. Southey, it may be remembered, in his "Thalaba, the
Destroyer," has placed it in the hands of the enchanter, King Mohareb,
when he would lull to sleep Zohak, the giant keeper of the Caves of
Babylon. And the history of this wonder-working talisman, as used by
Mohareb, is thus graphically told:

Thus he said,
And from his wallet drew a human hand,
Shrivelled and dry and black.
And fitting, as he spake,
A taper in his hold,
Pursued: "A murderer on the stake had died.
I drove the vulture from his limbs and lopt
The hand that did the murder, and drew up
The tendon strings to close its grasp,
And in the sun and wind
Parched it, nine weeks exposed."

From the many accounts given of this "Dead Hand," we gather that it
has generally been considered necessary that the hand should be taken
from a man who has been put to death for some crime. Then, when dried
and prepared with certain weird unguents, it is ready for use. Sir
Walter Scott, in the "Antiquary" has introduced this object of
superstition, making the German adventurer, Dousterswivel, describe it
to the assembled party among the ruins at St. Ruth's thus jocosely:
"De Hand of Glory is very well known in de countries where your worthy
progenitors did live; and it is a hand cut off from a dead man as he
has been hanged for murder, and dried very nice in de smoke of juniper
wood; then you do take something of de fatsh of de bear, and of de
badger, and of de great eber (as you do call ye grand boar), and of de
little sucking child as has not been christened (for dat is very
essential), and you do make a candle, and put into de Hand of Glory at
de proper hour and minute, with the proper ceremonials; and he who
seeketh for treasures shall never find none at all."

Possessed of these mystic qualities, such a hand could not fail to
find favour with those engaged in any kind of evil and enterprise;
and, on account of its lulling to sleep all persons within the circle
of its influence, was of course held invaluable by thieves and
burglars. Thus the case is recorded of some thieves, who, a few years
ago, attempted to commit a robbery on a certain estate in the county
Meath. To quote a contemporary account of the affair, it appears that
"they entered the house armed with a dead man's hand, with a lighted
candle in it, believing in the superstitious notion that a candle
placed in a dead man's hand will not be