To his
thinking God has little or nothing to do with the murrain, but witches,
ill-wishers, and fairies have a great deal to do with it. The English
farmer who burned one of his lambs alive said that he did it "to save
his flocks from spells which had been cast on them"; and the Scotch
farmer who was bidden to burn a pig alive for a similar purpose, but who
had the humanity to kill the animal first, believed that this was a
remedy for the "evil eye" which had been cast upon his beasts. Again, we
read that "a farmer, who possessed broad acres, and who was in many
respects a sensible man, was greatly annoyed to find that his cattle
became diseased in the spring. Nothing could satisfy him but that they
were bewitched, and he was resolved to find out the person who had cast
the evil eye on his oxen. According to an anciently-prescribed rule, the
farmer took one of his bullocks and bled it to death, catching all the
blood on bundles of straw. The bloody straw was then piled into a heap,
and set on fire. Burning with a vast quantity of smoke, the farmer
expected to see the witch, either in reality or in shadow, amidst the
smoke."[752] Such reasons express the real beliefs of the peasants.
"Cattle, like human beings, were exposed to the influences of the evil
eye, of forespeaking, and of the casting of evil. Witches and warlocks
did the work of evil among their neighbours' cattle if their anger had
been aroused in any way.
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