Page:Frazer (1890) The Golden Bough (IA goldenboughstudy01fraz).djvu/49

I the Hebrides), lay a round bluish stone which was always moist. Windbound fishermen walked sunwise round the chapel and then poured water on the stone, whereupon a favourable breeze was sure to spring up. In Finnland wizards used to sell wind to storm-staid mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots; if they undid the first knot, a moderate wind sprang up; if the second, it blew half a gale; if the third, a hurricane. The same thing is said to have been done by wizards and witches in Lappland, in the island of Lewis, and in the Isle of Man. A Norwegian witch has boasted of sinking a ship by opening a bag in which she had shut up a wind. Ulysses received the winds in a leather bag from Aeolus, King of the Winds. So Perdoytus, the Lithuanian wind-god, keeps the winds enclosed in a leather bag; when they escape from it he pursues them, beats them, and shuts them up again. The Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are sent by an Oiabu sorcerer; for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens at pleasure. But here we have passed from custom (with which alone we are at present concerned) into mythology. Shetland seamen still buy winds from old women who claim to rule the storms. There are now in Lerwick old women who live by selling wind. When the Hottentots wish to make the wind drop, they take one of their fattest skins and hang it on the end of a pole,