Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/354

 298 ones: this is firmly believed by respectable farmers whom I could name, in the North of the island in particular, and I am alluding to men whom you might consider fairly educated members of their class.

Magic takes us back to a very primitive and loose way of thinking; so the marvellously easy way in which it identifies any tie of association, however flimsy, with the insoluble bond of relationship which educated men and women regard as connecting cause and effect, renders even simpler means than I have described quite equal to the undoing of the evils resulting from the activity of the evil eye. Thus, let us suppose that a person endowed with the evil eye has just passed by the farmer's herd of cattle, and a calf has suddenly been seized with a serious illness, the farmer hurries after the man of the evil eye to get the dust from under his feet. If he objects, he may, as has sometimes been very unceremoniously done, throw him down by force, take off his shoes, and scrape off the dust adhering to their soles, and carry it back to throw over the calf Even that is not always necessary, as it appears to be quite enough if he takes up dust where he of the evil eye has just trod the ground. There are innumerable cases on folk record of both means proving entirely effective. A similar question of psychology presents itself in a practice, intended as a preservative against the evil eye rather than as a cure. I allude to what I have heard about two maiden ladies living in a Manx village which I know very well: they are natives of a neighbouring parish, and I am assured that whenever a stranger enters their house they proceed, as soon as he goes away, to strew a little dust or sand over the spot where he stood. That is understood to prevent any malignant influence resulting from his visit. This tacit identifying of a man with his footprints may be detected in a more precarious and pleasing form in a quaint conceit familiar to me in the lyrics of rustic life in Wales, when, for example, a coy maiden leaves her lovesick swain hotly avowing his perfect