fairies, the goblins, and the elves. Equally so has the
spirit of former beliefs been handed down to us in the song of the
nurse, and in the practices of rural people.

A modernised lullaby of a Polish mother bears traces in the last stanza
of a quasi-native worship--

"Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high,
Proclaimers of His power and might,
May all things evil from us fly;
O stars, good-night, good-night!"

Other instances of nature worshippers are amusing as well as being
instructive. The Ojebway Indians believe in the mortality of the sun,
for when an eclipse takes place the whole tribe, in the hope of
rekindling the obscured light, keep up a continual discharge of
fire-tipped arrows from their bows until they perceive again his majesty
of light. Amongst the New Caledonians the wizard, if the season continue
to be wet and cloudy, ascends the highest accessible peak on a
mountain-range and fires a peculiar sacrifice, invoking his ancestors,
and exclaiming--

"Sun, this I do that you may be burning hot,
And eat up all the black clouds of the sky,"

reminding one of the puerile cry of the weather-bound nursery child--

"Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day."

Wind-making among primitive people was universally adopted; even at a
late period the cultured Greeks and Romans believed in a mythical wind
god.

It was the custom of the wind clan of the Omahas to flap their overalls
to start a breeze, while a sorcerer of New Britain desirous of appeasing
the wind god throws burnt lime into the air, and towards the point of
the compass he wishes to make a prosperous journey, chanting meanwhile a
song. Finnish wizards made a pretence of selling wind to land-bound
sailors. A Norwegian witch once boasted of sinking a vessel by opening a
wind-bag she possessed. Homer speaks of Ulysses receiving the winds as a
present from AEolus, the King of Winds, in a leather bag.

In the highlands of Ethiopia no storm-driven wind ever sweeps down
without being stabbed at by a native to wound the evil spirit riding on
the blast. In some parts of Austria a heavy gale is propitiated by the
act and speech of a peasant who, as the demon wings his flight in the
raging storm, opens the window and casts a handful of meal or chaff to
the enraged sprite as a peace offering, at the same time shouting--

"There, that's for you; stop, stop!"

A pretty romance is known in Bulgarian folk-lore. The w