Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/221

 ii s. xii. SEPT. is, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

213

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1915.

CONTENTS. No. 299.

3VOTES: Phosphorescent Birds, 213 Words in Bishop Douglas's ' Eneaclos,' 215 An American Oracle of 1803, 21rt German Princes who have fallen in the War " Nauscopy," 217 Signs of Old London Some American- i>ms, 218 Dumb- Waiters James Howell and ' A Perfect Description of Scotland ' Misreadings of MSS., 219.

QUERIES: Source of Latin Maxim Wanted Pronuncia- tion of " Gladiolus "Constitution of Highland Septs- Mrs. Gooch Major Semple Author Wanted Sir Anthony Jackson " Narthex," 220 " The Parke " " Daie Workes " and " Rodds "Patterson Family" Balance of power " ' The Insect and the Reptile ' D'Huxattime "Conversation" Cooke James Gray, Journalist, 221 Biographical Information Wanted, 222.

REPLIES :-Wanstead Park, 222 The Site of the Globe, 224 "Die /Egyptiaca " : " Hora ^Egyptiaca," 225 Heraldic Query, 226 War and the Poets, 227 Clerks in Holy Orders as Combatants, 228 Ralph Trumbull Burlesque Sermon Bombay Gentlemen of 1792 : Sampler Verses Capture of Trincomalee, 229 The Cuckoo in Folk-Lore Dedication of Lady Chapel Col. George Kodens, 230 Statues and Memorials: John Rogers "Bith" Montague Scott Records at the War Office Quotations on Death John Camden Hotten, 231.

TSOTES ON BOOKS : ' Roumanian Bird and Beast Stories.

'L' Intermediate.'

1C it ices to Correspondents.

Jiofcs*

PHOSPHORESCENT BIRDS.

TERASHIMA'S ' Wakan Sansai Dzue,' 1713, torn, xliv., has this passage concerning the so-called Ubumedori (literally, childbearing woman's bird) :

" Tradition says that a woman who dies after parturition turns into this bird, which is certainly an invented story ..... It abounds in the coasts of the western provinces of Japan ..... The people of Kiushii say it uses to make its sudden appearance in dark drizzling nights, its station being un- iailingly accompanied by a phosphoric light. To a distant onlooker it seems to resemble the gull in sliape, but bigger, its voice, too, being similar to it. This bird can turn itself of its own will to a woman holding a baby. Thus transformed, she asks a man who happens to meet her unexpectedly t carry the infant on his back. Should he run away terror-smitten, he would get fever and ague lli.it might sometimes prove fatal. But if he boldly yields to her request and carries it on his Kvk, he would incur no harm, and when he should M>pr,..-irh an habitation, he would feel his burden

vely lightened, and find on ^examination it has entirely vanished."

In the ' Konjaku Monogatari,' written in the eleventh century, torn, xxvii. ch. xliii., it is narrated how a celebrated warrior, Taira 110 Suetake (fl. c. 1000 A.D.), voluntarily went for a wager to meet a Ubume or child- bearing woman, who requested him to carry her baby across a river, and how, after doing her the service, he discovered his burden was really nothing but a few leaves of a tree, which she had made look and cry quite childlike. The narrative concludes with the remark :

" Some say this Ubume is produced by a cunning fox in order to play upon a weak-hearted man, whereas others hold a malicious woman dead in childbed turns to it."

Terashima's work, I.e., gives the following Chinese story from Li Shi-Chin's ' Pan-tsau- kang-muh, ' 1578:

" Ku-hicoh-niati. This is a species of demon, capable of doing away with a human soul, and abounds in King-chau. Clad in feathers, it is a bird, but on their removal it becomes a woman.. Indeed, it is a metamorphosis of a woman who has died in labour, whence it has two paps on its breast and is very fond of carrying off an infant, whom to adopt and nurse as its own. It will do well for every family with an infant never to put its clothing out of the house in the night. Otherwise this bird, during its nocturnal flight, will drop its blood and mark the clothing, simul- taneously making the infant peculiarly nervous and timorous, which disease is called 1\'-n-ku- hien (innocent nervousness). Of this bird all are female, there being not a single male one. It nightly flies and hurts mankind during the seventh and eighth moons of the year."

With regard to this belief about danger through clothing, J. Theodore Bent in his 'The Cyclades,' 1885, p. 181, says:

" For many days to come mother and babe are strictly forbidden to wear clothes which have been exposed to the stars unless they have been fumigated by a censer. There is something practical in this rule, for in damp Sikinos every- thing that is exposed to the night air becomes impregnated with moisture."

In Ratzel's ' History of Mankind,' trans. Butler, 1896, vol. i. p. 474, the Javanese cobolds, male and female, respectively named Ganderuoa and Veves, are said to torment men by throwing stones and staining their garments with red saliva after chewing the areca nut. Writing in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Tokyo, No. 278, p. 306, 1909, 1 have tried to attribute such superstitions to the unexpected growths by night of some micro-fungi upon damp clothing.

The Japanese and the Chinese are by no means the only peoples who have ever believed in the metamorphosis of a woman dead in childbed into a malicious bein#.