Note 478 — TALE OF NÚR AL-DÍN ALÍ & HIS SON BADR AL-DÍN HASAN (continued 2)

Arab. "La'abat"=a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane (i. 326) conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a man with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas of mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and ignominious punishment. (Koran, chapt. vii.)