Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/273

 selves in a New Year's dream, the most fortunate are believed to be, first, Fujiyama; second, a hawk, and, third, an egg-plant.

A very long catalogue of curious recipes are handed down from generation to generation among the lower orders as efficacious against mischief from insects or reptiles. Generally these remedies consist in reciting some formula or placarding it at suitable places, and it is easy to perceive the connection between such acts and the recitation of rituals by Shintō priests in former times. That explanation, however, does not cover cases like the blowing of a horn at the foot of a tree attacked by insects; or the tracing of an ideograph (no) in the air to paralyse a dragon-fly that one desires to catch; or the removal of a stone from beneath a bee-hive and placing the foot on its reverse side in order to avoid being stung by the bees; or the carrying of a dried beetle as a charm to increase one's wardrobe; or the pulling of one's own ear with the left hand by way of preliminary to grasping a snake; or the burying of an old calendar near a weazel's hole in order to drive away the animal. Horses are believed to be specially amenable to the influence of poetic spells. An untethered horse can be prevented from leaving a fixed place by simply informing it in verse that all routes to the four points of the compass are closed, and it can be induced to walk quietly into a ship by uttering thrice in its left ear the couplet: —