Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/383

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COORG FOLKLORE.
295

time have become a proverb used when any one finds himself, through something he has done, the object of inquiry and comment." [Congleton is in Cheshire; Leek, about ten miles distant, in Staffordshire. It is obvious that Thorley's remark, and his want of participation in the general excitement, were what drew suspicion on him and caused the saying to be remembered.]

Like Bott's cocks, all of a breed=all alike.
Once nowt, twice summat=a first offence counts for nothing. "Akin to the German 'Einmal, keinmal.'" [This seems like a forgotten beginning, or first half, of the common proverb "The third time pays for all."]
To throw one over the bridge="to give up entirely, to utterly forsake one."
You can't get more from a cat than its skin="you can't get out of a creditor more than he has got."

COORG FOLKLORE.

[Collected from Richter's Manual of Coorg, Mangalore, 1870.]

AFTER a successful hunt for a tiger the natives form a procession and carry the carcass with the band of tom-toms to the mandu or village green. The heroes of the day are the man who shot the beast and he who first touched its tail, a feat which used to be rewarded by the Rajah with the present of a silver bangle. The carcass is then raised on a wooden frame, and, according to time-honoured fashion, the lucky sportsman is to be wedded to the departed soul of the tiger, and may henceforth wear the honourable gala-mishi or grand mustachio in Rajah's fashion. The wedding ceremony is thus described. Under a screen, on a wedding chair, his face towards the carcass, sits the hero of the day, clothed in warrior costume and covered with flowers,