CHAPTER VIII NOTES
[4.1] Day, 71. Here what is probably the more archaic form of the incident, namely, the gift of the life-token to at least one of the kin, is preserved. The hero of one of Afanasief’s Russian tales gives a cup or basin to his six companions. When the cup fills with blood they are to come in search of him. ii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 376. The gift to other than a kinsman is rare; but it occurs in the story of Prince Lionheart, and in a Karen tale mentioned just below.
[5.1] Steel and Temple, 47.
[5.2] Day, 189; Siddhi-Kür, 55; Busk, Sagas, 106.
[5.3] i. Cosquin, 26, quoting xxxiv. Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, pt. 2, 225. In a Kabyle tale, apparently a variant of that given supra, vol. i. p. 60, the hero plants two rods, telling his half-brother to visit them every day: “if thou find mine dried up, know that I am dead.” De Charencey, Folklore, 142, citing René Basset, in vi. Giornale della Società asiatica italiana.
[5.4] ii. F.L. Journ., 52.
[5.5] Curtin, Russians, 239.
[5.6] i. Cosquin, 220, citing Indian Ant. (1872), 115.
[6.1] i. Cosquin, 248.
[6.2] Rodd, 249.
[7.1] Chatelain, 85, 278.
[7.2] Legrand, 191.
[7.3] Schneller, 68, Story No. 26.
[7.4] Codrington, 401.
[8.1] ii. F.L. Journ., 130.
[8.2] Clouston, i. Pop. Tales, 171, citing Wilson’s Descr. Catalogue of Col. Mackenzie’s Oriental MSS.; Swynnerton, Ind. Nights, 336; Spitta Bey, 125.
[8.3] Early Ideas, 130.
[8.4] Leskien, 547; Wenzig, 140; Wratislaw, 55 (Story No. 9), from Kulda’s Moravian collection.
[8.5] Denton, 273.
[8.6] Jones and Kropf, 257, from Erdélyi.
[9.1] Köhler, in a note, ii. Gonzenbach, 230, citing Simrock, No. 40.
[9.2] iii. Suppl. Nights, 510; El Folk-lore Andaluz, 307; Maspons, Cuentos Pop. Cat. 82 (it is here given by an old man, not by the hero); i. Rond., 109; ii. Powell and Magnússon, 431; i. Rivista, 759.
[9.3] i. Mélusine, 209.
[9.4] Theal, 77.
[9.5] ii. Von Hahn, 215.
[9.6] Spitta Bey, loc. cit.; Maspons, i. Rond., loc. cit.; i. Mélusine, 210, 214; v. Rev. Trad. Pop., 737; Visentini, 206.
[9.7] Burton, iv. Suppl. Nights, 245; Spitta Bey, loc. cit.
[9.8] Garnett, i. Wom., 23.
[10.1] i. Cosquin, 71; Imbriani, 88, 106, 108 (Stories Nos. 6 and 7); i. Comparetti, 27 (i. F.L. Record, 206), 274; Webster, 169; iv. Pitrè, 350. (In the last three cases the ring is the gift of the Beast to Beauty.) Leskien, 548. Clouston also refers to a ballad by Leyden. i. Pop. Tales, 171.
[10.2] iv. Pitrè, 319 (Story No. 36); Crane, 17.
[10.3] i. Comparetti, 26; Imbriani, 388; Leskien, 547; Jones and Kropf, 54, from Kriza.
[10.4] ii. Von Hahn, 45.
[10.5] Leskien, 372.
[10.6] Ralston, Russian F.T., 66, from Afanasief.
[11.1] Leskien, 548, citing Nowosielsky. The dish appears elsewhere in Russian tales for the same purpose in connection with a knife and a handkerchief. One would hardly have given the Russian peasantry credit for being so fastidious; but the explanation must be sought in the beliefs discussed in the following chapters.
[11.2] Kalevala, runes 12, 15.
[11.3] Rand, 83.
[11.4] ii. Von Hahn, 15.
[11.5] Popol Vuh, 79.
[11.6] i. Folklore, 65.
[12.1] Erminnie A. Smith, in ii. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 94.
[12.2] Von Wlislocki, Armenier, 146.
[12.3] Ralston, Russian F.T., 89, from Afanasief.
[12.4] Zingerle, K.- und H.-Märchen, 116. A candle is often found as the life itself. Cf. i. Bib. Trad. Pop. Españ., 176, and a number of tales of Godfather Death.
