Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/415

 MISCELLANEA.

Fairy Gold.

The Greek proverb, av0paK€<; 6 Orjaavpo^; Trecj^ijvev, " our treasure turned out to be charcoal," seems to show that the folk- tale episode of the " fairy gold " was current in ancient Greece. A number of Greek proverbs have origin in the fables, and this may be similar.

W. H. D. Rouse.

COUVADE.

The following notices of the convade may be interesting : — Ti^apTjvoi, Twv yvvaLKCov TeKovacov, avrol ra^ /ce0aXa<? Siovrat koI Karaickivovrai : " The Tibareni [east coast of Pon- tus], when their wives bring forth, themselves tie up their heads and lie in." Corpus Paroem. Gr., p. 127. So Apollonius Rho- dius, ii. loio: "The Tibarenian land, where, when wives bring forth children, the husbands fall on their beds and groan, binding up their heads, while the wives carefully wait on their men with food, and bring to them the water for washing at childbirth."

W. H. D. Rouse.

A Folktale concerning Jesus Christ.

In 1869 a lady, visiting a poor woman in South-east Lancashire, turned the conversation to Christianity. The woman at first said she had never heard of Christ. Afterwards she asked if it were not he who once went to a poor woman's door ; when he asked for food she replied that even then she was boiling stones in the pot to make her children believe they were peas. Christ replied by telling her to lift the lid, which she did, and found the pot full of peas.