________________
SEPTEMBER, 1895.)
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
261
the husband's horns are to save him from is the pointed finger of soorn.65 Neapolitan ladies wear small horns as charms. If by chance the charms are not worn, the first and fourth right finger pointed under & handkerchief save from the evil eye and other harms.68 In early mosaics the Deity is expressed by a right hand issuing from the clouds with the first and fourth fingers pointed like horns.07 Indian goddesses have both hands with horn-pointing fingers.68 In a curiosity shop in Naples, a stag horn stands over the door. Inside are Etruscan glass beads, a ram's head to keep off the Evil Eye, a head with horned moon and a hanging horn. In the Kircher Museum at Rome, among the collections from the early lake dwellings, are pieces of horn.70 In Spain, horn shavings care sickness caused by the Evil Eye 71 Ram's horn is the only safe keeper of snuff; also in early classic and Norse times the horn was the proper holder of liquor: all good things remained safe from evil within the keeping of the horn of plenty: guardian sounds gained a special virtue when blown through a horn. Two ozen skulls guard the lid of a Roman incense box.72 In Pompeian frescoe lxxviii, in the Naples Museum, a horn hangs from a fillet, -"for the Evil Eye,” says the guide.73 Again, for the Evil Eye, in the streets of Naples cab horses have the forelock waxed and twisted into four or five horn-like spikes apparently the same as Homer's horn-abaped lock of hair.74 An ass drawing a coster's cart has an upright brass horn on its saddle.75 Wine, the beloved of spirits, and so specially, apt to be soured by evil infuences, wants careful keeping. A wine shop has one horn upright over the door and a second slung across the door. A wine cart has often a hanging horn in front and almost always a horn hanging from the axle.76 So notable is the scaring power of the horn that in Naples amulets of every description are spoken of as horns.77 The house wants guarding, so near Tivoli, & sheperd's hut has a horn on the rooftop; and, in Tivoli, a blue piece of iron over the tram-shed door is twisted into a horn shape.78 On the roof ridges of Bbils' houses in East Gujarat, hords are common to keep off evil dreams and the illomened owl. The crops want guarding from the blight of the Evil Eye. The bleached skulls of oxen or cows may be seen in market gardens near Bombay, and in most patches of garden crops grown by the Bhils in the Pañch Mahals. The Bombay market man will say that the skull is a bird scare : the Bhil admits that it keeps off the Evil Eye.80 Cakes offered at Greek altars were horned, and called moons and oxen,
Horns guard from evil not only the head of the injured husband. The horned human head is one of the best of guardians. Moses' rays stiffened, perhaps returned, into horng. When a Catholic Bishop is consecrated, the horned mitre is set on his head with the christianising formula that with his head armed with the horns of either Testament he may appear terrible to the gainsayers of truth.82 The guardian Dionysos was essentially a horned god.83 Among western Asiatica, Alexander is the great two-horned Zulkarnain. The coin-heads of the Seleucida aro horned.84 Weiner noticed in Peru a great horned head on the roof of a tomb.85 Some of the Roman Medusa faces are horned.86 Pompeian frescoe ii. in the Naples Museum has a horned human head and a long-horned deer's head. According to the guide,
66 The unfortunate husband is also onlled the cuckold. Apparently, this should be cuckold.ed, he who has been turned out of his best as the hedgo-sparrow is turned out by the Cock-wold or Moorcock, that is, the Cuckoo. Mr. Hislop (Two Babylons, p. 835) has a handsome bit of Babylonian connecting the two attributes of the ill-used husband; Nimrod na universal king was khuk-hold king of the world. As such the emblem of his power was tho bull's horns. Hence the origin of the cuckold's horns. For the dread of the finger of scorn compare The Denham Tracts, Vol. II. p. 24. The common people of North England think the forefinger of the right hand venomous. It is never applied to a wound or a sore. 66 Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 261.
67 Op. cit. p. 265. 65 Op. cit. p. 267.
From MS. noto, 1889. 70 From MS. note, 1889.
11 Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 23. 12 Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 7. T3 From MS. note, 1889. 74 From MS, note, 1889; Iliad, xi. 385 in Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquitjes, Vol. I. p. 496. 15 From MS, note, 1889.
78 From MS, note, 1889. 77 Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 196.
78 From MS. note, 1889. 19 From MS. note, 1888.
80 From MS, note. 11 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 253.
82 Elwortby's The Evil Eye, p. 186. 13 Brown's The Great Dionysian Myth, Vol. II. p. 112. * Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 1. p. 827. * Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 198.
6 Op. cit. p. 195.
