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A-OUATTERLY: REVIEW.

Wert -TRADITION, INSTITUTION, & CUSTOM
BEING
THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

And incorporating THE ARCHEOLOGICAL REVIEW and
THE FOLK-LORE JOURNAL

VOL. X.—18g9.

Alter et Idem.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY BY

Dawe NU lero, STRAND

1899.

[XLIV. |]

PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS

PARLIAMENT MANSIONS,

ORCHARD ST., VICTORIA ST., S.W.

CONTENTS.

I.—(Marcu 1899.)

Australian Gods: a Reply. ANDREW Lance, M.A.
Australian Gods: Rejoinder. E. Sipney HaRTLAND
Proceedings at Meeting of Tuesday, November r5th, 1898
Proceedings at Meeting of Tuesday, December zoth, 1898
Proceedings at Meeting of Wednesday, January 18th, 1899
Annual Report of the Council .

Presidential Address : Britain and Folklore. ALFRED Nurr

II.—(JUNE 1899.)

Ethnological Data in Folklore: a Criticism. G. L. Gomme, F.S.A

Ethnological Data in Folklore: a Reply. ALFRED Nutt

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. W.H. Ὁ. Rouse, M.A. .

Christmas Mummers at Rugby. W. H. ἢ. Rouse, M.A.

Sgaktktquaclt, or the Benign-Faced, the Oannes of the Ntlaka-
pamuq. C. Hill-Tout .

IIJ.—(SEPTEMBER 1899.)

Proceedings at Meeting of Wednesday, February 15th, 1899

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. Muss A. GOODRICH-
FREER : : : :

The Tar-Baby Story. Miss ΤᾺ WERNER

Proceedings at Meeting of Wednesday, March 1 sth, 1899

Japanese Myth. W.G. Aston, C.M.G..

Proceedings at Meeting of Wednesday, April 19th, 1899 .

TV.—(DECEMBER. 1899.)

The Place of Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. F. B.
Jevons, M.A., Litt. D. 4 . .

Proceedings at ‘Meeting of Wednesday, May 17th, 1899 °

The Folklore in the Legends of the BaP: Lieut-Col. R. C.
TEMPLE, C.1.E. F .

lv Contents.

Proceedings at Meeting of Wednesday, June 21st, 1899 .
Proceedings at Meeting of Tuesday, June 27th, 1899 :
Complimentary Dinner to Prof. Starr, Monday, June 26th, 1899.

REVIEWS :—

Lieutenant-General Pitt Rivers’ Excavations in Cranborne

Chase. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND

Léon Pineau’s Les Vieux Chants Populatres " Scandinaves. Z

Les Chants de Magie. ALFRED NUTT

Fletcher Moss’ folklore: Old Customs and Ti ales of my

Neighbours

Giuseppe Rua’s Z7ra Antiche Fiabe e Novelle. Site « Piacevoli

Notti” di Straparola. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND
E. J. Davis’ Osmanli Proverbs and Quaint Sayings

D. Comparetti’s Zhe Traditional Poetry of the Finns, translated

by Isabella M. Anderton. Hon. J. ABERCROMBY
George St. Clair’s Creation Records discovered in Egypt

Eleanor Hull’s Zhe Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature:

Prof. F. YorK POWELL

Henri A. Junod’s Les Chants et les Contes des Baronga. Miss

A. WERNER .

Henri A. Junod’s Les Ba-ronga. Etude “Ethnographique.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND

Baron Carra de Vaux’s L’ Abrégé ὭΣ ΤΣ ΩΣ: ἜΣ de oe eer

J. BRuyn ANDREWS .

Mrs. K. Langloh Parker’s More Australian Legendary Tales.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND

B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen’s “The Native Tribes of Central

Australia. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND
F. Hindes Groome’s Gypsy Folk-tales. ALFRED Nourr

A. M. Alcovers <Afplech de Rondayes Mallorquines. 5

SIDNEY HARTLAND

E. C. Ellice’s Place-names in Glengi carry and ‘Glenquoich and

their Origin. W. A. CRAIGIE .

F. Ethel Hynam’ s The Secrets of the Night and other Esthonian

Tales. W.F. KiRBy

Hon. J. Abercromby’s Zhe Pre- and Proto- ‘Historic Finns.

CHARLES J. BILLSON’

P. Sébillot’s Lzttérature Orale “de ? Auvergne, Miss Mabe

PEACOCK

E. Clodd’s Tom Tit Tot: An Essay on Savage Philosoph ay in

Folktale. YE. SIDNEY HARTLAND

Mrs. Gomme’s Zhe Traditional Games of England, : Scotland,

and Ireland. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND

PAGE

443
444
445

Contents.

R. Brown’s Semitic Influences in Hellenic Mythology and Re-
searches tnto the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the
Greeks, Phenicians, and Babylonians. W. CROOKE ᾿

J. Curtin’s Creation Myths of Primitive America. ALFRED
NuItT : : : : Ἶ

Andrew Lang’s Myth, Ritual, and Religion. EE. SIDNEY
HARTLAND .

R. Blakeborough’s Wit, Character, Folklore, ‘and Customs of
the North Riding of Vorkshire, Miss FLORENCE PEACOCK.
Bye-gones relating to Wales and the Border Counties. Vol. V.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND : :

Miss M. H. Kingsley’s West African Studies. E. SIDNEY
HARTLAND . ἶ

5. Bugge’s Zhe Home ‘of the Eddie Poems. ‘Pror. F. York
POWELL : : : :

R. M. Lawrence’s Zhe Magic of the Horseshoe. Miss FLORENCE
PEACOCK :

P. Sébillot’s Légendes Locales de la Haute Bretagne. 7: Le Monde
Physique, and Le Veillée de Noél. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND
W. A. Craigie’s Scandinavian Folk-lore. ῬΈΟΡ. E. YorK

POWELL

J. Thorkelsson’s Pibdsiicur og ΠΕΣ LVytt sae Tr PRor.
πε POWELL | ~

N. Marr’s Zhe Fables of Wardan. F.C. ConvBEARE .

T. F. Thiselton Dyer’s Old English Social Life as told by the
Parish Registers. EE. SIDNEY HARTLAND

M. Héfler’s Deutsches Krankhettsnamen-Buch. ἘΝ SIDNEY
HARTLAND :

CORRESPONDENCE :—

Holy Week Observance in the Abruzzi. GRANT ALLEN
The Game of Green Gravel. ALFRED R. PAGE

NVotes on the Folklore of the Fyort. R. E. DENNETT
Kitty-Witches. Dr. W. ZuIDEMA : :

Mr. St. Clair’s Creation Records. Gro. ST. CLAIR
Death-Warnings. ΜΆΡΕΙ, PEACOCK

Wind- and Weather-Holes. ΜΆΑΒΕΙ, PEACOCK
Christmas Mummers. FLORENCE GROVE

White Cattle in British Folktales and Customs. ΚΕ. HEDGER

WALLACE :
Lincoln Minster, Lincoln College, Oxford, and the Devil.
GREY Huser SKIPWITH . : :
Wall-Burial. Dr. W. ZurpEMA and M. ἘΝ
The Little Red Hen. ΜάΑΒει, PEACOCK

PAGE

Bibliography

Contents.

Days of the Week Z : :
The Nibelung Treasure in English. Lewis F. Morr and

ΞΕ KER . : - : :
Burial Customs. J. P. EMSUE.

ISCELLANEA :—

To discover a Drowned Body

Midnight Children. FLORENCE PrAcock

Auguries : : ὃ :

Irish Folklore. The Little Red Hen. PuHILIP REDMOND

— Method of starting a New House in the Olden
Times. The Couvade ? LELAND L. DuNcAN

Traditions and Superstitions collected at Kilcurry, County Louth
Ireland. Bryan J. Jones, W. B. YEATS

Superstitions relating to the Newt. EpwarpD Pracock, FSA.

A Sicilian Festival. H. ΡΟΝ Carr

Burial Customs. G. J. Watts, R. M. Nason, Mrs. - HoopER

Some Wexford Folklore. PHILIP REDMOND

More Notes from Cyprus. F. O. Harvey

Cure for Ague. M. H. James ; : :

Superstition regarding Women. Ῥ. H. Emerson, and.
ἘΠῚ s : :

Exposition Universelle (Paris) de 1900. :

Dorset Folklore collected in 1897. Η. CoLLEy Marcu

A Crown of ‘Thorns. M. PEAcocK : 3

Australian Religion. A- LANG : :

Folktales from the Greek Islands. W. R. Paton

Index

LIST OF MEMBERS

List ΟΕ PLATES :—

I. Sketch Map of Kilcurry and Neighbour-
hood. . ; : Ξ . Zo face page
II. Christmas Mummers, Newbold. The
Fight : : : : τῷ
III. Christmas Mummers. Slaying of the
Turkish Knight cs 4 : τ

124, 255, 367,

PAGE

110
188

190

Contents.

IV. Christmas Mummers. Moll Finney, Dr.

Brown, Big Head and Little Wits . Lo face page

V. Christmas Mummers. Humpty Jack
VI. Christmas Mummers. Beelzebub and
Father Christmas : : ς
VII. Oxen Ploughing on the Cotswolds:
Elkstone, 1897 . . Lrontispiece

VIII. May Ladies, King’s Lynn, 1894. . To face page

ERRATA.

Page 61, line 25, insert Mr. W. H. D. Rouse.
Page 95, line 31, for Zeon read Léon.
Page 123, note 2, line 4, for /re/and read Lce/and.

Vil
PAGE

Ig!

192

pts fs,

443

Page 174, lines 25, 26, for LZmmaculate Conception read An-

nunciation.

Page 186, note, line 1, for ΖΦ: L. /. vol. it., pp. 88-89 read

E.L. Record, vol. tit., part t., pp. 87-90.

The Folk-Lore Society.

(1899.)

President.
E. S. HARTLAND, F.S.A.

Vice-PBrestvents.

THE HON. JOHN ABERCROMBY.

MISS C. 5. BURNE.

EDWARD CLODD.

G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.

ANDREW LANG, M.A., LL.D.

THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P., D.C.1.,
LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., F.LS.

ALFRED NUTT.

Lt.-GEN. PITT-RIVERS, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., F.R.G.S.

PROFESSOR F. YORK POWELL, M.A., F. S.A

PROFESSOR J. RHYS, M.A., ΤΠ Β.5.Α.

THE REV. PROFESSOR A. H. SAYCE , M.A., LL.D., D.D.

ἘΠ): Fy adele

aa
PROFESSOR EDWARD B. TYLOR, LI Fy LD OG: S.
Counctl,

C. J. BILLSON, M.A. PROF. A. C. HADDON, M.A., D.Sc.
DR. KARL BLIND. T. W. E. HIGGENS.
H. C. BOWEN, M.A. JOSEPH JACOBS, B.A.
F. C. CONYBEAREH, M.A. F. B. JEVONS, M.A., Litt.D.
J. E. CROMBIE. PROF. W. P. KER, M.A.
W. CROOKEH, B.A. A. F. MAJOR.
LELAND L. DUNCAN, F:S.A. T. FAIRMAN ORDISH, F.S.A.
J. P. EMSLIB. W.H. D. ROUSE, M.A.
T. GOWLAND. HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.\S.A.
MISS F. GROVE. A. R. WRIGHT.

Hon. Treasurer.
E, W. BRABROOK, C.B., F.S.A., 178, Bedford Hill, Balham, S.W

Hon. Auditor.
F. G. GREEN.

Secretary.
F, A. MILNE, M.A., 11, Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn, London, W.C.

Standing Committees:
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE.
THE PRESIDENT (Chairman); G. L. GOMME (Vice-Chairman); FE. K.
CHAMBERS ; MISS M. ROALFE COX; W. CROOKE; PROFESSOR W.
P. KER; A. NUTT.
BIBLIOGRAPHY COMMITTEE.
6.1. GOMME (Chairman) ; L. L. DUNCAN; J. JACOBS; W.F. KIRBY ;
J. T. NAAKE.

MUSEUM COMMITTEE.
G. L. GOMME (Chairman); J. P. EMSLIE; ARTHUR J. EVANS;
T. GOWLAND; MISS M. C. FFENNELL; A. R. WRIGHT.

The President and Treasurer are ex-officio members of all Committees

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il Officers and Members.

MEMBERS (corrected to February, 1899).

The letter c. placed before a Member’s name indicates that he or she has
compounded.

Abercromby, Hon. J., 62, Palmerston Place, Edinburgh ( Vice-President).
Aberdeen Public Library, per A. W. Robertson, Esq, M.A., Librarian.
Aberdeen University Library, per P. J. Anderson, Esq., Librarian.
Addy, 5. O., Esq., M.A., George Street, Sheffield.
Aldenham, Right Hon. Lord, St. Dunstan’s, Regent’s Park, N.W.
Allsopp, Hon. A. Percy, Battenhall Mount, near Worcester.
? Amersbach, Prof. K., Baden Baden, Germany.
it Amery, P. F. S., Esq., Druid, Ashburton, Devon.
Amsterdam, the Univ. Library of, per Kirberger & Kesper, Booksellers,
Amsterdam.
André, J. Lewis, Esq., Sarcelles, Horsham.
c. Andrews, J. B., Esq., Reform Club, Pall Mall, S.W.
Anichkoy, Professor E., Imperial University of Vladimir, Kief.
Antiquaries, the Society of, Burlington House, W.
Arnold, Professor E. V., 10, Bryn Seiriol, Bangor,
Asher, 5. G., Esq., 89, Wigmore Street, W.
Aston, G. F., Esq., 52, Tregunter Road, South Kensington, S.W.

Backhouse, Jonathan H., Esq., Bank, Darlington.
Balfour, C. B., Esq., Newton Don, Kelso, N.B.
Balfour, Mrs. M. C., St. Villa du Calvaire, St. Servan, France.
Ballantyne, W., Esq., 2298, South 43rd Court, Chicago, Ill, U.S.A.
Barwell, J. W., Esq., Waukegan, Ills., U.S.A.
Basset, Mons. René, L’ Agha, 77, Rue Michelet, Algiers.
t Beauchamp, Right Hon. the Earl, Madresfield Court, Great Malvern.
Beer, W., Esq., Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans, U.S.A.
Bell, Sir J., 101, Vincent Street, Glasgow.
Berlin Royal Library, per Asher and Co., 13, Bedford Street, Covent
Garden, W.C.
Besant, Sir Walter, Frognal End, Hampstead, N.W
Billson, C. J., Esq., M.A., St. John’s Lodge, Clarendon Park Road,
Leicester.
Birmingham Free Library, care of J, D. Mullins, Esq., Ratcliffe Place,
Birmingham.
Birmingham Library, care of C. E. Scarse, Esq., Librarian, Union Street,
Yirmingham.
Black, G. F., Esq., New York Public Library, Lafayette Place, N.Y., U.S.A
Blind, Dr. Karl, 3, Winchester Road, South Hampstead, N.W.

Officers and Members. ii

Bolitho, J. R., Esq., Trengwainton, Hea Moor, R.S.O. Cornwall.

Bonaparte, Prince Roland, 10, Avenue d’Iéna, Paris.

Bordeaux University Library, per M. Jules Seelman, 2, Rue Antoine-Dubois,
Paris.

Boston Athenzum, The, Boston, U.S.A., per Kegan Paul, Trench, Tribner,
& Co., Ld., Charing Cross Road, W.C.

Boston Public Library (Mass.), U.S.A., per G. ἘΦ. Stechert, 2, Star Yard,
Carey Street, W.C.

Bourdillon, F. W., Esq., M.A., Buddington, Midhurst, Sussex.

Bowditch, C. P., Esq., 28, State Street, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Bowen, H. Courthope, Esq., M.A., 3, York Street, Portman Square, W.

Bower, H. M., Esq., Elmcrofts, Ripon.

Brabrook, E. W., Esq., C.B., F.S.A., 178, Bedford Hill, Balham, S.W.
(Treasurer).

Brighton Town Council, per the Town Clerk, Town Hall, Brighton.

Brinton, Professor D. G., A.M., M.D., LL.D., D.Sce., 2041, Chestnut Street,
Philadelphia, U.S.A.

Britten, James, Esq., 126, Kennington Park Road, S.E.

Brix, M. Camille de, 13, Rue Victor Hugo, Douai, France.

Broadwood, Miss Lucy E., 84, Carlisle Mansions, S.W.

Brockhans, F, A., Esq., Leipzig, per H. Williams, 48, Old Bailey, E.C.

Brooke, Rev. Stopford A., 1, Manchester Square, W.

Brough, Mrs. C. S., Rosendale Hall, West Dulwich, S.E.

Brown, Henry Thomas, Esq., Roodeye House, Chester.

Browne, John, Esq., Chertsey House, Park Hill Rise, Croydon.

Brushfield, Dr. T. N., The Cliff, Budleigh-Salterton, Devonshire.

Burne, Miss, Chichester Lodge, Long Ditton, Surrey ( Vice-President).

Caddick, E., Esq., Wellington Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Campbell, Lord Archibald, Coombe Hill Farm, Kingston-on-Thames.

Campbell, W.J. Douglas Esq., F.S.A. Scot., Innis Chonain, Loch Awe,
Argyll. ‘

Cardiff Free Libraries, per J. Ballinger, Esq., Cardiff.

Carnegie Free Library, Alleghany, Pa., U.S.A., per G. E. Stechert, 2, Star
Yard, Carey Street, W.C.

Carpenter, Professor J. Estlin, 109, Banbury Road, Oxford.

Carson, Miss K., High Street, Kirkcudbright.

Charencey, Comte de, 24, Rue de la Chaise, Paris.

Chambers, E. K., Esq., Education Department, Whitehall, S.W.

Chelsea Public Library, Manresa Road, 8.W., per J. H. Quinn, Esq.

Chicago Public Library, Illinois, U.S.A., per B. F. Stevens, 4, Trafalgar
Square, W.C.

Chicago University Library, Illinois, U.S.A., per G. E. Stechert, 2, Star
Yard, Carey Street, W.C

Chorlton, Thomas, Esq., 32, Brazennose Street, Manchester,

iv Officers and Members.

Cincinnati Public Library, per B. F. Stevens, 4, Trafalgar Square, W.C.

Clark, Oscar W., Esq., M.A., M.B., St. Luke’s House, Spa Road, Gloucester.

Clarke, Rev. E. Wrangles, Ch. Ch. Vicarage, Faraday Road, North
Kensington, W.

Clodd, Edward, Esq., 19, Carleton Road, Tufnell Park, N. ( Vice-President).

Cobb, Rev. Dr., 35, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C.

Colfox, W., Esq., Westmead, Bridport.

Columbia College, New York, per G. E. Stechert, 2, Star Yard, Carey
Street, W.C.

Congress, The Library of, Washington, U.S.A., per E. G. Allen, Esq., 28,
Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.

Conybeare, F. C., Esq., M.A., 18, Norham Gardens, Oxford.

Cornell University Library, per E. G. Allen, Esq., 28, Henrietta Street, W.C.

Corry, Miss L. M., 39, Park Hill Road, East Croydon.

Cosquin, M. Emanuel, Vitry-le-Frangois, Marne, France.

Cox, Miss Marian Roalfe, 107, Earl’s Court Road, W.

Craigie, W. A., Esq., M.A., Damemead, 226, Iffley Road, Oxford.

Crombie, James E., Esq., Balgownie Lodge, Aberdeen.

Crombie, John W., Esq., M.P., 91, Onslow Square, S.W.

Crooke, W., Esq., B.A., West Leigh, Arterberry Road, Wimbledon, S.W.

Dabis, Miss A., care of Miss Sim, Springfield, Englefield Green, Surrey.

Dames, M. Longworth, Esq., c/o H. S. King & Co., 45, Pall Mall, S.W.

Dampier, G. R., Esq., care of Messrs. Grindley, Groom and Co., Bombay.

Davis, Lieut.-Col. John, Byfrons, Farnborough.

Dawes, Rev. A. W., 78, Manor Park Road, Willesden, N.W.

Debenham, Miss Amy, Cheshunt Park, Herts.

Debenham, Miss Mary H., Cheshunt Park, Herts.

Defries, Wolf, Esq., B.A., 147, Houndsditch, E.C.

Dennett, R. E., Esq., Loango, Congo Frangais, S.W. Coast Africa,
(Parcels vid Lisbon, St. Thomé, and Gaboon.)

Detroit Public Library, Michigan, U.S.A., per B. F. Stevens, Esq.

Diack, A. H., Esq., Lahore, Punjab, India (East India United Service
Club, St. James’s Square, S.W.).

Duncan, Leland L., Esq., F.S.A., Rosslair, Lingard Road Lewisham,
S.E.

Eagleston, A. J., Esq., M.A., 24, Heslop Road, Balham.

Hcole des Hautes Etudes, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Eden, Mrs. T. B., Hillbrow, Rugby.

Edinburgh Public Library, per Hew Morrison, Esq., City Chambers,
Edinburgh.

Edwards, F., Esq., 88, High Street, Marylebone, W.

ὋὌ"

Officers and Members. Vv

Eggers and Co., Messrs., St. Petersburg, per Sampson Low and Co., Fetter
Lane, E.C.

Elliot, W. Scott, junr., Esq., 4, Stanley Crescent, Kensington Park, W.

Elworthy, Εἰ. T. Esq., Foxdown, Wellington, Somerset.

Hilton, O., Esq., B.A., 6, Heaton Road, Withington, Manchester.

Emerson, P. H., Esq., The Nook, Oulton Broad, Lowestoft.

Empson, C. W., Esq., 11, Palace Court, W.

Emslie, J P., Esq., 50, Kestrel Avenue, Herne Hill, 8.H.

Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore City, U.S.A., per E. G. Allen, Esq., 28,
Henrietta Street, W.C.

Eraut, A., Esq., Grammar School, Galway.

Erlangen University Library, per Sampson Low & Co., Fetter Lane
E.C.

Evans, Arthur J., Esq., M.A., F.S.A., Ashmolean Library, Oxford.

Evans, Sir John, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., D.Sce., F.R.S., F.S.A., Nash
Mills, Hemel Hempstead.

Eyre, Miss, The Hudnalls, St. Briavels, Gloucestershire.

. Fahie, J. J., Esq., Claremont Court, Claremont Hill, Jersey.

Fawcett, F., Esq., care of Messrs. Arbuthnot & Co., Madras.

Feilberg, Rey. H. F., Askov, Vejen, Denmark.

Ferryman, Major A. F. Mockler, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., Oak Grove House, Royal
Military College, Camberley, Surrey.

Ffennell, Miss Margaret C., 172, The Grove, Hammersmith, W.

Fitzgerald, D., Esq., care of J. Fitzgerald, Esq., Storey’s Gate, S.W.

Forlong, Major-Gen. J. G. R., F.R.G.S., F.R.S.E., 11, Douglas Crescent,
Edinburgh.

Fraser, D. C., Esq., M.A., 3, Buckingham Road, Wallasey.

Frazer, J. G., Esq,, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge.

Freer, Miss Goodrich, 27, Cleveland Gardens, Hyde Park, W.

Freer, Wm. J., Esq., Stoneygate, near Leicester.

Freshfield, W. D., Esq., The Wilderness, Reigate.

Gardner, F. L., Esq., 14, Marlboro’ Road, Gunnersbury, W.

Gaster, Dr. M., 37, Maida Vale, W.

George, Charles W., Esq., 51, Hampton Road, Clifton, Bristol.

Gerish, W. B., Esq., Ivy Lodge, Hoddesdon, Herts.

Gladstone, Dr. J. H., F.R.S., F.C.S., 17, Pembridge Square, W.

Glasgow University Library, per Messrs. Maclehose, 61, St. Vincent Street,
Glasgow.

Godden, Miss Gertrude M., Ridgfield, Wimbledon.

Gomme, G. L., Esq., F.S.A., 24. Dorset Square, N.W. ( Vice-President)

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vi Officers and Members.

Gomme, Mrs. G. L., 24, Dorset Square, N.W. (Honorary ae

Gomme, J. F., Esq., City Bank, Oxford Street, W.

Gordon, C. H. F., Esq., The Mall, Brentford.

Gottingen University Library, per Asher and Co., 13, Bedford Street,
Covent Garden, W.C.

Gow, Horace K., Esq., 5, St. Helen’s Place, E.C.

Gowland, T., Esq., 12, Tavistock Road, Harlesden, N.W.

Green, Frank G., Esq., St. Valentine’s, Prince of Wales’s Road, Carshalton
(Auditor).

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J olk=Wore.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

VoL. X.] MARCH, 1899. [No. I.

AUSTRALIAN GODS.
A Reply.
BY ANDREW LANG, M.A.

WHEN I first glanced at Mr. Hartland’s trenchant critique
of my Australian Gods (Fol/k-Lore, December, 1898), 1
‘bounded on my chair,’ as the French say. ‘Can I be
this guilty creature?” I asked myself, and a trusty friend
in the anthropological line hastened to assure me that 1
was. 1 had deserted the camp, he said; I had taken service
under the colours of Mr. Max Miiller; and Mr. Hartland,
reluctantly but firmly, had hewed me to pieces before the
Totem in Gilgal, or at all events had “ cut me up.”
However, my nerves recovered their tone. I sat down to
read Mr. Hartland carefully and to verify his references (as
far as I could get the authorities). Then my strength, or
at all events my confidence, returned unto me. If I wished
to be “ trenchant”’ (which I do not) I could urge: (1) That
Mr. Hartland’s argument is of the nature of an zgnoratio
elencht. This means that Mr. Hartland, with infantry,
cavalry, artillery, volunteers, and mounted police, storms
what he takes to be my position, and captures it without a
scratch, though with great expenditure of powder and shot.
But the position was unheld and undefended ; the fortified
crest of my Australian Olympus is in quite a different
VOL. x. B

2 Australian Gods.

direction. Mr. Hartland’s onset is magnificent, mazs,
parbleu, ce n’est pas la guerre. (2) Having occupied a
strategic point which nobody defended, Mr. Hartland set
to work to fortify his own camp. Among his materials he
employed two contradictories, which, I need hardly say,
cannot logically be conceived as simultaneously true by the
mere unaided un-Hegelian human intellect. Nor, in fact,
did Mr. Hartland achieve this miracle; he ‘“ escaped his
own notice’”’ (as the Greek idiom runs) in first holding one
of the contradictories and then deserting it, and to some
extent holding its opposite. Either might be a trenchant
reply to me, but I am not to be asked to face both con-
tradictories at once, nor even ‘fone down and the other
come on.” If all this be true, as I believe, Mr. Hartland
has not done me very much harm. On the other hand, he
has incidentally done me much good, and I shall hasten to
make such corrections and modifications of my work as
seem necessary or desirable after a study of his censures.

Now we may come to business.

The general drift of my theory is that, obscured and even
contradicted by many myths, religious ideas of a relatively
high order exist among low savages such as these most
archaic peoples,’ the Australian tribes, and are not to be
explained as the result of a long process of evolution which
began in the propitiation of ghosts of the dead. There must
be some other explanation of the rise of these ideas, and
as to the nature of that explanation I repeatedly decline to
theorise. Mr. Hartland “agrees with Mr. Lang that the
evidence will not warrant such a conclusion” as that “ the
idea of God has arisen from that of a ghost or disembodied
spirit’? (Folk-Lore, p. 292). To make that point, on
which Mr. Hartland and I are happily agreed, was one of

‘ See preface to Myth, Ritual, and Religion, and vol. i., ch. xi. (1887).
2. ** Many anthropologists,” says Mr. Hartland, ‘‘are of this opinion.” I

have not the advantage of knowing their works, unless they be those of
M. Réville and his allies.

Australian Gods. 3

my chief objects. The hypothesis which we both discard
has, however, become almost a commonplace of anthro-
pological science. I am especially anxious to prove that
we have not yet the materials for a scientific theory of the
evolution of religion. As Mr. Hartland says, I distrust my
own theory, or rather my own surmise, which by the way
I have never yet fully stated. I suspect all theories which
deal with man’s psychology and reasoning powers when he
was in a condition more primitive than any of which we
have historical knowledge. Thus, as Mr. Hartland says,
before man evolved the notion of ‘a disembodied spirit,”
he may, as “conscious himself of will, sensation, and reason,
have endowed everything round him with these qualities.”
He may have done so; in myth he certainly does so; how
far playfully, or imaginatively, is a moot point. Again,
whether man really did so before he had an idea of a
disembodied spirit we certainly cannot, historically, know ;
and Mr. Herbert Spencer opposes this theory, not without
success. I therefore prefer to take up man as historically
known to us. I, at least, have only guesses, not, like Mr.
Hartland, “ glimpses,” at man “when he had not attained
to the conception of a disembodied spirit.” As historically
known to us, man, I think, has the germ of the conception
of “a moral, relatively Supreme Being, a Creator,’ even
while man is “in very rudimentary social conditions”
(Mr. Hartland, olk-Lore, p. 292).

It is here that Mr. Hartland differs from me. Now] would
beg Mr. Hartland to observe that, while I think early man
has this lofty conception, I have never denied, I think, that
of the same “ moral, relatively Supreme Being, a Creator,”
man has also simultaneously quite contradictory conceptions.
This is constantly dwelt on in my Myth, Ritual, and Relt-
gion. ‘The contradictions are of the very essence of mytho-
logy, and occur in every ancient religion which includes a
belief in gods. As an American critic, Professor Starr,
states my case: “ That primitive creature (man) may early

B 2

4 Australian Gods.

have had a variety of notions in his mind, but among his
earliest original conceptions is the idea of a kind, creative,
Supreme Being, whom men may worship.” ὁ I have referred
to possible totemism, teraphim-worship, tree-worship, and
stone-worship, even in early Israel. I never dreamed of
denying to the Australians similar departures from the belief
in “a kind, creative, Supreme Being” (not that I know them
to worship stones and trees), or any quantity of myths in
which their Supreme Beings appear in every conceivable
undignified figure and action. Consequently, none of Mr.
Hartland’s extracts from the chronique scandaleuse of Bunjil
or Baiame disproves my contention that the notion of ‘a kind,
creative Supreme Being” is among the ideas of the Austra-
lians. “ The mythology of the god is a kind of joke with no
sacredness about it,’ I said. ‘‘ No doubt this is a very con-
venient way of treating awkward statements,’ says Mr.
Hartland. But what is all the puzzling part of mythology
but ‘‘a kind of joke,” a series of irreverences towards the
central religious conception at its best? And what is the
puzzle of mythology but this “silly, senseless, and savage
element,’ as Mr. Max Miiller says, puzzling just because so
closely associated with the belief in beings who, at lowest,
are dreaded and powerful ?

Our own sacred writings include the idea of a kind,
creative Supreme Being; but surely it is needless to
point out that, as in Australia, contradictory statements
also occur, both as to the moral and creative aspects.
(Genesis, τ 7 (iL. 7,205) luke 58. ChiSt Ἐπ το
course, is not meant literally); James i. 13; 1 Kings xxi.
20-23.) Mr. Hartland says “the sublime conception of
the creative fiat as set forth in the book of Genesis,
and interpreted by Christian dogma, is the product of
ages of civilisation.’’ Yet, despite these ages of civilisation,
our sacred books contain contradictions of the idea of sheer

1 The Dial, December 1, 1898. This critic, I presume, is the donor of a
collection of Mexican folklore objects to the Society.

oe eee τὰν

Austrahan Gods. 5

creation, and contradictions of our later morality, in the
Creator. Israel, none the less, certainly believed in a moral
Creator.1 Why, then, if similar contradictions occur in the
beliefs of “ men in a rudimentary social condition,” should
these contradictions militate against my assertion that these
men also possess the notion of “a moral, relatively Supreme
Being, a Creator”? If the Australians have no such idea
because they have myths which contradict it, then Israel, by
parity of reasoning, had no such idea. Yet (without dis-
cussing the validity of the belief in question) Mr. Hartland
will not deny that Israel did possess that belief. How then
can he deny that some Australians possess it? That denial
he may establish otherwise, but he cannot establish it by
adducing any number of contradictory Australian myths.
To adduce these, however, is a great part of his criticism
of myself. With these contradictory myths I shall deal
later. Mr. Hartland states my thesis thus: ‘‘ He holds that
‘all the most backward races historically known to us’ had
by reasoning arrived at the belief in a moral, eternal, omni-
scient Creator and Judge” (/o/k-Lore, p. 293). Iam very
much obliged to Mr. Hartland for not saying (like most of
my critics) that I attribute the belief to Revelation! In fact
I repeatedly declined to give any theory of how the belief
arose. I recommend “scientific nescience”’ (p. 315). The
rise of the belief is “a point on which we possess no positive
evidence” (p. 293). Mr. Hartland says that I adopt the
theory of “reasoning” as the source of the belief, because 1
say that St. Paul’s hypothesis of its rise from the “ Argu-
ment from Design” “is not the most unsatisfactory.” That
patronising remark of mine is hardly the statement of a
theory. I have stated none; I have declined to state any ;
but now I will venture on a surmise. The point is really of

1 At how early a date is too wide a question for discussion here. Nor do I
ask whether the writer in Genesis consciously put to himself metaphysical
questions about matter. Perhaps matter is still non-existent !

6 Australian Gods.

great psychological interest, quite apart from our main dis-
cussion.

Mr. Hartland writes : ‘On the antecedent improbability
that naked savages, without any organised system of govern-
ment, and incapable of counting up to seven, could have
attained a philosophical conception so lofty, there is no
need to argue.” * Now here a good deal turns on words.
Mr. Hartland accuses me of ‘many expressions rhetorically
used anent the gods of the lower races,” and to my rhetoric,
perhaps, is due the appearance of “a lofty philosophical
conception” (Folk-Lore, p. 312). There is a great deal
of force in his censure, and I shall here try to strip off the
rhetoric, about which, however, I have more to say later.
It would have been wise in me to explain my meaning with
less of rhetorical effusiveness, for a meaning I have, thus:
‘Moral ’’—I mean that certain of these beings are moral—
relatively to the morality of their tribes. Mr. Howitt dis-
tinctly asserts this. The tribes (or some tribes) have
“beliefs which govern tribal and individual morality under
a supernatural sanction” (Yournal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol. xill., p. 59). To what extent the morality goes
we shall later consider. ‘‘Eternal’’—that the Being of the
belief was “from all eternity” I cannot demonstrate; he was
‘in the beginning,” which Mr. Hartland may construe as he
pleases, and (in some statements) he “made everything ”
(Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xxiv., p. 101).
Here blackfellows alone are excepted, they were made by
a demiurge. I don’t know if Heaven was the Maker’s
original home; it could hardly have been earth “ before it
was made.” ‘“ Omniscient”—‘‘He can see you, and all
you do down here,” as a black was told in early youth,
“before the white men came to Melbourne” (Mr. Hart-
land, Folk-Lore, p. 307). ‘‘ Tharamulun himself watched

1 Mr. Hartland smiles at ‘‘ unconscious English Deists in paint and scars
and feathers.” The position of the Dinkas, according to Russegger, is also that
“* of Deists.”

Australian Gods. Vi

the youth from the sky, prompt to punish,’ and so on
(Howitt, Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol.
xill., p. 192). “1 could not do that, He would be very
angry” (same place). ‘‘The All-seeing Spirit saw,’ and
so on (Mrs. Langloh Parker, More Legendary Tales,
p. 84). In this case, it is Baiame’s messenger who is all-
seeing, and tells all to him, who, therefore, knows all.
That the Beings observe human conduct, Mr. Hartland,
perhaps, will admit, whether Pundjel does so from a stellar
observatory or not. ‘“ Creator ’’—of that point I give evi-
dence in a future page. “Judge ’’—as to that, Mr. Howitt’s
evidence seems sufficient; more will be offered as we
advance. ‘Thus, of my rhetoric, “eternal” is overstrained.
When, in my rhetorical mood, I used the term “Omniscient,”
I did not mean that Baiame, for instance, was supposed to
know the inner verity about the Réntgen rays, or even to
know the future. I was thinking of him, or Daramulun, in
relation to his knowledge of human conduct: in fact, as
Mr. Hartland says, I was “rhetorical.” Of the other
ideas, I may say that the attributes of the Beings, as given
by me, seem precisely such as we, when children, could
entertain as a result of Christian teaching. Mr. Tylor, we
shall see, is so much impressed by all this, that he regards
Christian teaching as their source, a question to which I
shall return. Meanwhile, if Mr. Tylor (who is not on my
side here) regards these beliefs as of Christian origin, I may
surely state them in the Christian terms which I “ rhetori-
cally” use, after offering that explanation of my rhetoric
which I ought to have given before.

Well, even on my present statement, perhaps Mr. Hart-
land will think that the belief (as qualified above) in “a
moral, eternal, omniscient Creator and Judge”’ is ‘‘ antece-
dently improbable.” The tribes cannot count up to seven;
how then could they evolve such ideas? This raises that
interesting and important question, Of what are “the high
mental faculties of early man” (as Mr. Darwin says)

8 Austrahan Gods.

capable? In the instance of the Australians, in practical
matters they “show conspicuous ability ;’’ there are other
directions in which they are as conspicuously deficient. ‘This
is, perhaps, shown most clearly in the matter of counting,”
seldom going beyond four. ‘Their mental powers are
simply developed along the lines which are of service to
them in their daily life.”’ Now we think arithmetic of indis-
pensable service in daily life; religion by no means so. In
practical life, however, the religious conceptions of the Aus-
tralians are indispensable to the structure of their society.
Daramulun and Co. (“under many names one form,’ as
Mr. Howitt shows) keep the women and the young people
in order, and the secrets of their mysteries are guarded by
capital punishment. Tribal society notoriously falls to
pieces without the beliefs which I have stated. Now their
“mental powers, developed along the lines which are of
service to them in daily life,’ we are told are “οἵ con-
spicuous ability.” Our Voltairean predecessors would, there-
fore, have argued that native ‘“ powers of conspicuous ability”
had here taken the serviceable shape of informal priestcraft,
and had evolved religious, ideas for political purposes, as
Maitland of Lethington was accused of calling the existence
of a deity ‘‘a bogle of the nursery.” Thus the old men
would develop the idea of a bogle, who “can see all you do,”
can punish you now or after death, or both, who 15, in fact,
so far moral and knowing and potent. Perhaps Mr. Hart-
land will admit that “ reasoning”? might go to this extent,
even if the savages (whose marriage laws, by the way,
“might puzzle a mathematician’’) cannot count up to seven?
I do not know if high mental powers were needed to frame
these marriage laws, but to understand them demands powers
unspeakably higher than mine. Once more, the Arunta can
hardly count up to five, but they have a conception of beings
whose name means “Out of Nothing,” or “ Self-existing ”

' Spencer and Gillen, Madives of Central Australia, p. 25.

Australian Gods. 9

(Ungambikula).\ Such beings might verge on the “ eter-
nal,” but they tailed off, and vanished into animal myth.
Mr. Hartland, I daresay, will not contradict my evidence for
the “ self-existing”” beings ‘‘out of nothing,” for it is not
given by a missionary. Here then the Arunta have “a
philosophical conception” which is a little surprising ;
though they spoil it, still they have it. ‘ Antecedently
improbable” it may be, but there it is !

Now, as to the antecedent improbability of savages who
cannot count up to seven possessing the beliefs which |
attribute to them, is that improbability so great? I dislike
offering a theory about what occurred in ‘“‘the Dream Time”
(Alcheringa) behind our historical knowledge of mankind.
But I will venture on a surmise, on the lines of St. Paul
(Romans i. 19). It is a guess, not a “glimpse.” As soon
as man could make anything, he had, undeniably, the idea
of “making.” But he was surrounded by things which he
certainly had not made, yet which were adapted to his use.
It is conceivable that, possessing the idea of making, he
guessed that these things were “made.” To take examples
of savage speculation, from regions far apart, an Eskimo
said: ‘ Certainly there must be some Being who made all
these things. He must be very good too” (Cranz, i., 199).
A Kaffir said to M. Arbrousset: “‘ Twelve years ago I went
to feed my flocks. Isat down upon a rock and asked myself
sorrowful questions, yes, sorrowful because I was unable to
answer them. . . . . Who can have given to the earth the
wisdom and power to produce?” (Casalis, Zhe Bassutos,
p- 239.) These are missionary reports, but I cannot always
dismiss a statement because a missionary is the reporter,
nor is missionary evidence scouted by my adversaries
when it seems to tell on the other side. Of course an
Eskimo, much more a Kaffir, is far from the beginnings of
the race. But I surmise that “the high faculties of early

' Tbid., p. 388.

IO Australian Gods.

man” might lead him from the idea of making to that of a
maker. Once conceived of, the idea of his goodness is not
remote, for the things made are “ good,” or so the savage
thinks. The idea of power is implicit in that of making
‘such a number of things,” and power may take the shape
of All-seeing, while that conception is caught at, and the
All-seeing One sanctions tribal morality: or, if Mr. Hartland
insists on it, sanctions the interests of the old men.

I will take a step further. The natural character of many
savages (however it was evolved) is generous and kindly,
even to aliens, even to white men. Children are remarkably
well treated. (See Mr. Man on the Andamanese, Spencer
and Gillen on Central Australia, Mr. Wallace on the Malay
Archipelago, Le Jeune on the Hurons, &c.) Therefore the
filial sentiment may accrue to the conception of the maker
(Mungan-ngaur, Our Father; Papang, Father). Now, is
this process of ‘reasoning’ beyond “ high mental powers,”
beyond “conspicuous ability,” such as the blacks are allowed
to possess? Is it not a great deal easier and simpler than
the intricate speculations by which Mr. Tylor makes early
man evolve the idea of a disembodied spirit? Is the con-
ception more subtly metaphysical than that of “self-existing
beings,” “beings out of nothing,” which the Arunta possess ?
Yet the conception of a primal good maker, guardian of
morality, all-seeing, is capable of being stated, in my
rhetorical terms, as that of “a moral, eternal, omniscient
Creator and Judge.” It is partly a matter of capital letters
and Latinised words. If the idea of man’s surviving soul
arose subsequent to that of the maker (about which I profess
no opinion), then the maker would look after the souls, as
he does, in a future life. All this, if true, is unaffected by
myths which represent the maker as a one-legged, poly-
gamous, anthropomorphic, deceitful being who dies (like
Zeus in Crete), or is “ destroyed” like Daramulun, by the
fiat of a superior being. To the death and destruction of
Daramulun 1 return later. Meanwhile, in my opinion, early

Austvahan Gods, TI

man (and very late man too) may have a great idea, or the
germ of a great idea, but may be constitutionally incapable
of regarding it fixedly, of living on its level, of refraining
from sportive fancy in its regard, exjim, from adding “ myth”
to “ religion.”

My position may be illustrated by a passage in Mr.
Darwin’s Descent of Man. Mr. Darwin held that by aid
of his ‘‘ high mental faculties” (and very high they needed
to be) “ man was first led to believe in unseen spiritual
agencies, then in fetishism” (an unseen spiritual agency in
a stick, stone, feather, or what not), “ polytheism, and ulti-
mately in monotheism.” ! The Australian belief is not, of
course, doctrinal monotheism, but it does not seem to me to
have been reached by way either of spiritualism, fetishism,
or polytheism, of which there are only faint traces. Now,
Mr. Darwin had already said “the feeling of religious
devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, com-
plete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a
strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude,
hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being
could experience so complex an emotion until advanced in
his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately
high level,”’ but a dog can “make some distant approach to
this state of mind.” An Australian savage makes a nearer
approach. “Love” is implied in the term “Our Father,”
which, as Mr. Howitt satisfied himself (I think), is not of
Christian origin (Fournal of the Anthropological Instt-
tute, νοὶ. Xill., p. 192). “Submission” is expected of the
initiated, and illustrated by Mr. Howitt’s old man who
would not eat emu eggs: ‘“ He might see me, and be very

angry.” A strong sense of dependence must be felt on
the Being whose “ voice brings the rain’”’ and makes life
possible. ‘Fear and reverence” are sometimes indicated

by the not taking of this Being’s name in vain, not men-

1 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 68, 1871.

12 Austrahan Gods.

tioning it outside of the mysteries. Of gratitude I see little
trace, and perhaps the natives, absorbed in the present, do
not hope. Here, at all events, are the elements of a religion
which implies, as Mr. Darwin writes, “ intellectual and moral
faculties on at least a moderately high level.” How high?
Mr. Darwin writes: ‘ The Fuegians rank among the lowest
barbarians; but I was continually struck with surprise how
closely (szc) the three natives on board H.M.S. ‘ Beagle,’
who had lived some years in England and could talk a little
English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our
mental faculties.” They could talk a little English (mani-
festly York could do so on board ship), but could Mr.
Darwin talk a little Fuegian? Probably not, as he was
wholly unable to learn German. The mental faculties of
Billy Button and York could give those of Mr. Darwin “a
stroke a hole” in language. German was hard to read for
him, just as the Australians cannot count up to seven.
The question is, then, whether “ antecedent improbability ”’
makes it unlikely that men of such high faculties, men who
have confessedly been equal to the abstract speculation
required before a ghost can be conceived of, are unequal to
the ideas which I assign to them. I see no improbability
in the matter. So much for the ‘‘antecedent improbability”
of Mr. Hartland.

But, I have observed, early man may be incapable of
regarding these ideas fixedly, of living on their level, and
of refraining from sportive fancy in their, regard. Early
man’s incapacity in these respects produced his humorous,
obscene, and trivial myths, contradictory of his religious
conceptions. As Mr. Darwin remarks, “The same high
mental faculties which first led man to believe . . . . would
infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained
poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and cus-
toms.’ This degeneration from the higher level, Mr. Darwin
compares to the occasional mistakes ‘‘in the instincts of the
lower animals’’ (of. czt., p. 69). The good element seems

Australian Gods. 13

to be primal, in Mr. Darwin’s view, and normal; the bad or,
as I say, the mythical element is secondary and aberrant
(Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. i., pp. 68, 69. 1871). That
is precisely my belief. Among the superstitions are the
myths contradictory of religion. Among the customs are
the cruel rites of Central Australia and Central N. W.
Queensland. Myth results from man’s want of power, or
of desire, to keep on the level of his higher religious ideas.
We see this in the Marchen and mummeries of popular
medieval Christianity, and in medizval tales about God
which cannot have been adopted from a prior paganism.
We have already glanced at the contradictory stories
which remain in Holy Writ. The idea of the immortality
of Zeus is familiar to Homer, but the grave of Zeus was
shown in Crete. Manifestly people like the Australian
tribes are sure to be even less apt than Hebrews, Greeks,
or peasant Christians to remain on the level of their highest
conceptions. They will anthropomorphise, reduce Baiame
to a Wirreenun (in a tale “told to piccanninies’’ ), will let
their fancies play freely around him. But they have among
these lower fancies the loftier ideas, and these were abso-
lutely denied to them. (As by Mr. Huxley and Sir John
Lubbock.)

I can here adopt the statement of Mr. Tylor with the
change of a single word. ‘“ High above the doctrine of
souls, of divine manes, of local nature gods, of the great
gods of class and element, there are to be discerned in
barbaric theology, shadowings, quaint or majestic, of the
conception of a Supreme Deity, henceforward to be traced
onward, in expanding power and brightening glory along
the history of religion.””! Put “savage”’ for ‘ barbaric,” and
I have no alteration to make. In the “majestic” we have
“religion ;” in the “quaint” we have “myth.”

This brings us to an important general point: how, in

! Primitive Culture, vol. ii., pp, 332, 333-

14 Australian Gods.

this discussion, do I define a myth? Mr. Hartland asks,
‘“What is the distinction between religious belief and
myth? Where does the one begin and the other end?”
(Folk-Lore, p. 296.) I may refer Mr. Hartland for an
answer to what he might have consulted, namely, what 1
wrote twelve years ago in Myth, Ritual, and Religion ; for
here at least I have not altered my ideas since writing that
book (vol. i., ch. xi.). But Mr. Hartland might think that
I had changed my mind. “Since the actual truth cannot
be determined by observation and experiment, the question
as to the first germs of the divine conception must here be
left unanswered. But it is possible to disengage and
examine apart the two chief elements in the earliest as in
the latest ideas of Godhead. Among the lowest and most
backward, as amongst the most advanced races, there co-
exist the mythical and the religious elements in belief.
The rational factor (or what approves itself to us as the
rational factor) is visible in religion; the irrational is
prominent in myth. The Australian, the Bushman, the
Solomon Islander, in hours of danger and necessity ‘yearns
after the gods,’ and has present in his heart the idea of a
father and friend. This is the religious element. The
same man, when he comes to indulge his fancy for fiction,
will degrade this spiritual friend and father to the level of
the beasts, and will make him the hero of comic or repulsive
adventures. This is the mythical or irrational element.
Religion in its moral aspect always traces back to the
belief in a power that is benign and works for righteous-
ness. Myth, even in Homer or the Rzg- Veda, perpetually
falls back on the old stock of absurd and immoral divine
adventures.”

This line is drawn repeatedly in “γέ, Ritual, and
Religion (1887). I admit that “the belief in a Creator, it
may be argued, is itself—a myth.” Now, without discussing
that argument, I would be understood thus: The lowest
savages, I think (contrary to a generally held opinion), have

Australian Gods. 15

elements of what we moderns, whether believers or unbe-
lievers, recognise as “religion.” They have the conception
of a Being, prior to death, often of unknown origin, not (in
certain cases) subject to mortality, existing in, or above, the
sky, who punishes breaches of his laws, in certain cases
moral laws (or if you prefer it, laws of morality in the
making or becoming), who, in certain instances, rewards
or punishes men after death; who is often hailed as
“ Father ;” who, like Mr. Howitt’s Daramulun, “can go
anywhere and do anything.”

This belief I choose to call “ religious,’ because it con-
forms in its rude way to and is the germ of what we com-
monly style “religion.” On the other hand, a multitude of
obscene or humorous tales are apt to be told of this being,
which correspond to passages in the documents of nearly
all religions, and to the Wdarchen about the sacred person-
ages of the Christian religion. These tales I call “ myths.”
The essential problem of mythology has ever been ‘ Why
do peoples, ancient and modern, tell these anecdotes about
Beings of whom they give, at other times, or at the same
time, such a contradictory account?”’ I would answer that
what I call the religion represents one human mood, while
the myth represents another, both moods dating from
savagery. ‘‘They stand as near each other, and as far
apart, as lust and love.” This is where I draw the line.
Religious ideas are such as, with refinements, survive in
what I mean by religion, mythical ideas are such as don’t,
or should not.

Here, I presume, Mr. Hartland and 1 cannot be recon-
ciled. He says: “If the mythology of the god be ‘a kind
of joke with no sacredness about it’’’ (my phrase) ‘then
the myth of making or creating has no sacredness about it ”
(Folk-Lore, p. 296). Mr. Hartland, reasoning thus, pro-
duces a collection of myths about Australian gods, as if
they were fatal to my argument. Some of them (as I shall
explain) were unknown to me, but my argument, as I myself

16 Austrahan Gods.

understand it, remains unaffected. For to what does my
argument tend? Merely to prove the existence, among
low savage notions, of the ideas which I call “ religious,”
such as the idea of a maker, a superhuman father, a judge,
and so forth. The existence of these notions among low
savages has constantly been denied. I demonstrate the
fact that these notions do exist. That contradictory notions
co-exist with them, that Daramulun is said to mean “ lame
leg,” that he is said to “die,” that he has wives, and so on,
makes no kind of difference to me.

Mr. Hartland says: “Daramulun . . . . died; this eternal
Creator with a game leg died, and his spirit (Bulabong) went
up to the sky, where he has since lived with the ghosts.”
Now it is plain that an advanced thinker of the popular
atheistic sort might state in a similar form of raillery the |
centralitdea ot (Christianity. 60.7. Perhaps, therefore, the
Australians borrowed this doctrine—except the “ game leg”
—from missionaries.

I turn from Mr. Hartland’s statement of Australian belief
to that of Mr. Howitt, who is our chief source of knowledge.
Mr. Howitt (before he was initiated) wrote: “ Tharamulun,
after teaching his people the art which they knew [know ?],
and establishing their social ordinances, died, and his spirit
(Bulabong) went up to the sky, where he has since lived
with the ghosts” (f¥ournal of the Anthropological Instt-
tute, vol. xill., p. 194).

This passage I inadvertently overlooked. If this be the
general belief, namely that Daramulun ded, whereas Bunjil
and Baiame were only translated, I shall look on Daramu-
lun as a “ghost-god,” and as a triumph for Mr. Herbert
Spencer and Mr. Grant Allen. But (after he was initiated)
Mr. Howitt wrote: “There is clearly a belief in a Great
Spirit, or rather an anthropomorphic Supernatural Being,
the ‘ Master’ of all,’ and so forth (Fournal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, vol. xili., p. 458). I scarcely think
that “an anthropomorphic Supernatural Being,” as such

Australian Gods. 17

distinguished by Mr. Howitt from a “ Great Spirit,” is the
same thing as the dudabong of a dead man. But, in Mr.
Howitt’s earlier statement, Daramulun is only the dudabong
of a dead man. Which version am I to accept? Surely
we cannot injure the cause of science by waiting till Mr.
Howitt can oblige us with his mature opinion. We need
not refine as to the shades of sense of the word “ spirit.”
A savage can distinguish between the surviving dulabong
of a dead man, and the existence (up to date) of a primal
being who was before death, and (up to date) is not dead.
Bunjil is of the latter class, and so is Baiame. I wish to
be more positively informed as to which class Daramulun
belongs to, in Mr. Howitt’s present opinion.

As to the Wiraijuri myth according to which Daramulun
does not exist at all, having been “ destroyed” by Baiame,
it has nothing to do with the creed of which Mr. Howitt has
given usan account. The Wiraijuri live far remote from the
Coast Murring, who, so far as appears, know nothing about
Baiame at all. It seems that I erroneously grouped the
Wiraijuri among nations who regard Daramulun as supreme.
They do not, and their beliefs appear to be the result of
syncretism, unless we suppose that, where Daramulun is
supreme, his worshippers have suppressed Baiame.

I must admit that I have no explicit proof that Daramulun
is regarded as a Creator. He is only the “ Great Master”
(Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol xiii., p. 442),
the Father (xili., 443), the sky-dweller (xiii., 192), the insti-
tutor of society (xili., 459), the power whose voice “ calls
to the rain to fall and make the grass green”? (xiii., 446), the
being for whom ‘the boys are made so that Daramulun likes
them,” a process involving repeated cries of nga = “good”
(xill., 451), the person who lends a “ supernatural sanction”
to “beliefs which govern tribal and individual morality”’ (xiii.,
459). Daramulun’s attributes and powers are “precisely those
of Baiame”’ (xiv., 321), who zs spoken of as a Creator accord-
ing to Mr. Ridley and others, though this does not involve

ΤΟΥ͂ΤΟΣ. Ό

18 Australian Gods.

Mr. Howitt. Mr. Tylor remarks: “ Howitt finds them [cer-
tain other Australian deities] treated as corresponding or
equivalent to Baiame, the Creator .. . . ” (Tylor, Fournal
of the Anthropological Institute, 1891, p. 295). All these
attributes suffice, in my view, to furnish a deity far more
respectable than the Australians are usually credited with ;
a being much on the level of the Wintu Olelbis, described
in Mr. Curtin’s recent book on American Creation Myths.
The existence of degrading myths about the same being
does not, to my mind, annihilate the fact that the higher
beliefs are also part of primitive theology.

“Where is the distinction between religious belief and
myth?” Mr. Hartland asks. Why, in my sense, just
there. The immortal Zeus who punishes wrong is religious,
as is the Daramulun who punishes wrong, “ looking down
from the sky.” The dead Daramulun, the dead Zeus, are
mythical. From the moral and religious aspect springs
all religion, even if the religious and moral aspect be but
another myth. From the dead Zeus, the destroyed Dara-
mulun, springs nothing of human importance, whereas
religion—a myth or not a myth—is undeniably of human
importance.

Having done his best to demolish the character of Dara-
mulun, Mr. Hartland now falls upon that of Baiame (/o/s-
Lore, pp. 300-305). He derives his evidence from Mr.
Matthews, or, in part, from Mr. Crawley, the officer of
police, who is so far from being a linguist that he says:
‘Many of the blacks who attended this Bora (1894 ?)
could speak fairly good English, and were able to under-
stand the purport of questions and give suitable replies.”
This Bora was under English patronage, or charity, and
the old and the children were fed on European supplies.
At these late rites of 1894, Baiame has a wife, sons
on her begotten, and so on. Very well, I have evidence
fifty years earlier that Baiame was reckoned celibate
and had an unbegotten, practically omniscient son. He

Australian Gods. 19

cannot well go on “ begetting boys” where he is rooted toa
crystal rock, and excludes women like a Trappist monastery.
The earlier recorded belief does not cease to be a fact in
evidence because a contradictory belief is produced from an
extremely Europeanised set of natives, not, of course, that
they adopted these ideas from Europeans. Again, at this
charitably supported recent Bora there was a kangaroo
dance, as all kinds of animal dances occur, whether in a
totemistic connection or as ‘“ medicine-dances”’ to secure
success in hunting.!. A myth is told of the institution of
this dance by Baiame, “this Creator skulks in a tree”’ (like
Zeus in the oak),? and his effigy shows him sprawling in
a futile effort to catch an emu. I venture to suggest that
the dance being practised, an etiological myth of the usual
kind was told to explain the origin of the dance and
adventure. ‘ Baiame first danced the dance, and had the
tumble.” Ritual is the parent of myth, as Mr. Frazer
says. In just the same way the rite with an oak-tree
bride in Greece was explained by an etiological myth
about Zeus, the tree, and Hera. This did not detract from
the honour of Zeus, and I ask no more licence for Australian
than for Greek ritual. Both rituals contain humorous
or even disgraceful incidents; both are connected with
high Gods. The Eleusinia consoled and fortified Pindar
and Sophocles, despite the pigs, the buffooneries, the
obscenities of Baubo, and perhaps the licentious orgies,
which, Mr. Matthews was told, occur in one night in the
Wiradthuri rites. JI don’t want to “shirk” any such
details, Greek or Australian, they in no way impede my
argument.®

1 Collins, 1798, records this dance, or one similar.

2 For Zeus and the Oak see The Golden Bough, vol ii., p. 369, note 2,
but I cannot here agree with Mr. Frazer.

3 The bullock represented in the Bora of 1894 may promote success in cattle-
stealing, for aught I know; of course it could not occur before we brought in
bullocks. It can hardly be a totem !

20 Australian Gods.

Next Baiame is attacked in his character as the Creator.
Here we must get rid of the Rev. Mr. Ridley’s evidence,
which is quoted from Mr. Brough Smyth (vol. 11.,p. 285). Mr.
Ridley, I admit, ἐς ἃ missionary! His blacks “are acquainted
with English, and have therefore presumably come into
contact with English ideas” (#o/k-Lore, p.301), which they
are notoriously eager to adopt in religion. Very good, but
it was in 1854 that Mr. Ridley, who had learned Kamilaroi,
and who lived with the blacks for two or three years, put
the question ‘Do you know Baiame?” The answer was
(not in English), “Kamzl Zaia Zummt Baiame, Zaia Winus-
gulda” (“1 have not seen Baiame, I have heard, or per-
ceived, him”’). The same answer was given by a black
eighteen years later (1872), to whom Mr. Ridley “had
never spoken before.” “If asked who made the sky, the
earth, the animals, they always answer ‘Baiame’”’ (Your-
nal of the Anthropological Institute, 1872, pp. 268, 269).
Impressed by these replies, Mr. Ridley, in 1856, introduced
Baiame as equivalent to our God, or Creator, into certain
primers for missionaries (Gurre Kamzlarot, Ridley, Sydney,
1856). Jehovaka and Eloi, attempted about 1830-40 by
Mr. Threlkeld, did not take with the natives, nor did
Immanueli, which Mr. Ridley endeavoured to introduce
himself! Mr. Ridley, in 1855, found that the blacks on the
Barwan and Namoi “say there is one Being who made all
things, whom they never saw, though they hear his voice in
the thunder. They speak of him by the name ‘Baiame,’
and those who have learned that ‘God’ is the name by
which we speak of the Creator, say that ‘ Baiame is God.’ ”’
But, at this date, Mr. Ridley ‘“ never heard them speak of
Baiame as a ruler, nor ascribe wisdom and goodness to him.”
They knew Daramulun as “author of disease and medical

' Lang’s Queensland, 1861, p. 435. See also Mr. Threlkeld, Az Australian
Language. This is of 1892, but contains reprints of Mr. Threlkeld’s works of
1831-1857.

Australian Gods. 21

skill, of mischief and wisdom also; he appears in the form
of a serpent at their assemblies,’ like Asclepius.! Mr.
Ridley, of course, was uninitiated.

Now, if Mr. Ridley’s negative evidence, which is early
(tour of 1855), is accepted, if we are quite ready to believe
that he never heard of Baiame as ruler at that date, why
are we to reject his affirmative evidence of the same date
about Baiame as a Maker or Creator? He knewthe language,
he could write Kamilaroi prose, and, if his missionary bias
led him to find, or feign, a Creator, why did it not lead him
‘to find, or feign, a moral Ruler? One fancy or fiction was
as easy, to a missionary, as the other.

We now arrive at a point in Mr. Hartland’s argument
which my mind broods fondly over; it is so rich in possi-
bilities. Looked at in one way, Mr. Hartland might seem
to be ina dilemma. Looked at in another, he might appear
to have a choice between two theories, each of them seduc-
tive, “were t’other dear charmer away.’ The dilemma is
this: Mr. Hartland accuses me of using expressions
against which we must be on our guard, such as “ Father in
Heaven,’ “and many other expressions rhetorically used
by Mr. Lang anent gods of the lower races. They convey
to our minds reminiscences of Christian teaching of which
the savage mind is guiltless” (p. 312). The savage mind
is guiltless of Christian teaching, tout va bien! Tobe sure
the savage mind has (like Christians) the conception of a
Father, and that Father is in the Heaven, in the literal
sense of the word. Mungan-ngaur = “ Our Father ;” his
home in various versions is in, or above, the heavens. But
the savage’s mind is “guiltless of Christian teaching.” So
Mr. Hartland writes on page 312, while on page 302 he

1 Lang’s Queensland, pp. 444, 445. Compare the singular parallel in
Massachusetts, where (1622) Kiehtan answers to Baiame : Hobamock (appear-
ing as a snake and the friend of sorcerers) to Daramulun. Winslow, in Arber’s
Captain Smith, p. 768.

22 Australian Gods.

cites, cautiously indeed, my friend Mr. Tylor’s argument
in favour of the derivation of the higher Australian beliefs
from—Christian teaching! “It seems reasonable on the whole
to infer that, whatever may be the origin of Baiame’s name
and his earlier position in native thought, the points of
his story most resembling the Christian conception of
Creator have been unconsciously evolved, first by white
explorers, then by missionaries, and lastly by the natives
themselves under European influence’ (/olk-Lore, pp.
302, 303). Yet the natives are guiltless of Christian
teaching! 74 faut gu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.
Again, how a “white explorer” in 1845 could ‘“uncon-
sciously evolve” a native theology which staggered his
credulity, yet was confirmed, “in dern secrecy,” by many
black witnesses, one of whom he expressly charged with
trying to palm off Christian ideas on him, I do not know.
Great is the Unconscious Self! In this case it “ uncon-
sciously evolved’ exactly the ideas which its proprietor did
not expect, could not accept, and argued against, till cor-
roboration brought conviction. ‘This “ unconscious evolu-
tion’? is a modish phrase, but will not here hold water.
And Mr. Hartland leaves the blacks to modify their theology
under ‘ European influences,” while they are “guiltless of
Christian teaching.’ Mr. Tylor’s theory of wholesale
borrowing from missionaries “ probably is not altogether
beyond dispute.” But it must be stark nonsense if the
savages are “ guiltless of Christian teaching,” as they are,
teste Mr. Hartland.

I knew not Mr. Tylor’s theory when I wrote my book.
That is precisely why I did not “mention it.” But Mr.
Hartland must make up his mind: he must choose. Either
the savages are “guiltless of Christian teaching,’ or they
are guilty. Mr. Tylor argued in favour of “ Our Father”
being a result of Christian teaching. He was so struck by
the Christian analogies that he could only explain them by

Austrahan Gods. 23

borrowing from missionaries.!_ What strikes Mr. Tylor, who
is not on my side, may surely be allowed to strike me.
There zs, in fact, a strong resemblance between these
Christian ideas and Australian ideas. Mr. Howitt was
inclined to suspect Christian influence, but his inquiries did
not confirm his suspicion (Howitt, Fournal of the Anthro-
pological Institute., vol. xili., p. 192). Mr. Tylor does
decide in favour of missionary influence. But Mr. Hartland
cuts himself off from this resource. The savages are “ guilt-
less of Christian teaching”’ (p. 312). But the opinion that
they are πο “ guiltless” “ probably is not altogether beyond
dispute” (p. 302). Will Mr. Hartland make up his mind?
Meanwhile Mr. Tylor and I, otherwise opposed here, are
agreed in our opinion that the savage and Christian analogies
are remarkable. We may both be wrong where we agree,
though one of us is not unlikely to be right where we
differ, as we do about the cause of the similarities. Here,
however, Mr. Hartland has a choice of alternative theories
almost equally seductive. If he agrees with Mr. Tylor he
can say: ‘‘ The savages borrowed from Christians.” If he
agrees with me that they did not borrow he can say:
“Christianity retains or revives savage beliefs,” as is said,
or hinted, in certain other cases. Or Mr. Hartland may
differ both from Mr. Tylor and me, and say that there is no
analogy or resemblance whatever between the Christian
‘Our Father in Heaven,” and the savage “ Our Father in,
or above, the Heavens.” Yet here I doubt that his case
would not be commonly accepted; it certainly does not seem
to be accepted by Mr. Tylor or by Mr. Howitt, who at once
looked about, for the cause of this “Our Father,” to Christian
influences among the Kurnai.

Of course, in detail, our conception of divine Fatherhood

1 Tylor, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1892, p. 295. ‘‘ There
are reasons to show that they only attained this divine eminence under
Christian missionary influence.” :

24 Australian Gods.

is not that of Kamilaroi or Kurnai. We do not, when we
say ‘‘ Our Father,” think of an old man witha beard, like
Baiame, encrusted in a throne of crystal. We have another
notion of omniscience than that of a god informed by his
messenger, or angel, “the All-seeing Spirit,’ though an all-
seeing spirit is just the same as an omniscient one (Mrs.
Langloh Parker, More Legendary Tales, p. 84). Yet the
analogies are astonishing, and, if Mungan-ngaur be the
father of Tundun, who is the father of the Kurnai, Adam
is our common father, and 1 refer Mr. Hartland to Luke
lil. 38.

I do not despair of seeing Mr. Hartland, who now com-
plains of my rhetorical insistence on these analogies, turning
round and accounting for Christianity as a refined survival
of Kurnai and similar beliefs. We shall then have Mr.
Tylor regarding Baiamism as a savage perversion of Chris-
tianity, and Mr. Hartland regarding Christianity as a Greeco-
Hebraic revival of Baiamism.

As to this question of borrowing (which, if conceded, is
not useful to Mr. Hartland’s case against me), I must quote
my critic textually. After citing Mr. Ridley’s account of
Baiame as Creator, as the Being who welcomes the souls of
dead blacks into Paradise, and destroys the bad, Mr. Hart-
land goes on (folk-Lore, p. 302): “And his name is said
to be derived from daza, to make, cut out, or build But
this account must surely be received with very great cau-
tion.” There is evidence—negative evidence, it is true, but
of persons in a position to be well informed—that Baiame,
if known at all by that name, was not so prominent a figure
in the beliefs of the natives until about sixty years ago, and
that, at all events, what Dr. Tylor justly calls the ‘ markedly

‘ Brough Smyth, vol. 11.) p. 285. Mrs. Langloh Parker gives Byamee=
** Big Man.”

* «*This account,” right or wrong, is from the very same linguist who renders
Daramulun by ‘‘ game-leg,” namely, Mr. Greenway.

Australian Gods. 25

biblical characteristics’ observable in Mr. Ridley’s report
have appeared only since the advent of the missionaries and
the extended converse of the aborigines with white settlers.
Dr. Tylor, whose discussion of the question Mr. Lang does
not mention, sums it up in these words: ‘The evidence
points rather, in my opinion, to Baiame being the missionary
translation of the word Creator, used in Scripture lesson-
books for God.’* Mr. Lang may challenge this opinion
as that of an anthropologist, however distinguished, whose
theories a large part of his book is occupied with contro-
verting. And probably it is not altogether beyond dispute.
The facts, however, remain that the earliest [known] men-
tion of Baiame is in the year 1840, that he is then said to
be living on an island in the sea and to feed on fish, that
while some natives considered him ‘Creator,’ others were
said to attribute that office to his son Burambin, that his
biblical characteristics, as reported by missionaries, con-
stantly expanded down to the publication of Mr. Brough
Smyth’s work in 1878, and that in the most recent ac-
counts—those of Mr. Matthews [Mr. Crawley], who is not
a missionary—they have so far disappeared that he is now
only said to have created the tribesmen themselves. It
seems reasonable on the whole to infer that whatever may
be the origin of his name and his earlier position in native
thought, the points of his story most resembling the
Christian conception of Creator have been unconsciously
evolved, first by white explorers, then by missionaries,
and lastly by the natives themselves under European
influence.”

And this though the natives are “guiltless of Christian
teaching’?! How can the simultaneous assertion of contra-
dictories be “ reasonable ” ?

That European influence exists in the mysteries Mr.
Hartland infers from the presence of a bullock in the

1 Journal of the Anthropological Lnstitute, vol xxi. p. 294.

26 Australian Gods.

artistic representations of the Kamilaroi.!_ Also, I may add,
of an old sportsman driving in a dog-cart, who, however, 15
purely decorative.

Now, as to Dr. Tylor’s theory of the name, Baiame, as a
‘ missionary translation of the word Creator, used in Scripture
lesson-books for God,” the name (which occurs in 1840)
was first so used by Mr. Ridley, in Gurre Kamilaro, which
is of 1856. I ask for an earlier example. Previously Mr.
Threlkeld had tried (and failed) with Eloi and Jehova-ka-
birué, while Mr. Ridley had tried (and failed) with Im-
manueli. Now Baiame is first mentioned (as far as Mr.
Tylor knows) by Mr. Horace Hale, speaking of about 1840.
So Baiame, in 1840, did not come out of a “Scripture
lesson-book” of 1856. That theory will not hold water.
Moreover, our evidence for Baiame, in 1840, is also our
evidence that Baiame was worshipped at Wellington with
songs, when the missionaries first came there.” Mr. Hale’s
evidence for this is that of Mr. Threlkeld, who had been at
missionary work there since 1828. Perhaps Mr. Hartland
will now admit that the missionaries did not introduce
Baiame at Wellington and district, where they found him
already extant.

However, if it be granted.that the missionaries did not
bring in Baiame, it may be fairly argued that Christian ideas
crystallised later round a native conception of a powerful
Being. Thus the creative work of Burambin, son of Baiame,
may, by my opponents, be credited to a missionary sermon
on a text of St. John which need not be cited. Mr. Hart-
land remarks that Baiame’s “ biblical characteristics,” as
reported by missionaries, “ constantly expanded ” down to

1 Tbid., vol. xxiv., p. 416.

2 See Mr. Hale in United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology, p. 110. Also my article, ‘‘ Are Savage Gods borrowed from Mis-
sionaries ?” in Wineteenth Century, January, 1899. ἡ

3 Wellington was founded, or at least the district was named Wellington,
before the town was founded, in 1816.

Australian Gods. a9

the publication of Mr. Brough Smyth’s work in 1878, and in
the most recent accounts, those of Mr. Matthews, who ‘‘is
not a missionary, they have so far disappeared that he is
only said to have created the tribesmen themselves.”
‘They say,” writes Mr. Matthews, or Mr. Crawley, “ that
Baiame created them and gave them the country.”’ It does
not follow that they don’t say he created the country.
Moreover, Mrs. Langloh Parker is later, and more expansive
than Mr. Matthews.

Those poor missionaries! If they say that their savages
are ancestor-worshippers, or have only a vague dread of
ghosts, that is all very capital; if they credit their savages
with higher beliefs, why, they are, I think, not so warmly
welcomed. I myself prefer the evidence of philologists,
Messrs. Greenway and Ridley, to the odzter dictum of a
police officer, who does not say that Baiame did zot create
‘the country,” but that preference may be due to my
deplorable bias, a thing not known among my opponents.
Mr. Hartland, however, is incorrect in his facts, even if
we are to prefer as evidence a police officer who does not
know the native language, to missionaries—who do. _ In-
finitely the most “biblical characteristics”? of Baiame
known to me are contained in notes taken in 1845 by Mr.
Manning. This gentleman was encouraged by Goethe,
then (czrc. 1832) aged eighty-five, to examine Australian
beliefs. Mr. Manning read his old notes of 1845-48 to the
Royal Society of Victoria in 1882. My anthropological
friend regards Mr. Manning’s account as ‘‘quite worthless.”
I don’t, because so many parts of it are corroborated. But
even if it be “ quite worthless,” it disproves Mr. Hartland’s
contention that Baiame’s ‘biblical characteristics,’ as
reported by missionaries, constantly expanded down to the
publication of Mr. Brough Smyth’s book in 1878. For Mr.
Manning’s notes of 1845 are by far the most “ expansive,”
nor did Mr. Ridley and others borrow from them, for they
were lost, though finally recovered. In 1840-1848, Mr.

28 Australian Gods.

Manning lived on the northern boundaries of the Southern
Settlement, where, he says, no missionaries had ever been.
His chief informant was an English-speaking black, Black
Andy, corroborated by several others; and by Dean
Cowper and Archdeacon Giinther (mere missionaries).
The Archdeacon got his information “from some of the
oldest blacks, who, he was satisfied, could not have derived
their ideas from white men, as they then had not had inter-
course withthem.”’ Mr. Manning’s accounts include Baiame
rooted to his crystal rock, as in Mrs. Langloh Parker’s
version.’ Baiame has a son equally “ omniscient” with him-
self, named Grogoragally, elsewhere Boymagela—Mrs.
Langloh Parker’s All-seeing Spirit, I presume, but I will
consult her on the point. For Mrs. Langloh Parker’s
Paradise, Bullimah, Mr. Manning has Ballima, with Oo-
rooma as the place of fire (Gumby). The son of Baiame
watches over conduct, and Baiame acts on his reports.
Mr. Manning calls the son a “ mediator ;”’ if we say “ go-
between,” rhetorical colouring will vanish. Indeed this
kind of “colouring ”’ chiefly consists in using words derived
from the Latin. There is also the First Man (Moodgeegally ),
a Culture Hero. The only prayers are prayers for the souls
of the dead, of which a corroborative example is given by
Mrs. Langloh Parker, in ‘‘The Legend of Eerin’ (JZore
Legendary Tales, p.96). These prayers were not borrowed
from Protestant missionaries!* The doctrines were im-
parted in the mysteries. Mr. Hartland will admit that
missionaries have not ‘constantly expanded” down to 1878
the “biblical” features of this version of 1845-48. Though
much corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker in 1898, Mr.

1 More Legendary Tales, p. 90.

Mr. Ridley has cited corroboration from a wandering convict. The
witness’s character was bad, but the point is not one which he was likely to
invent. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1872, p. 282. The north-
west coast was the district. The dying man was asked to convey messages to
the god.

Austrahan Gods. 29

Manning’s version of 1845 is far the most “ expanded”
that I know. And, like Mr. Matthews, Mr. Manning was
not a missionary.’

Here, then, in 1845, we have a Baiame legend not
expanded by missionaries between 1845-1878. I may
observe that Mr. Howitt in 1885 greatly “ expanded”’ hzs
previous account of Kurnai religion given in 1881. Mr.
Howitt had not become a missionary in the interval; he had
only acquired more information by being initiated. Know-
ledge does expand occasionally, apart from missionary
fancy. Mr. Hartland then conceives it to be reasonable to
infer that Europeans and natives under European influence
have “ unconsciously evolved” the points in Baiame’s story
most resembling the Christian conception of the Creator.
Yet these natives “are guiltless of Christian teaching.”
This, we saw, is less than logical. Moreover, they had
“evolved” all this as a matter of secret knowledge con-
fined to the initiated, as early as 1845, in five years from the
first known mention of Baiame. [5 that very easy to believe?
Then, apparently, they dzsevolved the belief down to the
point at which it reaches Mr. Crawley and Mr. Matthews
(who is not a missionary), and who does not say that
Baiame did zo¢ make “the country.” But they kept the
form of 1845 for Mrs. Langloh Parker, who is not a
missionary either. She began her studies as a disciple of
Mr. Herbert Spencer. Her savage friends converted her
from that position, as she is kind enough to inform me. I
therefore do not see why we should reduce the Baiame
legend to the form reported by Mr Crawley to Mr. Matthews,
though he is not a missionary. Nor, of course, do I admit
that missionaries have “ expanded”’ the legend since 1845,
because the version of 1845 is more “expanded” than any

» T owe Mr. Manning’s article to the kindness of Mrs. Langloh Parker. Were
this Psychical Research, the lady would be gracefully accused of modelling her
report on Mr. Manning’s. In Anthropology we are less suspicious.

30 Australian Gods.

missionary version which has reached me. For example, it
goes far beyond the account received by Mr. Ridley (who is
a missionary) about 1854-1858, and published by him in
Lang’s Queensland (1861). If this missionary did any-
thing, he did not expand, but greatly reduced the “ biblical
characteristics”’ of Mr. Manning’s account. No doubt he
neither reduced nor expanded, but repeated what the
natives had told him about Baiame as a Creator.

Ail this is conclusive against Mr. Hartland’s theory of
missionary expansions between 1840 and 1878, but it is
not conclusive against early borrowing. Here 1 am anxious
to allow the utmost ‘law’ to the borrowing theory. If
this belief were a popular tale, a Méarchen like Cinderella,
told by children or old native women, but despised by the
men (as such tales, anzles fabulx, often are among savages
and peasants), 1 would at once come into the borrowing
theory as far as the most probable. A single escaped
convict might infect the whole Australian continent with
Cinderella or Puss in Boots, though oddly enough real
analogues of our M/archen do not seem to be found among
the natives. Now, when Mr. Manning read his notes of
1845 to the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1882,
he appealed to a friend, Mr. John Mann, for corroboration.
He did not get it. Mr. Mann said that “ he had never met
one aborigine who had any true belief in a Supreme Being,”
Baiame was not up to Mr. Mann’s standard. On the other
hand, “ when cross-examined,” the blacks always admitted
that they had got their knowledge from Europeans. When
cross-examined they never contradict their interrogator’s
ideas.'. Mr. Mann’s ideas were obviously negative. Mr.
Palmer, however, corroborated Mr. Manning. Mr. Mann’s
view was that the curiosity of the blacks urged them to

1 Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 4. ‘‘ Black Andy” was an exception.
He contradicted Mr. Manning’s theory of borrowing.

Australian Gods. 31

inform themselves about the religion of the whites, and
that perversions of Christian doctrine were passed about
across the continent as songs and dances are transmitted.
This theory I would accept at once if we were dealing with
Mirchen, antles fabulz, despised by the men and to be
picked up from the old women. But, notoriously, the inner
religious beliefs are concealed from the women under pain
of death. Mr. Manning’s informants dared only to half-
whisper their lore in secret places. One of them, after
repeatedly examining doors and windows, slunk “into a
wooden fire-place,” and murmured his gospel. The reason
always given was, that if a man’s wife came to know these
things, he would be obliged to kill her, lest the news should
spread among the women. This “ quite worthless” evi-
dence of Mr. Manning’s is corroborated by Mr. Howitt,
to whom a man said: “If a woman were to hear these
things, or hear what we tell the boys, I would kill her”
(Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv., p.
310). Knowledge on the part of the women would mean
cataclysm, universal madness, universal massacre. Now, if
the advocates of the borrowing theory had looked at the
subject all round, they must have observed that missionaries
do not usually neglect to teach women. If then the
“ biblical characteristics’? were borrowed from missionaries,
the women would know them already. But they don’t.
Again, why should blacks hide from whites just the very
things which whites have taught them? Once more, Mr.
Hale (1840) remarked on the extreme aversion of the
blacks to borrow any idea from Europeans. Now, of all
things, the mysteries are, or then were, the most unalterable,
and, of all men, the sages who direct the mysteries are the
most conservative. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have a

1 It may be replied, the women do know the “‘ biblical characteristics ” of
Mungan-ngaur, but not as attributes of that being. My opponents are welcome
to this answer.

32 Austrahan Gods.

long and judicious passage on the question, “Can changes
be introduced into the rites?” and though they think the
thing may, and, “in the dark backward and abysm of time,”
probably must, have been managed, it was confessedly very
difficult. But from that possibility to the sudden accept-
ance from missionaries and insertion in the secret archaic
rites of all the “biblical characteristics’ we discuss is a
very long step. These glaringly obvious difficulties do not
seem to have been noticed at all by the friends of the theory
of borrowing.’ So much for Mr. Tylor’s contention that
biblical analogies (which I presume I also may now regard
as biblical in character) are of European origin.

Next, as to Creation, attributed to Baiame among others.
“To use the word creation is to import into the deeds of
an imaginary being, who is presented, if not as a ‘deified
blackfellow,’ at least as hardly more than a very exalted
savage wizard, ideas which do not belong to them [to those
deeds], and therefore are utterly misleading to the reader,”
says Mr. Hartland. Now, in plenty of contradictory myths,
Baiame is a rather low type of wizard; but, when my
authorities tell me of “creation” by him, or by another
being, what other word am / to use? If Baiame “ made
earth and water, sky, animals, and men,” what did he do
but “create” ?” I am not reduced to mere missionary
evidence. In 1845 Mr. Eyre (not a missionary) described
“the origin of creation” as narrated to him by blacks of
the Murring. Noorele, with three unbegotten sons, lives
up among the clouds. (Noorele, like Elohim, may, it seems,
be plural.) He is “all-powerful” (not omnipotent, which
is rhetorical, only “ all-powerful)’ “and of benevolent
character. He made the earth, trees, waters, &c.”’ ‘He
receives the souls (/adko = umbrez) of the natives, who

1 T have never seen Mr. Curr’s book, but Mr. Max Miiller cites him as saying
that the pre-missionary blacks ‘‘ had no knowledge of God,” or of reward and
punishment beyond the grave (Anthropological Religion, p. 423).

2 Ridley, ‘‘ He made all things,” 1861.

Australian Gods. 33

join him in the skies, and will never die again.’ What
am I to call the deed of the all-powerful Noorele, if I do
not callit, as Mr. Eyre does, “creation”? I am not
“importing ideas which do not belong to them,’ unless
Mr. Eyre fables. Nor am I citing a witness prejudiced
in favour of my notions. ‘ A Deity or Great First Cause
can hardly be said to be acknowledged,” says Mr. Eyre,
just before saying that He zs acknowledged.’

Yet Mr. Hartland writes: ‘We know that the idea of
creation, as we use it, is completely foreign to savage
ideas.” I don’t know how Mr. Hartland uses it; I use it
to mean the making of all things. The Zufiis say that
Ahonawilona “thought himself out into space.’”’ Perhaps it
happened in that way. The details of making all things
are obscure. There are scores of savage contradictory
myths on the subject, but these do not invalidate the
creative idea, unless the making of Adam out of dust, and
of Eve out of Adam’s rib, invalidates what Mr. Hartland
justly calls ‘the sublime conception of the creative fiat as
Seu, ΤΟ ΠΕ im the book. Οἱ Genesis.” .“ ‘The very, latest
diaskeuasts or editors of Genesis did not keep it up to the
level of the first part of the first chapter, and it would be
absurd to ask naked savages to be more constant than
they to a great idea. Contrary to Mr. Crawley’s and Mr.
Matthews’s Baiame, who only made blackfellows (if that is
what Mr. Matthews or Mr. Crawley means), is Mangarrah
of the Larrakeah, who made everything except black-
fellows. Dawed, a subordinate, appears to have made
them; Mangarrah “ made everything . . . . He never dies,
and likes all blackfellows.” ?

In North-West-Central Queensland we find Mul-ka-ri
“4 benevolent, omnipresent, supernatural being; anything

1 Kyre, vol. ii., pp. 355-357:
2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1894, p. 191. Here
the myth of a “‘ Book ” is, of course, European in origin.

VOL. X. D

34 Australian Gods.

incomprehensible.” “ Mulkard tikkara ena = Lord who
dwellest in the skies.’ ‘ Mulkari is the supernatural
power who makes everything which the blacks cannot
otherwise account for; he is a good beneficent person,
and never kills anyone.” His home is in the skies. He
was also a medicine-man, has the usual low myths about
him, and invented magic. So writes Dr. Roth, who
knows the local Pitta Pitta language—and is not a
missionary.!

The blacks may have no right to the higher ideas, but
—there they are, and zot borrowed, Waitz thinks, from
Europeans. Here Mr. Hartland introduces the fact that
the Noongahburrahs regard Baiame, or Byamee, as only
a great medicine-man, with wives, and so forth (/o/k-Lore,
p. 303, note 1). “No doubt this is ‘folklore, and not
part and parcel of the mysteries. Perhaps, therefore,
Mr. Lang will seek to put it out of court as a ‘a kind of
joke, with no sacredness about it! ? >) Mr. Latte “wall
let it be as Mr. Hartland pleases, but the Noongahburrah
happen to put it out of court as “a kind of joke, with
no sacredness about it.” The low myths occur in the
first series of Mrs. Langloh Parker’s Legendary Tales.
About these she says: “ They were all such legends as are
told to the black piccaninnies ; among the present (tales)
are some they would not be allowed to hear, touching as
they do on sacred subjects, taboo to the young” (More
Legendary Tales, p. xv.). The “ sacred ” tales are, I sup-
pose, the beautiful “ Legend of Eerin,” and “ Legend of the
Flowers,’ with the touching prayer for the soul of Eerin,
and the account of the All-seeing Spirit. Thus Mr. Hart-
land may note the trend of Noongahburrah opinion: they
draw a line between sacred and profane.

As to Bunjil or Pundjel, which seems equivalent to Baal,

1 Roth, Worth-West Central Queensland Aborigines, pp. 14, 36, 116, 153,
158, 165.

Australian Gods. 35

or Biamban, “ Master,” “Lord,” “Sir” ; any distinguished
person may be called Bunjil.1 Yes, and any ass may be
called “Lord” Tomnoddy. Bunjil may have as many wives
as Zeus, and be as much mixed up with animals as
Zeus, and may be now a star, for all that I care. He is
something else too, though Mr. Hartland “ judiciously
omits” the circumstance. A Woiworung bard of old made
a song which moved an aged singer to tears by “the
melancholy which the words conveyed to him.” It was an
“inspired” song, for the natives, like ourselves, would
think Tennyson inspired, and Tupper not so. Usually “the
spirits” inspire singers; ¢hzs song was inspired by Bunjil
himself, who “‘ rushes down’ into the heart of the singer,”
just as Apollo did of old. It is a dirge of the native race.

We go all!

The bones of all

Are shining white.

In this Dulur land!
The rushing noise

Of Bunjil, Our Father,
Sings in my breast,
This breast of mine 4 2

Mr. Hartland writes: “1 do not find that Bunjilis regarded
as judge, though no doubt his position as a star gives him
facilities of observation, and the vague threat ‘he can see
you and all you do down here’ implies a fear of vengeance
in case of offending him . . . . Of his precepts, referred to
by Mr. Lang, I know nothing.” ὅ

Though Mr. Hartland knows nothing (not by his own
fault), it does not follow that there is nothing to know of

1 In one glossary Bunjil= Man.

2 Done out of the literal version with the native words (Howitt). /ourmal
of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xvi., pp. 330-331.

3 Nor do I know anything of such ‘‘ precepts” in the mysteries, which
seem to be obsolete in Bunjilist tribes. I only knew that Bunjil watches
behaviour.

D 2

36 Australian Gods.

Bunjil in a moral aspect. As I write this, I learn from my
anthropological friend already referred to as a sympathetic
partizan of Mr. Hartland’s, that a large body of valuable
testimonials to Bunjil has just arrived, in MS., into his
hands. The testimonials, he says, “may be relied on as
accurate ;"’ and, knowing the source, which he mentions, I
think the accuracy will be undisputed. The “ originality ”
—that is the unborrowed character—of Bunjil is here upheld,
which will not surprise Mr. Hartland, for he knows that the
savage mind “ is guiltless of Christian teaching.” “ Bunjil
appears again and again in the tales as maintaining the
moral law and punishing the wicked.” (January 8, 1899.)
There are ‘“‘undesigned coincidences” with my view of
Bunjil, and the collector of the evidence is unknown to me
personally or by letter. Of course Mr. Hartland could not
be aware of this testimony; but it clears Bunjil of the
charge of being only an adulterous shape-shifting wirreenun,
his aspect in the myth cited by Mr. Hartland, and in AZyth,
Ritual, and Religion by myself. Nor is he merely a star
called Fomalhaut. I cannot say whether or not Bunjil
presides over tribal mysteries. Mr. Howitt’s opinion is,
‘Cafter considering all the evidence now before me, that
the tribes in Victoria had in a great measure lost the
initiation ceremonies,’ perhaps in the advance from female
kin to agnation (Fournal of the Anthropological Institute,
vol. xiv., p. 325). This is an interesting question. Such
rites are in great vigour in Central Australia, where a man
may marry a woman of his own totem, and children need
not be of the totem of father or mother (Spencer and
Gillen). Indeed, Mr. Howitt says that agnatic Queensland
tribes have the rite in full vigour, which deprives his sugges-
tion, as he remarks, of its strength. I trust, in any case,
that the moral character of Bunjil is now rehabilitated by
evidence which, I hope, will soon be published.

The best of all evidence is that of old savage songs or
hymns; here it witnesses, in the poem already cited, to

Australian Gods. 37

“Father Ours.” The Being, Our Father, who inspires
such songs is not a mere polygamous medicine-man or
merely a star known as Fomalhaut. He is also religiously,
and I think very touchingly, envisaged. He lives, and in-
spires the sad last singers of a fading people. But the mis-
sionaries put down these songs and sentiments ; this is an
old song by one of a family of hereditary bards. ‘The
white man knows little or nothing of the blackfellows’
songs.” Mr. Manning’s informant was angry when asked
for the Baiame song. He said that Mr. Manning knew too
much already. And we discuss the natives’ religion, we
white fellows, in ignorance of their hymns! They cannot
count up to seven, so they have no right to be poets.

Coming to the Kurnai Mungan-ngaur, Our Father, he
was, says Mr. Hartland, “ sufficiently carnal to have a son.”?
There is nothing especially “carnal” in having a son not
born of female kind, and, as Mr. Hartland remarks, ‘ Mr.
Howitt tells us nothing of Mungan-ngaur’s wife.” Perhaps,
like Noorele (Eyre, 1845) and Baiame (Manning, 1845),
Mungan-ngaur was celibate, and his sons were “ons, as in
Gnostic doctrine. That ‘‘no myth of creation” is told
about Mungan by Mr. Howitt I had expressly stated.’
But, if Mungan’s “ attributes are precisely those of Baiame,”
as Mr. Hartland cites Mr. Howitt, then a suspicion of being
creative attaches to Mungan, even if it is not explicitly
recorded.

Mr. Hartland appears to have been unsuccessful in his
search for scandals about Our Father in Kurnai. As he
says, very nasty things may turn up. I shall be surprised
if they do not. Threats of “awful disclosures” in the
future about Mungan-ngaur are held over me zu” fterrorem
(Folk-Lore, p. 310). But it is in vain that any man black-
mails Mungan-ngaur. Here is the old zgnoratio elenchi !

1 [bid., vol. xiv., p. 313-
® Making of Religion, p. 190.

38 Australian Gods.

Mungan may, Mr. Hartland hopes he will, be found out.
“Tt is all one to Hippoclides.” I do not, I never did,-
maintain that the Kurnai have pure ideas, and none but
pure ideas, of “Our Father.” That never was my con-
tention. I said that savages had these ideas, overrun by
mythical parasitic plants. Mr. Hartland does, however, see

a chance of debasing Our Father. “The Kurnai have
another Supreme Being—if indeed he be not the same—
who is called Brewin.” Two Supreme Beings? ‘There

was no restriction against the women’s knowing about
him.” They do xot know Mungan-ngaur. So it looks as
if Brewin were identical with Mungan-ngaur. ‘No women
would ever call Brewin ‘ Father,’ for he is looked on as
very malignant,” whereas Mungan-ngaur is benevolent,
and Brewin, Mr. Hartland thinks, is only the bad aspect of
Mungan-ngaur. Now, no women call Mungan-ngaur any-
thing at all. It is the Coast Murring women who call
Daramulun “ Papang” or “ Father.”” The fact is that, till
initiated, Mr. Howitt knew nothing of Our Father in
Kurnai. He only knew the fiend Brewin, as the women
do. One might as well argue that the Deity=Satan, or
that Kiehtun= Hobamock, as that Mungan-ngaur= Brewin,
though Brewin does live in the sky, has a wife, sends
disease, and gives magical power. ‘There are four or five
cases of the bad, as opposed to the good, Being in
Australia; any one who pleases may attribute the belief
to missionary influence. Before Mr. Howitt was initiated
and knew Mungan-ngaur, he seems to have regarded
Brewin as the Supreme Being of the Kurnai. Here I
followed him in Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1887. Now
he knows better—and so do we. It was enough to
blacken Daramulun by attributes assigned to him in a
Baiame country; we cannot have poor Mungan-ngaur
mixed up with Brewin as “ that untradesmanlike falsehood,
‘the same concern.’” Let Mr. Hartland have patience

Australian Gods. 39

Ugly stories of Mungan-ngaur will be found, unless he is
very unlike any Deity whom I ever met in mythology.
But good accounts of Bunjil have also arrived in the nick
of time.

Thus far of these beings individually. If it will please
opponents I shall call them “makers” (relying on evidence)
not “Creators”’ (though my authorities use the word), and
“undying up to date” not “immortal.” That Baiame, or
Noorele, only “fashions pre-existing material,” as Mr. Hart-
land says (p. 314), 1 have no evidence, Mangarrah ‘“‘ made
everything ’’—except blacks. That many other such beings
are said to use up existing material I admit, or rather |
have asserted. All views are taken by savages, including
that of evolution, which perhaps was “borrowed from
Europeans’? The Digger Indians admit Evolution but
deny the Immortality of the Soul. Have they had mis-
sionaries from Mr. Bradlaugh’s flock? The divine supremacy
does extend “beyond the government of the tribe.’ It
includes for each being many tribes, while beyond their
range it is still the “Father” who governs. Sir. A. B.
Ellis (who is not at all of my way of thinking) talks of a
change in West Africa, when “the gods instead of being
regarded as being interested in the whole of mankind,
would eventually come to be regarded as interested in
separate tribes or nations alone.”

Mr. Hartland writes: “ The sacredness of the god’s name
is merely the fear of summoning him on an inappropriate
occasion.” Perhaps; in any case his name is not to be
“taken in vain.’ The motive is fear, which produces
reverence, a great step in religious history, from which
civilisation is retrograde. Missionaries dare not talk to
savages of “God,” a term only known to savages as
associated with “damn.” Degenerate civilisation! There
are no idols because, says Mr. Hartland, art is not sufficiently
developed. But art was sufficiently developed in Strachey’s

40 Australian Gods.

Virginians (1611). Okeus, the deputy of Ahone, had idols ;
Ahone had none. Asa rule, the otiose supreme being of
more advanced races has none. He comes from an age
before idols. Of omnipotence and omniscience I have
already said what I have to say.

As to moral qualities: the Being has no sacrifices, be-
cause he “ has not the chance.” But this is continued from
old times, as a rule, where he fas the chance, as I show in
many cases of higher peoples who do sacrifice to their minor
deities, but not to the chief of them. Does the Australian
God “set the example of sinning”? Has he the vices of
Zeus? One myth to that effect is cited, in the case of
Bunjil. It is an etiological myth of the origin of the
pecularities of certain birds; such myths are ‘told to the
picaninnies,” among the Kurnai. But, if a thousand such
tales are told, Zeus protects Homeric morality, despite his
own mythology, and I speak of what I call the “ religious”’
aspect. Where Daramulun devours boys, we are not en-
gaged with Daramulun as the supreme being, as 1 have
remarked a dozen times, and Zeus had cannibal sacrifices
after the Christian era (M/yth, Ritual and Religion, i.
ch.ix. Many examples.) Mr. Hartland can scarcely be
ignorant of these Greek human sacrifices, which, on the
strength of the myth of Tantalus, he courteously credits
Zeus with ‘repudiating.” Concerning the Australian
Being’s sanction of morality, so often denied by eminent
men of science, I prove my point.

As to the origin of morality, I have no space for an
essay. My introduction of the Decalogue was meant
merely to show the analogies between rudimentary and
accomplished ethics. The old men, in Australia, ave group-
fathers (if we speak of the Fifth Commandment), but I do
not insist on this. To say “obey them” is equivalent to

' I understand that objections are taken to Strachey’s evidence. I have

considered all such objections as I can discover in the preface to a new edition
of Myth, Ritual, and Religion.

Australian Gods. AI

“honour the king,” if not to “the First Commandment with
promise.” It includes the germinal form of both injunc-
tions, relatively to the social condition of the race. As to
unselfishness, the Kurnai first rite was an innovation,
because the boys had now become “selfish,” says Mr
Howitt, from associating with white fellows ( Fournal of the
Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv., Ρ. 310). If only “tribal
regulations as to the distribution of food’’ are meant here,
as Mr. Hartland thinks, Mr. Howitt does not say so. Food-
taboos on the initiate (as at the Eleusinia) he mentions
later. He says that “the boys are no longer inclined to
share that which they had made by their own exertions, or
had given them, with their friends.’ That seems to
include money earned by black boys; that cannot possibly
refer to native food, we don’t give a black boy witchetty
grubs. Mr. Hartland wishes to make Mr. Howitt’s words
mean “all the food they made by their own exertions, or
had given them” (folk-Lore, p. 321). Mr. Howitt does
not say this, and how could rules about zative food apply
to tinned lobsters or a round of beef? Ifa black has no
property except food, what he has he gives; no man can
do more; few do as much in Christian lands. I refer Mr.
Hartland to what Dampier says: “Be it little or be it
much they get, everyone has his part, as well the young
and tender as the old and feeble, who are not able to go
abroad.”” Compare Mr. Man on another very low race, the
Andamanese: “Every care and consideration are paid
by all classes to the very young, the weak, the aged, and
the helpless; and these being made special objects of care
and attention, invariably fare better in regard to the
comforts and necessaries of daily life than any of the
otherwise more fortunate members of the community”
(Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xii., p. 93).
Mr. Hartland may, for Australia, also consult Spencer and
Gillen. Curious and touching examples of unselfish
generosity, extended to three wandering white men, occur

42 Australian Gods.

in their narratives, ap. Barron Field, New South Wales
(1825). No tribal limitation here !

The difference between me and Mr. Hartland is that
where he only sees in savage morals what Thrasymachus
(in the Gorgzas) calls “ the interest of the strongest,” I see
also the Aristotelian φιλία, love. Perhaps “ this is assumed
in an airy way.” I give my evidence. The affection breaks
down, in cases, old men are put to death (Dawson), babies
are destroyed. But the affection is there for all that. Of
this I give a curious case from Brough Smyth. A native
had stolen the sugar of atribesman. Tribal law gave him
the right to a smack at the thief’s head with a waddy. He
administered the blows, burst into tears, kissed the thief,
and repeatedly drove the point of the waddy into his own
head. Here is φιλία, and it is not absent from tribal
morals. It is among “the good old ancestral virtues,” as
Mr. Howitt says of the savages (Yournal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, vol. xiv., p. 310) now vitiated by “the
white man’s influence.” To what purpose reply that the
blacks wage war and punish witchcraft? ‘It is lawful for a
Christian man to bear arms,” and, as to witchcraft, see Sir
Matthew Hale. Concerning women, incest is immoral
everywhere. It is only a question of what is regarded
as incest. The savage rules are the germ of our own.
“Not to interfere with an unprotected girl,’ a rule of
the tribes, is a good rule anywhere. A judge on circuit
lately, in Northern England, had to deplore the breaches
of the rule. This rule does not merely “ increase the
authority of the elders.’ The pantomime dances of an
obscene kind answer to the “ Yah” ceremony, where the
boys are taught “ straightforward truth,’ by the converse
example of humorous lying (Fournal of the Anthropological
Institute, vol. xil.,p. 444). To “tell the straightforward
truth” may be inculcated merely in the interest of the strong-
est. Mr. Hartland may say so (he does not allude to it),
but it is good ethics. The mode of instruction is odd

Australian Gods. 42

but the purpose is excellent.1. I am not arguing that the
Kurnai, for instance, are crowned with the white flower of
a blameless life. I am arguing that they have the elements
of consideration for unprotected women, and of regard for
marriage. The Seventh Commandment is in the interests
of husbands and of social peace, but it is not such a bad
part of ethics as Mr. Grant Allen appears to believe. The
Kurnai obey it about as much as the ancient Romans.
That there are scores of taboos, who denies? who denies
that they are under the sanction of the Being? As I said,
similar taboos occur in Leviticus. I doubt if we have a
single ethical or religious idea which the lowest savages do
not possess among their ideas; civilisation has, of course,
discarded many ideas which the blacks do possess, many
practices, right as the social ethics of the Andamanese,
wrong as the hideous rites of the Arunta. Among their
ideas, the savages have the elements of a very good work-
ing religion. Among our practices are many (as Mr.
Manning’s black informant said when he was taken to
church) wholly inconsistent with our professed creed.
Any black satirist who came to England, like Voltaire’s
Huron, could easily make as good a case out of our con-
tradictory religious beliefs, and contradictory practices, as
the case which Mr. Hartland makes against the Australians.
We are all both Jekyl and Hyde. The Australians were
said to have no Jekyl. I think that I have proved them
not to be all unmitigated Hyde. One Hyde-like point
Mr. Hartland seems to me to exaggerate. The mysteries
are ‘celebrated with horrible cruelty and worse than
beastly filthiness” (p. 294). Where? Among the tribes
which practise ‘the terrible rite,” I grant the cruelty ; but,
where merely two front teeth are extracted (while the
victim is patted on the back to encourage him), I doubt the

1 As to elopements, and furious wrath and punishment, see Howitt, Journal

of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xvi., pp. 36-38. The whole affair seems to
me poetic and chivalrous.

44 Australian Gods.

cruelty. Of filthiness (except in dances to deter from vice)
I know no proof, even among the Arunta, at these cere-
monies.!_ For promiscuity like what the fathers attribute to
Greek mysteries, and heathen apologists to the Christians,
the Fijians were available cases (or some of them), and their
rites were given, not to Tui Laga, but to ancestral spirits,
who, in my theory, succeed and supersede such beings as
Mungan-ngaur.” That such iniquities occur in Australia |
do not dispute, but do they often occur at the Bora? I may
incidentally remark that the retreat to the hills of each
Dorian youth with an older companion seems to me analo-
gous to the retreat of the Australian boy with his Aado, or
mystagogue. But the Greeks put an interpretation on it
suited to their morals, though reprehended in those of
Australia (Fournal of the Anthropological Institute, vol.
Xlll., p. 450).

I have ever maintained that whether ghosts preceded such
beings as Mungan-ngaur in evolution, whether low myth pre-
ceded high belief, or vzce versa, we cannot historically know.
But I have as good a right to a guess as my opponents have
to a prehistoric “glimpse.” They can have their prehistoric
“ slimpses,’’ I have my conjecture. To me the mental
faculties required for the conception of Mungan-ngaur do
not seem loftier than those demanded for the very abstract
speculations which lead up to the conception of a common
ghost—unless actual ghosts were often seen, which might
account fora belief inthem. But this 15 Psychical Research.
Again, as to myth, is it more likely that men first conceived of
a low, polygamous, immoral medicine-man, and later, said
that he, of all people, was guardian of conduct and maker
of things, the enemy of the vices he practised; or is it more
likely that, having conceived of a good, kind Maker, men
proved unable to live up to the idea, and degraded it by
humorous fancy? That man can do so is proved by the

ΓΤ fancy that the Wiradthuri are again the culprits.
Fison, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv., pp. 14-31.

Australian Gods. 45

conception of God, in Christianity given pure, and then
degraded in Méarchen.' Is there any proof of the opposite
process? I ask for a case in which we snow that a dirty old
medicine-man was elevated into a kind supreme being,
guardian of tribal morality. I know no such case. But
we are familar with a case in which the ‘“ Father” of our
creed has been made the topic of popular humorous fancy.
Thus I seem to have a right to my surmise that gods came
before ghosts ; high beliefs (mythical, if you will) before low
myths.

One last remark on the earlier part of my book. The
alleged psychical experiences of humanity, or many of them,
“cannot,” I say, ‘at present be made to fit into any purely
materialistic conception of the universe.’ They cannot,
“at present ;” I agree with Mr. A. J. Balfour. But Mr.
Hartland says, “ meaning, I presume, that the savage theory
of the soul is, substantially and in its main outlines, a
correct interpretation of facts.” Why should he presume
this? This is the theory of the spiritualists. Rightly or

. wrongly, I emphasise my dissent from it. Says Mr. Huxley:
“ There lies within man a fund of energy, operating intelli-
gently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe,
that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic
process.” ? What I mean (as far as I have any kind of
hypothesis) is that the fund of energy in man has other things
akin to my conception (I don’t say to Mr. Huxley’s
conception) of “that which pervades the universe,” than
are allowed for in any purely materialistic system of
philosophy.

So I conclude. What Mr. Hartland and I both want is
more facts, and more careful criticism. Among these facts
a tribal map is of the first necessity, though we do possess

' God, in Dunbar’s poem, laughed till his heart was sore, when he saw the
soul of a drunken woman slip into heaven. That some A/drchen were carried
on from Paganism is probable, or certain; but the whole subject invites

research.
* Huxley, Zvolution of Ethics, pp. 83, 84.

46 Australian Gods: Rejoinder

at least a sketch of that kind in Mr. Brough Smyth’s Ador-
gines of Victoria.

Rejoinder.
BY E. 5. HARTLAND.

The demolition of my criticisms has ‘taken such a deal
of doing,” that my rejoinder must, from considerations of
space, be brief. Leaving minor issues, and avoiding as far
as possible mere verbal discussions, therefore, I shall only
touch on the principal points.

I note that Mr. Lang now adopts Professor Starr’s state-
ment of his case that “ among” man’s “ earliest original
conceptions is the idea of a kind, creative Supreme Being
whom men may worship.’ This is a material variation from
the hypothesis stated on p. 331 of The Making of Religion,
and quoted by me (fo/k/ore, vol. ix., p. 293), that “ there
are two chief sources of religion: (1) the belief... ina
powerful, moral, eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of
men; (2) the belief . . . in somewhat of man which may
survive the grave,’ with the latter of which I was not
dealing. The present statement is not only less definite,
but it does not exclude other and contemporaneous religious
beliefs. I cannot here examine the general question as to
man’s “earliest original conceptions’ of deity, which is
outside the issue I was debating, namely, the accuracy of Mr.
Lang’s presentation of the ‘ High Gods” of the Australians.
It is the less necessary to do so, because Mr. Lang himself
adopts the same phraseology with regard to the present
Australians, contending ‘‘ that the notion of a kind, creative
Supreme Being is among the ideas of the Australians.”

Mr. Lang admits that his use of rhetorical expressions
was unwise, excusing himself, however, by saying that it
was “partly a matter of capital letters and Latinised words.”
True, but by no means the whole truth. What is apt to mis-
lead in The Making of Religion (all the latter half of it) is
the choice of words associated with the theological concep-

Australian Gods: Rejoinder. 47

tions embodied in Christianity—nay, often the very words
of the Bible—to express ideas far less definite, far more
rudimentary, and not to be properly understood save in
connection with the rest of the tribal and racial culture.
When, for instance, we read of “ Our Father” or the
“Father in Heaven,’ we do not think of a one-legged
being, or of a star, or of a giant sitting on an earthly
mountain, rooted to the rock. When we are referred to
“Leviticus, pass¢m,” in connection with a requirement to
obey the food restrictions, we are apt to imagine that
these restrictions have to do with chewing the cud, and
parting the hoof, with the permanent distinction between
clean and unclean animals, whereas they are merely tem-
porary taboos for ritual reasons peculiar to the myths and
ceremonies of the Australian natives, and having little or no
analogy to the Hebrew prohibitions. If we want really to
understand the religious ideas of savages, we ought to be
specially careful to translate them into words uncoloured
by our own theological connotations. When we have
once got a clear conception of the savage’s ideas (not
an easy thing to do), we can then fairly estimate their
analogies with and differences from our own. But it
darkens knowledge to begin by using words which mean
one thing to us and another thing to the savage, even if
he attach any definite meaning to them at all.

This brings me to another source of misconception—the
use of definite words for indefinite ideas. I need not
labour the point as against Mr. Lang, since he admits its
justice and amends his verbiage. But the expressions of
his authorities continue to perplex him. Accordingly, I
want to suggest to him that it is always wise to discount
exact statements, by travellers and other observers, of ideas
only vaguely apprehended by the savage mind. These
exact statements arise partly from carelessness or misunder-
standing, but partly also from the infirmities of language,
partly too from the difficulty experienced by the civilised

48 Australian Gods; Rejoinder.

inquirer, be he traveller or missionary or whatever he may,
in placing himself at the precise point of view of the lower
culture. Mr. Lang sees it himself where the word sfzrzt is
concerned. Why does he not apply it to Creator and
Creation, to Supreme Being, to immortal, and a score of
other expressions used of savage religion at sundry times
and by divers persons? Some of these expressions
as used by himself he has admitted to be “rhetorical”
or “ overstrained.” But the fact is that nothing is easier
than to lay upon them a stress they will not bear, and to
interpret them in a way that would indeed “astonish the
natives.’ There are, I am persuaded, few students of
savage life and religion who will not subscribe to the
opinion that, from the time of Herodotus downwards, exag-
gerations and misstatements of this kind, unintentional and
probably unavoidable, have been the source of innumerable
baseless theories ; they have dug more pitfalls in the path
of scientific research than any other class of causes.
Vagueness is one characteristic of the savage; inconsis-
tency isanother. Truly and wittily Mr. Frazer somewhere
says: ‘‘ Consistency is as little characteristic of savage as of
civilised man.”” The savage, at all events, not only fails to
define his ideas, even when they are more or less definite,
he entertains others equally definite but contradictory, and
he is at no pains to reconcile them one with another. Per-
haps he is unconscious of the contradiction. Mr. Lang inter-
prets the contradiction as the product of two human moods ;
and he calls one set of ideas religion and the other myths.
This is of course a mere question of words. “ This belief,”’
he says, “I choose to call ‘religious’ because it conforms
in its rude way to and is the germ of what we commonly
style ‘religion.’”” Very well; only let it be understood it is
simply Mr. Lang’s choice. Where both sets of ideas are
equally and inextricably interwoven in the fabric of one
and the same sequence of ceremonies, and those ceremonies
are the most sacred rites of the tribe, it is hard to say that

Australian Gods: Rejoinder. 49

one set is religious and the other not. It is hard to say, too,
that one was afore or after other. In the evolution of the
mysteries, what Mr. Lang calls the myths may, for aught
we know, have long preceded the appearance of what he
calls religion. I do not say that they did, I simply put the
possibility. But if they did, what becomes of Mr. Lang’s
hypothesis, even as revised by Professor Starr, that ‘“ among
man’s earliest conceptions”’ is the set of ideas qualified by
Mr. Lang as ‘‘religious.”’ It is no part of my argument to
deny that man had upreaching desires, and longings which
expressed themselves more or less definitely (but rather less
than more) in what Mr. Lang calls “ religious beliefs. ”
What I deny is that they were more truly beliefs, or more reli-
gious, than what Mr.Lang calls myths. In his use of the word
myths he illustrates the inconsistency of civilised man.
Replying to me, he appears, in one place at least (see p. 15),
to confine the meaning of the word to “ obscene or humorous
tales.” Even then, I doubt whether myths are the result of
‘indulging’ man’s “fancy for fiction’’—tales told consciously
for amusement without any hold on serious belief. Some
of them, perhaps, are ; many of them certainly are not. In
the passage he quotes just before from Myth, Ritual, and
Religion, however, he seems to include other elements,
notably ‘ the irrational,’ which is not necessarily either ob-
sceneor humorous. And in 7he Making of Religionhe speaks
of the story about Mungan-ngaur’s relation to the Kurnai asa
myth—at least by implication, for he refers to ‘the opposite
myth, of making or creating.” Now Mungan-ngaur’s relation
to the Kurnai is precisely what Mr. Lang designates religion.
Well may I ask: Where is the distinction ?

Recognising, then, the co-existence of inconsistent beliefs,
I find no difficulty in accepting both myths of Daramulun:
that he died, and that he is ‘an anthropomorphic supernatural
being,” as part of the beliefs of the same tribes. I need
hardly say that I never meant to suggest that Daramulun was
literally the ghost of a man, but only that on the principle

VOL. X. E

50 Australian Gods: Rejoinder.

laid down by Mr. Lang he was “ἃ confessed ghost-god.”
And I see no reason why the same tribes should not hold at
the same time that he was on earth and died, and that he is
living an anthropomorphic being in the sky. Similar beliefs
coexisting about Zeus do not disturb Mr. Lang; nor need
these. And perhaps they are reconcilable after all.!
Moreover, beliefs, though inconsistent in our judgment, are
equally to be taken into consideration in estimating the con-
ception formed by the savage of his god. One of my com-
plaints of Mr. Lang’s method is, that he has fixed his eyes too
exclusively on one set of beliefs, turning away from the other
as mere myths. Scientific investigation of the position of
savage belief in the history of religion must take into account
all the factors, giving due weight to them all. To assume
that “the mythical element is secondary or aberrant,”
whether Darwin’s view or not, is to assume the very question
at issue. It is notoriously easy to prove anything by sucha
method. Mr. Lang is far too ‘“‘sportsmanlike” (to adopt
his phrase) for such a process, when it is once pointed out to
him. And indeed the admissions that what he calls “ the
‘religion represents one human mood, while the myth repre-
sents another, doth moods dating from savagery,” and that
‘of the same ‘moral, relatively Supreme Being, or Creator,’
man has simultaneously quite contradictory conceptions,”
involve a recognition of the justice of the criticism.”

1 In the passage on Daramulun (sezfra, p. 16) Mr. Lang speaks of Bunjil
and Baiame as ‘‘ translated.” ‘‘ Translated” is a large word to apply to Baiame.
As applied to Bunjil, who was blown off the earth by an infuriated jay, it recalls
the translation of Bottom.

2 Mr. Lang alleges that we have historical proof of the possibility of degrada-
tion in the case of ‘‘ the conception of God, in Christianity given pure, and
then degraded in Marchen” (p. 45). Anything like a discussion of this subject
would occupy much space, and would hardly be suitable for these pages. I
think, however, I am relieved from it by the fact that between him and myself
there is no dispute as to the priorities of ghost-worship and god-worship,
properly so called, to which he applies it. But I may say that as at present
advised, I cannot admit that the peasant populations of modern Europe,

Australian Gods: Rejotnder. 51

Mr. Lang’s mind “broods fondly over” my remark that
many expressions rhetorically used by him “convey to our
minds reminiscences of Christian teaching of which the
savage mind is guiltless.” He interprets it as an assertion
that, though under European influences, the Australian
blackfellows are guiltless of Christian teaching, particu-
larly with regard to Baiame. But it will be observed that
the remark was a general protest against Mr. Lang’s method
of argument, and contained no affirmation respecting any
specific race or belief. Hence, he cannot fasten upon me
the charge of inconsistency in the mode of dealing with
Baiame. My theory about Baiame is one that Mr. Lang
quotes again and again, namely, that “the points of his
story most resembling the Christian conception of Creator
have been unconsciously evolved, first by white explorers,
then by missionaries, and lastly by the natives themselves
under European influence.”’ Let me give an example of what
I mean by the unconscious evolution by white explorers. I
will take Mr. Manning’s account, which I have had the
opportunity of reading since my criticism was written. He
was not, perhaps, literally an explorer, but an early settler.
I have not space for the whole account, interesting and
inportant though it be. Extracts will, however, show how
Mr. Manning treated Baiame, or Boyma, as he writes the
name. After describing him as “ seated on a throne of

among whom the A/archen arose, ever had the lofty conception of the deity
held by St. Paul or St. John, or consequently ever degraded it. They were
on a different plane of civilisation and of thought from the writers of the New
Testament, and I know of no evidence that they had ever been on the same
plane. This is not at all a parallel case with that of the Australian savages,
about whom we are arguing. _ Being all in a low stage of savagery, they hold
““simultaneously quite contradictory conceptions,” both sets of beliefs, the
‘‘ religious ” and the ‘‘ mythical,” as Mr. Lang chooses to call them. Which
came first, he concedes, is merely ‘‘ surmise,” for it cannot be historically
proved. He thinks the ‘‘religious,” or higher, set came first. That is his
surmise—nothing more ; and I venture to think the European A/darchen yield it
no countenance.
E 2

52 Austrahan Gods: Rejotnder.

transparent crystal of vast magnitude” with ‘‘a great
many beautiful pillars of crystal, handsomely carved, and
emitting prismatic colours,’ he says: “ This description
of the Godhead bears a striking resemblance to the
description in the 3rd verse of the 4th chapter of Revela-
tions (szc). They believe in the existence of a Son
of God, equal with him in omniscience, and but slightly
inferior to his Father in any attribute. Him they call
‘Grogoragally.’ His divine office is to watch over the
actions of mankind, and to bring to life the dead to appear
before the judgment-seat of his Father, who alone pro-
nounces the awful judgment of eternal happiness in heaven
(‘Ballima’) or eternal misery in ‘Oorooma’ (hell), which is
a place of everlasting fire (gumby). . . . The Son watches
the actions of men, and quickens the dead immediately upon
their earthly interment. He acts as mediator for their souls
to the great God, to whom the good and bad actions of all
are known. . . . He does not seem in their belief to be co-
equal with his Father; . . . his office seems chiefly to be to
bring at the close of every day the spirits of the dead from
all parts of the world to the judgment-seat of his Father,
where alone there is eternal day. There he acts as inter-
cessor for those who have only spent some portion of their
lives in wickedness. Boyma, listening to the mediation of
his Son, allows Grogorogally to admit some such into Bal-
lima.’! These extracts, given verbatim et literatim, dis-
close the attitude of Mr. Manning’s mind. His phraseology,
and even his capital letters, are chosen for the purpose of
conveying to the reader’s mind the elements of Christian
theology, he thinks he has discovered in the beliefs of “ the
aborigines of New Holland.” His mind was so imbued
with Christian conceptions that probably he could not do
otherwise. Anyhow, Ὁ is obvious that there is a great deal

1 Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. xvi., p. 159.
Sydney, Thomas Richards, 1883.

Australian Gods: Rejsoinder. 53

here to be discounted. Unless we discount liberally, the
account is, in the language of Mr. Lang’s friend, ‘“ quite
worthless.” It is not an accurate scientific account. It is
beyond doubt coloured and distorted. Mr. Manning has
“unconsciously evolved” what he wormed out of his savage
informant into a pale copy—caricature, if you please—of
Christian ideas. He has presented us not with savage ideas,
but with what he thinks they would be if expressed in
the pompous and technical terms of Christian theolo-
gians. When he descends to particulars, he becomes
more valuable. ‘Their belief in God’s creation of His
own Son was explained to me thus by the intelligent
native from whom I derived my chief information. ‘Boy-
ma,’ on his own creation, feeling lonesome, wished for a son
after his own likeness.” (Note here the capitals, the use
of “God” for Boyma, the phrase “on his own creation,”
suggestive of a mild Arianism, and the phrase “after his
own likeness.) ‘He observed in the firmament a liquid,
resembling blood, which, reaching with his hand, he placed
in a crystal oven, and in a short time the Son of God was
born, a being resembling God and Man.” Here, in spite
of similar phraseology, we discover a myth familiar to
Zulus and North American Indians, of which I have given
examples elsewhere.! If we had it entire, and in a form
more like that in which it was really told, its true character
would be still more apparent. I call it at all events a myth,
and a very savage one. Mr. Lang does not quote it. I
regret this, because it appears to be part of the sacred
belief of the tribe referred to by Mr. Manning, and it would
be interesting to know whether Mr. Lang designates it as
“myth” or “religion.” If I had had Mr. Manning’s Paper
before me, I should not have said that Baiame’s “biblical
characteristics constantly expanded down to” i878. But
that error does not affect the main question; and Mr.

' Legend of Perseus, vol. i., The Supernatural Birth, γ.. 97.
δ ἢ ᾽ » Pp 9

54 Australian Gods: Rejotnder.

Manning’s version is an excellent example of the un-
conscious evolution by white men of native ideas in a
Christian direction, with which I have so sorely vexed the
soul of Mr. Lang. Mr. Manning was not a missionary ;
but if δ could not help colouring and distorting in a
Christian direction, it is extremely likely that missionaries,
whose minds were full of theological ideas and expressions,
when they stumbled upon something in savage belief which
bore a resemblance to these ideas (though a resemblance, it
may be, superficial, or occasionally based on misunderstand-
ing) would in expressing the story or belief in their own
words unconsciously develop the resemblance they saw or
fancied. But whether resemblances to Christian dogma be
reported of savage belief by missionaries or other Europeans,
[ for one hesitate to admit them, until I have satisfied myself,
not merely of the honesty (of that we need not ordinarily
doubt) but of the competency of the witness—a competency
not always to be measured simply by the length of time he
has been in contact with the savage.

Oh! but, says Mr. Lang, “Mr. Manning’s version of
1845” is ‘much corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker in
1898.” Well, I have not space to examine Mrs. Langloh
Parker’s version of the myth in detail: I must content my-
self with mentioning a few of the differences 1 find in it.
For her, Byamee is not ‘the God-head,” but a man, “ the
mighty Wirreenun” (wizard or doctor), who has had a
career on earth with other men, who has wives, one of
whom shares his seat and has a will and powers of her own.
In her account, ‘‘the Son of God” is not to be found, un-
less, as Mr. Lang suggests, in the solitary mysterious
reference to “the All-seeing Spirit’? who has nothing in
her story to do with the judgement of the dead. According
to her, Byamee has had two sons, but what has become of
them does not appear; Bullimah, where he seems now to
be, is beyond the top of a mountain called Oobi Oobi, per-
haps ‘‘one of the Noondoo ridges ’”’ (which I take to be an

Australian Gods: Rejoinder. 55

existing mountain-range known to the tribe), ‘“‘ where he
still lives.” ‘The crystal rock” of Mrs. Parker, and the
two quartz crystals mentioned to Mr. Howitt by a Wirajuri
wizard, are no doubt derived from the quartz crystals
of the wizards, whereby they are supposed to receive
and hold their powers. Baiame, having still mightier
powers, and being the source of theirs, is naturally credited
with a larger quantity of the marvellous stone, glorified by
Mr. Manning into a similitude with the throne of the apoca-
lyptic version. It will be admitted that these are consider-
able divergences from Mr. Manning’s account, and that
they lead to the suspicion that he did not fully understand
the meaning of what he had heard. Concerning Bullimah
and the “abode of the wicked”’ we require further informa-
tion. In one of her stories Mrs. Langloh Parker narrates
very interesting funeral rites and prayers for the dead.
We want to be assured whether these are usual, by means
of an accurate description of the customary ceremonies ;
and that she does not give us. In the case referred to,
Byamee is implored to “ let in the spirit of Eerin to Bulli-
mah. Save him, we ask thee, from Eleanbah wundah,
abode of the wicked.’ But Eerin was changed into a small
grey owl, to keep watch over his people and warn them of
danger. On the whole, Mrs. Parker sufficiently corroborates
Mr. Manning to make a case for further inquiry, and that
is all. It is by no means clear that they are both writing
of the same tribe. I think, however, it will be conceded
that the variations amply support my criticisms on Mr.
Manning.

I cannot pursue Mr. Lang’s remarks on Baiame or the
other divinities any further. A few words must be devoted
to the questions of morality. Mr. Lang is wise not to insist
on his parallel of the first of the Kurnai precepts and “ the
First Commandment with promise.” As to the second pre-
cept, “To share everything they have with their friends,”
he contests my interpretation that it refers merely to tribal

56 Australian Gods: Rejoinder.

regulations concerning the distribution of food. He says:
“ Mr. Howitt does not say so.” Mr. Lang has overlooked
the passage, for Mr. Howitt does in effect say it. In the
very paper which gives an account of Mungan-ngaur he tells
us: “The Jeraeil [the mysteries of the Kurnai] and the
Kuringal [those of the Murring] resemble each other in
being intended to impress upon the youths a sense of re-
sponsibility as men, to implant in them by means of impres-
sive ceremonies the feeling of obedience to the old men,
and to the tribal moral code of which they are the deposi-
tories, and to ensure that, before the youth is permitted to
take his place in the community, join in the councils, and
marry, he shall be possessed of those qualifications which
will enable him to act for the common welfare, and not only
to support himself and a wife and family, du¢ also to con-
tribute a fair share to the general stock of food, to which
his relatives are entitled in common with himself.’* li
the mysteries are, as doubtless they are, traditional from a
period long before money and tinned lobsters were known
to the blackfellow, it is obvious that the precept must refer
to the tribal regulations as to food. And, happily for Mr.
Lang’s satisfaction, Mr. Howitt is here explicit upon the
point. Nor is he explicit only upon this point. He includes
a general account of the common purpose of the mysteries
both of the Kurnai and the Murring tribes which vindicates
my criticism of them. I do not deny the existence of φιλία
in Australian morals. What society could hold together
without it? But the main purpose of the mysteries is
different. It is discipline, the preservation of the social
organisation; and that organisation is a savage one. If
Mr. Lang merely meant that the blackfellows had “ the
elements of consideration for unprotected women, and of

1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv., p. 320. I had omitted
to note the reference to this passage, and somehow could not put my finger on

it in writing my criticism, though I searched several times, for the purpose of
quoting it.

Australian Gods; Rejoinder. 57

regard for marriage,’ and that the resemblance of the food-
restrictions and so forth to Leviticus was that there were
taboos in both, I can only say that the resemblance 15
hardly greater than that between Macedon and Monmouth,
and that he expressed himself unfortunately by his paren-
thetical quotations, and his allegation that “much of the
Decalogue and a large element of Christian ethics are
divinely sanctioned in savage religion.”

There are many more points in Mr. Lang’s Reply to which
I should like to refer. I must content myself, however, with
inviting a careful comparison, by readers who are interested
in the subject, of that reply with the chapters in 7he Making
of Religion and my criticisms thereon. Such readers will
not assume that contentions I have passed over in silence
are not amenable to an effective rejoinder. I have been
compelled to frame my observations for the most part in
general terms; but I think they will apply to all the more
important details discussed by Mr. Lang. We always read
with pleasure and instruction what he writes. It would be
impertinent in me to offer words of praise to a master of
literary exposition and controversy, to whom the science of
anthropology owes somuch. His foregoing Reply, whether
sufficient or (as I venture to think) not, displays all his
entertaining skill and geniality. After all, I do not desire,
and 1 am sure he does not desire, victory, but truth. ‘ More
facts and more careful criticism” are, as he says, what we
want. In scientific inquiry a dialectic triumph may be a
disaster.

58 Minutes of Meeting.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15th, 1898.
The PRESIDENT (Mr. Alfred Nutt) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed.

The election of the Sheffield Public Library, the Chelsea
Public Library, the Carnegie Library, Mr. J. Strong, Mr. W.
Scott Elliot, junior, the Wisconsin State Historical Society,
Mr. P. F. S. Amery, Dr. H. Colley March, Mr. W. Colfox,
Mrs. Kate Lee, Captain W. D. Campbell, the Rev. A. W.
Dawes, and Mr. Geo. Simmons as members of the Society,
and the withdrawal of Mr. G. W. Speth’s resignation were
announced. The deaths of Mrs. Murray Aynsley and Mr. —
Geo. White, and the resignations of Mr. H. T. Jacob, Mrs.
A. Stuart, Mr. J. T. Beard, Mr. H. S. Charrington, Miss
Edmonds, Dr. Gow, Miss Grimsey, Miss C. I. Morison,
Mr. Rayner Storr, and Mr. W. G. Waters were also
announced.

The following books which had been presented to the
Society since the last meeting were laid upon the table,
Viz.

Bulletin, vol. 11., No. 2, Madras Government Museum ;
Anthropology, by E. Thurston, presented by the Madras
Government ; Zransactions and Proceedings of the Fapan
Society, vol. iv.,part 2, presented by the Society; Lud (organ
Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego we Lwowte),vol. iv., part 3 pre-
sented bythe Society; /o/k Lore Umbro,and Amuleti [taliani
Contemporanez, both by Giuseppe Bellucci, presented by
the Author; A Grammar and Dictionary of the Lushai
Language, by J. Herbert Lorraine and Fred. W. Savidge,
presented by the Assam Government; Votes on the Cos-
mogony and History of the Squamish Indians of British
Columbia,” by Professor C. Hill-Tout, presented by the
Author; and Vatnsdaéla Saga, by Dr. Heinrich von Lenk,
Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Conrad, by Richard E.

Minutes of Meeting. 59

Ottmann, and Gudrun, by H. A. Junghans, all presented by
Mr. W. F. Kirby.

The Secretary exhibited a charm of unknown provenance
used to hang round the neck of a horse to keep off the
Evil Eye, sent by Mr. C. E. Levy, and presented by him to
the Society.

Mr. Crooke read a short paper by Miss G. M. Godden
entitled “Ropes of Sand,” upon which Dr. Gaster and
Mr. Kirby and the reader of the paper offered some
observations.

The Secretary then read a paper entitled ‘“ Myths and
Customs of the Musquakie Indians,” by Miss M. A. Owen.

Mr. Hartland, in the temporary absence of the author,
read a paper by Mr. Gomme entitled “ Ethnological Data
in Folklore. A Criticism on the President’s Address of
1898,” to which Mr. Nutt read a reply.

Mr. Gomme having offered some observations in rejoinder,
the meeting concluded.

Votes of thanks were passed to the writers of the papers,
and to Mr. Levy for the charm presented by him to the
Society.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20th, 1898.
The PRESIDENT (Mr. Alfred Nutt) in the Chair.

THE Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

The election of Mr. E. K. Chambers. Mr. M. N. Venket-
swami, Miss M. E. Marriage, Miss A. Taylor, the Toronto
Public Library, the Vassar Library, and the Grand Ducal
Library, Weimar, as Members of the Society, was announced.

The death of Mr. F. M. de Leathes, and the resignations
of Mrs. Sinkinson, Mrs. George Payne, Miss E. M. Evans,
and Mr. J. D. Barnett, were also announced.

60 Minutes of Meeting.

The following books, presented to the Society since the
last Meeting, were laid on the table, viz :—

Lhe Way the World went then, by Miss Isabella Barclay,
presented by Miss Helen Blackburn; A Dictionary of
British Folk-Lore, part i.. Traditional Games, vol ii., by
Mrs. Gomme, presented by the Publisher; Transactions of
the Shropshire Archzological and Natural History Society,
2nd series, vol x., parts 2, 3, and 4, presented by the
Society ; and L’/le de Siphnos, a pamphlet, by H. Hautte-
coeur, presented by the Author.

Mr. Rouse read a paper entitled “Folklore from the
Southern Sporades.” Mr. Crooke, Mr. Bouverie Pusey,
Miss Lucy Broadwood, and the President took part in the
discussion which followed.

Mr. Rouse also read a paper entitled ‘Christmas
Mummers at Rugby,” and in the discussion which followed
Miss Burne, Mr. Ordish, Mr. Bouverie Pusey, Mr. Lowerison,
Mr. Gomme, Mr. E. K. Chambers, and the President took
part.

The Meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to Mr.
Rouse for his two papers.1

Thanks were also returned for the gifts of books.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18th, 1899.
THE 21ST ANNUAL MEETING.
The PRESIDENT (Mr. Alfred Nutt) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last Annual Meeting were read and
confirmed.

* The papers read at the November and December meetings are postponed
for want of space.

Minutes of Meeting. 61

The Annual Report, Statement of Accounts, and Balance
Sheet for the year 1898 were presented; and upon the
motion of Mr. Crooke, seconded by Mr. Emslie, it was
resolved that the same should be received and adopted.

Balloting papers for the election of President, Vice-Presi-
dents, Council, and Officers for the year 1899 having been
distributed, Mr. Kirby and the Secretary were appointed
scrutineers for the ballot.

The retiring President delivered his Presidential Address,
his subject being “ Britain and Folklore.”

The result of the ballot was then announced, and the
following ladies and gentlemen were declared to have been
duly elected, viz. :—

As President : Mr. E. 5. Hartland.

As Vice-Prestdents: The Hon. John Abercromby, Miss
C. 5. Burne, Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr. G. Laurence Gomme,
the Rt. Hon. Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. A. Nutt, Lieut.-Gen. Pitt-
Rivers, Professor F. York Powell, Professor J. Rhys, the
Rev. Professor A. H. Sayce, and Dr. E. B. Tylor.

As Members of Council: Mr. C. J. Billson, Dr. Karl
Blind, Mr. H. Courthope Bowen, Mr. F. C. Conybeare, Mr.
James E. Crombie, Mr. W. Crooke, Mr. Leland L. Duncan,
Mr. J. P. Emslie, Mr. T. Gowland, Miss Florence Grove,
Professor A. C. Haddon, Mr. T. W. E. Higgens, Mr. Joseph
Jacobs, Dr. F. B. Jevons, Professor W. P. Ker, Mr. H. B.
Wheatley, and Mr. A. R. Wright.

As Hon. Treasurer: Mr. E. W. Brabrook.

As Hon. Auditor: Mr. F. G. Green.

As Secretary: Mr. F. A. Milne.

Upon the declaration of the result of the ballot, Mr. Nutt,
having congratulated Mr. Hartland upon his election as
President of the Society, vacated the chair. Mr. Hartland
thereupon took the chair and returned thanks for his
election.

Professor York Powell proposed a vote of thanks to the
outgoing President for his address, which was seconded by

62 Minutes of Meeting.

Dr. Gaster, and carried with acclamation. Mr. Nutt having
returned thanks, Mr. Jacobs moved a vote of thanks to the
retiring Members of Council, viz. Miss Roalfe Cox, Der.
Gaster, Mr. W. F. Kirby, Mr. J. T. Naaké, and Mr. M. J.
Walhouse, which was seconded by Miss Florence Grove,
and carried unanimously.

Dr. Gaster moved, and Mr. Albany F. Major seconded:
That Rule VI. of the Rules of the Society be altered so as
to provide (a) that one-fourth of the Members of the Coun-
cil retire each year automatically; (6) that retiring Mem-
bers shall not be eligible for re-election during the year in
which they retire; and (c) that the Members to retire each
year be determined by seniority of election.

