(SI? lO I hit CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library GR10 .161 1893 + International folk-lore congress of the 3 1924 029 886 276 olin Overs DATE DUE IIAV12 •7? jy V ^ _!.i-^ft*lL "1 H^^fTT^ TOT f?'' -° " "' m RLb GAYLORD PRINTEOIN U S A Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029886276 Templa quam dilecta. The number of copies of this book is limited to six hundred, of which this copy is No..//..?: The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition Chicago, July, 1893 Volume .1 Archives of the International Folk-Lore Association Editors Helen Wheeler Bassett Frederick Starr CHICAGO Charles H. Sergel CompanV 1898. ^(./, n ^r'"""'''%s. ^f, ■"/, \ "^ i I Y ■: Y 61? |\5\5^^l Copyright, 1898, by the INTBRNATIONAI, Foi^K-IvORE ASSOCIATION. 6-^/- .A. t ....;-..:„../ c7*//t-/e.ri ^*^/s« .-.^^/fe /iV^frf'.^ (2/»....;a„ ;rx^«nv,%.,. /^./^,/.7. CONTENTS Page Preliminary Address of the Committee on a Folk-I/Ore Congress 3 I(ist of the Advisory Council .' 7 Program of the International Folk-I,ore Congress 10 Sketch of I Note by Sir John Lubbock, p. 864 of Prof. Nilsson's Book. ' Op. cit., p. 810. DAVID MAC RITCHIE. 45 chambered mounds, Nilsson states that formerly this was also, a Lapp custom. Then he goes on to say : — " The Laplanders, however, now live almost generally in huts, called "gammar" (which themselves are only modifi- cations of the chambered mound). It is, therefore, very elucidative of our subject — continues Professor Nilsson — that at least, in one of our ancient Sagas it is expressly mentioned that a dwarf was living in a gamm. In Didrik of Bern's Saga (Chap, xvi) we are told how one day Didrik was out hunting on horseback in a forest, and that while chasing a stag, he saw a «Zwar/ running at some distance from him. He hastened after him and seized hold of him before he had time to reach his gamm. The name of this dwarf was Alfrik ; he was a famous thief and a great artificer. He had forged the sword Nageling, which was owned by Grim, whom he (the dwarf) advised Didrik to challenge."^ Now although Nilsson cites this as an exceptional instance, he omits to see that it is far from being so. It is merely a question of translation. The writer he quotes has employed the word still used to denote a Lapland mound-dwelling, whereas other writers make use of more archaic and descrip- tive terms. The name of the dwarf inhabiting this gamm was " Alfrik," and he appears in the Heldenbuch, the Vilkina saga and the Wibelungen Lied undev various forms of the same name. ^ But the gamm inhabited by ' ' Albric, the wild dwarf " ot ^e Nibelungen Lied is, styled a "hollow hill." This is a perfectly correct description of the chambered mound, which is the prototype of the Lapp gamm. For the latter is obvi- ously a modification of the former, " having the appearance of a large rounded hillock, which indeed it may be termed," to quote the words of a traveller of seventy years ago.^ If, therefore, the word gamm were to be substituted for the numerous terms which seem in old sagas and folk-tales (of which " pigmies," " hillock " and " elf hillock " are examples). Professor Nilsson's parallel would be still more clearly drawn. ' Op. cit., pp. 212-3. ' Grimm refers to him a8"Alpris," more correctly Alfrikr," and again as Al- {rigg, Elpericii, Alerich, Alberon, Auberon, and Oberon (tliese three last being derived through the French, in the 13th century). However, as the name seema only to signify Elf King, it may have been applied to various dwarfs. » SirArthur de Chapell Brooke, A Winter in Lapland, London, 1827, p.318. 46 THE NORTHERN TROLLS. Nilsson briefly " sketches the outline of his parallel " as follows : — (1) " The Laplanders are ugly and short, just as the dwarfs of the Sagas are represented to be." (He might have added that the Lapps and the dwarfs are each described as having disproportionately long arms. ) ' (2) " The Laplanders are clothed in a gray reindeer kirtle, and they wear a blue or a red cap. The pigmies are also so identified in the Sagas." (3) "The Laplanders, for instance, — in Norway, — speak the language of the country very badly. "When the Norwe- gians imitate the Laplanders it is done nearly in the same way as when the Danish peasant imitates the pigmy." (4 & 5) Lapps and Dwarfs, alike, are represented as cow- ardly, cunning and deceitful. (6) Lapps and Dwarfs are skilful craftsmen. (7) Lapps and Dwarfs delight to hoard up glittering metals, especially silver. (Both are, also, noted for burying their hoards). (8) " It was thought that the Dwarfs were skilled in sor- cery, the same was believed of the Laplanders." (9 &10) " The Lapland race is considered inferior . . . The Laplanders, therefore, marry and hold feasts only amongst themselves as was the case with the mountain-pigmies. (As regards intermarriage, however, there are many exceptions to this rule, both in the case of the modern Lapps and of traditional Dwarfs.) These, then, are the chief points of Professor Nilsson's argument ; which receives scant justice when set forth in this very condensed form. And it appears to me, as it has ' See a paper read by Dr. J. G. Garsou at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, June 9th, 1885. DAVID MAC SITCBIE. 47 appeared to others, that he is very successful in proving his case. To believe this, does not, of course, imply a belief in his infallibility. Crossing the Atlantic, we find similar evidence in North America. According to the "Algonquin Legends of New England," as these have been collected by Mr. C. G. Leland,^ ; the region which embraces Maine, Nova Scotia, and Eastern Canada was inhabited by " little men," " dwellers in rocks," at a time when there were, as yet, no red Indians in that territory — " only wild Indians very far to the West." The date of arrival of the Beothuks in Newfoundland, and of the Algonquins in the St. Lawrence region, is only of minor importance in the present question. And yet it can be ap- proximately fixed by means of these same "little men, dwellers in rocks," who preceded them. Because, when the Norsemen first landed on the northeastern coast of North America, in the beginning of the eleventh century, the red Indians had not, as yet, appeared upon the scene. The chief Norse accounts of those landings are so well known, hav- ing been before the world ever since the publication of Eaf n's Antiquitates Americans in 1837, that it is unnecessary to do more than to refer very briefly to the description there given of the people whom the explorers encountered. They seem to have been most frequently styled " Skroelings,'* a word which "Eafn" renders hy Homunculi, i. e., "little men." An equivalent translation is that given by Claus Magnus in the 16th century, at which period his map shows that the eastern part of Greenland was inhabited by "pigmies" com- monly called " Skroelings." Eaf n's remark that the de- scriptions of the 11th century "Skroelings" of the New England coast coincide with the accounts given of modern Greenlanders or Lokimoes, ^ is not only fully justified by those descriptions, but it is still further corroborated by the statement of Claus Magnus that the people of Eastern Green- land in the 16th century were "Skroelings." And this word he also regards as a synonym for a " dwarf." For all these reasons, then, we find that the Norse records fully bear out the traditions of the Algonquins that their precur- ' London ; Sampson Low. 1884. • Antiq. Amer., p. 45, u. 48 THE NORTHERN TROLLS. sors in the territory stretching on both sides of the Gulf of St. Lawrence were "little men." With regard to the dwellings of those " little men/' the Algonquin tradition is also justified by the Norse records. One reads in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne that when that leader and his followers were in the territory now known as New Brunswick, in the year 1011, they encountered five Skroelings, of whom two were boys. They captured the boys, but the adult Skroelings disappeared "beneath the ground." From the boys, whom the Norsemen carried away with them to Iceland, they learned that the Skroelings possessed no houses, but dwelt in caves and dens. Thus the Indian tradition that they were preceded by " little men, dwellers in rocks," is wholly veri- fied by European Chronicle.^ In connection with these references, especially with that of Glaus Magnus as to the "pigmies" or "Skroelings" of Eastern Greenland, the account of the Italian voyager, An- tonio Zeno, was also fitly cited. According to this traveller the natives of Eastern Greenland seen by him in the latter part of the fourteenth century, were "half -wild" people of small stature, di picciola statura, and very timorous, who, as soon as they were seen, hid themselves in caverns.'' The eleventh century cave-dwellers of Maine and the St. Lawrence region were not, however, only styled " Skroelings " by the Norse writers. Arnas Magnusson, a native of Iceland, writing about seven centuries after the first encounter with the Skroelings, observes: "These people are called 'Lapps' in some books."* This reference is very suggestive. To what extent modern Lapps and modem Eskimos resemble one another is not a question that needs to be considered here. ' Antiq. Amer, p. 149, n. Dr. A. S. Packard (" The Labrador Coast." New York, N. D. C. Hodges, 1891, chap, xiii.) gives' many interesting references which show that the Eskimos were still pretty numerous in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the eighteenth century. At that time they frequently visited Newfoundland, spending the summer months ■there, and in 1771 one of them was seen in his " kayak" hunting the great auk, off the east coast of Newfoundland, south of the 5th parallel. Assuming that they had retreated from more southern regions at a similar rate, it is easy to accept the first quarter of the 15th century, (the date given by M. Beauvois, Les Skroelings, p. 48), as the period when they were finally expelled by the Algon- quins from Maine and the adjoining territories.) ^ Les Skroelings. par E. Beauvois (extracted from the Eevue Orientale et Americaine. Paris, 1879, p. 45. ^ Antiq. Amer., p. 196. DAVID MAC RITCHIE. 49 The important fact is, that the Norsemen applied the term " Lapp " to a dwarfish people, inhabiting cayes and under- ground retreats on the northwestern shores of the Atlantic, just as they did to a people of similar characteristics, liying on its northeastern shores. In short, they regarded the words "Lapp" and " Skroeling," otherwise "pigmy," as synonyms. And this is what Professor Nilsson contends. But the identification may be made still more complete. Not only were those North Americans of the eleventh century referred to as " Lapps " and " pigmies " ; they were also styled " trolls." This will be seen from the following extracts from the monograph of Monsieur E. Beauvois, entitled " Les Skroelings, Ancetres des Esquimaux dans les temps pre- colomhiens," ^ to which I am indebted for much information upon that subject. M. Beauvois points out that when Ari Frodi, writing in the twelfth century, described Eric the Bed's first visit to Green- land (in 985), he mentions that Eric observed, both on the eastern and western coasts, various relics which showed that these places had been visited by men of the race inhabit- ing Vinland (understood to be the modern New England) whom the Greenlanders (that is the twelfth century Norsemen in Greenland), call Skroelings." ^ As M. Beauvois remarks, the home of the Eskimos was still on the American continent at this period, and although they had paid several visits to Greenland, they had not yet begun to settle there in sufficient numbers to displace the Norsemen. Thirteen years after Eric the Red's visit, his fellow-countryman, Thorgils, (the step-son of Orrabeen), was shipwrecked on the eastern coast of Greenland, He and his companions were without food, until Thorgils happened to find a stranded whale beside which were two " troll " women. They had cut ofE a quantity of the meat, and one of them was stooping to pick up her bundle, when Thorgils made a slash at her with his sword and cut off her hand. The "troll" woman, there- upon, let the bundle fall, and fled with her friend.' That ' Paris. 1879 ; extracts from the Revue Orientale et Americaine. ' Quoted by M. Beauvois (op., oit. p. 39) from the Islendingalok. B. ' Quoted by M. Beauvois (op. cit. p. 30) from Greenlands Historske. Mindesmaer- ker, Copenhagen, 1838-1845. Vol. ill. p. 108. See, also, pp. 93-98 of Thorgils' Histm-ie (the Floamanna Saga), Copenhagen, 1809, 4 50 THE NORTHERN TROLLS. these two " troll " women were female Skroelings is taken for granted by M. Beauvois, and as no other race is mentioned as then inhabiting or visiting Greenland^ it is difficult to ayoid arriving at this conclusion. " These trolls," says Beau- vois, referring to an incident of later date, "could be no other than Eskimos, travellers not haying reported any other natives of Greenland than the Kalalis, called Skroelings by some writers and ' trolls ' by others." The special incident which called forth his remark occurred in the latter part of the fourteenth century. In, or about the year 1385, an Ice- lander named Bjoern Einarsson was wrecked along with his followers, on the Greenland coast. During his stay there, he happened to rescue two young trolls, a brother and a sister who had taken refuge on a reef which the flowing tide would soon have submerged. They swore allegiance to him, and from that moment he never lacked food, for, by their skill in hunting and fishing, they were able to procure him everything he required. The young girl esteemed it a great favor when her mistress, Solveig, allowed her to caxry and caress her infant. She also wished to have a head-dress like the lady's and made one for herself from whale-gut. The brother and sister killed themselves by leaping into the sea from the crags in endeavoring to follow the ship of their dear master, Bjoern, who had not wished to carry them with him to Iceland." * Contemporaneous with this episode is the visit of the Ital- ian voyagers, Mcolo and Antonio Zeno to Greenland. Those whom the former saw in the northeast of Greenland are, as M. Beauvois says, obviously Eskimos, or Skroelings. Apparently, Zeno does not apply any special name to them, merely styling them " natives." But their skin canoes, as described by him,'' are the Eskimo kayaks. Those seen by his brother, at Cape Farewell, the " half- wild people, of small stature and very timorous, who took refuge in caverns at the sight of man," " correspond well with the Skroelings of the Sagas " — to quote again the words of M. Beauvois.' Those Italian voyagers do not, of course, use the Norse ' Les Sleroelings, p. 41 ; quoted from Groenl. Hist. Mind, vol. iii. pp. 43&-439. » See pp. 43^4 of Les Skroelings. a Op. cit., p. 45. DAVID MAC niTCHIE. 51 word " troll," but the author from whom so many of these references are obtained giyes us an instance of its application, in the same locality, so recently as the middle of the fifteenth century. The Danish Grovernor of Iceland, at that period, was one Bjoern Thorleifsson, and he and his wife were on one occasion wrecked on the coast of Greenland, being the sole survivors of the ship's company. "Two old trolls, a man and a woman," then arrived on the scene and befriended the castaways. These trolls carried large hampers on their shoulders, and the male troll, placing Thorleifsson in his basket, while the female carried the governor's lady in hers, the party made their way to the residence of the Danish Bishop at Gardhs, where the two refugees passed the winter.^ Prom these various references, therefore, we see that the Norsemen, during a period of several centuries, applied the three terms — " Lapp," " troll " and " pigmy " * to one people on the western shores of the Atlantic, and it is the conten- tion of Professor Nilsson and others that they applied the same three terms to one people on the eastern side of the Atlantic. It is obvious that they regard the three words as synonymous, when used in America ; and this being so, one can hardly avoid the inference that they had previously regarded them as synonyms when used in Scandinavia. Of several customs uniting the Scandinavian Lapps to the so-called Lapps of North America, perhaps the most striking is the use of semi-subterranean and wholly underground dwellings. Of this, there is ample evidence on both sides. Yet, in spite of many strong reasons for regarding the Lapps and Eskimos as the representatives of the legendary dwarfs or trolls, there are other considerations which would lead one to believe that they are so only in a modified degree. Both races have traditions of underground folk of still smaller stature with whom, in the case of the Lapps, at any rate, their forefathers intermarried. This tradition quite accords with the statements referred to by Paulus Jovius, a writer of of the first half of the sixteenth century, who says that the territory lying between the Varanger Fiord, on the east, and Tromso on the west (the territory known as Scrid-scrit, or > Les Skroelings, p. 42 (quoted from Groenl. Hist Mind, vol. iii. p. 469). ' " JPj/gmei onlgo Screlinger dicti." (Claus Magnus.) 52 THE NORTHERN TROLLS. Scric Finnia), was reported to be inhabited by veritable pigmies. " Several trustworthy witnesses have reported," he says, " that beyond the country of the Lapps in the twilight region between the Northwest and the North (of Scandi- navia) pigmies are to be met with." He adds that their adults are scarcely taller than Italian boys of ten ; and refers to the timorousness and general inferiority of the race. These ^ statements would not have much weight if they de- pended solely upon the assertions of Jovius, himself a very unreliable author. Jovius, however, is now only repeating here the accounts of earlier writers, but very similar evidence is given in the following century by the Dutch scholar, Vossius, who is cited in this connection by his contemporary. Pro- fessor SchefEer of TJpsala — "It is almost peculiar to this people to be all of them of low stature," says the writer last named, speaking of the Lapps, " which is attested by the general suffrage of those writers who have described this country. Hence the learned Isaac Vossius observes that Pygmies are said to inhabit here." ^ These two scholars, there- fore, Vossius and SchefEer, both residents of seventeenth-cen- tury Sweden, had no doubt as to the identity of the Northern Pygmies and the Lapps, or a race occupying the same terri- tory that is now Lapland. But it is to be observed that Jovius and other early writers tend to corroborate the Lapp tradi- tional belief, that they are partly descended from a race of smaller stature, now quite lost in the great Lapp population.^ This appears to me all the more probable because, while the Eskimoid tribes that stretch half way round the Arctic Circle declare themselves to be the kinsmen of those Skroel- ings, Lapps or Trolls whom the early Norsemen encountered in America, yet there is another race * which, in several re- > Jovius is quoted by Dr. Edward Tyson, in his " Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients," London, 1699, p. 361. 2 The History of Lapland, by John Scheffer, Oxford, 1676, p. 12. » Of a family of Lapps exhibited at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on June 9th, 1885, the men averaged 5 feet 1 1-2 inches, and the women 4 feet 11 1-8 inches. These were regarded as typical Lapps. But this stature is considerably above that of the Italian boy of ten years, the height of the ultra-Lapponian pygmies, according to Jovius. * Professor Eomyn Hitchcock, The Ancient Pit-Dwellers of Yezoand tlieAi'nos of Yezo, Smithsonian Report of 1890, gives much information on the subject See also my monograph, " The Ai'nos (Supplement to Vol. IV. of Internationales Archivfur Ethnographie, Leiden, 1893.) DAVID MAC RITCHIE. 53 Bpects, answers more fully to the trolls of tradition. As one goes westward from Alaska into Asia, via Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands, the Eskimo type becomes gradually blended with the Ai'no. The Eskimo "kayak" is found in the Kuriles, the sledges of the Ai'nos are drawn by teams of curly-haired "Eskimo" dogs, and there are other links of custom, and even of physique, uniting the Eskimo to the natives of the Kuriles, of Yesso and of Saghalien. Now, the people have scarcely yet relinquished the custom of living in half-underground houses, during winter, — a custom which was formerly more general.^ And, in these islands, the people living in such habitations and in caves were, according to history and tradition, dwarfs. Chinese records of very early date speak of an island, understood to be Sag- halien, in which there was a nation of dwarfs, living in grot- toes, and having no covering but their own shaggy skins. Japanese and Ai'no tradition further states that those earth- dwelling dwarfs "were only about three or four feet in height," and that "their arms were very long in proportion to their bodies."^ As recently as 1613, an English traveller reports a remnant of the dwarfs then living in the north of Yesso ; * and indeed the Ai'nos of to day are regarded by some as their modified descend- ants. Be this as it may, those dwarfs of northeastern Asia resemble the trolls of Scandinavian tradition more closely than do the Lapps and Eskimos, not because of their pit- dwellings and their cave-dwellings (for that does not distin- guish them from the others) nor even because of their dispro- portionately long arms (for that, too, is a Lapp characteris- tic) but because of their shaggy skins. It is true that the male "Skroeling" who escaped from Karlsefne's party was described as " bearded " ; but that only seems to denote that he was a man, as distinguished from the females. In this respect, therefore, the earth-dwelling dwarfs of Yesso more nearly represent the hairy trolls of Scandinavia than any modem race. But the Picts of British tradition, although extinct for many centuries (as a separate race) show us the ' Professor Schlegel of Leiden has established the identity, Tonng Poo, Leiden, May, 1893. ^ See page 47 o£ my Ai'not. ' " Purchas his Pilgrimes," London, 1625, p. 3M. 54 THE NORTHERN TROLLS. European wing of the same army. For they are described as possessing all the desired qualities, — low stature, hirsute bodies, alleged "supernatural" qualities, and the residence in underground galleries and chambered mounds which is so characteristic of the traditional dwarfs. The Picts, there- fore, in Europe, and the Ai'no or semi-Ai'no dwarfs of Asia seem to represent the ancient type which preceded the Lapps themselves. These conclusions, too briefly stated to be as lucid as I could wish, are nearly or quite the same as those arrived at by Mr. Charles H. Chambers in 1864. Writing to the Anthro- pological Review in that year, Mr. Chambers says : — " I be- lieve the race which inhabited the northern shores of Europe to have been akin to the Lapps, Finns and Esquimaux and the Pickts or Pechts of Scotland, and to have given rise to many of the dwarf, troll and fairy stories extant among the Sagas and elsewhere." In this paper I have adhered to Sir Walter Scott's accepta- tion of the trolls as " the genuine northern dwarfs " ; a defi- nition endorsed by many others. But various other meanings are attached to the word. Some of these, such as "magi- cian," " serf," and " wicked person," — do not in any way contradict the assumption that the trolls were dwarfs. But there is one interpretation sometimes given to the word that, at first sight, seems quite inconsistent with this belief. This is the term " giant." Nevertheless, there is much evidence tending to show that the " giants " of many popular tales were merely savages, — of no greater height than their foes. Indeed, there are instances where "giant " and " dwarf " are applied to the same people. It thus appears that the word " giant " was often employed without conveying the meaning of unusual height ; and even with an opposite signification. In short, just as one may speak of " a little wonder," without denoting anything of great size, so a "giant" of tradition was obviously in some cases not gigantic (paradoxical though that sounds ) . When the Norsemen applied the name ' ' troll " to these North American natives whom they also called " Lapps "and " puny people " or pigmies " (Skroelings), it is 1 See Dr. J. G. Garson's remarks at meeting of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, June 9tli, 1885. DAVID MAC RITCHIE. 55 evident that they did not understand the word " troll " to imply a person of even so great stature as their own. Mr. Benjamin Thorpe has also recognized this apparently con- tradictory state of things when he identifies the jotuns with the fates, who, he says, were not Danes, but seem to have been "a still earlier (Finnish) race, out of whom the Gothic conquerors made their trolls and giants."''- With this last reference I must bring these remarks to a conclusion. I have purposely ignored many considerations ' which naturally present themselves to one ; but my object has been, not to deal with the magical and unreal qualities often attributed to the trolls, but to demonstrate that the people so designated by the Norsemen were actual flesh-and- blood. Nobody who reads the references to the " trolls" on the western side of the Atlantic can assert that those were anything but real people, and it can hardly be assumed that the word " troll," when used by the same Norsemen on the eastern side of the Atlantic, a month sooner or a month later, bore a perfectly different meaning. ' Thorpe's jBeotoui/; London, 1875; Pp. 76— 77 and 320. UNSPOKEN". BY KEV WALTER GREGOK. In performing certain ceremonies, the performer had to keep complete silence, to make the ceremony efEectiTC. The ceremonies were generally performed at stated times, mostly after sunset in the twilight " atween the sin (sun) and the sky." "When the ceremony had to be performed with water, the water was commonly drawn from a ford, or from below a bridge, a spot, where " the dead an' the livin' cross," and up the stream. The ceremonies, so far as my knowledge goes, were employed but for two purposes — Divination, and the cure of disease. The water, drawn in silence, was usually designated "unspoken water." The word "unspoken" was employed at times to designate other substances gathered in silence, and used in the cure of disease, as, e.g., "un- spoken nettles." Examples of silence in ceremonies of Divination are first given, and then of the cure of disease. Evidence of the same custom is adduced from other countries, and then refer- ence is made to the custom among the Greeks and Eomans, among whom it was very prevalent, as their literature shows. DIVINATIOK BY THE BIBLE. The girl who was desirous to see her future husband had to read, after supper, the third verse of the seventeenth chapter of Job : " Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee ; who is he that will strike hands with me ; " wash the supper dishes, place below her pillow the Bible open at the passage read, with a pin stuck into the verse, and go to bed without uttering a single word, after reading the verse. The future husband appeared in a dream. 