Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/402

 382 Cairene Folklore.

If a crumb of bread falls, it is said : " Who is hungry ? "

There were three men, one wearing shoes, one wearing a waistcoat, the third wearing a signet-ring. They came across a dead man. The first said (stretching out the foot and touching the body wdth his shoe) : " Who killed him ? " The second (putting his hand on his waistcoat) : " I." The third (stretching out his hand so that his ring could be seen) : " Throw him out of the way."^

The cat once saw some meat hanging up, and jumped again and again to get it. On finding it was out of reach she turned away, saying : " The meat is putrid."

" Iftakarna '1-qotta, gana yenott : " (We thought of the cat, at once it jumped in.)

" Rhab el-qott, il'ab ya far : " (The cat's away, O mouse play !)

" Yemut w^eyisha ze el-qottat beseba't irwah," (He dies and wakes up like the cats with seven lives.)

Sinan means a dirty fellow whose arm-pits smell and cause sore eyes in those who come near him.

There is a marble column in the Gama' et-Terguman (" the Dragoman's Mosque ") in the Darb et-Terguman near the Shar'a Clot-Bey, Cairo, which those who suffer from a pain or disease in the breast lick in order that they may be cured.

In the mosque of 'Amr at Old Cairo are two columns near the southernmost door. Once a wicked man tried to pass between them, but they closed upon him, and opened again only after intercession had been made to God.

In the Bulletin de V Institut egyptien, 3rd series, No. 2 (1891), pp., 250-267, Yacoub Artin Pasha has published a very interesting Paper on the rhymes attached to the

' Kan fi telata rigal mashin, wahid labis merkub, wahid labis wahid siden, et-talit labis khitm. Laqu wahid maiyit. El-awwal qal (stretching out the foot and touching the body with his shoe): " Min mawwet da?" Et- tani (putting his hand on his waistcoat) : " Ana." Et-talit (stretching out his hand so that his ring could be seen) : " Ermuh barra."