Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
History
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
Some say the evil eye is in those who were baptized wrong, but I
believe it's not that, but if, when a woman is carrying, some one
that meets her says, "So you're in that way," and she says, "The
devil a fear of me," as even a married woman might say for sport or
not to let on, the devil gets possession of the child at that moment,
and when it is born it has the evil eye.
_Margaret Bartly:_
There was a woman below in that village where I lived to my grief and
my sorrow, and she used to be throwing the evil eye, but she is in
the poor-house now--Mrs. Boylan her name is. Four she threw it on,
not children but big men, and they lost the walk and all, and died.
Maybe she didn't know she had it, but it is no load to any one to say
"God bless you." I faced her one time and told her it would be no
load to her when she would see the man in the field, and the horses
ploughing to say "God bless them," and she was vexed and she asked
did I think she had the evil eye, and I said I did. So she began
to scold and I left her. That was five years ago, and it is in the
poor-house in Ballyvaughan she is this two years; but she can do no
harm there because she has lost her sight.
_Mrs. Nelly of Knockmogue:_
There was a girl lived there near the gate got sick. And after
waiting a long time and she getting no better the mother brought in
a woman that lived in the bog beyond, that used to do cures. And
when she saw the girl, she knew what it was, and that she had been
overlooked. And she said, "Did you meet three men on the road one
day, and didn't one of them, a dark one, speak to you and give no
blessing?" And she said that was so. And she would have done a cure
on her, but we had a very good priest at that time, Father Hayden, a
curate, and he used to take a drop of liquor and so he had courage
to do cures. And he said this was a business for him, and he cured
her, and the mother gave him money for it.
It was by herbs that woman used to do cures, and whatever power she
got in the gathering of them, she was able to tell what would happen.
But she was in great danger all her life from gathering the herbs, for
_they_ don't like any one to be cured that they have put a touch on.
_Mrs. Clerey:_
I can tell you what happened to two sons of mine. A woman that passed
by them said, "You've often threatened me by night, and my curse is
on you now." And the one answered her back but the other didn't. And
after that they both took sick, but the one that didn't answer her
was the worst. And they pined a long time. And I brought the one
that was so bad over to Kilronan to the priest and he read over him.
It was a lump in his mouth he had, that you could hardly put down a
spoonful of milk, and there was a good doctor there and he sliced
it, and he got well. But the priest often told me that but for what
he did for him he would never have got well. For there's no doubt
there's _some_ in the world it's not well to talk with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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