The Folk-Lore Journal/Volume 5/Notes and Queries (December)
NOTES AND QUERIES.
Couvade.—In turning over the leaves of the English translation of Peter Bayle's Dictionary, vol. v. 1738, I have found some notices of this custom (pp. 346-347), which, as far as I remember, have not been noticed by folk-lorists. As the book is a common one, and the passages are wordy, no advantage, as I think, would be gained by a reprint, but it will be well to put their existence on record. If they be reproduced, the French original, which I have not at hand, should be used.
An Agricultural Folk-tale.—The following is from the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xl. p. 19: it is a popular tradition of the Bábar tribe. "Once on a time they entered into an agricultural partnership with the devil, and gave him his choice of the roots or stalks of the harvest. The devil chose the stalks, upon which the Bábars sowed nothing but onions, carrots, and turnips. The devil, very naturally annoyed, insisted next harvest on getting the roots, so the Bábars grew wheat and sugar." This story is also commonly related in Saxony and Silesia. The peasants made the same contract with Rübezahl the spirit of the Sudetic Range. In fact he got his name from the contract, for Rübezahl means "turnip counter." He came to count his turnips and found that the peasants had sown rye.
Iron Smelting Superstition.—"The union of a man and a woman is always considered absolutely necessary for the operation, the general belief being that the iron ore would not melt unless the fire beneath be blown with a pair of bellows, worked by a man with his younger brother's wife passing her arms round his waist from behind." Banka in Bhágalpúr, India. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xl., p. 29.
The Folk-Lore of Ceylon Birds.—A correspondent of the Ceylon Observer of Colombo, referring to the interest excited by Mr. Swainson's work on The Folk-Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds, notes some points in the folk-lore of the birds of Ceylon, mostly obtained from natives. The devil-bird (Syrnium indrani) stands facile princeps for his evil reputation; his cry heard in the neighbourhood of villages is a sure harbinger of death, and the superstitious natives are thrown into great consternation by its demoniac screech. The legend about the bird is as follows:—A jealous and morose husband doubting the fidelity of his wife killed her infant son during her absence, and had it cooked, and on her return set it before her. She unwittingly partook of it, but soon discovered that it was the body of her child by a finger which she found in the dish. In a frenzy she fled to the forest, and was transformed into a ulania, or devil-bird, whose appalling screams represent the agonized cries of the bereaved mother when she left her husband's house.
The hooting of owls in the neighbourhood of houses is believed to bring misfortune on the inmates. The magpie robin, though one of the finest of the song-birds of Ceylon, is similarly tabooed; it has a harsh grating screech towards evening, which is considered ominous. The quack of the pond heron flying over a house is a sign of the death of one of the inmates, or of a death in the neighbourhood. If the green pigeon (Nila kohocya) should happen to fly through a house, as it frequently does on account of its rapid and headlong flight, a calamity is impending over that house. Similarly with the crow. But sparrows are believed to bring luck, and are encouraged to build in the neighbourhood of houses, and are daily fed. The fly-catcher bird of Paradise is called "cotton-thief," because in ancient times it was a freebooter, and plundered the cloth-merchants. As a penalty for its sin it was transformed into a bird and doomed to carry a white cotton attached to its tail. The red wattle lapwing, the alarm bird of sportsmen, has the following legend connected with it:—It is said to represent a woman who committed suicide on finding herself robbed of all her money, amounting to thirty silver pieces, by her son-in-law. The cry of the bird is likened to her lament: "Give the silver, give the silver, my thirty pieces of silver." Its call is heard at all hours, and the stillness of night is broken with startling abruptness by its shrill cry. Another story about it is that when lying in its nest in a paddy field, or a dry spot in a marsh, it lies on its back with its legs in the air, being in continual fear that the heavens will fall and crush its offspring.
The story current about the blue-black swallow-tailed fly-catcher (kawudu pannikkia) and its mortal enemy, the crow, is that the former, like Prometheus of old, brought down fire from heaven for the benefit of man. The crow, jealous of the honour, dipped its wings in water and shook the drippings over the flame, quenching it. Since that time there has been deadly enmity between the birds. The Indian ground thrush (Pitta coronata) is said to have once possessed the peacock's plumes, but one day when bathing the peacock stole its dress; ever since the Pitta has gone about the jungle crying out for its lost garments. According to another legend, the bird was formerly a prince who was deeply in love with a beautiful princess. His father sent him to travel for some years, and on his return the princess was dead. He still wanders disconsolately about calling her name. It is also said that the peacock, being a bird of sober plumage, borrowed the brilliant coat of the Pitta to attend a wedding, and did not return it. The disconsolate Pitta wanders through the jungle calling on the peacock to restore its dress—hence the cry, ayittam, ayittam (my dress, my dress). The cry of the hornbill (Kandetta) is inauspicious and a suie sign of drought. The bird is doomed to suffer intolerable thirst; not being able to drink from any stream or rill, it has the power only to catch the rain-drops in its bill to quench its thirst, and keeps continually crying for rain.
