Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/22



following Papers and Notes were read at this meeting, the proceedings of which have already been chronicled (Folk-Lore, iv, pp. 532-33).

Mr. noted as current in the Great Yarmouth district the belief that usually a person whose life has been saved from death by drowning ever afterwards had a strong aversion to (amounting sometimes to a positive hatred of) his or her rescuer, and added "Is this a local belief simply, or does it express a physiological fact, which would, of course, entirely upset the idea of the hero rescuing the heroine who marries him from gratitude? The belief would not seem to apply to rescue from death in any other form."

It was pointed out in discussion that the belief was widespread and frequent, and it was suggested that it would be desirable to ascertain its present prevalency.

Mr. communicated the following incidents in two trials for murder which have taken place before him in South India:—

It is great waste of time to consider the meaning and relation of facts if the facts are doubtful. It therefore seems necessary to say that I will vouch for the accuracy of the following notes. The facts came before me in the course of two trials for murder, which it was my duty as an Indian Judge to hold in 1892. The papers are all in India; if they were here, I could make the statement fuller and more definite; but the trials having been for murder, and an Indian Judge being both judge and jury, the facts are very distinct in my recollection.

The first case is that of a murder by way of sacrifice to discover hidden treasure.

The common belief in India is that buried treasure is watched by an evil spirit or demon. It is of no use to dig