The mullahs or priests enjoy very great influence, but the people are very superstitious, believing in witchcraft, omens, spirits and the evil eye.
Belief in the evil eye or shadow is universal, and spirit-raisers, soothsayers and rain-doctors are in repute.
The accompanying actions (tying knots, &c.) which he performs are assumed to work themselves out on the enemy whose evil eye.
It is a strange custom with the Persian ladies to dress little girls as boys, and little boys as girls, till they reach the age of seven or eight years; this is often done for fun, or on account of some vowoftenQr to avert the evil eye.
The attention of antiquarians to the charms against the Evil Eye used by the inhabitants of the Neapolitan provinces was first drawn in 1888, when it was shown that they were all derived from the survival of ancient classical legends which had sprung from various sources in connexion with classical sites in the neighbourhood.