Note 106 — The Fifth Book.
Reading edition
No nation in the world is so much given to superstition as the Arabs, or even as the Mahometans in general. They hung about their children’s necks the figure of an open hand, which the Turks and Moors paint upon their ships and houses, as an antidote and counter-charm to an evil eye: For five is with them an unlucky number and five (fingers perhaps) in your eyes, is their proverb of cursing and defiance. Those who are grown up, carry always about with them some paragraph or other of their Koran, which, like as the Jews did their phylacteries, they place upon their breast, or sow under their caps, to prevent fascination and witchcraft, and to secure themselves from sickness and misfortunes. The virtue of these charms and scrolls is supposed likewise to be so far universal, that they suspend them upon the necks of their cattle, horses and other beasts of burthen.
Shaw.
The hand-spell is still common in Portugal, it is called the figa, and thus probably our vulgar phrase “a fig for him” is derived from a Moorish amulet.