Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/439

 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 399

From restoration to life it is not a far cry to restoration to health, and as might be expected miraculous cures abound in these pages and may almost be considered to be the stock in trade of a saint. With restoration to health I should be inclined to connect the bringing about of blessings and good fortune, the fulfilment of desires, the grant of assistance of every kind, especially in the case of followers and supporters. Saints are of course conspicuous for the power, directly or indirectly, to grant the most prominent of all the desires of the Indian peasantry, i.e. sons to succeed them. This occurs again and again in the Legends, but instances are also found of the grant of promotion and high position in life. With these must also be classed the great " blessing" of a rural peasantry, the bringing of rain, and the chief desires of seafarers, a fair wind and immunity from drowning. Saints can accordingly do all these things. In a land of great and dangerous rivers, like the Panjab, ferries and the crossing of rivers occupy a prominent place in the life of the people ; and so we find a saint making a boat out of his begging-gourd and an oar out of his staff when in a hurry to cross a stream, the form of this particular miracle being attributable to the universal belief in the miraculous vehicle.

Riches, including a plentiful supply of food, and assistance in procuring them, are largely desired everywhere ; and so we have saints finding hidden treasure, turning all sorts of things into gold, and producing jewels and jewellery. We also find them making the sun to broil fish for themselves, and supplying followers with miraculous food. But cupidity demands much more than the mere supply of necessities, and the narrators of the stories about saints have had to cater to this failing of human nature. Hence the miracu- lous production of inexhaustible treasure and inexhaustible supplies of food, the inexhaustible bags, the stories of "loaves and fishes," and such like, the finding of hidden treasure and the creation of gold and jewels and of all sorts of unlikely objects, even out of a praying-carpet. From an