The Evil Eye

[kittiwake]

I am currently reading "The Life & Death of Lord Errol: The Truth Behind the Happy Valley Murder" by Erroll Trzebinski and in it there is a picture of the future Earl of Erroll in 1903 at the age of two. In it he is dressed in a white frilly dress with short puffed sleeves, and has shoulder length hair with a ribbon in it, which reminded me of this article about the evil eye that was in the Fortean Times a few months ago. Towards the end in the section headed "De Ole Maloik", it discusses the practice of dressing little boys up as girls to fool the evil eye and protect them, in cultures that saw a boy child as more valuable than a girl.