GHOSTWATCH
ALAN MURDIE finds that belief in the evil eye still haunts a tranquil Greek island
The idea that witchcraft could explain ghostly influences in daily life was a favourite theory in vogue with Early Modern scholars and scientific thinkers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Among rural populations around the world such a belief persists to this day. In spring 2019, I discovered the extent of such survival in Europe during a visit to the island of Agistri, near Aegina, Greece. So potent do evil eye beliefs remain here among some older people that mere mention of them can be sufficient to shut down any enquiry into local ghosts and folklore.
If you want a tranquil time, Agistri is a place in Greece to be recommended. One of the minor gems of the Saronic Islands, it is little known and frequently bypassed by the more cosmopolitan holidaymakers, thus sparing its charms from the worst effects of mass tourism. With only three villages and the majority of its surface still covered by pine and beech forests, the island qualifies as a mini-wilderness in parts, excellent for gentle hiking and relaxation. Arriving at the end of April, I was pleased to find it little changed from my first visit in 2004.
The starting point for making my enquiries was the Agistri Club, a versatile and long-established English-run hotel, situated on the outskirts of the port. Providing comfortable lodgings, it qualifies as the last building on the north-eastern tip of the island, bordered by both beach and woodlands with its terrace for diners commanding one of the finest views on the island, over the sea to Aegina. On the evening of my arrival it was particularly blessed by the sudden and unexpected appearance of two dolphins gambolling in a lesiurely way through the gentle waves of the bay, to the delight of early evening guests and diners. But as MR James says in his story ‘No 13’, I am not writing a guidebook.
At the Agistri Club, I consulted owners, Bryan Robinson and his wife Henriette. Presiding over the daily running of the Club (which Bryan helped found back in 1982) together with their staff, they provide a major source of local news, intelligence and gossip concerning happenings across the island. On previous stays, I had never raised the subject of ghosts, which I can only ascribe to the small size of Agistri and the fact that once immersed in the landscape of Homer any talk of ghosts is often overshadowed or trumped by the still vibrant images of the deities of the classical era – the immortal Olympian gods, colossal monsters and heroes of Greek mythology. Another pervasive influence on Greek attitudes to the supernatural is the thriving Orthodox Church, whose splendid annual Easter festivities featuring fireworks and candle-lit processions had just ended. Set against these, and when bathing in the beaming sunlight, ordinary phantoms seem paler and more insubstantial than usual. So I was not surprised when Bryan could not recall ever hearing any talk of ghosts on the island, but Henriette confirmed belief in the evil eye. This is reflected in displays of painted concentric turquoise and blue circles around a black centre point, appearing on decorative jewellery and charms worn by many people. The emblem represents a stylised eye, the symbol proving ubiquitous once you become aware of it. The design is used on many fashion accessories today throughout Greece, even if younger people only dimly grasp its original significance. (For more on the evil eye in Greece, see Jeff Koyen, “The Evil Eye”, FT160:34-39.) Accordingly, I was advised that if I wanted to find out about ghosts and anything
On mention of the evil eye, my previously communicative hosts clammed up
supernatural on Agistri, it was best to go and speak directly with the friendly locals.
This is sound advice which, previously, I have found always seems to work around the world. I had no reason to believe that the universals of a smile, genuine interest and a kind word would not be appreciated on Agistri (the other great social passport is money, but obviously you can’t pay for testimony if it is to have any value). Here I was conscious of following in the footsteps of an early 20th century folklore collector John Cuthbert Lawson (18741935), a distinguished classicist and Fellow of Pembroke College. Interested in the question of how much of the religion of the ancients survived among the customs and superstitions of the Greek peasantry into modern times, he became convinced the echoes of archaic beliefs and practices could still be detected. His book Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (1910) contains a wealth of first-hand observations and anecdotes from two years’ fieldwork and remains a valuable source (even if his ingenious conclusions are rejected by more recent scholarship). He even hints at the existence of real supernatural forces on Greek islands, telling of seeing the flitting life-like apparition of a nymph in an olive grove during one of his forays. Lawson was no stranger to ghosts, holding the lease of Abbey House in Cambridge, the most haunted house in the city, where he had personal experience of
manifestations and seeing its ‘Grey Lady’.
With hindsight I wish I had re-read Lawson before setting out to the village of Megalachori. The village was reached after a pleasant sea front walk of just over half an hour. Arriving at a particular family taverna (which I shall not identify here) I was soon served coffee by an elderly Agistri couple and their English-speaking daughter.
