Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/215

Rh there is great poverty among them. The ornaments are all objects of domestic or every-day use, and the necklace, worn by a housewife, secures the peaceable possession of all her ordinary belongings. As some are not quite easy to distinguish, I subjoin a list as given meby a Jew.

I. Male frog. 2. Shoe. 3. Comb. (These are generally made of wood.) 4. Stove (for roasting coffee). 5. Lock. 6. Dog. 7. Pigeon. 8. Pestle (for coffee). 9. Hammer. 10. Axe. 11. Sabre. 12. Key. 13. Scissors. 14. Hammer (for tent-pegs). 15. Pickaxe (used mainly for extracting the roots of trees long ago cut down, to which the people are now reduced for fuel). 16. Camel. 17. Pistol. 18. Hen. 19. Coffee-pot. 20. Shoe. 21. Frog.

The exact nature of the superstition connected with the frog I have not been able to ascertain, and fancy it may be of a nature not easily imparted to a lady inquirer. The frogs are used in pairs, male and female, and those I have seen were always in the possession of Jews from Yemen in Arabia, great numbers of whom are now living near Jerusalem in what is known as the Box Colony, being built mainly of the tin boxes in which petroleum is brought from Russia and Galicia. It has been suggested, but I offer it only as a suggestion, that as the frog is associated with evil, it is separated at both ends from the harmless objects of domestic life by a shoe, which, though not evil, is an object of contempt. Hence the saying that you must not speak to a man of his shoes or his wife!

The charms figured on Plate IV. are both against eye-trouble, the most prevalent of all diseases in this country. They are hung round the head so as to hang over the afflicted eye; the green for severe cases, the brown for temporary inflammation.

The children's charms, alum in an ornamental network of beads, are worn by Moslems and Christians as well as by Jews.

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The following is a description of the devices impressed on the metal (silver) amulet also exhibited. (See p. 2.)

I. Obverse.—A picture of Rachel's Tomb with the words "Tomb of Rachel" underneath, and as an encircling legend the following prayer: "May it be pleasing in Thy sight, O my God