After some discussion, in which Mr. Crooke and Mr.
Gomme took part, Mr. Gomme moved, Mr. Jacobs seconded,
and it was resolved by eight votes to three, that the further
consideration of the question should stand adjourned
sine ate.

TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
COUNCIL. |

18th JANUARY, 1899.

THE Council have to report a year of quiet but steady
progress. The numbers of Members on the Society’s roll
is now 389, as against 377 in the year previous, show-
ing a net increase of twelve in spite of many severe losses
sustained during the year. Chief among these is one
which is shared in common by the country at large in the
person of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone. The Society has
also lost in the Earl of Strafford a former President, whose
administrative ability and courtesy are gratefully remem-
bered by all who served with him on the Council; and in
Mrs. Murray Aynsley an indefatigable traveller and valued
contributor to the Society’s Transactions.

A gratifying feature of. the increase of membership is
the fact that it is largely due to the accession of public
libraries and other institutions, both English and foreign.
Special efforts in this direction, due to the initiative of
Mr. Hartland, were made in the spring, and met with a
fair measure of success. The actual number of libraries
and institutions on the Society’s roll increased from 64 in
1897 to 75 during the last year.

The financial position of the Society has been materially
improved. The balance sheet accompanying this Report
will show that, after making due provision for the extra

64 Annual Report of the Council.

volume of 1898 (an illustrated catalogue of the Starr Col-
lection of Mexican Antiquities referred to below), there
remains a surplus of receipts over expenditure.

The average attendance at the evening meetings has been
very satisfactory, and the discussions following the papers
have been of an animated and useful character, deserving in
many cases of permanent record in the Transactions, as is
the practice in other societies. Members have availed them-
selves more frequently of their privilege of bringing friends,
whom the Council are always gladto welcome. The follow-
ing papers were read in the course of 1898 :—

Jan. 18. President’s Address. The Discrimination of Racial Elements in
British Folklore.
Feb. 15. ‘*The Spectral Rider and Hounds at Randworth, Norfolk.”
By W. B. Gerish.
““ Notes from Cyprus.” By F. O. Harvey.
“ΟἹ Original Work in Folklore.” By H. Raynbird, Junior.
“Customs and Ceremonies at a Mohammedan Betrothal and
Wedding.” By Major McNair and T. L. Barlow.
“*Ona Rain Ceremony from the District of Morshidabad, Bengal.”
By Sarat Chandra Mitra.
March 15. ‘* The Anthropological Value of Children’s Games.” By Mrs.
Gomme.
Aprilig. ‘*Evald Tang Kristensen, a Danish Folklorist.” By W. A.
Craigie.
May 17. ‘* Witchcraft in Ancient India.” By Professor Winternitz.
“« Tobit and Jack the Giant Killer.” By F. H. Groome.
“«Α further instalment of Folklore from the Hebrides.” By
M. McPhail.
“ἐ Giants in Pageants.” By Mrs. Murray Aynsley.
** Kitty Witches.” By W. B. Gerish.
““ Christ’s Half-Dole.” By W. B.-Gerish.
June 21. ‘‘ Theories of the Origin of Religion.” By Andrew Lang.
“¢ The Star-Lore of the Micmacs of Nova Scotia.” By S. Hagar.
“¢ Sqaktktquaclt or the Benign-faced, the Oannes of the Ntlakapa-
muq, British Columbia.” By Professor C. Hill-Tout.
Nov. 15. ‘* Ropes of Sand.” By Miss Godden.
“* Myths and Customs of the Musquakie Indians.” By Miss M. A.
Owen.
** Ethnological Data in Folklore.” A Criticism on the Presi-
dent’s Address of 1898. By G. L. Gomme.
Dec. 20. ‘* Folklore from the Southern Sporades.” By W H. Ὁ. Rouse.
‘* Christmas Mummers at Rugby.” By W. Η. D. Rouse.

Annual Report of the Council. 65

The following objects have also been exhibited at the
evening meetings:

(1) A headdress worn by persons inviting guests to a marriage in
German Silesia. By Dr. Gaster. (2) A bone forming part of
the back of a rabbit, and known locally in Lincolnshire as ‘‘ The
Fox’s Face.” By Miss M. Peacock. (3) A photograph of a piece
of wood used in Caithness in 1810 for making sacred fire. By
Dr. Maclagan. (4) Three miniature vases (supposed to be votive)
from Lake Chapala in Mexico. By Professor Starr. (5) A Burmese
horoscope and some Burmese charms. By Mr. J. B. Andrews.
And (6) A charm used to hang round the neck of a horse to keep
off the Evil Eye. By Mr. C. E. Levy.

Many of the objects have been presented to the Society
by the exhibitors. The Council desire to tender their
sincere thanks for their exhibitions and presentations, and
to impress upon Members the desirability of exhibiting such
folklore objects as they may possess or can borrow for the
purpose.

The Society has issued during the year the ninth volume
of the new series of its Transactions, /olk-Lore, which
comprises, in addition to the more important papers read at
the evening meetings, many smaller contributions, cor-
respondence, reviews of folklore literature, both English
and foreign, lists of new books, &c. It has also issued Mr.
R. E. Dennett's folk-Lore of the Fjort (French Congo),
with introduction by Miss Mary Kingsley, as the extra
volume for 1897. The Council are much indebted to Mr.
Dennett for having placed in their hands the materials
accumulated during his residence of a quarter of a century
in French Congo, and to Miss Kingsley, without whose
assistance it would have been difficult, in the absence of
the author, to pass the work through the press, and who has
enriched the volume with an interesting essay upon West
African history and theology.

The Council have again to place upon record their deep
sense of the obligation under which the Society lies to

VOL. X. F

66 Annual Report of the Councti.

Mr. Hartland, Chairman of the Publications Committee,
for the skill and devotion he has bestowed upon all the
publications of the Society during his year of office.

The collection of Mexican antiquities which Professor
Frederick Starr has so generously presented to the Society
has reached England. Allusion was made in the last
Report to this valuable collection, and arrangements are
being made for its exhibition during 1899. The MS. of an

illustrated catalogue of the collection, drawn up by Professor.

Starr himself, will shortly be in the hands of the printer,
and will be issued to the Members as one of the publica-
tions for the year 1808.

Among the extra publications for 1899 will, it is hoped,
be a further instalment of County Folklore. Mr. G. F.
Black’s collection of printed extracts of Orkney and
Shetland Folklore has now reached the hands of the
Council, and will be printed as soon as possible. Mrs.
Balfour’s collection of Northumbrian Folklore will also be
included in the volume. In connection with this matter the
Council desire to appeal again for the co-operation of
country Members. The publications in which much of the
material lies buried are accessible for the most part
only to residents within the county, consisting as they do
of county histories, transactions of local societies, news-
papers, and pamphlets. Many of the rites and superstitions
recorded in such publications are now obsolete, or exist
only in degraded forms; and it is important for the study
of European, and especially of British, folklore, that the
collection of these records of the past should be undertaken
wherever it may be practicable.

The Council desire to call attention to the value of Fo/k-
Lore (the Transactions of the Society) as a means of inter-
communication among Members at a distance from London,
for the discussion of scientific problems, and for the record
of many items often of unsuspected interest. It is pro-
posed during the present year to enlarge it, and to add

eee

Annual Report of the Councz?. 67

to the number of its illustrations. The Council believe that
in this way both its interest and usefulness will be in-
creased.

The Council have observed with satisfaction that many
Members of the Society have participated in the proceed-
ings of the Anthropological section of the British Associa-
tion.

During the past year a Folk-Song Society, having for its
object the collection, preservation, and illustration of
British popular music and poetry, has been founded, and
the Council tender to the new Society the expression of
their sincere goodwill.

The Council take this opportunity of calling attention to
the fact that volume i. of the English Dialect Dictionary
has lately been completed under the able editorship of
Professor J. Wright, and that negotiations are pending for a
list of the articles dealing with matters of interest to folk-
lorists being printed and circulated among Members of the
Society.

In the latter part of the year a movement, the initiation
of which was due to Miss Grove, a Member of the Society,
was set on foot for the purpose of making the Society
and its work better known in London. Miss Grove is
acting as hon. secretary of the sub-committee to promote
meetings of a popular character and open to the general
public at suitable centres. The first of these meetings was
held in November at Whitelands Training College, Chelsea,
by the courtesy of the authorities, when Mrs. Gomme
gave a lecture on the significance and value of Children’s
Games to a large and appreciative audience of pupils and
local residents. The Council heartily commend this move-
ment to their successors and to the Society generally.

The Council during the year unanimously elected Mrs.
Gomme as the first Honorary Member of the Folk-Lore
Society, in recognition of her long, arduous, and invaluable
services to the Society and to folklore generally.

F 2

68 Annual Retort of the Counczl.

In accordance with a standing resolution of the Council,
Mr. Alfred Nutt retires from the Presidential Chair and
has accepted nomination as Vice-President. The Council
desire to take this opportunity of placing on record their
high appreciation of his services, and to express a hope
that they may for many years to come have the benefit of
his experience and advice in carrying on the work of the
Society.

It will be remembered that at the last Annual Meeting
a motion was made that Members of the Council should
retire in rotation. The motion was withdrawn on the
understanding that the Council would take some action ir
that direction. While no binding rule has been adopted,
the following Members, viz. Miss M. R. Cox, Dr. Gaster,
Mr. W. F. Kirby, Mr. J. T. Naaké, and Mr. M. J. Wal-
house, have resigned their seats upon the Council.

The year which has just closed is the twenty-first of the
Society’s existence. While they can look back upon a
year of much useful work, the Council are fully conscious
that a vast deal remains to be done in the way of
systematising the materials which have been already col-
lected. Among the projects which it is desired to carry
through may be mentioned:

(A) The Bibliography of British Folklore.

(B) A general index to the Society’s Transactions.

(Ὁ) The completion of the series of County Folklore.

(cE) A catalogue raisonné of folklore objects preserved in
the Museums of the United Kingdom.

The Council submit herewith the annual accounts of the
Society duly audited, and the balloting list for the Council
and Officers for the ensuing year.

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.

BRITAIN AND FOLKLORE.

WHEN on former occasions I had the honour of addressing
you, my thoughts turned to what has always for me formed
the chief interest of the study of folklore, the investigation
of the problems which it presents, and of the lines of inquiry
which it opens up, in so far as they concern the mass of
traditional fancy and custom preserved by the inhabitants
of these islands.’ The folklorist truly deserving the name
cannot confine himself exclusively to a limited section of
the study; he must bring with him principles based upon
world-wide inquiries ; he must ever be prepared to test the
evidence yielded, say by Berkshire or Devon, in the light of
material gathered it may be in Greenland or Polynesia,
vouched for by the oldest known records of humanity, or by
the latest Antipodean newspaper. But without a guiding
clue our study may too easily become a mere bazaar instead
of an orderly and well-arranged museum exhibiting the true
correlation of phenomena. Such a clue I have essayed to
find in the relation of Britain to folklore, whether it be the
witness that folklore bears to the evolution of our race and
its culture, or the consideration of the many still doubtful
problems of folklore in the light of specific British evidence.
It seems appropriate that in my last Presidential Address
to the English Folk-Lore Society I should essay to indicate
some of the considerations which have determined my own
line of research, and which in my opinion constitute the

1 “The Fairy Mythology of English Literature: its Origin and Nature.”
Presidential Address, 1897. (/o/k-Lore, vol. viii., pp. 30-53.) ‘‘ The Dis-
crimination of Racial Elements in the Folklore of the British Isles.” Presidential
Address, 1898. (/o/k-Lore, vol. ix., pp. 30-52.)

72 Presidential Address.

special import of Britain for our studies. Whilst I cannot
hope to offer you any novel or definite conclusions, I may
be able to suggest fresh possibilities of research, and to urge
fresh reasons why we as Englishmen, as Britons, should
cherish and foster our study.

My first address endeavoured to set forth the unique im-
portance of modern English literature for mankind, due to
its being the inheritor of archaic traditions and conventions
(whose disappearance would have meant the irreparable
impoverishment of the sources of artistic fancy), and the
medium through which so much of this archaic material,
otherwise doomed to decay, has to be preserved for and
interpreted to the world at large.

In tracing back the fairy realm which Shakespeare’s
genius has made an integral portion of literature to its
source in the earliest known visions and speculations of
dwellers in these islands, I confined myself to Britain.
But the vé/e there claimed for English letters as guardian,
transmitter, and interpreter of Celtic fancy has wider impli-
cations, at which I should like to glance for one moment.
We island-dwellers have brought under our sway many
lands, many peoples; we claim, whether rightly or wrongly
need not here be inquired, that we have given them peace
and prosperity, that we are enabling the races we have sub-
dued to enter in upon the heritage of the highest civilisation.
This is much, but it is not enough. Every race, no matter
how backward, has a special cry—a special vision of its own.
Upon us, upon our oversea kindred, rests the responsibility
that these shall not be lost, but shall contribute their note,
howsoever feeble it be, to the great concert of humanity. It
is the privilege of English literature to enshrine utterances
of countless races of men which otherwise must wholly
perish, to make them part of the world’s thought and fancy.

' The argument I advanced was in brief that which I elaborated fully, and
in reliance upon the most archaic Irish evidence, in my Voyage of Bran.
Two vols. 1895-97.

Britain and Folklore. 02,

This privilege is, I think, most likely to be realised by the
folklorist, who, if he have really penetrated to the inmost
sanctum of our study, will have learned to grasp the mani-
fold links that bind us to the remotest past, to sympathise
with the rudest and most infantile manifestations of human
energy, and to recognise in the formless germ the source of
what may be mightiest and most beautiful in human effort.
He will also have learned to observe with rigid fidelity, to
preserve everything, faulty and trivial though much may
be, to sympathise with everything, though much may offend
or startle our present conventions. It is part of his task to
hold up to English literature the duty of incorporating the
souls of vanishing peoples, the privilege of transmitting them
to future ages. Surveying as I did the past of our literature,
and noting by what happy combination of circumstances it
has been enabled to preserve so much beauty, imperishable
now, otherwise lost, I am filled with confidence for the
future. If we know the importance of our aim, if we but
wil to act upon our knowledge, surely we can accomplish
what chance apparently enabled our forefathers to accomplish.
Imperial England of the sixteenth century preserved for later
ages shapes and visions that greet us from out the oldest won-
der-world of Celts and Teutons; may not imperial Britain of
our days seek from the lips of passing races, before they
have wholly passed away, sustenance and embodiment for
the creation of new types of significance and beauty? If such
is a possible outcome of the folklorist’s labours, directed
though these may primarily be to other objects, may he not
feel that he is working for mankind at large and for all
time ?

In dwelling as I did upon the import of folklore for
English literature in the past, in dwelling as I have just
done upon its possible import for British literature in the
future, | have no wish to unduly magnify the literary aspect
of our studies as against others. I merely talk of that
which, I confess, interests me most in folklore, that at least

“4 Presidential Address.

upon which alone I possess any claim to be listened to by
you. But what I sought to exhibit, the archaic warp and
woof persisting in the fabric of our national literature, could
be, if I mistake not, as readily exemplified in the domain of
institutions. Here, too, we might dwell upon the charac-
teristic function of the English race in retaining, modifying,
transmitting to the modern world, with the necessary en-
largement of scope and significance, so much of the most
ancient customary wisdom of the Teutonic-speaking
peoples.

Whilst other European nations have mostly discarded all
that clashed with the magnificent system of law edified by
imperial Rome, England, preserving, elaborating the native
customs of one of the component elements of our mixed
race, has reared a structure of institutions not unworthy to
be set by the side of the Roman, and destined to control
the fortunes of even wider realms and more numerous
populations. May it be suggested that, just as the Celtic
element of our race has supplied so much of value towards
the enrichment of our literature, even so Celtic institutions,
hitherto of small account as compared with those derived
from our Teutonic forefathers, may contribute somewhat
towards the completed fabric of our law?

Nor does the parallel stop here. The English student of
folk-institutions has, without travelling outside the limits
of the empire, as wide and varied a field of inquiry as the
student of folk-fancy; it is his to see that the customs in
which so many different races have expressed their social
ideal are made available for utilisation in modern life as
well as for purely scientific inquiry. If it be urged that
the rites and practices of barbaric or semi-civilised people
cannot, as can their myths and legends, be welded and
fused into our higher conception of social life, 1 would
answer that the loftiest civilisation may often learn with
advantage from the rudest strivings of mankind after social
order and justice, and I would cite the example of the great

Britain and Folklore. 78

governing and law-giving community of antiquity to which
it is our proudest boast to compare ourselves.! Rome did
not impose her own customs upon the stranger within her
gates; she established a special tribunal before which he
might plead according to his own usage, and which meted
him out justice according to his own principles. Thus grew
up a great body of law, different in origin, in principle, in
scope from the native law of Rome. In their development
the two systems influenced each other profoundly, and in
the ultimate codification of Roman law the edzcta of the
Przetor Peregrinus, the head of the foreign tribunal, play a
part second only to the native statutory and casuistic legis-
lation. When the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
sits to hear appeals from Malabar or Benares, from Borneo
or Bombay, from French Canada or Hongkong, appeals in
which the strangest and most archaic systems of legislation
may be involved, we have the nearest modern analogue to
the jurisdiction of the Prator Peregrinus. And as the law-
giving genius of Rome incorporated and harmonised the
customary wisdom of the then known world, so when the
system of our law is completed, side by side with the
Teutonic groundwork, with the Roman additions, may be
found elements derived from races world-divided in their
range and their social conceptions.

I have, it may be, suffered myself to pursue too long a
train of thought suggested by the addresses I have pre-
viously delivered. I may seem to have forgotten that ours
is an historical science, and that its aim is to make intelli-
gible the origin and growth of past phenomena. It may be
an error, but I cannot hold that it derogates from the
scholarly nature of our study to note that it has implica-

' Iam glad to find myself in undesigned accord with our present President.
My friend Mr. Hartland, in an address delivered two years ago before the
Gloucester Philosophical Society, and which he only recently sent me, speak-
ing of the practical value of Folklore, insists likewise upon the positive ad-
vantage which the legislator may derive from knowledge of archaic institutions.

76 Presidential Address.

tions which concern the present, ay, and the future as
well as the past; that it involves other than purely scientific
motives and aims, and that it may contribute something
towards the practical and moral, as well as towards the
intellectual, ideals of our life. It was said not long ago
that at present we were all Socialists ; it may be said with
greater truth that we are all Imperialists. Now in the true
ideal of imperialism, the only one which the scholar and the
honest man would care to strive for, there are elements
which can be apprehended rightly and vindicated by. the
folklorist alone. We claim already for our study that it
enables us to reconstitute the early babblings of humanity ;
is it belittling it to point out that by its aid we may dis-
cern the true and permanent value of phases of thought,
fancy, and character which are essential to the full develop-
ment of humanity, but to which the study of civilised man
alone may render us blind or indifferent ?

Be this as it may, you may feel that I am on surer ground
in addressing myself to the consideration of the past than
when I indulge in speculation as to the future. Viewing
folklore solely from the standpoint of the British folklorist,
I would emphasise the special advantages conferred upon
him by our insular position and our resulting history. The
facts of folklore are more clearly isolated, discriminated
more precisely as to date, origin, topographical or racial
circumstance in our case than in that of most other
European countries, where the mixture of races has been
at once more intense and more obscure in its processes,
the variations in culture less sharply defined, and where
often the very mass and complexity of phenomena make it
difficult, if not impossible, to exhibit their sequence and
correlation. The comparative ease with which many
English customs can be investigated, the apparent cer-
tainty with which we can discern their origin and trace
their growth, often blinds us to their scientific interest as
touchstones by which we may test the credibility of our

Britain and Folklore. vy

hypotheses in regions where we lack the aid of historical
record. Folklore we define, in this connection at least, as
the persistence of elements of a lower, or at all events of
an outworn, stage of culture in the midst of a higher and
more living one. But as to the mode and nature of their
persistence hardly two investigators are agreed. Some
would treat the lore of the folk as simply the weakened
and distorted echo of what once engaged the thought or
charmed the fancy of the higher minds of the race;
others would regard it as the permanent substratum of all
systems, social, religious, artistic, by which man has sought
to regulate his life. In deciding between these opposing
views, or between any modifications of them, our usual
difficulty is that we lack precise knowledge concerning the
history of most items of folklore. In many, perhaps in
most, cases the loss 15 irreparable; we cannot really know,
we can only surmise, why a particular rite is practised, in
what way a particular belief has obtained credence or a
particular legend currency. But in England certain customs
may be traced from their inception to the present day, and
the results to be derived in such cases from a truly methodi-
cal and scientific investigation should prove of the utmost
value where the custom alone survives and its history has to
be reconstructed.

The usages connected with Guy Fawkes’ Day may be
instanced: their origin is known; the documentary records
concerning them are full and precisely dated. It should be
possible to give such an account of the spread, variation,
and decay of this custom as would shed most welcome
light upon the folk-psychology underlying similar celebra-
tions, the history of which is unknown. In particular, this
one case should enable us to answer with some confidence
the question whether practices of these kinds are, as Mrs.
Gomme has urged in the case of Children’s Games, purely
imitative, or whether they do not frequently embody
elements infinitely older than the ostensible events to

78 Presidential Address.

which they owe their origin, and to which they have been
adapted rather than from which they really spring.’

The value from this point of view of British folklore as
a museum, in which, thanks to historical circumstances, the
specimens are labelled, ticketed, and set forth for greater
convenience of the student than elsewhere, has not, as I
said, been properly recognised. For one thing, we nearly
all (I plead guilty myself in the fullest measure) are subject
to the fascination of the unknown and obscure. We would
rather be explorers than surveyors; it is more amusing to
fill up big blanks upon the map, though our details rest
largely upon hearsay aud doubtful evidence, than to trudge
over familiar ground carrying with one measuring chain
and plotting board. But the ordnance map and not the
rough sketch should be our ideal, an ideal achievable,
always provided we are willing to expend the necessary
labour.

Chief among the circumstances which make our folklore
particularly susceptible of fruitful investigation is one upon
which I dwelt in my second address, the definiteness with
which we can locate chronologically and topographically
many of the racial elements which make up our British
people. Somewhat to my surprise I was held to have
unduly minimised the importance of the racial factor in
the folklore problem. Elsewhere I have essayed to remove
a misapprehension due doubtless to imperfections in my
method of exposition; here I would but repeat that I

! English folklore was surveyed and treated of in a fairly comprehensive
fashion at an earlier date than that of France, Germany, or Italy. The con-
sequence is that our standard collections and handbooks go back to the pre-
critical period. The national taste for unrelated and unsynthetised facts has
likewise made itself felt in our studies, which by some have been pursued and
by many regarded as if they were a species of 7722.. 5715. Thus certain work of
classification, due to the older antiquary-folklorist, requires doing over again.
Practically the first attempt at a systematic and critical survey is that due to
Mr. and Mrs. Gomme in their projected Dictionary of British Folklore.

Britain and Folklore. 79

recognise the full importance of the factor, and that I am
anxious for the correct solution of the problem which may,
I believe, be essayed with better chances of success in our
own than in other lands. Even here, how insufficient are the
data, how obscure and complicated the whole subject. Yet
compare the British Isles and their four historically known
groups of population, two belonging to the Celtic races,
Gaels and Brythons, two to the Teutonic, Low-Germans
and Scandinavians, with any other European land present-
ing a similar mixture of blood, speech, and culture, and note
how infinitely more favourable are the conditions for the
student desirous of verifying the hypothesis of Celtic or
Teutonic influence on folklore. In Germany, for instance,
whilst the medium in which the folklore is preserved is
almost wholly Teutonic, large portions of present Germany
are known to have been occupied within historic time by
Celtic or Slavonic populations, and the influence which
may thus have been exercised upon the present stock of
inhabitants and their traditions has formed the subject
of much inquiry. For the most part this has not pro-
gressed beyond the stage of more or less plausible hypo-
thesis, because the definite historical records, the literary
and linguistic documents present in England, are lacking
in Germany. In France again, history tells us of a powerful
Celtic state, but its culture melted away when it came into
contact with that of Rome, and has almost wholly dis-
appeared; history tells us also of Germanic and later
Scandinavian invasions contemporaneous with those of
these islands, and possibly not greatly inferior in extent
and duration, but practically the historic record alone
remains, the speech, the customary wisdom, the treasure
of myth and legend have disappeared and left scarce a
visible trace upon French culture. To surmise in how far
French folklore may have been affected is, it will be con-
ceded, a matter of extreme delicacy.

If British folklore thus compares favourably with that

80 Presidential Address.

of France or Germany as regards its greater ease of inter-
pretation due to the historical conditions which have deter-
mined its present form, an equally favourable comparison
may be made in the case of lands like Scandinavia and
Russia, the folklore of which in other respects is richer
than our own.’ For they lack that mixture of races, and to
a far greater extent than we, that conflict and super-imposi-
tion of cultures, which afford such admirable opportunities
for the isolation of folklore facts and the discrimination
of their true character. If it be of moment to trace the
influence of race upon folklore, we must obviously begin
our investigation where diverse races have been in contact
and conflict, and where we can study the result upon the
still existing population.

The considerations I have enumerated concern the
methodological side of our study, and may be said to
amount to no more than this: if an inhabitant of Saturn
visited this earth and became smitten with noble enthusiasm
for the problems of folklore, he would find it profitable to
start his investigations in Britain. But the geography and
history of our islands have had other and more important
effects than the relative facility yielded to the folklorist
and the greater chance of solving the problems which
fascinate him. If we regard European folklore as a whole
we can discern with certainty four great influences, that of
Greco-Latin classic antiquity, and those of the Celtic-, the
Germanic-, the Slavonic-speaking peoples respectively.
The last (the Slavonic influence) may be left out of ac-
count, as it entered too late into the general current of
European culture to modify the other elements I have
named. As regards the first, Britain is, of course, far
inferior to the Mediterranean peninsulas, or even to South-
ern Gaul, in the extent and variety of the material it has

! To prevent misapprehension, I wish to emphasise that I recognise the
superior richness of Scandinavian and Slavonic folklore over that of the English-
speaking portions of our isles.

Britain and Folklore. 8I

retained from classic antiquity. But this very poverty is in
itself an advantage. The lore of our folk has behind it no
such long ages of civilisation to crush or modify it as has
that of Greece or Italy. It is, however, to the two great
barbaric stocks, the Celts and the Teutons, that we owe
the preservation at least (I will not raise controversy by
saying the origin) of the folklore of North-western Europe,
and in the light which its study can throw back upon our
barbaric forefathers consists much of its interest. We
must conceive of Celts and Teutons as originally occupying
Central Europe, and radiating thence, the Celts first, in all
directions save apparently to the due north, the Teutons
secondly, first to the north and then later in all directions.
In their southern and south-eastern advance the Celts met
with mightier powers, more highly organised civilisations,
into which they and their culture melted and were lost. In
the north-west alone, in these islands that is, were they
able to maintain and develop their institutions, their speech,
and their literature, free, or almost free, from the all-domi-
nating influence of Rome.

The very fact that they could advance no further, that
before them lay the boundless, trackless sea, that they were
compelled to halt, and, as it were, to stereotype their cul-
ture, whatever lowering influence it may be held to have
had upon the vital energy of the race, had at least this
advantage, to preserve for us stages of custom and fancy
which otherwise would have passed away. To a far less
extent this was also the case with the Teutons who invaded
Britain; they did not, as did their Goth and Vandal and
Frank cousins, come into contact with Rome herself, Rome
weakened, attenuated to a shadow, yet powerful enough to
subjugate her overthrowers, to largely impose upon them
her own civilisation. Our Low German forefathers were at
liberty to develop their own institutions, to exhibit a type
of commonwealth more truly German than that of the kins-
men who remained on the Continent to build up half

VOL. X. G

82 Presidential Address.

German, half Roman States. And, as I have already in-
sisted, what was vital in Teutonic institutions has been
preserved for the modern world by England, by the island
colony, not by the mainland home of the Germans. In one
thing our Saxon ancestors seem at first blush sadly deficient
from the folklorist’s point of view: the rich store of myth
and romance preserved alike by the Continental and the
Scandinavian Germans would seem to have dwindled away
in their hands, influencing but slightly our later literature
or our mass of popular fancy. But we must not forget that
the most archaic German hero-legend of any length, Beowulf,
was composed in these islands, nor that, if Continental
German literature had had its development violently arrested
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as was the case with our
Anglo-Saxon literature, Germany would have had nought to
tell us of Siegfried or Dietrich, of the wooing of Brunhild
or the vengeance of Kriemhild. If, however, this plea be
admitted in striking the balance between the claims of Low
and High Germany to the preservation of the racial sagas,
it cannot, will it be said, be urged against the far superior
claims of Scandinavia. Anglo-Saxondom must yield to
Norway and Denmark the honour of preserving the crown
of Teutonic mythand romance. Anglo-Saxondom, Yes! but
Britain? This query is allowable in view of the large share
which has been claimed of late for men of these islands in
the elaboration of that great fabric of mythico-heroic saga
which we owe to Iceland, Norway, and Denmark. In the
North and North-west the Teutons found their limit as had
the Celts in the West, but after ages of comparative quies-
cence they broke forth, hurling themselves upon communities
partly subjected to the double influence of Christian and
Roman civilisation. In the stress of conflict with the alien
ideals they encountered, they expressed and magnified and
developed their own; but to do this they had to come in
contact with men who still sympathised with the pre-
Christian conception of life, and still retained much of the pre-

Britain and Folklore. 83

classic store of myth and legend, men, not wholly Romanised,
who could interpret to them in words which they could
understand the new culture which they otherwise would
simply have ignored. It was contact with the Christian
classic world, but contact through the comparatively friendly
medium of Anglo-Saxons and Celts, that was the determin-
ing impulse to the supreme expression by men of Teutonic
races of their heathen beliefs and fancies, and it was in
these islands that this contact took place, and that much of
the resulting literature assumed form.

Such is the theory, the details of which have been pushed
to such extravagant lengths as would reduce the magnificent
poetry of the Scandinavians to a mere cenfo of misunder-
stood borrowings from Englishmen and Irishmen.’ Dis-
carding as we must arbitrary and uncritical methods which
would deprive the Eddas of all value as exponents of
archaic belief and fancy, we may yet recognise that it was
Britain which supplied the historical and social conditions,
thanks to which Teutonic heathendom was able to realise
and manifest itself in its grandest and most characteristic
aspect. The Viking shock upon the Empires of the West
and the East resulted in political changes the effects of
which have lasted until to-day, but otherwise influenced
but little the culture of the south and south-west of Europe.
The Viking shock upon England and Ireland, less momentous
in its political consequences, had for an outcome that superb
body of mythical and heroic sagas which preserve not alone
the formal legends and traditions of our forefathers, but a
conception, a vision of life, alien to the Christian, alien to
the latter classic ideals, whose loss would have left mankind
infinitely weaker and poorer.

Thus when the older barbarism manifests itself for the
first time in its awful strength and beauty our land and our

1 E.g. by Professor Sophus Bugge, whose methods and results will shortly
be accessible to the English reader in vol. xi. of the Grimm Library (7he Home
of the Eddic Poems, with special reference to the Helgi lays).

F G 2

84 Presidential Address.

people play no mean part in the drama. The results were
not, it is true, immediately apparent. The Viking ideal, as
embodied at least in his literature, exercised no influence
upon the general trend of European culture. It was other-
wise with the next great movement in which Britain also plays
a capital part. In the twelfth century, thanks, and thanks
alone, to the political and social movements of which Britain
was the centre, Celtic fancy, Celtic romance, penetrated to
every district of Western Christendom and victoriously in-
fluenced the social and moral ideals of the time. It was true
they had to wear a foreign dress, to accept a large admix-
ture of Christian and classic elements, but nevertheless,
alike by the actual subject-matter which it presents and by
its animating spirit, the Arthurian romance belongs to those
older worlds of belief and fancy which it is our task to in-
vestigate.

This older world, as I contended two years ago, came
again to the front when, at the breaking up of medizval
civilisation, the order under which we are still living may be
said to have begun. I need not urge afresh the claim I
made on behalf of England, that here alone the thoughts
and fancies of that older world were given a worthy form,
and were enabled to become an imperishable portion of
mankind’s inheritance of beauty and wisdom. Nor need I
emphasise the part played alike by the Teutonic and the
Celtic elements of our race in the great romantic revival,
which, starting a century and a half ago, was to result in
the momentous changes, literary, intellectual, social, and
political, which have profoundly affected the century draw-
ing to a close, and the force of which is not yet spent.
Viewing that revival in its widest and most general aspect,
it must be regarded as a return to earlier sources of inspira-
tion whether for the artist or the thinker, as the sympa-
thetic reconstruction and vindication of much that humanity

1 Cf. Folk-Lore, vol. viii., p. 51.

Britain and Folklore. 85

had tossed aside as infantile and outworn. Among its
minor results was the organisation of our branch of study,
and we cannot regard as entirely alien to our inquiries any
manifestation of the spirit which gave us birth.

One of the chief outcomes of the romantic revival,
perhaps the chief one from our point of view, has been
the critical resuscitation and analysis of the mythic and
heroic sagas, as well as of the customary wisdom of the
Teutonic-speaking peoples.! A beginning has been made
in the accomplishment of a like task for the Celtic-speaking
peoples, but very much yet remains to be done.” We should
not forget that we, as Britons, are the preservers of this great
and fascinating body of archaic tradition, that its survival
is due to the accidents of our geographical position and
of our historical circumstances, that it is our duty as well
as our right and our privilege to recover, before it 1s too
late, what is yet remaining, and to place it beyond possi-
bility of loss in a form rigidly faithful, and illustrated by
the highest and most sympathetic learning we can command.
That duty, as I hold, belongs in the first place to the
governing and academic bodies of the United Kingdom ;
it is one, which they have largely neglected in the past, it
is one which I see little sign of their performing in the
future.? It is all the more incumbent upon societies such
as ours, that we should clearly realise our duty in this

1 This work has been accomplished almost exclusively by Germans and
Scandinavians. England, the home of the earliest recorded Teutonic litera-
ture, has done very little original work towards its elucidation.

2 Here again Britain is very largely indebted to foreign, especially to
German, scholarship. But it must be noted to the credit of Ireland that
she has shown herself far more mindful of her ancient national literature,
and far more capable of the necessary scientific work for its interpretation,
than the English-speaking portion of Britain has of hers. England has no
Teutonic philologist of equal eminence with O’Donovan, O’Curry, or Whitley
Stokes as Celtic scholars.

3. It is noteworthy that the recent attempt to withdraw the meagre, grudging
support which Government does afford to the study of Irish, was fostered and
backed by representatives of the highest academic teaching in Ireland.

86 Presidential Address.

respect, and that we should aid the accomplishment of the
task I have indicated by all means in our power. Let us
recollect that whilst, as Britons, we have no right to allow
the beliefs and fancies of the Celtic half of our race to die
away to the irreparable injury of science and of after-genera-
tions, they yield us as folklorists perhaps the most fruitful
field still open to the student of archaic Europe.!

If it be true that, by their position, their history, their
mixture of blood and speech, their social and economic
conditions now and in the past, their possession of the
archaic literature in which are preserved the beliefs, legends,
and practices of one of the constituent elements of modern
Europe and its culture, the British Isles have a special
import for all the inquiries grouped together as the study of
folklore—that our land has taken a preponderant part in
the formation and discrimination of folklore material which
has influenced the whole trend of European culture—if it be
also true that the results of our study may and should
influence, and influence for the good, our attitude towards
imperial and world-wide problems, we are, | think, entitled
to claim that our Society has a work and prerogatives of
ts own, prerogatives which are honourable and legitimate,
work which it alone and no other body can perform.

ALFRED NUTT.

1 T again emphasise the fact that I do not make this statement on behalf of
Celtic folklore, because it actually is richer and more varied than those of other
European peoples, but because it is recorded earlier and under conditions
that vouch for its archaic character.

REVIEWS.

EXCAVATIONS IN CRANBORNE CHASE, NEAR RUSHMORE, ON THE
BORDERS OF DORSET AND WILTS, 1893-1896. By Lieutenant-
(General Purr Rivers, DiC.) BRIS. HS. AL- Vol. viv:
Printed privately. 1898.

THE previous volumes of General Pitt-Rivers’ record of his exca-
vations on and in the neighbourhood of his property at Rushmore
have been described and reviewed in Zhe Archeological Review,
vol. il, p. 377, and in Fo/k-Lore, vol. iv., p. 239. Readers of
those reviews and of the volumes themselves know and (the latter
especially) appreciate the extreme, if not unparalleled, and ex-
haustive care with which the excavations were conducted, the
magnificence with which they have been recorded, and the
learning and skill with which the results were discussed. All
these qualities, it is needless to say, are abundantly illustrated in
the new volume before us.

It opens with an address delivered at Dorchester in August,
1897, to the Archzological Institute, containing a summary
account of the explorations and a consideration of some of the
chief problems involved in the discoveries. These are preceded
by a reply to strictures by the late Sir J. W. Dawson on some
flints of palzeolithic type obtained by General Pitt-Rivers in the
stratified gravel of Gebel Assart, near Thebes, in Egypt, and on
his report of them contained in the eleventh volume of the
Journal of the Anthropological Institute. The motive of these
strictures was the supposed necessity to uphold what General
Pitt-Rivers refers to as “the so-called chronology of the Bible.”
Although they had been made so far back as 1884 at the Victoria
Institute, they had never been communicated to the finder of the
flints, who was left in ignorance of them, and consequently of the
opportunity of replying to them, for a dozen years. The reply,

88 Reviews.

of course, was victorious. ‘The occasion was happily chosen ; for
an address to the Archzological Institute was certain of attention
at all events by a large part of the scientific world.

The keynote, not merely of the address, but of all the explorer’s
work, is to be found on the very first page, where he says: “1 am
fully sensible that the value of such investigations depends mainly,
if not entirely, on the precision with which the evidence is
recorded.” Proofs of the truth of this are to be found on every
page of the record ; and well does General Pitt-Rivers remark :
“So far from barrow-digging and camp-excavation having been
worked out, as I understand some persons have asserted, it has
hardly yet commenced upon a thorough system. But when we
consider the rapidity with which ancient earthworks are being
destroyed, the utmost care is necessary, not only in preserving
but in examining them. If I were asked to give a title to this
paper it would be ‘A plea for greater precision and detail in
excavations.’” And again: “Sir Richard Hoare, who excavated
such a number of tumuli in this district, unfortunately took no
notice of human skeletons, by which omission not only was the
important evidence of race afforded by them lost, but it was
destroyed for ever. This shows how careful we should be to
record everything. I have twice been offered by neighbours
permission to dig upon their property, on condition that I would
not disturb the human bones or rebury them immediately. Of
course I refused to avail myself of permission so hampered with
unscientific conditions. This excessive reverence for bones of
hoary and unknown antiquity is a great hindrance to anthropo-
logical science. ‘The interesting questions of race can only be
studied by careful measurements of the bones and skulls, and
the preservation of them, if possible, in museums for future
reference.”

The excavations conducted in this spirit have been remarkably
successful in contributing to the solution of old problems, and—
what is equally important—to the raising of new ones. So far as
recorded in the present volume they have been occupied with
three camps or rectangular entrenchments of the Bronze Age
and a ditch of the same, and with a neolithic barrow and a
number of tumuli and other graves of the Bronze Age.

The first camp or entrenchment, called by the explorer South
Lodge Camp, is in Rushmore Park. It covers three-quarters of

Reviews. 89

an acre. Near it are five barrows of the Bronze Age, previously
opened. The rampart and the entire surface of the camp, and
its immediate surroundings, save a small part where the roots of
growing trees interfered, were carefully removed, and the ditch
excavated down to the undisturbed chalk. Preliminary sections
resulted in the discovery of practically nothing but part of a
single urn—an argument for thorough excavation, or none at all.
In the more extensive labours which followed, abundant remains
were found to date the entrenchment as one of the Bronze Age.
In the upper silting of the ditch and the interior there came to
light sufficient Roman and Romano-British relics to show that it
was in use (visited, if not actually occupied) during Roman times,
though perhaps not by the Romans themselves. The animal
remains were those of the ox, deer, and sheep. The ox and
sheep were both small animals, the former about the size of a
Kerry cow and the latter like the St. Kilda sheep. Some bones
of a small kind of dog were found, pointing to the probability
that the occupiers were hunters. No human bones were dis-
covered.

The next excavations described were on Handley Hill and
Handley Down, about four miles from the South Lodge entrench-
ment. The same plan of thorough excavation was adopted.
Another entrenchment, one of a large number scattered over the
Wiltshire and Dorsetshire downs, was explored, Like the South
Lodge Camp it was square, or rather lozenge-shaped. The
rampart was low, being only o°6 foot above the old surface-line at
the crest, and the ditch proportionately shallow. It was found to
be of the Bronze or Roman Age, the doubt being caused by the
discovery of a silver denarius of Trajan on the old surface-line
beneath the rampart. This would have been conclusive if the
rampart had been higher. It may have been that the spot was
occupied, but not entrenched, before the Roman conquest. A
large ditch of the Bronze Age, called by General Pitt-Rivers the
Angle Ditch, from its shape, and a drain, probably older, which
crosses it, were also uncovered, together with some considerable
areas adjoining. The discoveries here, especially of pottery and
flints, disclosed traces of occupation during the Bronze Age and
Roman times. And, speaking generally, it is clear that a con-
siderable population was settled at those periods all over this
part of the country.

go Reviews.

Of this population the most interesting relics are perhaps to be
found in their graves. A large number of burials both by
cremation and inhumation are here described. I have no space
to deal with them in detail; but some of their peculiarities, as
well as those of some neolithic interments, must be mentioned as
being of importance to students of folklore.

A neolithic tumulus, called Wor Barrow, on Handley Down,
was excavated and found to contain six skeletons of primary
interments, all buried together on the old surface-line. Three of
them were in the usual crouching position ; but the other three
were evidently not buried as corpses, but ‘put in as bones and
not in sequence.” How is this to be interpreted? The only
other case of bones which may be of neolithic man thus buried
occurs in the silting of the Angle Ditch. Seeing, however, that
the Angle Ditch is of the Bronze Age, if these relics, which are
very imperfect, are neolithic, they must have been found and
reburied, or more likely flung into the ditch. Two interments
apparently of the Bronze Age are of similar character. They
both occur in excavations in the chalk, which General Pitt-Rivers
conjectures to have been pit-dwellings. One of these, near South
Lodge Camp, consists merely of fragments of two femora anda
pelvis. The other, a few feet north-west of the Handley Hill
entrenchment, referred to above, consisted of a large number of
bones, including the skull, in such a position as showed that they
must have been put in as bones, or at least that the body must
have been cut up before burial. In the latter case, the bones
were not on the floor of any part of the pit, but must have been
put in after it was, partially at all events, silted up. Cannibalism
is suggested as a possible explanation ; but, as the author remarks,
“the evidence of it is insufficient.” And it can hardly explain
two secondary interments of the same character in the ditch of
Wor Barrow, if the excavator be right in assigning them to the
Roman era. It is well, however, to bear in mind the suggestion
that both neolithic and Bronze Age peoples may have occasion-
ally been cannibals, and to look for evidence in opening other
graves. This can only be obtained by noting the position and
accessories of the skeletons with exhaustive care, such as General
Pitt-Rivers adopts. A large proportion of Bronze Age interments
are by incineration ; and it may well have been that the bodies
were first eaten and the bones then burnt. This would not be

Reviews. ΟΙ

inconsistent with what we know of savage customs. But were
the Bronze Age people precisely savages ?

Some of the secondary interments in Wor Barrow offered
another problem. ‘Two skeletons were buried side by side in the
ditch, about 16 inches below the surface, without heads, and one
of them without feet. On the top of the barrow, three skeletons
were found buried close together, two of them 1°2 foot beneath
the surface, and the third 6 inches lower. The skulls of the last
and one of the others were found as if they had been buried
touching the fingers of the left hand. The remaining skull was
in its right place; and this body was in a contracted, half-
crouching position. All four of the others referred to were
buried extended. Nothing was found with any of the skeletons,
except, in the ditch, a flint scraper, and, about 6 inches above
the lowest of the three bodies on the top of the barrow, a frag-
ment of Red Samian pottery. The presence of both these was
probably accidental. The skeletons themselves cannot, from their
proximity to the surface, be older than Roman times. General
Pitt-Rivers conjectures that the barrow, which must have been a
prominent object in the landscape, was, at that period, used as a
place of execution. Some countenance is lent to this conjecture
by another skeleton, buried extended some 3 feet down in the
ditch, the head of which was turned down on the side, as if the
neck had been stretched by hanging.

Among the problems relating to interments of the Bronze Age
in Britain is the question whether the urns containing the ashes
of cremated burials were in common use, or specially made for
the purpose. The excavations detailed in the present volume
throw little light on this ; but such as they do throw is favourable
to the former supposition. At the bottom of the ditch of South
Lodge Camp, unconnected with any interment, was found a large
urn of coarse pottery with grains of coarse flint or quartz in its
composition ; and a smaller one of the same quality was found
at the bottom of the Angle Ditch. Both were of the kind used
for cremated ashes. General Pitt-Rivers remarks upon them:
“It is more probable that the urn would be found in the ditch
thrown away as refuse, if it was in ordinary use, than if it were
only fabricated for ceremonial purposes.” Many cremated burials
of this age are found associated not with entire urns but simply
with fragments. This would seem a debased form of burial

92 Reviews.

arising from poverty or carelessness. And I may be allowed to
suggest that the degradation of the rite would be facilitated if
pottery in ordinary use were adopted for burial purposes, and to
this extent the practice of burying fragments may perhaps be held
to strengthen the probability that the urns were not made specially
for burials.

I have only space to refer to one other problem connected with
the barrows. In the chalk floor of barrow No. 24 “ were found
three cavities, of which two appeared by their size to be graves for
inhumation interments. No bones were found in them, but the
digit of a small ox, well preserved, at the bottom, and one small
fragment of No. 1 quality of British pottery. The graves were
3'8 feet and 4 feet deep respectively. They were filled with chalk
rubble at the bottom and mould at the top. These graves may
have been opened, but no trace of such opening could be seen in
the superficial mould or turf. The other cavity was near the
causeway [across the surrounding ditch], about 6 feet long and
3 feet wide, of irregular depth, and its intention could not be
clearly ascertained. Nothing was found in it” (p. 147). Just
above one of the first two cavities eight fragments of British
pottery were found, and elsewhere within the mound another of
the same quality and a flint scraper. Around the barrow, chiefly
on the western side, in holes in the chalk, were found fifty-two
cremated interments, and to the north an empty oblong grave, as
if intended for inhumation.

Now these cremated interments look as though they were
secondary, the remains of persons buried near, but not in the
barrow, perhaps relatives or dependants of the person or persons
for whom the barrow was designed. But if so, why are there no
human remains within the barrow itself? A small mound like a
barrow, near Handley Hill cross-roads, also contained no human
bones, but a number of fragments of pottery, chiefly Romano-
British, some flint-flakes, fragments of sandstone (a not infrequent
find in a barrow), and seashore or tertiary pebbles, besides some
fragments of iron pyrites, and other objects of modern date or
apparently accidental.

Some ten or twelve years earlier General Pitt-Rivers had exca-
vated in Scrubitty Copse, Handley, three barrows of the Bronze
Age, destitute of human bones. One of them contained an urn
inverted over nothing. Another covered a deposit of charcoal,

Reviews. 93

testifying to some burning on the site. The third had a cavity in
the floor, but only black mould within 1{.}

What may be described as empty barrows are not unknown in
other parts of the kingdom and on the continent of Europe.
Several have been opened by the Rev. Canon Greenwell, who
long resisted the evidence that no body or bones had been interred
in them. He considered, however unlikely it might seem that
these relics had disappeared, either by lapse of years or by pre-
vious rifling, that hypothesis was to be preferred to the hypothesis
of a cenotaph. He was at last convinced by excavating the
famous Willy Howe, where neither Lord Londesborough (who
opened it in 1857) nor himself could find any human remains,
“‘ As four pieces of broken animal bone were met with among the
filling-in at different places, in a perfectly sound condition, it is
quite impossible,” he told the Society of Antiquaries, “that the
bones of a human body could have gone totally to decay. As
burnt bones never appear to undergo any change, there could
never have been a cremated body buried in it.” ?

The existence of prehistoric cenotaphs having been established,
their real import was obscure until the question was discussed,
before the Royal Irish Academy, in an able and ingenious paper
by Mr. George Coffey, now the keeper of the Museum at Dublin.
This paper, which was published in the Proceedings of the
Academy for 1896, establishes, by the aid of anthropological
evidence, that such barrows are not merely memorials, but ‘in
primitive logic, true tombs,” erected for persons who had died at
a distance, and whose bodies had not been recovered. Mr. Coffey
has in fact applied to ‘‘empty” prehistoric tumuli the examples
and reasoning of Mr. Frazer in his paper on “Certain Burial
Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,” read
to the Anthropological Institute and published in the fifteenth
volume of its Journal. And he may be considered to have estab-
lished the existence in the Bronze Age of a practice familiar to-day
in the savage lands of both hemispheres, and of which traces are
found in various parts of modern Europe, from the Balkan penin-
sula to the remote Irish islands of Aran and Innisboffin. Is it
too much to hope that the labours of anthropologists may yet

1 Excavations in Cranborne Chase, vol. 11.» pp. 33, 36.
2 Archacologia, vol. lii., p. 23.

94 Reviews.

throw light upon other prehistoric practices, such as the excava-
tion of grave-pits, like those referred to above (p. 92), beneath a
barrow, the position of cinerary urns (whether upright or inverted),
the direction of inhumated bodies, of causeways across ditches
surrounding barrows, and of entrances to chambered barrows, and
the deposition of fragments of sandstone in the graves, as recorded
in the volume before us? It is to them we must look, when the
facts have been accurately recorded, to interpret these and many
other customs.

I must pass over much of interest in this fascinating volume.
But. I cannot close a notice inadequate in every sense without
referring to the entrenchment on Martin Down, excavated in
1895-96. It is quadrangular, enclosing about two acres, of the
Bronze Age, and, like Winkelbury Camp described in vol. ii., has
very wide entrances, that on the south-east side being 22°5 feet
wide and that on the north-east being 17 feet wide. Such large
entrances would be a serious weakness in a defensive work.
General Pitt-Rivers therefore suggests that they were for the in-
gress and egress of cattle, or as he said about Winkelbury, “ this
points obviously to a necessity which must have existed for large
openings for the ingress or exit [?] of a considerable body of men
or animals in a short time under pressure from without,” the theory
in that case being that the animals were kept at pasture on the
down outside and driven quickly in on the occasion of any hostile
attack.

So far, therefore, there is nothing which cannot be accounted
for in the entrenchment on Martin Down. What is puzzling is
that on the higher or north-western side for nearly half its length
no trace remains either of ditch or rampart. In fact, for a dis-
tance of upwards of 170 feet neither ditch nor rampart ever existed.
That it is not simply an unfinished and abandoned camp is clear
from the fact that remains indicating residence and use—flint and
other stone implements, pottery, flint-flakes, and especially a very
large number of burnt flints (doubtless used for boiling purposes)
—were found both in the ditch and inside the camp, as well as
bronze implements and a quantity of animal bones in the ditch.
Little doubt can indeed remain that it was used, down to and in
Roman times; for various iron objects, and even Roman coins were
also among the relics recovered. In these circumstances what is
the meaning of the large gap? The only suggestion made in the

Reviews. 95

volume recording the explorations is that it “‘may probably have
been also for the passage of cattle.” But what kind of cattle
would a passage 170 feet wide have been wanted for? We may
perhaps fall back on the conjecture that General Pitt-Rivers him-
self made in the preceding volume concerning gaps in Bokerly
Dyke and Wansdyke, that they were filled by adatéis of felled
trees. Even then we are equally puzzled to know why an adattis
should have been adopted to complete the enclosure.

The volume concludes with an account of the excavation of a
Romano-British trench of irregular shape and unknown use at
Rushmore, and an elaborate discussion of the distribution of
Chevron patterns on pottery, comprising bibliographical refer-
ences to the records of other finds in this country and abroad of
similar patterns, which will be of much service to archeologists.

General Pitt-Rivers must be once more heartily congratulated
on the results of his labours and his munificence. No service
equal to his explorations, and the four volumes in which they are
recorded, has been rendered to archzeology in the British Isles.
The students whom he has laid under so great a debt will ardently
unite in the hope that his health and strength may long be pre-
served to continue the work. It is no exaggeration to say that the
precision of his methods and the exhaustive minuteness of his
researches will be a standard and a model for all future explorers.
They have already added enormously to our knowledge of the
lives of our predecessors ; and it is only from diggings carried on
in the same spirit that we can expect to recover the earlier history
and the pre-history of the country.

EK. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

LES vIEUX CHANTS POPULAIRES SCANDINAVES. ETUDES DE
LITTERATURE COMPAREE. I. Les CHANTS DE MAGIE.
Par Lron PINEAU. Paris: E. Bouillon.

Review of preceding work by M. Gaston Paris, Journal des Savants,
July, 1898.

FRANCE has of late produced a number of excellent monographs
on romantic and popular literature, monographs in which the
national gifts of lucid and orderly exposition are conspicuous.

96 Reviews.

I need only mention M. Lichtenberger’s work on the Nibelung
cycle, M. Bédier’s Fadliaux, M. Sudre’s Roman de Renart. We
turn to M. Pineau’s work expecting to find equal fullness of detail
and accuracy of method applied to what is, perhaps, the most
fascinating section of folk-literature, the ballad. In some respects
we are not disappointed. M. Pineau’s work is full of interest to
all lovers of all popular romance ; his genuine enthusiasm and
his fine literary gifts enable him to present the Northern ballad
literature in a most attractive form; his translations, whilst re-
markably close, retain the archaic, barbaric flavour of their originals
with admirable skill. He has, moreover, endeavoured to state and
solve the problems connected with the origin and spread of the
ballad in Northern and Western Europe. This aspect of his work
it is with which M. Gaston Paris’s notice is chiefly concerned, and
to which I propose to confine myself.

Briefly stated, his method is as follows. Selecting a number of
incidents which bear upon them the stamp of an archaic or savage
stage of culture, he interprets them in the light of a theory of
evolution derived, essentially, from Herbert Spencer, with modi-
fications due to the teaching of Professor Tylor and the English
anthropological school, and deduces therefrom the prehistoric
nature of ballad literature generally. He is inclined to trace the
specific Northern ballads back to a period when Celtic-speaking
peoples occupied the present Germanic area (Scandinavian as well
as Continental), and to regard the ballad, essentially, as a product
of Celtic imagination. The reasons assigned are inconsistencies
between certain ballad traits and the recorded history of the
Germanic races.

M. Pineau’s method is in some respects akin to that followed
by Mr. Hartland in his Legend of Perseus. The correlation and
parallelism of custom and literary incident serve to establish the
archaic character of the latter, whether in folk-tale or folk-song.
But this method to be successful requires far more critical dis-
crimination in the use of illustrative material than is displayed by
M. Pineau ; he quotes largely at second hand and often leaves the
most essential feature of his scheme unbuttressed by supporting
facts. The real objection, however, to his method lies deeper.
The folk-tale is fluid and adaptable—to show that it is a kaleido-
scope of incidents the nature and form of which are explained by
their reference to parallel traits in custom is more than legitimate, it

Reviews. 97

is illuminating. To track the individual tale is for the most part
to embark upon a hopeless quest; to determine and exemplify the
conditions which facilitated its origin and promoted its spread is a
far more fruitful task. In the ballad, on the other hand, precision
of form is an essential characteristic, and comparison becomes not
only possible but fruitful. M. Pineau has clearly perceived this in
some instances; his comparisons between definite Scandinavian
and French ballads are marked by critical insight. But taking his
work as a whole he has in my opinion begun at the wrong end. He
should first have clearly surveyed the entire field of Northern
ballad literature, instead of dealing with it in sections; he should
have analysed it formally and have correlated it, where possible,
with the recorded historical conditions through which the Scandi-
navian peoples have passed; then he should have compared it
with the great kindred ballad literatures, those of Continental
Germany, of Germanic-speaking Britain, of France and France’s
Romance-speaking dependents, of Northern Slavdom. Until this
preliminary task of historico-literary analysis and comparison
has been achieved it will be unsafe to theorise concerning the
origin and nature of European ballad literature. And even then
such theories must be tested in accordance with general laws of
psychological and literary development, for the formulation of
which it is necessary to examine the great ballad literatures un-
connected, historically, with that of Northern and Western
Europe.

Whilst I cannot think that M. Pineau has made a noteworthy
contribution to the solution of the ballad problem, I am in general
agreement with his view of ballad literature as a whole. It im-
presses me as a genuine product of popular imagination in an
early and archaic stage of culture,! surviving to the present day
because the folk has progressed little beyond that stage, and
revived within the last century and a half because conscious,
deliberately artistic, literature was compelled to turn afresh for
inspiration and nutriment to the imaginings of the race in its
youth.

On the other hand, many recorded ballads have certainly as-
sumed a new and more definite shape within the last four cen-

! By popular imagination I understand that which rests upon, has its roots in,
and appeals to, a mass of conceptions and sentiments common to the majority
of the people.

VOL, Χ, H

98 Reviews.

turies ; also within that period there has been an interchange of
specific ballad forms between Romance- and Germanic-speaking
peoples. As regards the first point, advocates of the comparatively
modern origin of ballads lay stress upon what may be called their
medizval setting. On closer inspection it proves, if I mistake
not, to be a setting only, and the fact itself is easily explained.
In the Middle Ages there still existed a popular poetry, drawing
theme and inspiration from traditional sources, appealing to and
comprehensible by almost all classes ; its professors, handling as
they did far older themes, inevitably vested them in the costume
of their day. Where social conditions have remained compara-
tively unchanged, where a school of folk-poetry has retained its
vitality, the specific medizeval setting will be found, I think, to
have yielded to a more modern one. But where those conditions
have altered, where the lettered, cultured classes are divorced from
the folk, and the folk-conceptions of nature and society have
suffered atrophy, have become mere survivals, then the medizeval
setting is retained as more consonant to the spirit of the decaying
literature. The medizval baron is closer to the man of the “folk,”
than is the gentleman in a frock coat.

There is nothing to wonder at if the ballads contain traits upon
which the critic can lay his finger and say ‘‘this cannot be older
than 1450, that belongs to the early seventeenth century.” All that
is proved thereby is the existence of folk-poets in full touch alike
with tradition and with the average social environment of the
time. What should surprise is the persistent continuance, in full
plastic energy, of conceptions alike of nature, society, and literary
form which even in the Middle Ages were becoming alien to the
highest culture, and which must have been incomprehensible or
repugnant to certain classes of society at the very period when so
many of the ballads assumed, substantially, their present shape.

The interchange of ballads in comparatively recent times
between Romance- and Germanic-speaking peoples opens up far
more complicated and difficult questions. When the fact seems
proved, M. Pineau would look upon Scandinavia as the lender.
M. Gaston Paris, on the other hand, after examining the five
examples especially insisted upon by M. Pineau, thinks it more
likely the ballads common to Scandinavia and the rest of North-
western Europe have been imported into Scandinavia. I do not
think the question can be settled by the simple comparison of

Reviews. 99

French and Scandinavian ballads ; all the variants, and especially
those of the British Isles, must be examined in this connection.
I may note that in two of the five cases M. Gaston Paris holds
Celtic Brittany to be the original home of the ballad, whence it
spread, independently, to France and Scandinavia.

Even if M. Gaston Paris is right in his specific contention of
exportation from France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
and, sporadically, at an earlier date of ballad themes, I would still
urge that it has not the importance he assigns to it. There have
been two other romantic export periods in French history. In
the twelfth century France exported the heroic and romantic
cycles of Charlemagne and Arthur ; in Germany, Italy, Spain, and
to a less extent in England and the Scandinavian North, new and
vigorous literary movements were originated. At the end of the
seventeenth century Perrault and his imitators exported folk-tale
themes. These sometimes ousted, sometimes modified older
forms native to the countries into which they penetrated ; they
did not, because they could not, originate a novel or a flourishing
literary genre. I would urge that French medizval and post-
medieval ballad exportation, such as it was, was akin to the
second rather than to the first of these movements. It may have
slightly modified, slightly increased an existing ballad stock ;
could it have originated one? ‘The very period of ballad expan-
sion according to this hypothesis was one of religious, social, and
literary changes which affected both the higher and lower classes
of the borrowing countries, and which were essentially hostile to
the spirit and to the form of the ballad. Was Germanic-speaking
Europe of 1450—1550 a fruitful soil in which the magnificently
fantastic, savagely archaic ballad literature of Britain and the
North could be developed from French seeds ?

M. Pineau’s reference of the Scandinavian ballad to a pre-
Germanic, Celtic population seems to me unnecessary and con-
trary to such evidence as we have. The archaic conceptions of
life and society in which the ballads have their root and from
which they draw their nutriment was, I hold, common to both
Celts and Germans when we first meet them in history, whilst as
regards their specific literary embodiment, the ballad, so far from
being a characteristic product of Celtic-speaking peoples through-
out historic times, is conspicuous by its absence from all Celtic

literatures save that of Brittany. Very early Germanic poetry
H 2

100 Reviews.

offers much that is akin in spirit and in mode of expression (not
in form) to the ballad; very early Celtic poetry can show nothing
of the kind. The mythico-heroic Irish sagas, those earliest known
products of Celtic imagination, are frequently interlarded with
verse ; the earliest examples of Welsh heroic saga are in verse. In
both cases the poetry differs from the ballads ; it is epical, lyrical,
or elegiac, but it never, or hardly ever, presents that combination
of narrative and drama which is the distinguishing mark of the
ballad. Celtic myth and history, whether Gaelic or Cymric,
offered abundant material for the creation of a ballad literature,
had the genius of the race been favourable. It was not, why we
are unable to say. It is true that the absence of the ballad form
in historic Celtic literature is no proof of its non-existence among
the Celts in prehistoric times, but it does justify our claiming that
an hypothesis such as that of M. Pineau should be supported by
overwhelming evidence.

The speculative portion of M. Pineau’s work to which I have
practically restricted my notice is open to discussion. His pre-
sentment of a fascinating and magnificent literature is worthy of
all praise, and will retain its value even if his hypotheses should
fail to win acceptance.

ALFRED NUTT.

FOLKLORE: OLD CUSTOMS AND TALES OF MY NEIGHBOURS.
By FLetcHer Moss, of The Old Parsonage, Didsbury.
Published by the Author, 1898.

Ir Mr. Moss’s friends admire the jaunty and over-familiar style in
which it is his lot to write, they must be as easily entertained as
were Mr. Peter Magnus’s acquaintances when he signed his
hastily-scribbled notes “ Afternoon.” The subjects with which
he deals are worthy of a more serious treatment than Mr. Moss
seems able to bestow on them. His manner of expressing himself
is often strikingly infelicitous, and his book has the added defect
of being far too discursive. It must be said, however, that
among the mass of generally-known folklore and miscellaneous
information filling out its pages, there is to be found a good deal
of curious and original matter. For instance, when dwelling on

Reviews. IOI

the popular opinion that any one born with a caul ought to be
fortunate, Mr. Moss can tell his readers that Sir John Offley, one
of the ancestors of the Lords Crewe, left the caul in which he
was born to his heirs male, strictly enjoining that it should never
be concealed. ‘ ‘Item, I will and devise one jewell done all in
Gold and Enamelled wherein there is a Caul that covered my
face and shoulders when I first came into the world . . . . to
my own right Heirs Males for ever, and so from Heir to Heir so
long as it shall please God in goodness to continue any Heir
male of my name, to be never concealed or sold by any of them.’
The heirs male have failed, but the line exists in the Earl of
Crewe, and so long as that jewelled caul is cherished as a precious
heirloom the luck shall never leave the Crewes.”

On page 6 is given a fresh instance of the belief that a man’s
health may be gravely affected because his wife is expecting a
child. And in the chapter on burials are some valuable additions
to the folklore connected with the idea that the luck departs from
certain houses when the skulls which have been preserved in
them from generation to generation are removed. “There is at
Wardley Hall, near Manchester, a skull which raises storms if it
be removed from its time-honoured niche in the house, and this
can be testified to any time by several business-men of my
acquaintance who have tested the matter. This skull is of Father
Ambrose, O.S.B., a Romish priest who suffered martyrdom. . . .
He was one of the Barlows of Barlow Hall. . . . He was bap-
tised at Didsbury Church, November 30, 1585.”

Mr. Moss also mentions two instances of burying horses with
their owners ; and when writing of family legends he describes the
ancient custom of ‘‘ blazing ” the wheat on “blaze night,” that is
on January the 6th, Old Christmas Day. The object with which
men and lads ran all over the wheat with lighted torches of straw,
was to scare witches and other harmful things from the young
corn and to ensure good crops for the coming harvest. This
practice was observed at Standon Hall not long since, as was the
habit of hanging a “ picked” calf in chains, “ that the cows might
look on it and the plague might be stayed, so that the cows
should not prematurely cast their calves,” another picked calf
being buried at the threshold of the shippon for the cows to walk
over.

It is an error to imagine, as Mr. Moss seems to do, that there

TO2 Reviews.

is historical absurdity in wearing oak-leaves on the 29th of May.
Was it not on this day, which was also his birthday, that
Charles II. made his entry into London on his return from exile ?
The custom of using oak-leaves as decorations at May festivals is
probably of very great antiquity; but since the Restoration it has
naturally been connected in a special manner with the picturesque,
if perfidious, Stuart, who was once constrained to find shelter
from his enemies in the Boscobel oak.

Mr. Moss might consult the works of our philological authori-
ties with advantage when the derivation of words is in question.
To speak of one instance only: had he referred to the New
English Dictionary before writing ‘‘the word burial is derived
from bury-ale, the ale or feast that was given to the kindred and
neighbours who were bidden to the burying of any one,” he would
have found that the opinion of the most skilful philologers is
against this assertion.

TrA ANTICHE FIABE E NOVELLE. 1. LE “ Pracevoiti Notti”
DI MESSER GIAN FRANCESCO STRAPAROLA. Ricerche di
Giuseppe Rua. Roma, Ermanno Loescher e Co., 1898.

Sicnor Rua has begun the publication of a series of detailed
studies upon the sources and transformations of the /Vovedlle of
Italian literature. If we may judge by the work before us, the
series is likely to prove not merely valuable but indispensable for
students of the migration of tales. Straparola’s famous collection
was first published in 1550-3. It was several times reprinted
during the following sixty years. After a period of depreciation
and neglect, lasting for two centuries, Dunlop first perceived its
importance for literary history ; and from the time he drew atten-
tion to it in his story of Fiction, published in 1814, it has been
the subject of constant interest to students of literature and of
folklore. Owing to the freedom of its contents from the trammels
of conventionality, and indeed of decency, it has never been trans-
lated as a whole into English. In spite of this grave defect, com-
mon to most of the Italian collections, among which it is by no
means the coarsest, it is not without beauty, and for us it has the
supreme merit that it draws its inspiration chiefly from the stories
and beliefs of the ‘‘ folk.”

Reviews. 103

Signor Rua, without contesting the general position that the
stories, or many of them, originated in the East and travelled to
Europe, examines the various literary forms they have assumed.
Taking those which approximate most nearly to novelle of Strapa-
rola, and have been claimed as his direct sources, he submits their
pretensions to a searching analysis, and in every case decides in
favour of the defendant. His chief reliance is of course on in-
ternal evidence ; but here and there he is able by comparison of
dates of publication to show that borrowing by Straparola was im-
possible. The Panchatantra, with its numerous western evolu-
tions, the Fabliaux, the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, the Disciplina
Clericalis are among the alleged sources discussed ; nor is Italian
literature overlooked, including of course the Decameron and
similar collections. His conclusion is that the true source is to
be sought for in oral tradition ; and this he supports by numerous
references and arguments. The student will recognise the im-
portance of such a conclusion arrived at by a scholar so learned
and accurate as Signor Rua.

From the sources he passes to the imitators of the Pracevolt
NVotti. Here English readers will be interested in the discussion
of the alleged indebtedness of Shakspeare in Zhe Taming of the
Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and of Moliere in
L’Ecole des Maris and L’ Ecole des Femmes. Of these the case of
The Merry Wives is the strongest. There the debt is rendered
possible by the fact that one of Straparola’s tales (iv. 4) was
among those translated into English before the play was written ;
but in any case it hardly extends to more than hints.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

OsMANLI PROVERBS AND QUAINT Sayincs. By the Rev. E. J.
Davis. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ν. Ὁ.

Mr. Davis’s volume is formed of the store of Turkish proverbs
which were gathered together by Ahmed Midhat some twenty
years since, accompanied by a translation into English. Accord-
ing to the preface, the original work ‘“‘appears to contain an
almost exhaustive collection of the aphorisms and quaint sayings
current among the Osmanli people.” Whether this assertion can

104 Reviews.

be taken as absolutely correct or not, it must be allowed that a
goodly crop of eastern wisdom is harvested in its pages, and that
the sayings which it contains are quite as much to the point as
their western analogues.

A fair number of the proverbs are, as was to be expected,
almost identical with traditional phrases of our own, and many

others are worthy of becoming current among us. ‘‘ A diamond,
though men throw it in the mud, is still a diamond,” “ Justice is
the half of religion,” “Mercy is religion,” and “A thousand

regrets do not pay one debt,” are all maxims worth remembrance.
The proverbs connected with notions of deity are also expressive.
““God makes a delay, but no neglect,” “ When once Allah hath
given he saith not ‘Whose son?’” appeal alike to Christian and
Moslem. ‘The camel’s kick is soft, but it takes away life,” hasa
meaning not unlike our “A hand of steel in a velvet glove,” and
refers to the natural pads, or cushions, with which the animal’s
feet are provided to maintain a firm hold on shifting sand. “A
chimney takes fires from the inside,” an adage alluding to the
treachery of one’s own partisans, must be of frequent application
in the land where it was coined. The proverbs relating to love
refer to extra-matrimonial passion rather than to such affection as
developes between two persons bound together by the ancient
mariage de convenance, which, though beginning to decay in
occidental Europe, yet holds its own among the adherents of
Islamism. ‘‘Love and a king accept no partnership,” “ Pas-
sionate love is a command, (and) the heart is emperor,” scarcely
sound oriental according to western ideas of the polygamous
east; but every collection of dictons shows how closely the
thoughts of men resemble each other in all parts of the world,
notwithstanding apparent diversities. The Chinese “If you kill
a pig kill it thoroughly,” addresses itself to the common sense of
humanity at large, as do hundreds of other aphorisms reaching us
from the most distant nations of the earth.

THE TRADITIONAL POETRY OF THE FinNS. By DoMENICo
ComPaRETTI, &c., translated by ISABELLA M. ANDERTON,
with Introduction by ANDREW Lanc. Longmans, Green, &
Co., London, 1898.

THE original work of which this is a translation appeared no less
than seven years ago. From its importance and from the number

Reviews. 105

of new ideas it contains, the translation might advantageously
have appeared at an earlier date; but in this country in such
matters we move but slowly. Though the volume touches on
many folklore topics, its primary object is a literary one. It aims
at annihilating the theories of all those learned but misguided
men who maintain that the works of Homer are mere patchwork,
and not the result of a single creative brain. And in fact it
seems effectually to have torpedoed the enemies’ arguments. To
execute his task thoroughly, Professor Comparetti has exhaus-
tively analysed the form and contents of the Kalevala, has shown
how the poem arose, the number of pieces of which it was com-
posed, and how Lonnrot managed to unite them together in a
way that gave the similitude of a national epic, but without reach-
ing the goal. All this is very well and carefully done, but as it is
not folklore we may pass on to those parts of the volume which
deal more nearly with that subject.

Comparetti was the first to point out that the epic and narrative
poetry of the Finns is the direct issue of their magic songs. These,
when narrative, easily become epic, and are so unstable in their
form that they readily lend themselves to a process of remoulding
and incorporation with others of more or less similar character.
This being so, he everywhere finds traces of the modes of thought
proper to a wizard or shaman in the narrative portions of the
Kalevala. The singer was so steeped in shamanistic ideas that he
could not conceive a hero in any other form than as an ideal
thaumaturge who works almost entirely by magic, and whose
heroism is never shown on the field of battle. His range of view
was so contracted and he was so insensible to external influences
that his mind was never affected by any historical sentiment.
Consequently, the narrative poetry of the Finns contains no kernel
of history, no reminiscences of historical facts in the past, and the
heroes it portrays, being the result of pure imagination and per-
sonification, are not to be explained by any euhemeristic process.
To seek for any profound symbolism or allegory in the Kalevala,
as some have done, is equally futile, for such ideas could never
enter the head of a simple-minded Finnish singer.

Starting from such premises, which on the whole seem to be
well founded, Comparetti argues that the heroes Vainamoinen
and Ilmarinen were originally ideal and anonymous wizards, con-
ceived from two points of view, to whom names were subsequently

106 Reviews.

attached. Vadinamoinen embodies the shamanic idea poetically
treated, the potent traditional wisdom of the wise man, and is
always old. His complement is the wizard smith that forges the
arrows, darts, knives, and blades which a wizard employed in the
exercise of his vocation. Some objection, however, may be taken
to this view. ‘Two of the main functions of a wizard were to heal
the sick and to divine the future. Now if Vainamoinen’s person-
ality had been founded on the ordinary notion of a wizard, how
does it happen that in the narrative poems he is never summoned
or invited to exercise either of these important offices? When
he cuts his knee severely, he forgets some of the words of the
magic song for staunching blood in a way hardly compatible with
the idea that he is the most powerful of his class. He drifts
helplessly about on the sea for years, apparently quite unable to
extricate himself by magic means. When asked to make a sampo,
he has to decline the task as beyond his power. Mere wizards,
too, whatever their power, never figure as creators of the earth
and of the trees upon it, though this creative act is constantly
attributed to Vainamoinen. He was a personification no doubt,
but hardly, we think, of an ideal shaman. Doubtless it often
happened that a Finn about to proceed on a journey had recourse
to a wizard to provide him with knots full of suitable winds or
means for escaping the dangers of a land journey. But if instead
of that he sought the help of Ilmarinen, who is stated by Agricola
to have been a god that ruled over weather, he evidently drew a
distinction between a wizard, real or ideal, and a god.

About the sampo myth, the exact meaning of which has puzzled
all commentators, our author has something to say. In his
opinion the sampo is nothing real; it is an ideal of prosperity
longed for, but nothing more. In fact, the word is derived from
a Swedish saméz, “living together,’ and represents ideally the
clubbed resources of a household or family. Facts, however, can
hardly be said to support this new theory. The songs in which
the samo is mentioned are sung when seed is sown in spring and
autumn. Where the samo is found, “there you find ploughing
and sowing and every kind of vegetation.” And in one song
Sampo and Pellervo are found in parallel lines, showing the two
ideas had much in common, if not identical. Comparetti very
rightly regards the latter as a personification of the germinating
force of the earth. Dr. J. Krohn believed the word samfo,

Reviews. 107

sammas, was connected with Sampsd Pellervoinen, and cites a
passage in which Ahti is said to have brought Sampsa from
a treeless island. And in another passage in which Sampsa
Pellervoinen is mentioned as sleeping in the middle of a corn-
stack or a grain-ship, the same is said, in a variant, of sampo. If,
then, sdmpsd, sammas, sampo are all corruptions of a single
common form, the latter was originally a spirit of vegetation that
brought good luck to agriculturists. But, as a luck-bringer can
be conceived in various ways, such as a wonderful mill which
grinds out all sorts of wealth, or as a chest, a store-house, or ship,
containing treasures of all sorts, the possession of which recep-
tacles brings luck to the possessor, the word could be explained
by singers in the above-mentioned ways. Curiously enough in
the oldest version the sammas seems to be a bird—Krohn tried
to explain this away—an interesting particular, for many European
instances of a corn-spirit in the shape of a cock are adduced by
Frazer (Golden Bough, ii., 7-10). How the sampo came into
possession of the mistress of Pohjola is never stated in the songs.
That she stole it, just as she is said to have stolen the sun and
locked it up, may be an original feature, or the myth of the stolen
sun may have infected that of the sampo. But even on the latter
supposition, this transfer would not have happened unless the
change had been congruous with the general idea embodied in
the sampo myth when it was better understood.

Professor Comparetti is very fertile in conjectures, and quixoti-
cally tilts at all the most difficult proper names in Finnish
mythology, though we cannot but believe with small success.
Nevertheless, while discoursing on the personages in Finnish
myth, he often hits the right nail on the head. For instance,
Kaleva is a giant of immense strength, with an origin not unlike
that of mountain giants in Teutonic mythology. That he was
intimately connected with rocks is shown by the belief that the
erratic granite boulders that strew the surface of Esthonia were
thrown there by a Kalevipoeg. The difference of conception
concerning Kaleva and his sons, as held in Esthonia and Finland,
is carefully pointed out, with the conclusion that Vainémoinen
and Ilmarinen are not, properly speaking, sons of Kaleva at all.
The only person in the Kalevala to whom this title is applicable is
Kullervo.

To a volume of such varied contents it is impossible to do

108 Reviews.

justice in a limited space. To anyone interested in Finnish
poetry it is invaluable, and on that account we may point out a
few slips for the benefit of its readers. At p. 86, 1. 8 from the
bottom—afropos of Lemminkainen’s mother searching for his
body in a river—for “raft” read “rake ;” and two lines below,
for “she launched her raft on the river” read ‘“‘ she raked through
the river with her rake.” At p. 87, last line, and p. 88, 1. 6, for
“raft” read “boat.” At p. 88, for ‘like an alga” read “like an
otter.” At p. 159, 1. 17, for “oak” read “elk”; here the Italian
printer has evidently read e/e instead of ale.

This volume is certainly not an easy one to translate, especially
those portions that are themselves from a Finnish original.
Here the translator sometimes translates into English mechani-
cally, without reference to the context, and occasionally, indeed,
is scarcely intelligible. Speaking of Vdinamoinen, as he floated
on the sea, we read, p. 160, 1. 79-82, ‘‘there six years went he
wandering, for eight years was he harried, like a sprig of fir went
wandering, like the top of a pine trunk wandered,” instead of
“there for six years he drifted about, floundered for eight years,
drifting about like (7.6. as helplessly as) a sprig of fir, or like the
end of a trunk of pine.” At p. 161, 1. 108, for “but his chin
did not hang down” read “but his chin did not move to and
fro,” 2: 6: he was silent. At p. 166, 1. 355, for “hopes the devil
to hear his cow” read “ the devil imagines that it is his cow.” At
p-. 224, ἢ. 3, “from the hair of the work of Kapo, from the body
of the offspring of the mother” means “ from the body-hair of a
[man] made bya Kapo, from the body of a [man] born of a
mother.” At p. 250, “the pride of the heroic character outraged
in the possession of the woman” means rather “the fierceness
(fierezza) of a hero whose rights to the sole enjoyment of his
mistress have been outraged.” At p. 263, “the shamanic idea
informs (read ‘‘ gives shape to”) the myth.... of this people.”
P. 288, “‘the informing spirit of the Finnic myth” means “the
motives (/e ragioni) of Finnish myth.” An index to a volume
of this sort is almost indispensable, but there is none to the
original, and the translator has not thought it worth while to
make one for her translation.

JoHN ABERCROMBY.

Reviews. 109

CREATION RECORDS DISCOVERED IN Ecypt. By GrorGE ST.
Ciarr. London: David Nutt, 1898.

Mr. St. Crarr’s book is brimful of learning. But the author has
obtained his facts at second or third hand. No critical judgment
has been shown in the selection of his authorities; good, bad, and
indifferent are quoted side by side as of equal weight. Gerald
Massey and O’Neill are placed on the same footing as Maspero
and Wiedemann ; indeed Mr. St. Clair seems to have a preference
for writers whose knowledge of Egyptology is at least equivocal.
His own acquaintance with Egypt appears to be but slight; we
twice meet with the statement that “ nearly all the obelisks ” were
on the east bank of the Nile! Abydos is confounded with Thinis
or This, and the tomb at H4, in which Sir G. Wilkinson copied a
picture of the phoenix or denn, is not only spoken of as if it were
still in existence but is further described as “‘ the tomb of Hou.”

All this makes us distrust Mr. St. Clair’s claim to be the dis-
coverer of a key to the interpretation of ancient Egyptian mythology
which the acutest students of the monuments have hitherto failed
to find. The key is neither more nor less than the regulation of
the Calendar. The gods and the stories told about them owe
their origin to the-successive attempts made to determine the
length of the year and its component parts and to the astro-reli-
gious system which such attempts presuppose. Egyptian myths
are thus for the most part symbolic veils under which the ‘true
story of astronomical progress, calendar correction, and theological
changes ” was hidden away by the priests and scribes.

We may concede at once that there is no country in the world
where the regulation of the calendar was of more importance than
in ancient Egypt. Not only the prosperity but the very exist-
ence of the people depended on the annual overflow of the Nile
and the engineering and agricultural works undertaken to meet it.
The coincidence of the overflow with the heliacal rising of Sirius
must have been observed at a very early date, and served as a
fixed point for the agricultural calendar. Then again the neces-
sity of knowing when the festivals of the chief gods took place
compelled, as in other countries, a revision of the calendar from
time to time. Moreover, it may be allowed that some of the
Egyptian myths were confessedly of an astronomical or calen-
drical nature; and the famous treatise of Plutarch on Isis and

110 Reviews.

Osiris shows that in the Roman age, when the origin and signi-
fication of the old mythology had been forgotten, some portions at
least of it were supposed to be connected with an endeavour to
determine the length of the year. But with all these allowances
it is a far cry to Mr. St. Clair’s conclusion that the gods and
goddesses of Egyptian religion are nothing more than disguised
astronomical or calendrical symbols, of which he has had the
good fortune to become the interpreter. No detail of a myth is
too trivial or too apocryphal to escape his notice, and be explained
in accordance with his theory. The very completeness of his expla-
nations raises our suspicions, especially when we remember how
questionable some of the authorities are on whom he relies for his
facts.

There is one reason, however, which will prevent Egyptologists
from believing that he has really discovered a key that will undo
every lock in the religion and mythology of the monuments. If
there is anything in ancient Egyptian religion which is now
certain, it is that it is a very illassorted amalgam of inconsistent
elements derived from different local centres, and probably also
from different races. Of this Mr. St. Clair’s theory not only takes
no account, but the fact and the theory are difficult to reconcile.
The theory assumes that Egyptian mythology, as it has come
down to us, or as it is supposed to have come to us, is a har-
monious whole, resting upon the same “astro-religious” basis,
and embodying a continuous tradition and historical development.
Ra, Osiris, and Amon are all merely phases in the evolution of a
calendar.

There are a few misprints in the book, like “redunt” for
“redeunt” (p. 40). And why are the accents so hopelessly wrong
in the few Greek words that are printed? Maspero’s “Khnumu”
has been so frequently turned into the senseless “ Khnumn ”—
not to speak of the Index—as to be hardly attributable to over-
sight, and the eight-rayed star does not denote the Assyrian god
Asshur (p. 81). The real shape of the “tongue” of gold men-
tioned in Joshua vii. 21, will be seen from the illustrations in
Schliemann’s Jos, p. 470.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Hoty WEEK OBSERVANCE IN THE ABRUZZI,
(Vol νι p..57; vol. viil.,:p. 354 ;' vol. ix., p. 362.)

Mr. Clodd has kindly forwarded for publication the following
letter from Mr. Grant Allen:

The Croft, Hind Head, Haslemere,
December 2, 1898.
My DEAR CLopp,

I do not quite know why / should have ever been dragged at
all into this controversy. Canon Pullen told me a certain fact, or
alleged fact; it was a fact bearing upon studies which interest
both of us, and I told it to you. There my part in the matter
ended. I cannot imagine why it should be considered quite right
of the Canon (because he zs a canon, perhaps) to tell me the
story, and quite wrong of me to repeat it to you.

More than that. The real burden of having told the alleged
fact rests with Canon Pullen, and not with either of ws. I was
told it by him as fact. I repeated it as fact. It is now said that
the Canon told the story “after dinner.” ‘That is quite true; but
I am not myself in the habit of making my statements less trust-
worthy after dinner than before it. The supposed fact was related
to me, not as an anecdote, but as a piece of evidence bearing on
a subject under serious discussion in the drawing-room of Madame
Brufani’s hotel at Perugia. We had been talking for some time,
in a group of three or four persons, about Frazer’s Golden Bough,
and other kindred topics. The Canon then brought up this illus-
trative case, which he mentioned with some reserve, because (he
said) of its “ blasphemous” character. He mentioned it very
seriously, as a serious contribution to a serious discussion, and
one wrung out of him, as it were, with some reluctance, because
of its strange mixture of heathenism and Christianity. I should
never have said myself that it was “an after-dinner conversation ;”

112 Correspondence.

I should have thought that to say so was to cast upon the Canon’s
after-dinner conversations a most undeserved aspersion.
At the same time I wish to point out that Z did not publish the
fact ; I merely mentioned it, as the Canon mentioned it, in a con-
_versation with you, which may or may not have been after dinner.
I cannot see, therefore, why Mr. Britten attacks me and lets
the Canon go scot free. Is it because the Canon is a Christian
cleric ? ;
The whole point narrows itself down to this. You mentioned
a case reported to you as a fact, and gave your authority. I gave
my authority. The Canon declines to give Azs authority. If there
is an error (and I do not even now say there is, for a fact cannot
be denied by those who can merely declare they have never heard
of it), that error was given us by Canon Pullen. It is Ze who put
this story abroad; and I thought I was at least justified in saying
to you that I had been informed of it by a responsible and serious
antiquarian, an English clergyman, and the editor of Murray’s
Italian Guides. Until Canon Pullen gives his informant’s name,
and enables us to examine that informant, I shall continue to
believe that the story may have some foundation of truth, because
it is hardly likely that anyone could invent a tale so wholly in
accord with the rest of our knowledge unless he were a skilled
student of customs.
Yours very sincerely,
GRANT ALLEN.

THE GAME OF GREEN GRAVEL.

In reading Professor Haddon’s account of funeral games in his
Study of Man, 1 was reminded of a couplet he has omitted from
the “Green Gravel” song (p. 423), as sung by the village children
of Cambridgeshire. In my time—but a few years ago-—imme-
diately following the turning of the child mentioned, we sang—
whirling round at a trip—these additional lines :

‘* Roses in, and roses out, and roses in the garden, »
I would not part with my sweetheart for twopence-halfpenny farthing.”

After this the whole verse was repeated as usual.
ALFRED R. ORAGE.
133, Spencer Place, Leeds.

Correspondence. Te

“NOTES ON. THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJorT.”

I wish first of all to express my gratitude to Miss M. H.
Kingsley and Mr, E. Sidney Hartland for their great and dis-
interested kindness in: putting my manuscript into a state for
publication. I alone, I think, know how truly arduous that task

must have been. Please also convey my thanks to Mr. W. Η. D.
Rouse.

The frontispiece, “ Fjort mother and child,” is from one of
Miss M. H. Kingsley’s plates. ‘‘ A Bakutu who came to Loango
to see Nzambi” was taken from a photograph taken by Monsieur
J. Audema, of Paris. The other three plates are from photographs
taken by Father Marschelle and the Fathers of the Roman
Catholic Mission in Loango. I am sorry, that owing to my not
having seen the proofs of the plates, their names were not men-
tioned in lVotes on the Folk-lore of the Fjort as the authors of
the same. I trust, however, that they will accept this my tardy
thanks for their valuable aid, which has added so greatly to the

interest of the work.
Errata.

Introduction, page xxxii, ‘‘ Ncanlam ” should be “ Neanlau.”

Pages 8 and 137. In Kakongo the four days of the week are
Tono, Silu, Nkandu, Nsona; in Loango, Tono, Silu, Nduka,
Nsona. /Vduka and Ναας are therefore the same day; the
negative 4a preceding μα in Kakongo, instead of following it, as
in Loango.

Page 148, read “The Fjort cannot roll his 7, so puts Z in its
place.” That is to say, that Fjort cannot say “gira,” but says
“sila” instead, hence the word Chegila or Kegila. Line 4, read
“is (s.) xina (plural) Bina.”

Page 149, for ‘“‘ Ampakala,” read “‘mpakaca”; “ Bakutu,” read
SBikiln”’ > “Babi,” read ““Futu,”

Page 158, for “ Aujéi,” read “ Anjéi”; “rata,” read ““yata-”

Page 162, line 8. Nzala is the same word as yalla, and both

mean hunger ; for ‘“‘ through” therefore read ‘‘ hunger.”

R. E. DENNETT.

VOL. X, I

MISCELLANEA.

TO DISCOVER A DROWNED Bopvy.

At an inquest held on the 22nd November last, at Everdon.
near Daventry, on a young lady who had drowned herself, it
appeared that it was generally thought by the country people that
the deceased had drowned herself in Sir Charles Knightley’s great
fish-pond, in Fawsley Grounds.

Edwin Bird, a farm labourer, employed by the deceased’s father,
told the Coroner that his master ordered him to take a loaf and
some quicksilver down to the pond to find the body.

The Coroner.—How were you to do that?

Witness.—My master was told that if he got a penny loaf and
put some quicksilver in it, it would show where the woman was
drowned.

The Coroner.—What did you do?

Witness.—I made a hole in the loaf and put the quicksilver in,
stopped the hole up, and then threw it into the pond. Master
was told that when the loaf floated over the body it would jump
about.

The Coroner.— How absurd !

Witness added that the loaf floated about the pond, but it gave
no indication that the body was there. Ultimately the body of
the deceased was found in a brook, some distance away, in about
four feet six inches of water.

The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst temporarily
insane,

Standard, Nov. 23, 1898.

On the 26th November, the Standard published a letter from a
correspondent containing the following extract from the Gentde-
man’s Magazine for 1767 (i. 189):

Miscellanea. 115

** A child near two years old fell into the River Kennet and
was drowned. After diligent search had been made in the river,
but to no purpose, a twopenny loaf, with a quantity of quicksilver
put into it, was set floating from the place where the child had
fallen in, which steered its course down the river upwards of half
a mile, before a great number of spectators, when the body hap-
pening to lay on the contrary side of the river, and gradually sunk
near the child, when both the child and loaf were immediately
brought up, with grabbers ready for that purpose.”

We cannot find this passage in the volumes hitherto published
of the Gentleman’s Magazine Library. The superstition is well
known, but it is interesting to record so modern a case as that at
Everdon.

MIDNIGHT CHILDREN.

A few days ago my sister was told by a Lincolnshire peasant
woman that “a midnight child” has peculiar gifts: “‘it can see
everything ”—-that is spirits and other supernatural beings. My
sister has also lately been told that the old nurse of a young man
who is a clever amateur actor attributes his powers to the fact
that he was born at midnight.

It is a common belief that people born on the midnight which
links together Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have wonderful
gifts; but it is new to us that all midnight children are endowed
beyond others.

FLORENCE PEACOCK.

AUGURIES.

In the Mayer Collection at Liverpool is a Latin Psaéfer of the
latter part of the thirteenth century, the front and back fly-leaves
of which are formed of portions of a manuscript of the Parci/al
by Wolfram von Eschenbach. ‘This manuscript of the Parci/al
must have been cut up and destroyed by the monks in order to

116 Miscellanea.

bind the Psalter. On the last page of the Psadter itself there is
some German writing, in a hand of the fourteenth century and in
the Swabian dialect, which has been translated by Dr. Priebsch

Lecturer on the English Language in University College, Liver-
pool. ‘The first seven lines run as follow: ‘He who is born on a
Sunday will become strong and beautiful ; he who is born on a
Monday will become strong; he who is born on a Tuesday will
become strong and eager for combat; he who is born on a
Wednesday will become judge of the empire ; he who is born on
a Thursday will become an honest man; he who is born on a
Friday will have a long life; he who is born on a Saturday will
not live long.” Then follow a number of auguries from dreams,
concerning which Dr. Priebsch makes the suggestion that they
are extracted from some old book of dreams. Most of them are
identical with superstitions on the subject still current. Such an
augury as “To dream of having long hair betokens strength” may
perhaps be derived from the Biblical story of Samson. Another,
‘Prosperity will come to him who dreams of talking with the
dead,” seems to be derived from some sort of ghost-worship. The
last one is “ Great joy and a great name are signified by dreaming
that one picks up a cabbage.” May we all pick up cabbages in
dreams! Dr. Priebsch has published facsimiles of the fragments
of the Parcifal with some introductory remarks, including a trans-
cription and translation of all these auguries, in the Budletin of
the Liverpool Museums, vol. i., Nos. 3 and 4.

TRISH FOLKLORE.
The Little Red Hen: A Nursery Tale.

I have often heard the following story in Ireland, when a child,
from my nurses and others. I have heard it since, and set it down
exactly as it was told. This is the only version I know of.

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, a cat, a rat, and
a little red hen lived together in a little house. The cat hada
nice warm well-lined basket, the rat a nice snug hole, and the
little red hen a comfortable perch.

Miscellanea. 117

One fine morning the little red hen said: ‘‘ Who’ll get up and
light the fire?”

“1 won't,” said the cat.

“ And I won’t,” said the rat.

“ ΤΊ] do it myself,” said the little red hen. So she got up and
lit the fire. Then she said: “Who'll get up and sweep out the
room ἢ ἢ

“1 won't,” &c.

Then she said: “ Who'll get up and get the breakfast ?”

“1 won’t,” ὅς, Then she said: “ Who'll get up and eat the
breakfast ? ”

**T will!” said the cat.

* And I will!” said the rat.

“No, 111] do it myself,” said the little red hen. But she let
them have their breakfast. Then she said: ‘‘ Who'll clear away
the things ? ”

“T won't,” &c.

But while she was clearing away the things, whom should she
see coming up the street but the fox. And the cat ran into its
basket, and the rat into its hole, and the little red hen flew up on
her perch.

In came the fox. ‘Good day to you, little red hen,” said he.
“Come down and scratch my back.” So she flew down on his
back and began to scratch it. And when she came near his head,
he put up his paw, and brushed her off and caught her; and he
put her in his bag, and away with him.

Now it was a hot day, and he soon got tired; so he lay down
under the shadow of a church, and went to sleep. And the little
red hen took a scissors and a needle and thread out from under
her wing, and cut a hole in the bag. And out she got, and put a
big stone into the bag, and sewed up the hole; and away with
her home to the cat and the rat.

After a bit the fox woke up and put his bag on his back, and
started off home again. ‘‘ Much good that rest’s done me!” said
he. ‘ Why, she feels heavier now than when I lay down!” How-
ever, he got home at last, and bade his old mother make ready
the family glass pot, because he had the little red hen in his
bag.

So she got out the family glass pot and filled it and put it on
the fire; and it was so big that it filled up the opening of the

118 Miscellanea.

hearth, and the fox had to go out and climb up on the roof, and
drop the contents of his bag down the chimney. And so he did;
and the big stone fell down and knocked the family glass pot into
bits. And when the mother saw this, she was so angry that she
took off her wooden shoe, and ran out of the house, and knocked
him off the roof with it.
PHILIP REDMOND.
Hampden Club,
Phoenix Street, N.W.

Method of Starting a New House in the Olden Times.

Perhaps the following, told me by a man at Kiltubbrid, co.
Leitrim, may interest the society :

The ground for the house having been measured out, a sod
would be turned at the four corners. The four sods would be
left for two or three nights, to see if the proposed house were on
a fairy “ walk,” in which case they would surely be found replaced,
and another site would have to be found. If nothing occurred, a
hen or some such small animal would be killed, and the blood
allowed to drip in the four holes, after which the house might be
proceeded with.?

A new house is such a rarity in the neighbourhood now that I
can get no testimony as to recent procedure.

1 This story evidently consists of two distinct stories imperfectly welded
together. An amusing version of the former of the two is given by M. René
Basset from Ech Cherichi, Commentaire des Magdmat de Hariri, Boulaq,
1300 A.H. (1882-3 A.D.). A parasite accompanied a traveller. When they
arrived at a place where they were to stop, the traveller said to the parasite :
**Take a dirhem, and go and buy us some meat.” ‘‘Go yourself,” said the
parasite ; ‘‘I am weary.” The man accordingly went himself and bought the
food. Then he said to his companion: ‘‘ Get up and cook this.” The para-
site refused ; and so on for the successive requests to break the bread and draw
the water. When the traveller at length had made all ready, he said to the
parasite: ‘‘ Get up now, and eat.” ‘* Yes,” said the other; ‘‘ why should I
contradict you any longer? By Allah! I am ashamed of having contradicted
you so often.” And he arose and sat down to eat. Rev. des Trad. Pop.,
vol. xill., p. 225.—ED.

2 Cf. the customs in the Feroe Islands and Sweden cited by Mr. Feilberg

Zeitschrift der Vereins fiir Volkskunde, vol. viii. p. 273.—ED.

τς Σ᾿ αὐ ΝΣ

Track of Dead Coach —» Ξ :
Fairy fore. O Hagan's Goss
FAITY PASS

Toberonay Bridge,

ν᾽

ΓΝ

ὁδοῦ Map of Kilcurry an neighbourhood

Lo TUCE UGE 779.

Miscellanea. 11g

The Couvade ?

Another little saying has been reported to me, viz.: When a
man’s wife is about to give birth to a child, folk will chaff him and
say: “ You'll soon have to go to bed with the old woman and be
nursed like they did years ago.” Can this possibly be a faint
reminiscence of the Couvade ?

LELAND L. DUNCAN.

TRADITIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS COLLECTED AT KILCURRY,
County LoutH, IRELAND.

[ Authorities.
Thomas Curtis, a farm labourer, about fifty years of age ; he is
well educated, and has lived in England.
Harry MclIntee, a small farmer, age about forty.
Margaret Collins, age about forty-five, a native of Co. Cavan,
now living on the Forkill Road, just outside Dundalk. She
lives principally on charity. |

1. Whenever anyone in the parish is about to die, the Dead
Coach is to be seen on the road shown in the sketch-map. It goes
southwards from Faughart Church, past the turn to Toberonan
Bridge, across ‘he Forkill Road, by Mount Bailey, to O’Hagan’s
cross-roads, and thence by Kilcurry back to the church again.
The coach is black, drawn by four headless horses, and driven by
a headless driver ; it is perfectly noiseless, “like a bicycle.” See-
ing it does not appear to bring any ill-luck to the beholder;
H. MclIntee has seen the coach on the road near his own house.
—[{H. McIntee, Τὶ Curtis, and others. |

2. Faughart Church, now disused, was built about the beginning
of this century. It stands upon an ancient fort, and the following
story concerning its building is current in the neighbourhood :

When Mr. Linley, the rector, was looking for a site for his
church, he wished to buy Rice’s Fort for the purpose, but the
owner refused to sell it, so the present site was purchased instead
The church was begun, and the work proceeded favourably. One
evening, when the building was almost completed, the contractor

120 Miscellanea.

was returning homewards to Dundalk with his men; on Toberonan
Bridge he turned to look back at his work, and saw to his horror
that it was wrapped in flames. In despair he wished to return,
but was dissuaded by his workmen, who argued that by the time
he arrived on the scene it would be too late to effect anything.
In the morning the contractor returned and found the church
unharmed; the fairies had not been able to do more than manifest
their displeasure. The church has been called “ Belchinny,” or
the “ Church of Fire,” ever since.—[T. Curtis and others. ]

3. There was an old man named Johnny McKeown, who lived
in a little house by the roadside close to Rice’s Fort. He used
to say that one night he was sitting by the fire and he heard a
noise on the road, so he went and opened the door and looked
out. It was a bright moonlight night, and he saw a regiment of
soldiers coming down the road towards him. They were very
tired-looking and foot-sore, and “ drabbed,” and they came right
into his yard, marching two and two, several hundreds of them.
They went into the field behind, and on into Rice’s Fort. Of
course it was the ‘“‘ gentry” coming back from some fight between
themselves.—[T. Curtis. ]

NotEe.—Rice’s Fort is said to contain a cave, or subterranean
chamber, with a passage ending in the little marsh between it and
Fort Hill. There is said to be a similar passage from the fort at
Fort Hill to the marsh. The two forts are connected by a “ fairy
pass ;” and one night, when Curtis and another man were standing
beside this path, they heard a sound like many horses galloping
past quite close to them.

4. Johnny McKeown’s yard was haunted at night by a big
black dog, whose arrival always set his own dog howling. He
took it to be the ghost of a man who used to work for him.

5. The ghost of a former occupant of Mount Bailey is said to
walk on the road near the house. My informant could not give
any reason for this, as the gentleman in question—a bank manager
in Dundalk—had been a good neighbour and an “ unmeddling
man.”—[T. Curtis. ]

6. “There was a man I knew, a working man up at Lurgan
Green, and one night he got up, I suppose it was towards day-
breaking, and opened the door. And I don’t know what the divil
took him, but he went and stood out on the road, and him in his
nightdress. He had hardly been there a minute before he was

Miscellanea. I2I

lifted up, and he didn’t know where he was going till he was on
the top of Faughart Hill. And in the morning when the half-
past five horn blew he was lifted up and dropped twenty perches
from his own door. And one of the other workmen says to him,
‘Where were ye the morning, Jemmy?’ And he says, ‘I was on
the top of Faughart Hill with the gentry’”—[H. McIntee.]

Note.—This anecdote, which I took down immediately after-
wards, as far as possible in his exact words, was related by McIntee
in the course of a conversation I had with him some years ago.
He stoutly maintained the existence of the fairies, while denying
that of ghosts. Faughart Hill lies about two miles to the east-
ward of Kilcurry; on it are a holy well and ruined church dedicated
to Saint Brigid, as well as a fort marking the site of her nunnery.

7. Beside the road from Dundalk to Kilcurry stands a farm-
house, called from the surrounding townland Sportsman’s Hall.
It is a modern two-story brick house, built on to a much older
cottage which is unoccupied, the doors and windows being nailed
up. The people around say that the cottage contains the ghost
of the farmer’s father, which they say haunted the family so con-
stantly after the old man’s decease that they were obliged to have
it shut up there. Prayers were said to prevent the ghost from
escaping from its prison.—[T. Curtis. ]

8. A woman, now dead, but whose daughter still lives in
Kilcurry, was once carried off by the fairies. She was walking
one night beside a stream, when she saw what appeared to be a
woman sitting on the opposite bank, wailing and “batting the
water with its hands.” On crossing to the other side, the woman
was seized and carried off to a fairy fort, where she remained
several days, but she would neither eat nor drink, and prayed so
hard to be sent back to her children that in the end they had to
let her go.—{T. Curtis. ]

g. Directly a man’s spirit leaves his body it has to travel over
all the ground he travelled over while alive, and during this time
it is visible-—[T. Curtis. ]

All the souls in suffering are released for forty-eight hours
yearly, commencing on Holy Eve (October 31) and including All
Saints’ and All Souls’ Days.—{T. Curtis. ]

το. “If the first lamb you see in the season be white it is
lucky, but if it be black you will die within the year.”—[ Margaret
Collins. |

122 Miscellanea.

11. When the mother of a man named McKeown, living near
Kilcurry, was dying, a pigeon flew into the house and out again,
while at the same time there was a tap on the window. This was
a death warning.—|T. Curtis. |

BRYAN J. JONES.

Mr. Clodd having shown the above notes to Mr. W. B. Yeats,
the latter gentleman kindly forwarded the following memoranda
upon them :—

I have stories about most of the things in the slip of folklore
you send. I will be dealing with a good many of the subjects in
a month or two.

(1.) The coach is very common; Mr. Jones is perhaps wrong
in calling it “the Dead Coach.” The people of co. Galway
usually call it “the Deaf Coach,” because it makes a “deaf”
sound. ‘They describe “ deaf” as muffled or rumbling. I never
heard before of its being soundless. Has he mistaken “ deaf”
for‘ dead 21

(2.) I am always hearing of forts and of certain rooms in houses
being seen as if on fire. It is the commonest phenomenon in
connection with forts, in all parts of Ireland I know.

(3.) Iam collecting material about fairy battles, and am trying
to find out when they coincide with May Day, or November Day,
or thereabouts, or else with a death.

(4.) A Newfoundland dog, according to my uncle’s old servant,
is ‘a very quiet form to do your penance in.” She isa Mayo
woman and very much of a saint.?

(6.) It is always dangerous to go out late at night. I havea
number of Galway and Sligo stories of people being carried to a
distance, including one in which I myself am supposed to have
been carried four miles in County Sligo. Compare the spiritualistic
medium, Mrs. Guppy, being carried across London with a sauce-
pan in one hand and an egg in the other. She weighed about
nineteen stone. I have met about four peasants who believe in

1 Both “ Dead” and ‘‘ Deaf” are perhaps corruptions of “Death.” Mr.
Jones, however, has kindly promised to make further inquiries about the word
used by the Louth people; but to the best of his belief they always speak of
“the dead coach.”—ED.

? Mr. Jones writes that he has been told that this form is the one usually
assumed by evil spirits. —Ep.

Miscellanea. 123

fairies but not in ghosts. I have never met the converse, though
I have met a man in Co. Roscommon who denied both, but
believed in water-horses.

(7.) A ghost has to go anywhere it is sent; but if you send it to
an unpleasant place, you have to do your own penance there when
you die. My uncle’s old servant again.

(8.) Am greatly interested in the fairy “‘ batting the water with
her hands.” A man at Ballesodare, Paddy Flynn, used the same
phrase about the Banshee.!

(9.) I never heard this about the soul travelling where it had
gone in life. It is very interesting.”

(ro.) I have heard of the fairies putting a black lamb into a
flock as a warning to a Sligo relation of my own who had cut a
fairy bush. In a couple of days the lamb vanished. I suppose
therefore that black lambs are uncanny.

(11.) I have a friend whose family (an old Kerry family, I
think) has this death-warning.

W. B. YEaTs.

? Mr. Jones writes: ‘‘ As far as I can remember, Curtis thought the figure
sitting by the water was the Banshee.” —Eb.

* Mr. Jones writes that he has never heard of the belief elsewhere in Ireland,
but refers to a note in Morris’ Saga Library, vol. ii., The Saga of the Ere-
Dwellers, p. 282, where the translator says: ‘‘ To this day the belief exists in
Ireland that the spirit of the dead visits all localities on earth where the person
has been, before it passes to its final destination. This journey is supposed to
take a miraculously short time.”—Ep. ‘

ΡΥ ΧΟ ΨΥ,

1898, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED.

BOOKS AND) PASE TE Eas:

All English books are published tn London, all French books in
Paris, unless otherwise stated.

ABERCROMBY (How. J.). The Pre- and Proto-historic Finns, both
Eastern and Western, with the Magic Songs of the West
Finns. 2 vols. D. Nutt. f8vo. xxiv., 363; xiii, 400 pp.

Buau (L.). Das altjiidische Zauberwesen. Strassburg: Tribner.
τόσον ὅν ὙΠ. Τὸν pp:

Brown (R., Jun.). Researches into the Origin of the Primitive
Constellations of the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Babylonians.
Vol. i. Williams & Norgate. 1899. 8vo. xvi., 361 pp.

ComparETTI (D.). The Traditional Poetry of the Finns. Trans-
lated by IsaBELLA M. ANDERTON, with Introduction by
ANDREW Lanc. Longmans, Green, & Co. 8vo. xxvii.
359 PP:

ConyBEARE (F. C.), Harris (J. R.), and Lewis (A. S.). The
Story of Ahikar, from the Syriac and other versions. Camb.
Univ. Press. 8vo.

CurTIN (J.). Creation Myths of Primitive America in relation
to the Religious History and Mental Development of Man-
kind. Williams & Norgate. 1899. ὅνο. xxxix., 532 pp.

D’ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE (H.). La Civilisation des Celtes et
celle de ’Epopée Homérique (Cours de Littérature Celtique.
Tome vi.) Fontemoing, 1899. 8vo. xvi., 418 pp.

Davirs (T. W.). Magic Divination and Demonology among the
Hebrews and their Neighbours. James Clarke & Co. f8vo.
XVi., 130 pp.

Bibliography. 125

Deans (J.). Tales from the Totems of the Hidery. (Archives
of the International Folk-Lore Association, vol. 11.). Chicago:
1899. 8vo. 96 pp.

Fison (L. A.) and THomas (Mrs. W.). Merry Suffolk, Master
Archie, and other Tales. Jarrold & Sons. 1899. Cr. 8vo.
79 PP:

FROBENIUS (L.). Die Weltanschauung der Naturvolker. Weimar:
Hs Pelber. GSyvo:)- Xv-.427 pp:

—— Der Ursprung der Kultur. Vol. 1, Der Ursprung der
afrikanischen Kulturen. Berlin: Borntrager. 1899. 8vo.
XXXl., 368 pp.

Gomme (A. B.). The Traditional Games of England, Scotland,
and Ireland. Vol. ii, Oats and Beans—Would you know;
with a Memoir on the study of Children’s Games. 1). Nutt.
Roy. 8vo. xXv., 531 pp.

Hynam (F. E.). The Secrets of the Night and other Esthonian
Tales, translated by. Elliot Stock. Cr.8vo. 111 pp.
Hut (E.). The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature: being a
Collection of Stories relating to the Hero Cuchullin. Trans-
lated from the Irish by various scholars. D. Nutt. f8vo.

Ixxix., 316 pp.

Jurxscuat (C.). Litauische Marchen und Erzahlungen. Part i.,
im Galbraster Dialekt. Heidelberg: C. Winter. 1899.
8vo. 144 pp.

KincsLtey (M. H.). West African Studies. Macmillan ἃ Co.,
1899. 8vo. xxiv., 639 pp.

KOHLER (R.). Kleinere Schriften. Vol. i., Zur Marchenforsch-
ung. Herausgegeben von Johannes Bolte. Weimar: Felber.
8vo. xii., 608 pp.

LAWRENCE (R. M.). The Magic of the Horse-Shoe, with other
Folklore Notes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 8vo. 344 pp.

SEBILLOT (P.). La Veillée de Noel, piece en un Acte. J.
Maisonneuve. P. V. Stock. 1899. Cr. 8vo. 30 pp.

—— Légendes Locales de la Haute-Bretagne. τὺ Partie. Le
Monde Physique. Nantes: Soc. des Bibliophiles Bretons,
1899. Cr. 8vo. xi. 186 pp.

SEIDEL (A.). Anthologie aus der asiatischen Volkslitteratur.
Weimar: E. Felber. 8vo. 396 pp.

126 Bibliography.

SPENCER (B.) and GILLEN (F.J.). The Native Tribes of Central
Australia. Macmillan & Co. 1899. 8vo. xx., 671 pp.

VELTEN (C.). Marchen und Erzahlungen der Suaheli. Berlin:
Spemann. ὅνο. xi., 264 pp.

PERIODICALS.

The Contents of Periodicals exclusively devoted to Folklore
are not noted.

Archxologia Cambrensis, October. /. Rogers Rees, The Norse
Element in Celtic Myth.

Blackwood’s Magazine, December. A. Zang, A Creelful of Celtic
Stories.

Contemporary Review, March, 1899. A. Zang, Cup and Ring.

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, N.S. 1,1, 2. Rev. A.
£. Hunt, Ethnographical Notes on the Murray Islands,
Torres Straits. W. Dunlop, Australian Folklore Stories.
Capt. G. Burrows, On the Natives of the Upper Welle
District of the Belgian Congo. &. K. Granville and F: WV.
Roth, Notes on the Jekris, Sobos, and Ijos of the Warri
District of the Niger Coast Protectorate. £. B. Zylor, On
the Totem-post from the Haida Village of Masset, Queen
Charlotte Islands, now at Fox Warren, near Weybridge ;
Two British Columbian House-posts with Totemic Carvings
in the Pitt-Rivers Museum; Remarks on Totemism, with
especial Reference to some Modern Theories respecting
it. 2. B. Holt, Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri.
[The new and enlarged series of the Journal is worthy of
the Institute, and of the increasingly important place which
the science of anthropology is taking in the estimation of the
scientific world. The traditions and customs of savage and .
barbarous races, apart from which those of the European ᾿
races cannot be understood, very properly receive a large share
of attention. The Jowrnalhas long been of great value to
all serious students of folklore, and in its new form bids fair
to be of still greater use. |

Bibliography. 127

Nineteenth Century, January, 1899. 4. Zang, Are Savage Gods
borrowed from Missionaries ?

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 8rd Ser. ν. 1. C. R.
Browne, The Ethnography of Clare Islands and Inishturk,
Co. Mayo. [Another of Dr. Browne’s admirable reports on
the people of the extreme west of Ireland. The earlier ones
have been noticed in /o/k-Lore as they came out. The present
one is in no way inferior to its predecessors in scientific
interest. It is illustrated by two small but clear photographs
of groups of typical natives. |

Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, xxi.1. 4.
Boissier, Deux Fables Assyriennes.

Transactions of the Devonshire Association. Fifteenth Report
of the Committee on Devonshire Folklore. Ed. by P. F. S.
Amery. [Deals with holy wells, local stories, and miscel-
laneous superstitions. Devonshire sets an excellent example
to other counties in preserving these fragments. ]

Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian
Society, xv. A. Colley March, Dee Matres. [A short
monograph on the worship of nymphs and mother-goddesses,
with special reference to the cult in this country. ]

Report of the U. 8. National Museum for 1896. 7: Witson,
Prehistoric Art; or the Origin of Art as manifested in the
works of Prehistoric Man. ,5. Cudin, Chess and Playing-
cards. [A catalogue of games and implements for divination
exhibited by the Museum at the Cotton States Exposition,
Atlanta, Georgia, 1895.] C. Adler and /. M. Casanowicz,
Biblical Antiquities. [A description of the exhibit at the
same Exposition. |

Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 2nd Ser. iii.
Prof. C. Hill-Tout, Notes on the Cosmogony and History of
the Squamish Indians of British Columbia. [A Creation and
Deluge Myth and a Vocabulary. |

Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, xxxviii, 2. JZ. Leger.
Etudes de mythologie slave. G. Dottin, La religion des
Gaulois. Z. Couve, Bulletin archéologique de la religion
grecque (1896-7). A. Leclerve, Une version cambodgienne

Bibliography.

du Jugement de Salomon. 38. G. Raynaud, Le dieu aztec
de la guerre, i. MV. W. Thomas, La survivance du culte
totémique des animaux et les rites agraires dans le Pays de
Galles. [Well worth the consideration of students. |

Archiv ftir Religionswissenschaft, i, 4. G. Polivka, Nachtrage

zur Polyphemsage. ii.1,2. A.C. Winter, Die Birke im
Volksliede der Letten; Birkenverehrung bei den Jakuten.
O. Waser, Danaos und die Danaiden. JZ. Frobenius, Ideen
tiber die Entwicklung der primitiven Weltanschauung. JZ.
Hofler, Krankheits-Damonen. 27. Zimmern, Lebensbrot und
Lebenswasser im Babylonischen und in der Bibel. 2.
ffardy, Glaube und Brauch oder Brauch und Glaube? [The
interest of this new publication will be seen from the contents
of the last two numbers bearing on the study of folklore, as
given above. The subscription is 14 marks per annum, and
the name of the editor, Dr. T. Achelis, is a guarantee for the
scientific character of the articles. ]

Internationales Archiv fir Ethnographie, xi, 5. 6. Δ.

Parkinson, Nachtrage zur Ethnographie der Ongtong-Java-
Inseln. A. Ling Roth, Notes on Benin Customs.

a et 4

Folk=DHore.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

VoL. X.] JUNE, 1899. [No. II.

ETHNOLOGICAL DATA IN FOLKLORE:
A Criticism of the President’s Address tn Fanuary, 1808.

BY G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.
(Read at Meeting of 15th November, 1898.)

THE President in his annual address claims to have stated
“the principles which should govern the inquiry [into
‘racial elements in the folklore of the British Isles’ ], the
lines along which it should move” (/o/k-Lore, vol. ix.,
Ρ- 52).

I venture to make the observation that the address, able
and valuable as it is, does not accomplish, or nearly
accomplish, its object. In the first place, I cannot ascertain,
possibly through faults of my own, what principle governed
Mr. Nutt’s inquiry. He appears to have first stated the
historical evidence as to different races occupying these
islands (p. 34); and because there is no historical evidence
for any race prior to the Celts, he uses language which
implies that, in his opinion at all events, there was no such
race. And upon this statement of the racial elements he
founds conclusions as to the impossibility of using folklore
for the discrimination of race-elements.

I wish in the first place to protest against this method.
Folklore should not be used to confirm already known facts
_.derived-from history. It is an independent science with
VOL. X. K

130 Ethnological Data tn Folklore.

its subject matter—the customs, beliefs, and traditions of
the people. The question is: Does an examination of the
subject matter of folklore reveal racial distinctions; and, if
so, to what races can these distinctions be referred? If

no other science, save that of folklore, had discovered
racial distinctions in the people of Britain, it would behove

ethnologists to examine the subject. Such is the position
I would claim for folklore in opposition to the dependent
position advocated by the President in his address.

Now the element of folklore used by the President for
his purpose is that of “traditional literature.” Ido not agree
that the traditional literature element of folklore is the best
element upon which to found the principles of investigation
into ethnological data. All that can be done by taking
into consideration the traditional literature of the his-
torical races is to show that these literatures are too
much alike, being all products of one language—that of
the Aryan-speaking people—for there to be any prospect
of discovering race-distinctions. | agree that this 15. so.
But the reason is an obvious one, and Mr. Nutt himself tells
us thisreason. Itis because of the “artistry” (to use a very
happy word of Mr. Nutt’s own creation, I think) of this
traditional literature. We know it because of its artistry.
It has spread because of its artistry. It appeals to all races
alike because of its artistry. It is adopted by all races
alike, and therefore ceases to be of racial significance. I
agree with all this, but I cannot conclude therefrom that
therefore folklore contains no race-elements that can be
discriminated, and 1 altogether-demur-to-the~proposition
that folk-literature is the best.element_of folklore whereby
to test the evidence of race.

I am not concerned in this paper with matters of detail,
but I must draw attention to one statement of Mr. Nutt’s
which seems to me little short of amazing. ‘ Man,” he
says, ‘‘in the folklore stage philosophises with a view to
action; it is in the last degree essential that this philosophy

«,

Ethnological Data tn Folklore. Det

should be sound, as it is to result in action the effects of
which involve life or death, dearth or plenty, weal or woe
for him. Philosophical speculation in the air, without any
definite relation to or bearing upon the practical conduct of
life, is one of those benefits of progress which man in the
folklore stage not only contrives to do without, but the
excellence of which he fails to grasp.”

I have called this passage amazing. I cannot agree
that primitive philosophies were propounded for the pur-
pose of founding social or political action upon their for-
mularies. I see little evidence of this, though I do see that
primitive philosophies very often resulted in action being
taken upon their findings, and that with disastrous results.
To give only an instance from Mr. Hartland’s Legend of
Perseus, perhaps the most widespread and certainly the
most remarkable of all the unsound conclusions arrived at
by primitive philosophy, was one that imperfectly recognised
the great natural fact of fatherhood and taught in its place
that paternity was possible by other than natural causes—
indeed, we may say by all other than natural causes. In this
case, at all events, man’s intellect played him false through
probably long ages of life, and there is no evidence that
I can discover which shows that it was formulated for the
practical conduct of life. Because action and conduct have
resulted from the findings of primitive philosophies, I do not
understand that this was the intention and cause of the
philosophical speculations of early man.

But even more amazing is the statement that “ philo-
sophical speculation in the air, without any definite relation
to or bearing upon the practical conduct of life,” is not a
part of primitive life. Does Mr. Nutt know the first chapter
of Genesis, or, better still, the Maori story of the Children
of Heaven and Earth, and will he not agree that this and
most, if not all, of the primitive conceptions of the world’s
beginnings and man’s origin (and there are many) are not
philosophical speculations in the air of the most unpractical

K 2

132 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

kind? To me at least they are full of pathos, full of wonder,
for they show that men situated as early people were
situated can stand aside from the practical part of life and
ask questions of the infinite. Each of these primitive cosmo-
gonies is a pausing place in the history of human thought ;
each indicates an immensity of progress not to be measured,
I fear, by modern minds, or at all events not until psychology
shall have become a more exact science than it is at present;
each has been arrived at by we know not what tremendous
effort on the part of those who, amidst the dangers and
stress of the primitive life-struggle, yet stood aside to
philosophise as to whence man came, to ask the same ques-
tion which Darwin asked and answered for us.

Let me pass from criticism of Mr. Nutt’s expressions
to criticism of his results. In 1802 I ventured to publish
a little work entitled Ethnology in Folklore. Ethnology
is out of fashion; so my book was received with only
moderate acceptance by my folklore colleagues; but I am
glad to place on record that at least one of the most
distinguished members of our Society, Dr. Haddon, has
recently done me the honour of accepting my main con-
clusions. In 1896, at the British Association, I read ἃ
memoir on the method of determining the value of folklore
as ethnological data—a memoir which was received at the
Association with approval as a scientific basis for treating
this aspect of folklore. These studies-are based, not upon
the element of traditional literature in folklore, but upon the
elements-of-custom, ritual, and belief; and my views, drawn
from these elements of folklore, stand in direct antagonism
to those of the President. I:attempted to work out a
principle of research and analysis, and to apply it to the
problem of racial elements in folklore. I stated that principle
in unmistakably plain language; and as my methods have
not been brought directly before the Society, I will venture
to restate them on the present occasion.

The comparative method of inquiry has been used in

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 133

folklore research without proper safeguards. The un-
meaning custom or belief of the peasantry of the western
world of civilisation has been taken into the domains
of savagery or barbarism for an explanation, without
any thought as to what this action really signifies to the
history of the custom or belief in question. No doubt the
explanation thus afforded is correct in most cases; but
I question whether such an explanation will be admitted as
an important element in the history of European peoples,
until it has been proved to be scientifically justified. For
it must be obvious that the effective comparison of a tradi-
tional peasant custom or belief with a savage custom or
belief is only a very short cut indeed to the true process
that has been accomplished. This process includes the
comparison of an isolated custom or belief, belonging,
perhaps secretly, to a particular place, a particular class of
persons, or perhaps a particular family or person, with a
custom or belief which is part of a whole system belonging
to a savage race or tribe; of a custom or belief whose
only sanction is tradition, the conservative instinct to do
what has been done by one’s ancestors, with a custom or
belief whose sanction is the professed and established polity
or religion of a people; of a custom or belief which is
embedded in a civilisation of which it is not a part and to
which it is antagonistic, with a custom or belief which helps
to make up the civilisation of which it is part. In carrying
out such a comparison, therefore, a very long journey back
into the past of the civilised race has been performed. For
unless it be admitted that civilised people consciously
borrow from savages and barbaric peoples, or constantly
revert to a savage original type of mental and social
condition, the effect of such a comparison as we have taken
for an example is to take back the custom or belief of the
modern peasant to a date when a people of savage or bar-
baric culture occupied the country now occupied by their
descendants, the peasants in question, and to compare

134 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

the custom or belief of this ancient savage or barbaric
culture with the custom or belief of modern savage or
barbaric culture. The line of comparison is not therefore
simply drawn level from civilisation to savagery ;_but_it
consists, first, of two vertical lines from civilisation and
savagery respectively, drawn to a height scaled to represent
the antiquity of savage culture in modern Europe, and then
the level horizontal line drawn to join the two vertical
lines. Thus the line of comparison is:

ancient savager ancient savager
gery
PGA er Baral Pet We ee LE ey BA ΟΣ ΟΣ wee
savagery civilisation

Now if the several items of custom and belief preserved
by tradition are really ancient in their origin, they must be
floating fragments, as it were, of an ancient system of
custom and belief—the cultus of the people among whom
they originated. This cultus has been destroyed. It has
either struggled unsuccessfully against foreign and more
vigorous systems of religion and society, or it has slowly
developed from one stage to another. In the western
world, at all events, we know that the former has been the
process at work, and that it is matter of definite historical
record that all non-Christian culture has had to succumb to
Christianity. To be of service to the historian of our
country and people, therefore, each floating fragment of
ancient custom and belief must not only be labelled
“ancient,” but it must be placed back in the system from
which it has been torn away. To do thisis to a great extent
to restore the ancient system; and to restore an ancient
system of culture, even if the restoration be only a mosaic
and a shattered mosaic, is to bring into evidence the pre-
historic race of people to which it belongs.

This hypothesis of traditional custom and belief being
relics of an ancient cultus helps to form the method and

Lithnological Data in Folklore. 135

principles of inquiry. It would be impossible to suppose
that all these relics have been preserved equally well, all
at the same stage of arrested development, all equally un-
touched by later influences. Their existence has been
attacked in different places, at different times, by different
influences; and therefore the actual form of their survival
must vary almost as frequently as an example occurs. The
modern connection of a custom or belief is no sure guide, and
is very often a misleading guide, to its ancient connection.
It is only by correct analysis and classification, therefore,
that the various examples can be put into a condition for
examination and identification.

We have for our purpose nothing more than a series of
notes of customs and beliefs obtaining among the lower
and lowest classes of the people, and not being the direct
teaching of any religious or academic body. These notes
are very unequal in value owing to the manner in which
they have been made. They are often accidental, they are
seldom if ever the result of trained observation, and they
are often mixed up with theories as to their origin and
relationship to modern society and modern religious beliefs.

The method of using these notes for scientific purposes
is therefore a very important matter. It is essential that
each single item should be treated definitely and separately
from all other items, and, further, that the exact wording of
the original note upon each separate item should be kept
intact. The original account of every custom and belief is
an organism, not to be tampered with except for the
purpose of scientific analysis; and then, after that purpose
has been effected, all the parts must be put together again,
and the original organism restored to its form.

The handling of each custom or belief, and of its separate
parts, in this way enables us, in the first place, to disentangle
it from the particular personal or social stratum in which it
happens to have been preserved, and, secondly, to prepare
it for the place to which it may ultimately be found to
belong. The first step in this preparation is to get together

136 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

all the examples which have been preserved, and to com-
pare these examples with each other, first as to common
features of likeness, secondly as to features of unlike-
ness. By this process we are able to restore whatever may
be really deficient from insufficiency of any particular
record—and such a restoration is above all thing essential
—and to present for examination not an isolated specimen
but a series of specimens, each of which helps to bring
back to observation some portion of the original.

The first important characteristic which distinguishes a
custom or belief in survival from a custom or belief belong-
ing to an established system is that not only do different
examples present points of common likeness, but also
points of unlikeness. The points of likeness are used to
determine and classify all the examples of one custom or
belief, the points of unlikeness to trace out the line of decay
inherent in survivals. |

This partial equation and partial divergence between
different examples of the same custom or belief allows a
very important point to be made in the study of survivals.
We can estimate the value of the elements which equate in
any number of examples, and the value of the elements
which diverge ; and by noting how these values differ in the
various examples we may discover an overlapping of
example with example which is of the utmost importance.
A certain custom consists, say, of six elements, a, ὦ, ¢, d, e,
jf Another example of the same custom has four of these
elements, a, 4, c, d, and two divergent elements, g, 2.
A third example has elements a, ὦ, and divergences g, h,
z,k. A further example has none of the elements, but only
divergences g, ἢ, 2, 3, m. Then the statement of the case
is reduced to the following :—

I=@, 10, 6, Gy ey Js

B= a Ὁ, ὦ +g, 1.

=k, ἢ +g, ὦ, τ, k.

jie +2,h,2, l,m.

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 137

The conclusions to be drawn from this are, first, that the
overlapping of the several examples (No. 1 overlapping
No. 2 at a, b,c, da, No. 2 overlapping No. 3 at a, ὦ, g, h,
No. 3 overlapping No, 4 at g, ἢ, 1) is the essential factor in
the comparison; secondly, that example No. 4, though
possessing none of the elements of example No. 1, is the
same custom as example No. 1.

These conclusions are not affected by the order in which
the examples are arranged; whether we begin with No. 4
or with No. 1, the relationship of each example to the others,
thus proved to be in intimate association, is the same.

But the distinction of the elements into two classes,
which may be called radicals and divergences respectively,
is of course an important point. As a rule, it will be found
that the radical elements are the most constant parts of
the whole group of examples, appearing more frequently,
possessing greater adherence to a common form, changing
(when they do change) with slighter variations; while
the divergent elements, on the other hand, assume many
different varieties of form, are by no means of constant
occurrence, and do not, even amongst themselves, tend
to a common form. To these considerations, derived
entirely from a study of the analysis, is to be added the
fact that the radical elements are alone capable of being
equated with customs or beliefs obtaining among savage or
barbaric peoples. This enables us to take a very import-
ant step, namely, to suggest that the divergences (g to m)
mark the line of decay which the particular custom has un-
dergone since it ceased to belong to the dominant culture of
the people, and dropped back into the position of a survival
from a former culture preserved only by a fragment of the
people.

When any given custom or belief, having undergone this
double process of analysis of component elements and
classification of the individual examples, reveals a distinct
parallel between its radical elements and the elements of a

138 Lithnological Data tin Folklore.

custom or belief occupying a place in the cultus of a barbaric
or savage people, we may then, and only then, discuss its
right to a genealogy which can be traced back to a pre-
historic cultus of the same stage of development as that of
modern barbarism or savagery. This right will depend
upon severalimportant conditions. The custom in question
must in the first place be not a single isolated example of
such a possible genealogy, but must be found associated
with several other customs, each of which, being treated in
exactly the same manner, has been found to exhibit exactly
the same relationship to the same barbaric or savage cultus
or religion. In this way, classification and analysis go
hand in hand as the necessary methods of studying sur-
vivals. Without analysis we cannot properly arrive at a
classification of examples; without classification we can-
not work out the genealogy of survivals. The argument
for detecting in modern survivals the last fragments of a
once prevailing system based upon this extensive ground-
work is of itself a very strong one, and can only be upset
by one counter-argument. This is nothing less than proof
that no such system ever existed, or could have possibly
existed, in the country or among the people, where and
among which the survivals have been discovered. Clearly
the burden of such a proof could hardly be supported ; for
the very fact of the existence of such survivals becomes in
itself one of the strongest arguments for the existence of
the original system from which they descended, and of the
race or people among whom such original system obtained

For the British Association meeting I then surveyed by
this process of analysis and classification, the fire customs
surviving in Britain, and I carefully kept clear of any ter-
minology which was not actually justified by the circum-
stances of each individual example or group of examples.
But it was undoubted that the facts as quoted all tended in
one direction, namely to the connection of the fire customs
with the family, and through the family to some unit

Eithnological Data in Folklore. 139

larger than the family, represented by the modern village
in a geographical sense and by a group of common de-
scendants in a personal sense.

But as soon as we are justified in using such significant
terminology as this, we have already made the first step to-
wards the identification of these survivals as the remnants of
a system of fire-worship belonging to a people whose social
organisation was that of the tribe; for the connection
between the modern village-fire and the house-fire is of
exactly the same character as the ancient connection be-
tween the tribal fire and the family or clan fire. When,
therefore, in addition to this essential feature of the con-
nection between the village-fire and the house-fire, an
examination of the details of both village-fire customs and
house-fire customs has revealed certain significant indi-
cations of the once sacred character of these fires, of cere-
monies which recall almost the formula of a lost religious
rite, and of usages which go back to prehistoric civilisation
for their only possible explanation—when it has been found
that these conceptions, clustering round the burning embers
of the modern fire belong to the ancient tribal fire cult, a
very important stage is reached in the identification of
these fire-customs with a definite race of people.

Nearly every writer on this subject has, it seems to me,
begun at the wrong end. He has commenced with the few
references to the god Bel, and has built up a theory of
sacrifice and worship which has little or no evidence in
its favour in the examples which have been examined
in the previous pages. And in thus accentuating the
religious element of these rites he has left wholly un-
touched the one clue to their origin, namely, the
social organisation of the people who performed them.
It is always useless to discuss early religions without
taking count of the social organism of which the religion is
only a portion. Early peoples did not differentiate, as modern
peoples do, between the various elements of their culture ;

140 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

all the parts were closely interwoven and cannot be divorced
from each other even for the purpose of a separate analysis.
To have established that these fire customs are intimately
connected with a tribal unit is to connect them with a tribal
religion, and to limit their interpretation and meaning by
what is conveyed by the term ¢vzda/.

They reveal the solemn rekindling of the tribal fire at
least once a year, and the carrying of the sacred flame
therefrom to the fire of the household, as the two essential
details of the cult; and the several very significant rites
which accompany these details are all illustrative of the
tribal conditions to which the whole ceremonial belongs.

Thus the scattered remnants of fire-customs which appear

in our folklore can be restored by this method as a part of
the early tribal system of organisation—a system be it re-
membered which governed every detail of early life, political,
religious, and social, and which has left its marks on the
map of Britain and on the early constitutional history of
our people. The importance of this conclusion is that it
enables us to proceed from the identification of tribal custom
and belief to the identification of tribes: from the identifica-
tion of tribes to the identification of races.
_ Here I suggest is scientific evidence of ethnological
᾿ elements in folklore. We have arrived at the tribe as
a social and political organisation, and this tribe can be
identified in a way that individual custom or belief cannot.
As a matter of fact, the tribe as made known to us through
the fire-customs of modern Britain is identical with the
tribe as made known to us by ancient records and by
modern examples. It is an Aryan tribe, belonging to all
branches of the Aryan-speaking people, and I conclude
therefore that this group of fire-customs is Aryan. Here
at all events is ethnological value.

But we can proceed further. There are a few scattered
fire-customs distinctly opposed to the customs which are
capable of being pieced together into tribal customs. What

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 141

are these then? They are opposite in principle, opposite
in conception, opposite in practice, and find no place within
the tribal group. Are these Aryan fire-customs then? They
cannot be. And it is a scientific conclusion when we place
them on one side as the relics of a pre-Aryan people. \

But there is something further still. After the work of ἡ
classification and comparison is completed for any one cus-
tom, there are further conditions before the first results of
comparison can be properly and finally accepted. One of
these conditions imposes the necessity for proving that the
one custom which has by the application of the comparative
method been identified with the customs of any given race
of people shall, upon examination, be found to be asso-
ciated with other customs which, upon classification and
comparison, can be identified with the same race. This
work is, of course, a matter of time and further research;
and I prepared.a diagram to show how this part of the
investigation may be most readily proved. I first of all
mark on a map of Britain the places where the given cus-
tom obtains. I then join these places together by a
straight line, and, withdrawing from this result all reference
to the map which formed the basis of it, a figure of a
certain shape in outline and a certain shape in internal
detail is obtained. This figure is of great importance.
It represents of course the geographical distribution of
the custom which it describes. We may call it, for prac-
tical use, “the geographical test-figure.”’ Upon working
out other groups of customs the process would be to see
how far the same figure is reproduced, and how far one
figure of a series differs from other figures, whether in simply
being incomplete or whether in radicalform. I have not been
able in the time at my disposal to bring forward another cus-
tom of Aryan origin to equate with the fire-custom, but from
some provisional studies I am satisfied that the test-figure
produced by the fire-customs will be produced by other
customs similarly dealt with. In the meantime there is the

142 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

important question to ask: Are there customs which will
not produce the test-figure? For the purpose of answering
this I have compared roughly the important group of cus-
toms relating to water-worship.

