or two many of his cattle had taken the muir-ill. Next time the old woman wanted to go to the house she was not hindered. She got her usual supply, and thereafter not another beast took the disease.”(7)

It is related of the same old woman that once she wanted some favour off the factor on Logan, and one day as he rode past her dwelling she hailed him. Not caring to be troubled with her he made the excuse that his horse would not stand as it was young and very restive; but she said she would soon make it stand, and by some spell so terrified the animal that it stood trembling while the sweat was running over its hooves.

“The farm of the Grennan, in the Rhinns, had been taken or was reported to have been taken over the sitting tenant’s head; and the new tenants, when they took possession, were regarded with general disfavour. The farm good-wife was a bustling, energetic woman, with some pretensions as to good looks, and was always extremely busy. One day an old-fashioned diminutive woman knocked at the door and asked for a wee pickle meal. The good-wife answered in an off-hand manner that she had no meal for her, and told her to ‘tak’ the gait.’ The old woman looked at her steadily for a short time, and then said, ‘My good woman, you are strong and healthy just now, but strong and weel as ye are, that can sune be altered, and big as ye are in yer way, the hearse is no’ bigget that will tak’ ye to the kirkyaird, and a dung-cairt will ha’e to ser’ ye.’ In less than a year the gude-wife died, and the hearse broke down at the road-end leading to the farm, and could come no further, and as a matter of fact a farm-cart had to be employed to carry the corpse to the churchyard.”(8)

The influence of the “evil eye” has been somewhat crudely recorded in verse under the heading of “Galloway Traditions: The Blink o’ an Ill E’e,” in the Galloway Register for 1832, an almost forgotten periodical published at Stranraer. It is here set forth, as it minutely expresses and brings out, though in homely fashion, how belief in witchcraft and its powers was intimately bound up with the every-day conditions of the life of the times:—