Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/262

240 the enchanter-king Mohareb, when he would lull to sleep Zohak, the giant keeper of the caves of Babylon—

while Grose gives a full account of it, as used by French housebreakers, in a translation from the French of Les Secrets du Petit Albert (A.D. 1750), alleging that its use was to stupefy those to whom it was presented, and to render them motionless, so that they could not stir any more than if they were dead. There is one instance on record of its use in Ireland: “On the night of the 3rd instant (January 1831), some Irish thieves attempted to commit a robbery on the estate of Mr. Naper, of Loughcrew, county Meath. They entered the house, armed with a dead man’s hand with a lighted candle in it, believing in the superstitious notion that a candle placed in a dead man’s hand will not be seen by any but those by whom it is used; and also that if a candle in a dead hand be introduced into a house it will prevent those who may be asleep from awaking. The inmates, however, were alarmed, and the robbers fled, leaving the hand behind them.”