THE EVIL EYE.

Shannon News, 13 November 1925, Page 3

THE EVIL EYE.

A QUAINT BBJLIEF THAT PERSISTS TO-DAY

Belief in the Evil Eye lias inspired fear from the darkest ages, far beyond chronicles and history. Science, religion, and law have combined against it without a shadow of success. Believers in the Evil Eye have included emperors and peasants, statesmen and poets, philosophers and fools. Solomon spoke seriously thereof in the Book of Wisdom; St. Paul had it in mind when he wrote, "Oh! foolish you?"; Virgil prescribed antidotes in his Seventh Eclogue; JLuther believed that the eye could transmit poison "by God's permission and with the assistance of devils; ' other authorities include Aristotle, Paracelsus, Cornelius, Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, Tibullus, Pliny, Plato, Descartes, Bacon, Montaigne, and Thiers. Accordinggly, whe nmodern scientists denounce the belief as a vulgar superstition, we may plead ignorance in very good company. Ancient Beliefs.

The Bible Jews brought the belief with the mout of Egypt. The •Romans derived it from Greece and made a god of it, named Fascinum or Fascination. To the modern Italians it is known as Jettatura, the casting of a spell. The signs by which me may recognise possessors of the Evil Eye are a double pupil or a pupil that contains the figure of a horse, lean bodies, melancholy temperaments .squints, moist, hollow eyes, hook noses, broad, overhanging eyebrows. Monks and little old women'have been specially suspect. Apart from deliberately wicked fascinators, the Evil Eye has been attributed to apparently innocent and even benevolent persons. In one of Marion Crawford's. novels we read of a jealous lady in Roman society who ruined a rival by spreading a rumour that she had the Evil Eye. and such a conspiracy would be quite possible at the present clay. ' . "Luckless, indeed," says one writer, "is he who has the misfortune to possess, or the reputation of possessing: this fatal power, From forward the world flees him, as the water did Thalaba. A curse is on him, and from the very terror at seeing him accidents are most likely to follow. Keep -him from your children, or they will break their legs, arms, or necks. Invite him not to dinner, or your mushrooms will poison you and your fish will smell." Safe Defences. Kearly everybody believed that Pope Pius IX possessed the Evil Eye and even when he was carried about in his gestational chair, bestowing blessings on the crowd, many of the faithful would surreptitiously make -signs with their fingers to ward off the curse of his eyes, praise, especially self praise, an believed to render people and things susceptible to the Evil Eye. For praise, according to Hieronymus FrascMlorius, creates a peculiar pleasure, diluting the heart and the whole face and especially the eyes, so that all these doors are open to receive the'poison which is ejaculated by the fascinator. )

Every sort of safeguard lias been used against the Evil Eye, but none has been more generally trusted than spitting. According to Pliny, we obtain the indulgence of the gods for any audacious expression of liope by spitting on our bosoms, and spitting into the right y.ndal before it is put on is also an amulet against fascination. . Garlic is another very potent charm, but sulphur, burnt laurel leaves, holy oil, the phylacteries of the Pharisees, the word abracadabra. Egyptian scarabs, wolves' tails, green frogs' bones, datestones, rue and coral have also been held in high esteem. In Naples To-day. Naples is the headquarters of the 'belief in the Evil Eye. ' Every coral shop is full of amulets and everbody w-pars one —ladies on their arms or at fheir belts, gentlemen on their chains, horses and common peo±Jie round their necks. The most popular shape is a horn or else a hand with outstretched fingers. Th" hand, indeed, has always been deemed very useful in warding off fascination. Ovid recommended thrusting the. thumb between the first and second finger of the shut hand, but the modern habit is to hide the thumb between the middle and fourth finger While extending the first and little finger. These are pointed at a suspected person, who must not, however, be permitted to see the manoeuvre, especially at Naples, where an insult would be implied. The Evil Eye may also be warded off by some absurd action, or the exhibition of something ridiculous, whereby bad spirits are induced to laugh, and envy is immediately killed. In .Italy we see whirligigs on the harness to keep devils in a good humour.—"John o' London's Weekly."