56 Iti:r. WALTER GBEGOR. 57 "THE SAIfTIE BAITKOCK." On " Shrove Tuesday," or " Fastereven," " Fastrenseven." " Brose-day," " Bannock-niclit," a cake was baked, called, in some districts. " the santie bannock." It was baked after all the pancakes were baked, and of the same ingredients, but of a much thicker consistency. The baker had to do the work in silence, and every sort of means was used to make her break the silence. If in an unwary moment, her tongue was loosed, another took her place. A ring was put into the cake. When baked it was cut into as many pieces as there were unmarried persons present. Each chose a piece. The one who got the ring was the first to enter into married life. I have taken a hand in this ceremony. DrVIJfATIOlf BY THE PLAISTT " YAEEOW." A young girl, if she wished to know who was to be her lover, adopted the following plan — She went, on the first evening of May, 0. S. (12th), " atween the sin an' the sky " and, without speaking to any one, gathered some of the flower Yarrow, or "the thousant-leaft flower" (thousand-leaved), {AcMllea-millefoKum), repeating the words : — " Good-morrow, Grood-morrow To thee, brave Yarrow, And thrice good-morrow to thee, I pray you tell me, or to-morrow Who is my true lover to be." She carried it home, put it below her pillow, went to bed without speaking a word. Neither must she speak till morn- ing. During the night she saw her lover in a dream. My informant's mother did this. ( Oorgarff, Aberdeenshire. ) COEES EOR WITCHCEAFT OF THE " ILL EE " TH ANIMALS. A silver coin with a cross on it — a florin at the present day —is taken and laid at the bottom of a milking cog, " atween the sin and the sky," in the evening. The one who does this sets out with the cog to a place in a stream of water where 58 UNSPOKEN. " the dead and tlie livin' cross," and draw water up the stream, and fetch it back without uttering a word. A little of the water was giyen to the animal that was ill, to drink from the cog with the silver coin still on its bottom. A little of the water was dropped into each ear, and the sign of the cross was made on its back and the remainder of it poured over it in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If it was a human being that was to be cured, the same course was fol- lowed with the exception of dropping the water into the ears. (CorgarfE, Aberdeenshire.) TO TAKE OFF WITCHCEAFT. A woman had to spin without speaking, a hank of lint on Sunday during the time of divine service. The thread was twisted round the neck of the one on whom the spell had been cast. (Told by a woman 80 years of age, who saw the ceremony performed. Portsoy, Banffshire.) When a cow or any other animal fell ill, and the "ill ee," (evil eye) or witchcraft was suspected as the cause, " Un- spoken "Water " was administered as a cure. The water was taken from a part of the stream where "the dead and the livin' cross," i. e., a ford. The usual time chosen for draw- ing the water was after sunset, " atween the sin (sun) and the sky," but sometimes in the "silence o' the nicht," i. e., about midnight. It was, usually, one that fetched the water, but at times, two went. They must not speak to each other, and if they chanced to meet anyone that saluted them, they must pass on without speaking. Not a word must be uttered, till the draught of water had been administered to the ailing animal. A shilling was put into the cog, on setting out to draw the water. On returning, the water was given to the animal, and the cog was turned upside down. If the shilling stuck to the bottom of the cog, the animal was under the spell of a witch, but the unspoken water had taken effect, and a cure would follow. My informant has been sent on an errand of this kind. (Strathdon, Aberdeenshire. ) REV. WALTER GREGOR. 59 A CUKE FOB HEART DISEASE. The one that was to perform the cure, before setting out on the journey, repeated the words : — " In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I am going to do this for so and so ; and God ! remove his (her) disease." The operator took an iron pail and tied it round with three threads as hoops and set out to draw water from a stream at a point where " the dead and the livin' cross." Prom this spot, three small stones were lifted, one for the head, one for the heart, and one for the body, and water was drawn up the stream in the pail, or other iron Tessel. These were carried to the house of the patient, and the stones were placed on the hearth, among the ashes over night, and the vessel with the water was laid in a safe place, commonly in the milk-house below the lowest shelf. Next morning the hot stones were dropped into the water. The water and stones were kept till next morning, when they were carried back to the spot from which they were taken and thrown down the stream. The three threads were removed from the vessel and each thread was cut into three pieces and burned while the following words were repeated : — " In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, remove so and so's trouble." During the fetch- ing of the stones and the water, not a word must be uttered by the one doing so. Sometimes, a companion went along to speak to anyone met. (Corgarff, Aberdeenshire.) CURB FOR FEVER OR ASTT LIITGERIIS-G DISEASE. The one tliat was to carry out the cure had to set out in the morning "atween the sin (sun) an' the sky" or during the twilight, to a stream that formed the boundary between two lairds' lands and draw water from it in a " tree luggit cap," i. e. in a wooden basin with three " lugs" or ears formed on the turning-lathe out of a block of wood. On the Journey back the operator had to turn round according to the course of the sun at three separate spots, three times at each spot. On reaching the door of the house in which the patient was, the operator had to stand at the door till the moment the 60 UNSPOKEN. disk of the sun appeared above the horizon when the water was blessed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Grhost. The operator then entered the honse and. presented the " capful " of water to the patient in God's name. The patient drank three draughts or "hawps" of the water, the first in the name of the Father, the second in the name of the Son, and the third in the name of the Holy Ghost. A cure was effected. (CorgarfE, Aberdeenshire. ) rXSPOKEN" WATER. Two brothers lived on a small farm in Strathdon, Aberdeen- shire, along with their sister. It was harvest, and the two brothers were busy all day in the harvest-field. They had an ox grazing in a field at a little distance from the dwelling- house. After the day's labor was over, and after supper, the two set out in the "gloamin"' to fetch home the animal, and carried a halter to lead him. They soon secured the animal, as they thought, and set out on their homeward jour- ney. The two Jogged quietly along shoulder to shoulder, with the animal following quite gently. After walking for a time they halted to look behind them, and the animal they had in the halter all of a sudden bolted with a loud bellow, and escaped. The two in their surprise at what had taken place, fancied they saw a large animal with huge horns run- ning from them. In their fear they took to their heels, and never halted till they reached home. When they entered the house, they were in a state of great excitement, and told their sister what had taken place. Said the good woman, in afterwards telling what had befallen her brothers : — " Bonnie kent I faht (what) ailt them (was the matter with them). I rins (run) t' the wall (well) for oonspoken wattir, an geed (gave) them a sup o't, and that made them a' richt. Taht wiz't (was it) it they bed (had) hailtert bit (but) water vielpie." The ox was found next day. The same custom is met with in different parts of Europe. "In der Ostemacht — gerade um die zwolfte Stunde (vor Sonnen aufgang) soil man aus einem fleissenden Kreuzwasser gegen den Strom Osterwasser schopfen, aber kein Wort spre- REV. WALTER QREOOR. 61 chen. Das halt sich das ganze Jahr, und ist gut gegen allerlei Uebel vomehmlich gegen Schreck und wehe Augen." W. Ton Schulenburgh, Wendische Volkssagen und Geb- rauche aus dem Spreewald. Here is another example, but with a variation as to the mode of drawing the water: — "In den Ostemacht gehen junge Madchen an einem Bach und schopfen dort still — schweigend das Osterwasser. Es muss immermit und nicht gegen den Strom geschopft werden. Dasselbe ist heilsam, vertreibt die Sommersprossen und macht das Gesicht schon und Glanzend." Witchel, Sagen, Bitten, und Gebrauche, aus Thuringen, p. 197. Another example of a cure for a cow when " der Nutzen genommen ist" is recorded in Zeitschrift fiir Volhskunde, p. 360 (11). "Des Abends nach Sonnen-untergang wird er (a certain decoction) stillschweigend in das fliessende Wasser Getragen." The same custom is found in Sweden, in Aland : — " Man far ikke tala, narett fynd ur jorden skall upgrafvas ty da draken bort det." Kyare Bidrag till Icannedom- om de SvensJca Landsmalen och Svensht Folklif, vol. 11, Smdrre Wedelanden, p. 1. CURES FOR TOOTHACHE. The patient takes a little oatmeal, puts it into the palm of the hand, and, in front of the fire, allows the saliva to drop on it. The meal is then kneaded, baked, and carried to a point where two roads cross, and buried. The whole ceremony must be performed without a word being spoken. The cake gets the name of the " Dumb Cake." — (CorgarfE, Aberdeenshire.) Let the patient go to a stream where three lairds' lands meet, and take three draughts or " howps " of water from the stream, with the mouth. Three stones are then lifted from the bed of the stream, one of which is placed in the mouth and one in each hand. In this fashion the patient walks home, goes to bed, and lies all night without uttering a word. 62 UNSPOKEN. My informant saw this done in CorgarfE, Aberdeenshire, about sixty years ago. Here is a cure for toothache : — "Nar man har tandpine, skall man en tarsdag aften after solnedgang ga hen till en hyldebusk i et markskjoel og af hylden skoere en pind. Med denne pind skall man prikke den tand till blods, som man har ondt i, og derpa soette den pa sin plods in hylden og ga stiltiende hyem, sa bliver man fri for sin tandpine. Ibid. Fjerde Halvergang luli. Dram ber p. 137, n. 391. Two examples, may be given from Belgium ; and both re- late to the cure of toothache : — "Aller, sans saluer les personnes que Ton rencontre, dire cinq paters et cinq av6s devant une croix ou une personne a ete tu6e et placer sur la crois une piece d'un sou." — Bulletin de Folklore 11, p. 7, n. 12. "AUer ^ une eau courante sans parler ^ personne et y boire un verre d'eau fraiche. Ibid. 11, p. 8, n. 27. The same custom of keeping silence on certain religious ceremonies prevailed among the Greeks and Eomans. Among the Greeks the technical expressions used regarding this sacred silence were : EUfrjfieiv to keep silence, hold the tongue •,€dpijfi{a, silence during religious rifces, and s'yy'ij^o?, re- ligously silent. A common expression was eu^Tj/iei, or eu^-q/ihre silence ! hush ! be still ! So eupT]/j.ecv xpn, Arist. : ISTul. 1. 263 eu^- /"/. ~ 1^ --'•'" - -- 1 , ' , : J ''- . -- li "'-;. , I . ";:-■- --N '■^ .. - ' ",. : dv ^i - ■ ; _' - ^" /' J FIG. 2 —ANCIENT BOSNIAN INSCRIPTION OF THE XV, CENTURY, AT KOCEVIN, viD ruLETic rucAsoric. 75 Here lies Vigarj Milosevic. (Fig. 2.) He served the Ban, Stipan, and the King Turskoj and the King Pobisa, and the Queen Gruha, and the King Ostoja. In that time King Ostoja came and quarrelled with the Duke (Stefano Kosaca, duke of San Saba), and with Bosnia and against the Hun- garians Ostoja went out. In which distant time came the end of sight to me. Vigarj is already here on his own noble meadow under Kocevin. And I pray you, do not tread on me ; I was as you are ; you will be as I am. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Here lies Prince Balic on his own land, upon noble territory, by the grace of God, and of the glorious King Tursko, Bosnian Prince over Visoko (Bosnian territory). I was ill here in Duboko (a locality in Bosnia), the (fatal) day reached me. Signora Vukam places this sign with my goods, so that, when living, she served me faithfully, and dead she has served me. There are monuments without any symbolical sign and or- nament, but they are only found, and rarely, of a curved (kuke) form, in the manner of a spiral, and simply banded (pruge). Some of these stecci are placed on prehistoric tumuli of earth, particularly the primitive ones, because the first Slavs were already contemporaneous on the Balkans with the abo- rigines ; wherefore it is important to know that the aborig- ines are interred under tumuli of earth and stone ; and the later Slavs under the stecak or sarcophagi. The difference between the stecak and the sarcophagus is, the sarcophagus is hollowed out to contain the body, while the stecak is simply a standing stone, under which reposes the defunct in a ditch in the earth, in such a way as to make it solidly walled up, but for the most part without lime. The stecak is in the manner of a sarcophagus, but varied in form and proportion, also assuming the shape of a tomb. It is embellished, for the most part, with crosses, which vary : trefoils, anchors, Teutonic crosses, etc. The ornaments come then, and they are of various friezes and palms of Slavic fashion, and which are yet to-day used on cloth, upon wood, upon stone, etc., in the manner of tri- foliate vines, of twisted cord, of zigzags, etc. Finally come 76 FUNERAL CUSTOMS AMONG THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. the architectural features and the basso-relieTO, like ordinary Koman, Moorish^ etc. The figured part is the most interest- ing, after the inscriptions, since the hero, on horseback as I have said, is ordinarily turned to the left. The hero is seen in the hunt, with dogs, etc., and near him, on foot, is the faithful shield-bearer. The cavalier is also with a falcon, and under him various animals, for instance, stags and roes. The most interesting, as I have said, is the dance backwards, that is to say, from left to right, seven, thirteen persons, etc., and the leader con- ducts the dance, as is read in a heroic song of the Southern Slavs : " When I will see the decorated mourners turn backwards in the dance ; they commence to sing the mournful song, and in this they praise the hero." The leading dancer has frequently the shield in hand, and the dancers (men and women) appear with a bunch of flowers in hand, more confusedly, stretched out like a chain. They dance as a sign of mourning, with uncovered head. Still to this day, as will be seen hereafter, they lament the defunct with lugubrious songs. Many times the hero stretches his bow to kill a wild boar, the chamois and the golden- winged duck, as we read in the popular Servian songs. Rarely the cavalier is sculptured trotting his horse with crusading banner, but he is often seen where the faithful bride or wife, or the old mother awaits him, and the con fratello (pobratim), and from him they receive the valiant war-horse. His son, his brother, his companion await him, and they rejoice that he has returned from the chase, or from some assembly of heroes, etc. This is also well represented in popular songs : " They stretch out the hands, they kiss the gloves ; they ask for the heroic salute." " May he be happy whom thou hast procreated, and whom thou hast taught to govern with the knife (sword) : may thy hand be sanctified to the shoulder." The heroes pray God that He may be merciful and propi- tious to them : " He dances on foot ; he raises the hands towards heaven ; thanks be to God and to this morning." FIG. 4. BOSNIAN STECAK. FOOTSTONE. FIG. 6. BOSNIAN STECAK. HEADSTONE VID VULETIC rUCASOVIC. 77 Sometimes the hero is shown leaning on the hilt of his sword, and his faithful wife has laid her hands on his breast. Sometimes the horse is shown on the stecah without a master, and according to the songs, behind the same, through his grief. "Throw away the saddle, pull the rein." Sometimes, also, the wife receives the horse without his rider, and holds up a garland of glory. One sees on the monument, a child standing with folded hands, and, nearby, a dove or a cuckoo, as in the songs, " Shoot the russet cuckoo." Otherwheres, near the cross, are two peacocks, according to the antique Christian custom, two doves opposite to two tapers, as was the Slav custom towards the dying. The defunct is accustomed to hold the cross in his right hand, above him, and the demi-lune with the star (which is the dearest symbol to the South Slav, and which signifies fortune. It was then taken as a coat of arms by Bosnia). In the left he has a sword and defends himself against a mystic monster (azdajaidra) which would devour him. Sometimes the champion walks, holding in his right hand a garland, and the left supported at his side. Of this latter I only make mention, through want of time, adding the de- scription of one of the most antique stecci (it is a prison) in Dalmatia (fanali), near Eagusa, and may it be ab uno disce omnes. (Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6.) The anterior part of the said stecah is divided into three fields. 1. In the upper part, towards the left, something like a dragon, with two feet. He opens his fangs towards a mythi- cal animal with a double tail. This animal with curved legs, after the manner of a goat, strikes to the left. Under this is a bird (a dove ?) with outspread wings, and in the third row a wolf, assaulted by a dog. Towards the left, a roe butts at a serpent, which is in flight. 3. The dance of ten (?) women, towards the left. 3. Two roes behind a stag, turned to the left. At the foot of this stecak the growing half moon ; under it the encircled star with a garland ; under the star a woman who holds with both hands a basket on her head in sign of 78 FUNERAL CUSTOMS AMONG THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. abundance as of endowment. At the bottom is a cavalier with shield, on horseback, who is playing at hurling the jave- lin (dzilit), or the stick (buzdovan). On the posterior portion, 1. The dance of nine men towards the left. 3. Six birds of different sizes fly towards the left, and are apparently doves. 3. The dance of nine women towards the left. 4. Two roes behind a stag going to the left. At the head of the stecak is a trefoil cross with two wax tapers attached to it, as symbols, which burn for the defunct at the point of death. (Svijece samstnice.) Under the cross is an inscription, very simple ; then underneath a cava- lier on horseback, turned towards the left, who holds in the left hand the reins, and a falcon in the right. He has no helmet on his head (which is ordinarily made like a beretta). The inscription runs : This Auko (John) writes, the nephew (son's son) of Ut- jesen, and companion now of Ljuboevic, the nephew (on- the side of the brother, to the brother of his father) Pasitjen Ljuboevic. Ordinarily, the stecci are placed extending east and west. Thus, as soon as the defunct is placed in the ditch, which is tolerably well made, as I have said, and covered with slabs of stone, on this is placed much earth, then comes the monu- ment as an external sign. The monuments, being transported from a distance, avoid being of great height, as in distant countries, although they are sufficiently so, perhaps, and very bulky. For the most part, the trench contains one or two bodies, and rarely more. Seldom are any objects found near the de- funct, and it seems that, as he came upon earth naked, so he would descend into the earth. Often the defunct has perished in a foreign country, and the relatives raise a cenotaph for him upon the noble manor, without the body under the monument. Stecci are found in Dalmatia, in Herzegovina, Bosnia, Old Servia, Albania, as far as Macedonia, but most frequently the most numerous and interesting are those of Bosnia and of Herzegovina, and therefore in studying them I have called FIG. 5. BOSNIAN STECAK. FRONT VIEW. FIG 3. BOSNIAN STECAK. REAR VIEW. riD ruLETic rucAsoric. 79 them Ancient Bosnian Monuments,^ and I for the first pro- posed to the scientific world that there be undertaken a " Corpns inscriptionum Slayorum Meridonialium," with illus- trations of the said monuments, but this is still in embryo, since ^he museum in Sarajevo (in Bosnia) is intrusted to the care of a profane man, and this idea of mine remains in obscurity ; but if put into efEect, it would enlighten us greatly, as well for popular tradition, as for the history of the middle ages. Many foreigners have undertaken the study of these monu- ments, but they were ignorant of the Slavic language and of the usages and customs, and should give over this idea ; among these Signer Arthur J. Evans makes an exception, and has rendered the greatest service to science." 11. I have been somewhat diffuse upon the rites and customs of the South Slavs in ancient times, and I will be brief upon the modern usages, because these are a survival of the ancient customs. I intend here to allude to those of our country, where foreign customs, principally the western ones, have not come into use. Certainly in Dalmatia, along the coast, and in part of Croatia, the said popular customs are very corrupt and are daily disappearing. Here are some funeral customs, which are used in the Mili- tary confines (Lika and Grbava), in Bosnia, in Herzegovina, in Montenegro, etc. ' Sevue Archeologique (A. Bertrand-Perot) 1889-415— JtowueZtes Archiologiques et correspondance. "The trimestrial review ot the Croatian Archselogical Society has just entered into its eleventh year. Since the occupation of Bosnia by Austria, this Review has published a great number of Slavic inscriptions, of interest to the history of that province." 2 " Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina on Foot during the Insurrection, Aug- ust and September, 1875." With an historical review of Bosnia, revised and en- larged, and a glimpse at the Croats, Slavonians, and the ancient Republic of Ragusa, by Arthur J. Evans, B. A., F. S. A., with a map and fifty -eight illus- trations from photographs andsketchesby the author. 2nded., London : Long- mans, Green & Co., 1877. " niyrian Letters," a revised selection of correspondence from the Illyrian pro- vinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, addressed to the Manchester Chmrdian, during the year 1877, by Arthur J. Evans, B. A., F. S. A., Author of Through Bosnia and Herzegovina on Foot. London, Longmans, Green Co., 1876. 80 FUNERAL CUSTOMS AMONG THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. The person is hardly dead, when the body is washed, is clothed, and is put on a table, and covered with a white cloth. They put at its head a lighted taper, the one which the per- son held in his or her right hand when in the last agony, since it is bad for the salvation of the soul to die without the^said candle. When the defunct has expired, the people of the family ascertain it, and commence to lament and weep bitterly, and the women commence a kind of lugubrious song (naricauje, bugarenje) about the bier, and seem inclined to commence a funeral dance. The mother expresses herself in one way, the daughter in another, etc., and each wishes in her own way to lament, and to praise the defunct. The males commence to make the death known, the parish priest arrives with head bared (he remains uncovered at least until the burial is over, and even then he goes bareheaded for eight days wherever he goes). The mixed songs continue in the house of the de- funct, and the head of the family looks out to provide all that is necessary for the funeral feast {podusje, Jcarmine or sedmine). The relatives, the friends and the neighbors are invited to this banquet. The relatives are bound to bring to this meeting in the home of the defunct, wine and food. Ordinarily the banquet is held as soon as the defunct is interred. The burial then occurs on the second day, although formerly it took place after a few hours. The body, beyond the military frontier, is put into a wooden chest after the setting of the sun. The chest is not fastened up until the moment of burial. If the defunct had been an usurer or a blasphemer, etc., and was born under a fatal star (zla zvie- zda), they are accustomed privately to make a great cut under the knee, so that the evil spirit (hudoba, grijeh, hudie) shall not fill it with its breath ; they introduce into the mouth a tube, because otherwise he might become a vampire (vukodlak). Woe to the country if they unite together a male and a female (vukodlacica). This custom is almost ex- tinct, as is that of going to hunt the vampire on Good Friday, by the sound of bells taken from the altars into the sepulcher, and to perforate the body with a stake of white thorn (truov Kolac) through a bull's hide, because, if the blood moistens any one of them present, so he after death will become a vampire. riD vuLETic rucAsoric. si The defunct is placed on a bier, which is composed of two sticks, ordinarily of cornel-tree wood (drenovina), called out- side of the military border vrljike, in Herzegovina and also in Montenegro, nosila. These biers are interlaced with a cord (uze), or with a band of fagots or wythes. During the prep- aration of this, the women keep up the funeral chant, and there are such professional women called lugarilje, who know how to move the hardest hearts by making apparent by their lamentations the virtue (and the valor in Montenegro) of the defunct. This custom flourishes in Montenegro, and is also preserved in certain parts of Dalmatia. The relatives in Herzegovina turn the beretta (in Ragusa they dye it black) and the clothing inside out, and keep it so for various periods of time as a sign of sorrow and of mourning. In certain parts also of Bosnia, the sister cuts the caps and puts them on a pall on the sepulcher of the brother, in sign of the greatest abandonment and sadness, as also in Montenegro. The de- funct is ordinarily put in the ground with his head turned towards the setting sun. When he is already lowered into the ditch, then the women commence with vigor to sing groan- ingly, then performing a species of funeral dance before the entombment ; they remain side by side holding hands, and ad- vancing forward, and moving the head from right to left, they mention their own love, as if wishing to go down, I would say as if, through vivid grief, into the sepulcher. In Herzegovina, upon the tomb of a young girl is placed a richly embroidered handkerchief on a pole, and on that of a young man, an apple pierced by a stick. There, they also have a little refreshment in the cemetery, that is, they drink brandy, wine, etc., and they eat the holjivo (boiled wheat), which was used anciently. When the funeral cortege returns to the house of the de- ceased, a woman waits at the threshold of the house, with a vase full of water and with a large spoon, and pours from it on the hands of the guests who enter into the house. Infrequently all those invited to the banquet may be there in the house, but they can improvise tables also out of doors, in the court, etc. First the poor are placed, and abundantly provided for ; they drink and eat abundantly. Healths are also drunk. 