Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/314

 278 Children and Wells.

henbane with the little finger of her right hand, and to tie it to the little toe of her right foot. She is then solemnly conducted by the other maidens to the nearest river, and splashed with water." ^

In the following tale the idea of a sacrifice to the rain and thunder god is distinct. The story comes from Oberhesse :

There was once upon a time a peasant who had a child that had been born during a thunderstorm. For this reason, as everybody knows too well, it was fated that the child should be struck by lightning. But the parents were unwilling to let him go. So every time a thunder- storm came on they hid him in the cellar until the skies became clear again. One day there arose the most frightful thunderstorm that ever had been known within the memory of man. The lightning flashed and the thunder rolled incessantly for eight days and nights, until at last it became evident to everybody that, if ever they were to see the sun again, they must let the poor little thunder-child meet his fate. So the parents brought their boy from his hiding place in the cellar, decked him out in white, as if he were a corpse, and led him out into the open courtyard. In a moment a bolt from heaven flashed down upon him and he was killed. From that moment the storm abated.-

In bringing to a close this account of the mystic connection between water and children, let me mention one or two customs, tales, etc., which may be of some value as corroborating the evidence I have led.

The Irish say that the souls of unbaptized children go into a great field shrouded in mist, in the midst of which is a well. Here they amuse themselves, sprinkling each other from little jugs, and pass the time away free from pains and penalties.^

1 Grimm, I.e., vol. ii., p. 593. ^ Ploss, I.e., Bd. i., p. 10.

^Ploss, I.e., Bd. i., p. 97.