CHAPTER VII
AMULETS
"He loved and was beloved; what more could he desire as an amulet against fear?"—Bulwer-Lytton.
"Such medicines are to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or the Devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them."—Burton.
"Old wives and starres are his councellors; his nightspell is his guard, and charms his physician. He wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache; and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all evils."—Bishop Hall.
"Neither doth Fansie only cause, but also as easily cure Diseases; as I may justly refer all magical and jugling Cures thereunto, performed, as is thought, by Saints, Images, Relicts, Holy-Waters, Shrines, Avemarys, Crucifixes, Benedictions, Charms, Characters, Sigils of the Planets and of Signs, inverted Words, &c., and therefore all such Cures are rather to be ascribed to the Force of the Imagination, than any virtue in them, or their Rings, Amulets, Lamens, &c."—Ramesey.
Attention has already been called to the fact that the characteristic of the amulet is that it must be worn about the person, while the talisman may simply be in possession of a person wherever it may be, or deposited at a certain place by or for the person. The Arabic equivalent of the word Amulet means "that which is suspended."
The derivation of the word is uncertain, but there are at least two Latin antecedents claimed for it. Some claim that it is derived from the barbarous Latin word "amuletum," from amolior, to remove; others consider that it comes from "amula," the name of a small vessel with lustral water in it, which the Romans sometimes carried in their pockets for purification and expiation. Pliny says that many of these amulæ were carved out of pieces of amber and hung about children's necks. Whatever the derivation of the word, it is doubtless of Eastern origin.