Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/235

 Collectanea. 207

and some scrollwork which may possibly represent the remains of a conventionalized human-faced crescent. Above the wrist are four supporting columns cut as hands (apparently open hands, palms outwards); and on the front and back (not at the two sides) of the amulet are a pair of eyes, one eye at A between each hand and the slender vertical support. The open hands may be reminiscent of the Moorish period in Spain, not very far distant from the period at which these compound hands were probably made {i.e. sixteenth century);2 or they may have a connection, in some other way, with the open hands, palms outwards, to be found upon certain modern Portuguese amulets.^ The eyes were, there can be little doubt, intended to strengthen the effect of the amulet as directed against " the evil eye " *; on a fragment (not illustrated) of a compound " fig " hand in my possession a distinct pair of eyes is to be found on the back of the amulet, in a position exactly similar to that of the pair noted above, while on the front of the amulet (where, in this case, there are no open hands) are marks which are probably the conventionalized traces of eyes. The employment of iron strips for attaching the cap to the jet may be due to an application of the very widespread belief in iron as a protection against supernatural evil influences. I have not personally come across this belief in Spain, although I have frequently seen small reliquaries and religious pictures, to be worn as pendants, mounted in iron instead of in the silver generally used in other countries (and used in Spain much more often than

^ Vol. .xvii. , p. 459. With le.spect to the Moorish open hand, as shown on a gate of the Alhambra, Lomas says (/« Spain, 190S, p. 225), "In the year 1526 we find Dofia Juana prohibiting the use of this talisman, with any Arabic inscription, among the Moriscoes." Jet seems to have been a favour- ite material amongst the Arab population against the evil eye; cf. C. D. E. Fortnum, Thi Archcuolo-:;ical Journal, vol. xxxviii., p. 256, and Folk- Lore, vol. xxiv., p. 66. We may note that amongst some Oriental nations black materials (glass, threads, etc.) are still used as prolecti%"e against occult evil influences, e.g,. in India and Ceylon.

'^Folk-Lore, vol. xix., p. 219 (Fig. 25).

^ Cf. Bellucci, // Fetitistno Primitive in Italia (Perugia, 1907), p. 52, for illustrations and descriptions of eye forms used as protections against the evil eye in Italy, in Roman and modern times; cf. also Bellucci's Catolo^ro Descrittivo, Avnileti Italiani (189S), Tablet x.