It is not necessary that the desire to possess something should be, as it were, illegitimate or unreasonable to cause damage. Thus M. MacL. was relating how a neighbour’s horse had died. “People say that it was blighted by the Evil Eye. One of his sons had his eye _in_ it, for he expected to get it for himself, but it took ill. At first they thought it was going to get better, for it was eating its food in the evening, but on the following morning this son went out to the stable when he rose, and found it lying down. When it saw him it got up, gave itself a shake, and fell down dead.” There may be, however, indirect advantages from being credited by your neighbours with having an Evil Eye. Mrs. MacE., a cottar, lived on the farm of L. in one of the inner isles. She was believed to have had the Evil Eye very strongly, and people would do almost anything rather than offend her, so general was the impression that she could injure any person if she wished to do so. The reciter served for some time on a farm that marched with hers, and he says that when Mrs. MacE. came their way she could have almost whatever favour she chose to ask, so much were they afraid of her Evil Eye. He often heard his master remark that he would not incur her displeasure for almost any consideration, in case she might do him injury. DISADVANTAGE TO THE OWNER OF AN EVIL EYE If in an indirect way, as above pointed out, some benefits may accrue to one credited with the Evil Eye, it is also said that they may personally suffer serious loss. An old Islay woman who can read Gaelic well, intelligent and full of information, says she knows for certain there are people who possess the Evil Eye. She believes that it is not a matter of choice with them, they cannot help it. Some even do harm to their own cattle. R., who was at one time in Islay, could not go into his own byre but one or other of the cattle would be ill after it. This was so well known that a big dairymaid that he had engaged, a north-country woman, protested against his coming over the byre doorstep. It was because he had such an envious eye that he did so much mischief. Another reciter tells us of the same farmer that they kept him in the house when his own cattle were being taken in from pasture, in case by admiring them he might be the means of doing them an injury. Another man in the same island, having got a first-prize animal, said to the herd that he would go out to see it. The herd, fearing evil, tried to dissuade him, but he persisted in going. Shortly afterwards the animal died. His neighbours used to hurry their cattle out of his sight when they saw him coming that way. It was said he could not help it.