Now I have stated in my Ethnology in Folklore rea-
sons for considering water-worship customs to be non-
Aryan in origin, to belong therefore to the pre-Celtic
people of these islands; and it is remarkable that the
‘geographical test-figure” produced from the water-cus-
toms differs radically from that produced by the fire-cus-
toms. I suggest therefore that in this interesting fact we
have provisionally a proof of the value of this method of
studying the ethnological basis of folklore.

But there is another great peculiarity which distinguishes
the group of water superstitions from fire superstitions.
Water superstitions never lead up to a tribal organisation,
nay, they oppose tribal organisation. They correlate a set of
ideas inconsistent with tribal organisation. The conclusion
therefore is irresistible that water superstitions do not belong
to the Aryan Celtic people, who were tribal, or the Aryan
Teutonic people, who were tribal; from which it follows
that they must belong to a pre-Celtic non-Aryan people.

I attribute very great importance to the interposition of
the tribe at some point in the history of a given item of
folklore. It is vital; not accidental. Let me for one
moment turn to marriage customs in British folklore. I
have studied these for some years, and hope to be able to
lay before the Society a few results at no distant day.
They divide sharply off into two distinct groups. One
group leads us to the tribal organisation; can be explained
only by the tribal organisation of Celts and Teutons. The
other group leads us to a social organisation, which is |
would almost say anti-tribal. Of course, it may be argued
that this second group consists of the worst worn fragments
of the former group. But against this theory is the fact
that they are of themselves a determinative group, and not

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 143

a mass of fragments pitched on one side from a previous
sorting, and further that this determinative group exactly
meets the pre-tribal organisation which is made known to
us from comparative evidence. But beyond this is the geo-
graphical distribution of these two groups. The tribal mar-
riage-group follows the line of the tribal fire-group; the
anti-tribal marriage-group follows the line of the anti-tribal
water-group. I argue therefore that what is pre-tribal in
marriage-customs is also pre-Celtic and pre-Teutonic, and I
claim that this argument must be met before the ethnological
basis of folklore can be discounted.

Now I think it will be clear that both my methods and
my material are quite different from those adopted by the
President. From my methods and materials I conclude
that ethnological data in folklore can be determined; from
the President’s methods and materials he comes to the
opposite conclusion. I place the two studies in this con-
trast with the hope that out of it we may arrive at a
common understanding upon so important a subject.

ETHNOLOGICAL DATA IN FOLKLORE:
A Reply to the foregoing Criticism.
BY ALFRED NUTT.
(Read at Meeting of 15th November, 1898.)

Mr. GOMME’S criticisms show that we are at issue upon
two points: the relative importance of what may be styled
the imaginative and practical sides of folklore in enabling
the discrimination of racial elements, and the best way to
prosecute the search for those elements.

144 LEthnological Data in Folklore.

Before joining issue with my critic, | wish to express
regret at my apparent failure to make it clear that the
scope of my address only allowed the broadest statement
of the problem (with what seemed to me the best means of
ensuring its solution) and forbade aught but the briefest
reference to other views. Adequate discussion of Mr.
Gomme’s work in this field would have exhausted the time
at my disposal. But had I anticipated an interpretation of
the silence, necessarily imposed upon me, as disregard of
work which I value highly, I should certainly have added
a few words of explanation.

In the address to which exception is taken I divided the
elements of folklore into two main classes, philosophical
and artistic, or, if the terms be preferred, practical and
imaginative. I urged that the second, the imaginative,
artistic element is more likely to yield clues for race dis-
crimination. I did not, as Mr. Gomme imagines, identify
traditional literature with folklore, I merely emphasised its
importance for the special object I had in view. Mr.
Gomme’s criticisms bear chiefly upon a side issue which 1
must clear away before saying a few words in defence of
my position.

My statement ‘that man in the folklore stage philoso-
phises with a view to action, and that it is essential that
his philosophy should be sound, as it is to result in action”
is objected to on the ground that the philosophies of primi-
tive man are notoriously unsound. From our point of
view, that of civilised men, yes; but I was reasoning from
the standpoint of the folklore philosopher, the man whose
knowledge is at once “ empirical and traditional,’ not of
his civilised critic. The word “empirical” as used in
medical science will illustrate my point. Empiricism, for
the modern practitioner, is unsoundness itself; his whole
training is directed to obliterate empirical and substitute
scientific reasoning. But for the folk empiricism is the only
conceivably sound doctrine. The stress of my argument

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 145

clearly fell upon the proposition that primitive philosophy
necessarily resulted in action; the test of its apparent
soundness is therefore a simple one—was it embodied in
rite and practice? So judged, the belief signalled out by
Mr. Gomme as typically unsound (artificial is the word he
uses) makes against him. The speculation that paternity
was possible by other than natural means, did, as readers
of Mr. Hartland’s Perseus are aware, result in a number of
definite rites and practices.

My critic is even more unfortunate in his next instance.
In answer to my statement that, in the folklore stage, man
does not indulge in “speculation in the air without relation
to or bearing upon the practical conduct of life”’ he cites
the first chapter of Genesis. I might fairly contend that
this document belongs to a far more advanced stage of
thought than that I have in view. But as a matter of fact
it possesses the very characteristics which I attribute to
primitive speculation. It is intensely practical, forming as
it does the groundwork of a conception of man’s place in
and relation to nature which governed the lives and actions
of the race which elaborated it, which still governs the lives
and actions of countless myriads of men.

I claim that the distinction between the practical-philo-
sophical and the imaginative-artistic elements in folklore is
sound, and 1 would venture to somewhat enlarge the scope
of my generalisation. Man in the folklore stage phzlo-
sophises solely with a view to action in relation to fellow-
man or to nature, animate or inanimate; man in the civilised
stage further philosophises with a view to establishing the
true character of his relation to man and to nature. Man
in the folklore stage zmagznes solely with a view to the
edification or amusement of his fellows; man in the civilised
stage further imagines with a view to the more vivid realisa-
tion of his own personality and its relation to the outside
world.

In determining the relative importance of either element

VOL. X. L

146 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

for racial discrimination in folklore, I was guided by observa-
tion of man in the civilised stage. We belong to this stage,
and we can check our surmises concerning it by the study
of facts which are still living, whereas we can only recover
the dead or decaying psychology which animates folklore
by the free exercise of hypotheses which are necessarily
highly speculative. It seems to me more scientific to
reason from that we know, and can observe, to that which
we can only surmise than to adopt the opposite method.
I turn to the English race as we know it, a race which has
assumed its characteristic features, its distinctive indi-
viduality, since man passed out of the folklore and entered
into the civilised stage. Our race has elaborated neither a
philosophy nor an artistic presentment of life; it has
elaborated a strongly defined system of institutions, rooted
doubtless in Teutonic custom of immemorial age, but
developed as by no other Teutonic people ; it has likewise
brought forth a great poetic interpretation of life and
nature, rooted, it may be, in the archaic fancy of Celts and
Teutons, influenced, undoubtedly, by Classic, Oriental, and
neo-Latin art, yet in its outcome neither Celtic nor Teutonic,
neither Hellenic nor Hebrew, neither French nor Italian,
but specifically and distinctively English. And if we would
seek the quintessential idiosyncrasy of the Englishman, that
which constitutes him a type of mankind apart and distinct,
it is, so I hold, to his poesy and not to his institutions that
we must turn.

The Greek of 1000 B.C. shared, practically, with many
other groups of men speaking kindred Aryan tongues, a
body of civil and religious institutions. He likewise pos-
sessed in the Homeric poems an imaginative rendering of
the life led by the race, of its animating ideals and concep-
tions. In the course of ages his civil institutions changed ;
his mythology became unintelligible or absurd to him; his
attitude towards the practical and speculative aspects of
life varied to the utmost possibility of variation. But the

Ethnological Data in Folklore. 147

Homeric poems remained the mirror in which he recognised
the most intimate, the most deeply bitten lineaments of his
individuality, that which set him apart from other men, that
which made him a Greek, not a barbarian. It has been said
of the stocks of men swarming forth from these islands to
people lands innumerable that all are subjects of King Shake-
speare. The Greeks were subjects of King Homer, for in
Homer their inmost soul, their very self, was expressed.

I would then again urge, and urge with possible emphasis,
that folk-literature is that element of folklore whereby we
can best test the hypothesis of racial diversity.

Mr. Gomme’s further remarks are mainly directed to
vindicating the method of inquiry he has himself employed
and the results to which it has led him. I may point out
that I have said nothing in depreciation of either, or to
dissuade disciples, possessing the necessary foundation of
knowledge and training, from following in his footsteps.
For beginners in our study I still venture to recommend as
the more excellent way that which I pointed out—namely to
verify our hypotheses by the aid of historic record, so long
as the latter is available, to work back from the known to
the unknown, before pushing into the dim past where the
light of history is denied us. To proceed thus is not to
relegate our study to the position of a subordinate and
inferior branch of historic science, except in so far as it
partakes of that character in common with a// studies that
essay to reconstitute the evolution of humanity. In so far
as dependence is implied I welcome it as part of the whole-
some discipline to which the true student willingly subjects
himself. But the folklorist who follows to the letter the
advice I ventured to give need by no means deny himself
the further privilege of using the methods which Mr. Gomme
has so ingeniously elaborated ; and if the disciple emulate
the acuteness and ardour of the master no one will be
better pleased than I.

In spite, however, of my keen appreciation of the value

148 Ethnological Data in Folklore.

and interest of Mr. Gomme’s work in this field, it were
uncandid to conceal my doubts as to the validity of some
of his assumptions, and as to the security of certain results
which he claims to have reached. An ingenious combi-
nation of classification and analysis enables him to posit
the individual item of folklore in its original culture-stage,
and to exhibit it as part of a coherent and orderly whole.
There emerges in the case of fire-worship items the picture
of a community organised upon definite tribal lines. A
valuable and interesting result. The community thus
postulated is asserted to be Aryan—an assertion with
which I have no quarrel, as the historic record is clear
enough to show its soundness. But the course of investi-
gation reveals other items which fall into their place as
part of a cultus alleged to be different from—nay, antago-
nistic to—that of the fire-worshipping tribal Aryans, and the
inference is drawn that it must belong to a non-tribal, a
pre-Aryan race. It is this inference to which I demur. I
pass by the question whether the two sets of customs are
really incompatible, whether, to use Mr. Gomme’s own
words, “‘ water-superstitions correlate a set of ideas incon-
sistent with tribal organisation.” Granted for the sake of
argument that it is so, does it necessarily follow that the
alleged inconsistency is due to different racial origin? May
it not be accounted for in other ways?

Does not Mr. Gomme overlook the possibility that a
homogeneous race, inhabiting a comparatively limited area,
may yet develop marked contemporaneous sectional and
local differences of custom, and the still greater possibility
that a race, untouched by alien influences, may in the
course of ages and under the operation of changing social
and economic conditions develop varied and apparently
contradictory customs? In the history of classic, medizeval,
and modern Europe I note instances of the most extra-
ordinary variation in the form and spirit of institutions,
instances that cannot be laid to the account of any mixture

Ethnological Data in Folkiore. 149

or conflict of races. There has been no new racial infusion
in the England of the last five centuries, yet within that
period our institutions, alike civil and ecclesiastical, have
suffered vital changes, changes the survivals of which
jostle each other surlily in our laws and our ritual.

Again, I repeat, I do not deny that Mr. Gomme’s con-
clusions may be correct; I merely urge that, failing historic
record, the evidence upon which he relies is insufficient to
demonstrate their correctness.

I have my doubts, too, concerning the validity of another
method of proof employed by Mr. Gomme in his ethno-
logical test-map. Noting the Aadztat of this or that group
of customs he constructs a figure corresponding, in his est1-
mation, to an original racial area. Should it not be our first
step, as I suggested in my address, to verify these hypo-
thetical areas by the historic record concerning racial dis-
tribution within the period which it covers? If we find
custom test-maps corresponding to the known facts of the
Scandinavian settlements in England or the Gaelic settle-
ments in Scotland we may be emboldened to push further.
Until thus verified, can the result yielded by Mr. Gomme’s
method, however useful as a hypothetical starting point, be
regarded as in any sense a certain one? I should, for my
part, regard with suspicion any results obtained by this
method applied to a single country. Application to another
or to several other countries might conceivably show results
and methods alike to be quite illusory.

One fact, and one of no small interest, concerning
English racial psychology is, I think, yielded by this discus-
sion. Differ as we may, and I have in nowise attempted
to minimise the importance or the extent of our difference,
Mr. Gomme and 1 can continue to work harmoniously in
the same society. We feel no impulse to start rival bodies
or to excommunicate each other, and are content to leave
it to time and the progress of research to decide which,
if either, of us be in the right.

FOLKLORE FROM THE SOUTHERN SPORADES.*

By W. H. D. Rouss, M.A.
(Read at Meeting of 20th December, 1898.)

IN a previous paper” I set before the Folk-Lore Society
some notes of the manners and customs of the people of
Lesbos. I have now another small budget of notes, chiefly
from the island of Cos. The group of islands between Cos
and Patmos is almost untouched ground. There exists no
book about Cos, so far as I have been able to discover.
Patmos is described in a Russian work which 1 have tried
in vain to procure. Small pamphlets have appeared on
one or two other of the islands thereabouts, but I am
convinced that the harvest is still to be reaped. Patmos
and Calymnos I must leave for another occasion, and 1
have plenty of material from the former at least to fill a
paper.

I have not tried to complete the record by use of printed
books, although I shall refer to one or two by the way.’
This would have increased my paper to a great bulk; and
besides, the books are not inaccessible. It seemed to me
that it would be more useful to give what I had got at first
hand; and even if some of these things are already printed,
a new and independent record has its value. However,
very few of them are printed: such will be noted in their
place. Most of the notes on Cos I owe to the kindness of

‘I have to thank Mr. W. R. Paton and ‘‘ Argyris Eftaliotis” for kindly
looking through the proofs of this paper. They have enabled me to clear up
many obscure points.

ΞΟ Vil. p. 142.

8 E.g. Schmidt, Leben der Neugriechen: Thumb, Der Klidonas, Die Schick-
salsgottinen (Ztsch. des Vereins f. Volkskunde, 1892, p. 392, 123); Kanellakis,
χιακά (Athens, 1890); Πρόγραμμα τοῦ ἐν Αἰγίνῃ Ἕλλ. SxoX. 1887-8 and
1889-90.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 151

Mr. Jacobus Zarraftes, who knows the dialects, poems,
stories, and customs of the island as probably no other
man does.

In addition to this, 1 have made use of four manuscripts
which lately came into my possession in the same neigh-
hourhood. Three of them are bodies of ecclesiastical canon
law.' The fourth is a very curious manuscript of charms
and incantations, piety and astrology, compiled just a
hundred years since by a certain Georgios, who was the
great-grandfather of Mr. Zarraftes, whom I have already
mentioned.

I shall first give the extracts from these MSS., which
touch upon our subject. Next will come a chapter on
hobgoblins, with a batch of notes on times and seasons and
other small matters; and finally a poem which embodies
the legend of human sacrifice.

1.—Magic and Divination.

As the Fathers of the Church, and the holy synods, for-
tunately for us, denounced the works of the devil in some
detail, they have preserved a good deal of information for
our benefit. I hope some day to be able to go though the
whole of the Nopuoxavoves ; for the present I shall confine
myself to my own three MSS. In one of them’ those
persons are accused who believe in such things as a witch,
or a Moré, or a Gylou, and love them. The Gylotides are
explained to be “women who suck the blood of babes and
kill them.’”” The name and the belief go back as far at

! (i.) One appears to be in a fifteenth-century hand ; (ii.) another is dated,
from internal evidence, 1560; (iii.) the third is probably a little later.

2 Νομοκανών No. IIL. fol. 85 b.: εἴπερ εἰσὶν λέγοντες Ore στριγκλέει
[ste for στρίγλαι] εἰσὶν ἢ μορῆ καὶ γελοῦδες, καὶ στέργονται αὐτά.
“ίά.- γυναῖκες λεγόμενε γυλοῦδες, καὶ ἀναραφῶσαι τὸ αἷμα τῶν
βρεφῶν καὶ θανατοῦσιν αὐτά. In quoting from these MSS. I keep the
spelling, but write the accents and aspirates according to rule.

152 folklore from the Southern Sporades.

least as Zenobius, who collected proverbs in the second
century, A.D.1; and, if he is to be believed, even to Sappho.
Hesychius, a lexicographer of Constantinople, also mentions
Gellé6. The following passages contain a small corpus of
black and white magic. Penance is imposed on the “wizard
or soothsayer, and the wax-melter, and the lead-melter, or
whoso bespells the beasts, or ‘binds’ the wolf from eating
them, or binds a married couple from having children, or
who works charms against sickness. .... Now wizards
are those who draw the demons to them by enchantment,
binding them according to their own will, and who bind
creeping things that they hurt not the beasts if they happen
to be abroad.” ?

Astrologers ὃ are also mentioned, and Egyptian women,*
or Gypsies, as working spells and divining of the future.
‘Those who practise divination by barley,” we read,’ “ or
by beans, and all such as wear amulets made of plants or
any such thing, and put colours upon their children or
beasts against the Evil Eye. . . . He that calls in magicians

' Zenob. Cent. iii. 3 (Paroem. Gr. I. p. 58): Γελλὼ γὰρ τις ἦν παρ-
Oévos, καὶ ἐπειδὴ ἀώρως ἐτελεύτησε, φασὶν οἱ Λέσβιοι αὐτῆς τὸ
φάντασμα ἐπιφοιτᾶν ἐπὶ τὰ παιδία, καὶ τοὺς τῶν ἀώρων θανάτους
αὐτῇ ἀνατιθέασι. μέμνηται ταύτης Σαπφώ. See Suidas, 5. v. Γέλ-
λως παιδοφιλωτέρα, doubtless Sappho’s words. See also Schmidt, Das
Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 139.

ἢ Νο. IIL. fol. 23: ὁ γόης ἤγουν ὁ μάντης καὶ ὁ κυροχύτης καὶ ὁ
μολυβϑοχύτης, ἢ ἀποδένων ζῶα, ἢ νὰ μὴ τὰ φάγη 6 λύκος, ἣ ἀνδρό-
yuva εἰς τὸ νὰ μηδὲν συμμίγουνται, ἢ γητεύονται eis ζάλας ....
γόητες εἰσὶ οἱ διὰ μαντείας τοὺς δαίμονας ἐφελκόμενοι εἰς τὰ ἑαυτῶν
θελήματα καταδεσμοῦντες, καὶ ἑρπετὰ πρὸς τὸ μὴ λυμήνασθαι τὸ
κτῆνος ἐὰν τυχὼν ἔξω που μείνη. fol. 24: ὅς τε νὰ τοὺς χύση κυρὶ ὁ
μάντις ἢ μολύβη. Ζόϊά.. καὶ ἐκβάλουν τοὺς μάγια ἐὰν τύχη εἶναι
ἀσθενὴς ἢ ἄλλο τι.

3 ἢ ἀστρονομοῦνται;, fol. 24.

1 7Ἴόϊά.. ὅσοι μαντεύονται eis τὰς αἰγύπτισας.

δ Lbid.: οἱ διὰ κριθῶν ἢ κουκίων μαντευόμενοι . . ὅσοι βαστάξουσι
φυλακτὰ ἀπὸ βότανα ἢ ἄλλο τι τῶν τοιούτων, ἢ βάμματα τοῖς παισὶν

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 153

to do magic for the hurt of others. . . . They who carry
about bears or other beasts as playmates for the hurt of
simpler folk, or who drive away (?) the clouds, or who pro-
vide amulets, or believe in Luck and Fate and horoscopes,
that it is good to be born on one day and bad on another,
or omens of chance words, or who put on colours, that is to

ἢ τοῖς Ξώοις αὐτὼν ἐπιθέτουσι διὰ Backapoy ... . ὁ δὲ προσκαλε-
"s , ee ee: / ’ / ε "2 > /
σάμενος μάγους iva ποιήσωσιν μάγια eis βλάβην ἑτέρων ἀνθρώπων.
εν [0]. 25] οἱ τὰς ἀρκούδας ἢ ἄλλα θηρία πρὸς παίγνιον εἰς βλάβην
τῶν ἁπλουστέρων supdpevot, ἢ τὰ νέφη διόκωντας [sic], ἢ τοῖς παρέ-
7 “Δ - ld ἭΝ ἃ \ \ , ,
χουσι φυλακτήρια, ἢ τοῖς τύχην ἢ ῥιξικὸν καὶ γενεθλιαλογίαν πιστεύ-
ουσιν, ὅτι τὸ μὲν εἰς ἡμέρας [512] ἀγαθήν, τὸ δὲ εἰς κακὴν γεννηθῆναι"
ἢ ῥικτολόγια, ἢ βάμματα τουτέστιν κάνουραις ἢ μετάξια εἰς τὰς
ε - x “Δ ΄ ᾽ e , > ᾽ὔ .
ἑαυτῶν κεφαλὰς ἢ τραχήλους ἐπιθετουσιν ὡς νόσους ἀποδιώκειν καὶ
΄, ~ N of , 2 ΄ Cy Sees λ
βασκανίας ληροῦσιν, ἢ ὄφιν περιφέρουσιν ἐγκολπίους ἢ ἐπὶ τοὺς
ὀφθαλμοὺς ἢ τοῦ στόματος αὐτῶν ἐπισύρουσιν τὰ τούτων δέρματα, ὡς
τάχιστα λαβεῖν ὑγίαν νομίξουσιν. ἢ σκολαρίκια τῆ μεγάλη € τῶν
iia Toe en a A dott baa: Ben TRO GE eee
ἑαυτῶν τέκνων ποιοῦσι ἢ ψαλμοὺς διὰ δαβιτικοὺς καὶ ὀνόματα
μαρτύρων μεμνήμενοι ἐπὶ τοῦ τραχήλου κρεμοῦσιν, ἢ χάρτην περιέ-
χουσιν εὐχὴν ῥευματικοῦ, ἢ γιτρεύτιαν προσκαλοῦνται εἰς κεφαλγίαν
ἤ σπλῆνας ἢ ἀσθένειαν καὶ πόνους ἀποδέματα χρόμενοι, καὶ ποιοῦσι
δ ‘
oxoivia ἐπικαλούμενοι τοὺς ἀγαθοποιοὺς δαίμονας eis βοήθειαν καὶ
ἀνάρωσιν αὐτῶν ἢ καὶ θηρίων καὶ ἀνδρογύνων ἀποδέματα στέργουσιν
ἢ τὰς πνεῦμα πύθωνος ἔχουσαν [sic] τουτέστι Tas ξαλιξαρίαν πισ-
, ν᾿ ‘ ΄ ν ΄ “Ν , /
τεύοντας [sic| καὶ προλέγοντας τὰ μέλλοντα, ἢ κουκία πιστεύοντες
[sic], ἢ ἄλλην μαντίαν καταμηνύειν τὰ ἀπολλόμενα, ἢ τὸν λεγό-
μενον κλήδονα μαντεύοντες τὸν μάϊον μῆνα ἢ τῆς ἀναλήψεως, ἢ
δ " “Ν
γητείας dv ἄλλην τινὰ ἀσθένειαν [10]. 26] ἢ ξάλην γητεύοντες ἤ τι
τῶν τοιοῦτων παρανόμων προστρέχοντε5-.. . - « καθήρηνται δὲ πολλά-
kis καὶ ἱερεῖς ἐπὶ συνόδου ἄρτον τῆς μεγάλης € ἐπιδώσαντες τοῖσι
- Bi NS, x ΄ e ~ > ~ \ > , ᾽ -
φαγεῖν ἐφ᾽ ὦ τὰ συληθέντα εὑρεθῆναι ἐκ τοῦ μὴ εὐκόλως ἐκ τοῦτον
- Ey ΄ e \ \ ~ ’ ΄ ,ὔ
καταπιεῖν" ἄλλος δέ τις ἱερεὺς μετὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ξύλον συνδε-
δεμένον καὶ κυκλικῶς περιστρεφόμενον περί τινων ὑποθέσεων διὰ
ψαλμῶν δαβιτικῶν εὐθέως ἐκαθηρέθη. ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ἁγίας εἰκόνας
~ ΄ ΄
προσεδρεύουσαι γυναῖκες καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἰσχυροξόμεναι [sic] προλέ-
γειν τὰ μέλλοντα, κατὰ τὰς πάλλαι πνεῦμα πύθωνος ἐχούσαις τοῖς
αὐτοῖς ἐπιπεσοῦνται ἐπιτιμίοις. κάνουρα is probably χάντρα, a bead.
It is thus accented in the MS.

154 folklore from the Southern Sporades.

say, beads or silk upon their heads or necks to keep off
diseases, and talk folly about the Evil Eye, or who carry
about a snake in their bosom, or pass the skins of snakes
over their eyes or mouth, which they think will bring health
quickly ; or who make earrings for their children on Holy
Thursday, or con the Psalms of David or names of the
Martyrs, and hang them about their necks; or fasten on
them a paper with a prayer against rheumatism, or call in
a wise woman to prevent head-ache, or spleen, or illness
and pains, using ‘binding’-spells; or who plait cords,
calling upon the good demons for help and healing; or
who love spells that ‘bind’ beasts and married folk, or
women that have the spirit of Pytho, that is to say, those
who believe in second sight (?) and foretell the future, or
who believe in beans or anything else to discover that which
is lost, or who divine by what is called the Voice (Kledonas)
in the month of May, or at the Ascension, or use charms
for any other illness, or bespell sickness, or run after any
such unlawful thing. . . . Many times priests have been
degraded in a synod after giving the Holy Bread on Holy
Thursday to persons to eat, for the purpose of finding out
things stolen, because (the thieves) could not easily swallow
this down; another priest, again, was degraded for causing
a bundle of sticks to be carried round in a circle while
the gospel was being read, for certain reasons, to the sound
of David’s psalms; and even the holy icons are beset by
women, who say that from these icons they can foretell
the future.”

Most of these allusions explain themselves; we have
heard before of amulets, soothsaying, the food-ordeal,
snake-charms, and gospel charms. The “divination by
barley”? may be a food-ordeal, or a counting formula like
the well-known ‘“‘ Loves me, loves me ποί. The virtue of
“colours” is still believed in; and blue beads are hung about
a child’s neck, or worked into the trappings of a mule. The
name ‘“ Pytho” is a curious survival, which we find even

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 155

in the west; Reginald Scot has a chapter’ “ How the lewd
practise of the Pythonist of Westwell came to light, and by
whome she was examined,” and many other allusions to
these wise women. Bears are still regarded in the east as
possessed of magical properties.” When they are brought
round to an Indian village, sick children are made to ride
on them for a cure; and magical potions and drugs are
made with their claws or hair.? Mr. Paton in 1894 found
bears’ hairs and claws held potent against the Evil Eye and
fevers in Lesbos.* The sticks were probably wrapped in
paper, with texts from the Psalms written on them, in order
to find out something.

The Fate (ῥιζικό) and Voice («Ajdovas) need a more
detailed examination. ῥιζικό appears to be the Italian
rtsico, rtschio, “risk,” “ chance;’’ and it is used in Greek for
“fate, lot.” κλήδονας is the old Greek κληδών, “a voice,”
hence “an omen.’ The custom for A¢gina has been
carefully described by Epirotis in the Τρόγραμμα cited
above ; and it has also been noted in Thessaly and Cyprus,
to which I now add Cos. It is a mode of divination for
the married and the unmarried alike. In A¢gina the custom
is as follows: On the eve of St. John’s Day, a girl collects
from all those who wish to take part some token, a ring or
what not, and puts them in a jar never used before. This
is then filled with water (ῥεζικόνερο), which must be drawn
without speaking (ἀμίλητο νερό). The jar is covered with
a red cloth and adorned with myrtle and laurel, at which
certain verses are spoken. The jar is left out all night,
and brought in at sunrise. Then a boy, with a red cloth
over his head, uncovers the jar, while one of the girls

' Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 130, ed. 1584.

2 My authority is Mr. W. Crooke.

3 North Indian Notes and Quertes, vol. iv. ὃ 465.

4 See a note by him in /o/k-Lore, vol. vi. p. 90, and also vol. v. p. 275.
The MSS. referred to in the last note are those I now have, Nos. I.—III.
See also Grimm, AZyth., p. 743 ; Wedstiimer, vol. i. p. 533.

156 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

repeats another couplet. Then a girl repeats one of the
couplets traditional for this occasion, and the boy takes out
one of the tokens, to whose owner it is supposed to apply.
The married women make preparations in like manner, but
with them it is but a jest. The verses repeated for them
are such as this: ‘Get on a pig and ride about,” or ‘ Take
bread and biscuit and keep an eye on the ass.”

But there is another kind of charm which is very common
in Greece, the so-called Séua (ἀπόδεμα) or “ binding-spell.”
Married couples are especially afraid of being thus be-
witched during the wedding ceremony, and commonly some
counter-charm is done by way of protection. Something
was said of this in my paper on Lesbos, but this time 1
have found quite a treasure in my fourth MS. This curious
document was written (or finished) in 1799 by one Georgios,
of Calymnos, the ‘servant of God,” as he delights to call
himself. The MS. has been in perils by fire and perils by
water; it has lost its beginning and its ending; the spelling
is atrocious ; it is execrably written by several hands or in
several kinds of handwriting, and apparently at different
dates, as the servant of God collected his material. In it
there are love-charms, medical charms, and astrological
notes, and there are several which undo the “ binding-
spells’? we are now speaking of. The following are the
chief of them.'

The first charm in the book begins in the middle, a leaf
or leaves having been lost. After many prayers, which
have small interest, for deliverance from “ every binding,
counter-binding, all magic and mischief,” intermingled with
cabalistic signs, such as two triangles interlocked

' In quoting the Greek I have modernised the spelling, otherwise the
extracts would hardly be intelligible to the classical student. A few certain
restorations of the ends of words have been made.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 157

or rows of meaningless letters, the following directions are
given (fol. 1) :

(1) ‘“ For loosing of a married couple; to be done when
you will, that you may loose them. A spiritual person or
priest, on a large white platter *—write first thus ὃ

IS | XS
ees
NI | KA
Then write the 35th Psalm,* which says, ‘The unrighteous

‘\ f ‘ \
1 εἰς λύσιν ἀνδρογύνου va κάμῃς ὄντας θέλῃς νὰ τὸν λύσῃς. ἕνας
πνευμάτικος 7) παπᾶς εἰς ἕνα σινὶ μεγάλο ἄσπρο' καὶ γράφε πρῶτον
ΩΣ ‘ /
οὕτως (as first above)’ ἔπειτα γράφε τὸ τριάντα πέτε ψαλμό" φησίν"
΄ ~ ~ 7 tae
ὁ παράνομος τοῦ ἁμαρτανῆ (sic) ἐν ἑαυτόν" ἔπειτα γράψε τὸ λύει
\ ΄ \ , \ ’ Soe? ΄ \ \ “
τὰ δεσμά καὶ δροσίζει τὴν φλόγα᾽ ἔπειτα γράψε τὴς σταυροὺς οὕτως
- ΑΝ ~
(as second above) Kat ἀφοῦ γράψης ὅλα avra κάμνε καὶ κρυφῇ
a oe , ~
λειτρουγίαν, kal Bave τὸ ζηποῦνι ἀποκάτω τοῦ ἁγίου α ... onov,
ὄντες παρών, καὶ τὸ avdpdyuvo ... στέκοντεις εἰς τὴν μέσην τοῦ ναοῦ
‘ = ~ ~ \ ΄ /
ἁρμόζοντας ὑπὸ τῶν χειρῶν καθῶς εἰς TO στεφάνωμα. καὶ ὅντας ἱερεὺς
- πὰ ~ ~ ἊΣ x ~ ‘
εἰπῇ TO πάντων ἡμῶν, περνοῦ ἀπὸ τὴ μέσην αὐτῶν λέγοντας μυστικὰ
- a \
αὐτῶν, viv ἀπολύεις τοὺς δούλους σου, δεσπότα" ἔπειτα πάλι ἁρμό-
< Ny TS) , \ e ΄ \ " Ps. 8) Ae, \ ~
ζόντας τὸ ἀνδρόγυνο, καὶ dvras θέλει νὰ εἰπῇ ὁ ἱερεὺς, προσσχῶμεν,
” ef δί 7 . \ > ~ J ae ~ / / eae /
ἔχε Eva radio ὄξω" καὶ ἀφοῦ εἰπῇ προσσχῶμεν, λέγει πάλι ὁ ἱερεύς,
ποῖος ἔδεσε τοὶς δούλους τοῦ θεοῦ ᾿Ιωάννη καὶ Μαρίαν ; εἶτα λέγει

ὃ παιδίον, τίς dé ι νὰ της λύσῃ ; λέγει πάλι ὁ ἱερεύς τὰ ἅ

τὸπ ν, τίς δίνετα Τῇ n; λέγει wa peus τὰ ἅγια
~ e Ν
τίς ἁγίοις" εἰς δὲ τὸ τέλος τῆς λειτρουγίας κάμνει ὁ ἱερεὺς μέσα εἰς

Ἀ ͵ \ / Ἂ ν lA ? e/ 5 38
τὸ κτανάκη pnk...+...vw καὶ σβύνει" τὰ y[page?] ὅλα" ἔπειτα

, Ν , \ , π᾿, 74} γεν \ oo \ ε =
δίδεις τὸν μισόν, καὶ πίνει ὁ ἄνδρας" καὶ τὸ ἄλλο μισὸν ἡ γυναῖκα,

x ~ f
καὶ ἔτζη θεοῦ θελόντος λύει τὴν payiay. ‘Let us attend” and ‘“ Holy
things to the holy ” are cues in the Greek Liturgy. See J. N. W. B. Robert-
son’s Liturgies, Nutt, p. 392. The worda..... nou has 7 clearly written
but it may be a mistake for ἁγιασμοῦ.

2 The meaning is not that the priest is on the platter, but the construction
breaks off. It should continue ‘‘let him write.” Much of the language is
very obscure.

. “ \ za .

8 2.2, Τησοῦς Χριστὸς νικᾷ, ‘Jesus Christ conquers.” Compare above,
vol. vil. p. 149. The same symbol is on the wooden stamps used for stamping
Church Bread. A specimen is sent for the Society’s Museum.

| * This is misquoted from the 36th Psalm according to our Bible.

158 folklore from the Southern Sporades.

hath an oracle of sin within him.’ Then write: ‘ Looseth
the bonds and quencheth the flame.’! Then write the
crosses after this fashion—

ot | καὶ is | xs a | 8
—— Ἕ͵ἘἐἘξἐεε
ort | O NI | KA a) a

and after you have written all this, secretly perform the
service and place the sacred [elements?] beneath the
priest’s coat,’ the married pair being also present; standing
in the midst of the church, joining them under his hands as
at the crowning (7.6. wedding) ; and when the priest says
the words ‘Of us all,’ pass between the pair, saying
secretly, ‘ Now, O Lord, thou dost set free thy servants.’
Then again joining the pair; and when the priest will say
‘Let us attend,’ have a child ready outside ; and after the
priest has said ‘Let us attend,’ the priest says again:
‘Who has bound the servants of God, Joannes and Maria?’
Then the boy says: ‘Who can set them free?’ Again the
priest says: ‘ Holy things to the holy,’ and at the end of the
service, the priest does the service within the cupboard *#
and quenches the [z//egzd/e].

‘Write (?) all this; then you give the half, and the man
drinks it, and the woman the other half, and God willing
this looses the spell.”

The state of the MS. is so damaged that much is left
doubtful, yet there is enough to show that the charm was
worked during the marriage service, or in a repetition of it;

! Part of a hymn sung on Ascension Day.
2 στ(αυρὸς) κ(υρίου), or(aupds) θ(εοῦ). the rest as above.

° ζηποῦνι is the priest’s coat; the word is struck out in the MS., and a
later hand writes ou, ‘ platter.”

4 In the ἱερόν, where the sacred elements are kept.

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 159

there is a child, who perhaps is necessary on the principle
of sympathetic magic; and some drink is shared between
man and wife! The passing of some person between
the pair is perhaps meant to break the invisible binding
spell. Reginald Scot says: “It is thought verie ill lucke
of some, that a child, or any other living creature, should
passe betweene two friends as they walk togither; for they
say it portendeth a division of friendship.’’?

(2) The second charm? runs: “Τὸ set free a married
pair in another fashion, easily and without trouble. Find
three wild olive trees, which have been grafted several days,
when their grafting has not taken, let them be all three
on a row. Take their bindings and the earth of them,
without speaking, on Saturday in the evening. Take them
and put them in a boiler, and put water in it; boil them to-
gether, and let the man and wife wash together with that
water, without speaking, and let them come together without
speaking; and let that water also be brought from the spring
without speaking.” Here the sympathetic magic is clearer
still.

(3) “ΑἹ midnight let a man who is not ‘bound’ come
together with his wife, without speaking; then wearing the
same garments he had on, let him arise and go to the house
of him who is ‘bound.’ Let him knock without speaking.

! Probably holy water washed over the charm. See below, p. 171.
2 Discovery, p. 204.

8 dia-(?) λύσιν ἀνδρογύνου Kar’ ἄλλο cero εὔκολο Kat δίχως
κόπο. νὰ ἐβῇς [ =evpns] τρία δένδρα ἐλαιὲς ἀγρίες, ὅπου νὰ τῆς
ἔχουν ese διὰ ἡμέρες καὶ νὰ μὴν εἶνε τιασμένη ἡ φυλ-
λίασί τους" νὰ εἶνε 'στὴν ἀράδα καὶ κἡ τρεῖς " καὶ νὰ πάρῃς τὰ δέματά

Peet ee a x κι , > aN κα 433 Rs B “δ ᾿ .
τους Kal TO χῶμα τους, νὰ τὰ πάρῃς ἀμίλητα, τὸ σάββατο βράδυ" νὰ

Η y x . , , vr , 5 ΄, t x .
τὰ φέρῃς va τὰ βάλῃς σ᾽ ἔνα Kalan, μέσα νὰ βάλῃς νερόν" va τὰ

, wy in \ ] on. e > \ a ‘ ς \ v\ δ... pes, \
βράσῃς μαζὶ καὶ va λουστῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ Kat ἡ γυνὴ μαζὶ per’ ἐκεῖνο τὸ

‘ > ΄, \ \ ~ oN > / a \ \ > \ \
νερὸν apirnra* καὶ va βρεθοῦνε μαζὶ ἀμίλητα᾽ καὶ νὰ εἶνε καὶ τὸ
νερὸν ὅπου θὲ νὰ φέρουν ἀπὸ τὴ βρύσι ἀμίλητο" καὶ θεοῦ θέλοντος
λύει ἣ μαγία [Fol. 2.]

160 folklore from the Southern Sporades.

Let him who is bound arise without speaking (neither he
nor his wife), to open the door. Let the man who has been
with his wife take off his clothes, and taking them all off,
let them put on each the clothes of the other; let the
bespelled man put on the other man’s clothes inside out,
and without shutting the door let him go to his wife, not
speaking ; and without the wife of the first man speaking,
the man who would come to knock at the other man’s door;
and let him go and knock at the door, and without looking
behind him: when the bespelled man has put on the other
man’s clothes, and when he has been with his wife, let him
say, ‘Now set free, O Lord, thy servants Eustathios and

Maria.’ ”’}

(4) “To loose a married pair easily: Find in the month
of May two snakes which are casting skins. Kill them and
take their heads, and let the man have them on him when
he goes to his wife. The spell will be loosed, even if it
have been shot out of a gun or cast into the sea.’”’? Curses

1 ‘ ͵ ‘ ~ ef ot 0 ef \ \ ὃ ΄
τὰ μεσάνυκτα νὰ βρεθῇ ἕνας ἄνθρωπος ὅπου νὰ μὴν εἶνε δεμένος
μὲ τὴν γυναῖκα του δίχως νὰ μιλήσῃ" καὶ μὲ τὰ ἴδια ῥοῦχα ὅπου
φορεῖ νὰ σηκωθῇ νὰ πάγῃ ᾿στὸ σπίτι τοῦ δεμένου;, νὰ κτυπήσῃ δίχως
Ν \ x \ ~
νὰ μιλήσῃ" καὶ ὁ δεμένος δίχως νὰ μιλήσῃ μηδὲ ἡ [γυναῖϊκα μηδὲ 6
ἄγ ὃ . - \ rt 9 ΄ . 6 avo 3. ee ef > 67 \ \
ἄνδρας va σηκωθῇ νὰ τ᾽ ἀνοίξῃ" ὁ ἄνδρας ἐκεῖνος ὅπου ἐβρεθῇ μὲ τὴν
Ξ- Ν ͵, κ᾿ Cw A \ t ΄ ef Η
γυναῖκα του νὰ βγάλῃ [τὰ] ῥοῦχα του" καὶ βγάζοντάς τα ὅλα νὰ
βάλῃ ὁ ἕνας τοῦ ἕνους καὶ ὁ ἄλλος τοῦ ἀλλονοῦ" νὰ τὰ βάλῃ ἀξανά-
e 3 en es ee eS , Ξ ᾿ - \ \
orpepa ὁ δεμένος τοῦ ἀλλονοῦ καὶ δίχως νὰ κλείσῃ νὰ βρεθῇ μὲ τὴν
γυναῖκα Tou δίχως νὰ μιλήσῃ" καὶ δίχως νὰ μιλήσῃ καὶ ἡ γυναῖκα τοῦ
πρώτου ποῦ θὲ νὰ ἔρτῃ νὰ κτυπήσῃ τοῦ ἀλλονοῦ τὴν πόρτα καὶ
‘ ~ ‘ ‘ ᾽ Ν ,ὔ ~
δίχως νὰ στραφῇ διὰ va εἴδῃ πίσω Tov, νὰ [πάῃ ]νὰ τοῦ κτυπήσῃ τὴ
πόρτα" καὶ νὰ λέγῃ καὶ ὁ δεμένος, σὰν βάλῃ τοῦ ἀλλονοῦ τὰ ῥοῦχα
\ x \ ~ \ Ν - ~ ~ 4.5 / \ /
Kal σὰν va βρεθῇ μὲ τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ, Νῦν ν ἀπολύῃς τοὺς δούλους
σου δεσπότα Εὐστάθιον καὶ Μαρίαν. [Fol. 2, 3.]
2 S 5 \ λύ > δ ΄ > Le λί x ee γον x fee ~ δύ
διὰ νὰ λύσῃς ἀνδρόγυνο ἐν εὐκολία νὰ εὑρῇς τὸ μάϊον μῆνα δύο
,ὔ e Ἂν 9 ye ‘ ‘ ‘ / ‘ / 4 7
φίδια ὅπου ν᾿ ἀλλάζωνται καὶ νὰ TH σκοτώσῃς. νὰ πάρῃς» τὰ κεφάλια
τους καὶ ἄς τα βαστᾷ ἀπάνω του νὰ πάγῃ μὲ τὴν γυναῖκα του" καὶ θὲ
λύσῃ ἡ μαγία, ay εἶνε καὶ εἰσὲ τουφέκι ἢ ᾽στὴ θάλασσα ῥιμμένο.
[Fol. 21. ]

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 161

were cast into the sea in ancient times; but I do not
recollect hearing before of this other mode of making the
spell effective by shooting it from a gun.

(5) ‘Qui morbo eo laborat, advehat ad genitalia sua
vulvam ursae, coeatque cum uxore.... Idem facit et
lupze vulva, qua idem fac.” ?

The Binding of Beasts is another kind of charm men-
tioned in the extracts from the canons given above. This
was of two kinds: wild beasts might have a spell cast over
them to prevent mischief, and tame beasts might be injured
and made barren or useless. Of the first sort I have no
specimen whatever in my MS., but there died lately in Cos
an old man of the village of Aspendiou who knew such
charms. On one occasion he bound the vultures (βιτσελμαίς)
after this fashion: A girl had to be found who must be
sixteen years of age. Found, the old man gave her some
silk, which she twisted into a thread exactly as long as she
was tall. This she gave to the man, who secretly rose up
before day (τὴν αὐγήν), allowing no man to see him, and
went to a wild olive tree, which must be invisible from the
sea; upon this he tied the thread in three knots, reciting a
charm. His fee was five pounds, a large sum for a poor
famine-stricken hamlet.

In my magical MS., however, there are many prayers for
a blessing upon the sheep and cattle, interspersed with
mystic signs, crosses, and letters. There are allusions to
those who “bind” the clouds that they rain not, and the
trees and vines that they bear no fruit, the flocks and herds
that they breed no young and give no milk, prayers against
the machinations of demons and evil men, of Assyrians,
Chaldzans, Persians, Arabs, Saracens, Egyptians, Libyans,

1 [Φίλτ]ρον eis λύσιν ἀνδρογύνου. τῆς ἀρκούδας τὸ μουνὶ νὰ τὸ
περάσῃ orl φύσι του ὁ πάσχοντας, καὶ ἂς βρεθῇ μὲ τὴν γυναῖκα του
\ \ ΄ ς ,ὕ AES ‘ ~ bp \ 7 Ν > οὗ
καὶ θὲ λύσῃ ἡ μαγία. τὸ ἴδιο καὶ τοῦ λύκου τὸ μουνί, καὶ αὐτὸ
κάμε τό. (Fol. 21.]
VOL. X. M

162 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

Samaritans, Phoenicians, Pisidians, Paphlagonians, Galate,
Phrygians, Bulgarians, Dardanians, Germans, Spaniards,
Romans, Gauls, Turks, Tartars, Unicorns, Cynoscephalians,
women with one breast, Allemanni, Wallachians, and many
more whose names I never heard of. The great spirits
Serachia, Eligdeos, Adonai, Sabaoth, and all those whom
King Solomon bound by oath, are invoked. A demon,
interviewed by the Archangel Michael, gives at command
a list of his names; these are, o7piyXa, γιλοῦ, popdod,
βαριχοῦ, ἀναβαρδοῦ, βρεφοπνηκτοῦ, παραφοῦ, ψευδομένη,
μανταταρένα, μαβλιστοῦ.

There are still current many of these beast-binding
charms. From Lesbos I got one or two which have been
already given to this Society,’ and I now add another from
an old dame at Cos, aged ninety or more. Sometimes a
mother wants to go out to work, leaving her children at
home; then she repeats the following lines :—

“Holy Phoucas Loucas,
Five-prong iron fingers,
Do thou bind and bridle
Scorpion and viper,
And all great creeping things :
Do thou bind and bridle
Him, the man of evil,
Wandering at night-time,
Till the hour of sunrise.
Then five pastry-rollers,
Reed-sticks nine are wanted,
So to give my bags a shaking,
And to waken up my children,
And to go about my business.” 2

1 Vol. vii. p. 143.

2 “Ayre Φουκᾶ Λουκᾶ,
σιδεροπεντοδάχτυλι,
δέσε καὶ χαλίνωσε
ὕπου σκορπιὸς καὶ ὄχεντρα [ = ἔχιδνα]
καὶ οὕλια τἀρπετὰ μιγάλα.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 163

Another charm guards you against ants.1 With a black-
handled knife make the sign of the cross thrice, singing
each time. The first three lines contain a nonsensical
jingle on the word ant, thus :—

“ Here’s an ant, I have him fast,
’Tis an ant, the first of ants,
And they are first to ant him.
Come and gather up your swarm,
And then away to pasture.
Find a tree that bears no fruit,
Take that fruit and eat it ;
Lest I should go and find the black boar’s fleece,
And then cut through your gullet.” ?

Another kind of charm is the “binding of the tongue”
(γλωσσόδεμα), which protects you against evil spirits. 1
find in my MS. a charm against the witch called Gelou, and
against all supernatural things, called a ‘“tongue-binding.”
It begins with an invocation of the Trinity, and proceeds:

déce καὶ χαλίνωσε

τὸν κακὸν τὸν ἄνθρωπον

τὸν νυχτογυριστή,

ὅσον νἄβγῃ ὁ ἥλιος.

πέντε πητταρόξυλα

κἐννμὰ καλαμοκάννια,

νὰ τινάξω τὰ OAKKLA μου,
νὰ ξυπνήσω τὰ παιδιά μου,
καὶ νὰ πάω στὴ δουλειά pov.

1 Compare vol. vii. p. 144.

ΣΕ ΞΘ , :

2 κρατῶ éva μύρμηγκα.
μύρμηγκα πρωτομύρμηγκα
καὶ πρῶτοι τὸ μυρμίγκουν.
μαζοξε τἀσκέρι σου
καὶ 'στη βοσκὴν ἀναίβα,
νἄβρῃς δένδρον ἄκαρπο
νὰ φάγῃς τὸν καρπόν του,

\ , re} ~ - ΄ , Ν AX
μὴ πάω καὶ βρῶ τοῦ μαύρου χοιροκάπρου τὸ μαλλί,
καὶ κόψω τὸν λαιμόν σου.

Μ 2

164 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

“As thou didst free the prophet Daniel when he was cast
like a sheep to the lions, and didst break his three chains
in Babylon, so save me also, the servant of God, N or M.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was
with God, and the word was God. As thou didst banish
the devils from paradise, so keep my enemies far from me,
and bind their tongues and their reason, and let them not
be able to speak or to eat, or see with their eyes:
Franks, Armenians, Turks, and every evil and passionate
man or woman, young and old, believers or hereticks, who
hate the holy baptism and the Christians, poisoners and
stranglers.”’ In this passage are several old words, such
as ὀφθαλμός.

The Evil Eye has already been alluded to; and it is one of
the commonest means by which these malign influences
are supposed to work. I am happy to be able to present
the Folk-Lore Society with another charm potent against
it, from the same source as the last. You must put water
in a dish, and oil in a cup. Then take a drop of the oil on
your finger and let it fall into the water thrice, each time
repeating this charm:

* ‘Two eyes have cast a spell on thee
And three again have raised thee,
Christ and the Holy Trinity.”!

With the water and oil then besprinkle the person betwitched
forty-one times. In my MS. βασκανία, or bewitching by
the Evil Eye, is often mentioned, and one charm is given to
counteract it. This consists of the usual cross and letters,
with prayers such as, “ Let Christ arise,’ and allusions to
King Solomon. Here the crosses are longer than usual,
and more in number, in consequence of the subtle nature
of the affliction.

il \ va \
δυὸ-μμάτια σὲ φθαρμίσανε [ = ὀφθαλμίσανε]
εἶν τΑζόνας ἢ \
καὶ τρία σὲ ᾽νεστήσανε, [ Ξ- ἀνέστησαν}
ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ At Τριάδα.

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. τόδ

For all common diseases and afflictions the wise woman
has her charm, or her prescription, generally both. In Cos
many of these folk-medicines are left out all night when
there is a full moon and the stars are visible; the charm is
recited over them; next day the concoction is taken, and
the patient is cured (ἐφτάγεινος). ‘The latter part of my
magical MS. is full of charms for childbirth and the like,
but unluckily the pages are all torn in half so that little can
be made of them. One or two others, however, are com-
plete. Here is one for the ague:! ‘‘ To cure the daily ague
read this three times, and fasten upon the left hand a thread
of cotton in three knots, and write it upon a little white
root (?); wash it off with water, and make them drink it:
Stand the sun in the east, and stand heaway from the
moon, and stand the ague afar from the servant of God,
NV. or M., Amen.” This is followed by the same cross sign
as given above (p. 157), and by a number of meaningless
letters. Other charms for the ague follow. The tertian
ague is cured by writing crosses and signs on the patient’s
cheek, together with those blessed words Phison, Gihon,
Tigris, and Euphrates, or that passage which begins: “ In
the beginning was the Word,” with an invocation of St.
John the Forerunner; ‘Christ is born—flee away ague from
the servant of God; Christ was crucified—flee away ague
from the servant of God; Christ is risen—flee away ague
from the servant of God, N. or M., Amen,”’? St. John is
supposed to be especially potent against ague, because his

1 ῥῖγος καθημερινός. νὰ τὸ διαβάζῃς τρεῖς φορὲς καὶ va dévys
στὸ χέρι τοῖς μία βαμπακερὴ κλωστὴ τρεῖς κόμπους, καὶ νὰ τὸ
γράψῃς καὶ σ᾽ ἕναν ἄσπρο [written ἄσπο] ῥιζανάκι. νὰ τὸ λυώσῃς μὲ
νερὸ νὰ τοῖς τὸ ποτίσῃς. στήτω ὁ ἥλιος τῆς ἀνατολῆς, στήτω καὶ τῆς
σελήνης, στήτω καὶ τὸ ῥῖγος ἀπὸ τὸν δοῦλου τοῦ θεοῦ 6 δεῖνα ἀμήν.
Crosses and letters. [Fol. 3. ]

Reginald Scot has many charms against ague, consisting of scriptural words
and crosses diversely used. Déscovery, p. 270 foll. His charms specify all
parts of the body in detail, as do those of my MS., see pp. 248, 263.

166 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

head shook so when Herod cut it off;? and he is invoked

again in the
comes from C

following charm against sunstroke, which
9
os :°

*‘ Christ our Master made his call,
And he calléd all the Apostles.
One and all they ate, they drank,
Not forgetting God to thank ;

But St. John the Forerunner
Eateth not and drinketh not,

And for God no thanks has got.
Christ our Master spoke and said :
‘St. John, St. John, what ails thee ὃ
Thou eatest not and drinkest not,
And for God no thanks hast got !’
‘On the road by which we came

See vol. vii. p. 147.

> ΄ I! yr \ / ”
ἀφέντης 0 Χριστὸς κάλεσμα ἔκαμε,
ae ie ͵ ‘ ’ , ef
καὶ ἐκάλεσε τοὺς ἀποστόλους οὕλους,
καὶ οὗλοι τρώγαν καὶ οὗλοι πίναν,
καὶ οὗλοι τὸν θεὸν δοξάζαν"

4 A cf ͵ /
καὶ At Liavyns πρόδρομος
μηδὲ τρωγει μηδὲ πίνει
μηδὲ τὸν θεὸν ἐδόξασε.
καὶ ἀφέντης 6 Χριστὸς ἐφώναξε,

9 e/ U
Tixyets, Αἱ Τιαννη;

\ / ς \ ΄
μηδὲ τρώγεις, μηδὲ πίνεις,
δὲ \ \ S tly
μηδὲ τὸν θεὸν δοξαζεις ;

" Χ , 91) ~ of
εἰς τὴ στράτα ποὔρχαμε [-εεποῦ ἤλθαμεν
τὸν ἥλιον ἐπάντιξα,
τὰ κόκκαλά μου τζάκισε

Ν / / /,
τὸμ-μύαλό μου τάραξε,
ἑβδομῆντα δύο φλέβες
τῆς κεφαλῆς μου, τὲς ἐσπάραξε.

/
δὲν εἶχε ποὔτιετι βαπτισμένο μυρωμένο
καὶ ᾽πὸ τἄγια περασμένον.
. νὰ κόψῃς τρία κλων(α βασιλικό,
5 τὰ , »
va ᾽πῇς, σταλάτε ὄρη σταλάτε βουνά,
ἈΠ ΩΣ 5 Peli ae ,
va ξεριζωθῇ νὰ φύγῃ

ἀπὸ τὸν δοῦλον τοῦ θεοῦ (τὸν δεῖνα)

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 167

Beat upon me the sun’s flame !

Bruised my bones, and shook my brains,

Tore me two and seventy veins

In my head: no antidote,

Nought incensed or dipt in holy water,

Nor overstept with holy things.’ !

‘Cut three basil twigs, and say—

To the rocks and hills away !

That it may uprooted be,

And from N. or M. God’s servant it may flee.’”

The last four lines are to be thrice repeated. The charm
is worked thus: Water is placed in a bottle, with three
sprigs of basil atop, and is then held upside down over the
patient, being moved through the air in the form of the
cross over his forehead and the two ears. As the water
flows, say the charm thrice. A plate? is held to catch the
water, and the sick man drinks thrice of it; the residue is
thrown in some place where no one goes, for it is holy.

In my MS. I find the following charm against erysipelas.®
“Write the same characters as were written for the tertian

' This is done when the priest bears the holy elements through the church,
and sick folk and children are laid down for him to walk over.

* A plate with an Arabic charm written upon it is preserved in the Pitt-
Rivers Museum at Oxford.

3 γητεῖα διὰ τὸ ἀνεμοπύρωμα Kal νὰ γράψῃς καὶ τὴς χαρακτῆρες
ὅπου εἶνε γραμμένες στὸ τριταιορῖγος, va Tis γράψῃς στὸ μάγουλα
ἢ πάρε στουπιίὰ καὶ μαλλίτζι καὶ ἀνεκάτωσέ τα καὶ κάμε τὰ ἐννεὰ

/ s / \ \ / / vs > / A ‘
σορούδια καὶ κάψε Ta τριφορὲς, Kal βάλε κόκκινη ζόχα ἀποκάτω" καὶ
διάβαζε καὶ μὲ τὸ μαυρομάνικον μαχαῖρι σταυρῶνε καὶ λέγε᾽ βάλε,

“x » ᾿ ΄ ef
vue ὦ θεός, τὸ ἄχραντό σου Xépt καὶ ἔβγαλέ το, ὅτι κακόν Kai
ἂν εἶνε" ἅγιε πανγελεήμονα; καὶ ἅγιοι ἀνάργυροι ἀρχειατροὶ τοῦ κόσ-
μου, διώξετέ το ὅτι κακὸν καὶ ἂν εἶνε" ἂν εἶνε Sve Homa ts ἢ ἂν εἶνε
κιτρινοπύρωμα ἢ καβροπύρωμα ἢ ἀνεμοπύρωμα ἢ ἀνεμόστωφον ἢ
> ΄ “Ν > \ \ aN > \ ε Ἁ “Ὁ > \ oN > See “Ὁ
ἀβλασφημία, ij ἀπὸ γυνὴ ἢ ἀπὸ ἑρπετὸ ἢ ἀπὸ πτηνὸ ἢ ἀδίκου ἢ
> \ \ “Δ δ , δ “Ν > \ “Δ ὃ , “Δ ta ~ “ἡ ~ “Ν
ἀπὸ πηγὴν ἢ πεδι[ά]δα ἢ αὐλὴ ἢ δώματος ἢ ἕερᾶς ἢ wT . . . ἂς ἢ
ξύλον ἢ μαχαῖρος ἢ κονταρίου ἢ μύλου χάντακος ἢ ὀρνεοσκοπίειαν
-- “Ὁ > 8 bos “2 * ‘ “a \
kayryehusx * pos [sic] i) ἐγὰς ἢ πρόβατον ἢ λίμνης ἢ νυκτιρ[ ινὸν]
; δ . ἜΣ
ἢ ἑσπερινὸν ἢ νυκτόλαλον i κορακοδο 514] . . ἢ μεσημβρίνον

Pa i

168 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

ague; write them, I say, on the cheek. Or take some tow
and wool, and mix them together, and make nine lumps of
it, and singe it thrice and place a red cloth underneath.
Then repeat the charm, and with a black-handled knife
make the sign of the cross, and sing: O Christ our God,
with thy undefiled hand cast forth the mischief whatsoever
it be; O Saint Allpitiful,! O ye saints Cosmas and Damian,
first physicians of the world, chase away the mischief, what-
soever it be: be it erysipelas, or the jaundice, or [some
complaints which I do not understand], whether it come from
woman, or creeping thing, or bird, or unrighteous thing, or
fount, or plain, or yard, or roof, or water, or dry land,
or ..... or wood, or knife, or bludgeon, or mill-race (?),
or bird-scarer’s tower, or Kali-Kazaros (?), or goat, or
sheep, or marsh, or a thing of the night or the evening,
or night-talker, . . . . or at mid-day, seen or unseen,
deaf, dumb, or speaking ; as flow the founts, or rivers,
or springs, so may this mischief flow and flee, whatso-
ever it be.’ Then follows a list of diseases, and the
writer adds, “or be it supernatural from the Nereids, as

. \ \ >
[written μαισιβηνων) ἢ βλεπτὸν ἢ ἄβλεπτον ἢ κοΓυφὸν] ἢ ἄλαλον
“Δ δον ε a “Ν ΄ “Ν Aen , . ἘΠ᾿
ἢ λαλητὸν᾽ ὡς τρέχουνε ἢ πήγες ἢ ποταμοὶ ἢ βρύσες τὰ ῥέματα,
e \ t PEN \ fi ef x .δ ταν ΤΑ͂Ν δ᾽ a an 7 eS
οὕτως νὰ τρέχῃ Kal νὰ φεύγῃς ὅτι κακὸν καὶ Gy εἶνε" ἂν εἶνε ἀνεμο-
, vn <7 4 Noa os , \ oN τ
πύρωμα ἣ ἂν εἶνε κοκκινοπύρωμα ἢ ἃν εἶνε καβλοπύρωμα ἢ ἂν εἶνε
\ Ἂν
κουφοπύρωμα ἣ κιτρινοπύρωμα ἢ ἀποξωτικὸν ἀπὸ ἀνεράδες, ὡς σκορ-
οἷ . ‘ 1 ‘ ‘ x
πάει 6 ἥλιος εἰς τὰ ὅρη οὕτως νὰ σκορπίσῃ Kal νὰ φύγῃ ὅτι κακὸν καὶ
“ > δ
ἂν εἶνε. “Ayre μεγαλομάρτυ Στεφανὲ καὶ ἅγιε peyadoudpry Τ᾽εώργιε
= ͵ Ἐπ ᾿ Ε
πρωτομάρτυρες τοῦ κοσμου; ὡς φεύγει ὃ ἥλιος καὶ ἡ σελήνη νὰ
. ot \ ~ a me = ᾿
τρέχῃς καὶ νὰ φεύγῃ ἀπὸν [sic] τὸν δοῦλον τοῦ θεοῦ (ὁ δεῖνα)" νὰ
κ ‘ a)
σκορπίσῃ καὶ νὰ φεύγῃ ἀπὸ Ta μάτια του, νἄβγῃ ἀπο τὸ στόμα του,
aa) ~ - le ὴ
νἄβγῃ ἀπὸ τὴ ῥῖνα τοῦ, ἀπὸ ταὐτιά του, ἀπὸ τὰ μάγουλά του, ἀπὸ
pass re ͵ , > \ \ ? , Po τς > Ἂ \ “2 ᾽ \
ΤΊ) 5 κλείδωσές του, ἀπὸ τὴς ἀράμωσές του, ἀπὸ τῇς φλέβες του, ἀπὸ
"Ὁ ᾽ bY L > \ ~ , MS ? " '
πόδας ἀπὸ χέρια ἀπὸ πᾶν μέλος [ . ἀπανμαιλος]} ra σκορπίσῃ
:
᾿ ἢ ‘a τ ͵
καὶ νὰ φύγῃ ὡς σκορπάει 6 ἥλιος εἰς τὰ βουνὰ οὕτως νὰ σκορπάῃ καὶ
΄
νὰ φύγῃ ὅτι κακὸν καὶ ἂν εἶνε. [5 0]. 4, 5 ]

' This is the name of a Greek saint.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 169

the sunlight scatters upon the hills, so may the bane scatter
away and flee, whatsoever it be.” Next comes an appeal to
St. Stephen and St. George, with this: ‘(as the sun and
the moon depart, so may this depart from the servant of
God, N. or M., let it scatter and flee away from his eyes,
may it go forth from his mouth, may it go forth from his
nose, from his ears, from his cheeks, from his joints, from
his knuckles, his veins, feet and hands, from every part of
him may it scatter and go, as the sunlight scatters upon the
hills.” 1

No vade mecum of folk medicine would be complete
without its love-philtres; and mine has two orthree. These
have been much used; the pages are turned down and well
worn with ancient thumbs. For example:? if you would
win the love of a girl or woman, take a red apple on the
Sabbath Day (Saturday), and write upon it a number of
mysterious signs with blood from your left thumb; then
give it her to eat, and she willlove you. May we not
believe that the ancients, when they threw an apple in their
lady’s lap, had worked some such charm over it first ? Or
you must get an egg® laid on a Thursday by a black fowl ;
write upon it certain cabalistic words and signs; recite them
and say: “As this egg is burnt and boiled, so may her
heart be burned, and her entrails (giving the lady’s name),

1 See above, p. 165, note.
* διὰ νὰ σ᾽ ἀγαπήσῃ κοπέλλα ἣ Kat γυναῖκα. λάβε ἕνα μῆλο
κόκκινο ἡμέρα σάββατο, καὶ γράψον τὴς κάτωθε χαρακτῆρες μὲ τοῦ
ee ᾽ 1 }PeEs μ

, oo eat MR ~ \ > ΤΑ, δό ν \ τ \ a

δακτύλου σοῦ τοῦ ζερβοῦ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ δός ro va τὸ φαγῃ" καὶ θέλει
σὲ ἀγαπήση. (Fol. 15.}
ὃ ἐπᾶρον αὐγό ὕπου va τὸ ἔχει ἡ ὀρνίθα γεννημένο ἡμέρα πευτὴ
‘ > ΄ , Ξ ΠΟΥ fad ἢ x
Ξε πεμπτῆ)" va εἶνε μαύρη ἡ ὀρνίθα" Kat γράψον eis αὐτὸ τὴς κάτωθε
1)

ae te Ten Dalai | oo
χαρακτῆρες σημειωμένα γράμματα' καὶ διάβαζε καὶ λέγε, ὡς καθῶς
καίεται καὶ βράζει ἐτοῦτο, τὸ αὐγό, ἕτσι νὰ καίηται καὶ ἡ καρδιά τῆς
ς ᾽ ᾽ Καροζα 7H

" ᾿ , t ~ 5 . x
Kal τὰ φιλοκάρδια της Kal τὰ σωθικά της (ὁ δεῖνα) διὰ τὰ μένα νὰ μὴ
ρδχα τὴ ( μ μὴ

~ ‘ ΄ ov ‘ ” ‘ bps of ‘ a ~ ov ” ‘
πορῇ va φάγῃ οὔτε va πίῃ οὔτε νὰ κάμῃ οὔτε νὰ κοιμηθῇ οὔτε ὄρεξιν

Aree νι ~ ~ Fe ON OME: Soe
va ἔχῃ va ἰδῇ τὸν κόσμον᾽ ὁ vous τῆς Kat ὁ λογισμός rns γὰ εἶνε

διὰ τὰ μένα. 773: διατεμαινα.} [Fol. 15.]

170 4 οί ζίογε from the Southern Sporades.

for my sake; may she have nothing to eat, or to drink, may
she be able to do nothing, nor to sleep, may she have no
desire to see company, may her mind and her reason be
mine.’ If this seem rather too drastic, you may take ver-
milion and musk,! yolk of egg, rosewater, and burn a little of
your own hair; mix them all together, burn them to ashes.
Make ink out of these, and write on your left palm “this
ornament” with a crow’s feather. The “ ornament” is two
rude concentric circles, and meaningless words within them.
In Cos, a less innocent charm is used by old hags who bear
a grudge against some girl. Certain black ants with a big
head are called “riding-ants,’ καβαλομύρμιγκα. The
witches cut off these heads and soak them in wine, which
they leave out all night. They then put a drop of this con-
coction into wine, and give the wine to the girl’s lover to
drink. It is believed that he will at once attempt her honour.

There remain a few miscellaneous charms which it may
be interesting to mention. When you are in chains and in
prison, for example, all you have to do is to read the first
Psalm? a hundred and one times, and “ you will be surprised
to find yourself free.” When you want your enemy to flee
from the place in which you are, read the thirtieth Psalm
when there is no moon, on three successive days, morning,
noon, and night, taking the paper ‘“‘left-wise” (ἀνάποδα).
But one there is which will prove a godsend to the
harassed parent or schoolmaster: ‘How a child may

* ypawe ere εἰς τὴ BOR) σου τὴν ἀριστερά" μὲ κιννάβαρι καὶ
μόσκον καὶ κρόκον ταὐγοῦ καὶ ῥοδόστ iS καὶ καῦσον Kat ane
μαλλιά ἀπὸ τὰ μαλλιά σου" καὶ ποίησον στάκτη" καὶ βάλε καὶ ἀνεκά-
τωσέ τα He τὰ ἄνωθε ὅπου σοῦ ΠΉΜΕΡΟΝΕΝ καὶ mate μελᾶνι, καὶ

γράψον ᾿στὴ παλαμή cov τὴ ζερβὴ τὸ πλουμὶν αὐτὸ μὲ κοντύλι

κορακοῦ. [Fol. 16.]
2 Τῇ our version this is the second.

‘ ᾿ 5 / ͵ ‘

8 διὰ νὰ μάθῃ τὸ παιδίο γράμματα ἢ καὶ πάντια τέχγη χωρίς

“ ' e ¢ A ν

πολὺ κόπον" γράψε εἰς δίσκον οὕτως. “Appa Χριστὲ ἐλευθηρλὰ,
Χριστὲ καὶ ἐλεήμων, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, πνεῦμα σοφίας, πνεῦμα

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 171

learn his letters or any art without much trouble. Write
this on a plate: Christ, freedom, Christ is pitiful; the Holy
Spirit, Spirit of Wisdom, Spirit of Rhetoric and Reading,
Spirit of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Grant the enlighten-
ment of the servant of God, N. or M., holy things for the
holy, the holy Spirit, and may the power of the Highest
overshadow him: Amen. When you have writ all this, let
divine service be performed over the plate for seven days.
Then wash the plate’ with holy water of the Epiphany,
and make the boy drink of it for three days. You will
be astonished to see how he will learn his letters.”

Here is a charm for rendering oneself invisible.? ‘On
May 1, kill a snake, take his head and plant it in a certain
place, and put in his mouth one bean. Plant it, and when
the beans grow, gather them all, don’t lose a single bean.
Take a mirror to behold your countenance in, and put the
beans in your mouth one by one. As soon as you find a
bean, which being in your mouth you cannot behold your
countenance, take good care of that bean; and when you
wish that no man may see you, put it into your mouth.”
The man who wrote that had a sort of humour in him.

There is in the MS. one curious monster spoken of, the
“half-head.” ‘ Beyond Jordan,” we are told,® “stands a

ῥητορικῆς καὶ ἀναγνώσεως, πνεῦμα ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.
. h , \ S = = θ = e δ - ταις τῇ ΝΥ,
τὴς» δίνετε φωτίσαι τὸν δοῦλον τοῦ θεοῦ (ὁ δεῖνα ) τὰ ἅγια τοὶς ἁγίοις
- ef > es / 2 DEN < VY Ξ 3 ΄ D8 ᾿ " > ,
πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπισκιάσῃ καὶ ἡ δύναμις ἐψίστου ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν, ἀμήν.
- τὶ Ν > ‘ ul " Ἁ
ἀφοῦ δὲ γράψῃς πάντ᾽ αὐτὰ ἄνωθε, βάλε τὸν δίσκον νὰ τὸ λειτρού-
= \ ~
ynrat ἡμέρες épra’ εἶτά πλύνε τὸν δίσκον μὲ τὸν ἁγιασμὸν τῶν
θεοφανίων, καὶ δῶσ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦ παιδίου νὰ τὸ πίῃ ἡμέρες τρεῖς, καὶ
θέλεις θαμμάσῃς νὰ μάθῃ τὸ παιδὶ γράμματα. [Fol. 13.]

! See above, p. 159, note.
2 Fol. 21.—rpwropatov va σκοτώσῃς ἕνα φίδι, νὰ πάρῃς τὸ κεφάλι
του νὰ τὸ φυτέψης εἰς ἕνα μέρος, καὶ νὰ βάλῃς στὸ στόμα του ἕνα
κουκί. νὰ τὸ φυτέψης, καὶ ὡσὰν γίνουσι τὰ κουκίὰ, νὰ τὰ μαζόξῃς
ὅλα, νὰ μὴ χάσῃς κανένα κουκί, καὶ βάλε ἕνα καθρέπτη νὰ κυττάξῃς
τὸ πρόσωπό σου καὶ βάζε στὸ στόμα σου ἕναν ἕνα, καὶ ὅποια κουκὶ

172 folklore from the Southern Sporades.

youth, the hateful Half-head; and cries with a loud voice
that he wants man’s flesh to eat. Then came a voice from

”)

heaven, which said? something or other in reference
to King Pharaoh and the kiss of Judas, our Lord, the Virgin
Mary, and Aaron, adding: “ Depart and flee from the servant
of God, N. or M.” Another charm” is given to get rid of this
creature, to be repeated three times. ‘In the beginning
was the word,” is the first sentence; St. John and the Virgin
are invoked, but there is nothing of interest to us in it.
The ‘“half-head” is probably the monster, familiar in the
east, who is merely a shell; complete before, but hollow
behind.®

δὲν θωρεῖς τὸ πρόσωπό σου ὄντα τὸ ἔχεις στὸ στόμα σου, ἐκεῖνο
© ‘ > d
φύλαξε" καὶ ὄντας θέλεις νὰ μὴ σὲ βλέπῃ ἄνθρωπος, βάλε To στὸ

στόμα σου.

1 πέρα τοῦ ᾿Ἰορδάνου ποταμοῦ στέκει ἕνας vos, τοῦ μισητοῦ
ἡμικράνου, καὶ κράζει μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ; φαγεῖν θέλει κρέας ἀνθρώ-
που" ἢ μεγάλης μισητοῦ κρανίου ἦλθε φωνὴ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ
εἶπεν, πτοήθητι πτοηθητοῦ τὸ τοῦ Φαραὸν τὸ λαόν, καὶ τοῦ ᾿Ιουδᾶ τὸν
ἀσπασμόν, διότι 6 Χριστὸς σὲ διώκειν καὶ ἣ περαγία [ sec, for ὑπερα-
via] θεοτόκος καὶ ὁ ἀσώματος ᾿Αρὸν Kpavirns ἐξελθὲ καὶ ἀναχώρισον
ἀπὸ τοῦ δοῦλου, etc.—Signs and letters (fol. 11). This has apparently been
copied from an older document, or written down from memory, and much
blundered.

5. εἴσε μισοκέφαλο φυλακτὸ va τὸ διαβάσῃς τρεῖς φορὲς Kal va τὸ
βάλῃς στο κεφάλιτου. Ἔν ἀρχὴ ἦν ὃ λόγος, etc. [Fol. το.

3 Mr. Crooke has kindly sent me this note :

In the ‘‘ Story of Janshah.” (Burton, Arabian Nights. Library Edition,
vol. iv. p. 279.)

‘* Presently they came upon a spring of running water in the midst of the
island, and saw from afar a man sitting hard by it. So they went up to him
and saluted him, and he returned their salam, speaking in a voice like the
whistle of birds. While Janshah stood marvelling at the man’s speech, he
looked right and left and suddenly split himself in twain, and each half went a
different way.”

Burton notes that the Badawi hold whistling to be the speech of devils [cf.
miners’ objection to whistling underground]. Burckhardt got a bad name by
he ugly habit.

“*The Arabs call Shikk (split man) and the Persians Nimchahrah (half-face)

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 173

Il.—Vroukdlakas and Kaltkézart.

The Vroukolakas, or Vampire, is familiar to all students
of modern Greek life. Persons guilty of abominable crimes,
those who die under a parent’s curse, or who die excommu-
nicate, all children conceived on one of the great festivals
of the Church (when abstinence is ordained) become Vam-
pires. They arise from the tomb any night except Saturday,
and live by sucking the blood of living men, especially of
their own nearest and dearest. You may know the Vampire
if when his grave is opened—which should be done of
course on the Saturday night only, as the creature then
cannot get out—the body is found whole and undecayed,
the hair and nails perfect. To lay the Vampire requires
different methods according to the cause of his being such.1

a kind of demon like a man divided longitudinally: this gruesome creature
runs with amazing speed and is very cruel and dangerous.”

The same account of the Shikk is given by Hughes, ‘‘ Dictionary of Islam,”
137. The Nasnas isa similar beast, the offspring of a Shikk and a human being.

The Hadal, a Bombay demon, is plump in front, a skeleton behind. So the
Ellekone of Denmark is captivating to look at in front, hollow behind like a
kneading trough. (Grimm, 7 τέ. AZyth., vol. ii. p. 449.)

The Daitya of North India is beautiful in front, behind only a mere ee
without a backbone. (Crooke, Popular Rel., vol. ii. p. 255.)

' The following passages describe the common practice. MS. III. of the
Canons (1560), fol. 59 :—

γινώσκεται περὶ τούτου ὅτι ἢ μὲν εὑρεθῆ σῶμα ἀκαίρεον [ἀκέ-
ραιον] ἐν τῶ τάφω καὶ τρίχας τελίας νὰ μηδὲν ἔχη, εἶναι ἀμφιβολία
εἰς τοῦτο ἢ ἀφορισμένον εἶναι ἣ οὐχή, ὄμως κάμνη χρεία νὰ εὐγάλουν
τὸ λείψανον ἐκεῖνον ἔξω ἀπὸ τὸν τάφον ὅπου εὑρίσκεται, νὰ τὸ βάλ-
λουν εἰς ἄλλον τάφον παρθένον καὶ ὅταν περάση καιρὸς ἱκανός, εἰ μὲν
εὑρεθῆ τὸ ἀκέραιον ἐκεῖνο σῶμα λελυμένον, ἤδη καλόν, εἰ δὲ καὶ
εὑρεθῇ ἄλυτον γινώσκεται ὅτι εἶναι ἀφωρισμένον καὶ δέεται συγχω-
ρήσεως, ἵνα λυθῆ Tov ἀφωρισμοῦ.

Same, fol. 254. Some foolish men say πῶς Renee ἄνθρωποι ὅταν
ἀπεθένουν, ἐξ αὐτῶν τινες συκόνονται καὶ γίνονται καταχθόνιοι,
τοὺς ὑποίους δεζουν, βουλκολάκους, καὶ αὐτοὶ λέγουν θανατώνουν τοὺς

ζωντανούς... +. ἀμὲ ἐκεῖνοι ὅπου πλανῶνται καὶ καίουν τοὺς ἀδελ-

φούς τους κακὸν τὸ ἔπαθαν. The name here, it will be noticed, is given as
Voulkolakos.

174 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

If he were excommunicate, a service of pardon revoking
the sentence of excommunication sets him free. If not, he
must be moved to another “ virgin” tomb, or even burnt
to ashes. Old travellers were sometimes witnesses of this
horrid ceremony ; but although the belief is still strong, the
burning is probably no longer practised.

As it is not my plan to collect the evidence already to
hand, I say no more of the Vampires, but beg leave to
refer students to Bernhard Schmidt’s account of them in
his Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp. 157-171. Schmidt
has also a chapter on the Kalikazari, and some of the verses
I have collected occur there.!

These curious monsters are believed in all over the Greek
world, and they go by a variety of different names:
καλικάζξαροι, καλικάντζαροι, λυκάνθρωποι, δλυκοκάξαροι,
λυκοκρίνξαροι, καλοτζῆδες, καρκαντζόλοι, σκιάνξαροι.
They are described as ἀσχημομούριδες, “ ugly-faced,”
ἀδύνατοι, “impotent,” κατσικόποδες, ‘ goat-footed,” ὀνοκέ-
φαλοι, ‘“ass-headed.” Besides these associations with
animals such as wolf, ass, and goat, they are connected in
different places with other animals as to head, hands, or
feet, and are believed to be fond of dance and of women.
There is clearly an accretion here of werewolf legends,
with perhaps a reminiscence of the satyrs.

Children conceived on the day of the Immaculate Con-
ception (March 25), and so born on Christmas Day, are
supposed to be accursed because they impiously mimic the
beginnings of our Lord’s life on earth,.and when born they
become Kalikazari. They are not born as infants, but by
the power of Beelzebub they become full-grown men and
women, or take upon them some other shape. They remain
on earth for twelve days, until the Epiphany; for on that
day, by the baptism, the whole earth was made holy, and
all demons are forced to depart from it. The Kalikazari
flee away, crying out—

1 Pages 142-152.—My authority is Mr. Zarraftes.

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 175

“ Flee away, that we may flee:
Priest with pot-belly, here is he,
With his holy water brush,
With the sprinkler too for us ;
He will sprinkle us about,

And defile us without doubt.” !

Until these twelve days are past, the monsters leave in
their cradles the semblance of babes, and assuming the form
of Kalikazari, wander about, living in deserts and dark
caves, feeding on snakes and lizards. Sometimes, it is
said, they eat women, whom they love very much. By the
light of the moon they dance at night, in company with any
handsome women they can get hold of, or any inquisitive
person. Women that lose their way, if not pretty enough
to dance with, serve them for supper. They dance till the
black cock crows, and then they must stop. Some enter
the houses by the chimney, and there sit at table and eat
and make merry, especially in the kitchen; and they take
delight to insult* the sleepers of the house. When they
hear a black cock crow, they evanish lke smoke through
the keyhole. To prevent their mischief, these keyholes or
boltholes*® are stopped up with a skein of flax. Before the
exit is free the Kalikazari have to count all the threads in
the skein; and as they always take care to look at the

1 φεύγατε νά pevyape,
γιατὶ εἴφτασ᾽ ὁ τρυυλόπαπας (3)
με τὴν ἁγιαστοῦρα του,
καὶ μὲ τὴν βρεχτοῦρα του,
καὶ θὰ μᾶς ἐρραντίσῃ
καὶ θὰ μᾶς μαγαρίσῃ.
The holy water would be thought defiling by these monsters.
2 οὐροῦσιν, mingunt.
3 μπαρότρυπα, κλειδότρυπα.
x_n δ.
(Ὁ Schmidt, who gives a variant of these lines (p. 151), explains this word as

a gibe, ‘‘ pot-belly priest.” My informant took it as referring to the priest’s
tall hat (rovpAa or τροῦλλα “dome, apex”).

176 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

keyhole the first thing on entering, to see that their retreat
is open, they spend all the time till cock-crow in counting,
and can do no harm. ‘They appear suddenly to millers, and
make fun of them; and if a woman comes to the mill to
grind, they do the grinding for her, and can hardly be
prevented from making a meal of herself. While the miller
sleeps, they take some flour and work it into honey-combs,’
which they eat ; then they defile the rest of the flour, the other
food, and the ashes.” The Kalikazari flee away when you
see them, and call out, ξύλα κούτσουρα SavrAla καμμένα---
“Wood, logs, brands all burnt.”

The people believe that the Jews worship some creature
with the head of an 855," and accordingly speak of them as
ὀνολάτραι, ‘‘ass-olaters.” They suppose the Jews to wander
about from Christmas to Epiphany, looking for Moses, whom
they desire to throttle, it is hard to see why, and thus the
Jews are confused with Kalikazari. For this cause they
call the Kalikazari σαβ βατιανοί, “ sabbatarians.”

When at the Epiphany these monsters depart, they go
under the earth, and there remain for the rest of the year,
sawing at the trunk of a gigantic tree which upholds the
earth. Their aim is to destroy the whole world; but they
never quite get the job done. Christmas comes round once
more, and away they fly; and during the twelve days that
follow, the tree grows whole again.

In Cyprus, the Kalikazari are very fond of cakes called
λουκουμᾶδες. The people leave them honey to eat in order
to make them kind; they also leave a plate full of these
cakes by the hearth. The Kalikazari entering, cry out :

papa, τσιτσί, λουκάνικο.
‘Bread, cheese, sausage! ”

1 μελόπητταις.

2 They also οὐροῦσιν eis τὸ στόμα τῶν παιδίων when they sleep with
mouth open: mzngunt in ora puerorum.

3 The reader will remember the famous grafito of the Domus Geloniana at
Rome.

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 177

But the time is a fast, and nothing of the kind is to be had;
so the man who waits answers :

μαχαῖριν μαυρομάνικο.
-ς Black-handled knife! ”

This charm startles the monsters, who thus say hurriedly,
as though ready to be content with anything :

κομμάτιν Eeporhavov
va φάω καὶ va pow.
“A bit of dry cake, that I may eat and go.”

He eats then what is provided and departs.

I have now a number of notes on various customs and
superstitions, and 1 will begin with customs observed on
some special day.

ITT.—Cos : Times and Seasons.

On New Year’s Eve the brute beasts are supposed to be
endowed with reason and speech, to bear witness for good
or evil according to the condition they may be in. Hence,
on the day preceding the last night of the year, they are
specially well fed and taken care of.

On January 6 takes place the ceremony of Diving for the
Cross, which is described in a pretty little sketch by a
Greek writer, Argyris Eftaliotis." By the Scala, or quay, of
the town of Cos, the cross is thrown into the sea, and it is a
point of honour with all the young pallikars to fetch it up.
A collection is made in the villages of the island for the
successful diver. There is some danger for him if the sea be
rough or the weather cold. The First of April is called τὰ
ψέμματα, or the Feast of Fibs, and all sorts of pranks and
jests are made. On the vigil of the ᾿Ανάστασις, Easter Day,

' Translated in Zales from the Isles of Greece, being sketches of Modern Greek
Peasant Life, by Argyris Eftaliotis. Dent, 1897.
VOL. X. N

178 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

alamb ora kid is killed, put in a dish, and roasted in the oven,
and afterwards eaten. A cross is then made over the door
of the house. On Easter Day, a straw image is made of
Judas which is hung up, shot at with guns, and finally burnt.}
On the First of May, as elsewhere in Greek lands and here,
garlands are hung over the doors, made of flowers, with
σκόρδα (heads of garlic) in them. These are left hanging
till they drop, as a protection against the Evil Eye. A
curious custom is usual on June 24, the Birth of John the
Baptist (ὁ πρόδρομος, “the Forerunner’’). John is here called
Ai Tudvens ὁ κλήδονας." The title is derived from κληδών, a
“call,” or “voice of omen.” I have no particulars from
Cos of the divination described in the authorities quoted
above, though I have reason to know it is practised. But in
Cos there is an addition to the ordinary custom. Villagers
flock into the capital for this day, and some representative
of each village bears a ring or some recognisable token.
These are dropped into a cup of water, which is left out in
the open air all night. Then in the morning all gather
together; a woman is chosen who knows many songs, and
she repeats a nice and a nasty song (ἄσχημο) alternately.

1 The same custom is observed elsewhere. A photograph of Judas from
Thebes is shown herewith. Mr. M. E. Marriage writes: ‘‘ Perhaps a per-
onification of winter now to be killed. In Heidelberg, winter as a straw man,

still driven out of the town on Laetare Sunday, three weeks before Easter.
see Grimm, γέ. (Gott, 1854) p. 724 ff. ; Uhland, Abhandlungen tiber das
Volkslied, chap. i. In all or nearly all the sham fights between Summer and
ὙΠ ῈΣ 50 ἢ in Germany, Summer wears ivy and winter straw.”

* My informant derived this word from κλυδών (quasi kdbdovas), because

‘storms recur at that season.” This, however, is a mistake. See A. Thumb,
Zur Neugriechischen Volkskunde, Der Klidonas (Zeitschr. der Vereins f. Volks-
kunde, 1892, pp.392 ff.). The custom is common. For Chios, see Κανελλάκης,
Χιακὰ ᾿Ανάλεκτα (Athens, 1890), p. 321; for Crete, Jeannarakis, Cretas Volks-
ieder (Leipz., 1876), p. 340; both these on the Feast of St. John. In Cyprus
we find it on May 1 or 3; Σακελλάριος, Κυπριακά, vol. i. p, 709. In
Thessaly, May 1; ᾿ Ἑστία (1890) vol. i. p. 261. In Aegina, the Feast of John
the Baptist and ἘΠ Day; Πρόγραμμα τοῦ ἐν Αἰγίνῃ Ελλ. σχολείου,
Athens, 1890, p. 1. Compare Passow, Carmina Pop. Gr., p. 614, and see
above, page 155.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 179

After each song, a boy draws out one of the tokens at
random; and the song is taken to apply to the village that
owns it. This, as may be imagined, is the cause of much
fun and jollity, On the vigil (παραμονή) of St. John’s Day,
bonfires (φανοί) are lighted, and the lads and lasses dance
around them. ‘The lads bind a black stone on their heads,
signifying that they wish to become as strong as the stone;
they make the sign of the cross over feet and legs, and jump
over the fire. As to these bonfires, an old woman of Cos
suggested the following explanation, which is a good example
of myth-making to explain ritual. ‘ Doubtless,” said she,
‘Elizabeth had arranged with her friends to announce in
this way the birth of her expected son ; and the custom was
kept up to commemorate it.” The first three days of August
are called the δρίμαις. On these days women do no work
(for it would not prosper), and wash no clothes (for they
would soon wear out). The eleven days following are
supposed to foreshadow the weather of the succeeding
months: as the fourth is, so will September be, the fifth
shows October, and so on. The fifteenth is the feast of the
Assumption, closing a fortnight’s strict fast. On Septem-
ber 1, a kind of tithe-offering is hung up in the houses,
consisting of a bunch of red grapes, a pomegranate, a
quince, and a bit of cotton.

At the Θεοφάνεια, or Feast of the Epiphany, twigs of
olive are dipped in holy water and hung up by the icons
against the Evil Eye (τὸ μάτι).

One quaint custom remains to be mentioned. In the centre
of the island, at Antimachia, Kartarmita, and thereabout,come
the month of March every one picks a switch and flicks the
cattle with it, crying: Μάρτης καὶ πάνω vwpa! ‘’Tis March,
and up with your tail!”” The cattle, if well and strong, at
once flourish their tails and gallop away. The ceremony is
supposed to be actually healthy for them, and to bring good
luck. It is never done at other times, only in March. So
far it is nothing out of the way, though one is reminded of

N 2

180 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

the beating of animals to secure fertility," or of women at
the Lupercalia at Rome ; but the odd part is to come. On
the eve of March 1, a girl sends to her lover,? or the lad to
the girl, three strands of thread in three different colours
twisted together, and hidden in a basket of fruit or sweets
or what not. This is bound about the right wrist, little
finger, and big toe. Next morning, the lover who has
received this seeks the lady and tries to get speech of her
apart; if he succeeds, he flicks or pulls the skirt of her
jacket, crying, πάνω νωρά! “Tails up!” as a wish for
health and strength. The threads are thus worn till Easter
Day, when they are cast into the fire and burnt, as some-
thing holy. It would be unlucky for any one else to get
hold of them.

Calymnos. ¥rom this island I have only a few notes.
Five times a year—at Christmas, Easter, the Holy Apostles
(June 29), on September 1, and St. Andrew’s Day (late in
November)—the people make cakes, sweetmeats, &c., and

1 Mr. M. E. Marriage kindly sends me the following note :

“*Elard Hugo Meyer (Deztsche Volkskunde, Strassburg, 1898, p. 138 ff) in
speaking of cleansing customs which still obtain among herdsman at the frst
driving out of the cattle to pasture (p. 141) tells how in the Ciresenthal Baden
the beasts are beaten crosswise on the back with palm. In Westphalia on the
γε of May young cows that have not yet calved are switched thrice on back,
flank, and udder, while a rhyme is said over them to bring milk. So also by
the lower Rhine and in Mecklenburg. Mountain ash and hazel switches cut
under special conditions are used. Meyer mentions several other cases, among
them an ancient Indian custom.

Connected with the beating of the animals would seem to be (p. 142) the
cracking of whips over them 20 drive away the witches (Hexen auspatschen)
at Whitsuntide.

Truly none of these customs take place in JZarch, but that might perhaps be
accounted for by the difference in climate.

The Pelzenichel customs in Heidelberg (if indeed they have any connection
with these, as for instance, by way of beating out the evil spirit of sickness)
hold on two successive days, Klein-und Gross-Pelzenichel, about a week
before Christmas—I forget the date. Children disguised and in sackcloth run
about the street switching passers-by.”

5 The lovers are called ἁρμοστὸς and apport, which in ancient Greek
meant ‘‘ united.” Pollux vouches for ἁρμοστής in the sense of betrothed

husband in his day (2nd century a.p.). The threads are called ὁ Maprns,
*¢ March.”

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 181

lay them upon the tombs of their dead. Children, beggars
or strangers may eat them. The feast at the tomb was a
regular institution amongst the ancients, and this is no
doubt a survival of it. On May 21, in February before the
Carnival, and at one other time, they make dishes of
macaroni and cheese, or boil corn, and the dishes are taken
from one house to the next. The same quantity is brought
in as was taken out. ;

Miscellaneous Superstitions and Omens. The Evil Eye
(τὸ μάτι, βασκανία), which has already been mentioned, is
feared in these islands, as everywhere. Skulls are set up in
the vineyards on stakes, to ward it off, in Rhodes, Cos, and
Samos. On the lintel of a new house a piece of wild onion
(ἀγριοκρομμύδα or ἀσκελαροῦδα) is hung to keep off the
Evil Eye. There is a Sacred Tree in Cos, near the village
of Aspendiou, beside a little chapel. Opposite the tree
there is a small window in the chapel. A sick child is
brought in by the door and passed out through the window,
if not too big, three times ; then some prayer is said, and a
rag of the child’s clothes is hung on the tree. Large trees
are for the most part haunted (στουιχειᾶτα), and if you sleep
under one of them the spirit strikes you (χτυπάει). Rivers
and springs are haunted likewise; the spirits usually appear
as beautiful women, but sometimes they take the shape of
foam. Spirits of the springs throttle men. You must
never sweep after sunset, for this isa sin. A sneeze means
that some one is speaking of you; a loud sneeze that he is
speaking ill of you. People on hearing a sneeze utter some
prayer or ejaculation, in which the title of περίδρομος
(‘“run-about’’) is given to the Deity. A moise in the ear
betokens some evil which is to befall you. If a hen makes
a noise like crowing, it is a bad omen.” When a woman

' Cos, Samos.
? Mr. Marriage sends me the couplet :
A whistling maid and a crowing hen
Are hateful alike to God and men.
Compare also Terence, Phormio, iv. 4, 27, gallina cecinzt, a portent.

182 Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

hears it, she generally throws the hen down the chimney
upon the hearth; if she be a virtuous woman, the hen is
killed. The following plan tells the sex of a child which is
to be born. A bone taken from the head of the fish called
scar (σκάρος, scarus creticus) is placed on the mother
without her knowing: the child will be of the same sex
as the next person she calls. One of these divining bones
is here exhibited.) Treasure trove will turn into charcoal
(ἄνθρακες) unless you kill a cock ; or, if no cock is at hand,
you may cut your little finger and drop the blood on the
treasure. An old woman once showed my informant a
piece of charcoal which had been part of a treasure thus
transformed. The legend of Fairy Gold is attested for
ancient Greece by the proverb ἄνθρακες ὁ θησαυρός μου
(see Holk-Lore, vol. viii, p. 379). A quaint legend is told of
the Lizard. The Holy Virgin, it is said, sighed so bitterly
at the death of her son that her burning sighs set her robe
δῆτε. No one was at hand to quench it, but the Lizard
poured water upon it from his mouth and saved the Virgin.
Hence the Lizard is holy, and must not be killed.

It may be interesting to add, that a large kind of hawk is
called in Cos ἀχελωνοφᾶς, or the Tortoise-eater, because it
catches a tortoise, carries it to a height, then drops it upon
a rock and splits it, after which it eats the tortoise. It will
be remembered that A%schylus is supposed to have been
killed in Sicily by such a bird, which mistook his bald pate
for a stone.

If one is cutting a fruit, or grinding coffee, or anything
that smells, he who smells it must taste. Otherwise a man
loses his sight, a woman with child miscarries. If you enter
a room where this is going on, the cutter or grinder will
always offer you a bit.

IV.—The Bridge of Antimachia.

Antimachia was one of the cities of ancient Cos, and it
still bears its old name, through the present site is not

? Presented by Mrs. Paton to the Society’s Museum.

Folklore from the Southern Sporades. 183

exactly that of the old city. Not far from the place is an
ancient bridge, known locally as ἡ Kaydpa; and of this
bridge the following poem tells. :

The Lay of the Kamara of Antimachia.

Deep down within the river-bed they founded the Kamara :

Each morning they built up the stones, each evening they were
fallen.

Then they cast lots, and lo the lot falls to the Master-workman.

(Quoth the Master :)

“Tf I should lay my father there, I get no second father ;

If I should lay my brother there, I get no second brother ;

If I should lay my mother there, where shall I find another ?

If I should lay my sister there, I find no other sister ;

If I should sacrifice my wife, a wife again I’ll find me.”

Then by the nightingale he sends a message to the lady.

“Go thou and tell my lady fair :

Let her not comb on Saturday, nor Sunday change her raiment,

To the Kamara let her come on Monday in the morning.”

Away he flew, the thrice accurst, that thrice accursed creature,

He flew and told his message :

“Comb not thyself on Saturday, nor Sunday change thy raiment,

To the Kamara see thou come on Monday, in the morning.”

She combs her hair on Saturday, on Sunday changes raiment,

On Monday, early in the morn, she comes to the Kamara :

The Master-workman she beholds, and he was full of sorrow.

“What ails thee, Master-workman, say, that thou art full of
sorrow ?”

“ΜῈ seal is fallen and is lost deep down in the Kamara.”

“0, Master-workman, have no fear, for I will go and find it.”

“Come, let her down, the lady fair, deep into the Kamara.”

She dug and still she deeper dug ; a human hand she findeth.

“Ὁ Master-workman, take me up; a human hand I’ve found me.”

* Bring rubble-stones and mortar bring, to cover up the lady.”

“Ὁ Master-workman, haul me up, for I have loaves a-baking ! ”

“Tis thou hast leavenéd the loaves, another hand shall bake them :

Bring rubble-stones and mortar bring, to cover up the lady.”

“Ὁ Master-workman, haul me up, for I must rear my children!”

“Tis thou hast brought them to the birth, another wife shall
rear them.

184

Folklore from the Southern Sporades.

Bring rubble-stones and mortar bring, to cover up the lady.”
“Ὁ Master-workman, stay awhile, a dirge that I may sing me.
We were three sisters, and all three a cruel doom awaited.
One at the founding of the bath, one at the bridge was buried,
And I the last, unhappy I, beneath the deep Kamara.”

“‘ Bring rubble-stones and mortar bring, to cover up the lady.”
‘‘ As I now tremble every limb, so may the whole world tremble :
As now the hairs upon my head, so tremble the Kamara :
And as my tears are falling fast, so may the stone-work tumble.” 1

1 Στιχοπλεκίὰ τῆς καμάρας τῆς ᾿Αντιμαχίας.

(Δαστ.)

κατὰ μεσῆς τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἐχτίζαν τὴν καμάραν.

κάθε ταχὺ ἐχτίζασι, κάθε βραδὺ ἐχάλα.

καὶ ῥίχνουσι τὸν μπουλετῆ," καὶ πέφτει τοῦ μαστόρου.
νὰ βάλω τἀφεντάκιϑ μου ᾿φέντη δὲν κάμνω ἄλλο,

va βάλω τἀδερφάκι μου, ᾽δερφάκι wera δὲν κάμνω.
νὰ βάλω τὴν μαννοῦλα μου, μάννα δὲν κάμνω ἄλλη"
va βάλω τῆ ᾿᾽δερφοῦλα μου, ᾽δερφὴ δὲν κάμνω ἄλλη.
νὰ βάλω τὴ γυναῖκα μου, γυναῖκα κάμνω πάλι.
πιάνει μηνᾷ τῆς λυγερῆς "TO τὸ πουλὶ τἀηδόνι"

ἄμε νὰ rns τῆς λυγερῆς᾽

τὸ σάββατο μὴ χτενιστῇ, τὴν κυριακὴ μὴ ᾿'λλάξῃ,

καὶ τὴ δευτέρα τὸ ταχὺ στὴν καμαρὴ νὰ φτάξῃ,

κεῖνο τὸ τρισκατάρατο, τὸ τρισκαταραμένο,

ἐπῆγε καὶ τῆς εἶπε"

τὸ σάββατο νὰ χτενιστῇ, τὴν κυριακὴ νὰ ᾿λλάξῃ,

καὶ τὴν δευτέρα τὸ ταχὺ στὴν καμαρὰ νὰ φτάξῃ.

τὸ σάββατο κτενίζεται, τὴν κυριακὴν ἀλλάσσει,

καὶ τὴν δευτέρα τὸ ταχὺ στὴν καμαράνε φτάνει.
Beret TOV meeroennapy, κεῖτον ᾿᾽ποσβολωμένος.ἃ
“ri ἔχεις, πρωτομάστορε [sic] κεῖσαι ᾿ποσβολωμένος ;

“ἐ τὸ βουλωτήρι μου πέσε στὰ βύθη τῆς καμάρας.

ς " r ἢ me
“ἐ évvola σον; πρωτομάστορε, καὶ ἐγὼ νὰ σοῦ TO πιάσω.

“ πιάνε; κρέμα τὴ λυγερὴ στὰ βύθη τῆς καμάρας."

eee? 5 αν ὁ» ee ’ ΄, ,
ἑσκάλιζεν ἐσκάλιζε, βρίσκει ἀνθρώπου χέρι.

“ πάρε με πρωτομάστορε, κἦβρα τἀνθρώπου χέρι.

“ φέρτε χαλίκια καὶ πηλὸν τὴ λυγερῆ νὰ χτίσω.

® Morning. ἐχτίζασι has the present ending, by analogy, for ἐχτέζαν.
b Lot, ψῆφον. ¢ Father. a λυπημένος.

folklore from the Southern Sporades. 185

Such is the song which I heard a few months ago in a
little coffee-house of Antimachia. There are several Greek
poems which embody a similar tradition, the best-known
being the Bridge of Arta (Passow, No. 511, 512); but none
is so fine as this. Although in translation much of the
dignity of the original has vanished along with its graceful
rhythm, I think it is sufficiently clear that the piece has lost
little by centuries of transmission from mouth to mouth.
There is a strong dramatic force in it, and a severe self-
restraint, which mark the composer as a true artist. In a
few words the poet has shown us the struggle between
affection and faith, for we must suppose that the master-
workman regarded the sacrifice as a religious duty, as well
as a thing due to his employers. Not less remarkable is
the Master’s interruption of his wife’s lament; he seems, as
it were, driven to drown her bitter words and get his duty
done, or else he must yield. As a character-study it may
be compared with the story of Iphigeneia.

“ Ve tA Ἂν " ‘ θ ,

σύρε με; πρωτομάστορη [sic], κι ἔχω ψωμνιὰ θεσμένα.
- ΝΥ Ἦν Fi \ , ᾿

“ ἐσὺ σαι ποῦ τὰ ζύμωσες, μἄλλη a (*) τὰ φουρνίσῃ.
φέρτε χαλίκια καὶ πηλὸν τὴ λυγερῆ νὰ χτίσω.

“ σύρε με, πρωτομάστορα [sic], κι ἔχω marta (ἢ) νὰ θρέψω.

{ς» Ἂ 4, ‘ ~ ‘ 7. ΩΣ 9 Se iS ay ”
ἐσυ cal ποῦ Ta γέννησες, μἄλλη ὦ τὰ ᾿ναθρέψει.
φέρτε χαλίκια καὶ πηλὸ τὴ λυγερῆ νὰ χτίσω.

“Gd, στάσου πρωτομάστορη; νὰ ᾿πῶ ᾽να (°) μοιριολόγι."
τρεῖς ἀδερφάδες εἴμασθο [sic], καὶ τρεῖς κακομοιράδες.
ἡ μνφὰ ἐχτίσθη στὸ λουτρό, κ᾿ ἡ ἄλλη στὸ γεφύρι,
κί ἐγὼ ἡ βαρυορίζικη στὰ βύθη τῆς καμάρας.

“ἐ φέρτε χαλίκια καὶ πιλὸ τὴ λυγερῆ νὰ χτίσω.

“δι τς ΄ at Pixs 5 ΓΝ τ αὶ: ὍΝ ef ”
ὡς τρέμει TO κορμάκι μου va τρέμ᾽ ὁ κόσμος ὅλος
ὡς τρέμουν τὰ μαλλάκια μου νὰ τρέμῃ 7) καμάρα"
ὡς πέφτουσι τὰ δάκρυα μου νὰ πέφτουν τὰ χαλίκια

1 Other parallels, kindly sent me by various correspondents, are: Gerard,
The Land beyond the Forest (Transylvania), vol. i. p.278 ; and as a Gypsy tale,
hopelessly corrupt and nonsensical, F. H. Groome, Gypsy Yolk Tales, 1899.

(*) 0a. (Ὁ) παιδία. (°) ἕνα.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS AT RUGBY.

BY W. Η. Ὁ. ROUSE, M.A.
(Read at Meeting of 20th December, 1598.)

IT is well known that in many parts of England Mumming.
Plays are still exhibited at various seasons, particularly at
Christmas. Besides the dances, such as the Hobby Horse
at Salisbury, the Hobby Horse or Horn Dance in Stafford-
shire (/. Z., vii., 382, with plate), there are other observ-
ances accompanied by dialogue.

The Christmas Play, of which an account follows below,
seems to have been general in England at one time. It
still lingers in several parts of the country, and more than
one version has been printed. The fullest known to me is
that given in the Folk-Lore Fournal (vol. 111., pp. 87 ff.)
from Dorsetshire. Another has been reprinted by Chambers
in his Book of Days, vol. il., pp. 740-1 (with woodcut), from
Tales and Traditions of Tenby, and The Peace Egg. There
are further the Sussex Tipteerers Play (2. L. ¥., vol. i1.,
pp. 1 ff), and in /. L. F., vol. iv., pp. 98 ff, we find another
version taken from an old MS, which the players used.
The place of the last is not stated.’ It is still acted each
year at Rugby and in the country round.

I do not propose to write further on the genesis and
history of these plays, as I have not access to all the books
referred to. However, I would suggest that it would be

1 The following references, partly taken from Κ᾽ Z. /., vol. ii., pp. 88-89,
may be useful :— Whitehaven: Hone’s Every Day Book, p. 823 (ed. 1866).
Worcestershire: Notes and Queries, 2 ser., vol. xi., p. 271. Yorkshire ;
printed by J. Johnson, Rotation Office Yard, Kirkgate, Leeds (later by Wm.
Walker, London and Otley), and worked up into a children’s play by J. H.
Ewing, Zhe Peace Egg. See also Old English Customs, by J. H. Ditchfield.
North Ireland: Notes and Queries, 4 ser., vol. x., p. 487. See also VV and
Q., 5 ser., vol. iv., p. 511 (Leeds and Sheffield), Halliwell’s Rhymes and
Tales, pp.306-310, WV. and Q., 5 ser., vol. x., p. 489 (Hastings). Readers are
referred to this paper for much interesting information. It is to be hoped
that the Dumdleton version mentioned (p. 113) will be made public.

Christmas Mummers at Rugby. 187

very interesting if the Society would see its way to publish-
ing a collected edition of all the texts hitherto printed, to-
gether with any more versions which this paper may recall to
the minds of our members. Then we may bein a position to
tackle, perhaps to solve, questions connected with origins.
There is a great family likeness between the versions which
suggests a common origin. It is possible that the plays
may owe their origin to some one strolling company; for
we know that the glee-singers of the west country were
taught in this way by choirs which lost their employment in
town and had to tramp for a living. It is strange, but true,
that the famous Coventry miracles have had no influence
on the Rugby versions, for Beelzebub appears elsewhere.
The allusion to Jamaica is an indication of date, though it is
probably an interpolation; for in the seventeenth century
criminals were sometimes transported thither to work on
the plantations. The rack is also perhaps alluded to.

The version I give comes from Newbold, a village which
lies a couple of miles from Rugby. The town version is
not half so long, and besides, St. George has turned into
King George, while the unsophisticated villagers have
retained the old title of Saint. The version from New-
bold will be printed in the text, the town variants as foot-
notes.

The methods of acting are the same in either. The
actors huddle together in a group, and as the turn comes
for each he steps forward and so “enters.” The Newbold
troupe showed some dramatic ability, both in expression
and gesture. The postures and grouping were natural and
untaught ; see the scene where the Turkish knight falls.
Their costumes were simple, and evidently made by them-
selves.

CHARACTERS.
Rugby. (1) Father Christmas. (2) King George.
(3) Turkish Knight. (4) Doctor.

(5) Chimney Sweep.

188 Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

Newbold. Father Christmas. : : John How.
St. George : : : : J. Walton.
Turkish Knight : : : Henry Clarke.
Doctor Brown . ; : : ΠΣ aeeye
Moll Finney (Mother οἵ the

Turkish Knight) . . : Edward Forster.

Humpty Jack . : : J. Harris.
Beelzebub ; : : ς. Alhis:
Big Head and Little Wits . ς α. Haywood.

CosTuMES (NEWBOLD).

Father Christmas: Cap, long white beard, staff, the clothes
deckt out with a variety of ribbons and snippets.

St. George: As becomes a British hero, he wears a military
cap (of the Rugby Boy’s Brigade), with stripes of tape sewn on
breast and arm; on the upper arm a kind of cross or star. He
bears a sword. Corked moustache.

Turkish Knight: Stripes of tape on breast, and (of all things in
the world) a cross on his arm; a kind of beehive hat, quite oriental-
looking, and very likely traditional. Sword, corked moustache.

Doctor Brown: Very professional tall hat, with a spray of
leaves and feathers in the brim. Corked moustache.

Moll Finney: Girls hat and skirt.

Humpty Jack; Rags and snippets all over his coat, and on
his back a number of rag dolls.

Beelzebub: Face blackened, long coat turned inside out, a
kind of turban on his head, and a huge club of the shape of a
pestle He does nothing but “‘enter” and say a line or two; did
he originally carry off the Turkish Knight, or is he the repre-
sentative of the dragon? The Warwickshire mummers never heard
of a dragon.

Big Head and Little Wits: Coat turned inside out, head
padded to appear big. His object is merely to sing a song.

[The players grouped together in the background. Father
Christmas steps forward. ]
Linter Father Christmas.
Father C. JLopen the door, I enter in,

ΠΊΓΑΤΕ JUL

ST. GEORGE. TURKISH KNIGHT.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS, NEWBOLD.

ial= ΕἸΘΗΙΠ.:

[Zo face page 188.

Sz. G.

Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

I see bold face before I win,
Whether I sit, stand, or fall,
ΤΊ] do my duty to please you all.
In comes I, old Father Christmas,
Christmas, Christmas or not,
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
A room, a room, a gallant room,
A room to let us in!
We are not of the ragged sort
But of the royal King.
Old activity, new activity,
That never has been known,
The dreadfullest battle on earth was seen
In this room shall be shown.
If you don’t believe these words I say,

Step in, Saint George,! and clear the way.

Enter St. George, flourishing his Sword.

2 In comes I, St. George, St George,
The boy of courage bold,
With my broad sword and spear
I won ten pound of gold.
I slew the fiery dragon,
I drove him to the slaughter,
And by these means I won,
The King of Egypt’s daughter.

3 And if any man dare step within this room

ΤΊ] hack him up as small as dust,
And send him to Jamaica
To be made into mincepie crust.
1 Or King George.
2 In comes I, King George,
King George is my name ;
With my sword and pistol by my side.
I’m bound to win the game.
8 Go on, Sir!
It’s not within your power,
ΤΊ] chop you up to mincemeat
In less than half an hour.

190 Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

Enter Turkish Knight, confronting St. George.

Tee, In comes I, a Turkish Knight,
In Turkey land I learnt to fight!
ΤΊ] battle with thee, St. George ;
And if thy blood is hot,
ΤΊ] quickly set it cold again.
St. G. Tut tut, thou little fellow !
Thy talk is very bold,
Just like these little Turks,
As I’ve been told.
If thou be a Turkish Knight,
Pull out thy sword, and fight !
Or pull out thy purse, and pay:
ΤΊ] have satisfaction,
Before I go away.
7: ἽΚῈ There’s no satisfaction about it.
My head is made of iron,
My body’s lined with steel,
Therefore 111 battle with thee, St. George,
To see which on the grave shall fall.
ΟΣ (: Draw out thy sword, and fight.

They fight: Turkish Knight falls. Father Christmas approaches,
draws out a bottle, and says,

Father C. Fear not, I have a little bottle by my side,
In it hocum slocum aliquid spam,
I touch the root of this man’s tongue
And the crown of his head,
Will drive the heat through his body,
And he will rise again.

Turkish Knight kneels before St. George and says,

ἌΓΕΝ. St. George, St. George, pardon me, pardon me,
For Ill ever be thy slave.

St. G. What, pardon a Turkish Knight !
Never ! arise once more and try thy might.

They fight: Turkish Knight falls, supported by Father Christmas.

eG JOG

NEWBOLD.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS

SLAYING OF THE TURKISH KNIGHT

[70 face page 190.

Pee “5.0.5
este Υὖὐ

PLATE IV.

ie
Rea

“οι
Ἵ τὴν ae 3
ae A. ¥,

MOLL FINNEY. DR. BROWN. BIG HEAD AND LITTLE wiTs.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS, NEWBOLD.

[Zo face page 191.

Christmas Mummers at Rugby. ΙΟΙ

Enter Moll Finney.
Moll. St. George, St. George, what hast thou done!
Thou hast surely ruined thyself
By killing my only son!
Is there a doctor to be found,
To cure this man lies bleeding on the ground ?

Kneels, and hides her head in her hand.

Linter Doctor.
Ds In comes I, the Doctor Brown,
Cleverest doctor in the town.
O yes, there is a doctor to be found
To cure this man lying on the ground.

Moll. What’s your fee?
D: Ten guineas is my fee,
But five I will take of thee.
Moll. Thank’ye, doctor: what can you cure ?
DD; Hipsey, pipsey, palsy, gout,

Pains within and pains without.
Bring me an old man that has been
In his grave threescore years and ten,

' Five pounds for a doctor !
No doctor to be found.
Ten pounds for a doctor !
No doctor to be found.
Twenty pounds for a doctor!
No doctor to be found.

Enter Doctor.

DP Oh yes, Oh yes, there is
A noble doctor to be found,
To cure this man
Lying on the ground.
What’s your price ?
Seven pound.
What can you cure?
Hipsy, pipsy, palsy, gout,
If the devil’s in Pll quickly fetch him out.
Here Jack, take a bit of my nif-nack up your sniff-snack.
Rise and fight again,

192 Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

With a broken tooth, 11 pull it out
And put it in again.
Moll. If that’s true, thou art a clever doctor.
7). Clever! D’ye think I’m like these quack doctors,
Go walking up and down the streets ?
They tell more lies in five minutes
Than I do in seven years.
I have a little bottle by my side,
In it galvanic drops.
I twist the root of this man’s tongue
And the crown of his head,
ΤΊ! drive the heat through his body
And he will arise again
St. G. Arise, arise, thou curly Turkish Knight,
| Go back to thine own land, and tell
What old England has done for thee.
Tell ’em we will fight
Forty thousand men like thee.

Enter Humpty Jack.

ἀρ Fes In comes I, old Humpty Jack,
Wife and family on my back,
Some at the workhouse, some at the rack,
ΤΊ] bring the rest when I come back.!
Roast beef, plum pudding,
Old ale and mince pie,
Who likes it better
Than old Father Christmas and I ?
father C. Ahaha!
A mug of your Christmas Ale, sir,
Will make us merry and sing,
But money in our pockets
Is much a better thing.

' Rugby version inserts :
Times hard, money small,
Every copper will help us all.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS, NEWBOLD.

HUMPTY JACK,

HIS WIFE AND FAMILY ON HIS BACK

[70 face page 192.

Piate VI.

FATHER CHRISTMAS.

BEELZEBUB.

NEWBOLD.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS,

[Zo face page 193.

VOL. X.

Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

Now ladies and gentlemen
Give us at your ease,
Give Christmas pies
Or what you please.

Enter Beelzebub. 1

Here comes I, Beelzebub,
On my shoulder I carry my club,
In my hand a dripping pan,

103

Please to give us all you can. [ Collects money.

Enter Big Head.

In comes I, Big Head and Little Wits,
My head’s so big, and my wits so small,
ΤΊ] sing a song to please you all.
Sings.

There was an old man came over the sea,

A ha, but I won’t have him !
Came over the sea to marry me ;

And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,

His old gray noddle kept shaking.

My mother she told me to open the door,
A ha, but I won’t have him!
I opened the door, and he fell on the floor ;
And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,
His old gray noddle kept shaking.

My mother she told me to get him a chair,
A ha, but I won’t have him !
I got him a chair, and he sat like a bear,
And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,
His old gray noddle kept shaking.

My mother she told me to make him some toast,

1 Rugby version has this instead of Beelzebub
Enter Sweep.
In comes I, little Johnny Sweep,
All the money I earn I mean to keep.
Money 11 have, if you don’t give
Any money, I’ll sweep you all out.
O

194 Christmas Mummers at Rugby.

A ha, but I won’t have him ! .
I made him some toast, and he ate like a ghost,
And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle
His old gray noddle kept shaking.

My mother she told me to make him some cake,
A ha, but I won’t have him!
I made him some cake, and it made his tooth ache,
‘ And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,
His old gray noddle kept shaking.
My mother she told me to take him to church,
A ha, but I won’t have him.
I took him to church, and he fell off his perch,
And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,
His old gray noddle kept shaking.

My mother she told me to take him to bed,
A ha, but I won’t have him.
I took him to bed, next morn he was dead,
And his old gray noddle, his old gray noddle,
His old gray noddle stopt shaking.t

In the performance, each of the players had one or more songs ;
but most of them were music-hall ditties or the like. The above
is clearly an old folk-song, and a good one too ; so I give it along
with its air.

--{---ὶ τ — — --

-ὦ-

1 Miss Agnes Taylor has been kind enough to send me two verses of a Scotch
version of this song, to the tune of Norah Creena, which I hold over, in case
she may be able to recover the whole song.

“SQAKTKTQUACLT,”! OR THE BENIGN - FACED,
THE OANNES OF THE NTLAKAPAMUQ, BRITISH
COLUMBIA.

(Read at Meeting of 21st June, 1898.)

THE following story is one of several which the writer recently
obtained from Chief Mischelle of Lytton. It is not complete as
the old Indians used to relate it; he had forgotten the latter
portions of it. It was originally so long that those listening to it
invariably went to sleep before it was concluded. Few Indians,
I was informed, know so much of it as Mischelle. It is important,
therefore, to place on record what I was able to gather from him.
To those familiar with Dr. G. M. Dawson’s JVotes on the Shuswap
People of British Columbia* it will be seen at once that Sgaktkt-
guactt of the Ntlakapamug and S&/ap of the Shuswaps are one
and the same person, only in the case of the former we have an
abundance of detail which is wanting in Dr. Dawson’s account of
the latter. Mischelle was a good raconteur, and took the liveliest
pleasure in relating to me his store of lore. My method of re-
cording was as follows: I made copious notes at the time, and
expanded them immediately after. When written out, I read
them to him and corrected them where necessary according to
his instructions. They are, therefore, in their present form sub-
stantially as he gave them.

In the remote past the red-headed woodpecker was a very
handsome man who had two wives, a black bear and a grizzly
bear. They were not animals* then, but women in bear-form.
When the woodpecker was a youth he had gone away by himself
into a solitary spot, as was the custom of young men, and fasted
and practised himself in athletic exercises, asking each morning
before sunrise that Kokpé (the chief) would bless him. Kokpé

' In the spelling of the native words I have followed the phonetics of Dr.
Boas as used in his Reports on the N. W. Tribes of Canada.

2 Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1891, Section ii.

3 In the mythological stories all animals were originally human. Their
present bestial natures were imposed upon them by some hero or other of the
old time, for some misdeed or by the enchantment of some wizard. Do we
not see in this belief the explanation of their totemic systems and crests ?

O02

196 ‘“ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-faced.

heard his prayer, and as a sign of his favour gave him the beauti-
ful red cap which now distinguishes his avial descendants to this
day. When he had thus secured the favour and blessing of
Kokpé, he returned from the mountain and married his two wives.
He became a great hunter. Six sons were born to him by his
wives—-three by each. After the children were born, he lost his
love for the grizzly and showed a marked preference for the black
bear. This made the grizzly bear very angry and jealous ; but
she hid her feelings and determined upon a revenge which in-
cluded not only her co-wife and three sons, but also her husband
himself. So one day, when the woodpecker was away hunting,
she called her eldest son to her and gave him the following in-
structions : “‘The black bear and I are going out root-digging
to-day. When we have gone, I want you to make some berry-
soup. You must make it very thin and poor. The black bear’s
boy will also make some. He will make his very thick and rich.
When you have made yours, give it to the black bear’s boy, and
he will give you his in exchange. Your soup will make their
stomachs ache. When you have eaten your soup, ask your half-
brothers to go and bathe with you in the river. When you are
in the water together, seek an opportunity to drown your half-
brothers, the black bear’s children, and roast the youngest for
me, that I may eat him for my supper when I return to-night.”
The son promised to do as his mother had bidden him. The
black bear in some way got to know what the grizzly had in-
structed her eldest son to do, and warned her first-born to be on
his guard against his half-brother. She further told him to make
some soup also, and give it to the grizzlies in return for theirs,
but to make his soup rich and thick and tempting, and then they
would eat heartily of it and become very full and heavy, so that
when they went into the water they would be unable to swim.
After each of the mothers had thus instructed her first-born, they
set out together to dig roots. The root-ground was some distance
from their home, and on reaching it they sat down side by side
to rest before beginning the work. Sitting thus, the grizzly bear
presently began to admire the black bear’s hair. ‘ What lovely
hair you have, dear sister!” said she, stroking it as she spoke.
“But I see some lice in it; lay your head in my lap, and I will
take them out for you.” The black bear did as the other sug-
gested, and the grizzly made pretence to crush the lice between

|
|
’
:

“ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-Faced. 197

her nails. She continued this for a little while, and then com-
plaining that her fingers were sore with killing the vermin, sug-
gested that she should be allowed to kill them with her teeth.
The black bear, suspecting nothing, assented to this also, merely
admonishing her to be very careful not to bite her. The grizzly
promised to use care, but, getting her rival’s head in a favourable
position, presently caught the black bear by the base of the skull
with her sharp and powerful teeth, which, penetrating into the
brain, killed her instantly. Leaving the body where it lay, she
hastened back towards home again. On coming near home, she
stopped at a cross trail to await the woodpecker, who always
returned by that trail from his hunting. She presently saw him
approaching ; and as he drew near, assuming her most pleasing
manner, she cried out to him thus: “O dear husband, I am so
glad you have come! I was on my way home from the root-
digging, and knowing that you always came by this road, I sat
down to wait for you. You look very tired ; come and rest with
me awhile, and we will go home together. You must be weary
after your long hunt ; rest your head in my lap, and tell me what
game you have brought home.” ‘The woodpecker, who was really
tired from his hunt, and inclined to rest, did as his grizzly wife
suggested, and laid his head on her lap. Presently she asked:
“May I smooth your beautiful red cap? You have ruffled it in
the forest.” The request being granted, after she had smoothed
the ruffled cap she began to stroke his hair gently and caress-
ingly. A few moments later she cried out: “Ὁ dear husband,
you have lice in your hair; let me take the nasty creatures
out for you!” ‘The woodpecker, who was a very clean person,
was greatly distressed to learn that there were lice in his head,
and readily consented to have them taken out, straightway laying
his head face downwards in her lap for the purpose. With-
out loss of a moment the revengeful, jealous wife seized the
favourable opportunity and caught her husband by the back of
his head with her sharp teeth and made them meet in his skull,
killing him instantly. Flinging his body into the bush, she
hastened home, anxious to taste the supper she had bidden her
son prepare for her. In the meantime events at home had not
turned out as she had desired. After the mothers had gone to the
root-ground, the two eldest boys made their soup as they had been
instructed, and when it was cooked each exchanged soup with the

198 ‘“ Sgaktktquaclt,”’ or the Benign- faced.

other. When the black-bear-boy shared the soup he had received
from the grizzly boy with his own brothers, he bade them eat
sparingly of it. When the little grizzly boys tasted the soup they
had received, they found it so nice that they ate it all up at once ;
but the little black-bear-boys complained of theirs, and eat but
little, declaring that it had no more flavour than water. When
the meal was done, the eldest of the black-bear-boys suggested
that they should all go down to the river and bathe, and play in
the water. As this suited the plans of the other, it was agreed
to, and to the river they went. On reaching the bank, the black
bear’s eldest son said: “‘Let our two youngest brothers have a
swim together, and see who will beat. The two little ones jumped
forthwith into the river, but not being able to swim were both
drowned. ‘They were pulled out by the others and laid on the
bank. The two middle boys now made an attempt, and were
drowned in like manner. “ΝΟΥ͂ let us try,” said the grizzly boy
to the other, intending to drown him when he got him into the
water. The other agreed. They both jumped into the river ;
but as the grizzly boy had eaten so much soup, he was is no con-
dition for swimming, and in the struggle which followed was
himself drowned. The black-bear-boy now returned to shore,
pulling his half-brothers after him. When he was out of the water
he took his own two brothers and held them head downwards, so
that all the water ran out of their lungs, and they presently began
to breathe once more, and in a little time were all right and well
again. He then built a big fire,and taking the youngest of the grizzly
boys he spitted him with a big stick and set him to roast before
the fire. The other two he threw into the fire, which soon reduced
them to ashes, so that no sign of them remained. When the
little grizzly boy was sufficiently roasted he stood him up on his
legs by the fire to keep warm for the old grizzly mother’s supper.
When this was done, he called his two brothers to him, and told
them that they would now have to leave their home and run away
by themselves. So the second brother, whose name was C/at¢keg,}
which means in English “ Funny-man,” took his little brother on
his shoulders, and they all three thus set off together as fast as they
could, and when the grizzly mother got home they were well on
their way. ‘The first sight that met her eyes as she entered the

" Mischelle had never heard of a name for the eldest boy.

“ Sgaktkiqguacit,” or the Benign-Faced. 199

house was the roast body of her youngest son, the hot steam
from which made her mouth water. ‘“ Ah!” said she, “ my son
is a good boy; he has done what I told him, I see; and now I
shall have the pleasure of eating the body of my rival’s child.
But I wonder where my own children are,” she went on, as she
looked round the house in search of her sons. “Ah! there they
are in bed, I see ; they are doubtless tired from their exertion in
the water and have fallen asleep. I won’t disturb them till I have
eaten my supper.” And without approaching the bed, whereon lay
three small logs, placed there by the eldest of the black-bear-boys
for the purpose of misleading her, she fell to, all unconscious of
what she was eating, and devoured the carcase of her own child.
Now it had happened that her last child was born just about the
same time as the black-bear-mother gave birth to her third son,
and in order to distinguish hers from the black bear’s she had
made three incisions on the claws of her son’s fore-paws.! She
had nearly eaten the whole body when the little talker-bird [not
identified] alighted on the roof of the house and began to whistle
and talk. Said he: “Oh, you shocking, unnatural mother ! why
are you eating the body of your own child? How can you be so
wicked?” “Be off with your babble!” answered the bear, with
her mouth full of meat. ‘‘ What do you know about the maiter ἢ
You talk too much.” But the bird whistled and chattered on, and
continued to upbraid her for eating her own child. ‘‘It is not
my child,” said the grizzly. ‘There are my three children in bed
yonder.” ‘Are you sure?” replied the bird; “look at the claws
in your hand.” The grizzly did so, and perceived in a moment
the three familiar marks which she had made on her youngest
son’s nails. Springing up, she rushed to the bed, and, snatching
off the blanket, discovered that what she had taken for the forms
of her children were only three rotten logs. Raging with fury,
she rushed about in search of the other children, realising that
she had been outwitted by the son of the murdered black bear.
Presently discovering their trail, she hastened after them, vowing
vengeance as she went.

In the meantime, the three boys had been making the best of

' Tt is difficult to gather whether the children of the woodpecker by his
bear-wives had human or animal forms at this time. Sometimes the recital
seems to imply the former, at another time the latter, ashere. After the flight
there is no doubt that the black bear’s sons had human forms,

200 “ Sgaktkiquaclt,’ or the Benign-Faced.

their way through the forest. Presently the youngest! said to his
brothers : ‘The old grizzly will be after us, and must soon over-
take us. Now, if you will do as I tell you, all will be well. I
want you to be quick and find me some wasps, some ants, and
some dry wood-dust.” His brothers did as he requested, and had
barely accomplished their task when the old grizzly was seen rush-
ing after them. They both became much alarmed, and thought
their last hour was come ; but their little brother told them they
must all climb a tree, and take the wasps and the ants and the
wood-dust with them. This they quickly did, managing to get
among the branches just as their enemy reached the foot of the
tree. Being unable to climb, she had resort to cunning. Dis-
sembling, she began to mildly scold them, telling them their
father had sent her after them to bring them home; that they
were naughty boys, and that if they didn’t come back with her their
father would beat her with a big stick and be very angry. The
little one whispered to his eldest brother, bidding him tell her to
open her eyes and her mouth and her ears as wide as she could,
and look upwards. ‘Thinking it best to humour them, she com-
plied. ‘‘ Now sit down and open your arms wide, and I will drop
my brothers down to you,” said the eldest again at his little
brother’s suggestion. Again the grizzly complied ; and as she sat
thus, with her breast and face all exposed, expecting to receive
the brothers as they fell, she received the wasps and ants and
dust instead; and what with the stinging of the wasps, and the
biting of the ants, and the dust in her eyes and ears and mouth,
she was fain to leave the boys and attend to herself. While she
was rolling and scratching and tearing herself, in her agony and
pain, the boys slipped down from the tree and made off as quickly
as they could. It was a long time before the wretched grizzly was
able to see again, for, in addition to the dust which had filled her
eyes, the wasps had stung her so badly about the face that her
swollen cheeks and eyelids quite obstructed her sight. But as
soon as she was able to see her way again, she started in pursuit
once more, vowing a terrible revenge when she should catch them.
As the boys were hurrying along, they came to the dwelling of an
old man who went by the name of ‘‘Ground-hog.” He was sitting

' From this time onwards the youngest, who seems to have been suddenly

endowed with supernormal ‘‘ power,” occupies the foremost place in the recital,
the elder brother becoming a very subordinate personage.

“ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-Faced. 201

in his doorway as they passed, and having knowledge of their dis-
tress he accosted them kindly. ‘“Flullo, children !” said he, “keep
your spirits up, I’ll help you, and hinder the old grizzly when she
comes by. You run on to the river, and my brother the ferryman
there will put you over the river before the grizzly can overtake
you. I have sent word to him by the talking bird that you are
coming, and will want to cross in a hurry.” The boys thanked
the old man and ran on towards the river. By this time, however,
the angry grizzly was after them again, and they had not gone far
beyond Ground-hog’s when she arrived at his house. As she
was dashing past, the little old man popped his head out of his
door, which was fashioned by two large stones, after the manner
of a spring trap, which he could open and shut from within, and
called out to the grizzly to stop a moment. She made to rush
past him; but he laughed so exasperatingly at her woeful plight,
and mocked and abused her so roundly, that he at length pro-
voked her to turn aside for the purpose of punishing him. The
little man waited till she was quite close, scoffing at her the
while ; and when she sought to seize him he suddenly popped
down his hole, pulling his door close after him with a sudden
click that nearly took the old grizzly’s nose off. Seeing that he
was safe from her reach, she started off again after the boys, but
had not gone a dozen yards when Ground-hog opened his door
and popped his head out again, and jeered and taunted and
mocked her worse than before. ‘Though loth to delay, so biting
and exasperating were the words he flung at her, that she half-
turned to make for him once more. ‘‘Come on, come on, you
old cannibal, you murderess and child-eater, come on! I’m not
afraid of you, and I’ll tell you what I think of you!” There was
no enduring such language as this from a ground-hog; so she
turned aside again and rushed at the little old fellow, who waited
till she was nearly upon him, and then, with a scoffing laugh, scuttled
down his hole, closing his door as before. This delay, which
good-natured Ground-hog had caused the grizzly, enabled the boys
to get to the river, jump into the waiting boat, and be ferried over
before their enemy got to the bank. As the boys jumped out of
the boat, the ferryman, who was known by the same name as his
brother, told them not to trouble themselves about the grizzly
any more, she would never trouble them again ; that he was going
to punish and make an end of her for her great wickedness. The

202 “ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Bentgn-Faced.

three boys went on their way much relieved, wondering how the
little ferryman was going to outwit and punish the great grizzly-
woman. Earlier in the day, before the boys arrived, on learning
from the talking-bird what a wicked woman the grizzly was, and
that she was pursuing the boys and would desire to cross the river
in his boat, he went to his food-cellar, and taking all his store of
food, he carried it to the river’s bank. Calling all the fish in the
river to him, he threw them the food, promising to give them a
daily supply ever after, if they would help him that day. They
consented to do so, and asked what he wished them to do. He
told them that later in the day he would have to ferry the grizzly-
woman across, and that he would make her sit in a hole, which
he would make for the purpose in the bottom of his canoe, and
that as she sat there they were to all come and bite a piece out of her,
the little trout first, and then the bigger ones, and then the salmon
trout, and then the salmon themselves, and last of all the big
sturgeon. They readily promised to do as he wished, the more
so as the grizzly’s carcase was to be theirs afterwards. The boys
had barely landed when the grizzly appeared on the opposite
bank, and shouted for the ferryman to come and put her over.
He was busily engaged in making the hole in his boat’s bottom,
and cried out that he could not come over for a little while as he
had to mend a hole in his boat that one of the boys he had just
landed had made as he was jumping out of it. “Oh! never
mind the hole,” shouted the impatient grizzly ; “1 am in a great
hurry to cross, I cannot wait.” ‘But I could never bring you
over with my boat in this condition,” answered Ground-hog,
as he knocked the last piece out of the hole; “1 must really
mend it first.” “1 cannot be delayed in this manner,” called out
the grizzly ; “my business will not admit of delay. Come across
at once; I will risk the passage.” ‘The Ground-hog, having made
the hole, no longer had any reason for delay ; so after making the
grizzly promise to do exactly what he told her, he sat in the
far end of his canoe so that the fore part which had the hole in
it rose completely out of the water, and enabled him to cross
without letting the water in. When he reached the other side
he pointed out the big hole in the bottom to the grizzly, telling
her that it was very risky to attempt the passage with the boat in
such a condition, and that the only possible way to cross would
be for her to sit down in the hole, and thus prevent the water

“ Sgaktktquactt,” or the Benitgn-Faced. 203

from entering. ‘This the grizzly consented to do, and straight-
way sat herself down on the hole, telling Ground-hog to hurry
“ Now, don’t move on any account,” said he, as he pushed off,
“or we shall both be drowned.” ‘The boat had not gone far
when the little trout began snapping at that portion of the grizzly’s
body which protruded through the hole. At the first snap the
grizzly gave a start, and half rose from her place, so that the water
rushed in. ‘Sit down, and don’t move again, I beseech you,”
cried Ground-hog, “you'll drown us both if you are not more
careful. Is a flea-bite enough to make you risk our lives?” The
grizzly had scarcely settled herself in the hole a second time, when
the bigger trout made a dash at her, biting big pieces out of her.
She cried out and moved again; but seeing the water rush in,
and urged by the remonstrance of the ferryman, who pretended
to be greatly alarmed for their safety, she was fain to stop the hole
with her body once more. The salmon-trout now attacked her,
and again the pain made her rise from the hole, only to drop back
into it a moment later ; for the boat was now more than half full
of water, and she believed that they would surely go down, as the
gound-hog vehemently pointed out, if she suffered any more water
to enter the boat. And thus the wretched grizzly was torn and
bitten first by one fish and then by another, rising out of the hole
after each bite, and declaring she could stand it no longer, only
to drop back again a moment later, as the rising water urged her
to stop the leak for her own safety’s sake, until the great sturgeon
rushing at her tore her entrails out and she dropped dead in the
boat. Thus did she miserably perish and suffer for her misdeeds.

