ii s. viii, OCT. n, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
291
once, on condition that he should render the
temple the service of ringing the bell during his
stay there at the same time the provost granting
as many days' vacation to the official bell-ringer.
Two nights thence went on eventless, the old man
striking the bell at regular hours ; but at about
10 o'clock in the following morning the official
bell-ringer went to the belfry and found the
octogenarian prostrate and dead. The news
soon spread to all members of the community,
and effected endless murmurs at the provost's
imprudence in having caused the temple to incur
such a trouble they bade the diocesan folks
to carry away the corpse, but no one would dare
perform it, for the then approaching local Shinto
festival made it a serious breach of the preparatory
taboo even slightly to touch so unclean an object.
Thus the corpse remained unmoved till about
two in the afternoon, when a convent belonging
to the temple was entered by two warriors, who
inquired of the clergymen in it whether there was
seen an octogenary mendicant wandering in its
vicinity. Upon being answered that actually
such a one was staying in the belfry till but a few
hours ago, when he was found suddenly lifeless,
they avowed it very probable that he was their
own father, who had recently lost his mind and
strayed out of home after becoming somehow
displeased with his wealthy family. They were
conducted by the provost into the belfry, identified
their dead parent, and bemoaned the loss quite
out of their heads, which induced the provost too
to wail. Then they went off, in order, as they said,
to make funeral preparations, whereupon the
provost returned to the convent and told over
all the heart-rending sight he had just witnessed
in the belfry, which in its turn moved some of
the ^ kindhearted listeners to tears. At about
8 o'clock in the night, some forty or fifty men
came nigh the belfry ; many of them were" under
arms, and their noise was extraordinary, making
all residents in the precincts not stir out of closed
doors. Only through the tumults and dins the
former made, the latter could know them to have
carried the corpse into a distant pine forest,
struck gongs and chanted the Buddha's name
[nembutsu] throughout the night, then cremated
it there and withdrawn just before the dawn.
For thirty days thereafter nobody went near the
belfry, deeming it unclean for that duration in
accordance with the then current taboo regula-
tion. As soon as the term of the taboo had
expired, the official bell-ringer went to sweep
through it, and discovered to his excessive dismay
that the huge bell had entirely gone. This report
put the whole chapter in great commotion ;
some of its members with many diocesan folks
went to explore the pine forest for it. There
they found some fragments of the bell scattered
among cinders of pine wood, which naturally
led them to conclude that the marauders had
carried away the bell after fracturing it with the
help of an intense fire produced over it with the
pines hewn down upon the spot. Indeed, those
three scoundrels had played each his own part so
adroitly the oldest one feigning death for so
many hours, and the other two acting as his
devotedly mourning sons that so many persons
were sympathetically impelled to weep for their
pretended loss. Thus the temple Koyadera lost
its bell, and thence for ever stands without any.
Moral : Better doubt all others than believe them
indiscreetly."
The following narrative is given in Ki-
kuoka Beizan's ' Shokoku Rijindan,' written
in the eighteenth century, torn. v. pt. x. :
" One day in olden times there arrived at the- convent Chdfukuji, province T6t6mi, a yama- bushi,* who professed to be utterly needy, and craved the principal's contribution towards his pil- grimage to Mount Oomine. The latter sarcastic- ally replied that there was at his disposal no fcanef save the huge bell in the belfry just fronting them, and he would fain contribute it to his purse only if he could take it away single-handed. The yamabushi was much pleased with the pro- posal. He pushed the bell but once with his stick, and instantly it fell down on the ground. He handled it without an ado, ran away with it as swiftly as a flying bird, and was soon entirely lost sight of. Some time after, the bell was found suspended upon a pine at the top of a very in- accessible steep on Mount Oomine, where it is to be seen in situ to this day, the locality ^ having received after it the name ' Kanekake ' [Bell- hanging]."
KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.
Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
PANTHERA (11 S. v. 91, 177 ; vii. 381 ; viii.
109). The name "father-in-law," or "rela-
tive," was applied by the Babylonians to a
species of bird, and may have been, as sug-
gested for Tra.vdr]p t of totemic origin. It occurs
in inscriptions of Gudea and Sargon, dating
from the twenty-eighth and eighth centuries
B.C. respectively. The latter describes the
emu tsi'hru i.e.. " little father-in-law "
( = Hebr. Tysn pn) as a water-bird, and
interpreters variously identify it with the
pelican, the swan, or the flamingo. See
Eberhard Schrader's ' Keilinschriftliche Bib-
liothek,' iii. 61. JNO. M.C.
DERIVED SENSES OF THE CARDINAL POINTS: " RIGHT " = SOUTH, "LEFT" = NORTH (11 S. vii. 270, 333, 482; viii. 51, 155, 216). In Irish they face the east in determining this use of the cardinal points. The south (deas) is then on the right hand (Idmh dheas}. Deas, O.I. des, dess, means " right " or " south." Cf. W. deheu, M. Bret. dehou, Corn, dyghow, Lat. dex-ter, Gr. c^fios, Skr. dakshina, Goth, taihsva, Lith. daszine, Slav, deslnu ("right"). On the left hand (Idmh ihuathal] is the north, tuaidh, O.I. tuath, t-uaith, from which comes the derivative tuathal, " left," on the left
- The Yamabushis are the members of the
mystic order named Shugendd, whose practice it is unceasingly to travel from one sacred mountain to another, there to observe their occult rites. Cf. J. Collin de Plancy, ' Dictionnaire infernal,' Bruxelles, 1845, p. 263, art. ' Jamambuxes.'
t This Japanese word has the two meanings "money "and "bell."
