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FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND

the village. Seated upon the dunghill, after the manner of village-elders, she found an old, wise man, who, though she knew it not, happened to be armed with a two-edged dagger. Accosting him, “ O sheykh,” she said, “I have devoured the four loaves and the leben, the ploughman with his yoke of oxen, the kneader with the troughful of dough, and the old woman with her spinning-wheel. Shall I devour you?” Now that old man was wise and the owner of experience. From the manner of the dark girl’s speech he guessed with what he had to deal, and so he answered, “Very well, my daughter, devour me if it please you.” But when she came near, he struck with his dagger and killed her. Then he cut her open, when lo! there came forth from her belly, whole and unhurt, the four loaves and the leben, the ploughman and his oxen, the kneader with her troughful of dough, and the old woman with her spinning-wheel. Since then people have learnt not to sit on door-steps^[1] in the evening, and not to speak to any living creature, except it be human, without pointing to it.

Another story illustrative of the danger people run by calling animals by their names without at the same time pointing to them is often heard.

A young peasant woman had one day so much to do that it was not till evening that she found time to knead the bread. By the time it was ready

↑ It is not uncommon among the natives of Palestine for a man or a woman to bury a charm under the threshold over which some enemy is bound to pass. A woman known to me, who was servant in an English family, thus buried the shoulder-blades of a sheep covered over with curses at a gate through which another servant had to go.

[1] It is not uncommon among the natives of Palestine for a man or a woman to bury a charm under the threshold over which some enemy is bound to pass. A woman known to me, who was servant in an English family, thus buried the shoulder-blades of a sheep covered over with curses at a gate through which another servant had to go.

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