Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/212

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190
Collectanea.

and the blue beads fail of their object, there are still charms in the possession of the Rabbis which may avert ultimate catastrophe. They are often suspended in a bag round the neck of the afflicted person. The following is one in common use. It will be seen by the enumeration that the mixing may be involuntary, and occasioned even by one's nearest and dearest. The adjuration preceding it is pronounced as the patient receives and is invested with the charm.

I adjure you, all kinds of evil eyes, a black eye, blue eye, hazel eye, yellow eye. short eye, long eye, round eye, broad eye, narrow eye, straight eye, hollow eye, deep eye, projecting eye, male eye, female eye, eye of wife and husband, eye of a woman and her daughter, eye of her relatives, eye of a bachelor, eye of an old man, eye of an old woman, eye of a virgin, eye of a maiden, eye of a widow, eye of a married woman, eye of a divorced woman, all sorts of evil eyes in the world, which looked and spake with an evil concerning N.

I command and adjure you by the Most Holy, Mighty, and High Eye, the only Eye, the white Eye, the right Eye, the open Eye, the most careful and compassionate Eye, the Eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, the Eye to which all eyes are subjected, the wakeful Eye that preserveth Israel, as it is written in Psalm cxxi. 4: "Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep," and also as it is written, "The Eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, to those who trust in His goodness." With that Most High Eye, I command and adjure you, all kinds of evil eyes, to depart, and to be rooted out and flee away to a distance, from N. and from all his household, and that you shall have no power whatever on N., neither by day nor by night, neither when awake nor in dreams, nor on any number of his two hundred and forty-eight limbs, nor on any of his four hundred and five veins, from this day forth Amen.


The Charm.

Nezah Selah. "Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble: Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." Selah.

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Enter Sini, Sansen. and Samenglorf.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

In the centre Psalm cxxi. is printed.

The longer necklace figured on Plate V. is of a kind much treasured by Yemenite Jews, and never sold unless when, as now,