Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/449

 Rh the thread; for a Kshatriya, a weapon; for a Vaisya, honey; for a Sudra, fruit. These must be daily removed, and their value only lasts a certain time.

546. Odd tale of an Ungrateful Snake.

550. Apprehensions of human sacrifice.

551. Charm to destroy an enemy. Go to mosque on Friday and turn a brick upside down. (Sympathetic.)

552. Scape-goat used in Calcutta for casting out a devil from a lad. Charm muttered over some leaves, which the goat ate, and was pushed over the terrace. It was killed, and its flesh distributed to the poor. [Can we connect this with the Sin-eater?]

555. Ploughing the site of a village with donkey-plough defiles it. To restore, plough over with an elephant-plough.

556. Legend of land given, as much as could be ridden round, localised in Gujarat

560. Star-lore.

562. Swastika mark to avert ill-luck.

632. All the marriages of a certain brotherhood performed on one day.

635. Omens.

646. Prohibition against giving fire.

W. H. D. R.

.

A Folktale from Hertfordshire.

Once upon a time there was an old man who had two daughters. Now one of these girls was a steady decent girl, and the other was a stuck-up, proud, conceited piece; but the father liked her best, and she had the most to eat and the best clothes to wear.

One day the nice girl said to her father: "Father, give me a cake and a bottle of beer, and let me go and seek my fortune." So the father gave her a cake and a bottle of beer, and she went out to seek her fortune. After she had walked a weary while through the wood she sat down by a tree to rest herself, and eat her cake and drink her beer. While she was eating, a little old man came by, and he said: "Little girl, little girl, what are you doing under my tree?" She said: "I am going to seek my fortune,