INTRODUCTION
My aim in this preface being to afford the untravelled reader of the following stories such a glimpse of the country and people which produced them as may render them intelligible, if not coherent, I shall begin with a glance at the past history of the Holy Land as illustrated in its present folk-lore.
Of Old Testament times the fellahin have countless stories, more or less reminiscent of their religious instruction at the mouth of Greek priest or Moslem Khatib,’ vivified by the incorporation in the text of naive conjectures, points of private humour, and realistic touches from the present day life of the country, which shock the pompous listener as absurd anachronisms. Thus the disguise of a Russian pilgrim *—a figure now commonly to be met with on the road from Jerusalem to the Jordan—is given to Satan when he beguiles the Patriarch Lot (sect. i. chap. vi.) ;and our father Adam has been described to me as sitting under the Tree of Knowledge, “smoking his narghileh.” Nebuchadnezzar and Titus become one person (Bukhtunussur) and the 1 Village preacher and schoolmaster. 2 The Russian Church, and the Coptic, still include a pilgrimage to the Holy Places among the duties of the devout Christian.xi
