she is a good cow,” replied the owner, and the woman having passed on there was no more about it, until a little while after the milking was done the cow lay down on the ground and began to roll in great pain. There never was any doubt but that it was a case of injury by the Evil Eye. The cow was cured by magic.

Another cow “grew to be unwell, and she was rolling herself upon the ground.” She was so unwell that the schoolmaster, who was a great friend of her owner’s, advised him to send for a man to flay her. She recovered.

Of course a recognised wizard may have the Evil Eye as much as a more innocent person. The reciter of this, a credulous man, no doubt, and uneducated, with the gift of the gab and a good deal of natural shrewdness, a distillery workman, is detailing his own experience. “The cows were all tied in the byre, and we were looking in the window and saw the Buidseach ruadh (the red wizard) standing at the byre door. The door was in two halves, the upper half was open at the time, the lower closed, and he was leaning on it and gazing with all his might at one of the cows. The kitchen was at the end of the byre, and they always came straight down from the kitchen when they were going to milk. The women just came down then, and when they came to the cow that he had been looking at, not a drop of milk could they get. When they untied her to let her out she gave a loud bellow, and running up by the kitchen door made for the fire and tried to go up by the chain through the roof of the house. They had nothing for it but tie her up again, and for some days they did not get a drop of milk from her, and her skin became so loose on her it looked as if hardly sticking to her flesh at all. When the day for churning came they found the butter was gone also.”

A Kintyre man recites the following of an authority consulted for the cure of the Evil Eye. “Her cow, put out for the first time after calving, became wild and jumped against everything like to kill herself. There was nothing for it but just to put her back into the house. Everybody was sure the beast had been air a cronachadh by some person’s Evil Eye, or bewitched by witchcraft. When the woman to whom the cow belonged came to know of it she came up, and going up to the cow, gave her a clap or two on the back, said something, and in a minute or two the cow was as quiet as she had ever been.”

A farmer of the name of M. had the farm of B., near Campbeltown. He had a favourite cow which he would not part with for anything. Some drovers wished to buy this cow, but M. refused, and though the drovers persisted, he would not part with her. They went to the cow and began to soothe and fondle her. When they left the cow began to go about in a circle, and could not be got out of that circle. At length the farmer was forced to kill her. This was told by an educated and reliable gentleman, without prejudice, so to say, to his belief or disbelief in the origin of the illness.

One is apt to smile at any one talking of an animal going up the chimney by the pot chain; frightened animals do curious things. The writer of this, having opened the window in the parlour widely, the door being shut to prevent it going into the house, was trying to drive out a strange cat. There was a lighted fire in the chimney, but the cat, without trying the window, went up the chimney. The fire being damped down and a dustpan put on the top of it, the cat returned to civilisation, and then disappeared through the window.

One other symptom comes from the Black Isle, Ross-shire. H. says that belief in the Evil Eye was very common in his native place, and has a good hold still on people’s minds. It was said to do injury to beasts, in many ways, among others that they could be blinded by it. His father had a striking case while living in the Parish of Redcastle. One of his cows died of what was considered a natural trouble, no Evil Eye influence being thought of. He had a quey grazing on the farm of a friend on the opposite side of the Beauly Firth, so he went for her and brought her home by Kessock Ferry, where some people examined her and admired her. She was a dun, and a fine-looking animal. Having reached home the quey was tied in the byre, apparently in good health. They however soon noticed that she had a habit of standing back in her stall to the full extent of the tether rope, and do what they would they could not get her to stand forward. A woman with knowledge of Evil Eye cases was consulted. After examining the beast in the byre by herself she told them the quey was blind, because some one’s eye had fallen on her. She recommended the following procedure to cure the animal and find out who had done the injury. She was to be let out and, no one going before her or trying to turn her, allowed to go where she liked. If this were done she said the quey would, of her own accord, go to the house of the person who had made her blind, and that she would go three times round the house bellowing, and then come back to her own byre quite well with recovered sight. This procedure was carried out. She went straight for a neighbour’s house, went round it three times, bellowed, and came back quite well and seeing. The reciter added, “Now the woman that could do that and find out things of that kind must have had some power herself, quite as much as the one whose eye had fallen upon the heifer.” The reciter of the above is an uneducated man, and superstitious in other ways.

A believer, a native of Knapdale, tells the following. For a considerable time none of her cows had quey calves, but at length she got one, a nice beast, of which she was particularly careful. When it was first let out she went herself to watch it. At that time she had a neighbour who had an ill-will to her, although they were on speaking terms, though without having much to do with each other. While she was watching the calf this neighbour came out of her own house, and putting her hands on each of her sides, stood and gazed for a few seconds at the calf. While she was staring at it the calf gave a ‘loup,’ rushed as if it were mad through the place, and when, with a deal of difficulty it had been caught and put into the byre, it kept leaping straight up, and seemed as if it could not rest. The person consulted said he could do nothing in the case, and that it was ill from the other woman looking at it. Subsequently she had two more quey calves of which she was very proud and pleased to have them, and as they were grazing in a park near the road, many people admired them. One day the same objectionable neighbour went, and placing her two arms on the dyke, stared at the calves for some time. “I saw her with my own eyes and did not like it, but said nothing.” Not long after her daughter came in and said that the white calf was lying dead among the nettles. “On hearing this I trembled, but spoke quite calmly and said, ‘Is it?’” On examination, sure enough the calf was dead, and the other was ill also. She consulted a skilled woman, and the remaining calf got better. This reciter added that since then she had lost beasts through the same person’s Evil Eye, and is in terror when she sees her coming about the house.