Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/19

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Page 80. Add to note * But Joscphus in Ant. Jud. XVIII, 3, tells it of a Roman knight named Mundus, who fell in love with Paulina the wife of Saturninus, and by corrupting the priestess of Isis was enabled to pass himself off as Anubis. On tho matter coming to the ears of Tiberius, ho had the temple of Isia destroyed, and the priests crucified. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, Vol. II, p. 27. Liebrecht's German translation, p. 232). A similar story is told by the Pseudo-Callisthenes of Nectaneboa and Olympias.

Page 86. Add to note f See also " The king of Spain and his queen " in Thorpe's Yule-tide Stories, pp. 452 455. Thorpe remarks that the tale agrees in substance with the ballad of the " Graf Von Rom" in Uhland, II, 784 ; and with the Flemish story of " Ritter Alexander aus Metz und Seine Frau Florentina." In the 21st of Bandello's novels the test is a mirror (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 287). See also pp. 85 and 86 of Liebrecht's Dunlop, with the notes at the end of the volume.

Page 98, line 3, for " he went and begged the hermit to give him to her in marriage" read " he went and begged the hermit to give her to him in marriage."

Page 98. Add to note * Bernhard Schmidt in his Griechische Marchen, page 37, mentions a very similar story, which he connects with that of Admetos and Alkestis. In a popular ballad of Trebisond, a young man named Jannis, the only son of hia parents, is about to be married, when Charon comes to fetch him. He supplicates St. George, who obtains for him the concession, that his life may be spared, in case his father will give him half the period of life still remaining to him. His father refuses, and in the same way his mother. At last his betrothed gives him half her allotted period of life, and the marriage takes place. The story of Ruru is found in the Adiparva of the Mahabharata, see Leveque, Mythes et Legendes de 1' Inde, pp. 278, and 374.

Page 99. Add to note. See also Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 45. " The vicar of Stranton was standing at the churchyard gate, awaiting the arrival of a funeral party, when to his astonishment the whole group, who had arrived within a few yards of him, suddenly wheeled and made the circuit of the churchyard wall, thus traversing its west, north, and east boundaries, and making the distance some five or six times greater than was necessary. The vicar, astonished at this proceeding, asked the sexton the reason of so extraordinary a movement. The reply was as follows : ' Why, ye wad no hae them carry the dead again the sun ; the dead maun aye go with the sun.' This custom is no doubt an ancient British or Celtic custom, and corresponds to the Highland usage of making the deazil or walking three times round a person according to the course of the sun. Old Highlanders will still make the deazil around those to whom they wish well. To go round tho person in the opposite direction, or " withershins," is an evil incantation and brings ill- fortune. Hunt in his Romances and Drolls of the West of England, p. 418, says, "If an invalid goes out for the first time, and makes a circuit, the circuit must be with the sun, if against the sun, there will be a relapse. Liebrecht, zur Volks- kundo, p. 322, quotes from the Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. V, p. 88 tho following statement of a Scottish minister, with reference to a marriage ceremony : " After leaving the church, the whole company walk round it, keeping the church walls always on the right hand."

Thiselton Dyer, in his English Folk-lore, p. 171, mentions a similar custom as existing in the West of England. In Devonshire blackhead or pinsoles are cured by creeping on one's hands and knees under or through a bramble three times with the sun ; that is from cast to west. See also Ralston's Songs of the Russian people, p. 299.