Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/116

 96 Correspondence.

such as The Golden Bough, Malay Magic, etc. Any of the following would be acceptable : —

a. Examples of sympathetic power gained over another by possession of a hair or a strip of clothing, or of vicarious infliction such as by injuring a footstep or a shadow.

b. Examples of symbolic gifts. The prehistoric man who buried his fellow buried with him bowls of food and flint weapons which were obviously by a magic transition to be of service to him in the spirit world. Objects are sometimes left on graves to-day by churchgoing people with some dim survival of the old intention.

c. Examples of "like curing like," as in the phrases "take a hair of the dog that bit you," "the eagle slain by an arrow feathered from an eagle's wing," " to whistle for the wind," etc. In the Dublin Museum is a jewelled object like a caterpillar, once used to touch cattle afflicted with murrain supposed to be caused by a similar creature.

d. Examples of children's "make-believe," resembling any of these magical rites. If I saw a small girl of her own accord using pictures of any objects in a game with her dolls in place of the objects themselves, I should be inclined to think that we had here the germ-origin of this magic. If I saw her voluntarily draw a picture of her governess with whom she was angry, and beat or harm it, expressing a wish that her enemy might be so harmed, I should be almost sure of it. But I have never seen anything so definite.

I shall be grateful for any items which your readers are good enough to send me, either through the pages of Folk-Lore, or privately to my address.

W. Hanna (Colonel).

United Service Club, London, S.W.