The Evil Eye

Whoever entered the sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lycæus was believed to lose his shadow and to die within the year. Here in the west country there is an old belief that many have sold their souls to the devil, and that those who do so, lose their shadow--from this it would seem to be thought, that the shadow contains the soul, i.e. the "Ka" of ancient Egypt.

In olden times it was believed in many widely separated countries 123 that a human victim was a necessity for the stability of any important building; indeed the idea was by no means confined to paganism, for we are told that St. Columba 124 found it necessary to bury St. Oran alive beneath the foundation of his monastery, in order to propitiate the spirits of the soil, who demolished at night what had been built during the day.

Here in England, throughout the Middle Ages, the common saying, "There's a skeleton in every house," or, "Every man has a skeleton in his closet," was hardly a figure of speech. The stories of finding the skeletons of faithless monks and nuns walled up alive, 124a seem to have sprung from a much earlier notion; and it is now well established that these are by no means myths, but very facts. At Holsworthy, in North Devon, the parish church was restored in

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