Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/183

Rh latter end of the eighteenth century is also worth quoting in extenso. He writes:—

In the early part of the nineteenth century Mr. Elijah Hoole was present at a hook-swinging ceremony at Royapettah in the city of Madras, and thus describes it:—

"A pole thirty or forty feet high, was planted in the ground perpendicularly, having an iron pivot on the top, on which rested the middle of an horizontal yard or cross pole, which might also be about forty feet in length. This latter was managed by a rope attached to one end, reaching down to the ground, by means of which it could be made to turn upon the centre as fast as the people could run. Near the other end of the cross-pole, attached to a short rope, were two bright iron hooks, and at the extreme end was a short rope, about the length of that to which the hooks