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

II SUN-WORSHIP 63
but acted imitations of the end desired. The object
of preserving the Harvest May, Neck or Eiresione,
from one year to another, is that the Hfe-giving
presence of the spirit dwelHng in it may promote the
growth of the crops throughout the season, and when
at the end of the year its virtue is supposed to be
exhausted, it is replaced by a new one. How widely
spread these ideas are found, and among what
essentially different races, can be proved by the
fact that precisely analogous customs are found
in Sweden and Borneo, in India, Africa, North
America, and Peru.^^
Referring to sun-worship, mentioned above, there
are still remaining amongst us many vestiges, besides
those relating to the Beltan fires,^^ in Scotland,
Ireland, and Northern England.
An Irish peasant crawls three times round the
healing spring, in a circuit that imitates the course
of the sun.^^ It is everywhere thought most unlucky
to progress in a direction opposite to the course of
;the sun ; indeed so well is this understood that we
^^ At the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, are many specimens of this Harvest
figure from several parts of the world. Particularly several "Kirn babies"
from Scotland, made from the last of the corn cut, and thus supposed to con-
tain the corn spirit. Though not precisely alike in form, they are exactly
analogous in motive to the "Neck " of Devon and West Somerset. Upon
"Kirn babies," Brand fell into the error that Kim meant coi-ji, from
similarity of sound. The word really means churn, and is precisely analogous
to kirk and church. At harvest time in Scotland there has always been a
great churning of butter for the festival, and hence the Kirn has developed
into the name for the festival itself. Baby is but the old English name for a
doll or "image," as Brand recognised. Therefore the Kirn baby has nothing
to do with the word corn, but means a "Harvest-festival doll." Theories
built up upon its meaning co7-7i-7naiden are without any foundation except that
of connection with the end of harvest. No doubt these figures are made from
the last of the corn, and do represent the spirit of vegetation, but their
signification is by no means implied in their Scotch name. Mr. Frazer
(Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 344) has therefore been misled by Brand. See
N. E. Diet. s.v. "Corn-Baby."
*'* See Brand, vol. i. p. 226 et seq.
^^ Elton, Origins of English History, 2nd ed. p. 282.