BOMBAY:
D. B. TARAPOREVALA SONS & Co.
1918

Printed by B. Miller, Superintendent, British India Press, Bombay.
Published by D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Introduction[Pages xvii to xxvi.]
[PART I.]
FOLKLORE OF BOMBAY WELLS.
CHAPTER I.
SANCTITY OF WATER.
Origin of fevers—Wrath of Shiva—Story of Ekānterio, the malaria fiend—Closing of wells—Protests based on religious sentiments and supernatural beliefs—Scriptural injunctions for the use of well water—Opinions of Parsi scholars—Some Hindu beliefs and usages—Ceremonies requiring water drawn from seven wells—Lighting of lamps in the niches in wells—The unwashed sect of the Jains—Aversion to bathing—The days of the Drymais[1-8]
CHAPTER II.
WATER SAINTS.
Spirits dwelling in wells—Disasters brought on by pent-up spirits—The fortunes of the Edwardes Theatre—Mysterious collapse of barriers—The sacred well of Alice Building—Propitiated well-spirits avert accidents—Story of two sisters—Oracular well of Ghoga Street—Midnight and midday visits to wells—Ceremony of divination at St. Oswall’s well[9-13]
CHAPTER III.
PENALTY FOR DEFILEMENT.
The labourer who spat on the pavement of an oracular well—Fate of an European girl who offended the saintly spirit of Loveji Castle—Acts of defilement, whether conscious or unconscious, offend the spirits—The Nowroji Wadia house tragedy—A Damascus custom—Destruction of the land of Logres—Concerts of the nymphs—“The pure one” fountain of Egypt—An Esthonian belief—A curious variant of the belief concerning defilement—Deliberate pollution of wells so as to constrain the rain-god—Albiruni’s interrogatories—Doctrine of negation of knowledge[14-17]
CHAPTER IV.
QUAINT PARSI BELIEFS.
Worship of cabined spirits on full moon eve—Goat-sacrifice on marriage days—Practice of besmearing the forehead with the blood of the victim—Non-Aryan cults imbibed by the Aryans—Hindu and Parsi beliefs in water-spirits compared—Antiquity of water-worship among the Parsis—Worship of Ardevi Sura Anahita—Influence of the genii locorum on the community—Mahomedan patron saints of Parsi household—An anthropological puzzle—Ecstatic possession of a Parsi woman—The Gunbow well—Murgha Bâwâ’s well—Cures effected by the grace of water-saints—Beliefs common to the whole world—Association of life with motion—Water-worship in the East has its counterpart in the history of Western thought—Professor Robertson Smith’s description of the worship prevailing in Arabia—Well-worship in the West probably more widespread and primitive than in the East[18-26]
[PART II.]
WATER-WORSHIP IN EAST AND WEST.
CHAPTER V.
THE MOST WIDE-SPREAD PHASE OF ANIMISM.
Deification of fountains and rivers a general cult—Max Müller’s theory of poetic personification—The spiritual element uppermost in the worship of water—Water an important factor during the first three days of Creation—Rabbi Ismael’s saying—Babylonian conception of the god Nun—Rising of Shu from water—The Akkad triad of gods—Worship of streams absorbed by the Hittites into their pantheon—Two triads sacred to the Phœnicians—The Vedic god Varuna—How the conception of the night served to convey the idea of the ocean—Greek beliefs—Okeanos and Skamandros—Neptune, the Latin sea-god—Nēreus, the Old Man of the Sea—The Scandinavian god Niörd—Midsuno Kami, the water-god of Japan—The Peruvian sea-god Virakocha—Worship of Mamacocha, Mother Sea—The Egyptian Nile-god—Parsi festival in honour of Ardevi Sur Anahita—The Greek goddess Aphrodite—Wells of water bestowed by Greek saints—Healing virtues of the waters of Egeria—Dedication of likenesses of diseased limbs to the water-nymph Egeria—Similar offerings to Virgin Mary at Mount Mary’s Chapel at Bandra—The holy well of Smyrna Cathedral—Cures effected with ordinary water just as well as with the sanctified water—Archæological evidence of the British cult—American examples of animistic ideas concerning water—African rites of water-worship[29-39]
CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTIAN TOLERANCE OF THE CULT OF WATER.
