CURIOUS CUSTOMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20114, 27 November 1928, Page 6

CURIOUS CUSTOMS.

MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. A BLACK CAT'S TAIL. Many curious bpliefs and customs among civilised and other rnces were described in London recently by several speakers at the jubilee congress of the Folk Lore Society. . Mr. R. E. Enthoven, lecturing on tree worship in India, said the function of .two species of trees was to act as brides in the case of bachelors who decided to marry a widow. In tribes which did not allow marriage to a widow a youth had first to bo married to one of these trees. After the ceremony the treo was cut down and destroyed, leaving the youth frpe. Discussing some Cornish superstitions Miss B. C. Spooncr said that "charming" was still practised seriously by professional charmers. With some charmers it was magic and witchcraft ; with others it was the modern counterpart of faith healing. An instance of a charm for a stye on tho eyelid was quoted as follows:—"Stroke the eye from the nose out with the tail of a black cat, saying with a stroke to each line, 'I toke the queff that's under the 'ee, Oil, qualyway; Oh, qualyway.' " Miss Mona Douglas said there was a belief in Manx folk-lore that the cats of the Isle of Man had. a king of their own. "Cats are believed to be on intimate terms with the fairies and with all the inhabitants of the invisible world," she said. She understood that there was an old law to tho effect that any Manxman might kill a Scotsman if he went to Scotland and brought back two goats to keep away the Scotsman's ghost Miss W. Blaekmati described the methods employed by tho women doctors and fortune tellers of the "llarley Street of Cairo," whose knowledge was handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Among the cures was ono for a headache obtained by tying a stone from the Holy Land upon the head and keeping it there for three days arid nights. Other stones were used for the curing of squints and for protection from infectious diseases and evil spirit*.