Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/148

124 that the corpse should be shrouded in white. This custom of dressing the corpse in his best clothes is very general, and probably originated in the selfish but not unkindly desire to induce the perturbed spirit to rest in the grave, and not to come plaguing the living for food and raiment. On the same principle Muhammadans dip their winding sheets in the well Zemzem to secure the peace of the dead. In Homer, again, we find mention of the custom of shrouding with soft purple robes the bones, or rather, perhaps, the urn, in which they were contained, since instances have been found of Greek coffins wrapped in finely woven woollen cloth. While then the Homeric Greeks undoubtedly laid considerable stress on the due shrouding of the dead, there does not appear to be any direct evidence that it would be the duty of the nearest female relative of an old man to prepare his winding-sheet in anticipation of his decease, and the inference from the example I have given from Indian folk-lore would imply that the preparation of the shroud during a man's life would be considered to be an evil omen.

It may be worth while, then, as it is an interesting chapter in folklore, to consider whether in its original form the weaving may have been not that of the shroud of Laertes, but the wedding dress of Penelope. In connection with the secret weaving of the web by Penelope, it may be added that in early Greek folk-belief there seems to have been some idea that weaving was a mystic art. Before they set about weaving the dress for the image of Hera at Olympia, the women had to purify themselves with pig's blood and water; and the same feeling seems to have existed in regard to a kindred art in ancient Ireland, where no male was allowed to be present when dyeing was going on.