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 ii s. viii, OCT. n, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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once, on condition that he should render the temple the service of ringing the bell during his stay there at the same time the provost granting as many days' vacation to the official bell-ringer. Two nights thence went on eventless, the old man striking the bell at regular hours ; but at about 10 o'clock in the following morning the official bell-ringer went to the belfry and found the octogenarian prostrate and dead. The news soon spread to all members of the community, and effected endless murmurs at the provost's imprudence in having caused the temple to incur such a trouble they bade the diocesan folks to carry away the corpse, but no one would dare perform it, for the then approaching local Shinto festival made it a serious breach of the preparatory taboo even slightly to touch so unclean an object. Thus the corpse remained unmoved till about two in the afternoon, when a convent belonging to the temple was entered by two warriors, who inquired of the clergymen in it whether there was seen an octogenary mendicant wandering in its vicinity. Upon being answered that actually such a one was staying in the belfry till but a few hours ago, when he was found suddenly lifeless, they avowed it very probable that he was their own father, who had recently lost his mind and strayed out of home after becoming somehow displeased with his wealthy family. They were conducted by the provost into the belfry, identified their dead parent, and bemoaned the loss quite out of their heads, which induced the provost too to wail. Then they went off, in order, as they said, to make funeral preparations, whereupon the provost returned to the convent and told over all the heart-rending sight he had just witnessed in the belfry, which in its turn moved some of the ^ kindhearted listeners to tears. At about 8 o'clock in the night, some forty or fifty men came nigh the belfry ; many of them were" under arms, and their noise was extraordinary, making all residents in the precincts not stir out of closed doors. Only through the tumults and dins the former made, the latter could know them to have carried the corpse into a distant pine forest, struck gongs and chanted the Buddha's name [nembutsu] throughout the night, then cremated it there and withdrawn just before the dawn. For thirty days thereafter nobody went near the belfry, deeming it unclean for that duration in accordance with the then current taboo regula- tion. As soon as the term of the taboo had expired, the official bell-ringer went to sweep through it, and discovered to his excessive dismay that the huge bell had entirely gone. This report put the whole chapter in great commotion ; some of its members with many diocesan folks went to explore the pine forest for it. There they found some fragments of the bell scattered among cinders of pine wood, which naturally led them to conclude that the marauders had carried away the bell after fracturing it with the help of an intense fire produced over it with the pines hewn down upon the spot. Indeed, those three scoundrels had played each his own part so adroitly the oldest one feigning death for so many hours, and the other two acting as his devotedly mourning sons that so many persons were sympathetically impelled to weep for their pretended loss. Thus the temple Koyadera lost its bell, and thence for ever stands without any. Moral : Better doubt all others than believe them indiscreetly."

The following narrative is given in Ki- kuoka Beizan's ' Shokoku Rijindan,' written in the eighteenth century, torn. v. pt. x. :

" One day in olden times there arrived at the- convent Chdfukuji, province T6t6mi, a yama- bushi,* who professed to be utterly needy, and craved the principal's contribution towards his pil- grimage to Mount Oomine. The latter sarcastic- ally replied that there was at his disposal no fcanef save the huge bell in the belfry just fronting them, and he would fain contribute it to his purse only if he could take it away single-handed. The yamabushi was much pleased with the pro- posal. He pushed the bell but once with his stick, and instantly it fell down on the ground. He handled it without an ado, ran away with it as swiftly as a flying bird, and was soon entirely lost sight of. Some time after, the bell was found suspended upon a pine at the top of a very in- accessible steep on Mount Oomine, where it is to be seen in situ to this day, the locality ^ having received after it the name ' Kanekake ' [Bell- hanging]."

KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

PANTHERA (11 S. v. 91, 177 ; vii. 381 ; viii. 109). The name "father-in-law," or "rela- tive," was applied by the Babylonians to a species of bird, and may have been, as sug- gested for Tra.vdr]p t of totemic origin. It occurs in inscriptions of Gudea and Sargon, dating from the twenty-eighth and eighth centuries B.C. respectively. The latter describes the emu tsi'hru i.e.. " little father-in-law " ( = Hebr. Tysn pn) as a water-bird, and interpreters variously identify it with the pelican, the swan, or the flamingo. See Eberhard Schrader's ' Keilinschriftliche Bib- liothek,' iii. 61. JNO. M.C.

DERIVED SENSES OF THE CARDINAL POINTS: " RIGHT " = SOUTH, "LEFT" = NORTH (11 S. vii. 270, 333, 482; viii. 51, 155, 216). In Irish they face the east in determining this use of the cardinal points. The south (deas) is then on the right hand (Idmh dheas}. Deas, O.I. des, dess, means " right " or " south." Cf. W. deheu, M. Bret. dehou, Corn, dyghow, Lat. dex-ter, Gr. c^fios, Skr. dakshina, Goth, taihsva, Lith. daszine, Slav, deslnu ("right"). On the left hand (Idmh ihuathal] is the north, tuaidh, O.I. tuath, t-uaith, from which comes the derivative tuathal, " left," on the left

mystic order named Shugendd, whose practice it is unceasingly to travel from one sacred mountain to another, there to observe their occult rites. Cf. J. Collin de Plancy, ' Dictionnaire infernal,' Bruxelles, 1845, p. 263, art. ' Jamambuxes.'
 * The Yamabushis are the members of the

t This Japanese word has the two meanings "money "and "bell."