There is a Gaelic saying that “Envy splits the rocks” (_sgoiltidh farmad na creagan_), and in proof of this the following story is told. An industrious, careful man sold more cheese than his neighbours, and was much envied when seen, as he frequently was, on his way to market with a cheese in a bag on his back. One day, instead of a cheese, he put a small mill-stone in the bag. His neighbours, filled with envy, saw him jogging along as usual to market, and stood in their doors looking after him and making remarks. On reaching the market and opening the bag he found the mill-stone broken in two, a certain proof of the power of envy and of the truth embodied in the proverb. The charm for curing the Evil Eye, like many other similar mummeries, must be made on Thursday or Sunday. The rhyme used varies with different localities. The following, with slight variations on the part of different individuals, is the one used in Tiree. The words within brackets are omitted when the charm is for a sick beast: “I will put salve on eye, The best salve beneath the sun, [The Son of God made for an angel of heaven] Throughout the world, For small eye, For big eye, For my own eye, For the grey man’s eye, For the eye of the nine slim fairy women, Who never ate Or digested aught, In yonder hill, Whoever has thee under lock Of eye, or malice, or envy, On themselves may it fall, On their goods, and on their children, On their juice, and on their fatness, On their long white ground, On their choicest herd, Their white-backed cows, Their sheep and pointed goats, Each eye and each envy That lies on thee, A. B. In the very centre of the east. Talkative are folk over thee, Christ has taken away their likeness, Twelve eyes before every eye, Strong is the eye of the Son of God, Weak is the eye of the unjust.” The five last lines probably mean, that the fairies or elves, whom God has rendered invisible, are speaking among themselves over the sick person, and the succour of the twelve apostles and of Christ is more powerful than the injustice of man. Others for these lines substitute the following: “The eye that went over, And came back, That reached the bone, And reached the marrow, I will lift from off thee And the King of the Elements will aid me.” A woman in Islay worked wonderful cures with the following. It is a wretched specimen of superstition, but is given to show how ancient creeds accommodate themselves to modern modes of thought. The ancient charm, instead of being entirely abandoned, became a sort of prayer: “If eye has blighted, Three have blessed, Stronger are the Three that blessed, Than the eye that blighted; The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; If aught elfin or worldly has harmed it, On earth above, Or in hell beneath, Do Thou, God of Grace, turn it aside.”