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AMULETS: ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, ORIENTAL 347
from
such dangers is generally believed, and almost every woman, child, mare
and camel, wears or bears a coral amulet of some kind. A special
variety of amulets against the Evil Eye, worn by equestrians, are
small, smooth flint-stones, gathered at a spot where two valleys unite
; and, for horses, protection is believed to be afforded by a ring of
blue glass or blue porcelain, suspended from the neck. Another queer
superstition among these Arabs regarding the Evil Eye is that if a
child yawns, this is supposed to be a sign that he has been smitten by
the evil spell, and the mother is advised to place glowing coals on a
plate, strew alum over the coals, and bear the plate around the child.52
Over
the entrance gate of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, may be seen the
representation of a hand, and this is regarded as having been figured
there to serve for a talisman against the Evil Eye,53 just
as some of the Arabs are still wont to paint or figure a so-called "
Fatima 's Hand" on doors or door-posts for a similar purpose. The idea
which has been advanced that the "horse-shoe arch" had some connection
with the belief in the luck-bringing quality of the horse-shoe, is,
however, scarcely to be admitted as an explanation of this most
characteristic feature of Moorish architecture.
"Alois
Musil, " Arabia Petnea," Wien, 1908, vol. iii, pp. 314, 315. * Lean's
Collectanea (by Vincent Stuckey Lean), vol. ii, Ft. I, Bristol, 1903,
p. 468.
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