270 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.
with, but that it was a serious matter to be dragged out by the head.
If you find yourself accidentally in a byre when milking is going on, or in a dairy where the churn is at work, it is on the safe side to say " May God bless everything that my eye sees and that my hand touches."
It is not right to hurry a dair3^maid to milk the cows. To avert harm she says : " Hurry the women of the town beyond " (a euphemism for fairies). A variant of this is " Hurry your mother-in-law " — a repartee of immense effect.
If a person suspected of the Evil Eye should speak to one while milking, it is not right to make any answer, per- haps because so doing establishes a rapport.
The first day of the season that a man goes to fish it is not right that anybody should go to meet him, as is done on other days, to help to bring in his catch. He must manage it for himself somehow. Any person officiously doing this is said to drive away the fish from the coast.
Stones placed in a certain fashion bring ill-luck. One woman told Father A. Macdonald that ill-luck had followed her, and all her cattle died ; on changing the house and taking off the thatch, four stones appeared concealed under the divots.-^ Some "evil words" must have been used in placing them there.
If a cow is lost through illness of any kind it is not right to distribute any of the beef raw. It must be boiled, other- wise the dosgaidh (loss) might be spread. If a cat cries for it, it is reproved with " Whist with you, for asking for blighted food ; may your own skin be the first on the rafters," so as not to attract the attention of the Evil Influence.
When going to a well or stream for water, the rinsings of the pail should not be thrown on one's own land or crop.
If there be a little milk in the bottom of a pail, it should
' I.e. the rods with which the house is thatched.
