Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/377



OLK-LORE is attracting so much interest, both at home and abroad, and the field in India is so vast, that it may fairly be hoped many valuable gleanings may be the result of drawing attention to the subject. Every one who associates in the smallest degree with natives of India must often come across quaint sayings—still quainter superstitions and customs; and, though the scientific folk-lorists are few, there are many who might contribute interesting jottings, and these small gleanings, insignificant as they at first appear, may yet, when gathered together, make up a goodly sheaf from which the more scientific and learned may sift the golden grains. It is with this hope that the following anecdotes have been collected.

As folk-lore touches on many and varied subjects, an endeavour has been made to bind these gleanings into separate small sheafs. The first place has been given to a few of the curious customs and sayings which have passed within the writer's ken, connected with a very widespread belief in the evil eye. A belief current in every country in Europe, and which for centuries brought misery and death on many hundreds of deluded men and women, sacrificed to the general dread of witches. A belief which holds good to this day in equatorial Africa, and causes miserable scenes of frenzy and bloodshed; wretched men and women being dragged to the slaughter because the angel of death has entered the city or village and claimed his toll. A belief which, in civilised Great Britain, still lingers in the hearts of the people, even yet not wholly rooted out. The story of