Amulet

“ I see myself as I was before dissipation led me to sin and vice. This amulet, brought by my grandfather from Jerusalem, protected my father against many dangers, saved my mother's life; and you, signor, you owe to the same amulet escape from a violent death, for it turned aside my master's dagger from your breast. Strange and mysterious power which thus shields the victim from his executioner!"
"Julio," said Geronimo, "keep me not in suspense. Say that you will not take my life. Be merciful to the man whose name is blessed by the lips of your mother!" ”

“ So they were quiet.
'It's me, Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen,' said the whisperer. 'The man who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken my Amulet from me by force, and I know no magic to get it back. Is there magic for that in the Amulet you bear?'
Everyone was instantly awake by now.
'We can go after him,' said Cyril, leaping up; 'but he might take ours as well; or he might be angry with us for following him.'
'I'll see to that,' said the Egyptian in the dark. ”

“ Where one and the same amulet was given to three different sufferers, the amulet is reliable, but not the expert; but how is it with three different amulets given to one man for three different diseases? ”

“ In the ancient world, as with savages, the whole art of medicine was in many cases the art of preparing and applying amulets and charms.
An amulet (probably the word is derived from the Arabic hamalet, a pendant) is anything which is hung round the neck or attached to any other part of the body, and worn as an imagined protection against disease, witchcraft, accidents, or other evils. Stones, metals, bits of parchment, portions of the human body, as parings of the finger nails, may constitute these charms. ”

“ The Romans were also great believers in the power of the amulet, and in the declining era of the great empire the custom of wearing them became so general that the Emperor Caracalla made a public edict, that [121] no man should wear an amulet about his person, under heavy penalties.
Amulets have been known to that curious nation the Chinese from the earliest period of their history, and are still worn by them. They are sold by the priests in the form of small pieces of metal, chains, or characters written on a piece of skin or parchment, and worn as a charm against accident, sickness, etc. ”

“ So the Amulet lay in the dust of the desert many thousand years, and at last came a small man, a conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd of men who sought to seem wise, and one of these found half the Amulet and brought it to this land. ”

“ An approved amulet is one which has cured three persons, or which has been made by a man who has cured three persons by means of other amulets. [17:1] A belief in the healing power of amulets was very general among the Hebrews in the later periods of their history. No people in the whole world were more addicted to the use of medicinal spells, exorcisms, and various enchantments. ”

“ Amulet is a charm or preservative against mischief, witchcraft, or diseases. Amulets were made of stone metal, simples, animals, and everything which fancy or caprice suggested; and sometimes they consisted of words, characters, and sentences ranged in a particular order and engraved upon wood, and worn about the neck or some other part of the body. ”

“ In “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 2) Enobarbus says: “They are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report;” and in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) , Prince Henry says: “Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what says the almanac to that?”
Amulets. A belief in the efficacy of an amulet or charm to ward off diseases and to avert contagion has prevailed from a very early period. The use of amulets was common among the Greeks and Romans, whose amulets were principally formed of gems, crowns of pearls, necklaces of coral, shells, etc. The amulet of modern times has been of the most varied kinds ”

“ What the amulet made from a bit of human skull was to the prehistoric man that the amulet from a sheep's head is to the modern Hallamshire peasant. The later superstition is a lineal descendant of the older superstition. As man became less barbarous he modified his old belief in the efficacy of the charm, as he could not wholly cast it off. ”

“ Above all, let us repeat, they can give us an amulet, or charm, to wear which will make us fearless of disease.
The selling of amulets by magicians is a very lucrative business even in the present day. Sometimes it is not the necromancer, but the church, which sells charms to its adherents. The word amulet has quite a variety of derivations from the Roman and Arabian tongues. ”

“ When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up.
'We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we've found it,' said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through the big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was the Amulet—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had never been able to find—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone that formed a hinge.
RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, UNDER A GLASS CASE, WAS THE AMULET.
'Oh, glorious!' cried Robert. ”

“ Attention has already been called to the fact that the characteristic of the amulet is that it must be worn about the person, while the talisman may simply be in possession of a person wherever it may be, or deposited at a certain place by or for the person. ”

“ A costly Chinese amulet consists of the diamond, the ruby, and the emerald, to which are added the pearl and coral; Oriental sapphire and topaz are classed with the ruby. An amulet containing these five substances is thought to combine the protecting influences of the different deities presiding over them, and is supposed to lengthen the wearer’s life. ”

“ The thread being broken, and the roller removed, the amulet is not at all to be touched with bare hands, but it ought to be taken hold on by some instrument, and buried in a place that nobody may touch it. ”

“ The ancient treatises on the magic art show that the use of amulets was considered to be indispensable for those who dared to evoke the dark spirits of the nether-world, for without the protection afforded by his amulet the magician ran the risk of being attacked by these spirits. ”

“ A modern Italian, even if he be a complete sceptic and materialist, will probably be found to have some amulet about him against the evil eye, "just to be on the safe side."119 A list of amulets, both Greek and Roman, will be found in the Dictionary of Antiquities, and in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie, s.v. "amulet," and it is not necessary here to explain the various kinds in use in Italy; but I must dwell for a moment on one type, which had been taken up into the life of the family, and in one sense into that of the State, viz. the bulla worn by children, both boys and girls. ”

