Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/121

Rh the Jewish proverb, 'Open not thy mouth to Satan!' The other half of this idea shows itself clearly in Josephus' story of his having seen a certain Jew, named Eleazar, cure demoniacs in Vespasian's time, by drawing the demons out through their nostrils, by means of a ring containing a root of mystic virtue mentioned by Solomon. The account of the sect of the Messalians, who used to spit and blow their noses to expel the demons they might have drawn in with their breath, the records of the mediæval exorcists driving out devils through the patients' nostrils, and the custom, still kept up in the Tyrol, of crossing oneself when one yawns, lest something evil should come into one's mouth, involve similar ideas. In comparing the modern Kafir ideas with those of other districts of the world, we find a distinct notion of a sneeze being due to a spiritual presence. This, which seems indeed the key to the whole matter, has been well brought into view by Mr. Haliburton, as displayed in Keltic folk-lore, in a group of stories turning on the superstition that any one who sneezes is liable to be carried off by the fairies, unless their power be counteracted by an invocation, as 'God bless you!' The corresponding idea as to yawning is to be found in an Iceland folk-lore legend, where the troll, who has transformed herself into the shape of the beautiful queen, says, 'When I yawn a little yawn, I am a neat and tiny maiden; when I yawn a half-yawn, then I am as a half-troll; when I yawn a whole yawn, then am I as a whole troll.' On the whole, though the sneezing superstition makes no approach to universality among mankind, its wide distribution is highly remarkable, and it would be an interesting problem to decide how far this wide distribution is due to independent growth in several regions,