Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/420

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SS> Cor7'espondence.

The Death Coach.

Mr. Westropp says in Folklore^ June 30th, 19 10, p. 192, that " the ' headless coach ' or ' coach a bower ' seems of far later date than the banshee." If so, it must still be of a very respectable antiquity.

Death-carts are to be heard of in Lancashire and Lincolnshire, from which fact it may be argued that they are sure to be known in other English counties.

Death-carts driven by the last person buried in the churchyard, or by some other personification of the King of Terrors, may be said to swarm in Brittany, where, I believe, there are also death- boats.

The following quotation from the Lapp who cheated Death, which was published in the Manchester Guardian, April 20th, 1909, shows that the North of Europe cherishes the same super- stition :

"Summer had come. The dwarf birches were in leaf, the Arctic brambles in blossom. Svanti, my Lapp host, lay at full length chewing tobacco. . . . Such a question as " Why is snow white ? " never failed to draw forth some of his legendary lore.

" Snow is white and ice is white because white is the colour of death. Ice and snow come from the home of the dead, the land of darkness, far away in the north. There dwells the Reindeer of Death. When he comes south his sledge is empty, driverless ; when he goes north it is filled with the souls of the dead, and the chief among them holds the rein. Sometimes on still winter nights one may hear the click of hoofs, though the herd is far off, and no living creature stirs ; then it is that the mother hushes her child and whispers, ' Be still, lest the Reindeer of Death should hear you, for he is roaming about seek- ing souls to fill the empty sledge.' Only once has a living man sat in that sledge." Svanti paused tantalisingly.

[Here follows the story of Joukko.]

"Tell me one thing," I begged. "If the White Reindeer carries off the

dead in its sledge across the snow, what happens to the souls of those Samelats

\i.e. Lapps] who die in summer?" Svanti looked at me sideways with a

puckered brow and muttered something in Lappish. " It is not lucky to speak

so much of the dead," he said at last in Norwegian, " for we know that the

souls of Samelats wander about during the days of sunshine, waiting until the

sledge comes to fetch them in the dark months. So now let us rather talk of

snaring birds or trapping lynxes."

^ ^^ ^ ^ H. Mackenzie.