{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Folk_lore_of_the_Holy_Land_Section_1_Notes/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Folk_lore_of_the_Holy_Land_Section_1_Notes","id":"wikisource_Folk_lore_of_the_Holy_Land_Section_1_Notes","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-lore_of_the_Holy_Land/Section_1_Notes","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"NOTES\n\nSECTION I\n\nI\n\nThe contents of this chapter are practically identical with Mejr-ed-din, vol. i. ch. i., though it is here derived from the lips of an Arab Khatib.\n\nP. 5. The idea of the great serpent is analogous to that of the great Midgard-snake in Scandinavian myths.\n\nP. 6. Behemoth and the great whale.\u2014This is apparently drawn from Talmudic sources. Thus we read in Bava Bathra, fol. 74, col. 2, R. Judah said: Everything that God created in the world He created male and female. And thus He did with Leviathan the piercing serpent, and Leviathan the crooked serpent He created them male and female. But if they had been united, they would have desolated the entire world. What, then, did the Holy One do? He took away the strength of the male Leviathan, and slew the female and salted her for the righteous for the time to come, for it is said: \u201cAnd he shall slay the whale (or dragon) that is in the sea\u201d (Isaiah xxvii. 1). In like manner with regard to Behemoth upon a thousand mountains, He created them male and female, but if they had been united they would have desolated the world. What then did the Holy One do? He took away the strength of the male Behemoth, and made the female barren, and preserved her for the righteous for the time to come.\u201d The Moslems, in like manner, believe that the meat of a great bull and a great fish shall furnish forth the feast of the righteous on their entry into Paradise.\n\nThere are, in Rabbinical writings, many similar allusions to the great ox and the great fish or sea dragon.\n\nP. 7. Eclipses of the moon.\u2014On the 6th of October 1903, we had the good fortune to bivouac within the walls of the famous palace of Meshetta in Moab. While the sun was setting the moon was eclipsed, and a more magnificent spectacle, in surroundings so beautiful and so solitary, could hardly be imagined. Even the impassive Arab servants, most of whom had been long in European service, were impressed, and crowded together with exclamations of surprise and, perhaps, fear. The lady of our party went to remonstrate with them because they had taken a cock from out of the fowl-crate and were whipping him .\u00a0.\u00a0. they alleged \u201cfor making noise\u201d; he also had been surprised by the phenomenon, and had crowed. One added, \u201cThe people at home, who know no better, will be killing cocks and beating drums .\u00a0.\u00a0. this,\u201d pointing to the rival pageants of sun and moon, \u201cwill frighten them.\u201d Professor Euting then recited the \u201cS\u00fbra of the Daybreak,\u201d cxiii., which seemed to meet the needs of the case\u00a0; the men expressed their satisfaction, and the cock was restored to his family. (Dr Spoer\u2019s \u201cNotes on Bloody Sacrifices in Palestine,\u201d vol. xxv. pp. 312 ff. of Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1906, and page 104 of vol. xxvii. 1906).\n\nII\n\nP. 9. The mother of devils.\u2014For the Jewish notions on this subject see Bodenschatz, iii. ch. x. pars. 5-7, pp. 169, 170.\n\nP. 11. Origin of ghouls, etc.\u2014For Jewish notions (which are also current amongst other orientals) on this subject, see Bodenschatz, iii. ch. x. par. 3, and Wiinche, \u201c Bibliotheca Rabbinica, Midrasch Bereshit Rabba,\u201d p. 94, and Edersheim, \u201c Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,\u201d Appendix xiii. Section III. par. 1., also note 41 of \u201cTales told in Palestine,\u2019 by J. E. Hanauer, edited by H. G. Mitchell (Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham. New York: Eaton & Mains).\n\nP. 11. Cain and Abel.\u2014Kabil and Habil, or Cain and Abel, with their two sisters were the first children born to Adam and Eve. Adam, by Allah\u2019s direction, ordered Cain to marry Abel\u2019s twin sister, and that Abel should marry Cain\u2019s (for, it being the common opinion that marriages ought not to take place with those very near akin, such as their own sisters, it seemed reasonable to suppose that they ought to take those of the remoter degree, but this Cain refused to agree to, because his sister was the handsomer. Hereupon Adam told them to make their offerings to Allah, thereby referring the dispute to His determination . . . Cain\u2019s offering was a sheaf of the very\nworst of his corn, but Abel\u2019s a fat lamb of the best of his flock.