Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

Here we see a distinct reference to the Trinity, and we also notice that if we were to take that reciter’s account of it all the three representatives, apparently, in order to settle the diagnosis would require to stick to the bottom of the dish.

But another reciter from the same county, but from the parish of Tarbert, makes it clear that if the silver sticks the question is settled. When the reciter’s son was a baby she was living with her aunt, and one day the child began to scream as if in great pain. Nothing tried seemed to give relief, and her aunt, suspecting Evil Eye, took the reciter’s marriage ring, a sixpence, and a penny, and putting them into a dish, poured water on them and then poured the water slowly off into another dish. She then turned the dish upside down. The ring and the penny came out, but the sixpence stuck, and although the bottom of the dish was struck with her hand outside, the coin still remained. This confirmed her aunt’s suspicion. She said, “See you that? The child was hurt by some one envying it.” The reciter added, “He was a very pretty child at any rate.” The aunt gave the baby (some of?) the water to drink, and he soon got better.

A man and his wife, natives of Kinlochbervie in Sutherlandshire, separately interviewed, agree as to the common belief there in the Evil Eye and cronachadh generally. Mr. G. himself when a boy, being taken ill somewhat suddenly, his mother, suspecting that he had been air a chronachadh, got water, into which she put a gold, a silver, and a copper coin, and sprinkled the water on his face.

Mrs. H. said she has often seen it done both to cattle and people, and that it was, as well as a cure, a preventative where no suspicion of evil had already occurred, but only when it was dreaded, as, for example, in the case of young persons of prepossessing appearance.

From Back in Lewis we have evidence to the same effect, the belief in the Evil Eye being very common, and the cure by sprinkling water off the three metals usually resorted to. The reciter had seen it frequently done in the case of animals, on one occasion to a child. Application was here made to an eolas woman. She had water for the purpose brought from under where the living and the dead pass, put the three coins in a dish, poured the water on the metal, and sprinkled the child with the water.

The belief in the Evil Eye no doubt is pagan, though believed to be supported by Christian dogma, and seeing the importance attached to the rite of baptism in the name of the Trinity, it seems hardly to be wondered at that some equivalent ceremony should have been evolved for the cure of so mystic an influence as the Evil Eye. The writer would, he believes, be the last person to insinuate anything derogatory to one Church more than another; but using all honest material, the following statement must not be passed over.

A native of the north of Ireland, admitting the common belief in his own district in the Evil Eye, there called, as we have already stated, “blinked,” informs us that the services of the priests are in demand in such cases, and it is currently reported that priests do give bottles of fluid to be sprinkled on the animals affected, with what is believed to be satisfactory result. He added that there was a story told of a man damaging his cow by using another bottle containing vitriol instead of that given by the priest. If such a thing did happen it was the man’s fault, and in no way affects the question under discussion.

In reciting their incantations the practitioners also vary. The performance, as described by an eye-witness, in one case was that the woman consulted put something in a bottle, put the bottle to her mouth, spoke something into it, and then threw what was in the bottle over the cow to be cured. The result in this case was quite satisfactory, almost immediate.

In an Islay instance the woman consulted “went down to the little river that was below the houses. She had a wee dish with her, and she went on her knees and said some of the good words that she had while she was lifting the water. She took the water to where the mare was and said more of the words, and sprinkled the water over the mare.” The result in this case was that the mare got better, but was never so sound as she had been before, and once she got out of the stable she never could be either forced or coaxed to enter it again, do what they would, and the attempt was frequently made.

It seems possible that the account given by one reciter of the preparation of uisge a chronachaidh, in which he stated that the performer takes the water to be used into his or her mouth, and from the mouth puts it into a bottle to be sprinkled from the bottle upon the person or beast to be cured, may have been a conclusion formed from the incantation process being carried on over the mouth of the bottle.