6 82 FUNERAL CUSTOMS AMONG THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. "Happiness to the soul which passed into the other life!" " To the health of the living and to the repose of the dead ! " " God give health to the living and repose to the dead ! " When some rich person dies, the poor carry the remains of the banquet to their homes, and some one, turning towards the house gayly, sets to work singing on the way, " He lives no longer, he eats not the bread, and God brings joy and health to us, his brothers." These are the principal points of the funeral customs, usages and rites among the Southern Slavs. They are varied and interesting, therefore, to the folklorist, while the epi- graphist will find an extended field for investigating the culture of the said Slavs (in particular, of the Serbs and Croats), of a culture which existed but which is until now, little known. VID VULETIC VUCASOVIC AND VUKAN CEHO MIHIC. A FEW NOTES ON THE SONGS OP THE SOUTHEKN SLAVS. TID VULETIC-VUKASOVIC.^ Pebhaps no nation has so many folk-songs as have the Southern Slavs. Some of these songs contain five thousand or more verses. The first person who made a good collection of them was the great Servian Scholar, Vuk Stefanovic- Karazdic ; and now the Literary Society, " Matica Hevatska," of Agram, in Croatia, is making a great collection, as are also various scholars, among whom are Dr. Pr. S. Krauss, Mar- janovic, the writer of these lines, and others. Heroic songs are sung by the Southern Slavs in a lugubri- ous tone, and the subject is a continual lament, because the whole group of poems is in commemoration of the terrible defeat of Kosovo in 1389, when the Sultan Murat I. shook the throne of the Servian emperors. The heroic song is ac- companied by the " gusle " (an instrument of one string) and the lyric by the "tamburica," a kind of lute. The lyric has different and varied themes and many lyrics have been set to music by the Croatian Kuhac and the Servian Pacu ; but only a small proportion, for the harvest is abun- dant, even in this field of the Southern Slavs. The songs are divided into (a) mythical ; (b) heroic ; (c) love songs, that is those sung by young girls ; and (d) ballads, which are for the most part love songs. This is a general division according to groups, but these groups also have many variations and subdivisions. The dirge certainly does not belong either to the first or the second group, although on account of the rhythm it might be connected with the second. The heroic verse, with few exceptions, is decasyl- labic, while the erotic is multiform in syllables and accents. In heroic verse is sung chiefly the defeat at Kosovo and, after * Translated by Susan Bhoda Cutler. 83 84 TEE SONGS OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. the defeat, the various avengers of the national glory, who are exiled for the holy cross and golden liberty. The Mohammedan of Slavic origin also sings, but his is the song of the conqueror, which is quite different. A col- lection of these songs has been made by Dr. Fr. S. Krauss and Mr. Hermann in Sarajevo (Bosnia). The love songs and ballads treat of love or other themes of a merry or light nature. Here are examples of the four groups. Selection from the Song of the Battle of Kosovo. The Empress Nilizza sets forth with majesty from the mag- nificent city of Krusevac. With her go only two dear daugh- ters, Vukosava and the charming Mara. Toward them rides the captain Vladeta, on a horse of pomegranate color, a no- ble steed. Vladete rode hard, and his horse was covered with white foam : The Empress Nilizza asks him : " In God's name, I entreat thee, Captain of the prince, why hast thou ridden so hard ? Dost thoa not come per- chance from the field of Kosovo ? Hast thou not seen the happy prince, my lord and thine ? Hast thou not seen the aged Jug Bogdan and his nine sons ? Hast thou not seen my two sons-in-law, Brankovic and Milo's Obilic, and all the other lords according to their rank ? " Vladeta, the captain, makes answer ; " I swear in God's name. Empress Nilizza, that I come this day from the field of Kosovo. I did not see the happy prince, but I saw his iron-gray horse. The Turks at full speed were pursuing it over the field of Kosovo, and I think that the prince has perished ; the nine sons of Jug also perished, and last of all, the aged Jug Bogdan ; and as for thy two sons-in- law, Brankovic and Milo's Obilic, Milo's is dead, my lady ; he slew the Turkish emperor, Murat, and, as for the accursed Vuk, cursed be the one who begat him, cursed be his race and offspring ; he betrayed the happy prince, my lord and thine!" VID VULETIC-rUKASOVIC. 85 II. A LOVE SON^G. The little bell is tinkling, the Shepherd is driving his sheep. . . " Listen, Shepherd, I will steal your lamb ! May it be my fortune to wed you ! " " We two, a single cloak, a cloak of four breadths. I em- brace thee, my beloved doe!" "0 mamma, give me to my choice, and then may I also have my house in a garden of plum trees ! " III. A BALLAD. A fountain of living water was gushing forth, was flowing in the midst of a little garden where Niljana plants her flowers ; at the fountain she cools her feet. Oh, how beautiful she is ! How the world would fix its gaze upon her ! "Well may the white day envy her ! Oh what pangs for a young hero, when he sees her thus bare- footed, and yet again when he goes to a greater depth ! IV. A MYTHOLOGICAL SELECTION. The Moon chides the Morning Star : " Where hast thou been ? Where hast thou been wasting thy time ? For three white days thou hast been wasting it." The Morning Star replies : " I have been above Belgrade, where the Jaksic were divid- ing the treasure : Jaksic Mitar and Jaksic Stjepan (Demetrius and Stephen) ; the brothers divided it between them magni- ficently, but again they fell into a fierce dispute. Would that there had been, at least, a reason for it ! It was about a mere trifle, about a black horse and a falcon." Posetala caiica Millca Ispred grada bijela Knisevoa, Snjome secu do dv' je mile kceri : Yukosava i lijepa Mara, 86 THE SONGS OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. K n jima jezdi Vladeta vojvoda Na doratu, na konju dobrame ; Vladeta je konja oznojio I u bijelu pjenu obukao. Pita njega carica Milica : —" O j bogati, kuezeva vojvodo, Sto si tako konja' oznojio ; Neidesli sa polja Kosova, Kevigjeli cestitoga Kneza, Gospodara i moga i tvoga, Nevigjeli starog' Jug-Bogdana I njegovo devet Jugovica ; Nevigjeli do dva zeta moja, Brankovica, MUos-Obilioa, I ostalu svu gospodu redom f " — Progovara Vladeta vojvoda : — " Oj bogami, carice Milice, Ja sam jvtros sa polja Kosova, Ja nevigjeli cestitoga Kneza, Ar ja vigjeh Knezeva zelenka : Vijaju ga po kosovu turci, A knez meslim da je poginuo ; Pogibe ti devet Jugovica I deseti Jug-Bogdane stari ; A sto pitas za dva zeta tvoja : Brankovica, Milos-Obilica, Milos' ti je gospo, poginuo, On raspori turskog' car-Murata ; A sto pitas za prokletog' Vuka, Proklet bio ko ga je rodio, Prokleto mu pleme i Koljeno, On izdade cestitoga Kneza, Gospodara i moga i tvoga I "— n. Zvonce zvoni, coban cera ovce. — " Oj cobane, ukrascu ti janje, Hakar s tobom posla na vjencanje I ' — " Nas dvojica, jedna kabanica, Kabanica od cetiri pole, Zagrlim te slatko lane moje I "— — " Mila mati, podaj me za doku, Ma mu bila kuca u sljivljiku I "— in. Izvir voda izviraUit Kroz bascicu proticala Qdje Miljana cv'jece sadi, Na izvor u noge hladi. Ja, kakva je sv'jetje gleo, Dan joj beo zavideo ! Ja kakvo je mlad'-junaku, Kad je onak'vu bosu apazi. Pa jo8 dublje kad zagazi ! . riD VULETIC-VUKASOVIC. 87 IV. Hjesec Kara zvijezdu Danicu : ~" Qdje si bila, gdje si dangubila, Dangubila tri bijela dana ? "— Progavara zvijezda Danica : — " Ja sam bUa vise Biograda, Gdje Jalisici blago dijelise : Jaksic Mitar i Jalcsic Stjepane ; tijepo se braca podjelise, Al' se opet Guto zayadise, Da je oko sta, Tece ni oko sta, Oko vrana konja i sokola." .... f THREE POLISH FOLK-SONGS. BY MICHEL DE ZMIGRODZKI. I WILL sing for yon three of the folk-songs of Poland. I am not a musician, do not even know the notes, but these songs which I shall sing you I learned by heart from the people themselves. This is certainly folk lore par excellence. The first songs come from the country along the banks of the Dnieper, a country of great prairies where the sound of a song fading into the distance, never re-echoes, but loses itself in infinity. Picture to yourselves a regiment of horse riding over these vast prairies singing : L8/-bas travaillent les f aucheurs, Et par la prairie, par la verte prairie, Passent les chevaliers— hey 1 hey 1 les Eoraks passent. Hey ! qui se trouve dans la prairie, Qu'il se rejoigne 4 vous, qu'il chante avec vous. Nous briquetons de feu, nous allumons les pipes. Que diable emporte la tristesse. A few years ago the government of Austria was not so liberal as it is now. Military service began at fifteen years, and was always in a district far removed from the home, so that the soldier should lose his attachment to his country and become a blind machine in the hands of the state. The mountaineers of the Carpathians deserted in a body, and taking refuge in their mountains became brigands. This trade being regarded by the lowlanders as a protest against the despotism of the government, did not dishonor them in their eyes, but was looked upon as heroism, and often lauded in popular song. I will sing you a song somewhat modified by the arranger, but still truly a folk-song. Imagine in an ancient forest a dozen brigands (who perhaps to-morrow will have disap- MICHEL BE ZMIQROBZKI. 89 peared) seated about a fire singing songs in which are mingled spirit, boundless courage, and despair. You will note this mixture of sentiment in the second part of the song, which is always accompanied by a dance and orgies. H6 ! mes f rSres ! versez dans mon vers, Ajoutez du bois a notre feu, Je vous chanterai une chanson joyeuse, Chantons, rions mes f rdres, Cha ! cha I cha 1 Dansons, dansons, cha I cha I cha 1 On nous attrapera, on nous conduira Dans les pays Strangers.— Les cloches De notre village natale ne nous sonneront plus, Hey I dunaj, dunaj, da I Hey .... dunaj, dunaj, da ! Soyons joyeux, tant que nous pouvons. On ne nous laissera pas vivre longtemps. On nous attrapera, nous mourons pendus, Alors nous ne ohanterons plus, nous ne buverons plus. Chantons, rions, mes frferes, cha ! cha ! cha I There is also a song of the Carpathian mountaineers in whose melody you will catch that echo that reverberates and loses itself among the mountains. Hey, Vistule ! Vistule I notre rivWre blen aimfi, Elle prend la source dans nos montagnes Et court vers la mer, hey, hey, hey. Joue moi ! joue une belle chanson, Que Dieu rend la liberty & notre pays, hey, hey, hey. THE PKEHISTOKIC WOESHIP OP THE HOP AMONG THE SLAVS, AND ITS KBLATION TO SOMA. BY ERASMUS MAJEWSKI. The origin of the hop remains for the present an unsolved riddle in hotany.^ The origin of the name of the plant is likewise unknown. The majority of botanists, indeed, with Alphonse de CandoUe at their head, reckon it to the Euro- pean and American flora, but this opinion is not so much based upon ascertained facts as on the absence of proof to the contrary. The conclusion rests chiefly on the circumstance that hop is found wild everywhere in Europe, and grows even in countries where it never has been cultivated ; whereas, it is altogether absent in the East of the Old World. This fact, nevertheless, does not settle the question. If we consider the wild hop in any country as degenerated, the presence of the uncultivated form cannot prove the hypothesis of de CandoUe. Then we have no answer to the question, where in its present geographical extent, to find the primordial origin of the plant. The ancient Babylonian, Assyrian, Semitic, Egyptian, and even Greek and Latin monuments prove that the southern and south-eastern ancient peoples did not know the plant, the blossom itrobil of which could be used as an agreeable ingredient of beer. In the earlier middle ages of Europe, silence reigns on the subject of hop. The first traces appear in Central Europe about the 9th and 10th centuries. In the documents of that period and the following we find humularia, as well as other Latin names in a curiously un- determined condition : humulus, humols, humele, omulo, umlo, fumlo, and even hoppa, and mention is made of particular duties being levied on hops. Entire silence is, however, kept by contemporary writers as to the beginnings of hop ; we are not told if the indigenous plant was cultivated, or if it was in- >-"DerUrsprungderCulturpflanzen,"von A. de CandoUe, Leipzig, 1884, p. 201. ERASMUS MAJEWSKI. 91 trodnced from foreign parts. Inquirers in search of a surer footing were led to seek for the key of the riddle in linguistic disquisitions. It is a remarkable circumstance, that at the very first sight all the European names of hop show a close etymological affinity, and that the names of humulus, chmiel, horllon, hop, hoppe, happen, derive from a common source. The question, which appellations are older, and where their origin might be found, was solved in various ways. A. E. Perger takes the word humulus (mediaeval Latin humela), for a latinized German name. Others derived it from humlis. De CandoUe, on the other hand, seems not to recognize the affinity of the German with the French, Italian and Slav names. Weigand considers the Low German hopps, kopp, the primi- tive form, and derives it from the Latin hupa. The latter may be traced to Dutch and English. The reason, however, given for the derivation of hoppe from hoppen, hUppen (to skip, to jump), to wit, that the hop climbs up poles, is decidedly weak, as creeping up with the help of tendrils cannot well be called jumping, inasmuch as that action has a distinct name : Kanke (tendril), ranken (climb, creep up). Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the appellation of hoppe is very ancient, as it is met with in the 9th century, and is etymologically related to the barbaric huhalus, which latter evidently is the father of the French houhlon, hprielon and hubillon. The supporters of the hypothesis that Ger- many is the cradle of the European names of the hop, have derived the Latin humlo, humelo, humulo, humolo, hiimela, homelus, as well as the Finnish humala, hummal, and the Slav chmiel, from hoppe or hupa. Others maintain with Du Cange that hupa, hoppe have been produced by Pliny's form of lupus with the loss of the I ; whence the more modern forms are said to be derived. Yet others compare the names of hops with the Greek xmim (to bend, to stoop) ; Grimm puts them in relation with the Latin cubare (to lie) ; de Candolle in his Geography of Botany calls our attention to the affinity of the Slav names with the Greek xX^t^a (sprig, graft, vine). 92 THE PREHISTORIC WORSHIP OF THE HOP. In general there is no agreement among linguists on this head. In all disquisitions hitherto, the Slav names have been but slightly and superficially noted. They either were not taken account of, or were considered as younger and even as the youngest. Even the distinguished Miklosich derives them r from the Latin AwmMZztA-. Other linguists are more circumspect. Matzenauer and Buditovich abstain from giving an opinion in the matter, Fick gives no explanation at all, and Victor Hehn, profoundest in this question, makes the reflection that the Slav forms may be as well derived from the Central European ones as the latter from the former. It is therefore clear that western science does not furnish evidence sufficient to settle the question, and I shall try to sift the matter independently. As there is no mention of hop in the West before the 9th century, as the admixture thereof to beer begins on the sud- den, and soon spreads so widely that governments consider it expedient to levy duties upon the article, we may conclude that the plant became known very recently. Of this we find undoubted mention made in medieval writers. Bishop John of Liege, for instance, complains to Charles IV. of his income from the malt-tax being lessened by the introduction of hops. " In consequence of a neio plant," says he, " called humulus or hoppa, being mixed with beer, the same quantity of malt is no longer used." The complaint had a good result, and the Emperor, in the year 1364, permitted one grossus to be levied per barrel of beer with hops. Pope Gregory confirmed this privilege later on to Bishop Arnold of Treves. Some coun- tries, the Netherlands for instance, begin to add hops to beer only in the lith and 15th centuries ; it is introduced into England and Sweden only in the 16th, while the Dukes of Bohemia levy a duty on hops in the 11th century, and many localities in Poland and Podalia even before the 11th century take their names from the hop gardens. Why should people have waited several centuries in the more enlightened coun- tries without using a plant for admixture to beer if they knew it ? Why did the wise bishop of the 14th century call it a new plant ? This is evidently a riddle, and if we look for the native country beyond the frontiers of central and southern MEASMUS MAJEWSKI. 93 Europe, the question arises, which country could furnish it to the Germans ? Eyidently only the east.^ Consequently, we must investigate first of all, the age of the Slav names of the hop. Their great similarity strikes us at once. Common to them all is one and the same root, consist- ing of the consonants h., m., I. j m remains invariable. We find in Polish, Kussian, Ruthenian, Bulgarian, Old Slavonic, Bohemian, Serbian : chmiel or chmil ; in Lusatian : kJimjel; j the other Southern Slav forms are : hmeiji, hmel, hmelina, melji, melilca. The occurrence of the same word with very slight changes in the whole Slav family may prove one of two things : either the great age of the word, dating from a time when the whole people spoke one language, or that the word was borrowed in late times from another race. In order to arrive at the conclusion which of the two cases is true, we shall turn to the Polish linguistic documents. Oar herba- riums and dictionaries of the 16th century have the word. It is not wanting in much older manuscripts. "Written docu- ments, quoting geographical names owing their origin to our plant, take us yet a step farther back. For instance : Chmi- elno, chmielnik, chmielnihi, chmielow, chmielowice, chmiel- owka, chmilno, chmiel. Chmielno, a village in Kassoubia, is mentioned in documents of 1335. Chmielnik, in the district of Hopnica, is memorable by a battle with the Tartars, 1241. Chmielnik, on the Boh, is said to be one of the oldest towns in Podolia. Chmielnik, chmielrko (Bohemian chmel nice, Lausatian Khmelnieza) means a garden or field where hops is reared. And the aforesaid appellations of localities either owe their names to hop gardens or to the names of their proprie- tors : Chmiekwski, Chmielnicki, Chmiel, who evidently derived them from the hops. In both cases the source of the names, belonging to the beginning of the 13th century, remounts to the end of the 11th. It will not be amiss also to mention that Alherki, an Arabian writer of the 10th century, relates that the Slavs used hops to make their hydromel. Considering the scarcity of ancient Slav documents it 1 The Egyptians did not use hops to their barley wine called hag and zythos (Columetta, Strabo) ; nor did the Israelites to their barley beer, chithun and carina; nor did either the Chinese or many other peoples of the far east and south. 94 THE PBEHJSTOBIC WORSHIP OF THE HOP. might easily have happened that we could not find even a, slight proof of the hop being known to the Slavs at a yet earlier age. Happily we possess weighty testimony in the Chronicle of Nestor. Under the year 985 we find the follow- ing : " In the year 6493 Volodimer marched against the Bul- garians, and Volodimer made peace with the Bulgarians. And the Bulgarians took an oath and said : ' Peace shall no longer be between us, when the stone begins to swim, and the hop to sink.' And Volodimer came to Kiev." The picturesque connection of the heavy stone and the light hop is of great moment to us. In a solemn oath the half-savage chief would not use the name of a foreign or a recently introduced plant ; he would not employ it in a rhe- torical phrase intended to convince the prince of the im- probability of breaking the peace. To heighten the contrast, he chooses an object of which the qualities are generally well known. If the stone is the symbol of heaviness, and water the scale, we must acknowledge that the hop was very well chosen as a symbol of lightness. We shall not be far from the truth in asserting that the saying was a kind of proverb, or a form of oath. In Polish prehistoric time we had an oath : " by the stone in the water," and the expression re- mains to this day : "lost as a stone in the water." Knowing that in the 10th century the hop was a plant known and used by a people recently come from the banks of the Volga (the strobils being called hops, as is generally the case at present) we may conclude, appealing to our manuscript document, that this knowledge was at least several centuries old. Even if the literal accuracy of the speech recorded by Nestor would be questioned, the fact that he used the expression would be sufficient proof that the object, crystallized in a common form of speech, was known to his contemporaries since ages. Consequently, if the hop at that time was not an indigenous plant in Southern Eussia, its introduction would have to be put back to the 7th century at least. Nobody will contend that at the time when the hop only became known in western Europe, it at once was introduced into a country which for many years following was deprived of the blessings of medijeval civilization. This would be ERASMUS MAJEWSKI. 95 altogether improbable. It is much easier to conceive the contrary to be the case. If thus we have arrived at the conviction that the Slavs have not borrowed the plant or its name from the Germans, and that the former possessed it independentljj it is nov our duty to investigate some tracks which may lead us to the de- cision of a question, seemingly unimportant, but interesting as a page in the history of culture. We will begin with a group of very easy words. In the Slav languages a state of ebriety, besides being denoted by the words upic sie, pijany, pyanstvovati (to drink, drunk,), and is also commonly expressed by words derived from chmiel (hops), comprising not only drunkenness arising from hops, but having the same general meaning as the former. Podchmiclie solie, pod chimelony means not only to be drunk with ale, but with any other liquid. The same in Bohemian : chmeliti nachmeliti, ochmelitise, means to get drunk ; ochmela, drunkard. In Russian the words : pod, chmelkom, chmelem chmelek, and the old Slavian ochmelie have the same mean- ing. There exist more derivates of the same kind. The hop must have been known a long time to the Slavs in order that words could be formed describing its peculiar action, and that these words could represent their idea so well as to supplant others already existing. We meet no such derivates in the German languages, although the hop is used on a large scale since the 9th century. We have no means of proving the age of these expressions, but such proofs, perhaps, will be found in directing our in- vestigations to the east. In the mean time in order to study the Polish documents, we must turn to folk-lore. The hop must be a plant known well and long ago to our ancestors, if no wedding even now can take place among us without the song of the hop. No doubt it was sung beside the cradle of our nation. But not only with us, with all Slavs, we may say, the hop is the most ancient symbol of happiness, pleasure and joy, the ally of love and the patron of marriages. In all the provinces of Poland the typical song of the hop is heard with innumerable variations. The principal parts remain the same everywhere. The following, for instance, is 96 THE PREHISTORIC WORSHIP OF TBS HOP. sung during the ceremony of putting the cap on the bride's head. It begins thus : Oh hop ! oh hop I thou fertile herb. Without thee there is no joy. Oh hop 1 oh dear one ! Thou oUmbest low, and climbest high. Dear hop 1 " " If, hop, thou didst not climb upon the poles. Maidens could not become wives, But thou climbest upon the poles And takest the wreath of many a maiden. The song is strikingly characteristic, and undoubtedly very ancient. If we take into consideration that at the present day the whole people of Poland sing the song of the hop while putting on the bride's cap, if we remember further that the hop has a symbolical signification in the wedding ceremonies of almost all other Slavs, and even of the Lithuanians, and if we read in old Russian chronicles the description of such a ceremony of " capping," we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the hop is an ancient Slav plant. When Helen, daughter of John III. of Moscow, was married to the Grand Dnke Alex- ander, in Wilno, her companions undid her tresses in the church before the altar of the Virgin, and having placed on her head an ornament in the form of a magpie, strewed hops on her hair. The strewing of hops on the hair is no longer in use among our rural classes, it is oftener done now with grain, but it must have been the custom generations ago, as it still persists in Polesie and some other parts under the form of spilling a quantity of hops over the married couple. In the Volhynian Polesie the mother comes out with bread and salt in her hands, strews hops and corn over the young couple, and in- troduces them into the cottage ; in other places before the bride and bridegroom go to church the elder guests throw hops, oats, and little geese, made of bread, among the com- pany, and the children present. A handful of hops is also thrown on the floor. In Lithuania the heads of the married couple are strewed with barley. I will not analyze our poetical monuments any more, as I am obliged to enter into other details. In the Euthenian ERASMUS MAJEW8KI. 97 songs our plant is also called a fertile herb ; the Russian sougs say : " There is no joy without the hop." In the Bohemian the same elements prevail, but few of them have been handed down to us. It is remarkable that neither the German nor the Latin peoples have such songs and such customs. I do not affirm this absolutely, as not much has been done in this particular question, but, as far as I know the literature of the subject, only indistinct traces are to be found. We rather turn to Lithuania. The ceremonial significa- tion of the hop is the same with the Lithuanians as with us, and their poetry as rich as ours in wedding hop-songs. There are details in these songs which it would be worth while to submit to the judgment of ethnologists, as they prove the old age of the verses, but I cannot occupy too much attention in this place. I will only say that many songs, although very different as to their character, begin in the same way as the Slav ones. tu apoyneli ■ Oh thou hop ! Zalias puroneli ' ' Green puroneli \ or, Apoyneli puroneli ■„• . Oh hop puroneli ! Apoyneli Zaliusis ' ' Green hop ! The constant epithet of the hop puroneli, used as a noun, is interesting, as it cannot be accurately translated, and in song it is only coupled with the hop and the poppy. (Both intoxicating.) Perhaps this epithet is not accidental, as well as the Polish "nieboze" (dear one), which to-day is alto- gether out of keeping. But we will leave the songs. We must take a view of the horizon our investigations have opened. We find that we have to deal with a mythological survival, with a trace, a fraction, perhaps only a particle of some religious ceremony of tuorship that has survived princi- pally in the Lithuania- Slav family. If our guess holds good, if we find the connection of the hop with a worship, we may perhaps arrive at the origin of the plant. Our imagination catches at the Greek worship of Bacchus, the worship of wine ; frenzy, revel and drunken 7 98 THE PBEHISTOBIC WORSHIP OF THE HOP. exultation. His attributes are the vine and the ivy, both creepers and symbolic plants. The worship of Bacchus in Europe has its historical origin in Thrace, and on the soil of Greece has developed into a thousand ramifications, which did not belong to it at first ; but its oldest form corresponds best with our modern symbol- ization of the hop. If we bear in mind that many authors consider the Thracians a Slav people, that Thrace, once the frontier of the Lithuanio-Slav race, is that enigmatical knot, where the great historic moments of various Aryan peoples meet, the hypothesis of a certain mythological community of the hop and the vine will become stronger. I even venture to rest this hypothesis on the affinity of the name of our plant with the Greek names of various creepers, as e. g., Phaseolus vulg., Smilax aspera. Convolvulus sepium, and even Auercus, which Theophrastus and Dioscorides call smilax. The source of the Bacchian worship is well known. The god of wine is in mythological relationship with the old Hindoo god Soma. Soma by his principal qualities strongly reminds us of the primitive, uncorrupted character of Bacchus. I believe that in the mythology of the hop there are to be found many elements and traces of the Aryan wor- ship of Soma. Soma is at the same time a beverage, a plant and a god. He is the god of pleasure, often sensually conceived ; he be- stows strength, delight and immortality on men and gods by the liquid soma. As a beverage he heals, inspires courage, en- lightens, rouses the spirits, makes happy and intoxicates. It is a sweet and intoxicating liquid, something like beer or hydromel. The just on the other side of the grave drink and enjoy it in the company of the gods. This divine drink is mythologically akin to the amrita of the Mahabharata, and to the ambrosia of the Greeks. The ninth book of the Kig- Veda is nearly entirely filled with hymns addressed to soma. We find numerous details as to the preparation of the bever- age from a holy plant. Cow's milk or whey was added, some- times honey, very often a fermented liquid extracted from barley or any other corn. Soma, as we see, was sometimes a beer, sometimes a genuine Polish hydromel. Grit was added : ERASMUS MAJEWSKI. 