Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/301

 Collectanea. 283

that night at the house of the confectioner, and next morning hastened home. He raised money and went to Gaya, where he performed the Sraddha in due form.

When he revisited his father-in-law's house some time after he found that the Pipal-tree in the courtyard had fallen down. So he took his wife's advice and married the daughter of the brother of his late father-in-law, and since then he has lived in prosperity.

This curious story illustrates the popular beliefs about life after death, and especially about Bhuts. The Bhut is a malignant spirit, and one common cause why people become Bhuts is that their funeral rites have not been performed. The Homeric parallel is the case of Patroklos {Iliad, xxiii., 71); on the contrary, the shade of Elpenor, though his body is unburied, passes into the house of Hades {Odyssey, xi., 51-83). "The spirit-voice is a low murmur, chirp, or 'whisper, as it were the ghost of a voice " (Tylor, Primitive Culture, second edition, i., 452 seq). Indian ghosts speak with a nasal twang (Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore, i., 237 seq.). The fact of the new-coming dead serving those who have preceded them is a common belief in Ireland (Lady Wilde, Ancietit Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, 82 seq.. Folk-lore, iv., 363), in Scotland (Rogers, Social Life, iii., 342), and in China (Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii., 365). I have illustrated elsewhere the pro- tective powers of iron, brass, and salt, which are all well-known scarers of ghosts {Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, ii., 11 seq.; 15 seq.; 23). That Bhuts have a well-defined district, outside which they are unable to pass, is a well-known folk-belief. To marry a second wife is dangerous, as she is exposed to the malignant spirit of her predecessor. Here the danger is avoided by the woman being re-born in another family, and then re-married to her former husband. The incident of the Pipal-tree rather looks as if it were one of those cases in which the tree is the "Life Index" of the family. It falls on their release from the form of Bhiits and their entrance into Paradise. Bhuts, however, as Mr. Hartland reminds me, often take up their abode in trees, and Pipal-trees seem to be their favourites ; see Bhut Nibandh, by Dalpatram Daya, translated by Alex. Kinloch Forbes. Bombay (1849), PP- 8, 19, 45) 47-

W. Crooke.