The stick may be good enough for a defence of superstition, but ridicule is the proper method of attack.
A young intelligent lady was lately in a house in the village of Golspie, the occupant of which, mourning over the dying of her fowls, said she suspected it was the result of the Evil Eye of Mrs. X., a neighbour. The next day, being in the same house, another neighbour came in carrying a growing plant, which she presented to the complainer, saying: “Mrs. X. told me that you had your eye on this, and ever since it has done no good; the leaves have been withering and falling off. Now!—there it is to you! keep it.”
The person superstitious enough to believe in the force of the Evil Eye may well be expected to have his superstitious faculty developed in other directions. A child took ill, and its parents believed it was the Evil Eye of a certain woman which had done the harm. With the view of bringing her to confess her doings, or in any case to punish her, they procured a square of turf, and having stuck a lot of pins in it, they placed it on the fire. This action, one of the forms of the so-called corp creadha, was intended to do personal injury to the suspected party. There was no evidence of it having had any effect whatever.
EVIL EYE
After the long existence in this country of Christianity, while we talk composedly of the superstitions of the heathen and of other Christian nations, we are apt to forget our own, or if we speak of them, we look on them pityingly as peculiar to some individuals of whose opinion we reckon little. In towns, and among those who read many books, the constant friction of man against man hinders the survival of a belief in such a thing as the Evil Eye, now that a certain quantity of education is common property. Where the incidents of life are less crowded, and individual experiences are rarer and at longer intervals, that is, in country districts and especially in the more mountainous and less closely populated, the Evil Eye has yet in Scotland many believers, and consequently considerable influence. Such a remark as the following, made to a minister, is not so rare as one might suppose: “Nae doot whatever Mac had the Evil Eye, that’s certain. I have known many cases when a calf, or even a cow, died the day after he looked at her.” Another said of the same: “I was once in the dairy when he came in. ‘You should not have let that bad man in,’ said Nancy MacIntyre to me. ‘Why?’ said I. ‘Because he has an Evil Eye,’ said she. Now, I will not say that this was true, but this I know, that on that very day one of the cows bursted, and died from eating clover. What do ye say to that?”
Another sample is the following: A farmer’s son, whose father had lost a horse, was thus addressed by a neighbour, “You had a horse that was ill, is it better?” “Oh no, it is dead.” “You are unfortunate this year. Isn’t that four that have died on you?” “Yes, but we know now what was wrong with them.” “Weel, that’s well; ye’ll know what to do should any more take ill. What was wrong with them?” “They were air-an-cronachadh” (harmed). “Such nonsense! there is nothing of that now.” The lad did not agree with this, said they knew who did it, and the lad’s interrogator’s mother-in-law joined in the conversation, agreeing as to the correctness of the diagnosis; and the doubter rejoined, “Well, if you are all against me, I may stop.”
An Argyllshire islander says:—
“Tha buideachas uile air falbh anis agus is math gu bheil, oir be ni olc a bha ann. Ach, ma dh’fhalbh sin, tha rud eile nach d’fhalbh fathast, agus ‘se sin cronachadh. Chunnaic m’i ann mo thigh fein mucuircean, agus thainig ban-choimhearsnach a steach latha, agus thubhairt i gum bu mhuc ciatach a bha’n sin. ‘Tha i gle mhath,’ fhreagair mi fhein. Well, chaidh am boireannach a mach, agus cha robh i tiota air falbh, nur a thug a mhuc an aon sgreach aisde agus air dol mun cuairt dith, thuit i air an urlar. Le so, thainig D. ‘ac A. a stigh, agus fheoraich e ‘Co an t-aon mu dheireadh a chunnaic a mhuc?’ Dh’ innis mi fhein dha, gum be a leithid so ‘a bhean. ‘Mata’ ars esan, ‘s ise rinn an t-olc. Ach ma tha uillidh sam bi lar ruit, cha chreid mi gum bi mise fada ga cuir ceirt. Fhuair mi dha uillidh nam piocach, agus ghabh e a mhuc eadar a dha chois, agus thaom e lan copa dheth na beul. Thug a mhuc reibhig, agus shaoil mi fhein gu robh i air chuthach ach ann a’ mionaid a dh’uine, bha i ceirt gu leoir; Nis, nach be sud an droch bhean?”
(“Witchcraft is all gone now, and it is well it is, for it was a bad thing. But if that is gone, there is another thing that has not gone yet, and that is Cronachadh. I saw a breeding sow in my own house, and one day a neighbour came in, and she said that that was a splendid sow. I answered that she was very good. Well, the woman went out, and she was no time away when the sow gave such a scream, and going round about she fell on the floor. With this D. Mac A. came in, and he asked who was the last person that had seen the sow. I told him it was such and such a woman. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it was she that did the harm, but if you have any oil beside you, I believe I shall not be long putting her right.’ I got saithe oil for him, and he took the sow between his two legs, and poured a cupful into her mouth. She screamed, and I thought she was mad, but in a minute’s time she was all right. Now, wasn’t that the bad woman?”)
A young fellow who had received a liberal education, in fact, a probationer of the Church, the son of a self-made man, fairly well-to-do, avowed his own belief in the Evil Eye. He said in effect: “As sure as you and I are sitting here there is an Evil Eye in it. I know that when I was in Harris, and our M. an infant, there was a certain woman who used to come in pretty often, the sister-in-law of H., you know, and my wife, who you know is not one to tell a lie or speak about these things, told me that every time that woman came in she would be praising the child, and the child was always unwell after it.”