Skaith salve and the ill ee

Robert Kier’s letter from Falkirk in May 1826 said that the blink of an ill ee, the evil eye, was believed to bring death or some horrible weakness. Against it people wound a red silk thread round a finger or the neck, or kept a slip of rowan, the mountain ash, in their bonnet. A thick gruel was also thought to ward off skaith, or harm, and an old woman in Falkirk still made a comfortable living selling skaith salve.