Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/35

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Syrian Folklore Notes.
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of fasting and prayer, and sold by him to Elias Soloman It is so curious that I give it entire, premising that the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John stand on the four corners of the face of the spell, and at each of the four corners of the back, when folded up, is the name of Ilias Soloman, for whom the spell was prepared.


"I begin in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, the one God. Amen.

"In the name of the Lord, and none beats his power, and everything runs away from his face, in the east and west.

"It was said that our lord Solomon charmed and asked to charm in the wild wide forests and dry places. He saw a small goat hanging down her ears and showing her teeth. She howled like wolves and barked like dogs. When it was night, Solomon asked her: 'Against whom hangest thou down thy ears and workest slyly?' She answered: 'I come to all, big and small, to the girl and the bride in her marriage, to the boy and young man in their sleep, to the horseman in his gallop, to the camel under his load, to the donkey in his walk, to the cow when she is eating. I come upon a company and scatter them in an hour. I enter into a house and make it soon desolate.' Then Solomon said to her: 'O thou fairy and Evil Eye, I will put thee in narrow vessel of brass, and pour upon thee mercury and melted lead, and throw thee in the depth of the sea, where thou wilt have no shelter.' The fairies said to him: 'Our lord Solomon, for the sake of the covenant of God, and his promise, we will not hurt the bearer of this charm Ilias as long as the silver is white and the stone solid.' Solomon said: 'This is lying, but I exorcise you by the name of Ibahashiralia and the four evangelists, the sixty-six angels who came down on the city of Antonius, the three men who were thrown in the furnace of fire, and the Virgin Mary, the mother of the Light, and the Lord Almighty. So that the servant of God, Ilias, the bearer of this charm, shall be kept from all jealous eyes, harms, troubles, evil spirits; and all shall run away and melt, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.'

"Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of