Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/113

Rh

phur-bu, or exorcist's dagger, for stabbing demons. The central part represents a thunderbolt, and the upper end the four heads (one being a horse's) of the fiend Tamdin.

2. Tibetan ga-u, or charm-box, studded with turquoises and holding four rolls of charms (4) and a fifth roll (5) bound with silk of three colours and having attached to it some fragments from the robe of a lama or of a sacred image.

3. Metal hand: Hebrew charm against the evil eye, inscribed with the blessing of Joseph (Genesis xlix. 22-26).

6 and 7. Mediæval bronze amulet cases, one book-shaped, the other heart-shaped. 2em

Miss Morag Cameron's very interesting notes on "Highland Fisher-Folk and their Superstitions" in September issue of Folk-lore (vol. xiv., p. 300), mention is made of the fact that most of the superstitions noted were also current on the Fifeshire coast. It struck me that it might be interesting to try to trace how far this is still the case, as one might reasonably expect that the "Fifers," being nearer the larger centres of town life, would lose their old beliefs more readily than their northern brethren.

Mining and fishing go largely together on some parts of our county's coast line, the miner taking the fishing season as a beneficial change from his work below ground, while the fisher does not now despise the "good money" that may be gained in the pit at such time as the harvest of the sea is not available. Hence, as well as the purely fishing and purely mining classes, we have also a mining-fishing class largely imbued with the curious beliefs of both. And yet the miner regards the fisher