Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/162

152 who carries these writs in the name of the God of Gods and the the Lord of Lords, and in the name of the Being who is from everlasting; may there be bound, doomed, and expelled all accursed and rebellious demons, and all evil and envious persons, and all calamities from off him who carries these writ !"

Though somewhat changed, this Syriac form has preserved the old character of the charm without limiting it absolutely to the protection against the child-stealing demon. Among the names we. find also the "Lilith" of the Hebrew or better oriental tradition. To this we must revert now. As I have pointed out, the scenery has been shifted in this tradition. In lieu of the names of the demon, which, when known, afford protection to the person which possesses that knowledge, we find the names of the divine powers invoked which afford a much stronger protection. This is the true form of the old worship. Moreover the conjuration becomes a sort of invocation, a supplicatory prayer to the protecting powers, to which man, in his weakness and in his faith, turns for help against the insidious attacks of those demons against which he alone would be absolutely powerless. Even in the Greek versions of the Sisin legend we find a string of names of saints added at the end of the amulet, who are invoked to assist in the protection which the bearing of it alone should apparently suffice to secure. But double is better, and although the people have sufficient confidence in that amulet, they still strengthen its efficacy by the list of saints appended to it. In the Canonical Exorcisms used by the Catholic Church, we find also as a rule a list of holy names by virtue of which the demon is forced to obey the injunctions of the Exorcist.

In a book which goes by the name of the angel "Raziel," who is said to have revealed to Adam immediately after he left Paradise, but which in reality is a compilation made in the tenth century from much older materials, we find then the following conjuration, preceded by (ed. Amsterdam, fol. 43b) a list of seventy names of angels. "I conjure