Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/248

226 handkerchief, preferably a black one, over the snake. In its fright it will disgorge the frog. Keep the handkerchief and, when any one falls down in a fit, throw it over the patient's head. The patient will then likewise disgorge the disease.

I am myself becoming the centre of a myth, and am supposed to have wrought a cure on a man I never touched. He was shot in the head during last year's revolution, and his recovery is entirely ascribed to me, and not to the doctor to whom it was due.

Taboos at childbirth.—In Montenegro, though a woman is expected, among the peasants, to be fit to carry wood and water three days after childbirth, she is not allowed to cook and make bread until she has been "churched." I learnt this while living in a peasant house at Njegush, through commenting with horror on the case of a young married woman who, by carrying wood too early, brought on her death. I was told that fetching wood was quite a right and proper thing for her to do, but that, of course, she would not be allowed to make bread or cook. When I asked "Why?" I was told that bread so made could not possibly be eaten; it was not right; it was never done;—and so forth. All the company agreed on this point.

I have recently learnt also that in Montenegro it is regarded as impossible for childbirth to be allowed at the house of the mother's parents. Should such a thing be permitted, it would bring the worst luck,—nay, absolute ruin,—on her brothers, who, of course, live in the parental home. I know of a case even among the upper and educated class. A young married lady went to visit her mother, and had to shorten her stay for the above reason. Her grandmother nearly drove her out of the house, and said on her departure,—"Thank God! you have gone, and haven't brought evil on the house!"

I have been making enquiries on the subject here in Scutari. I find that a mother is not allowed to visit a married daughter till after the birth of her first child. I enquired if under any circumstances the daughter could go to her mother's for such an event, but this seemed quite a new idea. People did not definitely say that it was impossible, but they did not seem to imagine that any such necessity could ever occur. The mother is not allowed