Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/36

12 their master, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud." Ps. 123.

"The Lord God guards the bearer of this book."

Here is a wolf-bone—I think a vertebra from the neck, quite polished with constant use. It has been a talisman against children starting in their sleep, and against the "wolf (or whooping) cough." The theory seems to be that every child has at its birth an attendant fairy or Jin, or "genius," as I fancy it is called in our versions of the Arabian Nights, and that the wolf has power over these companion-spirits, and therefore its bones prevent the child from being choked in coughing. The next is a short chain of small links, from which are suspended two little metal, five-pointed and serrated bits of iron, and a tiny pair of iron scissors. The pieces of iron are to represent a male and female frog (dafdaa). They are preservatives against a swelled throat, thrush, croup, and similar ailments; and the scissors "cut the swelling," if it comes. Five brothers of a family at Biskinta have worn it in turn. There is a current saying that, as the frog's own throat swells when he is croaking—and the Eastern frogs do croak—he is muttering threats of evil against any who will hurt him. Next, is a piece of white stalactite, about as large as a shilling, with a hole in the centre. It has been taken from a cave beneath the Convent of St. Anthony in the Lebanon. In this convent, intractable mad people are imprisoned, and I am afraid are awfully maltreated. The Arabic word for an insane person means that he is possessed by a demon, and the demon is to be exorcised by priests and magicians, through chaining, beating, and starving, till the miserable victim recovers or dies—generally the latter fate is his.