It seems to me that it has not been cast on your cows, but
on your dishes. Gang hame and tak' a' your dishes down to the burn, and
let them lie awhile in the running stream; then rub them well and dry
with a clean clout. Tak' them hame and fill each with boiling water.
Pour it out and lay them aside to dry. The evil eye cannot withstand
boiling water. Sca'd it out and ye'll get butter." The prescription was
followed, and a few weeks after the woman called upon the minister and
thanked him for the cure, remarking that she had never seen anything so
wonderful.
Mr. Joseph Train, from whose notes we have already quoted, mentions a
ceremony, not of a private but of a public nature, and embracing a large
district of country, at the performance of which he was present. The
object to be obtained was the prevention of a threatened outbreak of
disease among the cattle. "In the summer of 1810," says Mr. Train,
"while remaining at Balnaguard, a village of Perthshire, as I was
walking along the banks of the Tay, I observed a crowd of people
convened on the hill above Pitna Cree; and as I recollected having seen
a multitude in the same place the preceding day, my curiosity was
roused, so that I resolved to learn the reason of this meeting in such
an unfrequented place.
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