Note [original edition] : From the mischief of women blowing on knots;]
That is, of witches, who used to tie knots in a cord, and to blow on
them, uttering at the same time certain magical words over them, in order to
work on or debilitate the person they had a mind to injure. This was a common
practice in former days
2: what they call in
France Nouër l’eguillette, and the
knots which the wizards in the northern parts tie, when they sell mariners a
wind, (if the stories told of them be true,) are also relics of the same
superstition.
The commentators relate, that
Lobeid, a
Jew, with the assistance of his
daughters, bewitched
Mohammed, by tying eleven knots on a cord, which they hid
in a well; whereupon
Mohammed falling ill,
God revealed this chapter and the
following, and
Gabriel
acquainted him with the use he was to make of them, and
of the place where the cord was hidden: according to whose directions the
prophet sent
Ali to fetch the cord, and the same being brought, he repeated
the two chapters over it, and at every verse (for they consist of eleven) a
knot was loosed, till on finishing the last words, he was entirely freed from
the charm
3,
Jallal.
4
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2V. Virgil. in Pharmaceutria
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3
Al Beidawi.
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4