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 1 86 Mythological Section. mother in this lore, through whom I was enabled to draw upon the stores of others. And I soon found that the gross amount of legends, incantations, spells, and songs known to a professional was apparently inexhaustible. In all other European countries, superstitions are now only scattered fragments : in Northern Italy they still form a tolerably complete cult or system. A very few years ago. Prof. Angelo de Gubernatis informed Mr. Gladstone that under the religion of Italy lay, deeply hidden, ten times as much heathenism as Chris- tianity. I repeated this remark to the woman of whom I have spoken, and she replied : " Sicuro — there is ten times as much belief in la vecchia religio?ie as there is in the Catholic, ^^'hen people are in trouble they first try the saints, but they always find sorcery and spirits the best in the end." The basis of this cult is a peculiar and very interesting poly- theism, or what is, in fact, a worship of the spirits called Folletti. In Southern Italy, according to Pitr6, the itrxa folletto belongs to only one kind of airy, tricksy sprite, but in the north it is applied to all supernatural beings. I have a printed Manuale dei Folletti, which includes even comets under this name. Maffei, in his Arte Magica Distrutta, describes all popular spirits as folletti. These spirits chiefly bear the names of old Etruscan gods, mostly very little changed, or of the older Roman minor rural deities, or dii sylvestres, which are the ones which peasants would be most likely to retain. To these there are invocations addressed, which, when carefully compared with the whole body of folk-lore which I have collected, and with what has been preserved of ancient times, appears to be probably or possibly of even Etruscan origin. But this I leave for others to decide. First among these spirits or gods is Tinia. He is described as terrible — the folletto of thunder, lightning, and storms. "The Etruscans", writes Ottfried Miiller, "adored a god called Tina or Tinea, who was compared to the Roman Jupiter. Lightning was, in Tuskish art, ever in his hands ; he is the god who speaks in it and who descends in it to earth." In a detailed account, which I abbreviate, I was told that should a peasant carelessly curse him, then, when a temporale or great storm comes, Tinea appears in the lightning " e bmcia tutta rac- colta" ("burns up all the crop"). Then, to appease him, the