Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/394

358 in which they were used, the original language of them being sometimes modified, but more frequently lines being interpolated in order to transform them into incantations. They are thus employed like the Lord's Prayer or texts from the Bible in the magical rites of mediæval or modern Europe. The chief difference between the Babylonian and the European usage lies in the fact that what in Babylonia was an authorised and systematic ritual, is in Europe an unauthorised and unsystematic practice against which the Church has set its face.

One of the most curious texts published by Mr. King (No. 53) is an exorcism to dislodge an evil spirit which had taken possession of the patient's body. As it has not been translated by him, I give a rendering of the most important lines:

Mr. King's book has been excellently brought out, and the copies of the cuneiform texts are especially good. His translations of them are accompanied by a commentary, and the vocabulary at the end is complete and useful. On the philological side he is well equipped. On the subject-matter of the texts, however, he is more open to criticism. Like too many of the younger Assyriologists he seems to be acquainted only with the most recent Assyriological literature, and consequently to be ignorant of the foundations upon which their work rests. Thus in his preface he states that