Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/233

 Miscellanea. 221

Folklore from Calymnos.

Laying the foundation of a House — The masons wait until noon or thereabouts, when no shadow falls in the trenches. The owner of the house must not be present, as if his shadow by any chance is built in, he will die soon.

Newly-born Children. — A woman who is still unchurched, i.e. for the forty days after her confinement, must not enter the house in which there is a newly-born child without stepping over a key. If she omits this precaution, the house will be infested by mice.

Whence this common explanation of rites, the significance of which is quite other, as precautions against vermin? Jumping over the midsummer fires is here and very widely supposed to protect from fleas. I do not fancy that such explanations are at all frivolous and modern. No doubt vermin were a serious plague to primitive man, and it was by plagues of vermin (after the Nile had been turned into blood) that Moses tried first to soften the very hard heart of Pharaoh. This explanation of the purpose of these rites must be very old, but of course it is not the original one. I suppose that when their original significance went out of men's minds, the more conservative sex, which is also more domestic and more seriously troubled by these domestic plagues, found this to be the most reasonable reason for perpetuating rites, the meaning of which their mankind could not explain to them.

Ascension Day. — It is the custom here to take the first sea- bath on the morning of the Ascension. The bath must be taken before sunrise. It is also believed that the sea becomes sweet for the hour after midnight on this morning.

W. R. Paton