Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/367

Rh On the night of Palm Sunday it is possible to see them there; they will be rescued by a chaste youth who will raise the treasure that night. This tale arose on the basis of some historical event and of the tales of the freeing of an enchanted white lady. Pomeranian and German parallels given.

6. The White Lady announces an unlucky event. This unlucky event is mostly death: the White Lady is the ambassadress of death.

The tale, "The White and Black Lady, or the Woman," in Krolmus, ii. p. 484, tells how the dying saw "a white female [figure] standing by a stone and weeping," or "a white lady coming out of a door," who came to them to announce their death. According to a note by Krolmus, a black lady announces death in the district of Saatz and a white lady in the neighbourhood of Rakovnik. At Luštěnice they know a tale that a white lady appears to the woman whose husband is going to die. She comes down the chimney and makes a noise like a sheet of paper; if this rustling is to be heard, the woman will not dare to appear. [VdatiVdáti [sic], usually = marry!] The men whose wives are to die see the white lady. Cf. Grohmann, pp. 68–9.

According to another story quoted there, a white lady announces deaths in the cloister of the nuns at Kuttenberg, singing sacred songs at midnight. In the district of Hořice also there is a similar belief. To some one it appeared that he saw "that evening that father died such a white female [figure] outside. There she grew grew till she hung over the tomb and became one with it." ''Nár. Sborník Okresu hořického'', Hořice, 1895, p. 112.

Parallels from Lusatian Serbs (Wends), Tyrol, etc. Other forms of ill-luck are also announced by the white lady. If any kind of misfortune is going to happen at the village of Tuchoraz, in the district of Böhmisch Brod, there come out of the vault of the tower at midnight between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday two white ladies that go gradually through the village, singing sacred songs. Cf. Grohmann, p. 91. Other Bohemian and German cases.

In Carlstein district a white lady appears at midnight before a sick man's house and asks. Are they all at home? If so, she says whether the sick man will die or not. If all are not at home, she says she can't wait longer and the sick man will die. Cf.