Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/271

 Animal Superstitions and Totemism. 259

deer/ goat,'-^ goose/^ hare,'* pig)^ ox,^ sheep/ shellfish and mussels.^ By including the animals eaten at particular seasons, such as the carp at Christmastide in Schleswig- Holstein,the list might be considerably extended; the swan would naturally be included with others less important. At All Souls', Oxford, the mallard was eaten on January 14.^ It may also be noted that where it is forbidden to eat an animal or bird not commonly used for food, such as the woodpecker,^" there is a strong probability that it was formerly eaten ritually.

In this connection I may also call attention to the Pains- wick dog-pie.^^ It can, I think, hardly be doubted that the dog was originally eaten there. It is a priori highly probable that the feast-customs of our villages go back to an extremely early date. Moreover, we find other instances of the same sort. In a Cornish village blackbird-pie is eaten on Twelfth-day/^ Stories are told in Lincolnshire and France ^^ of flies or cockchafers being eaten at the feast, and we may conjecture that there is a substratum of

' F., viii., 312; cf. Lyncker, Deutsche Sagen, p. 229.

- Alitt. des n.b. Ex-cL, he. cit.

^ At Martinmas, v. Pfannenschmid, pp. 228, 504, &c. ; at Michaelmas, Birlinger, ii., 163; Jahn, p. 233; cf. Owen, p. 351; Arch. Cai/ib., 1853, p. 325: Hone, i., 1645; ^- ^-J-^ i^-' m*

'' Elton, Origins of E. History, p. 391 n. ; P., iii., 444.

pp. 103, 229, 265.
 * Am Urquell, ii., 48; Pfannenschmid, p. 204; Meyer, p. 103; Jahn,

« Jahn, p. 100; Kuhn, Mdrkische Sagen, p. 368 ; Schiller, ii., 5.

^ Bavaria, I.,i., 372; Z. des V. filr V.,v., 205,/"; Pfannenschmid, pp. 292, 559; F.U.,2l_f.

^ F. L. J., iv., 361 ; Courtney, Cornish Feasts, pp. 8, 21, 25. To the list of animals eaten we may perhaps add the wren, robin, and cat, which are roasted or boiled. Byegofies, April 22nd, 1885; Rolland, ii., 264; Grohmann, n. 367. The name " Eselsfresser " applied to Silesians in Germany, points to a similar custom. Sinapius (Oelnographia, i., 342-3) tells us that Silesia was said to have so few vineyards because they ate the ass of Silenus !

s Hone, Table-book, 44.

'» Kaindl, 104.

" F., viii., 391.

'^ Courtney, p. 8 ; cf. Hone, Table-book, p. 667.

'■' F., viii., 365.