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

90 THE EVIL EYE chap.
that time forth. In Welsh histories he appears as
"Lear." 134
Totemism cannot after all be so very savage a
cult, for we are told by Mr. G. L. Gomme^^^ that
various animals are still held sacred in Britain.
Among these he places the seal, wolf, fowl, cat, hare,
magpie, butterfly, sparrow, swan, raven, and otter.
To these we should add many others which sentimentally
are held to be sacred by various individuals,
such as the wren, robin, swallow, lady-bird, bat, cuckoo,
dog, fox, horse, swine, salmon, goose, cow, toad,
deer.-'^^" "The robin (in Irish, the spiddoge) is, as
is well known, a blessed bird, and no one, no matter
how wild or cruel, would kill or hurt one, partly from
love, partly from fear. They believe if they killed
a robin a large lump would grow on the palm of their
right hand, preventing them from working and from
hurling. It is fear alone, however, that saves a
swallow from injury, for it is equally well known that
every swallow has in him three drops of the devil's
blood-''^^*^ In Somerset much the same notion still
exists.i^^
134 Elton, Origins of English History, 2nd edition, p. 279.
135 "Lecture on Totemism," Standard, April 17, 1S89.
135a (< There is a small black spider that often gets on clothes or hats ; this
is called a ' money spider,' and if you kill it you will be sure to suffer from
the lack of the needful."— C/z^?V^ Notes from N. and Q. ("Folk Lore") p. 164.
"6 Le Fanu, Seventy Years of Irish Life, 1894, p. 41.
137 "Hold a robin in veneration: to kill one is most unlucky. This bird
is said to tap three times at the window before the death of any member of
the family. Always take off your hat to a magpie, or at any rate bow respect-
fully to him, or evil will surely follow."— "Somerset Superstitions," in
Somerset County Herald, Nov. 8, 1892. The magpie seems to be held everywhere
as a portentous bird.
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.
—
Macbeth, Act iii. So. 4.
Nearly every district has its own special version of the omens to be interpreted
by the numbers seen at any one time. Our Somerset one is—