Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/165

 Charm against the Child-stealing Witch. 155

In this conjuration the demons are banished by virtue of the names of those two angels, who together with the saint make up the Trias of sacred names in the Hebrew- version. Whilst the names of the demons have been fully translated, the other names did not fare so well. Sihail and Anas are undoubtedly Mihail and Satanas, written St. Anas, and are later popular corruptions of the older forms better preserved in the much older Hebrew counter- part. I see in the Hebrew Snsnoi Saint Sisynie and in Snoi, Syno-doros or Sisyno-odoros, whilst Smng has in every probability become Satanael. The Hebrew script favours the theory of such a change, as these letters and those of the word Stne are very much alike one another, and can easily be substituted one for the other. This name of Satan, as the lord of the lov/er world, is the very name so much in vogue among the New Manichaeans or Bogomils. The founder of this sect had only to take the Oriental form over, and change the names slightly^ to make them identical with such as were known to the people, and to make them popular and efficacious. The sectarians recog- nised in this charm the names of a prominent saint, Sisymos, and of Satanael the primitive creator of the lower world.

Of the Oriental origin of this charm there can be no doubt. The assumption, if ever put forward, that we are dealing with a charm of old European heathen origin adopted by Jews and Christians alike, and adapted to the teachings and tenets of the followers of these religions, is contrary to facts. For we find the same charm with slight modifications in a book called the Alphabet of Sirach, which dates in every probability from the seventh century. Here we find the same old legend in the very form in which we expect it to appear if it is to be the older version, viz. three angels coming to the rescue of the woman with the child, and granting her immunity against the child-stealing demon, only by the mention of their names. This is the text as found in Alpha- betum Siracidis (ed. Steinschneider, Berlin, 1858, fol. 2';i^aY.