account for the superstitious aversion to iron entertained by kings and priests and attributed by them to the gods; possibly this aversion may have been intensified in places by some such accidental cause as the series of bad seasons which cast discredit on iron ploughshares in Poland. But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and their ministers has another side. The very fact that iron is deemed obnoxious to spirits furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned against the spirits when occasion serves. As their dislike of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not approach persons and things protected by the obnoxious metal, iron may obviously be employed as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And it often is so used. Thus when Scotch fishermen were at sea, and one of them happened to take the name of God in vain, the first man who heard him called out “Cauld airn,” at which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of iron and held it between his hands for a while.[1] In Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick man’s pillow.[2] In India “the mourner who performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person’s mouth carries with him a piece of iron: it may be a key or a knife, or a simple piece of iron, and during the whole time of his separation (for he is unclean for a certain time, and no one will either touch him or eat or drink with him, neither can he change his clothes[3]) he carries the piece of iron about with
- ↑ E. J. Guthrie, Old Scottish Customs, p. 149; Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scotland (London, 1886), iii. 218.
- ↑ A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors, p. 273.
- ↑ The reader may observe how closely the taboos laid upon mourners resemble those laid upon kings. From what has gone before the reason of the resemblance is obvious.
