O the magic of blindness! And let us not forget the magic of its prevention. In the Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions one finds that among the Highlanders of Scotland many held the belief that blindness could be forestalled by wearing gold earrings. Sailors wore such earrings to stave off ocean blindness. In England, children had their ears pierced as late as the 1920's as a cure for "sore eyes." Gold wire was inserted in their ears. Other cures for the eyes were equally devotional: water drawn from a well on Ascension Day was an established Welsh folk remedy for diseases of the eye. The practice of collecting Ascension Day water was in fact widespread throughout the British Isles. Additional cures included burning the head of a black cat and blowing the ashes into the eyes of the blind, or the licking of a frog's eyes. The healer would, after licking the frog, touch his tongue to the eyes of the blind patient. The licking of lizards was also thought to be beneficial. Gooseberry thorns, when pointed at a patient who was suffering from styes were believed curative, especially if the thorns were pointed nine times while the healer shouted "Away! Away! Away!"
Blindness emerges as a foe, a malevolent and sentient enemy stylized in the cloak of the reaper. But unlike death, blindness strikes selectively. The "Grim Blinder" might appear dressed in the white of tribulation: the white of the useless eye, the evil eye, the white of hidden design, the white that appalls us. Thorns are thrust in the face of the blind man and a malediction is pronounced for blindness is thought to be opportunistic: while blinding one man or woman why not blind two? Hence the superstitions that surround chance encounters with those who have abnormal eyes: you too may be struck by the same lightning. Beware of "peculiar eyes", they denote something devilish. Pliny in his Natural History describes "enchanters" who have two pupils in each eye. He maintains that "these people will not sink in water, even though weighed down by their garments." St. John Chrysostom: "Often a man leaves his own house and sees a man who has one eye...and counts it as an omen. This is the pomp of the devil." Similarly, a superstitious graffito from 1579: "Women that haue double apples in theyr eyes, or strayles: do euery where hurt with their looking (Which is called of some ouerlooking). In Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) one finds the following affirmation: "Manie writers agree with Virgil and Theocritus in the effect of witching eies, affirming that in Scythia, there are women called Bithiae, having two balles or rather blacks in the apple of their eies...These (forsooth) with their angrie lookes doo bewitch and hurt not only yoong lambs, but yoong children."
All meetings with those judged "peculiar" in the eyes carry a sense of duplicity, of monstrousness: such people are, in fact, "talismanic" as their ill luck is transferable. A magazine from 1831: "To prevent ill luck from meeting a squint-eyed person, you must spit three times." Other nineteenth century wives tales included the belief that it was bad luck if a squint-eyed person came indoors while the yule log was burning. In Yorkshire it was believed that encountering a squint-eyed woman was an ill omen remedied by spitting back over one's left shoulder. Such ideas have persisted into the 20th century. A 1914 folklore chronicle: "If a cross-eyed person looks at you you will have ill-luck all day, for such people can see right through you and know your thoughts."
The association between disfigured eyes and witchcraft runs continuously throughout the annals of folklore and superstition. "In Wales it is commonly said that if you look steadily into the eyes of a witch you will see yourself 'upside down', and these women have two pupils in their eyes." Similarly, persons with one eye set lower than the other have been commonly regarded as witches. This is the "evil eye", the dreadful eye that seems to regard us not, but "sees" all there is to see. The disfigured eye is visionary in the worst sense: it "knows" already what will befall us. We appear reflected upside down, like the figure on the Tarot card who falls from the wheel of fate.
(Prose from the first draft of my memoir "Planet of the Blind")
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