THINGS THAT SPECIALLY ATTRACT
A woman of twenty-eight, whose information is quite
reliable, the daughter of a respectable man in one of the inner islands, remembers when young people
talked a great deal about these things, and many were
very much afraid of them. "The idea was that it
was always the best and prettiest of beast or body
that was most liable to be injured by a bad eye.
(My) youngest brother was awfully pretty when a child.
They used to have him dressed in a red frock and
white pinny, and with his fair skin, fair curly hair,
and red cheeks, he was the nicest-looking child in
all the place. Many a time, when my father would
take him out, the neighbours would be warning him
to take good care lest some one might do the child
harm, and some would advise my father to go in and
take the frock and pinny off him, so that he might not
draw one's attention so much."
From Ross-shire we hear the same thing. A
native "remembers when he was young, people be-
lieved in the Evil Eye and were afraid of it." It
was supposed that pretty children were specially
liable to be injured by it, and it was a common
device with some mothers, in circumstances where
there was any suspicion of danger, to take care that
at-least some article of the child's dress would be at
fault, either in respect of neatness or cleanness, or
better still, to have one of the child's stockings turned
outside in when being worn. These were supposed
to form a protection to the child against injury.
