Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/265

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IDEAS AND SUPERSTITIONS
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opened the book and began with confidence, “Then the Lord said to Moses.” But presently, needing to refresh his memory, he looked at the page before him. It was strange to him. Then he realised that his mark had been moved, and began to turn the leaves frantically, hoping to light upon his own chapter. More than once, thinking he had found it, he began, “Then the Lord said unto Moses,” but could go no further. At last an old man in the congregation, puzzled by the repetition of this phrase, inquired, “Father, what did the Lord say unto Moses?” To which the priest replied angrily, “May Allah destroy the house of the man who moved my book-mark!”

A certain priest had learned by heart the list of fasts and festivals of the Orthodox Church, with the number of intervening days. To keep a tally of the days as they passed, that he might give due notice of the fasts preceding certain festivals, he put in one of his pockets a number of peas equal to the number of days he wished to remember, and every morning transferred one of them to another pocket. Thus, by counting the peas still in the first pocket, he could always tell how many days remained.

This priest had a wife,[1] who did not know of this arrangement. One day, when tidying his clothes, she found pease in his pockets, and concluded that

  1. ↑ The Greek parish clergy are obliged to marry, and, if their wife dies, to retire to a monastery, as it is forbidden them to marry again.—Ed.
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