Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/366

 346 Miscellanea.

heard of a case in which a lock of wool was placed in the cofifin of a shearer.

Superstition about Amputation. — A woman in our parish had her leg amputated, and got a little coffin made for it. She caused it to be buried in the churchyard and left strict injunctions that when she died she was to be interred close to it. "She would have to be sharp," the people said, " in claiming her leg at the Day of Judgment, lest someone else, maimed in the same way, should seize it before her."

Dread of Corpses. — One of the most common beliefs of the poor people in the fifties and sixties was the fear of the corpse, the dread of ghosts, and the unwillingness to enter graveyards at night. A carrier employed to convey the corpse of a man who had died suddenly to his home returned in a state of nervous shock from which he never recovered. " When I came to Squire A.'s wood where them trees darkened over," he began to tremble, and got back only with difficulty. The ghost of this corpse walked long after.

The fear of the dead is particularly shown in the habit of re- moving a dying person from the house. So with the corpse. A gentleman in Wiltshire had the body of his late wife removed into the coach-house.

Rash Intruder at a Grave caught by a Demon. — A man once boasted of his courage, and was challenged to go into a church- yard at night and stick a knife into a grave. When he failed to return his friends went in search of him, and found him lying hopelessly mad on the grave. Somehow or other his coat got caught, and he fancied that he was seized by evil spirits, and was frightened out of his mind.^

Enemies not to be buried dose together. — People are very careful

' Carelessness about the disposal of any severed part involves danger to the body (Ilartland, Legend of Perseus, ii., 132). All through the East amputation is dreaded lest a person so mutilated should turn into a malignant ghost (Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore, i., 280). Hence hanging or strangu- lation is in Japan regarded as a less severe form of punishment than decapita- tion (Aston, Nihongi, i., 234). The prejudice against mutilation is illustrated by the refusal of the Jaina priests to eat with Raja Vishnuvardhana, because he had lost a finger (Rice, Mysore, i., 338).

2 As told in the south of Ireland, with names and date particularly stated, the man is challenged to go into a vault and drive a nail into a coffin. He does so, and accidentally nails down the tail of his own coat, on which he loses his senses.