MISCELLANEA.
Folk-lore Items from North Indian Notes and Queries, vol. iii.
Popular Religion.
244. Horoscope prepared by a Pandit for an English baby boy.
245. Gorakhpur. Worship of Nur Chandra Chaubah.—Story relating who he is and why he is worshipped. In marriage, the groom walks five times round his platform, having a corner of his garment joined with that of his mother. [Are there other traces of female kinship in this district?] Hogs and black goats offered to this saint.
246. Mirzapur. Shrines.—Offerings of he-goats, sweets, cakes, fowls, and cloth.
275. Life of St. Mangni Ram. (Not uninteresting to compare with European saints.)
276. Fairies and Local Deities in Kumaon and Garhwal.—Beautiful young women, who are fond of dancing and plucking sweet flowers from the hill-tops. They visit the earth to make merry; often fall in love. They have the evil eye, sometimes making women to be barren. They inspire girls with desire to dance wildly. (These girls are then believed to be the fairies themselves.) Offerings of goat, rice, etc., and female dress and ornaments, the last made in miniature for economy. They are thought to be ghosts.
Names of the local deities; "not mentioned in any Puranas or Tantras."
277. Hissar. Local Beliefs.—Various trees are worshipped.
278. (A localisation of the Dwarf Avatara of Vishnu.)
279. Kumaon Superstitions.—New clothes offered to a god before being worn. Fish are fed with little balls of flour, having the name of Ram written upon a piece of birch bark or paper. Fish are otherwise pure and holy, as being inhabitants of the water, but have no souls or conscience or knowledge of God. By putting the name of God in them they are given salvation, and this, of course, brings merit to the giver. [Readers of Æschylus will recall the phrase, (
Greek characters), "voiceless children of the undefiled", Persœ 579, which, taken in its connection, looks like an echo of the East. Undine and her kin have no souls.]
Charm against poison: red-hot iron bar.
Feast for the crows, who are the messengers of the god of Death.