The boys had waited in hiding on their side of the river; and
when they saw the grizzly’s end, they thanked Ground-hog for his
help and continued their journey with easy minds. When they
had gone on their way some little distance further, they began to
feel very hungry, having eaten nothing since they left home.
Moreover, it was camping time; so a halt was proposed, and while
the two elder brothers sat wondering how they should procure
food for themselves, the younger one strolled off by himself. He had
not gone far when he observed a large elk before him. Straight-
way transforming himself into a little humming-bird, he flew at
the elk, and entering it by the fundament passed clean through
and came out of its mouth, thus causing it to fall dead where it
stood. Having done this, he assumed his boy’s form again and sat

204 “ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Bentgn-Faced.

on the antlers of the elk to await his brothers, who, having missed
him, now came to look for him, and were greatly surprised to find
him sitting on the antlers of a recently killed elk. When ques-
tioned, he pretended ignorance of its presence there; but the
second brother suspected that he knew more than he would tell,
and was in no way surprised at events which befel later. Next
day as they went on their way, they came to a large beaver pond.
Said the eldest brother, as he saw the beavers: “‘ How I would
like some beaver-tail for supper to-night; there is nothing so
delicious as beaver-tail.” The little one said nothing ; but pre-
sently, when the camp-ground had been chosen for the night, he
strolled off by himself along the edge of the lake, and stooping
down drank of the water till the lake was quite dry. He then
took a stick and killed all the beavers one after another as they
ran out of their holes, and piling them one on the top of the
other sat down upon the topmost and awaited his brothers’ pre-
sence. Seeing him seated on what appeared to them a tree stump
they called to him to come to camp; but as he took no notice of
them, they came to fetch him, and great indeed was their astonish-
ment to see that what they had taken for a tree stump was a pile
of freshly-killed beavers. ‘‘ Now, brother,” said he to the eldest,
“you will be able to have beaver-tail for supper.” The second
one was now quite sure in his mind that his little brother possessed
great ‘‘medicine,” or power, and recalled to the elder one’s memory
the mysterious way their supper of the night before had been pro-
vided for them, as he endeavoured to persuade him of the same.
But the elder brother laughed at the idea, and would not believe
in this suddenly-acquired power of his little brother. The little
one himself had offered no explanation of the beavers’ presence,
only requesting that his brothers should take out all the beavers’
eyes for him and thread them on a cord. ‘This they did, and he
bound the string of eyes round his head and lay down to sleep.
On the following morning the eldest brother arose early and waked
the other two, but the little fellow declared that he was not ready
to start yet. At this the eldest brother threatened to go on and
leave him behind. ‘All right,” replied the little one, “go on if
you want to; I shall not come yet.” The eldest brother did so,
taking with him the second brother, who was very reluctant to
leave his little brother, whom he had hitherto carried all the way
on his shoulders, thus behind. He tried to persuade the other

“ Sgaktktquaclt,’ or the Benign-Faced. 205

to wait, but he would not hear of it. After they had started, the
second brother kept looking back as they proceeded, hoping to see
his little brother coming after them; but he still slept by the fire
and made no effort to follow them. And now suddenly there
arose a great flood, and the waters spread rapidly over the land.
The two brothers made for some rising ground close by, the second
one looking anxiously back from time to time in the direction of
their late camp. “Our brother will surely be drowned. Let us
hasten back and wake him,” said he ; but as he spoke they both
saw from the higher ground that the waters were raging and roar-
ing along the path by which they had just come, and that a return
to the camp was now impossible. As they stood watching the
rising waters, they were surprised to see the smoke still ascending
from the camp fire and the outlines of their brother’s form lying
peacefully by its side. Wondering how this could be, as the camp
lay in the valley by the side of the lake, they perceived that a
strange and wonderful thing had happened. ‘They saw that the
water, instead of burying the fire and their brother several feet
beneath it, surrounded the spot like a circular wall standing straight
up over their brother’s sleeping form and the fire, and wetting
neither. As they watched the strange sight, they saw the waters
subside as suddenly as they arose and retire to the lake again.
Immediately following this, the little brother awoke, and seeing his
brother’s trail took it and soon caught them up. From that time
onward, the “medicine” of the youngest brother was acknowledged
and reverenced by the other two, who ever afterwards did what he
bade them and regarded him as their leader.

From this place they travelled on, till they came to a small
village, where there lived only one man and his wife. As they
neared the place, they observed the man sitting on the roof of his
keekwilee house,! crying and lamenting as he sharpened a knife
which he held in his hand. ‘Why do you cry so bitterly, old
man, and why are you sharpening that knife?” asked the youngest.
The man made no reply, only wept and sobbed the more. The
boy repeated his question, and then the old man answered: “I

Ὁ « Keekwilee ” is the Jargon term for the native winter, semi-subterranean
dwellings of the interior tribes, full descriptions of which will be found in the
6th Report of Dr. Boas on the North-western Tribes of Canada (7vans. British
Association, 1890), or in Votes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia,
by Dr. G. M. Dawson, referred to above (p. 195).

206 6“ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Bentgn-Faced.

am crying because I am so miserable and wretched. Once again
a child is about to be born to me at the cost of its mother’s life.
When my first wife—for I have had many—was about to be delivered,
she was unable to bring the child to the birth; and I was forced to
deliver her at the cost of her life with this knife I am sharpening.
The child was a girl whom, when she had grown to womanhood,
I took to wife ; and when she bore her first child I had to do the
same for her as I had done for her mother. And thus it has been
ever since with all my wives ; for as soon as my daughters were
old enough they became my wives, and thus it is at this present
time with my present wife, and I was just preparing myself to do
for her as I have had to do for all the others; and my heart
aches, and I am sorrowful at the thought of the task before me.”
*“VYour case is indeed a sad one,” observed the lad; “and I am
sorry for you. But don’t grieve any more, I will help you, and
your wife shall not die this time. ‘Tell me, have you any strong
cherry-bark-string in the house?” The old man replied that he
had, and gave the lad a piece. The boy immediately entered the
house and found the woman in the throes of child-birth. Taking
the cherry-bark-string, he threw one end of it between the woman’s
legs. The string became attached to the child, and he pulled
upon the other end. It held for a moment, then broke in his
hand before the babe was born. This failure seemed to distress
him ; and the old man, who had followed him into the house,
seeing his ill-success, burst out crying again. ‘Don’t cry, old
man,” said the lad, “‘all will be well; only get me a stronger cord.
Give me some neck-sinew, if you can find any.” The old man
brought the lad what he asked for; and he spent a little time in
first moistening and stretching and working it, till he got it into
the condition he wanted. When it was ready for use, he did with
it as he had done with the cherry-bark-string, only this time it
bore the strain and did not break; and by its help a moment
later the child was born. This time it wasa male child. The
lad then told the old man that his wife would bear him many
more children, and that never again would he need to use his
knife. Leaving the old man and his wife rejoicing, the lads went
on their way, and after travelling a long way came at length toa
house where lived a man called Cayote,! who said he was a great
medicine-man and could do great things. “‘ What can you do?”

' Name of a wild half-doglike, half-foxlike animal of North America,

“ Sgaktktquaclt,’ or the Benign-Faced. 207

said the youngest lad, who knew him to be an idle boaster. “Oh,
I am a very great man,” said Cayote ; ‘“‘and I eat nothing but the
bodies of men. I have just finished eating a man.” ‘If that is
so,” answered the lad, “you can easily prove it by disgorging your
dinner.” ‘Oh! that is quite easy,” said Cayote. “Shut your
eyes, and I will vomit you up a piece of a man.” “But if I shut
my eyes, I cannot see you do it,” said the boy. ‘If you are such
a great man, surely it will make no difference whether I shut my
eyes or not.” “Oh, well! I must shut mine if you don’t; now,
look, I am going to show you,” and with that he began to work
his stomach violently up and down in his efforts. After a great
deal of exertion and fuss, he brought up a little saliva. ‘‘ Where
is your man’s flesh?” scornfully asked the boy, as he pointed
to the saliva on the ground. Cayote having opened his eyes,
was a little abashed at the results of his efforts, but still keeping
up the character of a man-eater, replied that he could do
nothing because the other kept his eyes open. ‘‘ Very well,’
said the boy, “I will shut my eyes now, and you try again.”
Cayote consented, and tried once more. Thinking he wanted to
trick him, the boy kept the corner of his eye open as the man
tried again to produce his dinner of man-flesh. After many
violent efforts and contortions, all he was able to disgorge was a
little frothy swamp-grass. At the sight of this, the boy called to
him to desist from his efforts, saying that he knew him to be only
an empty boaster. He then transformed him into the animal
which now bears his name, taking his human nature from him as
a punishment for his deception and boasting.

Passing on from there, they at length came to the Thompson
River, where two old witch-women were spearing salmon. They
had made a strong wicker dam across the stream, which, being
too high for the salmon to leap, prevented the fish from ascend-
ing the river; the consequence of which was that all who lived
above got no salmon. The boys stopped awhile to watch the
‘women at work, and after observing their tactics, the youngest,
who by this time was known by his name of Sgak¢kiquaclt or
Benign-face, asked the women why they kept all the salmon from

going up the river beyond them. ‘ We do not care about the
people up the river, we want the salmon for ourselves,” said
they. ‘ We have ‘ medicine’ here which enables us to keep off

all who would interfere with us.” ‘‘ What sort of ‘medicine’ have

208 “ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-Faced.

you ?” asked the second lad. ‘‘ This,” replied the woman, point-
ing to five boxes which they had with them. ‘These contain great
‘medicine.’ In these are wasps and flies and mosquitos, and
wind and smoke. We have only to open these boxes to drive
off anybody,” and as they spoke one of the two opened the wasp
box a little, into which Clatkeq, or Funny-boy, the second youth,
was peering, and a wasp came out and stung him on the face.
“You will let us have a salmon for supper, won’t you?” now
asked Benign-face. But the witches answered him angrily, and
bade them be off. Benign-face took no notice of this, but told
his elder brother to take a spear and catch a salmon below the
weir or dam. While the brother was doing this, Benign-face took
a piece of wood and made a dish from it for the salmon, which
they placed upon it when cooked. They ate every morsel of the
fish. Then Benign-face took the dish and, transferring some of
his own mystic power into it, threw it into the middle of the
stream above the barrier which the witches had erected. Imme-
diately the waters began to boil and rage, and the dish was carried
down against the barrier, which it struck with such force that it
broke a large hole in the middle of it, and the salmon at once
began to pass through. The witches now tried to mend the gap
and keep the salmon back ; but while they were thus employed
Funny-boy opened the boxes and let out all their contents. Seeing
this, the two women left the dam and tried to imprison their
“medicine” again. But it was too late; for the smoke and the
wind and the wasps and the flies and the mosquitos were scat-
tered all over the country, and the escaped wind had agitated the
river so much that it swept away the remainder of the witches’
barrier, and thus they lost both “‘medicine” and dam. But before
they had time to do more than realise that they had been out-
witted, Benign-face transformed them into two rocks. The scene
of these events was at a spot a few miles above Spence’s Bridge ;
but the two rocks have since been so badly cut away by the action
of the water that little if any of them is now to be seen there.
Going on from here, they came some time after to a solitary keek-
wilee-house, and finding no one to ask them in, they entered and
made themselves at home. The remains of a small fire burned in
the fire-hole, round which, as the weather was cold, they sat and
tried to warm themselves. ‘I wish there were some wood in the
place,” said Funny-boy presently, as he looked round for some

“ Sgaktkiqguaclt,’ or the Benign-Faced. 209

and found none. ‘I wonder who lives here and where they are.
That’s a fine blanket,” he added, as his eye fell upon the bed ;
“T should like a blanket like that.” And he moved over to
admire it. As he held the blanket up a piece of wood fell from
it. It was just an ordinary piece of wood with a hole in it. “I
wonder what this is doing in the bed?” he said, as he picked
it up. “It can’t be of any great value, I’ll throw it on the fire ; it
will keep us warm for a little while.” And as he spoke, he threw
the piece of wood on the fire. His brother Benign-face chid him
for so doing, saying it might have been valued by the people of
the house for some reason or other. The wood, being dry, soon
burnt itself out, leaving an outline of its original form in the
embers. The sound of a man’s voice was now heard at the
smoke-hole. He seemed to be talking to some one within. “Take
care, little wife,” he said. ‘‘Get back from below there, I am
going to throw the fire-wood down ;” and a moment later down
clattered a pile of fire-wood, which he immediately followed.
The boys hid themselves when they saw the man descending.
When he got down he called out: “Little wife, where are you
hiding? Ah, you want to have a game with me.” He threw
himself, as he spoke, upon the bed, and began feeling for something
under the blanket. Not finding what he sought, he went on: “Oh,
you are funny to-day! Now where can you be hiding?” and he
felt all over and under the blanket. “1 wonder where she is,”
said he, as he shook the blanket out and found nothing in it.
“She must be hiding from me somewhere, and I shall find her
presently.” And with that he went to put some wood on the
fire. As he did so his eye fell upon the charred outlines of the
piece of wood which Funny-boy had thrown on to the fire, and
whose familiar form in the ashes he recognised at a glance. He
no sooner saw it than he cried out in great distress, and seemed
overcome with grief. “Ὁ dear wife, you are burned to ashes!
How could you have fallen into the fire? Oh! what shall I do
for a wife now?” And he sobbed aloud in his grief. The boys
at once perceived that the piece of wood that they had burned
was the man’s wife. ““ Didn’t I tell you,” whispered Benign-face
to his brother, “ not to burn that piece of wood? Now see what
distress you have caused this poor man. I must go and comfort
him.” With that he came out from his hiding place and addressed
the man. Said he: “ Was that block of wood really your wife ?
VOL. X. Ρ

210 “ Sgaktktquaclt,’ or the Benign-faced.

You must not cry any more over such a wife as that. You can
get a better wife than a block of wood surely. Why don’t you
take a woman for your wife?” The man stared in amazement at
him for a moment, then replied that he knew of no women, had
indeed never seen any people in that part of the country. The
block of wood was all the wife he had ever had, and now she was
burned, and he was all alone ; and he began to cry again. ‘“‘Stop
crying,” said the boy, ‘‘and I will find a wife for you. Have you
a stone chisel in the house?” ‘ Yes,” replied the man. ‘‘ Give
it to me,” said the boy. “ΝΟΥ͂ stay here with my brothers till I
return, and I will bring you a better wife than your block of wood.”
Saying which he climbed the notched pole and passed out through
the smoke-hole. When he got outside, he went to the forest and
cut down a cotton-wood tree. From this he cut and peeled a log
about six feet long, and stepping over it three times said aloud :
“One, two, three. Log, get up and be a woman!” And the
piece of cotton-wood stood upright and became a beautiful white
woman with white hair and face and body, white as the wood of the
cotton-wood tree. Then he cut down an alder-wood tree and did
the same as before, and the log of alder-wood became a beautiful
red woman with red hair and face and body, red as the wood of the
alder-tree when the bark has been stripped from it a little while.
Taking these two women with him he returned to the keekwilee-
house, and bidding them wait outside till they were called, he
climbed down through the smoke-hole again. Returning the
man’s chisel, he said: ‘‘Now I have brought you two proper
wives. It is wrong for a man to make a wife of a piece of wood ;
you must not do so any more.” With that he called out to the two
women to descend. When they were come down, he took the
white woman’s hand and put it in the hand of the man and said
to the one: “This is your husband,” and to the other: ‘This is
your wife.” He then did the same with the red woman ; and with
a parting admonition to the man, he and his brothers climbed
through the smoke-hole and left him and his newly-acquired wives
to themselves.

Some time after this, as he travelled through the country with
his brothers, Benign-face heard of a very powerful one-legged
wizard who speared men’s shadows as they passed, thus killing
and afterwards eating them. ‘Come brothers,” said Benign-face,
“1 will try my powers against this wicked cannibal. I think I can

“ Sgaktkiquactt,” or the Benign-faced. 211

outwit him, and put an end to his evil practices.” After they had
travelled some days they came to the place where the cannibal
waylaid and pierced the shadows of his victims. It was his custom
to stand in the river at a certain place where the road ran close to
the water, with a little magic copper-headed spear in his hand, as if
he were spearing fish; and when the shadow of the passer-by fell on
the water, he would thrust his spear through it, and the person
above would immediately fall down dead. He would then take
the body home to his wife, who would skin and cook it, and they
would afterwards feast together upon it. Thus had they been
living for many years, when Benign-face heard of them, and
determined to put a stop to their wickedness. Bidding his
brothers stay on the top of the hill overlooking the river and
await his return, he took a knife and made his way down to the
river, a little above where the cannibal-wizard waited for his
victims to pass. When he reached the river, he changed himself
into a beautifully-marked little trout, and, carrying the knife in his
mouth, swam down the stream to where the wizard stood on his
one leg in the water. When he came opposite him, he began
jumping and frisking about in the water just under his nose. He
soon caught the wizard’s attention, and induced him, by his
beautiful colours and by his movements, to take an interest in
him, and presently to spear him. ‘This was the last thing the
wizard should have done, for he might not use his magic spear
for aught but piercing men’s shadows if he would preserve its
“medicine” intact. As soon as the spear struck Benign-face he
quickly cut the cord that held the spear-head to the shaft, which
latter the wizard still retained in his hand by a thong. When the
wizard perceived that the magic point was gone, he was greatly
agitated, and sought for stones and sticks with which to kill the
fish and get back his precious spear-point again. But the more
violent his exertions, the muddier the water got, and the less his
chance of striking Benign-face, who, taking advantage of the muddy
state of the water, hastened back up-stream again to his starting-
place. Benign-face now resumed his own form, and, plucking
the magic spear-point from his body, threw it far out into the river,
so that it might never be found and put to evil purposes again.
He then rejoined his brothers and told them what he had done,
and that they must now go and visit the wizard’s house and com-
plete the punishment he had in store for him. When they came
P2

212 ‘‘ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Bentgn-Faced.

to the bank above the spot where the wizard had lost and was still
hunting for his spear-point, Benign-face put his foot on the edge of
the bank and sent a mass of gravel and mud down into the river,
to force the wizard to give over his search and go home. The
latter just leapt up on the opposite bank on his one leg, and pre-
sently returned to his search again. Benign-face then caused
another large portion of the bank to slide down into the river.
This so frightened the wizard this time that he gave over the search
and ran home as fast as he could.!_ The boys presently came to
the cannibal’s keekwilee-house, and, seeing the smoke ascending
from the smoke-hole, judged that he was at home, and descended.
They found the wizard’s wife at work upon a human skin; but the
wizard himself was lying on his bed with his blanket drawn over
his face, which he did not remove as the boys entered. ‘They sat
down round the fire; and presently, as had been agreed upon
beforehand, Funny-boy began to talk about the good dinner they
had had off a trout they had found in the river that morning.
The wizard still kept his head under the blanket, taking no notice
of anybody or anything; but when the other brother chimed in
and said: “Yes, it was a beautiful fish to look at, but still more
beautiful to taste ; and the man that speared it and lost that fine
copper spear-head must have been very vexed at his ill luck, I
should think.” The wizard threw the blanket off his head, and
said : “What is that I heard you remark about a fish with a copper
spear-head in it?” Benign-face now joined in the conversation,
and told the wizard that they had found a fine trout that morning
floating down the river with a copper spear-head init. ‘“ That
was my fish and my spear-head,” said the wizard ; “I was out
spearing this morning and lost it. I set great value on that spear-
head, and want it back again.” “ But,” replied Benign-face, ‘how
could this spear belong to you? You do not spear fish, I think.
These are not fish bones or fish heads I see around your house ;
nor is that a fish skin your wife is now at work upon. Tell us
now truly, what do you use your copper spear for?” ‘The old
wizard, thinking he would get the spear-point back the sooner,
told them the true use he put it to, which no sooner had Benign-
face heard than he answered: “I knew it all before, and it was I

' There is a mud-slide on the river, about five or six miles below Spence’s
Bridge, which the old Indians point out as that caused by Sgak¢kiquaclt on
this occasion.

“ Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-Faced. 213

who carried off your spear-point this morning. I was the fish that
enticed you to spear it ; but now that you have convicted yourself,
I will see that you spear and devour no more people.” And
speaking thus, he took the wizard by the hair on the top of his
head and shook him, transforming him at the same time into a
blue jay. And because he held the wizard by the hair on the top
of his head as he shook him, all blue jays have now in conse-
quence a top-knot or bunch of feathers standing out from their
heads. The cannibal’s wife he changed into a mountain-grouse,
and thus were both punished for their evil deeds.

From this place the brothers went to the Nicola valley, where
they heard there dwelt a quarrelsome tribe of people, who were
always at war with their neighbours and never gave them any
peace. As Benign-face drew near the valley, the people heard of his
approach, and fearing that he would work them harm, they one
and all left their homes and fled up the mountain side. But they
could not escape their punishment thus. When Benign-face saw
them running up the mountain side, he straightway turned them
all into little rocks, which may be seen from the waggon-road as
one passes to-day. Leaving the Nicola, they travelled back
towards the Thompson again, and on their way they came to the
land of a very strong and powerful people. This tribe was very
rich and possessed the best of everything; but they were fierce
and cruel, and made slaves of all the people round. When they
neared the outskirts of the village, Benign-face bade his brothers
cut a bundle of osiers and make a large basket and put him into
it, finishing the mouth of it about him in such a way that he
could not fall out. While they were doing this, he made some
white and red paint, and when he was presently placed in the
basket he took some of each kind in either hand. He now told
Funny-boy to put the basket on his shoulders and carry him
towards the village. As they thus proceeded a large eagle
swooped down and caught the basket containing Benign-face in
his talons. He had expected this, and told his brother to let go
and allow the eagle to carry him off. This eagle was not a mere
bird. It possessed the power of foreknowledge to some extent
It knew that Benign-face was coming to punish the people of the
village, to whom it was in some way related. Benign-face knew
also that this eagle was aware of his purpose and would attempt
to thwart him ; hence his instructions to his brothers and his

214 “ Sgaktktquaclt,’ or the Benrgn-Faced.

preparation of the paint, by the aid of which he hoped to outwit
the eagle. When Funny-boy felt the strain on the basket he let
go, as his brother desired, and the eagle bore Benign-face off in
it. When it had ascended a little way, it let the basket drop. It
repeated this manceuvre several times, intending thereby to kill
Benign-face. The latter, when the eagle had dropped him a time
or two, put the red paint in one side of his mouth and the white
in the other, and the saliva, mixing with and liquifying it, the
paint began to flow from the corners of his mouth. The eagle,
perceiving this, thought it to be his blood and brains oozing from
his mouth, and thinking that he was killed, straightway carried
him off to its nest on the mountain to its two young ones.
Leaving him thus in the nest, it flew away again. As soon as it
was out of sight, Benign-face cut two holes in the basket for his
arms, and putting his hands through, he seized an eaglet by the
legs in each, and forced them to fly off with him to where his two
brothers were awaiting him. Still holding the birds by their iegs,
he bade his brothers cut the basket from him ; and when he was
free, he shook the two eaglets so hard that all their bones fell out,
leaving the empty skins in his hands. These he made his brothers
put on, telling them they would be quite safe in them. He himself
then assumed the form of a dog, only where the tail should have
been, he stuck a long and sharp double-bladed jade knife ; and in
the place of the ears he stuck two similar but smaller knives ;
and where the dog’s fore-claws would be, he stuck other still
smaller ones. Being thus prepared for the encounters he knew
awaited him, he boldly entered the village. Now the animals of
this country were different from those elsewhere ; they all partook
of the nature of dogs, and were employed as such by the people.
There were bear-dogs, grizzly-dogs, wolf-dogs, rattlesnake-dogs,
and all other kinds of dogs. As soon as Benign-face in his dog
form was perceived, some one cried out: ‘ Here’s a strange dog,
let us have a dog-fight.” One of the smaller dogs was turned
loose and set on to worry the stranger. But Benign-face ran at
it, and ripped it up with his sharp stone ears in a trice. Then
another, and another, sprang at him; but he served them all in
the same way, and presently there was only the rattlesnake-dog
left. ‘This he had to fight in a different manner. Instead of
rushing at it, as he had at all the others, he began dancing round
it and pawing the ground, as ifin play. These antics put the rattle-

“ Sgakthktquaclt,” or the Benign-Faced. 215

snake-dog off his guard; and he did not attempt to strike the
intruder at the first approach, but waited for him to come nearer.
This was what Benign-face wanted, and, stretching out his fore-
paws as if in play, he seized his opportunity, and cut the rattle-
snake in pieces with his stone claws. When the people saw that
the intruder had killed all their dogs, they hastened to fetch their
weapons to kill him. But Benign-face rushed at them, and slashed
and cut them with his sharp two-bladed tail so swiftly that in a
short time not a man, woman, or child of them remained alive.
He now resumed his own form, and restored all the animals to
life again, but took from them their dog-nature, giving them the
natures proper to their kind, and bade them go. live in the
woods. He next restored the people to life, but, after he had
reproached them for their wickedness, transformed them all into
ants. The two brothers now joined him, having thrown aside
their eaglet-skins; and from this place they travelled down to
Harrison Lake. Here they heard of a man who caused wind-
storms to arise at his wish, so that those who were on the lake
were never sure of getting back safe again. He did this to upset
their boats, in order that his cannibal brother, Seal-man, might
have their bodies for his dinner. Seeking this man out, Benign-
face said to him: ‘‘I am told you are a very great man, and have
‘medicine’ to make the wind rise when you wish to. Is the
report true?” The shaman, not knowing who his questioner was,
and proud of his powers, declared it was quite true. When asked
what use he put his powers to, he boldly confessed that he used
them to upset and drown people on the lake, that his brother
might have their bodies. This made Benign-face very angry, and,
calling Seal-man to him, he deprived him of his arms and legs,
giving him flippers in their stead, and contmanded him to eat no
more human flesh, but to feed thereafter on fish. Thus it is that
the seal has flippers, and feeds on fish. But the shaman he
punished by transforming him into a smooth-faced rock, whereon
men might paint; which rock may be seen on the shore of the
lake, according to Mischelle, with its painted figures upon it, to
this day.

Ascending the Fraser once more, they came to the region of the
Lillooet. On Bridge River Benign-face found the people very poor
and miserable. They did not know how to catch the salmon
which passed up the river. So Benign-face stretched his leg

216 “ Sgaktktquaclt,’ or the Benign-Faced.

across the river here, and the rocks rose up and became a fall, at
the foot of which the salmon now congregated in great numbers.
He then taught the people to make and use three different types
of salmon spear, which they use to this day in that region. The
name of this fall in the native tongue is /Vegoz’stem.

At this point in the recital Mischelle’s memory gave out. He could
only remember beyond this that the hero and his brothers parted
later, and that Benign-face travelled all over the world, and that in
one place, which the Indians now think must have been the white
man’s country, he taught the people how to make and use the
plough and the waggon. He transformed himself into these two
latter objects, that they might have a pattern to work by. For the
waggon he made wheels by turning his arms and legs into circles,
with his body between them, thus assuming the form of a waggon.
He also taught them to make and use gunpowder; only this
powder made no noise nor any smoke in going off. The gun was
formed out of the stalk of the sugar-corn. It was not aimed at
the object, as we aim the gun, but thrust out towards it, though it
never left the hand.

This story is the longest in my collection. I have not attempted
to curtail it, but have given it in all its detail as Mischelle gave it
to me.! Others will be found in the Report of the Committee for
the Ethnological Survey of Canada, together with other data
appertaining to the work of that Committee (Zrans. British
Association, 1898).

Cuas. Ηππ Τοῦτ.

Buckland College,

Vancouver, B.C.

) A variant version, much less full but useful for comparison, has been
given by Dr. Boas in his Jzdtantsche Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Kiiste
Amerikas, p. 16.—ED.

REVIEWS.

THE CUCHULLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE, BEING A COLLEC-
TION OF STORIES RELATING TO THE HERO CUCHULLIN.
Translated from the Irish by various Scholars, Compiled and
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by ELEANOR HULL.
8vo. London: D. Nutt. 1899. (Grimm Library.)

Miss Hutt has been well advised in giving the reading public a
collection of the chief stories about the greatest of the Red
Branch heroes, together with an analysis of the Tain bé Cuailgne.
Many scholars have lent her their aid. Dr. Stokes has contributed
the Death of the Sons of Usnach, the Siege of Howth, the Death
of Cuchullin; Mr. 5. H. O’Grady, the Epitome of the Téin and the
Defeat of the Plain of Muirthemne ; Dr. Windisch, Cuchullin and
the Morrigu and the Debzlity of the Men of Ulster ; Dr. Κα. Meyer
has helped with the Airth of Conachar, the Wooing of Emer,
and the Zraining of Cuchullin by Scathach,; from Eugene O’Curry
come the Death of Conachar, the Institution of a Prince, How
Conachar became King. O’ Beirne Crowe’s version of the Phantom
Car of Cuchullin is the last piece in the book, and M. Louis
. Duvau’s French version of the Beginnings of Cuchullin among the
first. There are some good and useful tables in the appendix
(which represent a great deal of work, and will be, no doubt, found
useful both to students and general readers), besides an index, a
map of early Ireland, and an introduction.

It is a handy book of reference for the important mass of legend
that has crystallized about Cuchullin’s name ; and one would now
hope that Miss Hull may see her way to co-operate with some
Irish scholar and bring out the English of the whole of the Tain.
Surely it is not creditable that there should be English ver-
sions of Kalevala, of the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, of
the Epic of Pentaur the Egyptian, and the legends of Ishtar’s
Wanderings by some nameless Assyrian composer, but no com-
plete version in English of the great prose epic of Ireland. A
brief note on the Welsh mentions of Cuchullin and a translation

218 Reviews.

of the poem of Zhe Heads and of other parts of the Vengeance for
Cuchullin merit inclusion in such a book. But these are counsels
of perféction in view of a second edition. In the meantime one
is glad to have so much about Cuchullin in so comely and cheap
a form.

Miss Hull touches on the interpretation of the legend in her
introduction, and she leans frankly to the “solar theory.” For her
Cuchullin is the sun fighting mists and darkness, suffering eclipse ;
the Bulls are compared to the dawn-cows and storm-cows of
Indian fancy ; Meave’s army stands for the “forces of darkness
and destruction” coming from the West, the land of Death during
the winter; the debility of the Ulstermen is the ‘ decay and sleep
of nature during the winter season,” &c.; the Hound of Ulster
fighting the “three gloomy, black, and ever-grumbling crazy
things” is a description of “the sun’s efforts to dispel a heavy
vapour,” and Béowulf fighting the “dragon of the Marsh-lands ”
is its Anglo-Saxon parallel. This does not appear conclusive.
For instance, Béowulf does not fight the dragon of the marsh-
lands, but a dragon of a hot spring on a high cliff by the sea;
there are sea-meres, demons, fires, walruses, and the like in the
Lay of Béowulf, but no marshes. ‘There may have gathered
about Cuchullin some of the poetry that may once have been the
rightful appanage of a sun-god, but it does not seem safe to
suggest more. To me Queen Mab certainly looks like a real
person looming gigantic through the mist of tradition, an “ Irish
Boadicea,” and here Miss Hull would be inclined to agree, though
she would not allow Conchobar to be as real as Agamemnon, or
Cuchullin as Roland.

Wholly incredible to me is such a statement as that on p. 1.
“ Cuchullin and Emer, like Sigurd and Brynhild, are the offspring
of poetic imagination.” The discrepancies of the annals and their
chronologic difficulties, and the variations of genealogies, are not
enough reason to discredit the existence of Ailell or Fergus Mac
Roich or even Cairpre niafer. The notable peculiarities of the Red
Branch cycle, the rule of and descent from women, the chariot-
fighting, the pagan customs, the whole epic colour, are not due to
imagination, but to memory and observations, and witness to the
early state of society and culture in which those traditions that
circle round Conchobar and Mab and the Hound of Culann and
the Dun Bull of Cuailgne first took shape. ‘That a cattle-raid

Reviews. 219

into Ulster should assume such heroic aspects in the telling is no
more remarkable than that a rear-guard attack on an army on a
high pass in the Pyrenees should come to represent the very
tragedy of the Crusading spirit—a phase in the eternal conflict
between good and evil.

But while it is difficult to concur with Miss Hull’s “‘solarity,” it is
easier to sympathise with her indignation at the attacks upon Old
Irish Literature in Dr. Atkinson’s preface to the Ve//ow Book of
Lecan. She is successful in her contention that what is left of
the old tales is probably but a small proportion of what originally
existed. And incontestably there is deep beauty, high dignity, and
pure pathos to be discovered in the tales of the Red Branch and
the poems of the Fenian cycle. But her idea that the old Irish tales
are particularly free from grossness, the natural grossness that
occurs in all folk-tales faithfully reported, is merely a mistake
derived from the fact that editors have carefully expunged and
translators glided over passages that were to their minds coarse
or incompatible with “nice” modern ideas. The value of the older
Trish tales is that they are faithfully recorded, and therefore they
are full of natural barbarities and exaggerations and extravagancies
of all kinds. ‘There is often an unpruned exuberance about them
that reminds one rather of the Hindoo epics than of the Ice-
landic Sagas, which is a reason why the term Saga is to my mind
incorrectly applied to Irish tales of the old type. It is useless to
compare or contrast the ethical standpoint of the Cuchullin
stories with the “poems of the Troubadours,” which belong to
a wholly different stage of civilisation, and are not particularly
“‘licentious” if it comes to that, though there are certain gross
and satirical pieces among them. Both are ona higher ethical
level than much Latin and Greek literature, according to the
usual standards.

There is no good gained by praising these Irish tales for quali-
ties they do not possess; they have many beauties of their own ;
they have also their own patent defects, formlessness, lack of
restraint, monstrous exaggeration, &c., but they not only always
vividly express the true spirit of their time, they stir the very soul
with pity and sympathy and pride, as they stirred the emotions of
their first hearers. The absurdities of the Xanthos episode vanish
as we read of Akhilleus’ vengeful grief, and when Odusseus springs
on the threshold with his mighty bow and from his full quiver

220 Reviews.

pours the shafts out before his feet, and takes up and nocks the
deadly arrow, we forget all about the petty romance of Phaiakia.
So the last scene of Cuchullin’s life, the tragedy of Deirdre in our
cycle, the death of Oscar, the betrayal of Diarmaid in the Fenian
lays, and many more, utterly rebut the reproach of lack of beauty
and loftiness levelled against the old Irish literature.

Miss Hull’s Chart of the Conachar-Cuchullin Cycle is very help-
ful, as is also her table illustrating the Gathering of the Men of
Ulster. These old catalogues of warrior contingents, such as the
famous Ship Catalogue of the Z/ad, the mustering of the Scandi-
navian heroes that fought at Bravalla, the list of the guards of
King David and Olaf Tryggwason, the description of the chiefs in
Laxdeela (which are supposed to be based on a Celtic model), are
not only excellent examples of true epic style, but also wonderful
epitomes of history and geography, and their preservation (owing
to the technical skill with which they were put together) is always
a thing to be grateful for.

It may be worth while to notice a few easily corrected misprints :
p. Ixiii. 26, for ‘‘ Lugh” read “ Laegh ” ; p. Ixxi. 8, for ‘‘ thunder ”
read “lightning,” and το, for “thunder” read “thunderbolt ; ἢ
p. liv. 12, for ‘“Spenser’s Faerie Queene” read “Shakespere’s
Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It would be better to print the
poem on p. 123 line for line in the verses according to metre. It
would be well, even at the cost of leaving out much else, to have
literal translations, however tentative, of all the poems in the Tain
bé Cuailgne.

Noteworthy are the ¢vzads that occur in the Tain, and com-
parable to those which, perhaps on Irish models, occur in early
Icelandic works. The Instruction of Cuchullin to his royal pupil
is not unlike the Counsels in the Eastern tale of the Tomb of
Nushirwan, but Counsels to Kings were a favourite form of ethical
exercise among Aryans, Semites, and Turanians also, and it is
but natural to find a specimen in Old Irish Literature. Note-
worthy also the omens, the saws, the proverbs, the gessas, the
dreams, the reasons given for the interpretation of certain place-
names, the late poem in the Phantom Car of Cuchullin that gives
the popular list of his feats, including great prowess in swimming
far beyond even Béowulf’s boasts. It is of course quite a mistake
to suppose that ‘“ Kennings” (a bad name for the Irish figurative
terms) were introduced from Scandinavia. It is far more likely

Reviews. 221

that their existence in Irish forwarded their increased employment
in the Icelandic Court poetry, though it is obvious that in poetry
like Old English and Icelandic, depending on alliteration, the
need for many synonyms will be felt, and therefore the employ-
ment of ‘‘ Kennings” must be looked for. For the authorities on
the Couwvade, the New English Dictionary should be consulted,

Sub Voce.
ΠΕΡ:

1.ΕῈ5 CHANTS ET LES CONTES DES BARONGA DE LA BAIE DE
Detacoa. Recueillis et transcrits par HENRI A. JuNoD.
Lausanne: Georges Bridel et Cie. 1897.

THIS is is a most attractive little book, and will go far to dispel a
prejudice current among many worthy people, and perhaps (who
knows ?) dating back to Mrs. Jellyby, that Africa is, if not a beast,
a bore. The very spirited and life-like design, on the cover, of a
Delagoa Bay e/a playing on his “mdz/a is about as far removed
as can be from ordinary conceptions of the African, while the
contents will serve fairly well to refute a strange assertion of Mr.
Bryce’s that the “‘ Kafirs” (he is speaking of South African natives
in general) have not even an elementary idea of poetry.

The Baronga are one of the tribes of the Thonga (or Amatonga)
nation, whose territory extends from St. Lucia Bay on the south
to the Sabi River on the north. Their neighbours on the south
are the Zulus, on the west the Swazis, the Bapedi (a Basuto tribe
in the Transvaal), and Babvecha, and on the north the Banjao,
who live between the Sabi and Zambesi. Their language and
customs show the Thonga tribes to be not very closely allied to
the Zulus, who (under the chiefs of Gungunyane’s house) made
themselves overlords of a great part of their country. Their
relationship with the Zambezi tribes—the Nyai, Njao, and
Mang’anja—is more obvious.

The first part of M. Junod’s book, though the shorter, is not
the least interesting. It deals with the songs of the Baronga, and
contains numerous valuable observations on native music and
musical instruments, as well as a great number of melodies tran-
scribed in staff notation. The words of these melodies are as

222 Reviews.

often as not improvised, though some are traditional ; there is no
metre in our sense of the word, though there is a certain rhythm
imposed by the music. M. Junod shows the common notion
that all native African music is in the minor key to be erroneous ;
but he points out that the plaintive effect which has given rise to
this impression is produced by the way in which the tunes almost
invariably begin on a high note and descend. Of course it would
be vain to look for what we understand by poetry in these rudi-
mentary chants, but that they contain its elements will be evident
on a cursory inspection. See especially the hunting-song on p. 55,
the Sade/a war-song on p. 62, and the lament for Nwamantibyane
on p. 65. ‘There is usually not much coherence in the words of
these ditties — perhaps as much as in some of the favourite
“chanties ” of our sailors—and of some, probably because they
have become archaic, it is exceedingly difficult to make sense at
all. But we must pass from this part of the subject to the stories
which take up the greater part of the book.

The author divides them into “ Animal Stories,” stories illus-
trative of what he calls ‘‘ La Sagesse des Petits,” what we may
call stories of the Cinderella type, ogre stories, moral tales, and
foreign or imported stories. Of these last, some are clearly of
Arab or Indian origin.

In the animal stories, as might be expected, it is the hare
(here : mpfundla) who plays the chief part. M. Junod has been
fortunate in obtaining two fairly connected cycles of his adven-
tures, which he has entitled ‘‘Le Roman du Lievre.” This story
contains the famous Tar-Baby episode, almost exactly as related
by Uncle Remus. Another prominent figure in the stories is the
little toad known to science as Lreviceps mosambicensis, to the
Baronga as chinana, and to the Yaos as kaswenene. ‘This crea-
ture (which is about three-quarters of an inch long, but possesses
the faculty of inflating itself till it is somewhat larger and almost
spherical in shape) has a whole épopée to itself, and in another
tale even gets the better of Brer Rabbit.

The story of the ‘‘ Hare and the Swallow” is not in itself a
very remarkable one, but worth noting in connection with the
diffusion of folk-tales. Camilla Chigwiyane, of Lourengo Mar-
ques, who dictated this story to M. Junod, told him that it was a
“Kua” tale—z.e. that it came from Mozambique, further north.
But it was also obtained by M. Jacottet (see Revue des Traditions

Reviews. 223

Populaires, July, 1895) from one Daniel Magudu, at Antioka,
in the Koseni country, in which the bat figures in place of the
swallow. The present reviewer, in 1894, obtained two versions
of the same story in Mang’anja—one from a boy whose home
was near the foot of the Murchison Cataracts, the other from two
children at a place about forty miles west of the Shire. Both
these versions are imperfect, especially the latter, and, in fact,
they only became intelligible on comparison with M. Junod’s
fuller one. It may not be without interest to give here the first
of these, which keeps the Swallow but substitutes the Cock (¢am-
bala) for the Hare. (In the second both actors are different.)

“The cock and the swallow made friendship with one another,
and the swallow said, ‘Come to my house.’ And the cock went,
and found the swallow sitting on the msanja (the stage erected
above the fireplace in native huts, where meat, &c., is hung to
dry in the smoke). And the swallow’s wife took the pot of
pumpkins off the fire, and the swallow flew up on high; and he
took pumpkins and gave them to the cock, and the cock said,
‘You must come to my house.’ ἢ

Though related, so far, without apparent break, the story appears
somewhat mysterious. A reference to M. Junod will help us out.
The swallow who, had, on visiting the cock (or, as it is here,
the hare), been regaled with gourds (or pumpkins), seasoned with
almonds, inquires as to the cooking of the viand, and, on being
told that it is boiled in water, replies that ‘‘ Chez moi, on ne cuit
pas ce légume avec de l’eau ; on le cuit avec ma propre sueur,”
and goes on to say that he gets into the pot and is cooked with
the gourds, assuring the hare that the process does him no sort
of harm. The hare declines to believe, and is invited to come
and try. Then the story goes on as above. When we are told
that the cock ‘‘found” the swallow sitting on the msanja, we are
probably to understand that he did μοΐ see him, as, under the
circumstances, it is exceedingly improbable that he would. The
swallow then, when the pumpkins were being poured out of the
pot, ‘‘flew up on high,” and reappeared through the cloud of
steam to assure his credulous friend that he had been cooked and
was none the worse. They then ate, and he returned the swallow’s
invitation.

** And the cock went home and said to his wife, ‘You must
put me into the pot with the monda (gourds),’ and she (did so

224 Reviews.

and) cooked him over the fire. And the swallow came, and the
cock was in the pot ; and the swallow said, ‘Take the gourds off
the fire; I want to go home’ (z.e., do not let us wait any longer
for the cock). And the cock’s wife emptied the pot, and she
found the cock ; he was dead. And the swallow returned home
without eating any mfonda.”

In the other version, the z¢engu (a small bird) serves the cat in
the same way.

Among the Cinderella-stories is a charming one, “ Le Petit
Détesté,” which introduces the hippopotamus in a novel character
—we may say as a species of Dr. Barnardo. He keeps a nursery
for deserted children at the bottom of the river. This incident
seems to be peculiar to the Ronga tale, though in a story given
by Jacottet, a mother entrusts her child to az o/d woman who lives
under water.!

Space will not allow us to do more than call attention to the
ogre stories, with the interesting remarks prefixed to them (we
have come across the beings with one ear, one eye, one arm, one
leg, &c.—see p. 197—in Mang’anja and Yao folklore), to the tale
entitled ‘La Route du Ciel” (p. 237), which has a well-known
analogue in Grimm, and to “ Les Trois Vaisseaux” (in Contes
Etrangers, p. 304), which probably comes ultimately from the
Arabian Nights. A Swahili analogue is given in C. Velten,
“ Marchen τ. Erzahlungen der Suaheli,” under the title “ M-
chumba wa ndugu watatu” (‘‘ The Bride of the Three Brothers”).
That it is also known to the Yaos is proved by a variant written
out by one of the scholars of Domasi Mission, and by him entitled
“The Story of the Chief.” (See Life and Work in British
Central Africa—the Blantyre monthly paper—for November,
1898.)

A. WERNER.

1 Contes Populaires des Bassoutos, p. 196. [Ina variant, however, the old
woman is replaced by a crocodile. And in another story of the same volume,
when a mother has killed her child and beaten the body to dust which she
flings into the river, a crocodile kneads the dust and fashions it anew until
the dead child lives again. She remains under the care of the crocodile,
but is ultimately restored to her parents, the crocodile promising a home and
protection in case of any further ill-treament. za. p. 233.—ED.]

ee ee a ee eS

Reviews. 22

Les Ba-Ronca. Erupr ETHNOGRAPHIQUE SUR LES INDIGENES
DE LA BAIE DE DELAGOA. Mcurs, Droir CouTuMIER,
ViE NATIONALE, INDUSTRIE, TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS,
ET RELIGION. Par HENRI A. JuNOD. Neuchatel: Paul
Attinger. 1808.

M. JuNop, a Swiss Protestant missionary, who has resided for
many years among the Ba-ronga in Delagoa Bay, describes in
this work the people and their civilisation. In two previous books
he has given a grammar of their languages, with a vocabulary and
a conversation-manual, and an excellent collection of their songs
and tales. He now proceeds to give us an account of their lives,
their beliefs, and their religious and superstitious practices. The
work is divided into six sections, dealing respectively with the life
of the individual, the man and the woman, through all its stages
from birth to death, burial, mourning, and division of the property
of the deceased, the life of the family and the village in their
various social relations, the national life, government and warfare,
the agricultural and industrial life, the unwritten literature and
medical art, and lastly the religious life, that is to say, the ancestor-
worship, the notion of Heaven, sorcery and possession, divination,
omens, amulets, and various superstitions. Every part of a book,
the materials for which have been collected with such care and
judgement as are here inscribed on every page, must be of value.
And this is a book which it is difficult to praise too highly.

The grade of civilisation on which the Ba-ronga stand is by no
means the lowest. Thus, they have passed out of the stage of
mother-right into father-right. Polygamy of course is practised.
Since wives are bought, or, to speak more accurately, are obtained
by handing over a dower-price to the bride’s father, the number
of wives is a question of wealth and consideration. But an
examination of the terms of relationship discloses relics of a prior
organisation by group-marriage. A man regards not merely his
own mother as mamana (mother), but also his father’s other
wives and the sisters of his mother and her fellow-wives ; and they
regard him as zowana (son). It is not stated whether the wife of
his paternal uncle is also regarded as mamana ; but probably she
is. At all events, his paternal uncle, according to our reckoning,
is reckoned by him as his father (Za¢ana) ; and so are the husbands

VOL. X. Q

226 Reviews.

of his maternal aunts (as we reckon) and all their brothers. More-
over, the son of his father’s sister (his cousin, as we should say) is
also called ¢atana. M. Junod is of opinion that the reason for
these strange conceptions of relationship, and others into which
I cannot go for want of space, is, in the last resort, polygamy,
that is to say, polygyny. This will not do. It might account for
a man calling his mother’s sister mother, if that stood alone,
because the husband of one sister has a prior right to the others.
It does not account for his calling his father’s brother and his
father’s sister’s son father. M. Junod here explains that these
persons have a right to the widows of a deceased man; hence
they may become what we should call a man’s step-fathers. But
a man has also, during the husband’s lifetime, certain marital
privileges over his mother’s brother’s wives, which are not accounted
for by this explanation. Nothing short of the growth of the present
social organisation out of group-marriage based on female kinship
will explain the facts.

On every page of the book there are subjects on which I
might pause to call attention to considerations of importance for
students of the evolution of culture. It is packed full of interest.
Choice, however, must be made; and I turn for a few words on
the religion of the Ba-ronga. Naturally, as a missionary, M. Junod
has not been initiated into any secret society, if such exist.
Science knows little of the secret societies of Africa, because
they are so often exploited by traders for purposes of business,
and however much a trader knows he will not tell, since that
would be to spoil the prospects of trade. What little we do know
points to the belief that, whatever the value of the secret societies
for tribal organisation and methods of administration, they do
not afford the insight into religion given by the mysteries of the
Australians and the North American aborigines.

The effective gods are beyond doubt, says M. Junod, the spirits
of ancestors. The great gods, the gods of the country, are the
ancestors of the reigning chief. The gods of the family are the
ancestors of the family. They are ames, familiar spirits recalling
the dares and penates of the Romans. Besides these, there are
gods of the bush, spirits of persons buried away from the villages,
probably strangers who have met with death by accident, and
whose embittered ghosts attack and torment wayfarers. Above
the gods known and named by people in general exists a power,

Reviews. 227

ill-defined and impersonal, called Heaven, or Sky, the name given
to the azure expanse. One of the most intelligent women of M.
Junod’s congregation said to him: “ Before you came to teach
us that there was a Good Being, a Father in Heaven, we already
knew that Heaven [or the Sky] existed, but we knew not that
there was anyone in Heaven [or the Sky].” Another man said:
“Our fathers all believed that life exists in the Sky.” The Ba-ronga
regard it asa place. Stories of reaching it by a rope are told;
and this idea is expressed in a very old song, here quoted. When
reached, it is found to be the counterpart of the earth, much as it
appears in European tales. More than that, however, they some-
times called it “‘ ost, un seigneur.” It was a power which acted
and manifested itself in various ways. But it was a power “ en-
visaged for the most part as essentially impersonal.” To it are
attributed strange diseases, storms, death by lightning. ‘“ Heaven
loved him” is said of one who has escaped a deadly danger, or
who has prospered in a remarkable manner; ‘‘ Heaven hated
him” is said of one who has fallen into misfortune or died.
Twins are taboo. Their mother is called Z7/o, Sky, Heaven;
and they themselves are children of Z7/o. Mother and babes are
subjected to special rites of purification ; a variety of observances
sets them apart from others ; and if any other child be specially
perverse, he is told: ‘‘ You are wicked, you are like a twin.”
Among the rain-making ceremonies is that of showering with
water the mother of twins, and of pouring water over the graves
of twins. Ina ceremony directed against one of the scourges of
the country, a small beetle, a number of these insects are caught
and thrown by a twin-girl into a pool without looking behind.
The lightning is also called Zzo; or rather, says M. Junod, the
Ba-ronga believe it is produced by an imaginary bird, which flies
very rapidly and is itself called Zo. It is said to be found in
the earth when a thunderbolt has fallen. A wizard employed to
discover thefts makes use of powder, which he asserts to be made
from the body of this bird, and invokes ‘‘ Heaven that hast
eyes which see by night as by day,” to come and discover the
thieves, that they may be consumed. A storm, it is believed, will
thereupon burst forth, and the lightning will strike the thief and
bring to light the objects he has stolen. In great rains, Lilliputian
beings are believed to fall from the sky. They are called not
merely little men, dwarfs, but also daloungwana, little Whites.
Q2

228 Reviews.

Now this term is a plural diminutive of so/owngo, which is used
for God in many Bantu languages, and is applied by the Zulus
and the Thonga (including the Ronga) to white men of all shades,
Asiatics as well as Europeans.

In these rites and in this conception of 77/0, which I have
abstracted very shortly, I think we have not a god retired from
business, but god-stuff, a god or gods in the making. M. Junod,
who would naturally be inclined to see init the disfigured remains
of a monotheistic conception, and indeed suggests a reason for so
doing, wisely declines to commit himself to such a conclusion,
preferring to wait the result of further investigations among other
Bantu peoples. In any case, his painstaking investigations will serve
to throw light upon the question lately raised by Mr. Andrew Lang
touching the “ High Gods” of savages ; and so great is the interest
of that question that I make no apology for selecting M. Junod’s
exposition of the Ronga Zv/o for presentation, however roughly
and imperfectly, to the reader.

I should be glad to have space to say something of the deeply
interesting chapter on sorcery and possession, and of that on divina-
tion, with its sample diagrams of the way in which the lots fall, with
their meaning. But I must content myself with referring students
to the full discussions which M. Junod devotes to these subjects.
His account is so detailed of everything else that I regret the more
the imperfect statement he gives of the taboo, or yz/a as it is called
by the Ba-ronga. He is himself quite aware of the inadequate
treatment of it, and recognising that in taboo is contained the
beginnings of a real system of morality, he closes by expressing
the hope of considering it more adequately on a future occasion :
a hope which we may very heartily echo.

The book contains a small but clear map, and a number of
plates and figures in the text which are serviceable in explaining
it, though some of them would be better on a larger scale.
M. Junod has been good enough to place a few copies of this
book and of his Chants et Contes des Ba-ronga in the hands of
Mr. Milne for disposal to the members of the Society at a reduced
price (Les Ba-ronga, 6s., and Les Chants et les Contes, 35.).
Members who avail themselves of the opportunity will, I am sure,
not be disappointed.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

a στὰς τς τὰ, es ee ae κεν ἃ

Reviews. 229

L’ABREGE DES MERVEILLES TRADUIT DE L’ARABE D’APRES LES
MANUSCRITS DE LA BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE DE Paris.
Par le BARON CaRRA DE VAUX. (dates de la Société Philo-
logique, Tome xxvt.) Paris: Klincksieck. 18098.

Tuis book was apparently written about the tenth century in
Egypt by a Mohammedan. Notwithstanding the title and some
vague reservations in the text, the unknown writer seems to have
really intended to give a true account of the world since the
Creation, followed by a history of Egypt down to the Israelitish
Exodus. As a matter of fact, continual prodigies turn even the
historical part into a fairy tale, the result being a work interesting
especially to folklorists. The disorder, repetitions, and contra-
dictions are such as to arouse doubts whether the work was meant
for publication in its present shape. There is an index to the
Baron Carra de Vaux’s translation, but as it does not comprise
beliefs and usages, the following references may be of use. They
belong to Egypt, unless stated otherwise. The numbers are those
of the pages in the volume.

Spittle for infant lustration was used by Moses; he placed it
in his son’s mouth, 391. A marriage ceremony in Zanzibar
(Zena7) consisted in blackening the man’s face and seating him
on a mound with the woman seated before him; the assistants
then covered them with a dome of reeds and remained feasting
before them for three days, 102. Widows and other members of
the dead chief’s family were sacrificed to his spirit in Egypt, 183,
317 ; among the Bordjan, conjectured by the translator to be Bul-
garians of the Volga, 124. An Egyptian queen drank the blood
of a chief she had slain, ‘‘ because the blood of kings gives
health,” 338. Head hunters are described, 70, perhaps the Dyaks
of Borneo. Females were preferred to males for inheritance
among the Chinese, 119, among the Bordjan (see above), 124.
The droit du seigneur is mentioned as existing in Arabia, 154, in
Egypt, 219. The castes of Egypt as described have a likeness to
those of India, 194, 270.

Alexander the Great is conspicuous among wandering heroes,
as is usual in Mohammedan legend. ‘The account of his visit to
the island of the Cynocephals, near to another island where Brah-
mans lived, 46, fefers doubtless to some part of the Indian seas,

230 Reviews.

rather than to the Atlantic Ocean, as might be imagined from the
confused text. However, these two bodies of water joined, ac-
cording to the writer’s geography. The Christians in Socotra, 64,
are noteworthy. Moses is represented as a giant, a mighty
leaper ; his staff was ten cubits long, 143. The Frankish inroad,
298, may be a dim tradition of the A‘gean invasions, certainly
not of the Crusades, as the translator needlessly warns the reader,
for they took place later than the date of the book. Malik, King
of Egypt, 305, bears some likeness to Melkarth, the Tyrian Her-
cules ; both conquered Spain and set up pillars by the Atlantic
Ocean, 306. Roderick of Spain is made contemporaneous with
the Pharaoh of Joseph. Carthagena, 363, is a mistake for
Carthage. ‘The Lombards appear to be ruling in Italy at the
date of the book, 120.

The source of the Nile is placed in Paradise, 349. The old
man of the sea, 53, recalls, among others, the mysterious Fesce-
JVicolo famous in Neapolitan legend. There are stories somewhat
of the Melusine type, 20, 27, 332. Satan is confused with Dedd-
jal (Antichrist), 31, 57, 150; his punishment recalls that of Pro-
metheus. ‘Tree-worship is attributed to the people of Zanzibar,
102. |

Some talismans had to be used with certain formulas of incan-
tation, 243. There were also such formulas acting alone, 206.
Other talismans grew weak with age, 180; some depended on
time or place, 257; some might be counteracted by others, 222.
There were potent magical names, 140, 142. Rain was made in
Zanzibar by burning a heap of bones as a sacrifice, while incanta-
tions were being recited, τος. Hidden treasures were obtained
by propitiating the supernatural guardians with burnt offerings,
the hair of the victim being used as incense, 355 ; or the feathers,
as of a white cock, 249. The pyramids were searched for trea-
sures, 210; they had been built to guard them, 208; and also
served as means of escape from the deluge, 173, 203, 231. Won-
derful, but not stated to be supernatural, was the distillation of
water in Egypt, 246 ; the church under the sea near old Constan-
tinople, 40; and the walking forest in Arabia, 154. Among
magical objects were coins growing heavier when used as weights,
283, or returning when spent to their former owner, 284; vases
weighing the same empty or full, 215, 284, or converting water
into wine, 284 ; divining mirrors, 234, 288, 293 ; speaking, moving,

Reviews. 231

and healing images, 201-2, 252, 265, 272, 293; vanishing countries,
cities, and people, 67, 294, 306.

There is little medical information. Snake-skins were used in
Zanzibar to cure consumption, 36. The aloe of Socotra is pro-
bably the drug Alexander was advised by Aristotle to look for in
that island as the “grand remedy which alone could complete the
medicine called cepa,” 65. A search for healing waters to cure their
chief is said to have been the original motive for the invasion of
Egypt by the Shepherds, 331. Numerous mythical beings are
described, they form a special and lengthy subject.

The dates and places are mostly quite unreliable, depending on
tradition which readily transfers what belongs to one age or country
to another, or on travellers’ tales. The statements are valuable at
all events as secondary evidence, or as showing that such usages
or beliefs probably existed.

The translator points out the writer’s dependence on the Bible,
the Koran, and on Indian, Persian, Rabbinic, and Coptic legends,
with the consequent absence of real historic knowledge. There
is far less learning than is shown by other writers of the same or
earlier date, inaccurate and credulous as they themselves were.
Little more is told of the ancient Egyptian religion than that it
was a worship of the heavenly bodies, especially of the sun. The
great personal gods are not named, unless Avonos-Saturn be the
equivalent of Sz4ou. The monotheism of certain kings is described
approvingly, for instance JZa/k, who concealed his creed, and not
only refrained from interfering with the popular religion, but out-
wardly conformed to it. However this may be as history, it is
fair to infer from the general tone of the book that the king’s
liberal views were also those of the intellectual leaders of Egypt
in the writer’s time. A habit of tolerant religious speculation
would be consistent in the country where neoplatonism arose.

J. B. ANDREWs.

MorE AUSTRALIAN LEGENDARY ‘TALES COLLECTED FROM
VARIOUS TRIBES. By Mrs. K. LANGLOH PARKER, with Intro-
duction by ANDREW Lanc, M.A. London: 1). Nutt. 1898.

Tuts second collection of tales of the Australian aborigines is of
he same character as the former by Mrs. Parker, reviewed in these
pages two years ago (vol. vill. p. 56). Butin the present volume

232 Reviews.

the stories have not all been taken down from the same tribe.
Various other tribes have been laid under contribution, though
Mrs. Parker has confined herself ‘‘as far as possible to the Noon-
gahburrah names, thinking,” she says, “it would create confusion
if I used those of each dialect—several different names, for
example, for one bird or beast.” This and the omission, depen-
dent upon the same reasoning, to indicate from which particular
tribe each legend comes, detract much from the scientific value of
the collection, which cannot, therefore, be used with the same
confidence as the former. Mrs. Parker has been drawn two ways:
she has not been able to make up her mind whether her book is
to be for the amusement of children or for the instruction of
students of savage psychology.

This is unfortunate, because the stories in themselves are of
high value as manifestations of the mental characteristics of the
aborigines. Many of them, most of them, are zetiological myths,
the offspring of savage speculation. It is especially important to
know accurately the sources of such tales. A tale of another
kind is “ Wurrunnah’s Trip to the Sea.” This may record a real
event. It seems to be a Noongahburrah tale. The name of the
tribe should be explicitly recorded, for one of the most interesting
and complex questions in folklore is: Under what conditions and
to what extent can the recollection of facts be preserved without
the aid of writing? The story also puts us on inquiry about
many things incidentally mentioned, such as the law of Byamee
against leaving one’s own hunting-ground. Mrs. Parker has re-
corded in her preface various fragments of aboriginal folklore.
They were all well worth preserving ; and we hope she may give
us more of them. While she is gathering these, the laws of
Byamee would form an item that students would appreciate.
But the greatest care would have to be taken to sift these laws,
to winnow away all Christian teaching which may have become
mingled with them, and to let us know exactly what the different
tribes hold in respect to them. However, Mrs. Parker under-
stands the business of collection. All we need do, therefore,
is to urge that in future volumes the exact source (tribe and clan,
if possible, and even individual) of every item be given, and that
the names be not translated into those of one idiom, at any
rate without mention of the equivalent words and phrases actually
used by the narrator.

————

ee i See oe ".-Λκ

δος τ ς

Reviews. 232

I have thought it right to make these observations, not by
way of depreciating this new collection, but to point out what I
consider from the student’s point of view somewhat grave qualifi-
cations of the value of a work it were superfluous to praise in
general terms.

As on the former occasion, Mr. Lang contributes an introduc-
tion. ‘The opportunity is taken to add a buttress or two to his
new fabric of savage religion. He is always interesting. But
after repudiating folklore as an interpreter of savage belief, what
is the good of turning round and calling it in evidence now ?
Either it is of value, or it is not. Mr. Lang should take his
choice. But he is not free from human weakness: to him folk-
lore is a good witness when on his side, but quite untrustworthy
when it is against him.

EK. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

THE Native TRIBES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. By BALDWIN
SPENCER, M.A., and F. J. Gitten. London: Macmillan
& Co., Limited. 1899.

Tuts admirable work recalls, by the care and minuteness with
which the material has been collected and recorded, the mono-
graphs published from time to time by the Bureau of Ethnology
at Washington. It is an account of certain of the tribes in the
territory of South Australia, inhabiting the Macdonnell Ranges
and the country both north and south of those mountains. ‘The
mountains themselves are situate about half-way as the crow flies
between the Great Australian Bight and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The tribes inhabiting this district, itself hardly suitable for the
occupation of civilised man, have been more or less isolated for
many ages from their nearest neighbours by a vast tract of what
is practically desert country. Thus, within the already isolated
continent of Australia they present the spectacle of still greater
isolation, a small number of tribes of common origin with the
rest, cut off from their congeners and left to stagnate, or to
develop their common institutions and material civilisation in-
dependently. The interest of the book lies in the startling differ-
ences disclosed between the beliefs and customs of the peoples

234 Reviews.

here described and those of, so far as is known, the other black
populations of Australia.

The tribe chiefly dealt with, and taken as typical of the rest, 15
that of the Arunta, divergences by other tribes of the group from
the practice and beliefs of the Arunta being noted. The nearest
neighbours to the south are the Urabunna, a tribe whose dwelling-
place is on the western and northern shores of Lake Eyre. Their
social organisation and marriage customs are first described, and
serve to compare with those of the tribes which are the more
immediate subject of the book. The result of the investigation,
alike of the Urabunna and of the Arunta and allied tribes, is to
establish the general accuracy of the theory of group-marriage as
a mode of social organisation among the Australians, formulated
by Messrs. Fison and Howitt and Mr. Morgan, and strongly, even
bitterly, opposed by McLennan. It is indeed nothing less than
astonishing that Mr. McLennan, who saw so clearly, and ex-
pounded so well, the real meaning that underlay various legal
and ceremonial fictions, should have been content with the ex-
planation that the terms of relationship employed by the Kurnai
and others were merely modes of salutation. The present authors
have taken great pains with the table of relationships and genea-
logical trees, as well as with the sexual customs of the tribes;
and the case is abundantly proven. I note, however, a few de-
fects in the tables. In that of the Arunta tribe, the term Unawa
(man speaking) should be explicitly stated to include actual wife’s
sisters, and conversely the same term (woman speaking) should
be stated to include actual husband’s brothers, blood and tribal
in both cases. In that of the Luritcha tribe, the term S¢hoarinna
is defined to include husband’s sisters, blood and tribal, and
brother’s wife, blood and tribal, according to our mode of com-
puting relationships. It would appear that this is a case of a
woman speaking only. To a man his brother’s wife would be
included under the term Awzi (wife), and should be so stated.
In the same table Kafir/7 is said to include grandmother on the
mother’s side and grandmother’s sisters on the father’s side.
**Father’s ” is here a mistake for ‘‘ mother’s,” the grandmother’s
sisters on the father’s side being stated just above as included in
the term Xammi, which seems correct. In the table of the
Kaitish tribe there are some omissions. We may perhaps guess
where to locate what in our reckoning are Younger Sister, Wife’s

;

Reviews. 235

Sister, and (both man and woman speaking) Brother’s Wife ; but
for the sake of certainty they should not have been forgotten.
Zuia (man speaking) has also dropped out of the table of the
Warramunga tribe. In the table of descent of the Arunta tribe
No. 26 should be marked m., not f, and in the explanation on
p. 81, the numbers 32 and 33 have been misplaced ; the former
should be opposite Umédirna and the latter opposite Unawa.

It is in the totemic arrangements, the ceremonies and the
traditions of the Alcheringa, that the Arunta and allied tribes
differ so remarkably from the rest of Australia, so far as is known.
“Every Arunta native thinks that his ancestor in the Alcheringa
{the far distant past with which the earliest traditions of the tribe
deal] was the descendant of the animal or plant, or at least was
immediately associated with the object the name of which he
bears as his totem.” But he bears this totem-name not because
his mother or his father belonged to the totem, but because he 15
a new-birth of somebody in the Alcheringa who bore the totem-
name.

Descent among the Arunta is said to be in the male line. This
needs some elucidation. It is not counted for the purpose of
reckoning the totem. Nor is it counted exclusively in one line for
the purposes of marriage, since marriage is arranged according to
the group- or class-system. ‘A Bulthara man marries a Kumara
woman, and their children are Panunga ; a Purula man marries a
Panunga woman, and their children are Kumara ; a Panunga man
marries a Purula woman, and their children are Bulthara; a Kumara
man marries a Bulthara woman, and their children are Purula.”
These rules know no exception, and the class or group to which any
individual belongs is thus determined by the classes of both his
father and mother. Among the Pittapitta, of whom Mr. Roth has
written, descent, as the authors of this book note, is reckoned through
the mother, for certain purposes at all events, as in the sub-class
Ootaroo or Pakoota, to which everybody belongs by virtue of his
mother belonging to it, in the right to dispose in marriage of his
sister by the same mother, and presumably (though this is not quite
clear) in the prohibition (over and above all other prohibitions) of
marriage between blood-relations. Among the Arunta, the first and
third of these purposes do not appear to be reported. With re-
gard to the second the rule is quite different. A father of a boy
will arrange with the father of a girl that the latter shall become

236 Reviews.

Tualcha-mura, that is, actual or prospective mother-in-law, to the
boy, who will have a right to wed her daughter when she has one
old enough. ‘The rule as thus stated, however, recognises descent
through the mother as well as through the father. Besides all this,
we are given to understand (see pp. 265, 337) that paternity is not
understood. It is distinctly held not to be the direct result of
conjugal relations, but, if I rightly apprehend the author’s mean-
ing, because some spirit from the Alcheringa seizes an opportunity
of reincarnation, or is induced by magical practices to seek such
an opportunity. The only occasion, so far as I can discover from
the book, when descent is reckoned exclusively from the father is
when a man or woman dies leaving Churinga (sacred objects, such
as bull-roarers). In the former case they descend to a sonif there
be one, or if not to a younger brother; and similarly a woman’s
Churinga descend not to her son, but to her younger brother.!
Going back to the totem, as descent reckoned according to
European ideas does not regulate the totem, so neither does the
totem regulate marriage. This is regulated, as explained above,
by the class- or group-system. If we may trust the traditions of
the elders, it did once regulate marriage, but in a way contrary to
what we should expect from the analogy of other peoples. Our
authors are of opinion “that the evidence seems to point back to
a time when a man always married a woman of his own totem.”
How far these traditions may be trusted is a question on which
I must reserve judgement. Does the totem regulate the food?
To a slight extent. Save in the case of one totem, a man may eat
of it, though he must eat sparingly. At the Ztichiuma ceremonies
(magical rites performed from time to time for obtaining a food-
supply), however, he must eat a little of it, if an edible creature,
otherwise the supply would fail. The one totem excepted is that
of the Achilpa, or wild cat (Dasyurus geoffroyt). Of the wild cat,
no man who has ever killed another may eat at any time. More-
over, the totems are largely local in their distribution. No member
of the Achilpa totem and no member of the tribe (gy. the tribe
dwelling at the local centre of the Achilpa totem ?) is allowed to
eat of the Achilpa until he is well stricken in years, and then only

* Tam not sure, however, whether this arrangement has not rather for its
object the preservation of the Churinga for some unknown reason within a
certain class or group of classes within the tribe (see p. 154).

Reviews. 227

a very little of it. It is supposed that any one else eating of it would
be afflicted with Zrkincha, a disease to which young persons are
specially liable. Beyond this, totemic food-restrictions do not
appear to go.

We have still to inquire what is the relation of the individual
to his totem, and what is the relation of the members of the
totem-clan to one another. When we are told that “every Arunta
native thinks that his ancestor in the Alcheringa was the descend-
ant of the animal or plant, or at least was immediately associated
with the object the name of which he bears as his totemic name,”
it is not clear what is meant by the expressions “‘ ancestor ” and
“descendant.” The word “ descendant,” as repeatedly used in
the book in speaking of the Arunta traditions, appears to mean
the same individual in a subsequent existence. It can hardly
mean anything else among a people having on the one hand
no true notion of fatherhood, nor so far as I can gather any
genealogies, and having on the other hand the fixed belief that
every one is a reincarnation of somebody who lived in the Alche-
ringa. If we may assume that it is here used in that sense, and
that the word ‘‘ancestor” has the correlative meaning of the same
individual in a previous existence, then the Arunta native would
seem to believe that he himself was in a previous existence the
totem animal or plant. As to one man, indeed, of the kangaroo
totem, we are expressly told that “he is the reincarnation of a
celebrated kangaroo of the Alcheringa.” Light is further thrown
upon the subject by the account of the Ungambikula, two beings
who came down from the western sky when there were no men
and women, but only rudimentary creatures in the course of trans-
formation from various plants and animals into human beings.
These creatures it was their business to operate upon, so as to
complete the process of transformation. The tradition relates
that they operated upon a number of local groups of individuals
belonging to certain totems; but it does not extend to all the
totems. ‘The process, however, was continued by individuals of
the Ullakupera, or little hawk totem, but how these individuals
came into existence is another question. I think at any rate we
are warranted in concluding that the native holds that he himself
was once, in many cases at least, an animal or plant of the species
to which his totem belongs. No doubt this entails a certain belief
in the brotherhood of the members of the totem-clan. Yet so

238 Reviews.

weak, it should be noted, is the belief, that ‘the question of
totem has nothing whatever to do” with the blood-feud, or the
duty of standing by a man in his quarrels. This is regulated by
the marriage-class or group; his brothers and “the sons. of his
mother and father’s brothers, blood and tribal, will stand by him
to see that, at least, he gets fair play.” ‘It is only indeed during
the performance of certain ceremonies that the existence of a
mutual relationship, consequent upon the possession of a common
totemic name, stands out at all prominently.”

For other details reference must be made to this extraordinary
book. There seems no doubt that the authors are right in calling
this strange institution totemism. But it is totemism of a kind
that turns our previous ideas on the subject topsy-turvy ; and we
shall have enough ado to reconstruct the theory so as to make it
fit the newly discovered facts. ‘The authors warn us in their pre-
face of the “ very considerable diversity ” that overlies the uni-
formity, such as it is, in the totemic customs of Australia. We
must perhaps wait for information as to tribes hitherto undescribed
in the central and western parts of the continent before the theory
can find a new and secure foundation.

Totemism has been so much the subject of discussion of late that
I make no apology for referring to it at such length. Other subjects
treated of are, however, not less interesting. ‘The sacred cere-
monies are described fully. The account includes nothing fairly
to be labelled worship, even of the embryonic sort with which we
have been, by a recent discussion, familiarised among the tribes of
Victoria and New South Wales. Is it possible these Central
Tribes have no rudimentary notions of higher beings more or
less superintending the affairs of men, or even retired from that
arduous business? The Ungambikula are a kind of deus ex
machina for the sole purpose, not of creation, but of completing
the conversion of lower organisms into human beings ; and they
afterwards became lizards. ‘There must also be stories not recorded
here, though they need not be religious or quasi-religious in
character. It would be interesting, too, to have some account
of the languages, including the outline of a grammar and a
vocabulary. The tables, maps, and plates, and a number of the
figures in the text are excellent. Many of the figures, however, are
inferior to those in the Report of the Horn Expedition, which gave
us our first glimpse of these curious peoples, and do not enable

Reviews. 239

us to dispense with the latter. 1 have no space to adduce the
careful and elaborate discussions by the authors of various points
in connection with the rites and traditions they record. It must
suffice to say that their conclusions are always cautious, and while
they may not in every detail be finally accepted by students, they
are at all events to be regarded with the deference due to in-
vestigators who speak with an adequate sense of responsibility,
and after the most painstaking inquiries ; nor are they conclusions
to be lightly set aside. I heartily join with reviewers elsewhere in
expressing the gratitude of anthropologists for a work which must
for a long while rank among those of the first importance for the
study of savage races.
E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

Gypsy FoLk-TaLes. By Francis HINDES GROoME. Demy 8vo.
London: Hurst and Blackett. 1899.

A VOLUME which contains seventy-six tales for the most part
translated out of tongues not commonly understood by English-
men, comprising, moreover, twenty-five collected within the British
Isles, several of which appear in print for the first time, cannot
but be welcome to folklorists. And although Mr. Groome dis-
claims being a folklorist, the notes he has added to the tales
show a command of mdrchen literature which could not easily be
surpassed. The chief interest of his book lies, however, in the
introduction, which is not only a storehouse of recondite facts
and ingenious surmises, but a remarkable piece of literature in-
vested with the indefinable charm which pertains to all his
writing, a charm akin to that which surrounds the strange race
which he knows better than any living man. In it he propounds
afresh the theory of Gypsy origin and dissemination of European
folk-tales, and recapitulates it thus: ‘‘ The Gypsies quitted India
at an unknown date, probably taking with them some scores of
Indian folk-tales, as they certainly took with them many hundreds
of Indian words. By way of Persia and Armenia, they arrived in
the Greek-speaking Balkan peninsula, and tarried there for several
centuries, probably disseminating their Indian folk-tales, and
themselves picking up Greek folk-tales, as they certainly gave

240 Reviews.

Greek the Rémani word δαξλέ, fortune, and borrowed from it
paramist, story, and about a hundred more terms. From the
Balkan peninsula they have spread since 1417, or possibly
earlier, to Silesia, Norway, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Brazil, and
the countries between, everywhere probably disseminating the
folk-tales they started with and those they picked up by the way,
and everywhere probably adding to their store.” With this theory
ἃ priori I have no quarrel. I have always regarded the mdrchen
as the product of a stage of culture rather than of a particular
race, and my chief objection to the “Indian” theory is its
assumption, lacking all apparent justification, that a particular
people have a monopoly of the tale-inventing faculty. At all
events, as I have repeatedly urged, if such a monopoly is to be
assumed, give it to those peoples which have carried the art of
story-telling to its highest perfection, and not to the people of
India, who have in the main shown a grotesque incapacity for
the art of narrative. Is it not suggestive in this connection
that the Gypsies starting from India with a hypothetical store of
tales, yet, when they reach Greek-speaking lands, borrow the
Greek word paramisi (παραμυθία), story ?

The Gypsies have lived and still, for the most part, live in that
stage of culture favourable to the production and reception of
miarchen ; they chiefly come in contact with such classes of the
various European communities among which they have sojourned
as are likewise, more or less, in what may be styled the folk-store
stage. I should quite expect them to be tellers of and listeners
to marchen. 1 have thus no prejudice against Mr. Groome’s
theory ; and within limits, which I shall indicate, I believe it to be
valid, and that he is right in assigning much of the give-and-take
of the European folk-tale market to the Gypsy broker. Where, I
fancy, I should differ from him is in regarding European folk-tale
community as something very old, in fact pre-historic (to employ
that much abused word in its proper sense), and, in essentials,
independent of the Gypsies or of any other of the historic modes
of dissemination which have been put forward. In especial, Mr.
Groome’s facts leave upon my mind the impression that the Gypsy
has been more potent as a disseminator than as an originator,
and that so far as these islands are concerned he has picked up
more than he brought. I shall confine myself to this aspect of
his case.

ia payer

Reviews. 241

In Britain at all events, whatever may be the case in other
parts of Europe, the facts are plain. The Gypsies came here in
the latter part of the fifteenth century, settling first in Scotland.
Any British tales assigned to Gypsy origin must therefore belong
to the last four centuries. But where did the Gypsies come from ?
It has been often asserted that their arrival in Europe from India
was comparatively recent, as late indeed as the fourteenth century,
but Mr. Groome, repeating the arguments of earlier writers and
adding much to them, shows conclusively that they were well
known in Central Europe as far back as the thirteenth century,
and contends, with great plausibility, for their existence in South
Eastern Europe as far back as the sixth century A.D. He even
puts forward, very tentatively it is true, the possibility of their
having entered Greece as early as the sixth century B.c. He also
cites the interesting fact that Romani, an undoubted Neo-Indian
dialect, is, in a few of its forms, more primitive than even Pali or
the Prakrit. If the migration of the Gypsies from East to West
has to be carried back a couple of thousand years they have ob-
viously had time to forget much of what they may have brought
with them, and to pick up an immense amount of new material.
In any case, it does not lie with those who impugn the capacity
of European peasants for the oral preservation of legends and
tales to claim it in a very high degree for the Gypsies. Thus, if
the advocates of early Gypsy immigration to Europe are correct, it
is Continental European rather than Indian folk-tales they would
have brought with them.

Turn we now to Mr. Groome’s twenty-five British-Gypsy folk-
tales. Four of these, Nos. 73-76, are Gaelic tales, for which a
Gypsy origin is claimed because there is some evidence to show
that their teller, John Macdonald the tinker, was a Gypsy. Now
three of his tales begin thus: ‘‘ There was once a king in Erin,”
7.6., they retain the traditional locale which the Gaelic story-tellers
brought with them from Ireland to Scotland over three centuries ago
at least. In all other respects they approve themselves genuinely
Gaelic alike in subject-matter and in form of narrative, exhibiting
characteristics which can be traced back in Irish romantic litera-
ture to the early middle ages. There is not a word or incident in
any of these tales which requires outside influence to account for
it. If then Macdonald really was a Gypsy, all one can say is that
he became a thoroughly naturalised Gaelic story-teller, assimilat-

MOL. x. R

242 Reviews.

ing and reproducing conventions of style and phraseology which
must have been utterly meaningless to him.

No. 72 is an English tale had from Cornelius Price, a South
Wales Gypsy. But it too begins: ‘There was a king and queen
in the North of Ireland.” Mr. Groome notes ‘fa very West
Highland ring about it.” Quite so. It is obviously derived from
a Gaelic story—Irish rather than Scotch I should say, and shows
that Cornelius must have come in contact with Gaelic narrators.

Again, I should refer the Welsh Gypsy Green Man of Noman’s
land to its close Gaelic analogue, the Battle of Birds, rather than
to any of the Continental variants, on account of the way in which
the inimical magician is characterised and of certain tricks of
phraseology which point toa Gaelic original. One of Mr. Groome’s
greatest finds was the Welsh Gypsy harper, John Roberts, to
whom are due the two fine tales, No. 54, Jack and his Golden
Snuff-box, and No. 55, An Old King and his Three Sons in England.
Mr. Groome cannot accept Mr. Jacobs’ assertion that the latter
tale “is scarcely a good example” for his (Mr. Groome’s) theory, and
urges that another Welsh Gypsy variant has since turned up. I
can only support Mr. Jacobs’ view. ‘The hero of the tale and his
brothers find their way ultimately to the Castle of Melvales, a
name which to me reveals the influence of medizeval romance in
its latest chapbook form, and almost certainly carries back this
version of a widely-spread tale beyond the advent of the Gypsies
in these islands. It is in fact such a version as, falling into the
hands of the miserable English chapbook writers of the sixteenth
century, gave us the oldest recorded form of Jack the Giant
Killer.

Thus the British evidence exhibits the Gypsies as keen collectors
and retellers of stories which they must have picked up here. In
one case, they carry a Gaelic tale from Ireland or Scotland to
South Wales, and out of Gaelic into English. In so far their
power as a disseminating agency is vindicated, and I am quite
prepared to believe that what they have done here they may have
done elsewhere, and that as they have carried tales out of one
speech-area of Britain into another, so they may have brought
tales out of the Continent into Britain. But as regards European
folk-tales as a whole I see no reason to hold that they introduced
much, if any, new material; and I believe that if they carried tales
with them from one linguistic district into another, it is because

ὃ
᾽ν

Reviews. 243

these tales were really at home everywhere. In some cases the
Gypsies may have brought a finer version into a given district, in
others they encountered finer versions, but all throughout Europe
there was a common folk-tale protoplasm dating back to prehistoric
times, and which would have developed much as we find it now
even had there been no Gypsies and no Mongols, no Byzantine
minstrels or Jewish scribes. It is the special merit of Celtic
literature that it records scenes, incidents, modes of conception
and expression which characterise European folk-narration at a
date prior to most of the historic influences alleged to have
affected it. We may argue endlessly and fruitlessly whether
particular elements in Slavonic folk-lore are or are not due to the
Gypsies ; in the case of Celtic tales we can often refer to Irish or
Welsh analogues which we know to date back to the twelfth
century at the latest.

If I attach less importance than does Mr. Groome to the Gypsy
factor in the folk-tale problem, I none the less recognise its
existence, and in common with all folklorists I thank him for an
admirable collection of material, and for disquisitions which
always charm even when they do not convince.

ALFRED NUTT.

APLECH DE RONDAYES MALLORQUINES D’EN JorDI Drs RECO
(Antoni Ma. ALCOVER, PRE.). Tom iij. Ciutat de Mal-
lorca; Tip: Catdélica de Sanjuan, Germans. 1897.

FaTHER ALCOVER continues in the present volume the collection
of folktales, of which a brief notice was given last year (vol. ix.,
p. 158). The present volume is marked by the same excellent
characteristics as the two previous ones. Some of the stories
have special features of interest. £s /iustet, for instance, offers
a compound of Cafskin and Cap οὐ Rushes; not, apparently, an
example of a primitive undifferentiated type, but a union of the
two. The phenomenon of the union of two or more tales occurs
several times, and affords an interesting problem. Another
volume will complete the collection. I shall look for it with
great interest ; and once again I would plead with the author for a
glossary, which would render the book more accessible to foreign
R 2

244 Reviews.

students. Father Alcover is rendering a signal service both to
his own island and to folklore students all over the world by his
work. May I express the hope that he will go on to the collec-
tion and publication of other branches of the folklore of Majorca?
The customs and superstitions of the islanders ought to be of
much interest. He has generously presented to the library of
the Society the volumes already issued.
EK. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

PLACE-NAMES IN GLENGARRY AND GLENQUOICH AND THEIR
Oricin. By Epwarp C. ΕἸΠΕ. London: Swan Sonnen-
schein & Co. 1808.

Mr. ELLIice’s small volume is primarily devoted to the meaning
of the place-names in the districts mentioned in the title. The
Ordnance map (reproduced at the end of the book) gives the
majority of these in correct Gaelic spelling, so that few of them
need present any difficulty to one equipped with a Gaelic dic-
tionary. In the doubtful cases Mr. Ellice’s etymologies are not
very convincing: it is taking considerable liberties with both
phonetics and grammar to explain £/drig alternatively as αὶ
ridhe ‘valley of the hinds,” or Udamh eirigh “quick rising.” Nor
does A/dernazg naturally suggest either Ateamhair, “burn of
Evir,” or Ad/taifrionn, ‘burn of the mass.” In some cases the
exact local pronunciation might have been given with advantage.
Coachan appears as a frequent misprint for caochan, but in general
the Gaelic in the book is correctly written. The legends attaching
to the various places, such as the “Well of the Heads” and
“ Blar na leine,” are given more or less fully. Most of these are
of historical or local interest, and mainly derived from obvious
sources. The account of MacPhee, deserter and sheep stealer, is
interesting evidence of the wild life still possible in the Highlands
as late as fifty years ago. Of folklore there is not much in the
volume, beyond one or two ghosts, not specially notable, and the
common tale of how the kelpie carried off the children. This,
however, ends with an uncommon touch: “all that was ever seen
of them was their seven little hearts floating on the top of the

water.”
W. A. CRAIGIE.

Reviews. 245

THE EuRoPEAN FOLK-TALE SERIES. ‘THE SECRETS OF THE
NIGHT, AND OTHER ESTHONIAN TALES. Translated by
F. ErHet Hynam. Illustrated by H. Oakes - JONEs.
London: Elliot Stock. 1899.

THE preface to this little book informs us that it is the first of a
series of about twelve volumes, intended to form a representative
series of European Fairy Tales, ‘“ now first presented to the world
in an English garb.” It is disappointing, however, to find that
it contains nothing new, but only six tales already published in
German by Lowe and in English by myself. The first story,
however, is greatly amplified, and one must admit, from an artistic
point of view, improved, for it is rather incomplete and unsatis-
factory in the original. Still, there are one or two novelties
peculiar to the present version. A magician’s “proper Esthonian
name, a Mana-Berehrer,” and “snipe’s milk,” are unintelligible
to me. Nevertheless this is an attractive little book, prettily
illustrated, and may help to popularise these comparatively little-
known tales among children. To folklorists, however, it would
be practically of little value, if only on account of numerous unne-

cessary alterations and embellishments.
W. F. Kirsy.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Kitty-WITCHEsS.
(Vol. ix., p. 366.)

The Yarmouth disguising has its double parallel in the “ Hart-
jesdag” at Amsterdam, when many people of the lower classes
haunt the way to Haarlem and the taverns lining it, the men
disguised in female attire, the women in male, and both in drink,
At the same time the Haarlemmers walk out into the downs.
arranging picnics, &c. This “ Hartjesdag” is the Monday fol-
lowing the 15th of August, ze. in the Roman Calendar the
Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which was most probably substi-
tuted for some female deity’s festival. Our antiquaries are apt to
connect it with Hertha.

Dr. W. ZUIDEMA.
Amsterdam.

Mr. St. Cuiarr’s “CREATION RECORDS.”
(Volwx'p. το)

Your journal represents the Folk-Lore Society, and is supposed
to encourage inquiry into myth and tradition. I think your
reviewer has forgotten this, or he would not treat with such scant
courtesy a new investigator. My book is at least the result of
industrious reading and much pondering, and my effort to solve
the problem of Egyptian mythology ought to be welcomed. Your
reviewer seeks rather to laugh me out of court, and apparently for
no better reason than that I am an outsider who essays to do
what no Egyptologist has yet done. In the same way the elder
brothers of David—military men of prowess—thought he had
better go home and mind his sheep. But I cannot discover in
the criticisms any justification for the advice implied and the air
of disdain assumed.

1. It is stated that my book is brimful of learning, but that I
quote authorities good, bad, and indifferent, as though they were
of equal weight. Well, I do at least give my references. If they

Correspondence. 247

are not weighty enough to support the argument, the reader will
discount them. Authorities are seldom quoted except for facts,
and the fact generally commends itself by fitting in with other
facts. My task was to reconstruct a ruined temple, and it hardly
matters what poor journeyman brings the stones to my hand so
long as they fit. I have been able so to fit them that “the very
completeness” of the restored building raises your reviewer’s
“suspicions.” Should this be the legitimate effect upon an
unprejudiced mind ἢ

2. My own acquaintance with Egypt appears to him to be but
slight. May I ask, Can nobody discuss a Scripture question in-
telligently without having travelled extensively in Palestine? How
much did Lewin know, from travel, when he wrote his famous
Sketch of Jerusalem? It was the best book on the subject, and yet
he had never been there! Professor Sayce, again, has given us a
valuable Hibbert Lecture on Babylonia, without ever having been
so far east, I believe. But I have at least been in Egypt ; besides
which, it is not correct to say that I have confounded Abydos
with Thinis.

3. The reviewer says there is one reason which will prevent
Egyptologists from believing I have discovered a key, viz. the
certainty that the Egyptian religion was an ill-assorted amalgam
of inconsistent elements derived from different local centres. But
if I am right, in main outline merely, this is not the case: to
bring it against me is to beg the question. And my critic has
nothing else to bring against me. If I am right, the key to
Egyptian mythology is to be found in the facts of astronomy, and
the efforts of the priest-astronomers to attain to a correct know-
ledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies, so as to settle the
calendar and regulate the religious festivals. My critic writes like
one who has too little knowledge of astronomy to enable him to
judge of this theory, but has a strong impression that no outsider
is likely to have accomplished what no professional decipherer of
hieroglyphs has been able to do. But why not? A decipherer or
translator or linguist may know but little of astronomy, and have
no insight into symbolism. On the other hand, if Maspero,
Renouf, and Wiedemann have rendered the hieroglyphs correctly,
it is possible for a layman to reason justly from the renderings.
A mere linguist may be mind-ridden by the demon of words, like
the Greek scholar who was asked his opinion of the character of

248 Correspondence.

Andromache, and said: ‘“ Andromache ἢ andro-mache means a
fight of men!” The tone of your reviewer reminds me of the
scepticism shown by the gentleman-geographers of the Royal
Geographical Society, when Mr. H. M. Stanley, who -did not
belong to their ranks, came home and said he had found Living-

stone! ‘Impossible! who is he?”
Gro. St. Crate:

[I am sorry that Mr. St. Clair should think that he has been
treated with “scant courtesy” and an “air of disdain.” ‘The care-
ful examination of his book implied in the review, and the fact
that it is stated to be ‘“‘ brimful of learning,” ought to have shown
him that such could not have been the case. But—

(1) Bad or indifferent authorities mean false or doubtful state-
ments, and arguments that rest on such statements are neces-
sarily of little value.

(2) One may have a first-hand acquaintance with the language,
literature, and religion of a country without having actually visited
it. The slips in Mr. St. Clair’s book, however, show that he does
not possess this very needful preliminary to the investigation of
one of the most difficult problems of Egyptology. Had he done
so he would never, for instance, have made such an elementary
mistake as to say (p. 316) that it is a “recorded fact that Abydos
was formerly called Tini, which the Greeks converted into This
or Thinis.”

(3) Mr. St. Clair asks us to accept a theory which is incon-
sistent with the conclusion to which the greatest living scholars
who have devoted their lives to the study of the ancient Egyptian
monuments have come by different roads. But he can hardly
expect that in such a matter the opinion of a “layman” should

be preferred to that of an expert.
THE REVIEWER. |

DEATH-WARNINGS.
(Vol x). Tee.)

The Irish idea that a pigeon entering a house is a death-sign is
well known in many English counties. Not long ago I was in-
formed that when my sister Edith was dying, in 1874, a wounded
pigeon entered the saddle-room, which died after being captured.
Two other instances of the “warning” occurring in connection

:
|

Correspondence. 249

with my own kindred are known to me. ‘The pigeon has fre-
quently appeared in the family of Mr. S., but the last time it was
seen no death among his relations or intimate friends took place,
although the bird died in the house. A friend of mine, whose
mother’s people are natives of a southern county, once told me
that several of them believe that a pigeon appears before the
death of a member of the family, and she herself had known it
come once when it was expected. She had, however, no belief in
the superstition. Of course pigeons frequently enter houses
situated near their cote, and sick birds seem specially prone to do
so. When we lived at Bottesford, they often came in or fell down
the chimneys, and we have had them walking about the hall, or
perching for hours on the outer window-sills here also. But no
one remembers the failures, only the successful coincidences in
folklore are kept in mind.
MABEL PEACOCK.

WIND AND WEATHER-HOLES.

In Lincolnshire the word “ hole” is frequently used to indicate
the quarter from which the rain-bringing wind usually blows,
Thus, at Bottesford, in North Lincolnshire, I have heard it said,
“th’ wind hes gotten i’ to Marnum-hole, we sh’ll ’ev sum doon-
fall,” meaning “the wind is blowing from the direction of Marn-
ham, in Nottinghamshire, so we shall soon have rain.”

Similarly, in certain villages on the Wolds people observe, “ th’
wind ’s gotten roond to Ketton-hole, it ll be wet afoore very long ;”
“Ketton ” being Kirton-in-Lindsey. Generally, though not quite
invariably, the quarter indicated is the south-west.

The use of “hole” in this sense is also common in other
English counties,! and ‘“ Wetter-loch” = weather-hole, or storm-
hole is a term well-known in the Swiss Alps.? What I wish to
learn is, how “hole” comes to have this meaning. If, as is
affirmed, it merely signifies a hollow, or gap, through which the
winds sweeps, it is at times rather loosely applied. “That part of
Kirton in-Lindsey, for instance, which is visible from the Wolds,

1 Burne, Shropshire Folklore, p. 580 ; Notes and Queries, 4th S., vol. v., p.

432 ; 5th S., v., 4353 vi-, 199.
2 Cf. Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, act i., sc. 1.

250 Correspondence.

lies on the brow of the declivity known as “ the Cliff,” a long range
of limestone facing westward, on which the city of Lincoln also
stands. It is true that the church and some of the houses are
“below-hill,” while other buildings occupy the side of.the slope,
but seen from the distant north-east it can hardly appear to occupy
a decided hollow. Neither can it be said that Marnham is situated
in a strikingly depressed position when looked for across the Trent
flat. The blue haze on the horizon which represents it and the
neighbouring Nottinghamshire parishes shows no remarkable dip
where it lies. As seen from Bottesford the sky-line is a low one,
but not lower than those with which Lincolnshire eyes are habitu-
ally familiar.

Is it.possible that an explanation of the term is to be found in
the following passage from Gill’s JZyths and Songs of the South
facific ? After giving a plan of the winds from the Hervey group,
taken down from a description of the ancient priests, Mr. Gill
says: ‘‘ With but slight variations it will do for many other groups
in the Pacific. The number of wind-holes in this plan exactly
corresponds with the points of the mariner’s compass. In the
olden time, great stress was laid on this knowledge for the pur-
pose of fishing, and especially for their long sea voyages from
group to group. At the edge of the horizon are a series of holes,
some large and some small, through which aka, the god of
winds, and his children love to blow. Hence the phrase in daily
use “rua matangi,” or ‘“ wind-hole,” where Europeans would
simply speak of “wind.”! On p. 321 Mr. Gill also observes:
“The vast concave above was symbolised by the interior of a
calabash, in the lower part of which a series of small apertures
was made to correspond with the various windholes at the edge
of the horizon. Each hole was stopped up with a cloth. Should
the wind be unfavourable for a grand expedition, the chief priest
began his incantation by withdrawing the plug from the aperture
through which the unpropitious wind was supposed to blow.
Rebuking this wind, he stopped up the hole, and advanced
through the intermediate apertures, moving plug by plug until
the desired windhole was reached. ‘This was left open. . .”

Is there any trace of a similar mode of thought having ever
prevailed in Europe, Western Asia, or North Africa ?

MABEL PEACOCK.

1 Pps 319; 320:

MISCELLANEA.

SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE NEwT.

On the roth of February, 1854, Mr. Kinahan read before the
Dublin Natural History Society a paper “On the Reproduction
and Distribution of the Smooth Newt and a Notice of the Popu-
lar Superstitions relating to it.” It was printed in Zhe Zoologist
at the time (vol. xii, p. 4355). I forward a transcript of the
portion relating to folklore :—

“This brings me to the third part of my paper, namely, the
superstitions connected with this animal. There are several of
them curious and interesting, as having a connection with the
religious belief of the former inhabitants of this country, and are
now fast dying away. In almost every part of the country we
find these animals looked on with disgust and horror, if not with
dread. ‘This arises from two superstitions ; one of them, common
to great part of Ireland, relating chiefly to the animal in its
aquatic state, and which in the county of Dublin has earned for
it the names of man-eater and man-keeper, though the dry ask of
the county of Dublin, that is the animal in its terrestrial stage, is
supposed to be equally guilty with the first mentioned, in the
habit of going down the throats of those people who are so silly
as either to go to sleep in the fields with their mouths open, or to
drink from the streams in which the dark lewkers harbour. They
are also said to be swallowed by the thirsty cattle; in consequence,
the country people kill them whenever they meet with them cn
land, and poison the stream they are found in by putting l'me
into the cattle’s drinking-pools. In either case the result is the
same; the reptile taking up his quarters in the interior of his
victim in some way, it would puzzle a physiologist to explain how
it contrives to live on the nutriment taken by the luckless indi-
vidual or animal, so that, deprived of its nourishment, the latter
pines away; nay, so comfortable does the newt make herself, that

252 Miscellanea.

not content with living by herself, she contrives to bring up a
little family. Often have I been told of the man who got rid of a
mamma newt and six young ones by the following recipe, which I
am assured is infallible: the patient must abstain from all fluids
for four-and-twenty hours, and eat only salt meats; at the expiration
of that time, being very thirsty, he must go and lie open-mouthed
over a running stream, the noisier the better, when the newts,
dying of thirst, and hearing the music of the water, cannot resist
the temptation, but come forth to drink, and of course you take
care they do not get back again. The dry ask, in addition to
this bad character, is also supposed to be endowed with the
power of the “evil eye,” children and cows exposed to its gaze
wasting away. ‘The Rey. J. Graves writes to me that in Kilkenny
it is looked on as “a devil’s beast,” and as such is burnt. But,
to compensate in some measure for its evil qualities, the dry ask
is said in Dublin to bear in it a charm. Anyone desirous of the
power of curing scalds or burns has only to apply the tongue
along the dry ask’s belly to obtain the power of curing these
ailments by a touch of that organ. In Queen’s County it is also
used to cure disease, but in a different way; being put into an
iron pot under the patient’s bed it is said to effect a certain cure,
though of what disease I am not quite clear.”
EDWARD PEACOCK.

A SICILIAN FESTIVAL.!

In a visit to Girgenti this winter I came to hear of a custom
that seemed to me interesting as apparently a survival or meta-
morphosis of some rite connected with the ancient Demeter wor-
ship. I write to ask if you know whether the custom has been
described by any student from personal observation, and, if so, if
you can refer me to such description. The account I am sending
was given me by Captain Adolf Ragusa, the proprietor of the
Hotel des Temples, Girgenti, who observed it last year for the
first time, but took no special notice of it, not imagining that any

' Extract from a letter to George A. Macmillan, Esq.

Miscellanea, 253

particular interest could attach to it. I obtained further particulars
about it from the local peasant people.

The custom is this. There is a well-kept shrine of Santa Maria
delle Grazie at the cross road near the Hotel des Temples, where
the road to San Biagio (a church built on the site of an ancient
temple) and the modern Campo Santo branches off from the
ancient road to the Porta Aurea and the temples. Here on the
2nd Sunday in September a festival is held, and the unique feature
of this festival is the slaughtering, roasting, and eating of swine
before the shrine. A mass is sung at the shrine on the morning
of the festival, but the procession takes place in the early afternoon,
and the feasting in the afternoon and evening. The procession,
consisting of processional cross, children dressed in white, gar-
landed with roses, and the animals for slaughter, is formed outside
the church of St. Nicola, about a quarter ofa mileaway. I found
from inquiries that the killing and eating of animals before the
shrines at festivals is not an uncommon custom in parts of Sicily,
but the animals are almost always only lambs and kids. Swine,
however, are used as well as other animals at Porto Empedocle,
four miles from Girgenti, at the Feast of the Assumption, August
r5th. I could hear of no other place where swine only were
used in the feast.

H WILpDoN Carr.

25, Cumberland Terrace, Regent’s Park.

5th March, 1899.

BuRIAL CUSTOMS.

You may be interested to know that some years ago, when
digging a grave in Bucklebury churchyard, an old grave was dis-
turbed and two bottles of beer unearthed. They had been buried
according to a custom with the body of a person who was given
to drink, and in order to give him a fair start in the land to which
he had journeyed. I myself saw one of the bottles, the other
being broken.

G. J. Watts.

Newbury District Field Club.

254 Miscellanea.

I was attending the burial of a well-known parishioner who
died at the age of eighty-eight last month. On arriving at the
house I was asked to go upstairs to say a prayer in the presence
of the corpse. The room upstairs was full of guests, and also the
landing. The body lay in the centre of the room, the flap of the
coffin-lid turned back, and the face left visible. As each guest
entered the room, he or she went up to the body, and bending
over it placed the thumb against the left temple, holding it so for
a moment, and then retiring. Whether anything was said or not
I could not tell. I was told afterwards that the ceremony was
supposed to protect those who observed it from dreaming of the
deceased, or it may be of the corpse.

R. M. Nason,

Greenside Vicarage, Ryton, R.S.O.,

Newcastle-on-Tyne.
January 13th, 1899.

A superstition in connection with the dead was told me some
four years ago. My informant was a lady engaged in the work of
a deaconess in a parish in South London. Being asked into a
house to look at a dead body, she entered, and was on the point
of leaving the room, when the woman who had conducted her
exclaimed that she would have bad luck if she did not touch the
dead ; nor was she contented until the lady had laid her hand on
the brow of the corpse. This took place four or five years ago.

The woman was a middle-aged person, and if not a Londoner
by birth, had at least lived in London during many years. .

I. Hooper.

Rose Cottage, Seaton, Devon.

BIBLIOGRAREAY.

1899, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED.

BOOKS AND: PAM PERLE Ts.

All English books are published in London, all French books in
Paris, unless otherwise stated,

BuccE (S.). The Home of the Eddic Poems, with especial
reference to the Helgi Lays. Translated from the Norwegian
by W. H. Schofield. D. Nutt. ὅνο. Ixxix., 408 pp.

H6FLeR (M.). Deutsches Krankheitsnamen-Buch. Munchen:
Piloty & Loehle. 8vo. xi., 922 pp.

Lane (A.). Myth, Ritual, and Religion. New edition. Longmans.
Cr. 8vo. 2 vols. Xxxix., 339; Vll., 380 pp.

LyaLu (Str ALFRED C.). Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social.
Series 1, 2. J. Murray. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 352, 412.
Rotu (H. L.). The Aborigines of Tasmania. 2nd edition.

Halifax: F. King & Sons. 8vo. xx., 228, cili. pp.

SmytH (A. H.). Shakespeare’s Pericles and Apollonius of Tyre.
A Study in Comparative Literature. Philadelphia : MacCalla.
8vo. I12 pp.

Τα (A.) Yule and Christmas: their place in the Germanic
Year. D. Nutt. 4to. viii, 218 pp.

UsENER (H.). Die Sintfluthsagen untersucht. Bonn: F. Cohen.
8vo. vili., 279 pp.

ZAHLER (H.). Die Krankheit im Volksglauben des Simmenthals.
Ein Beitrag zur Ethnographie des Berner Oberlandes. Bern:
Haller. 8vo. 140 pp.

lo *

256 Bibliography.

PERIODICALS.

The Contents of Periodicals exclusively devoted to Folklore
are not noted.

Fortnightly Review, April, May. 7 G. Frazer, The Origin of
Totemism, I., II. June. A. Zang, Mr. Frazer’s Theory of
Totemism.

Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeological
Society, xxi, 1. A. S. Kennedy-Skipton, Richard Whitting-
ton, a Gloucestershire Man. [Argues that there is “ practi-
cally contemporary proof” of the literal truth of the ‘‘Cat
Story.”

Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society, Session 1897-8.
Mrs. Ellis Griffith, Welsh Folk-Music.

American Anthropologist, N.S., i, 1. Advice C. Fletcher, A Pawnee
Ritual used when changing a Man’s Name. W. Hough,
Korean Clan Organisation. 2, S. Cudin, Hawaiian Games.
J. W. Fewkes, The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano Pueblo.
J. C. Fillmore, The Harmonic Structure of Indian Music.

L’Annee Sociologique, 2nd year. 25. Durkheim, De la définition
des phénomenes religieux. A. Hubert οὐ M. Mauss, Essai
sur la Nature et la Fonction du Sacrifice.

Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, xxxix, 1. Z. Léger, Etudes
de Mythologie Slave. G. Raynaud, Le Dieu Aztec de la
Guerre.

‘arardsrjuostsg | (ἀπ ‘d 295) MAVID “M AVISO “AIC Aq ydvadojoyg Ὁ Woy

‘L681 ‘ANOLSW13 ‘SGIOMSLOO AHL NO SNIHDSNO1d ΝΞΧΟ

Folk=Wore.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

VoL. X.] SEPTEMBER, 1899. [No. III.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15th, 1899.
THE PRESIDENT (Mr. E. Sidney Hartland) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last Ordinary Meeting were read and
confirmed.

fhe election.,of the key.,.C.. Swynnerton, Mr. τ -T:
Elworthy, Professor Van Genneppe, Mrs. T. B. Eden, Pro-
fessor K. Amersbach, Mr. T. A. Janvier, the Liverpool Free
Public Library, the Toronto University Library, The Bor-
deaux University Library, and the Upsala University
Library as new Members was announced. The resignation
of Mrs. K. Clark was also announced. :

The Secretary exhibited a Lucky Wisp, such as it is the
custom for the village children to carry round on New
Year's day at Kilmore, co. Down, sent by Miss Clara
Patterson, and presented by her to the Society.

The President, on behalf of Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, ex-
hibited two objects illustrative of the paper read by Mr.
Rouse at the December (1898) Meeting on the Folklore of
the Southern Sporades, viz.: (1) a stamp for Holy Church
bread from Calymnos, presented by Mr. Rouse to the
Society; and (2) a bone from the head of the scar fish,
used for divining the sex of an unborn child, sent by Mrs.
W. R. Paton, and presented by her to the Society.

The President exhibited the photograph of a team of

VOL. X. 5

258 Minutes of Meeting.

oxen ploughing at Elkstone, in the Cotswold Hills, taken
by Dr. Oscar Clark, which the President said he hoped
might be reproduced in Folk-Lore (see frontispiece), as an
illustration of a custom fast dying out. :

The following books and pamphlets, which had been
presented to the Society since the last Meeting, were laid
on the table, viz. :—

Traditional Poetry of the Finns, by Domenico Com-
paretti, presented by the Hon. J. Abercromby ; Prelimi-
nary Account of an Expedition to the Cliff Villages
of the Red Rock Country and the Tusayan Ruins
of Stkyatki and Awatobt, Arizona, in 1895, by J.
Walter Fewkes, presented by the President; and the
following publications of the Smithsonian Institution, also
presented by the President, viz.: (1) Zhe Wooden Statue
of Baron It Kamon-no-Kami Naosuké, Pioneer Diplomat
of Fapan, by A. Satoh; A Study of Primitive Methods of
Drilling, by J. Ὁ. McGuire ; The Golden Patera of Rennes,
by Thomas Wilson; and Mancala, the National Game
of Africa, by Stewart Culin.

Thanks were ordered to be returned for the objects ex-
hibited and for the gifts.

Miss Goodrich Freer read a paper entitled “The Powers
of Evil in the Outer Hebrides,” and a discussion followed, in
which Mr. Nutt, Mr. Major, Mr. Gomme, and the President
took part.

The President then reada paperby Miss A.Werner, entitled
‘The Tar-Baby Story: Variants from Central Africa,” and
in the discussion which followed Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Archi-
bald Little took part.

The Meeting terminated with votes of thanks to Miss
Goodrich Freer and Miss Werner for their papers.

THE POWERS OF EVILIN THE OUTER
HEBRIDES.

BY MISS A. GOODRICH-FREER.

IN presenting the following traditions I make no claim to
offer anything which is new in folklore, but I unhesitatingly
do claim that these, and avery large number of others as
yet unpublished, are collected for the first time so far as the
islands in question are concerned. Even the researches of
Campbell of Islay did not penetrate so far as the smaller
islands of the Outer Hebrides, and assuredly they are as
remote from less adventurous inquirers as the snows of
Alaska or the monasteries of Thibet. Every year boat-
loads of tourists visit the shores of remote S. Kilda, and
the inhabitants reap their harvest in a fashion worthy of
Italy or Switzerland, but I could count on the fingers of one
hand the number of strangers who have visited Eriskay in
the last five years, and other islands familiar to me are even
less frequented.

Moreover, these stories are all recent, and in nearly every
case the name of the informant and the approximate date
of any incident has been recorded. The language used is,
as far as possible, that, or a translation of that, of the in-
formants, and variants have always been carefully noted.

Such gatherings are not easily made. The Celt must
know and trust well those whom he admits into his inner
life, and though in our wanderings in the islands we have
long since learnt to feel at home and among friends, I could
never myself have accomplished such a collection, and have
to acknowledge most cordially and fully the help of the
Rey. Allan Macdonald, Priest of Eriskay, to whose patience,
erudition, and perhaps even more his friendship with the
people, these records are mainly due.t

1 The reader may be referred to ‘* Christian Legends in the Hebrides,” in
the Contemporary Review for September, 1898; to “ The Norsemen in the
Hebrides,” Saga Book' of the Viking Club, 1898; and to ‘* Unwritten
Memories of The 745 in Eriskay,” in a forthcoming number of Blackwooa’s
Magazine.

5S 2

260 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

Nothing strikes one as more strange in these Islands than
the curious mixture of religion and superstition; and one
realises, as in perhaps few other places, what life must have
been in early days when Christianity was first superinduced
upon Paganism. Here there has been, moreover, the
curious complication of a Christianity rooted in the hearts of
a people, who were then left without teachers, without books,
without, practically, any written language, for nearly three
centuries. The realisation of the forces of nature and the
powers of evil was strong in a land wholly without trees,
without the convenience of wood for any purposes of shelter
or manufacture; where the soil is so shallow and ungrateful
that few things will even take root; where, so wind-swept
is the land, that even when rooted they have but a pre-
carious hold upon the soil; where man and beast alike have
to make a struggle for life, of which we happily know little.

Thus it came about that one of the most obvious uses
of their religion was to play it off, if one may say so, against
the Powers of Darkness.

The spinning-wheel is blessed when it is put away for the
night ; the cow before she is milked; the horses when put
to any new work; the cattle when they are shut up in the
byre; the fire when the peats are covered up at bed-time ;
the door is signed with the cross when closed for the night ;
and the joiner’s tools when he leaves them in his workshop,
otherwise he is likely to be disturbed by hearing them used
by unseen hands. For the same reason the women take
the band off the spinning-wheel, for when a death is about
to occur tools and wheel are likely to be put to use.

The boats are always blessed at the beginning of the
fishing season, and holy water is carried in them. When
one leaves the shore, ‘‘ Let us go in the name of God,” says
the skipper; “In the name of God let us go,” replies the
next in command.

The sea is much more blessed than the land. A man
will not be afraid to stay all night in a boat a few yards

The Powers of Evil tn the Outer Hebrides. 261

from shore, but he would not stay an hour alone in the dark
on land.

A priest told me that one day he was crossing the
dangerous Minch,! which lies between Uist and Eriskay,
on a dark night to visit some sick person. He asked the
man who had fetched him where his companion, who was
awaiting them, would shelter on the shore. ‘‘ He won’t be
on the shore at all, by the Book! it is in the boat itself he
will be. The sea is holier to live on than the shore.’

After the home-spun cloth has been “ waulked” or
“fulled,” that is, cleansed of the oil and grease with which
it has been dressed, there is a curious ceremonial of blessing
by the Head of the fulling-women. All present stand, while,
with hands laid upon the bale, she says:

‘* Let not be afflicted by the Evil Eye,
Let not be mangled,
The man about whom thou goest, for ever.
When he goes into battle or combat
The protection of the Lord be with him.”

When the door is opened in the morning one should say
on first looking out: ‘“‘ May God bless what my eye may see
and what my hand may touch.”

An old inhabitant told us that there is not a glen in
Eriskay in which mass has not been said on account of the
fuathas or bocain. Father John used to say mass at
Creag Shiant, a fairy or enchanted rock in Baile, Eriskay.
She herself had never felt anything there.

It is customary to recite the genealogy of S. Bride, who
is a very important saint in these islands, and among the
concluding lines are these :

** Each day and each night that I recall the genealogy of Brigid,
I shall not be killed,
I shall not be wounded,
I shall not be struck by the Evil Eye.”

' Le. strait ; cf. La Manche, the English Channel.

262 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

There is a little brown bean which they call the “ Mary-
bean,’ and which women still wear round their neck as a
charm, which used always to be blessed by the priest.

The cow isa blessed animal. It is not right that she should
be struck by the flesh of a sinner, and her last words were:
“Do not strike me with your palm.” ΘΑ stick, even a few
inches long, is to be used in preference.

There seems to be some half-forgotten mystic use of the
rod. In taking cattle to the hills they should be driven with
a stick of no value, as it must be thrown after them when
they are left. The stem of the docken, which comes naturally
into use in Uist where sticks are scarce, is “forbidden.” The
drovers and crofters are agreed about this, but can give no
reason. It is equally ‘‘ forbidden ” for horses.

An old man in Eriskay used to say, on leaving his cattle,
after leading them to the hills: “Closed be every hole (i.e.
into which they might stumble) clear be each knowe (ze.
each knoll, from obstacles over which they might fall) and
may the herdship of Columcille* be upon you till you come
home.”

One does not hear of dogs or pigs being blessed, though
animals of great value to their owners, perhaps because the
demon or evil thing sometimes takes their form, as it does
that of the cat or the hare. I never heard but one story of
a dog being so utilised, and that was of one belonging to a
priest, who was once hearing confessions. Whether the
atmosphere was overcharged with piety, or for what reason,
does not appear; but the dog, who was lying on the hearth,
suddenly started up, saying, “If you liked me before, you
never will again,” and disappeared in a shower of sparks.

The cock is considered sacred. No one would willingly
walk abroad in the night, as night and darkness are per-
vaded by evil, but as soon as the cock crows the most timid
will venture alone, no matter hew dark it may be.

If the cock crows at an unusual hour it is a sign of some

' Saint Columba, who is especially in chargé of cattle,

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 263

untoward event. The crow of a cock hatched in March has
more effect against evil spirits than one hatched in autumn,
especially if black.

In a certain house in Uist a guinea disappeared from the
stocking. A suspicion, well-founded, it is said, fell upon a
noted character in the country. Nothing was said at the
time, but when the suspected person next asked for hospi-
tality, the inmates were about to eject him, when the cock
flew down from the couples, and flew about him with flapping
wings, so they permitted him to come in out of the darkness
and allowed him the shelter of the house.

A skipper of a vessel lying in Loch Skipport on three
successive nights saw from his deck a curious phenomenon,
a ball of fire, which came from the north towards a dwelling
house on the shore, and which always turned back at the
crowing of the cock, doing no injury. The skipper went
ashore, bought the cock, and asked the people of the house
to pass the night on his vessel. As they watched on deck,
they saw the ball of fire approach the house as before, but
this time it entered under the roof and the house was con-
sumed by flames before their eyes. The owner was of
opinion that it was a punishment from heaven for some
wrangling with his wife during the last few days. ἢ

There is a house in Glengorm, Morven, in which no cock
ever crows. Some years ago a man and his wife lived there
who differed in religious opinions. She was a Catholic, and
he put every obstacle in the way of her performance of
religious duties. One Christmas Eve she said she wished
to attend mass next morning, and would be obliged if her
husband would wake her up in time.

(1 shall do nothing of the kind,” said he.

“It doesn’t matter,’ she returned patiently, “I daresay
the cock will arouse me.”

“You will sleep long if you wait for him,” he answered,

' This curious story is widely spread in Scotland. See Hugh Miller, Scezes
and Legends, p. 72; Notes and Queries, 7th Series, vol. xi. p.95. Ep.

264 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

and so saying, he lifted up the cock and twisted his neck.
And no cock crowed in that house thereafter.

Mrs. A. W. went to visit a sick old woman who was a
Protestant. She was alone with her, the relatives being at
the other end of the house, and the patient was not sup-
posed to be near death. Suddenly the fowls flew down
from the roost and rushed wildly about the room, as if
pursued by an enemy. Mrs. W. was much alarmed and
perplexed ; when she looked again at the sick woman, she
was dead.

A tailor in South Boisdale tells a similar story, and is
convinced there was no natural explanation. The patient
was of course a Protestant.

John M., joiner, Kilpheder, was playing his pipes one
winter evening while there was a terrible snowdrift out-
side. The cock suddenly came down from his roost and
began to crow and to leap up, flapping his wings at the
piper. The wife, who herself told the story, told him to
stop, as the cock’s behaviour foreboded ill. In the lull that
followed the shrill notes of the pipe, the group around the
turf-fire began to meditate on what mishap had occurred, or
was likely to occur, that night in the blinding storm, and
thought that perhaps the priest, who had been seen to pass
south, might have succumbed to the storm while returning
home, when the voice of the priest himself was heard at the
door asking for the good man of the house. The priest
took John a little apart and told him that his brother
Malcolm had been lost in the storm; being deceived by
the drift, he had walked into Loch nan Faoileann, had
fallen through the ice and had soon become too numbed to
extricate himself. John heard all with surprising com-
posure, his mind having been prepared for the worst.

The crofters very much dislike the modern innovation of
not being allowed to keep their beasts in the house, and
specially resent the exclusion of the cock, who serves to
keep out the Powers of Darkness.

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 265

There are, however, methods, other than religious, for
dodging the Powers of Evil. I remember being perplexed
in my earlier wanderings in the Hebrides by hearing green
things constantly spoken of as “blue,” until it suddenly
dawned upon me that green must not be mentioned, lest it
should call up the fairies.

“Tt is not right” to call dogs by name at night, for that
will inform the fwath or wandering spirit, and then he can
call the dogs as well as you and make them follow himself.

The Rev. A. Macdonald told me that one day one of his
parishioners was telling him that a certain spot on the island
was bad for cattle, and remembering that the priest had a
sheep there at the moment, used the phrase, “ It’s telling it
to the stones I am, and not to you, father ;’’ intending to
divert the evil from the sheep.

The fire of a kiln is spoken of as azngeal, not by the
more obvious name of fezze. The fire in a kiln, it is said,
is a dangerous thing and should not be talked of except by
a euphemism. One man said he always blessed the kiln
before leaving it, but should feel even then no security if he
called the fire “‘ ¢ezme.’’ There is a proverb: “ Ill will come
if mentioned.’ In the same way drowning is spoken of as
“spoiling” or “destroying” (mzlleadh not bathadh). Even
in a sermon it would be thought bad taste to speak of the
Devil. He is ‘the great fellow,” “the black one,” “the
nameless,” “the brindled one,” “the evil one.” A priest
told us he once gave an evening hymn to an old man, in
which the word dzathol (devil) occurred. The man after-
wards said he had changed it, as he could not go to bed with
such a word on his lips.

So, too, hell is called ‘the bad place,” sometimes, even,
“the good place,” just as elsewhere—not, I think, in Gaelic-
speaking districts—goblins and fairies are the “ good folk.”

If a cow or a horse die it is not right to say “it died,”
but “it was lost” ; and in asking a question it is right to
preface it with “It is not asking that I am,’’ not only, I

266 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

think, as a matter of good manners, but also not to attract
the attention of the evil powers to the information given
you.

A child should not be named after one who has died young.
I heard a mother attribute the early death of a child to its
having been named, to please the father, after a girl who
had died young.

The Powers of Evil should not be allowed to hear praise
of any person or beast. Jan McK. was one day ploughing
with a pair of horses in Barra when a man from Uist came
by and praised them very much, asking where he was likely
to get such horses; and they chatted in a friendly way
together for some minutes. The Uist man went his way
along the shore, but had not been long gone when both
horses fell down as if dead in the field. It was evidently
the work of the Evil Eye, and Ian followed the man and
upbraided him bitterly. The Uist man declared himself
quite innocent in intention, but said that if he had any
hand in it he would undertake that Ian should find them all
right on his return, as in fact he did.

If a person praises your ox, or your ass, or anything that
is yours, be sure to say: ‘‘ Wet your eye,” which, if kindly
disposed, he will perform literally. The phrase, albeit in
the Highlands, has no ulterior meaning.

If a person should praise any child or beast of yours, you
should praise what he praises, only in more extravagant
terms than he. If out of good manners you should dispraise
anything belonging to yourself, his praise would have an ill
effect. If you commend the size or appearance of a child,
you should use some such formula as “God bless it, how
big 1151 If you ask how many children a person has, it
is proper to say, on being told, “ Up with their number,” so
that they may not decrease ; and in counting chickens you
should say: “ Let not my eye rest on them.”

Father R. had, three years ago, a good cow, which died of
some internal inflammation; but of course the Evil Eye was

The Powers of Evil tn the Outer Hebrides. 267

at the bottom of it, according to current opinion. He hada
capital pony; and a few days after the cow’s death one of
his parishioners, looking at the pony, began to dispraise it
in no measured terms, of course with the notion of warding
off the attention of the Powers of Evil. Another advised him
to put his new cow in a park (anglicé paddock) at some dis-
tance from the chapel, on Sundays, so that it might not run
the risk of being “ overlooked”’ by any of the worshippers.

Much may, moreover, be done by right selection of days
for any purpose.

Monday is a good day for changing one’s residence, pro-
vided it be from north to south.

Tuesday is a good day to get married, or for setting the
warp in the loom, or for shearing, which means cutting the
corn, not the sheep.

The Devil cannot touch what is done on a Tuesday.

There was a man who had no son to help him with the
harvest ; and when one day a fine looking young man offered
himself as a servant, he was glad to accept him. The terms
were that he was to have one load for his wages. The
farmer saw with whom he had to deal, and felt sure the load
would be of large proportions ; and he consulted a wise man
who told him to address his assistant thus :

“© Tuesday I sowed,
And Tuesday I mowed,
And Tuesday I carried my first load,

And let it not be among thy deeds, O Demon,
To take with thee what is done in the Lord.”

The new “hand” went off in a flame of fire.
When All Saints is on a Wednesday the men of the earth
are under affliction.
Thursday is St. Columcille’s Day. There is a rhythmical
saying :
<¢ Thursday, the day of kind Cille Colum.
A day for setting sheep apart for luck,

For arranging the thread in the loom,
And for getting a wild cow to take to its calf.”

268 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

There is a saying that “ Luckless is the mother of a silly
child, if Beltane come on a Thursday.”

Friday is a good day for planting or for sowing seed, for
engaging one’s self either in matrimony or any other bar-
gain. It is not right to buy on a Friday, nor to be buried,
nor to cut one’s nails or hair, nor to kill sheep. On Good
Friday no metal must be put into the ground, such as the
spade or plough ; but seaweed may be spread on the surface,
or the wooden rake used. It is not right to sharpen a knife
on Friday. A knife so treated is cursed, and will probably
be used before long to skin one’s own cattle, which will have
fallen to the Powers of Evil, or fallen dead before the Evil
Eye. A person born on a Friday is said to be delicate and
dilatory.

Saturday is good for changing one’s residence if going
from south to north, but it is not right to spin on Saturday
night. A woman who once did so had her spinning fingers,
i.e. the forefinger and middle finger, joined together; nor
is it right to spin with a corpse in the township.

There is much luck in spots and sites. ‘’Tis I that sat
on a bad hillock,” 15 a very common saying of anyone who
has had deaths either in house or byre, and means that the
site of the house is not well chosen.

The sortes numismatice are resorted to in choosing the
site of a house. If heads turn up twice in three times, the
spot is lucky. They talk about “heads” and “ harps,” as
if used to the Irish coinage.

A silver coin is buried under the corner-stone for
luck.

Another important matter is that of direction. Every-
thing should be done dessz/, 1.6. sunwards. When a child
is choking they say, “ Dessil,” possibly part of some old
invocation.

It is not right to come to a house “ tuaitheal,” 2.6. north-
ward. Probably the word is here used as the reverse of
‘“dessil” or sunward. Witches come that way.

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 269

It is a rule to keep on the west side of the road at night,
and at all times to keep sunwards of unlucky people.

There are of course many ways in which evil may be
unconsciously invited, and the avoidance of them involves a
whole code of right and wrong.

If a knock comes to a door after midnight, it is not right
to say “Come in.’ Wait till the knock is repeated and
then say “Who is there?’ Our informant added: “ My
father being ferryman to Barra, many a person used to
come to the door and ask to come in, but my mother always
insisted on hearing the name before it was opened. He
used to tell her not to be so particular, but she said: ‘ The
wandering ones would be often knocking, and when a person
would go to open, there would be nobody there. They would
be playing tricks this way on people.’ A goblin came thus
to a door one night, but failed to get admittance. He then
said: ‘If it were the red cock of autumn that were in the
house, he would open the door for me. It isn’t that that is
in it,’ says he, ‘but the black cock of the spring March.’”’
The special good luck of this kind of cock has already been
mentioned.

It is not right that any person should sleep in a house
without water in it, especially a young child. In a house
thus left without water “the slender one of the green coat
was seen washing the infant in a basin of milk.”

Sleeping on the bench is always rebuked, and a certain
Angus J. testifies that once, when he disobeyed this rule,
he awoke to find himself being dragged by the feet by in-
visible beings. Moreover, one, Donald MacD., alleges that
over and over again he has been rebuked for not going to
bed properly, but he persisted in having his own way, until
one night he also was dragged across the floor by in-
visible hands.

An old woman, Mary McN., of Smerclet, said she did not
think sleeping on the bench mattered if you had your feet
to the door, so as to be able to rise at once if interfered

270 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

with, but that it was a serious matter to be dragged out by
the head.

If you find yourself accidentally in a byre when milking
is going on, or in a dairy where the churn is at work, it is
on the safe side to say “ May God bless everything that my
eye sees and that my hand touches.”

It is not right to hurry a dairymaid to milk the cows.
To avert harm she says: ‘Hurry the women of the town
beyond” (a euphemism for fairies). A variant of this is
“Hurry your mother-in-law ’’—a repartee of immense
effect.

If a person suspected of the Evil Eye should speak to
one while milking, it is not right to make any answer, per-
haps because so doing establishes a rapport.

The first day of the season that a man goes to fish it is
not right that anybody should go to meet him, as is done
on other days, to help to bring in his catch. He must
manage it for himself somehow. Any person officiously
doing this is said to drive away the fish from the coast.

Stones placed in a certain fashion bring ill-luck. One
woman told Father A. Macdonald that ill-luck had followed
her, and all her cattle died; on changing the house and
taking off the thatch, four stones appeared concealed under
the divots.1_ Some “evil words” must have been used in
placing them there.

If a cow is lost through illness of any kind it is not right
to distribute any of the beef raw. It must be boiled, other-
wise the dosgaidh (loss) might be spread. If a cat cries
for it, it is reproved with “ Whist with you, for asking for
blighted food ; may your own skin be the first on the rafters,”
so as not to attract the attention of the Evil Influence.

When going to a well or stream for water, the rinsings of
the pail should not be thrown on one’s own land or crop.

If there be a little milk in the bottom of a pail, it should

᾿ 1.4. the rods with which the house is thatched.

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 271

be thrown out on to grass, never on to earth or rocks,
because the milk comes from the grass.

In preparing water for boiling cloths, after it has once
boiled it is not right to allow it to boil a second time, not
for the sake of the clothes, but because it would bring evil
to the house. The Rev. A. Macdonald says his informant,
an old woman, would not specify the evil, though he thought
she knew.

Some people are lucky to meet, in spite of having red hair
or other personal peculiarity. A fisherman told us that he
had twice met such a woman when on his way to fish
saithe, and on both occasions had as much as he could carry
home.

Others are just as unlucky to meet, and you would be
sure to have disappointment in your errand. If it were only
to fetch a spade you had left lying in the field, you would be
sure to have to come back without it. A man from North
Uist says that he often makes a détour of about a mile
when he is going to hunt (‘“ hunting” means shooting in
the Islands) because he says: “If I should meet the people
from that house, though I would use two pounds of shot, |
would kill nothing.”

Women do not seem to bea sign of good. If you are
making a frzth! and you see a woman, cross yourself. Ifa
woman tells you the new moon is visible, do not look at it.

At one time no male could survive in the Island of
Eriskay. Women were less intolerable to the spirits of the
place, and on one occasion when by some accident a man
got into the island and could not get away, it was suggested
that he should dress up as a woman and sit and spin among
the rest. Though he showed some skill with the distaff he
was soon found out, and the adventure proved fatal.

Good as well as evil must have a start. The people
will say to any who complain, that they are “like the
sister of Saint Columba.” He used to visit her daily in

1 1.2. a kind of horoscope much in use.

272 Lhe Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

illness, and she always complained, and he always agreed
that she was, as she said, worse. At last someone advised
her to answer him differently, which she did, and when he
replied ‘Good and evil must have a start,” she began to
get better.

This is the theory underlying the idea that the evil in-
fluence, once put on the track, takes complete hold. There
is an aphorism in Gaelic: ‘ When a man is tried, he is
tried completely.”” Acquaintance with death invites further
visits. Thus, it is not lucky to own a boat that has carried
a coffin. The Rev. A. Macdonald tells me that only a few
months ago a woman in Eriskay died, and her relatives,
who had two boats, carried the corpse across in a small one,
quite unfit for such work in such weather, rather than use
the boat that did service for fishing.

If a dog kill a sheep, the luck of the flock is lost to the
owner, and the rest will follow by some means.

Also, if a person die who has been lucky in accumulating
flocks and herds, the beasts will follow him shortly.

There is a mysterious entity called “the Aoine.” All
we knew of her is a proverb to the effect that ‘“ When
the Aoine has got it in her mouth, the raven may as well
start off to the hills;’? which we took to mean that she
was loquacious. However, I incline to think that there
is another possible meaning, and one more gruesome.
We heard of a man named M., now deceased, who knew
the Raun or rhyme of the Aoine, and that he was liable
to recite it if he saw a person bathing, who would then
be instantly drowned; and that in order to resist the
impulse he would turn his back to the bather and fall down
upon his face.

Another mysterious entity who appears only in a proverb
is “Om,” of whom it is said: “Om is most active in his
morning.” The phrase is used to anyone who wishes at
night to put off doing something till next day.

-The Fuath or Evil Spirit is sometimes seen, and we

Ε΄

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 273

were interested in seeking a description of him. As of
old, he has the power of transforming himself into an
angel of light, but he is generally found out in the long
run.

It is well known that any being which frequently changes
its shape is of evil origin. When I asked my informant if
such cases were frequent, he referred me to his sister, who
tells that when she was a servant at Kilbride, the doctor’s
horse and trap rushed into the yard one night, the gate
being happily open, which was not usual. The driver, a
lad from Stelligarry, followed soon, also in a state of alarm.
He had come to Polacharra to meet the ferry from Barra,
and the doctor was staying the night at the inn; but there
was not room for the trap and he drove on towards Kil-
bride. Suddenly the horse stopped, and on getting out to
see what was wrong he saw “a beast climbing up from the
shore to the edge of the road, like a pig. It went up the
face of the brow of Cnoc Sligeannach and went back from
there like a coil of heather-rope, and after that it went into
the shape of a dog.”

It is believed among the people that a curse follows the
killing of fish in spawning-time, and that those who follow
the occupation are apt to encounter a fwath or evil spirit ;
I have met men who would not dare to go to catch fish at
that time.

Alexander W. of Buaile Mér above Milton, South Uist,
about 60 years ago was catching fish by night at Seacoch,
Stuolaval, when he perceived a man coming down the
stream. He told him to step aside, so as not to frighten the
fish, and he obeyed. W. had caught a good quantity of fish
by this time, and following up the stream he was surprised
to see something like a mill-wheel rolling down towards him,
in a way he did not think canny, and he deemed it prudent
to decamp with all speed. He picked up his fish hurriedly and
put them on a withe (shallow basket), with the exception of
one which he had decapitated accidentally by trampling on it

VOL. X. τ

274 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

with his boot. As he was going away, he stowed the fish in a
nook where he could afterwards easily find them, and hurried
off to the nearest dwelling, which was at Loch Boisdale, the
house of Roderick, son of Dougal S. On his way over the
moor, he was frequently thrown on the ground by some
unseen power. On asking if it had any part with God, he
got no answer. In the morning he returned for his fish and
got none but the headless one.

Ronald Mac D. was farm servant with the Rev. John
Chisholm, priest of Bornish. He had set a net in the spawn-
ing-time across the little stream to the west of the house.
At midnight he went to pull in the net, when he saw a man
of gigantic stature at the other end of the net, and retired in
terror to the house. He was pursued till he entered, and
ever after believed that he had encountered the fuath.

One Alasdair Mor went by night to kill fish in spawning
time, and was joined by some unknown person, who
bargained with him that they should work together, and
share and share alike. After landing a large quantity, the
stranger urged Alasdair to divide the spoil, but he would
not interrupt his work, and replied: ‘‘ No, no, there’s lots of
fish in the stream yet.” And so they went on till the moor-
cook crew and the unknown vanished in a flame of fire, and
Alasdair found that the fish were all phantoms.

Three men went to fish by night as usual on the stream
at Hornary; they had cabers (long staves) for splashing and
terrifying the fish into the nets. They also used these cabers
as vaulting-poles when crossing the stream ; and in one spot,
where there was a stone standing in the middle of the stream,
it was their custom to vault to this stone, and afterwards, by
another leap, to get across. As they were going to cross
the stream, they perceived a man standing on the stone, who
stretched out his hand and helped the first two comers over.
As the third was expecting the same courtesy, the stranger
said: ‘ Thy hour is not yet come,” and gave him no assist-
ance. The other two men soon fell into a decline and used

μὲ

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 275

to exchange visits during their illness, remarking: “It were
easy knowing that something was coming upon us since the
night at Hornary Stream.” They died shortly after.

The eyes of Christ were grey, of Our Lady brown, of the
Devil black; but the Evil Eye does not depend upon its
colour, nor necessarily upon any desire of doing harm; and
a person so unfortunate as to possess it may injure even
his own children. The people who have skill in making
snaithean (charms for turning away the effects) say they
know, without being told, whether the eye was that of a man
ora woman. Two women were pointed out as being the
cause of many a swearing, for they, quite unwittingly, bring
misfortune on any person they may meet who is going out
to fish or hunt. One has dark hair and the other red.

To preserve against the Evil Eye one article of clothing
should be put on wrong side out.

