Page:Folk-lore of the Telugus.djvu/11

3 be something like a universal law of our present condition, if knowledge, for example, cannot be obtained except by hard and often painful application, if health can be secured only by those who are content to pay the price of steady exercise and strict temperance for it, we need not be surprised if the folklorean study is by no means a purely easy affair, one that can be learnt at first sight. Indian folklore presents very often a thick net-work of the natural and the supernatural which exerts a peculiar talismanic influence on the listener. This blending of the natural and the supernatural has taken possession of the Telugu mind to a very great extent, so much so that the ordinary Telugu person fully believes that there can be no gloomier form of infidelity than that which questions the moral attributes of that Great Being in Whose hands lie the final destinies of us all. His ideas of God's dealings with man are so peculiar to himself that none but those intimately acquiainted with him can rightly understand them.