Since moving to Greece I have resurrected my belief in the Evil Eye and lately every mysterious bump, bruise and pain is gravely proclaimed to be the work of the nasty, toxic Evil Eye. Sounds creepy, doesn’t it?
The Evil Eye can be interpreted as bad vibes, bad energy or the evils, created by malice, jealousy or envy. We have the same concept in the Home Country, though there, it is not warded off with blue eyes. Black is the predominant colour to get rid of nasty vibes, though wearing all black seems to have a cancelling out property and is not really recommended.
Bits of black fabric are tied to great lumbering trucks and a baby’s face and eyes are marked with a smudge of black kohl by way of creating an imperfection which will put off evil spirits. When my youngest sister was born, a friend arrived with teeny tiny black glass bangles for her to wear and keep the evil eye away. Girls and women including me wear kohl in their eyes for the same reason.
Superstition, myth and mystique are rampant in both countries and so warding off evil eyes is done in hundreds of different ways; the above are just the most common.
The Evil Eye can be interpreted as bad vibes, bad energy or the evils, created by malice, jealousy or envy. We have the same concept in the Home Country, though there, it is not warded off with blue eyes. Black is the predominant colour to get rid of nasty vibes, though wearing all black seems to have a cancelling out property and is not really recommended.
Bits of black fabric are tied to great lumbering trucks and a baby’s face and eyes are marked with a smudge of black kohl by way of creating an imperfection which will put off evil spirits. When my youngest sister was born, a friend arrived with teeny tiny black glass bangles for her to wear and keep the evil eye away. Girls and women including me wear kohl in their eyes for the same reason.
Superstition, myth and mystique are rampant in both countries and so warding off evil eyes is done in hundreds of different ways; the above are just the most common.
So what to do if the bad energy gets through your defences? Once again, there are hundreds of ways and prayers to get rid of it. The concept of the evil eye most likely existed before any religion, and so they continue today under the cloak of whichever religion is dominant. Both the Home Country and Greece lean heavily on their respective religions to magic the evil away.
By far the most fun technique I ever witnessed was on one of the many occasions one of my sisters was de-evil eyed. She has very unusually coloured eyes for the Home Country and this attracted the evil eye with impressive regularity through the envious/jealous looks of others. In fact, if I hadn’t witnessed her unexplainably fall ill so many times after an innocent outing, I doubt I’d believe in the powers of bad energy.
A green chilli was produced and one of her hairs wrapped around it. The chilli was then wrapped in paper, twirled around her head and set on fire. Depending on how the paper burned, we were informed that she had indeed been eviled but was now cured.
Now really, would you rather have the dramatics of that or a boring old Yiayia making a cross over you?
Some might call the evil eye nonsense and a belief in it the sign of backwardness. But that’s only because they’re jealous they never had chillies set alight over them.
1 comment:
I believe in the evil eye. I have blue eyes in my home, around my neck, around the rear view mirror in the car.
I've been sick as a result of the evil eye in the past as have most people I guess.
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