Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/238

 2IO Collectanea.

association of jet with amulets by which the aid of the Virgin is invoked. Although there are jet amulets of the same kind and period occasionally to be found in Austria and the Tyrol (as the jet religious carvings are found in many parts of Europe), these were probably, I think, brought from Spain during the time when Spain and Austria were under one ruler (just about the period from which these amulets seem to date), when there was a con- siderable and continuous traffic between the two countries. I have a compound "fig" hand, with four small supporting hands, of jet, which I found in a village in the Bavarian Tyrol ; a hand of the same kind, obtained somewhere in the same region, was exhibited at Dresden in 191 1 ; ^^ and I have seen a portion of a third from the same general district. I have also seen an amuletic ornament, including several pecten shells (emblems of St. James), in a small local collection in Austria. The specimen shown in Fig. 5 comes from Vienna, but the jet portion, if not the whole object, is, I think, almost certainly Spanish.

Fig. 5. An ornament of silver and jet, for attaching to a garment. A jet figure of St. James, within a sma41 case at the back of which are two crossed pilgrims' staves. Probably a pilgrims' badge of the sixteenth century, and probably of Spanish manufacture. Obtained at Vienna, 1913.

Hearts. — Fig. 6. Jet heart, with a group of leaves, set in silver as a pendant. The heart shape has been used as a form for pro- tective pendants in very many countries, and it has been exten- sively used in that manner in Spain, as in Portugal and Italy. It is in many cases the expression of a religious sentiment, but it is also, I feel sure, in many cases the embodiment of one or more non-religious ideas, and its popularity is due, I think, to the facility with which it can be adopted without contravening religious prejudices. Its use as an amulet goes back at least to the period of ancient Egypt ; what the non-religious ideas attached to it in recent times have been I am not prepared to say. The group of three leaves is supplemented by a slight swelling and marking on the stem, indicating that the group is. possibly derived

^^ Catalogue of the Historical Section of the Dresden Hygienic Exhibition, 191 1, Xo. 13,673. The description there given is inaccurate in stating the

material to be jade.