99 roasted grains, wheat, etc. These latter items were only- mixed with soma, destined for ritual uses ; they did not enter into the common fermented beverage. We do not know as yet what plant soma was ; that it was a creeper is proved by its name somalatd. The modern Hin- doos take for soma (somalatd) the plant Sarcostemma vimi- nale. But somalatd is not a plant of the primitive Aryans, nor of the Hindoos. The importance of the worship rests in the fact that it is found in the Iranian documents. In the Avesta we have Haoma for Soma. The worship is the same but the plant is another. It was a creeper like the vine, with leaves like those of jessamine. Haoma also is a god, an in- toxicating drink and a plant. It was the same ancient worship which was brought away from their common country by both peoples. What plant soma or haoma was in its first home is not known to us. This circumstance, however, is of no account ; we follow the wanderings of the religious worship, of the idea, not of the thing. This pre- Aryan worship must have been deeply rooted, as it obtained in so many countries, and maintained itself in great purity, considering change of soil and time. We see how the Aryans carry it with them over the northern Cauca- sus, across the Black Sea, through the modern Balkan coun- tries to Greece. The proper Aryan plant failing, the vine becomes the object of worship. The climbing Thracian plant gives a beverage which strengthens, heals, intoxicates, excites, breeds merriment, and creates a comfortable repose. Such had been the effects of Soma or of the Iranian Haoma. The same worship was brought by the Aryans to the countries of Central Europe. No vines were met with on the road, and the worship could not cling to them as it did in Greece. We remarked that a ferment of corn or honey was an in- gredient of the ritual liquid and of the beverage of the ancient Aryans. And consequently the latter contained the elements of hydromel and beer. A holy plant being required for ritual purposes, a new one had to be chosen, as already had been the case in India and Iran. And so it happened that attention was drawn to a plant growing on the confines of Asia and Europe, a creeper, and containing an intoxicating element. As the plant probably had all the required qualities, it was 100 THE PREHISTORIC WORSHIP OF THE HOP. made an object of worship and called haoma. In a wine- growing country the typical Aryan beverage gave way before the nobler Juice of the grape, here it kept nearer to the prim- itive ideal of the priests, it scarcely changed, and has held its own with the Slavs in all its forms : beer, hydromel, and even hrupnik. The Lithuanio-Slav race in its march to the west carried with it the worship of Haoma, and the knowledge, the appli- ances and the name of our plant. I do not think I go too far in my hypotheses if I take the hop in that remote age to have had the primitive threefold signification of a god, a bev- erage and a plant. Later on the godhead was divided among a certain number of gods with other names, and the first name remained to the drink and the plant. We cannot admit that the Slavs, mixing the plant with the drink for the god, would have refused themselves the benefit. On the con- trary, the admixture was approved of, and became the rule. I now may venture to express my opinion that the intoxi- cating beverage of the ritual, known in modern times under the names of beer, hydromel and krupnik was called chmiel. The classic as well as the modern Armenian language throws a peculiar light upon this somewhat novel opinion. The Ar- menian language is the link between the Lithuanio-Slav and the Indo-Iranian group ; it contains some of the characteris- tics of both groups. If soma or haoma is related to chmiel, there ought to be traces of this relationship in Armenian. To be able to compare the Old-Persian haoma with the Slav chmiel, we should find in Armenian a word linking them as to meaning and as to sound. And we actually find in various Armenian dialects the words : hrmelu, hrmol, hrmadz. They signify to drink, drunkard and drunk. The language of the Ossetes, nearest to Old- Persian on one hand, and to Armenian on the other, has the word hmallak for chmiel — hops — (in the Iranian dialect), and the New Persian equivalent is hymel or himel. Zonaras, the Greek historian of the 11th century, mentions a foreign beverage humeli which intoxicates, although it is not wine. It evidently was similar to the Slav hydromel or beer, the strength and taste of which were the admiration of the ancient classic authors. EBASMUS MAJEWSKI. 101 We can no longer derive the Slav words and expressions, mentioned above from the plant chmiel, but from the bever- age ; the plant and the drink entered Europe at the same time surrounded by the glory of religious worship. "We now understand the song of the hop better which begins with the apostrophe " Oh hop ! oh hop ! " exactly like a Vedic hymn, " Soma, Soma ! " And we understand at the same time its symbolic meaning, corresponding with the character of soma. But scant are the remains of the worship of the hop among the Slavs in the form of songs, half -religious customs and the hop-dance. To the German race, even these are wanting ; long wanderings in the far-ofE North were not favorable to the preservation of ancient traditions. Like the Hindoos, the Iranians, the Slavs, there can be no doubt the Germans also linked their tradition with some northern plant, and after that with another on the continent, if they did not lose the worship altogether. Neither the one nor the other was the hop ; the proof lies in the near relation of the Teuton and Slav names for our plant, and at the same time in the absence of all traces of the worship on one side and of abundance thereof on the other. It is easy now to understand why till about the 8th century no mention is made of hops in Western Europe, and that the acquaintance with the plant only spreads when by conquest, and gradual but steady assimilation the warlike German race penetrated ever deeper into the lands inhabited since centuries by the Slavs. Just about that time the Ger- man element took possession of the western Slav territories, and received the hop brought thither from the East. But the Germans did not accept the worship, which already had become faded in the memory of the Slavs. I shall quote only one instance in support of the view stated above. In a document of 716, we still find in the Saalgau in Tur- ingia, a castle (grod) the " castrum Hainulo," ybI Homols. Sixty years later, in 777, the Germans changed the name to Hamalumburg. I believe this to have been a Slav castle named from the hop. It might be objected to that there is no proof of the castle being Slav, and that the name could as well be German. I answer with William Bognstawski that till the 13th century the Germans had neither castles on the 102 THE PREHISTORIC WORSHIP OF THE HOP. Slav model nor cities of the Eoman type. The consequence is that wherever we find a castle in Germany before the 12th century, we must conclude the lands to have been formerly Slav. As the Germans as early as the 6th century had con- quered a great many castles, they gradually introduced their own ways and manners, and time and circumstances soon wiped out the traces of Slavism. I will say no more about the vestiges I have found of Polish hops ; it is time to conclude. That the hop was not an European plant, that it was in- troduced into central Europe by the Lithuanio-Slavs is also sufficiently proved by its Finnish names. Before the waves of the Aryan emigration reached the shores of Europe, this continent was inhabited by Turanian tribes. Then, if the plant had existed in Europe, if only in the present Southern Eussia (not to speak of the far West), it would have its in- digenous Turanian name, in no way connected with the Aryan appellation. But we know no such name. All those we have, seem to be Aryan and have a common root. Hun- garian, humid ; Estonian, Tiummel, ummal, hummaledj Fin- nish, humalaj Tchouvas, humid, etc., all of these signify hops. It is impossible to suppose that the Slav names could be derived from the Turanian, because we should have to believe that the Hindoo Soma and Iranian Haoma have a Turanian origin. Such a supposition would shake all Ethnology and all Comparative Linguistics to pieces. If the Turanians had no proper word for hops, and accepted the Slav appellation, they evidently did not know the plant before the Aryans came. So much the less could the Teu- tonic people have such a word before they came into contact with the Slavs. If they had a special word of their own, it could not have been like the Slav word, and what is more, it would have persisted most certainly. We see nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the linguists connect the Turanian, Slav, German and Latin names of the hop, and derive one from the other. I hope that future inquirers investigating the survivals of the people's tradition, together with the connecting links, will add much to the handful of facts I have given. ERASMUS MAJEWSKI. 103 The subject of my research being far from exhausted, I conclude my arguments by declaring that I do not at all think them the last word in this matter. It may be that I am mistaken in some points ; my excuse will be found in the fact that many details, necessary to create full conviction are not thoroughly investigated hitherto. I should be very glad indeed if my hypothesis could incite somebody to subvert it. I am only anxious for truth. But on the other hand, I can- not but feel gratified if my suppositions were strengthened by new and convincing arguments. In recapitulation of what has been said, I venture to affirm as follows : 1. The hop is not an 6riginal plant in Europe. 2. Its cradle may have been the regions encircling the Cas- pian, more or less distant from the shores. 3. The time of its spreading in south-western Europe was the epoch of the migrations of the Aryan race towards the west. 4. It was brought to Europe by the Slavs several centuries at least before Christ. The Germans received it from them by conquering their lands in the 7th and 8 th centuries. 5. Later on the hop was introduced in the whole of Europe, in some parts of Asia and in America. 6. The hop is called among the Slavs by the name of a liquid used for ritual purposes in worshipping an ancient deity of the same name. 7. This worship probably resembled to a certain degree the Hindoo worship of Soma, the Old-Persian worship of Haoma, and the ancient Greek worship of the vine, or Bacchus. 8. The origin of these nearly related religions is to be sought for in the unknown land inhabited by the primitive Aryans. 9. The Slav names of the hop-plant with the sound km are the oldest for it in Europe. They are derived from the Aryan root su, and may be regarded as parallel to the Old-Persian name of Haoma. 10. The German, Turanian and Latin (the youngest) names of the hop are derived from the Slav. BURIED ALIVE. BY KBV. H. F. FEILBERG. Ladies and gentlemen : As a foreigner and a somewhat poor scholar of English, I am obliged to begin my paper asking your kind forbearance. I am only able to express my thoughts with diificulty in your tongue, and may perhaps give ofEence by more or less objectionable expressions. Will you kindly take the will instead of the power ? Wherever I look I discover survivals. If one in a company sneezes, it was some years ago always a gentleman's social duty most politely to say : " God bless you ! " But who may tell why such a wish is uttered to a sneezing person and not for instance to a lady who coughs or gets an attack of hiccough ? Why am I to sign my mouth with a cross, when I am yawn- ing ? Why am I wont to say, when I am happy and praise something in my house, among my cattle : "I want to say all this in a good hour ? " A married lady of my acquaintance would never pick up a pin on a Monday. If she discovered one on the floor on that fatal day, she pushed it carefully be- neath the threshold, from whence she took it as soon as she rose from her bed Tuesday morning. In West Jutland, where I have lived for many years as clergyman, there is still to be seen in the eastern or western gable wall of some old farm- houses, a low arch filled out with bricks ; it is called the " corpse-door" (ligporten) by the old, and in former times, fifty years ago, the coffin with the dead body was placed in the large room inside that wall. On the day of the burial the bricks filling the " corpse-door " were thrust out, the coffin put out through the opening, which again must be walled up till the funeral procession returned from the service in the church. I don't doubt for a moment, that this is a survival from the widely-spread belief, widely-spread as regards time and countries, that if the opening through which the corpse is borne is again bricked up, the ghost of the deceased will not 104 REV. H. F. FEILBERG. 105 be able to find the entrance to his old home to frighten or to disturb the survivors. Among the " sagas/' or legends of my fatherland is an often-recurring tale of immured men and women. There is hardly a castle in Denmark or in Sweden lacking those tales of immured ladies or swains. As far as I am able to see, these tales may mostly depend on a popular in- terpretation of an old Danish phrase, where to '^ immure" simply signifies to imprison, and the tales may be due to a kind of popular etymology. Quite another thing is it, when I notice the custom which I suppose may be found in vigor in some far-off nooks of my country till this very day, of burying living animals beneath the walls of a building, the threshold of a stable, or the gate of a farm. Before I try an explanation, I may be allowed to give some instances. If the cows of a farmer cast their calves, he will bury a living viper, inclosed in a new earthen pot, and to this very day traces of this custom may be found. Some years ago an old building in a village, Kragelund, was demolished, and beneath the entrance of the cattle-house, a bottle containing the skeleton of the common viper was found. If a living mouse is buried beneath the hearthstone in a new pot, it is impossible for sorcerers to spoil the beer. Beer is still com- monly brewed in the farms all over our country. If a number of mice or any other living creature is buried within small in- terstices in the boundary of a farmer's field, it will be im- possible for sorcerers or bad people to cross the boundary, in order to make mischief. If the boundary, the gate, or the door is sufficiently watched, everything being within is left in peace. In Fyn, a ghost had its walk every night through the gate, but as soon as a dog was buried alive in the very entrance, the ghost was obliged to stay outside. In a farm on Laaland, a new stable was built, but in vain were the horses brought to their stalls in the evening, every morning they were found trembling, as if they had been working be- yond their power. A '' wise man," at last counselled the people to bury a dog alive in the stable, and all would be right, but the farmer did not like to bury his own dog, and thereby matters were left for a time, but as it came out, that an old woman some day had been looking at the work, the " wise man," said, ''Never mind, you must only dig a deep 106 -B UBIED ALIVE. hole in the stable, and you shall get a dog, when you want one." Well, the laborers dug a hole, and Just as they were leaving their work a strange hairy dog came along sniifing around the place. As it approached the opening, one of the men kicked it down into the hole, and in spite of its howling, it was buried in a moment. Afterwards the ghost ceased to walk, and some favored the opinion that the witch, who had caused the mischief was herself buried in dog's shape. In Kongsted near Soro, the townsmen in their turn yearly supplied a heifer. The finest calf was chosen, and when the day arrived a large trench was dug in the gateway or in the middle of the yard of that farm from which the heifer was to be supplied. In the trench was put some hay and straw, the heifer was led down, afterwards rafters and boards were placed over the opening, the space left was filled up with earth in the form of a small mound, afterwards each head of cattle belonging to the parish was led over the place, and it was deemed a favorable sign if the heifer were heard bellowing underneath, for that was considered as a good omen for the coming year. Later in the day, a feast was arranged, the guests danced till late in the night, and the more noise, the better luck to come. The heifer must die as it stood, and nobody was allowed to dig on the place. As late as 1875, a farmer in Mariestad in Sweden buried a cow alive, to cause the cattle-plague to cease in his stable. It would be very easy to bring forward instances of the same custom from Germany or from Scotland (cf . Black, Folk Medi- cine p. 74. ) but what I have alleged from Denmark and Sweden, I suppose, will suffice to show the custom and point out how it was used as a kind of sacrifice to bury an animal alive, thereby to drive disease or evil powers away. But the " sagas " have instances of another kind of sacri- fice. Every year, the North Sea washes land away during the heavy winter gales, sometimes the fields of a whole parish have been destroyed. Now it has been told from former times, that a child was put in a barrel with a small coin, marked with a cross, in its hand, and buried alive on tbe very place where the attacks of the sea are most violent. This is in our days omitted, thencefrom the great loss of iji- REV. H. F. FEILBJEBG. 107 able land near tlie outlet of the Limf jord. Those who have seen the violence of the sea during a southwestern gale, will easily understand that a barbarous or half-civilized people may look upon that power as one, which, if possible, must be propitiated. A similar power was the plague or, as we would say, the Black Death, during the middle ages. It was thought by the popular belief to be represented by two aged persons, a man carrying a rake accompanied by a " carling" with a broom in her hand. Where the man used his rake some few of the inhabitants escaped death, but where the woman swept the ground with her broom, every life was taken. Now the " sagas " tell of a small village, Gaderis, the plague there took every living soul away. The inhabitants of the neighboring parish, Ejsing, bought a gypsy's child, and buried it alive on the boundaries of the village, and the plague was obliged to leave its inhabitants alone. It is also told from the small island. Fur, that a living child is buried in the eastern part of the churchyard to stop the progress of the plague. In Dalsland in Sweden, people died by thousands, many fled to the woods, others travelled to far-off countries, the churches stood empty, and at last the survivors were too few to bury the dead. At last an old man from Finland arrived, the Finlanders are deemed wise men, strong in witchcraft. He said that no change would take place until something living was buried. First a cock was taken and put alive beneath the ground, — in vain ; afterwards a live goat, also in vain, and people were at their wits' end. At last they were counselled to take a child and try a human life. A poor beggar boy was induced to step down into a deep pit, dug on a hill, where the Daleborg river falls into the lake of Wennern. They gave him a large piece of bread and butter in his hand and began speedily to fill up the trench. The child, who understood nothing of it all, asked them pitifully not to throw sand on his bread. A few moments later he was suffocated beneath the earth. I remember another instance. It is told from France, that the ignorant people said during the plague in a certain city of France: "We cannot think of averting the disease, till we have buried a man alive ; let us throw our priest into the ditch ! " When the priest afterwards went to an open grave to 108 BURIED ALIVE. throw earth on a dead body, he was pushed into the ditch by his own parishioners and buried alive together with the corpse.^ From Alt-Paleschken in Prussia a remembrance may still be found of a poor, old, idiotic woman being buried alive during a plague. I may perhaps still in this connection name the tale of Quintus Cnrtius, the Eoman knight, who, sitting on his horse, precipitated himself into the crevice that had sprung up on forum Romanum, as a sacrifice for his people. No doubt but there might be many more instances advanced as to how people in former times have tried to guard them- selves against the dark powers of Fate, revealing themselves through sea or sickness, by a kind of sacrifice. I take this word as it has been used, not to lay stress on its signification. And there is still another large group of " sagas " in which the same thought seems to prevail, that a living animal or a human life must be sacrificed to insure that a wall, a castle, a church, a bridge, may stand "for ever." In preference I take northern instances. Everywhere in my country tales are common of a kind of church-ghost, mostly called the " church- lamb" (Kirkelammte). Wherever it is seen, it forebodes death. A young mother sat weeping beside the cradle of her sick child ; at once, hearing a faint noise, she looked up and discovered at the window a little white lamb standing on its hind legs and looking in through a pane. She understood instantly what the vision meant, gently pushed back the cover from the head of her child, its soul had departed, the "church-lamb" came for it. Another ghostly animal is the so called "death-horse" (helhesten), that at midnight slowly wanders from the churchyard through the lanes of the vil- lage on three legs with rattling shoes, and where it is seen stopping and looking through the window of a house, a per- son will die within. And there are other animals still, stags, cows, bulls, goats, geese that seem to have quite a similar function to perform, always to forebode illness or death. Now the question arises : from whence have these supersti- tions arisen, and why are even these, mostly domestic, animals f or^boders of death ? Still to this day ' ' sagas " are told, how the builders of a church, when they were to begin their work ' Crane, Jaques de Vitry, p 118, 268. BEV. H. F. FEILBEEG. 