Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/233

tion to Evils and the Foretelling of Evils.—The following rules were given to Mr. Dahle by his native "professor":

1. Sunday was the proper day for everything white: white-haired people, white stones, etc.

2. Monday: the day for everything green and blackish: grass, forests, greenish birds, people with blackish skin, etc.

3. Tuesday: the day of people who have many scars, and are marked from small-pox.

4. Wednesday: the day of women and everything female.

5. Thursday: the day of slaves.

6. Friday: the day of nobles and everything red (red or scarlet clothes, etc.), characteristic of the higher nobility.

7. Saturday: the day of young people and everything young.

So if a man suffering from some evil came to a diviner on a Sunday, he would be told that his complaint had been caused by some white stone; or by drinking milk, in which there were some ghosts; or that he had been bewitched by some white-haired woman; or, at any rate, that he was in danger of some such mishap, and had better look out carefully. If he came on Thursday, his trouble was almost sure to be attributed to some slave, or he was warned to beware of his slaves, lest they should murder or bewitch him. And so on, for the other days, according to the nature of the day.

4. Foretelling of the Tàsik’ àndro, i.e., the day on which one may be in special danger of getting ill through the influence of the vìntana.—This division of the san-àndro was a peculiar compound of vìntana and sikìdy subjected to certain rules, by which, beginning with Tuesday, different columns in the sikìdy point to the different days of the week; e.g., if a combination of the two columns Tràno and Làlana in the sikìdy erected gives a figure which is like