Page:A book of folk-lore (1913).djvu/163

160 them. Next they formed the notion that across the sea, or the river that flowed round the earth, the souls went in boats.

And now we find this notion by no means extinct. Hamlet says:—

And there is a hymn issued by the Sunday School Union, and sung up and down the land:—

This is old Paganism wearing a Christian mask.

The ancient Greeks put on their tombs the word Euploia, ‘Favourite voyage,’ showing the popular ideas on the subject. For this, modern Greeks substitute a pair of oars laid on the grave.

Mannhardt was quite right in saying: ‘From the afore-recorded customs and stories it appears abundantly clear that the traversing of souls across water is deeply grounded in