Amongst the Cabalists an amulet, with the names “Senoi, Sansenoi, Semongeloph,” upon it, was fastened round the neck of the new-born child.[609]
The first Psalm, when written on doeskin, was supposed to help the birth of children; but the writer of such Psalm amulets, as soon as he had written one line, had to plunge into a bath. “Moreover,” says Mr. Morley, “that the charm might be the work of a pure man, before every new line of his manuscript it was thought necessary that he should repeat the plunge.”[610]
Sacred Names as Charms.
Some of the Jews accounted for the miracles of healing wrought by our Saviour by declaring that He had learned the Mirific Word, the true pronunciation of the name Jehovah; this word stirs all the angels and rules all creatures. They said that He had gained admission to the Holy of Holies, where He learned the sacred mystery, wrote it on a tablet, cut open His thigh, and having put the tablet in the wound, closed the flesh by uttering the mystic Name. The names of angels and evil spirits were also held to be potent by the Cabalists. The name of a bad angel, Schabriri, was used when written down as a charm to cure ophthalmia.
Stolen Property as a Charm.
In Mr. Andrew Lang’s delightful Custom and Myth he says that he once met at dinner a lady who carried a stolen potato about with her as a cure for rheumatism. The potato must be stolen, or the charm would not work.
A small piece of beef, if stolen from a butcher, is supposed by some persons to charm away warts.