The Saint John’s wort is called ας Columezlle, the
armpit of Columcille. It is a lucky plant, and brings increase
and protection from evil to one’s store, be it cattle, or sheep,
or grain. It is plucked with the formula:

“<¢ Unsearched for and unsought, For luck of sheep I pluck thee.”

The marsh-ragwort (caoibhreachan) is valuable against
the torradh and Evil Eye generally.

Of all forms of evil influence none is more dreaded than
this ¢orradh, or the charming away of milk from cattle. The
methods by which this is effected are various. There was
in Eriskay a woman who had good cheese, but only one cow.
A neighbour bought some of the cheese, but directly grace
was said at table it disappeared. The cow always stood on
the same place to be milked, and someone examined the
place in hope of instruction. Nothing was to be seen on
the surface; but on digging, a vessel was found containing
hair from various other cows.

The furnishing of a house in the Hebrides is, as may be
supposed, of the simplest. The beds are enclosed. There

276 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

is a dresser, a table, wooden boxes for receptacles, and a
plank supported by large stones for seats. The fire is
usually in the middle of the floor, the cooking-pot hangs
over it, suspended by a chain from the roof. This chain is
mysteriously connected with the Powers of Evil, it is said to
be cursed; the Devil is called “ Him of the Chain.”

Once, when there was a talk of a change of factors in the
island, some one remarked of the one who was leaving that
his successor might be worse. ‘‘ No, no,’ was the reply,
‘not unless the chain came across entirely,” 1.6. the Evil
One himself.

It is not right to handle the chain; evil may come of it.
There was a man whose cows ceased to give milk; and
suspecting that a woman near by was the author of the
mischief, he went into her house in her absence and found
only a little child. ‘‘ Where does your mother get the milk
she gives you to drink?” he asked. ‘Out of the chain,”
said the child. “Come, little one, show me how she will be
doing it.’ ‘Like this,’ said the child, and drawing the
chain the milk flowed from it. The man tore down the
chain and carried it off, and the milk returned to his cows.

There is no saying in what unexpected places milk may
be found, when subtracted under evil conditions. There
was a woman who had always abundance of milk, butter,
and cheese, but no cow. A suspicious neighbour entered
her house during her absence and found a quantity of black
“tangle”?! hanging up. He took his knife and cut one of
them, and milk flowed forth abundantly.

Happily the methods of cure are alsonumerous. Mrs. A.
O’H., Eriskay, tells that her grandmother had lost many
cows from no apparent cause, and was sure they had been
“overlooked.” She consulted a drover, supposing that he
might have suffered in the same manner. He told her to
have the hide of the next victim laid upon the thatch of the

* Seaweed used for kelp-making, z.e. the extraction of iodine and other
chemical properties.

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 277

house, and to watch what bird was the first to be attracted
by it; for, as there are no trees, the thatch of the house is a
substitute for many purposes, to the birds among others.
The next calf that was born was to be called after the bird.
A hooded grey crow came, and the first calf was therefore
called feannag=hoodie crow, and the name being retained
by all its descendants the murrain ceased.

It is not right to lose the duarach, i.e. the horse-hair tie
which goes about the cows’ feet at milking-time, because
anyone getting it could get torradh of your cattle. One
notices the care with which, after milking, these ties are
carried home and hung up in a certain spot.

Once or twice a year a drover from the mainland comes
to the islands to buy cattle. He used always to stay with
a certain farmer, from whose daughter, Effie Mcl., the
story comes. He was accustomed to abundant fare, but
one year no cheese was forthcoming. “It is not,’ said his
hostess, “that we have not plenty of cows, but for some
reason we can make no cheese.” Early next morning the
drover rose and looked out. On coming in, he asked for
three or four bunches of “bent” grass (1.6. the long grass
that grows on the shore), and made as many duarachs,
and asked the women to put them on the cows, three
times round each, and then to let the herd go where
they would. This was done, and the cows rushed off
wildly and never stopped till they reached a certain
crofter’s house, when they climbed on the roof and began
to tear at the thatch, to the great astonishment of its
owner. “They are wanting what belongs to them,” said
the drover in explanation; and when the woman of the
house came out with an armful of cheeses, the cows sur-
rounded her and drove her among them back to the byre
from which they had come. This happened a second and
a third time, till all the torradh that had been filched was
restored, when the cows settled down quietly once more,
and their mistress had once more abundance of cheese.

278 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

If the person whose Evil Eye has taken away the produce
be publicly rebuked, the milk or other produce affected will
return.

If a person is very much afflicted in regard to the torradh,
he is wise to adopt the following remedy: ‘“ Whenever”’
(anglicé = as soon as) one of his cows has a calf, to take it
away before any milk is drawn. Then, taking a bottle, he
is to draw milk from the four teats, kneeling. The bottle
is then tightly corked; this is important, for carelessness in
this respect might give access to the torradh and upset
everything. Another method is for a man—a woman won’t
do—to go the house of the person suspected, and pull off
from the roof as much thatch and divots as his two hands
will hold, and over this to boil what little milk is left, until
it dries up. Another informant advised burning the thatch
under the churn, instead of under the milk.

Another means of removing the blight from one’s cattle
is to bury the carcase of one of the victims by a boundary
stream. Similarly, you may transfer it to your neighbour
by burying it on his land.

A man told my informant that one day when he was
ploughing, one of his horses fell. He took the tail of the
horse in his hand and put it to his mouth, while he repeated
a charm, and the horse recovered. .

Mary McM., of Eriskay, says that one day she was
taking home a load of sea-ware in a cart, when a person
who had the Evil Eye came by and the horse fell down and
could not rise for a long time, and even then was quite
weak and could not take food. When she got home, her
neighbour filled a bowl with water taken from a boundary
stream and put silver into it, and threw it over the horse’s
back, and it immediately got better. She had herself been
once “overlooked,” and was ill for many days in con-
sequence, but I forget whether by this person or another.

If in such a case as this the silver remains at the bottom
of the bowl, it is an indication that the szaithean’must be

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 279

resorted to. This is in most cases the ultimate appeal, and
I never heard of a case in which it had failed.

The szaithean' is made of wool, often black, so as not to
be easily seen. If you buy a cow or horse in the market
you are almost sure to find a piece of black wool round its
tail, well out of sight under the hair. Certain persons in
most districts know how to make it, and can repeat the
charm which is part of the process. The person who fetches
it should should carry it in silence, and in the palm of the
hand—not between the finger and thumb, because with
them Eve plucked the apple and they are “ not blessed.”
It must be burnt when removed, and must not be paid for,
though those receiving it consider themselves under an
obligation which is to be discharged somehow.

When it is the Evil Eye that has fallen on the victim, the
person making the szazthean is seized with a fit of yawning,
or becomes ill in proportion to the disease of the sufferer
and the duration of his attack. Whether the author is male
or female is generally determined by casting the 77th, or
horoscope, which is another story and belongs to the subject
of divining.

When the thread is put about the cattle, first is said the
Pater, and then the following :—

“« An Eye will see you.
A Tongue will speak of you.
A Heart will think of you.
He of the Arm is blessing you (z.e. St. Columcille).
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Four persons there are who may have done you harm,
A man, a wife, a lad, a girl.
Who is to turn that back ?

' Cf. Folk-Lore, vol. vi. p. 154. The information there given as to the use of
the szazthean is said to be derived from “ἃ native of Bernera,” which I take
—judging from differences of method—to be Bernera, Harris. There is little in
common between the far more conventionalised people of the Lewis, with their
Free-Kirk precision, and the less self-conscious, albeit more intelligent, native of
the Outer Isles.

280 The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides.

The Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity,
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
I call Mary to witness, and Brigid,
If it be a human thing that has done you harm
With wicked wish,
Or with wicked eye,
Or with wicked heart,
That you (name of person or animal) be well
From the time I place this about you.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

A very respectable widow related with great detail how
she was once under the Evil Eye. She was going along the
Machaire (the sandy. plain near the sea-shore) with two
ponies, and she met a man with some grain on his back,
going to the mill, and immediately she began to feel very
weak. When she came to the nearest house, she found that
she could not go any further, and felt a sort of retching, with
cold shivers all over her. They brought butter and put it
into warm milk to restore her, and a man, Angus M., who
was present, felt sure that she had fallen under the Evil Eye,
and they duly sent for a certain Ranald who knew how to
make spells. He twisted some threads and passed them
round the fire three times. (It must be remembered that the
fire would be in the middle of the room.) Then he tied it
on her hand, and she began to get better immediately.
Ranald told her it was the Evil Eye of a man that had
affected her, but she did not know how he made that out. It
must certainly have been the man with the grain.

This woman’s husband had knowledge of the sxazthean,
as we discovered another time. Perhaps he was dead or
away on the occasion when Ranald was sent for. A girl
came to him one day and begged him for the love of good-
ness to make it for her sister, who was very ill. There were
several men in the house at the time, and he said he would
not do it, as Father Donald, the priest, had told him not to
be doing it. But the girl got him outside and asked him for
the pity of God to help her, and he then asked his wife (who

The Powers of Evil in the Outer Hebrides. 281

told the story) for some wool and she twisted some for him
on her wheel. The girl got better, and is alive to this day to
prove the efficacy of the cure.

She said the eo/as (spell) would not be right if it were
not paid for, but she did not know what was the rate of
payment. I can personally testify that when silver is put
into a bowl of water to work a spell, the wise woman keeps
the silver. The theory is that when the water is thrown
over the patient it does no good unless the silver sticks to
the bowl. She told us also that not long since a woman
from a small neighbouring island went to K. to ask for
rennet, which the servant gave her without asking her
mistress. Some time after, the cattle went all wrong with
their milk, and the servant confessed what she had done,
as this was probably the cause of the trouble; but we did
not hear what steps were taken for its removal. One poor
beast that we came across had been smitten by two Evil
Eyes at the same time. The maker of charms, at first
much perplexed, at length discovered the cause, and said
the creature would be ill for a year, which came to pass.

Many stories in the Hebrides are on lines which the Society
for Psychical Research would call “telepathic suggestion.’
A good many examples of wisdom are told of tailors, just
as in England they are told of cobblers (who have little
employment in islands where women and children go bare-
foot). A tailor’s wife was busy churning, when a woman
came in to ask for fire. ‘Keep busily at it,” called the
tailor to his wife, and gave the woman the embers she
required, but dropped one into a tub of cold water. This
happened a second and a third time, and though the tailor’s
wife was ready to drop with fatigue, she churned away as
she was told. When the third ember was dropped into the
tub, the woman sat down moaning: “ Oh, in the name of
God, let my hand away!” The tailor said he would not,
unless she promised never to trouble him or his house
again, which she did, and then showed her hand, all bruised

282 The Powers of Evil tn the Outer Hebrides.

and blue from the blows the tailor’s wife had given it in the
churn. The lid was taken off, and there was nothing within
but watery stuff, but in the tub were three large lumps of
beautiful butter.

I will conclude with a warning against lightly meddling
with matters so serious as these. A man named C. was
going to mass early on Sunday morning to Kiloanan. As
he crossed the strand, he found a woman and her daughter
actively engaged in framing witchcrafts by means of pieces
of thread of various colours. He tore up the whole appa-
ratus and rebuked them for malice and for breach of the
Sunday. They entreated him not to reveal what he had
seen, and promised their protection in return for his silence.
Nevertheless after mass he told the story. Shortly after,
when he was about to sail for the mainland, a black crow
settled on the mast of his boat and a storm arose in which
he perished. The story is not only true, but of recent oc-
currence.

THE TAR-BABY STORY.

BY MISS A. WERNER.

I SUPPOSE the question of the African origin of the
“Uncle Remus” stories has been settled long ago, but it
is interesting to see how every fresh contribution to the
stock of African (and more especially ‘‘ Bantu” ) folklore
supplies us with fuller and more detailed evidence on this
point. Since it was discussed in the introduction to Mr.
Chandler Harris’s original edition (how long ago was that?)
at least three distinct African versions of the Tar-Baby
episode in Brer Rabbit’s career have come to light. And
the same thing is probably true of the other stories.

The latest of these versions is one obtained by Pére
Capus, of the White Fathers, among the Basumbwa, one of

The Tar-Baby Story. 283

the numerous tribes inhabiting the district of Unyamwezi,
in German East Africa. Lest this should not be sufficiently
definite, we may add that their habitat is about midway
between the south-western corner of the Victoria Nyanza
and the upper end of Tanganika.

The text of this story, with a literal French translation,
is published in the Berlin Zeztschrift fir afrikanische
und ozeanische Sprachen (vol. 111., fasc. 4), under the title
“Muna mugunda ne Kanakami—Le Maitre du Champ et
le Lapin.” Anyone with a little knowledge of any one
“ Bantu”? language cannot fail, on glancing over this
Shisumbwa text, to recognise a fair proportion of words.
Thus mwint, mwenyt, mwene, an owner, or chief, are found
in various forms in Yao, Swahili, and Mang’anja; and
mugunda, a garden, is the Yao mgunda, Mang’anja munda.
But we must not let ourselves be tempted into a linguistic
digression, further than to remark that the Rabbit’s name
affords a curious instance of divergence, where so many
names of animals can be traced through ten or twelve
tongues as being originally the same word. Here he is
nakamt, in Yao sungula, in Mang’anja kalulu, in Ronga
(Delagoa Bay) mpfundla, in Zulu unogwaja! Whether
all these names are applied to the same animal I should
not venture to decide. M. Henri A. Junod (Chants et
Contes des Ba-Ronga, p. 86) says that, in Basutoland, there
are two hares (he calls Brer Rabbit “li¢vre”’ throughout)
bearing distinct names, and totally opposite characters.
The Ba-Ronga, it would seem, nave only one hare, whom
they call mpfundla, and when they adopted (on the hypo-
thesis that they did adopt) the Basuto tales, they attributed
two sets of stories to the same animal, and so introduced
glaring inconsistencies into his character. He is some-

1 This name, Bantu, is sometimes objected to, but after all it has gained a
certain currency, and on Darwin’s principle (Z2/e and Letters, vol. 111... Ὁ. 46) will
serve as well as any other—or better, for no one has yet proposed a practicable
substitute.

284 The Tar-Baby Story.

times (and most frequently) a ‘malin personnage,” who is
surnamed “le rusé compére ” (Nwa-Chisisana), sometimes
‘un nigaud,” who is taken in by the Swallow, and even by
the Hen. M. Junod suggests that his contention is borne
out by the circumstance that the two tales in his collection
which most strongly exhibit the Rabbit in this light are
really Makua stories, imported from Mozambique.

I do not feel competent to give an opinion on this matter,
but would like to mention one or two points which may or
may not be relevant. Among the Mang’anja tales 1 col-
lected at Blantyre and in the West Shire district are two
variants (one very imperfect) of the tale called by M. Junod
“Le Liévre et ?Hirondelle.” In one it 15 the Cock (¢am-
bala) who is overreached (with tragic results) by the Swal-
low; in the other the Rabbit’s place is taken by the Cat, and
it is a small bird (the x¢engu) who is too sharp for him.
Again, many of the Ka/ulu stories (and he figures in the
great majority) consist of two parts; in the first, Brer
Rabbit is fooled by some one, by preference the Dzimwe ; *
in the second he goes one better and turns the tables on
his adversary. In one, the Crocodile kills the Rabbit's wife,
but the latter employs the Wood-pigeon to entice the Croco-
dile ashore, and then kills him. So universally is the
Kalulu’s superiority insisted on, that I am inclined to think
that the tales showing him as the defeated party (I can only
recall one at this moment) are incomplete, and, like Cam-
buscan’s, left half-told.

I may add that, to the best of my belief, there is only one
Kalulu in the Shire Highlands, and he is quite as much of
a hare as he is of a rabbit; more so indeed, for he does not
live in warrens, but makes himself a form in the bush, even
as our hare at home. In size, if I recollect rightly the
fleeting glimpses which were all he ever vouchsafed me, he
is something between the two.

' Some call this animal an ant-eater, some an elephant, some a bogy. I
incline to think he belongs to the last-named genus.

The Tar-Baby Story. 285

The tale of the Nakami begins in true native fashion :
“There was a man; he had a field of dxkonzo (dhurra) ;
ie pcipened. ithe Rabbit’ came to eateit: He: (76 the
owner) came ; he went to (see) it; he found in it the foot-
marks of the Rabbit. And he said, The Rabbit, it is he
who eats my dukonzo.” . .. . It will be seen that this
style of narrative is conducive to /ongueurs, especially as
the speeches of the various characters are reported with
Homeric minuteness, and repeated in full every time there
is occasion to refer to them. Thus, e.g., if a native has to
relate that A gave B a message to convey to C, and C
afterwards told the purport of the message to D, the exact
words used will recur zz extenso at least three times in the
narrative.

To return to the Shisumbwa story; it runs, in a slightly
condensed paraphrase, something like this: The owner of
the field consulted with his neighbours, and they suggested
that he should cut a log of wood into the shape of a girl.
He did so, and having adorned the figure with cloth and
beads, smeared her with gum (dwzremdbo; elsewhere they
say madilolzlo), and set it up in his field. When the Rabbit
came in the early morning, he saluted her with “ Mola /}
little girl!’? She made no answer. He said again: “/fola,
little girl!” No answer. So he said: “Do you hate your
neighbours then? They salute you, and you say nothing.
I will come nearer.” He came nearer and spoke to her
again, but still received no answer. Then he took hold of
her, and his hand stuck fast. He said: ‘“ Let me go,” but
could not get away. ‘Let me go, little girl, there are
people coming.” He seized her with the other hand, and
that, too, stuck fast. ‘‘ Do let me go, they are coming nearer.
I will put my foot on you.” He did so; his foot stuck fast,
then the other foot. Then he threatened to bite her, and as
this produced no effect he tried to do so, and was caught by
the mouth. Then he sat on her (it is not easy to see how

1 Shisumbwa for ‘* moyo,” ““ sakubona,” ““ moni,” or ‘ howdy.”

286 The Tar-Baby Story.

he could have done it under the circumstances), and couid
not get up again. The people nowcame up and found him
a prisoner. They went to fetch the Muna Mugunda, who
loosed him from the gum and carried him off to the village.
The culprit, however, had thought of a way of escape.
“You man! (ode mugosha) don’t kill me, but boil me alive
in the pot; I shall boil quickly. If you kill me first, I shall
not boil quickly, I shall be hard like a stone.” The man
listened to his words, and put him into the pot. (As it was
still early, we may presume that the water had only just been
put on, and was therefore cold.) Then the people all went
away to hoe their gardens. At this village, there was a
child ill with manoro (a skin disease), and they left him to
watch the pot. As soon as they were gone, the Rabbit
came out of the pot, seized the boy set to watch, put him in,
and then assumed his shape, manoro and all. When the
people came back, he said: ‘‘ Your meat is ready; cook me
a mess of bran-porridge (shzhere; in Yao, chipere). 1 do
not want any of your meat, it smells bad.” The boy’s
mother made him some shzhere, and he went outside to eat
it muhumbo—under the eaves by the door. They called him
to come and sit beside them, but he refused. When he saw
them picking the bones, he muttered: ‘“ You are gnawing the
bones of your own child.” They said: ‘“ What do you say,
child?” He said: “1 only said the flies are biting my sores.”
When they had finished eating, he ran away, calling out to them
as he went: ‘You have eaten your own child! I am going
away !—I, the Rabbit of Ngaraganza.’”’ (This might be the
same as “ Ukalaganza,”’ which seems to be another name for
Unyamwezi.) The women cried (/z7a means both to weep
and to cry out; in particular, to raise the ‘““keening” for the
dead), but the men pursued him. They had all but caught
him, when he ran into a hole. One man put in his hand and
seized him by the tail, but he began “fer ter holler,” the
equivalent to the ‘“Tu’n loose dat stump root an ketch holt
er me,” uttered by Brer Tarrypin in like case. [πΚ6 Brer

The Tar-Baby Story. 287

Bar, the man let go his hold of the tail and seized the root;
but the episode was not yet at an end, for he pulled as
hard as he could, and up came the root. Then they left
one man to watch the hole, while the rest went for picks,
to dig out Brer Rabbit. As soon as they were gone, he
said to the man on guard: ‘‘Open your eyes wide, so that
you may see the Rabbit when he comes out, and catch him.”
(‘“‘Ecarquille les yeux au terrier,’ says Pére Capus: the
meaning seems to be that the man was to put his face close
to the entrance of the burrow and look in.) He did so, and
the Rabbit threw dust in his eyes and ran past him. He
felt something, and quickly clapped his hands over the hole,
still blinded (so the narrative seems to imply), and not
knowing whether the prisoner had escaped or not. When the
others came back they said: “Ishethere?”’ Heanswered:

“He threw sand in my eyes; perhaps he is there.” “ Per-
haps ’”—Kamoba, kanga, kapena—is one of the most subtly
characteristic African locutions. | No one conversant with

native ways can fail to recognise the cautious non-committal
answer; the speaker declining to draw any inference, how-
ever obvious, from his first statement, or to assume any
responsibility for a supposition even to the extent of an “I
think.” ‘Has A goneto X?” ‘Perhaps he has gone.” “Are
the floods out on the Matope road?” ‘“ Kafena they are!”
It is only less exasperating, on occasion, than the famous
Kaya’ of the Mang’anja (Yao, Awalinz), which can only
be rendered by the Spanish Quzen sabe? and is more com-
prehensive even than that.

They began to dig. The Rabbit made a circuit (it is to be
supposed that he stripped off his skin—as he does in many
native tales, or otherwise disguised himself—though this is

1 Not to be confounded with the Zulu efaya, at home (which seems also to be
used in Shisumbwa). Perhaps it is to be counted for righteousness to the
Zulus that they don’t possessa ‘‘ kaya.” ‘* Ang’azi” is simply a straightforward
“1 do not know ”—like ‘‘sindi dziwa” in Mang’anja—a statement of fact quite
distinct from saya.

288 The Tar-Baby Story.

not stated, as it is on a similar occasion, later on), came
upon them, as if from a distance, asked what they were
doing, and offered to help. | He took up a pick and set to
work; but before long the iron came out of the handle.
So he called to the Giraffe, and asked for the loan of his leg
to serve as a handle. The Giraffe lent his leg, and in a very
short time it was broken, and the Rabbit ran away, declar-
ing himself as he ran. He now took refuge in a white-ant
heap, and the episode was repeated with two differences,
viz. that, instead of getting past his enemy by a stratagem,
he found an opening into another burrow, and so escaped ;
and that, when the pick came out of the handle, he this
time proposed to fix it into the head of the Elephant.
After this second failure the pursuers were (naturally) dis-
heartened, and said: ‘‘ We are tired” (twakatara, which is
the Zulu sakata/a), ‘and those who helped us, they have
been killed. Let us stop.” So they went home.

The Rabbit and the “ Muna” both, in this story, exhibit
an engaging artlessness, the former asking directly for what
he wishes, the latter unsuspiciously granting it. Brer Rabbit
and Brer Fox are cuter. (Is this owing to the stimulating
air of the New World?) ‘‘I don’t keer w’at you do wid
me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘so you don’t fling me in dat brier-
patch. Roas’ me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘but don’t fling me in
dat brier-patelssezec meas Co’se Brer Fox wanter hurt
Brer Rabbit bad as he kin, so he cotch ’im by de behime
legs en slung ’im right in de middle er de brier-patch ... .”

M. Junod, who belongs to the (Swiss) Mission Romande,
and resided for some years at Lourengo Marques, has, in
his large collection of Ronga tales, two fairly complete
sequences of adventures, which he entitles “1,6 Roman du
Liévre.” The Tar-Baby episode comes into the first of
these as follows. The “ Liévre” having, by means of a
false alarm of war, repeatedly robbed the ground-nut
patches of a certain village, the inhabitants become
suspicious, and lay a trap for him. The first step is to

The Tar-Baby Story. 289

gather “de la glu noire.’ There are several kinds of trees
which yield large quantities of gum, especially (in the Shire
Highlands, at least) that called myombo (Brachystegia longt-
folia), which also supplies bark-cloth. They made a Tar-
Baby, in this instance, ‘un mannequin de femme.” (It is
to be noticed that ‘ Tar-Baby she ain’t sayin’ nuthin’”’ is in
strict accordance with the original tradition, though Brer
Rabbit’s injunction to “take off dat hat en tell me howdy,”
seems to imply that the feminine pronoun is a mere fagox
de parler—as in the case of ships and engines. For Uncle
Remus certainly knew what good manners demand in the
case of gentlemen and ladies respectively.) The image
having been set up in the gardens, the Ronga Brer Rabbit
once more gives the alarm: “ WVte/ ute! nte!” (he is
supposed to be sounding his horn—the nefarious acquisition
whereof forms an earlier episode in the story) —“ the enemy
is coming!’’?! The women all ran away; but, seeing the
Tar-Baby still there, the Rabbit called out “ Va-t-en, femme!”
The sequel is exactly as in the version already given (except
that Brer Rabbit did not sit down on the ‘‘mannequin”’),
so that ‘il resta suspendu, se balangant de-ci, de-la.” The
people then came up, extricated him from the Tar-Baby’s
embraces, and informed him that they were going to kill
him. “Very well,” said he, “but don’t kill me on the
ground, kill me on the chief's back!” They returned to
the village and spread a mat on the ground, on which the
chief obligingly lay down, and the Rabbit squatted on his
back. A strong warrior then prepared to spear the Rabbit
and, as might be expected, killed the chief. Brer Rabbit
having leaped into the air at the critical moment, made his

1 In a Yao tale, the Sungula (Rev. Duff Macdonald, to satisfy his own sense
of the fitness of things, translates fox) went along the road with his drum, and

met women digging beans (7/ama, very like the ground-nut, Aractus hypogaia),
and beat his drum. saying ‘Ti, ti, war!” The women fled; the Sungula

picked up their baskets and went home.
VOL, X. U

290 The Tar-Baby Story.

escape without any difficulty, and the indignant villagers
massacred the warrior. ‘ This is the end,’ says Kwizu,
the narrator of the story.

These villagers, like the Basumbwa, seem singularly
deficient in perspicacity. Perhaps the Makua, through
long contact with Portuguese and Arabs, are somewhat
sharper, and Nakami or Mpfundla lost his too easily-
acquired reputation when he ventured among them.

It will not have escaped the reader’s notice that Uncle
Remus attributes to Brer Fox (and in one case to Brer
B’ar) the part played by “the people” in these two
African stories. In fact, except for Miss Meadows and
the girls, so delightfully accounted for by the statement
that ‘‘ dey wuz in de tale,” and one solitary appearance of
“ Mr.‘Man ” (from whose superior power only Brer Rabbit
can deliver Brer Fox), the actors in the great majority
of his tales are animals only. In the aboriginal African
stories, however, the distinction is not very clearly marked.
I had myself frequently noticed this characteristic in Shire
Highlands folklore, when I came upon the following pas-
sage in Chants et Contes des Baronga (p. 89):

‘Le Liévre, la Rainette, et toutes les bétes qui passent
et repassent dans ces curieux récits, représentent des étres
humains, cela va sans dire.” . . . (Or would it not be more
exact to say that the narrator, by a familiar myth-making
process, invests them with his own personality?) ‘ Leurs
caractéres physiques particuliers sont présents devant l’ima-
gination du conteur pour autant qu’ils donnent du pittoresque
au récit. Mais on les oublie tout aussi aisément dés qu’ils
ne sont plus essentiels ἃ la narration. . . . L’Hirondelle est
un oiseau, mais sa femme est une véritable femme qui
demeure dans une hutte, qui cuit dans une marmite des
Ften thin tourer Dans l’histoire de la Femme paresseuse,
l’Antilope déclare au Liévre avoir vu les traces de ses pas
dans un champ quia été pillé par un voleur. Or, c’étaient
les empreintes d’une femme! Le conteur ἃ oublie la différ-

The Tar-Baby Story. 201

ence physique du liévre et de'l/homme ἃ ce moment-la. A
chaque ligne on rencontre de ces inadvertances. ... .

One of these inadvertences, to name no more, is found in
the Shisumbwa story, where the Rabbit seizes the Tar-
Baby with his hands. So, too, a Mang’anja tale in my
MS. collection gives the Swallow a hut with all orthodox
arrangements—the hearth in the middle of the floor, and
the stage (zsazja) above it, on which meat and other things
are dried—and a wife who cooks gourds in an earthen pot.
In another, the Rabbit’s wife goes down to the river with
her water-pot like any native woman, and is caught by the
Crocodile when stooping to fill 11. Numberless touches of
the same sort could be quoted from Uncle Remus, but he
has a much more sophisticated consciousness of the dif-
ference between “ folks en de beasteses”’ than the native
African.

M. Junod remarks that this “ personification ” of animals
is emphasised in the Ronga tales by the honorific prefix
Nwa, which can be rendered, according to circumstances,
by Mr., Mrs., or Miss, and is equivalent to the Yao Che.
Thus we have Nwa-Mpfundla, Nwa-Ndlopfu (Mr. Elephant),
and in Yao Che-Sungula, &c. No doubt Brer Rabbit, Miss
Cow, &c., are echoes of the same usage. There is an
opening here for a grammatical dissertation on the “ m or
living-person ” class, and the transference into it of animal
names properly belonging to another, when the animals are
considered with reference to their personality. But we
must not forget that we set out with the Tar-Baby.

M. Junod, in a note to the tale we have just quoted from
him, refers to a story in M. Heli Chatelain’s “ Folk-tales
of Angola,’ where the Rabbit and the Monkey (whom we
have not hitherto found in his company) are lamentably
caught by ‘de belles filles-mannequins,” whom they are

! The text of this tale is given in ‘‘ Zed¢schrift fiir afrikanische und ozeantsche
Sprachen, 1897, Heft iii.
ΓΕ

202 The Tar-Baby Story.

tempted to embrace. I have not seen Chatelain’s book, but
the story is probably very much on the same lines as those
already given.! The Ambundu of Angola seem to possess a
rich store of tales, and a language sufficiently like that of
their more eastern kin to be learnt without difficulty. Herr
Seidel (in a handy little collection entitled, ‘ Geschichten
und Lieder der Afrikaner,” Berlin, 1896) gives two or three
specimens, among them a turtle story which is the exact
parallel to the adventure of Brer Tarrypin and Brer Bar.
The German translator, who has evidently made his version
from the English and not from the Kimbundu text, has, by
a curious slip, entitled it “ Die Turteltaude;” but it is
quite evident from the story itself that the water and not
the winged turtle is the one meant. A man from Lubi la
Suku found a turtle in the bush, and it was proposed to
kill it with axes, but the turtle sang:

“ὁ Turtle of Koka, and axe of Koka!
No axe can kill me ! "ἢ

Stones, fire, and knives are all suggested in turn with a

' The story given by Chatelain (p. 183) is of great interest. In outline it is
this :—Monkey and Hare (Xadzlz) rob Leopard. He consults ‘‘ the old one”
for a charm to catch them. The interviews with the witch are no doubt a
transcript from life. At last, by her advice, Leopard makes wooden ‘‘ images
of girls,” and smears them with gum of the wild fig-tree. Monkey and Hare,
endeavouring to flirt with them, are caught. Leopard puts Monkey and Hare
‘in his side-bag” and takes them home, intending to cook them on the
morrow. But the next day his father-in-law’s death is announced, and he has
to attend the funeral. In his absence, Monkey and Hare persuade his wife to
let them out of the bag and give them the keys of the trunk, that they may
dress and follow to the funeral. They dress, one as Captain and the other as
Ensign, and go to the funeral. At the funeral they pretend to be sent by
“τῆς Lord Governor” to catch Leopard. He is bound and carried home.
There they torture him, pillage his house, steal his clothes, and decamp,
Hence the monkey always sleeps on a tree and the hare in the bush, so as to
be secure from surprise by the leopard. The leopard’s spots were caused by
the torture. The honorific prefix Vgana is given to Leopard, and sometimes
to Monkey and Hare. Ep.

The Tar-Baby Story. 293

like result, and at last some one says: “ We will throw
him into the deep water!” Then the turtle cried out
lamentably: “Alas! I must die! What shall I do?” And
they took him to the river and threw him in. He swam
away merrily, singing in triumph:

ΚΕ Tn the water is my home!
In the water is my home

“Ole man Tarrypin wuz at home, I tell you, honey !”

I was about to add that there is also a Yao version of the
Tar-Baby. There probably is, but I am not acquainted
with it. It is true that the little book in which the Domasi
school-children learn to read contains, along with some
(I believe) genuine native tales, one called ‘“ Ndano ja
Juampache Malilolilo,” whereof one word at least will be
recognised by listeners devoted enough to have followed
this paper attentively. But it is only—so, if my memory
serves, I was informed by the compiler of the book—a ver-
sion of Uncle Remus’s Wonderful Tar-Baby, as indeed the
words, “If you refuse to take off your hat,” sufficiently
indicate. But it reads naturally enough, and after all, we
may suppose, has only been restored, a little touched up
perhaps, to its original home.

294 Fapanese Myth.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH. 15th, 1899.
THE PRESIDENT (Mr. E. S. Hartland) in the Chair.

The minutes of the last Meeting were read and con-
firmed.

The election of Mr. Hoey Dignem and Miss K. Schle-
singer was announced.

The resignation of Mr. T. K. Hurlburt was aiso an-
nounced.

The President then read a paper by Mr. W. G. Aston,
entitled “Japanese Myth,” which was followed by a dis-
cussion, in which Mr. Crooke and the President took part.

Dr. Gaster then read a paper entitled ‘“Two Thousand
Years of the Charm against the Child-Stealing Witch.”

Votes of thanks for these papers were passed.

JAPANESE” MY DH:

BY W. G. ASTON, C.M.G.

ie
THE SACRED BOOKS OF JAPAN.

IN Japan, as elsewhere, the respective domains of myth,
legend, and history merge into one another in such a way
that it is often hard to say where one ends and another
begins. The ancient annals give us continuous narratives
in which all three are treated alike. It is generally agreed,
however, that the mythical period comes to an end with the
accession to the throne of Jimmu Tenné, the first Mikado,
an event to which the date of B.C. 660 is usually assigned.
Modern Japanese historians make history to begin from this
point; but in reality legend predominates for many hundreds

Fapanese Myth. 295

of years longer, and it is not until the fifth century of our
era that we have anything approaching to a genuine histo-
rical record.

Whatever grains of truth may be contained in the narra-
tive from Jimmu Tennéd onwards, there can be no question
that all that precedes is pure myth. It is to this early
period, known as the sami-yo or age of the gods, that I
propose to confine myself in the present paper. The events
which are stated to belong to it form the basis of the Shinto
(z.e. Way of the Gods) religion.

It may be questioned whether the ancient myths of Japan
are, in the strict sense of the word, ‘“ folklore.” Their
birthplace and home seems to have been the Court of the
Mikado rather than the nation at large, and their original
depositories were doubtless the two hereditary corporations
termed Makatomt and Jmbe, which were attached to this
court for the vicarious performance of the Mikado’s sacer-
dotal functions. We hear later of a Kataride or “ corpo-
ration of reciters,’’ whose business it was to recite ‘ancient
words” before the Mikado on certain solemn state occasions,
such as the beginning of a new reign. We unfortunately
know very little of this body of functionaries, but it can
hardly be doubted that their recitals helped to furnish
material for the written mythical and historical narratives
which have come down to us.

The most important of these are two works entitled the
Kojiki and the Nihongi. The Kojzki or “ Records of
Ancient Matters” was completed in A.D. 712. It is said
to have been taken down from the lips of one Hiyeda no
Are, possibly one of the corporation of reciters just men.
tioned, who could ‘repeat with his mouth whatever was
placed before his eyes, and record in his heart whatever
struck his ears.”” The Kojzki has been literally and faith-
fully translated by Mr. B. H. Chamberlain in the Zrans-
actions of the Asiatic Society of Fapan, Supplement to
vol. x., 1882.

296 Fapanese Myth.

The mythical narrative of the Wzhongz or ‘“‘ Chronicles of
Japan” (A.D. 720) is not quite so full as that of the Kojzkz,
and it has the disadvantage of being composed in the
Chinese language. But it has one feature of great interest.
The author, or some nearly contemporary writer, has added
to the original text a number of variants of the current
myths, thus enabling us to correct any impression of uni-
formity or consistency which might be left by the perusal
of the Kojzkz or Nihongi alone. These addenda show that
there was then in existence a large body of frequently
irreconcilable mythical material, which these works are
attempts to harmonise. A translation of the Vzhongi by
the present writer forms Supplement I. of the 7ransactions
of the Fapan Soctety (1896).

A third source of information respecting the mythical
lore of Japan is the Azuwjzkz. A work with this name was
compiled A.D. 620, 7.6. one hundred years before the Whongi,
but the book now known by that title has been condemned
as a forgery by native critics. Their arguments, however,
are not quite convincing. ‘The A7zujzki is in any case a
very old book, and there can be no harm in accepting it as
of equal authority with the Kojzki: and Nihongi. Unlike
them, the Azzjzé: makes no attempt to be consistent. It
is a mere jumble of mythical material, distinct and con-
flicting versions of the same narrative being often dove-
tailed into one another in the most clumsy fashion. It has
not been translated.

The orto, or liturgies of the Shinto religion, contain an
element of mythical narrative. They were first reduced to
writing early in the tenth century, but some of them must
be in substance several hundreds of years older. A few of
these prayers have been translated by Sir E. Satow for the
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Fapan, another is
appended to Dr. Florenz’s translation of the Wzkongi now
in course of publication, and the most famous of all, viz.
the Oharai or “Great Purification” may be found in the

Fapanese Myth. 297

present writer’s History of Fapanese Literature, recently
published by Mr. Heinemann.

The /dzumo Fudok? (A.D. 733) contains some mythical
passages, and the Kogoshiuz adds a few items to the
information given in the Kojiki and Nzhongi. Neither of
these works has been translated.

Roughly speaking, we find in the authorities above
enumerated the myths of Japan as they were current at the
beginning of the eighth century of our era. They must
naturally contain a far older element. Sun-worship, which
is the central feature of Shinto, probably dates back to a
time when the Japanese had not yet left their continental
home. This is a widespread cult among Tartar tribes.

The condition of material civilisation to which Shinto
belongs may be gathered from the mention of bridges, iron,
copper, mirrors, bellows for smelting metal, weaving, silk-
culture, brewing, and various agricultural operations. In-
dications of the degree of mental culture are afforded by the
facts that Chinese learning, with the art of writing, had
reached Japan early in the fifth century, and Buddhism
towards the middle of the sixth.

Π.

THE MYTHICAL NARRATIVE.

I shall now endeavour to give an outline of the narrative
contained in these ancient records. In doing so, I shall not
adhere to any one version of the story, but shall select those
incidents which have an interest and significance for
students of myth.

Both the Vzhongi and the Kiujiki begin with a passage
which is repudiated by the modern school of Shinto theo-
logians, as in reality belonging to the materialistic philosophy
of China. It runs as follows :—

“Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and

298 Fapanese Myth.

the /z and Yo" not yet divided. They formed a chaotic
mass like an egg which was of obscurely defined limits and
contained germs. The purer and clearer part was thinly
diffused and formed heaven, while the heavier and grosser
element settled down and became earth. The finer element
easily became a united body, but the consolidation of the
heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty.
Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth established
subsequently. Thereafter divine beings were produced
between them.”

Next after this rationalistic essay we find the names, and
little more, of a number of deities, intended apparently to
provide a genealogy for Izanagi and Izanami, the twin
creator-deities of Japanese myth. There is much con-
fusion here among the different authorities, both in respect
to the names of these deities and to the order of their
birth. Some are never heard of again, and look like mere
inventions of an individual fancy, but others were really
worshipped in later times. Of their attributes and func-
tions little or nothing is known beyond what may be
gathered from their names. There is the “ Land-eternal-
stand-deity ” (according to the Vzhongz, the first of all the
gods), the “ Rich-formation-plain-deity,” “Sweet-reed-shoot-
prince-elder-deity ” (described as resembling a reed-shoot,
and produced from the earth when it was young and floated
about like oil floating on water), the ‘‘ Heaven-august-
centre-master-deity ’’ (identified by Hirata with the Polar
Star), the “ High-august-growth-deity,” the ‘‘ Mud-earth-
deity,” the “ Face-perfect-deity,” the ‘Awful deity,” the
“ EKighty-myriad-spirit-deity ”’ the “ Celestial-mirror-deity,”
&c. Most of these are nature deities, and some are
evidently the gods of an agricultural community.

Japanese myth really begins with Izanagi and Izanami,
whom the various accounts agree in describing as the
seventh generation of deities.

' The Negative and Positive Principles of Chinese Philosophy.

Fapanese Mvth. 299

At the behest of the other gods these two stood on the
floating bridge of heaven, and thrusting down the jewel-
spear of heaven groped about with it in the chaos below.
When it was drawn up again some brine dripped down,
and, coagulating, formed an island which received the
name of Onogoro-shima, or the “ Self-coagulating island.’
The divine pair descended, and erected there an eight-
fathom house of which the jewel-spear was made the central
pillar. Then, the male deity turning by the left and the female
deity turning by the right, they went round this central pillar
until they met at the other side. The female deity there-
upon spoke first and exclaimed: “ How delightful! a lovely
youth!” The male deity was displeased at the woman for
having spoken first, so they went round the pillar a second
time, and having met anew, the male deity spoke first and
said: ‘‘ How delightful! a lovely maiden!’ Thereupon
they became united as husband and wife. Another account
says that in consequence of the ill-luck produced by the
female deity having been the first to speak, the child which
was born to them was a leech, which they placed in a reed-
boat and sent adrift.

The accepted etymology of the names Izanagi and Izanami
derives them from a verb zzanaii, to invite. The termina-
tions gz and mz mean respectively male deity and female
deity. Hence the descriptive appellations ‘Male who
invites”’ and ‘‘ Female who invites,” used by Mr. Chamber-
lain in his translation of the Kojzki. I have a strong
suspicion that Iza is really the name of a place; but the
ordinary derivation has an obvious pertinence, and it was
probably present to the minds of the myth-makers.

The jewel-spear of Heaven (which reminds us of Maui’s
enchanted hook) is with some probability identified by native
writers with the lingam. This is not the only evidence of
the existence of phallic worship in ancient Japan. In modern
times this cult has been notoriously prevalent there.

The phrase used in this passage of the original for ‘two

300 Japanese Myth.

deities” means literally ‘‘two pillars.” Historical Shinto
has no idols; but is it not possible to trace in this expres-
sion a survival from a time when the gods of Japan were
wooden posts, hewn at the top into the rude semblance of a
human countenance, such as may be seen in many savage
countries at the present day, and even in Corea, close to
Japan, and nearly allied in race?

Much might be said of the rite of circumambulating the
central pillar of the house, whether from left to right (follow-
ing the sun) or in the contrary direction. That some primti-
tive marriage ceremony is here adumbrated, there can, I
think, be little doubt. The erection of a house by Izanagi
and Izanami is not simply for practical reasons. It has in
reality a ceremonial object. In ancient Japan it was the
custom to provide a special nuptial hut, in order to avoid
the ritual contamination of the dwelling-house by the con-
summation of a marriage within it. Child-birth and the
presence of a dead body were attended with similar pollu-
tion, and special buildings were accordingly erected on these
occasions also.

The reed-boat in which the leech-child was sent adrift,
recalls the Accadian Sargon’s ark of rushes, the casting
away of the infant Moses, and other old-world stories.

Izanagi and Izanami then proceeded to procreate the
various islands of Japan, the deity of trees, the deity of
herbs and grasses, the Sun-Goddess, the Moon-God, the God
Susa no wo, the Earth-Goddess, the Water-Goddess, the
Wind-Gods, the Food-Goddess, the Fire-God, and others. In
giving birth to the last-named deity, Izanami was injured so
that she died. Izanagi, in his rage and grief, drew his sword
and cut the new-born Fire-God into pieces, a number of
other deities being generated by his doing so.

On her death, Izanami went to the land of Yomi or Hades.
She was followed thither by her husband. But he was too
late to bring her back, as she had already eaten of the cook-
ing furnaces of Yomi. She forbade him to look at her, but

Fapanese Myth. 301

he disregarded her prayer. Breaking off the end-tooth of
the comb which he had in his hair, he made of it a torch,
and looked in where his wife was lying. Her body was
already putrid and swarmed with maggots, and the “ Eight
Thunders”’ had been generated in various parts of it.
Izanami was enraged at her husband for exposing her
nakedness, and sent the “ Eight Thunders” and the “Ugly
Females” of Yomi to attack him. Izanagi took to flight
and used various expedients to delay his pursuers. He first
flung down his head dress. It became changed to grapes,
which the “ Ugly Females” stopped to gather and eat.
Then he threw down his comb. It turned into bamboo-
shoots, which the ‘‘Ugly Females” pulled up and ate before
continuing their pursuit. Izanami herself overtook him at
the ‘‘Even Pass of Yomi,” where the formula of divorce
was pronounced by Izanagi, and their final parting took
place.

The usual etymology of Yomz connects it with Yo or
Yoru, night. But this word has a suspicious resemblance
to Yama, the name of the Indian God of the lower world.
Mr. Andrew Lang has noted the fact that there are points
of resemblance between the Japanese story and the Indian
myth. In both we are told of the fatal consequences of
tasting the food of the lower regions so well known to
mythologists. It will be remembered that Proserpine’s
return to the upper world became impossible when once

Puniceum curva decerpserat arbore pomum
Sumptaque pallenti septem de cortice grana
Presserat ore suo.

On returning from Yomi, Izanagi’s first care was to bathe
in the sea, in order to purify himself from the pollutions
which he had contracted by his visit to the Land of the
Dead. A number of deities were generated by this process,
among whom were the Gods of Good- and Ill-luck, and
certain ocean deities held to be the ancestors of some

302 Fipanese Myth.

families of locg chieftains, and worshipped by them. The
Sun-Goddeg was born from the washing of his left eye,
and the {foon-God from that of his right, while a third
deity famed Susa no wo was generated from the washing
of Ais nose. To the Sun-Goddess Izanagi gave charge of
che “Plain of High-Heaven,” and to the Moon-God was
“allotted the realm of Night. Susa no wo was at first
appointed to rule the sea, but he preferred to rejoin his
deceased mother Izanami, and was therefore made the
Lord of Ne-no-kuni, z.e. the Root or Nether Country, another
name for the Land of Yomi.

Izanagi’s ablutions represent a widespread rite. They
remind us of Juno’s lustration by Iris after a visit to Hades,
and of Dante’s immersion in Lethe when he had completed
his ascent through Purgatory and was preparing for admis-
sion to the circles of Paradise. They are clearly the mythi-
cal counterpart of a custom described by Chinese travellers
to Japan centuries before the Kojzkz and Nihongi were
written. It was then, we are informed, the practice, when
the funeral was over, for the whole family of the deceased
to go into the water and wash.

From this and other passages it would appear that
ancestor-worship in ancient Japan was a very different
institution from the Chinese form of this cult. In China
its principal objects were, and are, the deceased parents of
the worshipper. But in ancient Japan the ancestral deity
was a remote mythical personage, who to all appearance
had never been a human being, but a divinity of the mythi-
cal world to whom his worshippers and so-called descend-
ants were no more related than the Heracleidae to Hercules,
the Romans to Venus, or, it may be added, the Mikados to
the Sun. These mythical ancestors are not eponymous.

The circumstance that the Sun-Goddess was produced
from the left and the Moon-God from the right eye of
Izanagi is suggestive of the influence of China, where the
left takes precedence of the right. The Chinese myth of

eee σδνμδνννοναι “..... δ

eee. ee = ...»ὕ.

Fapanese Myth. 303

P’anku states: ‘‘P’anku came into being in the great
waste ; his beginning is unknown. In dying he gave birth
to the material universe. His breath was transmuted into
the wind and clouds, his voice into thunder, his left eye into
the sun, and his right eye into the moon.”’ Hirata, a Shinto
theologian of the nineteenth century, endeavours to combat
the obvious inference from this comparison by pointing out
that the sun is masculine in China and feminine in Japan.
How little weight is due to this objection appears from the
faet that two so nearly allied nations as the English and the
Germans differ in the sex which they attribute to the sun,
as do also closely-related tribes of Australian aborigines
and Ainus of Yezo. And does not Shakespeare himself
make the sun both masculine and feminine in the same
sentence when he says: ‘‘The blessed sun himself a fair
hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta?” ?

The ascription of the female sex to the most prominent
among the Shinto Gods is not owing merely to caprice.
Myth-makers have often more substantial reasons for their
fancies than might be supposed. In the present case
evidence is not wanting to show that women played a very
important part in the real world of ancient Japan, as well as
in that of imagination. Women rulers were at this time a
familiar phenomenon. Not only Japanese but Chinese
history gives us glimpses of a female Mikado who lived
about A.D. 200, and whose commanding ability and strong
character have not been wholly obscured by the mists of
legend. Women chieftains are frequently mentioned. In-
deed the Chinese seem to have thought that feminine govern-
ment was the rule, for their historians frequently refer to
Japan as the “ Queen-country.” In more historical times
several of the Mikados were women, and at a still later

' The Australian coloured gentleman quoted in Mr. Andrew Lang’s Custom
and Myth was apparently fresh from a perusal of this passage when he com-
pared the sun to ‘‘ a woman of indifferent character in a coat of red kangaroo
skins.”

304 Fapanese Myth.

period the women of Japan gave proof of hereditary ability
by the production of works which are recognised to this
day as the masterpieces of the best age of Japanese
literature.

The birth of the Sun-Goddess and the Moon-God is, it
will be observed, differently accounted for in the various
versions of the myth. Such inconsistencies trouble the
myth-makers not a whit.

Izanagi’s career having come to an end, he built himself
an abode of gloom in the Island of Awaji, where he dwelt
in silence and concealment. Another account says that he
ascended to Heaven, where he dwelt in the smaller palace
of the Sun. It will be observed that Izanagi was not im-
mortal, and that he did not go to Yomi when he died.

The mythical narrative now turns to the doings of the
Sun-Goddess and her brother Susa no wo.

Susa no wo, before proceeding to take up his charge as
Ruler of the Nether Region, ascended to Heaven to take
leave of his elder sister, the Sun-Goddess. By reason of
the fierceness of his divine nature, there was a commotion
in the sea, and the hills and mountains groaned aloud as
he passed upwards. The Sun-Goddess, in alarm, arrayed
herself in manly garb, and confronted her brother armed
with sword and bow and arrows. The pair stood face to
face on opposite sides of the River of Heaven.! Susa no wo
then assured his sister of the purity of his intentions, and
proposed to her that they should each produce children by
biting off and crunching parts of the jewels and swords
which they wore and blowing away the fragments. Eight
children born in this way were worshipped in after-times as
the Hachoji or eight princely children.

Susa no wo’s subsequent proceedings were very rude and
unseemly. He broke down the divisions between the rice-
fields belonging to his sister, sowed them over again, let
loose in them the piebald colt of Heaven, and committed

' The Milky Way.

_”

Fapanese Myth. 305

nuisances in the hall where she was celebrating the solemn
festival of first-fruits. The climax to his misdeeds was to flay
a plebald colt of Heaven and to fling it into the sacred weav-
ing-hall—where the Sun-Goddess was engaged in weaving
the garments of the deities. She was so deeply indignant
at this last insult that she entered the Rock-cave of Heaven
and left the world to darkness.

Native etymologists derive the name Susa no wo from a
verb susamu, to be eager, impetuous. Hence the “ Im-
petuous Male” of English translators. Iam persuaded, how-
ever, that this is only a folk’s etymology (which may have
suggested some features of the myth) and that the real
meaning is the “ Male of Susa,” Susa being a town in the
province of Idzumo, a prehistoric centre of Shinto worship.
The name Idzumo, if I am not mistaken, means “ sacred
quarter.” -

It would be a mistake to pass over Susa no wo’s mis-
chievous and unseemly pranks with a smile as naive in-
ventions of some early writer’s fancy. They have a profound
significance, and indeed form a tolerably comprehensive
selection from the so-called ‘celestial offences” enumerated
in the Great Purification Liturgy, a solemn state ceremonial
by which the nation was purged of its sins twice a year. To
complete the account of the rudimentary moral code of this
period, I may add the earthly offences, viz. :—the cutting of
living bodies, the cutting of dead bodies, leprosy, incest
(within very narrow limits of relationship) calamities from
creeping things, from the high gods, and from high birds,
killing of cattle, and bewitchment.

Susa no wo’s re-sowing of his sister’s rice-fields reminds
us of the wild-oats sown by Loki, the mischief-maker of
Scandinavian myth.

The retirement of the Sun-Goddess to the Rock-cave of
Heaven produced great consternation among the heavenly
deities. They met on the dry bed of the River of Heaven
and took counsel how they should entice her from her

VOL xX. x

306 Fapanese Myth.

seclusion. By the advice of Omoi-kane no Mikoto (the
Thought-combiner or Counsellor-deity) the long-singing
birds of the Eternal Land (cocks) were made to utter their
prolonged cry before the door of the cave. Ame no Koyane
no Mikoto, ancestor of the Nakatomi (a priestly tribe) and
Futo-dama no Mikoto, ancestor of the Imbe, dug up by the
roots a five-hundred branched true Sakakz tree of Heaven,
and hung on its higher branches strings of jewels, on its
middle branches a mirror, and on its lower branches pieces
of cloth. Then they recited their liturgy in her honour.
Moreover, Ame no Uzume (the Dread Female of Heaven)
arrayed herself in a fantastic manner and standing on a tub
which resounded when she stamped upon it, performed a
(not very decent) mimic dance and gave forth an inspired
utterance. The Sun-Goddess wondered how Ame no Uzume
and the other gods could be so jolly while the world was
wrapped in complete darkness, and peeped out from the
half-opened door of the cave. She was at once seized by
Ta-jikara no wo (Male of Great Strength) and prevented
by main force from re-entering, to the great joy of all the
deities.

Susa no wo was then tried by a council of Gods, who
mulcted him in a fine of a thousand tables of purification-
offerings. They also pulled out the nails of his fingers and
toes, and banished him to the land of Yomi. Finally Ame
no Kogane, the ancestor of the Nakatomi, recited his
Oharai or great purification liturgy.

The above episode is the pith and kernel of the
mythical lore of Japan. Belonging to the class of night
and day myths, it is ostensibly an attempt to trace the
origin of some of the principal ceremonies of the Shinto
religion as they were practised in the Mikado’s court at the
time. The Nakatomi long held office as the representatives
of the Mikado in his priestly capacity, and in some versions
of the narrative the Sun-Goddess is surrounded by other
officials, such as mirror-makers, jewel-makers, &c., obviously

δὰ;

Fapanese Myth. 307

borrowed from the actual functionaries of the court. By a
curlous coincidence, the Smith-God attached to her train,
like the Cyclops of Greek myth, has but one eye.

The duties of the Imbe were in Kojzéz and Vihongi times
confined to assisting the Nakatomi in the performance of
the Shinto religious services. But the following notice by
a Chinese traveller gives us a glimpse of them many
centuries before. It shows them in their true character, and
explains the name Imbe, which means literally “abstainer.”
“They (the Japanese) appoint a man whom they call an
‘abstainer.’ He is not allowed to comb his hair, to wash,
to eat flesh, or to approach women. When they are
fortunate, they make him presents, but if they are ill, or
meet with disaster, they set it down to the abstainer’s
failure to keep his vows, and unite to put him to death.”
Almost every word of this description is applicable to the
medicine-men of the North American Indians at the present
day.

Ame no Uzume, the Dread Female of Heaven, who
danced and gave forth an inspired utterance before the
Rock-cave where the Sun-Goddess was hidden, is also a
recognisable personage with whom Mme. Blavatsky might
have claimed relationship. She was the ancestor of the
Sarume (monkey-women) or female mimes attached to the
Mikado’s court, whose performances were the origin of
the pantomimic religious dances still kept up in Japan and
known as Kagura, while her divinely inspired utterance is
the prototype of the revelations of the Miko, or Shinto
priestesses.

One version of the story gives us the actual words used
by Uzume on this occasion, viz.: 471, fu, mi, yo, itsu, mu,
nana, ya, kokono, tart. A Japanese baby knows that these
are simply the numerals from one to ten. But they have
given much trouble to later Shintoists, who have endeavoured
to read into them a deep mythical signification. Another
account states that the repetition of these words, combined

ΧΙ

308 Fapanese Myth.

with the shaking of certain talismans, will drive away all
manner of diseases and prolong life. Students of folklore
will not be surprised to find such virtues attributed to the
numerals.

Several other examples are given in the Wzhongi of
inspired messages from the gods. Chiuai Tenno was in
this way urged to undertake the conquest of Corea. At
the present time these female purveyors of X-material have
fallen upon evil days. The Miko are now vagabonds of
indifferent character, who for a trifling consideration will
undertake to deliver messages from deceased relatives, and
who, with their art, are held in the lowest estimation by all
sensible people.!

The punishments inflicted on Susa no wo are plainly
suggested by the Japanese criminal code of the day. This
is not the only passage from which we may infer that fines
were originally meant to supply the means of making ex-
platory sacrifices to the gods.

After his banishment Susa no wo visited Corea, but not
finding that country to his liking, returned to Japan, and
went to the province of Idzumo. Here he slew the eight-
headed serpent of Koshi (having first made him drunk) and
delivered his intended victim, a young maiden who subse-
quently became his wife. On the occasion of his marriage
to her, Susa no wo composed the following verses :

Many clouds arise,
On all sides a manifold fence :
To receive within it the spouses,

They form a manifold fence.
Ah ! that manifold fence !

Eventually he entered the Nether Land.
It cannot be necessary to point out the resemblance of

this story to that of Perseus and Andromeda, of which there
are 50 many variants current throughout the world.

" For some account of occult practices in Japan, see Mr. Percival Lowell’s
Occult Japan. :

Fapanese Myth. 309

In the poem ascribed to Susa no wo (but which really
belongs to the sixth or seventh century) we again meet
with the nuptial hut already referred to in the myth of
Izanagi and Izanami.

It will be observed that the ill-natured and mischievous
character ascribed to Susa no wo is not sustained in this
part of the story. Healso appears to advantage in a legend
which represents him as the giver of useful trees of all
kinds, especially fruit-trees, to Japan. But his violent
nature appears again in a legend which speaks of him as
the slayer of the Goddess of Food, who had disgusted him by
producing all manner of dainty things from her mouth, nose,
and other parts of her body, for his entertainment. Another
version of this incident makes the Moon-God the culprit,
and gives it as the reason of his alienation from the Sun-
Goddess, not the only attempt of myth-makers to account
for the obvious aloofness maintained by these two deities.

Susa no wo had 181 children. One of these was Oho-na-
muchi (great-name-possessor) also called Oho-kuni-nushi
(great-country-master). He dwelt in Idzumo, and with the
aid of a guardian spirit reduced to order this part of Japan,
Associated with him was the dwarf-deity Sukuna-bikona, who
came floating over the sea in a tiny boat clothed in bird-
skins. To these two is attributed the origin of the art of
medicine and of charms against the powers of evil.

There is probably some reflection of real history in this
passage. It is hardly doubtful that Idzumo was one of the
earliest, if not quite the earliest, centre of civilisation and
religion in Japan, while its position on the coast over-against
Corea is significant, in view of the legends which connect
Susa no wo with that country. The incident of Sukuna-
bikona’s arrival by sea clothed in bird-skins seems to indicate
an acquaintance with some northern tribes who, like the
Kurile islanders at this day, wore garments of this material.

The dynasty of Susa no wo was not recognised by the
Gods of Heaven, who sent down several other deities to

310 Fapanese Myth.

subdue and govern the world, z.e. Japan. Ultimately Oho-
na-muchi and his son Koto-shiro-nushi (thing-know-master,
or governor), agreed to yield the government to Hoho no
ninigi, a grandchild of the Sun-Goddess, who accordingly
descended to earth on a mountain in the western island of
Kiushiu. He was attended by the ancestors of the five
Be, or hereditary government corporations, viz.: the Naka-
tomi, the Imbe, the Sarume, the mirror-makers de, and the
jewellers de, to which some accounts add several others.

Hoho no ninigi took to wife the daughter of a deity
whom he found there. When the time came for her
delivery, she shut herself up in a doorless shed, which, on
the birth of her three children, she set fire to, with the
object of clearing herself from certain suspicions which her
husband had entertained of her fidelity. ‘If,’ said she,
“the children are really the offspring of the Heavenly
Grandchild, the fire cannot harm them.” The children and
their mother came forth unhurt, and were thereupon recog-
nised by Hoho no ninigi as his true offspring and wife.

The ‘‘doorless shed’’ here mentioned, is a “ parturition-
house.” It was the custom in ancient Japan, for women,
when the time drew near for their delivery, to retire to a
shed specially constructed to receive them, so that con-
tamination to the dwelling-house might be avoided. This
was still the practice in the island of Hachi-jo in 1878.

The burning of the parturition-house represents the
ordeal by fire, which, with the ordeal by boiling water or
mud, is well-known in Japan.

The story concerns itself no further with the eldest of
these three children. Of the others, the senior, named Ho
no Susori, became a fisherman, and the younger, Hohodemi,
a hunter.

Ho no Susori once proposed to his brother to exchange
their respective callings. Hohodemi accordingly gave over
to his elder brother his bow and arrows, and received a
fish-hook in return. But neither of them profited by the

Fapanese Myth. hig

exchange ; so Ho no Susori gave back to his brother the bow
and arrows, and demanded from him the fish-hook. Hoho-
demi, however, had in the meantime lost it in the sea.
He took his sword and forged from it a number of new
fish-hooks, which he piled up in a winnowing tray and
offered to his brother by way of compensation. But the
latter would have none but his own, and demanded it so
vehemently of Hohodemi as to grieve him bitterly. Hoho-
demi went down to the sea-shore and stood there lamenting,
when there appeared to him the Old Man of the Sea, by
whose advice he descended into the sea-depths to the abode
of the God of the Sea, a stately palace with lofty towers
and battlements. Before the gate there was a well, and
over the well grew a thick-branching cassia-tree, into which
Hohodemi climbed. The Sea-God’s daughter, Toyo-tama-
hime (rich-jewel-maiden), then came out from the palace to
draw water. She saw Hohodemi’s face reflected in the well,
and, returning within, reported to her father that she hadseen
a beautiful youth in the tree which grew by the well. Hoho-
demi was courteously received by the Sea-God, Toyo-tama-
hiko (rich-jewel-prince), who, when he heard his errand,
summoned before him all the fishes of the sea and made
inquiry of them for the lost fish hook, which was eventually
discovered in the mouth of the Tai. Toyo-tama-hiko de-
livered it to Hohodemi, telling him when he gave it back
to his brother to say ‘‘a hook of poverty, a hook of ruin,
a hook of downfall,” to spit twice, and to hand it over
with averted face. .

Hohodemi married the Sea-God’s daughter, Toyo-tama-
hime, and remained with her for three years. He then
became home:sick and returned to the upper world. On
the beach where he came to land, he built for his wife, who
was soon to follow, a parturition-house which he thatched
with cormorant’s feathers. The roofing was still unfinished
when she arrived, riding on a great tortoise. She went
straight into the hut, begging her husband not to look at

a Fapanese Myth.

her. But Hohodemi’s curiosity was too strong for him.
He peeped in, and behold! his wife had become changed
into a great sea-monster (or dragon), eight fathoms long.
Deeply indignant at the disgrace put upon her, Toyo-tama-
hime returned hastily to her father’s palace, abandoning
her new-born child to the care of her sister, and barring
behind her the sea-path in such a way that from that day
to this all communication between the realms of land and
sea has been cut off.

The child thus born was the father of Jimmu Tenné, the
first human sovereign of Japan.

Hohodemi’s troubles with his elder brother were renewed
on his arrival home. He was obliged to use against him
two talismans given him by his father-in-law. One of these
had the virtue of making the tide flow and submerge Ho no
Susori and thus compel him to sue for mercy. (Another
account says that Hohodemi whistled and thereby raised
the wind and the sea). Then by a second talisman the
tide was made to recede, and Ho no Susori’s life was spared.
He yielded complete submission to his younger brother, and
promised that he and his descendants to all generations
would serve Hohodemi and his successors as mimes
and bondservants. The Vhong? adds that in that day it
was still customary for the Hayato (or Imperial guards) who
were descended from Ho no Susori to perform a mimic
dance before the Mikados, the descendants and successors
of Hohodemi, in which the drowning struggles of their
ancestor were represented.

The Castle-gate and the tree before it, at the bottom of
which is a well which serves as a mirror, form a combination
not unknown to European folklore! The student will also
note the partiality evinced for the younger of two brothers,

" “Then the giant’s dochter came to the palace where Nicht, Nought,
Nothing was, and she went up into a tree to watch for him. The gardener’s

dochter going to draw water in the well saw the shadow.” Mr. Andrew Lang’s
Custom and Myth, p. 91. ;

— ν, ὐὔῶνα

Fapanese Myth. 313

the virtue of spitting and of set forms of speech to bring
good or ill luck, and of whistling to raise the wind.

There are several features in this story which betray a
recent origin and foreign influences. A comparatively
advanced civilisation is indicated by the sword and fish-
hooks forged of iron (the Homeric fish-hook was of horn) ;
and the institution of the Hayato as Imperial Guards belongs
to a period not very long antecedent to the date of the
Nihongt and Kojtkt. ‘The palace of the sea-depths and its
Dragon-king are of Chinese, and therefore of recent, origin.
The comparatively modern character of this important link
in the genealogy which traces back the descent of the
Mikados to the Sun-Goddess confirms an impression that
the ancestor-worship of the ancient Japanese is a later ac-
cretion upon what was in its origin a worship of the powers
of Nature.

ΠῚ.
THE PLACE OF SHINTO IN THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.

The myths in which Shinto is embodied present special
advantages to the student of religion in its earlier forms.
They hold an almost unique position, intermediate between
the crude conceptions of savages and such mythologies as
those of ancient Greece and Rome. They have been re-
corded at ample length, and in several various and conflicting
versions, thus affording scope for a tolerably comprehensive
study. They have assumed their present shape compara-
tively uninfluenced by alien ideas. Something of Chinese
philosophy and folklore, and perhaps a few echoes of Indian
myth, have intruded to a small extent; but there is happily
no room for suspicion of missionary or Christian influence.
The Shinto nomenclature is for the most part transparent
and reveals the natures and functions of the deities more
clearly than is usual in mythology. There is some satisfaction
in dealing with divine personages like Ame-terasu no Oho-mi

314 Fapanese Myth.

Kami, z.e. the Heaven-shining great-august-deity, whose
names permit no possibility of misconception as to their
attributes.

The following scrap of theory, prepared with a special
view to the facts of Shinto, is meant only asa help towards
defining its place among religions.

A species of animism forms the basis of Shinto, as it does
of other religions. Early man, proceeding by a similar,
though less tangible analogy, to that by which he recognises
in his fellow-men and other living beings will and sensation
resembling his own, extends to natural elements and objects,
especially those which inspire gratitude, fear and wonder,
something of the same quality. He regards the sun, fire,
wind or sky as adive. Religion, at this stage, hardly amounts
totheism. I have called it animism, using this word, it will
be observed, in a more restricted sense than Dr. Tylor in his
Primitive Culture.

The next step is to endow nature with human qualities,
physical and moral. From this combination of humanity
with the awe-inspiring might and majesty of nature, bene-
ficent in some aspects and terrible in others, springs the
first rude conception of divinity. As the organisation of
society proceeds and individuals are aggregated into families,
families into tribes, and tribes into nations, the original
imperfect notion of deity is enriched and widened by analogies
drawn from the father, the chief andthe sovereign. This we
may call the anthropomorphic stage of religious development.
A later phase of it is where the material, natural object is
supposed to be inhabited or governed by an unseen but not
incorporeal anthropomorphic deity.

The third or spiritist stage of belief is that in which
natural phenomena are attributed to the action of an in-
visible and incorporeal power or powers whose essential
humanity has been refined and purged of the grosser ideas
which accompanied it in the earlier stage of progress.
There are two phases of spiritist belief, one in which the

Fapanese Myth. gis

corporeal anthropomorphic deity is supposed to have a
spiritual counterpart, and the other in which the deity is
himself a spiritual being. Spiritism seems to be the result
of endeavours to explain away the obvious difficulties which
attend the cruder anthropomorphism.

These three stages of belief may be represented by the
following formule :

I. The Sun is alive (Animism).

II. The Sun is (a) a man, a father, a chief, a king, or (0)
is a material object ruled by an unseen, but not incorporeal
being with human form and passions (Anthropomorphism).

III. The Sun is (4) a material object ruled by an anthro-
pomorphic being which has a spiritual double, or (6) is ani-
mated by a spiritual being (Spiritism).

These stages do not succeed one another like geological
strata, but overlap. Spiritism may and does appear at an
early stage of anthropomorphic development, while on the
other hand the most advanced religions find it hard to re-
linquish grosser conceptions which belong to an earlier
stage of progress.

The most superficial examination of Shinto will satisfy us
that it is substantially an anthropomorphic religion. Its
deities are for the most part personified powers, elements and
objects of nature. At their head stands the Sun-Goddess with
her attendant courtiers. “Then we have the Moon-God, the
God of Growth, the Food-Goddess, Gods of Fire, Wind,
Water, Earth, Seas, Mountains, Rivers, Thunder, Trees, and
Islands. But, except in the case of a few principal deities,
the process of personification has not gone far. Many so-
called deities have hardly got beyond the first, or animist,
stage of progress. When such objects as swords, stones,
jewels, or mirrors have been dubbed Aamz (gods) for their
wonderful properties, real or imaginary, the impulse towards
personification seems to have spent itself. And there are
a good many others whose human quality is of the thinnest,
there being frequently nothing even to show whether they

316 Fapanese Myth.

are male or female. This weakness of the personifying
power is profoundly characteristic of the Japanese race.
It is shown in their unimaginative literature, their language,
which has no grammatical gender and makes the most
sparing use of personal pronouns, the feeble character-
drawing of their fiction, and their equally feeble attempts
at monumental sculpture and portrait-painting. It does not
follow that the ancient Japanese were backward in their
general intellectual development. Their aesthetic sensibili-
ties were by no means uncultivated, and in the faculty of
minute and accurate observation and description, they
cannot be pronounced inferior to their European contem-
poraries.

The nomenclature of Shinto is wholly anthropomorphic.
Its perspicuous character enables us to discern traces of the
various phases in which the gods are considered alternately
as fathers, chiefs and sovereigns. A good number have the
root of the word chz-ch7z, father, incorporated into their
names,’ where it assumed the various forms of chz, 72, or
oftener ¢suchi or tsutsz.

The “chieftain” idea of divinity is represented by the use
of the word wo, male, z.e. virile or valiant one, in many of the
names of deities, and by the ascription to some of warlike
qualities. There is nothing to show that these are deified
chieftains. On the contrary, the term wa is applied, like
tsucht, father, to what are unmistakably nature deities, such
as the sea-gods Soko-tsutsu-wo (bottom-father-male), Waka-
tsutsu-wo (middle-father-male), and Uwa-tsutsu-wo (upper-
father-male), produced by the lustrations of Izanagi in the
sea after his return from Yomi.

Kami, the most common and comprehensive word for
deity in the Japanese language, belongs to the tribal and
national stages of social development. [{5 original meaning
superior.” Just as our word “lord” embraces

is “above,” “

1 As in the case of our own minor deities, Father Christmas and Father

Thames.

Fapanese Myth. ΤΠ

nobles and the sovereign as well as the Deity, Kamz is used
alike for nobles, Mikados and Gods. ‘The following quota-
tion from Motoéri, the famous Shinto theologian of the
latter part of the eighteenth century, will help us to realise
more fully what the Japanese understand by this word.
“The? term Kami is applied in the first place to the
various deities of Heaven and Earth who are mentioned in
the ancient records, as well as to their spirits (m-tama)
which reside in the shrines where they are worshipped.
Moreover, not only human beings, but birds, beasts, plants
and trees, seas and mountains, and all other things what-
soever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the
extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess
are called Kami. They need not be eminent for surpassing
nobleness, goodness, or serviceableness alone. Malignant
and uncanny beings are also called Kamz, if only they are
the objects of general dread. Among Kamz who are human
beings I need hardly mention first of all the successive
Mikados—with reverence be it spoken. .... Then there
have been numerous examples of divine human beings both
in ancient and modern times, who, although not accepted
by the nation generally, are treated as gods, each of his
several dignity, in a single province, village or family. . . .
Amongst Kamz who are not human beings, I need hardly
mention thunder (in Japanese Waru kami or the Sounding
God). There are also the dragon, the echo (called in
Japanese Ko-dama or the Tree-Spirit), and the fox, who are
Kamz by reason of their uncanny and fearful natures. The
term Kami is applied in the Nihongi? and Manydshiu to the
tiger and wolf. Izanagi gave to the fruit of the peach, and
to the jewels round his neck, names which implied that
fey were Kamin... There are many cases of seas and
mountains being called Kamz. It is not their spirits which

' See also Sir E. Satow’s Revival of Pure Shinto, in the Transactions of
the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1875.

318 Fapanese Myth.

are meant. The word was applied directly to the seas or
mountains themselves, as being very awful things.”

The myths of Japan contain abundant traces of the state
and authority which surrounded the Mikados being ascribed
by analogy to the Sun-Goddess and other celestial beings.
But just as the ancient Mikados were by no means absolute
monarchs, none of the Shinto Gods is what we understand
by a Supreme Being. They are neither omnipotent, omni-
scient, nor immortal. The first deity in point of time
cannot be regarded as supreme. The various authorities
put forward several candidates for this position, all of
whom are shadowy personages who are seldom or never
mentioned afterwards. They are in no sense the chief
gods of Shinto. Nor can we allow the title of Supreme
Being to the Creator-deity, Izanagi, who was born and
died, not to mention the eclipses of his marital authority,
or of his having to take hastily to flight from the Ugly
Females of Yomi. The Sun-Goddess, although the most
eminent of the Shinto Gods, is grossly insulted by Susa no
wo, and instead of inflicting on him the punishment which
he deserves, hides in a cave from which she is partly
enticed, partly dragged by the other deities. This is not
the behaviour of a Supreme Being. When Susa no wo is
punished, it is by a Council of the Gods, the large share
taken by which in the Government of Heaven, shows that
the celestial constitution, like its earthly counterpart, was an
essentially limited monarchy.

The word “infinite,” familiar to Buddhism, I do not find
inthe Shinto record. Zoko, which we translate by “eternal,”
has a positive and not a negative signification, and means
‘permanent ”’ rather than ‘‘ without end.” It occurs in the
name of the deity Awunz-toko-tachi (earth-eternal-stand),
and we also meet with it in the word /oko-yo, the eternal
world. We are told in the Vzhongi that in A.D. 644 a man
in the east country, then the most barbarous part of Japan,
urged his fellow-villagers to worship “ the God of the Ever-

Fapanese Myth. 319

lasting World” also called “the God of Gods,” promising
to those who did so long life and riches. He had many
adherents who threw out their victuals and other property
into the public roads, expecting to have “the new riches ”’
given them in return. The craze spread to such an extent
that the Government at length interfered and suppressed
this movement by force. The God of the Everlasting
World was a large caterpillar, a strange conjunction of the
highest and the lowest in religion! Yet may we not extend
some small measure of sympathy towards this blind and
feeble aspiration after an Infinite, Supreme Being, crushed
relentlessly at its very birth ?

Of the later form of anthropomorphism in which the deities
are regarded as distinct from the natural phenomena or
objects which they rule, there is not much trace in the
ancient authorities. Motodri is true to the spirit of the old
myths when he describes the Sun-Goddess as identical with
the sun itself. But his most eminent pupil Hirata differs
from him on this point and speaks of her as born on earth,
and subsequently appointed to rule the sun. Hirata’s view
is an obvious step towards spiritism.

There are comparatively few traces of spiritism in Shinto.
Although the creed of a tolerably cultured race, which had
learned to attribute human qualities, physical and moral, to
natural powers and objects, and to regard them with some-
thing of the affection, gratitude, and submissive awe inspired
by their earthly fathers, chiefs, and sovereigns, it remains in
all essential respects an anthropomorphic religion. Whatever
Izanagi and Izanami were, their history, ending with their
death, shows that they were as unspiritual beings as can
well be imagined. The Sun-Goddess, who retires to a cave
and leaves the world to darkness, is plainly the sun itself,
and the Food-Goddess, who entertains her guests with
dainties taken from various parts of her own person, is also
an unmistakably material personage. Motodri says in so
many words that the Shinto deities had arms and legs, and

σι

320 Fapanese Myth.

adds that if some of them are invisible now, this was not
always so. He points out in the passage quoted above,
that when a sea or mountain is called Kamz it is not the
spirit of the sea or mountain that is intended, but the sea or
mountain itself.

But while Shinto is in the main an unspiritual religion,
there are not wanting indications of an advance beyond the
earlier type of religious thought.

The point to which the Japanese mind had at this period
arrived in its transition to a more spiritist form of faith is
marked by the use of the word mz-tama. Mz is an honorific
prefix.. Zama means ball, bead, jewel, precious thing,
essence, spirit, and, at a later time, soul. The metaphorical
use of this word can be best explained by a few concrete ex-
amples. When the Sun-Goddess! and the High-integrating-
Deity sent down Hoho no Ninigi to rule the lower world,
he was given, among other things, a sacred mirror with the
injunction, “ Regard this mirror exactly as our m-tama and
reverence it as if reverencing us.” It is in the same
spirit, which surely savours of make-believe rather than
belief, that the gods are frequently represented in the
Norito as dwelling in the places where they are worshipped.
Even Motodri speaks of the Shinto shrines as being occupied
by the mz-tama of the gods.

Again, when Ohonamuchi boasted that he alone had
subdued the Central Land (Japan) he was reproved by
something which floated towards him over the sea, sur-
rounded by a divine radiance, and which said: “It is
because of my presence that thou hast been able to accom-
plish this mighty task.”’ ‘Who art thou?” asked Ohona-
muchi. It replied and said: “I am thy ¢ama of good luck,
the wondrous ¢ama.”” Human beings may also have tama
of this kind, which are plainly the counterpart of our
guardian spirits. Jingo Kogu was accompanied by a mig¢

' See Chamberlain’s Kozkz, p. 108. _

ag ee ee lk oe eS “ ᾳ4

Fapanese Myth. 321

(gentle)-tama when she undertook her celebrated expedi-
tion against Corea. The word ¢ama occurs in the names
of a few deities, such as ku (live) dama; and the Kiujiki
has mention of the “Eighty times ten thousand tama of
Heaven.” The Chinese character used for fama in all these
cases is one for which no closer English equivalent can be
given than “ spirit.”

On the other hand, a number of gods have incorporated
into their names the word mm (august body), an indica-
tion of a more materialistic conception of deity.

On the second phase of Spiritism, in which the gods
themselves are spirits distinct from nature, I can find
little trace.

The feeble grasp of Spiritism by the Japanese nation at
this period is further illustrated by the total absence of
ghosts from the ancient literature. This can hardly be
owing to the imperfection of the record, for these old writers
have a marked fondness for X-material, and have accumu-
lated a considerable quantity of it. Moreover, there are
occasions when ghosts might naturally have made their
appearance, and do not. When Izanagi follows Izanami to
the land of Yomi, he finds there, not a spirit or ghost, but a
putrefying corpse in which maggots had already bred.
When Prince Yamato-dake died, his mztama became changed
into a white bird and ascended to heaven. In another case
a wreath hung up in a mortuary is termed the deceased’s
mikage or “august shade,’ a synonym for mztama.

We are told in the Nzhongi that on the 2nd day of A.D.
689, “the Department of Great Learning presented eighty
staves.’ These staves were for the ceremony of Onz-yaraht,
or demon-expelling, which was performed at the beginning
of every year by men who rushed about beating the air and
discharging arrows in all directions. Now we learn from
the Wamidshd, a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of the roth
century, that the word oz also comprised “ the spirits of
dead men,” and it notes that they ‘‘refuse to reveal their

VOL. x. y

222 Fapanese Myth.

form.” The oz were therefore invisible but not incor-
poreal, a description which by no means corresponds to our
idea of a ghost. Motodri denies that the om are spirits of
the dead. In the old literature, he says, this word means
simply “ devil.”

MotoGri could find no proof that the ancient Japanese
believed in the immortality of the soul. But that they
believed in some sort of continued existence after death can
hardly be doubted. It is testified to by the practice of human
sacrifices at the tombs of great men, which, as we know
from incontestable evidence, prevailed in Japan centuries
before the zhong? and Kojikz were written.

There is something to be said for the contention that the
absence of ghosts from the X-record of ancient Japan is not
owing to backward development, but to a “later change in
the intellectual course, a divergence from, or rejection of,
ancestral faiths,” ὁ brought about by the influence of sceptical
Chinese literature, and confined to a cultured class. But
surely the weight of evidence forbids this conclusion. It
rather tends to show that the ancient Japanese were an un-
imaginative people, still in the anthropomorphic stage of
religious progress and with a radical incapacity for grasping
the complex conception which underlies our word “ ghost.’
They had got so far as in some halting measure to separate
spirit from body, but they had not yet learnt to conceive of
the former as preserving the individuality of the deceased,
and as capable of re-assuming a visible form more or less
resembling its former mortal integument. The mztama
required the assistance of some existing material object in
order to become cognisable by our senses.

This view would have to be modified if ghosts were shown
to be genuine objective phenomena. It is permissible, how-
ever, provisionally, and until psychical research has yielded
more accurate and better digested results, to look upon a

' Dr. Tylor’s Primitive Culture, p. 426.

Fapanese Myth. 323

belief in them as an excrescence on religion in a secondary
stage of its growth, to which it would be easy to attach
undue importance. I would not be understood, however, to
contest the doctrine that the notion of a more or less
spiritual existence of the dead has been a cardinal factor in
early religious development. No reader of Primitive Cul-
ture can doubt this. The case of Japan raises a presumption
that a considerable advance must be made towards a Spiritist
form of faith before ghosts can make their appearance.
The modern popular literature, written after centuries of
Buddhist and Chinese influence, teems with apparitions.

The deification of human beings, by which something of
the superhuman power and glory already recognised in
natural deities is reflected back upon heroes, ancestors, or
sovereigns, does not occupy an important position in Shinto.
As already pointed out, the ancestral gods are not really
deified ancestors but existing deities who have been con-
verted into ancestors, or others invented for this very pur-
pose. The deification of living and deceased mikados and
princes belongs to a comparatively recent period, and is
open to strong suspicion of Chinese influence.

There is no summer and winter myth in these old records,
no rainbow myth, and no eclipse myth. There is, strange
to say, no earthquake myth, and but one solitary mention
of a god of earthquakes. The most terrible exceptional
convulsions would appear to have impressed the religious
sense of the Japanese less than every-day, normal phe-
nomena.

324 Minutes of Meeting.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL i9th, 1899.
The PRESIDENT (Mr. E. S. Hartland) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

The following books, which had been presented to the
Society since the last Meeting, were laid upon the table,
ΥἹΖ :—

Vol. v., parts 1 and 2 of Lud: Organ Towarzystwa
Ludoznawcsego we Lwowie; and Transactions of the
Glasgow Archeological Soczety, vol. 111., part 2, both pre-
sented by the respective Societies ; and Bzblical Antiquities,
by Cyrus Adler and I. M. Casanowicz; Chess and Playing
Cards, by Stewart Culin ; and Zhe Lamp of the Eskimo, by
Walter Hough, all presented by the President.

The Secretary read a paper by Dr. Jevons entitled “ The
Place of Totemism in the Evolution of Religion,’ and a
discussion followed, in which Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Clodd,
Mr. E. K. Chambers, Dr. Gaster, Mr. Nutt, Lieut.-Col.
Temple, Mr. Jacobs, and the President took part.

Mr. Philip Redmond then read a paper entitled “Some
Wexford Folklore” (see p. 362), upon which Mr. Crooke,
Mr. Nutt, and the President offered some observations.

The Meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to Dr
Jevons and Mr. Redmond for their papers.

REVIEWS.

THE PRE- AND PROTO-HIsToRIC FINNS, BOTH EASTERN AND
WESTERN, WITH THE Macic SONGS OF THE WEST FINNS.
By the Hon. JoHN ABERCROMBy. Grimm Library, Nos. ix.
and x. 2 vols. D. Nutt, London, 1898.

By the publication of this important and interesting work Mr.
Abercromby has done much to remove one of the reproaches of
English scholarship. It is the first serious attempt that has been
made in this country to investigate the early history and culture of
the Finnish people. Such a task demands indeed no light equip-
ment, asa glance at Mr. Abercromby’s list of authorities will at once
convince anybody; and it requires also a more than usually
cautious habit of mind, for not only is the subject obscure in
itself, but it is made still darker by the existence of vague hypo-
theses and unscientific conjectures. A proof of Mr. Abercromby’s
sound judgment is shown by his refraining from any excursions
into the fascinating but at present unanswerable questions which
centre round the Asiatic origin of the Finns. There are only two
passages, I think, which refer to this point at all. In the first
(vol. i. p. 86) the author says “that both stocks” (long-headed
and short-headed) ‘originally issued from Asia seems almost
certain ;” and in the second passage (vol. i. p. 146) he remarks,
“ Though we have to believe that once the remotest ancestors of
the Finnish peoples lived in Asia, it is, I think, impossible to
trace them there.” This reserve is the only scientific attitude.
Might it not have been as well, however, to put the general
reader on his guard against the errors and exaggerations with
which this question has been treated in such books, for instance,
as Lenormant’s Chaldean Magic?

In the first five chapters of Mr. Abercromby’s first volume he
tries, with the combined aid of craniology, archeology, ethno-
graphy, and philology, to sketch the history of the Eastern and

326 Reviews.

Western Finns in pre- and proto-historic times. How closely his
evidences have been brought up to date may be instanced from
the archzeological chapter, which contains a full account of the
important excavations conducted by Mr. NovokreS¢ennikh at
Gliadénova, near Perm, in 1896 and 1897, and the book contains
twelve excellent reproductions of photographs of interesting finds
taken by Mr. Novokrescennikh and given by him to the author.
Mr. Abercromby discriminates seven epochs of civilisation in
the early history of the Finns. ‘Two of these periods are prehis-
toric, the first covering the time during which the Finns and
Usgrians lived in close contact before the settlement of the Finnish
peoples in Europe. It was towards the end of this period, perhaps
about 4800-1500 B.c., and during the Neolithic Age in Russia,
that the undivided Finns entered Europe. From evidences col-
lected in the craniological and archeological chapters it appears
probable that these Asiatic wanderers settled in the valley of the
River Oka, in the Volga region of Central Russia, and their sub-
sequent movements were westward towards Lake Ladoga and the
Upper Volkhov, where important prehistoric remains have been
found. These movements took place during the second period,
which embraces the time between the first settlement of Finns in
Europe and their first contact with an Iranian civilisation. During
the earlier part of this second period the Finns and Ugrians
remained undivided ; during the latter part they began to split
into different linguistic groups. ‘The reasons given for supposing
that the undivided Finns passed this first part of the second
period in Europe are based upon the facts that they had learnt
the use of spelt and had a name for the oak—neither of which,
the author thinks, they could have known beyond the Urals.
During this epoch the Finns were at a stage of pure Neolithic
culture, without the knowledge of any domestic animals except
the dog. In the third period the Finns and Ugrians, “emerging
from their sombre, impenetrable forests and trackless swamps,”
came in contact with Scythian nomads, an event which Mr.
Abercromby places about 600 B.c. He concludes, however, that
the separation of the Magyars from the rest of the Ugrians had
taken place at a still earlier date. The third, or Iranian period,
may have lasted for the Western Finns about 200 years, but for
the Eastern Finns it continued, through intercourse with Persia,
down to the overthrow of the Sassanide dynasty in the seventh

Reviews. 227

century. Before 300 B.c. the Western Finns broke away from
the Mordvins, and, migrating towards the west or south-west,
came in contact with Baltic peoples speaking a Lithuanian dialect.
This fourth, or Lithuanian, period partly overlaps the fifth (proto-
Scandinavian) period, and lasted till about 500-800 a.p. During
these first years of the present era the early culture of the Western
Finns seems to have received its most powerful impulse. Mr.
Abercromby has formed the conclusion—a conclusion opposed to
that of most writers on the subject, but supported by the most
recent results of archzeology—that the Finns entered Finland
perhaps as early as the second or third century a.p., and then
found the south-western part of that country occupied by a pre-
historic Scandinavian people, who remained there down to about
the sixth century, and profoundly influenced the Finns, giving
them, amongst other things, the important word uno. The
sixth, or early Slav period, marks the contact between the more
southerly of the Western Finns and various Slav (Russian) tribes,
who came pushing up from the south towards Lake Ilmen not
earlier than 500 A.D. ‘The seventh or Tartar period marks the
influence on the Eastern Finns, first of the Bolgars (about 700 A.D.
to 1238), and later of the Misar Tartars.

From the new words borrowed by the Finns during each of
these periods Mr. Abercromby derives a measure of their growth
and changes in culture. The chapters containing these results
are exceptionally interesting, and every reader will recognise in
them a very delicate and beautiful piece of work. The general
sketch of early Finnish history, derived mainly from these evi-
dences of philology, must be substantially accurate, although, as
Mr. Abercromby is careful to point out, there is room for error
in any particular detail; because all new additions to a language
do not exactly coincide with the new ideas conveyed by those
words, which are borrowed in some cases for special reasons (e.g.
the names of spirits, sacred animals, &c.), and apart from this
there is a large margin of uncertainty. For example, during the
Fourth Period, Mr. Abercromby says, “for transport purposes
they had now a sledge,” but we cannot be quite sure that the
sledge was new to them at this period, however probable that may
be; for, though the Finns borrowed a word for it (veh), they
also borrowed a word for “tooth,” and it is certain that teeth at
any rate were employed at an earlier period.

328 Reviews.

The mythological chapters are perhaps the most interesting to
students of folklore. They do not, however, contain an exhaustive
statement of Finnish myth, but are confined expressly to the mytho-
logy of the Magic Songs. May we hope that these sketches are
but the prelude to an extensive treatment of the subject in another
work ἢ

The account of the Finnish “haltia” recalls the Melanesian
mana, especially in its application to the ecstasy of the wizard.
ἐδ In remarking that although /a/¢ia is a loan-word (= ruler) the
idea evidently goes back to the earliest times, the author might
have referred to the Vogul aatr (“prince”) the name given to
the spirits dwelling in the Vogul images. This word was borrowed
in the Third Period, and therefore much earlier than λαζέα (which
is Scandinavian) to express the same idea.

In his account of Ukko, the anonymous sky-god, Mr. Aber-
cromby says that “the Finns assigned him many honorific epithets,
but no wife or children.” This statement, although it is probably
accurate, is perhaps put too roundly, and might perplex a reader
who had just learnt from Professor Comparetti’s work on the
Kalevala that “ there is a supreme god of the sky, Ukko (the old
man), who has a wife, Akka (the old woman).” The fact is that
Bishop Agricola, writing in the sixteenth century, included in his
list of Finnish deities a wife of Ukko, whom he called Rauni,
and the earlier Finnish mythologists, as Porthan and Ganander,
followed the bishop’s lead, although Porthan remarked that Ukko’s
wife was never mentioned in the old songs. It appears probable,
however, from the arguments of Castrén and others, that Agricola
was mistaken on this point. ‘The expression ‘‘Ukko’s son,” which
occurs not unfrequently in Finnish poetry, and in the Magic Songs
is applied particularly to a wizard, is certainly figurative. I agree
with Mr. Abercromby that the club or hammer of Ukko does not
symbolise the thunder-bolt, but is a much more humble instru-
ment. ‘There is a song in the Kanteletar (ii. 339), in which Ukko
is besought by a hunter to swing round his golden club or copper
hammer and beat the woods, so as to drive out the game; and in
this case the singer is evidently thinking merely of something like
a beater’s stick.

1 cannot follow the author in his view that Ilmarinen was the
old air- and sky-god of the Finns before they ever came in contact
with Europeans ; that he subsequently acquired an anthropomor-

᾿
4
Ὶ
j

eae. el ee ,"-..

Reviews. 329

phic character as the magic smith, after which the old conception
of him was continued under the new appellation of “Ukko.” Mr.
Abercromby mentions in support of this view: (1) the corre-
spondence of the name with the Votiak “‘Inmar”; (2) the evidence
of Bishop Agricola ; (3) the fact of Ilmarinen’s appearance on the
Lapp gobdas in the place of a native wind-god. But in the Magic
Songs and in the Kalevala Ilmarinen appears almost invariably in
the character of a magic smith, and it is difficult, in the face of
Comparetti’s arguments (Kalevala, p. 217-8, German edition), to
believe in his being personified from an old divinity. As to
Bishop Agricola’s evidence, it must be remembered that he lived
with the Tavastian branch of the Western Finns, and evidently
did not know the magic smith as he then existed in Karelian
runes.

Mr. Abercromby also looks upon Vainaémoinen as the sky-god
under another name, and thinks that the transference to a song-
and culture-hero may have come about in this way. ‘The sky-
god was also the thunderer; thunder is the voice of the god
speaking ; but speaking can easily be turned, if the god is thought
of as in a joyous mood, into singing.” But if Vainamoinen is
more than an idealised wizard, his various functions seem to me
more appropriate to a wind-god; and although Mr. Abercromby’s
suggestion in the sentence quoted is quite possible (especially
having regard to the peculiar character of wizards’ “ singing”),
yet thunder does not after all seem so naturally and universally
suggestive of song as the wind is. It would have been interest-
ing to have had Mr. Abercromby’s opinion as to the derivation
of the word Vainaméinen or Ainimainen. Clearly he does not
accept any of those derivations which refer to earth or water,
nor that of Ahlqvist, who traces it to the River Dvina (Viana—
Vaina).

I cannot dwell upon the many points of interest that arise in
connection with the author’s account of Tapio (in whose name
Schiefner recognised the Christian saint Eustace), and his nume-
rous family of woodland deities. Hiisi Mr. Abercromby rightly
regards, with Castrén, as originally a tree-god, afterwards trans-
formed, through the ban of Christian missionaries, into a devil.
The Finns are unusually rich in names for the Devil, most of
them descended from a good old pagan stock: for example,
Perkele (from Perkunas, the Lithuanian Thunder-god), Piru

330 Reviews.

(from Perun, the Slavonic Thunder-god) Lempo (regarded by
Mr. Abercromby as a forest sprite, but the word seems tu be of
Germanic origin=limp; in the Magic Songs the Devil is ad-
dressed as “‘ Lempo, Piru, the limping fellow ”).

Other names for the Devil are Aijé, the old one, who, with his
sons and daughters, is frequently mentioned in the Magic
Songs ; Juutus (Judas), Paha (the evil one), Pakana (the pagan),
Keito, &c.

In his account of the underworld, Tuonela, Mr. Abercromby
rejects without mentioning it Comparetti’s perhaps rather fanciful
derivation of the word from ¢wvonne, and says it is the same as the
Lapp duodna (“miserable”). It is a pity that the author should
have been so cramped by the comprehensiveness of his scheme,
that he could not afford space to enter more into detail on this
and other points which are new to many of his readers. A few
mythological names which one might have expected seem to have
been omitted from this chapter. In the account of elves and
brownies there is no mention of Tonttu, the house-sprite (Awoneen
haltia), mentioned by Agricola, and, though there is a full account
of Pohjola, the land of gloom and sorrow, nothing is said about
the complementary idea of Paivola, Saari, the land of sunshine
and plenty. ‘The reason may be that neither Tonttu nor Paivola
occurs in the Magic Songs, but among the mythological names
which do occur there, and are also omitted in this chapter, are
the following: Antero Vipunen, Untamo, Lemminkainen, Aijo,
and Keito. The opinion of Mr. Abercromby about the first three
of these personages would have been welcome, and the last two
names occur so often in the Magic Songs that they should surely
have been included in this chapter. Keito’s spears = “ sorcerers’
elf-shots,” occur in several of the charms, and the name Keito is
generally paralleled with Piru or Hiisi. In Renvall’s Lexicon he
is described as a patron of metals. I also note in the section on
instruments (p. 353) that there is no account of the Para, the
apparatus for magically conveying the milk of a neighbour’s cow
to one’s own dairy. This is explained, however, in the Index
(vol. ii. p. 396).

The second volume of Mr. Abercomby’s work is devoted to the
Magic Songs of the Western Finns. These are translated from
the Lottsurunoja of Dr. Lonnrot. Readers of Aodk-Lore will recog-
nise all the “ Origins” (except one) as having appeared in these

Reviews. 331

pages; but the translation has been revised, and the ‘ Origins”
form only a small part of the collection now given.

The Magic Songs are not ancient as regards the time of their
production, although they contain many old-fashioned ideas.
Most of them are evidently later than the twelfth century and the
conversion of the Finns to Christianity ; and it is almost certain
that none are older than the Fifth Period, when the word ‘ runo”
was introduced into their language. Probably, as Mr. Aber-
cromby thinks, “they received their greatest development in
the” (very long) “interval between pure heathenism and pure
Christianity.”

The Magic Songs are of great interest to the student of litera-
ture, for, as Professor Comparetti has conclusively shown in his
work on the Kalevala, they are the original root of Finnish
poetry, and there is no other instance of a poetic literature deve-
loped from Shamanism. They are not stiff pieces of priestly
ritual, like the Magic Songs of the Babylonians, for instance, but
essentially popular. Two elements in their vitality are obvious.
They are all deneficen¢t, and they contain far higher foetic worth
than the charms of any other people. In fact, many of them are
pure lyrics which rival in beauty the products of literatures far
more catholic than that of the Finns.

To the student of folklore they are interesting for many rea-
sons, and not least because they offer a notable example of the
way in which a people of foreign origin can assimilate and work
up into original forms of their own the materials supplied by the
folklore of their neighbours. For instance, there is nothing else-
where quite like the Finnish “ Origins,” as Mr. Abercromby re-
marks (vol. ii. p. 41), but the materials of which they are composed
are not derived (except in some cases) from old Finnish myths,
but are drawn generally from the current folklore of Europe.
Mr. Abercromby gives a few specimens of East Finnish, Russian,
and other charms for comparison with those of the Loztsurunoja,
but in order to complete the subject it would be necessary to
traverse a far wider field. For instance, on p. 122, the reader
will recognise, under a Finnish exterior, the famous Merseburger
Gebet, or Dislocation Spell, a charm which ranges from India to
Ireland ; and the Finnish charm for pleurisy is exactly similar in
idea (as Professor Comparetti has pointed out) to an Anglo-
Saxon gea/dor, prior to the tenth century, which is given in

332 Reviews.

Cockayne’s ‘‘ Leechdoms.” Now that these Magic Songs have
been made accessible to English students of folklore (the larger
part of them have not before been translated from the Finnish)
they will be studied, I hope, with the attention which they cer-
tainly deserve.

As to the merits of Mr. Abercromby’s translation, I hardly
venture to express an opinion; but so far as I am capable of
judging, I have found it very accurate, and at the same time the
English is chosen with care and taste. Sometimes the language
is perhaps rather too conversational, e.g. “turn a hair” (p. 80),
“ bothering” (p. 161), &c. On page 68 I do not know why
tulinen and panuinen are both represented by “fiery”: would
not “fiery” and “flaming” be better, as on pp. 180, 335, &c.?
On page 84, in the passage “Hills flowed like butter,” &c.,
are not votna, lihana, &c., essive cases used as predicates ; and
would not amore accurate rendering be ‘“ Hills flowed into
butter, rocks into swinesflesh, lakes into ale,” &c.? and again on
p. 88, “The Creator’s clouds got watery-wet, the sky crackled
with fire.” The use of the word “like” in both of these passages
seems to detract from the reality of the wizard’s conjuring.

On page οἱ, “puskuja puserran” is rendered ‘the elfshots
squeeze.” Is not the disease, in this case, conceived as a horned
animal, and should not the translation be “ press back, or resist
the blow of the horns”? (Cf. panen puskut puskimahan, which
Mr. Abercromby translates on page 92, “I'll order it” (the ox)
“to butt at thee.” In other places, however, puskut is properly
rendered “‘elfshots.”) I doubt whether ‘light of heart,” on page
194, quite represents the epithet of Lemminkidinen, “lieto,” which
properly seems to refer to a light sandy soil, “terra arenosa”
(Juslenius). Lemminkdinen, I take it, is like the sand blown
about by every wind of passion, and probably “ wayward,” or
even “unstable as sand,” would be nearer the mark. ‘“ Unstable-
or weak-shoulders,” would also perhaps render “ lapalieto,” on
page 369, better than ‘‘defective-shoulders.” On page 108, line 3,
would not “pliant,” rather than “complaisant,” express the double
idea, there being apparently an allusion to the flexible body of
the wasp?

I may be allowed to add that it would have been much more
convenient for reference if the numbering of the songs had been
made to correspond with that of the Finnish text.

Reviews. 332

I have noticed only a few trifling misprints. The date of
Ganander’s A/ythologica Fennica on p. xv. should of course be
1789. On page 151 (vol. 1.), “‘slow” appears to be a misprint
for “low.” On page 363 (vol. i.), the reference to the Para
should be 132d not 153d.

In conclusion, let me heartily congratulate Mr. Abercromby
upon the completion of these admirable volumes, which must
remain for many a day the standard English work on the subjects
with which they deal.

CHARLES J. BILLSON.

LITTERATURE ORALE DE L’AUVERGNE. Par PAuL S&BILLOT.
Paris: J. Maisonneuve. 1808.

Tuis collection of traditions, songs, riddles, and sayings, which
forms the thirty-fifth volume of the Lzttératures Populaires de
toutes les Nations, shows once again how rarely any legend stands
isolated in folklore. Nearly every story in the book is a variant
of some well-known confe adapted to local circumstances. The
Wicked Stepmother, the Lad who did not know how to Tremble,
the Lost Children, the Serpents guarding a Treasure, the Bird of
Paradise and the Monk, all have a place in its pages, with other
equally familiar characters. In England, St. Mark’s-eve is often
the time for ‘‘ watching the church-porch,” but M. Sébillot’s story,
entitled Za mort prédite, affords evidence that, according to the
natives of Aurillac, it is at All-Souls the spectres of those who
are to die within the year pass through the abbatial porch of St.
Géraud.

The folklore of many English counties represents the white
rabbit as a phantom of ill-omen, it is therefore interesting to find
that in Puy-de-Dome a goblin appears in the same form. ‘The
belief that a pigeon often comes to a house as a death-warning
seems general throughout the British Isles, and an instance of a
parting soul assuming the form of a white dove is mentioned
by M. Sébillot in connection with the chateau of Baffie. The
story of The Devil, The Wind, and Lincoln Minster, lately
published in Fo/k-Lore, finds an analogue in a legend of Cantal.

334 Reviews.

St. Laurence, however, fills the part occupied by ‘the leader
of the opposition” in England. The saint, it seems, met Boreas
covered with rags, for, defeated and dispossessed of his altars, the
wind was returning to the north. The holy man put on no airs
of superiority, but entered into conversation with the vanquished
power, and the two went on their way together amicably enough
until they reached Puy-Saint-Laurent, when the saint said: “ Wait
here forme. Iam going to pray in this oratory.” Since then
Boreas has been waiting outside for his reappearance, and, having
long been tired, he betrays his impatience by his ragissements.
“ Cette légende est extrémement répandue,” says M. Sébillot, and
he gives authority for its existence at Chartres, Langres, Paris (the
church of St. Sulpice), Autun, Coutances, Strasburg, Florence,
Rome, and Copenhagen.

The riddles given towards the end of the volume are but few in
number, although in a mountainous country like Auvergne, “ οἱ
les soirées d’hiver sont longues, on doive dire bon nombre de
devinettes.” As in other parts of Europe, probably, the people
who have the best opportunity of collecting folklore have little
comprehension of its value, and fail to record practices which
seem too puerile to be worthy of attention.

MABEL PEACOCK.

Tom Tir Tot: an Essay ON SAVAGE PHILOSOPHY IN FOLK-
TALE. By EDwarp CLopp. London: Duckworth and Co.,
1868.

Ir would not be easy for Mr. Clodd to write a book that would
not bear witness to his wide knowledge, his grasp of general prin-
ciples, and his keen perception of their logical issues. The book
before us is marked by all of these; and its genial style, so charac-
teristic of him, will commend it to that popular perusal for which
it is intended. He is a born vulgarisateur, to use an expressive
French word for which we have no exact equivalent. Within a
small compass he has expounded the underlying philosophy of
the story we remember so well from his first introduction of it to

πω τῶ Se Sn ee

Reviews. 335

the Folk-Lore Society. How great must have been the temptation
to enlarge on his text, and to let the varied reading, which has
formed the basis of his exposition, carry him away, those who have
attempted similar work will best appreciate. He has not in every
direction succeeded in compression to the extent desirable when
writing for a public that soon tires; but, on the whole, he has
had strength to resist the temptation so easily besetting a writer
familiar with the ramifications of his subject.

Having reprinted the story at length, he gives abstracts of
several important variants. He then briefly discusses the question
of the diffusion of stories, coming to the safe conclusion, that
“‘ where coincidences in stories extend to minute detail, a common
origin may be assumed, but that where only a like idea is present
as the chief off, without correspondences in incidental details,
independent origin is probable.” The meaning of some of the
incidental features of the variants is next dealt with; after which
the author proceeds to the main thesis—that of barbaric ideas
about names, and the taboos connected therewith. This occupies
the bulk of the volume, and involves, of course, a consideration
of magic, first through tangible, and then through intangible,
things.

The sections on taboo might perhaps have been better arranged;
and I wish that at the end of every chapter the author had sum-
med up the results arrived at so far. Moreover, it would have
added somewhat to the value of the exposition if he had stated
his reasons for discarding Mr. Andrew Lang’s suggestion that we
have in the story simply an instance of a bet on an unusual name.
As it is, while those to whom the subject is familiar will have no
difficulty in following him, I fear that the readers for whom the
book is mainly intended will sometimes be puzzled for want of an
explicit statement. For such, it is needful to label one’s conclu-
sions in distinct and unmistakable form.

But these may be hypercriticisms ; and they leave after all an
interesting book in which initiated as well as outside readers will
find not a little both of entertainment and instruction.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

“ΕΞ

336 Reviews.

THE TRADITIONAL GAMES OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRE-
LAND, with Tunes, Singing Rhymes, and Methods of Playing
according to the variants extant and recorded in different
parts of the Kingdom. Collected and annotated by ALICE
BERTHA GomMME. Vol. I., 1894; Vol. 11., 1898. London:
D. Nutt.

How comes it that the first volume of Mrs. Gomme’s collection,
published so long ago as 1894, has never been reviewed in Fodk-
Lore? This is a question that members of the Society may ask,
though I am personally not called upon to answer. With the
appearance of the second volume, completing the work, at all
events it is time to give some account of it.

Imprimis, then, it is the first part of a Dictionary of British
Folklore projected by Mr. Gomme: a project which every one
who is interested in the subject must hope he will some time find
leisure to carry into complete execution. The games collected
here are arranged in dictionary-fashion. Not merely are the tunes
and rhymes given, with all important variants, but the record is
completed by diagrams showing how the players are placed at
different stages of the games, or diagrams of the board or ground
upon which the playing takes place. And the second volume is
brought to an end with a Memoir on the study of children’s
games, discussing their anthropological significance.

The perusal of the book will bring back to most readers many
a childish memory. Perhaps I may note one or two of my own
as variants of the games described. The game called ‘‘ Lamploo”
I remember being played at Bristol in my boyhood under the
name of “‘Lamp-out.” There was a den, on one side of the

ground only, and a goal on the other. The boy whose business .

it was to catch the others stood in the space outside the den.
His hands were zof clasped. The other boys had to cross the
space where the catcher stood, touch the goal, and return without
having been caught. Every boy caught was added to the cap-
turing party. This always seemed to me, as Mrs. Gomme in fact
suggests, a variant of another game here described under the
names of “King Cesar” and “ King of Cantland.” Mrs.
Gomme notes that in Dorsetshire it is called “ King-sealing.”
We called it “King Sillio.” There was, I believe, on catching

Reviews. 337

some ceremony of crowning, or spitting over the head, but it
was dying out; and as we played the game the pursuer touched
his man three times, with the words, ‘‘ One, two, three, the man
for me.” Another game described here under the names of “ Hunt
the Staigie,” “ Chickidy Hand,” “ Stag,” and ‘‘ Whiddy,” of which
“Johnny Rover” seems a variant,” was well known in Bristol.
We called it “Cock Warning ;” and the formula uttered by the
“Cock” was ‘Cock warning once, Cock warning twice, Cock
warning three times over.” Before saying this he had to clasp
his hands, and he had to effect his first capture with his hands
clasped. ‘Touching was enough for a capture. The boy caught
joined hands with him, as described by Mrs. Gomme in “ Lamp-
loo,” to catch the others, first repeating the warning. ‘There was
a goal or post from whence the capturing party always started.
If they loosened their hands, any of the others could ride them
pick-a-back to the post, and they had to begin again with the
warning. In all these games it was the rule that when three had
been caught, the first “Cock” or ‘‘ King” (but only the first) was
entitled to leave the capturing party, and join the other.

The differences in these three games, as known in my boyhood
at Bristol and as described by Mrs. Gomme, are perhaps trivial.
But trivial differences are sometimes of importance in reasoning
back to origins ; and these, I think, tend to the conclusion that
all three games are developed from a common original, to which
** Lamploo,” as described by Mrs. Gomme from the Somerset and
Dorset Notes and Queries, is probably the nearest approximation.
If so, Jamieson’s guess at the derivation of the game of King of
Cantland cannot be correct, though the common original may have
been, and probably was, a mimicry of tribal or inter-communal
raids. Numerous as have been Mrs. Gomme’s contributors, and
many as are the variants of many of the games, the book might
easily have been increased in size by the addition of other variant
details. Ina collection of traditions, of whatever kind, there is
always the difficulty of knowing where to stop. For scientific
purposes it is of course better to err on the inclusive side ; but
scientific purposes are not the only considerations in the publica-
tion of a book. We have every reason to be grateful to Mrs.
Gomme for the information she has got together and the form in
which she has presented it. If it be not all we could wish for as
anthropological students, it is much more than we could ever

VOL. X. Ζ

338 Reviews.

have expected. It is enough, too, to enable the authoress tenta-
tively to expound the significance of much that has hitherto been
unexplained. Her Memoir is of great interest and no little im-
portance, for the conclusions she has come to from a considera-
tion solely of British games must form a starting-point for inquiries
of a similar character into the games of continental children.
These conclusions are modestly stated, and, startling as they may
seem to persons who are strangers to anthropological investiga-
tions, they are not mere hasty guesses, but are fairly reasoned
out. We may not all be prepared to ascribe to the game of
Touch so lofty an ancestry as that of a primitive taboo. There
is, however, something to be said for the conjecture. It is cer-
tainly not weakened by the variant game, apparently unknown to
Mrs. Gomme, of Cross-touch. The rule of this game is that when
“he” is pursuing one player and another passes between them,
the chase must be transferred to the latter and to no other, so
long as no other player comes between the pursuer and his
quarry. Unless this be a modern innovation, to prevent the
marking out and running down of one player, the compulsory
transfer of the aim by the crossing of another player seems to
hark back to the savage conditions of a taboo or a choice of
victim.

The confusion between games founded on funeral or mourning
customs and marriage or courtship customs is well pointed out.
There has evidently been a transfer from the former to the latter.
This has, I think, been aided by the savage difficulty in believing
in death, a difficulty shared always by the young, with their
superabundance of animal spirits and their consequent buoyance
of hope. “Green Grass” clearly owes its origin to funeral rites.
The transfer of words from one game to another has been con-
stantly going on, and the adoption of new words is well illustrated
by the instance of ‘‘Hunting” (where we get a street-song current
some six or seven and twenty years ago after the Shah’s visit to
England), and another where ‘“‘ Up and down the City Road” (a
street-song half a century old or more) is sung. The game of
“Flood,” it may be noted, has been studied more at length since
the publication of Mrs. Gomme’s first volume by Miss Mabel
Peacock in these pages (Fo/k-Lore, vol. vii. p. 330). The local
distribution and periodical celebration of games is one of great
archeological and ethnological interest, on which Mrs. Gomme

Reviews. 339

has hardly been able to touch. It will have to be dealt with,
however, in order to draw any satisfactory conclusions on the
anthropological value of games.

Meanwhile, I congratulate Mrs. Gomme on the completion of
her task, and commend these volumes to every student of folk-
lore. Together with Mr. Newell’s book on the Games and Songs
of American Children they present a tolerably complete and very
valuable account of British traditional games.

E. SIpNEY HARTLAND.

SEMITIC INFLUENCES IN HELLENIC MytTHo.Locy, with special
reference to the recent mythological works of the Right Hon.
Professor Max Miiller and Mr. Andrew Lang. By ROBERT
Brown, Junior, F.S.A., M.R.A.S. London: Williams and
Norgate. 1898.

RESEARCHES INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE PRIMITIVE CONSTELLA-
TIONS OF THE GREEKS, PHOENICIANS, AND BABYLONIANS.
Same Author and Publishers. Vol. I. 1899.

THESE two volumes, the work of Mr. R. Brown, Junior, are a
further exposition of his well-known views on the relation of the
mythology of Greece to that of Babylonia. The former is in the
main controversial, being an unmeasured attack on the methods
of the anthropological school of folklore and on the writings of
Mr. A. Lang in particular. We think that Mr. Brown has shown
little discretion by intervening in the duello between Professor
Max Miller and Mr. Lang. It is true that he writes not without
provocation ; but his criticism displays a lack of temper and a
bitterness of tone which we had fondly supposed obsolete at the
present day. In fact, he takes his versatile opponent much too
seriously, and his style is ill adapted to an encounter of this kind.
It decidedly lacks delicacy of touch, and much of his banter is
rather dreary reading.

But it is with the serious exposition of his views on celestial
mythology that we are now more immediately concerned. As
readers of his previous works are aware, his object is to show that

Ζ2

340 Reviews.

Hellenic mythology is in the main derived from Babylonia. He
now lays down sundry canons which define the extent to which
Semitic influence may be assumed in the myths of Greece—first,
when neither the name of any particular personage nor the chief
mythic incidents connected with his legend appear in the other
branches of religious mythology ; secondly, when Aryan nature-
myths do not supply an easy and appropriate explanation of his
concept and history; thirdly, when his cult is found in regions
either absolutely non-Aryan or else permeated with non-Aryan
influence ; fourthly, when his form is more or less unanthropo-
morphic ; fifthly, when his character and story generally are in
harmony with those of mythic personages admittedly non-Aryan ;
and, sixthly, when the resources of Aryan philology are powerless
or inadequate to explain his name and some or many of his
principal epithets.

We have no space for an adequate review of these canons of
the science of mythology. The final result is that they exclude
all investigation beyond the Aryan and Semitic area. With our
widened knowledge of Babylonian culture, no one will be disposed
to deny that it may have exercised considerable influence on the
religious thought of the West. Aphrodite of Paphos, for instance,
or Artemis of Ephesus is almost certainly an oriental deity im-
ported into Hellenic lands. But the fact that the later cult of
Aphrodite was framed more or less closely on an eastern model
does not exclude the possibility of the existence of a purely Greek
goddess of love to whom the kindred oriental cultus may have
been affiliated. This is, in the main, the view of Mr. Farnell,
the most sober authority on Grecian myths. With our experience
of the results of explaining the titles of Hellenic gods from epithets
in the Rig Veda, students will be well advised in hesitating to
accept the same method when extended to the Semitic area.

There is, again, much to be said in favour of the view that
many of the folk-explanations of the constellations may have been
independently discovered. Few scholars now accept the views of
Professor Max Miiller and Sir G. Cox that the conception of the
Great Bear is based on a parallel between the seven shiners, the
seven sages, and the seven bears, all of which depends on the
assumption that this constellation has not the shadow of a likeness
to a bear. But the Karens, who see in this group of stars an
elephant, can hardly have been influenced either by Aryan or

Reviews. 341

Semitic myths, and, as Dr. Tylor has pointed out, the same idea
prevailed in Greenland and in other parts of the North American
continent.

But whether we accept or reject Mr. Brown’s speculations, all
must agree that he has done good service by his translation of
and commentary on the works of Aratus, and he has brought a
vast amount of learning and ingenious suggestion to bear on this
exposition of his views. Like every pioneer in a new branch of
exploration, he must be prepared for much adverse criticism, and
we trust that the diatribe against his opponents will not be repeated.
The more calmly and judicially his views are presented for the
judgment of students, the greater is the chance of their acceptance
by any one whose opinion is of value in this branch of inquiry.

WILLIAM CROOKE.

CREATION MytTus ΟΕ PRIMITIVE AMERICA IN RELATION TO
THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF
Mankinp. By JEREMIAH CuRTIN. 1899. Williams &
Norgate.

Tus volume is the first fruits of a myth-discovery expedition
made by the author in 1895 and 1896 throughout Western
North and Central America, from California to Yucatan. It con
tains mythic tales derived from two Californian tribes inhabiting
the Sacramento Valley—the Wintus, now numbering some 500
souls, and the few surviving members of the Yana people, of
whom close upon 5,000 were massacred by the white settlers in
1864, under circumstances, narrated with admirable impartiality
and discretion by Mr. Curtin, which make this chapter in the
history of the relations between higher and lower races one of the
most abominable even in that hideous record of cruelty, oppres-
sion, and denial of all that constitutes the only true reason we
have for asserting our superiority. Mr. Curtin deserves the utmost
measure of gratitude from all who care for humanity, as well as
from all who care for science, for his efforts on behalf of the
scanty remnants of these interesting peoples. Nothing is said

342 Reviews.

explicitly as to the degree of culture reached by these Indians,
but it seems to have been very low, much lower, for instance,
than that of the Pueblo Indians in the south, of the Haidahs
away to the north-west, or of the great Algonkin and Iroquois
stocks in the east of the continent. Incidentally it is stated
“that no Wintu has been converted to Christianity ; hence the
faith of the nation is undimmed, and its adherence to primitive
religion unweakened.” ‘This is a point upon which further infor-
mation would have been welcome, though as a matter of fact
there is nothing in any of these tales to excite that suspicion of
Christian influence which has been manifested in the case of
many Polynesian and Melanesian myths.

The Wintus and Yanas are, the reader is informed, “ not
related, and their languages are radically different.” A marked
difference does make itself felt in passing from the tales of the.
one to those of the other people, though many are substantially
identical, and all exhibit a kindred body of incidents and con-
ceptions. Information concerning the racial and linguistic affini-
ties of these tribes would have been welcome, and Mr. Curtin
has been far too chary of illustrative comment from the rich
storehouse of Indian myth and legend. Moreover, the few paral-
lels and references he does vouchsafe are from the great Central
and Eastern stocks. We should have expected and been grateful
for comparisons with the mythic legends of other Western tribes,
notably the North-western stocks, concerning whom Dr. Boas has
accumulated such a mass of information. In general it may be
said that Mr. Curtin has diminished the usefulness of his col-
lection for scientific purposes by the absence of those aids to
right intelligence which the student desiderates, and, lacking
which, feels unable to form a correct judgment. This is the
more to be regretted because the stories are of exceeding inte-
rest, and because Mr. Curtin puts forth on their behalf claims of
a very far-reaching character marked by great speculative insight
and daring. As will be seen, I feel myself unable to accept these
claims upon the evidence submitted by him, but I am conscious of
the unsatisfactory nature of my criticism. Mr. Curtin must pos-
sess a mass of information respecting the dogmatic beliefs and
rites of these peoples which would throw a flood of light upon
the tales, but, save for an interesting account of magician-
making among the Wintus, he withholds it, though it may possibly

Reviews. 343

amply substantiate his theory. The critic can, however, only
judge what is set before him.

Mr. Curtin distinguishes two strata of mythic tales, the first
dealing with the adventures and fortunes of beings inhabiting this
world before its present occupiers, whether divine, animal, or
human, the ‘first people,” as he styles them. These beings
partly survived as the present gods, but for the most part were
changed into the present animals or into inanimate objects. ‘The
myths concerning them in their original form may be truly de-
scribed as creation myths, as they set forth how, according to the
Indian belief, nature, animate and inanimate, assumed its present
form. The second stratum, ‘‘action myths,” describes the exist-
ing processes of nature, and has for its actors the god-class
representing the “first people” and the heroicised ancestors of
present man. The myths of the Old World belong in the main
to this stratum, whereas those of America are chiefly drawn from
the earlier stage. They are closely connected with the institutions
under which the Indians still live, as “the lives of the first people
are presented as models upon which faithful Indians are to fashion
their lives at all times and places. Every act of an Indian, in
peace or in war, as an individual or a member of a tribe, had its
only sanction in the world of the first people, the American
divinities.”

The mode by which the world of the first people was changed
into that at present existing ‘‘was mainly struggles between hostile
personages ” who metamorphosed each other into ‘‘some beast,
bird, plant, or insect; but always the resultant beast or other
creature corresponds in some power of mind or in some leading
quality of character with the god from whose position it has
fallen.”

Later, Mr. Curtin describes the Indian meditating upon the
world as he saw it, speculating upon its origin and mode of deve-
lopment, and producing these creation myths as a result of his
speculation.

Now whilst I am quite disposed to accept Mr. Curtin’s expla-
nation of the origin of these myths, I cannot see that they do
bear out his view of their primitive character as compared with
those of the Old World, or, generally speaking, his theory of the
stratification of myth. His secondary myths, ‘‘action myths,”
in which the existing forces of nature are personified and its

344 Reviews.

existing processes set forth as actions of those personifications,
are to my mind likely to have preceded creation myths properly
so called. Primitive man, so I should think, would tell stories
about the brother and sister who perpetually chase each other
across the sky, or about the being who pops into a hole in the
earth at night and comes up out of another hole in the morning,
before he told stories to explain why a wolf zs a wolf or Mount
Shasta zs Mount Shasta. In other words, he must surely have
accepted the facts of nature as facts, using them as the material
of those dramatic imaginings we term myth, before he speculated
concerning their origin and essence.

Accept Mr. Curtin’s view and then turn to the stories them-
selves. The actors, the first people, apparently figure as human
in form and circumstance, and although the tale itself sometimes
says that so and so was changed into a particular animal or object,
yet in many cases this is neither stated nor implied and we have
simply Mr. Curtin’s warrant for the fact. It rests of course upon
native information, but surely further knowledge could then have
been gained respecting the psychology of the mythic person postu-
lated. How did the narrator conceive of the being who after-
wards became a lamprey eel or a block of flint? He can hardly,
to account for the existing universe, have postulated one which
changed into it, and which yet was seemingly identical with it.
But if we accept tale and theory together this is the conclusion
we must come to. I may note in passing that the tales hardly
bear out Mr. Curtin’s assertion “that the resultant beast always
corresponds in some power of mind or in some leading quality of
character with the god, from whose position it has fallen.” On the
contrary one cannot but be struck by the frequent want of connec-
tion between the incidents of the tale and the final metamorphosis.
In this respect these stories are far less self-explanatory than, for
instance, Mrs. Parker’s Australian Tales, and, although they often
avow an etiological intent, leave the impression that their original
purport was not etiological at all.

Perhaps the most pregnant and remarkable tale in the book is
that entitled “Sedit and the two brothers Hus.” The brothers are
commissioned by Olelbis, a kind of supreme god, to make a stair-
way from earth to the upper sky. The result will be that the new
race of men will always have access to the upper world, can obtain
rejuvenescence and perpetual life, need not propagate, and will

Reviews. 345

be able to lead a sinless, sexless, strifeless existence. The two
brothers start upon their task, but are interrupted by Sedit. Learn-
ing the object of their labours, he points out what a mistaken ideal
is that of Olelbis, and how much better it would be for men to
love and die, to toil and strive, to warm themselves with human
passions rather than to vegetate in bloodless, eventless passivity.
The brothers are persuaded, abandon their task, and that is why
the world of men is full of strife and toil and love, is the world
we know. The stones of the unfinished stairway are there to this
day ; the brothers flew back to Olelbis ; Sedit, essaying to follow
them, fell back to the ground and was crushed to pieces.

Now I found it difficult to believe that this marvellous tale was
imagined to account for a great mass of natural rock stairway, or
to explain the metamorphosis of the Hus brothers into turkey
buzzards, or of Sedit into the coyote. On the contrary, it seems
self-evident to me that it is the last term of a long philosophic and
literary evolution, that the choice of the coyote as the Wintu
Mephistopheles is due to his presence in countless tales of a far
simpler character, as an embodiment of shifty cunning. The
attributes which fitted the beast for his Satanic rdle must have
been noted and utilised for dramatic purposes long before it
occurred to the Indians to wonder why the coyote was different
from himself and to invent a tale accounting for the difference.

The tales lend themselves to endless comment, but I must be
content to have emphasised their salient interest according to
their collector, and indicated my dissent from his theory. I can
only say that, alike from the complexity of the problems which are
involved, and for the originality and significance of the tales them-
selves, this is perhaps the most remarkable collection of stories yet
made in the New World. Students of Myth will look forward
with keen eagerness to the future volumes promised by Mr. Curtin ;
they will also expect him to equip them with that apparatus of
elucidation and comment which he alone is qualified to supply.

ALFRED NUTT.

346 Reviews.

Mytu, RituaL, AND RELIGION. By ANDREW Lanc. New
Edition. 2 vols. London: Longmans. 1890.

Mr. Lang has followed up his A/aking of Religion by a revision
of his brilliant refutation of Professor Max Miiller and the philo-
logical method of expounding mythology, with the object of
bringing it into harmony with his later opinions. Readers of the
original edition will be glad of the opportunity of reading the book
again, and of noting the changes made in it. Here, I think, they
will be disappointed. The old arguments are for the most part
still valid, but some of them have been weakened by the conces-
sions Mr. Lang has thought it necessary to make, and the limita-
tions already there have been marked and extended in a way that
sometimes embarrasses the main position, if it does not deliver
the author into his opponents’ hands. Moreover, little account
has been taken of the progress of inquiry during the last twelve
years, fruitful as they have been in many directions. Mr. Lang
would, I think, have done better to re-write the book, taking into
account the results of discussion on the various points first
attacked so trenchantly and successfully by him. Science is ever
moving forward, and it is always inconvenient and sometimes
dangerous to reprint a work which even, like this, at the time of
its appearance constituted a great and significant advance on all
that had been previously done. The ideas and the arguments of
Myth, Ritual, and Relgion, many of them novel when it was
published, have now become by virtue of their very strength
commonplaces of science. Our indebtedness to them is so great
that we do not recognise it ; and when we come to read them
over again, something of their old force is apt to evaporate if they
have not been brought up to date. But these drawbacks not-
withstanding, the book is and will remain a standard authority on
the origins of mythology and a sample of the solvent power of
criticism.

As the preface to the new edition consists to some extent of a
further reply to my strictures on Zhe Making of Religion, I need
not apologise for taking the opportunity to make a short rejoinder.

Religion is one of the most difficult words in the scientific
vocabulary to define ; but for Mr. Lang’s argument as now de-
veloped its definition is essential. He defines it for the purpose

ποτ ον ~ Thetis Ὁ)

Reviews. 347

of his argument as “the belief in a primal being, a Maker, un-
dying, usually moral” (p. 3). I have not been able to find any
corresponding definition of my. Sometimes it is used (as on
pp. xvii, 3, and 5) in opposition to ve/igion, or (as on p. 29) to
religion and moradity ; at other times it is said to consist of two
elements, the rational and the zrvrational (p. 9). Again, the term
vational seems to be the equivalent of re/zgious, and irrational
the converse (pp. 4, 10, &c.). It is pretty obvious that these
terms are all purely subjective, purely arbitrary ; and moreover
they are not used consistently. Arguments built on terms thus
loosely employed must suffer the fate of the house built on the
sand.

Mr. Lang has quite missed the point of my remarks in the note
(ante, vol. ix., p. 303) on the legends of the Noongahburrahs.
Mrs. Langloh Parker has not yet informed us which of the stories
in her second volume the black piccaninnies would not be allowed
to hear. At all events they would be allowed to hear the legend
of the Borah of Byamee in the first volume. Though that legend
speaks of Byamee as a man, it treats him with greater reverence
than some of the tales solemnly inculcated in the Wiradthuri
mysteries do. If it cannot be said to ‘‘touch on sacred subjects,”
it is inseparably connected with the Legend of the Flowers in the
second volume, which presumably does, and which Mr. Lang
includes in his description of “ἃ very charming and _ poetical
aspect of the Baiame belief.” Charming and poetical aspects are, it
would seem, “rational”: at least Mr. Lang so characterises the
description of Artemis in the Odyssey (p. 10). Is the Legend of
the Flowers within his definition of religion? It cannot be ; for
it recognises Byamee not as ‘‘a primal being,” but as a glorified
wizard of the tribe; nor as “ἃ Maker,” save of manna and flowers,
which a wizard might very well be. Undying he is, but only “up
to date,” and moral, if it be moral to set his brand arbitrarily on
three trees and thus taboo them to the starving people. In short,
the legend is a myth, and “the blacks” do not “ draw the line ”
as and where Mr. Lang seeks to draw it. His “essential dis-
tinction ” does net correspond with the facts; his theory lays
undue emphasis on facts otherwise to be explained; and his
definition, framed to fit his theory, does not define religion as
“the blacks” understand it.

Other points in the Preface to which I may refer are the names

346
sulun ane w myths concerning Dara-
MytH*
as to the fs e name of Daramulun as

“‘Jeg-on-one-+ Ὁ ,” seems to be agreed on;
on ω
whereasth p»p gp ἢ: eans of general accepta-
fine T'S aye at I have seen is quite a
differer use the sense “happens
to be e to hold at present that
Lier y suspend judgment until
a de up their minds. Mr.

osing his error in calling
pers or Daramulun.” Well, if there was
amr error, it was neither his nor mine, but Mr. Howitt’s; for the
latter explicitly includes them among the tribes whose initiation
ceremonies he describes. Whether it is exactly worship that is
given by these tribes to Daramulun is a question of definition:
Mr. Lang contends it is. It is true that Mr. Howitt says of the
Wiraijuri in a note: ‘‘Daramulun is in this tribe not the supreme
‘master,’ but the son of Baiamai, who rules everything.”! Does
Mr. Lang contend that therefore he is not worshipped? There
are analogies which may give him pause. In any case, it is not
the Wiraijuri but the Kamilaroi who are said to hold that Dara-
mulun is “the evil spirit who rules the night.” My own belief,
however, is that the various versions of the tale and status of
Daramulun are illustrations of the shifting nature of tradition
rather than of any strictly speaking, dogmatic and deeply-seated
tribal differences in the manner of regarding him; and it was in
this capacity that I referred to them. Let me add, too, that if
Mr. Lang tried to erect Zeus into the object of a primitive mono-
theistic belief of the Greeks, I know of noe reason why we should
not be “humorous ” about him (p. xx), or, in other words, expose
the inconsistencies and the impossibility of the contention.
Ahone affords a tempting subject. But here it is Professor
Tylor who is challenged, and I shall not presume to intrude into
the controversy. I will merely note a rather important misprint
of “race” for “age” on page xxxiil.
E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

1 Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xiii., pp. 433, 452.

Reviews. 349

Wit, CHARACTER, FOLKLORE, AND CUSTOMS OF THE NORTH
RipING OF YORKSHIRE. By RICHARD BLAKEBOROUGH.
London: Henry Frowde. 1898.

Tuts volume, though not written solely from a scientific point of
view, is an important contribution to the printed folklore of the
North Riding.

It is of course unavoidable that such a book should contain
notes on words, ideas, and social practices which are already well
known, but it also includes much that is fresh and curious. Mr.
Blakeborough knew a person who could remember hearing “‘ The
Lyke Wake Dirge” sung over the body of a distant relation, a
native of Kildale, somewhere about 1820. This old man said
that it was very rarely heard even then. The version of the old
chant given is different in some particulars from the one com-
monly printed. A verse of it runs thus (p. 123):

‘* Tf ivver thoo gav’ o’ thi siller an’ gawd,
Ivvery neet an’ awl.
At t? Brigg ο᾽ Dreead thoo’ll fuind footho’d,
An’ Christ tak’ up thi sawl.”

This belief in the soul having to cross a bridge is very widely
distributed. In Jélusine (ix. 149-60) there is an article on
Popular Prayers and Magic Formulas, collected in certain parts
of the Pyrenees ; and in one of these formulas we read ‘there is
a footbridge—narrow—narrow as the hairs of my little head. He
who shall do good will cross it; he who shall do evil will not be
able.”

The same idea occurs again amongst the Esquimaux, amongst
the mountaineers of the Neilgheries, and elsewhere.

Mr. Blakeborough gives a variant I have not hitherto met with
of the birth-rhyme relating to the days of the week ; the end of it
especially interesting :

‘‘ Bud a Sunday’s bairn thruff lyfe is blist,

An’ seear i’ t? end wi’ v Saints t’ rist,”

which clearly shows that its origin dates back to the time when
veneration of the saints was still a part of the popular faith.
In the dales of Cleveland and Wensleydale we are told that

350 Reviews.

until the baby was christened the mother used to put the Bible
under its pillow to guard against all evil spirits and bad influ-
ences. At the present day this is yet done amongst the Pro-
testants in some parts of Switzerland.

The chapters relating to Birth, Marriage, Death, and Witcheraft
are full of interesting facts, many of the details given appearing
for the first time, to my knowledge. ‘The volume is enriched by
a carefully compiled glossary and a very good grammar of the
folk-speech. Many old dialect poems, songs, and rhymes are also
given.

FLORENCE PEACOCK.

BYE-GONES RELATING TO WALES AND THE BORDER COUNTIES.
1897-98. Second Series. Vol. V. Oswestry and Wrexham:
Woodall, Minshull, & Co.

Bye-gones is a reprint from an Oswestry newspaper. All who are
interested in Wales and Welsh matters know how valuable it is
as a local WVotes and Queries. Many a fact that would otherwise
have been forgotten is here garnered. Among such facts a pro-
minent place is given to folklore. A large number of superstitions
are noted in the volume. Many of them doubtless have been
already noted, but it is to be hoped that will not be a reason for
discontinuing the notes. It is important to know with certainty
the distribution of traditional observances of all kinds.

A curious practice is stated (p. 406) to prevail at Neston parish
church of locking all doors during the celebration of a marriage.
The origin of this custom may be sought in more than one direc-
tion; but it would be all guesswork in the absence of more
detailed local information. For instance, does the converse
custom of unlocking all doors, drawers, boxes, &c., at a birth
obtain in the parish? Speaking of marriage customs, an order of
the Commissioners of the Marches on the 26th August, 1534,
addressed to the Mayor and Aldermen of Hereford, is quoted on
the following page at length, forbidding the “ gadering of Com-
mertheas ” and assembling at ‘‘ love ales or bydden ales.”

No one can pretend to have exhausted any branch of inquiry
in British folklore who has not searched Bye-gones.

E. Srpney HARTLAND.

CORRESPONDENCE.

CHRISTMAS MUMMERS.
(Vol x., p. 186.)

