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

VI AVERSION TO IRON 22
Up thy tool (iron) upon it, thou hast polluted it."
So of the temple ( I Kings vi. 7) : " There was neither
hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the
house while it was in building."
"At Cyzicus is the /SovXevrijpiov (senate house),
a vast edifice, constructed without a nail of iron ; f
^
the raftering being so contrived as to admit of the
beams being removed and replaced without the
use of stays. A similar thing, too, is the case with
the Sublician Bridge at Rome." This was a sacred
bridge, and it had to be kept in repair without the
use of either iron or other metal, ^^^'
Raja Vijyanagram, one of the most enlightened
of Hindoo princes, would not allow iron to be used
in the construction of buildings within his territory,
believing that its use would inevitably be followed
by smallpox and other epidemics.^^^
^ On the other hand, the very fact that iron is
deemed obnoxious to spirits, furnishes men with a
weapon which may be turned against them when
occasion serves. The dislike of spirits for iron is
so great that they will not approach persons and
things protected by the obnoxious metal. " Iron
therefore may obviously be employed as a charm
for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits," ^^^
to which we may add—witches. ^^^ This feeling will
355 Pliny, MaL Hist, xxxvi. 24 (Ed. Bohn, vi. p. 345).
^^ It was the earliest constructed across the Tiber, by Ancus Martius, 114
A.U.C. It was called Sublician, because it was constructed entirely of wood.
No iron was used in its construction, on the strength of religious tradition,
nor was any ever used in repair even in Christian times down to the fall of
the Empire. The fact is noted by Dionysius, v. 24 ; Varro, v. 83 ; Ovid, Fasti,
V. 622. Pliny's account, assigning the rejection of iron to the difficulties of
Horatius Codes in cutting it through, is absurd (Lanciani, op. cit. p. 40).
357 Indian Antiquary, vol. x. 1 88 1, p. 364.
358 Frazer, Golden Bongh, vol. i. p. 175.
359 Let the superstitious wife
Neer the child's heart lay a knife :