A non-Christian custom—Edicts of Kings, Popes and Church Councils prohibiting the practice—Total eradication of beliefs and customs of age-long existence impossible—Continuance of pagan worship under Christian auspices—A dual system of belief—Supplication of a Scottish peasant at a sacred well—Grimm’s examination of the result of the Christian tolerance of paganism—Mr. Edward Clodd’s testimony[40-43]
CHAPTER VII.
HOLY WELLS AND TANKS.
Worship of Khwaja Khizr—Alexander’s ramble in quest of the blessed waters—Northern India customs—Khwaja Saheb ka Dalya—Water of Zumzum—Mother Ganges and Lady Jumna—Pilgrimage to the Godavari—Russian ceremony of blessing the waters of the Neva—Sita’s kitchen—Dr. Buchanan’s visit to the Monghyr well—The theory of expiating sins by baths—King Trisanku’s deadly sins and salvation—Washing of sins with the sacred thread—Sacred wells of India—Rajput woman turned into a male Rajput of the Solanki class—The legendary lore of the holy wells of England—Thomas Quiller-Couch’s notes on the holy wells of Cornwall—Sacred wells of Scotland and Ireland[44-53]
CHAPTER VIII.
HEALING WATERS.
Sanitary guardians of water—Balneotherapy and Hydrotherapy not unknown in Talmudic times—Indian wells and tanks renowned for medicinal properties—A milk-bestowing well in Lonavla—The leper cured by the Lake of Immortality at Amritsar—Virtue of the confervæ on the surface of the Lalitpur tank—Famous hot springs—The Devki-Unai—The springs of Vajrabai or the Lady of the Thunderbolt—The Vali who makes the fire and keeps it burning at the hot springs at Terka Main—The madness-curing pool at Hamath—Mad men tumbled headlong in the Altarnum well—The virtues of St. Tecla’s well—Holywell, the Lourdes of Wales—The Story of St. Winefride—Recent Holywell cures—The calamity that befell Holywell—Other healing wells of Great Britain—The dance round the sacred springs of Enmore Green—St. Conan’s well—Bishop Hall’s testimony—Sacred springs in Macedonia—Festival at Kaisariani—A suppressed miracle—Pilgrimage described by Miss Hamilton—Scenes in Emile Zola’s novel recalled[54-65]
CHAPTER IX.
PROCREATIVE POWERS OF WATER SPIRITS.
Water-spirits conferring the blessings of parenthood—Charms for childless women—Bathing in the water of seven wells—The Dewali bath in the Punjab—Fertilizing virtue ascribed to Scottish springs—General explanation of the cult of the bath—Sterility believed to be a disease due to demoniacal agency—Another theory—Procreative power attributed to spirits—Testimony borne by Professor Curtiss—Hot air vents in Syria—Belief of the Punjabis that the fertilizing virtue of a well is abstracted by the women bathing in it—The Jewish belief—Conception possible in a bath—The theory in vogue among physicians of the twelfth century—A case recorded by Averroes—Prevalence of the theory in Turkey—Supposed ancestors of persons bearing the name of the Tweed—A Semong tradition[66-70]
CHAPTER X.
WISHING AND CURSING WELLS.
Oracular wells inhabited by spirits gifted with powers of divination—The Baladana Kund—Prospects of the harvest divined by the holy well in Askot—Bread and pins as instruments of divination—The Amorgos well—The presiding power of the well of St. Michael—News of absent friends given by a Cornish well—Two Wishing wells in Walsingham Chapel—The Fairy Well in Cornwall—Ceremonial observances taught by the priestess of Gulval Well—Cursing wells—Varied virtues of Holy wells—The Well of St. Keyne—Strange traditions[71-75]
CHAPTER XI.
MALEFICENT WATER-GOBLINS.
