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THE USE OF A SKULL IN A RAIN-MAKING CEREMONY IN

CORSICA.

THE following note is translated from J. B. Marcaggi's Handbook to Corsica, entitled 'Ile de Corse, printed in Ajaccio, 1908. Cauro is a village among the hills, 380 metres above sea level, east of the Gulf of Ajaccio. The facts narrated were attested by M. François Peraldi, formerly mayor of Cauro, to Dr. Vico in a narrative communicated to the editors of the Guide-book.

F. C. CONYBEARE.

"The head of Sampiero (the Corsican patriot) was buried in the church of Cauro, on Feb. 18, 1569. The governor of Corsica, George Doria, wrote to the commissary of Ajaccio to remove the head and limbs of Sampiero, which were exposed on the ramparts of the citadel, and to bury them in the Cathedral, in case no relative or friend of Alphonso d'Ornano, his son, should claim them. The following were the curious circumstances under which his head disappeared. It was a traditional custom at Cauro to carry in procession in times of drought a dead man's head, and the child charged with the honourable task of carrying it had to throw it into the first brook he came to. About 1838 or 1840, the young François Peraldi and three of his little comrades, Leccia Ange, Pietri J.-M., and Padovani Charles, discovered in the church of Cauro and took possession of a wooden box, covered with blue paper, in which was a dead man's head, labelled San Piero. They lost no time and took care to make it figure in the procession which was to take place the next day, and they laid it in the little brook of Cauro Sottano. A heavy rain fell in the night, and Sampiero's head had disappeared next day, carried away, no doubt, by the torrent."

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE PEDLAR OF SWAFFHAM.

I have read in the June number of Folk-Lore the review by Mr. Andrew Lang of Mr. Gomme's recent book on Folklore as an Historical Science. While it displays many of the piquant and delightful characteristics of Mr. Lang's writing I hardly think it does justice to the keen critical power, the wide knowledge, and the fertility of suggestion displayed in the work. On one point, however, I am heartily in agreement with the reviewer, namely, his opening remark that "discussion clears matters up, and that criticism is really a form of collaboration." With this in mind I venture to offer a few observations on Mr. Gomme's treatment of the tale of the Pedlar of Swaffham. It is a mere detail, and if the conclusion I am about to controvert be rejected the general argument of the book will be in no way affected. The utmost that can then be said is that some other story would have formed a better illustration of the possibilities which a due consideration of the contents of tradition may evolve.

All the British variants of the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham represent the hero to have been directed by his dream to London Bridge as the place where he was to hear good news. London Bridge is also mentioned in other traditions, English and Welsh. Moreover, it appears in a Breton story not belonging to the Pedlar cycle, where the hero disputes with another man which was more beautiful, London Bridge or the grace of

award of the first person they meet loses them. Then he makes his way to London Bridge to see it for himself, and there hears something which finally obtains him the hand of an emperor's daughter. A story in the Heimskringla also mentions London Bridge. A cripple directed to St. Olaf's Church for healing meets on London Bridge a mysterious stranger who shews him the way to the church. Mr. Gomme claims that these traditions prove that London Bridge, first built by the Romans, had produced a profound impression on the minds of the natives of Britain prior to the emigration to Brittany, as well as on the minds of the raiding Norsemen centuries later.

Taking the Norsemen first, it will be observed that the mention of the bridge is merely incidental. To a man coming to London from France, as the tale represents, London Bridge would be the entrance to the city; and it is there (surely the most natural place) that he meets the stranger who conducts him to the church. All the other stories to which Mr. Gomme refers were recorded centuries later than this. The earliest recorded version of the Pedlar of Swaffham is by Sir William Dugdale in a letter to Sir Roger Twysden under date 29th Jan., 1652-3. The Welsh tales (which do not belong to the same cycle, though they do relate to buried treasure) were not recorded before the middle of the last century. The Breton story is later still.

Now with great submission I think this is rather a sandy foundation for Mr. Gomme's conclusion. It may be conceded that London Bridge had acquired a reputation as a remarkable work, and one of the wonders of the capital, in all sorts of out of the way places. But it is far too large an assumption that it must have been before the flight of the British emigrants at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasion to their new home in Brittany. There was plenty of time and plenty of opportunity for much later tidings of the wonder to travel to remote places and become fixed in the mind of the folk before any of the tales were recorded. I am not unmindful of the tenacity of tradition, nor do I forget that the date of the record is by no means the terminus a quo from which the date of the tradition

at least in which they have descended to us, all of them late. None of them, save perhaps the song "London Bridge is broken down," could have arisen in a condition of society where hostility and bloodshed were rife, and travel and commerce were unknown or uncommon and unsafe. In a sense it is true that, as Mr. Gomme points out, legends of buried treasure belong to the period of conquest and fighting. But in this form they point to a period when the conquest and fighting had long been done, when peace had been re-established in such prestige that people could safely trade and journey and if good luck attended them recover the treasure buried by others long ages before.

There are still further considerations. The tale of the Pedlar of Swaffham is common all over central Europe as far north as Denmark and as far south as Sicily. It even appears in the Arabian Nights, the Masnavi I Ma'navi and other Oriental compilations. The relations of these variants to one another and to the British variants have not yet been fully investigated. But it is quite clear that they all arose in much the same state of society; and it is important to note that nearly all the European variants mention a bridge-sometimes one bridge, sometimes another, according to the country where the tale is told-as the place where the good news is to be communicated or the treasure heard of. Before we can draw any certain inferences from the mention in the British tales of London Bridge, we must know why a bridge at all was selected as the scene. There is nothing of the sort in the Oriental versions, and the remarkable agreement of the European tales on this detail points to a common source for them all. If, when the tale came to England, probably-nay, certainly-long after the Anglo-Saxon settlement, a bridge had to be found as the scene, many reasons may be suggested for choosing London Bridge, without going back to the days of the Romans for its renown.

The Lambeth window cannot upon the evidence be connected with the story. It did indeed agree with the stone figure at Swaffham in representing a pedlar with his pack and dog. But so far as local tradition goes, it was intended simply to commemorate a benefaction to the parish by a pedlar called Dog

the seventeenth century. It seems, however, that a painting of a pedlar existed in the window long before his death, but whom or what it referred to there is nothing to show.1 No tale corresponding to that of the Pedlar of Swaffham has been recovered in the parish. The dog, it should be observed, though found in the representations both at Swaffham and at Lambeth, does not make his appearance in the story.

In view of these considerations I cannot think that Mr. Gomme is well advised in adducing the tale of the Pedlar of Swaffham as revealing anything of the stage of civilization of the native Britons when the Romans first built London Bridge, or of the impression made by the bridge upon their minds. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

OPENING WINDOWS FOR THE DEAD.

Apropos of the above subject, referred to in Folk-Lore, March, 1908, a comparatively recent occurrence of the practice is cited from the Times of 4th September, 1863, copied from the Bridgewater Mercury, by Mr. P. H. Chavasse in Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children, in connection with the necessity of ventilation in scarlatina. As the book may be out of print I give the extract.

"Gross Superstition.-In one of the streets of Taunton there resides a man and his wife who have the care of a child. This child was attacked with scarlatina, and to all appearance death was inevitable. A jury of matrons was, as it were, empanelled, and to prevent the child 'dying hard' all the doors in the house, all the drawers, all the boxes, all the cupboards were thrown wide open, the keys taken out, and the body of the child placed under a beam, whereby a sure, certain, and easy passage into eternity could be secured. Watchers held their vigils throughout the weary night, and in the morning the child, to the surprise of all, did not die, and is now gradually recovering."

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