The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

IV AMULETS 121
commonly used as synonymous with talisman,
whereas in meaning it is entirely distinct. The
latter means a "sigil engraved in stone or metal," ^^"^
and it served a double purpose, namely, " to procure
love, and to avert mischief from its possessor," while
an aiimletum, derived from amolior to do away with,
or to baffle,^^""* had for its sole end the protection of the
ownerj Pliny, writing on the cyclamen {tuberteri^ce) ^"^^
says, it " ought to be grown in every house, if it be
true that wherever it grows noxious spells can have
no effect. This plant is also what is called an amulet!'
Boccaccio speaks of " the skull of an ass set up on a
pole in a cornfield as a potent amulet against blight."
As a modern parallel to this we are told that at
Mourzak, in Central Africa, the people set up the
head of an ass in their gardens to avert the evil eye
from their crops.^^^
Pisistratus too is re-
corded by Hesychius
to have set up, in the
Acropolis at Athens,
the figure of a grass-
hopper (cricket) or
grillo, as a charm or
amulet to avert the
evil eye from the citi-
zens. ^^^ This insect is
Fig. 7. —King's Handbook of Gems.
constantly found engraved on gems (Fig. 7) with a
190 See The Gnostics, by C. W. King, 1874, p. 115. Also Frommannd,
Tract, de Fasc. p. 278, who makes a long disquisition on this subject, giving
the etymology and origin of talisman as Arabic.
190» King, op. cit. p. 115. According to N. E. Dictionary, "a word of
unknown origin." i^i Natural History, xxv. 67 (Bohn, v. p. 125).
192 jsfotes and Queries, 1st ser. vii. p. 496.
i''^ On this see Lobeck, Aglaophamtis, p. 973. He quotes Pliny, xxix. (6)
39, but I cannot find this in Pliny. Lobeck says Hesychius calls this amulet
Keprofda wpoapacrKdvia.