[13.1] iv. Pitrè, 329.
[13.2] Leskien, 548, citing Afanasief, etc.
[13.3] Leskien, 547.
[13.4] Denton, 266.
[13.5] Wardrop, 53.
[14.1] Featherman, Papuo- and Malayo-Melanesians, 283.
[15.1] The Fables and Rites of the Yncas, by Christoval de Molina, in Markham, Rites and Laws, 12.
[15.2] Clouston, Lane’s Squire’s Tale, 299. This book was issued by the Chaucer Society. The Folk-Lore Society has obtained the right of reissuing it, with additions by Mr. Clouston; and it is to be hoped that this will be done ere long. As to modern practices in India, see also Burton, Sindh, 180; i. N. Ind. N. and Q. 85; iv. 51.
[16.1] Apuleius, Discourse on Magic; Pröhle, Sagen, 232 (Story No. 173); Grimm, Teut. Myth. 1770, 1773, 1774, 1775, quoting Hartlieb’s Book of All Forbidden Arts (1455); Kohlrusch, 260, note, quoting the same. See also Scot, 211; ii. Brand, 604, note; Caxton, ii. Recuyell, 414; Ostermann, 151.
[16.2] Von Wlislocki, Transs. Zig., 112 (Story No. 47).
[16.3] Pröhle, Sagen, 32 (Story No. 6). A mirror in a Chinese tale had the property of fixing, or photographing, the face of any woman who looked into it. The image could only be obliterated by another woman, or the same woman in another dress, looking into it. ii. Giles, 32.
[16.4] Lubbock, 253, quoting De Faira. Compare a Swedish tale in which a lover is shown his sweetheart, by a Lapp magician, in a bucket of water. Thorpe, ii. N. Myth., 55, from Afzelius.
[16.5] Ellis, i. Polyn. Res., 378.
[17.1] A. W. Moore, in v. Folklore, 214, citing N. and Q. (1852).
[17.2] Winwood Reade, 252; Du Chaillu, Ashangoland, 173.
[17.3] H. Ling Roth, in xxi. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 118.
[17.4] Brinton, Cakchiquels, 43, 69, 27.
[17.5] J. G. Bourke, in ix. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 461.
[17.6] v. Am Urquell, 163; H. Carrington Bolton, in vi. Journ. Am. F.L., 25. Mr. Andrew Lang, in Cock Lane and Common Sense (London, 1894), 212, et sqq., has examined the practice of crystal-gazing. He brings his wide knowledge of savage and other superstitious purposes to bear upon the evidence, and comes to the conclusion that “we can scarcely push scepticism so far as to deny that the facts exist, that hallucinations are actually provoked,” by gazing into a ball of crystal or glass. Indeed, he suggests that something more than hallucination is provoked; but perhaps that is “only his fun.” He does not say it.
[18.1] i. Comparetti, 269.
[18.2] ii. Parkinson, 242. The story connected with this belief is, as Mr. Parkinson reproduces it, anything but traditional, and I lay no stress on it.
[18.3] Pausanias, iii. 25; vii. 21.
[18.4] Turner, Samoa, 101.
[19.1] Busk, F.L. Rome, 117.
[19.2] Cavallius, 81.
[19.3] i. Crantz, 214.
[19.4] iv. Rev. Trad. Pop., 287.
[19.5] Hunt, 290, note, quoting Gilbert, ii. Parochial Hist. of Cornwall, 121. Montluck Well, Logan, and Saint Mary’s Well, Kilmorie, both in Wigtownshire, are resorted to for water for the sick. The waters of both have the property of appearing in abundance if the augury be favourable; if not, of diminishing. R. C. Hope, in xxviii. Antiquary, 68, quoting Symson’s Description of Galloway and iv. Statistical Account of Scotland.
[20.1] ii. Brand, 263, note, quoting xii. Stat. Acc. Scot., 464. The spirits of wells often appear in animal form. See, for example, Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 21. Cf. the water-bull and water-kelpie of Scotland.
[20.2] ii. Brand, 272, note, quoting The Living Librarie, or Historical Meditations (1621), 284.
[21.1] Dalyell, 506, quoting Gordon, MS. Notes and Observations.
[21.2] Lubbock, 244.
[21.3] Pausanias, vii. 21.
[21.4] Rodd, 185.
