Toland has written on the subject
and left us very little the wiser. Who could, after all, give us
information upon a subject which to us is only like a dream?
What first suggested the story of the Evil Eye to me was this: A man
named Case, who lives within a distance of about three or four hundred
yards of my residence, keeps a large dairy; he is the possessor of five
or six and twenty of the finest cows I ever saw, and he told me that
a man who was an enemy of his killed three of them by his overlooking
them,--that is to say, by the influence of the Evil Eye.
The opinion in Ireland of the Evil Eye is this: that a man or woman
possessing it may hold it harmless, unless there is some selfish design
or some spirit of vengeance to call it into operation. I was aware of
this, and I accordingly constructed my story upon that principle. I have
nothing further to add: the story itself will detail the rest.
CHAPTER I. Short and Preliminary.
In a certain part of Ireland, inside the borders of the county of
Waterford, lived two respectable families, named Lindsay and Goodwin,
the former being of Scotch descent.
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