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

II HEARTS STUCK WITH PINS
shade of the departed, when it visits the cast-off
mortal coil, will .be deceived by these cheap counter-
feits. We fear we must conclude that such things
can only be classed, even in this nineteenth century,
as mere examples of the performances of sympathetic
magic, to be summed up in the famous words of
Erasmus to Sir Thomas More: "Crede ut habes
et habes,"
In our Somerset County Museum at Taunton
is to be seen more than one heart, said to be those
of pigs, stuck full of pins
and thorns, which have
been found not long ago
in old houses near the
writer's home. The illus-
trations are careful draw-
ings from the originals
and represent actual size.'^
These hearts are also said
to be malignant in design
as well as protective: that
the persons who stuck
those pins into the hearts,
had special ill - will, and
desired to work injury against the person in whose
house they were found. They entertained the old,
7" Fig. 4 was found October 18S2 in a recess of a chimney in an old house
occupied by Mrs. Cottrell in the village of Ashbrittle. It was wrapped in a
flannel bag, black and rotten, which crumbled to pieces. Some of the old
people declared it to have been a custom when a pig died from the "overlook-
ing " of a witch to have its heart stuck full of pins and white thorns, and to
put it up the chimney, in the belief that as the heart dried and withered so
would that of the malignant person who had " ill wisht " the pig. As long
as that lasted no witch could have power over the pigs belonging to that house.
Fig. 5 was found nailed up inside the " clavel " in the chimney of an old house
at Staplegrove in 1890. One side of this heart is stuck thickly with pins,
the other side, here shown, has only the letters M. D. which are considered
to be the initials of the supposed witch.
Fig. 4.