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

86 THE EVIL EYE chap, ii
looked more dismayed. . . . The
fish was thrown
aside, but not the knives, armed with which they all
rushed at my back." He describes how his paintbox
and apparatus were smashed, the painting
destroyed, and he himself knocked down and " a
big knife was kept well over my head."
The dread of being pictured is found all over the
world. The writer has often heard Somerset people
object to having their likenesses taken on the ground
that it is unlucky, and that so and so was "a-tookt,"
but soon afterwards she was "took bad and died."
Of course these persons would indignantly repudiate
any suggestion of superstition ; indeed they would
do the same about any other belief, such as the
death-watch, or an owl's hooting, nevertheless they
confess to the feeling and are strongly influenced by
it. Quite recently the wife of a gardener near the
writer's home objected to have her photograph taken
upon the ground that she had " a-yeard 'twas terrible
onlucky " ; and
that " volks never didn live long arter
they be a-tookt off," i.e. photographed.
Whence then do these notions come, if they are
not the heritage of untold ages ?