Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/361

 Rh will briefly deal with the subject of charms and amulets in general, and then with the very interesting differentiation of form and design which obtains in these objects.

I think we may take it as a fact that the human dread of the unknown is practically universal, though it is naturally far more general amongst primitive races than amongst civilised people. This fear may, for our purpose, be subdivided into dread of the directly mysterious, such as death by lightning; secondly, of death, or injury and disease, from intelligible causes; and lastly, of the power of one person over another by what is known in a general way as the "Evil Eye"; that is, "overlooking," and thus causing mischief of some kind. The natural result of such a state of terror prompted the seeking of an antidote, and such antidotes are to be seen in the varied forms of charms and amulets to be found in every country of the world. These charms are as diversified indeed as the superstitions themselves, or even more so, but for the purpose of the present paper they may be roughly classified under three heads, all of which may be regarded as prophylactic. Firstly, we find a group of charms and amulets representing either in a concrete or abstract form the deity, fetish, unknown power, or origin of life; secondly, objects of a sympathetic form; and thirdly, objects which from their abnormal appearance are regarded as of mystic origin, and in consequence regarded as possessing the power of warding off the Evil Eye, protecting their owner from lightning, and such like.

The charms under the first head take the form of the solar disc (sometimes the svastika, as representing the rotary motion of the sun), the lunar crescent, and the large variety of well-known phallic symbols.

Of the second type there are very numerous forms, of which we may mention for our purpose the following. Thunderbolts, as a safeguard from lightning. The sub-silicate cornelian, regarded by the Arabs as a preventive of