"'My son, how dost thou not know? What should I teach thee? What I know, thou also knowest. But come hither, my son Meridug. Take a bucket, fill it with water from the mouth of the rivers; impart to this water thy exalted magic power; sprinkle with it the man, son of his god, ... wrap up his head, ... and on the highway pour it out. May insanity be dispelled! that the disease of his head vanish like a phantom of the night. May Ea's word drive it out! May Damkina heal him.'" 15. Another dialogue of the same sort, in which Ea is consulted as to the means of breaking the power of the Maskim, ends by his revealing that "The white cedar is the tree which breaks the Maskim's noxious might." In fact the white cedar was considered an infallible defence against all spells and evil powers. Any action or ceremony described in the conjuration must of course be performed even as the words are spoken. Then there is a long one, perhaps the best preserved of all, to be recited by the sufferer, who is supposed to be under the effects of an evil spell, and from which it is evident that the words are to accompany actions performed by the conjurer. It is divided into parallel verses, of which the first runs thus: "As this onion is being peeled of its skins, thus shall it be of the spell. The burning fire shall consume it; it shall no more be planted in a row, ... the ground shall not receive its root, its head shall contain no seed and the sun shall not take care of it;--it shall not be offered at the feast of a god or a king.--The man who has cast the evil spell, his eldest son, his wife,--the spell, the lamentations, the transgressions, the written spells, the blasphemies, the sins,--the evil which is in my body, in my flesh, in my sores,--may they all be destroyed as this onion, and may the burning fire consume them this day! May the evil spell go far away, and may I see the light again!" Then the destruction of a date is similarly described: "It shall not return to the bough from which it has been plucked." The untying of a knot: "Its threads shall not return to the stem which has produced them." The tearing up of some wool: "It shall not return to the back of its sheep." The tearing of some stuff, and after each act the second verse: "The man who has cast the spell," etc. is repeated.