109 or perhaps when they were going to finish it, took the first animal they saw on their way to the place of work and hricked it np in the wall, or helow the foundations of the building. This animal was looked upon as the guardian spirit of the church, and as it was thought to live in or about the church, it is no far off idea to let it bear messages from the kingdom of death and fetch those Who are " fey." Beneath the foun- dation stone of Tise church a lamb is buried, that the church may stand to the end of the world. In the choir of the cathe- dral of Eoskilde a horse is buried. In the church of Dalby in Denmark a goose or a gander is buried, in Mesinge a bull, in GMme a sow, in Viby a black sheep, in Stubberup two red bullocks, Tyregod church in Jutland is founded upon two greyhounds, and so on. From South Sweden is told that no church has been built there without either a bull or a cock having been buried alive beneath its foundation. The guardian spirit of the church, " kyrkogrimmen," is supposed in Sweden to watch the church, taking care to pre- vent any disturbance or profanation of the holy place. As a farmer's daughter late one night tried to look through the keyhole into the church, she got her leg broken by the " church guardian." He chooses his seat on the roof of the church, when a funeral takes place in the churchyard, there- fore the clergyman always will be seen looking at the church roof, when he throws the three spadefuls of earth on the coffin. The fact is, that he may see by the behavior of the " guardian," whether the deceased is lost or saved. And in Sweden it is a common popular belief, that if the old custom of burying a living aninal beneath the foundation-stone of the church is dispensed with, the first person buried in the churchyard will be appointed as "guardian," and the first child baptized in the church will be a poor deformed one, and so it really happened in Vierstad, when the first baptized child became a poor wretch for life. In some churches, a human being instead -of an animal is buried, that is said to be the case in Hvidbjoerg church. Thy, where a boy was placed alive beneath the foundation stone of the entrance to keep ghosts and witches away. A similar tale is related from Asarum church, Sweden. A human life is costlier than any- thing else, when a sacrifice is to be offered. Touching tales no BURIED ALIVE. are narrated of innocent children of whom the legends tell, that they have been buried alive beneath the foundations of large buildings. Many, many years ago Copenhagen was to to be surrounded by a wall, that its inhabitants might be shel- tered from assaults of foes. But in spite of every device, and of incessant working, no wall could be raised ; what was built up during daytime was destroyed in the night. At last the builders took a little innocent girl, placing her on a chair at a table, they put sweets and playthings before her and while she sat smiling and playing, twelve masons hastily formed a vault over her, closed it while drums were beaten and trum- pets sounded ; the child was buried alive, and from that day the workmen were able to raise the walls. You will perhaps allow me to quote another tale. In the year 1689 a heavy breach was made in the sea dike near Brunsbiittel during a heavy western gale, the country was flooded far and near, and ruin was impending for the inhabitants. The people were told that any endeavor to close the breach would be in vain, if a child was not put as foundation. Men were instantly chosen, the legend tells, who were to go out, and, if possible, buy a child. In one of the streets of Herzhorn they met a poor woman, called Talcxe Holms, carrying a child in her arms, a boy one and a half years of age. Thfe men pressed her hard to sell her child, and at last she answered jokingly : yes, she might be willing to give up her boy, if they would pay handsomely for him, and she demanded, to get rid of the men at once, 3000 marks. After some haggling one of the messengers exclaimed : " Well, it is a fine boy, he may be worth the money, I take him," and instantly he pulls out his purse and pays down the money, to the indescribable dismay of the mother who, crying and wringing her hands, walked through the village. Fortunately she discovers Heinrich Knee, to whom she tells the sad occurrence, asking his counsel and help. He instantly sought the messengers out and compelled them with a bludgeon in his hand, to return the child to its mother. I proceed to give a variant of the tale. The child of a gypsy at last was bought for 1000 marks, but the case was still very difficult, as nobody wanted to take the child's life. At last a plank was put as a see-saw over the deep hole, and on the farthest end of the plank a wheaten loal MSV. H. F. FEILBERG. HI Being hungry, the child instantly ran out along the plank, tried to catch the loaf, bobbed down and fell into the pit. Three times it returned to the surface of the water, the first time saying : " Nothing is softer than the bosom of my mother ! " Thereafter : " nothing is sweeter than the love of a mother." And the third time : bub my mother's heart is harder than flint," and was seen no more. But afterwards the breach was easily filled. Other sagas tell us how large castles were built. I only take one single instance, many might be adduced, from Ger- many. The castle of Liebenstein has never been taken by any conqueror, and the cause is, that a child has been buried alive among the foundation stones. A hard-hearted mother sold her child to be walled up, and while the masons began their work a cake was given to the child to keep it quiet. It looked out from the hollow wall : "I can see mammy still ! " and when only a small opening was left : "I am still able to see mammy." And when the last stone closed the opening, the child's voice still was heard plaintively crying : '• Mammy, I can't see you any more." It is to be understood that a mother like this cannot rest in her tomb, but must wander as a restless ghost till doomsday. It is to be understood, what a Low-German farmer said, speaking of those "sagas" : " I certainly have heard tell of a little child being bricked up in a wall, where they have put it into a wooden barrel, and given it a bun in its hand. The child has, with a happy smile, thrust out its small hands to get the cake, but I don't think that I should have been able to stand that smile." Yon may find traces of this so-called " building-sacrifice" in many countries besides Denmark and Germany. In Corn- wall is found a strong bridge near Eosporden. Many times the construction of a bridge there had been tried in vain ; as soon as a rainstorm swelled the river, it was destroyed. At last a messenger was sent to a witch asking her counsel. " Had you come sooner, you might sooner have been advised. If the bridge is to stand, a child of four years must be buried alive beneath its foundations. He must be put naked into a barrel and be given a consecrated light in one hand and a bit of bread in the other." A child of course was procured, a feast celebrated, and the poor child immured alive in the 112 BURIED ALIVE. barrel. After that day, the work advanced without hin- drance, till the bridge was finished, where it now stands and will stand in all eternity. But often during still nights a young child is heard wailing. There may be many instances besides. So is the holy Oran buried alive beneath the founda- tion stone of his own cloister. Especially among the Slavs " sagas " of this kind are common. I have been told that hardly one of the large bridges may be found without either a child or a grown up person having been buried there. Among those " sagas " one is especially touching, the tale of Manoli, the master-builder's young wife. He together with other masters was to build the cloister Arges, but, every night, the work of the foregoing day was destroyed in a mysterious manner. At last he dreamt, that any attempt to raise a building would be in vain if a woman were not im- mured. He told his fellow-masters the dream and the ap- pointment was made, that whoever of the wives of the masons came first the next morning, to bring her husband his break- fast was to be bricked up in the wall of the cloister ; but a solemn oath was sworn, that none of them might betray their decision. Next morning Manoli's young, loving wife was the first. Vainly he prayed God to let the rain-storm and after- wards the tempest keep her back ; she advanced through fioods of rain, through the howling tempest, for she loved her husband. "When she came, she was asked as a joke to let the masons wall her up. At first she allowed it smilingly, but soon discovering the grim earnest, she entreated her hus- band to save her and her unborn child. All in vain, the vow was given, the decree of fate unalterable, the cloister must be built, and her last sigh was stifled behind the merciless bricks. Only one tale more and I have done. In the year 1884, Dr. F. Krauss tells us that a technical school was established in Brod by the Sava river ; twelve young girls were invited to come there to learn weaving, pupils had come, everything went happily on, when, unfortunately, the rumor was spread that the Austrian government wanted to buy these girls to immure them in the new ramparts that were to be erected. The girls fled instantly and were only with the greatest difla- culty again induced to return to their work.^ ■ Krauss, Bauopfer, p. 18 REV. B. F. FEILBEEG. 113 When I now am looking back on these examples that legends have retained the remembrance of, how life, animal or hnman, has been given away to guard* against the powers of the sea, of plague, to make castles unconquerable and bridges to stand in spite of storm and flood, the question arises : What may the original aim have been of these sacri- fices of life ? I take it for granted that these tales are not wholly imaginary. The sacrifice has perhaps not been offered when this or that bridge, this or that castle or cloister has been built, but still a reality may be hidden behind those touching legends. Things of that kind have in former times happened. As to animals that have been buried alive, I am convinced, that here or there in the nooks of my own country, at least kittens and puppies have lost their lives in that way within man's memory. I shall not deny that the thought of a sacrifice to some mysterious power may have been working in the minds of those who have buried the poor animals alive. More than one of the sagas, as far at least as I am able to b,;'!, give evidence of a train of ideas like this. There is, for instance, a very characteristic saga told by Mr. Krauss among his " Sudslavische Marchen." A Servian peasant was fortunate enough to save the child of a river nixie from an imminent danger. Shortly afterwards the nixie appeared before the man as a richly-dressed, venerable old man, asking him what he wanted as reward for his kindness. The peasant, being a well-to-do man, was content with his circumstances and answered that he wanted nothing at all. " Well," the water-sprite replied, " your house has a bad sit- uation, let ns search for a better ; come, I'll help you ! " Arrived outside the nixie struck the earth with his golden rod, saying : " Proprietor, what do you want in lease when I am going to build my house here ? " A dim voice from the ground answered : "I want every life that is in the house ! " " So much I will not give ! " nixie replied ; he walked farther, again and again striking the ground in different places, re- peating the same question. In one place the lives of husband and wife were demanded, in another those of the children, until at last the underground voice answered : " I demand nothing, am willing to make you prosper in every way, if you place your house here." " Build up your house here," nixie 8 114 BUBIED ALIVE. said, ' ' and you will be a happy man ! " The idea is eyident, the man who builds a house somewhere must pay a lease, a ransom, offer a sacrifice to be allowed to do so, at least as a rule. With all that, a long course of customs, as far as I can see, point in another direction, which to me seems the primitive idea. Life is given away, sacrificed, to create one or more "guardian-spirits," that are to watch the place and keep away from it every foe, every disturbance or danger. An instance or two may throw light on this. From Farther India (Bangkok) missionaries have told that whenever a gate was to be built among the ramparts of the town, some per- sons were caught in the streets to be buried beneath the foun- dations. On the appointed day, the victims are in procession led out to the fatal spot, where a beam is hung in ropes over a deep trench. King and court are present, and the king, taking leave of them, enjoins them to watch the place, which he entrusts to their care, faithfully ; he has the hope that they will give warning instantly if enemies or rebels at- tack. As soon as he has spoken his last word, the beam hanging over their heads is cut loose and they are killed by its fall. Upon their bodies the gate is constructed, and the Siamese believe that these victims become " guardian-spirits." It is no uncommon thing, that a rich man, who wants to conceal his treasures in the earth, buries with them one or more slaves, that are to watch the hidden money. ^ I pass by, that customs of a similar kind are mentioned from Japan, from Tenasserim (British Burma), from Galam ia Senegam- bia, from Australia, from the Chipkas of America, and shall only mention what has been told from India. A certain man having by the tribunal been deprived of a field belonging to him, led his wife out there and burned her alive, that her spirit after her death might haunt the place and make the sojourn there unbearable for everybody. When the arrival of the tax-gatherers was announced, or of another magistrate who was to undertake something against the Brahmins, these would erect a kind of enclosure, in which they piled a great deal of wood up, where they at last burned an old woman alive, believing that she after her death would return as ghost and harass those who had caused her death. And it is ' Mfilusine IV., 14. (From 1831-88.) BEV. H. F. FEILBERG. 115 told, that Brahmins have ordered their wives and children to lie down on the ground, threatening to kill them if their wishes were not complied with and often they are said to have fulfilled their menaces. From 1795, the English Government took very severe measures against this superstition, which in our century has been quite abolished.* It seems to be a common idea that the ghost of a deceased person is more powerful, as well in every good as in every evil work, than a living person. I only name the custom of " fasting upon " an adversary, known as well in Aryan Ireland, as in Aryan India. Still it is not necessary to search among far-off countries or among barbarous or semi-barbarous nations for beliefs in relation to the commemorated customs. In Iceland is found more than one " saga " speaking of persons, who, after their death, walk about to do mischief. Having been unable during lifetime to call down revenge on their ad- versary, they harass and persecute him to death as ghosts ; they even will commit suicide to get their vengeance sooner.* I must also lay stress on this, that the victim, man or animal, is buried in or under the gateway, the threshold, the bound- aries of a parish, in the place where the sea is most dangerous. Originally the idea seems to me to have been this : we create a guardian-spirit to watch the exposed place, the house, the castle, the bridge, the boundaries of the parish, the beach ; a spirit being more powerful than any living man, we want ghosts for mounting guard, they alone are capable of defend- ing the place, and body and soul will in a certain manner keep together after death ; where the body lies buried, the ghost keeps watch. I see this corroborated when I look to the saga literature of Scandinavia. Ivar, son of the Danish king Eegnar Lodbrok, died king of a part of England. On his deathbed he ordered his men to bury him where the kingdom was most exposed to onsets of Vikings, for he hoped that those who landed near his tomb would get no victory. So it was done. When years later William the Bastard arrived at the shores of England, he, as his first work, opened the mound in which Ivar lay buried, and seeing his dead body nncorrupted, a large fire was lighted, in which Ivar's corpse iMSlus. IV., 15, quoting Calcutta Review, January, 1877, p. 166. » Amason Tlijodsogur, I. 222. 116 BURIED ALIVE. was burned to ashes. Afterwards he landed his army and came off victor. The same is further illustrated by a Celtic saga from Ireland. The Connaught men buried their king, Eoghan Bell, according to his orders, with his red javelin in his hand, his face towards the north on the side of the hill, by which the Northerners passed when flying before the host of Connaught. This was done, and ever after the invading Northerners were routed panic-stricken, until at last they made a great hosting and raised the body of Eoghan and car- ried it northward and buried it with the mouth down, so that it might not be the means of causing them to fly before the Connaught men.* This seems clear enough. As long as the ghost of the de- ceased chieftain, together with his dead body, keeps the at- tacking or defensive position, spear in hand, in the mound, no enemy can proceed beyond ; when the body is removed or burned, the soul is incapable of watching the post. I may quote one instance still. Bendigeid Vran commanded them that they should cut off his head. " And take you my head," said he, " and bear it even unto the "White Mount, in Lon- don, and bury it there, with the face towards Prance." And they buried the head in the White Mount .... it was the third ill-fated disclosure when it was disinterred, inasmuch as no invasion from across the sea came to the island while the head was in that concealment.^ But this is so very, very long ago and forgotten, who knows, how long ago ? Well, but in superstitious beliefs now- a-days, this or that curiously reminds of these sagas, it may perhaps only be necessary to replace man by animal, a mighty Celtic chieftain by a black cat. A couple of years ago I was told from the northern part of our country, that it, within the memory of man, had been customary to bury a living black cat, sitting upright, beneath the threshold of the byre, with her claws out. Just in that way the animal is to be placed, and its posture is in a certain way the same as that of the ancient Celtic king, it watches, defending the entrance against any approaching foe whatever. I can't withhold the observation with which I began this short paper : wherever I look, I discover survivals. iFolk-Lore, I. 243. ' Lak Ch. Guest Mabinogion (1877), p. 381, 383. THE RISE OP EMPIRICISM. BT OTIS TUFTOK MASOM'. By the phrase " the rise of empiricism " is meant the begin- ning of invention among mankind. There was a time when men commenced to experiment and to make observations upon phenomena, originally. According to some. Lord Bacon was the original experimentalist ; according to others, it was Aristotle. Perchance a few would allow Solomon a place in the list, because he said that man had sought out many inven- tions. But there never was a time when men did not invent, when they were not empiricists. The relation of such an inquiry to folk-lore should be made apparent in order to give it a standing in this congress. The student of folk-lore is supposed to deal rather with survivals, with customs, with common beliefs and common practices. He deals chiefly with those who follow suit. He does not frequent patent offices, but places of assembly, and listens to the repetition of things that do not seem to have had an origin, or watches the doing of things that have been done often and often before. It is not here denied that the mass of humanity are travel- ling together the broad road of custom, that each man goes on by a kind of automatism walking the same gait, that thou- sands tread in one another's footsteps, and that whole tribes and races get a trend and a set in everything they think, or do, or say. This is not denied ; it is rather affirmed and em- phasized beforehand, lest some one might conceive the notion that the writer does not believe in custom at all. It is with equal ardor maintained that there are delightful exceptions to this rule, and that these very exceptions consti- tute the genius of historic progress in all ages. One man invents a machine in our day and thousands use it. One man writes a book and many read it. One man 117 118 THE RISE OF EMPIEICISM. plants a grove and the multitude bask under its shade. One man composes a song and millions of patriotic or devout voices sing it. One man devises an institution and nations are blessed thereby. So has it been since the origin of man. This is the distinctly human characteristic. If there ever existed a man who in his life never departed from beaten tracks to do or think originally, he was an im- becile. Should there be found living in the suburbs of a city or of the world a family or a tribe not contributing in the least to that change for the better which constitutes the prog- ress of mankind, that group of human beings have done this favor, at least, of keeping alive the memories and practices of the past, and have preserved the history of lower stages of culture. Invention has experienced a fivefold evolution or elabora- tion, — 1, in the needs or wants out of which all empiricism springs ; 2, in the mental act, the process in the mind of the experimenter ; 3, in the processes and products of the work, in the manner of operation and in the thing effected ; 4, in the rewards of the effort, public and private ; 5, in the tribal or national genius and idiosyncrasies engendered. From the very first man worthy of the name to the latest decade of the nineteenth century this empiricism has never ceased. At the very first, as at the very last, invention springs from two causes, needs and resources. The wants, the appetites of men, on the one hand, and the possible means of gratifying them in each area on the other, constitute the stimulus to ex- periment. As the wants of men are quite uniform in each grade of culture, the resources of the earth, the total environ- ment, varying in character and amount from place to place, has been the uncertain quantity for each race or people. The evolution of wants is seen in the creation of new de- sires with progress and the greater complexity of each want as it became more exacting. The hungry stomach of a sav- age, for instance, craves not more than two or three articles of diet prepared after the crudest methods. But the same organ in the higher races will not be satisfied with less than half a dozen viands at least, served in as many fashions. The same is true of the desires for shelter, dress, sensuous pleasures, social pleasures, intellectual gratification, religious oris TUFTON MASON. 119 enjoyment. The progress of men in all these had been marked first by a more numerous and delicate body of wants and by a more widely diffused area of selection among the things desired. The fact is that the most favored races and the most diver- sified areas seem to have found one another. Mutually they have aided each other, blessing and being blessed. The peo- ple exalted the land, the land exalted the people, the former stimulating empiricism, the latter exercising it. The evolution of resources or of the sources of supplying wants has been a progress from naturalism to artificialism. The three kingdoms of nature supplied at first the raw ma- terials upon which ingenuity was exercised. Men helped themselves, ate the fruits of the fields, perchance devoured meat raw, made weapons of stone, knew not the myriad uses of fire. This was the age of naturalism. There are a few favored spots on earth now where it would be possible for men to exist in savagery indefinitely with little artificial exertion. But the wonderful fact in the study of ethnology is that in every quarter of the globe where savages have been found they had already mastered the book of nature for their wants. Every edible plant and animal had been discovered. The best wood for bows and arrows aud basketry, the best plants for textiles, many of the most potent drugs were familiar. The stone worker could tell you the finest material for each imple- ment, where and under what conditions to obtain it, and the best method of its treatment. Still more wonderful is the fact that the history of all our domestic animals, and of our staple foods and textiles, and plants of delight, is lost in the dim past. Before a page of history had been written, savage and unlettered peoples had searched the whole earth, tried every plant and animal, and picked out those that were capable of domestication, those that would yield the greatest amount of comfort and service willingly to man. It may be thought that men stumbled on all these. To admit this absurd proposition would not rob men of their honor. Those who have eyes and see not, do not observe. All the original grains and fruits and flowers had been for millenniums waving their resources in the very faces of the whole animal world without stimulating a desire to 120 THE mSE OF EMPIRICISM. cultivate them. But the rapidity of the evolutionary process since the advent of this inventive race is in no way better at- tested than in the ransacking of the earth for material by savages, and the enlistment of so many useful species before historic time began. The second empiric evolution is that of the mental change involved in the act of invention. The earliest experiments were not made in laboratories, they were of the simplest character. The first of these was the power of apperception, which animals possess in a dormant condition only. By ap- perception in this connection is meant the ability to take notice, to pay attention to. The natural furniture of man seems most excellently fitted to stimulate him in this direc- tion. Nature having deprived him of hair, and nails, and cutting- teeth, and fleet limbs, and wings, and fins, she has left him little more than the power of taking notice. He apperceived that his animal associates were rich while he was poor, but his necessities stimulated him to notice a little further that he could provide himself from his mother's bountiful storehouse with all these things that he lacked. He does not seem to have been slow in noticing that these very creatures that sur- passed him could be made to yield their excellences to him. Following the guidance of the folk nowadays, and the savage tribes with which we are acquainted, we do not require long to notice that most departures from the beaten track of in- dustrial custom are not so much those "happy thoughts" which come to the peaceful mind. The normal mind is not ever in the mood of apperceiving, nor are the brightest minds given to constant invention. Men have always had "happy thoughts " it is true. But nowadays men must get into a "tight place" before their empirical faculties are awakened. A countryman with his wagon broken down three miles from home when night is coming on, or the hunter strayed from his camp with meagre resources, is not altogether a modern picture. Men and women have been hard pressed always by the ele- ments, by hunger, by danger, by fatigue, by the restless and inexplicable longing for better comforts. The cerebral changes, the menbal operations involved in OTIS TUFTON MASON. 