reflection on the water.”[1] Here, doubtless, we have the origin of the classical story of Narcissus, who languished away in consequence of seeing his own fair image in the water.[2]
During a thunderstorm it was a Greek custom to put out the fire, and hiss and cheep with the lips. The reason for the custom was explained by the Pythagoreans to be, that by acting thus you frightened the spirits in Tartarus,[3] who were doubtless supposed to make the thunder and lightning. Similarly, some of the Australian blacks, who attribute thunder to the agency of demons, and are much afraid of it, believe that they can dispel it “by chanting some particular words and breathing hard”;[4] and it is a German superstition that the danger from a thunderstorm can be averted by putting out the fire.[5] During a thunderstorm, the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula run out of their houses and brandish their weapons to drive away the demons;[6] and the Esthonians in Russia fasten scythes, edge upward, over the door, that the demons, fleeing from the thundering god, may cut their feet if they try to seek shelter in the house. Sometimes the Esthonians, for a similar purpose, take all the edged tools in the house and throw them out into the yard. It is said that, when the storm is over, spots of blood are often found on the scythes and knives, showing that the demons have been wounded by them.[7] So, when
- ↑ R. H. Codrington, “Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia,” Journal Anthrop. Instit., x, 313. This explanation of the Narcissus legend was communicated by me in a note to the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xvi, 334.
- ↑ Ovid, Metam., iii, 341 seq.
- ↑ Aristotle, Analyt. Poster., ii, p. 94b, 33 seq., Berlin ed.; Scholiast on Aristophanes, Wasps, 626; Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii, 25.
- ↑ Collins, Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, p. 485; Angas, Savage Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, ii, 232.
- ↑ Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube², § 449.
- ↑ Journal of the Indian Archipelago, iii, 430.
- ↑ Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, p. 110.
