Note 8 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

All this is connected with what the Scotch call “fore-speaking,” when praise beyond measure, praise accompanied with a sort of amazement or envy, is considered likely to be followed by disease or accident.8 Thus Professor Rhys writes of the Isle of Man:9 “You will never get a Manxman to say that he is very well. He usually admits that he is ‘middling;’ and if by any chance he risks a stronger adjective, he hastens to qualify it by saying ‘now’ or ‘just now,’ with an emphasis indicative of his anxiety not to say too much. His habits of speech point back to the time when the Manx mind was dominated by the fear of awaking malignant influences in the spirit world around him.” So, in Ireland, to avoid being suspected of having the Evil Eye, it is necessary when looking at a child to say, “God bless it!” and when passing a farmyard where the cows are collected for milking to say, “The blessing of God be on you and all your labour!”10