156 FLORA OF THE 



Egypt. Under the heading of ' charms ' he gives a 

 number of remedies against the evil eye. The Egyptians 

 have a perfect horror of it, and you must say Mashallah ^ 

 at the same time that you admire anything, so that God 

 may protect the thing against your dreaded eye. 



The profession of charmer is a regular occupation in 

 Egypt. He is employed by the people to protect them 

 from harm. He has several specifics against the evil eye, 

 and goes through 'hocus pocus' incantations while he 

 repeats the following formula : " I charm thee from the 

 eye of girl, sharper than a spike ; and from the eye of 

 woman, sharper than a pruning knife ; and from the eye 

 of boy, more painful than a whip ; and from the eye of 

 man, sharper than a chopping knife," and so on. 



The Reverend W. Hutchinson, a member of the Inter- 

 national Congress of Orientalists, suggested to me that 

 the horse-shoe, used everywhere in Britain as a luck 

 emblem, may also have had its origin from the horns 

 of the sacred tree. 



And indeed the horse-shoe may have been first used 

 as an emblem of luck, not because it was a horse-shoe, 

 but because it resembled a pair of Jiorns (fig. 83^). 

 And if we tie two horse-shoes back to back to a post 

 we reproduce the original ' fleur-de-lys ' (fig. Sj^j. 



To sum up, the ' fleur-de-lys,' as we see it in heraldry, 



^ Much in the way that some Christians have of making the sign of the 

 Cross with their thumb, opposite tlieir gaping mouth, when they yawn, so as 

 to keep the devil from entering ! 



