CHAPTER XII.

_RIVER WRAITHS._

The River of Death—Indian water-furies easily propitiated—Continental water-deities demand human sacrifices—Peg O’Nell—Peg Powler—Blood-thirsty Dee—The saying about St. John the Baptist—Victims demanded by the German rivers on Midsummer Day—Lord of the Wells—In the Australian theory of disease and death none more prominent than the water-spirit—A Macedonian ballad of a Haunted Well—Maleficent deities responsible for floods—Various modes of pacifying the furies—The Nizam’s offering to the Musi—Floods caused by offence given to patron saints of water—The sea-spirits more powerful but less exacting that the river-wraiths—The _Narali Purnima_ or Cocoanut Day 84-91