444 FISH OF MOSES— JONAH— SOLOMON'S RING 



write The Song of Songs), which he likens to the pools of 

 Heshon ? 



A devil named Sakhar, the Talmud goes on, coming in the 

 shape of Solomon, obtained the ring from Amina, and by 

 virtue of its possession sat on the throne in Solomon's guise. 

 After forty days the devil flew away, and threw the ring into 

 the sea. The signet was immediately swallow^ed by a fish, 

 which on being caught was given to Solomon. The ring was 

 found in its stomach, and he, who without its credentials had 

 been compelled to beg for bread and from his appearance being 

 changed by the devil had been regarded as a preposterous 

 pretender, " by this means recovered his kingdom, and taking 

 Sakhar and tying a great stone to his neck, threw him into the 

 sea of Tiberias." ^ 



In another version 2 — very probable because more character- 

 istic of Solomon, in that he annexes another wife — the King 

 after the loss of his throne became a cook in the palace of a 

 foreign sovereign, married his master's daughter, bought a fish 

 with the ring inside, and so recovered his realm. 



In another legend fish play, if not a historical, yet no 

 small part in connection with a famous historical character. 



St. Brandan in his travels encountered Judas Iscariot, whose 

 allotted punishments at any rate lacked not monotony, for 

 after each spell of pitch and sulphur he was condemned to sit 

 on a desolate rock in the frozen regions. To the query as to 

 the purpose of a cloth bandage worn round the head, Judas 

 made answer that it was an effectual charm against the 

 ferocious fishes among which he was often doomed to be thrown, 

 for at its sight they lost their will to bite. He had obtained 



1 Sale, Sura 38 of the Koran, gives, as regards the incident, references to : 

 (A) The Talmud, probably to the treatise Gittin, pp. 68, a, b. See Jew. EncycL, 

 xi. 448, and cf. p. 4436. (B) En Jacob, Pt. ii. — probably to a work of this title, 

 Well of Jacob, a collection of legends and parables by Jacob ben Solomon ibn 

 Chabib from the Babylonian Talmud, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1684-85). (C) Yalkut 

 in lib. Reg., p. 182 — this is a collection of expositions of the O.T. books and 

 first printed in 1521. Solomon's throwing of the demon seems quite justifiable, 

 if Sakhar and Asmodeus were under different names one and the same, 

 for from Gittin, 68 b, we learn that the demon, after swallowing Solomon, 

 " spat him a distance of 400 miles," a feat in ballistics, or " the art of propelling 

 heavy bodies," which surpasses even the German long-range gun. 



* Jewish Ency., xi. 441. 



