CURE FOR WORRY AND THE EVIL EYE
The Potti Team Blog

It is a scene from one of my all-time favorite novels - they are British, and run into each other on holiday.  He is driving a new Porsche, of which he is obviously quite fond.   He tells her in the marketplace that he is going to buy an evil eye for his love.  Later, he presents the evil eye to her.  "I thought you were buying it for your car," she replies.

"I said," he tells her, "that I was buying it for my love."

I read it in high school, and it was the first reference to the evil eye that I had encountered (other than that look my mom gave us as a warning that we needed to cease something immediately!).  Since then I have seen numerous beads and charms referred to as such, but I have not known much about their meaning, or their use. 

PANOS AND ANGIE

Since we have a Greek Etsy shop on the Potti Team that specializes in evil eyes, and komboloi and worry beads, and also has kind shop owners willing to indulge my curiosity, I was able to ask questions about which I have wondered for years, and also some that have surfaced more recently.

Panos and Angie are the Owners of SunnyBeadsByTheSea in Athens, Greece.  Panos began making worry beads as a hobby, and gave them as gifts to friends. His friends then requested that he make more, so they could give them to their friends. 

SunnybeadsByTheSea

Angie found Etsy, and it has proven to be a really good fit for them.    Angie is his "life and business partner," Panos says.  She is involved in designing their products, and she is also a talented graphic artist.  If you visit Sunny Beadz on Facebook, you will be corresponding with Angie, who also helps with shop promotions.

Panos provided me with answers to numerous questions, information about worry beads and evil eyes, and helpful sources that I will list for you at the end of this article as well.

So what did I learn? 

THE EVIL EYE

The evil eye is a term for a bead or charm, or for the ill from which it protects.  This ill can cover a number of things from a feeling of malaise, sometimes accompanied by a fever, to bad luck.  One article stated that it was a way to explain sickness before germs were understood, but in general, it seems to be taken more seriously than something that has been explained away by germs. 

The cause can be an evil look of malice by someone with ill will in his or her heart; it can be a look of envy, or sometimes even a look of someone with too great an admiration for another.  The danger in the latter case would be pride that might result from it. The person who has been cursed or harmed by the evil eye often does not realize it until they become sick, or bad things keep happening.  Children are believed to be most vulnerable.

Babies and children are often given evil eye jewelry because of this vulnerability.  Other people wear evil eyes as well.  They are also used on cars and homes - anything that could theoretically be cursed. 

I get the impression that giving someone an evil eye can be a way to express that you care about that person and do not want anything bad to happen to him or her.  That is a universal feeling, and this is the Greek way of expressing it.

(Should you wish to express your affection to someone in this manner,  SunnyBeadsByTheSea has a nice selection, many of them sterling at very reasonable prices!)

People of an unusual appearance, such as the deformed, were once credited with the ability to cast the evil eye.  Blue eyes are not so prevalent in Greece, and are even now considered suspect compared the more common brown eyes.  It is highly likely that this is the reason most evil eye charms or beads are blue, that they could effectively ward off the stare of the evil blue eye.

WORRY BEADS

Komboloi and worry beads are the same thing - a fact that simplified some of my questions.

The first komboloi in Greece are believed to have been strings of wool knots used to keep track of prayers by the monks of Mt. Athos in the middle ages.  In modern times they have no religious significance for Greeks. 

They are useful, however, to still restlessness, and are used to help stop smoking, to lose weight (to keep from eating), to calm stress, and just for the pleasure of feeling them with your fingers. 

There are komboloi used solely as decoration, and Panos included a photo of a home komboloi that is used in this manner.  You can see that it is absolutely lovely!

Worry beads, or komboloi, can be valued for the substances they are made of, for the sentimental value of their previous owner(s), or as a very personal object with which one has bonded.  Panos shared a photo of  the komboloi that belonged to his grandfather, probably made around the 1920s.  This has special significance in his family, as would a family memento from the 1920s to any of us!

There are two ways to use komboloi or worry beads.  One of them involves a very deliberate system of running the beads through one's fingers (in a precise manner); the other involves dividing the beads in half at a particular point, holding the connecting threads between your index and middle fingers, and swinging half of the beads over your hand to make a clicking sound against the beads that are there, then manipulating the threads so that you can swing the other half up and around to click against the second set.  You then repeat. This site illustrates very simple methods for both ways of using your beads:  www.wikihow.com/Use-Worry-Beads .

(For more detailed instructions, see the wikipedia.org reference at the end of this post.)

Worry beads are sometimes offered as gifts to the guests at a wedding.  Bomboniere are special gifts for guests who attend events like a baptism or wedding.  Sometimes komboloi are used to decorate these.

At one time worry beads were used in public only by men.  That has changed, and women using komboloi are accepted in all but rural settings.  

It was in another novel I read,  that a British spy, incognito, sent SOS by the clicking of his beads in Morse code.  My father, who has been into ham radio (and thus Morse code) since his teens, says that is impossible, because some clicks need to be longer than others.  This has been a source of contention between my parents for years. Okay, my father doesn't really know anything about it, but my mom disagrees with him.  (That just doesn't have the same punch!!)  My mom thinks (and I do too) that it would be possible to slide the beads together, thus producing a longer sound, in contrast to the clicking.

I think, rather than troubling Panos with any more questions, 
I need to just buy a komboloi and experiment myself!  
                                               
                                                                                  ~    Michele Davidson

                                                                                                                                                                             

greece.greekreporter.com/2012/12/05/the-history-and-how-to-of-komboloi-a...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worry_beads

www.athensguide.com/journalists/articles/evileye.htm

www.livescience.com/40633-evil-eye.html

www.discoverallgreece.com/what-is-the-meaning-of-greek-evil-eye/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_eye