infested by Bhûts. To begin with, they naturally infest the neighbourhood of burial places and cremation grounds. This idea is found all over the world. Virgil says:

Moerim, saepe animas imis excire sepulcris,
Atque satas alio vidi traducere messes;

and Shakespeare in the "Midsummer Night's Dream,”

Now it is the time of night
That graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth its sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.

DESERTS.

All deserts, also, are a resort of Bhûts, as the great desert of Lop, where Marco Polo assures us they are constantly seen at night. In the Western Panjâb deserts, during the prairie fires and in the dead of night, the lonely herdsmen used to hear cries arising from the ground, and shouts of Mår! Mâr! "Strike! Strike!" which were ascribed to the spirits of men who had been killed in former frontier raids. Such supernatural sounds were heard by the early settlers within the last fifty years, and, until quite recently, the people were afraid to travel without forming large parties for fear of encountering the supernatural enemies who frequented these uninhabited tracts. So, among the Mirzapur jungle tribes, the wild forests of Sarguja are supposed to be infested with Bhûts, and if any one goes there rashly he is attacked through their influence with diarrhoea and vomiting. The site of the present British Residency at Kathmându in Nepâl was specially selected by the Nepâlese as it was a barren patch, supposed to be the abode of demons. So, in Scotland, the local spirit lives in a patch of untilled ground, known as the "Gudeman's field" or "Cloutie's Croft." 2

66

1 "Sirsa Settlement Report," 32.

2 Wright, "History," 15; Yule, "Marco Polo," i. 203; Spencer, 'Principles of Sociology," i. 249 sq.; Henderson, "Folk-lore of the Northern Counties," 278.

OWLS AND BATS.

The goblins of the churchyard type very often take the form of owls and bats, which haunt the abodes of the dead. "Screech owls are held unlucky in our days," says Aubrey.' Sedit in adverso nocturnus culmine bubo, Funereosque graves edidit ore sonos.

The Strix, or screech owl, in Roman folk-lore was supposed to suck the blood of young children. Another form of the word in Latin is Striga, meaning a hag or witch. The Lilith of the Jews, the " night monster" of our latest version of the Old Testament, becomes in the Rabbinical stories Adam's first wife," the Queen of demons" and murderess of young children, who is the "night hag" of Milton."

The Kumaun owl legend is that they had originally no plumes of their own, and were forced to borrow those of their neighbours, who pursue them if they find them abroad at daylight. Owl's flesh is a powerful love philter, and the eating of it causes a man to become a fool and to lose his memory; hence, women give it to their husbands, that as a result of the mental weakness which it produces they may be able to carry on their flirtations with impunity. On the other hand, the owl is the type of wisdom, and eating the eyeballs of an owl gives the power of seeing in the dark, an excellent example of sympathetic magic. If you put an owl in a room, go in naked, shut the door and feed the bird with meat all night, you acquire magical powers. I once had a native clerk who was supposed to have gone through this ordeal, and was much feared accordingly. Here we have another instance of the nudity charm. In the same way in Gujarât, if a man takes seven cotton threads, goes to a place where an owl is hooting, strips naked, ties a knot at each hoot, and fastens the thread round the right arm of a fever patient, the fever goes away.

"Remaines," 109 sq.; Spencer, loc. cit., i. 329; Farrer, "Primitive Manners," 24, 225 sq.

2 Isaiah xxxiv. 14; Mayhew, "Academy," June 14th, 1884; Conway, "Demonology," ii. 91 sqq.; Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," ii. 202. 3 Campbell," Notes," 59.

GHOSTS AND BURIAL GROUnds.

To return to the connection of ghosts with burial grounds. At Bishesar in the Hills, the Hindu dead from Almora are burnt. The spirits of the departed are supposed to lurk there and are occasionally seen. Sometimes, under the guidance of their leader Bholanâth, whom we have mentioned already, they come, some in palanquins and some on foot, at night, to the Almora Bâzâr and visit the merchants' shops. Death is supposed to follow soon on a meeting with their processions. These ghosts are supposed to be deficient in some of their members. One has no head, another no feet, and so on; but they can all talk and dance.'

2

MUTILATION.

