Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/90

 62 The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem.

The Moslems also call upon el-Chadr, Elijah or S. George, as the case may be, and they say moreover :

bismi-'llah er-rahman er-rahlm : In the name of God the Com- passionate, the Merciful !

Ya rasiil dastQr: O Messenger {i.e. Muhammed) with permission (or as the English railway porter would say: "By your leave," i.e. "Out of the way!") This phrase is used by Christians also, at night.

The washing out of the bath with fresh water, which one might suppose to be merely a very desirable cleansing after its last occupant, has also a ceremonial character, part libation, part a clearing out of lingering jinn, the sacred name being pronounced the whole time.

A Moslem woman relates a misfortune which had befallen her sister, who, having been brought up in a Protestant Institution, had not sought the divine protection in the usual manner. When going into the bath she confided her child of forty days old to the care of the proprietor, rather than take it into the heated rooms. Suddenly hearing its cry, she hastened to attend to it, slipped on the wet stones, and was found in great suffering from acute cramps. She had never been so seized before, but the attack often recurred, and the Shech, from whom she sought help, had been unable to give her relief. The cry she had heard was from a child of the jinn, for her own had slept quietly all the time, and no other child was in the house. Had she called upon God on entering, she would not have heard the sound, and even had she prayed for help in falling she would have received no injury.

It is customary for a young man seeking a wife to enquire if she is in the habit of using the name of God before every action. From the answer he gathers whether she is likely to bring blessing or scarcity into his home. A story is told in illustration of this, that a young couple, in spite of all frugality and care in housekeeping, found their possessions continually diminishing, until at last the