Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/278

242 but serve as seats for weary travellers. His description of the mode of erection of these stones, and of the death rites of the tribe, is full and interesting. Most of the leading facts have been already given by Sir H. Yule, Major Godwin-Austen, and Mr. Clarke.

As regards folk-lore, the account of their rules of taboo is valuable, and in a special appendix will be found a description of their curious mode of divination by egg-breaking. He gives a few folk-tales out of a large collection, which, it may be hoped, will soon be published. Those that he has printed are not very important. One, which ascribes the spots on the Moon to the Sun, who threw ashes at him because he tried to commit incest, is like a Hindu tale. In another we have the myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth. Heaven drew up the Earth by his navel-string; this the people cut where it was fastened to a hill, and "it was since that time that heaven became so high." They have a Flood legend, but the account of it is vague.

A most remarkable superstition is that connected with the Thlen, a gigantic snake which demands human victims, and for whose sake murders have been committed in fairly recent times. A brave man once destroyed the Thlen of his day by inducing it to open its mouth, into which he promptly dropped a lump of red-hot iron. The beast was then cut up, and the hero directed the people to eat its flesh. If this order had been obeyed the world would have been free of these monsters; but, unhappily, one small piece of the meat remained uneaten, and from this the breed was reproduced. The Thlen attaches itself to property, and a condition of the owner's prosperity is that the monster shall receive blood. This is extracted by the murderer from the nose of his victim by a bamboo tube, and then offered to the Thlen. I cannot quote any exact Indian parallel to this belief The subject of the Thlen deserves careful investigation.

The present volume has been printed in England, and its format is in pleasant contrast to that of most of the publications of the Government of India. It is illustrated by some excellent coloured plates from sketches by Miss Scott-O'Connor and the