popular idols. Byroba the Terrible, and other remnants of Fetish or of Snake-worship, everywhere divide the homage of the lower castes with the recognised Hindoo divinities, while outside almost every village the circle of large stones sacred to Vetal, the demon-god of the outcast helot races, which reminds the traveller of the Druid circles of the northern nations, has for ages held, and still holds, its ground against all Brahminical innovations.
Some of these local or tribal divinities, when their worshippers are very numerous or powerful, have been adopted into the Hindoo Olympus as incarnations or manifestations of this or that orthodox divinity, and one or two have been provided with elaborate written legends connecting them with known Puranic characters or events; but, in general, the true history of the local deity, if it survives at all, is to be found only in popular tradition; and it thus becomes a matter of ethnological and historical importance to secure all such fleeting remnants of ancient superstition before they are forgotten as civilisation advances.
Some information of this kind is to be gleaned from the present series of legends, though, the object of the collector being rather amusement than antiquarian research, any light which is thrown on the popular superstitions of the country is only incidental.
Of the superhuman personages who appear in them the 'Rakshas' is the most prominent. This being has many features in common with the Demoniacal Ogre of other lands. The giant bulk and terrible teeth of his usual form are the universal attributes of his congener. His habit of feasting on dead bodies will remind the reader of the Arabian Ghoul, while the simplicity and stupidity which qualify the supernatural powers of the Rakshas, and usually enable the quick-witted mortal to gain the victory over him, will recall many humorous passages in which giants figure in our own Norse and Teutonic legends.
The English reader must bear in mind that in India beings of this or of a very similar nature are not mere traditions of the past, but that they form an important part of the existing practical belief of the lower orders. Grown men will sometimes refuse every inducement to pass at night near the supposed haunt of a Rakshas, and I have heard the cries of a belated traveller calling for help attributed to a Rakshas luring his prey. Nor is darkness always an element in this superstition: I have known a bold and experienced tracker of game solemnly assert that figures which he had been for some time keenly scanning on the bare summit of a