On expressing my interest in local history and lore, the family were initially most helpful and expansive, telling me how after being mine and quarry in classical times, the island was virtually abandoned until the late mediaeval period. Then a community came over from neighbouring islands and established the first settlement at the nearby village of Liminaria. Life was hard and made increasingly precarious by repeated raids from pirates seeking loot and captives. Consequently, in the 1820s the original village was dismantled down to its foundations, with the villagers abandoning the coastal areas and heading into the interior of the island where they camouflaged their new houses and churches.
Predictably, mention of pirates prompts fantasies of buried treasure (all so far undiscovered) and even a wildly unhistorical story that the infamous Mediterranean pirate and admiral Barbarossa (c. 14711546) is buried in a local well!
Talk of the deserted settlement provided a good opening to discussing ghosts. The old village site is reputedly haunted, with visitors complaining of a brooding atmosphere and a sense of being watched. Another haunted place is a chapel along the road to Aponissos, where the voices of the dead can be heard on certain nights, “So people say”.
This all seemed very promising, and by this stage I had been joined by some English-speaking friends and part-time residents who know Agistri very well. With conversation and beverages flowing ever more freely, I was induced to start making some hand-written notes. And in this I failed to follow the advice provided by Lawson over a century ago.
As Lawson observed himself, “The formal interview with paper and pencil is in my opinion a mistake… The peasant who honestly believes the superstitions and scrupulously observed the customs which he may happen to speak is silenced at once by the sight of the note-book”. It vindicates advice I was given years ago about collecting ghost stories from elderly villagers in rural East Anglia, “If you want to buy a pig, talk about the weather”. But the really sensitive issue proved to be the evil eye.
On mention of this my previously communicative hosts clammed up. The convivial atmosphere evaporated in an instant and I saw a look of profound unease and growing resentment crossing the face of the elderly mother. This was at once picked up by her daughter who suddenly snapped “They know nothing!” and making it clear if her parents did, it was certainly not to be shared with me. Sensing that this sudden reversal and souring of the previous communicative atmosphere heralded even more negative reactions and upset for everyone, I abandoned my enquiries, quickly moving conversation to more mundane subjects. The previous good humour slowly returned and I did not broach paranormal topics again.
In one sense I was not surprised; one has to accept such moments when collecting any kind of oral testimony. Over many years I have become used to witnesses who change or alter their stories (both in legal and psychical research contexts) or witnesses who subsequently no longer remember or even deny the entirety of their original statements. These are some of the occupational hazards of gathering oral evidence of any sort. With folklore collection, there is a time and a place for everything, and local nuances are very important.
Beliefs which confer on the human eye some dangerous quality that strikes out and works an injury upon any person or inanimate object standing in view are not confined to Greece but were declared as thriving throughout the world in the middle of the last century (see the popular survey by Edward Gifford, The Evil Eye, 1958).
In Greece the idea of an evil eye was magnified to grotesque and apocalyptic levels by investigator Angelos Tanagras in 1929, clothed in the jargon of psychical research. Tanagras proposed that apparent precognition was to be explained as a slowly acting form of psychokinesis,
“an unsuspected factor, terrible and chiefly unconscious, which depends on our mysterious subconscious and acts according to our unavowed impulses, appears to exert a ‘fatal’ influence upon lives and destinies” (In his book
Le Destin et La Chance, translated into English as Psychophysical Elements in Parapsychological Traditions, 1967). Under this model an individual wanting something to happen, mentally pictures it and then ‘foresees’ it happening, then unconsciously causes it, rather as in science fiction films such as Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Medusa Touch (1978). Thus, premonitions are fulfilled by PK acting on other brains or on physical systems, a precognised road or railway accident is realised by the dreamer who through PK tampers with the steering gear, engine or brain of the driver, triggering the accident. Tanagras termed
this power ‘psychobolie’ in an attempt to find a universal theory applicable to all psychic manifestations. But it fails to explain why people might wish distant volcanoes to erupt or tsunamis to occur or why widely reviled figures such as Hitler and his ilk did not die much sooner, since their deaths must have been fervently wished by millions.
