Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/237

 Collectanea. 209

evidence connecting the use, in Spain, of the *' fig " hand with amulets whereby the protection of the Virgin is supposed to be invoked." Jet was so commonly used for amulets, sometimes mounted in copper, gold, or silver, during the early sixteenth century, while the Arab influences were still strong, that Charles V. in 1525 issued a '^pragmaiica" forbidding the use of amulets of jet against the evil eye^ ; it is perhaps to this ^'pragmatica" that we may trace the origin of the attempt to turn the profane "fig" iiand of jet into an amulet associated with the Virgin.

I believe that these compound "fig" hands of jet are a Spanish ty|)e, and that they are all of Spanish manufacture ; I imagine that they were probably made at the famous azabacheria (jet works) of Santiago de Compostella.^ The numerous Spanish jet statuettes of St. James, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, still in existence, are to be accounted for by his connection with the city of Santiago ; whether the close association of St. James with the Virgin (who appeared in person to him) bears any rela- tion to the selection of jet for the compound "fig" hands I am unable to say.^'J Xor can I say whether, or not, the various existing " Black " images of the Virgin have caused any popular

'C. \V. King in The Gnosiiis and their KcDiains (1S87), p. 369, speaks of a plant "still regarded by the Turks as a potent amulet, and called Kef Marjam, ' the hand of Mary,' on account of its digitate form. The same hand made of blue glass is tied round children's necks . . . against the stroke of the ' evil eye.' " (A'.^. — The glass hand, at least, is generally known in Mohammedan countries as the " Hand of Fatima.")


 * Fortnum, op. cit., p. 256.

" For much information concerning the jet carvings of various sacred person- ages and scenes, from this famous place of pilgrimage, see Boletin de la Sociedad Espailola de Exctirsiones, vol. vi. (1899), pp. 1S5-94 ; C. D. E. Fortnum, loc. cit., vol. xxxvi. (1879), pp. 33-7, and vol. xxxviii,, pp. 253-7 ; a short article in The Archaeological Joutnal, vol. xxvi. (1S69), pp. iSo-i ; and a short note by L. Williams, The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, vol. iii., p. 182. Numerous Spanish jet statuettes etc. are illustrated, and described as pilgrims' souvenirs from the shrine of St. James of Compostella, in the Kimigliche Museen zu Berlin ; Die Italienischcn und S/anischen Bildxi<ej-ke der Renaissance und Barocke, by Frida Schottmliller, vol. v. (1913), pp. 199-202.

'"I have a disc of jet, about two inches in diameter, Spanish, and probably of about the sixteenth century, carved with a figure of the Virgin.

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