Mungo Park relates similar facts.[596]

Sir A. Lyall says that a similar practice exists in India, where, however, the native practitioner may sometimes be seen mixing croton oil in the ink with which he writes his charms. “In Africa,” says Lubbock, “the prayers written as medicine or as amulets are generally taken from the Koran.” It is admitted that they are no protection against firearms; but this does not the least weaken faith in them, because, as guns were not invented in Mahomet’s time, he naturally provided no specific against them.[597]

Among the Kirghiz Atkinson says that the Mullas sell such amulets at the rate of a sheep for each scrap of written paper,[598] and similar charms are in great request among the Turkomans[599] and in Afghanistan.[600]

The very curious account of the trial of jealousy in Numbers vi. 11-31 may be studied in this connection as showing the extreme antiquity of the writing charm. In the case of the woman suspected of having committed adultery “the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord: and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water: and the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: but if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: and the woman shall say, Amen, amen. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: and he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar: and the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.”

This is quite evidently taken from the customs of African tribes. As the Egyptians gave the Jews their knowledge of the medical arts, and as this knowledge was doubtless largely intermingled with African ideas, it is easy to see how the ordeal of the bitter curse-water found its way into the Mosaic ritual.

Of scripts as amulets we find that anything written in a character which nobody could read was worn as an amulet against disease or danger. Thus the Anglo-Saxon MS., known as the Vercelli MS., by some means found its way to a place near Milan, where no one could decipher it. When that discovery was made, the next step was to cut up its precious pages for amulets, and so many of its leaves have perished.

After the death of Pascal, the philosopher, a writing was found sewn into his doublet. This was a “profession of faith” which he wore as a sort of amulet or charm, and his servants believed that he always had it stitched into a new garment when he discarded the old one.[601]

“Mais ce qui montre que ce n’est par un simple engagement tel qu’on en peut prendre avec soi-même, c’est la forme étrange que Pascal lui a donnée. Pour quiconque a vu les écrits de ce genre de la part d’hallucinés, le premier coup d’œil montre que l’écrit de Pascal appartient à cette catégorie. D’ailleurs, il porte l’énonciation manifeste d’une vision en ces termes: ‘Depuis environ dix heures et demie du soir jusque environ minuit et demi, feu.’ Ainsi, ce jour-là, le lundi 23 Novembre, 1654, pendant environ deux heures, Pascal eut la vision d’un feu qu’il prit pour une apparition surnaturelle, et sa conviction fut si forte qu’elle le détermina à entrer plus avant qu’il n’avait fait jusqu’alors dans les voies de la dévotion et du rigorisme janséniste.”[602]

Characts.

Of the species of charms known as characts we have many examples in the practice of Anglo-Saxon physicians. In the preface to the Herbarium of Apuleius, used at Glastonbury, Mr. Cockayne, the editor, gives the following from Marcellus, 380 A.D., to avoid inflamed eyes: “Write on a clean sheet of ουβαικ, and hang this round the patient’s neck, with a thread from the loom.” In a state of purity and chastity write on a clean sheet of paper φυρφαραν, and hang it round the man’s neck; it will stop the approach of inflammation. The following will stop inflammation coming on, written on a clean sheet of paper: ρουβος, ρνονειρας ρηελιος ως· καντεφορα· και παντες ηακοτει; it must be hung to the neck by a thread; and if both the patient and operator are in a state of chastity, it will stop inveterate inflammation. Again, write on a thin plate of gold with a needle of copper, ορνω ουρωδη; do this on a Monday; observe chastity; it will long and much avail.