Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/406

368 the dead to get in and out. This does not suit our Danish line of thought.

It is one thing to allow the dead to associate with each other in the churchyard, which at night-time is always shunned by the living, or, if they like, to assemble in the empty church, light the candles on the altar, and have a service or mass—let them do so; but to make disturbance in the old house and to annoy the living, that is quite a different matter, so one protects oneself by every means in one's power; and on closer examination it will appear that many of these customs which have been mentioned here, have the same object, viz. to prevent the dead from walking and haunting the old home. The scissors, in the form of a cross, have double power, partly as a cross, and partly as being of iron or steel; there is also power in the sticks of straw laid across. When the legs are tied together the dead cannot walk; the same thing when needles are run into the soles of the feet, it will cause pain to tread on them—also the fact that they are of steel has something to say in the matter. The cross formed by raising and lowering the coffin within the threshold, closes the doorway. According to the popular belief there is always a mystic connection between the person and all that he has come in contact with, so that by means of these one can cause him pain or pleasure, more especially the first. Therefore, all that has been in contact with the dead must at once be taken out of the house—the water used in washing the corpse, the straw that has been in his bed. Chairs and stools are upset so that he may find nothing to sit upon. For fear that the soul should remain behind, and hide in an empty jar, the vessels are all turned upside down.

Strewing flax-seed has evidently had another meaning, as it is supposed that all the powers of darkness, witches, ghosts, and hobgoblins were forced to count