{"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_2_Notes/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Folk_lore_of_the_Holy_Land_Section_2_Notes","id":"wikisource_Folk_lore_of_the_Holy_Land_Section_2_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_2_Notes","summary":null,"tags":["Pages_transcluding_nonexistent_sections","Subpages"],"text":"NOTES\n\nSECTION II\n\nI\n\nP. 79. B\u00e2b el Khal\u00ecl.\u2014The western Gate of Jerusalem, is\ncalled B\u00e2b el Khal\u00ecl (the Gate of the Friend, i.e. Abraham), probably because it is that by which any one who is going to Hebron (El Khal\u00ecl) would leave the city. But an ornamental Arabic inscription, just inside the sixteenth century gateway, reminding the passer-by that \u201cIbrah\u00ecm was the Friend of Allah,\u201d may have given the name. This gate was at one time called \u201cB\u00e2b mihrab Da\u00fbd\u201d (Gate of the oratory of David), because of its proximity to the traditional Tower of David mentioned in the first section of this book. The present Zion Gate now called by the natives \u201cB\u00e2b en Nebi Da\u00fbd\u201d (Gate of the prophet David) used then to be known as \u201cThe Gate of Zion,\u201d or \u201cof the Jews\u2019 Quarter.\u201d\n\nP. 79. \u2019Isa ibn Maryam and El Mess\u00ech ed-Dejj\u00e2l.\u2014The minds of Moslem theologians have been much exercised by the difficult task of reconciling these conflicting traditions with actual topography, especially as another Apocalyptic statement represents the Dejj\u00e2l as coming from the East, and being met and slain on his reaching the banks of the Jordan, by \u2019Isa, who, with his believing followers will leave El-Kuds to withstand him. The Dejj\u00e2l, will come either from the \u2018Irak or from Khorassan, accompanied by an army of 70,000 Jews, who, having acknowledged him as the Messiah, son of David, hope to be restored to their kingdom under his guidance. From Jerusalem \u2019Isa will bring with him three stones which he will throw at the fleeing impostor; saying, with the first, \u201cIn the Name of the God of Abraham\u201d\u00a0; with the second, \u201cIn the Name of the God of Isaac\u201d\u2019; and with the third, \u201cIn the Name of the God of Jacob.\u201d His aim will be unerring and fatal. The Jews, discomfited, will seek to hide themselves; but their places of concealment will be endued with miraculous power, the very stones behind which they crouch crying out, \u201cThere is a Jew behind me.\u201d As the Jordan is east, and Lydda west of Jerusalem, the difficulty of reconciling these statements is\nobvious.\n\nP. 82. Jeremiah\u2019s Grotto. \u2014 Jeremiah\u2019s Grotto is so called from the belief that the book of \u201cLamentations\u201d was composed and written there; while the sheer artificial precipice, at the foot of which it opens, is identified by modern Jewish legend as the \u201cBeth-ha-Sekelah,\u201d or place of execution by stoning, mentioned in the Mishna. From this circumstance some have supposed that St Stephen was stoned here; and also that the top of the hillock, now occupied by a Moslem cemetery, was Calvary. This is not the place to discuss such speculations. The spot where the relics of the proto-martyr, said to have been discovered about a.p. 415, as the result of a vision vouchsafed to Lucianus, a priest of Kaphar-Gamala\u2014wherever that village may have been\u2014were buried with solemn rites, is shown in the recently and totally rebuilt church just north of the hillock, which stands on the site of that erected by the Empress Eudocia\nand consecrated in a.d. 460. It was a remarkable fact which can be proved by reference to pilgrim-writers, that at different periods of the history of Jerusalem, various spots, north, south, east, and west of the city, have been pointed out in connection with the death and burial of St Stephen.\n\nII\n\nP. 83. Turbet Birket Mamilla.\u2014The great Mohammedan\ncemetery bearing this name is situated about half a mile west of Jerusalem. Modern research has shown that in crusading times and long before, it was a Christian burial-ground, the last resting-place of the canons of the Church and Abbey of the Holy Sepulchre. It is remarkable for a large pool or birket called by Christian tradition the upper Pool of Gihon, by Jewish, Millo. In the cemetery itself, are the tombs of several distinguished Moslems, and, as might be expected, some interesting legends are connected with it. The oldest of these is attached to a cave some distance west of the pool and called the \u201cCharnel-house of the Lion.