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Updated: May 17, 2025
There is something more understandable about love tokens, for we can tell their purpose, and indeed to-day, stripped of the charm which was often supposed to go with them, love tokens are given, received, and valued just as much as they were in the past. Amulets.
Read next the opinion of John Lightfoot, D.D., Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge: ... Let two things only be observed: That the nation under the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure; and that it was given to an easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure ... It is a disputable case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superstition in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts: There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed more to dreams than they; there was hardly any people in the whole world that more used, or were more fond of amulets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments.
In five weeks, says my Lord, they were all removed. The following are his Lordship's observations, in his own words, relative to the power of amulets.
This textile is a speciality of Ambrym, and serves especially for the preparation and wrapping of masks and amulets. Its manufacture is simple: a man walks through the woods with a split bamboo, and catches all the innumerable spider-webs hanging on the trees.
The chiefs, in like manner, while they testified no repugnance to avail themselves of the protection promised from the wearing of crucifixes and images of the Virgin, were unprepared to part with the enchanted rings and other pagan amulets with which they had been accustomed to form a panoply round their persons.
Engraved stones, generally in the shape of scarabs, seem to have been largely imported from Egypt into Assyria, where they were probably used either as amulets or as seals.
Bringing forth strange-looking phials, covered with cabalistic signs, a crystal globe and an astro-labe, followed by an imposing scroll of parchment inscribed with mysterious Hebraic-looking characters, the travelling student would probably drive a roaring trade amongst the assembled townsmen in love-philtres, cures for the ague and the plague, and amulets against them, horoscopes, predictions of fate, and the rest of his stock-in-trade.
I have spent several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings, carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with a shorter blade than usual.
She lifted the light cover and found, first, a few dried flowers; then a ball, round which some skilful hand had wreathed roses and leaves, once fresh and bright, now, alas, long ago dead and withered. Beside these were a number of amulets in different forms, one representing the goddess of truth, another containing spells written on a strip of papyrus and concealed in a little golden case.
We were invited to sit down, a crowd of blacks assembled, and the elders of the tribe arrived. Lastly appeared a tall young man wearing a blue cotton shirt and trousers, with amulets strung round his neck, and a sceptre covered with a tigerskin in his hand. This was Pepel himself. He understood English and spoke it a little. We had what is called in those parts a palaver with him.
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