“Many centuries ago a certain peasant went to cut wood in a forest near the city of Hamadan. This he had been wont to do every winter in order to eke out his livelihood, during the cold weather, as is still the custom among the peasantry in our parts. Now, it chanced that his axe struck against a branch of a talh’ which, as it happened, was in the way of the tree he was felling. To his consternation a stream of blood oozed out, followed by cries the most pitiable he had ever heard. They seemed, in their distressful anguish, to come from the heart of a mother that had lost her child. The axe fell from the peasant’s hand, and he himself sank to the ground in a faint. When he recovered consciousness it was to look for the talh’ ... only to find it gone! He returned to the city as fast as his legs would carry him and there he told his story, which was spread abroad among the people. And from that day to this the wood of the talh’ has been regarded as sacred. Children use it in the place of mázús, and barren women, if they hang a chip of it above their beds for the space of forty consecutive Fridays, will bear children in due course. This is so.” Here the guide, Seyyid ’Alí, interrupted the speaker, saying: “Light of my heart, thou speakest the truth. In my country, in the town of Behbehan, near Shíráz, we have a famous way of protecting our women folk against the attacks of Aal--that cursed ogress who comes to cut out the liver of every mother after the birth of her child. First we draw four lines round the walls of the house; then at each of the four corners we plant a branch of the talh’ tree; and a dagger, with an onion atop, is stuck in the ground facing the door. This is the only possible way of keeping Aal out--may she be accursed!”