Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/145

 Rh the later, and specifically Greek, rituals do not furnish us with the close parallels to the mise-en-scéne of the Grail stories which we find in their Asiatic prototypes, and I was desirous of simplifying my argument as much as possible.

Finally, I would point out that in the second paragraph of my letter I wrote direct, not different, affiliation. My readers have, doubtless, made the correction for themselves.

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may help to remove misunderstandings if this examination of Garo marriages begins with a transcript of the exact text of the passage in the Assam Census Report for 1891, on which Sir James Frazer bases his view that “among the Garos marriage with a mother’s brother’s widow appears to be a simple consequence of previous marriage with her daughter.” The text is as follows: “Mr. Teunon informs me of a case in which a man refused to marry the widow who was in this instance a second wife, and not his wife’s own mother; and the old lady then gave herself and her own daughter in marriage to another man. In a dispute regarding the property which followed, the laskar reported that the first man having failed to do his duty, the second was entitled to the greater part of the property.” In this case, therefore, the marriage with the daughter followed as a consequence of the marriage with the widow. This case is described by Sir James Frazer as a case “in which a recalcitrant son-in-law flatly declined to lead his aged mother-in-law to the altar, whereupon the old lady in a huff bestowed not only her own hand but that of her daughter to boot on another man, thus depriving her ungallant son-in-law of an estate and two wives at one fell swoop.” The “plain tale from the hills” may be interpreted in a different manner when we remember that the mother-in-law becomes the chief wife of