Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/284

 256 Cori^espondence.

least two thousand years old, and is still kept up in our own days. The translators of the Bible have misunderstood the passage, and their translation does not tally with the practice. In Numb. xv. V. 38 we are told that sisit should be made at the corners of the garment, and, v. 39, it is expressly stated "and ye shall look upon them and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them." These sisit wtxQ to serve as "remembrancers." The word in question has been translated as " fringes," for no other reason than because the Greek has kraspeda (fringes). Now these would-be fringes are anything but fringes. They are a strand of wool or silk of eight threads tied up into four double threads and hanging from the four corners of a special garment used at every religious service. These knots are cunningly wrought ; they are more like loose double knots, and the space between them is filled up by twisting round the strand one of the eight strings, which is purposely made longer than the rest. There are also special traditions concerning the number of circumvolutions of the string between each of the four sets of knots. The number differs ; mystical and other interpretations have gathered round this number of twists.

I have not the slightest doubt that we have here the mnemonic knot used for precisely that purpose. The phylacteries also tied round the arm and placed between the eyes "as a sign" (Deut. vi. 8.) are fastened by peculiar knots of which the shape is carefully prescribed and from which no departure is allowed.

Here is not the place to discuss the purely philological point of view of this new translation of the Hebrew word, by which it is brought into harmony with the practice, but it cannot be denied that the word sisi stands in close connection with sis, which means the " ball " or " knop " of the bud, of which the knot is the closest imitation. It is not without interest to note that the mitre of the High Priest in the Temple of Jerusalem, according to Josephus {Antiq. vii. 3. 157), finished with a hiop, probably the sis of the Bible. The crowns of kings also have a knop in the centre, and unless I am greatly mistaken this knop or ball appears only on crowns of the Christian kings of Europe, starting with Byzantium.

Moreover, another passage of the Bible which has suffered at