Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/483

 Collectanea, 449

hold built boolies, and food was brought by his preserver till the danger was overpast. It was faintly " remembered " by old people on my visit as told by their elders, but the details are forgotten.

Between the vanishing and (what is worse) the corruption of Irish folk-tales in recent years I am anxious to record even such a fragmentary collection as I have been able to make. I am careful to give my doubts and any facts telling against the genuine character of the tales, and can only hope that for the known imperfection and for many possible errors of judg- ment readers may forgive one whose earnest endeavour has been to give unvarnished versions of these waifs of the past and to avoid that bane of Irish folk-tales, the desire " to make a good story of them all."

T. J. Westropp.

The Cursing of Venezelos.

(Vol. xxviii. 133 et seqq.)

I VENTURE to add to Sir James Frazer's account of cursing by stone-flinging two examples, one from Arabia, the other from India.

In his Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca (ed. 1893, ii. 202 et seqq.) Sir R. Burton describes the rite practised at the Jamrat al-Akabah {jamrah meaning " a place of stoning," as well as the stones used) where pilgrims fling stones at the pillars known as Shaytan al-Kablr, " The Great Satan " ; Wusta, or " The Central Place (of stoning) " ; and Al-Aula, or " The First Place." The pilgrim, holding in suc- cession seven stones between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, casts them at one of the pillars, exclaiming : "In the name of Allah, and Allah is Almighty ! (I do this) in Hatred of the Fiend and to his Shame." After this he repeats the Tahlil : " There is no Deity but Allah ! " and the Sana, or Praise of Allah. Hence Satan or Shaytan is known to Musal- mans as " The Stoned or Lapidated." (Sir R. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, ed. 1893, iv. 157.)

Sudderan, son of Raja Ram, a noble youth, was falsely