\u201d Its story is as follows:\u2014\n\nMany hundreds of years ago their lived in Persia a great king who was both an idolater and a magician. He dwelt in a\nlofty tower in the topmost story of which was a temple where\nhe worshipped the heavenly bodies with unholy rites, such as\nthe sacrifice of new-born babes. In this temple might be seen very curious machinery which caused images of the deities, that the heathen supposed to rule the different heavenly bodies, such as Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, to move as if they were endued with life. Now this monarch, whose name was Khosru, was as ambitious as he was wicked. He sent a great army to overrun the Holy Land, massacre the monks at Mar-Saba, and then take Jerusalem. They slew every human being in the city, and having destroyed all the churches and carried off everything of value, including the true Cross which had been enclosed in a strong chest and sealed up by the Patriarch of Jerusalem some time before the arrival of the invaders, they returned to their own country. The skulls of the recluses martyred at Mar-Saba, are shown there to this day. The Persians were obliged to leave Jerusalem, where they had slain 60,000 persons, because of the stench arising from the vast number of unburied corpses. As there was no one to inter the fallen, God inspired a lion with pity for the remains of His servants slain by the pagans; and the wild beast not only drove off all others which would have devoured the dead, but actually conveyed their corpses, one by one, to this cavern which was originally very deep, and had a hundred steps leading down into it, and laid them there reverently, side by side. Several hundred years later St Mamilla erected a church on the spot, and there prayers used to be said daily for the repose of the souls of the martyrs buried in the cave. In connection with this story, it may be worthy of notice that in several legends of Palestinian saints, lions figure in a remarkable manner. Thus St Jerome (died a.d. 410) is, in medieval art, very frequently represented in the company of a lion whose wounded paw the saint had healed in the desert of Chalcis, and who, in gratitude, became Jerome\u2019s faithful servant and protector. In like manner, visitors to the convent of Mar-Saba are shown the cave where the founder of that monastery took up his abode with a lion, the former tenant, and are gravely told that when the saint pressed his opinion that the place was too small to accommodate two lodgers, the king of beasts courteously took the hint, and found a dwelling elsewhere; while in the Chapel of St Mary the Egyptian, close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, pilgrims admire a painting showing how a certain hermit, when on his way to visit the saint, found her dead, and a lion engaged in the pious task of burial.\n\nP. 85. One kir\u00e2t.\u2014\u201cIt is customary in the East to measure everything by a standard of twenty-four kir\u00e2ts. The kir\u00e2t literally means an inch, or the twenty-fourth part of the dra\u2019a or Arabic ell. The English expression \u201ceighteen carats fine\u201d for gold, is a survival of this usage. It signifies that the metal contains eighteen parts of gold in twenty-four of the alloy. Everything in the East is supposed to be made up of twenty-four kir\u00e2ts or carats. Thus a patient or his friends will ask a physician how many kirdts of hope there are in his case. A man will say there are twenty-three kird\u00e9ts of probability that such an occurrence will take place. A company divides its shares into kir\u00e2ts, ete. (See Dr Post on \u201c Land Tenure, Agriculture, etc.,\u201d in the Pal. Exp. Q. Statement for 1891, p. 100, foot-note.)\n\nIII\n\nP. 89. En Nebi Da\u00fbd.