'I left soft down pillows, full many a one,
Now hard sticks and stones are the bed they lie on!'
This know we of Ulf.
'Hadst thou to my children shown tenderness sweet,
God the Father in heaven had found thee a seat!'
This know we of Ulf.
'Have thy children in me a hard step-mother known?
Henceforth will I love them as well as my own!'
This know we of Ulf.
There ne'er was a lovelier sight in the sky,
Than Sölfverlind taking her children on high.
This know we of Ulf."[36]
The ghost-belief of Hindostan is one of the most important of the popular superstitions of that country. It differs from that of more westerly countries in the degree of reality with which the natives have invested it; for while the former look upon the interference of the spirits of the dead in the events of ordinary life as a circumstance of rare occurrence, and regard manifestations of this nature with an awe befitting their solemnity and supernatural character, the latter lives in an atmosphere of spectral beings, which are the spirits of those who have lived a wicked life on earth, and retain their malignant disposition unabated after death, if indeed it is not increased in intensity by the devil-like nature they assume, and exercise their evil powers in all the affairs of life, haunting the localities which they previously inhabited, and terrifying and tormenting alike friend and foe. Neither are their terrors confined to mere occasional apparition, and to the fear excited by this, but to the power which they possess of interference by physical force; for they belabour with blows, or grievously affect with bodily ailments, the unhappy individuals whom they haunt, and often subject to inexpressible tortures those who have had the ill-hap to offend them. Hence the Hindoo dreads a ghost not so much on account of its supernatural character, abstractedly considered, as for the physical evil it may inflict upon him.
The ghosts of the wicked, and of the unmarried (as it is thought in some provinces), are alone permitted to wander on earth, and they have a partiality, like our own ghosts, for frequenting solitary places, woods, caverns, and ruins, from which they issue to exercise their baleful powers on man.
Sometimes a ghost will haunt a certain house, or a plot of ground, and become so obstreperous, that the occupier of the house is obliged to desert it, and the proprietor of the land to allow it to become waste. But it has happened that if the spirit was that of an old proprietor, a deed executed in its name has appeased it, and it has no more troubled the place.
These spirits are called, in the Deccan, Vîrikas, and in the more southerly parts of India, Paisâchi. It is customary to erect small shrines to them, formed of a pile of stones, on the top of which is a sheltered cavity, containing an image, or a rough, shapeless stone, to which offerings of cloth, rice, &c., are presented from time to time. This propitiatory sacrifice is, in general, found to be an efficient method of obtaining immunity from the malignant pranks of the ghosts; but if it be neglected, they will visit the unfortunate sinner with torments and misfortune, or, appearing to him by night, intimate the miseries hanging over his head, unless he quickly amends himself, and offers up the necessary gifts.
Dr. Buchanan relates a story of the apparition of a Paisâchi which occurred during his journey in Mysore. His cook had been taken ill, and died; orders had been given to secure his effects for the benefit of his wife and children, "but on inspection, after his death, no money could be found. Whether he had been plundered as soon as he became insensible, and that a guilty conscience occasioned fears among his companions, or whether the sudden manner of his death occasioned suspicions, I cannot say; but it was immediately believed that he would become a Paisâchi, and all my people were filled with terror. The butler imagined that the Paisâchi appeared to him at night with a black silk handkerchief tied round its head, and gave him instructions to take all the effects of the deceased to his family; upon this, the latter, being a man of courage, put his shoes on the right side of the door, which he considered to be a sure preventive against such intruders. Next night a cattle-driver, lying in all the agonies of nocturnal terror, saw the appearance of a dog enter, and smell round the place where the man had died; when, to his utter dismay, the spectre gradually grew larger and larger, and at length, having assumed the form of the cook, vanished with a shriek. The poor man had not the courage to use the slippers, but lay till morning in a kind of stupor. After this, even the minds of the sepoys were appalled, and when I happened to be awake I heard the sentries, by way of keeping up their courage, singing with a tremulous voice."