Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/208

 1 84 Misce lla 7iea.

you arc their elder children, and would give you immense riches if you were to see them." " How can we see them ? " asked they. "It is very easy," said he. "I will be your guide. Take a dog with you and let him go into the Ganges in front of you ; follow the dog to the spot he leads you to and you will see our parents." They all left the house taking their dog with them. When they reached the bridge the youngest brother pointed out to them with his hand the spot where he said he met his parents. First the dog went into the stream and then the seven brothers. The youngest remained on the bank. The dog continued moving his legs all the while he was swimming, and the brothers followed him till they were drowned.

[This particular form of the story is not very common, but it is found in Wales and Ireland. See Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 47, 247 ; Folklore, vol. iii. p. 126. — Ed.]

Plough Monday.

The following account of Plough Monday at Witchford, in the Isle of Ely, was written down by a young woman who came from that neighbourhood, and sent to Mr. J. G. Frazer, by whom it is kindly forwarded :

" In the village of Witchford, situated in the Isle of Ely, in the evening on the second Monday of January, several young men form a party. They go together and get some one to lend them a plough and some whips ; and then they get some straw and put on their backs ; and then they black their faces, and one of them dresses up as an old woman ; and then two of them draw the plough and one takes hold of the handles, and two of them have brooms with them and two of them are cadgers, and the rest of them have whips and go cracking at the peoples' doors and keep calling out : ' Whoa ! Whoa ! ' and when the people come out to look at them they all set to and have a dance and then ask you for money, and if you do not give them any they pull up your scraper. That is how they go on until they have been all over the village, and then they all go to some one's house and spend the money they get given to them. They have bread and cheese and beer and singing songs all the rest of the evening ; and that is how they end the evening on Plough Monday."