Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/177

Rh heart cannot be accepted: such an interpretation of the emblem is an attempt to find by force as many different emblems as possible in the cimaruta.

In charms of various types, hearts do, however, make their appearance as distinct emblems. One or two hearts are to be seen suspended from a branch of the rue sprig (Fig. 27) or sometimes held by a fist grasping it by the large blood-vessels, which are sometimes very clearly modelled (Fig. 28).

In charms of another type (No. 45, Plate XIII.) we find the heart in the correct position anatomically, in the centre of the group of emblems which constitute the entire charm. The heart may form the centre of a degenerate rue sprig and in extreme cases (PI. XIII.) may entirely take its place, becoming the nucleus around which the other emblems are attached. In the latter case we find a tiny perforation or hole above the heart, which, like the hole in the tag above the moon, is a survival of an original loop for suspension.

In Naples hearts made of bone, coral, silver, gold, or other material are commonly worn as simple amulets. In their modelling the main blood-vessels are occasionally indicated; but more frequently by a curious alteration of the design the blood-vessels are represented as flames, such as those seen rising from the Sacred Heart venerated by Roman Catholics. But from the hearts in the cimaruta flames are never found issuing, blood-vessels not unfrequently.

The serpent emblem as an integral part of the cimaruta is of exceptional occurrence, perhaps for the reason already adduced; namely, that the moon is its bane, and that in consequence their presence side by side did not make for the potency of the charm. Still, when as in the very ornate specimen in the Empire style figured in Plate XVII.,