Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I.

to touch

Aricia and th

of the exact relationship in which they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and their crops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness or old age, for in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous consequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would sweep away man

the Gold

each candidate for the Arician priesthood to pluck it before he

s forbidden to touch the

ed on to the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the ground.5 It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.6 Within his palace the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.7 In old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried on a throne of gold from place to place.8 Formerly neither the kings of Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of the spacious enclosures in which they lived. Whenever they went forth they were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turn to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer's neck with a leg over each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer's arms. When one of these royal carriers grew tired he shot the king on to the shoulders of a second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground. In this way they went at a great pace and travelled long distances in a day, when the king was on a journey. The bearers had a special hut in the king's enclosure in order to be at h

occasions forbidden to touch

ccordingly in Loango they are not allowed to touch the earth.15 Among the Iluvans of Malabar the bridegroom on his wedding-day is bathed by seven young men and then carried or walks on planks from the bathing-place to the marriage booth; he may not touch the ground with his feet.16 With the Dyaks of Landak and Tajan, two districts of Dutch Borneo, it is a custom that for a certain time after marriage neither bride nor bridegroom may tread on the earth.17 Warriors, again, on the war-path are surrounded, so to say, by an atmosphere of taboo; hence some Indians of North America might not sit on the bare ground the whole time they were out on a warlike expedition.18 In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to many taboos; one of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with his foot. Accordingly, when he alights from his elephant, the others spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon.19 German wiseacres recommended that when witches were led to the block or the stake, they should not be allowed to touch the bare earth, and a reason suggested for the rule was that if they t

harged with a mysterious virtue like a fluid, which w

man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid. Hence in order to preserve the charge from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from touching the ground; in electrical language he must be insulated, if he is not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he, as a vial, is filled to the brim.

sterious quality of holiness or taboo; and when so ch

aterial objects, empty husks from which the good grain has been eliminated. Thus, for example, the most sacred object of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia is, or rather used to be, a pole about twenty feet high, which is completely smeared with human blood, crowned with an imitation of a human head, and set up on the gr

ild mango tree in

to touch their bodies: they are forbidden to eat boiled food and the fruit of mango trees: they may drink only the milk of a young coco-nut which has been baked, and they may eat certain fruits and vegetables, such as paw-paws (Carica papaya) and sugar-cane, but only on condition that they have been baked. All refuse of their food is kept in baskets in their sleeping-house and may not be removed from it till the festival is over. At the time when the men begin to observe these rules of abstinence, some six to ten women, members of the same clan as the master of the ceremonies, enter on a like period of mortification, avoiding the company of the other

ee not allowed to

re being taken to prevent it from coming into contact with the ground. But when it is brought into the village, the houses are connected with the top of the mango by means of long vines decorated with the streamers. In the afternoon the fasting men and women begin to dance, the men bedizened with gay feathers, armlets, streamers, and anklets, the women flaunting in parti-coloured petticoats and sprigs of croton leaves, which wave from their waistbands as they dance. The dancing stops at sundown, and when the full moon rises over the shoulder of the eastern hill (for the date of the festival seems to be determined with reference to the time

tion of the wi

refuse of their food which has been collected for months, and all the fallen leaves and chips of the mango in their bundles of mats. These holy relics are carried in front and the mango tree itself brings up the rear of the procession. While these sacred objects are being handed out of the house, the men who are present rush up, wipe off the hallowed dust which has accumulated on them, and smear it over their own bodies, no doubt in order to steep themselves in their blessed influence. Thus the tree is carried as before to the centre of the temporary village, care being again taken not to let it touch the ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from a basket a number of young green mangoes, cuts them in pieces, and places them with his own hands in the mouths of his fellow

tly intended to ferti

f the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the fragments to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer or shorter interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally by the supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a representative of mangoes generally, that the danc

ious sorts not allowed

rican Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan was wrapt up from sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered to come in contact with the earth.25 The Cherokees and kindred Indian tribes of the United States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks, which they regularly took with them to war. Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box, which contained "certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each." The leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it against the enemy. Where stones were plentiful they rested the ark on them; but where no stones were to be found, they deposited it on short logs. "The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for the very same reason." After their return home t

t allowed to to

utterly lost. His desecration of the bird was regarded as a sin for which there was no atonement."30 The Roumanians of Transylvania believe that "every fresh-baked loaf of wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece inadvertently fall to the ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped and kissed, and if soiled, thrown into the fire-partly as an offering to the dead, and partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread upon any particle of it."31 At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo the food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground; hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of thin poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common house.32 When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired

es thought to lose their virtu

o oil and preserve them. Should the hair begin to grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages of time; among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted from crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very efficacious, but during its application the woman's feet may not come into contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be lost.36 Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrench

eggs or Sn

laudius for wearing one of these amulets.39 Under the name of Snake Stones (glain neidr) or Adder Stones the beads are still known in those parts of our own country where the Celtic population has lingered, with its immemorial superstitions, down to the present or recent times; and the old story of the origin of the beads from the slaver of serpents was believed by the modern peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland as by the Druids of ancient Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the serpents united to fashion the beads was commonly said to be at or about Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was usually thought to be spring, especially the Eve of May Day, and even within recent years persons in the Principality have affirmed that they witnessed the great vernal congress of the snakes and saw the magic stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh peasants believe the beads to possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and to be particularly efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and Ireland the beads sometime

