Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/96

88 187. Images of missionaries worshipped. [The name of my friend Mr. T. Richard, who helped largely to combat the great famine in North China (Shansi) some years ago, has been put up in some temples beside that of Confucius.—W. H. D. R.]

189. A healing spring: its origin.

191. Children seek for elephant's hair, because they think that being golden and curved it will procure them a golden sword. [Imitative Magic]

194. Love-song.

195. Funerals in Kumaun.

222. Kumaun Folk-lore.—"When the dead appear before Bhagwan he finds it very difficult to ascertain whether they are Hindus or Muhammadans, and the only way of making this certain is to be tattooed in the regular style."

Sorcery.—A cup, gourd, or earthen jar is smeared with turmeric, and a virgin seated on it. [Remember that the Pythian priestess at Delphi sat upon the tripod. One Greek vase has a picture of her in this attitude.]

Trial by Ordeal: hot iron ball held in the hand.

Human sacrifice under the walls of new-built forts.

Manufacture of human oil from boys.

Hail-charm.

224. The correct month in Leap-year.

226. Scape-bullock in case of Cholera. [Much information on this custom, and the Scape-goat, is given in Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections, vol. i, reprinted last year in Constable's Oriental Miscellany—a valuable work.]

229. Charm against headache.

231. A barber will not shampoo one leg without the other, lest a dog should bite him.

234. Austerities of the Sufi sect. Very odd.

239. Proverbs about the value of oxen of different colours.

240. Tale of a Grave-robber. (Silver coins buried in the mouths of the deceased for travelling expenses, else they have no rest in heaven.)

241. Fairy Gift legend.

Oxfordshire Mummers.—The illustration on the opposite page, reproduced by the courtesy of the proprietors of The Daily Graphic from the number of January 4th, 1894, represents the performers in a Mummer's Play at Oxford. The duellists in the foreground represent King William of Prussia and the Duke of Cumberland. The other characters in the play are a personage called "Jack Finny", an old man and an old woman