\u2014Although it is only since the twelfth century that Jewish and Christian traditions have located the tomb of David at the spot situated outside the Zion Gate and known as the C\u0153naculum, or upper room where Christ instituted the Lord\u2019s Supper; it is only since a.d. 1560 that Mohammedans have recognised it as such. Though, indeed, in 1479, Tucher of Nuremberg found a mosque installed in the lower part of the building, which already contained what were shown as the tombs of David and Solomon and other Jewish kings; there is evidence that the Moslems did not believe in the tradition, and they probably had the mosque there, in the first place, to be on terms of equality with the Christians, and in the next, because of their belief in the C\u0153naculum as the place where \u2019Isa ibn Maryam \u201cmiraculously caused a table to descend from Heaven.\u201d As a matter of fact, we know, from the special statement of Mejr ed d\u00ecn (a.p. 1495), that in his day Mohammedans believed that both David and Solomon were buried near Gethsemane. He indeed mentions the C\u0153naculum, but only as the \u201cChurch of Zion.\u201d The group of buildings connected therewith was originally erected as a convent for the Franciscans, and this\norder had its chief seat here from 1313 to 1561 a.d. They had been expelled from it before the later date, but had succeeded in regaining possession. The tradition concerning their final expulsion, is as follows:\u2014\n\nIn a.d. 1560, a wealthy and influential Jew from Constantinople came to Jerusalem, and begged to be allowed to pray at the tomb of David. The request being indignantly refused by the Latins, he vowed to be revenged, and accordingly, on his return to Constantinople, he told the grand wazir that it was very wrong to permit the tomb of one of the great prophets of Islam to remain in the hands of infidels. As a result of his representations, aided it is said by bribes, the Moslems were persuaded that the tomb of David was where both Jews and Christians agreed in stating it to be, and accordingly the Franciscans were again expelled, and had to find new quarters. Since that time, the place has been in Moslem hands.\n\nIV\n\nP. 94. Birket Israil_\u2014This great pool, which twenty years\nago, before the discovery of the Double-pools at St Anne\u2019s was\nmade public, used to be pointed out as \u201cthe Pool of Bethesda\u201d\u00a0;\nis now being rapidly filled up with rubbish.\n\nP. 95. Bridge at Lydda\u2014This bridge at Lydda was built by the\nsame Emir of Ramleh who treacherously sent assassins to kill\nthe crusading Heir-Apparent of England, the same who\nafterwards became Edward I.\n\nV\n\nP. 99. Detective stories.\u2014A good many tales are current\nrespecting the means used by specially gifted persons for the detection of criminals. Some of them remind one of the\nBiblical Story of Solomon and the two mothers (1 Kings\niii.; v. 16 to end) and also of the Apocryphal account of Daniel\u2019s procedure in the \u201cHistory of Susanna.\u201d\n\nFor two other and similar stories, versions of which are\ncurrent in this country, see Dr Thomson\u2019s \u201c The Land and the\nBook,\u201d edition of 1873, p. 153.\n\nP. 100. \u201cWriting and using magic arts\u201d on the Sabbath.\u2014\nRabbinnic ordinances permit one for the preservation of life, to cook on the Sabbath, or even to eat pork; but it is doubtful whether writing or the practice of magic is permissible.\n\nP. 101. Burial of Kolonimos.\u2014It is no uncommon thing for\nvery pious Jews to give orders that after their death, and by way of expiating sins committed during their lifetime, their bodies should be ill-treated. Some even direct that the four modes of capital punishment ordered in the Law, viz., beheading, strangling, burning, and stoning, should be executed on their corpses. Others arrange that they are, after death, to have the \u201cmalkoth\u201d or public scourging with forty stripes save one, inflicted upon them; whilst others again, as in in the case of a lately deceased Grand-Rabbi of Jerusalem, give orders that their bodies shall be dragged along the path to their graves. In the case just mentioned, the bier on which the corpse was lying was so dragged for a short distance.\n\nP. 101. Grave of Kolonimos.\u2014It is said that the small cairn now shown as the tomb of Kolonimos, was thus formed, and that the last stone was thrown upon it during the early part of the nineteenth century. It is in the bed of the Kedron, a\nlittle south-west of the so-called tomb of Zechariah.