Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/214

children she had thrown away live underground and go abroad at night when all men sleep. Thus the Jân came into being.

The Jân are envious of us men and women, always on the watch for a chance to injure us; and unless we say “bismillah” whenever we begin any work, or take anything out of our stores, they succeed in robbing us. There is, at the present day, a man living at Aïn Karìm who has experienced this to his cost. He has a silly, froward daughter, who, in spite of frequent warnings from her parents and neighbours, will not invoke the Name. He was a man of substance, and brought home provisions in plenty, yet the blessing of Allah did not rest upon his property. At length, perplexed and discouraged, he had recourse to a great sheykh, who asked, “Whom have you in the house?” “My wife and daughter.” “Does your wife invoke the Name of Allah?” “I would not have married her if she had not done so.” “Does your daughter also ‘name’?” “I regret to say she does not.” “Then,” said the sheykh, “don’t let her touch anything about the house, and get rid of her at once!”

The father acted on the sheykh’s advice; and no sooner had he disposed of his daughter in marriage than the Jân ceased to trouble him; but the bridegroom, till then a thriving man, has not now enough money to buy oil to keep a lamp burning through the night.^[1]

Not only are the Jân men and women like our-