Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/341

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CORRESPONDENCE.




The Rev. Dr. Gaster writes as follows respecting Mr. Paton's communication in Folk-lore, iv, No. 3, p. 275:

"The question of superstitions in the Canons has been very ably and almost exhaustively treated by C. P. Caspari, in his edition of Pseudo-Augustin's Homilia de Sacrilegiis (Christiania, 1886), and more especially in the notes accompanying the text. Caspari refers to the various Acts of Councils and to ancient Indices of Superstitions, drawn up by various bishops, and to sermons against idolatrous customs. The Nomocanones are comparatively modern digests of these ancient Acts of Councils and decisions of Basil the Great, etc.

"I have reproduced two chapters on 'Charms and Vampires' from the Roumanian {Slavo-Greek) Nomocanon, published 1645, in my Chrestomnathie Roumaine, i, pp. 116-117.

"A large collection of such beliefs and customs is to be found in Del Rio's well-known Disquisitionum Magicarum libri vi, lib. III. referring constantly to the Acts of Councils as the ultimate source for their condemnation."


CLOTHED IMAGES.

To the Editor of Folk-lore.

Sir,—May I ask your reader's attention to an interesting branch of primitive ritual on which I am anxious to elicit facts.

The custom of the offering of a garment to an image may be taken as typified in the presentation of the peplos to