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

XI THE NUMBER THREE 405
repetitions of "three times" as to spitting. The
old saying " Third time lucky" is familiar to every-
body.
has always been looked upon by both
I Three
Jews and Gentiles as a specially complete and
mystic number. In Scripture, three is given as an
exact measure, while other numbers were used in-
definitely, merely to convey the notion of several, or
of a great many, precisely as we now speak of dozens,
scores, or thousands, when we do not even imply
any definite number. There were three great
feasts ; there were three cities of refuge, and the
number three is several times repeated in connection
with them ;
three alternatives were offered to David,
and two of these had each the special element of
three in it. So we have the three Christian virtues ;
three great witnesses ; and endless other examples of
the use of three as something more than a mere
numeral. The three -sided triangle is said to be
symbolic of deity, pagan as much as Christian. The
Egyptians had triads of divinities, specially worshipped
in particular cities, while the Romans had
their Diana Triformis. In the Hebrides the ac-
counts given in Chap. II. on sun-worship show that
each act was performed three times. We are told*^^"
that in Ireland a cure for whooping-cough, called
there chin-cough, is to pass the child three times over
and under a donkey, certain prayers being said
during the operation. So spitting as a preventive
act had to be done three times, and in the many
recited acts to be performed it will be noted how
often " three times " occurs.
It is not merely as an odd number that three
637 Le Fanu, Seventy Years of Irish Life, 1894, p. 1 13.