121 the invention of a way out of the humble savage's difficulties are the beginning of an evolution which ends in the great co- operative laboratories of invention, where not one man, but perhaps a hundred men, are required to conceive a slight change in an electric light, an air-brake, a chemical product, or a destructive weapon. The savage man inventing his rude stone axe by slightly changing the form of a natural object is the same absolutely in every particular as the experimental inventor in the laboratory of Edison, or Bell, or Krupp. No new faculty has been added to the mind of the latter. He merely occupies the last position in a series of mental activities that have grown more and more complicated from the beginning. Perhaps, after all. Watt is not the greatest of inventors. The devisor of marriage in groups, of the bow and arrow, of pottery, of the decimal system, may have been greater than he. Tlie third evolution mentioned in the progress of empiri- cism is the change and improvement in the implements and materials and products of invention. The cave-dwelling is no more the ancestor of the palace than the stone hammer is of the trip-hammer ; the carrying- strap across the forehead of the savage man or woman, of the freight trains and passenger trains ; the stone mortar, or the Mexican metate, of the rotary mill or of the roller mill ; the torchlight of the electric light. From one to the other end of these series there have been relays of human thought, add- ing fresh impetus to the progress from age to age. The evolution that has taken place in the tools and processes of empiricism resemble those that have taken place in nature. There has been a ceaseless change from homogeneous to heterogeneous structure, accompanied by a change from extension to intention of function. Processes and tools were exceedingly simple in structure at first, growing to more com- plex machines. In their working they satisfied many wants at first and only few at the last. The definition of a savage invention, however, would not be in the slightest particular difEerent from that of the latest patentee. It would be in either case a change in some pre- existing process or thing, for the purpose of arriving at some end more expeditiously or with greater economy. The thing 122 THE RISE OF EMPIRICISM. in which the savage made his " improvement " was a natural object. He ground off the end of a conch to make a trumpet, or scraped out a cave to create a shelter. These two were the starting-points of other " improvements," so called. And so on each experimenter laid his superstructure upon the results of his predecessor's work. But when some skilled examiner goes to work on all these machines and methods of procedure and new substances, he works by elimination back- ward to the first man, the primitive patentee, and finds his device to be an intentional modification of some natural object or process for the first time by him devised to effect a benefi- cent end. The exception to this concatenation of efforts and results might be the starting of new series from time to time. Ben- jamin Franklin and his co-workers would furnish an example in modern times, and the real Prometheus in primitive ages. Is it not curious to see, however, that the moment these new forces are developed they fall into the old traces and go to work doing the same drudgery that once was done with men's hands alone. In this same connection we must not fail to notice the change from naturalism to artificialism in the laboratory of the inventor. The first empiricists had only hands and feet and bodily senses. Their workshop was under the open canopy of heaven. The tools were forged by nature. The processes were simply the ways of the animal world, the ex- periences of tyros, extremely minute departures from the methods of nature. But how changed in modern labora- tories ! The hand, the feet, the senses can no longer be trusted in the smallest particular. Instruments of precision are demanded, measuring inches and seconds by tens of thousandths, thermometers so delicate as to gauge the tem- perature of moonbeams, rolling mills making transparent sheets of gold, sensitive wires belting the earth so that the antipodes may converse. Extreme delicacy and accuracy and complexity characterize all our best efforts. The experi- menter is hampered for want of better apparatus. The thought is more refined than the thing, and yet has been re- fined by the things it has created. It will go on refining and being refined indefinitely. OTIS TUFTON MASON. 123 The fourth evolution of empiricism is the gradual change in the public and private rewards to the inventor. The first man who made a stone or a stick sharper to efEect a definite object was both inventor and manufacturer and patentee and consumer of the product. In plainer words, his chipped axe or ground-digging stick (for this was before the age of fire) brought him more food, quicker, surer and with less effort. The consumption of this made him stronger and intellectu- ally brighter and more joyous. He took to himself or at- tracted to himself more and choicer wives. His children were better fed and cared for. That was his self-bestowed patent. Around him were men less favored, who wondered at him, respected, and feared, and obeyed him. He is now the chief, founder of a royal family, having on his shield two stone axes, or two pointed digging sticks crossed, for his escutcheon. Society has granted him a patent of nobility, and, on the principle that to him that hath shall be given, his vassals, as a reward for his being already able to get more food than he needs, give him a portion of their meagre supply in the shape of tithes and offerings. This was the first patent office. The right did not run out in seventeen years always. The long series of public and private honors and endow- ments conferred upon inventors down to our day constitute the evolution, of which this is the starting-point. The last evolution of which it is necessary to speak here is the unfolding of that national, or tribal, or family genius which constitutes the mark by which they have become known. The folk-lorist is thoroughly acquainted with this feature of my subject. In any community some families seem to have been predestined to certain forms of work, to develop particular ideas. That was their mission. Should one of them move away, he would in some other sphere of action develop a fresh nucleus of that pursuit. Much more than families have great consanguineous groups, called tribes, repeated the same experiences. The f olk-lorists of England discover groups of customs, groups of beliefs, that are peculiar. They cannot believe that a homogeneous peo- ple, now called the English, have passed through these clus- ters of experiences one by one. But they look upon these as the arrested developments of tribes, each of which was for 124 THE RISE OF EMPIRICISM. itself laboring in the line of its own hereditary genius. The study of the four phases of empiric evolution leads us at last to the evolution of folk. Each folk becomes a unit when it has been isolated in the same peculiar region or craft until it begins to think and speak and act as one. When the traits become traditional and hereditary among its members, they retain them though they be carried away into captivity or overwhelmed by contest. They communicate their inventions sparingly to others by a kind of acculturation, making con- tributions to a common fund. But the ensemble of traits and intellectual products belong to them. Each family of mankind in its native home, has invented a series of arts, the relics of which lie buried in their tombs and places of business. The history of their industries is written in these things. At the same time, by frequent trials and failures, they have invented languages and social struct- ures, philosophies and mythologies, the history of which is written in the sayings and doings of the folk. The evolution of thought in the world is to be studied in these immaterial relics of the past. NOTES ON CINDEEELLA. BY E. SIDNEY HAETLAND, F. S. A, The volume of six hundred pages, recently issued by the Polk-Lore Society and entitled Cinderella, is the largest and most important contribution ever made to the study of a single folk -tale. It consists entirely of abstracts of variants, with a few useful notes on special points. Miss Marian Koalfe Cox, to whom we owe it, has been unwearied in her industry ; and her judgment, skill and wide knowledge of folk-tales have enabled her to produce a collection simply indispensable to every student. We may differ, perhaps, on certain points of arrangement — for instance, on twofold tabulation ; but we are quite sure that neither this nor any other detail of method has been adopted without due consideration, and at least it has been followed logically to the end. I feel, however, that, to those students who know the volume, praise is superfluous. The book has become as much a part of the apparatus of their study as the blow- pipe is of an analytical chemist's. The following notes, therefore, aim at stating (rather than fully discussing) a few of the many questions raised by the variants brought together. In view of recent controversies the most important of the problems connected with a folk-tale relates to the possibility of tracing its origin to any definite locality or race of men. Of such a problem a collection of three hundred and forty- five variants ought to offer some hopes of solution. Miss Cox finds in the stories three well-marised types, which she has named after the stories best known to English-speaking students : Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap o' Eushes. Beside these three, there is a number of variants sometimes approxi- mating to one, sometimes to another, of the types, but not 125 126 NOTES ON CINDERELLA. properly to be comprised under either of them, and conse- quently classed together as indeterminate. The stories occur in the following proportions : Cinderella 137 Catskin 79 Cap o' Rushes 26 Indeterminate 80 322 To these must be added twenty-three hero-tales, that is, tales wherein the hero is a masculine Cinderella. Discarding the last class, we may take the smallest of the other classes for the sake of convenience, and inquire whether it reveals anything as to its place of origin. All the stories of the Cap o' Eushes type open with an incident familiar to us as the starting point of King Lear's misfortunes. A king asks his daughters how much they love him. The elder ones give answers which are satisfactory. The youngest merely says she loves him like salt. At this he is so indignant, that he either casts her off, or, in some cases, goes the length of ordering her to be put to death and her blood or some of her organs brought to him in proof of compliance. "We may, I think, safely assume that this order is the most archaic form of the incident ; for with the softening of manners which accompanies progress in civilization, such an order would become more and more repulsive and more and more useless for the purposes of the story ; and it would be, therefore, dropped out. Here we have accordingly taken one step in our search. The next is to examine the form and con- sequences of the order to kill. The order appears in two forms : first, a simple order to kill ; and second, an order ac- companied by the requirement of proof, and followed by the king's deception with the blood, etc., of some brute slain for the purpose. Here, again, the simpler form is undoubtedly the less archaic ; and we may, therefore, discard it. This is a second step in our search. We have left nine stories con- taining the deception of the king with a possible tenth, No. 31'?', only given by Dr. Pitre, who reports it in outline. They are as follows : E. SIDNEY HABTLAND, F. S. A. 127 No. 313 208 209 312 315 316 211 226 210 Locality or People. Avelllns, Southern Italy. Parma Venice Abruzzl Sicily Gascony Basque Ovideo, Spain., Proof of Death. Sheep's blood and heroine's finger. Sheep's heart. Dog's eyes and heart. Heroine's clothes soaked in dog's blood. Dog's tongue and heroine's garment, rent. Dog's blood. Dog's tongue. Horse's heart. Bitch's eyes. But the order to kill, and the subsequent deception, occur in some other stories recorded in the volume. CINDERELLA TYPE. 58 Poland Dog's heart and finger of corpse with heroine's ring on it. CATSKIN TYPE. 204 Poland Hare' s heart. (A dog is the messenger. ) INDETEKMINATE (Qtteet, Catskin?) TYPE. 304 Basque Ass's heart. INDETERMINATE (Little Snowwhite?) TYPE. 286 Tuscanv Lamb's heart and eyes, and blood- stained dress. MASCULESTE TYPE. 330 Poland Some portion of dog. Let us note, before proceeding, the geographical distribu- tion of these proofs of obedience. They occur in Italy, Prance, Spain, and Poland. In Italy, on the western side of 128 NOTES ON CINDERELLA. the Apennines, a sheep's blood or heart and a lamb's heart and eyes are found. On the other side of Italy (Venice and Abruzzi), and in Sicily, we get a dog's eyes and heart, clothes soaked in dog's blood, a dog's tongue and a dog's blood. In Gascony, France, we find a dog's tongue ; in the province of Oviedo, Spain, a bitch's eyes ; and in Poland a dog's heart, and some portion of a dog. Elsewhere in Poland, we come upon a hare's heart, but a dog is sent by the heroine's father to kill her. Among the Basques, the trophy is either a horse's or an ass's heart. Further, in Italy, a part of the heroine's dress is brought, in stories from the Abruzzi, from Tuscany, and from Sicily ; in a story from Southern Italy, the heroine's finger, and in a Polish tale, a corpse's finger, wearing the heroine's ring. There appears at first sight to be some trace of local or racial infiuence in the selection of these proofs. The incident, however, occurs in other tales not belonging to the Cinderella Cycle, and, therefore, not included in Miss Cox's selection. We will examine some of these. Group to which the Story belongs. Persecuted wife. . . Outcast child (lan- guage of beasts). Persecuted wife . . . Outcast cliild (lan- guage of beasts). Persecuted wife. . . Outcast child — Joseph. Persecuted wife. . . Outcast child (lan- guage of beasts). Persecuted wife. . . Locality or People. Tuscany .... Monfratto.... Pistoja Mantua Sicily Abruzzi Italy Italian Tyrol German Ty- rol. Upper Va- lais, Swit- zerland. Hesse Heroine's eyes. Dog's heart Dog's tongue.. Dog's heart Proof of Death. Two kid's hearts and tongues. (Two children) Sheep's eyes Shift dipped in wild beast's blood. Dog's heart. ., Dog's tongue., Authority. Deer's eyes and tongue. Hind's eyes and tongue. De Gubernatis, Sante Stephano, p. 35. Comparetti, vol. i., p. 242. Nerucci, p. 421. Visentini, p. 121. Gonzenbach, vol. i., p, 15. De Nino, vol. ill., 172. D'Ancona, Sacre Eap- presentazioni, vol, iii. ; p. 200 citing M.S. Italian poem of the 16th ceutury, Schneller, p. 137. Zingerle, vol. ii., p, 124. Grimm's tales, transl by "Wm. Hurst, vol, i., p. 136. do. p. 127. E. SIDNEY HABTLAND, F. S. A. 129 Group Locality to which the Story or Proof of Death. Authority. belongs. People. Outcast child (lan- Alsace Eoebuck's heart Stoeber, vol. i., p. 73. guage of beasts). and heroine's hands and feet. H bfc Normandy .. Bitch's heart Pleury, p. 123. (t It Brittany Dog's heart M^lusine, vol. i., col. 300. Little Snowwhite ? Lorraine (( Cosquin, vol. ii., p. 323. Persecuted wife. . . France Heroine' s Chaucer Analogues, p. clothes. 397, citing poem in Latin of the 12th centuiy. Little Snowwhite.. Iceland Dog's tongue, Powell and Magnus- blood, and lock sen, vol. ii., p. 402., of heroine's from Arnason. hair. Outcast child Catal n i a , Cup of blood and Maspons y Labros, (value of salt]. Spain. heroine's big toe. Eyes and heart vol. i., p. 55. Persecuted -wife. . . Spain D'Ancona, vol. iii., p. of another per- 203, citing poem by son. Juan Miguel del Puego of 18th cent- Little Snowwhite.. Portugal.... Bitch's tongue. . ury. Pedroso, p. 3. Outcast child Brazil Heroine's finger. Romero, p. 12. (Joseph type). K 11 Basque Dog's heart Webster, p. 137. " " . . Transylva- Dog's blood Von Wilslocki, Volks- nian gypsy dichtungen, p. 289. M it .1 He-goat's blood. do p. 294. "(?) " .'; tt Dog's heart do p. 269. ii 11 Astypalala, Blood stained Geldart, p. 154. Greece. shirt and finger This list contains stories from countries as far apart as Ice- land and Japan ; and an inspection and comparison with the previous list will dissipate any hopes of being able to trace either local or racial influence in the form assumed by the incident. If there be direct connection between stories containing the same form of the incident, it must be by oral transmission oyer vast spaces, and independently of race ; a difficult mat- ter to prove or disprove without a much larger collection of examples, and which would lead us far outside the subject of Cinderella. At present, all we can say is that the dog ap- pears to be the favorite animal, whose blood or organs supply 9 130 JIfOTllS ON CINDEBELLA. the place of the hero's. This is but natural, seeing how uni- versally he is the companion of man. There is another point to which we may turn for informa- tion. In a small number of variants the heroine in disguise becomes a menial having charge of the poultry ; and the crea- tures under her care, seeing her when she dons the gorgeous dresses, betray her by their admiration expressed in human language. Now it need hardly be said that talking birds, like other talking animals, are found all the world over. But the special incident here referred to is found in a very small area, namely, only in Italy (Nos. 139, 140, 141, 183, 217 and 285), and in Brittany (No. 251). In two Spanish tales (Nos. 178 and 210), the geese forget to feed in their admiration, and die, and in a Wallachian story (No. 298), the heroine is seen by reapers when she secretly changes her dress, and they tell of her. These three stories may perhaps be considered as modernized variants. The incident also occurs in a Spanish tale (Masponse y Labros, vol. i., page 55), mentioned in the list given on a preceding page. It could, of course, only be related in places where poultry (hens, geese, or turkeys) were an important part of the domestic menage. It seems, in fact, to be a form of the animal witness, an important personage in a large number of Cinderella variants. But there is nothing to show whence this particular form was derived, unless we may conclude from the greater number of instances which have been collected in Italy, that it is Italian in origin. This, at best, would be a doubt- ful inference. Passing for a while from the consideration of single inci- dents, can we gather by any examination of the story as a whole, whence it has come ? It would be impossible to make any such examination exhaustively in a short paper. The most we could do is to test the claims of one country as an example of the method which may be adopted with all. And as India has had more advocates for her copyright of fairy tales than any other land, we may as well deal with her claims to the invention of Cinderella. Miss Cox gives three Indian variants : one (No. 25), originally published in the Bombay Gazette, in 1864 ; one (No. 235), told to Miss Frere by an ayah who had heard it from her grandmother, a Christian E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, F. S. A. 131 convert with much heathenism still lingering about her ; and the third (No. 307) ^ from Salsette, near Bombay. We may dispose of the second of these tales at once. It is often diflBcult to decide whether a tale comes within the defi- nition of a given group, so infinitely do the plots shade ofE into one another. The story of Sodewa Bai has no connection with the Cinderella group, save the lost slipper. The rajah, who is the heroine's father, causes the lost slipper to be cried and reward offered for its restoration. A prince, find- it by his mother's advice, asks for her lady's hand in recom- pense and obtains it. The heroine, however, was born with a golden necklace, which contains her soul, and the greater part of the tale is concerned with the necklace and the con- sequences of its loss. It is obvious that if this tale was rightly included in the tabulation, the Egyptian fable of Ehodopis had still better claim. In the third tale, the heroine is born of a blister on a beggar's thumb. She and her six sisters (born in the ordinary way) are abandoned by their father and find a palace, where they live. The heroine's room is the best, though her sisters do not know it. The six elder sisters go to church ; the heroine follows them in gorgeous array, including golden slippers. At church the king's son falls in love with her. She loses a slipper in hurrying home, and is ultimately identified by it and married to the prince. The tale then falls into the per- secuted wife type. Her sisters accuse her of giving birth to a stone and brooms, but the three babes who are really born are providentially preserved from death, and at length the heroine, through them, triumphs over her accusers. Here the heroine's birth and her sisters' envy contain many details which appear to be native. On the other hand, all the Cin- derella incidents bear decidedly the impress of Europe. The people who tell the tale are Eoman Catholics, and the tale, whatever its primitive form, has become so inextricably mingled with European elements, that no argument can be drawn from it in favor of an Indian source. There remains the first story. Unfortunately we have it only at second or third hand, and only in an abstract. It is said to run as follows : — " Heroine is ill-treated by step- mother, who, finding that cow nourishes her with its milk. 132 NOTES ON CINBEBELLA. resolves to kill it. Cow bids heroine be comforted, and to take care to collect its bones, horns, skin and every part that is thrown away ; above all, to avoid eating its flesh. Cow is killed, and heroine does as bidden. Prince is making choice of bride ; heroine is left at home to cook supper whilst step- sister goes to palace. Cow returns to life, gives dresses and gold clogs to heroine. She drops one of these when prince is pursuing her, and when he comes to seek her she is hidden in granary. Cock betrays her presence. Prince marries her. Step-mother and step-sister are punished." This is a very important story for the advocates of the Indian origin of fairy tales ; but we have so little information about it that it is not easy to build any structure of argument upon it. The cow certainly does not seem Hindoo. In a variant, we learn it is a fish that befriends the heroine. In Annam, there is a tale of which Mr. Landes has collected two variants (No. 68 and 69). In both of these the helpful animal is a fish beloved of the heroine ; when the fish is killed and cooked, its bones collected by her pious hands turn into shoes, and (in the one case) to dresses. A crow carries off one of the shoes to the prince's palace. A proclamation is issued by him, offering marriage to the owner. The heroine, of course, is successful, in spite of the difficulties thrown in her way by her step- mother. Then follows the step-mother's scheme for substi- tuting her own daughter. The heroine is put to death, and undergoes a series of transformations which end in her re- appearance out of a fruit more beautiful than ever. She per- suades her rival to jump into boiling water, in order to be- come equally lovely, and pickling her flesh, sends it to her mother as a delicacy. Notwithstanding Buddhism prevails in Annam, there is little evidence of it in this tale. The chief incidents disclose ideas as savage as can well be desired, though many of the externals have been adapted to the com- paratively advanced style of civilization enjoyed by the An- namites and Tjannes. We may assume, therefore, that if the story entered Annam from Hindostan, as to which there is at present no evidence, it was not by a Buddhist channel. Still more archaic are the Santal variants not given by Miss Cox, but found in Mr. Campbell's collection of Santal Folk E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, F. S. A. 133 Tales, recently issued from the Mission Press at Pokhuria, India. The Santals are non-Aryan aborigines of Bengal, interesting to students of folk-lore from their curious rites as well as their oral traditions. They have a masculine, as well as feminine, Cinderella. The former undergoes the following adventures : He has charge of a cow that gives him food when his step-mother starves him. The step-mother feigns illness, in order to have the cow killed, but the cow and boy escape. From the cow descends a whole herd, which the boy tends in the jungle. Bathing one day he drops a hair in the river. A princess lower down the stream finds it and deter- mines to marry the owner. A tame parrot helps her father's servants to find the boy, by stealing his flute and drawing him after it in pursuit. In one variant he is unfortunate, and the princess refuses to marry him after all. In the other, he has three flutes, with magical properties, uttering articulate sounds which twice balk the messenger's efforts to capture him, and ultimately, after his marriage, obtain for him a herd, from whence are descended all the tame buffaloes in India. The feminine Cinderella is first drowned by her seven brothers' wives. She then reappears as a bamboo, out of which a fiddle is made. The fiddle is acquired by a village chief. The maiden comes out of it, in the absence of the household, and prepares the family meal. The chief's son watches, discovers and marries her. In a variant, she is first eaten by a monkey. The monkey dies. Prom his dead body a gourd grows, out of which a banjo is made, wherein the heroine hides. She is at length found and married to the rajah, who is already her sister's husband. Another variant relates that she was given by her brothers to a water spirit, in return for water. She reappears as a flower, and is mar- ried to the bridegroom, to whom she had been previously betrothed. Her brothers having become poor, come to her village offering firewood for sale ; she recognizes and fSies them, treating her youngest brother as Benjamin was treated by Joseph. The brothers, at her reproaches, cleave open the earth and plunge in. She catches the youngest — who had been no party to her ill-treatment — by the hair to save him, but in vain. The hair comes off in her hand. She plants it 134 NOTES ON CINDEBELLA. in the earth, and it becomes the blackthorn grass that now grows in the jungles. The conclusion suggested by these tales is that the Euro- pean tales were derived from at least two primitive forms, one approximating to the Cinderella type, the other to the Catskin type, and growing out of incidents of which our oldest example is, in the one case, in tlie Egyptian tale of the Two Brothers, where the lady's perfumed hair falls into the river and is found by the king, and in the other case in Ragnar Lodbrok's saga, where Aslang, Sigurd's daughter, is concealed in Heime's harp. But, if so, there is probably no direct connection between the Indian and European stories. This is confirmed, as to stories of the Cinderella type, by a Gaelic tale from Inverness-shire, which, amid much of a more modern cast, has preserved two very antique traits. A king, we are told, has a wife and children, and also a daughter by a sheep. The wife causes the sheep to be put to death. Its bones are preserved by its daughter ; and the sheep, after a time, revives as a beautiful princess. On the return of the king's son there is to be a three days' feast, but the other children only beat the sheep's daughter when she asks about it. Her mother, however, clothes her in finery, and sends her to the feast, where the king's son falls in love with her. She disappears each day, but on the third day leaves one of her golden slippers behind. A proclamation is issued offering marriage to its owner. A woman, in order to wear it, cuts her big toe off, but the heroine is pointed out by a bird and married to the king's son.