Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/426

 4 1 2 Collectanea.

glass bead, a bone bead, a date-stone, and a piece of opal glass^ which, as I had been told that it had been worn by a child, I was led to regard as an amulet especially against the evil eye. In view of my recent information I must now consider that specimen to be a woman's amulet, corresponding very closely (even to the number, five, of the objects of which it is composed) to the specimen of Fig. 31, and probably intended to be worn especially during nursing; the facetted glass bead, which is the only object in it which I do not recognize as possibly directly connected with a nursing woman, was perhaps intended to prevent the stoppage of the milk due to the influence of an evil glance.

Fig. 33. A silver bell, with a chain, to be worn, suspended from the waist, by a child ; Madrid. (See supra, vol. xxiv., pp. 70, 71, note on Fig, 30.)

Fig. 34. A scent bottle, formed of a fruit of the raphia palm mounted in silver ; from the lower part of the mounting a " fig " hand of silver projects ; Seville.

Fig. 35. A flattish bottle of cut glass (probably originally a scent bottle), filled with red silk cloth in the form of small scraps with serrated edges, in a silver socket with a chain ; Madrid. Said, by the vendor, to be a child's chupador. I think that this object, which is the only one of the kind I have ever noted, has been intended as a child's protection against witches, the evil eye, etc., and that it has probably been believed to depend for its value on the inability of the harmful agency to do injury to the bearer until all the bits of silk (? and all the serrations of the edges) have been counted — a task impossible unless the bottle be opened. This system of protection, which underlies certain well- known Italian amulets, is also the basis, I believe, of the multi- coloured spots of such Spanish amulets as- the one shown in Fig. 8, and of the twisted streaks within the substance of certain other Spanish infants' glass amulets ; I think that an application of it almost identical with the one in question occurs in England in certain small glass phials, filled with a mass of twisted coloured threads, which I have seen.

Crescents. — Fig. 36. A brass crescent pendant, with a projec- tion from the centre of the inner curve ; Seville. The object seems to have been cut from a piece of stout sheet brass. On