formed and mature, in order to take them “deaf and dumb” (as a tribute?) to their dread king.[49] In other passages they are said to blight and blind the unborn child, to suck its brain and blood, to eat its flesh, and to cause miscarriage, as well as to prevent the flow of the mother’s milk. In all countries women in child-bed are thought to be greatly exposed to the influence and activity of evil spirits. Therefore, in Armenia, they are surrounded during travail with iron weapons and instruments with which the air of their room and the waters of some neighbouring brook (where these spirits are supposed to reside) are frequently beaten.[50] If, after giving birth to the child, the mother faints, this is construed as a sign of the Al’s presence, In such cases the people sometimes resort to an extreme means of saving the mother, which consists in exposing the child on a flat roof as a peace-offering to the evil spirits.[51] Identical or at least very closely connected with the Al is Thepla, who by sitting upon a woman in child-bed causes the child to become black and faint and to die.[52]
VIII. NHANGS
These monster spirits, at least in Armenian mythology, stand close to the dragons. The word means in Persian, “crocodile,” and the language has usually held to this matter-of-fact sense, although in the Persian folk-tale of Hātim Tāi, the Nhang appears in the semi-mythical character of a sea-monster, which is extremely large and which is afraid of the crab. The Armenian translators of the Bible use the word in the sense of “crocodile” and “hippopotamus.” However, the Nhangs of Armenian mythology, which has confused an unfamiliar river monster with mythical beings, were personal[53] and incorporeal. They were evil spirits which had fixed their abode in certain places and assiduously applied themselves to working harm. They sometimes appeared as
