Another woman who was present when this was told doubted it being in anybody’s power to do harm in that way, whereupon the reciter declared that she believed it to be quite true and had experienced it with the same woman, and then detailed how she had caused the fowls to drop soft-shelled eggs, already quoted.
A domestic servant, speaking of this churning difficulty, said that when she went into houses where they were churning they would not mind her. “Many a time,” she added, “they have asked me to give them help with the churn.” She apparently had not appreciated the reason of her assistance being asked.
The explanation suggested for this procedure is, that if one does not want the churning to be successful they will not do anything to assist it; and, vice versâ, if they do give their help it is considered as evidence of their desire to bring it to a successful termination.
PREVENTION BY PECULIARITY IN CLOTHES
When speaking of the liability of nice-looking, well-dressed children suffering injury, the prevention by turning an article of clothing outside in was mentioned. The authorities in these cases are from Harris and from Islay. To show further the extent of this belief, a Ross-shire man says a thing he has often seen done for the prevention of evil influences was to turn a child’s coat or other garment wrong side out, because: “It is believed that a witch is rendered powerless in respect of any person who happens at the time when they might be injuriously affected to be wearing any article of clothing wrong side out.”
Another preventative in connection with clothing also comes from Harris. When a dress is put on for the first time a small burning peat or burning stick is waved over it, inside and out, and this is believed to be an efficient protection of the wearer from an attack by the Evil Eye. This is evidently the purification by fire already alluded to.
Attracting the Evil Eye by a piece of cloth also appears in the following from a farmer and office-bearer in the church, a man of about seventy, but an undoubted believer in what we may call superstitions. Where he was brought up a rag was put in a bruchag (cranny) of the wall at the head of every milk cow in the byre as a protection against the Evil Eye.
TAR AS PREVENTATIVE
The application of hot pitch to open wounds in ancient surgery is a well-known fact. It may have acted as an antiseptic, and like its congener tar applied for skin eruptions, may have so got into popular use as a preventative of evil. In the island of Islay tar was well known as an application against the Evil Eye, but its use seems to have been restricted to Beltane night, May Eve. One of our reciters, a man now of about fifty, when herding cattle as a boy remembers how all the time he was on the farm of C. at a fixed hour on Oidhche Bhealtuinn he went to the byre with the farmer and his son. They took with them a small pot of tar and a bit of stick, little larger than an egg-spoon. Our reciter held the dish while the son took hold of the ears of each of the cattle in turn and the old man put a little tar into each ear with the stick. If any words were spoken the boy did not hear them.
Another old man, a man of eighty, can neither read nor write, without any English, adds to the putting it in the ears that it was also put on the noses of the cattle for the purpose of “preventing injuries from the Evil Eye.”