Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/340

332 pigs or poultry. It must on no account remain in the house. Between twelve and one o'clock on Christmas morning the great dish of "Yeel Sones" was made ready. All of the household had to partake of it. If any remained unused it was re-cooked, and served up with milk, forming part of the Yeel (Yule) breakfast.—(Pitsligo. Told by one whose mother was in the habit of doing so.)

12. No bread was baked, and no clothes-washing was done, between Christmas and New-Year's day.—(Pitsligo.)

13. The dinner on New-Year's day was always more dainty than usual. At it was served up a hen or a duck killed that morning. Among the first acts of the guidwife on that morning was to go to the hen-house, select a victim, kill it, and make it ready for cooking for dinner. Blood had to be shed on the morning of the new year. —(Pitsligo. Told by one who has seen her mother do it.)

14. On no account must the spinning-wheel be carried from one side of the house to the other during the time of Christmas.—(Pitsligo.)

N former times, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn in the forest as a cock, and lived there with several hundred fowls. Not far off from him there also dwelt a she-cat, who by her cunning artifices ate up all the fowls except the Bodhisat. He was too wary to fall into her clutches. She thought to herself, "This cock is very