Wirt reference to these I think it will be interesting to give
what I can remember of some mummers at Mullion, in Cornwall.
The account must be very inadequate, as at the date I was unre-
generate—ignorant even of folklore as a scientific study. Since
being comparatively enlightened, I made every effort to induce
the Mullion people to give me details, but failed altogether ; they
said that mumming was given up, and no one now did it. As I
saw it in 1890-91, I think if any one in the neighbourhood could
pay some attention to it there would be still a good deal to be
collected about it. The place is six miles from the nearest railway,
Helston, and I noticed many curious relics of a bygone time in
the district.

The mumming at Mullion is at Christmas, and I think the day
or evening before Christmas day. There are several characters in
it. They visit the houses in and around the little town. Every
one naturally knows who the actors are, since there are not more
than a few hundred persons within several miles; but no one is
supposed to know who they are or where they come from, nor
must any one speak to them, nor they to those in the houses they
visit. As far as I can remember the performance is silent and
dramatic; I have no recollection of reciting. They are offered
refreshment, after which they depart, not having been openly re-
cognised by any one. This particularly struck me, as a brother
of either my host or hostess was one of the actors, and the latter
told me he would not be spoken to, as it was not etiquette.

A self-imposed silence is usual in the carnival mumming in
France, Italy, and Spain, or at least in Basque Spain, the only part
I know. Several amusing incidents occurred to me in these
countries at carnival time. Once when carrying all my sketching

352 Correspondence.

material on a stick on my back through a Basque Spanish town,
I was supposed to be doing it as a carnival joke, and they took
much pains to make mespeak. I, not knowing Spanish, was quite
unconscious of the joke until enlightened by a friend. Another
incident occurred in Rome with a carnival actor, who must not
speak whatever happened; and, as I was then aware of that, I did
much to embarrass him.

When I wrote to Mullion the year before last (that is 1897, only
six years after I witnessed the mumming), I could get no replies
to my questions, and as I was very friendly with the people, I
felt quite sure I had stumbled on what they did not wish to
speak of ; either it was an old-world custom which they had begun
to look upon as foolish, or they had some feeling against publicity.
The house I stayed in was a boarding-house at Mullion, and the
host and hostess are still there. If there were any chance at all of
rescuing the fragments, I feel sure it would have to be done with
tact and care. The dresses of the mummers were elaborate.

FLORENCE GROVE.

WHITE CATTLE IN BRITISH FOLKTALES AND CUSTOMS.

As I have been engaged for some time working on the origin
and history of British white cattle, I take this opportunity, through
the kindness of the President of the Folk-Lore Society, to ask the
assistance of those interested in folklore and early traditions of
favouring me with references to tales and customs, in which white
cattle play a part.

The statement most commonly made is that herds of white
cattle which now exist in some English and Scotch parks are
descendants of wild cattle that roamed through the forests of
Britain—the true Bos Primigenius of the zoologist. This tradition
I am unable to accept, and I think Professor McKenny Hughes
has conclusively shown that instead of being descendants of the
wild bull—the urus of Czesar—they are the descendants of im-
ported cattle, which were probably required for sacrifical purposes.
Instead of being wild cattle their colour indicates a long period
of domestication, for, excepting some animals common to the

Correspondence. 555

Arctic regions, white is a colour foreign to wild animal life on the
globe. Then the true Bos Primigenius or urus, which roamed
free through the forests of Central Europe and was hunted, we
learn from contemporary accounts, in the Middle Ages, was,
according to Herberstein, entirely black with a line down the back
having white blended with it. Urus horns also differ from those
of white cattle, for while the horns of the latter are upright and
upturned and lying approximately in the plane of the occipital
region, the horns of the urus are very long and curved first
forward and downwards and only upturned at the end, curving
forward in the plane of the animal’s back.

Instead of being wild animals these white cattle were, I think,
a special breed, valued and bred in rude domestication for a
definite purpose. We are told that the Druids, clothed in white,
cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle, and that it was caught in a
long white cloak and carried home on a wagon drawn by two
snow-white bulls which had never felt the yoke. Here we find
white cattle employed for a definite purpose. I shall be obliged
if favoured with any reference as to the traditional employment of
white cattle in pre-Roman days, not only as regards the mistletoe
ceremony but in any other Druidical observance in England or
elsewhere. Coming to the Roman period, white cattle would be
in demand for sacrifices to the upper cult. Have we any tradition,
superstition, custom, or saying pointing to the use of sacrificial
white cattle, which has come to us from the period of Roman
occupation? The sacrifice of bulls must have taken a strong
hold in Britain, for we read of bulls being killed ‘‘as an alms and
oblation to St. Cuthbert” in the twelfth century at Kirkcudbright ;
and in Mitchell’s Past tn the Present an extract is given from the
records of the Presbytery of Dingwall, which shows that this body
met on 5th September, 1656, to inquire into the backsliding of
a parish within its bounds, and they found “amongst uther
abhominable and heathenische practices that the people in that
place were accustomed to sacrifice bulls at a certaine tyme uppon
the 25 of August.” I shall be much obliged if I am favoured
with references to similar practices in other parts of the country
and to references of a later date, also to any references where
colour of the animal is noted. I make this request, for I think
there can be no doubt that some customs, traditions, or sayings
which point to the use of white sacrificial bulls, or cattle generally,

VOR. x, 2A

354 Correspondence.

in either of the three kingdoms do exist ; and I think this is more
than probable from the fact that a custom in connection with
cattle, recorded in the Gentleman’s Magazine for February, 1791,
as being common in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, and there
termed “the antient ceremony of wassailing,” is, I find, held to
be the ceremony of Ferize Sementivee, while the wassailing bowl
is the grace-cup of the Romans.

After the Roman period many references to white cattle, their
value, use, and employment, must exist in Saxon and Norman
chronicles and poems that are unknown to me. Such references
will no doubt also be found in the early Welsh and Irish writings.
Professor M‘Kenny Hughes, for instance, in his paper on white
cattle published in vol. lv. of Avchaeologia relates the story of
Twm Sion Catte, from which we learn that a pair of oxen were
ploughing together, one was black, the other was white. Twm
wanted to steal the white ox, so he drew the boy away from his
charge by letting out a wired hare in front of his corgi; and, as
the dog was gaining on the hare, the boy could not resist the
temptation, and followed, looking back from time to time to see
that the white ox, at any rate, was safe. Twm, watching his
opportunity, threw a white sheet over the black ox and drove the
white ox away. I find another illustration that white cattle were
a domesticated race in an Irish zoological and topographical poem
as old as the ninth century, published in the Proceedings of the
Royal Irish Academy. ‘The poem begins :

“61 then went forth to search the lands,
To see if I could redeem my chief,
And soon returned to noble Tara
With the ransom that Cormac required.”

The poem, eighty lines in length altogether, then goes on to
detail the animals brought as the ransom, and where obtained.
After detailing where he got foxes, otters, gulls, and ravens, the
tenth line reads :

“Το wild oxen from Burren.”

Now wild oxen does not mean wild white cattle, for these are

specially mentioned later. The poem ends with these eight
lines :— ἧ

νυ. S's

-» δ.

Correspondence. 355

“* Two cadhlas (goats) from Sith Gabhran,
Two pigs of the pigs of MacLir,
A ram and ewe both round and red
I brought with me from Aengus.
I brought with me a stallion and a mare
From the beautiful stud of Manannan,
A bull and a white cow from Druim Cain,
Which’ were presented to myself by Muirn Manchain.”

Here we see that “ wild oxen” does not imply white oxen, and
that white cattle were domesticated, being classed among other
domestic animals and considered of very high value, for with the
white bull and cow the poem ends, and the reciter’s greatest
achievement is thus recorded, while attention is drawn markedly
to the circumstance that these animals were presented by, we
suppose, their breeder.

Though this Irish poem and the Welsh story quoted are the
only “lore” known to me, yet many more will be known to folk-
lorists and others interested ; so that I shall be obliged for further
references. Such references in early poems, tales, &c., may either
point to the use and value of white cattle specially or to the
colour of cattle that were wild and were hunted and slain.

Coming now to the days when the Church was a great if not
the dominant factor in the land, I have read that herds of white
cattle were kept by abbots and other dignitaries, as their meat
was considered the best. This may be alluded to in some place-
rhymes; if so, I shall be glad to be favoured with them. A
single reference which I had to white cattle, called white wild
bulls, kept in the park of an abbey for their “‘ sweetnesse ” of
flesh, I have unfortunately lost, though I have a reference to a
banquet given on the ordination of an archbishop which shows
that besides beef there was also provided the meat of white oxen.
But white bulls were necessary for some of the ceremonies of the
Church. Leases exist which show that the tenants of the church-
lands attached to the church of the shrine of Bury St. Edmunds
were bound to breed and provide as many white bulls as might
be required for the ceremony which took place when barren
women visited the shrine to be relieved of their sterility. The
wording of the leases that exist show that the tenants were bound
to supply these white bulls, because it was customary and had
been done for an exceedingly long time. A part of the ceremony
was, it seems, that the woman (and we are told that the fame of

2A2

356 Correspondence.

Bury St. Edmunds brought the most noble from Europe there)
walked handling the white bull to the shrine.

Was Bury St. Edmunds the only place in Britain where white
bulls were employed in rites and practices for procuring children ?
I do not think it can be a solitary exception, and I shall be glad
of references to other shrines or churches in Britain where white
bulls were utilised in a similar manner. Are there no super-
stitions relating to cattle in Britain in connection with the Church
or otherwise which make colour, z.e. white, an essential feature ?
I surmise that at regular intervals cattle were blessed, that occa-
sions arose when sacrifices were permitted, and that there were
various festivals in which they played a part. I shall indeed be
much obliged for references to any case or cases similar to that
at Bury St. Edmunds, or to cases of superstition relating to cattle
which depend on the white colour of the animal whether as an
essential or a minor point.

White cattle also appear to be desirable animals and considered
as of some value for the payment of the dues of freemanship and
of fines. I know of one borough in England where the freeman
before he obtained the freedom had to pay as part of his dues a
white bull, and the borough bears on its arms a white bull.
Again, certain tenures which demand the payment of dues to the
superior at a fixed spot in a defined manner also demand, as the
fine for the non-fulfilment of the obligation, the presentation of a
white bull. I am aware of a case also of common pasturage
where there is an obligation to turn in a white bull at a stated
period. My notes on these three points—freeman’s dues, fines,
and common pasturage—are at present not in my hands, so that
I am unable to specify the exact localities, but again I surmise
they are not isolated instances. Might I again ask to be favoured
with instances of white cattle borne on the arms of cities or
boroughs in Britain, or where the candidate for freemanship is
called on to include them in his dues, or cases of land tenure
where they are demanded either as part of the contract or for
non-fulfilment of it, or where the rights in a common pasturage
require the common bull to be white? In connection with this,
I am led to ask what was the colour of the parish-bull which the
lord of the manor or the representative of the Church of old had
to keep in the parish for the common good? Lastly, I may note

that if we turn to heraldry we find crests and arms that show

Correspondence. B57)

white cattle, we suppose bulls, with the black markings peculiar
to the race now preserved in parks, also crests and arms which
have red or black cattle. Whether white, red, or black, the crests
and arms show sometimes an animal complete and sometimes the
head only. Such crests and arms have a legendary origin. If
those who bear the white bull won their right to bear it for some
redoubtable deed when hunting the wild white bull (!), did the
others who bear a black or red bull also win their right on the
hunting field? If so, were the wild bulls of all colours? As
will be seen from these disjointed notes, there are many lines of
inquiry to be followed up in an attempt to trace the origin and
history of the white cattle preserved in parks down to our own
time. The threads are so many that I would appeal to those
interested in inquiries affecting customs, superstitions, and tradi-
tions to afford me the assistance of their specialised knowledge
and studies ; and it is with this hope I venture to lay this outline
of the information I am looking for before them.

R. HEDGER WALLACE.
Sea View, Lower Largo, Fife.

LincoLtn MINSTER, LINCOLN COLLEGE OXFORD, AND THE
DEVIL.

(Vol. ix., pp. 272, 364.)

The late Rector of Lincoln College in his edition of Pofe’s
Satires and Epistles, to illustrate the line “ Half that the dev’
o’erlooks from Lincoln town” (Hor., Epist., II., ii., 245), quotes
Fuller’s explanation ( Worthies, vol. ii., p. 6), “the ill aspects of
malevolent spectators . . . as the devil overlooked the cathedral
of Lincoln, when first finished, with a lowe and tetrick counte-
nance.” Two other quotations will be found in the Mew Lung.
Dict., s.v. “ Devil,” viz.: “1562, J. Heywood, Prov. and Epigr.
(1867), 75. Than wold ye looke ouer me, with stomake swolne,
Like as the diuel lookt ouer Lincolne ;” and “ 1738, Swift, Polite
Convers., 86. She looked at me, as the Devil look’d over Lin-
coln.” To these may be added a citation from ‘Taylor, the ‘Water
Poet” (Religuary, vol. xvili., p. 200), who in 1639 rode from

358 Correspondence.

Wortley to Wharncliffe Lodge ‘over rocks and cloud-kissing
mountains, one of them so high that in cleer day a man may from
the top thereof see both the minsters or cathedral churches,
Yorke and Lincolne, neere 60 miles off us; and as it is to be sup-
posed that when the Devil did looke over Lincolne as the proverb
is, that he stood upon that mountain or neere it.”

In Mr. Andrew Clark’s recent history of Lincoln College, p. 208,
will be found the following quotation from John Pointer’s guide-
book to Oxford, in 1749: “‘The image of the Devil that stood
many years on the top of this college (or else that over Lincoln
Cathedral) gave occasion for that proverb, To look on one as
the Devil looks over Lincoln.” In the Oxford Magazine, vi., 376
(May 23, 1888), Mr. Haverfield cites from the Genxtleman’s Maga-
zine, 1. (1731), p. 402: “ Wednesday, Sept. 15. The famous Devil
that used to overlook Lincoln College in Oxford was taken down,
having about two years since lost his head in a storm.” And in
Oxford Magazine, vii., 263 (Mar. 13, 1889), I note that “as early
as 1695 Miss Celia Fiennes, whose diary has recently been pub-
lished under the title of Through England on a Side-Saddle, paid
a visit to Oxford in that year . . . in the list of colleges which she
gives we find mention of ‘ Linghorn Colledge which is overlook’t
by the Devil.’” I will add, from the autobiographical chapter in
the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (ed. 1888, vol. i., p. 75),
one more illustration. “1 once met Sydney Smith . . . He was
talking about Lady Cork . . . He now said, ‘It is generally be-
lieved that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been overlooked,’
and he said this in such a manner that no one could for a moment
doubt that he meant that his dear old friend had been overlooked
by the devil.”

With regard to the winds, evidently considered as supernatural,
which play and battle round the walls of many a cathedral, it
may be worth while to mention that the north-west angle of Wells
Cathedral is known upon this account as “ Kill-Canon Corner.”
The conception underlying all these stories and allusions is doubt-
less that the prince of the power of the air (Eph. ii. 2, GZ vi. 12),
with his angels, carried on perpetual warfare against the Church
of God (see the Prologue of Longfellow’s Golden Legend). In
the Old Testament the lightning is the fire of God, the weapon of
Jehovah (Deut. xxxi. 41), and it is inferred that the high mountain
and the lofty tower incur his wrath (Is. ii. 12, e¢ seg.). But in

— νὰ

Correspondence. 359

the Middle Ages it was the towers of God’s house that were
especially exposed to the attacks of lightning and tempest, which
must therefore be ascribed to his enemies. Doubtless this is the
reason why in the ancient plan (ninth century) for the monastery
of St. Gall, the two round towers have iz swmmitate altars of St.
Michael and St. Gabriel respectively. Those leaders of the
heavenly host, it was thought, would defend the church against
the assaults of Satan. And in the Norman drawing of Canter-
bury Cathedral (twelfth century) the lantern tower is shown sur-
mounted by a four-winged creature, which procured for it the name
of the “Angel Steeple,” still borne by the magnificent structure
which replaced it at the close of the fifteenth century. The two
St. Michael’s Mounts, in Cornwall and in Normandy, and Glas-
tonbury Tor, crowned by the tower of St. Michael’s Church, are
instances of isolated heights placed under the protection of the
archangel. I do not know whether Michaelhowe, near Fountains
Abbey, is to be classed in the same category. Upon the whole
subject Mr. Elworthy’s appendix on Gurgoyles (Zhe Luil Lye,
p. 229) may be consulted with great advantage. ‘“‘The same idea
which to-day leads to the mounting of a piece of wolf or badger
skin upon a horse’s bridle to scare the evil glance of the versépedle
induced our forefathers to carve in stone, and so to perpetuate
their fantastic conceptions of the wicked spirits they wished to
scare away from their sacred buildings.” He further quotes Pennell
on Zhe Devils of Notre Dame, “like an actual body of fiendish
visitors caught and turned into stone as they grinned over the
eity:”

But what of the quaint little fellow wzthim the Church of
Lincoln, in the very presbytery and in the near neighbourhood
of the High Altar and the Shrine of St. Hugh? Surely he
is not a fiend? I would rather consider him as an elf or
Puck, having regard to his diminutive size and his position,
lurking at the apex of the richly-foliaged corbel. At the worst
he is such as that innocent little devil who was sitting on a
lettuce-leaf, doing no harm, when he was incontinently swallowed
by a greedy nun, who ate leaf and all without so much as making
the sign of the cross. It should, however, be observed that
** Puck, or pouke, is an old word for devil” (AZidsummer Nights
Dream, ed. Wright, p. 16). Burton (Azar. AZe/.), on Terrestrial
Devils, writes, “Some put our fairies (σας Olaus vocat, lib. 3)

360 Correspondence.

into this rank . . . Paracelsus reckons up many places in
Germany, where they do usually walk in little coats some two
foot long. A bigger kind there is of them called with us Aod-
goblins, and Robin Goodfellows.” ‘This is the “ drudging goblin,”
the “lubbar fiend” of Z’ Allegro, who

““stretcht out all the chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength.”

To this extent we must qualify the contrast drawn by Mr. Nutt
(Presidential Address, /o/k-Lore, vol. vil.) between the Irish fairies
(“fairy and mortal are not thought of as differing in size,” p. 39)
and our own (“the Shakespearian fairies . . . are exceedingly
small,” p. 33. ‘‘ Possibly the diminutive size of the fairy race
belongs more especially to Teutonic tradition as developed within
the last 2,000 years,” p. 45). But clearly the Lincoln elf belongs
to the order of the diminutive and grotesque.

GREY HUBERT SKIPWITH.

WALL-BURIAL.
(Voli ax. ΡΟ 20.)

There can be no doubt that sometimes eloped nuns (and
monks too), if they could be got at, were condemned to the zz
pace, which may fairly be called being walled up or buried alive.
But then there were the zzc/us@, women living voluntarily in a
cell in the church wall, arranged so that the inhabitant might see
and hear the service, and never leaving it. And the superstition
about strengthening a building or other structure by inclosing a
living being (1.6. originally by a sacrifice to the subterranean
gods) was very general and very strong. Andersen gives a
Copenhagen legend about burying a living child (Am Festungs-
wall, Mérchen), and alludes to burying horses or pigs (which
turned into spectres) in Der L/fenhiigel, 12., which shows it to
have been very common in Denmark. And as to the strength,
it survived itself (so to say) in the punishment inflicted upon
destruction. The customary law of the originally Frisian districts
in the province of Groningen, codified as late as 1601 (Omme/an-

ces

OD te eae Ἔχ’. LE i in a

ἢ
‘
4
|
|

Correspondence. 361

der Landrecht), ordains that if any man wilfully dig a hole into a
dyke, it shall be filled with his body, 2.6. he shall be buried+in it
alive.
Dr. W. ZUIDEMA.
Amsterdam.

The following note seems to bear on the custom of intramural
burial. A writer in the Zztermédiaire! speaks of having seen “a
Bologne, dans V’église de Saint Dominique, le corps du _ bien-
heureux Etienne de la Porretta enchassé dans un des piliers
jusqu’ ἃ mi-corps. 1] est parfaitement conservé, mais la face est
devenue couleur de momie.”

With what object the blessed personage is kept half-enshrined
in a pillar is not explained.

Tue LITTLE RED HEN.
(Vol..x:,_p:.1163)

Does Mr. Redmond know that there is an Irish-American
version of the ‘Little Red Hen,” which he has published in the
current number of Folk-Lore? In the fifth chapter of Faith
Gartney’s Girlhood (by the author of Zhe Gayworthys), Bridget
Foye, an applewoman, tells how a ‘‘crafty ould felly of a fox”
secures “the little rid hin” in his bag, how she cuts her way out
with the scissors she carries in her pocket, and puts a stone into

the bag, &c., &c.
MABEL PEACOCK.

Days OF THE WEEK.
(Vol. viii., p. 380; vol. ix., p. 258.)

In Styria, ““am Donnerstag soll nicht gesponnen, am Freitag
nicht gewaschen werden.” K. Weinhold, Aws Stecermark, in
Zeitschrift des Vereins fiir Volkskunde, vol. vili., p. 447.

1 20 février, 1899, col. 237.

MISCELLANEA.

SoME WEXFORD FOLKLORE.

I obtained the following fragments of folklore in the summer
of 1894, in a place about five miles from Enniscorthy, co. Wex-
ford, and I give them from notes taken at the time. Though I
must regret that various circumstances rendered it impossible for
me to take them down verbatim, they are given with absolute
fidelity, without the smallest attempt at embellishment. (May
this be excuse sufficient for baldness and flatness!) My principal
informant was B., a farmer. Wherever I mention names in full
they are the real ones.

Nocturnal Adventures, &c.

A man was passing near Templeshanbo churchyard late one
moonlight night when a hare, pursued by a greyhound, fled noise-
lessly by him into the graveyard.

In the same place lights have been seen at the grave of one
A. R., a lady of exemplary piety, on the night of her burial.
Lights (though presumably of another character) have been seen
on the sloping ground at R., great bushes all in a blaze, and in
the morning no sign of fire whatever. There was a vazh, or
barrow, in that place.

B. remembers a servant “ boy” of his grandfather’s coming in
one night nearly frightened to death at having seen an evil spirit,
in the shape of a horse with a fiery tail, up the road near a house
in which a certain bad person had recently died. The “ boy”
did not get over his fright for five or six weeks.

The road near C. was formerly haunted by an evil spirit in the
shape of a barrel.!_ I think he used to kill people, but my inform-
ant was discreetly vague on this point. Miss R., an old lady in
the neighbourhood, remembers to have heard the noise of him.
It is said that Father B. met him one night and exorcised him.

An old woman and her son were driving home in a donkey-cart
late one night, when they saw a great pig by the road. “In the
name of goodness,” said the old woman, “ whose pig is this out

‘ It is a curious fact that the Evil One takes this ‘particular form in a
fourteenth century French legend, to be found in Chron. St. Denis.

Miscellanea. 363

so late at night?” They were a very long time getting home, for
the pig kept with them, attacking the donkey and trying to get at
them in the cart. It disappeared at a certain ruined house. Τί
is believed to have been a “‘phooka.” The adventure had a
great effect upon the old woman, who became very good and
religious ; up to that time she had been rather the reverse.

Two men were driving home late one night, and met a woman,
to whom they offered a ‘‘lift.” No sooner was she in the cart
than the mare set off at a tremendous pace, and the men could
not hold her in. At last the woman got down and disappeared ;
and when the mare was got in she was mad for three days,
“trying to get out of a hole that was in the stable-roof.” She,
however, recovered.

Some other men who gave “a lift” to a woman whom they met
by the road one night were less fortunate. ‘What makes the
horse pull so hard?” said they; ‘She hasn’t half a ton on him.”
“He has more,” answered the woman ; ‘‘each of my arms weighs
a ton, and each of my legs a ton. You'll lose your horse,” said
she, and got down and disappeared. And the horse died in the
stable the same night.

B. himself coming home late once, heard a noise as of a crowd
of persons following him on foot and on horseback. He could
see nobody ; but the crowd seemed to advance at the same rate
as himself, stopping whenever he stopped, and going on when he
did. He was much alarmed, and knelt in the road and prayed ;
and the steps receded, and he came home safe.

There was a dog at B.’s farm, and one night it darted out after
something it heard passing. It came back in an hour or two
horribly mangled, and died on the doorstep.

In the boggy corner of the lands of R., about fifty years ago,
three men were cocking hay after sunset, and he who was upon
the cock saw what seemed a funeral procession coming through
the fields. It passed through the hedge close by the men, who all
saw it, and went on out of sight.

Witchcraft.

There was a “ fairy-man” living in the mountains not far from
R. at the time I was there; but I was not able to get to see him,
and the people were shy of talking of him. He cures horses, 1

364 Miscellanea.

know, and his mother used to have dealings with the ‘‘Good
People” as well as himself.

They say that the last witch in Wexford used to live in Ferns
Castle “about three hundred” years ago. Ferns Castle, by the
way, is said to have been built in one night by evil spirits, with
stones brought from Sliabh Buidh. The builders were interrupted
in their work by cockcrow, and dropped the last load of stones
upon the mountain, where it is to be seen at this day.

Some time ago a certain family were constantly having their
butter taken while churning. They consulted a “ fairy-man,” who
advised them to put, at the next churning, the coulter of a plough
in the fire, fasten a rope from it to the latch of the door, and
admit no one who came to the house. This was all done; save
when, in the middle of the operation, a woman of the neigh-
bourhood came to the door and knocked urgently, they admitted
her. She made some excuse for coming, and went away again ;
and once more the butter failed. They went again to the “ fairy-
man,” who flew in a great rage at their not having obeyed his
instructions, and bade them plague him no more. They then
applied to the priest, whose intervention proved more successful.

A fortune-teller once asked a man called Mogue for some
money. “1 have none,” said he. ‘You have at this moment,”
said she, “a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, and two coppers in your
pocket.” This was true, and the alarmed Mogue, with a brief
and forcible exorcism, fled.

There was a man who lived near R. some years ago, and could
make rats follow him ; and he would put them into the houses of
those whom he disliked.

Miscellaneous.

If two ends of a rainbow be seen in the same townland, it fore-
bodes the death of one in that townland.

Hybernating animals are called “seven-sleepers.” “I didn’t
know that efts were seven-s/eepers,” said B. to me one day, “until
I was pulling down an old wall in winter, and found about a
hundred of them,” &c.

PuHILip REDMOND.

Hampden Club, Phoenix Street, London, N.W.

Miscellanea. 365

More NOTES FROM CYPRUS.

Is the following custom common in other countries? Every
Cypriot shopkeeper or householder on locking his shop or house
always makes a cross with his key over the keyhole, and every
man, woman, and child on first leaving home in the morning
makes the sign of the cross on the breast.

No Cypriot woman will commence the making of any garment
on a Tuesday.

F. O. HARVEY.

Larnaca.

CuRE FOR AGUE.

This cure was given in a letter by a Suffolk woman as having
cured her brother-in-law, a fisherman. Both parties are well
known to the writer. Date, 1895.

Take a tallow dip and light it. When there is a very long
piece of burnt wick in the flame, bend it down into the tallow
and, coating it therewith as much as possible, pinch it off and
swallow it.

This was sent in answer to a request for the spider-remedy,
with which the woman was not, however, acquainted.

M. H. JAMEs.

SUPERSTITION REGARDING WOMEN.

A short time ago I was solemnly assured that if a woman at
certain periods goes near fresh meat it at once goes bad, On
inquiry, I find this is a common belief, and so deeply-rooted that
no woman is allowed to go near a dead pig whilst being salted if
she be in this condition. I was told, too, that another woman
attributed the failure of her “pickled cabbage” to the same
cause,

P. H. EMErson.

The Nook, Oulton Broad.

A similar superstition is current in the Forest of Dean.
E. S. H,

366 Miscellanea.

EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE (PARIS) DE 1900. .

There will be held, in connection with the Exhibition at Paris
next summer, a Folklore Congress, the arrangements for which
are in progress and will be announced later.

There will also be held a Congres International d’Histoire des
Religions from the 3rd to the 9th September. The president of
the Commission d’Organisation is M. Albert Réville, and the
secretaries are M. Marillier and M. Jean Réville. The Congress
will be divided into eight sections, dealing respectively with—

I. Uncivilised Religions and those of pre-Columbian
America.
II. Religions of the Further East.
III. Religions of Egypt.
IV. Semitic Religions: Judaism, Islam, Assyro-Chaldean, &c.
V. Religions of India and Iran.

VI. Religions of Greece and Rome.

VII. Religions of the Germans, Celts, and Slavs, and, as
bearing on them, the prehistoric archeology of
Europe.

VIII. History of Christianity.

Some of these subjects are of the highest interest and import-
ance to students of folklore. Discussions will be arranged in
Section I. on totemism, the functions of sacrifice, and the condi-
tion of souls after death as viewed by savage and barbarous
races. Totemism in Arab paganism will also be discussed in
Section IV. The worship of ancestors in India, and the grounds
of justification for the Solar Myth and allied theories in the Vedic
hymns, are prominent in Section V. Recent excavations in
Greece and the controversy about the origin of the myths in the
Eddas will afford matter for important conferences in Sections VI.
and VII.

Copies of the programme and further information can be

obtained from the secretaries of the Commission, 4 la Sorbonne,
Paris.

Bt LAO Gi Aer. .

1899, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED.

BOOKS AN D PAMPERED E.'S:

All English books are published in London, all French books in
Paris, unless otherwise stated.

Batrour (H.). The Natural History of the Musical Bow: a
Chapter in the Developmental History of Stringed Instru-
ments of Music. I., Primitive Types. Oxford: Clarendon
IETESs.) OVO. O7-pp., Map.

FREYMOND (E.). Artus’ Kampf mit dem Katzenungetum : eine
Episode der Vulgata des Livre d’Artus. Die Sage und ihre
Lokalisierung in Savoyen. Halle a. S., Niemeyer. 8vo.
37 pp: )

Cuapwick (H.M.). The Cult of Othin: an Essay in the Ancient
Religion of the North. C. J. Clay and Sons. Cr. 8vo.
82 pp.

SEPHTON (J.). Sverrissaga. The Saga of King Sverri of Nor-
way, translated by. D.-Nutt. Sq. 8vo. xxx., 288 pp.
8 maps.

STRICKLAND (W. W.). North-West Slav Legends and Fairy
Stories: a sequel to Segnius Irritant. Translated from
Karel Jaromir Erben’s “A Hundred Genuine Popular
Slavonic Fairy Stories in the Original Dialects.” R. Forder,
1897. 8voO. III pp.

STRICKLAND (W. W.). South Slavonic Folk-Lore Stories. Trans-
lated from Kabol Jaromir Erben’s ‘‘A Hundred Genuine
Popular Slavonic Fairy Stories in the Original Dialects.”
R. Forder. 8vo. xxxi., 106 pp.

WaLLacE (R.). A Country Schoolmaster : James Shaw, Tynron,
Dumfriesshire. Edited by. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
f8vo. xcvi., 392 pp. [Literary Remains of James Shaw.
Includes a short paper on the folklore of Tynron, useful as
evidence locating different items of common folklore, and
in the Appendix a note on adder-head charms, and a number
of folk-riddles and children’s rhymes. |

368 Bibliography.

PERIODICALS.

The Contents of Periodicals exclusively devoted to Folklore
are not noted.

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, N.S., i, 3,4. A. 2.
Guise, On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela
River, New Guinea. W. Crooke, The Hill Tribes of the
Central Indian Hills. 25. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Some
Remarks on Totemism as applied to Australian Tribes.
J. G. Frazer, Observations on Central Australian Totemism.
“5 W. Christian, On Micronesian Weapons, Dress, Imple-
ments, &c. [The &c. is folklore. ]

Nineteenth Century, July. 27. Simcox, The Native Australian
Family.

Museum of General and Local Archeology and of Ethnology.
Fourteenth Annual Report of the Antiquarian Committee
to the Senate [of the University of Cambridge], June, 6
1899. [Contains a list of the objects kindly received by the
Committee on deposit by the Folk-Lore Society during the
year. |

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 3rd Ser., v, 2. C. R.
Browne, The Ethnography of Garumna and Lettermullen.
[Another of Dr. Browne’s important contributions to our
knowledge of the people of the islands of the West of
Ireland. |

Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1897-8. [A most valu-
able Report, addressed to, and published by, the Government
of Queensland. A copy has been courteously forwarded by
the Hon. Sir Horace Tozer, K.C.M.G., Agent-General for
Queensland, to the Society for its library. The notes on
sorcery and totemism are of special interest to students.
Additional copies of the report can be procured from the
office at Westminster of the Agent-General, at the price of

158. |

Folk=Dore.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

VOL. X.] DECEMBER, 1899. [No. IV.

THE PLACE OF TOTEMISM IN THE EVOLUTION
OF RELIGION.

BY F. B. JEVONS, M.A., LITT.D.
(Read at Meeting of April 19th, 1899.)

THE question as to the place totemism occupies in the evo-
lution of religion is one which has of late been exhaustively
discussed by M. Marillier in a series of articles,’ which by
their learning, power, and penetration have earned the
gratitude, and will always command the respect, of all who
are interested in the early history of religion. The question
has also been touched on by Professor Tylor,” whose lightest
word carries with it all the weight which justly attaches to
any utterance of one whom we all regard as the most eminent
of anthropologists.

I am sorry to say that both writers are of opinion that I
have greatly overrated the importance of totemism in the
evolution of religion; and conscious though I am of their
superior strength, still, when the Folk-Lore Society cour-
teously offered me the opportunity to make reply, I felt that

1 In the Revue de [ Histoire des Religions, I., vol. xxxvi., no. 2; II., vol.
xxxvi., no. 3; III., vol. xxxvii., no. 2; IV., vol. xxxvii., no. 3.

2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. i. (New Series), pp. 138-
148.

VOL. Xx. 2°58

370 Totemism in the Evolution of Religion.

as I still held to my views I was bound to make the best fight
that I could for them.

But before beginning the present discussion, I should like
to say that the differences between myself and M. Marillier
as to the method in which the history of religion should be
approached are important enough to deserve a paper to
themselves, and that I must reserve them for separate treat-
ment if, peradventure, the Society should be inclined to
repeat its invitation.

Thus much premised, I proceed.

To M. Marillier,! the attempt to reduce all forms of plant-
and animal-worship to totemism seems narrow and inexact.
As it is pleasant to begin by agreeing, if possible, with an
opponent so courteous as M. Marillier, I am glad to say that
to me also theattempt seems both inexact and narrow. But it
is an attempt which I have not made. It is one thing to say,
as I have said, that the first plants and animals to be wor-
shipped were totems; it is a different thing to say that all
the plants and animals which came to be worshipped subse-
quently in post-totem times were totems, and I have not
said it. And so long as the Australian blackman, with his
totem-clans, is regarded by anthropologists as occupying
the lowest place in the evolution of society, so long will it
be a plausible theory that his totem-plants and animals
occupy the lowest place in the evolution of religion.

The same misunderstanding gives their point to sundry
other criticisms. Now in all cases I should feel that for any
misunderstanding of my words I was presumably myself to
blame; but when a critic so patient, so tolerant, and so fair-
minded as M. Marillier misunderstands me, the presumption
becomes a certainty. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
[ am not so totemist as M. Marillier paints me. He seems
to imagine I hold, or am bound to hold, that every deity
began by being a totem ; and he has no difficulty in pointing
to many deities who probably, or certainly, never were

αν, Ῥ. 996:

Totemism tn the Evolution of Religion. 371

totems at any time, e.g., deities of the sea, lakes, rivers,
fountains, sun, moon, stars, wind, earth, and sky.!

Now I might reply that all the natural objects enumerated
by M. Marillier do, as a matter of fact, actually occur within
our knowledge as totems ;? but I shall not, because then it
might be inferred that in my opinion wherever the sun, for
instance, was worshipped as a deity he must previously
have been venerated as a totem. ‘That is not my opinion.
What I have maintained, and do maintain, is that if a
community, already having one or more gods, wishes for
any reason to add another to its collection, it will probably
proceed to worship the new one with a ritual similar to that
with which it worships its old-established gods. If the
community in question is a totem-clan, the new-comer will
be assimilated to the totem-system; if it has passed out of
the totem-stage, it will straightway erect the new-comer
into a tribal, or local, or national deity, as the case may be,
and then we shall have an instance of a nature-power made
into a god without ever having served as a totem. The
vast majority of the gods known to the antique religions
and to savage races may thus have originated in post-totem
times, and never have been themselves totems. I submit,
therefore, that there is no narrowness in this view. As
to its inexactness, I can only say on the one hand that
M. Marillier himself conjectures that the sacred cattle of
the Damara clans have been assimilated to pre-existing
totems, which they have driven out,® and on the other that

both M. Marillier and Professor Tylor* fully admit “ the

immense influence of sacrificial feasts as means of binding
societies of worshippers together and to their common
divinity.” ;

It is now, I imagine, almost superfluous for me to say

1 Τ,, p. 221 ; iii, pp. 224, 226; iv., pp. 397, 402.

2 Frazer, Zotemism, pp. 24 and 25.

Σ ΤΙΓΡ: 222.

4 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. i. (New Series), p. 145.
BLD ue

372 Totemism in the Evolution of Religion.

that I do not hold that the mere anointing of an altar-post*
proves the deity thus worshipped to have been originally a
totem, or that the sacramental meal and the social institu-
tions of totemism are so “ mutually dependent ”’* that the
one cannot exist without the other. On the contrary, |
have argued that the sacrificial feast is used by all sorts of
societies as a means of binding themselves to their divinity
—voluntary associations as well as blood-relations, mem-
bers of a nation or a tribe as well as members of a totem-
clan. And, once more, so long as the totem-clan is the
earliest social organisation known in the evolution of
society, so long will those who believe in the correlation
of social and religious evolution look to the totem-clan as
the earliest society of which the members could habitually
worship a common deity.

But though I am ready to admit, and even to insist, that
very few of the deities known to us are transfigured totems,
still my argument does require me to maintain that a totem-
plant or animal may under stress of circumstances develop
into a non-totem deity. Whether M. Marillier does or
does not consider this process of evolution possible, I can-
not quite make out. If he argues that a clan-totem is not
a tribal deity,’ I quite agree. If he argues that a divine
animal by the very fact that it becomes a tribal deity ceases
to be merely the totem of one particular clan of the tribe,‘
I agree again. And if he admits, as he seems to do,° that
an animal which originally was a clan-totem may become
the deity of a whole tribe, then that is all I want. It is
possible for a clan-totem to evolve into a tribal deity ; and
the fact that in so evolving it ceases to be a totem is not,
as M. Marillier strangely seems to imagine, an argument

‘ M. Marillier, III., p. 226.
* bed... Ρ. 580.

5 Ὁ. 220:

lon 18h etic

Peep 247:

Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. 373

against my theory,! but is itself the theory which I am
seeking to maintain.

Whether the totemistic organisation of society is or is not
a necessary stage in the evolution of society, is a question
which is primarily one for sociologists to decide. But it is
also one in which historians of religion have an interest;
and it is remarkable that both Professor Tylor and M. Ma-
rillier have so little to say about it. The former allows it
“far greater importance in sociology than in religion;””” the
latter admits casually that totemist institutions are to be
found everywhere, but does not anywhere think it necessary
to answer, or even to ask the question, whether they are a
necessary phase of social evolution. Yet it would dispose
finally of the religious importance of totemism, if it could
be shown that there was no reason to regard it as a
necessary stage in the evolution of society. I propose,
therefore, to take judgment by default, and to regard the
social necessity and importance of totemism as conceded.
I think I may fairly say that by most sociologists it is as-
sumed.

Now if totemism, as a form of social organisation, is thus
necessary and has thus been universal, I submit that as a
form of religious organisation it cannot be dismissed as of
secondary importance to theology,® and that there is nothing
narrow in the attempt to fix the relation in which it stands
to other and historically later forms of religious organisation.
Professor Tylor speaks of ‘the ancient and powerful action
of the totems at once in consolidating clans and allying them
together within the larger circle of the tribe,” and he says
“this may well have been amongst the most effective pro-
cesses in the early social growth of the human race.” * Yet

1 The possessive pronoun here and elsewhere must not be taken to mean
that I claim the theory, or whatever it is, as my own invention, but simply
that I am interested in arguing on behalf of the theory.

2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, loc. cit., p. 144.

3 Thid.

4 7214.» p. 143.

374 Totemism in the Evolution of Religion.

he has previously said : ‘the importance belonging to totem
animals as friends or enemies of man is insignificant in
comparison with that of ghosts or demons.” Surely, we
may ask him, what equally “ effective process” the belief in
ghosts or demons has produced in “early social growth” ?
If totems had a power so great, can they have been so
utterly insignificant as ‘friends or enemies of man”? And
are we to deny all correlation between social and religious
evolution? I am aware that M. Marillier denies! that clan-
totems are either regarded as divine or worshipped; but
even he admits that the redskin offers sacrifice to his indi-
vidual totem ; while Professor Tylor, in his article on totem-
posts, says both that the Killer-whale is a totem ‘“ belonging
to the Haida-Tsimshian group of tribes,’ and that ‘the
Killer-whale or Skana is a great spiritual being to the
Haida-Tsimshian tribes, who worship and pray to it, blend-
ing in their ideas the actual animal and the demon Skana
embodied in it.’* But as Professor Tylor, when he is
making “ Remarks on Totemism, with especial reference to
some modern theories respecting it,’ says that the totem-
god is “a merely hypothetical being,” ? I will not venture to
infer that a totem who is a great spiritual being, worshipped
and prayed to, 15 a totem-god, for, if I did, I might expose
my ignorance of the difference between such a spiritual
being and a totem-god.

I will therefore retreat on to what is, I hope, safer ground.
Unless we are to divorce economics as well as theology from
sociology, we may, I trust, regard the “ancient and power-
ful action of the totems” on social evolution as constituting
a presumption that totemism may have had some economic
effects cf its own. One of the most important steps in
economic evolution undoubtedly was the domestication of
animals. We have only to contrast the condition of those

ΕΓ ΠΣ 20 Ἵν

* Journal of the Anthropological Institute, loc. cits, Ρ. 136.
= L02a.5) p> 148-

Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. 37%

savages who have no domestic animals with the civilisation
or semi-civilisation which follows in the train of domestica-
tion to see that. Now the respect (whether religious or
merely social) which is usually shown to the totem-animal
is such that any animal capable of domestication would,
in the course of generations, become tame under it. Thus,
totemism merely as a social institution would naturally and
inevitably result in the eventual domestication of those
totem-animals which happened to be domesticable, the
others would naturally remain wild. Those totem-clans
which had been lucky in this lottery would find themselves
the owners of a valuable economic possession, a fresh source
of motive power, such as the horse or camel, or a permanent
food-supply in the form of cows or sheep. The lucky clans
would increase and multiply at the expense of the less
fortunate—the bulls at the cost of the bears—until the
community which had originally consisted of different totem-
clans would come to be a tribe in which such distinctions
were either not recognised at all or survived only in re-
latively unimportant customs. In a word, the economic
revolution produced by domestication would entail a social
revolution also, and lead to the destruction of the totemistic
form of social organisation.

But of all this 1 am not fortunate enough to convince
M. Marillier. As a cause of domestication, he considers
totemism at once inadequate and superfluous. He regards
it as inadequate because a totem-animal, though respected
and spared by the human members of its own clan, is
neither respected nor spared by any other clan of the same
community, and therefore does not get the chance of grow-
ing tame. But this objection is a weapon with two edges,
if not more. As Professor Tylor has pointed out, it tells
against the Wilken-Frazer theory (adopted by M. Marillier)
that a totem-animal is the receptacle of a totemist’s ‘external
soul”; for the wife who kills her husband’s totem is in
danger of destroying her husband’s life. It tells also, I

376 Lotemism in the Evolution of Religion.

think, against the theory of totemism which Professor
Tylor himself is inclined to adopt, namely that the soul
of a man, at death, migrates into some animal, which then
becomes totem and taboo to his descendants; for a man’s
children do not belong to his totem-clan but to their
mother’s, and thus are at liberty to kill his totem-animal
and make things uncomfortable for his migrated soul. I
suggest, therefore, that though I, being a totemist, am
theoretically at liberty to kill my father’s totem-animal, or
my wife’s, still, as a matter of fact and for reasons which |
sum up in the phrase “for the sake of peace and quietness,”
I usually abstain from thus provoking parental castigation
or marital disagreements—especially if I have several wives.
In fine, it must not be forgotten, though Professor Tylor
and M. Marillier seem to forget, that though I may at my
own risk kill another man’s totem, the totem’s clan are
entitled to claim compensation, and will certainly exact
vengeance from me. The protection thus afforded by the
clan-taboo and the public opinion of the tribe is, I submit,
all that is required for the domestication of any domesticable
animal.

Important economically as is the domestication of animals,
it is a step which has not been universally taken—there are
savages still which possess no domestic animals. What
then is the reason, especially if totemism, as a social insti-
tution, has been universal? The reason is simple: not all
species of animals are capable of domestication. Where
there were no domesticable animals, there no animals could
be domesticated, and man consequently never got beyond
the stage of totemism. There are two areas of the earth’s
surface in which no domesticable species occur: North
America and Australia. And they are precisely the two
areas in which totemism prevailed until the coming of
European man. It is to them, therefore, that we must
look, if we wish to understand the condition of man in
the pre-pastoral period—in the time when he had not yet

Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. 377

domesticated any animal. It is to them also that 1 turn for
a refutation of M. Marillier’s position that totemism as a
cause of domestication is superfluous. For domestication,
according to M. Marillier, all that is required is that an
animal should be considered divine and treated as sacred
by the inhabitants of the district ;* it is not necessary that
it should be a totem. I quite agree that an animal will
become tame if treated as divine or sacred; but I look
round the two totem-areas, the homes of the Redskin and
the Australian blackfellow, and I ask myself, Where are
there any animals, except totem-animals, which are treated
as sacred or divine? Why should we invoke divine animals
which are not totems to account for domestication, when
there are already totem-animals all over the world ready
and able to do the work ?

But, says M. Marillier, domestic animals are rarely, if
indeed ever, found as totems.” Well, in the two areas of
North America and Australia, of course, they could not be,
because there are not any. In Europe and Asia, totemism
is a stage of social evolution too long past for us to find
anything but survivals. And when in Africa, amongst the
Damaras, we do come across the domestic cow looking, as
M. Marillier admits,® very like a totem, M. Marillier says
—e mera conjectura—that in this case the cattle are
probably not totems, but have taken the place of the real
original totem-animals.

On one point, however—and not only one point I am
happy to say—M. Marillier and I are agreed. It is that
originally domesticable animals (whether they were totems
or not) were not eaten, or only in a ritual way ; and it was
but gradually and by very slow degrees that they came to
be eaten commonly and non-ritually. I wish to point out
that the same thing happens with animals that certainly are

ALi Sos ve loy
5: 1115) 1.225:
a Fy 212.

378 Totemism in the Evolution of Religion.

totems. The witchetty grub, for instance, is a totem, and
has come to be commonly eaten by the Aruntas.! But the
existence of large numbers of wholly inedible totems forbids
us supposing that animals are chosen as totems because
they are good to eat. We must then suppose that the
taboo on the grub as food broke down under the discovery
that the grub as food was good. Amongst the Amazulu,
cattle might only be eaten as a religious exercise, with the
result that the devotion to that particular article of religion
became excessive: the pious were always mortifying them-
selves by a beef diet. Is it an unreasonably wild surmise
that the witchetty grub also may originally have been eaten
only ceremonially? In other words, is the “totem sacra-
ment ”’ scientifically a wholly inadmissible hypothesis ὃ

That sacrificial feasts are of immense importance as a
means of binding worshippers to their god is admitted by
Professor Tylor. That ritual immolation and the sacra-
mental meal are especially intimately connected with the
sanctity of domesticated animals is admitted, or rather in-
sisted upon, by M. Marillier. That such rites go back to
times when the animals in question were rather domesticable
than as yet domesticated seems also to be conceded. But
at that time the animals were, I submit, totems.

What more is required, I will not say to make the totem-
sacrament admissible as a hypothesis, but to prove it as a
fact? Is it alleged that a totem cannot be a god? The
Killer-whale is, if not a god, a great spiritual being, wor-
shipped and prayed to. Is it that a totem-clan cannot eat
its totem? The Aruntas eat their witchetty grub. Is it
that the ritual immolation and sacramental eating of the
totem-animal is purely hypothetical? I have from the first
proclaimed that the assumption was but a working hypo-
thesis,” and I do not claim anything more for it now.

' Horn Scientific Expedition, pt. iv., p. 176 ff.

* History of Religions, p. 156. ‘*We must regard it merely as a working
hypothesis that in pre-pastoral times the animal sacrificed and eaten by the
totem clan was the totem animal.”

Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. 379

Indeed, I am wondering whether I can claim as much, for
Professor Tylor seems to think that a hypothesis is inad-
missible till it is proved—which would rule all hypotheses
whatever out of court. ‘ Till the totem sacrament,” he says,
“is vouched for by some more real proof it had better fall
out of speculative theology.” But if theology only admitted
things which were already proved, it would no longer be
speculative, if theology. I fear it would cease even to be
progressive, and I am sure it would be very dull.

At the time when the above paper was written, I had not
seen Messrs. Spencer and Gillen’s Native Tribes of Central
Australia ; but by the courtesy of the editor I am now allowed
to add by way of postscript a few remarks on the light thrown
on the subject of totemism by the publication of that valuable
contribution to anthropology. To some extent it has eclipsed
the gaiety of theology by converting the ‘‘ totem-sacrament ”
from an engaging hypothesis into a sober fact, a fact which
perhaps after all “had better” not “ fall out of speculative
theology.”

The discovery of this striking testimony to the genius, and
the accuracy of the late Professor Robertson Smith’s scientific
imagination, not only shows that science would be the poorer
if some or all hypotheses were ruled out of court, it changes
the conditions under which the place of totemism in the
evolution of religion must be discussed. As long as the
totem-sacrament was a pure hypothesis, the only way in
default of the direct evidence, which has now turned up,
was to cast about for everything which might be regarded
as a survival of it, or an indication of its previous existence.
The obvious method of meeting this line of argument, anda
method largely employed by M. Marillier, was to appeal to
the “ plurality of causes,” and to point out that the supposed
effects of totemism might quite well be due to other causes,
and that consequently we must, if we wish to be scientific,
build on those other causes known to exist, and not on such

380 TZotemism in the Evolution of Religion.

an unproved hypothesis and mere conjecture as the “ totem-
sacrament.” To clinch the matter, M. Marillier also adds
many ingenious (and a przorz) arguments to show that
certain alleged survivals cannot possibly be survivals of
totemism, that totemism cannot pass into any other form of
religion, and that the sacramental meal cannot be regarded
as going back beyond the pastoral to the totemistic stage of
social evolution. In fine, the totem-sacrament was a super-
fluous and gratuitous supposition, and there were many
other hypotheses by which its supposed effects could be
explained or explained away.

Now, however, thanks to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,
things are changed. It is no longer necessary to argue that
totemism must have been a stage in the evolution of religion,
| it is an established fact that it was. Arguments to show
that the totem-sacrament cannot have existed, and that its
existence is a superfluous hypothesis have themselves become
gratuitous. Arguments to show that, if we confine ourselves
to actual objective facts, we must say that the sacramental
meal is only found in connection with pastoral cults, are
now seen to prove only that the sacramental meal had not
been found amongst totemists, not that it never existed
amongst them.

With regard to alleged survivals of totemism, the question
whether they are survivals will henceforward have to be
argued on its merits. It can no longer be ruled out of
court on the ground that the totem-sacrament is a mere
piece of speculative theology. It is to this discussion, and
to the light thrown on it by Zhe Native Tribes of Central
Australia, that I should like to make brief reference here,
especially as it is bound up with the further important ques-
tion whether it really is, as alleged by M. Marillier, impos-
sible for totemism to pass into some other form of religion.

By a “ survival” of totemism is meant that some rite, or
institution, or other feature of totemism continues to exist
amongst a people who have once been, but no longer are,

Totemism in the Evolution of Religion. 381

totemists. Thus, for instance, self-mutilations, originally
designed to make the worshipper resemble his totem in
some respect, might continue to be practised even when
the people in question had ceased to be totemistic in their
social organisation. Worship of the totem-animal might
continue even when the animal had ceased to be the totem
of a particular totem-clan, and had come to be a tribal deity
sacred to all members of the tribe, no matter what clans
they belonged to. Now M. Marillier repeatedly argues that
various alleged survivals cannot possibly be survivals of
totemism, because they are practised by the whole of the
tribe in which they are found to exist, and not by one par-
ticular clan. To this I believe that I am fully entitled to
reply that if such rites, &c., were still practised by a totem-
clan they would not be survivals of totemism, they would
be totemism itself. The very term “ survival” implies that
the clan-organisation has given way to some other form of
social structure. But so firmly is M. Marillier resolved not
to admit the possibility of any transition from totemism to
any other stage of religious evolution, that he does not see
that he is paying himself with mere words. He lays it
down that a totem-deity is one worshipped by a totem-clan,
a tribal deity one that is worshipped by a whole tribe, that
if an animal sacred to one clan comes to be sacred to the
whole tribe, it thereby ceases to be a totem; therefore, no
totem can be a tribal deity ; as long as it is a totem it can-
not be a tribal deity ; when it becomes a tribal deity it is
not a totem. But this does not in the least show that an
animal might not in the course of its history first be a totem
and then be a tribal deity—first be worshipped by one clan
and then by the whole tribe. However, to M. Marillier
“the transformation of cults limited to a totem-clan into
cults common to a tribe is unintelligible.” ‘“ Nothing,” he
says, “nothing essential to totemism can remain in a religion
which has passed beyond the bounds of the totem-clan.’’
And he has ingenious a przorz arguments to show that it

382 Totemism in the Evolution of Religion.

is impossible for the whole of a tribe to participate in the
cult of one and the same totem.

M. Marillier, farther, believing in animal-worship, and
not believing in totemism, as a necessary stage in the
evolution of religion, is very firm in his demand for evi-
dence that a totem is ever the object of a “cult” in the
proper sense of the term: the mere respect which, when
shown to a non-totem animal, is sufficient evidence to raise
animal-worship to a cult, does not suffice, when paid toa
totem-animal, to convince M. Marillier that the totem is
the object of a veritable cult. The extremely elaborate
rites and ceremonies, however, which Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen’s tribes spend weeks and months in celebrating with
the most meticulous care and the profoundest reverence, will,
I trust, amount to the dimensions of a cult in M. Marillier’s
eyes. If they do, he will discover this remarkable fact:
that the whole of the tribe, without regard to totem-clans,
are present at the celebration of each and every totem-rite
and cult. Not only so, but any member of the tribe may
by invitation be the celebrant of any rite, and “need not
of necessity belong to the totem with which the ceremony
is concerned.” In fact the various clans which compose
the tribe have come to “pool” the whole of their cults.
Thus we have the very state of things which M. Marillier
pronounces unintelligible and impossible: a cult which
originally belonged to one particular clan is thrown open
to the whole tribe; in M. Marillier’s words, “a cult limited
to a totem-clan is transformed into a cult. common to a
tribe ;”’ it has ‘‘ passed beyond the bounds of the totem-
clan.’ Will M. Marillier say that ‘‘ nothing essential to
totemism remains” in it ?

It is obvious that in these Engwura ceremonies we have
the results of a process analogous to that by which in more
developed societies a pantheon is produced—only we have
in place of a pantheon what perhaps I may call a “ panto-
temeion.” The transition from totemism, as it is known

Minutes of Meeting. 383

elsewhere, to polytheism is here more than half accom-
plished. Holy ground, such as may become the sacred
enclosure or f¢emenos of god and temple, is to be found
round the Ertnatulunga; sacred objects, to which myths of
all kinds hereafter may attach, are provided in the Churinga;
sacred ceremonies, the meaning of which is already for-
gotten but the outlines of which already provide a fixed,
public ritual for the whole community, are forthcoming
in the Engwura; the sacramental meal is there in the
Intichiuma ceremonies; and the germs of a hereditary
priesthood may be found in the fact that the Intichiuma
may only be celebrated by the clan of the particular totem
concerned, though the whole tribal community (without
reference to clans) is admitted to eat the sacred food, after
the celebrant has first partaken of it.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17th, 1899.
THE PRESIDENT (Mr. E. Sidney Hartland) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

The election of Mr. D. Isaac and Mr. C. H. James was
announced. The resignation of Miss Edith Mendham and
Mr. J. T. Naaké, and the death of Lady Paget were also
announced.

Lieut.-Colonel Temple read a paper entitled “The
Machinery of Folktales as exhibited in the Legends of the
Panjab,” and a discussion followed, in which Mr. Coldstream,
Mr. Crooke, the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson, Mr. Clodd, Miss
Dempster, and Mr. Nutt took part.

The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to Colonel
Temple for his paper.

THE FOLKLORE IN THE LEGENDS OF THE PANJAB.

BY LIEUT-COL. R. C. TEMPLE, C.1.E.

THESE notes are the outcome of some lectures delivered
before the Folk-Lore Society and elsewhere, and have been
contributed to this Journal at the request of the President
of the Society. But ever since I undertook to discourse on
a subject connected with Indian folklore, I have felt that
the promise was a rash one, because my official avocations
have long been so absorbing and so material in their
nature, that I have been unable to keep pace with the
advance made of late years in the knowledge of such
matters for study as folklore, and I cannot help feeling
how much the special investigations of the Folk-Lore
Society have gone forward since 1 last had the honour of
addressing it some fourteen years ago, and how little
qualified I can now be to show the further way. However,
in finally deciding to select one of the few subjects on
which I think I may still discourse to good purpose to my
more learned colleagues, and throw a useful light on things
Indian, I have felt emboldened to discuss it, because,
speaking under correction, it does appear to me that
English students might make more use than they apparently
do of the work of their contemporaries in the British Eastern
possessions. So much does it seem to be unknown or
ignored that it is quite rarely quoted—even the Excyclopedia
Britannica makes no mention of it—and so I have resolved
to bring to notice in some fulness one of five large works
with which I might claim a real acquaintance: The Legends
of the Panjab, The Devil-Worshtp of the Tuluvas of South
Canara on the Malabar Coast, The Dictionary of Hindu-
stant Proverbs, The Panjab and Indian Notes and Quertes,
and the folklore in the /udzan Antiquary. And I may
mention here that this last journal, though scarcely noticed in
that of the Folk-Lore Society, has steadily published folklore,
acquired at first hand, from its opening volume in 1872, in
a quantity probably surpassing that of the publications of
the Society itself. Of the above-mentioned works I have

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 385

selected The Legends of the Panjab for consideration,
because I have had better opportunities of analysing that
collection than the others, and not because it is the most
prolific as to matters which may be usefully taken up by
such a company as the Folk-Lore Society.

In making, therefore, the remarks that are to follow, I
ask indulgence if the condensation of statement that
is forced upon me is found to be very close, and if the
statements themselves are sometimes found to be some-
what behind the times. But in common with all investiga-
tors of popular lore, I have found myself face to face with a
third difficulty, viz., the best mode of presentation. If one
is strictly scientific and arranges the facts in a severe
sequence, one is not only apt to be dull, but also to incor-
rectly interpret the subject, which from its very nature
hardly admits of a logical treatment. To begin with, the
folk are not consistent and their ideas are all hazy and
muddled. Consequently the points of folklore are so far
from being clearly separable that they are always mixed up
with each other. Any given notion is not traceable to a
distinct single basis, but strikes its roots in fact into many,
and can often be classified indifferently under any one of
several heads. The surest way therefore of projecting one-
self into the folk-mind—so far as such a process is possible
—is, with the aid of a loose and simple general sequence or
classification, to take up the various points as they have
seemed to grow one out of the other in folk-logic and pro-
cesses of thought. This is practically the line that every
one who undertakes the exposition of the subject seems to
adopt in the end, and 1 apprehend that it is a procedure
that will commend itself to the members of the Folk-Lore
Society, which they need hardly be reminded was in its
origin and inception a purely literary association.

In order to explain what follows, I should here say that 1
began to collect the series since partly published as Zhe
Legends of the Panjab, somewhat more than twenty years

VOL, Χ. 2 Ὁ

386 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

ago, and succeeded in bringing out fifty-nine legends out
of one hundred and eighteen collected, at intervals, which
in latter years have I fear been very long ones. Now,
besides the value of the collection for local historical
purposes and for the linguistic forms in which many of
them are conveyed, they present a pretty complete view of
the machinery of Indian folktales. The extent to which
they actually do so can be gauged by experts from the
typical tables to be found in the course of my remarks, and
drawn up on the lines just indicated; and I would like to
say that I believe that as extensive parallel tables could be
made out of the Zuluva Devil-Worship and Hindustant
Proverbs, and much completer ones from the /ndzan
Antiguary and from the /udian Notes and Queries, both
of my own series and Mr. Crooke’s. It is my hope that
the tables will bring home to some of my readers what a
wide and fruitful field any given collection of Indian tales
affords; how well worth indexing they are for those who
seek to get at the roots of the genuine lore of the folk in
any portion of the world.

Now the so-called faculties of the human mind, despite
their apparent diversity, are in reality very limited in extent,
and are referable to quite a few radical capacities. Those
of attention and co-ordination will be found to cover most
of the others that have names. Thus memory and observa-
tion are both referable to attention, and so are mathematics,
logic, and grammar to co-ordination. Indeed mankind,
though unaware of it, talks mathematically, for the facts of
speech can be actually stated clearly in terms of mathematics.
And now when tracing the ideas of folklore by apparently
natural processes to their roots, [soon found myself harking
back to grammar with the main divisions of subject and
predicate; the matter to talk about and the conversation
thereon. The “subject” divides itself into the hero and
heroine, and the “ predicate” into the commencement, the
incidents, and the conclusion. But here all approach to

The folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 387

clear division stops, and although the heroes are classed as
natural and supernatural, and the heroines are considered
according to qualities and peculiarities, and although the
sub-heads under each of these are very numerous, it must
be understood that they have been placed just as has been
found convenient, that a very different disposition would
probably be equally correct, and that most of the items can
fairly occupy places under several heads.

Having thus explained my procedure and methods, I now
give the tables themselves.

I. SUBJECT.
(1.) HERO.
A. Natural.
1. Miraculous conception | 6. Identification.
and birth. (a) Signs of the coming hero.

(a) Remarkable pregnancy of (b) Fulfilment of prophecy.

mother. 7. Companions, human and
2. Substituted child. animal.
3. Predestined child. (a2) Unrequited faithfulness.
(a) Avenging hero. (b) Community of birth.
(b) Imprisoned hero. 8. Sons.
4. Calumniated child. (a) Nostrums for procuring sons.

5. Acts and endowments.

B. Supernatural.

τ᾿ Immortality. (c) Restoration to health.
(a) Reappearance. (i.) Cures.
(b) Saints. (11.) Benefits.
(c) Ghosts. (1) Sons,
(d) Spirits. (2) Rain.
(e) Gods. (d) Inexhaustible supplies.
(f) Godlings. (i.) Voractty extraordi-
(g) Warriors (6275). nary.
(h) Demons and devils. (e) Miracles for injury.

(i.) Exorcism. (i.) Curses.
2. Second sight. (ii.) Mightmares.

(f£) Stock miracles.

. Miracles. ΠΡΟΣ ᾿
3 ΤΥ τ ιθξειραν power ἐν τ τς (g) Native view of miracles.
eB (h) Secret miracles.
miracles.

4. Magic versus Miracles.

(i.) Miracles by proxy.
(a) Sympathetic magic.

(b) Restoration to life.

388 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

B. Supernatural—continued.

(i.) Efigies.
(11.) Ceremonial
balism.
(11.) Lzfe-index.
(1) Life-token.
(2) Token-trees,
5. Enchantments.
(a) Prophylactic charms.
(1.) Swakedzte.
6. Prayer.
(a) Faith.
7. Invocation.
(a) Summoning the absent.
8. Propitiation.
(a) By abuse.
(b) Offerings.
(c) Libation.
(d) Ceremonial generosity.
(1.) Charity.
(ii.) Alms.
(2) Self sacrifice.
(e) Sacrifice.
(i.) Ascetictsm.
(11.) Pesance.
(111.) Azsterity.
(iv.) Slavery for debt.
(f) Vows and oaths.
(i.) Ceremonial oaths.
(1) Antidotes.
ii.) Vowing and swearing
thrice.
9. Prophecy.
10. Metamorphosis.
(a) Disguise.
(1.) Change of skin.
11, Metempsychosis.
(a) Sati.
12. Counterparts of saints.
(a) Hagiolatry.
(b) Demons.
(c) Godlings.
(d) Ogres.

cannt-

(e) Giants.
(f) Sea-monsters.
(g) Mermaids.
(h) Serpents.
(i.) Characteristics
powers.
Gi.) Miracles.
(iil.) Ovzgzn.
13. Anthropomorphosis.
(a) Humanised animals.
G.) Talking.
Gi.) Grateful.
(iii.) Revengeful.
(b) Humanised things.
(i.) Talking.
(il.) Enchanted things.
(1) Circles.
(2) Lines.
(3) Necklaces.
(4) Rosaries.
(5) Arms.
(6) Magic numbers.
(7) Holy water. :
(α) Blood,
(β) Milk.
(y) Ambrosia (amrita.)
(δ) Sacredness of water.
(8) Miraculous vehicle.
(a) Heroic leap,
(B) Flying through the air.
(y) Winged animals.
(δ) Winged things.
(6) Migrating images and
tombs.

(9) Magic music.

and

(«) Magic instruments.
(10) Hair and its powers.
(@) Sacredness of the beard.
(11) Invisibility.
(12) Procedure for enchant-
ment,
(13) Priests.
(@) Possession,

(B) Exorcism,

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 389

I. SUBJECT.
(11.) HEROINE.
A. Qualities.

1. Counterpart of hero. (b) Co-wives.
2. Native view of women. (c) Stepmothers in _ poly-
oe habu, peg
3 ws (d) Witches.
4. Characteristics. Gai amen:
(a) Delicacy. (1) Powers.
(b) Attraction. (2) Attributes.
5. Identification. (6) Ogress.
6. Beneficent heroines. (1) Serpent-heroine,
(a) Fairies. 8. Foundling.
(i.) Celestial messengers. (a) Egg-heroine.
(ii.) Foreign brides. (b) Sleeping beauty.
7. Maleficent heroines. (i.) Foreign or irregular
(a) Calumniators, brides.
B. Peculiarities.
1. Chastity. (ii.) Szgzs of royalty and
2. Virtue. ἊΨ saintship.
(a) Male versus female. (iii.) Pilgrimage-stamps.
(b) The zone, male and (b) Impossible task.
fogs! i.) pi ol
3. Maintenance of virtue. (1) 2; ὑπ
(1) Symbolical speech,
4. Ordeals. (iii.) Ceremonial gambling.
(a) Tests for identification.
(i.) Hulfilment of prophecy.
II. PREDICATE.
A, Commencement.
1. Seeking fortune. 5. Prophetic dreams.
2. Oracles. (a) Interpretation.
6. Augury.
3: Prophecy. (a) Divination.
(a) Fortune-telling. (b) Omens
(b) Horoscopes.
4. Luck.
4. Fate. (a) Actions. ©
(a) Preordination. (b) Times.

(b) Decree of fate. (c) Astrology.

390 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

A. Commencement—continued.

8, Ill luck. (1) Leprosy.
enaniicenune (2) Treatment of lepers.
(hy Sin : (iii.) Female infanticide.

(iv.) ELxpiation.
(v.) Purification.
(1) Ceremonial bathing.

(i.) Widows.
(ii. ) Ceremonial uncleanness.

B. Ineidents,

1. Jewels. 4. Domestic customs.
(a) Origin of jewels.

. Beliefs.
(i) Rubies. 5: Beliefs.
(ii.) Pearls. (a) Animals.
(b) Flowers (b) Celestial bodies.

Ἶ (6) The deluge.
2. Tricks. (f) The Deity.
6. Customs based on beliefs.
(a) Aspect of shrines.
(b) Refuge.
(i.) Sazctuary.
(11.) Asylum.
(iii.) Hospitality.
(c) Calling by name.
(d) Releasing prisoners.
(e) Ceremonial umbrellas.
(i.) Signs of dignity.

3. Ceremonies.
(a) Marriage.
Gi.) Betrothal,
(b) Adoption.
(c) Inheritance.
(d) Divination.
(e) Initiation.
CG.) Larboring.
(Ὁ Mourning.
(g) Conventional.
(i.) Challenge.
Gi.) Disgrace.

Ο. Conclusion,

1. Poetical justice. (b) Ceremonial suicide.
2. Vengeance. (i.) Self-cmmolation. °
(a) Punishment. (c) Stock punishments.

(i.) Zorture.

We are now in a position to tackle the multifarious details
of my subject with some chance of arriving at definite ideas,
even though the extent of the materials obliges me to be
brief almost to baldness. First of all, it will be perceived
that the typical hero is born on an auspicious day by various

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 391

forms of miraculous conception or impregnation, and that
his mother experiences a miraculous or at least a remarkable
term of pregnancy. He is a substituted child, in one in-
stance, by an accident which curiously brings out an allusion
to an old custom of registering princely births, and in
another by his own act, as a mode of magnanimous self-
sacrifice. Now, substitution of children in folktales is usually
an act of malice, and its attribution to a mere chance occur-
rence is, so far as I know, a novel feature. He is a child
of predestination, fated in one case to slay the ogre who 15
to devour his hostess’s son, the ogre being aware of the
predestination. In such case he would appear to be a
variant of the avenging hero, pre-ordained to set right
what is wrong in this world, a belief common apparently
to the whole world of religious notion. As regards this
last idea, the form it usually assumes in this collection is
the common one of predestination to kill his own parents,
who try as usual to avert their fate by imprisoning their
uncanny offspring in a pit, necessarily to no purpose. He
is the victim of calumny everywhere, the stock cause being
jealousy or ill-will begotten of unrequited love. Versions
of Potiphar’s Wife are common in Indian and all Oriental
folklore. He of course assists the grateful animal to his
own subsequent advantage, and obtains access to the
heroine by disguising himself as her husband with success.
He is endowed with extraordinary and impossible strength
or skill. His identification is almost always due to miracu-
lous intervention of some sort; and we have more than one
instance of the corollary to that idea in the signs of the
coming hero with which he has to comply, a notion not far
removed from that of fulfilment of prophecy. The “signs”
are in themselves, however, as might be expected, childish
and not very dignified.

The hero has companions of the conventional sorts, human
beings, beasts, birds, and insects, who talk to him and assist
him in his difficulties. His human companions, however,

392 The Folklore in the Legends of the Pamabd.

sometimes desert him in his times of difficulty, a situation
apparently introduced to enhance the glory of the hero
himself, while his animal companions undergo at times the
fate of Gelert, and are killed for their endeavours on behalf
of their masters, an incident well known to Indian and other
folklore generally. Accidental community of birth is a
common and perhaps natural characteristic of the hero’s
companions everywhere. The hero and his horse or his
constant friend are frequently described as having been
born at the same place and hour. It is to be expected that
a chance of this kind should attract the popular attention
and lead to an assumption of community of fate in the
beings so circumstanced.

Perhaps the most deeply engrained superstition of all
among the Indian populations is the necessity of having a
son, as the surest means to salvation; and there is no
subject in Indian folklore of more universal occurrence than
that of the miraculously and fortunately born hero-son and
his doings. There is no point upon which folktales more
frequently turn. The hold that the desire of a son to
succeed has on the people is more than once powerfully
indicated in the Legends, and women are described as
deliberately introducing a co-wife into their homes to secure
it. There can be no doubt as to the strength of a desire,
when it brings about such an action as that. A desire so
universal, so strong, so important to the peasantry neces-
sarily finds not only frequent expression in their stories
and legends, but also in the acts of daily life, sometimes
of a very serious nature. Women have over and over
again been guilty of murder and incendiarism due to wild
superstitious attempts to gratify it. I can recall a case in
which the ignorant low-class mother of daughters only has,
with the assistance of her elder daughter, killed a little girl
belonging to a neighbour, by way of human sacrifice to
the supernatural powers to procure her a son at the next
confinement, and a case in which a barren woman of the

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 393

superior peasantry set fire to a neighbour’s dwelling with
the same view.

The whole category of nostrums known to Indian folk-
wisdom, and it is a very wide one, is employed by those
who are so unhappy as to be barren or son-less, to avert or
overcome the misfortune. Every kind of supernatural
being, god, godling, hero, saint, wise-woman, wizard,
demon, devil, ogre, exorcist, and the like can grant or
procure sons. The faith in the givers and the power to
give 15 boundless and ineradicable, going back to the dawn
almost of Indian folklore. But, astonishingly varied as are
the nostrums tried, the oldest and still the favourite in story
is the giving of something to eat to the would-be mother—
flowers, fruit, rice, grains, seeds, and so on. Prayer and
saintly intercession are also common in the Legends, more
or less consciously introduced for the glorification of high
places; and of course holy wells, pools, tanks, shrines, tombs,
graves, and other spots, out of which money can be made by
way of fees, are notorious for fulfilling the wishes of the
disappointed.

Sons born in response to vows, intercession, faith in
nostrums, intervention of holy personages, and so forth, are
almost always heroes, ushered into the world with the cus-
tomary portents and acting in the ordinarily heroic manner.
It is only, therefore, by considering what the possession of
sons means to a native of India that one can grasp the full
import to an Indian audience of such a story as that of the
Baloch hero, Jaro, in the Mir Chakur legend, who slew his
two sons in fulfilment of a rash vow.

Apart from, though closely connected with, purely ima-
ginary heroes, or beings round whom a mass of myth has
collected, by far the most important class of popular heroes
in North India are the saints and holy personages, Hindu
and Muhammadan. The holy man, godling, or saint of
Northern India is precisely the demon or devil (d4ufa) of
South India. There is at bottom no difference between

394 Lhe Folklore tn the Legends of the Panjab.

any of them, and the stories about them are hopelessly
mingled together. Be his origin Hindu or Muhammadan
or merely animistic, the saintly or demoniacal, z.e. super-
natural, hero’s attributes, powers, characteristics, actions,
and life-history are in Indian folklore always of the same
kind and referable to the same fundamental ideas. He
does not belong to any particular form of creed or religion,
but to that universal animism which underlies the religious
feeling of all the Indian peasantry. I can see no radical
difference in the popular conception of the Hindu Guru
Gorakhnath or the Muhammadan Sakhi Sarwar of the
North, and the animistic Koti and Channayya of the South.
The peculiarities of any one of them are proper to them
all. They are best studied as a whole.

In the Legends holy personages play a larger and more
important part than the Rajas or secular heroes themselves,
and their characteristics and the notions about them are well
displayed. Thus, in the quaint tales that have gathered
round the memory of the Saints of Jalandhar, we find an
account of the struggle for local supremacy between a
Musalman saint and his rival and counterpart, a Hindu
jogi; and the point for the present purpose is that the
characteristics and the powers of the pair are represented
as being precisely the same: they both belong to the same
class of supernaturally endowed beings, and the result of
the contest clearly hinges on the sectarial proclivities of the
narrator of the story.

Immortality and reappearance, ideas apparently common
to the whole human race, are widely spread attributes of
Indian holy men, the title of Saint Apparent (Zahir Pir)
being by no means limited to the mixed Hindu-Musalman
canonised warrior Guru Gugga; and in these pages we
have a case in which the opposing saintly personages,
Hindu and Musalman, on both sides of a sectarian struggle,
kill each other and all become living, 7.6. immortal, saints
(jéute pir). But in other matters than immortality we find

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 395

that the gods and saintly heroes are much mixed up, and
naturally, in popular conception; and we have more than
one instance in which the special attributes of the Deity,
even from the Hindu standpoint, are ascribed to such per-
sonages—or ought we to say, more accurately, such abstrac-
tions ?—as Guru Gorakhnath. And wice versa, even such
gods par excellence as Siva and Parbati are reduced almost
to the level of ordinary mortals.

In connection with the belief in immortality, that pathetic
hope of the incapacity of a whole personality for death, so
universal in mankind, we find that saints, especially deceased
saints, are much mixed up in Indian idea with ghosts and
spirits. In this form they have the power of appearance
peculiar to ghosts all the world over, particularly at mid-
night— midnight the time for saints, adhi rat Pirin dé
véld”’—is an expression that occurs more than once. They
appear also in dreams, sometimes I rather suspect with a
view to helping the progress of the story.

A careful study of the instances in which beings endowed
with immortality, z.e. ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and
gods, godlings, and warriors (d7rs) on the other, appear in
the Legends, and of their actions as recorded therein, will
afford yet another proof that fundamentally there is no indi-
vidual difference between them in the popular conception,
nor between them and their mortal counterparts, the holy
personages of all sorts. They all, the mortal and the im-
mortal, do the same things, have the same characteristics
and powers, and are introduced into folktales for the same
purposes. The differences to be observed in titles and
attributes is due to an overlaying, a mere veneer, of rival
religious philosophies—thus, where ghosts and spirits appear
the tale will be found to be Muhammadan in origin or form,
where gods, godlings, and warriors appear it will similarly
be found to be Hindu in origin or form. Where the tale
refers back to days before set Hinduism, or has its origin in
an anti-Hindu form of belief, or is given an anti-Hindu cast,

396 Lhe folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

the appearance will be demoniacal or animistic. In every
case they will belong to one fundamental category and be
essentially animistic heroes, or they may with equal truth be
classed as saints minus the veneer of Musalman,z.e. Western,
philosophy.

The corollary to the notion of ghosts and spirits, exorcism
and the casting out of devils, only once occurs in the
Legends, though miraculous and magical cures of all other
sorts abound, and then only by a reference, which is, how-
ever, a significant one. For there a Hindu jog? cures a
Muhammadan family of goblins and spirits by medicines and
herbs; and it is to be observed that in the passage in
question the goblins were Musalman (zz) and the spirits
were Hindu (dhu72).

Perhaps the most strongly marked variant of the idea of
immortality to be found in Indian belief is the very common
folktale expedient of temporary death. In the Legends
there is a distinct instance of it, and also a matter-of-fact
allusion to it, made in terms that clearly show the uni-
versality of the acceptance of the notion.

Supernatural personages in Indian story have as a
matter of course, in common with many otherwise work-a-
day mortals, the power of second sight—that knowledge
of things that are hidden—and, in addition to forestalling
secret malice, proving innocence “ not proven,” and so on,
can detect unseen thieves, a power by the way claimed by
certain leaders of theosophy and esoteric Buddhism who
ought to know better.

Supernatural personages may also be said to possess
certain inherent powers, of which that of working miracles
is the most important. So much are miraculous powers
inherent in saints that saintship is held to be proved by the
possession of the wonder-working gifts, and it is not an
offence to holy men to seek to test them. Every one in
contact with a saint is considered to be justified in doing
so. These powers can be delegated, and we find several

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 397

instances of miracles performed through an agent, by proxy
as it were. The agency need not be necessarily that of a
supernatural or human being. Things dedicated or sacred
or appertaining to a saint are sufficient for the purpose, as
when a fountain or well sacred to a saint will effect a cure,
or when his flute, or conch, or horse, or other animate
or inanimate thing belonging to him, will procure for him
even a passing desire. The miracles effected at tombs and
shrines belong to this class, and these are ubiquitous in India
generally, their universality giving form to the widely-spread
and pretty notion of the lover miraculously disappearing
alive into the tomb of the dead and buried beloved.

By assuming the power of working miracles to be an
attribute of saints, one becomes prepared for their being
able to do anything that is necessary for their own personal
glory, the protection of themselves and their followers, or
the exigencies of the tales about them. But even then one
is sometimes taken aback at the ingenuity of the story-
tellers, e.g., causing the gods to cash a document that
corresponds to a cheque is one bright idea, and carrying a
tiger up his sleeve to terrify the ruler of the period is
another. Both are attributed to well-known saints. But
the very quaintest, and in some respects the most remarkable
and instructive tale I have ever come across of an Indian
miracle, is one arising out of the well-known scientific and
astronomical proclivities of the celebrated Raja Jai Singh
Sawai of Jaipur, who flourished only one hundred and fifty
years ago, and to be found in the Legends. According to
this tale the populace believe that not only could he make a
moon, but that he had a private moon of his own to light up
his city on dark nights.

It is obviously necessary to the greatness of the saints,
indeed to the very success of the shrines, on the proceeds
of which the bards and story-tellers live, that holy men
should be able to protect themselves and their followers ;
and the varieties of ways in which they are fabled to be

398 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

able to do this is surprisingly large. They can of course go
unharmed through ordeals by fire, and can starve without
injury. They can make themselves invulnerable by arrows,
rocks, bullets, daggers, and what not, and can burst their
fetters. They cannot be hanged, and can control and tame
animals and slay them with ease. Even for matters of mere
personal advantage and comfort they effect miracles. In one
place the hero opens locked doors without keys in order to
get at his mistress, illegitimately by the way; after which
one is somewhat surprised to learn in the Legends that it is
wrong to work miracles for inadequate objects or for the
mere pleasure of the thing. But the favourite miracle of
the creation of a crowd of followers or wild beasts as a
means of protection in a difficulty is probably an extension
of that idea of invisible supernatural assistance in all severe
struggles that has taken so strong a hold on the popular
imagination all over the world. And this leads to the con-
sideration that in the study of the actual miracles attributed
to saints and the like it is something more than merely
interesting to observe how much they follow the general
notions of the people as exhibited in their folktales, how
much they are based on folklore, how much on the desires
and aspiration of the folk themselves. Thus we may class
as belonging to the idea of immortality and its corollaries
the frequently recurring miracles of restoration to life, the
vivification of an idol, and the curious instances of a child-
saint making a wooden horse run about and a wall into a
hobby-horse when in want of a plaything. The restoration
to the original form and life of human ashes, of a devoured
bride and, bridegroom, of an eaten horse and kid, are but
extravagant extensions of the same idea. So also without
the extravagance are the restoration to greenness and life of
a dried-up garden, a dead tree, a withered forest. The odd
miracles of making the d#d-grass evergreen and fruit-trees
to bear fruit out of season are further developments of the
main idea.

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 399

From restoration to life it is not a far cry to restoration
to health, and as might be expected miraculous cures abound
in these pages and may almost be considered to be the stock
in trade of a saint. With restoration to health I should be
inclined to connect the bringing about of blessings and good
fortune, the fulfilment of desires, the grant of assistance of
every kind, especially in the case of followers and supporters.
Saints are of course conspicuous for the power, directly or
indirectly, to grant the most prominent of all the desires
of the Indian peasantry, 7.6. sons to succeed them. This
occurs again and again in the Legends, but instances are
also found of the grant of promotion and high position in
life. With these must also be classed the great “" blessing”’
of a rural peasantry, the bringing of rain, and the chief
desires of seafarers, a fair wind and immunity from drowning.
Saints can accordingly do all these things. In a land of
great and dangerous rivers, like the Panjab, ferries and the
crossing of rivers occupy a prominent place in the life of
the people; and so we find a saint making a boat out of his
begging-gourd and an oar out of his staff when in a hurry
to cross a stream, the form of this particular miracle being
attributable to the universal belief in the miraculous vehicle.

Riches, including a plentiful supply of food, and assistance
in procuring them, are largely desired everywhere ; and so
we have saints finding hidden treasure, turning all sorts of
things into gold, and producing jewels and jewellery. We
also find them making the sun to broil fish for themselves,
and supplying followers with miraculous food. But cupidity
demands much more than the mere supply of necessities,
and the narrators of the stories about saints have had to
cater to this failing of human nature. Hence the miracu-
lous production of inexhaustible treasure and inexhaustible
supplies of food, the inexhaustible bags, the stories of ‘loaves
and fishes,’ and such like, the finding of hidden treasure
and the creation of gold and jewels and of all sorts of
unlikely objects, even out of a praying-carpet. From an

400 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

inexhaustible supply to an inexhaustible capacity for absorb-
ing it is a natural step; and so we find voracity extraordinary
in many a quaint form to be a common capacity of heroes,
gods, and ogres alike ; indeed, of the last, as the enemy of
the heroic tribe, it is the usual attribute or sign.

In opposition to the beneficent powers the converse
powers to destroy life or inflict injury in an extraordinary
way naturally appear in many an ingenious form; and with
these may be classed the great family of saintly curses and
nightmares or terrifying dreams. ‘He that can help can
also injure,” “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,”
are propositions involved in the glorification of every kind
ofhero. They are constantly brought forward in the Legends
with as much emphasis as possible, the saints helping and
injuring, giving and taking away and giving back again almost
in the same breath. Precisely as blessings can be conferred
vicariously, so can injuries be similarly inflicted; and as a
consequence of this idea a town fire is attributed to the
fettering of a saint by its ruler. And lastly, just as it is
necessary for the bards and singers to glorify the saints, and
to inculcate a sense of their power for mischief, so it is also
necessary, since bards are usually attached to particular
saints, to maintain their individuality. Hence the peculiar
habit of attributing stock miracles to certain saints. To
explain: Dhanna, the Bhagat, is always connected with the
story of making a god out of a stone; Rode Shah with the
well-known greenness of the d#d-grass in the dry weather ;
Guru Gugga with speaking from his mother’s womb; Sakhi
Sarwar with several performed at his shrine; and Gorakh-
nath with a whole string of them performed in “the Land
of Karu.”

The very large number of miracles that occur in the
stories of saints, universally common as these stories them-
selves are, is due to the attitude of the native mind every-
where towards the marvellous. A miracle in India does not
excite much wonder, and is to some extent looked upon as a

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 401

natural incident in everyday life. Miracles are always oc-
curring; every village has instances of them; everyone has
knowledge of some that are notoriously within the ex-
perience of acquaintances. Even Europeans can hardly
become intimate with the thoughts and customs of native
neighbours without being cognisant of supposed miraculous
occurrences around them. They are frequently believed
to have happened to Europeans themselves. Sir Henry
Lawrence is thus believed at Firozpur in the Panjab to have
been compelled to compliance with a saint’s behests by
terrifying occurrences, induced by the saint during sleep.
Almost precisely the same story has been current in the
AmbalaCantonment about myself; and I have also conversed
with the son of the child supposed to have been raised from
the dead by the long deceased saint, Sakhi Sarwar, for Dani
Jatti, now the heroine of a popular Panjabi Legend widely
sung all over that Province. That personage and his neigh-
bourhood had no sort of doubt as to the truth of the tale
about his father and grandmother. It would never have oc-
curred to them to doubt it. The once notorious Ram Singh
Kuka, whom the present speaker knew personally while a
political prisoner in consequence of his raising a petty
religious rebellion against the British Crown, was credited
with miraculously lengthening the beam of a house for a
follower at Firozpur, by way of helping him to preserve his
property. This beam was shown to me in all good faith
within ten years of the date of the supposed miracle. Such
being the conditions, one can hardly be surprised at what
has been noted on the subject of the miraculous doings of
saints and holy personages.

So far we have been dealing with miracles, whose value
lies in their publicity; but the bards and tellers of the
marvellous stories have by no means overlooked the im-
portance to them, as a means of turning the popular
imagination to their own benefit, of hidden or undisclosed
miracles. In the Legends, among the tales that have

VOL. X. 2 D

402 The folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

gathered round the Saints of Jalandhar, we are specially
treated to a relation of the ‘open and secret miracles of
Sufi Ahmad of Jalandhar,” and of the severe physical punish-
ment of a woman for disclosing a secret miracle of another
Jalandhar saint. In other instances, disease, and even
hereditary madness, are attributed to divulgence of miracles
secretly performed. Now, when one thinks over the enor-
mous influence that the idea of ability to perform miracles
secretly could be made to wield over the minds of a credulous
and ignorant population, one wonders indeed that it does
not more frequently crop up in Indian folklore; unless its
occurrence is to be regarded as an outgrowth of the idea of
the punishment of idle curiosity so common in all folklore
—the tales of Bluebeard’s wives and so on—which again
may perhaps be held to rest on the notion of tabu.

Miracles may be defined as wonders legitimately per-
formed, while magic embraces the class of illegitimate
wonders. The actual deeds, whether the result of miracu-
lous powers or magical arts, seem to be much the same, and
in India to be performed for much the same objects. The
difference is that the one is right and holy, and the other is
wrong and unholy. It is good to work marvels miraculously,
but very bad to arrive at the same result by magic. And
as, in the bard’s eyes at any rate, all heroes, saintly or secular,
are personages to be reverenced, one is not astonished at the
very small part that magic is made to play in the Legends.
Indeed, one scarcely ever sees it put forward as a mode of
producing the innumerable marvels related. Magic is, how-
ever, distinctly attributed in one instance to a daughter of
the Serpents, but only for the purpose of moving a heavy
stone, an object which, in the case of a saint, would be
related to have been achieved by a miracle. It is as dis-
tinctly attributed in another instance to Gorakhnath, in
circumstances where a miracle would seem to have been
more appropriate, and in the midst of a host of miracles
related of this great saint or holy man. Indeed, in this last

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 403

case the bard would seem to have confused the notions of
miraculous and magical powers.

Of what is generally known as sympathetic magic, and
may be nothing more than an extension of the notion of
the delegated miracle, and so merely a cure by proxy, there
is a strong instance in the Legend of Raja Dhol, where the
injured leg of a valuable camel is cured by firing that of a
stray ass. Restoration to life and health, z.e. cures, and their
opposites, destruction and injury by effigy, are strictly exten-
sions of the same idea.

Now, when a belief becomes rooted in the popular mind,
a custom, however barbarous and disgusting, is sure to be
based on it, and the apparently harmless notion of sympa-
thetic magic has led in India, and many other lands, to the
horrible custom of ceremonial cannibalism. In the Legends
we have distinct proofs of this, where faqirs eat up the body
of a famous leech in order to obtain his curative powers, and
Baloch heroes make roast meat of an enemy’s ribs in order
to absorb his “ virtue,” z.e. fighting strength.

A harmless phase in the belief in sympathetic magic,
leading to many a pretty and fanciful custom of the folk, is
to be seen in a form which 1 have always flattered myself
I discovered, when writing the notes to Wide-awake Stories
a good many years ago, and then called by me the Life-
index. It now seems to have found a definite place among
the recognised technicalities of writers on folklore under
the guise of the Life-token. In the Legends, however, we
do not hear much of it, except in an allusion to the custom
of presenting a female infant to the hero as a bride, together
with a mango seedling. When the tree fruits the girl will
be twelve years old at least, z.e. marriageable. It is evi-
dently felt here in a dim way that the tree is somehow or
other her life-token. This custom may be of more interest
to ourselves than at first appears, because the habit of
planting trees, fruit-trees especially, to commemorate the
birth of children, or of connecting certain trees with indi-

404 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

vidual children in a family, is common enough in England.
It has occurred in fact in the present writer's own family,
where the trees dedicated to himself and his contemporaries
are still standing at the ancestral family home. It is
possible, therefore, that the custom of what we may now
call token-trees, the world-wide habit of planting trees to
commemorate local and even general events of striking
importance, such as the Revolution Elms just outside the
ancestral home above mentioned, and many a famous oak
and ash and yew one can readily call to mind, partly has
its roots in the fundamental idea of sympathetic magic.

The existence of miraculous and magical powers pre-
sumes the existence of recognised—or may we call them
orthodox ?—processes for producing miracles and magic,
opening up the wide subject of charms. But of these, as
matters too well known to require explanation, there is not
much detail in the Legends, apart from that necessary to
briefly explain the miraculous acts themselves; and such as
occurs is confined to that all-important division of the sub-
ject in the eyes of a superstitious peasantry of prophylactic
charms. The importance of these to the people is further
emphasised by the fact that when charms are mentioned it
is, in every case but one, for the prevention or cure of snake-
bite, perhaps the greatest dread of all of the Indian peasant,
a situation in which he probably feels more helpless and
more inclined to invoke supernatural aid than in any other.
Such charms are indeed so much mixed up with miracles
proper as to form in reality a variety of miraculous cures.
Besides charms against snakebite, there are mentioned some
as existing against sorcerers, 2.6. the charmers themselves ;
and among real prophylactic charms against general bodily
harm, only the wearing of the sacred ¢u/sz (sweet basil)
beads occurs.

The absence of detailed accounts of charms and of the
performances of exorcists must not, as above hinted, be
taken as implying their scarcity, or only a languid interest

The folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 405

in them among the population; and perhaps the best indica-
tion of the facts being the reverse of such a presumption is
to be found in the Legends themselves, in the so-called
“genealogies” of Lal Beg, the eponymous saint or hero of
that curious sect of the scavengers, which may be said to
have set up a religion and ritual of its own, though that is
in reality an eclectic hagiolatry derived from every super-
stition or faith with which its members have come in con-
tact. Now the ritual, where it does not purport to relate
the genealogy of the hero, consists chiefly of a string of
charms of the common popular sort.

Supernatural intervention in the affairs of mankind, as
the result of vicarious prayer and intercession, is, one need
hardly say, a universal and deeply-cherished human belief ;
and it is not by any means always claimed in the Legends
that saints or saintly heroes effect their assisting or injuring
wonders direct. Prayer is, in fact, in common request as
an agent for the performance of miracles, and some
quaint stories regarding it are to be found in the
Legends. It is there usually, but not of course always, ad-
dressed to God by both Muhammadans and Hindus by that
mixing up of the rival religions so typical of the natives of
India.

From invoking the aid to invoking the presence of the
supernatural and invisible protector is but a smallstep; and
the notion of prayer leads straight on to that of invocation
—that summoning of the absent so common in folktales,
usually to help on the story. It is necessarily a most
widely-spread notion, appertaining to the religion of the
folk all the world over, and the means employed for it are
everywhere very varied. The story in the Legends of the
use of holy water for the purpose in the Panjab has a
European ring about it. As saints may be invoked by
their followers, so can they in their turn invoke others;
sometimes by mere will power; sometimes by a direct
summons in everyday use, such as clapping the hands;

406 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

sometimes by one of the stock devices for summoning the
absent employed in folktales.

Now saints and all the supernatural powers that be can
injure as well as aid, can curse as well as bless; and beings
that can injure need propitiation. So we find offerings
made to the saints without reference to the faith or creed
of either giver or receiver, such as milk, the most important
beverage of all in the Panjab, precisely as it is offered to
Mother Earth. At the same time we have a remarkable
instance of propitiation by abuse in the story of Puran
Bhagat, where a woman deliberately abuses and curses her
patron saint, with the avowed object of extorting favours
from him. This notion, though somewhat startling, is
widely spread. Propitiation is naturally usually prescrip-
tive, z.e. it is usually employed towards one special pro-
tector or class of protectors; but it as naturally constantly
loses that character, and becomes general and even
vicarious; as when the heroine pours out libations first
to the God of the Waters and then to the birds and
beasts, an act of general charity likely to be welcome to
the gods.

In close connection with the notion of general or pro-
miscuous propitiation, there is a variety of terms in the
vernaculars, which are usually translated by “ alms-giving,
generosity, charity,” and so on; but their real import is the
making of propitiatory gifts or offerings to saints and
priestly or holy personages. Generosity in the East does
not convey the idea of lavishness in gifts generally, but in
gifts to saints or priests. In this sense it is perhaps the
most largely extolled virtue of all in fable and story, and of
set purpose. This universal inculcation of the virtue of
what may be called ceremonial generosity does not arise
altogether out of any superstitious, religious, or folklore
custom, but out of the necessities of the bards and the tellers
of tales about saints. Shrines and their attendants have to
be supported and means must be gathered to support them ;

Lhe folklore in the Legends of the Panjab, 407

and hence the very high praise and-the very great super-
natural and future rewards offered to the ‘ generous,”
which are not confined to any particular creed or country.
The Indian saint, and after him the attendants and hangers-
on at his shrine, live on alms; and so “charity” and “gene-
rosity’ on the part of their adherents and audiences are
“virtues ” that naturally loom very largely in their tales and
poems. The ceremonial nature of the “ generosity’? comes
out in the fact that the gifts to be efficacious must be of the
conventional sort; and we have repeated instances in the
Legends of the wrong kind of alms being refused by saints
and holy men, however valuable and lavish.

It is obviously necessary, when dwelling on the import-
ance of such a virtue on behalf of a hero, that the hero him-
self should not be represented as being wanting therein ; and
hence “ generosity” is an invariable attribute of the saints.
Every saint has been wildly and extravagantly generous, what-
ever else he may have been. Sakhi Sarwar, Shams Tabrez,
and the rest of them are all heroes of generosity. So also
on the other hand are the folk-heroes Hari Chand and Raja
Amba, while the Baloches have a special hero of their own,
Nodhbandagh the Gold-scatterer. The extravagance of the
acts of generosity attributed to saints and holy men is
boundless. Self-mutilation and self-blinding to gain small
objects are among them, stretched in more than one
notorious instance into the impossible feat of striking off his
own head as alms. Extreme self-sacrifice of this kind
assumes a curious form, when a jogz is credited with cere-
monial cannibalism, in allusion, perhaps, to the well-known
real or attributed habits of the Aghori faqirs.

Offerings of all sorts, and under whatever name, involve
the giving up of something, if of value to the giver the
better. A notion that has universally led to such concrete
ceremonies as sacrifices of all kinds of things of both material
value, like cattle, and of purely ceremonial value, like the
blood spilt in a notable fight detailed in the Legends. All

408 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

these things are, however, the giving up of something outside
the self, however valued or appreciated, and the idea can be
easily extended to the yet greater virtue of the giving up of
something that is within or part of the self. It has actually
been so extended all over the world in the forms of asce-
ticism and penance, and nowhere more recklessly and in-
tensely, more wildly in fact, than in India. The virtues of
austerity and expiatory self-sacrifice are most carefully
extolled and inculcated throughout Indian folklore and in
the Legends, and have led there and elsewhere to one
practical result in the widely-spread custom of voluntary
slavery for debt not only of self but of wife and children.

Gifts, offerings, sacrifices, penances, and the like may be
called practical propitiation; but several ways of reaching
the same desirable goal supernaturally have been evolved
by the superstitious peasantry of India, and the rest of
the world too for that matter. Vows, z.e. promises to
reward the supernatural powers invoked for acceding to
prayers, and oaths, 2.6. invocations to the same powers to
witness the promises, are two prominent methods of pro-
pitiating the all-powerful inhabitants of the unseen world,
constantly in every language and in every national mind
mixed up with each other. In the Legends we have the
whole story of the idea: oaths which are vows and vows
which are oaths, notices of the advantages of performing
vows and oaths, the importance of keeping them, and the
terrible penalties attached to their breach, especially if made
to a deceased saint, or a shrine in which a bard is personally
interested. A variant of the terrible tale of Jephthah’s
Daughter is to be found in the Legends.

In every case where it goes beyond being a mere invoca-
tion to the supernatural powers the taking of an oath involves
a ceremony deriving from the superstitions of the takers; and
the ceremonies connected with the taking of oaths are there-
fore not only interesting but nearly always’ valuable to the
student. They are also varied to a limitless extent, and are

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 409

a strong indication of the objects held to be sacred in any
given form of belief, e.g., swearing by touching the sacred
thread (jane), or by tearing the thread off a cow’s neck by a
Hindu, by touching the Quran by Muhammadans or the Bible
by Christians, are sure references to things held specially
sacred under each form of faith. So also when a warrior
swears by drinking the milk of his own mother, or when the
hero swears by placing his hand on the body of the person
adjured, or by drawing a line on the ground with his nose,
we are taken back to survivals of forgotten animistic belief.
That there should be in the Legends occasionally a mixture
of Hindu and Musalman ideas in the forms of oaths will not
surprise my readers ; and of this a fine example is the phrase :
‘The Ganges is between us and above us is the Quran,”
said by so strict a Musalman as one must presume a Qazi
to be.

The object of the ceremonies and forms used in taking
oaths is of course to render them binding; but it must long
ago have been equally important at times to avoid the con-
sequences of rash and indeed deliberate oaths; and the
inventive ingenuity of the folk has been turned on to this
side of the question with considerable success. £.g., it is a
happy and simple, not to say a convenient, expedient to
interpose the presence of a pigeon’s egg as an effectual
stopper to the binding effect of an oath on the Quran.

In the matter of vows and oaths the Legends give a great
number of instances in which a certain form of oath or vow,
used for many purposes, but generally for emphasis, has
become common to both Hindus and Musalmans. It has
arisen out of the Muhammadan custom or law of divorce,
tin taldg as it is called in India. The custom is due toa
passage in the Quran which lays down that if a man with
the proper ceremony pronounces dismissal (¢a/dég) three
times to his wife, he cannot marry her again until she shall
have been married to another man and divorced by him.
Now this solemn performance of ¢im taldg, or three

410 The Folklore tn the Legends of the Panjab.

dismissals, has evidently presented itself to the Oriental
mind as a very serious vow or oath, it matters little which;
and we constantly find in consequence that not only the
notion, but even the very terminology of this form of divorce
has come to be synonymous with that of taking a binding
oath or vow. There is among the Indian peasantry a
regular custom nowadays of emphasising both oaths and
vows by taking them three times.

Besides the miracle and magic working powers, there are
two others of importance, which may be said to be inherent
in saints, those of prophecy and metamorphosis. In the
Legends the saintly power of prophecy is usually introduced
for the very useful story-telling purpose of indicating the
unborn hero’s career as about to be developed, and the
power of metamorphosis for the purely folklore object of
helping on the progress of the stories connected with the
saints, or those in whom they are interested, or with whom
they have been concerned.

Metamorphosis is a belief that has struck its roots deeply
into the minds of the Indian folk; and hence we find it
constantly occurring in the hagiological legends. The
saints can assume any form that is necessary to the tale
or likely to attract the attention of the audience, can change
the forms of others, and delegate unlimited power of meta-
morphosis to their followers. The idea so obviously lends
itself to fancy that the variations of it assume forms most
startling to the everyday man. In the Legends there are
many astonishing extensions of the notion, of which turning
the Deity himself into a dog in a legend about Namdey, for
the purpose of pointing a moral, is perhaps the best example.
A dog ran off with the saint’s (jogi’s) food, and, instead of
beating him, the saint addressed him in language applicable
properly to the Deity. For his reward the dog turned into
the Deity, and thus the saint had the inestimable privilege
of beholding the Deity in person.

In the application of the theory of metamorphosis to folk-

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 411

tales, we also find another indication of the fundamental
identity of the hero, the saint or supernatural mortal, and the
god or supernatural immortal in the popular mind. The
power is possessed by all alike, and by none to a specially
great or striking degree peculiar to himself. It is equally
possessed by inanimate objects. In the Legends there are
indications that the forms it especially assumes are due
to two causes: the perceptible effect that disguises have in
altering the apparent nature of human beings, and the
changes of skin and plumage that snakes and birds undergo ;
and the old-world belief in metempsychosis or transmigra-
tion of souls, by which the Indian and Far Eastern peoples
have for so very long been thoroughly permeated.

Disguises for the sake of enabling the hero or heroine to
carry out their respective objects are very numerous ; but
the essential poverty of peasant ideas, despite their apparent
diversity, comes out in the fact, that the disguises are apt
to run in grooves and become stereotyped. As a rule they
are such as might be expected; but there is a notable instance
of metamorphosis by a humanised serpent merely for the
sake of disguise; and it may also be said that many of the
objects for which disguise is used are identical with
those for which metamorphosis is made to take place.
Disguise may be said to be, indeed, merely metamorphosis
with the marvellous left out. Changes of skin or clothing,
or of things pertinent to human and animal heroes, are so
directly connected with metamorphosis, and so constantly
in Indian folktales, as to give rise to a temporary form of it,
of which many instances will almost without effort occur to
those well acquainted with the tales.

The allusions to the doctrine of metempsychosis in the
Legends are of course ubiquitous, but without much varia-
tion; and they habitually refer to the variety of lives the
heroes and heroines have already passed through in diverse
forms. In fact, the sole difference between the folk notions
of metamorphosis and metempsychosis lies in the fact of the

412 Lhe folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

former consisting of change of form during life, and in the
latter after death. The two ideas are very closely con-
nected, so much so that the special changes represented by
metamorphosis are based on the variety of bodies, that one
and the same unfettered soul is assumed to be capable of
vivifying.

In passing, it may be here mentioned that metempsychosis
is in the Legends most ingeniously dragged in to defend the
doctrine of saz, which is indefensible, except politically, even
from the native scriptural point of view. A victim of the
custom is made to say: “ For many ages will I obtain the
same husband,” 7.6. in reward for becoming sa¢z. In the
Legends, too, heroines are significantly made to commit
sati, not only on husbands’ but also on sons’ deaths.

It will have been seen from what has been above said
that saints scarcely differ from folktale heroes of the con-
ventional sort. They are beautiful in appearance; they
have all sorts of secular occupations, even finding a liveli-
hood as private soldiers and horse-dealers; they have
obvious foibles of their own; they claim kingly rank on
assuming saintship, make royal alliances, and keep up a
royal state; they are known by special and peculiar signs,
they perform conventional heroic acts in an heroic super-
natural manner. Indeed, just as the saint is hardly to be
distinguished from the demon, so is he hardly to be dis-
tinguished from the ordinary folk-hero. Indian demonolatry
is ancestral or tribal hero-worship, and Indian hagiolatry is
very little else. The saints and their demoniacal, heroic,
or godlike counterparts are, however, essentially super-
naturally endowed beings of the narrator's own nationality
or party; but there are in Indian folk-idea other super-
naturally endowed beings, demoniacal in their nature and
usually styled ra#has and translated “ ogres,” who belong
as essentially to the enemy’s party. In the demon world
the bhita, especially in South India, may be said to be
always of the narrator’s own class or side, and the rakhas
to belong to the outside world; while the demon proper

The Folklore tn the Legends of the Panjab. 413

(deo) may be looked on as being on the borderland between
the two, and as belonging as much to the one side as he
does to the other, occasionally exhibiting the characteristics
of the ogres as clearly as he does those of the saints, heroes,
godlings, and what not.

In translating γάξλας in its varying forms, I have adhered
to the usual term ogre, as being its best European represen-
tative, both expressions indicating, as I take them, the
foreigner who has at one time inspired fear, and has, there-
fore, been credited in the popular imagination with certain
terrifying supernatural powers, attributes, and habits. The
essentials of Indian ogre-stories seem to be constant. The
ogre feeds on mankind, an idea extended to feeding vora-
ciously on the larger animals also. He worries the hero’s
people and friends, and he is finally conquered by the hero,
in fair fight, by miraculous intervention, or by conventional
exorcism. He is, of course, a giant, and supernaturally
endowed, performing much the same miraculous feats as
his heroic or saintly opponents. In many respects he may
be fairly described as the hero on the other side, his
attributes as the result of the fear he inspires, and the
struggles with him as vague memories of long past tribal
fights with remarkable foreigners.

In one notable passage, showing how ideas extend and
run into each other, in a fragment of a modern version of
the far renowned (in India, that is) Sindhi story of Sassi
and Punnun, we find that ogres and man-destroying
monsters of all kinds are closely classed together. The
fragment is based on the very celebrated (in India) poem
by Hasham Shah, and for the present purpose I will quote
the original :

Adamkhor jandwar jal de, rdékas rip sarden ;
Majarmachh, kachhu, jal-httri, ndg, sansdr balien ;
Tandue, kahar, zambiiran-wile, lawan zor tadden.

Man-eating monsters of the deep, like unto ogres ;
Alligators, turtles, mermaids, serpents, and world-horrors ;
Crocodiles, dragons, porpoises, were bellowing aloud.

414 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

Of the same nature in Indian story as the ogre is the
nag or serpent, this important fact being strongly empha-
sised in the Legends, in which the serpents and _ their
doings occupy a prominent place. They here, though
not in ordinary belief, appear just as ordinary heroes, and
are distinctly human in their personalities and all their
ways, as often appearing in human as in other forms. They
are servants to the hero’s patron saint; they live in human
dwellings and show hospitality to human heroes; they
are subject to human diseases; they give their daughters
to, and marry the daughters of, human neighbours. They
are divided into families, and like ogres they live on human
flesh. Like the rest of the heroic or supernatural world,
they have a wide power of metamorphosis: into and out of
human or serpent form, into many animal forms and into
a variety of things, such as fruit, a fine needle, a golden
staff, a blade of grass. In the same way they have an almost
unlimited power of working miracles, chiefly malevolent ;
destroying life in various ways, setting on fire and scorch-
ing with their breath, or bite, or by the flash of their eyes,
and drinking up the life of another. But they have an
equally pronounced power of restoration to life, ordinarily
by the recognised folk-tale methods. And, lastly, apart
from being frequently “ winged,” they have the usual heroic
powers of rapid and miraculous movement.

Now, the notions exhibited in these modern legends on
the Naga serpents go back a long way in Indian story; and
I think it a fair inference to draw from them and their
prototypes, that Indian serpent-legends are but a memory
surviving in an ignorant and superstitious peasantry of an
old life-struggle between the Aryan population and the
perhaps aboriginal Naga peoples, whose totem, so to speak,
or even merely national fighting emblem or standard, has,
it may be, become confused with the race.

From the ogre and the πάσα one passes almost imper-
ceptibly to the humanised animal that appears so constantly

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 415

in Indian legends, and plays so conspicuous a part in the
stories loved of the people. The humanity, so to speak,
of the animal, z.e. the non-human, world of beings is most
strongly marked in all Indian folklore. Indeed, human and
non-human beings seen hardly to be distinguished in the
minds of the peasantry. In the Legends we find in one
clear instance a distinct ascription to the latter of an im-
mortality of precisely the same nature as that universally
attributed to mankind. “He took the bullocks at once
to the river. They began to drink in the river, where a
serpent was on the bank. Bitten, they fell to the ground
and their life went to the next world.” Here the actual
expression used is: “ dhawar Batkunth lok ko dhiya, the
breath went off to the world of Paradise”; just such an
expression as would be properly applicable to a human
being. In another strong instance a parrot describes itself
as “a good Hindu,” requiring a purification ceremony after
touching a dead body.

Human characteristics may be expected in tales of the
customary Oriental animal-pets and companions of man-
kind, such as the horse, the bullock, the camel among
quadrupeds, the parrot, the maina, the falcon among birds.
And there are many instances in the Legends in which the
doings, sayings, and feelings of all of these are hardly to be
differentiated from those of the human actors. It may be
here noted that the absence of any allusions to a sense of
companionship between man and the dog marks a point of
wide divergence between ordinary Oriental and European
feeling.

There is, in fact, scarcely any characteristic or capacity
of the human that is not equally attributed to the non-
human world. All sorts of animals act as messengers.
Serpents, cattle, and birds are of course described as being
affected strongly by music. Serpents and deer, extended
in one case to ‘‘all the beasts and birds of the forest,”
are attracted by human beauty in a human manner. A

416 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

swan falls in love with the heroine in the human sense:
deer can dream human dreams: a swan is made to address
the Creator (Kar¢d) by way of prayer, and a doe to dis-
tinctly pray to God (kiti Rabé agge farydd).

The grateful animal is a stock expedient in folktales,
and we are treated to instances of all kinds in the Legends,
some of which may be called unexpected. Thus, in this
category appear cats, crickets, hedgehogs, serpents, swans,
crows, cranes. The opposite quality of ingratitude is
also ascribed to a deer and a parrot. And in the quaint
legend of Dhanna, the Bhagat, a god consisting of an
ordinary commercial stone weight, is made to play the part
of the grateful animal, using the term in the sense of a
non-human being. But the legend here has more than
probably an origin in a consciously allegorical story.

Just as animals can be grateful and ungrateful, so can
they be revengeful ; and of revenge on human lines there is
a fine instance in the tale of the humanised Hira the Deer
in the Rasdlu Cycle, who throughout acts the part of the
ordinary folk-hero. The tale goes even to the extreme
length of attributing caste feelings to the herd he belonged
to; for “they cast him out of the herd because he had no
ears or [41] (they had been cut off). But perhaps the
strongest possible instance of humanisation occurs in the
same Cycle, where a lizard as the hero and a female
serpent as the heroine play a variant of the story of
Potiphar’s Wife.

The direct and almost universal use in story of the
animal with human attributes is to help on or interfere with
the action of the hero in a simple or in an extraordinary
manner, as when cranes, crows, parrots, and falcons act
as messengers, a falcon takes his turn at keeping watch, and
a flock of birds stop the progress of a ship by merely
sitting on the shore. In order to do these things they
must be able to talk, and do so as naturally and freely
as do the men and women themselves. But the use of

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 417

unnatural powers of speech is carried very much further,
and they are habitually attributed to everything that is
introduced to forward the story or the interests of the actors
therein. Indeed, in the legend of Niwal Dai we are ex-
pressly told : ‘‘ It was the virtuous time of the golden age; all
things could speak their mind.” An expression used again
in the legend of Raja Dhol in almost identical but more
limited terms: “It was the golden age of virtue, and the
cranes spake.” An astonishing variety of objects is thus
supposed to be gifted with speech. Any kind of plant for
instance: trees, mangoes, plums, fzfa/s, plantains, grass.
All sorts of articles in domestic use: a bed’s legs,a lamp, a
pitcher, a necklace, a conch, a couch, a needle, a pestle and
mortar, a garland. Even such a general object in nature
as a lake. In one instance a sandal-tree relates its very
human adventures merely by way of incident. Anthropo-
morphism could hardly go further.

It is, however, carried pretty far in an instance that occurs
in the fruitful Rasalu Cycle in two versions. <A corpse,
restored to life through the prayers of the hero, helps him
out of gratitude in such a matter as a gambling match, in
one of the instances. In the other, the corpse appears as a
number of severed heads, whom the hero adjures not to
weep and to help him with their prayers. After all this the
story of the well-known parrot of Raja Rasdlu, that “was
wise, knowing the Four Vedas,” could answer riddles and
give wholesome human advise, falls somewhat flat. And
the common folk-notion of a fcetus speaking from the
womb becomes, as it were, natural. It is the stock miracle
related of Guru Gugga, but attributed also to a good
many other personages remarkable in subsequent separate
life.

It will have been noticed that the notion of the humanised
animal slides almost imperceptibly into that of the human-
ised thing. When once the habit of anthropomorphosis
comes into play it appears to matter little whether it be

VOL. X. 28

418 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

applied to an animate or an inanimate object, and especially
is this to be observed in the case of things held to have
been subjected to the action of miracles or magic, 2.6. to
things charmed or enchanted by visible or invisible agency,
the main use for which in the Legends, it may be observed,
is to assist the hero or the progress of the tale about him:
e.g., enchanted dice made out of such uncanny objects as
dead men’s bones, which always win.

The well-known enchanted or protecting circle or line,
within which no harm can come, taking us very far back in
Indian belief, is but hinted at in the Legends, though its
descendants the ascetic’s necklace and rosary commonly
occur. But the more practical means of defence, such as
magical or enchanted arrows, play a considerable part.
Thus, there are several instances of the use of fiery arrows,
varied in one quaint instance as the fiery quoit, a survival
of the classical magical quoit of Krishna, and in a still
quainter one as an arrow of cold. This last variant is
clearly due to an expansion of the general idea of the fiery
arrow, for it is introduced for the purpose of combating
fire: “Then again Arjun shot an arrow of cold and all the
enemies’ bodies trembled. Then were the sun’s rays ob-
scured and day turned into night. Frost and cold began to
fight with fire.”

Magic numbers of course exist in India, chiefly in the
forms of multiples or parts or combinations of seven and
twelve, but I do not think that the peasant mind sufficiently
grasps such abstract notions as numbers to lay much stress
on any enchanted properties that they may be supposed to
possess. Ihave carefully collected every number that occurs
in the Legends, and the general conclusion is this: that as
to the larger numerals no clear conception is entertained at
all. They all mean a very large quantity to the peasant
story-teller, and for that purpose one large figure is as good
as another. As tothe smaller numerals, there is but a dim
idea that there is something holy or sacred or supernatural

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 419

about some of them, they are not sure which, and they
never remember them accurately.

The most wide-spread and familiar, but perhaps not the
best recognised, article subjected to supernatural agency is
holy water, as common in India under Islam and Hinduism
as it isin Europe under Christianity. In the Legends its uses
are to invoke “the blessing of the great saints” and to
effect miraculous cures—uses that will recall ideas current
outside of heathenism. Much of the virtue of holy water
is transferred in the popular mind to blood, especially human
blood, which is the main folk-agency for miraculous restora-
tion to life and health, and a common one for the performance
of a host of other marvellous feats. In the Legends these
virtues are to a certain degree yet further extended to milk,
and it is of interest to record that in them ambrosia or
amrita not only turns up as the beverage of the gods, but
also when pure as holy water, in a most remarkable passage
in a Hindu story, where it is regarded as the blood of the
Almighty :

Kirpi hui hati Sakat ki: hud Qudrat ké khtyal:

Apni ungli chirke amrit lid nikal.

The Almighty had mercy: the All-powerful considered them :
Cutting his finger he drew forth the water of life.

In India, however, all water may be called in a sense
holy. There water of itself purifies, an idea that still leads
to an incalculable amount of disease and sickness. The
rivers and pools are all more or less sacred, though some
of course are pre-eminently so, and ceremonial bathing is a
source of infinite gains to the priests and holy personages.

The enchanted miraculous vehicle is a very old and widely-
spread folk-notion, and so we find all sorts of heroes, saintly
and demoniacal, flying through the air, leaping the ocean,
accomplishing a journey of months in a few paces, and pro-
ceeding about their business at any required rate of speed
on a variety of unlikely articles, of which abnormally winged
creatures, bulls, lions, horses, camels, and the like are but

2E2

420 The Folklore tn the Legends of the Panjab.

variants. So closely do we find the two ideas conected,
that I have sometimes thought that the whole notion of the
miraculous vehicle and its concomitants is nothing but an
expansion of the heroic leap, which in its turn is a mere
popular exaggeration of some actual feat. In the Legends
the idea of personally flying through the air is extended to
making a saint’s shoe to fly through the air in order to
punish the saint’s opponent by beating him. This causing
of things to move miraculously is to be further seen in the
common miracle of a saint moving his tomb from one place
to another, leading to the quaint practice, observed by my-
self in Hindu India, Buddhist Burma, and even Japan, of
chaining an image to prevent its returning to the place
whence it miraculously migrated.

The value of invocation or calling together the tribe and
its defenders by a loud cry or sound must necessarily have
been a very early human observation; and its importance
and weird suddenness when used has all the world over
led to some fanciful and pretty notions as to magical
music and enchanted instruments, dependent chiefly on the
observed or fancied influence of musical sound on the
animal world. In these Legends there are distinct evi-
dences of the history of the idea, and the chief use to which
the magic flute, or its variant the magic conch, is there put
is, where it is used by the secular hero, to call together the
tribe and its friends, or where it is used by a saint or
religious leader, to collect his following, celestial or terres-
trial. Its secondary uses are to play upon the emotions of
friendly animals, and to call to the aid of the hero the
attention of the gods and the invisible inhabitants of the
celestial worlds, who, where the hero is a saint, usually
seem to occupy the place of his subordinates and assistants.
The sound of the flute or conch seems also to have become
mixed up in the popular mind with the “voice of prayer,”
for it can “reach to the Court of God,” and so secure the
divine intervention in human affairs.

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 421

The power of enchanted human hair to assist human
beings—perhaps as a spirit-haunt, to use Sir James Camp-
bell’s phrase— is another world-wide and very old notion,
and again in the Legends we seem to get at an explanation
of it, for it and its counterpart, the insect’s feeler, is of no
avail until burnt, an idea arising probably from the palpable
effect burnt hair has on those who become insensible from
a blow or disease. The concrete idea, however, in
burning hair appears to be to drive the spirits out of it by
the process, and so compel them to your service; for the
actual use of burnt hair is to call up invisible assistance.
But when once the hair has started on its career as a power
to interfere in the affairs of man, it 15 made to do a variety
of things for him; for it can, among other things, cut down
trees, burn up forests and enemies, and lead the heroine
into her enemies’ clutches. The outcome of the belief
in the virtue inherent in hair has been a variety of Oriental
beliefs and customs deriving directly from it :—e.g., the
sacredness of the Musalman’s beard and of the entire hair
on the body of a Sikh.

To pass from a part to the whole, the great power pos-
sessed by enchanted human or animal bodies 15 invisibility.
But I do not think its constant use in folktales and in these
Legends is altogether due to a love of the miraculous. The
notion gives such obvious opportunities for investing the
heroes and actors with a deeper interest than they could
otherwise be made to possess, and especially saints with
additional supernatural powers for overawing those who
listen to tales about them, that neither story-tellers nor
bards have anywhere refrained from taking advantage of it.
The practical use to which the power of invisibility is put
in the Legends is to help on the development of the tales,
or to assist the hero or the heroine in their desires, or to
glorify a saint or holy personage.

Curiously enough the procedure of enchantment is not
anywhere directly given in the Legends, though of course it

422 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

occurs often enough in the folklore of the country. All the
enchanted articles that occur are supposed to have already
undergone the processes necessary to render them super-
natural. Probably the audience is assumed to know what
those processes were, and such charms as occur are all of
the prophylactic nature already described.

Between the supernatural and unmistakable human
being there has existed everywhere and at all times an
intermediary, a being who, while obviously and distinctly
human, has assumed or acquired certain unusual and there-
fore in the popular mind uncanny powers. His ordinary
form is that of the priest, but the forerunner, and in early
society the contemporary, of the priest is the being who is
possessed, 1.6. subjected to enchantment, magical, super-
natural, or miraculous. Spirit-possession is not a desirable
accident of life, especially as sudden, severe, or striking
disease or illness is confounded with it; and hence the
existence of the possessed has led to that of the exorcist or
professional curer of the misfortune. The idea of posses-
sion and its antidote does not seem to have taken a strong
hold of the Panjabi, and consequently not much of either
appears in the Panjab Legends. Indeed, it is directly
mentioned only in one place; but in many respects a
remarkably similar series of legends from Kanara, which
I have somewhat recently edited under the title of the
Devil-Worship of the Tuluvas, mainly turns on it, as indeed
does the whole complicated system of modern Tibetan
Buddhism, exhibiting once more that common phenomenon
in nature, the rudimentary existence only in one series of
connected creatures of a part that is fully developed in
another.

So far, we have been dealing with the heroes and their
male counterparts, but on turning to the heroines it will
be found that, so far as Indian ideas on the parts that the
sexes are capable of playing in the affairs of life admit, the
stories of the female actors follow strictly on the lines of

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 423

those of the male. The main cause of the differences
observable lies in the low estimation in which women
generally are held by the populace—a fact typified in the
Legends by the belief that it is not only foolish, but socially
indiscreet, to praise a woman, especially one’s wife, by the
ceremonial observances demanded of the women towards
their male relatives, all intended to emphasise their position
of subjection, and by the universal custom of the seclusion
of women.

The typical heroine is emphatically a child of predesti-
nation, “‘tabued,” as it were, from birth to the hero. Her
characteristics are impossible strength or skill to save the
hero in trouble, as when she cuts a tigress in two; or, on
the other hand, impossible delicacy, as when she is weighed
against flowers; or she is endowed with impossible attrac-
tiveness, dropping flowers when she laughs and pearls
when she weeps. Her beauty is, of course, all-conquering,
the animal world, the heavenly bodies, and the God of the
Waters (Khwaja Khizar) succumbing to it, and like the
hero, she is known by “ signs””—e.g., by the bubbling of
the water in a well when she looks into it.

Of beneficent heroines we do not hear much in the
Legends. Perhaps it is hardly to be expected that amongst
the Panjabi peasantry a woman could be held to be of
much assistance in life. The fairies, when they do appear,
are accordingly merely messengers between this and other
worlds, or they represent outside, unorthodox brides or
mistresses of Rajas or heroes. But of maleficent heroines
we hear a good deal, and of the victims, male and female,
of their active ill-will. Calumny, born of jealousy, is the
favoured method of showing it. Jealousy of a co-wife,
natural enough where polygamy is practised, and of a
co-wife’s children, gives so commonly the spring to vin-
dicative action, that the story of the calumniated wife may
be looked upon as a special variety of Indian folktale,
though the enmity is sometimes represented as being ex-

424 The Folklore tn the Legends of the Panjab.

tended to the husband, the husband’s sister, and the nurse
or duenna.

To the category of malevolent heroines belong the step-
mothers, who play a prominent and peculiar part in Indian
folktales, due to the polygamy practised by the rulers, the
rich and the great. They are nearly always the malignant
co-wives with the hero’s mother, interfering in his life and
story in two main ways—.e. they either get him into
trouble by acting after the manner of Potiphar’s Wife, or
they seek to ruin him out of jealousy of his mother. From
the latter cause the heroine is also frequently made to suffer
at the hands of one or more of her stepmothers. The
methods of the stepmother of arriving at her ends are,
however, generally human, and the women held to be
endowed with malevolent supernatural powers are the
wise-women, witches, ogresses, and udgnis or serpent-
women.

So far as the legendary lore is concerned, we may treat
witch and wise-woman as synonymous terms for the same
class of wicked woman. Both invariably play the same
part in a tale and have the same characteristics. They are
the marplots, the malignant fiends of the story; and their
natural occupation is to place the heroine in the power of
her enemies—of which, assistance to the hero to get at the
heroine in irregular manner is but a variant. They have
disgusting and terrible attributes. They are cannibals, and
take out the liver and eat it. They have second sight, and
are suspected of knowing things that are hidden. But they
are not necessarily ugly or uncomely: often, indeed, they
are the reverse. In order to attain their ends they are
endowed with the power of metamorphosis and miracle-
working—“ setting water on fire” being in one instance
claimed in the Legends as a difficult feat, which no doubt
it 15.

The ogress is in every essential merely a female counter-
part of the ogre, with the same attributes, the same super-

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 425

natural powers, the same enmity to the hero’s race, even
as the xdégni or serpent-woman is just a woman of her kind,
with all the zég’s attributes, humanity, habits, and powers.
In their struggles with the human or heroic races their
methods, though necessarily differing from those of the
males of their class, are in each case of the same nature.
Thus, instead of directly fighting mankind or the heroic
opponents, they seek to destroy them by winning them
over by female blandishments, and so getting them into the
power of themselves and their party.

Besides what may be called the heroine proper of a
legend or folktale, the child miraculously born and pre-
destined to great deeds, the legitimate pride and glory of
the tribe or race, there is the foundling, that kind of child
which has come irregularly or illegitimately into the tribal
or family circle, to play an important part therein. The
career of the foundling may be expected to attract the
imagination of a peasantry. Such an unexpected and
unlooked-for addition to the family or tribe is sure to be
interesting and to give rise to hereditary tales, But apart
from the interest attaching to the conditions under which
foundlings are introduced, the exigencies of native life serve
to create and maintain foundling-stories. So many sub-
castes and tribes and so many families of the upper ranks
have from the native point of view a doubtful origin, so
many of the richer people, who can pay for bards and their
flatteries, have a blot on their escutcheons—a bar sinister,
as one may call it—that tales of foundling girls are bound
to flourish in order to connect families, castes, tribes, and
prominent personages of the day with those of bygone
times, whose position and claims are held to be beyond all
doubt. Ancestor-making and genealogy-inventing are arts
well understood in India, especially by the bardic class ;
and the story of the foundling mother of the eponymous
hero is the most cherished resort for the purpose. In the
Panjab, that land of great rivers, the river-borne foundling

426 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

is the favourite variety. The girl infant is discovered float-
ing by various methods down a river, is adopted by the
finder, is married to the eponymous hero or his father, is
subsequently traced to an aristocratic family, and the de-
sired high-class connection is established. A dive into any
of the accepted accounts of the more important families, or
into the legendary history of the sub-tribes and sub-castes
—even into that of the tribes and castes themselves—
anywhere in India will produce many such stories in many
quaint forms. They abound in the folktales and appear in
the Legends of course.

Pretty and popular varieties of the foundling-tale are to
be found in the many variants of the egg-hero story, where
the little stranger, male or female, is fabled to have sprung
miraculously from an egg, from fruit, from a box, a flower,
or other small and fanciful article. And to the same cate-
gory must, I think, be referred the universally popular
sleeping-beauty. A careful survey of her life-history, the.
manner of her discovery, her doings and characteristics,
point her out as the representative of the bride from the
other side—raped it may be, or stolen, or abducted, or taken
in fight as a sort of spo/io opima, or perhaps simply found.
Whatever she may be, princess in disguise, ogress born, or
captive in a foreign land, she is emphatically not of the
hero’s race or party, and their union is always irregular—
2.6. not according to established tribal custom.

In one essential point, arising out of the view taken by
the peasantry of women and girls, the folk-heroine differs
entirely from the hero. As the actual property of some
male, either tabued to him or as part of his personal effects,
the heroine has to be chaste. Of male chastity we do not
hear much, except as virtue—z.e. manly capacity, which is
quite a different idea from that attached to sexual chastity.
Of virtue in the above sense a great deal is heard, and it
is most jealously guarded. The terms usually rendered
“pure”? and “chaste,’’ and so on, however, never imply

The Folklore tin the Legends of the Panjab. 427

male sexual purity, and Raja Rasalu, a hero essentially of
gallantries of every kind, is repeatedly called “jat7 sati,
pure and chaste,” in the sense of being endowed with un-
impaired capacity. He was in that sense fully virtuous.
The possession of such virtue is made a condition of
worldly power, and when possessed in an inordinate degree
calls down the wrath of the supernatural powers as a
positive danger to them. It is also a vital point to keep
out of touch with women at periods of stress and trial in
order to maintain it, their approach and proximity impairing
it. The origin of all this is obvious, the male is not sub-
jected to tabu or appropriation, and the female is.

Perhaps the neatest indication of the point that of old
chastity was the virtue of women and virile capacity the
virtue of men, is shown in the manner in which the zone,
both as a word and as an article of costume, was used.
There was always the female girdle or zone, the emblem of
chastity, and the male zone or sign of virility and fighting
capacity. In the Himalayas the silver zone is still the sign
par excellence of a warrior. Saysalegend: “The Lord
Raja is coming himself to this war. He has called every
wearer of a silver zone to Junga.”

Now, the very line of reasoning which renders male
chastity of no account, makes female chastity the main
virtue—z.e. capacity of the sex. In such a society as is
reflected in Indian legendary lore, it was as essential for a
woman to be chaste, as it was for man to be of his hands
capable. The maintenance of the tribe and its social
structure rested on these features of the two classes of
human beings composing it. We Europeans have the
remains of this feeling in all our languages when we talk
of a woman and her virtue. Female chastity, then, being
of such very great importance to the men, and also so very
difficult to secure without the co-operation of the women
themselves, the men were always calling in the super-
natural powers to their aid in maintaining it, out of their

428 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

natural and well-founded suspicion that such co-operation
did not exist. Of this there is universal folktale evidence,
and it gives occasion to resort to ordeals, both practical
and supernatural, more often than anything else—except
perhaps the cruel “ wisdom” of the witch-finder—by fire,
by dice, by water, by impossible tasks and conditions.
However, it being on occasion most important to prove the
virtue in a hero, ordeals of the same kind are resorted to in
tales for that purpose also, and not only has the hero to
prove that he is a man of parts, but the saint, too, has to
show the peculiar virtue in him by giving a “sign,” usually
in the form of a miracle. Indeed, many miracles are
merely forms of ordeals.

The extravagant extension of any idea for the purposes
of story-telling, may be looked for in all the literary pro-
ductions of the folk, and in the Legends, by way of empha-
sising the grave importance of female chastity, the famous
heroine, Hir, before what we, but not the natives, would
call her fall, is in one place said to feel polluted, simply
because the hero occupied her bed in her absence.

The value to the early intelligence of ordeals for the dis-
covery of virtue in mankind has led to their wide employ-
ment in folktales, for the intelligible and important purpose
of proving the long-lost hero or heroine—for testing
claimants, in fact. Tests, natural and supernatural, for
their identification are ubiquitous in all folk-stories, and
equally so in the Legends, leading in many instances almost
imperceptibly into the region of prophecy and its fulfil-
ment. Almost the whole stock of folk-ideas is pressed
into the service of this most prominent necessity of the
progress of a story. Heroes and heroines are identified
by marks, personal characteristics, and properties, surviving
still as ‘‘the signs of royalty,” both possible and impossible,
and by definite ordeals, such as the answering of riddles
and the performance of impossible tasks ; and, further, by
resort to such purely mythological ideas as a correct

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 429

recollection of details and surroundings in “a former life.”
On the other hand, there is in one instance a reference to
that widespread, practical form of identification, which is
embodied in the custom of placing a stamp or mark on the
body or clothes, as a voucher of a visit to a shrine or of a
pilgrimage completed, where the hero’s camel carries away
betel-leaves and water to show that he had really been to
the heroine’s abode, and so knew the way thither.

The favourite folktale form of ordeal is the impossible
task, and naturally so, as the individual fancy can here
range at will; while the poverty of peasant imagination is
also shown by the constant resort of the story-tellers to
well-known stock tasks. In one form, however, the im-
possible task is of exceptional interest, for when it is
imposed as a condition of marriage with the heroine, the
Legends show that it is the poor remnant of the once
important political manceuvre of the swayamvara, or public
choice of a husband by girls of princely rank.

There are two common variants of the impossible task
frequently occurring in the Legends—riddles and ceremonial
gambling. Conventional riddles preserved at the present
day in garbled traditional verse, and usually perfectly un-
intelligible, are used for all the purposes of their prototype
—for identifying the hero; as necessary preliminaries to
marriage, and even to an illicit intrigue ; as a variant of the
swayamvara ; as a kind of initiation into saintship; in fact,
wherever an ordeal is for any reason desired. But the
more legitimate use of riddles as a symbolical, or secret, or
private form of speech is merely hinted at in the Legends,
as where a birth is announced in the form of a riddle, and
where the female attendants of a princess make com-
munications in the same form.

Gambling is looked on by the Indian populace as the
usual and proper occupation of the great and rich; and so
a good deal is heard of it in the Legends. But the cere-
monial gambling occurring in them bears evidence of its

430 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

origin; for, as a test before marriage, it is clearly an
ordeal in the form of a variant of the impossible task. In
this sense it is regarded and repeatedly spoken of as “a
virtue of the rulers.” Of course, in folktales and legendary
lore, the notion is subjected to great exaggeration, and we
are favoured with most extraordinary stories of reckless
gambling—for property, possessions, and even life itself—
and in the Legends, with what is of far more importance,
detailed descriptions in all its technicalities of the great
and ancient royal game of chaupur or pachist.

Passing thus without effort almost from the actors to the
course of the story, we find that perhaps the commonest
way of commencing it is to set the hero seeking his fortunes,
either by way of a start to the story, or to get a living, or
as the result of troubles at home, or in response to a pro-
phecy or fortune-telling. This opens a wide door to pre-
liminary incident, even to a relation of invaluable details as
to the prescribed modes of procuring oracles and forecasts
of fate and fortune, which will be found on examination to
be substantially the same all over India, north and south.
Such oracles as occur in Indian tales are as vague in form
and uncertain in meaning as elsewhere, leaving the inquirer
to make what he can of them. A fine specimen, drawn
from the working of the Persian water-wheel so universally
used in the rural Panjab, and couched in good rustic verse,
occurs in the Legend of Mirza and Sahiban, though the hero
seems to comprehend it without effort or hesitation :

The axle binds the shaft and the spokes bind the axle ;

The axle-tree lies on the ground fastened by strong chains ;
Wheel works with wheel as a king with his courtiers ;

The whole machine creaks as a beggar among husbandmen ;
The pitchers clink (as they come up) full of pure water.

