Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

Apparently the silver is given in the form of money as the most convenient medium, though there is good reason for the supposition that the whiteness of silver makes it specially appropriate as a medium of remuneration.

The instance in which the child that was ill is described as if singing “do re do,” the woman who cured it received from the father tea and sugar which he had taken with him when he went to consult her; but she said to “my man” (it was the mother who recited the incident) “that she was not wanting anything and would do it for us for nothing, but that he would need to come back with white silver. I sent him back with a sixpence to give her.”

An innkeeper, a well-read, shrewd woman of about five-and-forty, tells of a case with which she was well acquainted in which a near neighbour consulted an old man, wanting him to bring back her butter. “She said that she would pay him if he would bring it back to her.” He said that he did not want payment, but at the same time he could not bring it back unless he were paid in silver for doing so; that being so, he would require to take something from her, as otherwise the cure would not be successful. So she gave him the silver and soon had all the butter that she lost.“

Another reciter having been accustomed to do the churning in his father’s house, after his father’s death, his stepmother sent for him because she herself could not get any butter from the churn. He did his best, but was unsuccessful. Having had a horse cured by eolas, he suggested that the same man should be consulted. The man arrived, and the case was explained, the woman stating, “Feuch gun toir sibh dhachaidh an toradh oir tha e air falbh.” (“Try if you can bring back the due produce, for it is gone.”) “I’ll do that,” he said, and he did it by his eolas; there was plenty butter on the churn. It cost the woman a crown, but if it did, that was better than that the butter should be lost.

A woman who prepared a bottle for a sick cow charged the man who consulted her “two shillings for the bottle, and when she took the money she poured a little water on it and spat on it.” She might, one would think, with advantage have changed the order of her proceedings.

A sick bull which the veterinary surgeon had given up was referred to an eolas woman, the principal argument being that her assistance “would only cost a shilling.” She ordered a bucket of water to be thrown over the animal, and it recovered.

A Mull woman tells how her grandmother when newly married, after having reared calves, could only get butter of such an ugly colour that nobody would eat it, and it was used for greasing wool before carding. She was asked by a neighbour for a bowl of butter one day, and accused of greed for refusing it while she had eight cows. She explained the position, and was then advised to consult an old man, the neighbour adding that she would be coming back in a fortnight, when there would be plenty of butter to give her. The results of the consultation were fairly successful, though the eolas man explained that she would not for that year have so much butter as she should have, but that she should consider herself lucky that her cattle had not died. The reciter then said that her grandmother gave the man “plenty for his trouble, but did not grudge it.” When the old woman called on her way back she said, “Well, you can give me the butter now.” To which her friend replied, “Yes, I am thankful to you that I can.” And she gave her a good bowl of butter.

In the above case payment seems to have been in kind. A native of Ardnamurchan tells of a neighbour of her mother’s who had a number of cows and lost the due product of the whole of them. Her mother’s people were sitting down to dinner when a beggar woman came and asked, “An sibhse a’ bhoirionnach a chaill an toradh?” (“Are you the woman who has lost the milk and butter?”) “My mother was very fond of her neighbour, and thinking she might find out on her behalf how the milk might be got back, she answered that she was. The beggar woman said, ‘Ma bheir sibh dhomh lan meise de mhin bheir mise air ais dhuibh e.’ (‘If you will give me a (wooden) dishful of meal I will bring it back to you.’) My mother said that she would give her all that was on the table if she would bring it back, and then ran to the neighbour’s house to tell what she had heard. They returned together and told the beggar woman whose cows really had been ill.” They are said to have been cured. Here also the payment was promised in kind.

A native of Harris tells us of an old man in Stornoway much consulted, who “would undertake for so much money to bring milk and butter back.”

An Islay man gives us “ni a chunnaic mise mi fein” (“a thing I saw my own self”). This was the cure of his father’s cow. A certain George T. “came the way” “b’e duine corr bha ann an Deorsa so, aig an robh moran sgil mu’n chronachaidh.” (“This George was a decent man, he had much skill about cronachadh.”) The cure is described, and the reciter continued: “Cha b’e duine bha’ n an Deorsa a ghabhadh rud sam bith: ’se sin cha ghabhadh e pris airson a sheirbhis ann a leithid so do ni.” (“George was not a man that would take anything for his service in such a thing as this.”) “And my mother said to him, ‘Will you take a cup of tea, George?’ ‘It is I that will,‘ he said, for he had been about the cow a long time. When they were taking the tea they were keeping an eye on the cow now and again. She took a long time that she did not bend down her head, but at last she gave a shake to herself, and George said to my mother, ‘Your cow is right, woman.’ In a little while she gave the next shake, and again the third shake, and with that she was as well as she had ever been.”