ater, are not allowe

ffected by certain hocus-pocus with a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the lamb, instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by hand as it dropped from its dam.46 In Andjra, a district of Morocco, the people attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen on the twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect it and use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house: sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye: mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings with the mixture round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on Midsummer Day, you may depend on it that the trees will bear an excellent crop and will not shed their fruit untimely on the ground. But in order to preserve these remarkable properties it is absolutely essential t

t to se

s not allowed

hey were not to see the sun, for if they should happen to see it they forfeited their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed; and those who were their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and scourged them severely."52 Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of Bogota, who was not the son but the sister's son of the king, had to undergo a rigorous training from his infancy: he lived in complete retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman: he was surrounded by guards who observed his conduct and noted all his actions: if he broke a single one of the r

to see the sun; certain per

ine upon their heads.59 During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun's rays would turn them black.60 On Yule Night it has been customary in parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year. As a preparation for this pilgrimage, "some secrete themselves for three days previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out altogether from the light of heaven. Others retire at an early

of Prince

stle on the further bank. She was loth to part with him every night long before the sun was up, and as he turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties to linger, she hit upon the device of cutting the throats of all the cocks in the neighbourhood. So the prince, whose e

te

e Magic Art and the Evo

ondon, 1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations c

1903), p. 108; J. de Acosta, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, bk. vii. chap. 22, vol. ii. p

y, London, 1850), pp. 14, 141; B. Varenius, Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam (Cambridge, 1673), p. 11; Caron, "Account of

ion (London, 1832-1836), iii. 102 sq.; Captain James Wilson, Miss

an, Der Mensch in der Geschic

urn) Athenaeus,

iages and Travels of John S

L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), p. 445 note: "Before horses had been introduced into Uganda the king and his mother never walked, but always went about perched astride the shoulders of a slave-a

day et T.A. Joyce, Les Busho

Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking

Julius Eggeling, Part iii. (Oxford, 1894) pp. 81, 91,

ieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borne

onary Krick, in Annales de la Propaga

, "Indiscretes aus Loango," Zeitschri

ston, Ethnographic Notes in Sout

erecht der Dajaks van Landak en Tajan," Bijdragen tot de Taal-L

; Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (London, 1830), p. 123. As to

nne Aymonier, Notes sur le

tritgelte Rockenphilosophie,5

Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 364, 370 sqq

M.D., The Melanesians of British New

and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 60 sq., 64. As t

The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and

the Rocky Mountains (London, 1823), ii. 47; Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Sociolo

ir, History of the American Ind

Henry Babington Smith, in

F. Gordon Cumming, In the Heb

u Comté d'Aberdeen," Revue des Traditions populaires, iii. (1888)

myth, Aborigines of Victoria (Mel

The Land beyond the Forest (Edi

rikt Dusson Timor in Südost-Borneo und seine

tic Expedition made by Charles F. Hall, edited by

See Taboo and Perils o

er utters appropriate curses, is common among the tribes of Central Australia; but amongst them there seems to be no objection to place the bone or stick on the ground; on the contrary, an Arunta wizard inserts the bone or stick in th

Hugh Low, Sarawak (Lon

) Pliny, Naturalis H

stone arrowheads and axeheads (celts), commonly known as "thunderbolts," in the British Islands, see W.W. Skeat, "Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts," Folkl

) Pliny, Naturalis H

p. 84-88; Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), pp. 170 sq.; J.C. Davies, Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76. Compare W.W. Skeat, "Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts," Folk-lore, xxiii. (1912) pp. 45 sqq. The superstition is described as follows by Edward Lhwyd in a letter quoted by W. Borlase (op. cit. p. 142): "In most parts of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a common opinion of the vulgar, that about Midsummer-Eve (though in the time they do not all agree) it is usual for snakes to meet in compan

iny, Naturalis Historia

.. lectione scrutatus sum, sed etiam ab agrestibus et plebeis remedia fortuita atque simplicia, quae experimentis probaverant didici." As to Marcellus and his work, see Jacob Grimm,

rn) Marcellus, De

turn) Marcellus,

arcellus, op. cit. xxvi

urn) Marcellus, o

vi. (1905) pp. 32 sq.; id., Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certai

vi. (1905) p. 35 id., Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain D

s, Deliciae Prussicae, herausgegeben vo

ondon, 1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations ci

17; Caron, "Account of Japan," ibid. vii. 613; B. Varenius, Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam (Ca

y of the vast Continent and Islands of America, tra

cien Cundinamarca (Paris, N.D.), p. 56; Theodor Waitz, A

30, in H. Ternaux-Compans's Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux, pour servir à l'Histoire de la Découvertede

Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru

ng the sunlight from falling on sacred persons or things. See W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 110 note 12. At an Athenian festival called Scira the priestess of Athena, the priest of Poseidon, and the

ishop, Korea and her Neighbo

aangaande de bewoners der N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea," Tijdsc

ian, Die V?lker des ?stlichen

uages of Costa Rica," Proceedings of the American Philosophical

loyd, Peasant Life in Swed

e Races of the Pacific States, i. 553. See

ey, Le Mont Olympe et l'Acarn