Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/95

 The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem. 67

birth, death, marriage, circumcision, pilgrimage, initiation of an undertaking, or what not — when those concerned will dip their hands in the blood of the victim, goat, sheep, or fowl, and will mark some flat surface near the entrance of the house to distract the attention of the jinn.

I wish I could obtain more particulars about Shech Shadli or Shazli, to whom a libation is poured out into the fire when coffee is drunk. If he were the inventor of Arabic coffee, he was a benefactor to the human race to whom such a libation is justly due, though of course not from those who drink the beverage supposed to be coffee in Western Europe — even in Paris. A variant of the custom is found at Hamath in Syria, where it is said that on the return of a pilgrim the whole pot of coffee is poured out as a thank-offering between his feet on to the earth, not into the fire.

I have been told, but have no evidence of it, that the Arabs still practise the bewitching of enemies by means of what is known in the Highlands as the corp criadh, the " revenge image," in use among most nations, and in all ages. I have seen such an image in recent use in Sutherland, made of clay, and, in the New Forest, of wax ; in Greece lead was used, in Egypt papyrus, and in Palestine fragments of the limestone, of which the country mainly consists, rudely fashioned into human form and inscribed with the name of the enemy. Dr. Wiinsch of Breslau suggests some possible association between this white stone and that inscribed with a " new name " to be given to " him that overcometh" (Rev. ii. 17).

I have seen Jewish and Moslem women seeking for mandrakes, but more likely with an eye to their alleged therapeutic properties {e.g. Gen. xxx. 14, etc.) than for the sake of their roots, which, however, they hang in their houses, but whether as curiosities or for purposes of witchcraft, I cannot ascertain. One, bearing a rude resemblance to three human figures, was shown to me by