Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/407

 Correspondence. 353

The Burning of the Property of a Gypsy at Death.

The custom of burning the caravan and other property of a dead gypsy is attested by numerous instances in Great Britain. In 1894, at Withernsea in Yorkshire, the waggon, clothes, bedding, and even a set of china and a fiddle belonging to a gypsy named Young were publicly burned in the camp ; it was reported that his horse would also be shot and burned, but this was not done {Notes and Queries, 8th S., vol. vi., p. 286). In the previous year all the goods, of considerable value, belonging to the Queen of the Boswell tribe were destroyed in the same way {lb., 9th S., vol. xii., p. 428). The common explanation of such customs is, of course, that the survivors intend to placate the ghost of the dead man by providing for his use, in an etherealized form, the necessaries which it requires in the spirit world (see Prof. Frazer, Journal Anthropological Institute, vol. xv., pp. 74 et seq.). Mr. Crawley, {Mystic Rose, p. 98), believes that this idea is later in origin than the desire to avoid the tabu of the corpse. In an interesting pamphlet recently issued by Mr. Bob Scot, (who calls himself on the second title-page " Tringurushi Juvalmursh "), entitled "The Romanichels, a Lucubration ", we find, (p. 52), — " Among the Gypsies of eastern Europe the soul is supposed to be firmly attached not only to the body, which it cannot leave until after complete putrefaction, but also to the possessions of the dead man. In consequence, they remove all furniture from the neighbourhood of the dying in case the soul should cling to it; and, to hasten the process of disintegration, dig up the corpse and remove the head after the lapse of a certain period." I should like to ask if this belief prevails among the gypsies of Great Britain ; if any instance of disinterment of the dead has been recorded among them ; and, if so, what explanation do they give of either or both of the customs to which I have referred ?

W. Crooke.

Crossing Straws as a Charm. {Ante, p. 217.) The following rain charm was often practised in Lanarkshire by the writer and his friends, when boys. Two straws were placed on

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