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

VI THE FLAMING SWORD 207
Neapolitan horses being small, and the carts having
very high wheels, the shafts have to be kept at a con-
siderable distance above the animal's back, and the
loads are so adjusted as to bear very little on him.
The very high pommel and brightly -plated saddle
are peculiar to Southern Italy and Sicily. In Naples
the two brazen flags, swinging about, above the
horse's back, are almost invariable. They are said
to be typical of the " flaming sword which turned
every way" (Gen. iii. 24), and they are no doubt
intended as part of the guard, protecting the life
of the horse bearing them ;
for they are an unfailing
attraction to the eye whether evil or not.^^^ The high
pommel ends in another patch of wolf skin and
more red worsted round the spindle of the vanes.^^^
The figure standing upon the little round barrel at
the back of the pommel is San Gennaro. This
ornament varies according to the fancy of the
338 «'Xhe flaming sword finds its analogue in the weapon of the Baby-
lonian god Merodach, a revolving circular disc surrounded with flaming points.
This weapon is called among other names littii, which is letter for letter the
same as the Hebrew word translated flaming."—Lenormant, Les Origines de
VHistoire cVaprcs la Bible et les Traditions des Peiiples Orientaux. Athencetim,
July 31, 1880, p. 137.
22^ I have often seen here in Somersetshire (even so late as 1894) cart horses,
each with a bunch of many-coloured ribbons on his cheek, and others with a
half-moon on the forehead. One of our commonest of crest ornaments is a small
disc pivoted, in a kind of horned or crescent-shaped frame, which swings backwards
and forwards glinting in the sun, as the horse moves his head. Surely
this is the Babylonian disc of Merodach, analogous to the Neapolitan vanes, and
moreover it must represent also the disc and horns on the head of Isis. If not,
the coincidence is strange indeed. Further, Pluto was represented with a disc
on his head like Venus and Isis (Payne Knight, Symb. Lang. p. 104).
From Pluto to Vulcan the step is short, and they may well be confounded.
If then our disc is the symbol of Vulcan, it is a most suitable horse amulet.
A disc framed like this, but having also a face upon it, is on the Barone lamp
in Chap. X. Not long ago I saw what I remember as very common— the " vore
'oss " of a team had a board about 18 inches long mounted on two irons, which
held it well above the collar into which they fitted. This board had hung
beneath it a row of about six large jangling bells which, when the horse
moves, can be heard for half a mile. To complete this pixy -driving apparatus
is a fringe concealing all the bells, but made of the inevitable, bright,
many coloured worsted threads.