“Cha’n eil mi dol a thoirt creideas da leithid sin idir.”
Thuirt an gille: “Well, tha mi fein ‘s an t-each a’ creidsinn ann.”
(“I am not going to give credence to the like of that at all.” The lad replied: “Well, both I and the horse believe in it.”)
A like case. “You remember A. B. He had a braw mare; everybody was praising her, and there wasn’t the likes of her to be seen about the place. A man who was passing waited to look at her, and praised her for being a splendid beast. But if he did, when she reached home she fell down and would neither rise nor eat.”
Mrs. G. said: “One of our horses, a fine beast, was going past the barn when all at once it fell on the ground. They got it into the stable. In a little time it could not move its body, but was tossing its head from side to side and seemed to be in great pain. It was striking its head on the ground so much that we thought it would kill itself.”
A case in which the illness had lasted for some time before skilled advice was got, is the following: “D. D.’s father-in-law had a horse unwell and not expected to recover. It was lying in the stable quite stiff, and had neither eaten nor drunk anything for some days.”
A farmer who had two fine horses told the reciter to put the saddle on one of them and meet him on his way home from a visit he had to pay. D. McT., as instructed, saddled the better of the two horses and started to meet his father. He was very careful, leading the horse instead of riding it. He met his father within three miles of home driving in a cart with a neighbour. When they met, his father said, “You have killed that beast. Why did you ride it so hard?” D. told his father, what was the fact, that he had not ridden at all, but walked all the way from home. “Look at the horse,” said his father, and the horse was pouring of sweat and trembling. He turned home, but could not keep up with the cart, and only managed to make it crawl back with difficulty. As soon as it was got into the stall, it lay down and commenced kicking as if in great pain. The horse was cured.
A man of whom we have already spoken as injuring animals with his Evil Eye unintentionally, as a reciter tells us, “was at this time threshing with my father. They had no threshing-mill, and did it all with flails. One day my father had been out ploughing, and had the best mare ever they had in the plough. Coming home, he had to pass the barn to go to the stable, and McA., of the Evil Eye, came to the door and looked after the mare. That was enough; before the mare reached the stable door she began to shake and tremble, and it was with great difficulty they managed to get her into the stall. They knew quite well what was the matter.”
One other horse case. The reciter says: “One Sunday I was standing there on the little hill at C., and I saw a man coming towards me from Gartachara. I knew the man and waited till he passed. He went down to C. I never thought of anything being wrong, but when I turned down the way the man had come up, what did I find but a beautiful brown horse I had at the time, lying on his belly in the water where the horses used to take their drink. He could not stand on his feet, but I got help, and we managed to get him into the kailyard, where he lay groaning.” The horse recovered.