Note 246 — THE TALE OF THE WARLOCK AND THE YOUNG COOK OF BAGHDAD.

This is a specimen of the Islamised Mantra called in Sanskrit Stambhaná and intended to procure illicit intercourse. Herklots has printed a variety of formulæ which are popular throughout southern India: even in the Maldive Islands we find such “Fandita” (i.e. Panditya, the learned Science) and Mr. Bell (Journ., Ceylon Br. R. A. S. vii. 109) gives the following specimen, “Write the name of the beloved; pluck a bud of the screwpine (here a palette de mouton); sharpen a new knife; on one side of the bud write the Surat al-Badr (chapter of Power, No. xxi., thus using the word of Allah for Satan’s purpose); on the other side write Vajahata; make an image out of the bud; indite particulars of the horoscope; copy from beginning to end the Surat al-Rahmán (the Compassionating, No. xlviii.); tie the image in five places with coir left-hand-twisted (i.e. widdershins or ‘against the sun’); cut the throat of a blood-sucker (lizard); smear its blood on the image; place it in a loft; dry it for three days; then take it and enter the sea. If you go in knee-deep the woman will send you a message; if you go in to the waist she will visit you. (The Voyage of François Pyrard, etc., p. 179.) I hold all these charms to be mere instruments for concentrating and intensifying the brain action called Will, which is and which presently will be recognised as the chief motor-power.” See Suppl. vol. iii.