Water-goblins infesting ill-omened streams and wells—Water-spirits in India regarded as friendly dispensers of life and fertility—Western folklore abounds in blood-thirsty water-demons—Some mischievous water-spirits of India—Fallen souls—A haunted vav in Vadhwan—The Bhainsasura or buffalo-demon—The Jaté Buddi and Jakh of Bengal—The “cups of the fairies”—A wicked class of water-nymphs—The Greek water-nymphs—The Sirens—The Nereids—The Black Giant and the Drakos—Superstitions concerning drowning—Black’s explanation in “Folk Medicine”—Prevalence of the superstition in Scotland—No trace of it in India—Confusion of two distinct ideas[76-83]
CHAPTER XII.
RIVER WRAITHS.
The River of Death—Indian water-furies easily propitiated—Continental water-deities demand human sacrifices—Peg O’Nell—Peg Powler—Blood-thirsty Dee—The saying about St. John the Baptist—Victims demanded by the German rivers on Midsummer Day—Lord of the Wells—In the Australian theory of disease and death none more prominent than the water-spirit—A Macedonian ballad of a Haunted Well—Maleficent deities responsible for floods—Various modes of pacifying the furies—The Nizam’s offering to the Musi—Floods caused by offence given to patron saints of water—The sea-spirits more powerful but less exacting that the river-wraiths—The Narali Purnima or Cocoanut Day[84-91]
CHAPTER XIII.
WHO WERE THE WATER-DEMONS?
Race-origin of the Devas or demons of old—Max Müller’s theory—Myths of malignant spirits connected with traditions of hostile races—Sir Laurence Gomme’s examination of the mythic influence of a conquered race—Bombay beliefs—Other Indian parallels—The Moondahs and the Kathodis—The origin of the pixies—Examination of Parsi beliefs in Mahomedan guardian-spirits of wells—A plea for local research[92-96]
CHAPTER XIV.
ANALYSIS OF THE BRITISH CULTS.
Gomme’s analysis—Table showing the effect of incoming civilisations—Garland-dressing, pins and rag bushes—Variants of one primitive form of rag-offering—Arguments in favour of a megalithic date for well-worship and rag-offerings[97-100]
[PART III.]
VARIED RITUALS AND OFFERINGS.
CHAPTER XV.
WATER-DIVINING AND WELL-OPENING CEREMONIES.
Jewish song of the well—Selection of suitable sites for wells—Water-diviners—An extraordinary incident of the Gallipoli campaign—Ceremonies connected with the digging of wells[102-108]
CHAPTER XVI.
DECORATIONS AND OFFERINGS.
Indian methods of venerating wells—Human sacrifices—Animal sacrifices—Ceremonies demonstrably non-Aryan in India in original non-Aryan in Europe—A Whitsuntide custom—Lamb, a votive thank-offering—The Ram Feast at Holne—Substitutes for animal victims—Curious explanation for offerings of coins[109-113]
CHAPTER XVII.
RAG WELLS AND PIN WELLS.
Rag wells and Pin wells of Great Britain—Their geographical distribution—Henderson’s explanation of the cult—Theory put forward by Sir John Rhys—Sir Laurence Gomme’s examination of the theory—Other authorities—Use of wool in hanging up rags[114-120]
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MISUNDERSTOOD INDIAN CUSTOM.
Indian custom of hoisting flags near shrines and sacred trees—A practice quite distinct from rag-offering—How European folklorists are misled—Confusion of flags and rags—The flag is offered only and solely as a thank-offering or as a mark of respect—How the rag came to be regarded as a vehicle of disease—An explanation of two conflicting theories[121-127]
CHAPTER XIX.
ANIMAL DEITIES OF WATER.
European belief in the presence of animals or fish as the presiding spirits of water—These animal gods imperfectly represented in the waters of the East—The Nags or semi-divine beings, half men and half serpents—Frogs and trouts and worms and flies as guardian-spirits of wells in Europe—A pair of enchanted trout—A medicinal spring and its presiding worm—Another presiding genius in the semblance of a fly—Divine life of water believed to reside in the sacred fish—Foundation of the cult the same everywhere—Difference only in forms and rituals[128-131]