Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/90

 76 Expeditionary notes taken on the visit of the Cambridge exploring party to the Siamese-Malay States on the east coast of the Peninsula in 1900. I shall first, however, give Mr. Scrivenor's account, which was obtained in writing from an educated Perak Malay named Mahomed Mansur, the son of a minister of the ex-Sultan Abdullah of Perak. It is as follows:—

"There are certain things called batu lintar. Men say that a Jin makes them out of stiff clay and that they are always found in the ground. The Jin piles them one above the other, close together, while they are still soft. If they are left they become quite hard. When they are hard enough, if the Jin wishes to kill an enemy (another Jin), he takes out the stones, and the power of the Jin is such that they become red like fire and (are surrounded by fire so that) their shape is like a coconut. If any mortal comes within range of the emanations from these stones, though they may be thirty depas distant, he cannot help fainting away. If a tree is struck by one, it is as though that tree were struck by a bullet, but the mark runs zig-zag from the trunk to the branches. Men who are struck by the emanations from these stones become as though burnt and turn red; but no one is ever struck by the stone itself. . . Men say that the Jin who owns the stones does not purposely wound a man's body. When the Jin throws a stone at an enemy and the enemy in trying to escape runs close to a mortal, then the stone follows him and in passing causes him to faint away. When a man has fainted away one must not touch him. If he is touched he is sure to die. But if one searches near the man it will be found that the Jin has thrown down a tuft of grass tied in a knot. If this is dipped in water and the water sprinkled over the man who has fainted, he recovers. Again, men say that when one finds a batu lintar that has not yet burst into flames it will never burst into flames if a little bit is chipped off the stone. But if this is not done when there is a high wind that batu lintar will explode with the noise of a cannon. Therefore, whenever a man finds a batu lintar he chips it slightly." . . . "I have questioned Mansur as to the cause of lightning. He tells me it is explained by Malays in many different ways. One