This illustrates another principle about ghosts, that mutilation during life is avoided, as being likely to turn the spirit into a malignant ghost after death. This is the reason that many savages keep the cuttings of their hair and nails, not only to put them out of the way of witches, who might work evil charms by their means, but also that the body when it rises at the Last Day may not be deficient in any part. This also explains the strong feeling among Hindus against decapitation as a form of execution, and the dread which Musalmâns exhibit towards cremation. It also, in all probability, explains the lame demons, which abound all the world over, like Hephaistos, Wayland Smith, the Persian Æshma, the Asmodeus of the book of Tobit, and the Clubfooted Devil of Christianity. The prejudice against amputation, based on this idea, is one of the many difficulties which meet our surgeons in India.

GHOSTS OF OLD RUINS.

Another place where ghosts, as might have been expected,

1 "Journal Asiatic Society Bengal," 1848, p. 609; Benjamin, "Persia," 192; Tylor, "Primitive Culture," i. 451.

2 Frazer, "Golden Bough," i. 204; Tylor, loc. cit., ii. 230; "Early History," 358; Cox, "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," ii. 327; Conway, "Demonology," i. 18.

resort is in old ruins. Many old buildings are, as we have seen, attributed to the agency of demons, and in any case interference with them is resented by the Deus loci who occupies them. This explains the number of old ruined houses which one sees in an Indian town, and with which no one cares to meddle, as they are occupied by the spirits of their former owners. The same idea extends to the large bricks of the ancient buildings which are occasionally disinterred. Dr. Buchanan describes how on one occasion no one would assist him in digging out an ancient stone image. The people told him that a man who had made an attempt to do so some time before had met with sudden death.' The landlord of the village stated that he would gladly use the bricks from these ruins, but that he was afraid of the consequences. So, in Bombay, interference with the bricks of an ancient dam brought Guinea worm and dysentery into a village, and some labourers were cut off who meddled with some ancient tombs at Ahmadnagar. General Cunningham, in one of his Reports, describes how on one occasion, when carrying on some excavations, his elephant escaped, and was recovered with difficulty; the people unanimously attributed the disaster to the vengeance of the local ghosts, who resented his proceedings. The people who live in the neighbourhood of the old city of Sahet Mahet are, for the same reason, very unwilling to meddle with its ruins, or even to enter it at night. When Mr. Benett was there, a storm which occurred was generally believed to be a token of the displeasure of the spirits at his intrusion on their domains. The tomb of Shaikh Mîna Shâh at Lucknow was demolished during the Mutiny, and the workmen suffered so much trouble from the wrath of the saint, that when the disturbances were over they collected and rebuilt it at their own expense.

The same theory exists in other countries. Thus, in the Isle of Man, "a good Manx scholar told me how a relative of his had carted the earth from an old burial ground on his 1 "Eastern India," i. 414. 2 "Bombay Gazetteer," xii. 13; xvii. 703.

3 "Oudh Gazetteer," iii. 286.

farm and used it as manure for his fields, and how his beasts died afterwards. It is possible for a similar reason that a house in ruins is seldom pulled down and the materials used for other buildings; where that has been done misfortunes have ensued."1

In the Konkan it is believed that all treasures buried underground, all the mines of gold, silver, and precious stones, all old caves and all ruined fortresses, are guarded by underground spirits in the shape of a hairy serpent or frog. These spirits never leave their places, and they attack and injure only those persons who come to remove the things which they are guarding. In short, these places are like the Sith Bhruaith mounds in Scotland, which were respected, and it was deemed unlawful and dangerous to cut wood, dig earth there, or otherwise disturb them. In the same way the sites of ancient villages which abound in Northern India are more or less respected. They were abandoned on account of the ravages of war, famine, or pestilence, and are guarded by the spirits of the original owners, these calamities being self-evident proofs of the malignity and displeasure of the local deities.

MINE AND CAVE SPIRITS.

We have already mentioned incidentally the mine spirits. It is not difficult to see why the spirits of mine and cave should be malignant and resent trespass on their territories, because by the nature of the case they are directly in communication with the under-world. In the folk-tales of Somadeva we have more than one reference to a cave which leads to Pâtâla, "the rifted rock whose entrance leads to hell." Others are the entrance to fairy palaces, where dwell the Asura maidens beneath the earth. Of a mine at Patna, Dr. Buchanan writes: "A stone-cutter who was in my service was going into one of the shafts to break a specimen, when the guide, a Muhammadan trader, acquainted

1 66 Folk-lore," iii. 83.

3

2 Campbell, "Notes," 150 sq. Tawney, "Katha Sarit Sâgara," i. 446, 558; ii. 197.