Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/98

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76
Correspondence.

Irish Funeral Custom.

Recently in the county Cork a gentleman died. The coffin was about to be removed for interment in a distant graveyard; and before the friends left, the son of the deceased asked the old family housekeeper to have the death-chamber cleared out that day, so that on his return the mournful associations might be absent. She replied that it was contrary to rule that the room of the dead man should be touched until the mourners returned after the funeral.

Does this imply that the spirit was in the neighbourhood of the scene of death until the funeral rites were concluded?




The Ten Wazirs.

Being engaged at the present moment on the preparation of an edition and translation of the Uigur text of the Bakhtiyar-namah, in the introduction to which a full treatment of the story of The Ten Wazirs will be attempted (special attention being paid to the Malay versions), I should be much obliged to any one engaged in the same work for communicating with me as soon as possible.

4, Walton Well Road, Oxford.