\nAllah having declared His acceptance of the latter in a visible\nmanner, Cain said to his brother, \u201cI will certainly kill thee.\u201d\nAbel was the stronger of the two, and would easily have prevailed against his brother, but he answered, \u201c If thou stretchest\nforth thine hand against me, to slay me, I will not stretch forth\nmy hand against thee to slay thee\u00a0; for I fear Allah, the Lord\nof all creatures.\u201d So Cain began to consider in what way he\nshould effect the murder, and as he was doing so the devil\nappeared to him in human shape, and showed him how to do it,\nby crushing the head of a bird between two stones. Cain,\nhaving committed the fratricide, became exceedingly troubled in\nhis mind, and carried the dead body on his shoulders for a con-\nsiderable time not knowing where to conceal it, till it stank\nhorribly ;and then Allah taught him to bury it by the example\nof a raven, who, having killed another raven, in his presence,\ndug a pit with his claws and beak, and buried him therein.\nAnother tradition is that Cain was at last accidentally slain by\nLamech with an arrow, when the latter was hunting at Tell el\nKaim\u00fbn, near the Kishon, at the northern foot of Mount Carmel.\n(See Sale\u2019s Koran, pp. 76 and 77, text and foot-note. Chandos\nClassics.)\nP. 12. Burial of Adam.\u2014A Christian tradition to the effect\nthat Adam was buried with his head resting at the foot of\nCalvary, and that he was reawakened to life by some drops of\nChrist\u2019s blood trickling on to his skull at the Crucifixion, may be\ntraced back to the time of Origen in the second century.\n\nIII\n\nP. 13. The n\u00e1k\u00fbs.\u2014The n\u00e1k\u00fbs is a plank or a plate of metal\nwhich is struck with a mallet to announce the time of service.\nWhen the Moslems under Omar Ibn el Khattab first took\nJerusalem (a.p. 637), the use of church-bells was prohibited, but\nthe n\u00e1k\u00fbs was allowed because Noah, by Allah\u2019s command, used\none thrice a day to call the workmen employed on the ark, and\nto attract people to hear his warnings of an approaching judgment. When the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 A.D., bells\nwere reinstalled in the churches. One of the complaints made\nby the Latin Patriarch against the Knights of St John, was that\nthey disturbed the services held in the Church of the Sepulchre,\nby ringing the bells of their great church close by. The church\nbells throughout the Holy Land were silenced when the\nCrusaders were finally driven away in a.p. 1292, but they had\nceased ringing in Jerusalem when the city fell into the hands of Saladin, October 2, 1187. In 1823, we are informed by a\ntraveller of the period that the only bell in the city was a hand-\nbell in the Latin Convent. Since the close of the Crimean\nWar, many large church-bells have been hung up and are in\nconstant use in various Christian churches in Palestine, though\nthe writer remembers the time when a great riot took place\namongst the Moslems at Nabl\u00fbs because a small bell had been\nput up in the Mission school in that place.\n\nP. 14. The donkey and Iblis in the ark.\u2014Presumably to pay the\ndonkey out for this meanness, Iblis whispered in his ear that\nall the females of his kind had been destroyed\u00a0; whereupon the\nunfortunate beast made so terrible a noise of lamentation that\nthe Evil One was scared and made haste to comfort him by adding, \u201c But there is one left for you.\u201d At that the donkey\u2019s noise\nsubsided in one long \u201c Ah!\u201d\u2019 of relief. This is the origin of the\ndonkey\u2019s braying. (I have the story from a friend in Egypt.)\n\u2014Ed.\n\nP. 15. The \u2019abdyeh, or \u2019aba, is the wide, coarse, outer garment\nworn by all classes in Palestine, and on occasion adaptable to\nother uses. See Deut. xxiv. 13; Amos ii. 8; P.E.F. Quarterly\nStatement, 1881, p. 298. The fables concerning Og are doubt-\nless derived from Rabbinical sources; see article \u201cOg\u201d in\nSmith\u2019s Bible Dictionary.\n\nP. 17. \u201cThe ark informed Noah that here the Beyt el\nMakdas would be rebuilt.\u201d Cf.\u201c Uns el Jelil.\u201d Cairo edition,\nvol. i. pp. 19-22.\n\nP. 17. Marriage of Noah's daughter\u2014This story is a very\ncommon one. There is a version of it given by P. Baldensperger\nin one of the Quarterly Statements of the P.E.F. The tomb of\none of Noah\u2019s daughters is shown at \u2019Ellar in Southern Palestine,\nand another, it is said, at, or near, Baalbec.