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

64 THE EVIL EYE chap.
have a special word, widdershins, to express the
contrary direction. It is a well-known rule of
Freemasons not to go against the sun in moving
within the Lodge, and there are other plain survivals
of sun-worship in other points of masonic ritual. In
the Hebrides the people used to march three times
from east to west round their crops and their cattle.
If a boat put out to sea, it first made three turns in
this direction, before starting on its course ; if a
welcome stranger visited the islands, the people
passed three times round their guest. ^^ A flaming
torch was carried three times round a child daily
until it was christened.^''
The old Welsh names for the cardinal points of
the sky, the north being the left hand and the south
the right, are signs of an ancient practice of turning
to the risino- sun.^^
In the Highlands of Scotland ^^ and in Ireland it
was usual to drive cattle through the needfire as a
preservative against disease. ^'^*' In these last examples
we see customs almost analogous to making
the children pass through the fire to Moloch.
We know that our British forefathers were Sun-
n's Martin, Description of Western Islands, quoted by Elton, Orig. p. 2S2.
^'' In ancient Greece, " on the fifth day after the birth, the midwives, having
first purified themselves by washing their hands, ran round the fire hearth
with the infant in their arms, thereby, as it were, entering it into the family "
(Potter, Archccol. Grac. vol. ii. p. 322).
8^ Rhys, Welsh Philology, p. 10.
^^ Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 360, has a long note on this act
in Perthshire during the present century, and also in Devonshire.
100 -w'g ^efei- to these fires later on, but they were undoubtedly relics of sun-
worship.
"In Munster and Connaught a bone (probably the representative of the
former sacrifice) must be burnt in them (Baal fires). In many places sterile
beasts and human beings are passed through the fire. As a boy I with
others jumped through the fire 'for luck,' none of us knowing the original
reason."—Kinahan, Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv. iSSi, quoted Notes and
Queries, 8th ser. v. 433.