man I know, who about twelve years ago quarrelled with a domestic servant, a woman living in a neighbouring house. Soon after, from some reason, two or three of his cows died; he was quite sure, he told me, that she had "overlooked" and "ill-wished" him. To ease his mind he had consulted a "pellar" about the matter, who had described her accurately to him, and, for payment, removed the "spell" (I do not know what rites were used), telling him to look at his watch and note the hour, as he would find, when he returned home, that a cow he had left sick would have begun at that moment to recover (which he says it did). The "pellar" also added, "The woman who has 'ill-wished' you will be swaddled in fire and lapped in water"; and by a strange coincidence she emigrated soon after, and was lost in the ill-fated Cospatrick, that was burnt at sea.
Water from a font is often stolen to sprinkle "ill-wished" persons or things.
The two next examples were communicated to me by a friend: "Some twenty-six years ago a farmer in a neighbouring village (West Cornwall) sustained during one season continual losses from his cows dying of indigestion, known as 'loss of cud,' 'horn-bloom,' &c. After consulting an old farrier called Armstrong he was induced to go to a 'pellar' in Exeter. His orders were to go home, and, on nearing his farm, he would see an old woman in a field hoeing turnips, and that she was the party who had cast the 'evil eye' on him. When he saw her he was to lay hold of her and accuse her of the crime, then tear off some of her dress, take it to his farm, and burn it with some of the hair from the tails of his surviving stock. These directions were fully carried out, and his bad health (caused by worry) improved, and he lost no more cows. A spotted clover that grew luxuriantly that summer was no doubt the cause of the swelling." "Another farmer in the same village eighteen years since lost all his feeding cattle from pleuro-pneumonia; believing them to be 'ill-wished' by a woman, he also consulted the Exeter 'pellar.' He brought home some bottles of elixir, potent against magic, and made an image of dough, pierced it from the nape of the neck downward, in the line of the spine, with a very large blanket-pin. In order to make the agonies of the woman with the 'evil eye' excruciating in
