Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/218

 194 translation reads, not as in the Authorised or Revised, "let them grow into a multitude," speaking of Joseph's children, but "let them multiply like the fishes," and it is further asserted that the evil eye has no power over the fishes, for they are protected by the sheen of the water. In every case where the effect of the evil eye is to be averted Joseph and this blessing are invoked, with the hope that the same result may happen now also to the afflicted one. It is a case of symbolical substitution.

The "hand" is an universal Oriental and Occidental sign for averting the influence of the evil eye (v. Jahn and Elworthy). The protection of a woman in childbirth against the attacks of Lilith and the formulas used on that occasion have been fully treated by me in the "Charm of Two Thousand Years," published in Folk-Lore vol. xi., pp. 129.

Pembrokeshire Notes.

(Communicated through Mr. W. P. Merrick).

"It's none used now, but when I were a young maid the farms was a deal bigger, and more corn grown; there would be four and five men kep' on a farm, beside day-labourers. There must be a foreman, maybe the farmer's eldest son, maybe a hired man; and he must take the lead in all things in the field. In harvest the foreman cut at the head, and the rest, reapers and binders, must keep time along with him. With neighbour-farms it would be a race, whiché one would first finish cutting corn. The foreman would plan it out to finish in some cornel, not for to be seen by the rest farms; then with the last handful he would make a wrach—leastways two wrachs. We called it by the Welsh name; I don't know, is there an English?" (I suggested "wreath," "posy"?) "No, not that; it's just a cry the Welsh have when they have finished a thing—they will say, 'Wrach! wrach!' Now the foreman he must lay his wrach on the breid (swath) of the