It could hardly be expected that the regular and irregular
priesthood of India would allow so fruitful a source of class
and personal profit as is offered by such a matter as fortune-
telling to pass them by; and so we are distinctly told that

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 431

the casting of horoscopes, or the grant of peeps into the
future, is the peculiar province of the Brahmans.

The whole vast fabric of fortune-telling, prophecy, sooth-
saying, oracle-making, built up by the various kinds of Indian
priesthood, is throughout Indian folklore and in the Legends
to be seen to clearly rest on the universal and ineradicable
belief in fate. Allusions to it are innumerable, and every
act or chance of human life is referred to it as a matter of
course—as an accepted incontrovertible proposition. The
terms for fate and life are even found to be mutually con-
vertible, though instances do occur in which, especially
among Muhammadans, fate is distinguished from the conse-
quences of evil deeds, being perhaps an echo there of
Christian or Jewish or even Buddhist teaching. Of such a
sentiment the following is an example: “If a bullet strike
thy forehead, know it is the reward of thy (evil) deeds, know
it not for thy fate.’ But such ideas as this are, however,
extremely rare in story, and habitually every event is attri-
buted to the action of fate.

Perhaps the best way of obtaining a comprehension of
the depth and width of the sentiment of fatality among the
Indian populace—a notion of the extent to which it per-
meates their ideas as to the causes of the events of every-
day life—is by an examination of the zps¢ssma verba of the
bards and popular singers, for which the Legends afford
very many opportunities. It will then be seen that the
popular philosopy really amounts to this—every occurrence
is fated, the action of fate is visible in every event, is in-
evitable, is pre-ordained, ‘‘ written,’ or decreed. The very
terms in which the actors in the Legends apostrophise Fate
shows this strongly. Cries an unfortunate more than once:
“ What, Fate, hast thou written in my fate?” Cry others
again and again: “Ὁ Fate, what hast thou done?” “0
Fate, what is this that thou hast resolved on ?”’

Widely differing occurrences are repeatedly attributed to
the direct action of fate. Typical expressions are the

432 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

following: ‘‘The matter was in the hands of Fate, and she
(the wife) saved the Raja.” “Thou wast not in fault, my
Lord, it was in my fate.” ‘What is to be must be borne;
why make plans (to avoid it)?” “Fortunate is our fate
that the Court remembers us.” ‘Thy fate is evil.’ Here
are expressions that recur repeatedly: “1, too, am Fate’s
victim.” ‘I die for her sake, my fate hath come.” Says a
king of his minister: “ His fate and mine were one.” Says
an enemy, feeling that he had no chance otherwise: “If
Puran’s fate be awake (z.e. against him) I will come back
and slay him.” Cries a young girl: “All my studying is
over, for Fate hath brought me love.”

The difficulty of accounting for occurrences—the inscrut-
ability, in fact, of fate—has of course forced itself on the
peasant mind; and the feeling finds voice in their exclama-
tions, of which “There is no fathoming fate’’ is perhaps
the commonest. The most conspicuous quality, however,
of fate is necessarily the inevitability of its action, and we
accordingly find this fact expressed in many different and
sometimes quaint terms, of which good examples are: ‘The
rest is in my daughter’s fate (over which) none have power.”
“Who can vary the lines of fate?” ‘ This (a throw of
dice) was in the power of fate, no power (of ours) avails.”
“Thy fate hath encompassed thee and there is no way to
save thee.” ‘Fate is not to be gainsaid, and God doeth as
he listeth.” Here is a strong way of putting the rustic view:
‘Fate hath come on thee: when fate slew such prophets,
shalt thou escape?”’ Perhaps the most usual ways of all
of expressing the hopelessness of fighting against the in-
evitable are: ‘“‘ What fate has written who can blot out?”
“There is no remedy against fate.” And lastly a curious
belief in the godlike powers of the founder of the Sikh
Religion is to be seen in the expression: ‘‘ What fate the
Guru (Nanak) hath ordained cannot be avoided.” But the
pathetic cry of a mother over a murdered son seems to
point to a latent hope in the villagers’ hearts that perad-

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 433

venture, for all its inevitability, the action of fate may
possibly be avoidable: ‘‘ Death met him in the street and
fate stopt the way (for flight). When thy fate was written
had I been by, I would have made a great cry to God and
had it written favourably.”

The usual way of stating the inevitable is by viewing it as
written or decreed by fate. The common expression is:
“Tt was written in my fate; thou canst do nothing.” And
there also occurs twice in the Legends: “See, this was
written in the lines of fate, this misery of mine.” A religious
fanatic in order to account for his mode of life, says:
‘“ Mendicancy was written in my fate:” and it is further said
of a herdsman: “God wrote no labour (in his fate) ; he was
to be happy with (tending) buffaloes.” Of a parted husband
and wife it is said: ‘This much connection was written ;
fate hath done this.’ Again, one of three brothers puts the
Panjabi peasant belief very powerfully when he explains to
a judge: ‘‘Chiefship was written in Chuchak’s fate and lord-
ship in Michru’s. In my (Kaidu’s) fate was written saint-
ship ; it was the writing of God.”

The decree of fate occupies a prominent position in Indian
idea, and typical ways of giving expression to it are such as
these: “The decree that fate has written down against me
have I suffered to the full.” “Ὁ Queen, if posterity had been
decreed in my fate, it would have been through you.” ‘The
decree of my fate (leprosy) hath been passed upon me.”
The commonest expressions of resignation are: ‘ The decree
of fate must be borne,” and ‘Pain and grief are with all;
it is the decree of fate.’ The notion has even passed into
a frequently recurring proverb: ‘The decree of fate is strong
and waits not for postponing.’’ Cries one of a number of
refugees from an unhappy political struggle: “It was fate’s
decree that drove us to the forest.”

Fortune-telling in all its forms involves the intervention
of a second party ; but forecasts of fortune can also be sought
within one’s own personality, as it were, by the interpreta-

VOL. X. 2F

434 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

tion of dreams; and so dreams, their results and their
meaning, play an important part in Indian folktales. They
frequently occur in the Legends, where they are usually
of the prophetic sort, a start being given to a story by the
hero’s dream of the heroine or vice versa; an idea neatly
turned to practical use in some stories of saints by making
the saintly hero fix on a preceptor owing toa dream. The
idea is further useful in tales about the recovery of recalci-
trant followers, by making the saint terrify them through
dreams. The actual method of utilising dreams in folktales
is to make the hero or heroine follow them up in their sub-
sequent waking hours, often to their great temporary tribula-
tion. And of the familiar warning or prophetic dream of
the western world, there is one quaint example, in which a
doe is made to warn her husband, the buck, of his impending
death at the hands of the huntsmen, by telling him a vividly
related dream as to the details of it.

The interpretation of dreams is a form of augury or
divination, z.e. it is a means of foretelling the future from
occurrences to human beings which are beyond control,
though the latter terms in themselves imply an attempt to
forecast the future from natural occurrences beyond human
control that take place only in the surroundings of mankind.
Inthe Legends direct references to augury and divination are
few, and then only stock ones relating chiefly to marriage
ceremonies; which last may in India be best described as
one prolonged effort to sacerdotally control and foretell
the future. But all over the world the commonest and most
universal mode of arriving at an idea of the future from
chance occurrences in the natural world around us lies in
omens and their interpretation, and of these we are treated
to a great number in the Legends, as might be expected.
They are all, however, of the usual sort, except perhaps
that it is unlucky in the Himalayas to give milk to a warrior
on the war-path. With this exception we have dished up
for us the well-worn superstitions relating to the meeting of

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 435

lucky and unlucky personages, to lucky and unlucky things
in nature, plants, trees, and so forth, to the flight and calls
of birds, to sneezing, which, like hiccough, is a most
mysterious proceeding of the animal body to the Indian
mind, to accidental occurrences on mounting a horse and
while walking, and so on.

Following on and arising out of the notion of fortune-
telling, augury, divination, and omens are the actions
necessary to ensure good fortune or luck; the lucky
things to do, and the lucky times for doing them, such as
swinging during the rainy season. And as everyone is of
course interested in finding these out, we are everywhere
favoured in Indian folklore with a goodly array of them,
and amongst lucky acts may be mentioned as noticeable,
that of mounting a horse with the left foot, a curious in-
stance of giving a semi-religious sanction to an act that is
otherwise right from a practical point of view. The sole
use to which the “science” of astrology is put in the
Legends, is to ascertain auspicious times and moments.

In folktales the main use of the idea of ill-luck is to fill
up the tale by introducing a great number of incidents,
describing all the misfortunes which fancy can call up as
happening to the hero or heroine; but the thousand and
one precautions taken in practical life against incurring
misfortune are based upon far more serious considerations
than this. To the Indian peasant mind misfortune is a sin,
and indicates a sinful condition in the victim thereof, de-
fining that very difficult and much ill-used term “sin” as
an offence, witting or unwitting, against the tribal conven-
tions. The good luck of the lucky obviously benefits their
surroundings, and the bad luck of the unlucky as obviously
brings harm. Therefore the unlucky are sinful and, what
is of supreme practical importance to them, must be
punished accordingly. The amount of misery and suffering
arising out of this ‘‘ correct argument from a false premiss”
that is being and has for ages been incurred by the victims

28 2

436 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

of perfectly involuntary and uncontrollable misfortune—
such as widows, for instance—is quite incalculable ; and a
little consideration will show why it is that the nostrums
for the prevention of the dreaded sin of misfortune are
interminable, both in variety and number.

Another most fruitful result of the primitive view of mis-
fortune is the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, an “ un-
fortunate’? condition clearly the consequence of inadver-
tence even to the savage, which has led to unnumbered
ceremonies and customs in practical life and to many
incidents in tale and story. The ceremonially unclean
condition, however much it may be natural or the result of
mere chance, is perceived in a dim way to be somehow
sinful or the result of sin; and hence the nostrums for avoid-
ing the consequences thereof. But when the condition is
intensified and exhibits itself in a loathsome or continuous
form, then to the popular mind its sinful origin is no longer
doubtful. The story of that prominent, mysterious, obvi-
ously unclean, loathsome, and much dreaded disease, leprosy,
and of the native treatment of lepers in India, will bring out
all these points; and the subject of lepers and leprosy, if
taken up as a folklore study, would be found to cover nearly
the whole range of belief and customs among the folk. In
the Legends we see much of it. There, the separation, iso-
lation, and treatment of lepers is due to their uncleanness,
the origin of leprosy lies in sin and in the punishment of
sin, and its cure is due to ceremonial cleansing.

In another direction, the doctrine, so to speak, of ill-luck
has led to very serious practical consequences, a fact which
is clearly brought out by an incident in the Legends. The
birth of a daughter is announced to Raja Sarkap just as he
had lost his great gambling match. ‘Kill her,” said Raja
Sarkap, “she has been born at an unlucky moment, and
has brought me bad luck.’ But, as an instance where
female infanticide, based on ill-luck, has been widely resorted
to, though from a different concrete origin, the whole of the

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 437

celebrated historical legend of Mirza and Sahiban is witness.
Briefly, Sahiban, a daughter of the Panjabi Siyals, eloped
with Mirza, the Kharal, and was overtaken by her tribe
and strangled. The subsequent feuds were so severe that
it became unlucky to have daughters, and an extensive
practice arose of strangling female infants in memory of
Sahiban. This is an instance where folk-notions have
actually affected history.

Now, the predatory portion of the priesthood has every-
where been most careful to keep alive and foster the folk-
notions of sin, misfortune, and ill-luck, because out of them
arises the most prolific source of all of a good livelihood
for themselves. Sins must be expiated ; sinful bodies must
be purified; the priest is always ready to secure expiation
and purification, and to guide the ceremonies enjoined in
either case. Ceremonial bathing, as a result of the notion
of the holiness and cleansing powers inherent in water, is
the great panacea in India; and out of the holy bathing-
places perhaps more wealth has been transferred from the
laity to the coffers of the priestly classes than from any-
thing else that has been invented for the ghostly benefit of
the people.

After providing the personages and setting the story
going in a definite direction, the next thing necessary is to
keep up the interest by the process known to adverse re-
viewers as padding, and to the sympathetic as valuable
incidents. Those in the Legends are, as might be expected,
of the stock description; scraps of well-known verses or
tales, or references to stock notions about this world and its
affairs. From the very nature of the circumstances under
which they are introduced they offer the most undiluted
folklore with which the narrators are imbued, and are thus
often the most valuable part of a tale tothe student. Thus,
there are everywhere valuable references to the miraculous
origin of that puzzle to the peasantry, a pearl or precious
stone, or even a bright flower. Rubies are the products of

438 Lhe Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

the sea, or the special gift of the god of the rivers, or more
fancifully still drops of blood from the murdered magical
hero or heroine. Pearls are rain-drops during a particular
asterism ; and both they and flowers are derived from the
tears or laughter or speech, indifferently, of the hero or
heroine, and so on.

A very large portion of the incidents observable in
folktales are tricks, in the narration of which, as in that of
many other contents of stories, resort is had to both plain
matter-of-fact circumstances and to the whole gamut of
peasant fancy and wisdom. There are tricks humorous
and tricks malicious. There is the cruel practical joke, the
mysterious supernatural tragedy, the downright cheat; even
the lie direct is perpetrated by the Lady of Virtue (Sila Dat),
who is held up to honour as the embodiment of all the
virtues.

References to, and details of, ceremonies of all sorts are a
necessary, and frequently a most valuable, form of folktale
incident, but they do not require more than mere mention
in such a discussion as this. In the Legends we are treated
to many a most interesting and instructive description
especially of marriage ceremonies, involving allusions to
equally interesting and instructive notions about marriages
generally. In fact, as regards marriages, and the betrothals
which are their counterparts in India, a perusal of the
Legends will take the reader over the whole subject: the
beliefs, forms, ceremonies, customs and laws, and political
uses ; some of them throwing light on European customs of
past and present times. In other directions also we are
treated to allusions to, or descriptions real or fanciful of,
such practical ceremonial matters as the adoption of girls,
declaring an heir to the throne, regulating a Rajput hunting-
party, the reception of guests. In sacerdotal or quasi-sacer-
dotal matters we have the ceremonies of divination by the
breath, and initiatory rites into the sect of the Lalbégi sca-
vengers, and into various sects of jog¢s and fagirs, of which

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 439

the ear-boring ceremonies are the most prominent and of
some importance, as they have led to the use of ear-rings of
fixed sorts as signs of occupation or caste and to ear-boring
customs among the women of various nations in the East as
general prophylactics against evil.

In matters affecting the daily life of the people, there are
the use of ashes as a sign of both grief and saintship, and
other conventional modes of expressing sorrow, such as
the breaking of bracelets and jewellery, and the ceremonies
gone through by the newly-made widow. ‘There are also
various conventional ways of conveying specific and general
challenge to combat, claiming inheritance to land, blacken-
ing the face and other strange methods of inflicting disgrace.
Of the daily and domestic customs which are hardly to be
distingushed from ceremonial observances, there are many
instances; ¢.g., the quaint methods of showing that the
occupant of a house is “ not at home,” announcing a visitor,
awakening a slumbering chief on an emergency, tying a knot
to jog the memory, showing submission and making suppli-
cation. To show how the Legends reflect the people and
their ways, there is an interesting use made for story-telling
purposes of the inveterate habit of village children of teasing
hedgehogs.

Allusions to popular beliefs and the frequent introduction
of incidents turning on them must of course be looked for.
These open up so many questions of interest and debatable
points, that it would only be unduly swelling this already too
long category of folklore subjects, to do more here than just
merely run over the recognised titles of some of those that
occur in the Legends and have not been above classified, in
order to bring them to notice, and to show how very wide
is the net that is cast by this collection of tales for gathering
in the flotsam of Indian folklore. Many are the beliefs
relating to the animal world and their forms, of which the
following are samples :—the origin of twisted and back-
curved horns of various deer; the sacred, celestial, and

440 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

marvellous characteristics of that favourite, the horse; the
sacred and supernatural nature of the peacock and the swan ;
the capabilities of the dreaded scorpion. Beliefs relating
to the heavenly bodies are necessarily legion, and those
relating to eclipses and the moon and stars find a place here,
as do also the worlds outside that which man inhabits,
heaven and hell and their inhabitants, ἀήγίς and such-like.
The parts of the human body and their uses give rise to many
beliefs, such as the correct foot to start with, the marks of
hands and feet on rocks and other places, both natural and
marvellous, the head and the shaving thereof. We have also
most interesting references to the world-wide belief in a flood
or deluge, clearly in one instance more or less indirectly
based on the Biblical story. And lastly, there are many data
for arriving at a clear notion of the peasant ideas of the Deity
and the confusion of mind they are troubled with on the sub-
ject, owing to the intermixing of Hindu and Musalman
teaching in so many parts of India.

Customs having their roots in popular beliefs are from
their very nature, not only perpetually alluded to in the
stories of the folk, but are a productive source of incidental
narrations; e.g., the aspect of the shrines as the remnant of
sun-worship. Of these the old-world and universal idea of
refuge, asylum, and sanctuary, as it is variously called, and
as likely as not owing its inception and extension to sacer-
dotal pretensions and exclusiveness, is perhaps the most
favoured in legend and folklore. In practical application
it everywhere consisted of protection to strangers against
their enemies, so long as they paid their way and only so
long. The well-known Oriental conception of hospitality and
its obligations is sanctuary pure and simple, both in theory
and practice. Indeed, the Indian and Eastern notion of
hospitality cannot be distinguished from sanctuary, and
when the Pathan treats his enemy or a guest worth plunder-
ing to the best cheer in his power, gives him a fair start,
and then prepares to try and murder or rob him, he

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 441

is merely doing in his way what the old heathen Greek, or
for that matter the medieval Christian priest, did in his,
when he granted asylum or sanctuary to the fugitive or
criminal only so long as he could pay for it, and made no
sort of effort to shield him or obtain immunity for him when
the payment ceased. All this is pithily brought out in a
passage in the Legends. Raja Rasalu’s faithless wife had
successfully hidden her paramour, Raja Hodi, in her hus-
band’s house, but Rasalu’s faithful parrot betrayed him, and
then we read :—“ Said the parrot: ‘Slay not thy guest, he
is as thy brother.’ So Raja Rasalu and Hodi went together
to the wilds, and there, wounded by an arrow, Raja Hodi
was slain.”

The very widespread custom, rooted in a superstitious
belief that it brings ill-luck, of declining to refer to a hus-
band by name is also mentioned in the Legends ; while on
the other hand the ancient royal prerogative of releasing
prisoners, nowadays in civilised Europe attributed solely to
kindliness and mercy, is given in the directest phraseology
its right attribution of an act to insure good luck. That
very ancient and widespread Oriental emblem of divine
protection, the shade-giving umbrella, is repeatedly men-
tioned, as might be expected, in its degenerated form of a
sign of royalty and thence of dignity generally.

Indian folktales end up usually in the most orthodox
manner. The hero and heroine live happy ever afterwards
after the Indian fashion, which I must remind European
readers is not at all theirs, and the villain, male or female,
comes to an untimely and well-deserved end. Poetical
justice is thoroughly appreciated in the East, perhaps
because for so many ages there has been so little of any
other description. The interest here is chiefly in the forms
that vengeance and punishment take as an indication of the
popular notions on the subject. In the Legends and else-
where punishments are all vindictive and cruel, most inge-
nious indeed in their cruelty ; and torture is solely used as

442 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab.

a means of expressing vindictiveness. In resorting to it
there is no other ulterior motive. Enemies are cut to pieces,
buried and burnt alive, shot to death with arrows, buried up
to the neck to starve, in company on occasion with thorns,
scorpions, snakes, and so on. ‘There is much personal
triumph mixed with the vengeance. Enemies’ skulls are
mounted in silver as drinking cups, strangled bodies are
exposed, graves of enemies are ploughed up and walked
over by the conquering hero and heroine, the ashes of
victims of burning alive are sent to their mothers, and an
unchaste wife is tricked into eating her lover’s heart by the
injured husband. Callously cruel as all these proceedings
are, they may, as every reader of Oriental history knows, be
fairly termed mild when compared with many that must have
often been within the actual personal knowledge of the
peasantry of all parts and at all times, even the most recent-

The lengths to which sacerdotal vindictiveness has often
gone in India, is indicated by the well-established custom
of ceremonial suicide, self-immolation, and self-injury, in
order to bring divine or supernatural wrath on an opponent
or enemy. Debased as such a custom is in its nature and
object, it has given rise to another equally well established
and as noble as its prototype is execrable: the old and
often exercised Rajput sdéké or jauhar, which meant the
voluntary suicide of the women of a palace, while the men
went out to make the last wild sally when it was no longer
possible to continue a defence.

With this, perhaps the noblest outcome of all of Indian
superstition and belief, I close my present remarks, in the
hope that I have said enough to show that in the Legends
of the Panjab we have displayed before us practically the
whole machinery of popular Indian story-telling. Both the
actors and their actions, so far as we have been able to
regard them, have all shown themselves to be of the same
descriptions, and to have the same characteristics as those
in Indian folktales generally, whether purely narrative or

Pagar Valls

KING'S LYNN, 1894.

MAY LADIES,

[70 face page 443.

The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 443

of set purpose connected with the hagiolatry or demonolatry
of the people. I hope also that what has been laid before
my readers has been sufficient to convince them that these
Legends, if explored, will decisively and instructively show
the value of studying them in detail to those who would dig
down to the roots of folklore anywhere in the world, and
would learn something of the thoughts of the folk and of
the trains of reasoning, which give form to the many
apparently incomprehensible and unreasonable actions ob-
servable in the every-day life of the peasantry everywhere.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2lst, 1899.
THE PRESIDENT (Mr. E. Sidney Hartland) in the Chair.

THE minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

The election of Mr. G. Sneddon and Mrs. W. Beer as
Members of the Society, and the withdrawal of the resigna-
tion of Miss Edith Mendham were announced.

The death of Mr. W. Gore Marshall was also announced.

The Secretary, on behalf of Mr. William Whitelegge,
exhibited a hornbook, the property of the late Canon
Whitelegge, dating back to 1745, and referred to in Tuer’s
History of the Hornbook.

The President exhibited some photographs of “ May
Ladies” at King’s Lynn, taken by Dr. Plowright, President
of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, the 1st
May, 1894."

1 By kind permission of Dr. Plowright and Mr. W. A. Nicholson, honorary
secretary of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, one of the photo-
graphs is here reproduced. Dr. Plowright’s account of the ‘‘ May Ladies”
at Lynn is as follows: ‘On the Ist of May, during the morning, sundry
parties of children carry round the town garlands of flowers. The children,
girls and boys, are dressed principally in white, with crowns of flowers on
their heads and money-boxes in their hands. They are bare-headed, and

their clothing is decorated with brightly-coloured calico, ribbons, or paper.
The garlands are to us the most interesting. They are always constructed in

444 Minutes of Meeting.

Mr. W. Crooke read a paper entitled ‘‘ The Legends οἱ
Krishna;’’ and in the discussion which followed Colonel
Temple, Miss Annis Lennoys, Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Nutt, Mr.
Kennedy, and the President took part.

Vol. 11., part 3, of the Madras Government Museum
Publications, Anthropology, by Edgar Thurston, presented
to the Society by the Madras Government, was laid upon
the table.

A paper on “Devonshire Folklore,’ by Lady Rosalind
Northcote, and a paper entitled ‘“ More Folklore from the
Hebrides,” by the Rev. Malcolm MacPhail, were also read-

Thanks were voted to the authors of the papers and to
the Madras Government.

TUESDAY, JUNE 27th, 1899.

A JOINT Meeting of the Anthropological Institute and the
Folk-Lore Society was held at 3, Hanover Square.

Mr. C. H. Read, F.S.A., the President of the Institute,
having taken the Chair, explained that the Joint Meeting
had been called by the desire of the Folk-Lore Society to
welcome Professor Frederick Starr of the University of
Chicago, and he would therefore vacate the chair in favour
of the President of the Folk-Lore Society.

a particular manner, namely of two hoops of wood fastened together at right
angles, and supported on the end of a pole. On these hoops flowers and green
foliage are bound. To the centre of the garland a doll is suspended, and from
some part of the hoops a string of birds’ eggs. The garland is carried by an
older child who is not gaudily dressed, part of whose duty it is to take care of
the children. The latter are usually members of one family. It is noteworthy,
that although there may be ten or a dozen garlands perambulating the town,
they all emanate from one particular district, and from it alone, namely the
quarter occupied by the fishing population. The local appellation of ‘‘ May
Ladies” suggests the May Queen. The birds’ eggs and suspended doll have
probably a much deeper significance than is at first sight apparent. Nor is it
probable that the collection of small coin in the money-boxes is entirely a

modern innovation.”—CHARLES B. PLOWRIGHT, M.D., President. Zvans.
NV. and N. Nat. Soc., vol. vi. p. 107.

Minutes of Meeting. 445

Mr. E. 5. Hartland, President of the Folk-Lore Society,
then took the Chair, and expressed the thanks of the
Society for the reception the Institute had given them and
their friend Professor Starr, who had most generously pre-
sented the Society with the interesting objects they saw
before them, and who would favour them with some account
of his collection.

Professor F. Starr then gave an address explanatory
of the collection of objects illustrating the Folk-Lore of
Mexico.

The Chairman wound up the proceedings by describing
the kindly welcome he had received in Chicago from Pro-
fessor Starr, and proposed a hearty vote of thanks to him
for his able address, which was supported by Mr. G. L.
Gomme and Mr. A. L. Lewis, and carried unanimously.

On Monday, June 26th, a complimentary dinner to
Frederick Starr, Professor of Anthropology in the Uni-
versity of Chicago, was given by the Folk-Lore Society
at the Holborn Restaurant, the President, Mr. E. S. Hart-
land, being in the Chair.

Upwards of sixty Members and friends of the Society sat
down to dinner, among the guests being the Right Hon.
Sir R. Temple, Bart., the Right Hon. James Bryce, Miss
Mary H. Kingsley, Professor Rhys Davids, Professor
Ridgway, and Mr. C. H. Read. After dinner, the toasts
of the Queen and the President of the United States
having been duly honoured, Mr. Andrew Lang proposed
the guest of the evening. The Chairman announced that a
resolution had been unanimously passed by the Council
electing Professor Starr an Hon. Member of the Society,
and asking him to accept a set of the publications of the
Society down to the present time. The Chairman then
handed to Professor Starr the first and last volumes of the

446 Minutes of Meeting.

Society’s publications in the name of the whole. Professor
Starr replied in an interesting and amusing speech.
Mr. E. Clodd then proposed the toast of “Our Kindred
Societies,” which was responded to by Professor Had-
don, F.R.S., and Mr. C. H. Read, the President of the
Anthropological Institute. The concluding toast was “The
Folk-Lore Society,’ proposed by the Right Hon. Sir R.
Temple, and responded to by the Chairman and Mr. Alfred
Nutt. During the evening Mrs. Kate Lee, the Hon.
Secretary of the Folk-Song Society, sang two folk-songs
recently collected by her, namely “Cloudy Banks” and
“The Bonny Irish Lad.”

REVIEWS.

West AFRICAN STUDIES. By Mary H. Kincstrey. London:
Macmillan & Co., Limited. 1899.

In her former work (Zravels in West Africa, reviewed in Fodk-
Lore, vol. viii., p. 162) Miss Kingsley promised a further study of
Fetish. In the present volume is included, beside much else of
interest rather more directly to the politician and the merchant
than to the anthropologist, a portion of the material she had
reserved either for want of space or for additional inquiry. That
it is written in the same amusing style as the former volume will
attract many to read it who would perhaps otherwise never trouble
themselves about the mysteries of Negro and Bantu metaphysics.
And if there be any who are repelled by the enormity of treating
such solemn subjects in humorous phraseology, they will soon
learn that the smiles are the mask of knowledge, itself the result
of accurate scientific observation and study. The following re-
marks are confined to the chapters bearing on folklore studies.
After defining Fetish as the religion of the West Africans, and
defending her right to use the word in that sense, Miss Kingsley
inquires what Fetish is, characterising it as a logical interpretation
of Nature from the African point of view. “Τὸ the African there is
perhaps no gap between the conception of spirit and matter, animate
or inanimate. It is all an affair of grade—not of essential differ-
ence in essence. At the head of existence are those beings who
can work without using matter, either as a constant associate or as
an occasional tool— do it all themselves, as an African would say.
Beneath this grade there are many grades of spirits, who occa-
sionally or habitually, as in the case of the human grade, are
associated with matter, and at the lower end of the scale is what
we call matter, but which I believe the West African regards as
the same sort of stuff as the rest, only very low—so low that
practically it doesn’t matter ; but it is spirits, the things that cause

448 Reviews.

all motion, all difficulties, dangers, and calamities, that do matter
and must be thought about, for they are the vea/ things whether
‘they live for thing or no.’” She then proceeds to discuss and
justify her opinion that there is no ancestor-worship, properly so
called, in Western Africa.

An important chapter follows on the various schools of Fetish,
already discussed to some extent in the Introduction to Mr.
Dennett’s Folklore of the Fjort. Of these, ‘‘four main schools,”
disregarding subdivisions, are enumerated, namely, the Tshi and
Ewe school, described by Sir A. B. Ellis, the Calabar school, the
Mpongwe school, and Nkissism or the Fjort school. Rightly to
distinguish these varieties of what is essentially the same religion
is to throw light upon many dark places and to explain many
seeming inconsistencies in the accounts of travellers.

Miss Kingsley next passes to the relations between Fetish and
Witchcraft. Here her observations in the previous work have
brought her athwart the theory of Sir Alfred Lyall and Professor
Jevons that witchcraft is ad origine something quite disparate from
religion, that it is in fact rudimentary science. She points out,
however, that the difference between a witch and a priest or any
such person is, in West Africa, simply the intention of the practices.
Both deal with spirits, but the witch in dealing with them has an
evil intent, an intent to injure or slay others: ‘he is just a bad
man too much, who has gone and taken up with spirits for ille-
gitimate purposes.” It is very much an affair of definitions. Sir
Alfred Lyell might perhaps deny that this was witchcraft at all in
his sense of the word. It is arguable that it would cover a very
large part of the European superstition; but it would not cover
the whole of sympathetic and mimetic magic. Into the relations
between these great provinces of witchcraft and religion Miss
Kingsley does not enter, and I shall imitate her discretion.

Several points in connection with the practice of Witchcraft and
Fetish are next discussed. Two chapters follow on African Medicine
and the Witch Doctor. These contain incidentally a body of
valuable information on various customs and on the native psycho-
logy. Limitations of space prevent me from doing more than
drawing attention to their importance.

Later in the volume is a chapter deserving the close considera-
tion of every one interested in the races of the lower culture. It
is entitled The Clash of Cultures. Here the authoress insists on

Reviews. 449

the lamentable consequences to government, and to the social
condition and morality of the natives, of the ignorance of native
ideas on the part of the officials, which is a necessary consequence
of the Crown Colony system. Anthropologists in this country
have not attempted to exercise the influence which they ought in
this matter. I cannot discuss in these pages the best form of
administration for these possessions, nor am 1 qualified to do so.
But whatever form be adopted, it is beyond question that the
men who are sent out to govern should, be their position in the
government what it may, be provided with some elementary anthro-
pological knowledge, and should be required to make a study on
the spot of the native ways of thinking and acting, the motives
which influence them, and the institutions in which their culture
has taken shape. The same duty lies upon all missionaries. The
utmost care should be taken to govern as far as practicable ac-
cording to native ideas, and not to destroy the framework of
society and the moral code, as we so constantly do. Change
ought to be made only in the most cautious and tentative manner;
for the native mind and habits can only accommodate themselves
to it slowly and gradually. They cannot receive and assimilate
new ideas without preparation extending over periods that seem
almost endless to our modern impatience. In short, government
and missions ought to be conducted by experts. Until this duty
be recognised we shall have continual trouble. Social unrest, re-
bellions, and misery will dog our footsteps as they have hitherto
done, in spite (nay, partly in consequence) of the improvements
in material condition that we introduce.

A chapter on property concludes the work, save for three ap-
pendices, of which an account of the Niger Coast Protectorate by
the Count de Cardi, for many years resident in the district, is the
only one calling for notice here. Though not the work of a
trained anthropologist, it is of much value as containing on a
variety of points the testimony of an intelligent and interested
observer.

Miss Kingsley, both in this volume and in its predecessor, shows
the truly scientific spirit. She is no mere reporter. She is not
content with setting down the appearance of things. What she
is ever seeking to do is to penetrate to the underlying ideas. It
is only thus that we can hope to reach any connected or intelligible
account of the process of human civilisation. The evolution of

VOL. X. 2G

450 Reviews.

human thought and institutions has been long and devious. We
have not yet accumulated the material for a satisfactory synthetic
philosophy of it; and it may be that many years must elapse
before we can approach the problems of such a philosophy with
any hope of success. But Miss Kingsley has made a notable
contribution to their solution; and I regret that I cannot render
justice to it in this meagre account.

What I could wish is that she had given us a more detailed and
systematic statement of the differences between Negro and Bantu
culture. This might throw much light on the development of
the various types of Fetish. But perhaps it is one of the subjects
she has still in reserve. The book is illustrated with two maps
and some very good photographs.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

THE HOME OF THE EDpIC POEMS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
THE HeEtci-Lays. By SopHus BuGGE, with a new intro-
duction concerning Old Norse Mythology. ‘Translated by
WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD. London: D. Nutt. 1899.

THE veteran scholar who has done so much to promote northern
studies gives us here his latest conclusions (carefully Englished
by Mr. Schofield) on some of the more important of the Eddic
poems. With his main contention, which is that arrived at years
ago by his friend Gudbrand Vigftisson, there is no need to quarrel ;
it is obviously correct “‘that many of the old Norse myths are pre-
served in a form not older than the Viking era, and that. they
were shaped by Scandinavian mythologic poets who associated
with Christians in the British Isles, especially with the English
and Irish . . . that the oldest, and indeed the great majority, of
both the mythologic and heroic poems were composed by Nor-
wegians in the British Isles, the greater number probably in
northern England ; but some, it may be, in Ireland, in Scotland,
or in the Scottish Isles . . . the old Norse poems which arose in
the British Isles were carried, by way of the Scottish Isles, to Ice-
land, and certainly in written form.” Dr. Bugge is not backward
in acknowledging the debt that all who study the Eddic poetry owe
to his great forerunner in the field. Says he: ‘It was in the Scan-
dinavian settlements in the British Isles, among Anglo-Saxons and

Reviews. 451

Celts, that the Scandinavian mythic-heroic poetry waxed strong.
It is this truth I would gladly see acknowledged ; and this truth,
to which Karl Miillenhoff was blind, the Icelander, Gudbrand
Vigftisson, first saw clearly on English soil. What the master of
critical method at the University of Berlin could not perceive,
because the German descendants of Tacitus’ Germanic tribes
formed the centre of his considerations, was seen by the unmetho-
dical but sharp-sighted Icelander, because from childhood up he
had lived through the outer and inner history of his people as
revealed in the sagas and scaldic lays, because he himself with
open eyes had wandered in the wide paths of his fathers, and,
under the guidance of P. A. Munch and Konrad Maurer, had
come to understand the way in which the Scandinavian peoples
have developed, to realise how much they have been influenced
by the culture of the West.”

I remember, when we were working together first, Vigftisson
and myself, one evening as we came from a long walk east of
Oxford, we stopped on Magdalen Bridge to watch the sunset
colouring from the bay that then stood in the centre of the south
side, and there, while we lingered talking, it was that he first told
me what he said had been long his conviction, that the Eddic
poems were the product of the Viking age, and that they were
composed, with very few exceptions (the Greenland Lay of Alle,
and perhaps Grifispd) in the British Isles. How many puzzles
that theory cleared up, how much that was obscure has it made
plain! It laid the foundations of reasonable and rightly based
criticism of a body of most important and most beautiful literature,
it furnished the key to further discoveries. Vigftisson has done for
the Eddic poems what Welhausen has done for the Old Testa-
ment. Dr. Bugge’s appreciation, cited above, only needs correc-
tion in two points, as it seems to me. First, I should put the
name of Peterson in place of that of Munch, for it was largely
Peterson’s talk and books that (as I have often heard him say)
made Vigftisson feel the need of an historic criticism intelligently
and fearlessly applied to the literature of the north. In the next
place, as a critic, and it is in this capacity we are here considering
him, Vigftisson was certainly no pedant, but as certainly and
essentially he was a master of the scientific method, one of the
great critics of this century ; and to talk of such a man as “un-
methodic” is, I think, to mistake letter for spirit. Muillenhoff

2G2

452 Reviews.

was in no sense a great critic ; he had not the historic sense, he
had not the historic imagination, he was a learned man, industri-
ous, conscientious, patriotic, and often hopelessly dull to the true
significance of the facts he collected so painfully. He was no
pioneer. The high value of Munch’s work consisted, in Vigftisson’s
eyes, in the fruitful sagacity with which he had studied the geo-
graphy of the old history and literature of the north, in the indus-
try and skill with which he put together scattered indications, and
the enormous powers of application that enabled him to turn so
much good work in so small a time as was afforded him by the
fates. It was less as a critic than as a descriptive historian that
he valued him.

Any criticism of the volume before us must be one of details.
The main thesis and the application of the author are undeniable ;
his ingenuity is inexhaustible and his scholarship is deep. If, as
I venture to think, he has not seldom pushed his theory of ‘‘ infec-
tion” from classic and Celtic and scriptural sources much too far,
he has taken care to set forth all the evidence upon which he
bases his conjectures, so that every student may draw his own
conclusions as soon as he is able to weigh this evidence and
understand its bearings.

After an introduction in which many identifications of various
value are proposed with regard to various mythologic persons that
appear in the Eddic poems, the learned author attacks the par-
ticular problem of the Helgi-lays, in a set of chapters intended
“to form the beginning of a series of studies concerning the
origin of the poems of the Elder Edda.” He concludes that the
first Helgi-lay was composed by some poet of Canute’s after
1019, before 1028—a man who had lived at the Ostman King of
Dublin’s court, was of West Norwegian birth, and had been
influenced by Old English and Irish verse. The main part of
this volume is taken up with discussing what, according to Dr.
Bugge, are the proofs of these conclusions. Thus, after a chapter
in which the “British influence,” ze, Old English and Irish
analogies of phrase are noted, in the course of which several
ingenious emendations, eg., “itr lauc” for ‘itr lauc,” ‘noble
gifts” for ‘noble leek,” we have chapters in which the Irish
tale of Ros na Rig (which, as it has come down to us, has
incidents drawn from the 1014 campaign of the Earl of Orkney
and his allies against Brian, high King of Ireland) and the

Reviews. 453

Irish version of the ζω of Troy, a tenth-century composition,
are credited (on what I cannot consider sufficient evidence)
with having affected the composer of the first Helgi-lay. In
Chapter VII. the Frankish-Bavarian story of Wolf-Dietrich
is credited with having affected the Irish tale of the Azrth
of Cormac, through a lost O. E. poem on Wolf-Theodric,
which also influenced the composers of the Helgi-poems. In
Chapter VIII. is considered the classic influence of the Meleager
story as told by Hyginus. ‘‘Oeneus and Mars slept {together
one night with the daughter of Thesticos, to whom, when a son
(Meleager) was born, there suddenly appeared in the palace the
Fates or Weirds, and they sang his fates thus: Clotho said he
should be a noble man, Lachesis a strong man, &c.” All this
seems to me to go no further than to establish the parallelism of
some few features of early and unconnected tales of heroes.
Chapter IX. discusses ‘‘ English and Irish influence on the second
Helgi-lay ” (which lay I take to be merely a part of the Lay of
Helgi and Sigrun), points out traces of O. E. influence, and con-
cludes that it is of the same school as the first poem on Helgi,
but composed some half century before it. Chapter XI. opens
with this thesis: “The Helgi-lays are not historical poems, and
Helgi as he appears in them is in no way an historical personality.
Nor is the Helgi-story a popular tale which involuntarily suffered
the changes, natural and necessary, in stories preserved by tradi-
tion. It was evidently put into form and arranged by poets who
were conscious literary artists.” It is maintained that the com-
posers of these lays supposed Helgi to be a Danish king,' and Dr.
Bugge ingeniously identifies many of the place-names with localities
on the Baltic, e.g., Warins fjordr is found at Warne-miinde,
Swarinshaugr is Schwerin, Mdéinsheim is Mon older Moynland.
In Chapter XII., Saxo’s story of Helgi Halfdan’s son is decided
to represent an older stage of the Helgi story than the Eddic
lays, as Jesson holds. Saxo’s ‘‘ Hesca, Eyr et Ler” are Esce
[berg] in Funen, A®gir of the Eider and Hler of Hlessey, and the
Lay’s Jsung is the poetical representation of Jsefjord (including
Isore the chief Danish moot-stead), and Saxo’s tale of Gram and
Gro is “taken from the Helgi stories,” for Rydberg’s further

Helgi being son of Sigmund was naturally Sigling or Siclingr. ‘‘ SiggeiR-
lingaR ” is wholly unnecessary, and by no means satisfactory from a linguistic
point of view.

454 Reviews.

parallels from Halfdan Berg-gram and Halfdan Borgarson’s stories
are not considered ; but in Chapter XIII. (in opposition to Dr.
Olrik) Halga Halfdan’s son, Hrothgar’s brother, is of course
identified with Helgi Hundingsbane. “Τὶ was, I believe, in
England that some Danish poet made the story of Helgi, Half-
dan’s son, into that of Helgi Hundingsbane, basing his work in
all probability partly on an O. E. story of the Shieldings, and partly
on the Danish Shielding story. This work . . . was carried into
Denmark, where it was united with the Danish story of Helgi
Halfdan’s son, and took the form of which we find fragments in
Saxo.; on the other hand it was [also] worked over by Norse poets
in Britain, and several parts of the poems thus reconstructed are
preserved in the Eddic lays.” Hothbrodd is held to be a mere
corruption of Ο, E. Heathobeardan, Granmare is Fréde, Starcadr
is Starc-hoardr, and means “ the strong Heath-bard.” These Battle-
bards are the kin of the Long-bards [Lombards] that stayed behind
in the North from Hamburg to Altmark, east of the Angles, west
of the Elbe. Chapter XIV. deals with the connection of the
Scandinavian Helgi with German tales. Sevill = Seafola = Sabini-
anus, the enemy of Theodric the East Goth’s family ; Hunding =
Hundyng Marcolf’s son ; Helgi is brought into connection with the
Siclings, hence his love is Sigrun, his father Sigmund ; Sigrun’s
character is drawn from Irish analogues, such as Findchoem,
Cuchuland’s love, and from Atalanta, Meleager’s mistress. In the
following chapters the theory is advanced that in the “ first Helgi-
lay” we have the work of a Court Norwegian poet editing the
earlier poems of a ‘‘ Danish poet in Britain,” whose work may be
seen in the flyting between Sinfjotli and Gudmund, and who was
stimulated to sing of Helgi by the Danish expeditions of Swegen
Forkbeard to Wendland. The flyting of Eric in Saxo was com-
posed by one acquainted with the Helgi-lays and with such Irish
tales as the Wooing of Emer. The Death of Helgi shows that it
was composed by one who knew the Wolsung cycle, and a
Norwegian born, residing probably at Anlaf Cuaran’s court. The
old sources upon which he drew probably made Woden Helgi’s
slayer. Chapter XIX. deals with the Hrimgerth episode ; it is
connected with the tales of Wolf-Dietrich, and Ulysses (known
through the Second Vatican Mythograph, or a’similar collection of
classic tales), Hlothward is Laertes, Atli is Atlas, etc. Chapter XX.
derives the tale of how Hjorward won Sigrlinn from the Thidrec’s

Reviews. 455

saga tale of how Atle won Erca, and the Frankish romance of
Hlodowech’s winning of Hrodchildis.

The episode of Ati and the birds is compared with the
ballads of Rodingar, which preserve the old tale; Franmar is Ari-
dius, Idmundr is Mundiwih, Attila’s father. ‘‘The Norwegian
author” of Hiorward’s lay “was himself a heathen, but he had
heard from Christians the stories of the Frankish kings and saints.”
Chapter XXII. discusses the Death of Helgi and its relation to
the Zar! Brand | Hildebrand] and Ribolt and Guldborg ballads,
which in original form were composed “ by a Dane in Northern
England in the early Middle Ages (thirteenth century?).” Lzolt
and Guldborg is an offshoot of the Waldere cycle, early known in
England. The Ballad of Hjelmer, our “ Douglas Tragedy,” is
also connected with the Helgi-cycle; and metempsychosis in
Scandinavian stories is referred to the older Irish beliefs—
the full discussion of which, by Mr. Nutt, Dr. Bugge unfor-
tunately does not appear to have used. MHjorward is the O. E.
Heoroweard hweet, the Hjorwardr Ylfingr of Are and Nornagests
Thattr; Saxo’s tale of Regnerus and Suanhuita is a “parallel
to the Eddic lays of Helgi Hjorwardsson.” ‘Thorgerd Holga
brudr [Helgi’s bride], Saxo’s Thora, is a remodelling of Swatfa,
under the influence of the Irish legends of the war goddesses
Badb, Nemain, Fea, etc. Irpa (her sister) is like the Morrigan.
Thora was the goddess attached to the Haleygir family, who
regarded Holge as their eponymous hero. “The story of Thor-
gerd Helgi’s bride was composed by a Norwegian in imitation of
the lays of Heorward and Hrimgerth under the influence of Irish
accounts . . . probably in Ireland . . . ca. 1050.” Appendices
note the relationship between the Helgi-lays and other O. N.
poems, and with careful indices complete the book.

It is clear that this is not the place to criticise the numerous
suggested readings, etymologies, and observations on minor points
that render the book deeply interesting as a contribution to Eddic
scholarship. Its main theories and postulates have been men-
tioned above. It is clear, too, that the hypothesis of “ infection ”
is pushed to its furthest limits, that connection direct or indirect is
taken for granted wherever analogy can be discovered, that the
historic nucleus of the Holge cycle is only faintly noticed: and yet
the very life of the whole of the poems criticised depends upon this.
If Holge had not been a great and famous hero in fact, and left a

456 Reviews.

glorious memory, no Northern poet would have taken him as a
hero centuries after his death, in an heroic age. His story must
have been remembered, and remembered in several forms, too.
That these various forms were drawn upon, one can hardly doubt,
by poets of an age when men from many tribes and lands of the
North met round the bivouac fire, at the king’s table, and on
watch a-shipboard, each bringing his own legends and memories
of song and saga. These varied forms from different localities will
more easily explain variations and additions than ‘‘classic in-
fection,” and it is not necessary to drag in Ulysses and Meleager
and Protesilaus for the purpose. Hence, on the constructive side
the book must be pronounced largely unsatisfactory and frequently
over-fanciful. On the other hand, Dr. Bugge has enforced the
theory of Vigftisson up to the hilt, and very skillfully refuted the
ridiculous attempts that have been lately made to bolster up the
old ideas. Dr. Bugge understands thoroughly that history in these
matters is the key to literature, and though he permits himself to
imagine a barbaric poet as more open to alter his facts in obedience
to foreign influence than I think probable or even possible, he never
forgets that the poems he is commenting on were living things
capable of development and obedient to the circumstances of their
day. His book, forced and strained as it often confessedly is,
cannot be passed over by those that wish to have a real know-
ledge of the critical problems that still lie about these remarkable
poems, the Helgi-lays. That this keen scholar may be spared
to give us his final views on the Eddic lays of the Wolsung
cycle must be the wish of every attentive reader of the present
volume, a most worthy and adequate member of the “ Grimm
Library,” which under Mr. Nutt’s auspices has proved itself a
series of high value to the student of early folklore.
F. YoRK POWELL.

THE MAGIC OF THE HORSESHOE, WITH OTHER FOLKLORE NOTES.
By Ropert M. Lawrence. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. The Riverside Press, Cambridge.

Mr. LAwRENCE has brought together much that has been re-
corded in other places and by previous writers, regarding the

Reviews. 457

horseshoe viewed asa symbol. So far as compiling the knowledge
thus gathered together into a popular handbook is concerned, the
volume before us deserves praise, and we are quite sure that its
author would be the last person to claim that it constitutes a
serious contribution to the subsection of folklore with which it
deals. The book is not, however, confined merely to facts
regarding crescent-shaped objects ; it deals with the sacredness of
iron and kindred subjects, and though of little scientific value it
may do good by leading its readers to record examples of the
folk-beliefs which have come under their personal observation.
Mr. Lawrence deserves our warmest thanks for the care with
which he gives his references ; he does not, however, seem to be
aware of the fact that in certain districts of Portugal it is usual for
the peasantry to invest their savings in gold ornaments, and that
the earrings most usually to be seen are made in the form of
crescents. This custom may be a lingering trace of the Moorish
occupation ; but in all probability it is of far earlier date and is a
part of the widespread belief in the power of the crescent to
protect from evil influences. In reference to iron, the author
does not give the following facts amongst those he has gathered
together from various books and the proceedings of learned
societies. In at least one district of England it is sometimes
considered the duty of the nurse to heat the water in which a
newly born child is washed, by plunging into it a red hot poker.
Skulls have been dug up with nails in them which are believed to
have been inserted in the head after death. An instance of
this nature came to light some years ago in Lincolnshire, and was
supposed by many persons to be the proof that a murder had
taken place; but in all likelihood the iron bore witness to an
obsolete burial rite. It would be extremely difficult to cause the
death of any person by this means, unless the victim were asleep
when the deed was done.
FLORENCE PEACOCK.

458 Reviews.

PAUL SEBILLOT. LEGENDES LOCALES DE LA HAUTE BRETAGNE.
PREMIERE PARTIE: LE MONDE PuHysiQgue. Nantes: Société
des Bibliophiles Bretons et de l’ Histoire de Bretagne. 1899.

Pau. SEBILLOT. LA VEILLEE DE NoEL: Piece en un acte
représentée pour la premiere fois sur le Théatre National de
V’'Odéon, le 24 Décembre, 1898. Deuxieme Edition, Aug-
mentée de la Musique des Noéls. Paris: J. Maisonneuve ;
Ps .V: Stock.) “2899.

M. Stprttot has been so ablé and successful a collector of the
folklore of Upper Brittany, that his name has become a household
word to English students. The former of the two books
mentioned above is, as he says, the natural, almost logical, sequel
of his previous volume entitled Petite Légende Dorée. It does not
add much to our knowledge of the subject; but it gathers
together local legends scattered through the Revue des Traditions
Populaires and through various books relating more exclusively to
the district, and many of them difficult or impossible of access to
English, if not to French, readers.

The collection is not complete in the present volume, which
extends only to the physical world—earth and water, with the
supernatural beings assigned to them in tradition, including in
a final chapter serpents and monsters. Ample bibliographical
details of the sources of the various sections are given, so that the
statements and legends can be verified, and the subject in many
cases can be followed up beyond the point at which it is left here.
Such a compilation cannot but be useful.

In La Veillée de Noél M. Sébillot brings his peasant-friends on
the scene to tell in their own way their Christmas superstitions and
to sing their Christmas songs. The author must be congratulated
on having aroused sufficient interest to justify the production of
this little sketch, which hardly attempts to be more than formally
dramatic, on the boards of the Odéon. It must have been a
novelty for Parisians last Christmas Eve to see reproduced before
their eyes the kind of experience which to many of them who
were country-born was familiar ; and the pleasure with which these
regarded it must have been based upon a sense of familiarity and

Reviews. 459

a memory mingled with the tears and mirth of far-off days. To
none, or to few, could so charming a presentation of the traditions
of their native land be indifferent.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

SCANDINAVIAN FOLK-LORE. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TRADITIONAL
BELIEFS OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLEs. Selected and trans-
lated by Wm. A. Craiciz, F.S.A.Scot. Gardner: London
and Paisley. 1896.

Mr. CralciE has put together (translating from the originals
Icelandic, Fzroic, Danish, and Swedish) an orderly selection of
folktales and folklore that will be found extremely useful for
comparative purposes and for students who wish to get a com-
prehensive view of the great field of Scandinavian popular belief
and tradition. He has used Sagas and Eddic collections, later
medieval documents, and the great modern gatherings, especially
that splendid monument of Icelandic industry and skill, Jén
Arnason’s noble miscellany of his country’s folklore, the excellent
Feroic Anthology, the materials collected by Grundtvig, Afzelius,
Thiele, Asbjornsen and Moe (known to us in Dasent’s Popular
Tales), Faye, Kristensen (both for Jutland and other parts of
Denmark), Berg and Gzedecken, Kamp, Eva Wigstrom and
Olafur Davidsson. The selection made from this rich store is
arranged under ten heads: 216 Old Gods, mere remnants of
heathen beliefs, of which the best are connected with special
localities or with folk-charms ; ¢vo//s and giants, characteristically
Scandinavian in treatment ; derg-folk (1.6. hill-folk) and dwarves,
the people of the mounds and rock-dwellings and metal-workings ;
elves or hulderSolk, our fairies, who seem to survive best in Iceland
and the Fzroes, where they are not so tiny as in England since
Shakespeare’s time, but as big as they are in Ireland. In the
Faroes they are tall and dark-haired, great at the fisheries; in
Norway they are famous musicians, and one of their tunes is
commonly played, but they have tails; in Sweden and Denmark
the wood-fairies are yellow-haired and hollow like troughs at the
back, white-vested, and always keep their backs to the wind (though
to this hollowness there are some charming exceptions, as appears

460 Reviews.

from the tale of Lars Jensson and his elf-sweetheart) ; mosses
or brownies, the Robin Goodfellows who help kindly farmers,
trick slattern dames, and frolic in the moonlight, wear short coats
and blue or red caps, have tiny tails, love to ride horses, change
shapes, play practical jokes; water-becngs, mermen and mermaids,
cunning long-fingered and prophetic sea-bogies, dark red, one-
footed, fiery, howling and evil; seals who are the bodies of those
who have drowned themselves and are condemned to live as
animals their full term on earth ; water-kelpies or “‘nykur,” grey or
blackish horses with reversed hoofs and pastern-tufts who are
almost always hurtful to mankind ; and huge serpents who live in
lakes and rivers ; monsters, such as treasure-dragons, lind-worms,
were-wolves, ghouls, wheel-snakes, and the like, the tales and
beliefs concerning nightmares being exceptionally interesting.
The three last sections are concerned with Ghosts and Wraithes ;
Wizards and Witches ; Churches, Hidden Treasures and Plagues.
The Icelandic ghost has retained most of the more unpleasant
peculiarities that have disappeared from the modern English
ghost. He is tangible, terribly strong, talkative, able to make
verses, kill cattle, and do many other things that only live people
are wont to do. The Icelandic wise men and women who deal
in black arts can manufacture dreadful sexdzngs or fetches out of
raised corpses, and despatch them on cruel and mischievous
errands. The poets in Iceland, as in Ireland, have the power to
sing beasts to death, and Hallgrim Petersson killed a fox by his
carmina ; but as his verse was so powerful that he could raise the
dead and lay them again, this is hardly surprising. Sent animads
are, I think, not so well known elsewhere as in Iceland, and it is
even believed there that foxes were in this manner introduced
there—all along of an old Finnish woman that was too ugly for a
young Icelander whom she fancied to marry her. J/i/k-hares
made out of a few wooden pegs and a stocking-leg are used in
Denmark (possibly according to Finnish magic, as Mr. Craigie
thinks), and so are carriers [til-beri] in Iceland. A ¢ade-sprite,
such as Gaston de Foix made use of, is known in Iceland. Con-
jurer’s hypnotism is known, as in the East, and Vatna’s church in
Norway has its sacred spring and horse-hoofprint, just as St.
Peter’s at Ambleteuse.

The legends of the Black Death are curious, especially that
which connects the Norwegian visitation with the advent of one

Reviews. 461

English ship stranded at Bergen. There is much to notice for
English folklorists all through the book, and Mr. Craigie’s brief
notes are both helpful and concise. A good index adds much
value to the whole.

1 See an ee

pidps6cuR oG Μύννμξι:. Nytr Sarn. Part I. By Jon
THORKELSSON. 8vo, pp. iv. 450. Two illustrations.
Reykjavik. 1899.

THis most excellent book contains a valuable collection of un-
printed folktales and legends and traditional stories from Iceland.
It is a necessary appendix to Jén Arnason’s grand compendium
and to the good little book Olafur Davidsson brought out in 1895.
Its editor, who has added much from his own materials, is the
well-known scholar to whom we are indebted for a masterly work
on the Icelandic Rimur (alliterative ballads originally used for
dances), and for much research into post-Reformation and late
medieval Icelandic literary history. It is a proof of the extra-
ordinary literary activity of this little state of some 70,000 in-
habitants, that its native scholars have had so vast a body of folk-
lore collected and printed within this century. There is probably
no country in the world that has rendered its folklore so accessible
as Iceland. Nowhere (save perhaps in Finland, where folklore
has re-created a nation) has such trouble been taken to collect,
and such pains to collect in the proper way and to ensure the
proper publication of the results, and this by the labours of a few
devoted and enlightened scholars. It would be impossible within
our limits to analyse in any useful way the manifold contents
(250 various items) of this well-printed and well-edited book. It
is sufficient to say that its place is secure beside the master work
of Jén Arnason himself. We shall all look forward eagerly for the
promised second part.
1 Ce iS of

462 Reviews.

THE FapLes OF WARDAN, MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF
MEDIEVAL ARMENIAN LITERATURE. By N. Marr, Professor
of Armenian in the University of Petersburg. (SBORNIKI
PRITCH VARDANA. . . .) Sanktpeterburg. Tipografia
Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk. 3 vols. 1895, 1899.

In medieval Armenian literature we find several collections of
fables and allegories, some larger and some smaller, often over-
lapping one another in their contents, and ascribed to various
authors, among whom Wardan, Mkhithar Gosh, Olympianos, and
John Tsortsoretzi are principally named. It is a literary task, as
important as it is difficult, to publish these stores of folklore
hidden away in the Armenian MSS. of Edjmiatzin, Venice, Vienna,
Berlin, and Paris; to sift and compare the different texts, to
ascertain their relation to the literature of fables which exists in
other tongues. Professor N. Marr, of the University of Petersburg,
is already well known as a student of the Armenian and Georgian
literatures, of which he has edited many monuments in the journal
of the Petersburg Academy. He has now, after years devoted to
it, achieved the task which we have named; and the result lies
before us in the shape of three large volumes, of which the first,
in 635 pages, gives us an account of this literature written in
Russian, the second and third, in 360 and 202 pages respectively,
the Armenian texts; the third also comprises in pp. 113-128 a
selection of Arabic fables printed from the Karshuni MS. No.
1049 of the library of the India House in London. The whole is
a monument of hard work and of profound and varied learning.
Both Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, and Russian types are em-
ployed; the Armenian sources have been carefully transcribed
and collated, the variants of the several manuscripts being printed
at the foot of the text. There is probably no scholar living except
M. Marr who would have been equal to such a task.

The ‘Fox fables’ of Wardan were first printed at Amsterdam
in the year 1668, and at Edjmiatzin in 1698. The tree- and
animal-fables of Mkhithar have appeared in print more than
once, the last edition being a convenient little volume issued at
the Merchitarist press in Venice. The Armenian Physiologus
was printed by Pitra in his Spicclegium Solesmense, Paris, 1855,
vol. 111., pp. 374-390. But these editions were, all except Pitra’s

Reviews. 463

meant for general readers, and included no learned appreciation
of the matter edited. The only attempt so far to deal with the
subject critically has been a work of H. L. Hovnanean, issued in
Vienna, 1897, and entitled: Zssays on the popular Literature of
the Ancients. In two sections of this work (vol. 11., pp. 273 foll.)
the relation of these fables to the Bidpai literature is examined.
It may be remarked that Professor Marr’s second and third
volumes, containing the Armenian and Arabic texts, were already
in print by May, 1895. His investigation of the contents has
occupied him until April, 1899. It is lucidly arranged in 583
sections, with ample index at the end.

Perhaps the best service which a reviewer of this work can render
to folklorists is to translate the Armenian titles of some of the 380
separate fables and allegories of which the Armenian texts, mostly
new, are edited in 344 pages in the second volume. They are
taken from fourteen codices of the Edjmiatzin library ; a fifteenth
is in the Paris library ; two more are at Berlin, two in Venice,
two in Vienna, and to the MS. sources must be added the editions
already mentioned of Amsterdam and Edjmiatzin. Here then is
the list of titles of Wardan’s 166 fables :—

1. The king and the two palaces.

2. The man of the east and the twelve gold nails.
3. The lion and the hunters.

4. The lion who shammed sickness.

4A, 4B, 4c. Three variants of 4.

5. The sick lion and the ass that had no heart or ears.
5A. A variant of 5.

6. The crane, king of the birds, and the ass.

7. The sea-monster with the sweet-smelling mouth.
8. The hermit and the bull-dog.

8a. A variant of 8.

το. The neighbour and the ox that had its tongue cut out.

10d. A variant of ro.

11. The poor man who was roasting meat and the eagle.

12. The widow and her thief-child.

I2A, 12B, Variants of 12.

13. The hibernating bear (with two variants).

14. The wise chiefass. ὶ

15. The ass-lion (with one variant).

16. The lamb and the trumpeter wolf.

464

17.
18.

Reviews.

The flies and the bees and the ants (with one variant).
The camel’s colt, the donkey’s, and the pig (with three

variants).

19.
20.
21:
22.
25.
24.

The two cocks.

The match-making weasel.

The mouse and the camel (with one variant).

The jester with the wallet (with variant).

The crabs (?) and lobsters and the eagle.

The crow with the cheese in his beak and the fox (with

four variants).

ΣῊΝ
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
ὌΠ
32.
33-
34-
35:
Christ.
36.
37-
38.
39-
4o.
41.
42.
43-
44.
45.

The wise doctor and the donkey’s tail.

The lark, king of the birds.

The peacock, king of the birds.

The jackdaw in other birds’ feathers (with variant).
The fox and the lobster (with variant).

The rich man and his sister’s son.

The goats and the wolves (with three variants).
The overweening believer.

The tree (Pordokos) in India (with variant).

The partridge and the strange egg.

The rich man of Khatchen and his son, the priest who saw

The mime Djis and the merchant (with variant).

The two syntekni (2.6. christened together) and the gourd.
The king and the man who bought the cripples.

The lion, the wolf and the fox (with variant).

The wolf and the donkey (with variant).

The merchant and the pullet.

The fox and the partridge.

The fox and the sparrow (with variant).

The old Syrian and the Armenian youth (with variant).
The cat and mice.

45a. The cat and weasel (with variant).

46.
. The bride and her mother-in-law and father-in-law.

. The monk who fornicated and sang psalms, and Satan.

. The fornicating monk and the abbot who saw spiritually.
. The two companions and the cloth.

. The match-making rich man and the maiden.

. The fox and the camel who was near to death.

The child and the pullets.

Reviews. 465

. The monk and the Arab (or Tartar) ruler.

. The thieving priest and the widow.

. The man who was a murderer.

. The heifers and the oxen.

. The wild boar and the fox.

. The man and the tree that distilled honey.

. The camel, the wolf and the fox (with two variants).

. The way the eagle renews itself.

. The bird that can heal (with variant).

. The moon and the sun.

. The bear-lion.

. The bear and the grapes.

. The fish-catching wolf and the fox.

. The fox and the wolf that carried letters (with variant).
. The orator (2.6. cock) and the fox and dog (with variant).
. The fox and the wolf (with variant).

. The fox and the geese.

. The snake and the husbandman (with variant).

. The fox and the crab (?).

. The fox that fell into the river (with two variants).

. The fox and the ice.

. The fox and the coat of mail.

. The woman who from conceit prayed naked (with variant)
. The ass that was honoured.

. The ass that had a grandchild (with variant).

. The fox that hunted like the lion and the wolf.

. The fox with many arts (with variant).

. The beast with horns like saws.

. The fire-eating beast.

. Winter and Spring.

. The man Kilik and the woman Kiliq.

. The eagle and the arrow.

. The fever-patient and the leper.

. Aramazd and the serpent.

. The king of the trees.

. The king with a branch in his beard and the slave.

. The fool and the water melon.

. The widow and the cow and the step-son and the ass.
. The wolf and the potter’s dog.

. The king and the idol (with variant).

VOL. X. 2H

466

93:
94.
95:
οὔ.
97:
98.
99.

100.
Iol.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.

Reviews.

The eagle, the partridge and the beetle (with variant).
The ant and the dove.
The lion and the man (with two variants).
The lion, the fox and the bear (with three variants).
The lion and the fox.
The poor man and the Indian hen.
The hunter and the partridge.

The jinny ass and her foal.

The prince and the flea.

The ape and the fisherman.

The raven (or jackdaw) and her young.

The reed and the trees.

The fox and the hunters.

The donkey and the dung (with variant).

The wood-cutters and the trees.

107A. The arrow and the beam.

108
109

[10o.
103 Wass

112

II5
116

Try,

DiS.
114.

The rock and the drip of water (with variant).

The judgement of God by the spring (with variant).

The merchant and the murderer and the butcher.

The dogs and the pickled hide (with two variants).

The fox and the snake.

The dog and the chanticleer (orator) and the fox.

The wolf and the fox and the mule.

The chanticleer and the king.

The man with the garrulous wife (with variant).

The good man and the merchants and the devil that lived

a well.

118.
IIQ.
120.
121.
122.

123

125
126
127

129
130

124.

128.

The head elder and his son.

The wiseman’s three sayings.

The king and his sister’s son and the WVayzp (vizier).
The prayerful youth and the wizard.

The unjust king and the good son and the church.
The fox and the eagle.

The man with the walnut and the water-melon.
How the repentant sinner dies.

The church and the water-mill.

The ass and the horse.

The pack-animal.

The two-eyed mandth.

The mole.

131.
132.

1752

134.

135.
136.

£37.
138.
130.
140.

141.
142.

Reviews. 467

The dove.

The animal that forgives and has horns like a cross.
The yoke-man and the snake.

The ass.

The silly wife (with variant).

The favourite.

Who is authorised to judge ?

The two brethren and the old monk.

Melig and reader.

The money-changing Tartar.

The priest and the Kadi.

The Christian and the infidel, and how they discussed the

faith (with two variants).

143.
144.

145.

146.
147.

The Sof of Romkla and the elder.

The shoe-maker and the anchorite.

The Tartar’s prayer.

The silly Tartar lady and the cunning man.
The Tartars’ law.

148. The jester’s child.

149. The jester who found a fish (with variant).

150. The repentant sinner and his penitence (with two
variants).

151. Father Daniel and Eulougi the stone-cutter.

152. The arts of a woman.

153. The silent king and his son.

154. The egg of discord.

155. The robber and Satan,

156. The thief and the cock.

157. The godchild of Gabriel the archangel.

158. The fox and the tortoise (with variant).

159. The rich man,

160. The three camels and the three foxes.

161. The ploughman and the stork (with variant).

162. The village of Thiur (2.6. crooked).

163.
164.

165.
166.
The

The hares and the frogs (with two variants).

The ape and the mirror.

The poor man’s prayer.

The camel and the fox.

above fill 197 of the 344 pages, of which the second

volume consists. The other 147 pages contain in ten distinct

2H 2

468 Reviews.

supplements the various fables, tales, and apologues contained
in the MSS. which Professor Marr has consulted. They are
arranged in separate groups according to the codex or codices in
which they come. They have none of them appeared in the
printed editions of Wardan, and Armenian students owe to Marr
a debt of gratitude for placing at their disposal such a mass of
unedited literary matter.

The first of Professor Marr’s volumes contains his general
examination of Armenian fable-literature. In the preface he
pays homage to Baron Rosen, the Russian orientalist. Then
follows an introduction of 41 pages, in which he mentions recent
publications bearing on the subject and gives a list of the con-
tents of each of the 583 sections which follow. In the first 54 of
these sections the author examines the relation of the Armenian
collection known as Wardan’s to the Arabic collection of fables
preserved in codex 1049 (now 3515) of the India House Library
in London, and shows that the latter is translated from the former,
and not wice versa, as Du Méril! and, following him, Mr. Joseph
Jacobs? have supposed.

The Armenians so constantly translated from Arabic in the
Middle Ages, and there are so few examples even of a Christian
Arab using Armenian sources, that the mistake was a natural one.
Professor Marr translates some thiry-five of the Arabic fables, and
shows how their translator has often mistaken the sense of the
Armenian and imported Armenian words into his text. Let us
follow him in comparing the rival texts of a single fable, No. 173,
which in the Armenian stands as follows :

“The king and the dog and the shadow.

“Α king, good and kindly, made a feast on the bank of the
river. Anda dog that was hungry came to the king, and he gave
(it) a clean loaf (22. bread). And the dog took (it) and went
along the bank of the river, saw in the water his own shadow, as
it were another dog and the bread in his mouth. And the dog
being greedy forgot the bread, which was in his mouth, leapt into
the river, in order to take the bread from ‘he other dog, but he
found (it) of (z.e., he did not succeed), because it was the shadow.
And that bread which he had the river bore away. And the dog
went away and came to a death by hunger. ~

' Poésies inédites du Moyen Age, Paris, 1854.
* The Fables of AEsop, 1889, vol. i. p. 177.

Reviews. 469

“Tt shews, that the king is Christ, and the hungry dog is the
race of men and the clean dvead (is) his grace and command and
his holy body. And Satan shadows out before our eyes (z.e., deceit-
fully) defore us the love of the world and αὐ sin, greed, love of
silver. And we toil with great labour after glory and greatness,
and after false and ¢rvansitory things we toil. Although we win
them, death tears (them) from us and we become pitiable, because we
lose this life and that (i.e., the next).”

The Arabic text is a perfectly literal translation of the above,
except of the phrases italicised. Instead of the other dog, it has
that dog. For not it has nothing. For the shadow it has appart-
tion or phantasm. It omits the words which he had, but in the
same sentence adds after dore away the words “‘and flowed on.”

The moral begins thus: “ By ¢his is shown to us, the just
king. . .” Then after clean bread it adds which the king gave to
the dog. For his holy body it has the clean body which Christ gave
us. For before our eyes before (us) it has before us to begin with.
Then al/ sin, such as greed, etc. For transitory it has failing and
transitory. For Although, etc., the following: ‘As long as we do
not augment them. Then comes death and carries us off from
the midst, and we are left pitiable and prostrate, because we have
lost this world and the future out of our greed here.”

Several of these variants are intelligible only as misunder-
standings of the Armenian. For example, the phrase found not
is good Armenian in the sense of could not, viz., take the other
dog’s bread. The Arabic translator has not understood this
idiomatic use of the word egé#, and only knows its primary
meaning, which is “found.” Accordingly he turns 297 into
nothing to complete his sense.

The Arabic in the moral renders clean bread and then clean
body. The body however is oly and not clean; but the bread
thrown to the dog was of course c/ean and not holy. The reason
why the Arabic uses the same adjective is quite clear when we
glance at the Armenian, for it has in both places the same word
sourb, but sourb means indifferently clean or holy according to the
context. Thus, the Arabic is intelligible from the Armenian, but
not the Armenian from the Arabic.

The same criticism holds good of the Arabic phrase “ carries
us off from the midst” ; where the Armenian has “ tears (them)
from us.” The Armenian leaves the thing torn away unexpressed.

470 Reviews.

The Arabic wrongly supplies #s, because he mistakes the next
words, Ζ méndj=from us for ὦ médj=from the midst. So just
above he renders arhadji, which means Jefore, as if it were
aradjin =first of all, or to begin with. Similarly, it ignorantly
translates arhadschog, which means literally “to the eyes,” but here
has the idiomatic sense “ deceptively,” as if it were arhadjz, con-
nects with it grammatically the word mer (us) which follows, and
blunderingly renders the entire wrong combination “ defore us.”

An excellent example of a misrendering of the Armenian is
found in fable No. 56, entitled the heifers and the oxen. The
Armenian is as follows :

“The heifers were playing, and reproached the oxen, saying:
‘You rest not from vexations and from working hard.’ And lo,
the king of the land came, and they gathered together the heifers
and began to slay them, in order to prepare a feast for the king
and his forces. And the oxen said: ‘ Behold, children of ours,
because of this day ye idly rested and grew fat.’”

Now here the words italicised are rendered by an Arabic word,
which means hurtful or detrimenta’. If we turn to Professor
Marr’s critical apparatus we see why. The true Armenian text
has, wasn avours = because of this day. But the old Amsterdam
edition of 1668 has the corruption zwxasavors, which means
“hurtful.” ‘This suggests that the Arabic text of these fables was
translated from this edition, carried by some Armenian merchant
to India; or, if not from the printed book, then from the Edj-
miatzin Codex No. 12, or from some similar codex ; for this MS.,
above all others, agrees in text with the Amsterdam edition. In
the fable of ‘the king and his servant,” of which Professor Marr
translates into Russian the Arabic and Armenian texts, on p. 12
of his first volume, we find in the Arabic several corruptions
peculiar to the Amsterdam edition and to this codex, and the
same phenomenon presents itself again and again. A text like
the Arabic, which thus renders corruptions which have grown up
inside the Armenian tradition, is necessarily a translation of the
Armenian ; and in section 46 of his first volume, Professor Marr
gives a list of twenty such cases. His arguments are quite con-
vincing.

In sections 55-89, Professor Marr examines the relation of
Wardan’s fox-book to the fables of Mkhithar Gosh, which have
been printed at Venice in 17yo, 1842, and 1852. Eighteen addi-

Reviews. 471

tional ones were printed in Moscow in 1849. We read οἵ Mkhi-
thar Gosh’s literary work in Kirakos, an Armenian historian of the
thirteenth century, who attests that he left “moral pages,” and
interested himself in “the deep allegories” of Scripture. The
Venice MS., No. 1091, of the seventeenth century ; the Vienna
MS., No. 29, of the year 1746, and another of Edjmiatzin, No. 2,
A.D. 1777, ascribe these fables to him. But various Edjmiatzin
codices, e.g. No. 2238, attribute them to one John Tsortsoretzi by
name. The colophon of this MS. demonstrates that to whichever
of these writers this collection of fables is due, it was made not
later than 1316 A.D.

Some thirty fables of the collection, made in the year 1316,
already stood in Wardan’s collection, and in sections 64-83 Pro-
fessor Marr contrasts the forms which this common matter assumes
in the rival collections, and shows that the one collector did not
merely borrow from the other ; indeed, they were all three too
nearly contemporary for this to have been the case. They took
from common sources.

The popularity of Wardan’s collection was such that it not only
passed, as we have seen, into Arabic, but into Georgian as well,
as Professor Marr points out on p. 574 of his second volume.
The Georgian version lacks the last six of the fables, and is com-
posed in the popular dialect.

In pp. 577-582 of his first volume Professor Marr sums up
the results of his lengthy enquiry. He reviews in brief the history
of the fable among Armenians, and from his paragraphs the fol-
lowing sentences are translated :—

“The appearance of the fable in Armenian literature is closely
connected with the influence thereon of Greek culture, and in
this sense the Armenians can quite apply to themselves the
observation of the French fable-writer—

L’invention des arts étant un droit d’ainesse,
Nous devons l’apologue ἃ l’ancienne Gréce.

*‘ As nearly as may be in the seventh century the collection of
fables of Olympianus appeared among the Armenians in a trans-
lation made from the Greek. It consisted of fables of A‘sop in a
rhetorical dress. This was their first acquaintance with such
literature, and it was followed in time by Armenian translations
of other fables, either A‘sop’s own or the same in a simpler re-

472 Reviews.

daction. The introduction of fables into the schools as a subject
of study favoured in a marked degree their popularisation among
the Armenians. By the end of the twelfth century the fables of
Esop held undisputed sway, as products of allegory, both in the
schools and in literature. Their popularity was only—and that
in a partial way—shared by one other monument, the Physiologus.

“The Phystologus, ascribed in some Armenian copies to a
certain Filatos, was translated, it may be, somewhat earlier than
the fables of AZsop. The version in the copies known to us was
made from the Greek. The text of the Physiologus which has
come down to us is relatively in a better state of preservation,
because the work has a definite physiognomy of its own, thanks
to the typical inventory of contents which has kept it from being
curtailed or added to. Nevertheless in course of time foreign
elements began to make their way even into it-in the form of
paragraphs from other bestiaries as well as A‘sopic fables. More
than this, the main chapters of the Physzo/ogus were subjected to
alteration, though hardly before the thirteenth century, and in all
probability owing to the influence, direct or indirect, of Wardan’s
allegories.

“‘Wardan of Aigek, who began as a priest and was afterwards a
hermit, was a famous Armenian preacher at the beginning of the
thirteenth century. His lessons had great vogue by reason of his
simple and clear style. He created a special form of sermon,
using fables as illustrations of his ideas.

“The preacher of Aigek did not compose the stories for his
allegories, but only worked up fable-subjects which he took out
of existing books. His main sources can be easily traced. They
were the Atsopic fables and the sections of the Phystologus.
These the preacher used as suited his moralist’s ends, borrowing
entire the fable-part, into which he only introduced here and there
insignificant details. The practical morals of AXsop’s fables and
the symbolic interpretations of the paragraphs of the Physiologus
he replaced by salutary precepts or moralisings.

“Being a new sort of allegory, the fables of Wardan pleased
the public. They were disseminated orally and in books, owing
to the preaching of the distinguished moralist. Small collections
began to be made of them. He himself in all probability com-
posed one or two such collections, and these were therefore
Wardan’s own ; but many more were composed on the model of

Reviews. 473

Wardan’s. For the rest, neither the collections which were thus
formed in imitation of Wardan, nor Wardan’s own, had any
distinct physiognomy of their own. . . .

““Wardan found many anonymous imitators in this field, and
the success which his fables had was part of the general enthu-
siasm shown. for such literature in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The schools also helped to increase their vogue and
development. In scholastic circles ever new forms of them
began to arise, made up out of former collections, and not in-
frequently adapted to the purposes of edification.” . . .

Meanwhile, according to Professor Marr, the true Aisop’s fable
disappeared. He writes :—

“The fables of A‘sop in all probability were displaced in
schools by the allegories of Wardan. A!sop disappeared in
Armenian literature. His fables have not reached us in an inde-
pendent form. They were all swallowed up in Wardan’s.” .. .

“Towards the beginning of the fourteenth century another
masterpiece of Armenian allegory was already in existence, namely
the original collection of fables attributed, though doubtfully, to
Mkhitar Gosh, who died in 1213. In this collection, fables
already comprised in that of Wardan were used up afresh, as
ready-made material. ....

“Once the Wardan collections were extended to include alien
matter on so broad a scale, no limits could be set to its infusion.
Fables and anecdotes began to intrude themselves, not only out
of books but from popular sources.”

It is undoubtedly this element of popular folklore which is most
valuable in the 340 pages of Armenian texts edited by Professor
Marr. The end which the good doctors Wardan and Mkhithar,
no less than the earlier translators of A‘sop and of the Bestiary,
had had in view was to give Armenians a collection of tales which
would help them to forget their own old mythology, their tales of
Vahagn and Anahite, and of other old divinities hateful to the
mind of the Christian missionaries. Thus Kirakos of Gantsak in
Media, an Armenian writer of the thirteenth century, relates that
Nerses the Graceful (Catholicos, 1166 a.p.) “composed allegories
from books (? the Bible) and parables to be repeated at feasts and
weddings instead of myths.” It would be some consolation to the
modern folklorist to learn that the native myth, which doctors and
patriarchs thus expelled with their theological pitchforks, had

474 Reviews,

ultimately reasserted itself in the collections designed to oust it.
But this is not so. In the elaborate classification of sources fur-
nished by Marr in sections 268-298, only eight tales are set down
to popular folklore and legend of Armenian origin, and even these
have a Christian stamp upon them. The old Armenian mytho-
logy has practically not influenced these collections at all. They
were formed too late, and always under monkish influence and in
monkish centres. The national life of Armenia, so far as it was
literary and self-conscious, was ever confined by political adversity
to the religious cloister. It is probable that the manuscipt litera-
ture of Georgia contains a far richer store of folklore and pre-
Christian legend than the Armenian, just because that country has
enjoyed an unbroken political existence from the fourth century
up to the eighteenth. In Tiflis and the neighbourhood there was
always held a petty court, with circles of knights and ladies in
which national romance and epic found listeners. In Armenia
monkish surroundings were quick to stifle such profane lays.

Some twelve of these Armenian fables are traced by Marr to
the Kalilah and Dimnah collection, which may perhaps have once
existed in Armenian, since their Georgian neighbours possess an
ancient text of it, probably made originally from the Pehlevi
Many apologues from Barlaam and Josaphat have also been trans-
ferred to the Wardan collection, as well as fifteen tales from the
Alexander romance. Some fifty-three tales are classed by Marr
as doctrinal, edificatory or interesting ; and they represent the tales
which monks and pilgrims may have interchanged as they loitered
on warm afternoons in the courts of an Armenian wang or
cloister. A selection of the most amusing ones would form a
very pretty volume. Those of course should be chosen for
translation which possess some local colour.

In his third volume, Professor Marr, in pp. 1-64, gives an
elaborate account of the contents of ten codices of the Edjmiatzin
library. There follows the Armenian text of ten more fables
ascribed to Wardan. ‘Their titles are as follows :—

1. The ten merchants who were men.

2. The turtles and the lobsters.

3. Christ and the twelve nails.

4. Who is roundest ?

5. The rich man and the labourers, the princes, dogs and
birds.

Reviews. 475

. The three simpletons.
. The story of the miser.
The miser and his treasure.
9. How the sin of adultery began.

to. The rich man and his sister’s son.

In a second section follow seventeen animal fables. All these
twenty-seven are edited from three MSS. of which one is in the
Lazareff Institution in Moscow, the other two in Edjmiatzin. In
pp. 97-110 follows a collection of fables composed in imitation of
those of Wardan, edited from a Berlin MS. Next in pp. 113-128
a selection of Arabic fables from the Indian Office MS. 1049.
Then in pp. 131-175 the text of the Armenian Physzologus, edited
from six codices, with Pitra’s readings added. Pages 177-193
contain the text of a piece entitled, ‘“‘ About the deceitful fox and
his wickedness,” edited from the Paris MS. 135 of A.p. 1615 and
from a Venice MS., which the San Lazaro Journal published first
in 1881.

It remains to say that medieval Armenian texts, edited with
such scrupulous care as Professor Marr everywhere displays, have
a singular value for the history of the language, for the tales are
mostly composed in the popular dialects of the day, and these
have been very little studied. This interest, however, is rather
that of the philologist than of the folklorist. For the latter
Professor Marr supplies in his three massive volumes a mine of
information, in which future researchers in the same field will
quarry much of their material.

Com σὰ

FRED. C. CONYBEARE.

OxLp ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE AS TOLD BY THE PARISH REGISTERS.
By ΤῈ THISELTON DyrER, M.A. London: Elliot Stock.
1898.

It is enough to note the value to folklore students of a book like
this, which only concerns them in part and incidentally. Mr.
Thiselton Dyer has unearthed from the registers and other docu-
ments preserved in our parish churches examples of witchcraft,
divination, folk-medicine (touching by the seventh son, recipes

476 Reviews.

for plague, and for bites of a mad dog), cauls, and marriage of a
woman in her shift. He records a catastrophe at the French
Ambassador’s Chapel, Blackfriars, similar to that which gave rise
to a famous legend in the life of St. Dunstan. He suggests that
the legend of the Black Dog of Bungay originated from a thunder-
storm, causing the death of two men in the belfry, as chronicled
in the register under August, 1577.

Whatever value scientific antiquaries may place upon the book,
it is one that cannot fail to afford entertainment to “the general
reader.”

KE. SipNEY HARTLAND.

DEUTSCHES KRANKHEITSNAMEN-BUCH, VON Dr. M. HOFLER.
Miinchen: Piloty and Loehle. 1899.

Tus big book is a dictionary not merely of the names of diseases,
but also of parts of the body and other medical matters current
in the common speech of German lands. Terms relating to those
of the lower animals most frequently in contact with mankind are
also included. The author has drawn from many sources which
must be reckoned folklore; and to students of folklore among
others he desires to render his dictionary useful. He has traced
and endeavoured to date the earliest appearance of words in
written works, and gives the older forms in the approved style of
modern dictionaries.

Students of folk-medicine, and indeed of other branches of folk-
lore incidentally touching on the subjects above mentioned, will
be grateful to the author, whose work will often give them words
and uses of words not found in ordinary German dictionaries. But
they would be much more grateful if the author had insisted on
his publishers having the sheets stitched, for at present the book
cannot be consulted save at the imminent risk of its dropping to
pieces. When will German publishers abandon the uncivilised
habit of issuing books in this negligent fashion ?

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE NIBELUNG TREASURE IN ENGLISH.
(Vol. 1x.p..472:)
Mr. Ker is in error regarding the reference to the Rhine in his
quotation from Sir Degrevant. ‘‘In the reyne” means simply
“in the kingdom.”
Lewis F. Mott.
College of the City of New York.

Professor Ker comments as follows :

“The rhymes in Sir Degrevant are correct enough, though the
spelling is not, and Reyne here rhymes to mine. For the spelling
compare line 1413 (p. 236 in Halliwell’s text) :

‘ And evere sche drow hom the wyn
Bothe the Roche and the Reyn
And the good Malvesyn

ffelde sche hom jare.’

And line 1704:
‘ Sche brou3the hem Vernage and Crete
And wyne of the Reyne’

Reine in the sense of vea/m cannot be made to fit the rhyme. To
read the passage as ‘ All the gold in the realm,’ instead of ‘ All
the gold in the Rhine,’ is an emendation, not an interpretation,
of the text, and one that appears to be disallowed by the usages
and language of the poem.”

BuRIAL CUSTOMS.

(Vol. x. pp. 253-4.)

In 1860 I went with my father to the house of a friend who had
just died. He lay in his coffin, and my father placed his hand on
the forehead of the corpse, and told me to do the same. As we
left the house my father said to me: ‘This is the first time you’ve
ever seen a dead body, and I wanted you to notice what a pecu-
liar coldness there was in it. And,” he added, in a somewhat
apologetic fashion, “they say that you should always touch any
dead body that you see, for it prevents you dreaming of him—at
least, that’s what they say.”

My father, his father, myself, and the dead friend, were all
Londoners by birth and residence.

J. P. EmMstie.

MISCELLANEA.

DoRSET FOLKLORE COLLECTED IN 1897.

1. This investigation was made for the Ethnographical Survey
Committee of the British Association. The compiler, in all
matters beyond his own personal ken, has thought it essential to
append, when possible, the name of his informant. Cerne was
selected as the centre of inquiry.

2. Cerne was formerly a great mart for leather and skins. The
men were tanners, and tawers, and parchment-makers. Over one
shop-window a man is still described as a tawer, or whitener of
leather. Dowlas was woven here. The flax was grown in
Somerset, and the warp came from Bridport. All these trades are
gone, and the place is in decay.

3. A Saxon name in Dorset for a quickly flowing stream was
Pidele. This is still the name of that which runs, not far from
Cerne, through Piddletrenthide, and Piddlehinton, and Piddle-
town, to join the Frome at Wareham. The name Piddletrenthide
suggests that the Piddle was anciently called the Trent. It was
certainly called Terente at Wareham, and Trendle Hill, which over-
looks Cerne, has a name that is probably a corruption of Trent
Hill.

Eyton, in his Dorset Survey, observes: There was a common
name for the numerous estates that happened to stand on the
same stream. Thus there are thirty-five Winterbornes, fifteen
Tarentes or Trents, and many Fromes, Pideles, Cernes, Weys,
Stours, and Iwernes.

4. Close under Trendle Hill, is a cluster of mounds enclosed
by a ramp and ditch. Immediately above the “ giant,” on the top
of the hill are the vestiges, hitherto unexplored by the spade, of a
square fort or camp, such as General Pitt-Rivers assigns to the

3ronze Age. It measures about 120 feet across. Over 200 yards
in its rear, cutting at right angles across the ridge of the tongue of
land on the extremity of which the camp stood, is a defensive work,
a vallum and fosse, that secured the only assailable point, for the

Miscellanea. 479

steep hill sides were sufficient protection elsewhere. Further along
the ridge, where the tongue of land begins to join the general
plateau, are the remains of camps or dwellings, and there are
several barrows. On Black Hill, an elevation south of Trendle
Hill, is another Bronze Age camp.

5. In the ploughed fields immediately below Trendle Hill I
found many worked flints of the usual neolithic type, including
cores, spear-tips, scrapers, and a good but rudely-shaped fabricator.

6. There were curative wells at Cerne; one called Pill Well,
now dry, and St. Austin’s Well, anciently Silver Well. Hel Well
still flowing, in a marshy place covered with trees and brushwood,
was not curative. A man now living, named Vincent, aged fifty-
five years, had a crippled child. Every morning, for several
months together, Vincent carried his child, wrapped in a blanket,
to St. Austin’s Well, and dipped it into the well, and at last it was
cured. Sore eyes are healed by bathing them, and feeble health
is restored by drinking. A farmer used to go down to this well
every morning and drink a tumblerful of the water. [Jonathan
Hardy, aged 65, born at Cerne, and now sexton there.] I have
not analysed the water, but can affirm that it is not chalybeate.
The spring sometimes “ breaks,” that is, suddenly begins to flow
with increased energy. Its water never freezes.

7. There are two persons in Cerne who cure warts: John Tobias,
a mason, of Alton Hill, and Mrs. Bowring, by the Union (work-
house) Arms Inn. The warts are touched by the stem or stalk of
some plant freshly plucked. They are touched separately so as to
be counted, and some words are said that are not understood, and
then the stem or stalk is duried.—| Jonathan Hardy. |

8. A celebrated water-finder lives here. He uses twigs of hazel
or rowan in the usual manner. Everybody believes in his power,
and he is sent for from great distances. At Cerne he divined the
presence of water close by a cottage door, and on digging there an
excellent but buried and forgotten well was discovered.

9. A “toad-doctor” used to live at Pulham, eight miles from
Cerne by road. He kept toads. Round the neck of patients
suffering from the ‘‘ King’s Evil,” beneath their clothing, he would
hang alive toad. As long as the toad twitched and moved the cure
progressed.—| Robert Childs, aged sixty-nine, formerly sexton. He
still attends to the church, but no longer to the grave-yard. |

The doctor’s name was Buckland. Every year in May, the time

480 Miscellanea.

depending on the phase of the moon, Pulham held what was called
“ Dr. Buckland’s Fair.” Vehicles of every description came from
far and near with persons to be cured of the King’s Evil, when the
doctor, assisted by his three daughters dressed in white, was in
attendance. He used to amputate the limb of a living frog, and
the daughters, with all speed, put the leg into a muslin bag and’
suspended it round the neck of the patient, inside the clothing,
allowing it to rest on the chest. If the patient felt a twitching
and received a shock, the cure was said to be accomplished.—
[Mr. Robert Young, Sturminster Newton. ]

““A toad-bag” is even now a common expression.—[Mr.
Thomas Hardy. |

1o. A woman was sure that she was in the power of a witch.
At times she was unable to do what she usually did with ease.
Her soap would not lather at the washing. She was advised to
nail up a horse-shoe [there were special nails for this], and to lay
a besom across the threshold, for when the true witch came she
could not pass over it, and must ask for it to be removed, and so
would be detected.—[ Jonathan Hardy. ]

Evil spirits could be kept from coming down a chimney by
hanging sa/¢ in it (on special nails).—[Jonathan Hardy. ]

A “wise woman” lived, perhaps lives, at Cattistock, six miles
from Cerne by road. She told Henry Paulley that his wife, who
was ill, was ‘‘ overlooked,” and that the first person who accosted
him next morning would be the witch. This happened to be his
neighbour Mrs. Sprake, who then became suspected.

Two men were sent to prison for beating an alleged witch ; and
a sick woman’s sons went to consult a wise man at Batcombe.—
[In the recollection of Miss Gundry, eldest daughter of the rector
of Cerne. |

A wise man or woman is one who, without fee or reward, tells
folk how to overcome witchcraft.

11. If anyone looks into St. Austin’s Well the first thing on
Easter morning he will see the faces of those who will die within
the year.—[ Miss Gundry. ]

If the church clock strikes twelve whilst the creed is being said,
or a hymn is being sung, twelve persons will die in the parish
within a year.—[Miss Gundry. ]

Buckland Newton was the burial-place for a aoed many villages,
and for sepulture the dead had to be carried long distances. There

Miscellanea. 481

was, for instance, no grave-yard at Plush before 1847, when the
old chapel of ease was pulled down and a new one was built, to
which a large burial-place was attached.

George Cains, the toll-keeper at Lyon’s Gate, used to watch all
midsummer’s night to see ¢he spirits go to Buckland Church and
come back again. If the spirits of any persons went to Buckland
Church and did not return, those persons would die during the
year. Cains said toa woman: ‘‘ You have a fine little girl there,
but her spirit did not come back from the church,” and she died
within a year.—[Thomas Fox, aged 82, born at Cerne, and his
parents at Buckland Newton. |

12. At Batcombe most of the old cottages have been destroyed,
and but few new ones erected. With one exception, no one is
living in the place who was born there. The church, dedicated
to St. Mary, has an old bell, without date, but with the legend
SCA MARIA MAGDALENE. The edifice is remote from the village,
and stands in a hollow almost surrounded by lofty hills. Its
square tower has four corner pinnacles, of which it is evident that
one has been rebuilt.

“Conjurer Mintern” used to live at Batcombe. On one occasion
he went from home and “forgot that his books were left open.”
Suddenly remembering them, he hastened back, and his horse’s
hoof just touched one of the pinnacles on the tower of Batcombe
Church, and made it lean over, and left the print of his horse’s
shoe on the tower, where it remains to this day. This was in my
grandfathers time. In my time “Conjurer Curtis ” lived there.
Curtis, the blacksmith of Batcombe, a son or grandson of the
“ conjurer,” was himself imprisoned for “conjuring” within Fox’s
memory. The original Curtis was ‘a wise man and a good man.”
What he told folk was always for their good. He told them how
to stop the power of witches.—[ Fox.

13. There used to be the setting up of the maypole at Piddle-
trenthide.—{ Mrs. Astell. }

And at many other villages in my childhood.—[Mr. Thomas
Hardy. |

At Buckland Newton the maypole was set up on the knap
there, which is rising ground in the midst of the village.—[ Fox. ]

The celebration of the maypole used to be a great event at
Cerne. In 1635 there seems to have been an attempt to suppress
this function. In the volume of the Cerne Abbas Churchwarden’s

VOL. X. 21

482 Miscellanea.

accounts from 1628 to 1685, there appears, under the year 1635,
this entry: ‘‘ Paid Anth. Thorne and others for taking down ye
maypole and making a town Ladder of it, oo—o3—10.” At that
time, then, the maypole was a permanent erection.

Childs, the former sexton, well remembers the maypole. It
used to be set up zx the ring just above the giant. It was made
from a fir-bole and renewed every year. ‘It was raised in the
night,” It was decorated with garlands, &c. The villagers went
up the hill and danced round the maypole on May 1. Nothing
of the sort is now done.

14. The most remarkable feature of Cerne is its Giant, a huge,
nude, club-bearing ithyphallic figure sculptured in the turf on the
westward side of Trendle Hill. It is visible a great way off.
From time to time it is renovated. The giant was last renovated
in 1887, under the direction of General Pitt-Rivers, by Jonathan
Hardy.

The maypole was set up, not as is usual elsewhere, in the town,
which possesses two convenient spaces, formerly, no doubt,
“village greens,” but a good way off, on the top of a very steep
‘idl, 1mmediately above the giant, in the centre of an ancient
camp, belonging probably to the Bronze Age. In Scandinavia
and other countries, in the Bronze Age, ithyphallic divinities were
frequently represented, and were carved on rock surfaces.

The following stories come from Mrs. Astell, a great lover of
folklore, wife of General Astell, of Piddlehinton, Mr. Thomas
Hardy has made some alterations in the spelling, so that the
dialect may be the better represented. But, of course, the stories
are not given as scientifically accurate specimens of dialect.

15. Mitchell, the blacksmith of Piddlehinton, himself related
this story. ‘‘The mother” used to get up and milk the cow,
“and the boys carr’d out the milk and zwold it.” On the morn-
ing of the marriage of the present Prince of Wales, “‘ they was in
a terrible hurry, for all the lads was up to go to town (Dorchester),
for they had fine doings there about the Prince. They zwold off
every drop o’ milk thic morning sharp, zoo when Mrs. Hart, she
were the pleesman’s wife, come for hers, there warnt a drap a-left,
and she cursed and swared awful about it, she did, and made
shameful language ; but there! the milk were gone, and we couln’d
help it, so twadden’ a bit ο᾽ good for she to abuse we over it.

Miscellanea. 483

“My missus asked she to go whoam quiet, and a’ter a bit she
did go, a muttering all sorts.

“Come night, when mother did go out to milk, the cow hadn’t
hardly a drap, and mother she did vex and fret, and zed the boys
had neglected the poor thing.

“Zoo she carr’d un out a armful o’ grass herself, but when the
morning come, ’twere oorse than ever, for ‘he’ hadn’t nat a drop
in use.

“We done’d all we could for her, but it didn’t make much odds
as I seed, for the poor thing were bad for weeks.

“Well, Joe Bollard, he was a gardener to Maister Robert, he
come’d down and took’d a drop o’ ale wi’ we, an’ he talked a good
bit about the cow, and said as he knowed ther were summat more
than common about thic cow. I knowed his maning very well,
but I didn’t belave nothing οὐ that ¢#ez. He twold we thet he
had a cow once as were sarved just the same way, it were a wold
(old) cow hisn, and a’ter a bit the poor beast died, and a’ter she
were dead, when ’er were skinned and cut up and all that, they
took ‘his’ heart and stuck eleven pins in un, and burned un, and
a’ter he were burned they sweep’d and drave’d it all up in the
ashes. But next morning ’twere all abroad over the floor again.
Ees, and they that hurted the poor wold beast were took bad and
died.

“*Zoo it went on, for the cow were bad for weeks. Mother did
carr’ in the victuals, but the poor thing couldn’t ate nothing.
Well, Dorchester fair-time draw’d on and the cow died, and the
same morning I seed Joe Bollard over the gate and 1 holla’d to
un and twold un o’ it, and I zed: ‘Joe, if you'll come and do thic
burning job for I, same as thee did for t’other cow, 11 gie thee
the skin or the woll beast if ee be a-minded.’

‘*Zoo when he said as how he ’ould, I gathered a lot o’ firewood
in the back-house chimley and I made the nails, as /’ve made
many for such work. And Joe, he’d been in and skinned the
bedst and took out the heart and show’d it up to winder to I, and
put it up in ‘loft’ [wooden floor] ’cause er mustn’t never touch
ground. And I went and bound the heart wi’ wire to the two
nails I’d a made, and hanged en up in chimley, and darkened up
the winders wi’ sackbags as nobody shouldn’t see in. But we
couldn’t foller on wi’ nothing till ’twere g o’clock, ’cause the moon
were late o’ getting up, an’ us was bound to wait the right time.

B12

484 Miscellanea.

** Mother and Joe come into the kitchen. Mother she sot a
redding of a newspaper into chimley corner, but I couldn’t seem
to have nothing to doin’ wi’ it. So I went on to bed and got to
sleep, I were that tired.

“1 ’bid abed mid abin a couple or dree hours, then I got up
and went down to see how all were agoing on. When I got there
all were quiet enough, the vire were burning up under the heart,
wasn’t a soul about, and the ’leven pins was in the heart sure
enough.

“‘T was just going off again when my missus she zed: ‘ Drat if
ee shall, Bill, afore thic heart do burn’; and I swore a woath as
sooner nor that fire should go out afore thic heart were burned,
Τα beat up our clock, I ’ould, to make fuel.

“Then I got afeard, for swearing over such a thing, and
heaved up a corner o’ the sack-bag to look out o’ winder a bit to
see if anybody were coming aneist us. But lor’ bless ee! ’twere
quiet and still enough, not a light to be seed nowhere.

“50 I sot down again in front οὐ the fire, whén all on a suddent
like, there busted a spout o’ blood out o’ the heart sort o’ sideways,
right out on the kitchen floor, and ’fore we had time to spake a
word the awfullest screeches and noises that ever anybody did
hear, just outside our front door. And fust the door did sheck,
then the winders did rattle, just as if they was going to be droved
in.

“We had sackbags up to winder so nobody couldn’t look in,
so I croped up stair and looked out o’ chamber winder. Well!
blowed if there werdn’ thic Mrs. Hart! You do know they railing
opposite our house? You ’ouldn’t believe it, but I seed she get
back to they rails and make a rush at our front door wi’ all the
yells ever she could rise, as she did come on she did beat the
door wi’ her fistes and her feet, and then she’d try the winders
both sides o’ the door, ascreeching awful all the time. Well, I
raly thought as she’d beat in the door, so she did kick un. So I
oped the cham’er winder and asted her: ‘ Whatever do ee want
here this time o’ night, and whatever be ee making such a rumpus
about?’ ‘Oh!’ says she, your missus must come direcly minute;
I must have she out ’cause my baby is a-dying.’ So I says: ‘My
missus can’t come direc’ly, ’cause she be about a job as is rather
perticler to finish; but she shall come to ee in-by mid-be.’ So
she went on home and I went downstairs.

Miscellanea. 485

“°T were but a step to her house, so says I to missus: ‘ Whoever
do ee think it were? Why it were thic Mrs. Hart!’ Says my
son Joe—he were a sot there wi’ mother—‘ You be sure, feyther
then, ’twere she as done it.’ ‘I’ll have mother see the chile fust,
afore I’ll believe it,’ says I. ‘If thic chile be bad, I ’on’t believe
a word o’ all this, but if the chile don’t raly ail nothing, then there,
I don’t seem to know what I ool think.’

“Well, at that time the heart were real burned, and we draved
is all up in the ashes till there wasn’t nothing οὐ it to be zeed. So
Joe, he went out, and I says: ‘ Mother, now you come along to
pleesman’s. I'll go wi’ ’ee, for I d’ want to satisfy my mind a bit.
The house were quite handy, so she stepped out wi’ me, nothing
on ; but when we got there the lights was out, and Mrs. Hart she
were abed. I called out as my missus were come to see the baaby
as she’d a ast for her todo. Mrs. Hart came down to door in
her night-gown and let me in. She was sort o’ scared like, and
said the baaby was asleep. But my missus, she went up along to
see, and there were the pleesman in bed, and the baaby sweet
asleep in along wi’ un. And the pleesman, he zed: ‘I telled our
Harriet she were a fool, and there warn’t nothing the matter, but
she zed she must go.’

** So I sort o’ felt queer and dazed like, and mother she looked
about, a bit confounded, too, she were. And all at once I zeed a
big splash o’ cruddled milk on the floor, hard cruddle ’twere. And
Mrs. Hart, she zeed I look, though I didn’t say nothing. And she
sort o’seemed naisy, and zed she’d a slopped a drop. But she
hadn’t never slopped thet; ’twarn’t nat’ral, and she knowed I
didn’t believe her.

“So we came on hwome and zed nothing about it. But the
folk did zay a deal, and most on ’em zaid as she were the one.
But I never believed nothing till my wife were took bad same as
the cow. The doctor could do nothing for her, and she pitened
away, poor soul, till she were most too weak to come to door;
and the boys and I, we never had a bit o’ cooked victuals ’cause
she couldn’t get about to cook nothing. Oon day she veeled a
trifle better, and zays: ‘ Mitchell, if you’ll goo and bring in some
pase and beans and things, 11] try an’ cook ’ee a bit o’ dinner.’

“ So ’twere a beautiful hot day, an’ I thought p’r’aps ’t’ould do
she a sight ο᾽ good to step out a bit in the sun. So I zays: ‘You
come along yourself, mother, and I’ll dig a tatie or two and ’ee

486 Miscellanea.

shall pick un up.’ We goos out in the garden, she and I, on wi’
the digging. Were a good few taters that year, and mother, she
warn’t very quick to pick un up. Zoo I sticks my fork into
ground and puts my two hands top o’ handle, just like this, and
put my head down on un, and bid a watching o’ she. All to once
I zeed Mrs. Hart t’other side o’ our pre-ranks, a-walking towards
I that was behind my missus’s back, a repating summat, an’ as
she did walk wi’ her hands down to her side, her eyes were sot
on my missus, she never stopped repating some words ; an’ as she
did repate ’em, she did gnash her teeth at mother, and glane that
wicked on her, seemed to I she could a ate ’er. There! the
woman did look like the very devil hisself. She looked to I,
by what I’ve a-read, as though her were a-making a charm.
But, howsomdever, she mid a walked midbe ten yards, and was
pretty nigh handy my missus, when she did look off ’o her an’
seed I. ‘Oh! Mr. Mitchell,’ she says, kinder sceered like, ‘I
didn’t see ’ee,’ and up goos her arms over her head like this, and
back’ard she goes, every stap as she’d a come, wi’ ’er arms up
over ’er head all the time. An’ I look straight at she an’ says:
‘ Maybe ’ee didn’t see I, but I’ve a seed ¢hee, and watched ’ee too,
and all yer doings.’ Well, my wife were took in a pain, ’twere as
though somebody were a pinching o’ her inside out, and she were
a drove nigh crazy all night long. An’ I says: ‘If the Lord do
leave I life till to-morrow, 1] see into this.’ So I got up in
marning and started off to Farmer Barrett as lives handy Ilchester
(25 miles by road, through Maiden Newton and Yeovil). I
walked all thic day, and come evening I got to un. He were
always a real good feller, were Farmer Barrett, and very under-
standing he were in all such works. But he ’ouldn’t never arm
nobody. He ’ouldn’t take a farden nother, from nobody, for
what he did for un, and he did stop a lot of mischie.

‘“ Now that feller Hutton, down to Yeovil, were a real bad un;
a awful feller for wickedness. Farmer did ‘stop’ a powerful deal
οὐ he’s work. Hutton were terr’ble fraid οὐ Farmer Barrett, ’cause
he hindered un so.

‘Farmer Barrett it were as teached I to make they nails as 1
‘wold ’ee on. A respectable house he kept, did farmer, an’ ser-
vants, an’ a hoss an’ gig for hisself to ride in, all comfortable like.

“They be ¢hree-headed nails. Many a time I’ve got up, middle
o’ night, to make un, for they that comed for un. But they maynt

Miscellanea. 487

pay nothing for un, nor you mayn’t take nothing for making on un.
This is how I make un. You must take yer rod, yer zee—you
allays makes nails off a iron rod—and you het un in the fire till
he melt to ahead. Then you takes un out and hammers un solid-
like, and then you hets again and hammers till ¢hree “mes, and
when his head be hammered the third time, he be a done.

“1 hadn’t no cause to ax un nothing, ’cause he knowed what
*twere all about so soon as ever he sot eyes on I. He telled I to
get a strand o’ new hemp avore ’twere made into ropes, an’ a
thread or two o’ new scarlet silk, an’ I were to braid ’em together
long enough to bind about the body on the part where the pain
were.

“So I went on hwome and twold my missis what farmer should
say, and she done as he’d a twold o’, an’ she got better from thic
same hour as she put it on. ’Tis a fine thing, that is, for I’ve used
un since wi’ Bill. Darned if they didn’t begin to drive work wi’ he
so soon as the wold ’ooman got better. But there ! if I was to tell
’ee all I got in my head about such work, I should’nt make an end
thease dree weeks. Why, there ’s Jacob, my brother-in-law, have
been brought to rale shipwrack wi’ un. But Ze ’on’t stop it. He’ve
got Scott’s Bible in six volumes, and he do make out that if you
‘stop it’ you be a working witchcraft too. So he zes: ‘Let un
take their course.’ And ‘coursed un’ they have, pretty sharp,
poor heart, be sure! It do seem a bad job should be such works
about, διέ there be, and a terr’ble sight o’ it too, there be, indeed.”

A formal complaint of these things was made to the Dorchester
magistrates, who, finding that the feeling of the Piddlehinton folk
was strongly excited against the woman Hart, thought it better to
remove her husband, the policeman, to another place.

19. Mr. Bridge, J.P., to his groom: “John, that mare in the
field looks disgraceful! All over dirt, and her mane knotted and
ragged!” ‘‘Sakes! sir, don’t ’ee know what be the matter wi’
’er. Why, her’s hag-rode every night into a solid sweat! And
they knots? Why, they be the stirrups the hags do ride un wi’!
Poor creature, I do clane and clane her, but tidden no use!”

20. From General Astell’s coachman, Walter Churchill, ‘’an
honest, honourable, god-fearing man” :

“ When I was a little chap ’bout eight, I and Jack Wolfral was
taking a bit of a walk, and as we comed down drove we seed,
both o’ us, a hare sot by the stile of the churchyard, where sure,

488 Miscellanea.

never a hare were seed before nor since; but ’twere this way.
We were living to Bourne then, and a neighbour that had the
palsy so terr’ble bad he couldn’t walk nor guide hisself, and said
as he were overlooked, and twold it to a travelling man (a pedlar),
and he said if we could say who ’twere as doned it he’d cure un.
So the poor man said ’twere a woman as lived a long way off.
‘ Never mind,’ says the travelling man, ‘ I’ll bring her here in the
form o’ a hare, and make her cure thee.’ So he bid un get a
odd number o’ folk, and my father were one, to sit up at night
and do what he twold un. And he did say as there were a bottle
o’ summat hanged up in chimney. And the fire were d/nded off,
and the travelling man were a-reading verses out of the Bible
backward, when just as we was outside the string broke, and the
bottle fell, and it broke, and what come οὐ the hare I can’t say.
The travelling man was for coming another night to finish the
cure, for the man were a sight better already; I seed him myself
stand and kick out his lag; but the passen heard o’ it and put
un off.”

21. Whitechurch Vicarage, Blandford, 1897. ‘Two years since,
a cottager mother to parson :

“Oh ! sir, my girl’s a took awful! Her be overlooked for sure!
There her do lie like one dead.”

Truly the maid did lie days and days in a sort of trance, and
added an unpleasant habit of sometimes waking suddenly and
seizing the nearest movable, and pitching it at the first person who
appeared. Mr. Wynne, the parson, always had an anxious eye
for what might happen on his visits. The cause of her ailing was
said to be that while in service in Somerset she one day alone
in the house was asked for help by a tramp. Afraid to leave him
or let him in, she refused, and he blew in her face and said: “ In
a year and a day she would remember him.” Well, the mother
went to a wise woman and was told to get a pig’s heart and stick
into it az ounce of pins and burn it, “‘’cause, you see, the devil he
went into the swine.” And duly did she get the pig’s heart and
the pins and burn the same, and the daughter was perfectly cured.
Mr. Wynne saw and spoke to here in the village, sane and in good
health.

22. At Houghton, near Blandford, the parson’s wife said to the
mother of a child that was choking with whooping cough: “ Don’t
you have the doctor, or do something for the little girl ?” ‘‘’Spose

Miscellanea. 489

I must ; a woman twold 1 to spread a bit o’ bread and butter and
cover un wi’ donkey’s hairs and throw un in the road, and what-
ever did pick un up and eat un would take the cough from the
child.”

H. CoLtey Marcu.

A Crown ΟΕ THORNS.

“Α kind of globe of thorns” is sketched and described in the
Antiquary, Feb., 1898. This globe, woven of black-thorn branches,
is made in Herefordshire at New-Year’s-tide, and is used in the
ancient rites still observed in celebration of the season.

Some years since I was told by a person familiar with the
Midlands, that in Leicestershire he had heard of farm-lads twist-
ing the supple twigs of a hawthorn-hedge into a crown, without
severing them from the parent bush. In the year following the
formation of the crown, the twigs of which it was composed put
out thorns, and when they had become stiff and strong, the whole
thing was cut out of the hedge and carried away. My informant
did not mention any particular time for removing it, nor did he
say what was done with it afterwards.

M. PEACOCK.

AUSTRALIAN RELIGION.

The reader need not be alarmed: the following notes are not a
continuation of the discussion between Mr. Hartland and myself.
We are both agreed in holding that ‘‘ Mrs. Langloh Parker suffi-
ciently corroborates Mr. Manning to make a case for further
inquiry ” (4o/k-Lore, vol. x. No. 1, p. 55). The inquiry would deal
with the question, What is the evidence for an indigenous Aus-
tralian belief in an “over-god” (I borrow the term from Miss
Kingsley), who made things, or the majority of things, who still
exists, and who is, or was lately held to be, still concerned with
the morals of the tribes? And what is the evidence for the belief

490 Miscellanea.

in a son or sons of his, who undertake for him the intelligence
department, and generally relieve him of most of the trouble o.
administration ?

My own opinion about these beliefs is freely stated in the new
edition of Myth, Ritual, and Religion, in The Making of Religion,
and in my recent reply to Mr. Hartland. The evidence which I
have cited is enough for me. But such revolutionary opinions
are naturally not acceptable, and, with Mr. Hartland, I am anxious
for a new inquiry. This can only be pursued in Australia, but
possibly some member of the Society has leisure to consult the
various proceedings of Australian learned societies. There are
also Catholic sources, suchas The Annals of the Propagation of the
Faith, 1839, and onwards. These are the continuation of the
Lettres Edifiantes, the later volumes of which ought to be ex-
amined. Then we have the Wesleyan Missionary Notices of
1816 and onwards. There are the English Digest of Records of
the S.P.G., 1793, and onwards. I do not expect to find much of
value before the beginnings of Mr. Threlkeld’s work in 1828 ; his
writings I have myself examined, with most of the books of travel
since 1820. In Australia itself we may perhaps invite the aid of
well-known anthropologists. Unfortunately Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen only devote a footnote to what they call “the great spirit,”
Twanyikira. About him there cannot but be myths, even if he
be only an undeveloped bugbear, or a god shrunk to a bugbear.
His region is so inaccessible that information will be hard to
procure.

Meanwhile I venture to print some notes of Mrs. Langloh
Parker’s on Byamee, concerning whom see her two volumes of
Australian Legends. ΑΒ is well known, Mr. Greenwell, followed
by Mr. Ridley, derives the word Baiame (which Mr. Ridley found
current in 1855) from éaza, “to make.” Mrs. Langloh Parker,
in her glossary, renders Byamee “‘ Big Man.” I asked her to
look into the subject, and into Byamee generally, and what follows
is her obliging reply to my queries.

“BANGATE, WALGATT, N.S.W.,

“« January 30th.

* As to the Byamee flower legend, it was told to me first in Euah-
layi by an old black man. My method for hearing legends is this.

Miscellanea. 491

I have a fair grasp of their language, but would not trust to that
absolutely, so I have also one black-—not necessarily the same
one—-but one who knows more English than the old old ones.
When the old one has told the legend, I make the medium tell it
back in the native language—the old one correcting mistakes.
Then the medium tells it to me. I write it down, and I read it
back to the old one with the help of the medium; so really I
think I guard as much against mistakes as I can. The native
word for ‘the All-Seeing Spirit,’ as such, is Nurrulbooroo, for the
‘ All-Hearing’ Winnanulbooroo. You know they never like men-
tioning sacred names too often, and names of their dead rarely at
all.

“With us, Byamee the name is not derived from the verb to
make—which is gimberleegoo ; maker, gimberlah—this word is -
also used in the Kamilaroi tribes, some of which are within a
hundred and fifty miles of us. But the Kamilaroi that Ridley
knew are some three and four hundred miles away, so the language
is sure to have variations; our Euahlayi language has only a few
of the same words as the Kamilaroi.

“ Boorool euray would be really ‘Big Man’ in our language;
but whenever I ask any of the blacks what Byamee means they
say ‘ Big Man,’ voicing I expect their conception of him.

“A poor old blind blackfellow of over eighty came back here
the other day. He told me some more legends, in one of which
was a curiously interesting bit ve the totems. The legend was about
Byamee, and it spoke of him as having a totem name for every
part of his body—even to a different one for each finger and toe.
No one had a totem name at that time, but when Byamee was
going away for good he gave each division of the tribe one of his
totems, and said that every one hereafter was to have a totem
name which they were to take, men and women alike, from their
mother ; all having the same totem must never marry each other,
but be as brothers and sisters, however far apart were their hunting
grounds. That is surely some slight further confirmation of
Byamee as one apart, for no one else ever had all the totems in
one person ; though a person has often a second or individual
totem of his own, not hereditary, given him by the wirreenuns,
called his yundbeaz, any hurt to which injures him, and which he
may never eat—his hereditary totem he may. He is supposed to
be able if he be a great wirreenun to take the form of his yunbeai,

492 Miscellanea.

which will also give him assistance in time of trouble or danger—
is a sort of alter ego, as it were. . . . Re ‘ High Gods’ dying, our
Byamee certainly did not according to our authorities, nor any
other native ‘High God’ that I can get on the tracks of; he
went,to where he came from. As to Daramulun, J only know
him as being to other tribes what Wallahgooroonbooan is to ours,
superintendent but not instigator of the boorah—that Byamee did.

“Tt seems to me that it was only as he left each tribe that
Byamee instituted the Boorah, before which he only showed his
power by miracles.

. ‘** Yours sincerely,
“Κι, LANGLOH PARKER.”

It seems to me, from this account, that Mrs. Langloh Parker’s
method of acquiring information is as good as it can be. Much
the same was the process of Sahagun, in Anahuac, soon after
the conquest by Cortes. Her observations on the hereditary
totem, which a man may eat, and the personal, or given, yunbeat
(nagual or manitou), which he may not eat, with the myth of
Byamee as a collection of totems, are novel as far as I am aware.
I think we may discount the suggestion that Mrs. Langloh
Parker’s aged informant was telling to her manufactured folklore,
in return for the kindnesses which, no doubt, she is likely to have
conferred upon an ancient invalid. However, if the opposite
opinion be preferred, I fear we shall soon be of the mind of an
Oxford historian, who told me lately that no anthropological evi-
dence was of any value.

Mrs. Langloh Parker was also kind enough to give me a full
account of a native “ spiritualistic séance,” attended by herself,
another lady, and the savage seeress. It was very curious and
interesting. Neither Mrs. Langloh Parker nor myself regards the
events, at present, as proving more than the extraordinary skill
and adroitness of even female wirreenuns, or ‘‘ wise folk.” But
our science might be interested in the arts, of hitherto unexplained
nature, by which these persons gain and keep up their social as-
cendancy. This idea, doubtless, is unscientific and superstitious.

The evidence, however, as to the indigenous belief in such
beings as Byamee and his ministers deserves research. If we do
not make it at once, if we recline on talk about missionary influ-
ence and native mendacity, we are never likely to ascertain the

Miscellanea. 493

truth at all. Even now we may come too late with our inquiries,
and students will be left to their personal bias in considering the
evidence already extant. ‘The evidence impresses me the more
from its coincidence with what is reported by early American
explorers and missionaries, by Mr. Man from the Andaman
Islands, and with abundant African evidence. If we are to reject
all this, we must, I think, decide that all the witnesses had the
same prepossessions, while probably all the natives had a turn for
an identical kind of mendacity. But, if once we admit this, an-
thropological evidence even to the facts which suit our theory,
will be considerably damaged.

After sending Mrs. Langloh Parker’s notes to the Editor, I
received another letter from her, of May 12. The gist of them is
that ‘‘old Hippi” (who is confirmed by Yndda Dulleebah, the
very aged black who told of Byamee’s personal collection of
totems) ‘‘is unshaken in his original statement that Byamee
was not born nor did he die. He came from his sky camp,
where he was alone with his son, Bailah Burrah, not born of
woman, but made, they do not know how. He did not bring
this son with him when he travelled about, but on earth he
(Byamee) got two wives eventually; he had them when he came
here, but there are no gross stories about Byamee that I can
get at.

“The Gayandy spirit,—sometimes called Wallah Gooroonbooan,
—had a local habitation provided for it by Byamee, after some
failures. Hence the confusion in the case of the Kamilaroi Dara-
mulun, which is the Kamilaroi [Wiraijuri?], equivalent for our
Gayandy spirit. It was the first Gayandy made who ate the faces
of the initiates ; seeing which Byamee changed him into a huge
piggiebillah-(porcupine)-shaped animal, spineless, but with fur, now
known as Nahgul, a dreaded devil. Then Byamee made stone
‘churinga’ as Gayandy.” [1 understand that Gayandy originally,
and before his punishment, uttered his Voice, a mighty whirring
sound, at the Mysteries. But, after his punishment, Byamee at-
tempted a mechanical imitation of the Voice, by contriving stone
Churinga.] ‘But Byamee found the stone Churinga too heavy—
none are to be seen now—then made wooden ones, which are still
ΠΗΘῚ 25 ss - ” [What follows here is a statement of Mrs. Langloh
Parker’s opinion that “confusion of names leads to various
scandals” about the mythical beings. |

494 Miscellanea.

She goes on: “Our blacks eat their tribal or family totems,
but should they have an individual totem called yundead, that
they never eat . . . . Old Hippi says ” [as to the question whether
Byamee is borrowed from the whites] ‘if blacks learned of Byamee
from the whites, how is it that the young men of the tribe know
least of him, though he says that 4e can show trees and stones
which Byamee changed into those forms,—Byamee’s track in
stone, &c. Did white people teach them that? he indignantly
asks . . .” [He then adduces proof of his tribe’s respect, in old
times, for female chastity. ]

Byamee “is never spoken of as yowee, or ‘good spirit’; nor
as wundah, or ‘bad spirit’—never in any sort of way as others
are spoken of, except as a wirreenun, but then always as ‘the
greatest of all.’”

On this showing Byamee is not a spirit, but, in Mr. Matthew
Arnold’s phrase, “ἃ magnified non-natural man,” unborn and un-
dying. His sky camp is his original home; he visits earth as a
culture-hero and lawgiver, has mortal wives, and appoints a
subordinate being, Gayandy, to superintend the Mysteries. For
misconduct Gayandy is cashiered, the effect which his Voice was
intended to produce was imitated by bull-roarers. These were
first of stone, but now are of wood.

The venerable Hippi’s logic as to the borrowing theory notes a
new point. The young tribesmen who have seen most of whites,
know least of Byamee. Perhaps, as they may often have heard
the name of God, in imprecations or from the clergy, that name
has superseded Byamee’s ; but this is only my conjecture.

It will be urged that Hippi spoke of stone churinga in answer
to leading questions. Perhaps if people look out for those stones
they may discover them, as paleolithic weapons are being dis-
covered in South Africa. (See /. A. 1. Feb.-May, 1899, pp.
258-274.) At all events, there can be no harm in looking about.
The stone churinga are not used as bull-roarers by the Arunta,
and many of them seem ill-adapted for that purpose. It is as
likely that they were made in imitation of the wooden articles as
vice versa.

The problem is: Was Byamee prior in evolution to his subor-
dinate Gayandy (Daramulun among Kamilaroi and Wiraijuri),
was Mungan-ngaur prior to Tundun, and so in other cases? Or did
theology begin with this noisy bugbear (the Arunta Twanyikira,

Miscellanea. 495

as far as I can make out), and then, in certain cases, subordinate
him to Baiame, Byamee, and similar ‘“‘ Over-gods”? Probably
the answer must always be hypothetical.

A. Lane.

FOLKTALES FROM THE GREEK ISLANDS.

[The four stories following are all from Lesbos. Nos. I., 11., and
IV. were all told by the same woman, No. III. by another
woman. I hope to supply their full names and other par-
ticulars shortly. |

I. Zhe Three Apples.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three sons. He
had a garden in which grew an apple-tree that bore three apples
every year. But they were always stolen just when they got
ripe. One year the eldest son said he would go and watch at
night, and see who the thief was. He went, and at midnight he
heard a terrible noise, as if all the hills were shaking and the
trees being tossed about. This frightened him so that he ran
home. - Next morning one apple was gone ; the second son said:
“You are a coward; I will go to-night.” He went, and the same
thing happened to him.

They had not asked their father’s blessing. On the third night
the youngest son begged to be allowed to go in his turn to guard
the last apple. At first his father would not let him, but he
begged so hard that he was allowed to go, and took his father’s
blessing with him.

At midnight he heard the same terrible noise, as if all the hills
were shaking and the trees being tossed about. But he did not
run away, but stood ready with his sword in his hand. Next
moment he saw a gigantic ogre stretching out his hand to pick
the last apple. Just as the hand grasped the apple, the prince
cut it off with his sword, and picking up the hand and apple,
carried them back to his father. His father was delighted to get
the apple, as he had never tasted the fruit of the tree; but when
his son told him that he was resolved to go and find the ogre and
kill him, he was very sorrowful ; but at last he yielded, and the
boy started off, taking his two brothers with him.

496 Miscellanea.

They followed the traces of the blood until they came to a
slab of marble, which they lifted up, and there was a well with
steps leading down it. The youngest boy bade his brothers tie
a rope round him, and pull him up quickly when he should
shake it from below. He went down forty steps, and came to a
door, which he opened, and found himself in a room where sat
a beautiful girl. “ον did you come here?” she said to him ;
“ don’t you know that the ogre eats everyone who comes here?”
“Won't you tell me his secret?” said the prince. ‘ Well,” said
she, “50 be it. When he has his eyes open, he is asleep, and
when he has them shut, he is awake.” Opening another door, he
found a still more lovely girl. He asked her the same question,
and received the same answer. In a third room was a girl more
lovely yet than the others, and on her knees sat the ogre with his
eyes wide open, and she was combing his hair. She gave him
the same answer to his question as the others, and drawing his
sword he cut off the ogre’s head. “Strike me again,” said the
head. ‘‘ But once my mother bore me, and but once I strike,”
replied the prince. He then returned as he had come, and took
the three maidens with him to the bottom of the well, and sent
the first two up to his brothers. Next he wished to send the
third up, her whom he had chosen for himself, but she told him :
“No, you must go up first; it may happen that when your
brothers see me I shall be more pleasing in their sight than my
sisters, and they will leave you here.” He however refused, and
then she told him: “If this befall, you will find here a white
sheep and a black. You must catch the white one, and then you
will be in the upper world. If you catch the black, you will fall
still lower.” She also gave him a nut containing three dresses,
one with the fields and their flowers, one with the sea and its
fish, and a third with the heaven and its stars. Bidding her
good-bye, he sent her up; and it befel as she had surmised, and
he was left behind. ‘There, sure enough, were the black and
white sheep, and do what he could to catch the white one, it
always eluded him, while the black one was always running into
his arms. At last, in despair he caught the black one, and at
once felt himself falling. He fell as deep again as the first well
on to the roof of a house. Out of the house came an old woman
and began to exorcise him, thinking he was an evil spirit. He
said: ‘““Why do you speak so? I ama Christian like yourself.

Miscellanea. 497

Give me food and lodging.” She said: “1 have little, but it is
yours,” and took him in and gave him bread to eat. As he sat
eating, he asked her where he was, and she told him: “In this
kingdom is a beast with seven heads, who lives at the spring and
will not let the water run unless he has a maiden to eat every day.
Now all the other maidens have been eaten, and to-morrow it is
the turn of the king’s daughter.” Next day the prince started off
for the well-head, where he found the princess waiting for the
beast to come and eat her. She begged him to leave her to her
fate, but he stood by. In a little while the monster appeared,
and he cut off his seven heads and cut out the tongues. When
the people in the town saw the streams running blood, they said :
“The princess is dead ; what shall we do?” But in a little while
came the prince, leading the princess safe and sound, and with
the beast’s tongues.

The king wished to make him his son-in-law, but he said :
“No, that cannot be. Only send me back to the upper world.”
“ First,” said the king, “you must kill for me the pig which has
three pigeons inside it and bring them to me.” Off went the
prince and killed the pig, and took the three pigeons. On his
way back night overtook him, and he lay down to sleep under a
plane-tree. On this plane-tree all the birds of heaven roosted at
night, and a beast used to come every night and kill some. The
prince was awakened in the dead of night by the hissing of the
monster come for his prey. He slew it, and in the morning the
birds out of gratitude promised to take him up to the upper
world. ‘But you must bring,” they told him, ‘‘seven skins of
wine, forty loaves of bread, and a roast ox; for the way is long.”
He returned to the king, and gave him the three pigeons, and
begged to be supplied with these things. When they had been
got ready, he started on his journey, carried by the birds; but
before they reached the journey’s end, the provisions were done,
and the eagle he was riding on was hungry. The prince cut a
piece out of his leg and gave it to the eagle ; but the eagle knew
it was human flesh, and kept it in his mouth without eating it.
When they arrived, he asked the prince: “Is anything of yours
missing?” ‘* No,” said the prince, “nothing.” ‘ Yes,” said the
eagle, “something is missing ;” and letting fall from his mouth
the piece of leg he put it back in its place.

Now we must return to his brothers. The eldest brother en-

VOL. X. 2K

498 Miscellanea.

treated the loveliest of the three girls to be his wife ; but she said:
“1 will only wed you if you can find me three dresses, one with
the fields and all their flowers, another with the sea and all its
fish, and another with the heaven and its stars.”

When the youngest prince reached his city he disguised himself
and opened a shop. In his shop he hung up his three dresses.
His elder brother, passing by, saw them, and hastened to tell the
girl that she must now be his, as he had found what she asked
for. Then she knew that her betrothed had come back, and
claimed him as hers, and they were married.

II. Zhe Ball of Silk.

A certain king had three daughters born to him. After the
birth of the third his substance began to waste away. He told
one of his friends about it and asked his advice. His friend ad-
vised him thus: ‘ Find out which of your daughters sleeps with
her hands between her legs, and kill her ; for it is she who charms
your fortune away.” The king looked, and finding that the
youngest child always had her hands between her legs, took her
out one day and left her in a desert place for the beasts to eat.
The child wandered on, until she saw a palace and went in and
found an ogress. ‘The ogress was glad to see her, for she had just
lost her servant, and asked the little girl to take the place. She
waited on the ogress so well, and with such gentle ways, that one
day her mistress said to her: ‘‘ My child, you come of no vulgar
stock.” And the girl told her how she was a king’s daughter, and
how her father had cast her out. The ogress knew why, and she
told the girl and said: ‘‘ Luckily your Fate is a friend of mine.
Now you must go and ask her for her ball of silk. I will help
you as well as I can; but she will refuse to give it you at first,
and you must beg very hard. If you can get the ball of silk, all
will go well with your father.” The ogress prepared all kinds of
delicacies, and loading a tray with them gave it to the little girl
and told her where to find her Fate. The Fate was very pleased
with the gift, but it was only after a great deal of begging that she
gave up the ball of silk.

It was as the ogress had said; and all now went well with the
king ; but he was sorrowful because he was sure that his daughter
was dead. ‘The ogress had a son, and she gave the little princess

Miscellanea. 499

to him in marriage, and the pair started off for her father’s city.
When the king saw his daughter alive and well and married to a
prince (for the ogress was a queen as well as an ogress), he was
delighted.

After being made much of, the ogress’ son and his bride went
back to their own palace. But one day the Fate came and stole
the ball of silk, and they heard that all was going wrong with the
king again. ‘Then the ogress’ son made a large chandelier and
took it as a present to his own Fate, and induced her to get the
ball of silk back from the other one. But she told him: ‘‘ You
must go and live far away from this, for otherwise it will be stolen
again.” And so they did, and all lived happily.

111. Zhe Three Heavenly Children.

A certain king made a proclamation in his city that he was
going to walk through the streets after nightfall, and that all the
lights in the houses must be put out, and every one must be abed.
There was a poor old woman with three daughters, and they made
their living by spinning day and night. Instead of putting out
the light, they blocked up the keyhole and all crevices, and sat
working. As the king passed by, the eldest said: “I wish I had
the king’s cook”; the second said: “1 wish I had all the king’s
cotton to spin”; but the third said: ‘‘I wish I had the king
himself, and I would give him three children—the sun, the moon,
and the firmament.” The king overheard them, and next day
sent and ordered them to appear before him. He granted the
wishes of the two eldest, giving the one his cook and the other all
his cotton; and the youngest, for she found favour in his eyes,
and renewed her promise to bear him the three heavenly children,
he made his wife. In due time the queen gave birth to the sun-
child, and all the house shone when he was born. But the king’s
mother hated her daughter-in-law, and persuaded the midwife to
take the child away, and put a puppy in its place. When the
king, who was absent, came home she told him: “Come and see
what your wife has given you—a nasty puppy!” The king was
very sorry, but said: “So be it; better luck next time.” The
queen-mother had sent the child away to be cast out in a wood.
There a she-goat, which had strayed from the flock, found it and
brought it up.

2K2

500 Miscellanea.

Next year the queen gave birth to the moon-child ; and again
she saw the whole house shine as it came into the world. But her
mother-in-law again got the midwife to steal it, and put a kitten in
its place, and the king was still sadder than before, but said:
“Tet us see what the next will be.” The moon-child also was
exposed in the wood, and found and suckled by the goat.

When the third child, the starry firmament, was born, the
queen-mother substituted a lamb for it. This time the king was
very angry with his wife, and threw her into a ditch in the back-
yard of the palace. There he ordered her to be left and fed with
offal ; but there was one of her servants who loved her mistress
very dearly, and used secretly to bring her food.

The third child, like his brothers, was found and nourished by
the goat ; and one day the shepherd found the goat he had lost so
long ago and the three little boys with it; and he took them home
to his house.

One day the king was hunting in the forest, and he happened
to stop to rest outside the shepherd’s hut. Inside, he heard
talking. It was one of the children telling the others their whole
history, how they were king’s sons, and how they had been stolen
at birth and cast out to die. The king, as he listened, knew they
were his children. ‘Then he went home and made a banquet, and
bade his mother and the midwife to it, and sent and took his wife
out of the ditch, and bade her go to the bath, and dress herself
tichly, and come to the banquet too. As they sat and feasted, he
began to tell the story; and when his mother and the midwife
heard it, they wanted to get up and go, but they had to sit it out.
When he had finished, he decreed that they should be tied on the
backs of wild horses and dashed to pieces. He sent for his three
children, and all went well with them ever afterwards.

IV. Zhe Pumpkin.

There were once in a certain city a queen and a poor woman, who
were neighbours, and both were expecting babies at the same time.
One day they met as they were going to the bath, and they agreed
that if their children were male and female they should wed each
other. In due course the queen gave birth to a beautiful girl, but
the poor woman’s child was a pumpkin. The poor woman lay in
bed like the queen after her delivery, but one day she said: “ Let

Miscellanea. 501

me get up; what is the use of lying in bed for the sake of this
wretched pumpkin?” Just as she was going out of the door she
heard a voice, coming from the shelf where the pumpkin had been
put, saying: ‘‘ Remember your promise. I must have the queen’s
daughter for my wife.” She was indeed astonished ; but off she
went to the queen and told her what had happened. The queen
said: “Promises are all very well; but if your pumpkin can perform
three tasks in three days, then he shall have my daughter. First,
he must make two fountains, one running gold and the other
silver, here in the square; next, he must make a bigger palace
than ours, and the approaches to it must be paved with gold ;
thirdly, he must make half of this mountain here a plain with all
the flowers and the birds, and the other half a lake with all the
fishes in it.”