As my Agistri experience shows, ghost hunters and folklorists may still find such beliefs around the world today. In Latin American countries where witchcraft is accepted as a day-to-day reality, informants will garrulously speak of such powers, often recommending where witches may be found should one want their services, black or white! A similar enthusiasm for discussing the topic is displayed in some Asian countries. In contrast, in Africa and the Middle East more reluctance may be shown when speaking on such topics, unless a dispensation or permission to do so is issued by a local priest or imam. Since some of these countries still retain penalties for sorcery and witchcraft in their legal codes, such inhibitions are understandable. Many languages retain phrases that express the equivalents of a ‘penetrating gaze’, ‘a withering glance’ or a ‘dirty look’ or to ‘look daggers’, harkening back to such ancient beliefs. Even speaking of such things can be considered unlucky.
In the UK, ghost hunters and folklorists have come across examples, with such survivals being most prevalent in eastern England. Country writer and journalist James Wentworth Day (1899-1983) told in his Essex Ghosts (1974) of once going to interview a well-known and friendly blacksmith in the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, taking a photographer with him. Upon seeing the camera, the normally mild-mannered blacksmith flew into a rage, shouting “It’s the evil eye” and demanding its instant removal from his forge, threatening to throw a hammer at them if they did not comply. The same year Enid Porter, curator of the Cambridge Museum of Folk Life, referred to “an East Anglian village which must remain anonymous” where one woman was said to possess the evil eye, being blamed for accidents and misfortune among children and neighbours (The Folklore of East Anglia, 1974).
In Cambridgeshire and the Fens, some stories of bewitchment from the late 19th and early 20th centuries sound more like poltergeist manifestations. For example, in October 1804 at Sawston, near Cambridge, strange events occurred at the home of a Mr and Mrs Thomas and Susannah Adams. A letter from Jane Huddleston of Sawston Hall recorded how:
“Mrs Adams since last Sunday has had her gown torn every day in a manner she could not account for… so it continued until she had put on five. She went to Mrs Murphil’s house. No-one was there but Mrs M and Sally Cooper [a 13-year-old girl]. She told of her misfortune and shewed her the gown, which was quite whole when she sat down, upon rising to their astonishment it was slit in several directions. She put on six gowns on Thursday and they were all rent.”
The phenomena were not confined to Mrs Adams; “Almost everyone that has been in the house have had their clothes torn, men and women, old Adams’ coats, etc…” The clothes of a niece and a maidservant were “shivered to rags”, and two witnesses saw one piece of a garment “drop off and not a person near or touching it.”
Other victims included “two gentlemen” and a Mrs James who “was so frightened she ran out of the house and was very near fainting.” Similar assaults afflicted Mrs Adams’s 15-year-old niece, who “had only the body part of her gown remaining, the skirts having dropped off as she moved about.” Local belief ascribed this to witchcraft and curiosity-seekers flocked to the village. Specimens of the torn clothes were later exhibited at Cambridge and the attacks ceased thereafter. (Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore, 1969, by Enid Porter).
Charles Fort, in his last book Wild Talents (1931), cites another Cambridgeshire case from 1923, the Gorefield poltergeist, near Wisbech, attributed to witchcraft by locals. As recently as December 2013, when I visited a reportedly haunted flat in Peterborough, residents told me they feared black magic by a hostile neighbour might be to blame.
Later that same day on Agistri I hiked up to the abandoned village site, finding the remains on a small plateau and slope among the hills, shaded by a profusion of towering trees. The crumbling stone walls and scattered boulders seemed peaceful enough in the late afternoon sunshine, though it might well prove different after nightfall.
I finally rounded off my enquiries back at the Agistri Club, where I shared details of what had happened earlier. I was reassured and told no lasting upset would have been caused, with such superstitions only to be expected and being a very minor aspect of community life. Fortunately, popular fears turn out to be regularly allayed by the activities of other islanders claiming gifts to exorcise evil eye influences; the Agistri Club itself had once employed such a lady named Stamatina. She had worked in the kitchens and was the source of many of the Club’s successful home-cooked dishes.
Stamatina was also credited locally for being able to banish the effects of the evil eye by magical means. Charging a small sum (sometimes waived entirely), her routine technique of dispelling evil eye afflictions involved performing a simple ritual, releasing a droplet of olive oil into a small retsina glass full of water in the presence of a sufferer. Moreover, in emergencies, Stamatina could bring relief to victims remotely, over the telephone. She had many clients and also promoted the use of various charms that she maintained would inhibit any malevolent power. She died 10 years ago at the age of 80 and is buried at the cemetery of Milos. Her powers are still celebrated on Agistri, as is the Club itself for its commitment to equal opportunities in so readily having employed a neighbourhood white witch without any qualms.