Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/111

 REVIEWS. The Evil Eye in the Western Highlands. By R. C. Mac- lagan, M.D. pp. 232. London : David Nutt. 1902. ^VITCHCRAFT AND SECOND SiGHT IN THE HIGHLANDS AND Islands of Scotland. By the late John Gregorson Campbell, pp. 314. Glasgow : James MacLehose. 1902. Outer Isles. By A. Goodrich-Freer. pp. 448. Westminster : A. Constable and Co. 1902. In the eddies and backwaters of civilisation, such as still exist in the Western Isles, we may well suppose that much folklore material was still current at the end of the nineteenth century. That this is so is amply borne out by these three volumes. The Folk-Lore Society may well take credit for this good work, for sufficient interest in the subject would hardly have been excited unless the way had been paved during the last twenty years by the Society's work. Taking the Evil Eye as his text, Dr. Maclagan, who is already known to the Society by an excellent book on The Games and Diversions of Argyleshire, examines it carefully in all its aspects. As a belief it is very widely spread in Scotland, and quotations are given from Middle Irish stories to show that its deadly effects were fully recognised by the Goidel in ancient times. As in the south of Europe, persons endowed with the fatal gift can use it unintentionally. Children have sometimes to be protected against the glance of a parent, and a faithful farm-servant will occasionally have to shield the cows or horses under his charge from the malign influence of his master's eye by keeping them out of his sight. The people generally credited with the Evil Eye are old women and those with eyes of different colours. Such persons, and indeed all others suspected of possessing it, are avoided. But it would seem that persons are accused of this faculty on the very