Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/179

Rh persons highly charged with mana may be beneficial or highly dangerous. When Arise Evans rubbed his fungous nose on Charles II.'s hand, the king, we read, was disturbed, but the patient was cured. The relics of saints have been known to effect cures by their intrinsic holiness. But at the same time this awful power was not lightly to be approached. Great power may be hurtful as well as beneficial to that with which it comes in contact. In Bechuanaland molemo means poison as well as medicine, and the Gorgon's blood was powerful to heal or kill. Eurypylos, son of Euaemon, received a chest among the spoils of Ilium which fell to his share; inside it was an image of Dionysos. No sooner did he look inside and see the image, than he went out of his mind. On the return of the ark from the Philistines, the Lord "smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? and to whom shall he go up from us?" And, as David brought the ark in solemn procession to his new capital, Uzzah, one of the drivers of the cart, "put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God." A Samoan high priest's glance was so deadly that, if he looked at a coco-nut tree, it died, and, if he