\n\nIV\n\nP. 18. Job.\u2014In the fourth Christian century many pilgrims\nused to visit the district east of the Jordan in order to see and\nembrace the dunghill on which Job sat and scratched himself\nin his day, and even now there may be seen at the ancient\nsanctuary called \u201cEsh Sheykh Sa\u2019ad\u201d\u2019 in the Hauran, the famous\n\u201cRock of Job,\u201d which modern research has shown to be a monument commemorating the victories of the Egyptian monarch Rameses II. Besides this, there are in Western Palestine at\nleast two \u201cWells of Job\u201d: one on the western shore of the\nSea of Galilee, the other, the well-known Bir Aydb, in the\nKedron Valley just at the point where it is joined by the\ntraditional Valley of Hinnom. This well is a hundred feet deep, and contains an unfailing supply of water, a great deal of\nwhich is carried in skins to supply the needs of Jerusalem. A\nfew steps east of this well, under a ledge of rock, in which may\nstill be seen the vats used by the fullers of antiquity, is a small opening. It is the entrance to a cave which, according to peasants of the neighbouring village of Siloam, was once the dwelling-place of the Patriarch.\n\nIt is said that Ay\u00fbb was a R\u00fbmi, a Greco-Roman descendant\nof Esau, and that his wife\u2019s name was Rahmeh (Mercy). She,\nrather than her husband, is the bright example of human\npatience. A few years ago an Arab woman of the Orthodox\nEastern Church disagreed with her husband and went for\nadvice to a priest, who bade her take example from Job\u2019s wife.\n\nP. 19. El Hakim Lokman.\u2014The greater part of the thirty-\nfirst stira of the Koran is a record of wise sayings of Lokman.\nThe following anecdote is related in the larger \u201cKam\u00fbs\u201d\n(Dictionary) of El Bistani: \u201cA certain man asked Lokman,\n\u201cDid I not once see thee keeping sheep?\u201d He answered,\n\u201cYes,\u201d \u201cThen how didst thou attain to this degree of great-\nness?\u201d Lokman answered, \u201c By speaking the truth, restoring\nthe pledge, and refraining from talk on matters which do not\nconcern me.\u201d\n\nP. 20. Danger of sleeping in the fields where yellow melons grow.\n\u2014In order to prevent such accidents, in the occurrence of\nwhich they implicitly believe, the fellahin who have to watch\nthe melon-fields are said to eat a great deal of garlic, and to\nstrew bits of thatrank vegetable around their beds. The smell\nis said to be an effective protection, not only against snakes, but\nalso the evil eye.\n\nP. 21. Benj=Bhang, Indian hemp or hashish, figures in\nEastern tales, and with effects more wonderful than those of\nchloroform. This story of Lokman is given in a different version in\n\u201c Tales told in Palestine,\u2019 under the title of \u201c El Hakim Risto.\u201d\nVarious editions and translations of the fables of Lokman\nhave at different times appeared in Europe. The most recent\nthat I know of is by A. Cherbonneau (Paris: Hachette & Cie.\n1884),\n\nV\n\nP. 33. The rite of circumcision.\u2014Sarah, in a fit of furious\njealousy, is said to have sworn to imbrue her hands in the blood of Hagar. In order to save the life of the latter, and yet to\nenable his wife to keep her solemn though savage oath, Hagar,\nat Abraham\u2019s suggestion, allowed Sarah to perform upon her\nthe rite of circumcision, to submit to which has, since then,\nbecome a \u201csunnah,\u201d or traditional and religious custom amongst\nMohammedan women. (See Mejr-ed-din, vol. i. p. 46.)\n\nP. 35. The patriarchs said to be not dead but living. \u2014The tomb\nof the patriarchs at Hebron is very jealousy guarded against\nintruders who are not Moslems. Very few Christians have ever\nbeen admitted even into the courts of the Haram; the first in\nmodern times who was allowed to enter being the Prince of\u00a0\u00bb\nWales (now King Edward VII.), who visited the Holy Land in\n1862.\n\nEven Mohammedans are forbidden to descend into the cave below, which is generally supposed to be that of Machpelah, lest they should disturb the patriarchs and their \u201c har\u00ecm,\u201d are conceived of as living in a state of sacred \u201ckeyf,\u201d or \u201cdolce far niente.\u201d A couple of hundred years ago a Mohammedan had the temerity to enter the cavern. He suddenly came upon a lady who was combing her hair. It is supposed to have been Sarah herself. She threw her comb at the audacious intruder and hit him in the eyes. He was, in consequence, blind to his dying day.