Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/87

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Collectanea.
71

Madrid, painted about the middle of the seventeenth century, is shown a bell almost identical with the one here illustrated. (See also notes below, and Nos. 23 and 25.)

Sirens and Tritons. — Since my earlier paper was published I have seen of sirens three specimens not reported there, all of the same type and style of workmanship, two of them at Madrid and one just beyond the northern border of Spain.

Fig. 31 (Pl. II.). A flat silver child's pendant, worked on both sides, representing a triton blowing a trumpet ; Madrid. Along the lower edge are five loops for little bells, of which one still bears its bell, two bear old religious medals, and two are empty. The medals (a silver one of S. James, and a silver-mounted brass one of the Virgin and a Saint), were said by the vendor to have been in place when he obtained the ornament. Their addition is interesting as illustrating one form of the tendency to give a religious flavour to profane amulets. An ornament cast in the same form, but tinished in a different style, with all its bells in place, was obtained at Seville, and another was noted at the same place. Another triton, of similar type but of finer design and workmanship, was noted at Madrid.

Fig. 32 (Pl. II.). A small flat silver child's pendant, of crude workmanship, representing a triton blowing a trumpet ; Seville. The triton is furnished with a wing like an angel, and has three bells along the lower edge.

Fig. 33 (Pl. II.). A pendant, of gilt repoussé silver, finished on both sides, in the form of a triton holding a pecten shell (an emblem of S. James; compare No. 31) and a shell trumpet; Seville. Although without bells it may be, like Nos. 31 and 32, a child's amulet.

These tritons were called (possibly merely through ignorance of their true name) sirenas by the people in whose shops they were found ; they may have taken the place, in Seville, of the true sirens which seem to occur more commonly in Northern Spain. The trumpet (a horn), which the triton is generally represented as blowing, may have contributed to their choice as children's amulets.

Musical Horns. — The two specimens described below are children's belled ornamental whistles. The type is rather uncommon, so that no information was obtained as to the reason for the