We thus see, though we know that ministers of the Church are by their profession kept in the dark on matters of which they would express unbelief, yet that where a superstition is ingrained in a parishioner it is not concealed from the minister. Ministers may be misled by putting their own interpretation on the form in which the information comes to them. A clergyman in one of the Western Islands said: “I have observed that there is still a strong belief in blighting from the Evil Eye among the people in the parish of K. A respectable and intelligent man whom I visited often during a season of sickness, once and again, when talking about his illness, made the remark ‘fhuair mi cronachadh.’ I always misunderstood what the man meant by cronachadh, taking it in the sense of reproof, and therefore thinking that what was meant was that the sufferer was placed under chastisement by a dispensation of Providence. At last, however, I learned from a third person that the sick man was strongly impressed with the belief that his illness was caused by some evil-intentioned person who had wished him ill.” This suggests witchcraft as much as or even more than the Evil Eye; but the two things run into each other more or less. We have already seen one Gaelic reciter maintaining that witchcraft, buidseachas, did not now exist, but the Evil Eye did. Compare that with this from a native of Uist:—
“Ma ta bha buidseashas ann. Chaidh mi fhein aon latha gu tigh coimhearsnaich airson coileach oig, agus bha laogh aca ceangailte aig cul an doruis. Cha robh mi fada san tigh gus an d’thainig nighean a steach. ’Nuair a fhuair mise an t-eun, dh’fhalbh mi, agus cha robh mi ach beagan uine air falbh ’nuair a dh’fhas an laogh tinn. Chuir muinntir an tighe fios thun boireannach a bha ’n sin, aig an robh sgil mu bhuidseachas, mar bhiodh daoine ’g radh, ga h-iarruidh a thighinn a dh’-amhairc an laogh. Thainig am boireannach, ach ma thainig, bha an laogh marbh mus d’thainig i. Co luath ’s a dh’amhairc i air thubhairt i riutha air an spot gum b’e ’n “suill” a dh’aobhraich am bas. Agus air bharrachd air sin, dh’innis i dhoibh co rinn an gonadh. So mar thubhairt i. “Nach robh dithist bhoireannaich agaibh an so am eigin an diugh?” Agus ’nuair a fhreagair iad gun robh, thubhairt ise. “Bha h-aon diubh soilleir, agus an te eile dorcha. Bha shawl glas air an te shoilleir, agus b’bise a dh’oibrich am buidseachas.”
“Nis bha sin gle fhior, oir bha an nighean a thainig a steach nur bha mise san tigh soilleir, agus bha shawl glas oirre cuideachd.”
“Indeed, witchery was in it. I myself went one day to a neighbour’s house for a young cock, and they had a calf tied behind the door. I was not long in the house till a girl came in. When I got the bird I went away, and I was only a short time away when the calf became unwell. The people of the house sent word to a woman that was there, who had skill of witchery, as people would be saying, asking her to come to look at the calf. The woman came, but if (she) came, the calf was dead before she came. As soon as she looked on it, she said to them on the spot, that it was the ‘Eye’ that caused the death. And more than that, she told them who had done the mischief (wounding). Here is how she said: ‘Have you not had two women here sometime to-day?’ and when they answered that there had been, she said: ‘One of them was fair and the other dark. There was a grey shawl on the fair one, and it was she that wrought the witchery.’ Now that was quite true, for the girl that came in when I was in the house was fair, and there was a grey shawl on her.”
A woman of about sixty-five, a reader of history and Gaelic publications, remembers when the belief in the Evil Eye was so common in Islay, that when any disease came among a person’s cattle, it gave rise at once to a strong suspicion that they had been air an cronachadh. The disease was called “dosgach.” When one would come with the news of disease or death among a neighbour’s cattle, the person to whom it was told would say, “Mach an dosgach a so”; or, “Mach a so an droch sgeul” (“Away the plague from here;” or, “Away the evil news from here.”) At the same time, suiting the action to the words, he would tear some piece off the clothes he had on at the time and throw it into the fire. This was supposed to prevent the evil from coming his way.
Indeed there are very many who still act on the belief expressed in the following, by an old distillery workman, uneducated, but naturally shrewd, though we would say credulous: “They will be saying to me that we have no mention of cronachadh in the Bible, and they will be putting it down my throat, but I tell them that it is there. Both the Evil Eye and Witchcraft were in it from the beginning, and they will be in it till the end.”
We may mention here that there is a very strong belief among many of the influence of the “wish” for good or evil. “B. McL. affirms that if she wishes ill to any person ill is sure to follow, and if she wishes well good will come of it. She maintained that a person, lately dangerously ill, owed her recovery to her good wishes.” A person has only to maintain this view, and the superstitious will probably find reasons for believing that it is true. This, however, opens the question of the guidhe (imprecation or intercession, as the case may be), and there are not a few who are applied to to make guidhes of both sorts.
We must consider the meaning of the terms used.
In South Argyllshire the common expression regarding a person or thing affected is that it is air a chronachadh, or, as another in Northern Argyll expressed it, air a chronachen. Cron means a fault or defect, and the verb used seems to be an expression of the opinion that something is wrong with the object, the usual meaning of the word being best translated “reproved,” or “rebuked”; the speaker, as it were, finding some fault in the person or thing spoken to, he sees that it is faulty, and says so. In the case of a person with an Evil Eye, he actually causes defect to the object. Now the same would be true of black magic; thus, air a chronachadh is as apposite to a person affected by witchcraft as by the Evil Eye. It is necessary therefore to distinguish, when one hears of a case of cronachadh, whether it is by mischievous intention or not; and this is done sometimes by the reciter. Thus, a person consulted to cure an animal affected, when telling who it was that was to blame for the evil, said: “Well, ’se duine le ceann dubh a chronaich do bho leis an droch shuil” (“Well, it is a man with a black head that has injured your cow, with the Evil Eye”).
In many districts this expression would merely convey the idea of rebuke (Tyree, Lewis, Dornoch, Kiltearn). In these places the expression usually is Luidh droch shuil air (An evil eye rested on him). In Easter Ross, a person desirous of avoiding reflections would say: “Cha’n eil mi cuir mo shuil ann” (“I am not putting my eye in it”). Even in Arisaig in Southern Inverness-shire, marching with Argyllshire, they use this expression only.