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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1896.
will have Candlemas (that is a show of lights) to grace the grave."98 At several Christian tombs in western Europe, the lamp gave a perpetual light.84 Within the tomb of the magician, Michael Scott, burns a wondrous light to chase the spirits that love the night.99
No Hindu, Musalmîn or Roman Catholic temple or shrine is without its light. In Babylon, in Rome, in Jerusalem, and in Egypt, during the performance ofreligions rites, candles were burned.90 Russian churches are full of lighted tapers and candles, 100 The Christians of Western Europe, in the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, burned candles and lamps before their sacred images and pictures, "the visible light being a symbol of the gift of the divine light." Lights and incense were also burned before the elements, the life-giving cross, the holy gospels, and the other sacred ornaments. The St. Petersburg Russian peasant of the present day, having for the good of his body invested five farthings in his hot bath, for the benefit of his soul invests a like sum for a taper to be set before the shrine of some favourite saint. The Tangusians, near lake Baikal in Siberia, burn wax tapers before their gods ; in the Molucca islands, wax tapers are used in the worship of the Nito; in Ceylon, wax candles are burned before Buddha. "The earliest known form of Venus or Aphrodite is in Paphos, & ball in a pyramid surrounded by burning torches. Among the Greeks a sudden or unusual splendour was lucky; darkness was unlucky. The rites to the gods of the under-world were performed at night. As in the Catholic Church the water of Baptism is parified by dipping a candle into the font, so it was with the classic Greeks. The holy water at the entrance to the Greek temple, which was sprinkled to purify all who came in, was consecrated by putting into it a burning torch from the altar. The torch was used because light purifies all. So a priest parified the newly launched Greek ship with a lighted torch, an egg, and brimstone. In Middle-Age Europe, magicians and heretics were burnt alive in order that the fire might scare the devil that possessed them.10 This remedy was at one with popular witchcraft cures. In a 1603 witch trial, an old woman stated she had burned alive one hen because a witch had possessed all her hens, and in the same trial, a farmer stated he had burned a pig alive, and thereby scared the witch's familiar.11 In much more recent times, in Cornwall, the father of an overlooked, that is, of a bewitched child, went to the witch's house, tied the witch down, piled furze in front of the door, fired it, and passed the witch-possessed child over the furze flames.12 Before their sacred images, the Chinese keep burning candles and joss sticks.18 As has been noticed, Hindus scare the dreaded yôginís, or twilight hags, by waving flaming camphor in front of their yods. If a Hindu goes out in the dark he repeats charms, touches his amulets, and carries a fire brand to keep off evil spirits.14 If a Scottish Highlander has to pass through a church yard he will carry a live coal. 15 In Ireland, a live coal keeps fairies and other evils away at night.16 In North Scotland (1800), a live coal is dipped into the water in which a newhorn child is washed. 17
The Hindu belief, that the waving of lights cures sickness and that flaming camphor is specially helpful in driving evil spirits out of the possessed, finds a parallel in the Christian girl, who (A. D. 587) expelled a sickness by holding in front of her a burning candle, and in a man, who, recovering from an agne, held lighted candles in his hands all night long 19 Similarly, oil from a lamp burning in a Church at Ravenna cured the eyes of two believers.19 In Germany, fire was struck out of a flint on erysipelas. And the cattle were 96 Poems, Vol. II. p. 323, Ed. 1869.
97 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 997. » Sharpe's Witchcraft in Scotland, p. 27. 99 Middleton's Conformity between Popery and Paganism, xxi. Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 139. 100 An English woman in Russia, p. 198.
Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 997. ? Op. cit. pp. 612, 613, 819.
3 St. James's Budget, 9th December 1888, p. 10. • Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 283. 5 Ency. Brit, aphrodite.
Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 394. 1 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 207.
Op. cit. Vol. I. pp. 260, 261. Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 132. 10 See Sharpe's Witchcraft in Scotland, p. 20. 11 Op. cit. p. 211. 12 Black's Folk-Medicine, p. 69.
13 Moncare Conway's Demonology and DovitLore, Vol. I. p. 74. 14 Lenormant's Chaldean Magic, p. 39.
18 Cumming's In the Hebrides, p. 227. 16 FolkLore Record, Vol. IV. p. 117.
17 Gregor's An Echo of the Olden Time, p. 90. 18 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 997. 19 Op. cit. p. 817.
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