Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/430

 4 1 6 Collectanea.

of St. Helena," and that they are used against infantile convulsions {^^ a/fereda^' of infants; " a^^z-if^/a "=- epilepsy), by being tied on the patient's wrist, with the figured side toward the skin.^ I have seen a medal or coin of this kind in which the mounting was made of fairly heavy gold, although the piece itself was very much rubbed and worn, whence we may gather an idea of the value sometimes attached to such pieces.

In the second series of these notes I have described a cere- mony, which took place annuall}', on June 23rd, at San Sebastian (cf. supra, vol. xxiv., p. 73), in which a tree was "burnt." The latest observance of this occurred in 191 2. In consequence, I was told, of an accidental injury to some of the children engaged, or about to engage, in the scramble for pieces from the tree, the fiesta has been proscribed since. So far as I could gather, the common people wish to keep up the ceremony, while the upper classes seem to consider it beneath the dignity of so large and pro- gressive a town as San Sebastian. There seemed to be hope, for some time, that the fiesta would be permitted to take place again, for I was told that the motion to allow it in 1914 was lost by a very small margin, while the matter was brought up again in 1915. The following correction should be noted with respect to the species of the tree formerly "burnt." I have stated (Joe. cit.) that the tree was an ash, and I was under the impression when I wrote that an ash was always or generally used. I have since ascer- tained, from both oral and printed sources, that the tree used was almost invariably a cherry (I was told that either one of two species of cherry was used) ; the ash tree " burnt " (according to the several contemporary newspaper acounts from which I took parts of my information) in 191 1 seems, from what I have since learned, to have been an exception.

W. L. HiLDBURGH.

^In Proaza fits (" accidentes ") are treated by placing a medal of St. Helena on the person attacked; in, order that the treatment may be efficacious the medal has to be (?) unornamented [or (?) stolen ; the term used is ^^ robada"'] ; Giner Arivau, op. cit., p. 264.