If the child be born weak or dying, and the need is therefore imminent, the midwife baptizes it. For which reason she must never be one who is deaf and dumb—nor one who stutters or stammers. Before baptism no one must kiss a new-born infant, seeing that it is still a pagan; which thing would therefore be a sin. In Modica the new-born child is no longer under the protection of the Madonna, but under that of certain mysterious beings called “Le Padrone della Casa.” To ensure this protection the oldest of the women present lays on the table, or the clothes chest, nine black beans in the form of a wedge—repeating between her teeth a doggerel charm, which will prevent “Le Padrone della Casa” from harming the babe or its mother. Others, instead of black beans, put their trust in a reel or winder with two little bits of cane fastened to it crosswise, which they lay on the bed, and which also is certain to prevent all evil handling by these viewless forms. At Marsala, the night after that following the birth, the windows of the room where the infant lies are shut close, a pinch of salt is strewn behind the door, and the light is left burning, so that a certain malignant spirit called ’Nserra may not enter to hurt the new-born. In other places they hide in the woman’s bed—generally under the pillow—a key, or a small ball, or a clove of garlic, or the mother’s thimble, or scissors, all or any of which does the same good office of exorcism as the pinch of salt, and the light left burning. For the first drink, a whole partridge, beak and feet, is put into a pint of water, which is then boiled down to a cupful, and given to the woman as the best restorative art and science can devise. When she is allowed to eat solids she has a chicken, of which she is careful to give the neck to her husband. Were she herself to eat it, her child’s neck would be undeniably weak. When taken to the church to be baptized, the infant, if a boy, is carried on the right arm—if a girl, on the left. In the church the father proper effaces himself as of no account in the proceedings; and the godfather carries off all the honors. The more pompous ceremonial at baptism occurs only at the birth of the first son. The Sicilian proverb has it: “The first son is born a baron.”