“ Among early Christians amulets and charms were acknowledged to possess peculiar virtues beneficial to man. Amulets and charms were, and are, so numerous that it would be a herculean task to give an account of one half of them. Where the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, amulets and charms were employed for the alleviation of [Pg 402] bodily suffering. Pericles wore an amulet about his neck, as such charms were supposed to be capable of preserving the wearers from misfortune and disease. ”

“ So they did. This time they said, 'The future, where the Amulet is, not so far away.'
And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table by the window sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though his hair was white. He was one of the faces that do not change with age. In his hand was the Amulet—complete and perfect.
AT A TABLE BY THE WINDOW SAT THE LEARNED GENTLEMAN.
He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so used to. ”

“ The word is often used as a term synonymous with amulet (q.v.) , but strictly should be applied to an inanimate object which is supposed to possess a supernatural capacity of conferring benefits or powers, an amulet being that which protects or wards off evil (see Magic) . ”

“ Do!” said everyone.
“Well, then,” said the Psammead. “This thing is half of an Amulet that can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the waters flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies come. (Not that babies are beautiful, of course,” it broke off to say, “but their mothers think they are—and as long as you think a thing’s true it is true as far as you’re concerned.) ”

“ St. Chrysostom thundered against the use of amulets and charms, as did St. Basil and Epiphanius, which shows that this piece of superstition, of trying to cure diseases without physic, was deeply rooted in the hearts of many Christians. [170]
We here give an enlarged specimen of one of these [98] complicated amulets—an amulet against evil, to act favorably and fortunately. [171]
The emblems are thus made out. ”

“ Any object believed to be possessed of a mysterious power of warding off or removing evil of any kind may be regarded as an amulet. A medical amulet is one capable of warding off or of removing a disease or diseases. The prevention of disease, or, what is much the same thing, the preservation of health, is the use to which it has been chiefly put. ”

“ In the East amulets have from the earliest ages been associated with the belief in evil spirits as the causes of diseases. A talisman may for our purpose be considered as the same thing as an amulet. In Scott’s Tales of the Crusaders, there is one of these charms which has the power of stopping blood and protecting the wearer from hydrophobia. ”

“ An amulet is primarily a portion of a dead man or animal, by which hostile spirits are coerced or their good offices secured.94 The amulet, then, in its original sense, is supposed to concentrate in itself the virtues and powers of the man or animal of which it formed a part. Hence the claws of the tiger, which represent in themselves the innate strength and bravery of the animal, are greatly esteemed for this purpose, and the sportsman, when he shoots a tiger, has to count over the claws carefully to the coolies in charge of the dead animal, or they will certainly misappropriate them. ”

“ In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman. Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? ”

“ Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the girls were making warm frocks for their dolls, for the weather was growing chilly.
'Why, don't you see? It's really not any good our going into the Past looking for that Amulet. The Past's as full of different times as—as the sea is of sand. We're simply bound to hit upon the wrong time. We might spend our lives looking for the Amulet and never see a sight of it. Why, it's the end of September already. It's like looking for a needle in——'
'A bottle of hay—I know,' interrupted Robert ”

“ Thus it may be seen that, with all the educational efforts of the present day, the monster Superstition still lurks here and there in his caves and secret places."120
We find that not only human beings but animals profited by amulets. An amulet is used in the cure of a blind horse which could hardly have helped on the cure by his faith in it. ”

“ In a favorite form of white jade amulet, the stone is cut flat and is then inlaid with rubies in gold settings, so disposed as to indicate a flower-form. Jade amulets of this type are found in China and in various parts of northern Asia, and are believed to guard or free the wearer from palpitation of the heart. ”

“ When a child is born, its friends hunt for its ancestral stone amulet in the place where its mother thinks that she conceived it, and around the nearest rendezvous of discarnate local totemic souls, all of one totem only. ”

“ The modern burglar requires an amulet of a somewhat stronger nature in these prosaic days. A curious charm for warts, used some 400 years ago, was to write on seven little wafers the following words: Maximanus, Walchus, Johannes, Martinianus, Dionysius, Constantius, Serapion, and sing a prescribed incantation first into one ear, then into the other, and then above the patient’s poll, after which a virgin was to hang the incantation around the patient’s neck, when the warts would disappear. Another amulet to charm away warts was an iron ring made from the chain of a gibbet. ”

“ The two magical objects are generally also sharply distinct in their mode of use. The amulet is designed to render protection as effectively as possible against external dangers; it must be visible, for every one must see that its bearer is protected. ”

“ Surakano, that is, twisted iron wire, consecrated by the worshipper of the goddess Machhu, is worn by the Bharvāds round the elbow or the wrist with the belief that it cures wind.
Those people whose children do not live long put silver anklets round their left legs in the belief that by so doing their life is lengthened.63 [140]
An amulet made of a piece of cloth is called dhāga.64 It is either a piece of cloth used by a holy man, a piece of cloth containing a mixture of red lead and oil offered to the god Hanumān,65 or a piece of cloth in which are wrapped up the things put into an amulet. ”