\n\nThe above story may contain a historical kernel. Kolonimos was a well-known person, and in his days very few people in\nPalestine could either read or write. Those who possessed these accomplishments exercised a tremendous influence over their contemporaries, knowledge in their case being indeed power as is proved by the following fact preserved traditionally:\u2014\n\nDuring the Greek War of Independence (1821-1828), a Tatar courier arrived one day from Constantinople bringing a\nwritten order from the Sublime Porte to the Governor\u2019 of\nJerusalem directing him to put to death at once the Greek\nOrthodox Patriarch and several of his chief ecclesiastics. It happened, however, fortunately for the condemned, that of all the Government officials, from the Pasha downwards, the only one who could read and write was an effendi well-disposed to the Christians. The letter from Stamb\u00fbl was therefore placed in his hands to be deciphered. Having read it through, he informed his colleagues that it referred to a totally different matter. No one doubted his word, and the document was left in his possession to be answered. As soon as he could do so unobserved, he called on the Greek Patriarch and the other clergy mentioned in the order, and, having demanded a private interview, showed them the death-warrant, but promised to keep its real import secret. This promise he kept loyally, and the Orthodox Greek Community, out of gratitude for this great service, accorded to his descendants the right which they still enjoy, of being entertained as honoured guests not only at the Greek convent at Jerusalem, but also in all other Orthodox monasteries within the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.\n\nNow if this was the condition of things less than a century\nago, it must have been even worse in the time of Kolonimos.\nWhat really took place was probably something like this:\nWhilst the rabbi was writing and muttering his hocus-pocus, he was furtively scanning the faces of the spectators in order to see whether there were any present who seemed particularly interested in the matter or in the result of his action.\n\nNoticing fear or anxiety depicted on the features of one of them, he concluded that it was caused by an evil conscience, and, having made up his own mind, he needed only to point to the shrinking culprit in order to elicit the truth. Such methods for surprising wrong-doers into confession of their guilt are in vogue at the present day.\n\nVI\n\nP. 106. The people of Deyr es Sinneh.\u2014v. 128, Josephus, Antig. xv. 10,5; Wars, ii. 8, 6; Antig. xiii. 5,9; xviii, 1, 5,6; xvii. 13, 3.\n\nThe suggestive name and the tales told of the eccentric\npeople of Deyr es Sinneh are supposed to be reminiscences of\nthe once famous sect of the Essenes, of whom mention is often\nmade by Josephus, but of whom, as far as the writer is aware,\nno actual traces have as yet been discovered, except those of\nthe cistern and baths above referred to.\n\nP. 108. \u201cThe times of the infidels.\u201d \u2014This is the way in which the Moslem peasants usually refer to the period when Palestine was under Christian rule.\n\nP. 109. Tombs on the site of the present Greek convent of St Onuphrius.\u2014Ecclesiastical tradition says that these tombs and the ruined medieval building close by which covers a deep rock-hewn pit, mark the site of Aceldama. During the Middle Ages the earth from the hill-terraces here used to be carried to Europe by the ship-load to various cemeteries, such as the Campo Santo at Pisa, because of the general belief that it possessed the peculiar property of accelerating decomposition. It also was endued with the strange gift of knowing the difference between one nationality and another. Thus we are informed that \u201cBy order of the Empress Helena, two hundred and seventy ship-loads of it were translated to Rome and deposited in the Camp Santo near the Vatican, where it was wont to reject the bodies of the Romans and only consume those of strangers,\u201d\n\nP. 110. Christians beyond Jordan in the time of the crusades.