Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/548

484 from vengeance on the people at whose hands she received such grievous wrong. (Madras Times, April 1, 1909.)

Flesh of animals killed by lightning.—At Asugyi village in Burma a cow was recently killed by lightning. The animal was at once cut up, and the flesh carried away by the Burmese, who believe that the meat of beasts killed by lightning is a sovereign remedy for diseases of the lungs and rheumatism. (Bassein News, April 7, 1909.) In illustration of this belief it may be noted that the Greeks paid respect to places which had been struck by lightning ( or ), fenced them in, and prevented any one from entering them. The Etruscans called such places bidental or puteal, enclosed them, and offered sacrifices there. (Frazer, Pausanias, vol. iii., p. 565.) The Wanyoro build an arch over a place struck by lightning. (Featherman, The Negritoes, p. 107.)

A Bengali family ghost.—Dr. Manindra Lai Banerjee, of the Indian Medical Service, writes that in September last year there was a tremendous knocking at his door; but no one could be found there. This was followed by repeated knocks at night, and showers of brickbats from unseen hands in broad daylight. "The knockings were always more frequent at the door of my widowed sister-in-law, and the shower was thicker in whatever direction she went. Whenever we gave her writing materials, there would appear an automatic writing,—"I love you dearly, have come to see you. No fear." The next moment she would swoon away, and through her spirit talked of many things. The spirit says he is my elder brother, the husband of my sister-in-law, who breathed his last some ten years ago. Many other friends of the spirit also visit us." (Bassein Agents, Oct. 9, 1909.)

Hindu magic; soul transference.—A Yogi has been in the habit of visiting Jabalpur twice a year, and there made the acquaintance of Pandit Amarnāth, who induced him to communicate to him the secret of the elixir of life. The Yogi ordered him to bring some spirits, mutton, and porridge. The two repaired at night to a Mohammedan graveyard, where the Yogi drew a magic square round a newly-made grave, and asked his friend to sit within it and to hand out to him, one by one, the things he had brought with him. The Yogi disinterred the corpse, and lying