Evil eye in the western Highlands

by Robert Craig Maclagan

In another case the identified doer, as previously mentioned, had brown hair.

In some cases, though no names are mentioned, it is quite clear that identification was intended. Thus, in one of the cases cured by a cord, the professor stated that the child had been injured by a mother and her daughter. “My man said that that was quite true, but that they had no ill-will to us, and why should they do that?” To that the woman said, “That it was likely that they did not know themselves that they were doing it.”

In another thread-cured case, the man operating said that it had been injured by drovers who wanted to buy the animal in question. We may conclude that the eolas man knew that drovers had been in the neighbourhood.

Similar cases have already been mentioned, the particularity of the description pretty clearly demonstrating that the professor would have been more candid if, instead of asking whether a dark and a fair woman with a blue shawl had been calling, they had said there had been, and that they were responsible.

But this describing the individual without naming him is evidently a trick of the trade. A farmer’s wife consulting an eolas man without at first the consent of the farmer, the professor described to the couple the appearance of the man who had done the mischief. We then learn that from the description they knew at once who the man was, and also that he had been in the byre shortly before the cow had taken ill.

It was probably a safe enough decision to credit strange drovers with an injury of the sort, their stay in the district being of course but a temporary one; but one suspects local jealousy in the following case, when a woman, desirous of getting back her vanished butter, was told that those doing the injury were not a musket-shot from her house. This was in Islay, and some Jura people staying in the neighbourhood, it was concluded they were those pointed at.

A parallel appears in the case already mentioned, where all Tiree cailleachs are slumped as dangerous. One suspects that in the following case an undesirable neighbour had been suggested.

There were three farmers side by side in the parish of Kilbrandon. The one in the centre was not nearly so successful as his neighbours. The unfortunate farmer went to A—— to consult a certain eolas man. By him he was told it was no wonder he was not getting on, for he had on each side of him “those who were doing him harm, and until he would remove he would never get on.” Taking the hint he looked about him, removed to another farm, and succeeded very well.

When in doubt, the professor, in some cases at any rate, acquires by examination assurance of the presence of an individual to accuse. Having put the string on a sick cow and the cow being cured apparently, “she (the eolas woman) came to the lassie that had been herding the cow and said to her: ‘You saw a man among the cows to-day, and you heard him saying that that cow was a good one.’” The girl said, “Yes.” The woman then said: “The man was J. G.,” and the girl again said, “Yes.” The woman then told them that it was the said J. G. who had done the harm. They all knew him quite well. “And now,” added Mrs. M. in telling her story, “if that woman had no knowledge, how could she have known who had been among the cows on that day, or who had done the mischief.”

In some cases a description is given of a method of identification of the owner of the Evil Eye. Formerly we described how a woman consulted shut her eyes, and opening them after an interval, informed her interrogator that anything she saw of the nature of a burden was what was pressing on the sick animal. In that instance it was said to be a horse collar.