[22.1] Southey, iv. Commonplace Book, 240, quoting an article in the Monthly Magazine, March 1801, on Cambray’s Voyage dans le Finisterre.
[22.2] ii. Brand, 267, note.
[22.3] Drayton, Polyolbion, ix. 90; Sir Philip Sidney, The Seven Wonders of England, in Arber, ii. Eng. Garner, 183. Allusions to it by Burton, Increase Mather, and others, are quoted, v. N. and Q., 8th ser., 408; vi. 54.
[23.1] Leonard Vair is quoted viii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 122; and Wolf, Nied. Sag., 259 (Story No. 162). Southey, iv. Commonplace Bk., 244, quotes the same story from another writer, doubtless copied from Vair. To dream of a dead fish is in Germany and Austria a presage of death. Compare also with the superstitions mentioned in the above paragraph the parallel superstition, of which effective use is often made in modern literature, and which represents a household clock stopping when the head of the family dies. At Pforzheim it was believed that when the palace clock was out of order one of the reigning family died. Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1756, 1806, 1801.
[23.2] Grimm, i. D. Sagen, 162.
[23.3] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 22.
[24.1] vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 760, quoting Rev. James Sibree in Proc. R. Geog. Soc. of London, Aug. 1891.
[25.1] i. Tutinameh, 109.
[25.2] i. Kathá, 86.
[25.3] Swynnerton, Ind. Nights, 188.
[25.4] Arany, cited by Köhler in his notes to Posilecheata, 209.
[25.5] Rodd, 266.
[26.1] ii. Risley, 89.
[26.2] Southey, iv. Commonplace Bk., 244, quoting a note to Boswell’s Shakespeare. The editor, Rev. J. W. Warter, says that the custom was common enough within his recollection in Shropshire and Staffordshire.
[26.3] Gerv. Tilb., 223, Liebrecht’s Appendix containing extracts from Jean Baptiste Thiers, Traité des Superstitions, 2nd ed., Paris, 1697.
[26.4] x. Archivio, 30.
[27.1] i. Child, 187, 201. Both variants of the Scottish ballad of Bonny Bee Horn also include the incident; and in one of them, not only does the ring change colour, but the stone bursts in three. ii. Child, 318.
[27.2] Thorpe, Yule-tide Stories, 438, from Müllenhoff. It is a German superstition that if a woman lose her garter in the street her husband or lover is untrue. Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1782, 1824. To lose the wedding-ring is a presage of death. Ibid., 1808.
[27.3] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 19.
[30.1] Compare Sir John Lubbock’s remarks on the relation between divination and sorcery. Lubbock, 245.
[31.1] Popol Vuh, 141, 191.
[31.2] i. Cosquin, 71, citing Guérin, Vies des Saints.
[31.3] Ellis, iii. Polyn. Res., 107.
[31.4] Suet., Vesp., 5.
[31.5] Taylor, 184.
[32.1] Hooker, recording the evidence of a resident at Waimate, in i. Journ. Ethn. Soc., N.S., 72, 73.
[32.2] Frazer, ii. Golden Bough, 329, citing Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethn. van Zuid-Celebes.
[32.3] Burton, Wit and Wisd., 411.
[32.4] Dr. A. Haas, in v. Am Urquell, 253; ii. Bartsch, 43. It seems that according to an old German superstition the water in which a baby is washed for the first time must be poured on trees. In the Canton of Berne it must be poured on a fruitful, or a young, tree; and the person charged with this duty must sing or shout, that the child may learn to sing or shout well. Ploss, i. Kind, 79, citing Rothenbach, Volksthüml. aus d. Canton Berne. A similar practice is found in Austria. Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1807. As a provision against ill-luck and witches among the Magyars, the water is thrown half on a crossway and half on a willow-tree. Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 69. The Transylvanian Saxons, on the other hand, will not throw it where it may be trodden on, lest the child die, or at least lose its sleep. The proper place is beneath a tree, that the babe may strengthen. Ibid., Volksgl. Siebenb. Sachs., 154.
[33.1] ii. Brand, 453, citing Grose.
[33.2] J. M. Currier, in vi. Journ. Am. F.L., 69.
[34.1] Ploss, i. Kind, 79, citing Williams and Calvert; Featherman, Papuo-Mel., 204.
[34.2] Stoll, 68; Dorman, 293.
[34.3] ii. Bancroft, 276. Was the future battlefield ascertained by divination? Or how could it be known? Or is there some misunderstanding on the part of the reporter? Compare the custom at Tashkend, whereby, at the birth of a boy, the father buries a mutton-bone, or, in the case of a girl, a rag-doll, under the floor of the room where the birth has taken place. Schuyler, i. Turkistan, 140.
[35.1] ii. L’Anthropologie, 369, citing Jacobs and Meyer, Les Badoujs.
[35.2] Rev. J. Macdonald, in xx. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 132; Frazer, ii. Golden Bough, 329, citing several authorities. See also Andree, ii. Ethnog. Par., 21.
[35.3] Sibree, 278.
[36.1] Quoted by Singer, ii. Zeits. des Vereins, 300.
[36.2] Featherman, Oceano-Mel., 85.
[36.3] Ploss, i. Kind, 78, 79, citing Rochholz, Alemann. Kinderlied und Kinderspiel. See also Mannhardt, i. Baumcultus, 49, et seqq. A custom similar to the Piedmontese is practised by the Mohammedans of Malabar, who plant a number of seeds of the Brazil-wood (Cæsalpinia Sappan) at the birth of a daughter, whose dowry the trees become when grown to maturity. Yule, ii. Marco Polo, 315, note.
[37.1] De Gubernatis, i. Myth. Plantes, xxviii.
[37.2] Monseur, 37; ii. Bull. de F.L., 148.
[37.3] Norman G. Mitchell-Innes, in v. F.L. Journ., 223. Compare the related superstition mentioned ante, vol. i., p. 179. We perhaps find in Tirolese folklore a relic of the same superstition in the belief that children are fetched from a sacred tree. Zingerle, Sitten, 2, 100; Sagen, 110. I have already (ante, vol. i., p. 154, note) referred to the English saying that children come out of the parsley-bed, and (ibid., p. 151, note) to the fancy of mothers in the New Hebrides that a child is connected in origin with a cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, or some such object.
[37.4] Mrs. F. D. Bergen, in iv. Journ. Am. F.L., 152. Mrs. Bergen informs me she obtained this on “the eastern peninsula of Maryland, near Chestertown, opposite Baltimore.”
[38.1] Leland, Gip. Sorc., 53. Compare a German superstition, Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1818 (956).
[38.2] Gregor, 148.
[38.3] The shrubbery grew from a laurel wreath dropped, in a chicken’s beak, by an eagle into Livia’s bosom after her marriage. Suet., Galba, 1.
[38.4] Yule, i. Marco Polo, 394 (bk. ii., ch. 28).
[39.1] Bernau, 59.
[39.2] Mannhardt, i. Baumcultus, 48.
[39.3] Frazer, ii. Golden Bough, 329. Mr. Frazer also notices that in the Cameroons the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree; but it does not appear how this is believed to arise. Here, perhaps, I may call the attention of students to the following superstitions as yet unexplained. The Makololo of the Zambesi Valley object to plant mangoes, lest they die. (Does the mango in growing absorb the planter’s life?) The native Portuguese of Tette think that a man who plants coffee will never be happy after. Livingstone, Zambesi, 47. In Southern India the person who sows cocoa-nut seed is expected to die when the trees which grow from the seeds he has planted bear fruit. Pandit Natesa Sastri, in i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 101. On Bowditch Island in the South Pacific Ocean cocoa-nuts could only be planted on the king’s death: he who planted them at other times would die. Lister, in xxi. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 54. In Devonshire and Gloucestershire parsley must not be transplanted. Dyer, 3; County F.L., Gloucestershire, 54. I have found the superstition still rife in Gloucestershire.
[39.4] Featherman, Papuo-Mel., 152.
[40.1] Von Wlislocki, in iii. Am Urquell, 9.
[40.2] Ploss, ii. Kind, 221.
[40.3] Prof. V. M. Mikhailovskii, translated by O. Wardrop, in xxiv. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 83.
[41.1] ii. Journ. Am. F.L., 187.
[41.2] v. Records of the Past, N.S., ix. Prof. Sayce has some little doubt about the reading; but the sense appears clear enough.
[41.3] “The squaws generally agreed that they had discovered life enough in them [the portraits he had painted] to render my medicine too great for the Mandans, saying that such an operation could not be performed without taking away from the original something of his existence, which I put in the picture, and they could see it move, could see it stir.… A great many have become again alarmed, and are unwilling to sit, for fear, as some say, that they will die prematurely if painted; and as others say, that if they are painted the picture will live after they are dead, and they cannot sleep quiet in their graves.” i. Catlin, 107, 109.
