Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

The writer having no skill in churning, has no knowledge what result would come from putting of salt in the churn, but an Arran woman is responsible for the statement that she had herself often seen salt put into a churn as a protection against any evil influence.

A careful observer in Islay tells how that at one time their butter having left them and they had got none for some weeks, they sent for a woman, a professor in the neighbourhood. When she came they had a churning ready to commence with, but on examining it she advised that it should be thrown to the pigs, and added that they must clean and scrub well all the dishes used for gathering the milk, and that she would return on the next day they were ready for a churning. That day having come, the eolas woman returned, and the first thing she did was to sprinkle a little salt on the bottom of the empty churn. The milk was then poured in and the churning commenced, with unexpectedly satisfactory results. The practitioner here was an eolas woman of a very good sort, and set about her operations in a manner well calculated to be successful. On the farm, however, they regarded that butter with suspicion and sold it.

To judge from what we are told in the following as having occurred in the north of Ireland, so strong is the action of salt that it will put matters right with a bad churning, even though it neither touch cream nor churn. Failing one day to get their butter properly, the reciter’s master sent for an old woman in the immediate neighbourhood. When she came she just glanced at the churn, and seeing at once what was wrong, she said to the farmer, “If you like I will show you the one who has done the harm.” He assured her that he did not wish that, but would be pleased if she could do anything with the churning. Without more ado, so far as W. could see, she took a handful of salt, which she threw into a pot boiling on the fire. She then gave a turn or two at the churn, and sure enough the butter came all right.

We have already mentioned the use of salt in connection with sugar as put in milk given to a woman suspected of influencing her source of supply, and from which the dairymaid took the first mouthful as a sure preventative of evil, not only for the quantity immediately given, but also for any that would be supplied subsequently during the season.

One other instance of the use of salt we give on the authority of an Arran man of about sixty-five years of age, a shrewd business man, but of whom the collector says that to judge from appearances he thinks his knowledge of the island and his family connection with it extends about as far back as the origin of the island itself.

He said his father was a great believer in the Evil Eye. One day a neighbour, walking with him while ploughing, had spoken in praise of a brown horse that was in the plough. His acquaintance had hardly left when the horse turned ill, and lay down and kicked and groaned. It was unyoked and taken home, and the Evil Eye being suspected N. R.’s wife was sent for. She came and got a mixture of salt, soot, and a lot of other things which she rubbed on the horse. She felt it all over with her hand to find out the particular spot where the eye had struck. Whatever did it, the horse recovered and was quite well afterwards.

The passing the hand over the animal to feel for material damage is peculiar. This is a usual proceeding in cases of elf-shot, but not of the Evil Eye; however, of course the woman was thoroughly entitled to make her own diagnosis in her own way.

MOST SUITABLE WATER

In the course of the preceding, various sources for water used to cure Evil Eye have been mentioned. “A certain well.” This may have been a holy well of some sort, consecrated by traditional connection with some saint, though after all it may have been chosen merely to fulfil the condition mentioned elsewhere that a spring is preferable. A narrowing of the choice of springs from which water could be taken was shown in the case where one of our reciters told us that, believing the water a bhiodh air a thoirt a tobar o’n taobh deas (should be taken from a south well), he proceeded to take it from a well south of his own house, while another mentioned that the water required to be taken from a spring facing the south.

While roughly one-half of our reciters have expressed a preference for well or spring water, the other half prefer running water. One said “it should come from a march burn,” and two mentioned “that it should be from a running stream,” not mentioning any advantage to be derived from its dividing two properties. One pointed out that a piece of bread must be in the possession of the taker. In two other instances the information was given that it must be taken where the living and the dead pass. The condition further annexed that it must be from under a bridge is probably merely an expression of the reciter’s own for this same idea. He would probably have considered stepping-stones, or a commonly used ford which led to a burial-place, as equally effective.