1

'

noise. Thus Aubrey tells us : " At Paris, when it begins to thunder and lighten, they do presently ring out the great bell at the Abbey of St. Germain, which they do believe makes it cease. When it thundered and lightened they did ring St. Adelm's bell in Malmesbury Abbey. The curious do say that the ringing of bells exceedingly disturbs spirits." Hence one plan of driving away the hail is to take out an iron griddle-plate and beat it with a bamboo. Here the use of iron, a well-known demon scarer, increases the efficacy of the rite. It is also an improvement if this be done by a virgin, and in some places it is considered sufficient if when the hail falls an unmarried girl is sent out with an iron plate in her hand. Possibly following out the same train of ideas, the Kharwârs of Mirzapur, when hail falls, throw into the courtyard the wooden peg of the corn-mill, which, as we shall see, is considered possessed of certain magical powers.

In Muzaffarnagar, when hail begins they pray at once to two noted demons, Ismâîl Jogi and Nonâ Chamârin, and ring a bell in a Saiva temple to scare the demon.

Another method is to put pressure on the hail demon by the pretence of sheer physical pain. Thus in Multân it is believed that if you can catch a hailstone in the air before it reaches the ground and cut it in two with a pair of scissors the hail will abate. Not long ago a lady at Namî Tâl, when a hailstorm came on, saw her gardener rush into the kitchen and bring out the cook's chopper, with which he began to make strokes on the ground where the hail was falling. It appeared on inquiry that he believed that the hail would dread being cut and cease to fall. In Kumaun, where hail is much dreaded, there are many devices of the same kind. Some put an axe in the open air with the edge turned up, so that the hailstones may be cut in pieces and cease falling. Another plan is to spit at the hail as it falls, or to sprinkle the hailstones with blood drawn from some famous magician, a rite which can hardly be anything but a survival of human sacrifice. A third device is to call an enchanter and make

1 Brand,

"Observations," 431. 2 "Archæological Reports," v. 136. 3 "North Indian Notes and Queries," i. 13.

him blow a conch-shell in the direction of the hail.

Others put a churn in the open air when the rain is falling, in the belief that when the hailstones touch it they will become as soft as butter. Others, again, when hail falls, send out a wizard or one possessed by some deity and make him beat the hailstones with a shoe.1

There are, again, certain persons specially in charge of the hail. Thus, "at the town of Cleonæ in Argolis there were watchmen maintained at the public expense to look out for hailstorms. When they saw a hail-cloud approaching they made a signal, whereupon the farmers turned out and sacrificed lambs and fowls. They believed that when the clouds had tasted the blood they would turn aside and go somewhere else. If any man was too poor to afford a lamb or a fowl, he pricked his finger with a sharp instrument and offered his own blood to the clouds; and the hail, we are told, turned aside from his fields as readily as from those where it had been propitiated with the blood of victims.": In the same way the duty of charming away the hail is, in Kumaun, entrusted to a certain class of Brâhmans known as Woli or Oliya (ola, "hail"). Their method is to take a dry gourd, which they fill with pebbles, grains of Urad pulse, mustard, goat-dung and seeds of cotton. This is then tied by a triple cord to the highest tree on a mountain overhanging the village. Until the crops are cut the Oliya goes to this place every day and mutters his incantations. If the crops are reaped without disaster of any kind he is liberally remunerated.3

As has been already said, whirlwinds are the work of demons. The witches in Macbeth meet in thunder, lightning and rain, they can loose and bind the winds and cause vessels to be tempest-tossed at sea. The same principle was laid down by Pythagoras; and Herodotus describes the people of Psylli marching in a body to fight the south wind

4

5

1 "North Indian Notes and Queries," iii. 135.

2 "Folk-lore," i. 162.

3 "North Indian Notes and Queries," iii. 106.
4 "Folk-lore," i. 149.

