Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/321

Rh told the story) for some wool and she twisted some for him on her wheel. The girl got better, and is alive to this day to prove the efficacy of the cure.

She said the eolas (spell) would not be right if it were not paid for, but she did not know what was the rate of payment. I can personally testify that when silver is put into a bowl of water to work a spell, the wise woman keeps the silver. The theory is that when the water is thrown over the patient it does no good unless the silver sticks to the bowl. She told us also that not long since a woman from a small neighbouring island went to K. to ask for rennet, which the servant gave her without asking her mistress. Some time after, the cattle went all wrong with their milk, and the servant confessed what she had done, as this was probably the cause of the trouble; but we did not hear what steps were taken for its removal. One poor beast that we came across had been smitten by two Evil Eyes at the same time. The maker of charms, at first much perplexed, at length discovered the cause, and said the creature would be ill for a year, which came to pass.

Many stories in the Hebrides are on lines which the Society for Psychical Research would call "telepathic suggestion." A good many examples of wisdom are told of tailors, just as in England they are told of cobblers (who have little employment in islands where women and children go barefoot). A tailor's wife was busy churning, when a woman came in to ask for fire. "Keep busily at it," called the tailor to his wife, and gave the woman the embers she required, but dropped one into a tub of cold water. This happened a second and a third time, and though the tailor's wife was ready to drop with fatigue, she churned away as she was told. When the third ember was dropped into the tub, the woman sat down moaning: "Oh, in the name of God, let my hand away!" The tailor said he would not, unless she promised never to trouble him or his house again, which she did, and then showed her hand, all bruised