The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

WITCH TALES AND THE EVIL EYE
own possessions. When he approached his own byre, his
farm-servants used to edge him away, because, if once he
got into the byre and admired a cow, her milk was observed
to "go wrong on her."
One day Jean was driving the cows out to the fields,
carrying in her arms a small kebbuck of cheese, wrapped in
a sack, when she beheld her employer coming toward her.
There was no possibility of her avoiding him. So, taking
advantage of a bend in the road, she hurriedly hid the cheese
among the bracken, put a large stone inside the sack instead,
and then placed herself at the head of the procession of
cows. As her laird appeared round the bend, he fixed his
eyes on the sack.
" That's surely a fine cheese you have there, Jean," he
remarked.
" Indeed, it is, sir," she replied, meanwhile engaging his
attention for a few moments, in order to enable the cows to
slip unnoticed up the road.
When all the cows were safely past, Jean moved off after
them at a pace which did not leave her any great distance to
cover, when she found it possible to return to the spot where
she had hidden the cheese. Directly the laird was out of
sight, she ran back for the cheese; and, when shaking the
stone out of the sack, she found it was cracked through and
through by the Evil Eye ! By her wit, however, she had
saved both the cows and the cheese from harm.
I had this story from a friend, who very recently
had it from the farmer's family, who in turn had had it
from Jean. One of the sons of this family is well versed
in tales of c^ueer happenings. If he be told of any odd
occurrence, he nods his head, knowingly, and says :
"
" That
will be the ma-agic !
This family, in addition to its believing in the Evil Eye
and the like, maintains a great faith in the old cures. The
male members of it, for example, always take a lame horse
to stand in a pool among sphagnum moss ; and, whenever
possible, they use snake-skins as bandages.
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