Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/550

542 these diræ inscribed upon leaden and talc tablets which have lately been found near the site of the ancient Amathus in Cyprus. Captain Handcock, through whom they were procured for the British Museum, has kindly furnished me with further details of the discovery, which was made by some villagers in clearing what seemed to be a large disused well. They first found a quantity of squared stones, and then rubble, under which was a great quantity of human bones, among which were some gold earrings. In the lower stratum of the bones, they first found pieces of the lead, and subsequently pieces of the inscribed talc, some pieces of which were attached to the side of the well imbedded in gypsum. Later on, they came to water, at about 40 ft. from the surface. The walls of a disused well would be an admirable place for fastening these "penny curses"; in order to reach the infernal deities one must go below the surface of the ground, just as in early times we noted that a shaft was sunk for the sacrificial wine to reach the shade; such a well, its walls bristling with curses nailed or plastered on, may well have seemed to the awe-struck Cypriot villagers a veritable descensus Averni. In the Greek magic papyri, the publication of which has thrown so much light on these matters, among the other instructions for the amateur in the black art is an injunction