Note 342 — Chapter V · THE AGE OF THE JUDGES

The story of the pitchers and torches is pronounced by modern criticism to be a myth, and has been compared with old Egyptian romances like that which described the capture of Joppa in the reign of Thothmes III. by a stratagem similar to that which we read of in the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. But from the point of view of history alone there is no reason for discrediting the narrative. Bedâwin superstition would fully account for the panic and flight if the camp believed that the spirits of the night had attacked them. Indeed similar panics have been known to arise not only among the Bedâwin of the wilderness, but even among disciplined English soldiers.