PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 131 



five times on each side and five times head foremost. 

 To ensure success, it seems, that a barren woman 

 must repeat her devotions in this way from time to 

 time for two years : only in the third will her wish be 

 gratified. Kabyle women frequent many mosques 

 to be delivered from sterility, particularly the tomb of 

 another saint, Sidi Abi Thaleb. There they flourish 

 the saint's stick vigorously in all directions in a hole 

 contrived in the centre of the mosque. 1 These two 

 are of course by no means the 'only Moslem saints 

 famous for the gift of fecundity. In Egypt the soul of 

 the holy man Sheikh Haridy has passed into a serpent 

 that is to be seen in the little mosque of the mountain 

 called after his name. Under that form he shows 

 himself to his worshippers and allows them to touch 

 him for the cure of their ailments. Among the powers 

 with which he is still thought to be endowed is that of 

 conferring fertility on women. 2 I have already 

 mentioned the hot springs frequented by women in 

 Palestine for this purpose. It may be added that 

 some of these springs are believed to owe their virtue 

 not to the jinn but to a dead saint. When the hot air 

 steams up over the bodies of childless women they 

 really believe they are visited and impregnated by the 

 saint himself. 3 



A curious rite used until the Reformation to be 

 performed at the shrine of Saint Edmund at Bury St. 

 Edmund's. A white bull was kept in the fields of the 



1 Berenger-Feraud, Superst. ii. 198. 



2 E. Amelineau, Rev. Hist. Rel. li. 341. 



3 Curtiss, 1 1 6. One example only is here mentioned the 

 spring of Abu Rabah at the Baths of Solomon. The shrines of 

 St. George all over the country enjoy the same reputation among 

 Moslems as well as Christians. Cf. Jaussen, 360. 



