Archibald Henry Sayce

“ In Upper Egypt to each person, and more especially to twins, his or her “garîna” is attached. To protect oneself from the garîna, who might otherwise carry one off from this world, charms, wrapped up in leather, are employed, which must be written by boys under twelve years of age.
In Nubia, and until recently also in Upper Egypt, after a marriage the bride and bridegroom go to the Nile, fill their mouths with water and squirt it in one another’s faces. The one who is hit first will be the most fortunate in life. The idea goes back to the days when the Nile was a divinity. ”

“ It took many years, in fact, for the Arab intruders to fuse with the native population, and to this day the fusion even in country districts is far from complete. Thus in Helwân the population is still Beduin in type, and it is not long since it was considered a disgrace for a native of the village to marry a "fellaḥ" rather than another villager. It was some centuries before the fellaḥin in the neighbourhood of Cairo ceased to be Christian; indeed the "Coptic" population of Old Cairo is still considerable; it was several centuries more before the Coptic language became extinct. ”

“ In Upper Egypt if a child dies before it is three or four years of age it is said that “its garîna has taken it.” In the Sahidic dialects of Upper Egypt garîna, which is the Arabic qarîna, “a female colleague,” has the sense of “a double,” or more literally, “likeness”; hence the belief must be a survival of the old Egyptian belief in the ka or “double.” ”

“ When they reached the cave the shêkh called to a serpent; there comes a serpent monstrously big. The shêkh asked the serpent saying: ‘Have you drunk the water of the Nile?’ The serpent answered: ‘Is there a Nile, is there water?’ He said to it: ‘Yes, there is a Nile, there is water.’ He replied: ‘I did not know there is a Nile or water.’ The shekh said to the man: ‘Strip off the covering of the iron’ ”

“ Religion long kept the two races, Arab and Egyptian, apart, and when eventually the Christian fellaḥ in the neighbourhood of Cairo had become Mohammedan, the Mohammedan Arab had become a townsman with a townsman’s sense of superiority over the country bumpkin. ”

“ Hence the humour of the Cairo folk-tales is directed against the fellaḥ because he is a fellaḥ ignorant of the ways of the city, and for no other reason. The Arab of Cairo, indeed, felt himself the inferior rather than the superior of the city Copt: the financial and civil administration of the state was practically in Coptic hands, and the skilled artizan was almost always a Copt, as he continued to be down to the time when I first knew Cairo, what we call “Arab” art being really the art of Christian Egypt. I know of no Cairene folk-tales which satirize the Copts as such ”

“ A man of our village (Helwân is meant) had a wife who was very niggardly. If her husband or one of his friends asked for anything she said she had not got it. If he asked for a piece of bread or a match she beat him with her broom. So the poor man had to hide his bread under his galahîya (upper garment) and eat by stealth. ”

“ The hyaena is fond of water-melons; but he first taps them with his paws to see whether they are ripe or not.
If the children take after the mother, the father loves the mother; if they take after the father, it is the mother who loves the father. ”

“ Near Minia the dead are still ferried over the Nile to be buried on its eastern bank as they were five thousand years ago, and in spite of the fulminations of orthodox Mohammedanism or the Coptic Patriarch, food is still offered to them, and the living, whether Mohammedan or Coptic, hold a three days’ festival once a year over their graves. The fellaḥ may call himself a Christian or a Mohammedan, but at heart he remains a worshipper of Isis and Osiris, or rather of the local deities who were disguised under those names. ”

“ They said: ‘Boys, there are people who know our place; one of us must remain here and see who it is that knows our place.’ Their shêkh said to them: ‘I will remain.’ They answered: ‘Good! you shall remain and we will go after our business.’ When (the younger brother) rose again in the morning he took the basket early and proceeded to walk to the desert. When he got as far as the tree he sat down. When the brigands came he did not count them as usual. After they had left the cave he took the basket and then went into the cave. ”

“ But between Cairene and Upper Egyptian folk-lore a broad line must be drawn. The population of Cairo is non-Egyptian; that of Upper Egypt is the purest in Egypt. Cairo was the creation of the Arab conquerors of Egypt, and the centre of the vast settlements of Arab tribes which were intended to garrison and overawe the native population. ”

“ Qallo: “ erga‘ matrak.” Et-ta‘bân riga‘ fîl-matraḥ betâ‘o. Fatu em-marhâra umishu leḥad wâhid marhâra tâni. Es-shêkh nadah ’ala et-ta‘bân ellî fîm-marhâra. Et-ta‘bân gih. Es-shêkh qallo: “enta shiribt em-moya min el-baḥr?’ Qallo: “aiwa, ana shiribt wahida marra.” Qallo: “erga‘ fîl-matraḥ betâ‘tak.” Lamma et-ta‘bân riga‘ fîm-matraḥ beta‘o, fatu umishu leḥad marhâra talt; lamma wassalu ‘and em-marhâra es-shêkh nadah ‘ala wâhid ta‘bân; yîgi wâhid ta‘bân kebîr biziyada. Es-shêkh sa‘al et-ta‘bân; qallo: “enta shiribt em-moya beta‘ el-baḥr?” ”

“ Our story returns to the brigands.
“When they had come and entered the cave they found neither the basket nor the man; they said: ‘There must be people who are acquainted with our place; we must go into the villages and put questions in order to know who has taken the man.’ Their shêkh replied: ‘Do you go this way and I will go down another way; when we go down into a town go round and look about here and there until one has found a clean barber.’ (One of the brigands) went and entered the barber’s shop ”

“ Among the Copts of the Delta, if a child were ill, the mother, however rich, would put on a beggar’s dress and go out begging, the money so received being devoted to the cure of the child. The same custom is described by Ohnefalsch-Richter (Griechische Sitten und Gebraüche auf Cypern, p. 326) as in use in Cyprus: if a child cannot walk the mother puts him into a basket and begs for food which is supposed to strengthen him. ”

“ He drew out his knife and threatened to cut the man’s foot off if it were not withdrawn. Thereupon it was withdrawn, buy only for two foot-breadths; so he knew that the man was an afrît (spirit) . But being an upright man he squeezed though between the foot an the wall without fear and therefore injury.
One of my sailors (Mohammed Radab from Gharb Assuan) lost the sight of his right eye about five years before he told me the story (in 1905) in the following way. He saw a large serpent and struck it with a mattock, cutting it in two. ”

“ Khabar ê el-lêla? enta gayib ê wayak?” Bâdên hiya nizilet fataḥetlu, utili‘u ‘ala foq. Nazzal el-galabiya min ‘ala raso; qalleha: khodi; ishterî lena laḥma uferâkh weḥamâm uqamḥ." Qaletlo: “min ên gibt el-fulûs?” Qaleha: “gibtu min ed-dunya.” Sabaḥ fî-subḥ, akhad wâhid muktaf, weakhad rhada, umishi raḥ taḥt es-segara; ‘ad itrhada ushirib lamma el-fidâwiya gûm; lamma khashshu fîl-marhâra ‘addahum arba‘în ulamma tili‘u ‘adduhum arba‘în. Huwa nizil min es-segara uraḥ fattaḥ el-marhâra, dakhal guwa, mala ’m-muktaf min ed-dahab ushâlu. Lamma till‘ min el- marhâra qafalha zê ma kan, umishi ‘al-bêt. ”

“ Also that an okht or “daughter” accompanies every person from birth to death and survives after death. Here we have the North Egyptian equivalent of the South Egyptian garina, the ka of ancient Egypt. ”