Note 52 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

We have just met with an instance of the use of spittle for the scaring of the disease demon or the Evil Eye. This is a very common form of charm for this purpose. In one of the Italian charms the performer is directed to spit behind himself thrice and not to look back. In another, “if your eyes pain you, you must take the saliva of a woman who has given birth only to boys, not girls. And she must have abstained from sexual union and stimulating food for three days. Then, if her saliva be bright and clear, anoint your eyes with it and they will be cured.”52 At Innisboffin, in Ireland, when the old women meet a baby out with its nurse they spit on the ground all round it to keep fairies from it. In Wicklow they spit on a child for good luck the first day it is brought out after birth.53 In several of the European folk-tales we find that spittle has the power of speech. The habit of spitting on the handsell or first money taken in the morning is common. It is done “either to render it tenacious that it may remain with them and not vanish away like a fairy gift, or else to render it propitious and lucky, that it may draw more money to it.”54 Muhammad advised that when the demon Khanzab interrupted any one at his prayers, he was to spit over his left shoulder three times.