Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

There has been mentioned the case of a young horse where the result of the Evil Eye was to make it pour of sweat and tremble. Having got it back into the stable, a recognised practitioner of eolas was sent for. Among his questions was one whether the lad who was leading it had, or had not, met any one on the road. He then asked for the halter which had been on the horse, and it having been brought him he said one or two words which nobody present seemed able to catch, after which, waving the halter three times over the animal, he said, “Rise and eat.” At once the horse got on its feet, began to eat, and was cured. McA., the eolas man, now said it was a case of cronachadh, and offered to tell who had done it. They assured him they did not wish to know. But the reciter made the naïve remark that “he knew already, for he knew who had met him on the road.”

UISGE A’ CHRONACHAIDH (WATER OF INJURY)

We have already mentioned, as one of the results of the Evil Eye, a bad attack of yawning. Here is the account of the sufferer’s cure in the words of the reciter. “Chuir iad airson sean-mhathair Sheumais Ruaidh so agus nur a thainig ise rinn i eolas le beagan uisge agus facailean, agus cha robh a chaileag tiota an deigh sin gus an robh i cho mhath ’s bha i riamh. Dh’innis a bhean a leighis i ra mathair gur h-ann air a cronachadh a bha i.” (“They sent for this Red James’ grandmother, and when she came she made science with a little water and words, and it was but a short time till the girl was as well as ever she was. The woman that cured her told her mother that she had been injured by cronachadh.”)

The water used here was what has been called in Arran at any rate “uisge a’ chronachaidh.”

One other account of this Evil Eye water we will give in the words of the reciter, an old man speaking of his daughter:“ ‘Nuair a bha ’m bas ag’oibrich rithe thainig i dhachaidh an so agus bha e soilleir gum b’ann air a cronachadh a bha i. Nis chuala mi fhein daoine ag radh nam biodh neach air a chronachadh agus nam biodh bonn airgeid air a chuir ann am bowl uisge a bhiodh air a thoirt a tobar o’n taobh deas, nan leanadh an t-airgiod ri grunnd a’ bhowl, nuair a dhoirte an t-uisge dheth, gun cuireadh an t-uisge sin an cronachadh air falbh nam biodh e air a chrathadh air a’ neach a bha fo’n chronachadh. Well, chaidh mi fhein gu tobar a bha ris an taobh deas de’n tigh agam agus chuir mi bonn se sgillinn an an lan bowl-de’n uisge ach nuair a thaomadh an t-uisge dheth, cha do lean am bonn ris a bhowl. Ach co dhiu chrath mi ’n t-uisge oirre ach ged a chrath cha d’rinn e feum sam bi, ’s cha deachaidh i riomh ni b’fhearr. Ach bha daoine ag radh nan robh an t-airgiod air leantuinn ris a’ bhowl gun deannadh an t-uisge an cronachadh a thoirt air falbh.” (“When death was working with her she came home here, and it was clear that she had been blighted. I myself heard people saying if any one were blighted and a coin put into a bowl of water, which would be taken from a southern well, if the money stuck to the bottom of the bowl when the water was poured off it, that that water would put away the injury if it were sprinkled on the person harmed. Well, I went myself to a well that was on the south side of my house, and I put a sixpenny piece in a bowlful of the water, but when the water was poured off the piece did not stick to the bowl; but however, I sprinkled the water on her, but though I did sprinkle it it was of no use whatever, and she never got any better. But people were saying, had the money stuck to the bowl the water would have caused the blight to be removed.”)

The methods of preparation of this water undoubtedly vary, not merely because the reciters do not give the particulars, but because the operators make differences. A messenger being sent to a woman for eolas, we are told “she gave the one that went a bottle of water with directions that it was to be thrown on the cow.”

Another reciter said that a woman being brought to see a sick cow (D. MacC.’s grandmother), “when she came she took a cog with water and went in to where the cow was. She was a decent woman, and whatever she did to the cow she got better.”

In another case the local practitioner, when sent for, walked round the cow three times, and our reciter said, she may have done something more, but in any case she failed to do any good, and the cow continued ill. They then sent a messenger to another woman of the same sort, but of greater repute, and who lived at a greater distance. This woman gave the messenger a bottle of something like water, with instructions that it was to be sprinkled over the cow. When the messenger returned home and the stuff in the bottle was sprinkled on the cow, she got up, shook herself, began to show signs of recovery, and in a short time was all right.

In another case the woman sent for, “when she came said it was a case of injury by cronachadh, and having repeated some words over the cow, she sprinkled water she had prepared upon her with the result that the cow soon got well.”

A male professor made up a bottle for a shepherd whose cow was ill, and instructed him on reaching home to sprinkle “all that was in the bottle” on certain parts of the cow. It is not advisable to take too literally statements which apparently are very exact; “all the water” in this case may simply mean the water that was in the bottle more or less in its totality. Or it may have been the instruction was so worded that if some of the water, even a drop or two, might be supposed not to have got on the cow that the charm would be ineffective. The destination of the water for particular parts of the animal was undoubtedly a usual proviso.