Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/358

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.ix. MAY 2,1914.

funeral, when the mourners stand either at the bar or doorway of the "Chevra," or wait in the vestry, till, a certain part of the service completed, the " Chazan ' a (chanter) comes, and bids them enter the portals with these words, " May He com fort you in the company of those w T ho are mourning for Zion and Jerusalem!" The mourners are then led to their pews. At the elose of the service they proceed to the foot of the Ark, where repose the Scrolls of the Law, and there recite the Kaddish. Thus ends the first period of mourning ; the minor period extends for a month. Shaving and haircutting must be eschewed during that time. Kaddish for parents lasts nearly a year. M. L. R. BRESLAR.

Percy House, South Hackney, N.E.

In one of M. Maurice Barres's admirable speeches on the desecration of French churches he remarked :

" II est interessant de chercher a comprendre les divers etages du sentiment religieux dans la popu- lation franchise. Je puis vous citer tel village du Midi dans la partie de Tarrondissement crAgen qui confine au Tarn-et-Garonne, ou Ton place dans le cercueil les souliers du mort et de 1'argent, les souliers pour qu'il puisse aller au bout de son voyage, 1 argent pour qu'il soit a m6me de donner satisfaction & la divinit^ infernale." ' La Grande Pi tie des Bglises de France,' p. 95.

Your correspondent Y. T. has most generously sent me a sheaf of the folk-lore she has harvested, and from it I gather that " in some of the islands (Arran, &c.) a coin is thrown into a new-made grave."

Furthermore, in the Mourne Mountains neither pin, nor string, nor ligature of any kind must impede the action of a coffined body, "for what 's bound on earth is bound in heaven."

I am grateful to MB. THOMAS RAT- CLIFFE for his article, which is exactly to the point. I saw as a child some disks of ivory which were for eye-closing purposes, and I possessed a twopenny piece which had, perhaps, done melancholy duty before it became one of my " treasures."

ST. SWITHIN.

The most obvious object in tying the legs of a person after death seems not yet to have been mentioned, viz., to prevent the dead from " walking." Those familiar with vampires and other " revenants " will re- member practices similar to the driving of an iron nail into each finger and toe of one likely to " walk," or breaking the ankles and turning the feet to point backwards (see ' Anthropos,' 1909, iv. 679, and note). So the custom among English gipsies appears

to be burial without shoes or slippers: "The prohibition of footwear is in all probability based on the belief that it would keep the ghost from 'walking' 1 ' (Folk-Lore, 1913, xxiv. 354). Possibly " another example was that of the skeleton of a prisoner who had been buried in his irons " (report as to find at Old Sarum, briefed in Athenaeum, 7 March, 1914, p. 347). Perhaps the survivors had such good reason to fear his " walking " in revenge that, to make sure, they willingly sacrificed a set of irons, then more costly than

nOW. ROCKINGHAM.

Boston, Mass.

In one of Mrs. F. A. Steele's books mention is made of a Hindu superstition which seems to be connected with this subject. Unfor- tunately, I have been unable to identify the book, but in it a woman missionary and doc- tor describes how she was refused admission to the confinement of a native woman, who died. The doctor was allowed to see the corpse, and found that fetters had been placed on the feet to prevent the wife from haunting her husband. In Rudyard Kip- ling's ' Kim ' there is a description of the sort of fiend into which the poor young wife might have been transformed :

'Achurel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in childbed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment."

M. H. DODDS.

Fox OF STBAD BROKE, SUFFOLK (11 S. ix. 168, 216, 310). There are notes at 1 S. xi. 325, 395. At 2 S. i. 301 it is stated that

'* Sir Stephen was the son of Mr. Wm. Fox, of Farley, in the county of Wilts, near Salisbury. His mother was the daughter of Thomas Pavey of the same county."

And again :

" Sir Stephen was born March 27, 1627. His r ather died 1652. He had an elder brother John, who had an estate at Avebury, co. Wilts. He married about 1654 Mrs. Eliz. Whittle, dau. of Mr. W. Whittle, of co. Lancaster. A grant of arms was made to him Oct. 30, 1658. A grant of arms

to Dame Elizabeth his wife, Sept. 13, 1688 His

second wife was Mrs. Margaret Hope, daughter of a clergyman at Grantham, in Lincolnshire. He was buried at the church built by him at Farley, his birthplace, 1713."

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

ST. PANCRAS (11 S. ix. 191, 235, 312). Will MR. ABRAHAMS please say where the MS. history by John Martin named < by him is preserved ? SOMERS TOWN.