Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/160

150 the allusion to the changes and transformations by means of which the demon gains access to the new-born child. This proves that the Hebrew legend in this form belongs also to a comparatively modern recension.

A much older, and in some essentials different, version, appears in a book composed not later than about the tenth century. The difference is profound; the names by which the Evil Spirit is prevented from doing any harm to the new-born child are no longer her own names, but the more powerful names of the angels who subdue the Evil Spirit. The sight of their names terrifies her away, and protects those who invoke their aid against the attacks of the child-stealing witch. We are approaching to the more ancient form of conjurations, where the conjurer identifies himself with the superior powers, becomes for the time being the living representative of Osiris or of Serapis, or of Baal or of Buddha, in order to strike terror into the heart of the demons and to drive them away from human habitation.

Before reaching that stage of our investigation, I mention here the Syriac version, which also belongs to the Avestitza type. But curiously enough the saint who is persecuting and banishing the Evil Spirit got the name of the spirit shifted on to him, for I see in "Ebedishu" the parallel to "Avediasa," the form which comes nearest to the Roumanian Avestitza. The framework is up to a certain point the the same, only the sympathetic or symbolical part has dropped out, namely, that the Evil Spirit has been intercepted on her way to the new-born child, and also no mention is made of the means she employs to gain access by changing her outward form. On the other hand, we have here a list of mystical names twice repeated, each time numbering twelve, as in the shorter Greek version. The manuscript from which this charm is taken, published by the Rev. Dr. H. Gollancz belongs to the fifteenth century, but the charm is certainly copied from much older texts. I reproduce it here in full: