[201] Ibid. pp. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Magyaren, p. 61. Strausz, Die Bulgaren, p. 455. Prexl, ‘Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,’ in Globus, lvii. 30.
[202] Strausz, op. cit. p. 455 (Bulgarians).
[203] Ross, in Celtic Magazine, xii. 350 sq.
[204] Gaidoz, in Mélusine, iv. 12. Frank, System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey, iv. 499. Moore, op. cit. i. 310 (Danes). Schiffer, in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithuanians). Volkov, ibid. v. 87 (Lithuanians). Strausz, op. cit. p. 455 (Bulgarians).
[205] Gregor, Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 213 sq.
[206] Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, iii. 105. Atkinson, op. cit. p. 217. This custom was formally abolished in 1823 by 4 Geo. IV. c. 52 (Stephen, op. cit. iii. 105). Why were suicides buried at cross-roads? Possibly because the cross was supposed to disperse the evil energy ascribed to their bodies. Both in Europe and India the cross-road has, since ancient times, been a favourite place to divest oneself of diseases or other influences (Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, §§ 483, 484, 492, 508, 514, 522, 545, pp. 325, 326, 331, 341, 345, 349, 361. Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, pp. 272, 473, 519. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 267, 268 n. 1). In the sacred books of India it is said that “a student who has broken the vow of chastity shall offer an ass to Nirriti on a cross-road” (Gautama, xxiii. 17), and that a person who has previously undergone certain other purification ceremonies “is freed from all crimes, even mortal sins, after looking on a cross-road at a pot filled with water, and reciting the text, ‘Simhe me manyuh’” (Baudhâyana, iv. 7. 7). In the hills of Northern India and as far as Madras, an approved charm for getting rid of a disease of demoniacal origin is to plant a stake where four roads meet, and to bury grains underneath, which crows disinter and eat (North Indian Notes and Queries, i. § 652, p. 100; Madden, ‘The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xvii. pt. i. 583; Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, i. 290). In the Province of Bihār, “in cases of sickness various articles are exposed in a saucer at a cross-road” (Grierson, Bihār Peasant Life, p. 407). According to a Bulgarian tale, Lot was enjoined by the priest to plant on a cross-road three charred twigs in order to free himself from his sin (Strausz, op. cit. p. 115). The Gypsies of Servia believe that a thief may divert from himself all suspicions by painting with blood a cross and a dot above it on the spot where he committed the theft (von Wlislocki, ‘Menschenblut im Glauben der Zigeuner,’ in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 64 sq.). In Morocco the cross is used as a charm against the evil eye, and the chief reason for this is, I believe, that it is regarded as a conductor of the baneful energy emanating from the eye, dispersing it in all the quarters of the wind and thus preventing it from injuring the person or object looked at (Westermarck, ‘Magic Origin of Moorish Designs,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 214). In Japan, if a criminal belonging to one of the lower classes commits suicide, his body is crucified (Globus, xviii. 197). When, under Tarquinius Priscus (or Tarquinius Superbus), many Romans preferred voluntary death to compulsory labour in the cloaca, or artificial canals by which the sewage was carried into the Tiber, the king ordered that their bodies should be crucified and abandoned to birds and beasts of prey (Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxxvi. 24; Servius, Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos, xii. 603). The reason for thus crucifying the bodies of self-murderers is not stated; but it is interesting to notice, in this connection, the idea expressed by some Christian writers that the cross of the Saviour symbolised the distribution of his benign influence in all directions (d’Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, i. 646; Tauler, quoted by Peltzer, Deutsche Mystik und deutsche Kunst, p. 191. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Yrjö Hirn for drawing my attention to this idea). With reference to persons who had killed a father, mother, brother, or child, Plato says in his ‘Laws’ (ix. 873):—“If he be convicted, the servants of the judges and the magistrates shall slay him at an appointed place without the city where three ways meet, and there expose his body naked, and each of the magistrates on behalf of the whole city shall take a stone and cast it upon the head of the dead man, and so deliver the city from pollution; after that, they shall bear him to the borders of the land, and cast him forth unburied, according to law.” The duels by which the ancient Swedes were legally compelled to repair their wounded honour were to be fought on a place where three roads met (Leffler, Om den fornsvenska hednalagen, p. 40 sq.; supra, [i. 502]). In various countries it has been the custom to bury the dead at cross-roads (Grimm, ‘Ueber das Verbrennen der Leichen,’ in Kleinere Schriften, ii. 288 (Bohemians). Lippert, Die Religionen der europäischen Culturvölker, p. 310 (Slavonians); Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell, p. 68; Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 267, 268, 562 n. 3)—a custom which may have given rise to the idea that cross-roads are haunted (Winternitz, op. cit. p. 68; Oldenberg, op. cit. p. 267 sq.; cf. Wuttke, op. cit. § 108, p. 89 sq.).
[207] Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 263. Hyltén-Cavallius, op. cit. i. 459; Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia, ii. 331 (Swedes), von Wlislocki, ‘Tod und Totenfetische im Volkglauben der Siebenbürger Sachsen,’ in Am Ur-Quell, iv. 53.
[208] Wuttke, op. cit. § 756, p. 474; Frank, op. cit. iv. 498 sq.; Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 11 (people in various parts of Germany). Schiffer, in Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders).
[209] Bourquelot, loc. cit. iv. 264 (at Abbeville).
[210] Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 726 sqq. Hyltén-Cavallius, op. cit. i. 472 sq. (Swedes).