Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/114

 CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. HARTLAND'S "SIN-EATER", AND PRIMITIVE SACRAMENTS.

To the Editor of.

,—Miss Godden's wide reading and rapid induction have anticipated a conclusion which, when I wrote the paper on " The Sin-Eater", had definitely formed itself in my mind, but which I did not feel justified in enunciating for want of evidence. The evidence, however, is accumulating, and I hope to deal with it ere long. Meantime, it Miss Godden would be good enough to direct my attention to any facts of special interest in this connection she would be conferring a favour upon me.

E. Sidney Hartland.

MOUSE-NIBBLING.

To the Editor of.

,—A propos of Prof Rhys's note on the Welsh mouse (p. 383, above), the following notes from the East may be of interest.

Jataka, No. 87 (Fausb., 1, 371, ff), is introduced by the story of a superstitious man. A garment which lay in his coffer was nibbled by a mouse. . . . Thought he to himself, "If this change of raiment remain in the house, great loss will follow. Unlucky that it is, like the goddess of ill-luck herself! I cannot give it to my family or my servants, for whosoever shall receive it will be ruined miserably; it shall be cast out into the place where dead bodies are left to rot."