Note 143 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

So, there are days which are lucky and unlucky. A Persian couplet lays down that one should not go east on Saturday and Monday; west on Friday and Sunday; north on Tuesday and Wednesday; south on Thursday. Even Lord Burghley advised his son to be cautious as regards the first Monday in April, when Cain was born and Abel slain; the second Monday in August, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; the last Monday in December, which was the birthday of Judas. Akbar laid down that the clothes which came into his wardrobe on the first day of the month Farwardîn were unlucky.143 The way some people get over omens of this kind is to send some article ahead of the traveller on the unlucky day, which absorbs the ill omen, which would otherwise have fallen upon him.