Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/31

 The Legends of Krishna. 21

The same idea may underlie some of our most popular village rites in this country — the Hood Game at Haxey ; ^ the ball contests at Bury St. Edmunds and Newcastle; ^ the ram-hunting at Eton ; ^ the bull-baiting at Stamford and Great Grimsby ; '* the ball playing on Shrove Tuesday at Whitby, where if the game be not well played the youngsters will be sure to fall ill at harvest time ; similar rites at St. Ives, Dorking and Nuneaton ; the Whipping Toms at Leicester ; the whipping of the cat in Shropshire ; the catching of a hare at Cleshill in Warwickshire; and the hurling of pitchers into houses in Cornwall.^ A closer parallel to the Hindu rite may be found in the custom of mock-combat round a bonfire at Marlborough on the 5th of November.^

The published accounts of many of these rites are very meagre ; but we may perhaps see in some or all of them one of two principles — either a racial or tribal contest between the residents of adjoining villages or parts of the same township — or survivals of some form of animal or per- haps human sacrifice, the object being to propitiate the powers of evil which affect the fertility of the crops or injure children or cattle.

Another important rite connected with Krishna worship is that of swinging the idol or one of the devotees before the image of the god. In Bengal this rite is known as the Dola Yatra or swinging rite, and is performed in spring or

' Folk- Lore, vii., 330 seqq. ; 2nd Series Notes and Queries, iv., 4S6 ; 4th series, ix., 158 seqq.

- Hone, Everyday Book (ed. 1878), i., 215.

^ 7th Series Notes and Queries, iv., 416, 467 ; 2nd Series, vii., 201.

■• 5th Series Notes and Queries, ii., 224; Hone, loc. cit., i., 74i ; Gentle- man's Magazine Library, Manners and Customs, 21 1 seqq.

^ 5th Series Notes and Queries, vii., 120 ; Sth Series, viii., 28 ; 1st Series, ix., 223 seqq. ; 3rd Series, i., 224; 6th Series, i., 154; 1st Series, vii., 235; 2nd Series, vii., 312 ; Hone, Year Book (ed. 1878), 269 ; Gentleman's Maga- zine, loc. cit., 258.

^ 1st Series Notes and Queries, v., 365.