Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/42

18 I came across no traces of Baal-fires, unless the lighting of fires on the 14th September (the Feast of the Cross), always on the house-tops, when inhabitants and guests leap over them, be a survival.

Tattooing is common. The date of birth is continually found recorded on the arms of older people; and it is often the only proof of age available. The Turkish crescent, the Sultanas monogram, the Holy Sepulchre, links and pendants representing the Trinity, and circles, lines, and dots of which I failed to trace the meaning, are the commonest. I never saw any representation of anything living.

Spoiling a nest brings on tertiary fever.

A pair of ravens crossing the path bring good luck; a single one, or an odd number, bad luck.

An owl heard hooting by a sick person is an omen of death.

From Christmas Day to twelve days after, unleavened dough, placed with pieces of money and a ring of cyclamen roots in a calico wrapper, and hung on a tree, and every morning dipped in a pure spring, will cause the money to prosper and increase, as the dough may, or may not, ferment.

People sometimes wind a girdle of threads around a church to secure themselves a blessing.

Trees must not be cut in a waning moon.

Children say that if they point to the stars, or count them, they will have warts.

It is exceedingly propitious to die on Good Friday.

Blood-feuds die hard. Six murders were committed in Beyrout in two months; some of these were the revenge of near relatives for earlier ones.

To drive a man mad, or cause him to hate his wife, you have only to write the necessary curse upon his door.

Two ancient friends deliberately severing their friendship break a straw between them.

"Will you go to Mar Elias?" is asked of a man whose