Throughout the country, and more especially in the neighbourhood of Cairo, at the time of harvest, the last sheaf, called el-‘arûsa, “the bride,” is carried to the village separately in a sort of procession with shouts of joy. Its name carries us back to Pharaonic times and “the bride of the Nile.” A precisely similar custom is still observed at Charlton in Oxfordshire, where the image of “Our Lady” is dressed up in flowers and after being paraded through the village placed on the rood-screen of the church.
In remote villages in Egypt the fellahin on New Year’s day still go in procession with Abu Nerûs or “Father Christmas,” who wears a long beard and rides a donkey, demanding imaginary taxes and debts at the houses on the way.
Near Asyut is a monastery with land dedicated to S. George. A man once stole the carrots growing in it, but after eating he found that his stomach was distended and that the carrots lay in it in a heap. Nothing alleviated his pains till he asked pardon of S. George. The Saint told him that if the lessee of the land forgave him he would do the same; the lessee consented and the man was cured.
In Southern Egypt the shifts of the workers at the shadûf are timed by a sun-dial made of a stick or reed with three notches, upon which the shadow of the sun falls when it is fixed to the shadûf. In Central Egypt a jar filled with water is used; when all the water has dripped out of the jar through a small hole the man’s shift is ended. Further north, in the neighbourhood of Cairo, the land is (or was) divided into small basins; when one of these was filled with water the man’s shift was terminated.
Among the Copts of the Delta, if a child were ill, the mother, however rich, would put on a beggar’s dress and go out begging, the money so received being devoted to the cure of the child. The same custom is described by Ohnefalsch-Richter (Griechische Sitten und Gebraüche auf Cypern, p. 326) as in use in Cyprus: if a child cannot
