Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/252

 2 24 Collectanea.

Wherever there is an element of magic in a word one expects that to be primary. The expression cf^apfxaa-aeLv x^^'<oi', " to temper or strengthen brass," cannot be primary. One needs some imagination to deal with words like this. One of the weaknesses of the common dictionary is its habit of putting the usually accepted meaning first and the original meaning afterwards. So, when one looks at Liddell and Scott one sees cfiapfj-da-a-eiv means, to begin with, "to medicate," and secondly, "to enchant or bewitch by the use of potions." The word certainly goes back to the ages of magic ritual, and back again to the very expulsion of Jonahs, people who had no luck and brought ill luck, probably before magic itself was practised. It is a natural animal instinct to turn out those who seem to bring ill fortune, even if there is no piacular element in such an expulsion. Even animals expel some of their kind. We may compare rooks and elephants and even cattle, who kill a wounded member of the herd who by his loud lowing might possibly bring them into danger.

Of course, it is exceedingly hard to say, when we consider what a linguistic whirlpool Asia Minor has always been, what was the actual origin of this particular word. It might not originally be Turkic. There is a strange tendency among certain people to attribute everything unknown to the Hittites, but, as no one seems to know what Hittite is, that is very little use to the investigator. Voiirmak may not, of course, be Turkic at all, although it is a living word in the living Turkish language at the present time.

MoRLEY Roberts.

Burial Face Downwards to prevent the Return of the

Ghost.

A correspondent of The Times, 29th July, 19 15, writes from British Headquarters at the Front :

"A few days since, when searching for facts concerning a recent attack on a German trench, we came upon the grave of a German soldier, only just then filled up. The man had died instantly of a bayonet thrust. ' A curious thing about that,' com- mented an officer. ' The German was a huge, scowling man, and