\u2014 Baldwin I. tempted many of the Christians living beyond Jordan to come and settle at Jerusalem. They were granted special privileges and immunities, and in a.d. 1121, his successor passed a free-trade measure remitting all customary dues on articles of commerce. (Will Tyrensis, xii. xv.; Williams\u2019 \u201cHoly City,\u201d vol. i. p. 404 and foot-note.) It has for centuries been customary for\ncriminals and outlaws to flee to the district east of the Jordan, and take refuge there under the protection of some Bedawai sheykh. The custom illustrates such episodes as the flight of Jephthah (Judges xi. 2), and David\u2019s sojourn in Philistia (1 Sam. xxi.'10;. xxvii., xxviii. 1, 2).\n\nVII\n\nP. 120. The judgements of Karakash.\u2014The expression \u201cThis is one of the judgements of Karakash,\u201d is usual among the natives of Palestine, when a decision arrived at is hopelessly absurd, though based strictly upon the evidence in the case. It is said to have originated several hundred years ago during the administration of the Emir Beha-ed-din Karakash, or Karakush, who lived during the latter part of the twelfth Christian century, and was a faithful lieutenant of the great Saladin who entrusted to him the construction of the new fortifications on the Jebel el Mokattam at Cairo. The rock-hewn trench protecting the citadel there is said to have been dug by his orders. He was also in chief command of the garrison at Acre when that town was taken by C\u033a\u0153ur de Leon, about 1192 a.d. He was therefore a historical personage, and the judicial eccentricities for which he is remembered, may have originated in lampoons circulated by his enemies. (Bohaeddin\u2019s \u201cLife of\nSaladin,\u201d P.E.F., Col. Conder\u2019s translation, p. 107, footnote, and also pp. 202, 209, 238, 260, 269.)\n\nP. 122. \u201cHang the first short man you can find.\u201d \u2014In 1857, an American subject was murdered at Jaffa. The United States\u2019 Government sent a man-of-war, the crime was investigated, and the supposed criminal hanged at the yard-arm of the vessel. However, to this day the tradition is current at Jaffa that the victim was not the real murderer, but a poor and almost imbecile negro bread-seller who was sacrificed in his stead.\n\nIX\n\nP. 126. Mohammed's \u201cnight-journey\u201d from Mecca to Jerusalem.\u2014\u201cFrom Jerusalem he is said to have been carried through the seven heavens into the presence of God, and brought back again to Mecca the same night.\u201d \u201cIt is a matter of dispute amongst Mohammedan divines, whether their prophet\u2019s night-journey was really performed by him corporally, or whether it was only a dream or vision. Some think the whole was no more than a vision and allege an express tradition of Moawiyeh, one of the khalifehs, to that effect. Others suppose that he was carried bodily to Jerusalem, but no further; and that he ascended thence to heaven in spirit only. But the received opinion is, that it was no vision, but that he was actually transported in the body to his journey\u2019s end; and if any impossibility be objected, they think it a sufficient answer to say, that it might easily be effected by an omnipotent agent.\u201d Sale\u2019s foot-note to verse 1, of Koran Surah xvii. entitled \u201cThe\nNight-Journey\u201d (Chandos Classics, pp. 206, 207).\n\nX\n\nP.127. A sultan dreamt that all his teeth fell out.\u2014To\ndream that one has lost a single tooth is a fearful omen.\nGrown up people suffering with their teeth make vows, and children, losing their first set, take each of the old ones as it falls out, and throw it up to the sun, crying: \u201cO sun, take this donkey\u2019s tooth and give me instead the tooth of a gazelle.\u201d The formula differs amongst the fellahin of Silwan, whose children are taught to say: \u201cO Sun! take this donkey\u2019s tooth, and instead of it give me the tooth of one of thy children.\u201d Amongst native Arab Jews the tooth is thrown into a well with the formula given in the text. Others say: \u201cO Sun! take this iron tooth and give me a tooth of pearl.\u201d\n\nUp to the year 1868, when the new iron dome was placed over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a great number of human teeth were to be seen sticking, as witnesses to vows made by their owners, in the cracks and interstices of the clustered columns on the left hand side of the great portal to the said Church.","title":"Folk-lore of the Holy Land/Section 2 Notes","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":3509}