Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/169

Rh about the farm, and hung up at the door, was also esteemed effective for the same purpose.

The little town of Methana, in Argolis, stood on a peninsula jutting out into the Saronic Gulf. It felt the full force of the south-west wind, which, sweeping over the bay, wrought havoc among the surrounding vineyards. To prevent its ravages the following plan was adopted. When dark clouds were seen rising in the south-west, and the approach of the storm was marked by a black line crawling across the smooth surface of the bay, two men took a cock with white wings (every feather of the wings had to be white) and rent it in two. Then they each took one-half of the bird and ran with it round the vineyards in opposite directions till they met at the point from which they started. There they buried the cock. This ceremony was believed to keep off the south-west wind. The meaning of the ceremony is perhaps explained by the following East Indian custom. When the sky is overcast the skipper of a Malay prao takes the white or yellow feathers of a cock, fastens them to a leaf of a particular sort, and sets then in the forecastle, with a prayer to the spirits that they will cause the black clouds to pass by. Then the cock is killed. The skipper whitens his dusky hand with chalk, points thrice with his whitened finger to the black clouds, and throws the bird into the sea. Clearly the idea of the Greek husbandman and the Malay skipper is, that the white-winged bird will flutter against and beat away the black-winged spirit of the storm.

To rid a field of mice the Greek farmer was recommended to proceed as follows:—“Take a sheet of paper, and write on it these words: ‘Ye mice here present, I adjure you that ye injure me not, neither suffer another M 2