The poor woman went back and told the pumpkin what the
queen had said.

Next morning the queen woke up and did not see the fountains
and she was very glad, because she did not want to give her
daughter to the pumpkin, and so the next morning; but on the
third morning, when she woke up, there were all the tasks per-
formed. So the queen had to give her daughter to the pumpkin.
The poor girl cried bitterly, but it had to be.

One Sunday, when the princess had gone to church, out of the
pumpkin came a beautiful young man, beautifully dressed, and he
went to church too and sat opposite her. When she saw him, she
fell in love with him, and said to herself: ‘‘ Oh, that I had a hus-
band like that, instead of a wretched pumpkin.” And she told her
mother, and next Sunday her mother came to church too, and
there was the beautiful young man again, and mother and daughter
went home and cried. But next Sunday, as the princess was going
back from church, he came and spoke to her and told her he was
her husband, but that she must not tell her mother, for if she did
he would turn into a bird and fly away. She took him home with
her; but her mother came and found them talking and laughing
on the sofa, and began to scold her. ‘Who is this here? Don’t
you know you are married? Whois it? Tell me at once.” Her
daughter would not. Then the queen begged her, and said she
would kill herself if she did not learn the truth ; and her daughter
had to say: “It is my husband ;” and he turned into a bird and
flew away through the window. There was weeping and wailing ;

502 Miscellanea.

but her husband had told the princess that, if she were forced to
reveal him, she must get her mother to make her three iron dresses
and three pairs of iron boots, and that, wearing these, she must go
in quest of him. So this was done, and the princess went forth to
seek him. After a year the first iron dress and the first pair of
iron boots were worn out, and after a second year the second ones,
and the third year was running to its close—three days only re-
mained—and she was still wandering. There on the road she met
an old man, and she asked him: ‘‘ What is that castle?” ‘In
that castle,” said the old man, “live ten ogres and a youth, and
when they sit and feast and say, ‘To your health,’ he says: ‘To
my wife, and if she had had more sense she would not have lost
me.’” She went on to the castle and entered it, and found the
ogres out and the rooms unswept, and she went to work and swept
them. When she heard the ogres coming, she hid herself, and
when the time came for toasts she heard the ogres say: “To your
health,” and she heard her husband answer: “ΤῸ the health of my
wife, and if she had had more sense she would not have lost me.”
When she heard this, she ran out and kissed her husband. ‘The
ogres wanted to eat her, but he said: ‘‘ This is my wife.”
W. R. Parton.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1899, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLET S.

All English books are published in London, all French books in
Paris, unless otherwise stated,

BERGEN (F. D.). Animal and Plant Lore collected from the
Oral Tradition of English-speaking Folk. Boston: American
Folklore Society. 8vo. ἰδ, 180 pp.

Cuauvet (H.). Folklore Catalan. Légendes du _ Rousillon.
Paris, Maisonneuve. f. 8vo. 119 pp.

HartTLanpD (E. §.). Folklore: What is it? and What is the
Good of it? D. Nutt. 43 pp.

Hyper (Douctas). The Lad of the Ferule. Adventures ofthe
Children of the King of Norway. Edited, with Translation,
Notes, and Glossary. Irish Texts Society, vol. i. 8vo. xx.,
208 pp.

Kwnortz (K.). Folkloristische Streifztige. Leipzig: ἃ. Marke.

8vo. 429 pp.
LELAND (C. G.). Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches [of Italy].

Di Nutti. Cr νον x, 133 pp.

MATHEW (JOHN). Eaglehawk and Crow. A Study of the
Australian Aborigines, including an inquiry into their origin
and a survey of Australian languages. With Map and Illustra-
tions. Ὁ. Nutt. Demy 8vo. xvi., 288 pp.

Nutt (A.). Celtic and Medizval Romance. D. Nutt. 36 pp.

PALMER (A. S.). Studies on Biblical Subjects, No. II. Jacob
at Bethel: The Vision—the Stone—the Anointing. An
Essay in Comparative Religion. D. Nutt. Cr. 8vo. 187 pp.

Spaponi (D.). Alcune Costumanze e Curiosita Storiche Mar-
chigiane (Provincia di Macerata). Palermo: C. Clausen.
f. 8vo. xii, rog pp. [Forms vol. xii. of the Curiosita
Popolari Tradizionali, edited by Dr. Giuseppe Pitre. ]

Von DER LEYEN (F.). Das Marchen in den Gottersagen des
Edda. Berlin: Reimer. 83 pp.

504 Libliography.

PERIODICALS.

The Contents of Periodicals exclusively devoted to Folklore
are not noted.

Contemporary Review, September. MW. B. Yeats, Ireland Be-
witched.

Indian Antiquary, March. 117. Winternitz, Witchcraft in Ancient
India. May. G. δὶ D’Penha, Superstitions and Customs
in Salsette. G. 2. Subramiah Pantulu, Some Notes on the
Folklore of the Telugus.

Archeological Report, 1898, Ontario. [Mainly a Study of Iro-
quois Pagans and Paganism by Mr. David Boyle, of which
a fuller account will be given at an early date. ]

American Anthropologist, N.S., i, 8. 7. Walter Fewkes, The
Aldésaka Cult of the Hopi Indians.

Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, xl, 1. 4. Aarth, Bulletin
des Religions de l’Inde: ii, Le Brahmanisme. JZ. AZaridiier,
La doctrine de la réincarnation des Ames et les dieux de
Vancienne Irlande, d’apres des travaux récents de A. Nutt,
KE. Hull, et J. L. Weston.

Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft, ii, 83. 25 Sartori, Die Toten-
munze. D. G. Brinton, The Origin of the Sacred Name
Jahva. A. Vierkandt, Zur Psychologie des Aberglaubens.

Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, xii, 3, 4. JZ. A.
Waddell, The Lepchas or Rougs and their Songs. W. von
Biilow, Die samoanische Schopfungssage. Zheod. Koch,
Die Anthropophagie der stidamerikanischen Indianer.

Under the title of A Zradi¢éo, SS. Ladislau Picarra and M.
Dias Nunes have commenced the publication, at Serpa, in Por-
tugal, of a monthly review of Portuguese Ethnography. It is
chiefly devoted to folklore, and contains some interesting folk-—
tales, folk-songs (with music), and accounts of popular festivals
and superstitions. Each number also contains a reproduction of
a photograph of a peasant man or woman exhibiting the costume
of different districts in Portugal. Each number consists of 16
pages.

GENERAL INDEX.

Abercromby, Hon. John, review by,
Comparettt’'s Traditional Poetry of
the Finns, 104

Ablutions, purificatory of Izanagi,
301, and parallels, 302

Abrégé L’, des Merveilles, traduit de
PArabe, d’aprés les Manuscrits de
la Bibliothéque Nationale de Paris.
Par le Baron Carra de Vaux, re-
viewed by J. B. Andrews, 229

Abruzzi, the, Holy Week Observance
in, by Grant Allen, 111

Achilpa or wild-cat totem, restrictions
of, 236

Address by Prof. Starr, 445

Adoption of girls, India, 438

Aegina, voice divination in, &c., 155

Aeschylus, story of his death, 182

Aesop’s Fables in Armenia, origin of
the Fables of Wardan, 471-3

Africa, (see also Egypt, West African

Studies), folklore of; Amazulu
custom of cattle-eating, 378;
Baronga folklore, 221, 225;

Sacred cattle of the Damara, 371 ;
Secret societies in, 226; Tar-Baby
story, 282; theology of West
Africa, 39

After-life, Australian belief in, 16,

32
Aghori faqirs, India, 407
Agricultural folklore; blazing the

wheat, 101 ; luck-bringer, Finnish,

106; lucky day for planting,

Hebrides, 268
Ague, cures for, Greek Isles, 165
Cure for (Suffolk), by M. H.

James, 365
Ahonawilona, Zufii god, 33
Ahone, superior Virginian god, with-

out idol, 40
Ahti, 107
Aijo, Finn name for Devil, 330
Ailell, a real person, 218
Akka, wife of Ukko the Finn god,

28
Aloheriage traditions of the Arunta

tribes of C. Australia, 235, 237

Alexander the Great, drug sought by,

231; his visits to the Cynocephals,
229

All Saints’ Day, souls in Purgatory
free on, 121, unlucky if on
Wednesday, Hebrides, 267

All Souls’ Day, spectres pass through
church porch at Aurillac, 333

Allen, Grant, Holy Week Observance
in the Abruzzi, 111

Alms-giving, India, 406, conventions
of, 407

Aloe of Socotra and its use, 231

Altar-post, anointing of, 372

Amazulu, cattle-eating amongst, 378

Ambleteuse, sacred spring, &c. at,
and Norwegian parallel, 460

Ame no Uzume, dance of, 306, 307

America, folk-lore of, British
Columbia, “‘Sqaktktquaclt” story,
195; Digger Indian beliefs, 39 ;
Indian sacrifices to totems, 374;
Massachusetts, snake-form of god
in, 21; Virginian idols and gods,
40; Californian tribes, myths of,
341

Amsterdam, the Hartjesdag at, 246

Amrita, (ambrosia) India, 419

Amulets, 153, of plants, 152

Anahite, Armenian divinity, 473

Ancestor-making in India, 425

worship, Baronga tribe, 226;
China, 302 ; Fiji, 44 ; Japan, 302,
313, 323

Andrews, J. B., review by, Vaux’s
Abréigé des Merveilles traduit de
Ll’ Arabe, 229

Angel Steeple, Canterbury, 359

Angle Ditch, the, excavation of, 89,

ΟΙ

Anglo-Saxon deficiency in myth, 82

Animal Dances, Australian, 19

remains of bronze age, 89

sacrifices, bulls as alms to St.
Cuthbert, 353, modern instances
of, 178, 253

Animals in folklore, (see Fables of
Wardan), see Antelope, Ass, Bear,
Beavers, Black Boar, Bullock,
Bulls, (winged), Calves, Camel, Cat,

5c6

Cattle, Cayote,

Crocodile, Crow, Deer, Dog,

Donkeys, Elephant, Elk, Fox,

Giraffe, Goat, Greyhound, Hare,

Hedgehogs, Hippopotamus,

Horse, Hound, Kalulu, Kangaroo,

Kid, Killer - Whale, Lambs,

Leopard, Lions, (winged), Monkey,

Otter, Oxen, Pig, Porcupine,

Rabbits, Ram, Rat, Seal, Sheep,

Swine, Tiger, Tigress, Urus,

Wolf,

buried in walls becoming spectres,

Denmark, 360,

grateful, ungrateful and revenge-

ful, India, 416

originally human, N. America,

195; human characteristics in

African folklore, 290-2, in Indian

folklore, 415

as messengers, India, 2é.,

protecting hero or saint, India,

398

winged, India, 419

Animism, 3, in oaths, India, 409,
universal, of Indian peasant beliefs,
394; in Shinto, 314

Annual Meeting, 60,

Annunciation, superstition concern-
ing, 174

Antelope, African folklore, 290

Anthropology, some hindrances to,
88 ; in relation to governing native
races, 449

Anthropomorphism of Shinto, 314-5

Antimachia, Island of Cos, legend of
the Kamara Bridge at, 182

Ants, 200, charm against, Greek Isles,
163, people turned into, 215,
Riding, used in charm, 170

Aoine, 272

Aphrodite of Paphos, oriental origin,
of, 340

Aplech de Rondayes Mallorquines ad’en
Jordi Des Reco, by A. M. Alcover,
reviewed by E. S. Hartland, 243

Apple, red, in love philtre, 169

Apples, the three, Greek folktale,
495

April 1, the Feast of Fibs, Cos, 177

Arabia, droit du seigneur, in, 229,
walking forest in, 230

whistling the speech of Devils,
172

Arjun’s arrows of cold, 418

Armenian folklore, see
Wardan

Cows, Cranes,

Fables of

Index.

Arms, Arrows, magic of fire and cold,
Indian folklore, 418; shot at
demon-expelling ceremony, Japan,
321

Arta, Bridge of, Greek legend of,

105

Artemis of Ephesus, origin of, 340

Arthurian romance, archaism of, 84

Arunta tribe of Central Australia,
animal ancestors of, 235, 237, mar-
riage customs, 234, mental capacity
of, 8, 9; totems, 235, eating of,
378; reckoning of descent among,
235

Aryan race fire-worshippers,
148 ; fire customs of, 139

Ascension-tide, season for divination
by the Voice, 154

Ashes, uses of, Indian folklore, 439 ;
of victims sent to parents, India,

142,

442

Ask, the Dry, belief concerning, in
Ireland, 252

Ass, alleged worship of by Jews, Cos,
176

Assumption, Feast of the, Cos, 179,
swine slain and eaten on, Porto
Empedocle, Sicily, 253

Aston, W. G., Japanese Myth, 294

Astrologers, 152

Astrology, in Indian folklore, 435

Astronomical myths, 340

beliefs, in Indian folklore, 440

—— Milky way in Japanese folklore,
304

— Moon of Raja Jai Singh Sawai,
397

Atlantic Ocean, pillars of Hercules,
230

Atli and the birds, and parallels,
455

Auguries (see a/so Omens), 115

August, days in, observed in Cos, 179,
in Scotland, 353

Aurillac, All Souls’ day at, 333

Australia, & folklore of, (see Lang),
absence of domesticable animals in,
376, in relation to totemism, 377 ;
animal dances in, 19; high level of
beliefs in, 2, 11, inculcation of un-
selfishness in rites of, 41; More
Legendary Tales, 231; Mysteries
of, 43, 56; natives, arithmetical
deficiency of, 8, totems &c. of, see
Jevons ; tribes of Central, 233 ;
pantomime dances, 42, sun-myths,
(note) 303

a αν ΡΟ

L[ndex.

Australian Gods, A Reply, by Andrew
Lang, I
Rejoinder, by E. S. Hartland,
6

Religion, A. Lang, 489

Babylonian influence on Hellenic
myth, 340

Baffle, white dove form of departing
soul at, 333

Baiame or Byamee, Australian god,
4, 7: 34: 37, 51, 348, in Australian
tales, 347, as creator, 17, 18, 20,
24, 27, 39, dwelling and food of,
25, institutes Kangaroo dance, 19,
irs i bankers 0725) 400. 2 ἐγ.
Myth of and parallels, 53, sons
of, 18, 26, 28, 493; unending life
of, 17

Bailah Burrah, son of Byamee, 493

Balance Sheet, 70

Ballad literature, European, 97

Ballads, absence of, in Celtic litera-
ture, 99, 100

of North and West Europe, 96

original homes of, 98, 99

Ballimah, the Australian heaven, 28,
52, location of, 54

Baloch cannibalism to acquire dead
men’s virtues, 403

Baltic localities identified with places
in the Helgi-lays, 453

Bamboos, 301

Banshee, the, 123

Barley, divination by, 152

Baronga, Les, Etude Ethnographique
sur les Indigénes de la Baie de
Delagoa. Moeurs, Drott, Coulumes,
Vie Nationale, Industrie Tradi-
tions, Superstitions et Religion,
par H. A. Junod, reviewed by
E. 5. Hartland, 225

birth customs, 227, marriage
customs, 225, worship and gods,
226-7

Barrel shape of evil spirit, Wexford,
362

Barrenness, Indian means of curing,
392, 393; sacrifice to cure at Bury
St. Edmunds, 355

Barrows, 89, 90, empty, 92-5, reason
for, 93

Basil in sunstroke charm, Greek Isles,
167

Basutoland, hares in, 283

Batcombe church, Conjurer Mintern’s
horse-leap at, 481

507

Bath of new born child heated with
red hot poker, 457

Bathing, ceremonial, India, 437

Batting the water with the hands, by
fairies, Ireland, 121, 123

Battle-bards, and their kinship, 454

Beads, blue, uses of, 154

worn to keep off diseases, 154

Beans, used to discover lost things,
154, ἴῃ magic, 171

Bear-wives of the red-headed wood-
pecker, 195, 196, 199-203

Bears, led about as play-mates, 153 ;
magical properties attributed to,

155

Beast bespelling, 152, or binding,
154, 161-4, to protect children,
162

Beasts, colours put upon against the
Evil Eye, 152

crowds of, protecting heroes or
saints, 398

Beavers’ eyes in ‘‘ medicine,” 204

Bedawi folklore ; whistling the speech
of Devils, 172

Beelzebub in Warwickshire mumming,
187, e¢ segg.

Beer, bottled, buried in grave in
Berkshire, 253

Beetles, to get rid of, South African
folklore, 227

Beltane unlucky when falling on
Thursday, Hebrides, 268

Beowulf and the Dragon, 218

poem of, where composed, 82

Bergfolk, Scandinavia, 459

Berkshire folklore, Bottled beer
buried in a grave, 253, method of
finding drowned body in, 115

Besom laid across threshold against a
witch, 480

Bhagat, stone god, India, gratitude of,
416

Bhuta, of S. India, 412, northern
counterparts of, 393

Bible under pillow to protect un-
christened child, Yorkshire, 350

Big Head and Little Wits in Warwick-
shire mumming, 188

Billson, C. J., review by, Aber-
cromby’s Pre- and Proto-Historic
Finns, 325

Binding Spells, 154, operating on
married people, 156, charms to
nullify, 156-60

Bird folklore, see Black fowl, Blue
jay, Cock, Cormorants, Cranes,

508

Crow, Dove, Eagle, Falcon,

Hawk, Hen, Humming-bird, Jay,

Lightning-bird, Little | Hawk,

Maina, Mountain grouse, Nightin-

gale, Ntengu, Owl, Parrot, Pea-

cock, Pigeons, Swallow, Swan,

Talker-bird, Vultures, Woodpecker,

red-headed.

as mitama-form after
Japan, 321

Birds affected by music, India, 415

“sammas,’ Finland, 107

talking, etc., Indian folklore,
416, 417

Bird’s eggs, in May garlands, 444

Bird-skin dress of Sukuna-bikona,
309

Birth auguries, old German, 116

Birth customs and beliefs, see Bar-
renness, Bath, Caul, 476 (of the
Crewes), 101; Couvade, 119,
221; Fatal child-birth, B. Co-
lumbia, 206; Japanese Customs,
300, 310-12; non-natural, “66
Baiame and Japanese Myth ; Lucky
and unlucky days to be born on,
Greek Isles, 153, Hebrides, 268 ;
Midnight Children and their Gifts,
Lincolnshire, 115; Tree-planting,
India and England, 403-4; Twins
and their mothers, Baronga tribe,
227

Birthdays, verses on the days of the
week in connection with, 349

Black boar’s fleece in magic, 163

— cock, lucky, Hebrides, 269

Death, how brought to Norway,

460-1

Dog of Bungay, 476

fowls’ egg laid on Thursday in

love philtre, 169

parece knife in charms, 163,

-Hill, Dorset, Bronze age camp

at, 479

stone bound on forehead for
strength, Cos, 179

Black-thorn, crown made of, Here-
fordshire, 489

wool, etc., in charms, 279

Blaze-night customs, 101

Blazing the wheat, Ior

Blessed Etienne de la Porretta, body
half encased in a pillar, 361

Blessing of animals and _ things,
ees 260, 270; Greek Isles,
161

death,

Index.

Blessing of father,
Greek Isles, 495
Blood, (cock’s or human) to prevent
transformation of treasure trove,
Greek Isles, 182 ; in love philtre,
169 ; used in foundations of house,
Treland, 118

Blood-feud regulations, Australia, 238

‘* Blue ” used for ‘‘ Green ” and why,
Hebrides, 265

Blue beads uses of, 154

jay, origin of, 213

Boats, blessing of, Hebrides, 260 ;
unlucky after carrying coffin, 272

Bodies of enemies strangled and
exposed, Indian tales, 442

Body of holy man half-buried in a
pillar, 361

Boiling washing-water, twice unlucky,
Hebrides, 271

Bologna, saint half-buried in a pillar
at, 361

Bones, burnt to bring rain, 230; dice
made of dead men’s, 418

Bonfires on St. John’s Eve, Cos, 179

Books presented to Folk-Lore Society,
58, 60, 258, 324, 444

—— published by the same, 65

Bora or mysteries of the Australian
natives, 18, 19, institution of, 492

Bordjan funeral customs, 229; in-
heritance in female line among, 2é.

Boundary streams limiting power of
Evil Eye, Hebrides, 278

Bravalla, battle of, 220

Bread, loaf of, and quicksilver used to
discover drowned body, 114-5

Breaking ornaments as sign of grief,
India, 439

Breath, divination by, India, 438 ;
identified with life, 2b., 415 ; power
of, when blown in the face, Dorset,
488

Brewin, Australian God, attributes of,

importance of,

3
Bridge of Antimachia, legend of, 182
of Dread, 349
Bristol, children’s games at ‘‘ Lamp-
out,” 336, ‘‘ Cock-warning,” 337
Britain, date of arrival of Gypsies in,
241

and Folklore, (Presidential
Address) by A. Nutt, 71

British Columbia, folklore οἵ,
*Sqaktktquaclt” or the Benign-
faced, the Oannes of the Ntlaka-
pamuq, by C. Hill-Tout, 195

Index.

British Isles, four historical races of,
79, the home of the Eddic Poems,
450-1

Bronze age, barrows of, 89; camps
or forts of, Dorsetshire, 478-9

Brow of corpse touched to prevent
ill-luck 254, 477

Buarach, the, (horsehair cattle-tie),
Hebrides, 277

Buckland Newton church, visited by
spirits, Midsummer Eve, 481

Buildings, human sacrifice to ensure
stability of, 182-4

seen in phantom flames, 120

special, for marriage, birth and
death, Japan, 300

Bulabong, spirit of the
Australia, 16, 17

Bullimah (see Ballimah), 28, 52, 54

Bull-roarers, 236, 494

Bullock, in Australian dances, 19 ;
in Indian folktale, 415

Bulls, as alms to St. Cuthbert, 353 ;
in Irish tales, 218

white, as freemen’s dues, and

fines, 356

winged, Indian folktales, 419

Bungay, Black Dog of, suggested
origin, 476

Bunjil, Australian god, 4, 50, mean-
ing of name, 34-5, as Our Lather,
35, 37; Poem on, 35; unending
life of, 17

Burambin, son of Baiame, 26

Burial custom, by Mrs. I. Hooper,
254

——,, by R. M. Nason, 254

, by G. J. Watts, 253

Buried animals (in walls) becoming
spectres, Denmark, 360

Burma, idol-chaining in, 420

Burning bushes, Wexford, 362

Burns or scalds, cured by licking a
dry ask, 252

Burnt-offering, (see Calves) to make
rain, or find treasure, 230

Bury St. Edmunds, white cattle of,
ceremonial uses of, 355

Burying plant after touching warts to
cure them, 479

Bush gods of the Baronga, 226

Bushes blazing, Wexford, 362

Butter, charm to protect, Wexford,
364; in warm milk as a cure,
Hebrides, 280

Buying ποῖ right on
Hebrides, 268

dead,

Fridays,

509

Bye-gones relating to Wales and the
Border Counties, 1897-98, re-
viewed by E. S. Hartland, 350

Cabbage, meaning of dreaming of,
116

Cairpre niafer, a real person, 218

Cakes, &c., laid on tombs on feast
days, Calymnos, 180-1 ; loved by
Kalikazari, Cyprus, 176

Calendar, in relation to Egyptian
mythology, 109

Calves, hung in chains or buried at
threshold, ΤΟΙ,

Calymnos, Island of, cakes in con-
nection with festivals, &c., 180

Cambridgeshire, Game of Green
Gravel in, 112

Camel, Indian folklore, 415

winged, do., 419

Candle-wick in tallow as cure for
Ague, 365

Cannibalism, of Daramulun, 40

attributed to Indian witches,
424

—— ceremonial in India, 403, 407

in North America, tales of, 211,

215

Cantal, the Wind and St. Laurence
at, 333-4

Canterbury Cathedral, Angel Steeple
of, 359

Capacity, manly, the same as virtue,
Indian folklore, 426-8

Carr, H. Wildon, A Sicilian Festival,
252

Carriers (¢z/-berz), Iceland, 460

Cash Account, 69

Cassia tree, 311

Castes in Egypt, 229

Cat, the, in folktales, 116, 224, 284;
in folklore, Hebrides, 262, 270 ;
grateful, Indian folktales, 416

Catalogues of warriors, value of, 220

Caterpillar-god of the Everlasting
World, Japan, 319

Cattle, sacred animals, 371, 377,
378; affected by music, Indian
tales, 415 ; blessed, Hebrides, 260,
262; blessing prayers for, 161 ;
charm to keep safe on _hill-side,
Hebrides, 262 ; white, 352, 353,

355
Cattle-switching, Cos and elsewhere,
179-80, cf. 262
Cauls, 476, lucky,
family, 101

of the Crewe

510

Cayote or Coyote, legend of, 206-7 ;
the Mephistopheles of the Wintu;
345

Celestial and earthly offences, early
Japan, periodical purification for,
395

Celtic beliefs, a duty to preserve, 86

influence on the British race, 74

—— literature balladless, 99, 100

migrations, 81

Central house-pillar, circumambu-
lating in Japanese myth, 299, 300

Cerne, Dorset, curative wells at, 479,
leather and Dowlas trade of, 479

Chain of cooking-pot, ideas con-
nected with, Hebrides, 276

Chained idols, Burma, 420, India
and Japan, 2d.

Challenges, Indian folktales, 439

Chance words as omens, 153

Chandelier offered to a Fate, Greek
Isles, 499

Changing abode, lucky day for, 267

clothes, between men and
women in unbinding spells, 160 ;
on Sunday, 183

Chants, Les. δὲ les Contes des,
Baronga de la Bate de Delagoa,
Recueillis et transcrits par H. A.
Junod, reviewed by A. Werner,
221

Charcoal, treasure-trove turning into,
how to prevent, Greek Isles, 182

Charms, (see Ask,) Beast-Binding and
Binding Spells, Hebridean, (see
Freer); against having children, 152;
against Evil Eye, 275-81; to cure
over-looked cattle, 276; to cure or
prevent snake-bite, India, 404 ; to
get free from imprisonment, 170 ;
to injure women and girls, 169-70 ;
Medicinal, Dislocation Spell, 331,
Pleurisy charm, 331

Chastity, male and female, India,

426
Child-birth, fatal, B. Columbia, 206,
Japan, 300
Child, living, buried in building,
Copenhagen, 360
revivified by
African folklore, 224
in unbinding spell for married
people, 158-9
unchristened, to protect against
evil spirits, 350
Children, Midnight, and their gifts,
ΤΙΝ; Ot, to sleep in waterless

crocodile, S.

Index.

house, 269; not lucky to name
after those who die young, 266;
switching passers-by, in Pelzenichel
customs, Heidelberg, 180; in
underwater nurseries, S. African
legends, 224; wearing colours
against Evil Eye, 152

Children’s Games, 77, 336

China, ancestor-worship in, 302 ;
female heirs preferred in, 229;
““left ” superior to ‘‘right” in, 302 ;
myth of creation of sun and moon,
302-3 ; proverb from, 104

Christ, 469 ; Australian ideas re-
sembling, 28, 52; colour of eyes
of, 275

Christian influence on Australian
beliefs) 7) 11, 22:30; 51-55 5 on
Teutonic legends, 83

Christians in Socotra, 230

Christmas, (see Vez//ée de Noel), cake-
laying on graves at, Calymnos,
180-1

Christmas Eve, 263, children born at
midnight on, their gifts, 115

Day, an unlucky birthday, 174

— Mummers, (at Mullion) by
Florence Grove, 351

at Rugby, (/.) W. H. Ὁ.

Rouse, 186

at Newbold, 187, sq.

Christmastide customs, Heidelberg,
180

to Epiphany, Jews searching for
Moses, Cos, 176

Churinga, of Australia, 236, 383,
494

Churning, loss of butter, and cure,
Wexford, 364

Circle or line, protecting, Indian follk-
lore, 418

Ciresenthal, Baden, beating cattle
crosswise, in spring, 180

Clatkeq, 198, sgg.

Claws of bear in magic potions, 155

Cloth blessed after cleansing,
Tlebrides, 261 ; pieces of, hung
on trees, old Japanese myth, 306

Clothes changed in unbinding spell,
160 ; of men and women exchanged,
246 ; prohibition to change on Sun-
day, 183

Cloud-compelling, 153

Club or hammer of Ukko, the Finn
god, 328

Cock, the, in folklore,
269, in African do., 223

182, 262-4

Index.

Cock, black, hatched in March effec-
tive against evil spirits, 263

as corn-spirit, 107

sacred, Hebrides, 262-4

in Japanese myth, 306

sacrificed to secure treasure-
trove, 182

—— white, feathers of, used in seeking
treasure, 230

Cock-crow, effect on evil spirits, 262,

364

Cock-crowing, at unusual hour as

omen, 262-3
Cock-warning, gamie and variants,

Coffins, boats used to carry, unlucky,
272

Coins, magical, 230

Coloured threads used in witchcraft,
Hebrides, 282

Colours, (see Black, Blue, e¢c.), worn
against Evil Eye, 152-3, other uses,

154

Columcille, see Saint Columba

Combing hair, forbidden on Saturday,
Cos, 183

Comparative method of Folklore
research, 132-3

Complaining people, saying about,
Hebrides, 271

Conch, magic, 420

Conchobar, 218

Conjurer Mintern’s Horseleap at Bat-
comhe, 481

Constantinople, Old,submarine church
near, 230

Consumption, snake-skin as cure for,
231

Conybeare, F. C., review by, Marr’s
Fables of Wardan, 462

Copenhagen, living child buried in
wall, 360

Copper-headed spear, magical, 211

Cords (see also Threads), plaited in
spells, 154

Corea, 300, 308, 309

Cormorants’ feathers used as roofing,
Japanese myth, 311

Cornwall, Christmas mummers in,
351, St. Michael’s Mount in,

359
Corpse, brow of, touched to prevent
ill-luck, 254, face touched to hinder
dreaming of the dead, 2b., 477
revived, gratitude of, 417
Corpses, raised, as messengers, Ice-
land, 460

Correspondence, 111, 246, 351, 477

Cos, Island of, Folklore from, 150,
177, 599-

Cotton, bit of, in tithe offering, Cos,
179, knotted to cure ague, 165

County Folklore, announced, 66

Countries, cities, and people, vanish-
ing, 231

Coursing, ghostly, Wexford, 362

Couvade, see Birth

the? by Leland L. Duncan,

119

Coventry Miracles, the, 187

Cows, 177, 275, 277, 284, milking,
260, 270, death of, Hebridean
euphemism for, 265, flesh of, (dead
from illness) boiled before distribu-
tion, 270; striking with hand for-
bidden, Hebrides, 262; and see
Cattle

Cow’s heart stuck with pins and burnt
to punish witch, 483-5

neck-thread torn off in oath,
India, 409

Craigie, W. A., review by, Ellice’s
Place-names in Glengarry, 244

Cranes, helpful, India, 416

Creation myths of Australian natives,
6, 32, 33, 237

—— early, pathos of, 132

Japan, 297, and creation deities,
298, 300

Creation Myths of Primitive America
in relation to the Religious History
and Mental Development of Man-
kind, by Jeremiah Curtin, reviewed
by A. Nutt, 341

Creation Records discovered tn Egypt,
by George St. Clair, reviewed,
109

—— —— A Protest, by G. St. Clair,
246

Creator, Eskimo postulate of, 9

Creeping things, charm to prevent
beasts from hurt by, 152

Cremation in the Bronze Age, 90, 92

Crescent, powers of, 457

Crete, grave of Zeus in, 10, 13

Crewe family, lucky caul of, ΤΟΙ

Cricket, grateful, 416

Crocodile, in African folktales, 224,
291

Crooke, W., reviews by, Brown’s
Researches into the Origin of the
Primitive Constellations of the
Greeks, Phanicians and Babylo-
nians, 339; Brown’s Semitic 771

512

Jiuences
339 ee

Cross, ceremony of diving for, Cos,
177; door signed with, Hebrides,
260, keyhole signed, with, Cyprus,
365, made over door at Easter,
Cos, 178; feet signed with, in
jumping St. John’s Eve fires, Cos,
179

Crosses in charms against Evil Eye,
164

Crow, the, feather of, used for writing
charms, 170; black, bird of evil-
omen, 282; grateful, Indian folk-
lore, 416; Hooded Gray, 277

Crowd unseen but heard, dispersed by
prayer, Wexford, 363

Crown of Thorns, A, M. Peacock,
489

Crystal throne or rock of Baiame,
24, 52, 55

Cuailgne, Dun Bull of, 218

Cuchullin Saga, The, in Irish litera-
ture, being a Collection of Stories
relating to the Hero Cuchullin,
translated from the Irish by various
scholars. Compiled and edited
with Introduction and Notes by
Eleanor Hull, reviewed by F. York
Powell, 217

Culann’s Hound, 218

Cures (see also Medicinal folklore),
miraculous, India, 399 ; by proxy,
India, 403

Cursing a saint to get favours from
him, India, 406

Cynocephals, visit of Alexander the
Great to, 229

Cyprus, crossing the door and the
person on leaving home, 365 ;
divination in, 155; the Kalika-
zari in, 176

More Notes from, by F. O. Har-

vey, 365

in Lellenic Mythology,

Daitya demon the, India, 173

Damaras, sacred cattle of, 371, 377

Dances, Australian at Bora mysteries,
19, 42,44 ; Hobby Horse, Stafford-
shire, and Wiltshire, 186; Horn
dance, Staffordshire, Ζ26., round
and over Fires, St. John’s Eve,
Cos, 179; Kagura, Japan, 307 ; of
the Kalikazari, 174-5 ; Maypole,
Dorsetshire, 481-2; Tub, of
Japanese divinity, 306

Dani Jatti, legend of, India 401

Index.

Daniel the prophet, 164.

Dante’s bath in Lethe, 302.

Daramulun, Australian god, 8, 38,
49, 50, 348, as cannibal, 40, as
healer, 20, mortal, 10, 16, 17, 18,
powers of, 15, 17, watching young
men to punish, 6, 7

Mrs. K. Langloh Parker on, 492

David, King, his men of war, 220

Dawed, Australian sub-god, 33

Days and Seasons: All Saints’ Day,
121, 267; All Souls’ Day, 121,
333; April the First, the Feast of
Fibs, 177; Ascension-tide, 154,
178; Assumption, Feast of, 179,
253 ; «August, days observed in,
179, 353; Beltane, 268; Christ-
mas Eve, 115, 263; Christmas
Day, 174; Christmastide, 180 ;
Christmas to Epiphany, 176;
Easter Eve, 177-8; Easter Day,
178, 180-1, 480; Epiphany, 171,
174-6, 177, 179; February, 180,
181 ; Friday, 116, 268, 361; Holy
Apostles’ Day, 180-1 ; Holy Thurs-
day, 154; Holy Week, 111; Lady-
day, 174; Lucky and unlucky days
and seasons, 153, 267, 268, 349,
435; Lucky birthdays, 349 ; March,
179, 263; May Day, 171, 180,
268, 443, 481, 482; May season,
102, 154; May the Twenty-first,
181 ; Midnight, 115, 269, 395 ;
Midsummer, see zzfra St. John’s
Day ; New Year’s Eve, 177; New
Year’s-tide, 489; Night, 122; St.
Andrews Day, 180-1; St.
Columba’s day, 267; St. John’s
Eve and Day, 155, 178-9; St.
Mark’s Eve, 333; Saturday, 116,
169, 183, 268 ; September, days
observed in, 179, 180-1, 253 ;
Sunday, 116, 178, 253, 282, 349;
Thursday, 116, 169, 267, 268,
361; Tuesday, 156; 207» 3055
Wednesday, 116, 267; Whitsun-
tide, 180

Days of the week, German _birth-
auguries connected with, 116

Dead coach in Louth, 119

Dean, Forest of, superstition regard-
ing women, in, 365

Death and Funeral Customs and be-
liefs, Beer-bottles buried in graves,
Berkshire, 253 ; Cremation in the
Bronze Age, 90, 92; Cakeslaid on
graves, Calymnos, 180-1; Burial

Index.

alive of child, Denmark, 360, do.
in dyke, of would-be destroyer,
Groningen, 361; Burial on Friday
not right, Hebrides, 268; human
sacrifices, Egypt, 229, Japan, 322;
Dead men’s bones as dice, India,
418, Sati, 2., 412 ; Funeral proces-
sion seen after sunset, Ireland, 363,
Lights on graves, do., 362; Build-
ing set apart for corpse, Japan,
300, Washing of mourners after
interment, 24., 302, Wreaths hung
in mortuaries, Ζ6., 321; Nails in
skulls, Lincolnshire, 457; Burial
customs, London, 254, 477; do.,
Northumberland, 254
forecasts, Omens or Warnings,
Black lamb if the first seen, 121,
clock striking 12, during creed,
480; Dead coach, 119, 122; fowls
flying about, 264 ; pigeon ‘entering
house, 122, 123, 248, 333} rain-
bow 364; seeing faces in well
on Easter morning, 480; spirits
going to and from church, 481 ;
tap on window, 122, 123
— savage difficulty in believing in,
338
396
Death-warnings, M. Peacock, 248
Deaths, successive, Hebrides, 272
Deddjal (Antichrist), 230
Deer in Indian folktales, 415, 416,
434; Hira the deer, 416; un-
grateful, 416 ; with twisted horns,
439
Deification of the Mikados, recent
origin of, 323
Deirdre, 220
Deity, Indian peasant ideas of, 440
Deluge, (see also Flood), pyramids as
means of escape from, 230
Demeter worship, supposed modern
survival of in Sicily, 252
Demon bound by Archangel Michael,
his list of names, 162
Demon-expelling ceremony, Japan,
321
Demons, animal forms assumed by,
262 ; controlled by wizards, 152;
good, 154; Half-head and paral-
lels, 172; in Indian folktales, 412,

temporary, Indian folklore,

Sq-

Denmark, folklore of, 459, burial of
animals in buildings, 360, burial of
child in wall, 74., the Ellekone,

WOT. x:

513

or hollow-backed fairy, 173, 459;
Milk-hares, 460

Dennett, R. E., ‘‘ Notes on the Folk-
lore of the Fjort,” with Errata,
113

Deo in Indian folktales, 413

Dessil, (sunwards) in Hebridean
folklore, 268

Destruction by effigy, India, 403

Deutsches Krankhettsnamen-Buch,
von Dr. M. Hoéfler, reviewed by
E. S. Hartland, 476

Devil, the, colour of his eyes, 275 ;
Finnish names for, 329, 330,
Hebridean euphemism for, 265;
and Lincoln Minster and College,
and parallel stories, 357 ; un-
able to injure work done on
Tuesday, 267 ;

Devils, whistling the speech of, 172

Dhanna the Bhagat, story of, India,
400

Dice, enchanted, made of dead men’s
bones, India, 418

Digger Indians, and evolution, 39

Dingwall, animal sacrifices in, 353

Dinner to Prof. Starr, and presenta-
tion, 445

Diseases, (see a/so Medicinal folklore),
amulets worn to avert, 1543; Black
Death in Norway, 460-1 ; Leprosy,
Indian folktales, 436 ; Manoro,
286; Nereids, as givers of, 168

Disgrace, modes of inflicting, India,
439

Divination, England, 475 ; by barley
and beans, Greek Isles, 152; by
the breath, India, 438; by fish-
bones, Greek Isles, 182; by mirrors,
230; by the voice, 154, 1553; by
water and personal possessions,
Cos, 178-9

Diving for the Cross, Cos, 177

Divorce in Indian folklore, 409-10;
in Japanese myth, 301

Docken-stems forbidden for driving
cattle, 262

Doctor Brown, in Warwickshire
mumming plays, 188

Doe dreaming, Indian folktale, 434,
praying, 2ὁ., 416

Dog, Black, of Bungay, 476, as ghost
of a man, 120

— form of Deity, India, 410

— assumed by demon,
Hebrides, 262; by Sqaktktquaclt,
214-5

514

Dog mangled by spirits, Ireland,
363

Dog-natured people, 214

Dog, not the friend of man in Indian
folklore, 415

Dogs not to be called by name at
night, Hebrides, 265

Doll in May garlands, 444

Domestic customs, Indian folklore,

439

Domestication of animals in evolution
of society, 374, et seq.

Donkey’s hairs on bread and butter
as cure for whooping cough,
Dorset, 489

Door opening, blessing on, 261

locked during marriage cere-

mony, Neston, 350

signed with cross Cos, 178,
Cyprus, 365, Hebrides, 260 ;

Dorsetshire, Christmas Mummers in,
186

— Folklore collected in
by H. Colley March, 478

game of King-sealing, 336

result of excavations in, 87, e¢
S9q-

Dove, white as departing soul-form,
France, 333

Dragons in Irish folklore and parallels,
218; in Japanese folklore, 312, 317;
unknown to Warwickshire mum-
mers, 188

Dreaming of the dead, meaning of,
116; prevented by touching face of
corpse, 254, 477

Dreams, old German auguries from,
116; ghosts seen in, India, 395;
in Indian folklore, 433-4

Dresses, magic, 496, 498, 502

Drink of holy water for learning to
read, 171; of lustration water, by
patient, 167 ; shared in unbinding
spell for married persons, 159

Driver, headless, 119

Droit du seigneur, in Arabia, 229; in
Egypt, 2d.

Drowned body to discover, 114, 115

nO Hebridean euphemism for,
2
205

Druid ceremonial use of white cattle,

1897,

Dry ask, powers and uses of, 252

Dtb-grass, made evergreen, India,
308, 400

Dublin county, dread of the newt in,

251

Index.

Dun Bull of Cuailgne, 218 -

Duncan, Leland L., Irish Folklore,
118-9

Dwarf deity, Japan, see Sukuna-bikona

—— white men said to fall from the
sky in rain, Baronga folklore, 227

Dwarves, Scandinavian folklore, 459

Dying man as messenger to the gods,
Australia, 28

Dzimwe, the, African folklore, 284

Eagle, the fore-knowing,
friendly, 497

Ear-boring ceremonies, Indian folk-
lore, 439

Ear-rings as caste indications, 20., for
children, when made, 154; in
crescent shape, 457

Easter Day, burning of straw effigy
of Judas, in Cos, 178; cakes laid
on graves, Calymnos, 180-1 ; lovers
burning threads on, 180; seeing
faces of those doomed to die, in holy
well, 480

Eve, animal sacrifices on, Cos,
177-8

Eastern origin of Italian tales, 103

Eating of totems, rules for, Australia,
494

of underworld food, fatal results
of, Japanese myths, 300, Greek
parallel, 301

Echo, (tree-spirit), Japan, 317

Eddic Poems, British source, date of
and transmission, 450-1

Eerin transformed into an owl, Aus-
tralia, 55

Efts, hybernating, 364

Egg laid on Thursday by black fowl
used in love philtre, 169

Emu, Australian taboo of, 11

—— hero and others, Indian folklore,
426

yolk of used in love philtre,
170

Eggs in May garlands, 444

Egypt, flints found in, 87, folklore of,
(see St. Clair), ancient religion of,
astronomical character of, 231 ;
astronomical myths of, 109 ; castes
in, 229; distillation of water in,
230; droit du seigneur in, 229;
funeral sacrifices in, 26.; Malik
king of, and parallel, 230; mono-
theism in, 231; parasite and
traveller tale and parallel, 118 ;
reason for Shepherd invasion of, 231

213-4 j

Index.

Elephant, in African folklore, 288
Eleusinia, 19

Ellekone, Denmark, 173, 459
Ellis, Sir A. B., quoted, 39

Elk, 203-4

Elves, coats of, Germany, 360;
called Hulder-folk, Iceland, &c.,
459

Embers, counter-spells in churning,
Hebrides, 281-2

Emer, 218

Emerson, P. H., Superstition regard-
ing Women, 365

Emslie, J. P., Touching brow of
corpse, London, 477

Empiricism, 144

Emu eggs, Australian taboo of, 11

Endless tasks, 176

England, folklore of, (see Presidential
Address), bones, etc. found in
barrows, 89; definiteness of, 76 ;
and relation to national character-
istics, 146, 147; White. cattle,
customs connected with, 352

English Dialect Dictionary announce-
ment of appearance of Vol. I., 67

literature, modern, unique value

of, 72

system of law, evolution of and
Roman and Celtic elements in,
74-75

Engwura
382-3

Eolas, (spell) to be paid for, 281

Epiphany, ceremonies in Cos, diving
for the cross etc., 177, 179 ; in con-
nection wiih the Kalikazari, 174-6 ;
season of, holy water of, in charms,
171

Eric, the flyting of, and of others, 454

Eriskay Isle, fatal to men, 271

Ertnatulunga, Australia, Holy ground
round, 383

Erysipelas, charm against, 167

Eskimo postulate of a Creator, 9 ;
soul-bridge of, 349

Esthonia, (see Zurofean Folk-tale
Series) legend of rocks of, 107

Ethnological Data in Folklore, G. L.
Gomme, 129, a reply to the fore-
going, A. Nutt, 143

Euphemisms, Hebridean, reason for,
265

European tales, theory of gypsy
origin and dissemination, 239-40

folklore, four great influences on,

ceremonies, Australia,

European Folk-tale Series. The.

515

The
Secrets of the Night and other
Esthonian Tales, translated by F.
Ethel Hynam, reviewed by W. F.
Kirby, 245

Evil Eye, attributed to the dry ask,
252; bears’ claws and hairs potent
against, 155; . boundary streams
water of, against, 278; charms
against, Hebrides, 275-81 ; colours
used against, Greek Isles, 152-4 ;
cow affected by, 266; charms
against, 164; garlic used against,
178 ; hallowed olive twigs used
to prevent, 179; instance of,
Hebrides, 266; modes of averting
in Rhodes, Cos and Samos, I81 ;
owner of, not to be spoken to by
milker, 270; St. Bride’s genealogy
recited against, 261 ; spells against,
Greek islands, 164

spirits as builders, effect of cock-

crow on, 364

(see also Demons), forms
assumed by, Ireland, 362-3

Evolution idea among Digger In-
dians, 39; in connection with
totems, 237 ; myths of Wintu and
Yana tribes, 343

Lixcavations in Cranborne Chase,
near Rushmore on the borders of
Dorset and Wilts, by Lt.-Gen.
Pitt-Rivers, reviewed by E. S.
Hartland, 87

proper method for, 88

Exhibits, 65, 257, 443, 445

Exorcism, 362, 396, 496

Exposition Universelle (Paris) de
1900, Congrés International d’ His-
toire des Religions to be held at,
366 ; Folklore Congress to be held
at, zd.

Eyes of Christ, the Virgin and the
Devil, respective colours of, 275

Fables, The, of Wardan. Materials
Jor a History of Medieval Armenian
Literature, by Prof. N. Marr, re-
viewed by F. C. Conybeare, 462

Fairies, different ideas of size of,
England Ireland and _ Iceland,

England, pucks or devils, 359,
small size of, 360, 459

Ireland, 119, believed in, 121,
123, carrying off a woman, 121;
Fairy Battles, 120-122, food, best .

2L2

516 Index.

avoided, 121, Forts, 120, Men,
powers of, 363-4, soldiers, 120,
wrath shown by phantom flames,
26.3; snatching up and returning a
man, 120

gold of, Greek proverb concern-
ing, 182

Hebrides, mass said in glens
against, 261, precautions against,
26

in Indian folktales, 423

Falcon, in Indian folklore, 415, 416

Faroe Isles, elves of, 459

Fate in Greek folklore, 153 ; in In-
dian do., 431-3

Fates, of individuals, Greek folktale,

98
the, and Meleager, 453
Father, blessing of, its importance,

495

Father Christmas, in Warwickshire
mumming plays, 187, e¢ σῷ.

Father, expectant, (see Couvade),
health of, 101

Faughart Church and the fairies, 119

Feast of the Assumption, Cos, 179 ;
Sicily, 253

February, food carried from house to
house, Calymnos, 181

Fees not taken by ‘‘ wise man,” 480,
487

Feet and footmarks, Indian folklore,
440; crossed before jumping Mid-
summer fires, Cos, 179

Female heirs preferred in China,
229

Fergus mac Roich, a real person,
218

Ferns Castle, Wexford, its builders
and inhabitants, 364

Fetish, defined by Miss Kingsley,
447; four main divisions of, 448,
in relation to witchcraft, 24.

Fevers, bears’ hairs and claws used
against, 155

Fibs, Feast of, Cos, 177

Fiji, worship of ancestral spirits in,

44
Fine of white bull, 356
Finger and thumb, why “not blessed’

279
Finland, folklore of, 104, national
value of, 461; magic of, 460;
magic songs of, 105, 106, 325, 331
Fire ; Bonfires on St. John’s Eve, Cos,
179; burning bushes, Wexford,
362 ; burning straw effigy of Judas

at Easter, Cos, 178 ; burnt-offerings
to make rain or find treasure, 230 ;
Fire-ball at sea, 263 ;

Fire, (see Aryan; Poker, red hot),
ball of at sea, 263, blessed at bed-
time, Hebrides, 260, bonfires on
St. John’s Eve, Cos, 179 ; burning
bushes, Wexford, 363; burning
straw effigy of Judas, at Easter,
Cos, 178 ; burnt-offerings to make
rain or find treasure, 230; in
charms, 278, 280, 364; flames
which do not consume, Ireland,
120-122, horse with fiery tail, 2d.,
362; kiln-fire, euphemism for,
Hebrides, 265; ordeal by, Japan,
310; Place of,in Australian myths,
28, 52; request for, Hebrides, 281

customs, Aryan, 139; as com-

pared with water customs, 142

god of Japan, birth of, 300

Fires, village and house, folklore of,
139-140

Fish in folklore, (see Salmon, Salmon-
trout, Scar, Sturgeon, Tai-fish,
Trout,) divination by fish-bones,
Greek Isles, 182; unlucky to kill
when spawning, Hebrides, 273

Fisher folks’ May customs, see May
Ladies

Fisherman unlucky to go to meet on
first day of season, 270

‘¢ Fjort, Notes on the Folklore of the,”
with errata, by R. E. Dennett,
113

Flax-skeins used to stop key-holes,
175

Flies, 208

Flints found in Dorsetshire, 479 ; in
Egypt, 87

Flood, (see also Deluge), in Indian
folktales, 440

Flute, magic, Indian folktales, 420

Flying through the air, Indian folk-
tales, 419-20

Folk-charms associated with old
Scandinavian gods, 459

Folklore, a comparative study, 71,
a definition of, 77, distinction be-
tween practical and imaginative
elements in, 145, historic method
in, 147, a link between past and
present, 73, methods of determining
value of according to Gomme, 132,
et sgg.; in relation to the govern-
ment of native races, 449

Folklore, value of publication, 66

Index.

Folklore: Old Customs and Tales of
my Neighbours, by Fletcher Moss,
reviewed, 100

Folklore, The, in the Legends of the
ταί by Lt.-Col. R. C. Temple,
354

Folk-Lore Society, its work and pre-
rogatives, 86

Folk-medicine as shown in Parish
registers, 475

Folk-Song Society, founding of, 67

Folk-tales from the Greek Islands,
By W. R. Paton, The Three Apples,
495, The Ball of Silk, 498, The
Three Heavenly Children, 499,
The Pumpkin, 500

Fomalhaut, 36

Food, (see a/so Cakes), carried from
house to house, Calymnos, 181 ;
fairy, best avoided, 121 ; magic, to
secure son, 393

Forecasts, see Death-forecasts

Foretelling the future, 152, 154

Forest, walking, Arabia, 230

Fortune-tellers, skill of, Wexford, 364

Fortune-telling, Indian folklore, 430-
431, 433

Foundlings in Indian folklore, 425,
426

Fowls flying about as omen of death,
264; black, use of eggs laid on
Thursday, 169

Fox, the, 117, in Iceland, 460; in
Ireland, 354, 361; in Japanese
myth, 317

France, folklore of (see Normandy),
alien influences on, 79

ballads of and their travels, 99

Brittany, see Légendes Locales,

and Veillées de Noel

Paris, devils of Notre Dame,

359 ‘

sacred springs at Ambleteuse,
460; silence in mumming cere-
monies of, 351; wide diffusion of
legends of, 333 ; white rabbit, ill-
omened in, 333

Freemen’s dues, white bull as part of,
356

Freer, Miss A. Goodrich, The Powers
of Evil in the Outer Hebrides, 259

Friday, old German augury for, 116 ;
forbidden day for washing, Styria,
361; things lucky and unlucky to
do on, Hebrides, 268

Friends, omen of separation if a
living thing pass between them, 159

5.17

Frith or horoscope, Hebrides, 279

Frog’s leg as cure for King’s Evil,
480

Fruits, apples, 169, 495, fruit-trees
309, grapes, 179, pomegranates,
179, quince, 179

Fuath, the, Hebrides, 272

Fuegian natives, mental faculties of,
12

Funeral sacrifices, human, Egypt,
229, Japan, 322

Galway, Death or Deaf Coach in,
122, people carried to a distance
by magic, 2.

Gambling ceremonial, Indian folk-
lore, 429

Games, Children’s, English, Scotch
and Irish, 336, Cock-warning,
337, Green Grass, 338, Green
Gravel, 112, King Cesar, 336,
Lamp-out, 26., Touch, and Cross-
Touch, 338

in Indian folklore, Chaupur or

Pachisi, 430

marriage and funeral, confusion
between, 338

Garlands on May Day, Cos, 178; of
May Ladies, King’s Lynn, 443-4

Garlic in May garlands to protect
against Evil Eye, 178

Gayandy Spirit, the, Australia, 493

Gebel Assart, palzeolithic flints from,
87

Gelou, the witch, charm against, 163

Geographical test figure for folklore
research, Gomme, 141-3, Nutt on,

149

Germany, folklore of, birth auguries,
116; burning in effigy of Judas, at
Heidelberg, 178 ; Pelzenichel festi-
val observances, 180; switching
cattle or passers-by, 20.

Ghosts, absence of from old Japanese
literature, 321; Australian belief
in, 16, later than that in gods, 44,
45; Icelandic, 460; at midnight,
India, 395: in Ireland, 120-2,
obliged to go wherever sent, 123

Ghouls, Scandinavian folklore, 460

Giant, the, of Cerne, 482

Giants, Scandinavian folklore, 459

Gifts, magic, 496, of Midnight
Children, 115

Giraffe, in African folktales, 288

Girgenti, Sicily, swine slain and
eaten at festival near, 253

518

Girl, to win love of, 169, used in
vulture-binding spell, 161

overlooked, Dorset, 488

Girl’s figure as Tar Baby 285, 289,
291-2

Glass pot, the family, Ireland, 117

Glastonbury Tor. St. Michael’s church
on, 359

Goat, Irish poem, 355 ; as wet-nurse,
Greek folktale, 499

God, Australian natives’ ideas on, 6,
7; contradictory aspects of in the
Bible, 4, 13 ; evolution of, Lang’s
theory on, 2, 3; Israelite ideas 4,

God of the Everlasting world, cult of
in Japan, 318

of Fire, birth of, 2ὁ., 300

of Waters, India, 423

Gods of the Baronga, 226-7; of the
Japanese, 300

sacredness of names of, 39

Gold earrings in crescent form, Portu-
gal, 457

fairy, Greek proverb concerning,

182

tongue of, in Book of Joshua,
110

Gomme, G. L., Ethnological Data in
Folklore, 129, a reply to the fore-
going, by A. Nutt, 143

Mrs., first Honorary Member,

Good folk, the, (see a/so Fairies) 265

Gourds, 223

Grapes, in tithe-offering, Cos, 179;
301

Grass, (see Diib-grass), talking, In-
dian folktales, 417

Graves of enemies, ploughed up, In-
dian folklore, 442; lights seen on,
Wexford, 362; offerings placed on,
Greek Isles 180-1

Great Bear, origin of conception of
constellation, 340

Greek customs, Australian parallels,

(early) folklore, and national

characteristics, 146-7

folklore, Folklore from the

Southern Sporades, W. H. D.

Rouse, 150; Folktales from the

Greek’ Isles, W. IR: « Paton,

(Lesbos) 495

human sacrifice, 40

Green called Blue, Hebrides, the
reason, 265

μείονα.

Green grass, game, funeral origin of?
338

Green Gravel, game of, by A. R.
Orage, 112

Greenland, conception in, as to the
Great Bear, 341 ,

Greyhound, the, 362

Grogoragally, son of Baiame, his
attributes, 28, an Australian god,
52

Groningen, punishment at for dyke-
injuring, 360

Ground-hog, 200,

Group, marriage, of the Arunta tribe,
Australia, 235; traces of group-
marriage among the Baronga, 225

Grove, Florence, Christmas Mum-
mers, 351

Grove, Miss, suggests local Folklore
Meetings in London, 67

Gun, spell shot from, 160

Gunpowder and gun of Sqaktktquaclt,
216

Gurgoyles, reason for, 359

Guru Gorakhnath, 394, divine attri-
butes of, 395, magic of, 402

Gugga, tale of, 417 divine attri-

butes of, 394

Nanak, Sikh ruler of Fate, 432

Guy Fawkes Day, as a subject of folk-
lore study, 77

Gyloudes, a kind of female vampire,

151

Gypsy Folktales, by F. H. Groome,
reviewed by A. Nutt, 239

Gypsies, date of their arrival in
Britain, 241 ; as diviners and spell-
workers, 152

Haarlem, Hartjesdag observances at,
246

Hachi-jo Island, parturition houses
in, 310

Hadal demon, Bombay, 173

Hades, need of purification after visit-
ing, 301-2

THag-ridden horses, 487

Haida-Tsimshian tribes, totem of,
374

Hair in folklore, 108, 421, associated
with idea of strength, 116, of bears,
in magic potion, 155; human,
burnt in charms, 170, 230, 421,
combing on Saturday, 183, cutting
on Fridays, unlucky, 268

Half-head monster, 171;
armed

see One-

Lndex.

Halga, Halfdan’s son, story of, 454
Haltia, the, of the Finns, 328
Hand-clapping, India, 405

Handley Down, excavations on, 89,
90 ;

Hill do., 22.

Hare, the, in African folklore, 222,
283, 290, 292; Dorsetshire do.,
witch form of, 488; demon taking
form of, 262; in Irish folklore,
362

Milk, Denmark, 460

Hartjesdag observances,

Haarlem,

246

Hartland, E. S., Australian Gods:
Rejoinder, 46 ; Superstition regard-
ing Women, 365; reviews by,
Alcover’s Aplech de Rondaves Mal-
lorquenes, 243; Lye-gones relating
to Wales and the Border Counties,
350; Clodd’s Zom-Tit-Tot, 334;
Gomme’s TZvraditional Games of
England, Scotland and Ireland,
336; Hofler’s Deutsches Krank-
hettsnamen Buch, 4763; Junot’s
Les Baronga, 225 ; Kingsley’s
West African Studies, 447; Lang’s
Myth, Ritual and Religion, 340;
Parker’s More Australian Legend-
ary Tales, 231; Pitt-Rivers’ #xca-
vations in Cranborne Chase, 87 ;
Rua’s Tra Antiche Fiabe e Novelle,
102; Sébillot’s Légendes Locales de
la Haute Bretagne, and Vezllée de
Noel, 458; Spencer and Gillen’s
Native Tribes of Central Australia,
233; Thiselton Dyer’s O/d English
Soctal Life as told by the Parish
Registers, 4753 services of, to the
Folklore Society, 66

Harvey, F. O., More Notes from
Cyprus, 365

Hawk the, little hawk as totem, 237 ;
tortoise-eater hawk, Cos, 182

Hlayato the, Imperial Guards, Japan,
312-

Hazel switches for the cattle, Ger-
many, 180, twigs of, in water-
finding, 479

Head, the, in Indian folklore, 440

Headache &c., prevention of, 154

Head Hunters, 229

‘‘Heads and Harps” in the Hebrides,
268

Health of expectant father, 101

Heart of bewitched cows tuck with pins
and burnt, 483-5

519

Heart of lover caused to be eaten by
unchaste wife, Indian folktales, 442

Heaven in Baronga idea, 226-7

Hebrides, the Outer, The Powers of
Evil in, by Miss A. Goodrich-
Freer, 259

Hedgehogs, grateful, Indian folktales,
416, teased by Indian children,

439

Heidelberg, driving out Winter as a
straw man, 178; Pelzenichel cus-
toms at, 180

Heifers and Oxen, Armenian tale,
470

Heir, female preferred in China, 229

to throne, ceremony of declaring,
Indian folktales, 438

Hel Well, Cerne, 479

Helgi Hundingsbane, story of, 454

Helgi-lays, the, Bugge’s theory con-
cerning, 452

Hell, Hebridean euphemism for, 265

Hellenic myth, Babylonian origin of,
340

Hemp in charm-rope, 487

Hen, crowing, ill-omened, 181-2;
The Little Red Hen, Irish tale,
116, 361; sacrifice of, in founda-
tions of house, 118

Heraldry, white bulls and others in,
357

Hercules, two parallels, 230

Herefordshire folklore, A Crown of
Thorns, 489

Hero, the, in Panjab folktales, 390-1

Heroines, in do., 422 e¢ σῷ.

Hervey Islands, wind-holes and wind-
raising in, 250

Hiccough, Indian folklore, 435

High gods, Australia, undying, 492

Hiisi, Finnish tree-god, turned into a
devil, 329

Hippopotamus, as minder of deserted
children, S. Africa, 224

Hir, Indian story of, 428

Hira the deer, revenge of, Indian
folklore, 416

Historic method in folklore, 147

Hobamock, N. American Indian
snake-god, 21

Hobby Horse’ Dance, Staffordshire
and Wiltshire, 186

Hobgoblins, 360

Hohodemi, Japanese divinity, story
of, 311

Woho no ninigi, Japanese divinity,
310

520

Holland, folklore of, Hartjesdag
parallel to Yarmouth Kitty-witches,
246, punishment of dyke-breaker
in, 361

Holy Apostles’ Day, observances in
Calymnos, 180-1

Bread (see also Bread) used for

finding stolen things, 154

Eve, (Ireland) release of souls
in purgatory on, 121

— ground, Australian

383

instance,

Thursday, divinations on, 154 ;

earrings for children made on, 2d.

Water, in charms, 171, 175, in
Greek Isles, 175, 179; in Indian
folklore, 419

Holy Week Observance in the
Abruzzi, (letter) by Grant Allen,
III

Home, The, of the Eddic Poems, with
Special reference to the Helgt-Lays,
by Sophus Bugge, translated by
W. H. Schofield, reviewed by
F. Y. Powell, 450

Honorary Member, the first, 67

Ho no Susori, Japanese divinity, 310-

2152
Hook of the above, 310-11
Hooper, Mrs. I., Burial

(London), 254
Horn Dance, Staffordshire, 186
Horoscopes, 153
Horse-hoof mark at Vatna’s church,

Norway, and Ambleteuse, France,

460
Horse, the, 262, 355, with fiery tail,

362
Horses, blessed before setting to new

work, Hebrides, 260; buried in

buildings, Denmark, 360; buried
with owners, 101; dying, Hebri-
dean euphemism for, 265; Hag-
ridden, 487; Headless, Louth,

119 ; in Indian folktales, 415, lucky

to mount with left foot, 435,

sacredness of, in, 440, winged,

2b., 4193 stricken when praised,

Hebrides, 266
Horsehair-tie round feet of cattle,

Hebrides, 277
Horse-leap of Conjurer

481
Horseshoe, folklore of, 456-7 ; nailed

up against witches, 480
Hound of Culann, 218; of Ulster,

2b.

Custom

Mintern,

Index.

House burned, presumed
Hebrides, 263

new, how protected from Evil

Eye, Greek Isles, 181

foundation-sacrifice in Ire-
land, 118

Houses and furniture, in Hebrides,
275-6

special, for birth, marriage and
death, Japan, 300,310-12

Hulder folk, see Elves,

Human beauty affecting animals,
India, 415-6

beings as gods, Japan, 317

sacrifice, (see Holy Week) to
ensure birth of son, Panjab, 392,
funeral, in Egypt, 229, 2d., Greek,
40, 182

Humming-bird
quaclt, 203

Humpty Jack in Warwickshire mum-
ing plays, 188

Hurrying a milkmaid, Hebrides, 270

Hus, the brothers, story of, 344-5

Husband not referred to by name,
India, 441

Hypnotism by conjurers in Scandi-
Navia, 460

reason, ἡ

shape of Sqaktkt-

Iceland, fairies of, 459, ghosts of, 460,
tale-sprite of, 2., wise men of, and
their arts, Ζό.,

Icelandic folklore, see pzddsigur_og
Munnmelt

Icons used for foretelling the future,
154

Idols, chained, 420

-— of Okeus, none, 40

none, in Australia, 39

Idzumo, town, 305, ancient civilisa-
tion of, 309

Fudoki, sacred book of Japan,
297

Iliad the, ship catalogue of, 220

Ilmarinen, Finnish god, 105-7,
328-9

Images, speaking, moving and heal-
ing, 230-1

Imbe or medicine-men of Japan, 307
Immortality of animals, Indian folk-
lore, 415

idea of shown in Indian folklore,
398; and re-appearance, 2., 394,
et sqq.

of the soul, whether a doctrine
of old Japan, 322

Index.

Incantations, 230

Incendiarism to secure birth of son,
Panjab, 392-3

Inclusae, or
women, 360

India, folklore of, (see Panjab), bridge
crossed by soul after death, 349 ;
cattle-switching and parallels, 180 ;
Daitya demon, of, 173, Hadal
demon, 20. ; infanticide of girl-
babies and causes for, 436, 437 ;
marriage customs in, 438, law of
divorce, 409-10, the swayamvara,
429; sick children riding on bears,
155; ati, 412; Yama, god of
underworld, 301

“Infection theory ” in Home of Eddic
Poents, 455

Inheritance, modes of claiming, Indian
folklore, 439

Initiatory ceremonies,
Indian folklore, 438-9

Insect folklore, Ants, 170, 215, riding-
ants, 170; Beetles, 227; Cricket,
416; Flies, 208; Lice, 1096-7 ;
Mosquitos, 208 ; Wasps, 20.;
Witchetty-grub, 378

Instruction of Cuchullin, and parallels,
220

Intichiuma ceremonies,

wall-dwelling holy

(see Bora),

Australia,

503th :
Invisibility, charm to secure, 171 ; in
Indian folktales, 421
Invocation of saints, &c., India, 405,

420

Ireland, (see Cuchullin Saga) dangers
of going out at night in, 122; The
Couvade? 119; The Little Red
Hen tale, 116, 361; death-warn-
ing, 122, 248; Newts and asks,
superstitions regarding, 251; size
of fairies in, 360; Some Wexford
Folklore, 362; tales, value of the
older, 219; Starting a new House,
118 ; Traditions and Superstitions,
Co. Louth, 119; war goddesses of,
4553 white cattle of, 355

Iris, 302

Iron, (see Nails), 457, as charm
against witchcraft, 364, dress and
boots of, Greek tale, 501

Israelite ideas of God, 4, 5

Italy, (see Bologna, and Sicily), Holy
Week Observance in the Abruzzi,
111; the Pesce Nicolo of Naples,
230; silence in mumming cere-
monies of, 351 ;

521

{ Ithyphallic divinities, Scandinavia and

England, 482

Ivy worn by Summer in German sham
fights, 178

Izanagi and Izanami, Japanese gods
creation gods, 299, 300, 301, 304,
317, 318

Jack the Giant-Killer, oldest recorded
form of tale, 242

Jalandhar, Saints of, 394

James, M. H., Cure for Ague, 365

Japan (see Mikados) dances of, 306,
307, divorce, in early myths, 301,
houses set apart for birth, marriage
and death, 300, 310-12; idols
chained in, 420; washing of
mourners, in, 302

Japanese Myth, by W. G. Aston,

294 5
The Sacred books of Japan, 294
The Mythical Narrative, 297
The Place of Shinto in the Science
of Religion, 313
Jar, unused, in Aeginetan lot custom,
155
Jaro, the sorcerer, Baloch hero, 393
Jay, (see also Blue Jay), in Australian
myths, 50
Jealousy, wifely, in Indian folk-tales,

423

Jephthah’s daughter, Indian variant,
408

Jevons, F. B., The Place of Totemism
in the Evolution of Religion, 369

Jewel-spear, of heaven, Japan, proba-
ble origin of, 299

Jewels, Kami, Japan, 317 ;

—— in myth, 20., 306

Jewish, (see adso Israelite), search for
Moses, Cos, 176

Jimmu Tennd, first Mikado, date of,
294, his father, 312

Jones, Bryan J., Traditions and
Superstitions collected at Kilcurry
Co. Louth, (#ap), with comments
by W. B. Yeats, 119

Judas, straw effigy of burned, Cos
etc., 178

Juno’s lustration, Japanese parallel,
302

Kaffir metaphysician, a, 9

Kagura dances, Japan, 307
Kaleva, giant, legend of, 107
Kalevala, the, Abercromby on, 105
Kalevipoeg’s stone-throwing, 107

522

Kalikazari, the, of Cyprus, attributes
and names of, 168, 174, 176, dances
of, 175, fleeing when seen, 176

Kalulu, of Shire highlands, 284

Kami, of the Shinto religion, 315,
316, 317

Kamilaroi natives, Australia, artistic
representations of, 26

Kanarese belief in spirit-possession,
422

Kangaroo, the, 237, 303

dances, Australia, 19

totem, 237
Karen conception as to the Great
Bear, 340
Keekwilee Houses, subterranean

dwellings of N. W. Canada, 205
Keito and his spears, Finnish myth,
30
“ Kennings,” original home of, 220-1
Kerry, death-warning in, 123
Key-hole closed up with flax, against
demons, 175; signed with the
cross, when leaving house, 365
Kads, slain und eaten at Sicilian festi-
val, 253
Kiehtan, American Indian God, 21
Kilkenny, beliefs in, as to the dry ask,

252

Killer-whale, the, as totem, 374, 378

Kiln-fires, blessing of and right word
for, Hebrides, 265

King Czesar, game and variants, 336

Kang, dog, and shadow, Armenian
tale, 468

King’s Evil, cure for, 480

King’s Lynn, May Ladies at, by Dr.
Plowright, 443

Kirby, W. F., review by, Hynam’s
translation of Zhe Secrets of the
Night, and other Esthonian Tales,

245

Kirkcudbright, bulls sacrificed at, to
St. Cuthbert, 353

Kitty-Witches, by Dr. W. Zuidema,
246

Kiujiki, the, sacred book of Japan,
296, myths in, 297

Knife, (see Tron), blackhandled, in
charms, 163, 177, Knives not to
be sharpened on Fridays, Hebrides,
268

Knocking at midnight, a fairy trick,
Hebrides, 269

Knots in charm, 161

in mane of hag-ridden horse,

487

Index.

Knots of winds, 106

tied to aid memory, Indian folk-
lore, 439

Kogoshiui, sacred book of Japan, 297

Kojiki, sacred book of Japan, 295,

Sqq-

Koshi, the eight-headed serpent of,
slain by Susa no wo, 308

Krishna’s quoit, 418

Kullervo, son of Kaleva, 107

Kurile Isles, bird-skin-garments of
inhabitants, 309

Kurnai terms of
Australia, 234

religious ideas, 29, 38, 40, 41

relationship,

Lake drained by drinking it, 204 _
Lal Beg, saint of the scavengers, India,

405 ἐπι

Lalbégi sect and others, initiatory
rites of, 438

Lamb, black, as fairy warning. 123. 85
omen of death, 121

white, lucky to see first, 121

(or kid) sacrificed at Eastertide
in Cos, 177, at Sicilian festivals,
253 ;

Lamploo, game, and variants, 336-7

Lang, Andrew, Australian Gods, A
Reply. 1; Australian Religion,

489 ;
Lapp gobdas, Ilmarinen a wind god
on, 329
Laurel in magic ceremony, 155
Lawrence, Sir, Henry, miracle alleged
to have befallen in India, 401
Laxdela, the chiefs of, 220
Lead-melting in magic, 152
Learning, charm for, 170-1
Leech-child, of the Japanese creation
gods, and his reed cradle and
parallels, 299, 300
‘ Left’ preferred to ‘right,’ in China,

302

Légendes Locales de la Haute Bretagne,
par P. Sébillot, Ie Partie, Ze Monde
Physique, reviewed by E. S. Hart-
land, 458

Lemminkainen and his mother, 108

Lempo, Finn name for the Devil,

330

Leopard, the, 292

Leprosy in Indian folklore, 436

Lesbos, bears’ hairs and claws used
against Evil Eye, 155; four tales
from, 495

Index.

Lethe, 302

Levitical taboos, 43, 47

Libations, in Indian folktales, 406

Lice, 196-7

Life after death (see Immortality),
belief in attested by human sacrifice,
early Japan, 322

restored to dead children by
crocodile, 224

Life-token or Index, Indian folktales,
403

Lights seen on graves, and raths, Ire-
land, 362

Lightning-bird of the Baronga, 227-8

Lincolnshire, folklore, Death-warning,
248, Devil, Lincoln Minster and
Lincoln College, and _ parallels,
357; Lincoln Imp, 359-60; Mid-
night Children and their gifts,
115; nails in skull, 457 ; wind and
weather-holes, 249

Lind-worms, Scandinavian folklore,
460

Lines of Fate, Indian folklore, 432

Linghorn (Lincoln) College over-
looked by the Devil, 358

Lions, winged, Indian folktales, 419

Lithuania, thunder-god of, 329

Littérature Orale de [ Auvergne, par

Paul Sebiliot, reviewed by Mabel
Peacock, 333

Little finger, blood from to prevent
transformation of treasure trove,
182

—— Hawk as totem, 237

— Red Hen, (and parallel tales),
by P. Redmond, 116, by M. Pea-
cock, 361

Liverpool, auguries in Psalter-binding
at University College, 115

Lizard, legends of, 182, 238

and serpent version of the Poti-
phar story, Indian folklore, 416

Local Folklore Meetings, in London,
initiated by Miss Grove, 67

Localities, lucky and unlucky, Hebri-
des, 268

Locking doors during marriage cere-
mony, Neston, 350

Loki, 305

wife, 209, 210

Lombards, the, 454

London, death-custom, 254, 477

Lonnrot, and the Kalevala, 105

Lost things, beans used to discover,

154

523

τὰς casting of, Greek Isles, 155,

103

Louth, County, Traditions and Super-
stitions, by B. J. Jones, 119

Love philtres, Cos, 169, 170;

Lover’s heart caused to be eaten
by faithless wife, Indian folktales,

442

Lubbar-fiend, the, 360

Luck, 101, 153, and the sampo or
sammas, 107

Luckbringer, various forms of, 107

Lucky and unlucky days and deeds,
Greek Isles, 153, 183 ; Hebrides,
267, 268; Yorkshire, 349

—— gifts, seasons, persons, etc.,
Indian folklore, 434-5
Luritcha tribe, Central Australia,

terms of relationship, 234
Lustration water, drunk by patient,

167

Magic, (see Charms azd Witchcraft),
and divination in the Southern
Sporades, 151

—— as differentiated from Miracles,
India, 402

arrows, 418; colours in, see
under names, dresses, 496, 498;
in Egypt, 230; in Iceland, 460;
metals, see copper, iron, lead ; num-
bers, Indian folklore, 418; laurel
used in, 155, mirrors used in, 171,
230

— rites, Australia, 236

songs of the Finns, 105, 106,

325, 331 ; :

sympathetic, India, 403

Magic, The, of the Horseshoe, with
other Folklore Notes, by Robt. M.
Lawrence, reviewed by F. Peacock,
456

Maina bird, the, 415

Malik, King of Egypt, and parallels,
230, his religion, 231

Mallorca, folklore of, see Aplech de
Rondayes

Man dressed as woman and spinning,
Hebrides, 271

island fatal to, see Eriskay

Mangarrah, Australian god, 33

Mango trees as life-tokens, India,
403, talking, 26., 417

Manoro, disease, Africa, 286

March, cattle-switching in, Cos, 179 ;
cock hatched in, effective against
evil spirits, 263

524

March, H. Colley, Dorsetshire Folk-
lore collected in 1897., 478

Marchen, 45, 50

Marriage, customs and beliefs, African,
traces of group-marriage among the
Baronga, 225, customs in Zanzibar,
229; Australian, 8, 36, of the
Arunta tribe, 235; English, doors
locked during ceremony, 350,
woman married in her shift, 476;
Hebridean, lucky day for, 267;
Indian, 438, divorce in, 409-10,
the swayamvara, 429; Japanese,
ritual of, early, 300

group, tribal and anti-tribal, as
connected with water or fire cus-
toms, 143

Married people, binding-spells for,
154, spells to unbind, 157, 159

Mars, 453

Marsh-ragwort, lucky against Evil
Eye, Hebrides, 275

Martin Down, problem of its en-
trenchment, 94-5

Martyrs, names of worn round neck,
154

Mary-beans, worn as charms, 262

May-Day, garlands and processions
on at King’s Lynn, 443; in con-
nection with invisibility charm,
Cos, 171; switching the cattle,
Germany, 180

festivals, oak-leaves in, 102

Ladies at King’s Lynn, (foot-
note) by Dr. Plowright, (22/.), 443

May-Pole dances, Dorsetshire, 481,
482

season for divination by the

Voice, 154

the Twenty-first, food carried
from house to house, Calymnos,
181

Mayo, County, folklore of, 122

Meave’s army, Irish folklore, 218

Mecklenburg, cattle-switching on
May Day, 180

Medizeval folk-poetry and modern,

Medicine, (see Folk-medicine), gods
of in Japan, 309

men, N. American
Japanese parallels, 307

Medical folklore, (see also Diseases),
Ague, charms against, Greek Isles,
165, cure for, Suffolk, 365 ; beads
or silk worn to keep off diseases,
Greek Isles, 154: Burns and scalds

Indian,

Index.

cures for, Kilkenny, 252; Con-
sumption, snakeskin as. cure for,
Zanzibar, 231; Dislocation spell,
331; Erysipelas, charm against,
167 ; Fevers, bears’ hairs and claws
to prevent, 155; Headache to pre-
vent, 154; King’s Evil, toad cure
for, 479-80; Pleurisy, charm against,
331; Rheumatism, charm against,
Greek Isles, 154, sacred tree, and
passing through window in chapei
to cure sick child, 26., 181 ; snakes
to bring health, 24., 154; sudden
feeling of sinking, cured by butter
in warm milk, 280; Sunstroke,
charm against, Greek Isles, 166-7 ;
Wart cure, 479 ; Whooping-cough
cure, 488-9

Medical folklore from Cos, 165

Meetings, 58, 59, 60, 257, 294, 324,
383, 443, 444

Meleager, story of, 453

Melkarth of Tyre and parallel, 230

Members deceased, 58, 59, 63, 383,

443

—-— elected, 58, 59, 63, 257, 294,
383, 443

first Honorary, elected, 67

resigned, 58, 59, 257, 294 383,
resignation withdrawn, 443

Mermen and maidens, Scandinavian
folklore, 460

Merseburger Gebet, in Finn Songs,
331

Messages
307-8

Metals, (see Copper, Iron, Lead,
Nails, Pins), unlucky to use in
tilth on Friday, Hebrides, 268

Metempsychosis, in Indian folktales,
411, 412, in Scandinavian tales,
455 ᾿

Metamorphosis, (see also Shapeshift-
ing,), in Indian folktales, 410

Mexican objects presented by Pro-
fessor F. Starr, 66, exhibited and
explained by him, 445

Michael, the Archangel, 162

Midnight Children, by F. Peacock,
Τ

Midnight, the ghosts’ hour, India,
395

visitors, rules for
Hebrides, 269

Midsummer, see St. John’s Eve and
Day

Mikados, the, of Japan,

from the gods, Japan,

admitting,

eified, 317,

Index.

deification of, of recent origin, 323;
the first, 294, 312 ; women as, 303
Miko, priestesses, (Shinto) Japan,

397-

Milk bewitched away, 482, e¢ seqgq.;
drawn in pail thrown on grass,
Hebrides, 270-1 ; unlucky to give
to warrior on warpath, India,
4343 virtues of, in Indian folktales,
41

Milker not to speak to owner of Evil
Eye, 270

Milking or churning, wisdom of bless-
ing, 270

Milk-hares, Denmark, 460

Milky Way, in Japanese myth, 304

Millers, mocked by Kalikazari, 176

Minch, 261

Miracles, as distinguished from Magic,
in Indian folklore, 402; said to
have befallen Europeans in India,
401; working of, India, 396-7,
420

Mirrors in magic, 171, 230, sacred,
320

Mirza and Sahiban, Indian folktale,
437

Miscellanea, 114, 251, 362, 478

Misfortune considered as sin, India,

435-7 -

Mkhitar Gosh, fables of, 473

Moll Finney, in Warwickshire mum-
ming plays, 188 δέ σφ.

Monday, lucky day‘ for changing
house, Hebrides, 267 ; old German
birth-augury for, 116

Monkey, the, African folklore, 291,
why he sleeps in a tree, 292

Monotheism in Egypt, 231

Monsters, (see Kalikazari) the half-
head, 171; seven-headed, 497 ; in
Indian folklore, 413; in Japanese
myth, 308

Moodgeegally
Man,” 28

Moon, in creation myths, Japan and
China, 302 ; private, of Indian
Raja, 397 ;

Moon-light and star-light, effect on
folk-medicine, Cos, 165

Morality, relative, of
natives, 6, 40-45, 55-57

More Australian Legendary Tales,
collected from Various Tribes, by
Mrs. K. Langloh Parker, with
introduction by Andrew Lang, re-
viewed by E. S. Hartland, 231

Australian ““ first

Australian

525

More notes from Cyprus, by F. O.
Harvey, 365

Moré, of the Sporades, 151

Moses in Arab folklore, 229, a giant,
230

and Sargon, Japanese parallel to

stories of, 300

supposed Jewish search for,
Greek Isles, 176

Mosquitos, 208

Mother’s milk, Indian oath by, 409

Mott, Lewis F., The Nibelung Trea-
sure in English, 477

Mountain ash (see Rowan) switches
used for the cattle in Germany,
180

Mountain grouse, origin of, 213

Mountains, Aa in Japan, 317

Mudslide caused by Sqaktktquaclt,
212

Mulkari, Australian god, attributes
of, 33-4

Mullion, Cornwall, Christmas Mum-
mers in, 351

Mungan-ngaur, Australian god equi-
valent to ‘‘Our Father,” 10, 21,
23, 49 attributes of, 37

Murring, tribe, Australia, myths of,
32

Music affecting lower animals, Indian
folktales, 415

and songs of the Baronga,
221-2

Musical instruments, magical, Indian
folktales, 420

Musk in love philtre, 170

Myrtle in charms, 155

Myth its causes and definition of,
14, 15, 49, 533; displaced by fable
in Armenia, 473; word as employed
by Lang, 347

Myth, Ritual and Religion, by An-
drew Lang, reviewed by E. S.
Hartland, 346

Naga totems, 414

Nagni, characteristics of, Indian folk-
tales, 424-5

Nahgul porcupine-like devil, Australia,
origin of, 493

Nails, (see a/so Iron and Pins), for
fixing up horseshoe against witches,
480 ; found in skulls, Lincolnshire,
457; three-headed, for defence
against witches, 483, 486-7

Namdev and the dog, Indian tale,
410

526 Index.

Naples, Pesce Nicolo of, 230

Nasnas, demon, the, 173

Nason, R. M., Burial Custom (in
Northumberland) 254

Native Tribes, The, of Central Aus-
tralia, by Baldwin Spencer and
F. J. Gillen, reviewed by E. S.
Hartland, 233; comments of Jevons
on, 379

Nature worship, the original religion
of Japan, 313

Necklace of Indian ascetics, origin of,
418

Neqoi’stem fall, North America,
legend of, 216

Nereids, as disease-givers, 168

Nerses, the Graceful, allegories by,

473

Neston, locking doors during marriage
ceremony at, 350

Netherlands, folklore of, Hartjesdag
the, 246, punishment of dyke-
injurer in, 361

New Year’s eve, ‘the beasts endowed
with reason on, Cos, 177

tide, Crown of Thorns woven at,
Herefordshire, 489

Newbold, Christmas Mummers at, 187

Newt, the, Superstitions relating to,
KE. Peacock, 251

Nibelung Treasure, the, in English,
by L. F. Mott, 477

Nicola valley, men of turned to rocks,
21

Night, (see also Midnight and
Sleepers), dangers of going out at
Ireland, 122

Nightingale, sent as messenger, Greek
Isles, 183

Nightmares, Scandinavian folklore,
460

Nihongi, the, sacred book of Japan,
295-6, myths in, 297

Nile rising, importance to Egypt,
109 ; sources in Paradise, 230

Nimchahrah demon, Persia, 172-3

Niwal Dai, story of, India, 417

Nocturnal Adventures, Wexford,
362-3

Nodhbandagh the Gold-Scatterer,
Baloch Hero, 407

Noises in the ear, evil omen, Greek
Isles, 181

Non-committal answers of African
natives, 287

Noorele and his Sons, Murring belief
concerning, 323 37

Norfolk folklore, May Ladies at
King’s Lynn, (2//.), 443 ; super-
stition regarding women, 365

Norito, Shinto liturgies, 296

Normandy, St. Michael’s Mount in,
359

North America, absence of domesti-
able animals in, 376, in relation to
totemism, 377

Northamptonshire, folklore οἵ,
method of finding the drowned
in, 114

Northumberland, touching face of
corpse to prevent dreaming of the
deceased, 254

Norway, legendary cause of the Black
death in, 460; musical elves of,
459; sacred spring and horsehoof
print at, Vatna’s church in, 460

Nosses or Brownies, Scandinavian
folklore, characteristics and dress
of, 460

‘* Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort”
errata in, etc., by R. E. Dennett,

113
Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, Devils
of, 359 ἢ δ
Ntlakapamuq Indians, British

Columbia, and the story of
Sqaktktquaclt, 195

Ntengu bird, in African folktales,
224, 284

Numerals used in enchantment, 307,
418

Numbers, magic, India, 418

Nurrulbooroo, All-seeing spirit, Aus-
tralia, 491

Nut, magic, 496

Nutt, A., Ethnological Data in Folk-
lore, a Reply, 143; Presidential
Address, Britain and Folklore,
713; reviews by, Curtin’s Crea‘ion
Myths of Primitive America, 341;
Groome’s Gypsy Folk- Tales, 239 ;
Pineau’s Viewx Chants Populaire
Scandinaves, 95

Oak-leaves at May festivals, 102

tree, and Zeus, 19

Oaths in Indian folklore, 408-10

Oeneus, 453

Offerings, Indian, must involve self-
denial, 407

Offley, Sir John, his caul, ror

Ogres, in Greek folklore, see Lesbos ;
in Indian folktales, (see Rakhas*

Index.

413-4, 424; in South African tales,
224

Ogresses, Indian, 424

Oharai, prayer, Japan, 296

Oho-na-muchi, Japanese deity of
Idzumo, and his guardian spirit,
309, his boast reproved by this
spirit, 320

Okeus, Virginian god, his idols, 40

Oil in spell against Evil Eye, 164

Olaf Trygvason’s guards, 220

Old Christmas (see also Epiphany),
blaze night customs on, IOI

Old English Social Life as told by
the Parish Registers, by T. F.
Thiselton Dyer, reviewed by E. 5.
Hartland, 475

Old gods, Scandinavia, 459

“*Qld gray noddle,” song in Rugby
mumming play, 193, music for, 194

Old Man of the Sea, 230

Old men, position of in Australia, 40

Olelbis, and the brothers Hus,
American Indian story, 344-5

Olive, wild, in magic, 159, 161

Om, Hebrides, 272

Omens, (see also Auguries, Death-
warnings etc.), bad, cock-crowing
at unusual hour, Hebrides, 262-3 ;
from the Greek Isles, 181 ; of death,
248, 264, 364, 480; white rabbit,
333; good and bad, in Indian
folklore, 434-5 ; from chance words,
Greek Isles, 153

One-armed, and one-eyed folk in
South African legends, 224; see
Half-head

Oni or spirits of the dead, invisibility
of in Japanese tales, 321-2

Onion, wild, hung on lintel to avert
Evil Eye, 181

Oobi Oobi, site of Australian heaven,

Oorooma, Australian place of fire, 28,

Oracles in Indian folklore, 430, 431

Orage, Alfred, R., The Game of
Green Gravel, 112

Ordeals in Indian folktales, 428, 429 ;
by fire etc., in Japan, 310

Oscar, 220

Osmanli Proverbs and Quaint Say-
ings, by Rev. E. J. Davis, reviewed,
103

Otters, 354

“Οὐ Father” in Australian mytho-

logy, 10, II, 21-4, 35, 37-9, 47

527

-Our Lady’s Eyes, colour of, 275

Overlooking, cure for, Dorset, 488
by the Devil, 358

Owl, grey, Eerin transformed into, 55
Oxen, wild, 354

Pacific folklore; Wind holes and
wind-selecting, Hervey group, 250

Paivola Saari, Finnish land of plenty,
330

Panjab, Legends of the, The Folk-
lore in, Lt. Col. R. C. Temple,
384

P’anku, Chinese myth of, 303

Pantomimic dances, Australian, 42,
43, 44; Japanese, 307, 312

Papang, Australian God, equivalent
to Father, τὸ :

Paper prayer worn against rheuma-
tism, 154

Papers read, 59, 60, 64, 71, 258, 294,
383, 444

Paradise, the source of the Nile in,
230

Parbati, 395

Paris, the stone devils of Notre Dame
cathedral in, 359

Parrots, in Indian folktales, 415; the
wise, of Raja Rasalu, 417, 441;
ungrateful, 416

Parturition-houses in Japanese folk-
lore, 310

Passing through window in chapel to
cure sick children, Cos, 181

Paternity, Arunta view of, 237;
primitive philosophical conclusions
on, 131, 145

Pathan hospitality 440

Paton, W. R., Folktales from the
Greek Isles, The Three Apples,
495, The Ball of Silk, 498, The
Three Heavenly Children, 499,
The Pumpkin, 500

Peach fruit, 317

Peacock, sacred in India, 440

Peacock, E., Superstitions relating to
the Newt, 251

F., Midnight Children, 115 ;

reviews by, Blakeborough’s W7z,

Character and Customs of the North

Riding, 349 ; Lawrence’s Magic of

the Horseshoe, 456

M., A Crown of Thorns, 489 ;

Death-warnings, 248; The Little

Red Hen, 361 ; Wall Burial, 361 ;

Wind and Weather-holes, 249;

528

review by, Sébillot’s Zz¢térature
Orale de 1 Auvergne, 333

Pearls in Indian folktales, 437, origin Ὶ

ascribed to, 438
Pellervo, 106-7
Pelzenichel customs, Heidelberg, 180
Penance, after death, 122
Perkele, Finn name for Devil, 329
Perkunas, thunder god of Lithuania,

329

Persia, folklore of; the half-face
demon, 172-3; water-wheel of, des-
cribed in Indian tale, 430

Personification, weak among the
Japanese, 316

Persons lucky to meet and the reverse,
Hebrides, 271

Perun, Slavonic thunder god, 330

Phallic worship, traces of in Japan,

299
Phooka, Wexford, 362
Physiologus, Armenian book, 472,

475

Piebald colt of Heaven, Japanese
myth, 304-5

Pig, 365 with pigeon inside, 497 ;
form of, assumed by demon, 262 ;
as phooka, 362-3

Pigs, buried in walls, Denmark, 360

Pigeon entering house omen of
death, 122, 248, 333

Pigeon’s egg, to annul oath on
Quran, 409

Piggiebillah, 493

Pill well, Cerne, 479

Pillar, central of house, in Japanese
myth, 299, 300; pillar gods of
Corea, 300; saint half-buried in,
361

Pillars, of Hercules, 230

Pins stuck into hearts of animals to
punish witch, 483-5, 488

Pipal-trees, talking, in Indian folk-
tale, 417

Piru, Finn name for the Devil, 329

Pitta-pitta tribe, Australia, mode of
reckoning descent amongst, 235

Place names in Glengarry and Glen-
guoich and their Origin, by E. C.
Ellice, reviewed by W. A. Craigie,

244
Plane-tree where all the birds of
heaven roost, Greek folktale, 497
Plantain, talking, Indian tale, 417
Plants, amulets made of, 152
Plants (see a/so Fruits and Trees) in
folklore, see Aloes, Bamboos, Bar-

Index.

ley, Basil, Beans, Cabbage, Docken-
stems, Dfib-grass, Flax, Garlic,
Gourd, Ivy, Laurel, Marsh-rag-
wort, Mary-beans, Myrtle, Rice,
St. Columba’s armpit, St. John’s
wort, Speaking plants

Plate in sunstroke charm, 167

Plowright, Dr., May Ladies, at
King’s Lynn, (¢77.), 443

Plucking or flicking the dress of the
beloved for luck, Cos, 180

Plums talking, Indian folktales, 417

Poets and their powers, Iceland,
460

Pohjola, Finnish land of gloom,
330; its mistress and her deeds,
107

Poker, red hot, to heat bath for new-
born child, 457

Pomegranates in tithe-offering, Cos,
179

Porto Empedocle, swine slain and
eaten on the Feast of the Assump-
tion, 253

Portugal, crescent-shaped gold ear-
rings in, 457

Potiphar story, Lizard and serpent
version of, Indian folklore, 416

Possession by spirits, Indian, 422

Post with human head worshipped in
Corea, 300

Powell, F. York, reviews by, Bugge’s
Home of the Eddic Poems, 4503
Craigie’s, Scandinavian Folklore,
459; Hull’s Cuchullin Saga, 217 ;
Thorkelsson’s ‘2ddsogur og Munn-
melt. Nytt safn, 461

Powers, the, of Evil in the Outer
Hebrides by Miss A. Goodrich-
Freer, 259

Praise, ill-effects of, 266, to combat,
2b., 267

Praising a woman, unwise, Indian
folklore, 423

Prayer in Indian folktales, 405, for
son, 20., 393

Prayers, and crosses against the Evil
Eye, 164; for the dead, Australia,
28, 34, 55; to imprison ghost,
121

Pre- and Proto-Historic Finns, The,
both Eastern and Western, with the
Magic Songs of the West Finns,
Hon. John Abercromby, reviewed
by C. J. Billson, 325

Presidential Address, (Britain and
Folklore), by A. Nutt, 71

Index.

Priestesses, revelations by, Japan,
307

Priesthood, germ of hereditary, in
Australia, 383

Princess, rescued from monster, Greek
folktale, 497

Prison-breaking charm, Cos, 170

Prisoner, releasing ensures good luck,
441

Procession at Girgenti, 253

Prometheus, 230

Prophetic powers of Indian saints,
410

Propitiation, India, 406

Proserpine, effects on,
underworld food, 301

Psalms as charms, 154, 170

Publications of the Society, 65, in
hand, 1899, 66, projected, 68

Puck equivalent to devil, 359

Pullen, Canon, céted, see Allen,
Grant,

Pundjel,
jil), 7

Punishments, in Indian folktales,
441-2; in early Japanese myth,
306, 308

Puran Bhagat, story of, 406

Purgatory, souls released from on
Holy Eve, Ireland, 121

Puy-de-Ddéme, goblin in form of white
rabbit in, 333

Pyramids, as means of escape from the
Flood, 230

Pyrenean folklore, Bridge of the Soul,

349
Pytho, spirit of possessed by women,

of eating

Australian god (see Bun-

154
Pythonist of Westwell, the, 155

Queen Mab, 218

Queen’s County, Ireland, the dry ask
used as cure in, 252

Quicksilver inloaf to discover drowned
body, 114

Quince in tithe-offering, Cos, 179

Quoit, of Krishna, 418

Quran, Oaths on, India, 409

Rabbit, 222, in Tar Baby Story, 282;
white, ill-omened, 333

Rags hung on sacred tree as part of
cure, Cos, 181; Japan, 306

Rainbow, omen of death, 364

Rainbringers, Australia, 11, India,
399

VOL. X.

529

Rain-making ceremonies of the Ba-
ronga, 227

Raja Dhol, vicarious cure in legend
of, 403

Hodi, 441

—— Jai Singh of Jaipur, his private
moon, 397;

— Rasalu, tale of, 427, his wise
parrot, 417, 441

Sarkap, and his infant daughter,
436

Rajput custom of saka, 442

Rakhas in Indian folklore, 412-3

Ram Singh Kuka, miracle attributed
to, 401

Rat, the, 116

Rat-charmer, Wexford, 364

Rath or barrow, burning but uncon-
sumed, bushes at, Wexford, 362

Rational, word as employed by Lang,
14, 347

Raun, rhyme of the Aoine, 272

Rauni, wife of Ukko the Fin god,
328

Red, in magic ceremony, 155

Redmond, P., The Little Red Hen,
116 ; Some Wexford Folklore, 362

Reed,-boat, child placed in, Japanese
myth, 299-300

Re-incarnation theories of the Arunta,
235, 237

Religion, as defined by Lang, 14,

340

Religion, The Place of Totemism in
the Evolution of, F. B. Jevons, 369

Religious devotion, Darwen czted on,
11; ideas among savages, 2, 15

Reptiles in folklore; see Ask, Eft,
Newt, Serpents, Snakes, Toad,
Tortoise, Turtles

Researches into the Origin of the
Primitive Constellations of the
Greeks Phenician and Baby-
lonians, by R. Brown, Junr., re-
viewed by W. Crooke, 339

Restoration of persons and trees from
ashes or decay, India, 398

Reviews, (for details, see Table of
Contents), 87, 217, 325, 447

Rheumatism, paper prayers worn
against, 154

Bee lower, cattle-switching along,
180

Rhodes, Island of, modes of averting
Evil Eye in, 181

Rice-fields of the Japanese Sun-
goddess, 304-5

530

Rice’s fort, Louth, legends of, 119-20
Riches in Indian folk-tales, 399, e¢

597.

Riddles, Auvergne, 334; as tasks,
India, 429

Riding-ants, used in charm-potion,

170

Ritual the parent of myth, 19

River miracles, India, 399

Rivers and springs, haunted, 181
Robin Goodfellow, 360

Rocks, people changed into, 208, 213,

215

Rode Shah, Indian Saint, story of,
400 |

Rods, used in driving cattle and
horses, Hebrides, 262

Romantic revival of the 18th century,
84, its chief outcome, 85

Romans, traces of in barrows of
Bronze Age, 89, and in trenches,
95

Ronga version of the Tar Baby story,
289

Rope in butter charm, Wexford, 364 ;
reaching to the sky, Baronga idea,
227

Ropes of twisted hemp and new
scarlet silk as charm, 487

Rosary, Indian, origin of, 418

Roscommon, belief in water-horses in,
123

Rosewater in love philtre, 170

Roses in Sicilian processions, 253

Ros na Rig, Irish tale, 452

Rouse, W. H. D., Christmas Mum-
mers at Rugby, (2//.), 186; Folk-
lore from the Southern Sporades,
150

Rowan (see Mountain Ash) twigs in
water-finding, 479

Rubies, in Indian folklore, origin
ascribed to, 437-8

Rugby, Christmas Mummers at, W.
H. Ὁ. Rouse, (z/Z.), 186

Russia, (see also Finland), favour-
able field for folklore study, 80

Sacred books of Japan, 294

cattle, Damara land, 371, 377

—— objects, Australia, 383

pools India, 419

——- spring of Vatna’s church, Nor-
way, French parallel, 460

thread, India, (see a/so Buarach),

oaths made on, 409

Index.

Sacred tree, Cos, in cure of sick child,
181, of Japan, 306

Sacrifice, Animal, in Denmark, 360,
in Greek Isles, 177, in Sicily,
(modern), 253, in Scotland, 353

compounded for by fines, early

Japan, 306, 308

human, funeral in Egypt, 229,

in Greek legend, 40, foundation,

183 ; in Panjab, 392

to totems, 374

Sacrificial feasts, influence of, 371

Saint Allpitiful, 168

Andrew’s Day, cakes laid on

graves on, Calymnos, 180-1

Austin’s Well, Cerne, curative

properties of, 479, showing faces of

‘those about to die, at Easter, 480

Bride’s genealogy, recited against

Evil Eye, 261

Brigid, well etc., of, Kilcurry,
121

—— Columba, the patron of cattle,
Hebrides, 262; his sister, 271-2
his day, 267

Columba’s armpit, plant, 275

Cosmas, 168

— Cuthbert, bulls sacrificed to,
353 :
— Damian, 168
Dominic’s church, Bologna,

body of saint half-encased in pillar

at, 361

Dunstan, 476

Eustace, Finnish form of, 329

Gabriel’s altar on the tower of
St. Gall, 359

—— Gall, monastery, towers of, 359

—— George, 169, in Warwickshire
mumming, 187, e¢ sgq.

Géraud’s porch, wraiths seen at

on All Souls, 333

John, invoked in charm against

half-head monster, 172

Baptist, invoked against

sunstroke, 166 ; why potent against

ague, 165

Day, and Eve, water and

fire customs on, in Cos, 178-9

—— Eve, Aeginetan custom of

the lot on, 155; spirits go to Buck-

land church, 481

wort, lucky plant, Hebrides,

275
Laurence and the Wind, wide
diffusion of tale in France etc.,

334

Index.

Saint Mark’s Eve, time to watch the
church-porch, 333

Michael (see a/so Michael, Arch-

angel), altar on the tower of St.

Gall, 359

Michael’s church, Glastonbury
Tor, 359

—— Mounts, Cornwall and

France, 359

Nicola, church of, Girgenti,

procession from, 253

Peter’s church, Ambleteuse,

sacred spring and horsehoof print

at, Norwegian parallel, 460

Stephen, 169

Saints and holy persons, in India,
393, lavishness of, 407, miracles
worked by, 397, invocation of 405 ;
prophetic powers of, 410

Samos, modes of averting Evil Eye
in, 181

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Girgenti,
festival at, 253

Saka, Rajput custom of, 442

Sakaki, tree, Japan, 306

Sakhi Sawar, raiser of the dead,
India, 401

Salisbury, Hobby Horse at, 186

Salmon, 202

Salmon-trout, 20

Sammas, see Sampo

Sampo myth, Finland, 106, 107

Sampsa Pellervoinen, 107

Sanctuary in Indian folklore and
custom, 440-I

Sandal-tree, talking, Indian folk-tale,
417

Sargon and his ark, parallels, 300

Satan, (see also Devil), 469, in a
Mohammedan book of wonders,
230

Sati, custorn of, India, 412

Saturday, old German birth-augury
for, 116; day for using love
philtres, 169; forbidden to comb
hair on, Greek lay, 183; unlucky
and lucky things to do _ on,
Hebrides, 268; vampires do not
rise on, 173

Savage conceptions of religion, 2, e¢
5gq ; natural characteristics of, 10

Savings invested in gold ornaments,
Portugal, 457

Scandinavia, favourable field for folk-
lore research, 80

Scandinavian folklore, (see Lddic
Poems) ; Illustrations of the Tra-

531

ditional Beliefs of the Northern
Peoples, by W. A. Craigie, re-
viewed by F. Y. Powell, 459

Scavengers, Indian, and their saint,
405, 438 ?

ΞΕ fish, bone of used in divination,
162

Scarlet silk, new, in charm rope, 487

Scorpion, in Indian folklore, 440

Scotland, folklore of, (see Place
Names in Glengarry, azd Powers
of Evil in the Hebrides), animal
sacrifices in, 353

Sea, purification in, Japanese myth,
301; more blessed than the land,
Hebrides, 260-1 ; Old Man of, and
his daughter, Japanese myth, 311 ;
spells and curses cast into, 160-1 ;
talismans for causing rise and fall
οἔ, 312

Sea-bogies,
460

Seal-man, the, cannibal turned into a
seal, 215

Seals the bodies of self-drowned per-
sons, Scandinavia, 460

Season and nature myths, absence of
in early Japanese myth, 323

Second sight, Greek Isles, 154, of
Indian witches, 424

Secret Societies of Africa, 226

Sedit and the two brothers Hus,
American Indian tale, 344

Self-sacrifice, mutilation etc., to gain
aid from the Powers, India, 407

Semitic Influences in Hellenic Mytho-
logy, with spectal reference to the
works of Rt. Hon. Prof. Max
Muller, and Mr. Andrew Lang, by
R. Brown Junr., reviewed by
W. Crooke, 339

** Sendings ” of animals and of raised
corpses, Ireland, 460

September 1, 179, 180-1

Serpents, affected by music, India,
415; daughter of, magic of, 76.,
402 ; form of Hobamock, 21 ; eight-
headed, of Koshi slain by Susa no
wo, 308 ; grateful, 416 ; of lakes and
rivers, 460; lizard and serpent
version of the Potiphar story, 416 ;
powers of, 414-5; serpent-women
or Nagnis, 424

Seven sleepers, name for hybernating
creatures, Wexford, 364

Seventh Son, touching for disease by,

475

Scandinavian folklore,

532 Index.

Sex of unborn child, divining, Greek
Isles, 182

Shadow, Dog and, in Armenian tale,
468; pierced to cause death of
owner, 211

Shamans of the Finns, 105

Shape-shifting, (see Sqaktktquaclt),
of Brer Rabbit, 286; of man to
his γργιδεαξζ (individual totem),
491 ; in the Hebrides, 273; of the
Scandinavian Nosses, 460; of the
Sea-King’s daughter, 312; of ser-
pents, 414; among Wintu and
Yana tribes, N. America, 343, 344

Sheep, in folktale, Lesbos, 496; to
avert evil from, Hebrides, 265;
blesssing, binding, 161; breaking
the luck of the flock, 272; ram and
ewe, 355; unlucky to kill on
Friday, 268

Shepherd invasion of Egypt, its
reason, 231

Shikk demon, Arabia, 172-3

Shinto gods, female the more promi-
nent, 303

—, The Place of in the Science of
Religion, by W. G. Aston, 313

—— religion, absence of idols in, 300

basis of, 314, central feature of,

297

liturgies, myths in, 296;
priestesses, “revelations” of, 307-8;
anthropomorphism in, 315%
Spiritism in, 319

Shisumbwa version of Tar Baby tale,
285

Shrines as sanctuary in Indian folk-
lore, 440, visited to secure male
heir, India, 393

Sibou, god of Egypt, 231

Sicily, folklore of ; Death of A®schy-
lus, 182; A Sicilian Festival, by
Η. W. Carr, 252

Sickness, (see also Disease and Medi-
cinal folklore), charms against, 152,

154

Sigrun in the Eddas, 454

Sikh ruler, the, of Fate, 432

Silence in carnival mumming, δ τὶν
in spell-making, 155, and in spell-
breaking, 159-60

Silk, new scarlet, in charm-rope, 487;
twisted for vulture- binding, 161;
worn round neck to keep off
diseases, 154

Silver in water, against Evil Eye,
278, 281

Siva, 395

Skana the demon, 374

Skipwith, G. H., Lincoln Minster,
Lincoln College Oxford, and the
Devil, 357

- Skulls to avert Evil Eye, Greek Isles,

181 ; of enemies as drinking cups,
India, 442; unlucky to remove,
IOI; with nails in them: Lincoln-
shire, 457

Sky or Heaven, the source - of life,
Baronga belief, 227

Sleepers insulted by the Kalikazari,
175-6

Sleeping beauty tale, a stolen bride
story, 426

on the bench, Hebrides, 269

chiefs, awakening of, Indian

folklore, 439

under large trees, dangers of,
Greek Isles, 181

Sligo, folklore of, people carried to a
distance, 122

Smelling involving tasting, Greek
Isles, 182

Smith-god, one-eyed, of Japanese
myth, 307

magic of the Finns, _ see
Ilmarinen

Smoke in boxes in Ntlakapamug tale,
208

Snaithean or charms against Evil Eye,
Hebrides, 275, how made and used,
279, 280-1

Snake or Snakes, see Serpents and
Wheel-snakes,

Snake-bite, charms for, India, 404

god, of North American Indians,

bringing health, Greek Isles,
154, head of in charm, 171, heads
of those killed while changing skins
in unbinding spells, 160; skins in
cures, 154, 231

Sneezing, in Greek Isles, 181, in
India, 435

Social organisation, totemism, 373

Socotra, Aloe of, 231, Christians
in, 230

Solar theory as applied to Irish folk-
lore, 218

Soiomon, King, spirits bound by,
162

Some Wexford Folklore, by Philip
Redmond, 362

Somersetshire, see Glastonbury

Index.

Son, importance of possessing to
Indian people, 392, 393

**Son of God,” birth of, Australian
folklore, 53

Songs of the Baronga, 221-2

—— in divination by water, Cos,
178-9

Sore eyes, cured in St. Austin’s Well,
Cerne, 479

Sorrow, signs of, Indian folklore,
439

Soothsayers, penances for, 152

Sorcerers, North American belief in,
21

Soul crossing bridge after death, 349;
inhabiting totem after death, 375,
or animal, 376

— of newly dead person, its travels,
121, 123

Southern Sporades, Folklore from, by
W. H. D. Rouse, 150

South Lodge Camp, excavations in,
88, ΟἹ

Space-overcoming, Indian folklore,
419

Spain, Basque provinces, silence in
mumming ceremonies in, 351 ; con-
querors of, 230

Spear, copper-headed magic, 211,
212; magic of Keito, 330

Speech of creatures, Indian folktales,
416, and of things, 417

Spell cast into the sea, 160, shot out
of gun, 72.,

Spinning, when wrong to do,
Hebrides, 268, in Styria, 361

wheel, band of, removed at
times of death, Hebrides, 260;
blessing of, 20.,

Spirits, of the dead in Japanese
myths, 321-2; Great, and those
bound by Solomon, 162; guardian,
Japanese myth, 309, 320; newly
dead, long travels of, 121, 123;
possession by, Indian folklore, 422;

Spiritualistic séance among native
Australian women, 492

Spitting, virtues of, Japanese folklore,
311, 313

Spittle for infant lustration, 229

Split man demon, 171

Sporades, Southern, see Southern
Sporades, supra.
**Sgaktktquaclt,” or the Benign-

faced, the Oannes of the Ntlaka-
pamuq, British Columbia, by C.
Hill-Tout, 195

5.535

Shera the Horn Dance in,

186

Stairway to the sky, American Indian
tale, 344-5

Starr, Prof. F., address by, on Folk-
lore of Mexico, 444, dinner to
and presentation to, 445, Mexican
objects presented by, 66

Staves in Demon-expelling New Year
Ceremony, Japan, 321

Steel, see Iron, avd Knife

Stepmother in Indian folktales, 424

Sterility, white bulls sacrificed in
ceremonies to cure, 355

Sticks carried in a circle, 154

Stolen things found by means of Holy
Bread, 154

Stone, black bound on forehead, to
give strength, 179; as substitute
used by the Little Red Hen, 361

Stones and rocks, the crystal rock of
Baiame, 19, 51-2, 55; Esthonian
legend of boulders, 107; in witch-
craft, Hebrides, 270

Storm-making to punish thief, 227

Straw effigies of Judas burnt at and
near Easter, 178; torches of, to
scare witches from crops, IOI ;
worn by Winter in German sham
fight, 178

Sturgeon, 202

Styria, folklore of, days forbidden for
spinning and washing, 361

Submarine church, near old Con-
stantinople, 230

Suffolk folklore (see Bury St.
Edmunds), Black Dog, the, of
Bungay, 476; Cure for Ague, 365

Sufi Ahmad of Jalandhar, open and
secret miracles of, 402

Suicide, ceremonial, to injure enemies,
Indian folklore, 442; by drowning,
the origin of seals, 460

Summer and Winter, fights between,
Germany, 178

Sun, sex of, 300, 303 ; theft of, 107

Sun-goddess of Japan, 300, 303, 315,
319, 320, and Susa no wo, 304
et sqq., 318

Sun-worship in Egypt, 231 ; in Indian
folklore, 440; in Shintoism, 297,
of Tartar tribes, 22.

Sun and Moon, creation of, Japanese
myth of, 302

Sunday, as birthday, old German
augury, 116, rhyme on, 349; the
second in September, festival on,

534

at Girgenti, 253; prohibition to
change clothes, Cos, 183, witch-
craft on, 282

Sunstroke, charm against, 166-7

Supernatural personages and their
powers, India, 396-7

Superstition regarding Women, by
P. H. Emerson, 365

Suso no wo in Japanese myths, 318

Sussex folklore, Tipteerers Play, 186

Swallow in African tales, 222-3, 284,
290, 291

Swan falling in love with human
being, Indian folktale, 416; grate-
ful, z6., praying, 2é., sacredness of,
440

Swayamvara, the, in India, 429

Sweden, hollow-backed fairies of, 459

Sweeping after sunset forbidden,
Greek Isles, 181

Swimming, Cuchullin’s prowessin, 220

Swine (see also Pigs), sacrificed at
Girgenti, 253

Swinging in the rainy season, India,

435
Switching the Cattle, Germany, 180
Switzerland, Bible placed under pil-
low to protect unchristened child,
359
Sympathetic affections, Hebrides, 279
magic, instances of, Cos, 159

Taboo, Australian, of Emu eggs, 11,
Levitical, parallels to, 43, 47, 55-7,
morality of natives, in relation to, 6 ;
Baronga, moral value of, 228, of
twins and their mothers, 227 ;
Indian, of women, 423, 427

as beginning of moral system,

228 ; inrelation to children’s games,

Tai fish, 311

Tailed elves, &c., Scandinavian folk-
lore, 459-60

Tailors in Hebridean folklore, 281

Tain, the, triads in, 220

Tale-sprite, Iceland, 460

Talismans (see also Charms, Magic,
etc.), 312, how used and counter-

acted, 230

Talker-bird, 199

Talking Birds and animals, see
Sqaktktquaclt, Tar-baby, Three

Apples, The ; in Indian folktales,
301-2, 416-7

grateful, Greek Isles, 497,
India, 416

Index.

Tama in Japanese myth, 320

Tangle (sea-weed), milk bewitched
into, Hebrides, 276

Tap on window, death warning, 122,
123

Tapio, woodland god, Finland,
329

Tar Baby Story, Baronga parallel,
222

Tar Baby Story, The, by Miss A.
Werner, 282 ἢ

Tartar tribes, sun-worship of, 297

Teeth extracted in Australian rites,

Telepathic suggestion, instances of,
Hebrides, 281

Temple, Lt.-Col. R. C., The Folklore
in the Legends of the Panjab, 384

Temple of corpse touched to prevent
dreaming of the deceased, 254

Tenby, Mummers at, 186

Tenure by white bull, 356

Tests and identifications of heroes
and heroines,
428-9

Teutonic migrations, 81, 82

Thessaly, parallels to the custom of
the lot in Cos, 155

Thesticos, 453

Thompson river, British Columbia,
Sqaktktquaclt punishes the witches
at, 207

Threads, coloured, in witchcraft, 282;
twisted, uses of, Cos, 180; passed
round fire against Evil Eye, 280 ;
tearing off cow’s neck, in Indian
oath, 409

Three-headed nails against witch-
craft, 483, 486-7

Three repetitions of oaths in India,
409-10

Thumb used to touch face of corpse
to prevent dreaming of deceased,
254; why not blessed, 279

—— the left, blood from in love
philtre, 169

Thunder in Japanese folklore, 317 ;
the voice of the god, Finnish
folklore, 329

god, of Lithuania, 329

Thursday, 169 old German birth
augury for, 116, forbidden day for
spinning, Styria, 361; St. Colum-
cille’s day, lucky, 267

Tibetan belief in spirit-possession,
422

Tiger, the, 317, 397

Indian folktales,

Index.

Tigress, slain by heroine, Indian
folklore, 423

Tilo or lightning bird, 227-8

Times and seasons, Cos, 177

Tin Talaq, or law of divorce, India,
409-10

Tipteerers’ Play, Sussex, 186

Toad in Baronga folklore, 222

Toad-doctor of Pulham, 479

Tombs removed by saints, Indian
folk-tales, 420

**Tongue” the, of gold, in Joshua,
110

Tongue-binding charm, 163

Tom-Tit Tit: an Essay on Savage
Philosophy in Folk-Tale, by
Edward Clodd, reviewed by E. S.
Hartland, 334

Tonttu, Finnish house-sprite, 330

Tools of joiners blessed when left in
workshop, Hebrides, 260

Tortoise, killed by hawk, Cos, 182 ;
ridden, Japanese myth, 311

Totems, Australian, 235, 236-8,
Byamee’s gift of, 491, in relation
to marriage, 36, 236, of the Arunta
tribe, 235, 236, 238; of the Haida-
Tsimshian tribes, 374; Kangaroo
as, 237, killer-whale as, 374, 378,
little hawk as, 237; Naga totem,
414; possible explanation of origin
of in N. America, 195; sacrifice
to, 374

Totemism in Australia, 236-8

Totemism, the Place of, in the Evolu-
tion of Religion, by F. B. Jevons,
369

Touch and Cross-Touch, games, 338

Tout, C. Hill-, Sqaktktquaclt, or the
3enign-faced, the Oannes of the
Nuakapamuq of British Columbia,
195

Toyo-tama-hime, daughter of the sea-
god, her dragon form, 311-12

Tra Antiche Fiabe e Novelle. 7. Le
** Piacevoli Notti” di Messer Gian
Francesco Straparola, Ricerche di
Guiseppe Rua, reviewed by E. S.
Hartland, 102

Traditional Games, The, of England,
Scotland and Ireland, with Tunes
by A. B. Gomme, reviewed by
ΙΕ. S. Hartland, 336

Traditional Poetry, The, of the
Finns, by Domenico Comparettt
translated by Isabella M. Ander-
ton, with Introduction by Andrew

535

Lang, reviewed by Hon. John
Abercromby, 104

Traditions and Superstitions collected
at Kilcurry, Co. Louth, by Bryan
J. Jones, with comments by W. B.
Yeats, (map) 119

Transference of blight
Hebrides, 278

Transiormations, (see Shape-shifting
etc.), into animals and birds, 55,
120, 122

on cattle,

Transmigrations, see Transforma-
tions
Treasure Dragons, Scandinavian

folklore, 460

(see Nibelung Treasure), hidden,

how obtained, 230

trove becoming worthless unless
blood be shed, Greek Isles, 182

Trees in folklore; see Cassia, Hazel,
Mountain Ash, Olives, Rowan,
Sacred, Sakaki, Sandal, Tulsi,

Baiame in a tree, Greek parallel,
19; large, generally haunted, 181 ;
talking, India, 417, tree upholding
the earth, 176; planted at birth of
children, 403-4; walking, in
Arabia, 230 ; worship of, Zanzibar,
20. 5

Tree-sawing as an endless task, 176

Trendle 1111], Dorset, Bronze age
fort at, 478, neolithic flints of, 479

Triads in the Tain, 220

Triangles interlocked, in Magic, 156

Tribal gods evolution of, 372, e¢ sqq.

marriage and anti-tribal, as con-
nected with water or fire customs,
143

Tricks in Indian folktales, 438

Trolls, in Scandinavian folklore, 459

Troubadours, ethical level of Poems
of, 219

Trout, 202, 211

Tuaitheal, 268

Tub dance of Japanese divinity, 306

Tuesday, old German birth augury
for, 116, no new garments begun
to be made on, Cyprus, 365,
things lucky and unlucky to do on,
Hebrides, 267

Tuonela, the underworld of the Finns,

330

Turkish Knight, in Warwickshire
mumming 187, ef sgq.

proverbs, 103

Twanyikira, great spirit, New South
Wales, 490

536 | Index.

Twins, taboo of among the Baronga,
227

Twm Sion Catte, tale of, as to white
and black cattle, 354

Tyre, Melkarth of, and parallels,
230

Ugly Females, the, of Yomi, Japanese
myth, 301

Ukko the Finnish sky-god, 328

Ullakupera or Little Hawk totem,
237

Ulster, gathering of, the Men of,
220; the Hound of, 218

Umbrellas in Indian folklore, 441

Unborn children sex of, mode of
divining, Greek Isles, 182 ; speak-
ing, see Guru Gugga

Unchristened child, to protect against
evil spirits, 350

Ungambikula or. creation gods of
Australia, 237-8

Unlucky people, Hebrides, 269

Urabunna tribe, Central Australia,
234

Urus, 352-3, found in British barrows,
91

Vahagn, Armenian deity, 473

Vainamdinen, in Finnish folklore,
105-7; 329

Vampire, (see Vroukolakas iz/fra)
female, 151

Vanishing countries, etc., 231

Vases weighing the same empty and
full, or turning water into wine,
230

Vatna’s church, Norway, sacred spring
and horsehoof print at, 460

Veillée, La, de Noel, par P. Sébillot,
reviewed by E. S. Hartland, 458

Vengeance in Indian folktales, 441-2

Vermilion in love philtre, 170

Verses on the days of the week as
birthdays, 349; in divination,
Aegina, 156

Versipelle, how scared, 359

Viewx Chants Populaires, Les, Scan-
dinaves. Etudes de Littérature
Comparée. I. Les Chants de Magie,
par Léon Pineau, reviewed by A.
Nutt, 95

Vigfusson G., cited on the Eddic
poems, 450-I

Viking age, the date of the Eddic
poems, 450-1

Viking incursions, effects of on litera-
ture of England and Ireland, 83
Virgin, the Blessed, colour of her
eyes, 275

and the Lizard, legend of, Greek

Isles, 182

name of invoked against the
Half Head monster, 172

Virginian god, Okeus, idols of, 40

Virtue, female, in Indian folktales,
426-8 ; test of, Greek Isles, 182

Visitors, announcing, Indian folktales
439

Voice, the, divination by, 154, 155

Vroukolakas, or Vampires, 173, how
‘laid,’ 174

Vultures, bound by spells, Cos, 161

Waggon-shape of Sqaktktquaclt, 216

Wales, (see Bye-gones relating to)
Mummers at Tenby, 186

Wall Burial by M. Peacock, 361, by
Dr. W. Zuidema, 360

Wall-dwelling holy women, see In-
clusze

Wallace, R. Hedges, White Cattle in
British Folktales and Customs, 352

War goddesses, Irish, 455

Wardley Hall, the storm-raising skull
of, 101

Warts, cures for, 479

Warwickshire folklore, see Coventry,
Newbold ἀγα Rugby

Washing forbidden on Friday, in
Styria, 361; of man and woman
together, in unbinding spell, 159

Wasps in Ntlakapamuq tale, 200,
208

Wassailing, origin of, 354

Water, (see Bathing, Drowned body,
Holy Water, Holy Wells azd Wells,
Rain, azd Rivers), always to be
kept in house, 269; boundary
streams, 278 ; bowl of with silver
in it against Evil Eye, 20.;
in the casting of the lot, 155;
divination by, 178-9; Diving for
the Cross, 177; in Holy Wells,
India, to secure son, 393; Indian
idea of intrinsic purifying powers
of, 419, 4373 lake drained by
drinking it, 204; in marriage cus-
toms, 143; and oil against Evil
Eye, 164; running, to charm out a
swallowed newt, 252, pail-rinsings
not thrown on own land, 270; in
purification, 301-2 ; set on fire by

ees > ae

so .«

Index.

witches, Indian folktale, 424 ;
in sunstroke charm, 167; turned
into wine, 230; in unbinding
spells, 159; for washing clothes
not to come to the boil a second
time, 271; wonderfully distilled in
Egypt, 230

Water-finder, methods and success of,
479

Water-horses, belief in,
common, 123

Water-kelpies, Scandinavian folklore,
460

Water superstitions, non-Aryan, 142

Waters, Indian god of, 423

of healing, 231

Watts, G. J., Burial Customs, 253

Wax-melting in magic, 152

Weather folklore, (see Rain and
Wind), foreshadowed by that on
August 4 to 15, Cos, 179; storm-
making for punishing thief, 227,
by moving skull, ΤΟΙ ; wind-storm
raising, 215

gods, Ilmarinen, 106; Vaina-
moinen, 329

Weaving, of the
Japanese myth, 305

Wednesday, All Saint’s Day unlucky
if falling on, 267; old German
birth augury for, 116

Well, maidens and ogre at bottom of,
Lesbos, 496

Wells; St. Austin’s, Cerne, 479; St.
Brigid’s, 121; Hel well, Cerne,
479; seeing faces in, on Easter
morning, 480; water of, bubbling
on approach of Heroine, Indian

Co. Ros-

Sun - goddess,

tales, 423

Wells cathedral, Kill-Canon Corner
at, 358

Werewolves, Scandinavian folklore,
460

Werner, Miss A., The Tar-Baby

Story, 282; review by, Junod’s
Chants et Contes des Baronga,
221

West African Studies, by Mary IW.
Kingsley, reviewed by E. 5. Hart-
land, 447

West side of road used at night,
Hebrides, 269

Westphalia, switching young heifers
on May Day, 180

Wheel-snakes, Scandinavian folklore,
460

Whip-cracking over cattle to drive

VOL. X.

away witches, Whitsuntide, Ger-
many, 180

Whistling the speech of devils, 172 ;
unlucky underground, 24., wind-
raising by, 312-3

White bull as part of freeman’s dues,
356; in Heraldry, 357; in form
of tenure, 356

White Cattle in British Folktales
and Customs, by R. Hedger Wal-
lace, 352

—— —— in Druid ceremonial 353

clothes in Girgenti procession,

253, of May Ladies, 443

lamb lucky to see first in the

season, 121

rabbit ill-omened, 333

Whitsuntide whip-cracking to scare
away witches, Germany, 180

Widows, ceremonies performed by,
Indian folktales, 439, sacrificed in
Egypt, 229 y

Wife, calumniated, a special feature in
Indian folktales, 423; sacrificed to
ensure foundations of bridge, 182 ;
wooden, 209-10

Wild cat, totem, 236

Willy Howe barrow, empty, 93

Wiltshire, results of excavations in,
87

Wind in box, 74; and the Devil
at Lincoln 333-4, wind god
of the Lapps, 329; wind and
St. Laurence, legend of, 334; se-
lecting of, in the Hervey Islands,

250

Wind and weather-Holes, by M.
Peacock, 249

Winds, knots of, 106; round cathe-
drals, 358, whistling to raise, 312-3

Wine, water turned into, 230

Winged animals, Indian folklore,
419

Winnanulbooroo, All-Hearing spirit,
Australia, 491

Winter, driving out of, at Heidel-
berg, 178

Wintu, the, Olelbis, 18, myths of,
341, 342

Wiraijuri myths, 17

Wiradthur tribe, alleged orgies of,
19

Wirreenun, Australian wizard, 13, 36

Wise men and women, good and bad,
in Dorsetshire, 480, 481, 486-7 ; in
Iceland, 460

Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs

538

of the North Riding of Vorks, by
R. Blakeborough, reviewed by
Florence Peacock, 349

Witchcraft, 475, coloured threads in,
282 ; as related to Fetish, 448 ; at
Piddlehinton, 482, δέ sgg.; in
Wexford, 363-4

Witches, (see also Sorcerers, Wise
men azd Wizards), coloured threads
used by, 282 ; coming against the
sun, 268; in Dorsetshire, 480, sqq.;
driven from cattle by whip-crack-
ing, 180; Gelou the witch, charm
against, 163; hare-form assumed,
by, 488; Indian, characteristics,
424-5; precautions against, see
Horseshoe, Iron, Nails azd Pins ;
setting water on fire, 424, of the
Southern Sporades, 151; straw
torches used to scare, 101 ; turned
to stone, 207, 208

Wizard, one-legged cannibal, 210,
turned into the blue jay, 213

Wizard’s dust, see Wirreenun ;
ecstasy, 328

Wizards, of the Baronga, 227; arts
of, 152, crystals, of, 55, principal
functions of, 106

Wolf-binding charm, 152

Wolf-skin, to keep off Evil Eye, 359

Woman, (see Widow, Wife, ezc.),
carried off by fairies, Ireland, 121 ;
making of by Sqaktktquaclt, 210 ;
married in her shift, 476

Women, (see Wise men and Women,
Witches), Australian, debarred from
the sacred knowledge, 31, rules
concerning, 42, 43, names of,
for Australian gods, 38; barren,
ceremonies in aid of, Bury St.
Edmunds, 355, Indian, 392-3;
literary, in Japan, 304, as rulers of
Japan, 303, Kalikazari fond of
eating, 175; not lucky to meet,

Index.

when, 271; Suicides of in desperate
cases, Rajputana custom, 442 ;
Superstition regarding, 365 ; Tabu
of, in Indian folklore, 423, 427 ;
tabooed to Imbe, Japan, 307 ; un-
wise to praise, India, 423; do no
work on certain days, 179

Woodpecker, redheaded, in folktale
of British Columbia, 195

Wood-pigeon, in African folktale,
284

Wooden wife, British Columbia, 209-
10

Wool, black, in charms, 279

Wor Barrow, contents, 90

Wreaths, funeral, in Japan, 321

Yama, Indian god of the underworld,
301

Yana myths, 341, 342

Yeats, W. B., see Traditions and
Superstitions collected by Bryan J.
Jones,

Yomi, Japanese Hades, 300
Young men’s customs,
American Indian, 195-6
Younger brother, in Japanese myth,

312
Youngest son, Lesbos, 495
Yorkshire, folklore of, 349

North

Zanzibar, marriage customs of, 229;
rainmaking methods at, 230; snake-
skin used in cure for consumption
at, 231; tree-worship in, 230

Zenobius, proverbs collected by, 152

Zeus, cannibal sacrifices to, 40; death
of, 18, 50, grave of, 10, 13; and
the oak-tree, 19

Zone, in Indian folklore, 427

Zuidema, Dr. W., Kitty-witches,
246 ; Wall Burial, 360

Zufii creation myth, 33

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX.

Names of Authors of Articles in Periodicals in ordinary roman type, of
Authors of Books in italics, Titles of Periodicals in small capitals.

Abercromby, Hon. 7., 124

Adler, C., and Casanowicz, J. M.
(joint authors), 127

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, 256,
504

L’ANNEE SOCIOLOGIQUE, 256

ANNUAL REPORT ON BRITISH NEW
GUINEA, 368

ARCHAEOLOGIA CAMBRENSIS,
126

Index.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORT, ON-
TARIO, 504
ARCHIV FUR RELIGIONSWISSEN-

SCHAFT, 128, 504

Balfour, H., 367

Barth, A., 504

Bergen, F. D., 503
BLACKWoOD’s MAGAZINE, 126
Blau, L., 124

Boissier, A., 127

Boyle, D., 504

Brinton, D. G., 504
Brown, R., Jun., 124
Browne, C. R., 127, 368
Bugge, S., 255

Bulow, W. von, 504
Burrows, Capt. G., 126

Casanowicz, J. M. (joint author), see
dler

Chadwick, H. M., 367

Chauvet, H., 503

Christian, F. W., 368

Comparetti, D., 124

CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, 126, 504

Conybeare, F. C., Harris, J. P., and
Lewis, A. S. (joint authors), 124

Couve, L., 127

Crooke, W., 368

Culin, S., 127, 256

Curtin, J., 124

D Arbois de Jubainville, H., 124
Davies, T. W., 124

Deans, J., 125

Dottin, G., 127

Dunlop, W., 126

Durkheim, E., 256

Fewkes, J. W., 256, 504

Fillmore, J. C., 256

Fison, L. A., and Thomas, Mrs. W.
(joint authors), 125

Fletcher, Alice, 256

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, 256

Frazer, J. G., 256, 368

Freymond, E., 367

Frobenius, L., 125

Frobenius, L., 128

Gillen, F. J. (joint author), see
Spencer

Gillen, F. j. (joint author), see
Spencer

Gomme, A. B., 125

539

Granville, R. K., and Roth F. N.
(joint authors), 126

Griffith, Mrs. Ellis, 256

Guise, R. E., 368

Hardy, E., 128

Harris, 7. R. (joint author) see Cony-
beare

Hartland, E. S., 503

Hofler, M., 128

flofler, M., 255

Holt, R. B., 126

Hough, W., 256

Hubert, H., and Mauss, M. (joint
authors), 256

full, E., 125

Hunt, Rev. A. E., 126

Hyde, D, 503

Lynam, F. E., 125

INDIAN ANTIQUARY, 504
INTERNATIONALES ARCHIV FUR
ETHNOGRAPHIE, 128, 504

JOURNAL OF THE ANTHROPOLOGI-
CAL INSTITUTE, 126, 368
Surkschat, C., 125

Kingsley, Mary H., 125
Knortz, K., 503

Koch, T., 504

Kohler, R., 125

Lang, A., 126, 127, 256

Lang, A., 255

Lawrence, R. M., 125

Leclére, A., 127

Leger, L., 127, 256

Leland, C. G., 503

Lewts, A. S. (joint author), see Cony-
beare

Leyen, F. von der, 503

Lyall, Sir A. C., 255

March, H. Colley, 127

Marillier, L., 504

Mathew, J., 503

Mauss, M. (joint author), see Hubert

MUSEUM OF GENERAL AND LOCAL
ARCHASOLOGY AND OF ETHNO-
LoGy, Cambridge, REPORT OF, 368

NINETEENTH CENTURY, 127, 368
Nutt, A., 503

Palmer, A. S., 503
Pantulu, G. R. S., 504

540

Parkinson, R., 128

Penha, G. F. D’, 504

Polivka, G., 128

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL IRISH
ACADEMY, 127, 368

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF
BIBLICAL ARCHAOLOGY, 127

Raynaud, G., 128, 256

Rees, J. Rogers, 126

REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES
NATIONAL MUSEUM, 127

REVUE DE L’HISTOIRE DES RELI-
GIONS, ‘127, 256, 504

Roth, F. N. (joint
Granville

Roth, H. Ling, 128

Roth, H. Ling, 255

author), see

Sartori, P., 504

Sébillot, P., 125

Sezdel, A., 125

Sephton, J., 367

Simcox, E., 368

Skipton, H. 5. Kennedy-, 256

Smyth, A. H., 255

Spadont, D., 503

Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J. (joint
authors), 126

Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J. (joint
authors), 368

Strickland, W. W., 367

Thomas, Mrs. W. (joint author), see
Fison

Index.

Thomas, N. W., 128

Tille, A., 255

Tout, Prof. C. Hill-, 127

TRADIGAO, A, 504

TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRISTOL
AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHE0O-
LOGICAL SOCIETY, 256

TRANSACTIONS OF THE CYMMRO-
DORION SOCIETY, 256

TRANSACTIONS OF THE DEVON-
SHIRE ASSOCIATION, 127

TRANSACTIONS OF THE LANCASHIRE
AND CHESHIRE ANTIQUARIAN
SOCIETY, 127

TRANSACTIONS OF THE
SocIETY OF CANADA, 127

Tylor, E. B., 126

ROYAL

Osener, H1., 255

Velten, C., 126
Vierkandt, A., 504

Waddell, L. A., 504
Wallace, R., 367
Waser, O., 128
Wilson, T., 127
Winter, A. C., 128
Winternitz, M., 504

Yeats, W. B., 504

Zahler, H., 255
Zimmern, H., 128

Printed by J. B. Nicuots & Sons, Parliament Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W.

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