\n\nIt is also related that when Ibrahim Pasha took Hebron about\nseventy years ago, he likewise attempted to penetrate into the\nmausoleum of the patriarchs, and had an opening made through\nthe masonry enclosing it, but that, just as he was going to\nenter, he was taken seriously ill, and had to be carried away\nunconscious.\n\nVI\n\nAn old tradition, which has been traced back to the time of\nOrigen, in the second century, says that the cross on which\nChrist suffered was, at the Crucifixion, planted at the head of\nAdam\u2019s tomb, and that some drops of the Saviour\u2019s blood,\npercolating through the soil and the fissure made in the rock by\nthe earthquake that then occurred, touched Adam\u2019s skull and\nrevived the progenitor of mankind to life. He led the band of saints, who, as the Gospel relates, rose from the dead after\nChrist\u2019s resurrection, and entering Jerusalem, appeared unto\nmany. The origin of this legend seems to have been a misunderstanding of the texts Ephesians v. 14 and 21; 1 Corinthians xv. 21, 22; 45, 47.\n\nVII\n\nP. 41. Pilgrimage to M\u00fbsa\u2019s grave.\u2014The writer was some years\nago informed by a native Jew that he had been told by his late\nfather that the latter had been informed by a Moslem sheykh\nthat the annual Mohammedan pilgrimage to the traditional\ntomb of Moses had been instituted by the early Moslem\nconquerors of Palestine, in order that, in the case of disturb-\nances in Jerusalem amongst the Christian pilgrims who come\nthither in order to celebrate Easter, a strong body of armed\nbelievers might be in reserve and within call in case of necessity.\nWhether this statement is correct I cannot tell; at any rate,\nthe Neby Masa pilgrimage generally coincides in time with the\nChristian Easter festivities.\nP. 41. The stones of the place should be fit for fuel.\u2014The limestone at Neby M\u00fbsa is bituminous, and somewhat combustible.\n\nVIII\n\nP. 45. \u201cThe tower stall bears his (David's) name.\u201d \u2014This tower\nis situated just inside the city, near the Jaffa Gate. It is often\ncalled the Tower of Hippicus, though its base measurements\nagree more nearly with those of Herod\u2019s tower Phaszlus.\n\nP. 49. The Kharr\u00fbb.\u2014The Carob-tree (Ceratonia silique), said\nby tradition to have furnished, in its pods, the locusts which\nthe Baptist ate; and also the husks on which the swine, in the\nparable of the Prodigal Son, were fed.\n\nP. 50. Stones left unfinished at the death of Solomon.\u2014These stones are generally called \u201c Hajar el Hibleh\u201d or stone of the pregnant woman, from the belief that the work of cutting and carrying them had been assigned to female jinns in that condition. Onesuch stone is pointed out in the south wall of Jerusalem, and another huge block, on a hill-top near Hirsha, is said to have been left there by a jinniyeh who dropped it when she heard the welcome news of Solomon\u2019s death. (See Clermont Ganneau\u2019s \u201cArcheological Researches,\u201d vol. i. 69.)\n\nLike Abraham and El-Khudr, David appears sometimes in order to protect the Jews. Some instances will be mentioned in Section II. in connection with legends possibly founded on facts.\n\nIX\n\nP. 51. Dhu'lkarnein.\u2014See Sale\u2019s Koran, Chandos Classics Edition, chap. xviii. pp. 224-225 and foot-notes.\n\nP. 54, Elijah\u2019s cave on Carmel.\u2014For other particulars concerning this place and the \u201ctreatment\u2019\u2019 here practised, see Dr Thomson\u2019s \u201cThe Land and the Book\u201d (1886), vol. i. p. 329 ff.\n\nX\n\nP. 62. Simon the Just.\u2014It seems now to be conclusively established that this was Simon II., and that Josephus (Antip. Book XII. chap. ii. 5) was mistaken in identifying him with Simon I. G. (See Derembourg, 47-51; Dean Stanley\u2019s \u201cJewish Church,\u201d vol. iii. p. 247.)\n\nP. 62. The thirty-third of \u2019Omer.\u2014That is the thirty-third day\nafter the fifteenth of Nisan and the second of Passover, when a\nsheaf (omer) of barley was offered to God in the Temple as the firstfruits of the coming harvest (Lev. xxiii, 10). This\neighteenth of Iyyar is also celebrated as the anniversary of the\ndisappearance of a plague in the days of Rabbi Akiba. (See\nFriedl\u00e6nder, \u201cText-book of the Jewish Religion,\u201d 27, and note\n34, \u201c Tales told in Palestine,\u201d p. 219.)\n\nP. 62-64. Compare 3 Macc. i. 28, 29; ii. 21-24; with Dean Stanley\u2019s \u201cJewish Church,\u201d vol. iii. p. 248.","title":"Folk-lore of the Holy Land/Section 1 Notes","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":2987}