r, breaks the charm. It was a prevalent belief that
if a person on catching the first glimpse of new moon, were to instantly
stand still, kiss their hand three times to the moon, and bow to it,
that they would find something of value before that moon was out. Such
practices are evidently survivals of moon worship. How closely does this
last practice agree with what Job says (chap. xxxi, 26),--"If I beheld
the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart
hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also
were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge: for I should have denied
the God that is above."

The good influence of the fasting spittle in destroying the influence of
an evil eye has been already referred to in the previous pages, but it
was also esteemed a potent remedy in curing certain diseases. To moisten
a wart for several days in succession with the fasting spittle removes
it. I have often seen a nurse bathe the eyes of a baby in the morning
with her fasting spittle, to cure or prevent sore eyes. I have heard the
same cure recommended for roughness of the skin and other skin diseases.
Maimonides states that the Jews were expressly forbidden by their
traditions to put fasting-spittle upon the eyes on the Sabbath day,
because to do so was to perform work, the great Sabbath crime in the
eyes of the Pharisees which Christ committed when he moistened the clay
with his spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man therewith on the
Sabbath day. To both Greeks and Romans the fasting spittle was a charm
against fascination. Persius Flaccus says:--"A grandmother or a
superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his
forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action of
her middle finger and her purifying spittle." Here we find that it is
not the spittle alone, but the joint action of the spittle and the
middle finger which works the influence. The middle finger was commonly,
in the early years of this century, believed to possess a favourable
influence on sores; or, rather, it might be more correct to say that it
possessed no damaging influence, while all the other fingers, in coming
into contact with a sore, were held to have a tendency to defile, to
poison, or canker the wound. I have heard it asserted that doctors know
this, and never touch a sore but with the mid-finger.

There were other practices and notions appertaining to the spittle