Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/342

 ancient method as described by Michael Psellus. 'Those,' he says, 'who wish to avail themselves of this means of divination, pick out a sheep or lamb from the flock, and, after settling in their mind or saying aloud the question which they wish to ask, slay the victim and remove the shoulder-blade from the carcase. This—the organ of divination as they think—they bake thoroughly upon hot embers, and having stripped it of the flesh find on it the tokens of that issue about which they are enquiring. The answers to different kinds of questions are learnt from different parts. Questions of life or death are decided by the projection of the ridge ; if this is clean and white on both sides, a promise of life is thereby given; but if it is blurred, it is a token of death. Weather-forecasts again are made from inspection of the middle part of the shoulder-blade; if the two membrane-like surfaces which form the middle of the shoulder-blade on either side of the ridge are white and clean, they indicate calm weather to come; while, if they are thickly spotted, the reverse is to be expected.' Here, it will have been noticed, no mention is made of any discrimination between the markings on the right and on the left sides of the bone; but this, I suspect, is an omission on the part of Psellus, for so simple a principle of ancient divination is hardly likely to have been excluded from consideration in this case. In other respects the information which I obtained tallies closely with his account; the clean and white appearance of the bone was then, as it is now, a reassuring omen; then, as now, the prospects of the weather were to be learnt from the flat surface on either side of the ridge; then, as now, the question of life or death, which from the shepherd's point of view becomes most acute at each lambing season, was settled by reference to the ridge of the bone. To judge then from the few principles of the art known to me, divination from the shoulder-blade, besides being still recognised as a religious rite, is conducted on thel. c.]for [Greek: alla gar] of Codex Vindobonensis, as published in Philologus, 1853, p. 166.]. This in relation to the body generally means the 'spine,' but can be used of any ridge (as of a hill), and so here, I suppose, of the ridge of bone along the shoulder-blade.], conjecturing [Greek: hoi] before [Greek: metaxy], where Codex Vindob. has corruptly [Greek: ei].]