Draa River

When an inhabitant of the Orkney Islands wishes to obtain an amulet, he applies either to a farrier or to his son or grandson, and the Romanian Gypsies are mostly blacksmiths, their wives obtaining a livelihood by mendicancy, the practice of divination, and the interpretation of dreams, while both men and women are thought to have the faculty of summoning to their aid powerful spirits of the air.

In Morocco at the present day, there still exists a community of dwarfish artisans, workers in metals, magicians, and adepts in the healing art, who make little books which are used as portable amulets, and the Haratin, who inhabit the Draa Valley, seem it sinful even to mention by name these dwarves, whom they consider entitled to extraordinary respect.

Each member of this mysterious tribe of pygmy smiths is said to wear a haik, or outer garment, having upon the back a representation of an eye, a symbol suggestive of the Cyclops of old.

There was, indeed, as we have seen, a common opinion throughout a great part of Europe that the earliest smiths were supernatural beings, for it was reasoned that the marvelous process of melting and fashioning iron could not have been conceived by man, but must have originated through magical agencies.

In Morocco at the present day, there still exists a community of dwarfish artisans, workers in metals, magicians, and adepts in the healing art, who make little books which are used as portable amulets.

And the Haratin, who inhabit the Draa Valley, seem it sinful even to mention by name these dwarves, whom they consider entitled to extraordinary respect.

Each member of this mysterious tribe of pygmy smiths is said to wear a haik, or outer garment, having upon the back a representation of an eye, a symbol suggestive of the Cyclops of old.

There was indeed, as we have seen, a common opinion throughout a great part of Europe that the earliest smiths were supernatural beings, for it was reasoned that the marvelous process of melting and fashioning iron could not have been conceived by man, but must have originated through magical agencies.