Note 512 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 6)
Richard Francis Burton translation
The weight would be round: also "Hadíd" (=iron) means sharp or piercing (Koran chapt. vii. 21). The double "swear" is intended to be very serious. Moreover iron conjures away fiends: when a water-spout or a sand-devil (called Shaytán also in Arabia) approaches, you point the index at the Jinn and say, "Iron, O thou ill-omened one!" Amongst the Ancient Egyptians the metal was ill-omened being the bones of Typhon, so here, possibly, we have an instance of early homœopathy—similia similibus.