The Witch's Ladder (ante, pp. 1, 81, 257).—The following letters appeared in the Guardian of September 21 and 28:—
Sir—I was greatly amused, as, doubtless, were many of your readers, at the incident which occurred at the close of Dr. Tylor's learned paper read before the British Association on a so-called "witch's ladder" found at Wellington, Somerset, and was forcibly reminded of more than one similar ludicrous scene in English fiction. Two members rose and said that the "witch's ladder" was no "witch's ladder" at all, but a rope used for driving deer. The description given of the "ladder," as a rope in which feathers were fixed at right angles, reminded me of a passage in Virgil which would seem to confirm the view of the two sceptics:—
"Inclusum veluti si quando flumine nactus
Cervum aut puniceâ septum formidine pennae
Venator cursu canis et latratibus instat."—Aen. xii. 749-51.
The "formido" is explained by Connington as "the name of the cord with red feathers which the hunters stretched along the openings of the woods to drive the game into the net." It is again referred to in the Georgics, ii. 372, and in Seneca, De Irâ, ii. 12, " Cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta contineat et in insidias agat ab ipso effectu dicta formido."
The fact that Wellington is at no great distance from the staghunting district of Exmoor seems to point in the same direction. On the other hand, Somersetshire is, I am afraid, one of the most superstitious counties in England.
St. John's Training College, Battersea, September 15, 1887.
Sir—I have but just seen your paragraph and the Rev. Evan Daniel's letter on this subject in the Guardian of September 14 and 21. Permit me to say that I was quite aware of the use of cords with feathers for scaring birds, &c., but that such cords did not seem to me to resemble closely the rope which I showed at Manchester. Those used by fowlers, of which drawings may be seen in old books on sport, are long feathered strings stretched horizontally like clothes-line. Those referred to by Virgil in the passage cited by Mr. Daniel (is puniceâ a printer's error?) appear from other passages in the dictionaries to have been of this sort. The rope exhibited by me was evidently not for use in this way. What was new in the discussion was the statement that "sewels" of feathered cord, made to be carried in the hand for turning back deer, are still used in England; of these I hope soon to get some specimens, in order to ascertain how far they are like my rope. It has to be remembered that (as I pointed out at the meeting) the neighbours probably had something to go upon when they talked about the "witch's ladder" and the "new rope with new feathers," and thought that both it and the brooms it was found hidden with had to do with witchcraft. Their notion is strengthened by the fact that in another part of the same county the name of "witch's ladder" is given to a little straw ladder with feathers along it, which is made for purposes of sorcery, while it appears also that in Florence "a long twisted cord .... stuck full of feathers put in crosswise "may be hidden in a child's bed to bewitch it. At any rate, these objects cannot be instruments for scaring deer.
September 23, 1887.
Professor Tylor writes to us as follows:—You will have had my telegram that there was no paper. All I did was on the spur of the moment to exhibit the rope and feathers, and give the details about it which are already in the Folk-Lore Journal. You will have seen by the Guardian and other papers that two present claimed the object as a "sewel" or scare carried to turn back deer in the forests or parks. I said I knew that strings and feathers were used for scaring game, but did not take them to be the same as the rope and feathers, but I had not heard of the hand-ropes used for deer-scaring, and must get a specimen to see. After this came the correspondence in the Guardian. I don't see the use of my saying more, until I can see the sewels from Hampton Court or elsewhere. My Guardian letter puts the case fairly, but now I remember I brought out a piece of evidence at Manchester which is not in the Folk-Lore Journal. It is that an acquaintance of mine, quite a discreet man, made inquiry of an old woman in Devonshire who is considered to know aboht such things. She said " Was it a new rope with stag's feathers?" He replied that it was, and she said "Then it must be a wishing rope." This is all I can tell you up to date.
N.B.— A stag is a cock-bird, as a gander or cock of poultry.