Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/41

Rh by the hand. Everybody knows how the Bedouin regards breads as sacred, the staff and representative of life, and how in consequence even an enemy who has partaken of it is safe till he has digested it—about twenty-six hours' "law" being granted. Even then he is secure, if he can steal a loaf and hide it under his garments, and produce it when followed and attacked. And even the flour from the surface, and crumbs fallen on his lap, will be carefully gathered into the Bedouin's palm and "whiffed" up into his mouth, so that none shall get into wrong and unholy bodies. In Beyrout, a Moslem will stop to pick up a crumb on the roadway; and to throw pieces of bread about produces horror and indignation. No one must step over dough while women are baking, or an evil influence is imparted to it. When baked without mishap, and eaten fresh, it is very nice; and so they say of a morose fellow: "He has not a smile even for fresh bread!" I have already spoken of dough hung on trees at Epiphany. At this season, semi-fluid dough is fried with carob-dibs, and if possible dipped in water from the Jordan, and marked with a Greek cross. Loaves of mass-bread, five times the size of an ordinary loaf, in memory of the five loaves that fed the 5,000, are sent by pious women to the churches. None may eat of these but regular attendants and the priests. They are printed with the cross and sacred emblems by olive-wood stamps, blessed by priests, and sold by them at a large profit.

Hidden treasure is guarded by the Jin, and is searched for. On the hill surmounted by the monastery of Mar Elias are remains of excavations. At Sidon, the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus was found by a treasure-hunter, following a well-known tradition. On the mountain road to Damascus is a stone with an inscription: "If you dig here, you will be sorry; if you do not dig, you will be sorry also." People usually dig at night-time, often in Roman ruins, under the guidance of a sorcerer, who gets the most gold—from the diggers, not the diggings.