Evil eye in the western HighlandsMaclagan, Robert Craig
Religion
Evil eye in the western Highlands
Maclagan, Robert Craig
Evil eye; Folklore; Superstition
“When myself and my father,” said a reciter, “were in service at E——,
I was the herd, and one of the milch cows was attacked and not a drop
of milk was left with her, but there was nothing to be seen wrong. We
had a suspicion of what it was, and I went up to a worthy, clever man
(_duine corr gasda_) that would be at work curing beasts that were _air
an cronachadh_. When I told him what was wrong he took a bottle from
the corner, while I sat by the fire. It is not known what he said on
the bottle, but when giving it to me, he said: ‘_Air na chunnaic mi
riomh gun am botal a leigeil ris a ghrunnd gus an ruiginn dhachaidh_’
(‘Upon what I had ever seen not to let the bottle touch the ground
until I would reach home’), and upon reaching to put what was in the
bottle in the cow’s two ears, and he said that this would make her that
she would have plenty of milk that same night. When I got home we did
exactly as he had said, and the creature had plenty milk after that.”
The above occurred in Islay, but the same taboo was laid on the
carriage of a like medicament in Rothiemurchus. The reciter said: “My
mother was for a while that she could not get any butter. Whenever she
would try to gather it, it would run like sand. At last her suspicions
fell on a woman in the neighbourhood believed to have the Evil Eye. My
mother was advised to consult a woman supposed to have skill in these
things, then resident in the parish of Rothiemurchus. When she spoke of
it to my father he did not object, and said he would speak about it to
the woman’s husband, both being at that time at work about the laird’s
house. Next day the woman’s husband promised my father that he would
tell his wife, which he did, and she made something. I remember quite
well being sent to the woman’s house for the thing that was to cure the
cow; my sister was with me, and the woman gave us a bottle, and what
was in it was just like clear water. When giving it to us she cautioned
us to be careful of it, for it must not be allowed to touch the ground
until it would reach the cow; and I remember how very carefully we
carried it home, and how feared we were for it. The cow was made to
swallow it, and whether it was that that did it, I cannot tell, but I
know they believed it was. In any case, after that the butter came all
right.”
The reciter of this, a woman aged about thirty-eight, was a crofter’s
daughter, fairly well educated and more than usually intelligent.
A very full account of the taboos to be observed by the carrier of an
_eolas_ cure comes from a reciter at Whiting Bay in Arran.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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