[42.1] ii. Witzschel, 251. Cf. the superstition known from Britain to Transylvania, that if bread in baking start, or a glass in the house break without apparent cause, there will be a death.
[42.2] Backhouse, 104.
[43.1] i. Cosquin, 71.
[43.2] Ostermann, 476.
[43.3] Jones and Kropf, lxiv.
[43.4] Tanner, 155.
[44.1] Miss Owen, Old Rabbit, 178, 169.
[44.2] i. Giles, 306.
[44.3] Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxix. 22; Jevons, Plutarch’s Romane Questions, xlvii. See a curious tale pointing to a modern survival of this belief, Pigorini-Beri, 58. In Switzerland at the present day, if a peasant have a son born and a foal or lamb dropped at the same time, the same name is given to both. Ploss, i. Kind, 189. Among the Poles (who have, it may be remarked, a great regard for snakes) a secret connection is believed to exist between cattle and lizards. Every cow is held to have a particular lizard as its guardian. If the lizard be killed, the cow will die, or at least will give blood instead of milk. iii. Am Urquell, 272. This can hardly be said to favour Mr. Frazer’s totemistic theory. See also vii. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 152; Burton, Wit and Wisd., 390. The belief in widely separated countries like Sardinia and India that it is lucky to have a snail in the house appears to be connected with this superstition. See i. Rivista, 221.
[45.1] Rev. J. Macdonald, in xx. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 131; Lubbock, 245, quoting Arbousset’s Tour to the Cape of Good Hope.
[45.2] Le Page Renouf, in xi. Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 185, citing Amélineau’s translation. Compare the life-token in the story of The Two Brothers, suprà, vol. i., p. 183.
[46.1] Prof. Haddon, in xix. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 326.
[46.2] Le Braz, 6.
[47.1] Banks, The Albion Queens, quoted by Prof. Dr. George Stephens in ii. F.L. Record, 200; Gregor, 204; Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Siebenb. Sachs., 190. In an Icelandic tale three drops of blood fall on the knife while eating, to announce a brother’s death. iii. Am Urquell, 5, citing Arnason.
[47.2] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1837; Thorpe, ii. Northern Myth., 273: both quoting Thiele.
[47.3] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1744, 1745.
[48.1] Kuhn und Schwartz, 436.
[48.2] Suffolk County F.L., 30.
[48.3] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1788. Compare the Sardinian augury from piles of salt. i. Rivista, 221.
[48.4] Herrmann, in iv. Zeits. des Vereins, 310, 311.
[48.5] L. L. Duncan, in v. Folklore, 192; vi. Journ. Am. F.L., 261.
[48.6] ii. Witzschel, 254. Auguries as to the following harvest are drawn by the Huzules from the burning of fruit with beechen brands on New Year’s Night. Kaindl, 73. As to auguries at a baptism from the putting out of the candle, see xii. Archivio, 530.
[49.1] Kuhn und Schwartz, 431; Thorpe, iii. N. Myth., 160. At Buvrinner in Hainaut pilgrimages are often made on behalf of the sick. On such an occasion candles are lighted on the altar of the saint invoked. If the flame be steady, it is a good sign; if it be wavering, a bad sign. ix. Rev. Trad. Pop., 489.
[49.2] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1790, 1793.
[49.3] ii. Powell and Magnússon, 641, from Arnason.
[49.4] Plutarch, Rom. Quest., No. 75.
[49.5] ii. Witzschel, 226, 231; Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1843, 1794; Finamore, Trad. Pop. Abr., 52; Ostermann, 348, 476; Krauss, Sitte und Brauch, 396; Le Braz, 5. Compare the “wedding candlestick” at an Irish wedding, v. Folklore, 188. In the province of Siena the chances of life are calculated according as the candle in the church gives greater or less light. xiii. Archivio, 412.
[50.1] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1835; Thorpe, iii. N. Myth., 271: both quoting Thiele.
[50.2] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Siebenb. Sachs., 56, 75; iv. Zeits. des Vereins, 316.
[50.3] Taylor, 205 (cf. also, 178); Lubbock, 245, citing Yate’s New Zealand.
[51.1] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig., 148.
[51.2] Moore, 125, 140; v. Folklore, 214.