Evil eye in the western HighlandsMaclagan, Robert Craig
Religion
Evil eye in the western Highlands
Maclagan, Robert Craig
Evil eye; Folklore; Superstition
The reciter remembers quite well a woman who in her own person and
house was the pink of neatness, but full of superstition, and he cannot
remember ever having seen her children without something untidy about
them. Always a stocking or something else wrong on, and this was done
intentionally by their mother to keep away the Evil Eye.
A native of Bernera (Harris) testified: “When a person appears well
dressed and good-looking, it is supposed that she is in danger of being
affected by the Evil Eye. A recommendation in such a case is to wear
some article of clothing with the wrong side out, as a preventative of
harm.”
An old man of eighty-seven, uneducated, but full of information,
somewhat difficult to understand from the loss of his teeth and the
weakness of his voice, telling his experiences in the most pathetic
manner, said: “_Bu nighean a’ cheud duine cloinne bha riomh agam, agus
bha deigh mhor agam oirre. Ach de thachair, ach latha bha ‘n sin, bha
i amach aig taobh an tighe, agus bha neach a’ dol seachad aig an robh
droch shuil, agus chaidh an droch shuil anns an leanabh, agus bha i air
a chronachadh. O’n am sin chaidh an creatur air a h-ais co mor gus aig
a cheann mu dheireadh cha robh i air a cumail beo ach le beagan fion a
bha air a chuir ann a beul le spain ti._” (“The first one of my family
was a daughter. She was a pretty child, and I was very fond of her. But
what happened but a day that was there, she was out at the side of the
house and a person passed who had an Evil Eye, and the Evil Eye went
into the child and she was injured. From that time the creature went
back so much, until at last she was only kept alive by a little wine
put into her mouth with a teaspoon.”)
“When people had occasion to go to farmer R.’s house, having children
with them, they contrived to put some attractive article of clothing
on the children, so that the gay clothes might divert his eye from the
wearers and save them from injury.”
A native of Knockando (Elgin) says that there is an impression that the
young, either of man or beast, are very liable to receive injury from
an Evil Eye fastening upon them, if that should be the first eye that
sees them after their birth. This belief makes people take great care
often to secure that any one supposed to possess an Evil Eye will not
be the first to see an infant immediately after birth, or any other
young animal.
Using short texts separated from the context leads undoubtedly to
misapprehensions on the part of the unlearned. In Isaiah xiii. 18, he
says of the Medes, alluding to physical injury alone, “their eye shall
not spare children.” That text has influenced not a few.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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