The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

I
12 THE EVIL EYE chap.
that these people will not sink in water even if
weighed down with clothes.^^
It is thus easy to see from Pliny, whence the
idea came which led people in the Middle Ages, and
even later, to put reputed witches to the water
ordeal. If they sank they were innocent, but of
course then they were drowned, and spite was
appeased ; while if they floated they were, as in
Pliny's time, accounted guilty and then burnt."''
Those who were under the influence of anger or
of envy were most dangerous in this terrible faculty,
while those who were in the enjoyment of special
happiness or good fortune were the most liable to
injury, because exciting the greater invidia of the
fascinator.
Those who had been highly praised, by others
or even by themselves, were liable to be blasted.
Narcissus was thought to have ^^wrzV^^^him-
self, and hence his untimely fate, for it has always
been held that too much praise or admiration of
any person or object by whomsoever given, even
by himself, would bring upon him the curse of
fascination.
How surely this belief still exists even here in
England is proved by the following :—'A few weeks
ago a respectable farmer had a very nice-looking
''^ Ovid says [Amores i. Eleg. 8. 15) :
—
'
' Oculis quoque pupula duplex
Fulminat et geminum lumen ab orbe venit."
And again (Metamorph. vii. 364) that the people of Rhodes as well as the
Telchinas injured everything by looking at it. See also Frommannd, p. 12.
2" On this swimming of witches, see Brand, vol. iii. p. 2i (Bohn).
" Nature has thought fit to produce poisons as well in every part of his body,
and in the eyes even of some persons, taking care that there should be no evil
in existence, which was not to be found in the human body " (Pliny, Na/.
Hist. vii. 2 ; Bohn, vol. ii. p. 12S). This chapter of Pliny is well worth
careful reading ; also Dr. Bostock's notes.