Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/29

 the eyes of night, and in the darkness 'overlook' men and their belongings as disastrously as does the human eye in the day-time. Just as a woman after confinement is peculiarly liable to the evil eye and must have amulets hung about her and mirrors removed from her room, so must particular care be taken to avoid exposure to stellar influence. Sonnini de Magnoncourt, who had some medical experience in Greece, speaks authoritatively on this subject. According to the popular view, he says, she must not let herself be 'seen by a star'; and if she goes out before the prescribed time,—according to this authority, only eight days, but now preferably forty days, from the birth of the child,—she is careful to return home and to shut herself up in her room by sunset, and after that hour to open neither door nor window, for fear that a star may surprise her and cause the death of both mother and child. So too in the island of Chios, if there is occasion to carry leaven from one house to another, it must be covered up,—in the day-time 'to prevent it from being seen by any strange eye,' at night 'to prevent it from being seen by the stars': for if it were 'overlooked' by either, the bread made with it would not rise. Such customs show clearly that the stars are held to exercise exactly the same malign influence as the human eye: the same simple phrases denote in Greek the operation of either, and the 'overlooking' of either has the same blighting effect.

The range of this mischievous influence—for I now take it that the evil eye and the stars are indistinguishable in their ill effects—is very large. Human beings are perhaps most susceptible to it. In some districts indeed new-born infants up to the time of their baptism are held to be immune; till then they are the children of darkness, and the powers of darkness do not move against them. But in general no one at any moment of his life is wholly secure. Amulets however afford a reasonable safety at ordinary times; it is chiefly in the critical hours of life, at marriage and at the birth of children, that the fear of the evil eye is lively and the precautions against it more elaborate. Animals also may be affected. Horses and mules are very commonly protected, [Greek: Chiaka Analekta], p. 360, cf. [Greek: Kampouroglou], [Greek: Historia tôn Athênaiôn], vol. p. 146.], [Greek: Historia tôn Athênaiôn], vol. p. 69.]