THE EVIL EYE;

OR, THE BLACK SPECTOR


By William Carleton





PREFACE.

There is very little to be said about this book in the shape of a
preface. The superstition of the Evil Eye is, and has been, one of the
most general that ever existed among men. It may puzzle philosophers to
ask why it prevails wherever mankind exists. There is not a country on
the face of the earth where a belief in the influence of the Evil Eye
does not prevail. In my own young days it was a settled dogma of belief.
I have reason to know, however, that, like other superstitions, it is
fast fading out of the public mind. Education and knowledge will soon
banish those idle and senseless superstitions: indeed, it is a very
difficult thing to account for their existence at all. I think some of
them have come down to us from the times of the Druids,--a class of men
whom, excepting what is called their human sacrifices, I respect. My
own opinion is, that what we term human sacrifices was nothing but their
habitual mode of executing criminals. 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?