Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/285

Rh ungrammatically) that there are no such things, but that the devil causes ghosts to appear in order to persuade people to dig up the ghosts' bodies and burn them, and thus commit an offence which will give himself the right to burn the offenders in eternal fire. The writer says this at some length, and it is evident that, as the subject is twice introduced in this selection of canons, the practice of burning the bodies of those whose ghosts were seen was common at the time the selection was made. It is a testimony to the survival in the popular consciousness of the idea that burning the dead gets rid of them, the idea which first prompted the rite of incineration. This I fancy, and have suggested in a previous number of this Journal, took its origin among a migratory people, who were unable to tend their dead, and therefore did see ghosts and were pursued by vampires eager to drink their blood in sweet revenge for the neglect of the due blood-offerings.

The other references to superstitions in these books are:

Charming snakes in order that they may not bite cattle which are left out at night (reference is made to the fifty-sixth chapter of the Council of Laodicea). Charming wolves with the same purpose. Melting wax or lead (70th canon, 65th and 93rd of Basil). Love-philtres (not from any stated source).—Women are accused of rubbing dough on their bodies, and giving it to eat to men in whom they wish to arouse satanic love. They are also accused (twice) of using, etc., as ingredients of love-potions.

Finally, I may mention a curious eschatological passage quoted from Alexander (who was he?), giving reasons for the ceremonies on the third, ninth, and fortieth days after death. "The soul is allowed for two days to come back to earth, accompanied by an angel, and revisit its house or its body. Only on the third day does the angel introduce it to the presence of God, who directs the angel to show it round heaven until the ninth day, when it again enters His presence. What happens until the fortieth day is not