Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/367

 Collectanea. 331

It is dangerous to give away dough at night, as it will cause your animals to die. However, if you put some live coals in water, this protects the animals. (Boudroum.)

Sweepings from a house are not to be thrown out at night, as the occupants' souls may be thrown out with them.

A sieve must not be taken out of a house on a starry night, because this will make holes in it.

Eggs must not be set so that the chickens come out in the same month. If this happens, the chickens are delicate. To strengthen them they must be passed through the ring of the door {i.e. the ring used as the handle of a door, and also for padlocking it).

The lizard syglos (•^Atos) can only be killed by a vine-stick.

A water-spirit in the form of a red calf lives in and sometimes comes out of wells.

In the Tvpivrj (the week before Lent), the south wind always blows.

To break a water-spout at sea, make a cross with a new black-handled knife and recite the beginning of the Gospel of St. John (see an^e, vol. xvi. p. 190).

If anyone sneezes in the presence of a corpse, he or she will soon die.

Cut a piece of cloth from the dress of the person who has sneezed in the presence of a corpse, and put it on the corpse. This will hasten its decay. The belief in Cos is that if anyone sneezes the corpse will not decay. Corpses, it must be explained, are disinterred after three years and the bones re-buried. If the corpse is then found not to have decayed, the deceased is regarded as a vampire.

W. R. PatN.

Agricultural .Superstitions in Bellarv.

(Communicated by Dr. J. G. Frazer.)

On the first full moon day in the month of Bhadrapada (September) the agricultural population in the District celebrate a feast called the Jokumara feast, to appease the rain-god. The