The belief that a mother and her new-born babe are peculiarly at the mercy of malevolent spirits is world-wide. In the fairy tales of Christian Europe the period of danger is terminated by baptism, until which time various precautions, such as burning a light in the chamber, must be observed.[82] In ancient Italy the danger ended when the child received its name, which, as Plutarch (_R. Q._ 103) informs us, was on the ninth day after birth in the case of boys, on the eighth in the case of girls. Until that day a candle was to be kept lighted, and the spirit Candelifera was to be invoked. On that day the child was purified (which indicates an original taboo), and received the _bulla_, mentioned by Plutarch (_R. Q._ 102), to preserve him henceforth from evil spirits and the evil eye. Whether the _bulla_ derived its virtue from the substances which were enclosed in it, as in a box, or from its moon shape, is uncertain. If the latter be the true explanation, we may compare the fact recorded by Plutarch (_R. Q._ 76), _that those who are descended of the most noble and auncient houses of Rome carried little moones upon their shoes_. The daughters of Sion also wore as amulets "round tires like the moon" (Isaiah, iii. 18). The moon-spirit sends disease or takes possession of the person who is "lunatick" or "moon-struck." But the spirit may be deluded, and will enter any moon-shaped object which the person attacked is wearing. The Chaldæans diverted the spirit of disease from the sick man by providing an image in the likeness of the spirit to attract the plague.[83] X.—SYMPATHETIC MAGIC.