Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/236

 2o8 Collecta7tea.

iron), possibly because of some faith in the protective virtues of iron.

Fig. 2. A "fig" hand of jet, mounted in silver. A right liand (as in Fig. 23, vol. xvii.); all the others are left hands. Flat in section, and solid. Above the palm is a heart which is so drawn as to resemble greatly the letter " M," together with some vesica- shaped leaves. At the top are two columns, with striations on each side, which may possibly represent the traces of convention- alized hands. On the fragment to which I referred in connec- tion with Fig. I there is a very distinct " M " formed by the supporting columns at the front of the wrist.

Fig. 3. A "fig" hand of jet, mounted in silver.. Above the palm, in heavy openwork, a human-faced crescent set horizontally. Above the wrist, coarse scrollwork.

Fig. 4. A "fig" hand of jet, with a hole for suspension. Above the palm, in heavy openwork, a human-faced crescent set vertically. The thumb is shaped like a human leg wearing a boot, and continues up to the thigh, where the thigh of the other leg is joined to it. Above the wrist are three columns, of which the outer ones each represent a pair of columns.

I think that in these specimens we have evidence that the com- pound hands of this type were amulets composed of parts which, while amuletic in a profane sense, were probably intended to secure the protection of the Virgin Mary against certain evils, — the same evils against which those various parts were individually protective, — in addition to the protection believed to be afforded by those parts merely by virtue of their form ; or that they were amulets in which it was intended that ideas conceived with refer- ence to the Virgin should be used to change a profane amulet into one having a religious basis. I have referred elsewhere ^ to an amulet of this kind, cited by Cuming, in which "a figure with a child •■' is upon the frill at the end of the wrist ; this would seem to be the Virgin and the Child. The " M " noted upon several of the hands is probably the " M " so often used in amuletic orna- ments as an abbreviation from " Maria." The crescent is an emblem constantly used in association with the Virgin, as is also the heart. I have given elsewhere^ what I take to be further

^ Folk- Lore, vol. xvii., p. 459. ^ Ibid., vol. xxiv., p. 65.