Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/235

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IDEAS AND SUPERSTITIONS
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lieved till you assist her. I warn you therefore that unless she give birth to a boy, it will go hard with you.” He then led her to where his wife lay, with females round her. The woman from El Welejeh, though almost frightened out of her wits, did her best for the uncanny patient, who soon gave birth to a fine boy. When the father was informed of the happy event he handed the human midwife a “mukhaleh” or kohl-vessel and told her to apply some of its contents to the infant’s eyes in order that they might become dark and bright. When doing so she noticed that the baby’s eyes, like those of the other Jan around her, differed from those of ordinary men and women, in that the pupil was longitudinal and vertical. When she had applied the kohl to the little one’s eyes, she took the bodkin which she had used and put some kohl to one of her own eyes, but before she had time to put kohl to the other the female Jan, who noticed what she was doing, angrily snatched the “ mukhaleh” from her. They then bade her loosen one of her long flowing sleeves, in which, like other Syrian peasant-women she was wont to carry things, and filled it with something, though she. did not know what. They next blind-folded her and led her out of the cave. When they told her she might uncover her eyes, she, on looking around her, found herself standing alone at “‘ Ain El Hamyeh.” Being curious to know what was in her sleeve she opened it and found a quantity of onion-peels which she promptly threw away. A few minutes later she reached her home, where she found her children still