5 Ibid., iv. 173.

which had dried up their water-tanks. In Ireland it is believed that a whirlwind denotes that a devil is dancing with a witch; or that the fairies are rushing by, intent on carrying off some victim to fairyland. The only help is to fling clay at the passing wind, and the fairies will be compelled to drop the mortal child or the beautiful young girl they have abducted.' A gentleman at Listowel not long ago was much astonished when a cloud of dust was being blown along a road to see an old woman rush to the side and drag handfuls of grass out of the fence, which she threw in great haste into the cloud of dust. He inquired and learned that this was in order to give something to the fairies which were flying along in the dust. So in Italy, Spolviero is the wind spirit which flies along in the dust eddies."

In the Panjâb Pheru3 is the deity of the petty whirlwinds which blow when the little dust-clouds rise in the hot weather. He was a Brâhman, and a long story is told of him, how he worshipped Sakhi Sarwar, was made Governor of Imânâbâd by Akbar, but he abandoned the saint and returned to his caste, whereupon he was afflicted with leprosy. When he repented he was cured by eating some magical earth and believed in the saint till he died. His shrine is at Miyânkê, in the Lahore District, and when a Panjâbi sees a whirlwind he calls out, Bhai Pheru, teri kâr-" May Bhâi Pheru protect us!" Another whirlwind demon, the saint Rahma, was once neglected at the wheat harvest, and he raised a whirlwind which blew for nine days in succession, and wrought such damage in the threshingfloors that since then his shrine receives the appropriate offerings. On the same principle whirlwinds are called in Bombay Bagâlya or devils.*

Among the Mirzapur Korwas, when a dust-storm comes, the women thrust the house broom, which, as we shall see, is a demon scarer, into the thatch, so that it may not be

1 Lady Wilde, "Legends," 128; "Folk-lore," i. 149, 153; iv. 351.

2 Leland, "Etruscan Roman Remains," 79.

3 Temple, "Legends of the Panjâb," ii. 104 sqq.; iii. 301.

4 "North Indian Notes and Queries," i. 39; Forbes, "Oriental Memoirs," i. 205.

VOL I.

G

blown away. The Pankas in the same way make their women hold the thatch and throw the rice mortar and the flour-mill pivot into the courtyard. The wind is ashamed of being defeated by the power of women and ceases to blow.

AEROLITES.

All over the world people say that if when a meteor or falling star darts across the sky they can utter a wish before it disappears, that wish will be granted. The old Norsemen believed that it implied that a dragon was flashing through the air. In Italy' the sight of such a body is a cure for blear eyes. In India it is believed that the residence of a soul in heaven is proportionate to the charities done by him on earth, and when his allotted period is over he falls as an aerolite. A falling star means that the soul of some great man is passing through the air, and when people see one of these stars they thrust their five fingers into their mouths to prevent their own souls from joining his company. Many of these aerolites are worshipped as lingams in Saiva shrines. One which fell at Sîtâmarhi in Bengal in 1880, has now been deified, and is worshipped as Adbhût-nâtha, or "the miraculous god." "

2

1 Leland, loc. cit., 272.

2 66

Archæological Reports,” xvi. 32.

CHAPTER II.

THE HEROIC AND VILLAGE GODLINGS.

Arma procul currusque virum miratur inanes.
Stant terrâ defixæ hastæ, passimque soluti
Per campum pascuntur equi.

Eneid, vi. 652-654.

THE HEROIC GODLINGS.

NEXT to these deities which have been classed as the godlings of nature, come those which have a special local worship of their own. The number of these godlings is immense, and their functions and attributes so varied, that it is extremely difficult to classify them on any intelligible principle. Some of them are pure village godlings, of whom the last Census has unearthed an enormous number all through Northern India. Some of them, like Hanumân or Bhîmsen, are survivals in a somewhat debased form of the second-rate deities or heroes of the older mythology. Some have risen to the rank, or are gradually being elevated to the status, of national deities. Some are in all probability the local gods of the degraded races, whom we may tentatively assume to be autochthonous. Many of these have almost certainly been absorbed into Brâhmanism at a comparatively recent period. Some are in process of elevation to the orthodox pantheon. But it will require a much more detailed analysis of the national faith than the existing materials permit, before it will be possible to make a final classification of this mob of deities on anything approaching a definite principle.

The deities of the heroic class are as a rule benignant, and