Evil eye in the western HighlandsMaclagan, Robert Craig
Religion
Evil eye in the western Highlands
Maclagan, Robert Craig
Evil eye; Folklore; Superstition
This is also met with as a belief in Arran, and a reciter there tells
of a minister in the Parish of Kilmory who had the Evil Eye in spite of
himself, and if he looked on his own cattle or horses they were sure
to be ill after. Other cases are mentioned, and one of our reciters
told how a man, while resident in the south of the island, and fond
of fine cattle, in the place where he was well known and respected
had never been suspected of the Evil Eye, but removing to the Whiting
Bay district, where he was among strangers, suspicion of the Evil Eye
attached to him and remained with him to the day of his death.
In these two last cases, in speculating upon the cause of the
accusation, it seems quite probable that the minister, being occupied
with his own special duties, rarely regarded the state of his beasts,
and only took notice of them under exceptional circumstances, and
coincidence had connected his inspection of them and their illnesses.
The other evidently was an amateur with an eye to beauty in others’
cattle, and probably had unfortunately expressed approval before
subsequent misfortune. One notorious incident was undoubtedly enough
to set the report going, and all know the results of giving a lie
half-an-hour’s start.
EVIL EYE TAKES EFFECT EVEN ON THINGS NOT SEEN
There is one simple way of keeping your property safe from the Evil
Eye: viz., by not letting it be known that you have what may be
affected. A certain D. MacF., who knew that his neighbour was crediting
his Evil Eye with having spoiled a churning, was standing in the
back-yard when the woman who suspected him was milking her cow. She,
having finished, should have passed him with her milk to carry it in
by the door, but on seeing him she started, and instead of coming
forward, passed the pitcher of milk in by a little window on the back
wall of the house, and then walked forward and went in at the door,
passing MacF. He concluded that her object was to keep the milk out of
his sight lest he should hurt it. MacF. disavows the possession of any
power of the kind.
Another reciter mentions that a certain Calum Ban, having the name of
the Evil Eye, others kept things out of his sight for fear that he
might hurt them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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