^ In other tales of this type, where the heroine's mother and the helpful animal are identified, the mother has originally had human form and has suffered a magical transformation. In many cases, as in the Indian tale reported from the Calcutta Review, the identity has been completely forgotten. "We cannot doubt that the Gaelic tale, just cited, comes nearer to the original, in this particu- lar, than when the mother is afterwards transformed, or where her identity with the helpful animal has been forgot- ten. It is obvious, at least, that the tale could only have arisen among a people so low in civilization that they had not yet attained to the repugnance against sexual union in I Cinderella, p. 534. K SIDNEY HARTLAND, F. S. A. 135 stories between man and beast, and in actual fact between children of one sire but different mothers. The Santals have passed beyond this stage. Still more certainly have the Aryan Hindus, to whom the invention and dispersion of fairy tales is attributed by Mr. Cosquin and others ; and they had passed beyond it ages before the Buddhist propaganda, from which the dispersion is usually dated. With regard to the Indian origin of stories of the Catskin type, another test may be applied. They usually open with an attempt by a widowed father to marry his daughter, the heroine. All these stories are European, with one exception (]!fo. 189), which comes from Kurdistan. The incident, needlessly repulsive to the feelings of every European nation, could hardly have been imagined at a period when the mar- riage of father and daughter was a thing quite unheard of. More likely it was transferred from real life, at a stage in civilization when the sentiment of the community was against such a marriage, though it may not have been, or may only recently have become contrary to the tribal customs. Certain obscure references in the classics may, perhaps, imply that such marriages were not unknown to some of the barbarians with whom the Komans were brought into contact ; but, with this possible exception, they have never been known during the historic period. They are reported, however, as prac- tised in modern times among the Wanyoro, of Central Africa,^ and among the Caribs ; '^ while we are assured that it is the rule of the Piojes, of Ecuador, that " a widow shall take her son, a widower his daughter, to replace the deceased con- sort."* The ancient Persians are also asserted to have fol- lowed the same custom, though this is contested by the Parsees of the present day,* the kings of Siam, who are com- pelled to marry only into their own family, are said to be sometimes reduced to wedding their own sisters or daughters.' ipeatherman. Social History of the Races of Manldnd. Nigritians, p. 110. ^ Ibid. Chiopa and Guarawo. Maranonians, p. 268. » Brinton, The American Race, p. 274. Arthur Simpson, Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador. (London, 1886), p. 196. ♦ See Next of Kin Marriages in Old Iran, by Darab Dasher Reshotan Aun jana' B. A. (London, 1888), where the question is fully discussed by a Zoroastrian priest, anxious to remove the stigma fastened upon his religion. •Col. James Low, in Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i., p. 350, citing Se Lombre. 136 NOTES ON CINDERELLA. The practice is foreign to the universal sentiment of India, nor has the incident yet been discovered, so far as I am aware, in any Indian tale. The existing state of our knowl- edge, therefore, seems to preclude our attributing either the Cinderella or the Catskin type to an Indian origin. I regret that the limits of human endurance, even at a Folk-Lore congress, do not permit of carrying these inquiries further, and the more so because I have felt hitherto com- pelled to draw wholly negative inferences. The subject opens so many vistas that it seems inexhaustible. I have merely attempted to put one or two tests to examine the bearing of a small portion of the material gathered in Miss Cox's learned volume on the question of origin. That the attempt has hardly penetrated beneath the surface of the problem, I should be the first to acknowledge. But it may serve to lead a valuable discussion by some who have studied the question more profoundly. THE FATALITY OF CERTAIN PLACES TO CERTAIN PERSONS. BY MISS C. S. HAWKINS DEMPSTER. THE DEATH OF SIVEJSTO. Once upon a time there was a king in Sweden, and his son sailed on the seas. On a certain day he took ship, with many- men on board, and red gold in heaps. And when he went away his stepmother bid him beware of Cape Wrath (Poraft), and Poldhu (the black pool), and Poltarrach gawn (the pool of the dun steer). It fell out that as he sailed he came to the place called Phorsten Stivanaigh (port of Siveno or Sweno), and did not know what land it was that he had made. And the men of the isles armed themselves, and blackened their faces with soot from the pots, and went out in boats. They told him this creek was called Poltarrach gawn. Then cried the king's son, " God forbid that I should bide in these waters, and the Lord have mercy on my soul if this be Poltarrach gawn." He weighed anchor and made to stand out again to sea, but the men of Assqut (west coast of Sutherland), and the isles (summer islands ofE Ullapool) were too many for him. They came on board his ship and cried to Siveno that he should yield himself. The Swedes and their prince being stout men fought on deck and below. When the king's son was wounded they put him below, and went on fighting till a man of Glendhu (the black glen), looking through a hole in the deck, saw the king's son, and shot him. Then the Swedes lost heart. They yielded up the gold and all that was in the ship, and only asked to get away with the vessel and their lives. The islesmen began to work with the gold, and to take it out in their plaids ; one man holding the plaid on the ship's side and another making it fast in the boat. But the 137 138 THE FATALITY OF CERTAIN PLACES. gold was so heavy that the plaid tore, and only a few pieces slid into the boat and the rest of the treasure still lies in Glendhu. A year later the man who had shot the king's son said : "I go a fishing, and in the port of Siveno." "While he fished he saw a small boat coming over the water towards him, and in the boat was a man with gold sewed all over his clothes, and a sword. The little boat came along- side, and then the man, who had the face of Siveno the king's son, shot the fisherman of Glendhu. He cried, " I gave it before, and I get it now," and he died. The harbor is called the port of Siveno, or Sweno, to this day. "■ GETTING A RESPOKSB." Sir James Stewart, the favorite of the Scottish king, was murdered in 1596, at Cotstark, in the parish of Symington, Lanarkshire. He had defied the Douglas clan, but Douglas of Torthorwald, overtook and slew him in that glen. Says Archbishop Spotteswoode in his history (III. 40) : " Captain Stewart had asked the name of the piece of ground on which they were, and, on learning the name of it, commanded his company to ride more quickly as having gotten a response to beware of " such a place." Query ? What did an Archbishop mean by a " response" ? THE JEEUSALEM CHAMBEE. King Henry IV., having a holy purpose to go to Jeru- salem, was dissuaded by a prophecy that he must die in Jeru- salem. Palling mortally sick at Westminster he learnt that the room where he lay was named "the Jerusalem Chamber." " In that Jerusalem shall Harry die," said the king, and kept his word, passing away in that same room and bed in West- minster. KING CAMBYSES. The oracle of Buto in Egypt warned Cambyses that he should die in Eckbatana, so he determined never to go there. One day in the chase the king was wounded. He asked the name of the place in which they laid him down to have his MISS C. S. HAWKINS DEMPSTEB. 139 wound dressed. He was told that it was Bckbatanaj and soon afterwards expired THE DEVIL IN ROME. Tward-voski, the Faust, or Michael Scott, or D. D. McKay, of Lithuanian legends, sold his soul to the devil, but the fiend could only lay claim to it if they met in Eome. At a hamlet of his native country which chanced to be called Borne, the devil accosted him, and claimed his own, but Twardvoski by some subterfuge baffled him.* THE SIEGE OE LAON. The seigneur de Givry, lover of Mile, de Guise, was killed at that siege. " On lui avait predit depuis peu qu'il mour- rait devant Van, et celd ponvait entendre devant I'annSe ou devant la ville de Laon. Le chevalier de Cheverney, son beau-pere, dit qu'il fut tue devant Laon."" TICONDEEOGA. Captain Campbell, of Lochawe, while at home in the High- lands, had a vivid dream, in which a long-ago murdered an- cestor of his own appeared to him. Believing that the appa- rition might forbode his death, he asked of his spectral visitor if he was soon to die. " No," replied the ghost, " not soon, but at Ticonderoga." Captain Campbell awoke repeating to himself this strange name, which to his memory and to his knowledge conveyed no idea whatever. He thought of it only as a place in dreamland. Some years later, and during the war of American independ- ence, his regiment was engaged in an action under the walls of Fort Edward. Captain Campbell was wounded and car- ried to the rear. After the battle a brother officer mentioned to him that the real, the Indian name, of the place was a curious one, " Ticonderoga." Captain Campbell died two days later of his wound. > Ostrovsby's Notes. ' Tallemant des Beaux, I. 125. 140 THE FATALITY OF CERTAIN PLACES. QTJERIES. What is the origin of this idea ? Is it the shadow side of the once prevalent idea that certain spots were holy, and ad- vantageous as fraught with supernatural gifts ? Jerusalem was so to the Jews. Pilgrims used to go to Canope, in Egypt, pray and sleep on the spot, believing that in dreams they would obtain the blessing or the guidance they desired. The oracle had to be consulted at Delphi. Christ treated this notion with contempt. Is the fatality of places twin with the sanctity of places ? Does the notion arise in the belief that Pate or Destiny, AnanM, is always sitting waiting to catch us. Grim as the stories are they contain a grim jest : for sometimes as a Laon a life is lost in pursuing, and sometimes, as in the tale of the "devil at Rome," the human being turns the pun to his advantage, and foils the Fiend. Is the notion of fatality in spots an enlargement of the notion "the hour is come ; and the man," adding, "and the place ! " EUGENE FIELD- TELLING THE BEES. BY EUGB]SrE FIELD. Out of the house where the slamherer lay Grandfather came one summer day ; And under the pleasant orchard trees He spake this-wise to the murmuring bees ; " The clover-bloom that kissed her feet And the posie-bed where she used to play Have honey store, but none so sweet As ere our little one went away, O bees, sing soft, and, bees, sing low ; For she is gone who loved you so." A wonder fell on the listening bees Under those pleasant orchard trees. And in their toil that summer day Ever their murmuring seemed to say ; " Child, child, the grass is cool. And the posies are waking to hear the song Of the bird that swings by the shaded pool, "Waiting for one that tarrieth long." 'Twas so they called to the little one then. As if to call her back' again. O gentle bees, I have come to say That grandfather fell to sleep to-day. And we know by the smile on grandfather's face. He has found his dear one's biding place. So, bees, sing soft, and, bees, sing low. As over the honey-fields you sweep, — To the trees a-bloom and the flowers a-blow Sing of grandfather fast asleep ; And ever beneath these orchard trees Find cheer and shelter, gentle bees. 141 142 TELLING THE BEES. Ladies an-d Ges^tlemen : Some of the most charming literature we have in the line of folk-lore has been done by women. Speaking for myself, I am very proud to acknowledge on this occasion, that it was a woman who first interested me in folk-lore, or, more accu- rately speaking, in folk song, for it was not until I had read the delightful work of Madame the Countess Martinengo- Cesaresco, that I became aware of the vastness and the beauty and fascination of the study to which that charming lady introduced me. It is to a woman that we are indebted for the only compilation of West Indian folk tales ; to a woman for several delightful volumes on the ancient charms and the old legends of the Irish ; to a woman for our acquaintance with " Myths, Symbols and Magic of the East Africans ; " to a woman for the learned and delightful treatise upon " Old Rabbit, the Voodoo," — in short, it is to women that we are indebted for a very large share of the curious, entertaining and instructive literature, in which all people as intelligent and enterprising as we are delight. It is largely owing to the perseverance, and patience, and discretion of a woman that there exists and flourishes in Chicago to-day a Folk-Lore Society, and but for the fear of offending the solemnity of this occasion, I should call for three cheers for Mrs. Helen W. Bassett. THE SYMBOL OP THE VASE, IN MYTH, IDEOG- RAPHY, LANGUAGE, HAGIOGRAPHY, LITER- ATURE AND FOLK-LORE.i BY DK. STANISLAS PKATO. GENTLEMEif, — The signal indulgence, by which my very modest merits have been judged sufficient to influence my nomination as a foreign member, a representative of Italy upon the Advisory Council of this International Congress of Folk-Lore, gives me the courage to send ^"-his communication, to submit for your very intelligent jr igment the develop- ment of a subject which, I allow myself to believe, will, by its novelty, merit your sagacious attention ; of which your delicate courtesy is a very certain assurance. And I the more willingly enter upon this theme, which in giving me the occasion of studying it in its ideography, language, hagiography, literature and folk-lore, presents also the oppor- tunity to show the intimate bond which unites them, the aifinity which Cicero has already recognized among the various human relations, and to verify the very common Latin prov- erb, vis verita fortior. Closely observing the children of to-day and primitive people, we can very readily perceive the imagination predomi- nating among the various faculties of the mind, and reflection not existing at all, or being very feeble with them ; this proves to us that the human mind passes from synthesis to analysis, from the fact to the rule, from art and poetry to science. On this account we find that at first sentiment and fantasy are everything ; ideas are but poetical images, reality is absorbed by the ideality, while the truth is enshrined in the fiction of myth, and the supernatural element imposes itself on nature, which is soon filled with deities, which will ' TraDslated'from the French, by Lieut. F. S. Bassett. 143 144 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. be the personification of its powers, and being accredited •with the production of its phenomena, suflBce it to give an explanation of them, a thing which men of these times could never have done. Now, I intend to indicate to you how the vase, or any other recipient,^ has inspired in the fantasy of ancient people many facts belonging to the sensible, intelli- gible and moral order ; nevertheless, before commencing, allow me to appeal to your indulgence, with regard to my weakness in the use of the French, as a universal language, by which I must make myself understood by all learned men of different nations. Beginning with myth, to apply the ancient Latin proverb, Ai Jove principium Musce, we may recall the seduc- tive woman Pandora, created by the other divinities, who were jealous of Jupiter, the creator of men, and endowed with all the perfections of beauty ; with wisdom, with great talents, with music, with eloquence, by Venus, Minerva, Apollo, Mercury ; in a word, the advantage of every gift, and for this reason named Pandora (every gift), the Tillottama of the Vedas, and well did Jupiter avenge himself ; he caused the beautiful Pandora to be brought before his throne, so as to make her a present also on his part ; this was a box, which he ordered to be carried to Prometheus. Epimetheus, the brother of the latter, curious to know what this mysterious box contained, opened it, and all the evils escaped at once, to spread over the earth ; this was the commencement of the ^ Vase^ according to some, from the Gallo-Celtic and Irish fas^ concave, hollow, empty : in German, /ass, cask ; in Dutch, vaf , vase, tun ; in Arab, vi-a and vw-a, place in which something is contained, and bazan, bound with bronze ; in Hebrew, buth, measure of capacity of 18 Utres. Vase, generic name for all the utensils made to receive or hold something in them, particularly liquids, and ascending to the different materials, called cup, vial^ box, urn. We cannot follow the ety- mology which Bopp gives to vase, deriving it from the Sanscrit verb vas, to live, to dwell, to lodge ; there would be another reason for seeing the appropriateness of the vase, the symbolic image of the soul, of which it would also be the ideographic word, and it would signify vase taken in the acceptation of soul— that which re- sides, which dwells, which lodges in the body. Compare also the Latin testa, which, from the signification of earthen pot, passes to the other metaphoric meaning of skull, box for the brain, and the Sanscrit words, kapala, and the Latin caput, in the two acceptations, one proper, the other metaphorical, of cup, vase, head ; in any case, caput, Latin, connected its common theme with the Latin verb capere, that which takes, which receives (confer the same metaphors, capire, capace, capacita) is the ideographic periphrasis of vase, which receives in itself, takes that which is placed therein, or what is poured in it, and by the belief of many that the soul might be in the head. Here then is another reason for which the soul, the mind, may be a vase which receives, which takes within it, the reflec- tions, the knowledge placed there. Dfi. STANISLAS PRATO. 145 Iron Age. Hope alone remained at the bottom of the box^ as the last consolation of unfortunate mortals.' A myth of Brazilian Indians, according to Mr. Conto do Magalhaeus, in his work Selvagem, thus presents to us the imagined creation and the apparitioaof Night sleeping at the bottom of the waters, just as in the Iliad of Homer (xiv. 289-97) under the form of Cymandis, the bronzed bird, dyed by the foliage, sleeps among the branches of a pine. Here is the Indian legend : "At the commencement there was no night, there was only day all the time. The night was sleep- ing at the bottom of the water. There were no animals. Everything could speak." The daughter of Cobra-Grande (the great serpent), it is said, was married to a young man who had three faithful ser- vants ; one day he engaged them to go out and take a walk, for his wife would not sleep with him ; afterwards he called his wife, but she would not fulfil his wish for her to go to bed because it was not yet night ; the husband said to her that there was no night, and there was indeed only day. The young woman then answered him that her father had the night, and that if he wanted her to sleep with him, it was necessary to hunt for him across the great river. The young man called his three servitors, and the young woman sent them to her father's abode, so that they might bring back a tucuman kernel." The servitors went away, and coming to the house of Cobra-Grande, he restored to them the tucuman kernel closed tightly, with the absolute prohibition to open it unless every- thing should have been lost. The servitors went away, and they heard a noise in the middle of the kernel of the tucuman, a noise sounding thus : " Tin! tin! tin! — chu !" This was ' Spes ultima Dea— Latin proverb. La Speme ultima Dea (Ugo Foscolo) Canne di Sepoleri (v. 16-17) and Pierre Metastasio says : " Speranza lusinghiera Flattering hope, Dolce delPuom conforto Sweet consolation of man, Forti la prima a nascere You were the first to be born, Sei I'ultima h. morir." And you are the last to die. Cf. also the Tuscan proverb, "La speranza & Tultimo o. perdersi " (Hope is the last thing to lose). ' Tucuman kernel (Astroeeergum tucuma Martin). The tucuman is a hand- some thorny palm tree which grows in the valley of the Amazon and that of the Plata. The fruit of this palm tree, which serves as food for the Indians, is round, and of a beautiful orange color when ripe. It is composed of a tough envelope, a fleshy, fibrous interior, surrounding a kernel, shaped like a cocoanut. lO 146 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. the noise of the crickets and of little frogs, who were singing about the night. Pursuing their way as long as they con- tinued to hear the same noise at the interior of the kernel of the tucuman, they did not know what noise it was, as it was already quite distant, so they assembled in the middle of their boat, lighting a iire, melted the resin which sealed up the kernel, and opened it. Suddenly, all became dark.^ Then all things scattered throughout the woods were trans- formed into birds and fish. The ounce was created from the basket ; '^ the fisher and his vessel were transformed into a duck ; the body of the duck from the boat, and the oars be- came the legs of the duck. The young wife, as soon as day commenced to break, having, with a thread, separated the night from the day, seeing that through the fault of the ser- vitors, trying the night, all was lost, transformed them into monkeys as a punishment.' In the popular tradition it is not rarely that we encounter a box, or something else, confided to some one with the same prohibition against opening or uncovering it ; thus, in a story from Great Britain, the son of the King of Tethertown, as a reward for saving its life, received a package from the hands of a duck, which became a handsome boy, with a prohibition against opening it. Finding the package become very heavy, he was tempted to see what it contained, but what was his astonishment on opening it ! In the twinkling of an eye there appeared in the midst of an immense space a large chateau surrounded by an orchard, where all sorts of plants and fruits flourished. The prince remained struck with ^ The tucuman kernel, of the cosmic legend of Brazil, recalls the stem of the Greek ferule (the Indian PramanWia) in which Prometheus, after having removed it from the solar wheel, concealed within it, and kept there, to carry upon earth, from heaven, the ray of Ught which he afterwards scattered over the surface of the earth, symbol of the light of civilisation, of which he was the author, the propagator, and the martyr among men. The myth of Prometheus is cosmog- onic, or to say it better, palingenesic ; the only difference which distinguishes it from the Indo-Brazilian, refers to the diversity between the tucuman kernel and the stem of the ferule of the miyth, the diverse, or rather opponent, nature of the obscurity which the kernel of the tucuman, and the ray of light contained in the stem of the ferule, offers. ' It is for this reason that the ounce is spotted, the marks of the basket becom- ing its spots. ^ F. T. de Santa Anna Very, Folk-Lore Bresilien, preface du Prince Roland Bonaparte, Paris, Didier, etc., 1889, ch. iv., pp. 55-57, Contes Indiens du Br«sil, col- lected by General Conto de Magolhaes, and translated into French by E. Allaire, Kio de Janeiro, Faro & Lind, 1883, p. 5. VB. STANISLAS PRATO. 147 astonishment and regret because he had made so many pretty things come out in a wood, instead of the little green valley opposite his father's house. But a giant whom he met put the garden, orchard and chdteau back in the box, on con- dition of receiving in exchange the first son of the Prince as soon as he should attain seven years of age.^ In a popular Comarca tale from Carallasca published byme in No. 6 (June, 1891), of La Tradition of Paris, with the title, " lie roi et les deux malcontents," a mysterious plate uncovered in spite of the prohibition of the King by a man and a woman (settled in his palace and treated very generously by him), in order to rid them of the duty of working the land, imposed upon them by the son of Adam and Eve, allows a little bird to fly out through the open window. This gave the King, who, con- cealed, had seen all, the opportunity of approving of the punishment of Adam and Eve for their sin by God, and just as they had been chased from the terrestrial Paradise, he banished the two discontented guests from his palace. In the article cited, I compared with this popular tale the story in verse of Grecourt, La linotte de Jean XXII, in which a little bird also flies out of the window, coming out of a closed box which Pope John XXII. had given to two nuns to watch over, with a prohibition against opening it, and which they opened through curiosity.'' This story is also found in the Matinees of Seigneur de Choli^res, in the Sirees of Guillaume Bouchet, and in the Moyen de Parvenir of Bervalde de Ver- ville, and also in the Pantagruel of Rabelais. Apropos of the tucuman kernel, enclosing night, one may recall popular stories, particularly in those belonging to the theme of Psyche and the Serpent King, where are found walnuts, hazel-nuts, almonds and other fruits containing precious things, received from the hands of a fairy or other marvellous person, and given by the woman who is seeking her lost husband, from her who keeps him in her palace so as to see him once more. • Contes Populaires de la Grande BretagTie par Loys BruySre, Paris— Hachette, 1875— PremiSre partie contes d'origine aryenne No. 13— La BataiUe des Oiseaux— Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 4 vol., 12 mo. 2 The curiosity of women in general and particularly of nuns recalls to my mind the very common and metrical French proverb : " D§sir de femme est feu qui d6- vore, DSsir de nonne est pis encor." 