Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/76

52 mothers, when danger threatens their children, invoke him as “Eliyahu ha Navi,” Christian as “Mar Jiryis,” and Moslem as “El Khudr”; and his numerous shrines in different parts of the land are visited in pilgrimage by adherents of all three religions.

Though it is believed that prayers addressed to him at all these places are efficacious, yet on Fridays he himself worships Allah at different sanctuaries in succession: one Friday at Mecca, the next at Medina, and then in turn at Jerusalem, El Kûba, and Et Tûr. He only takes two meals a week, and quenches his thirst alternately at the well Zemzem in Mecca and that of Solomon in Jerusalem. He bathes in the fountain at Silwan (Siloam).

One of the shrines dedicated to El Khudr is situated about a mile to the north of Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem, and is a sort of madhouse. Deranged persons of all the three faiths are taken thither and chained in the court of the chapel, where they are kept for forty days on bread and water, the Greek priest at the head of the establishment now and then reading the Gospel over them, or administering a whipping, as the case demands.

The following legend concerning this convent was related by a native of the neighbouring village of Beyt Jala:—

“A very long time ago, in the days of the ancestors of our great-grand-fathers, the Greek priest was administering the Holy Communion in the church of El Khudr. Now, as you know, the Greeks crumble the consecrated bread into the cup of wine, and