Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/149

that the festival had been held two days before, I obtained the loan, through a friend, of a copy of the roll. It was, of course, in Hebrew, and on parchment. The narrative is, briefly, as follows:—

About the year 1420, in the reign of Alphonso V. of Arragon, there were in the city of Saragossa twelve handsome synagogues supported by as many congregations of prosperous and influential Jews, who were so well treated by the Government that, whenever the king came to Saragossa, all the rabbis went out in procession to honour him, each carrying, in its case, the Roll of the Law belonging to his synagogue. People objected that it was dishonour for the Sacred Rolls to be carried out to flatter the vanity of a Gentile; and so the rabbis, possibly glad of an excuse not to carry the heavy manuscripts, got in the habit of leaving the scrolls at the synagogues on such occasions, and going out with the empty cases.

Now a certain Jew, named Marcus of Damascus, turned Christian, and in his zeal as a new convert became the deadly enemy of his own race. When the king one day was praising the loyalty of his Jewish subjects, this renegade, who was among the courtiers, replied that his majesty was being grossly deceived. The loyalty of the Jews was a sham, he averred, like their carrying empty cases before the king when pretending to bear the rolls of their respective synagogues.

At this the king was angered against the Jews, but would not punish them until he had ascertained the truth of the charge. He set out at once (Shebat