atching a storm-driven ship. His form is
described as that of half man, half fish, a thing with green hair, long
_green teeth_, legs with scales on them, short arms like fins, a fish's
tail, and a huge red nose. He wore no clothes, and had a cocked hat
like a sugar-loaf, which was carried under the arm--never to be put on
the head unless for the purpose of diving into the sea. At such times he
caught all the souls of those drowned at sea and put them in cages made
like lobster pots.

The child's tale of the German fisherman and his wife tells the same
story--

"O Man of the Sea, come list unto me,
For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,
Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee."

Unless such past credulities as these be considered it would be most
difficult to account for many of the sayings of child-days, and the
archaic ideas that have drifted into our folk-lore tales. On all hands
it is admitted that it is no unusual thing to find a game or practice
outliving the serious performance of which it is an imitation. The
condition of a people who originally held such mystic and crude ideas is
seen to-day in types of aborigines and uncivilised races.

In Halmahero, a large island to the west of New Guinea, a wizard goes
through a ceremony somewhat similar to the Servian village maid's.
Cutting down branches, he dips them into the water and sprinkles the
parched ground.

In Ceram the outer barks of certain trees are cast on the surface of
running streams and rivulets and dedicated to the spirits that lie in
the waters, that after this offering they may arise from the depths of
the deep and clothe the earth with a cloud of mist.

THE CORN SPIRIT.

Another spirit, dreaded by all European peoples, was the Spirit of the
Corn. In Russia especially children of the rural class sing songs of a
very distant age, mother handing down to child themes unexposed to
foreign influence. It is true the Church has altered the application of
many by dressing up afresh pagan observances in Christian costumes.
There are several, but one of the songs of the Russian serf to his
prattling offspring illustrates this statement. Before reading it, it
should be borne in mind that Ovsen is the Teutonic _Sun God_ who
possessed a boar, and that the antiquity of the song belongs to a time
when the Russian peasant's forefathers worshipped the glories of the
heavens, deifying the Sun for his fire and lustre.

The translation of this poem