Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/253

singing at her work, and was always ready to help others at theirs. But to see her thus cheerful did not please her step-mother and the daughters of the latter, whose own voices were as harsh and unmelodious as those of screech-owls; and they forbade her to sing in the house.

One day when the rest of the family had gone to a wedding, Thaljìyeh was left alone in charge of the vineyard tower, for it was summer time. Just outside the vineyard gate, by the roadside, there was a cistern for rainwater, from which she was wont to draw water for the house, and to fill the drinking trough! for thirsty wayfarers. On this day Thaljìyeh had lowered her bucket into the cistern when the rope broke and the vessel sank to the bottom and was lost. She was obliged to go to a neighbour and borrow a well drag. Having obtained one, Thaljìyeh tied it to a new rope, and having said “dustûr,” to warn any spirits that might be in the cistern to get out of the way, she lowered the drag while she sang :—

“O well drag! gather, gather, And all that you find sweep up, sweep up.”^[1]

Now, though she did not know it, these words were a spell, and, as there happened to be in the

1 Ar. sebìl, 2 Ar. khuttâfeh. This instrument consists of a flat iron ring from which iron hooks hang by short chains attached to its circumference. The whole is suspended from a ring in the centre of the two curved cross-bars fastened over the flat ring. 3 Lit. permission=By your leave.