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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1895.
drank. 11 The Norsemen sprinkled their sacred vessels and all people present with the victim's blood.13 As lato as the eleventh century the Swedes used to bring a horse, cut it in pieces, and redden the sacred tree with its blood.13 In Iceland, worshippers were sprinkled with blood. At the great nine-year festival at Upsala, in Sweden, the worshippers, the sacred groves, the gods, altars, benches and walls of the temples inside and outside were sprinkled with the blood of the human victim.16
In Austria, the blood of a criminal is a common cure for the falling sickness. Colonel J. H. White, Mint Master, Bombay, remembers (1884) that about the year 1825, when he was living on the Rhine, he one day went with a comrade to see a guillotine execution at Mayence, and, koowing the officer in command, got a place close to the platform. As the criminal's head rolled off, a man dashed from the crowd, jumped on the platform, and eagerly drank the blood as it gashed out. In Germany it is believed that, if a were-wolf, or man-wolf, is made to bleed, the spell is broken.16
The iron clasps of the wizard's book would not yield to up-Christianed bands, till he smeared the cover with the Borderer's cardled gore.17 The reason the clasp of Scott's book opened after smearing it with blood was that the guardian fiend was driven off. The book could not be opened without danger on account of the malignant fiends which were thereby invoked.18 Draw blood from a witch, and her enchantment fails. A patient's blood throws back the spell on the witch.20 A spell is broken if you draw blood from the person who made the spell,21 "Blood and fire" (the two great spirit-scarers) is the motto on the Salvationist banner : the banner of the religious ideas of the English and American lower orders - salvation, that is, spirit-scaring, being the object. In Scotland, the epileptic is made to drink his own blood.23
Bread. - Hinda women, to ward off the effect of the Evil Eye, wave bread and water round the faces of their children. When a Marathả chief returns bome, a female servant comes forward with's pot of water and some bread. She waves them three times round the face of the chief, and then throws them away. One of the devaks, or wedding guardians, of the Dek ban Mhårs is a piece of bread tied to a post in the marriage porch.2 Among the Khandesh Mbârs, on the bridegroom approaching the bride's house, a piece of bread is waved round his head and thrown away. The Jews placed show-bread on the table outside of the veil, close to the candlestick with seven lights.27 In Germany, bread and salt protect against magic, and so witches abstain from bread and salt. The Roman Catholic Bishop, after Confirmation, wipes tis hands with bread crumbs. Bread and wine are still the Sacrament in all Christian churches. In North England the bread and wine of the Sacrament are believed to cure bodily sickness. This is because sickness is still believed to be due to spirit-possession of the body, as sin is due to spirit-possession of the mind. In Scotland a cake was broken over the bride's head. 31 In England, in 1657, it was believed that a crust of bread carried in the pocket at night kept off spirits.39 In South Scotland, when the bride retarns to her house from the church, a cake of short bread is thrown over her head and scrambled for. Formerly cakes used to be thrown to be scrambled for on Palm Sunday, 4 and Good Friday cross buns were held sovran against diarrhoan.36
1 Grimm's Tondo, Myth, Vol. I. p. 55. 1 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 100. 11 Scott's Lay, Vol. III. p. 9. 19 Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 15. 1 Hendersop's Folk-Lore, p. 181.
Mitchell'i Highland Superstitions, p. 25. Prom MB, potee.
Grimm'. Touto. Myth. Vol. III. p. 1103. # Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 145.
Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 310. # Chamber's Book of Days, Vol. I. p. 396.
13 Op. cit. VoL I p. 55. Op. cit. Vol. I p. 48. * Op. cit. p. 113.
* Henderson's Polk-Lore, p. 189. - Note 2 C. to The Lay of the Last Kindral.
Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 30. * From MS. Notes. * Information from Mr. Govind Pandit. * Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XIL p. 117. Exodus, XXV. 30, 31. * Golden Manual, p. 690. 31 Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 95.
Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 36. * Op. cit. p. 418.
