Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/58



N the old days when demons were very powerful in India there was a she-demon named Holika. She was the most wicked of her race. Every day she would visit some town or village and carry away some of its children to feast upon them. These cruelties increased so much that the whole world complained to the king of the Rakshasas. Even that monarch who belonged to a proverbially cruel race was moved when he heard that all the children were being thus eaten up by Holika. He did not like to displease a female member of his own class. So he ordered that, as Holika had cultivated a special taste for children’s flesh, the people should give her one child for her food every day, making their own arrangements to do so. Even this they considered a great favour and each house resolved to send by turn one child a day. When one village had thus had its turn, the next village or