148 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. To resume our subject, according to Felix Liebrecht, a cosmogouic legend is found among the Ashantees which may be referred to the myth of Pandora by the episode of the vase. Here it is : "From the beginning of the world, God created three white men and three black men, with an equal number of women, and so that these creatures might have nothing to complain of to him afterwards, he gave them the choice of good and evil. A great box or calabash was put down in the ground with a scrap of sealed paper upon one side of it. God gave first choice to the blacks ; they took the box, expecting to find something good in it, but on opening it there came out only a piece of gold, a piece of iron, and several other pieces of metal, the use of which they did not know ; the whites having next opened the paper, learned everything from it. God, therefore, left the black men in the forest, but he conducted the white men to the edge of the water, communicated with them every night, and showed them how to build a little vessel which carried them away to another country (for all this happened in Africa), and they returned from it a long time afterwards." See for this cosmogonic legend Albert Montemont BiUiotheque Universelle des Voy- ages, etc., vol. xxviii. , page 407, and Jahrbuch fiir Romanische und Englische Litteratur 1-5 Miscellen; Felix Liebrecht Zum Kaufmann von Venedig (Oben Jahrbuch, vol. ii., § 330.^ But if in Mythology there is a trace of the vase, or of some other recipient, one also sees vestiges of it in language, and also in writing, in the ideography of Egypt and of China, and especially in that of Egypt ; among them the letter B is represented by a lapwing, or heron, by the scent-box or in- cense-pan, with or without flames and perfumes — compare the corresponding Chinese character Hi representing a box, that which contains ; it should also be noted that this same letter B, by means of the sparrow-hawk or the crane (sound Bai), indicating the symbol of the soul, the spirit, and also the man versed in sublime things, will justify the symbolic representation of the soul in the image of the vase, which we will hereafter recall. The letter H (heth) is represented by a sieve, a fan (ventilabrum), sound, hai, and in Memphitic 1 One may also recall to memory the cosmographic story told in the account of tbe Ark of Noah in the Bible. BE. STANISLAS PBATO. 149 chai, and with the images of the lotus plantation or of the papyrus, the anterior parts of a lion, and the human face, symbolizes human life, by means of the particularization of the ideas of life (plantation of lotus), of force (anterior parts of the lion) and of man (human faces) ; this ideographic sign confirms the image of the vase, symbol of the soul, the more so as also among the Egyptians, and an enclosure represents the letter Heth, and an enclosure represents a field among the Chinese (sound Thian), and the source of life (the earth, the grand mother, is the first principle of life) ; which is very natural because the letter E (sound sang) vowel, of which the Tj in Greek is the equivalent, has the signification of existence and of life. The letter Caph among the Egyptians is repre- sented by a basket or a vase (sound Kabi), and also by a field of reeds, symbols of life, by its generative principle, the earth. The letter M is indicated by a basin or reservoir full of water (we may recall the generative and regenerative character of the waters, called mothers in the Vedas, and the generation of all things by water according to Talete Milesius) sound, Mesan; the root of a tree, sound Motdg, virgulbe, propago (symbol of life) ; as also among the Chinese, the tree, pro- ductive being, indicates the letter M (sound Thras) ; the idea of life in this letter M is represented also by the following homophonic sounds : Vulture, the symbol of maternity, sound Mut (mother) ; a landscape, Mo, Memau, Memo, place, country, land ; a sort of plough, Maliro, seminatis, cultura agri, sati. The letter N is represented by two vases (Noun) without bulge with water or with bowls, symbol of Egypt, of the country, where water plays a remarkable role ; by a shut- tle (Nath), emblem of the goddess Neith, inventress of the art of weaving ; perhaps the regular coming and going of the shuttle in the hands of the workmen recalls with the contin- ual movement of the water, the genetic principle of cosmic life, motion, the indication of the life of the body and of the spirit (whence the well-known proverb). Another sign of the letter iV is a kind of cresset, or vase, carefully wrought in metal) and also a sort of basin filled with water, a round vase carried on two legs, etc. M. Paravey notes among the cycle of ten days called Ty, or Kans by the Chinese, that the first, pronounced Kid, corresponding to number 1, and to the if of 150 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. all people, seems to show a valve, symbol of the sources, from the beginning, and of the waters and the shells seen there which recalls the Mim (water in Ethiopic), and also the breasts of a mother, and in a complex form, or a large vase, surmounted by a cover and containing the symbol of felicity, happiness, which itself offers the character of wisdom, virtue, for God was in fact like the great and Supreme Unity in the antique style of the vase of wisdom par excellence, the mysterious source of happiness. Bnt the great and true ideas were so well designated, in symbolic numbers, that a vase exactly similar to the preceding, but containing the character, mis- fortune, is the symbol of the earth, that is to say of matter, the source of the misfortunes of the spirit ; compare the vase containing all the evils of the world given by Jupiter to Pan- dora, in its myth, or above. Another vase represents also the 10th hour. So, one of the antique and complex forms of its number 2, which the syllable ami explains, interpreted in a manner rather too subtle, shows besides, a bivalve shell, natural symbol of purity, has also led here the ideas oi pearls and union, in fact Horace in the 3d Ode of Book I., says of Virgil his friend : Animce dimidium mece, which recalls the expression of popular Tuscan usage concerning friends, called — Due animm in un nocciolo (two souls in one kernel), and the biblical expression concerning spouses, of whom it is said, Erunt duo in came una. The idea of containing, of capacity (the union of two souls represented as two vases), is affixed to the number two, represented by ten bars upright or laid down, and has produced the Hebrew B, a letter express- ing among the Egyptians in its figurative representation, as has been seen, the idea of containing, of capacity ; but the Beth, showing also the image of the hands, and Caph, being translated by hands, a letter also signifying the idea of taking, containing, we are not to be astonished at the same signifi- cation annexed to the number two, and to the letters Beth and Caph, their analogues. The 5th hour also sets forth a vase, perhaps a clepsydra, of which it is a sort of abridgment, measures the time and the hours, the number 5 being par excellence the number of these, be- cause the clepsydras at the 5th hour, stop going and the sun, rising sufficiently above the horizon, commences to DR. STANISLAS PRATO. 151 measure the hoiirs upon the meridians or the dials ; ' further, the antique form of the 5 is that of an hour-glass, with rounded angles, which the ancient chemists, even in Europe, employed as a sign of the word hour in their prescriptions ; just as our chemists did at a very late period (see for this the ancient formulae). So, under this acceptation, the 5th hour is confounded with the sign of the letter H, of the Chaldean alphabet. One sees this sound, He, sounded in the word hour (heure) ; in the hezards of the Parsees, that is their hours, and the letter U, forming the number 5 of the ancient financiers, in place of the Eoman V, while, by a very natural change, the pronunciation Chin or Cin ^ (from whence the epithet of Chine, the empire of the middle) as the five is the middle one in the series of tens, indicates stars, planets, times, which is the name of the planet Mercury, to which epsilon responds among the vowels. We should not be aston- ished that the 5th hour should be represented by a vase, because the very sound given to this number 5 in the hiero- glyphic language, is that of the fJ or F of Latium (which presents exactly the form of an elongated vase, and the cipher 5 figuring among the Eomans, and in the antique forms of the Chinese 5, one finds ten U's joined back to back by their convex parts, or ten Vs put end to end, or even in the commercial figures, our 17 scarcely modified, which is also the figure 5 among the Arabs and Indians. Sound and figure are then found here, as the poet Hager has ' A vase, rounded and enclosed by a cover d) is also the symbol ot the 10th hour, in which the day ceases, or the clepsydras commence to be used, and to empty themselves, in such a way, that in putting this vase with hieroglyphics on its side, that is to say, sloping this vase — emptying it — one obtains the figures 1 — (the empty vase is the image of the zero put near unity in ten. Compare the ety- mology of zero, empty, nothing, empty circle, the oi&iv of the Greeks; the number 10, in its antique forms, and also among certain slave peoples, is marked as a black baU, traversed by a line, like the I of several Gothic manuscripts. 2 The name of China, or rather of Sin, as the Orientals write it (compare the word Sinus, of the Latins) designates the heart, the middle, the centre ; while the Chinese themselves call their country Chine, that is to say, the middle of the heart, the reason of which has been traced to the false idea of the Chinese that their country had been the centre of the inhabited earth. From these the symbol of Egypt in the Hieroglyphic writing (Hor. ApoU., Bk. 1, emb. xxii.) consisting of a heart, placed over a censer, and the idea, that this country was at the middle of the earth (Do., Bk. 1, emb. xxi.) According to De Guignes' Diction- aries, Nos. 293 and 5787, Chin, with the key of Chien, signifies monkey, cynoceph- alus (animal figured in the clepsydras, according to Horapollon) emblem of Mercury, of letters, of the hours. 152 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. already observed (explanation, p. xiv.) not only for unity, but also for the number 6, and in China, as well as among the ancient Eomans, and this ancient analogy between two peoples so distant the one from the other, as well as that which results from the sound Ohin or Oin, of the 5th hour ; that of the &, which was already used in place of the Roman V, demonstrates really a common centre and a continual fusion of the figures and the letters.^ Okin, as we have seen, is the name of a star in Upper Asia, classing the sun and the moon by themselves, for the Egyptians and the Chinese admitted, in fact, but five planets, of which the Heon, or week of five days, demi-decades, carrying names ; it was natural, then, that after the Indian fashion Veda should signify four, because the Indians only admitted four Vedas, one star, or rather one of five planets measuring the time, signified 5. Among the hieroglyphs the number 5 is found expressed by a figure analogous to the figure 8, or to that of a clepsydra, when it is drawn upright, but it is also made lying on its side (oo ) and then it represents, without doubt, that mystical knot (confer the strand or two-threaded cord indicating, in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, H, more or less aspirated,^ a long vowel, derived from the g, representing 5, as has been seen) which the Pythagoreans saw in the number 5 ; for the modern explanation, more or less subtle and false, which the Chinese have given in their figures, they say con- cerning the X of the number, that it is the number of the middle. (See the word Chin or Cin from which we have de- rived the epithet Chine, the empire of the middle, as the 5 is the middle of the tens) or of the Earth, and that it represents the Yu, or female principle, combining itself with the Yang, or male principle, between two lines, figures of heaven and the earth (Dictionnaire Tsen-Goey, at the number 0), and we find among the Pythagoreans the same ideas, since they made also of the number 5 (confer Histoire Critique de la ' The symbolic vase of ten can also be explained with the Roman ten, repre- sented by the capital X in printing, which presents to us two capital V's reversed (that is, two triangular vases, and united by their points, which form the middle of the figure X=X- One should also note that the 5 in its hieroglyphic figure is analogous to the figure 8, and thus presents two round vases joined together, con- forming the vase ideogram of 5, already noted. ' Dictionnaire Egyptologique d'HorapoUon, p. 367. DR. STANISLAS PRATO. 153 PhilosopMe) ^ the symbol of the fertile earthy the number of Juno, goddess of marriages, the symbolic sign of themselves also, being formed, as they said, of two, first, an even num- ber and female, and of three, odd number par excellence and male. "We do not repeat these absurdities, although resem- bling each other on two sides, except to prove the common origin of all these ideas of a degenerated philosophy, very far from attributing them to their creators, enlightened by hieroglyphic writing, but also to assemble these ideas of the Chinese, unreasonable but cosmogonic, of the number 5 (of which the vase is the ideographic expression, with the cos- mogonic myths and the legends already reported concerning the vase. Passing on to linguistics, we find the idea of the vase in metaphors, and the image of the soul regarded as a measure ; in fact, the Sanscrit ma,^ signifying to measure, and then to think, has given rise to the Sanscrit word manas, to the Greek iiivo^, to the Latin mens ; from the Sanscrit forms mas and madh, signifying also measure, are derived the Sanscrit mali, the Doric t^aru?, the Attic /tijr!?, the Gothic madhs,* and the German muth. From the same root ma are also derived matron, iisapov, metrum, metre * or measure, and masas, the moon, the star which measures the time (English moon, German mond ) and also fiijv, and mensis, mois, the measure of time, man (whence the Sanscrit words mann, manava, manushya, the Greek minos, the German munnus, name of the son of Tuisco, ancient parent of the Germanic people, and also the other German words mann, mensch, (high German, Mennisch) signifying all the men ; coming from the same root man, to measure, to think, from which one may see that this has been the most noble and perhaps the most superb name that man could have given to himself ; ' Deslandes, Histoire Critique de la Philosopliie, t. 2, pag. 77, and t. 40, of the MSmoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Desguignes, p. 174. 2 To this word is closely united the Latin mos, moris (whence the plural substan- tive of the French, moeurs, from mores, and the derivatives morale, morality, moralizer, measure, rule, precept. ^ To this word is united the Hibernic meadaighim., to measure, and the Latin meditari, that is, to measure things with the mind. • Confer the metaphorical signification in which V. Monti, in his poem La Ba- soitliana, c. 1, p. 55, takes the word metro, in Italian, saying Di vitroso fanciul seguendo il metro. 154 THE SYMBOL OF TEE VASE. that is to say, that of measurer, thinker, and by this Mann, Minos, Mannns, proper names must signify, the Measurer, the Thinker, or the sage par excellence. This is why Horace of Archite, the illustrious Pythagorean philosopher and geometrician, in the first book of his odes — ode 38 — has also said : Te maris et coeeli numeroque carentis arenas Mensorum cobibent But since the measure is also of capacity (the more evasive Italian capire, from the Latin capere, to take, to contain, passes on to be comprehended by the mind, to contain, or to be contained in it, whence the two other words, capare, capable, admit in seizing, in understanding, and capaciU, address in understanding, experience, etc. ), as the bushel, the measure, the litre, the sack, etc. Here is how the mind has been represented as a species of vase. The Greek ayyeiov, vase, indicates the body, and Cicero — Qusest. Tuscul. 1, 32 — upon the end of the word vase, in Latin, says also : Corpus quasi vas est aut aliquid animi receptaculum. Without doubt, to come now to study the idea of the vase by the means of specimens from writers, from the idea of the spirit — of the soul regarded as a measure of capacity — one may deduce the extreme suitability of the symbols which Dante and other writers have made use of ; the first, in fact in chapter II. of the Inferno — says of Saint Paul (called in the Bible vas electionis, Acts ix. 15) in v. 38 : "Andovvi poi lo vas d'elezione." — Go there ' after the vase of election. In Paradiso, 1. v. 13-15 : O good Apollo, for a final test. Make me,* by thy valor, such a vase. As you should wish to give the laurel loved by you I In the VII. Purgatory., v. 115-117. And if after him had remained king The young man, who sat behind him, Well had valor gone from vase to vase.' Inferno, ch. xxii. v. 81-82. Fbate Gomita. Bbotheb Gomita. Quel di Gallura, vasel d'ognl f roda. He of Qallura, vase ♦ full of all guile. > Here it is intended to say that St. Paul went to hell. ' Make me, that is to say, ray soul, which by this indicates the sensible, intelligi- ble and moral personality. • This means Peter III. of Aragon. ' That is to say, " From soul to soul, valor, or rather virtue, passes. DB. STANISLAS PEATO. 155 Nevertheless Dante has not only seen in the soul a vase, but also a purse, and even a basket, as is here seen : Inferno, ch. xi. v. 5^-4. Fraud, with which every conscience is dead. Never may use towards him who trusts in it And towards him whom confidence goes not, pocket.^ In/emo, ch. xxiv. v. 7-12. The young villain, who lacks in goods. Arises, and watches, and sees the fields, All whiter, whose breadth he heats, Beturns home, and mourns both Aere and there. How the unfortunate scarce know to do. Afterwards, he goes anew and replaces hope in the basket (i. e. recovers it), Seeing the world change ' its face Within an hour. We also find it in several other poets and Italian and foreign prose writers, of which the following is a specimen : F. Bekni, iSfme, 1, 12. I will fill you to the rim of the vase With intellect. L. Pdloi, Morgante Maggiore, xvii. 8. What say'st thou, Jan de Mayeuse, Who art vase of every science and virtue. P. Segnbri, Christiana istruito, 1, 22, 16. And now you will hasten like a vase of election all full of such floe hatred (towards sin), when you are a vase of rage, so full of wickedness that you over- flow from every side. The womb is called also vase, natural box, and so is the human body with reference to the soul which is lodged therein. Saint Gregory calls it little vase, or little mortal vase J small vase, for the body is found in G. B. Alberti, Trattato del governo della famiglia, 64 ; St. Paul, Epistle to the Thessalonians, i, 4; A. M. Salvini, Sacred prose, 306. ' I translate this vaee, and not little vase, because afterwards the poet saya of It, V, 89, Barattier fu non picciol, ma sovrano, which shows that the diminutive of the word is only in appearance, not in reality. * That is to say, does not receive in the soul as a purse. ' Recovers it in the basket ; here imagining the souL Q. B. Albkrti. Gkid does not will to place his treasures most precious in fragile vases, nor east pearls before filthy swine. f 156 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. Treatise on the Oovemment of the Family, niat each may know to possess himself his little vase in sanctification and honor, not in the pitssion of desire, like the heathen. Salvini, Sacred Prose, 306. These very holy bodies which were little vases for such great souls. St. Paul Epist. ad Tess. iv. 4. That each one should know how to possess his little vase in purity and honor. Mor. Saint Gregoire. So that he cannot presume in this mortal vase to investigate beyond what is agreed upon. Jeremiah — Propliesies, vi-viii. 11. Moab was fertile from his youth, and reposed in his bed, nor is changed from vase to vase. Purgatorio, xxv. v. 44-45. Wept. Upon the blood of others in a little natural vase. A. M. Cbcchi, Dote, iv., 5. If I had not this thing to give Frederick to think about, I had other than cries from him. In such fashion had Frederick blown into the box (that is, in the troubled soul, excited one against another). Horace, Epistles, 1-2, 69. The vase long preserves the perfumes of the fresh liquor with which it is filled.* Michel Aignan at Psalm 118, v. 9, with very laconic effi- ciency, says : Quod nova testa capit inveterata sapit. And St. Jerome, Epist. ad LcBtam: Recens testa din et saporem retinet, et odorem, quo primum imbntu est. From the above line of Horace, Pierre the Venerable, Epist. 34 — Hunc saporem, quocum ad hue testa rudis essem imbutus, et diu per gratiam Dei etiam hoc usque servavi. The Church oi the Virgin, in its Litanies, says : Vas spirituale, vas hoiiorabile, vas insigne devotionis. Vase d'ini- quiti, de misericorde, depurete, d'election, is said of the soul, according to its virtues and vices. Beloniho. Woman is a vase of election, in whom God has enclosed treasures of love and of faith. Mme. de SEVIGNil. I regard Mile, de Gignan as a vase of election. ' In fact the soul was compared to a vase of pottery, having as text the verse of Horace, to indicate that a sentiment once received into the spirit, was preserved there' eternally. BB. STANISLAS PBATO. 157 Nicole. " Our heart is a vase which may corrupt all it receives." Alfred de Musset. A pure man's heart is a deep vase, When the first water put in is impure. The sea might wash it without cleansing the stain. BouKDALouE, Annonciation de la Vierge, Myst. t. ii. p. 64. It is humility which renders us capable of possessing God, of being vases of election, fit to contain the gifts of God. Massilloh, Panegyric of Saint Bernard. " These were the first benedictions, by which heaven foretells our vase of elec- tion." J. B. BOUSSEAU. God can, with his holy light. Enlighten the eyes of the unjust, Bender holy a heart of sin, Transform the bush into the tall cedar. And make an elect vase from a rejected vase. Vase de colere is the soul of him upon whom presses the rage of God. Sacy Bible, St. Paul — Epistle to Eomans ix. 33, who can complain of God (compared to a potter) of wishing to show his anger and make known his power, he supports with a supreme patience the vases of anger, destined to perish, in order to show forth the riches of his glory over the vases of mercy which he has prepared for glory ? In Portuguese vaso terreno is the human body ; it is also said, vaso de iarro ; that is to say, vase of mud. Encher o vas das iniquidades. Fill the soul with vices. Camoens Od. 5, meu peito, he para tanto iem pegueno vaso. Idem — Os Lusiados viii., 65, Homo, vaso d'iniquicia. Idem — Ar corrupto, que n'este meu terreno vaso tinha, mes fez manjar de peixes em ti, bruto mar. Pdua-Paiva, Deus fez huns vasos de honra para mostrar sua bondade e mi misericordia ; e outros de ignominia para mostrar sua justi9a (Justos e peccadores). In Swedish, Udvalgt Redskab (vas electionis). In Hollandish, Uitrer- horen Vat (vase of purity). In Polish, Naczynie Czystosci ; Naczynie Wybrane (vase of election for a sainted spirit). In German, Ein gefass zu Ehren zu Unehren (vase of honor, of dishonor). Gefass des Zorns (vase of rage). We further find the vase represented in symbolic science very often, and always in relation with the soul ; it was com- ^ 158 THE SYMBOL OF THE VASE. pared to the pot of earth placed over the potter's wheel, while he attends with his hands to giving it the last perfection with the words Ductu perficior, the honest sonl, supple and polished with the sage precepts of others. See Jeremiah, Prophesies xviii. 3-4. "I descended into the house of a potter, and lo, he performed his work seated on his bench — and the vase which he was making from clay, which was in his hand, was spoiled, and he made of it yet another vase, as it seemed good to him to do. Saint Jerome — " I am fallen almost in another matter, and propelling the wheel, when I think to make a bottle, my hand turns out a flask ; which recalls the more pleasing and original image of Horace, Ars Poetica (of which this is an imitation rather unsuccessful), v. 21-22. Amphora ooepit You start an amphora, Institui, currente rota, cur urceus exit ? Why from the turning wheel does It become a cup f A little brass cup, enclosing delicate perfumes, with the words colore odor, indicated already the soul of Mary Mag- dalen, her warm charity and her precious spiritual odor, so St. Peter Gregory in his Homilies says of the same, Amando ^ortiter ardebat, et domus repleta est ex odore unguenti. The same Pope, in order to indicate the soul afflicted with misfortunes, but entirely exhaling an odor of pity and de- votion, says of the same, "Et ascendit fumus aromatum in conspectu domini." St. Cyril, the Alexandrian, writes of book X. of Genesis : " Ut optimum quoque thus, cum igni inhaeserit, turn odoris suis suavitatem emittit sic anima sancta cum laboribus, periculisque velut igne exanimata est, turn clariorem, perfectioremque suam virtutem cerbissime reddit. A full vase, overturned with its mouth downward, which goes on dropping out its liquors little by little, serves to indi- cate a spirit which does not know how to find expressions suitable to render others the necessary thanks, with the words, ex copia inops. Justus Lipsius Centur. sing ad Germ. " Ut in angusto canali aut tubo, ubi aqua aquam trudit, sis- titur, nee invenit egressum, itahoc ipso, quoad interdum multa simul dicere volumus, et debemus dicimus paula." DB. STANISLAS PRATO. 159 The souls of the justified, or of the saints, tormented and harassed, are sometimes symbolized under the image of vases of clay moistened in water, and afterwards hardened in the sun, with the sentence on them, Transivimus per aquam et ignem, so Abraham was removed from this " Chaldean life" (Gen. i. 5), that is to say, from the fire; and Moses (Ex. ii.) was drawn forth from the bosom of the water, and all the Jews passed both through the fire of the Egyptian furnaces and through the water of the Red Sea. Further, the souls of the just pass without scath through the surrounding flames of misfortunes, as well as through the refreshing waters of goodness. The name acquired through sin is indicated by broken vases, which allow the water to escape from them, with which they were filled, with the sentence "Quassatis diffluet." To a broken vase pouring out liquid with the words, "At odorem diu," was compared the soul of the martyrs, who shed their blood in a moment, but the odor of their merits nevertheless was preserved, lasting eternally ; the motto is read in the line cited from Horace — Epistles, Bk. 1, 2 — and recalls to mind the other verse of Peter the Venerable. As the vase, when it is full, looks equally well, whether it is whole and sound, or broken and defective, so the soul of man, as soon as he has acquired honors, charges and dignities, shows forth its qualities, whence the Greek proverb : ^Ap^-^ avSpa Sdxvuai and the Latin, " Magistratus virum indicat," which recalls the sentence of Sophocles, in his tragedy An- tigone, 'Afi:^](avov de nairo? dvSpo? iyjxaSeiv (puyi^v re xai