Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/277

 Correspondence. 241

In this case the boy's own proper semangat may be called back and resume its place, while the hantu wz/j'rt;?^ departs.

J. O'May.

Unlucky Meetings. (Vol. xxi., p, 225; vol. XX., p. 222.)

The belief that an accident is likely to happen to a collier who persists in going to work after meeting a woman on his way to the pit is still strong in the Staveley and Eckington districts near Chesterfield (Derbyshire). I verified an instance of the belief being acted upon during the week ending Oct. 8th, 19 10, when a Staveley collier went back home after such a meeting, although greatly annoyed, because, as he said, he could ill afford to lose work. Some colliers now refuse to turn back in such a case, but the belief has been strengthened by local discussion of a recent serious injury in the pit to a collier on the very day on which he had encountered a woman on his way to work.

T. E. Lones.

kayu ("the royal disease," or "fruit sickness"), (Chambers in Ling Roth, op, «V., vol. i.,p. 291). The real name of a hunted creature must not be mentioned, no doubt lest it should attract the vague " influences " (,badi, jimbalattg) which protect even the most defenceless creatures of the jungle and the ocean. The similar rules which bind tin miners and seekers for camphor, eaglewood, etc., (Skeat, Malay Magic, pp. 254, 212, 208, etc.), are doubtless extensions of the same idea. The explanation that the name of a tiger or a bear is avoided through fear or respect seems quite insufficient.