1 The 2 lines of text read "I am thankful before You, Merciful and Gracious King, for You have restored (or: Who restores)." This perhaps served as a kavanah, or meditation, during the writing of the lines, reflecting the desired outcome of the inquiry. [All mss. illustrated are from the author's collection]

2 tisym hlbq - kabbalah maÐasit

3 Yemen (Nmit - Teman) semi-cursive. The Mashait style, which is not confined to Yemen, is that "generally used as a book-hand for non-Biblical, non-Talmudical and non-liturgical texts." (S.A. Birnbaum: The Hebrew Scripts, Leiden 1971. I:366)

4 isr btk - A Sephardic Mashait script used as a Rabbinic book font, identified with the printed works of Rashi. (Rashi was an Ashkenazic Jew, and did not write in a Sephardic script.)

5 ibry Nvsl - lashon Ðarvi

6 yimq -qameÐa. Text is instructions for the amulet writer.

7 hyr cvr - ruach raÐah. The page is written in Hebrew, though the first 4 words of the first line are the only words on that page which are not magic Names. The amulet continues on the overleaf.

8 tvpvqt - Solstices and equinoxes

9 tvlvgS pl. of hlvgS - segulah. Jewish magical remedies, generally involving the writing or speaking of magical Names, and the performance of some action, with instructions regarding wearing the amulet (eg. on the right arm, etc).

10 The "explicit" Names of God, called in the ms. Misdvqmh tvms - shemot ham-mekodeshim ("holy Names"), mainly derived from Biblical verses altered through kabbalistic methods.

11 From at latest the 2rd century CE, Jews migrated to Arabia from Palestine and made their way south to the Yemen.

12 Milaymsih isdc - chad'she hay-yishmÐa'elim

13 Tbs - Fifth month of the Jewish calendar.

14 Hos 2:11; Isa 1:14, et al. In the New Testament, cf. Col 2:16

15 b. Soferim XVII-XX.

16 b. Soferim XX:2.

17 Siddur Sefat Emet, New York (n.d.) 266. The modern Jewish prayerbook omits the opening wishes for luck ("an auspicious omen."), leaving it, in slightly different form (as above), to follow the greetings of peace.

18 b. Soferim XX:1; cf: b. Shab. 150a Kitzur Shulchan Arukh 90:4,6

19 b. Rosh hash-shana 21b, 22a. These actions are normally restricted on the Sabbath.

20 ibid. 23b

21 b. Niddah 38a-b; R. Yehudah ben Eliezer (he-Chassid): Sefer Chassidim (Bologna recension), Frankfurt 1924. 955

22 Kitzur Shulchan Arukh 90:4,6

23 The Roman New Moon, kalends, is equivalent to the ancient Greek noumênía. In antiquity, the kalends of January was announced by the Pontifex Maximus, in much the same spirit as was Rosh Chodesh by the High Priest or Head of the Sanhedrin.

24 Cotton Tiberius A, III: 34r, 39v. Cited in Thorndike: History of Magic and Experimental Science, New York 1923. I:677-8

25 Pliny the Elder: Naturalis Historia II, 1

26 De Monarchia I,1:14

27 Antiq. III,7:7

28 Nvi - cf. Gen 10:2

29 Nvdba - abbadon

30 It would be interesting to compare an Islamic recension, a possible immediate source for the Jewish.

31 tpcs - shachephet

32 Client people under Muslim rule, notably Christians and Jews.

33 Or "gate" (rys - shaÐar). Denotes a title page, or section heading in a book. Its Arabic equivalent is bab - bab, often found before each entry in Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts of segulot.

34 Harvest time.

35 While it does snow occasionally in Yemen's higher altitudes, this mention of heavy snows suggests a temperate provenance for the manuscript's source.

36 riia - Eighth month of the Jewish calendar. Spring generally begins during the previous month, NSin - Nisan.

37 Millvybv Midlib - Bay-yeladim u-baÐolelim. Ðolelim may also mean unborn children, as well as young unformed grapes or gleanings. (Jastrow: A Dictionary of the Targumim, The Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. 1051)