Superstitions by the score, common to those of different faiths, might be discovered among the people, such as the cutting of the hair and the hanging of an egg and garlic, and perhaps also blue glass bracelets, over the doorway of a new house. Some peasants will not eat food which another man has desired lest harm might come of it. “For,” they say, “the soul of the man who wished the food has entered into it.” If a man takes food in his hands to eat, and the food falls, he will say that it was not meant that he should eat it. Fear of evil spirits or, more specifically, of the evil eye, is an ever-present dread. It seems to arise from the notion that too much prosperity, health, pleasure or any good thing, or the signs of such, may arouse malignant activity on the part of some jealous spirit. An appearance of poverty, of forlorn misery, even of uncleanness, especially in a child, is thought to lessen the likelihood of unwelcome attention from the evilly-disposed spirit. Blue beads and blue tattoo marks on the face are utilized to avert the evil eye. The evil eye may be in the steady gaze or stare of a stranger, or in his photographic camera, which the more ignorant dodge fearsomely. It is common for women to pray for offspring, and there is great faith in visits to certain shrines and localities for this object.[112] The warm springs at Tiberias on Lake Galilee are looked upon as peculiarly efficacious bathing places for barren women. ----- ----- It may be said of every site of Old Testament times, that is known or supposed to be known, and of many later sites, including crusading remains, that the superstitious reverence of the peasantry clings to them. Add to these the shrines of modern origin, departed Moslem shaykhs and holy men, dervishes and the insane, which are often revered as devoutly by Christians as by Moslems, and one begins to recognize the existence of powerful religious influences quite independent of the teachings of Christianity or Islâm. Even that temper of mind known as fatalism, and ascribed particularly to the Moslems, is a common characteristic of all the peasantry. The belief in a set and immutable time to die, for example, is as firmly held by many Christian peasants as by Moslems. One also meets the conviction that early death is the special mark of heaven’s disfavor, and that the pious need not expect it. After the death of a young man who had emigrated to America, and while gloom hung over the village because of it, I was talking with an old man, a Greek Christian, whose sons contemplated going to America. He said that as he, with all his family, was devout, he had no fear that his sons would die in America. He believed that no harm could befall those who did right and observed prayers.[113] ----- -----