Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/306

 266 The Powers of Evil m the Outer Hebrides.

think, as a matter of good manners, but also not to attract the attention of the evil powers to the information given you.

A child should not be named after one who has died young. I heard a mother attribute the early death of a child to its having been named^ to please the father, after a girl who had died young.

The Powers of Evil should not be allowed to hear praise of any person or beast. Ian McK. was one day ploughing with a pair of horses in Barra when a man from Uist came by and praised them very much, asking where he was likely to get such horses ; and they chatted in a friendly way together for some minutes. The Uist man w^ent his way along the shore, but had not been long gone when both horses fell down as if dead in the, field. It was evidently the work of the Evil Eye, and Ian followed the man and upbraided him bitterly. The Uist man declared himself quite innocent in intention, but said that if he had any hand in it he would undertake that Ian should find them all right on his return, as in fact he did.

If a person praises your ox, or your ass, or anything that is yours, be sure to say : " Wet your eye," which, if kindly disposed, he will perform literally. The phrase, albeit in the Highlands, has no ulterior meaning.

If a person should praise any child or beast of yours, you should praise what he praises, only in more extravagant terms than he. If out of good manners you should dispraise anything belonging to yourself, his praise would have an ill effect. If you commend the size or appearance of a child, you should use some such formula as " God bless it, how big it is ! " If you ask how many children a person has, it is proper to say, on being told, " Up with their number," so that they may not decrease ; and in counting chickens you should say : " Let not my eye rest on them."

Father R. had, three years ago, a good cow, which died of some internal inflammation ; but of course the Evil Eye was