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Rh from the Emperor to the villagers to kill a she-bear which appeared above the village. The young man asked his father in the cellar what was the meaning of this order, and he answered “It means the rock at the top of the hill.” The young men went to the assembly of the villagers and told them the answer to the Emperor’s order. They were to say, “We will kill the she-bear, and we will wait for the Emperor to come and flay her.” On another occasion the Emperor wanted them to bring him every kind of seed found in the neighbourhood. The old man in the cellar told the young man to go to an ant-hill, there they would be sure to find them all. When the young man again repeated this advice to the men in the village assembly they were all surprised at his cleverness, and asked him to tell them who it was that had given him such advice, for they knew that he must have learned it from some one else. He then told them what he had done. Since then they no longer kill the old men, because their wisdom is indispensable.

Sainenun refers also to Hehn, Kulluberflanzen, etc., page 472, and Schmidt, Volks leben der Neuriechen (page 26-27) for the same traditions and beliefs among the modern Greeks.





The following article, one of the best accounts of the mythology of the Bushmen (A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, ed. 1899, ii. 34), is now practically inaccessible to English readers. It is reprinted at the suggestion of some members of the Society:

rugged mountain chains called Maluti by the Basutos and Amalundi by the Kafirs (plural of luti or lundi, a ridge) extend 