Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/291

 Palm Sunday in Northants.—This day is called "Fig Sunday" in Northamptonshire. A girl from Syresham in that county, living in service in Shropshire, received a present of a box of figs and a box of sweets from her mother last Palm Sunday (1885). Compare "Palm Sunday Customs" in Brand's Antiquities, Bohn's or Hazlitt's edition.

Birth Superstitions in Northants.—In the village of Syresham a woman speaking of the death of a neighbour in child-birth, lately said, " A lioness must have died this year." Compare Shropshire Folk Lore, p. 286, note.

A Mongolian Legend.—Those interested in folk-lore may perhaps be glad to read the following legend as to the origin of the Russians found by Colonel Prjevalsky to be current among the Mongol inhabitants of Zaidan, and published in the Russki Invalide:—

"In former times there lived in a cave, far away from all people, a good hermit lama, or priest, who passed his life in praying. A pair of nomads, consisting of an aged mother and her daughter, happened to go that way, and the daughter, while tending cattle, came upon the cave of the holy lama, who was at that time ill. The compassionate maiden offered him some sour milk, but he did not like to taste it. At last he gave way to her entreaties and took the sour milk every day until he got well. Eventually, out of gratitude for the cure, the lama married the maiden.

"As soon as the Czar of that country heard of this he sent his troops to kill the priest, who had so flagrantly broken his vows and committed the sin of marriage. When the troops approached, the lama gathered a bunch of reeds and stuck them in the ground round his tent, and then by force of prayer caused them to be all turned into soldiers, who defeated the troops of the Czar. The latter sent a second and a third army; but both were beaten, as the lama continued to pray and turn into more fighting men the reeds broken off by his first-created defenders, so that the holy lama soon had a great number of troops. After the defeat of his third army the Czar left the lama alone in peace, but the latter did not wish to live any longer on the earth. The lama left his wife to rule the people created from the