CHAPTER XII.

RIVER WRAITHS.

The worst of all ill-omened streams in India is the dread _Vaitaranî_, the river of death, which is localized in Orissa and which pours its stream of ordure and blood on the confines of the realm of Yama.[43] Ill fares the man who in that dread hour lacks the aid of a priest and the holy cow to help him to the other shore. But the Indian water furies are easily propitiated. Goats, or fish, or fowl, or even flowers and cocoanuts are enough to appease them. Thus the Tapti and the Sutlej receive goats, whereas the Jata Rohini, the Deo infesting the Karsa, a river in Mirzapur, is pleased with a fish caught by the Buiga and presented to him. Many of the continental water deities, however, must needs have human sacrifices, just as the African river spirit Prah, who must have every year in October two human sacrifices, one male and one female. Thus in England the River Tees, the Skerne, and the Ribble have each a sprite, who, in popular belief, demands human victims. The Ribble’s sprite is known by the name of Peg O’Nell, and a spring in the grounds of Waddow bears her name and is graced by a stone image, now headless, which, according to Sir Laurence Gomme,[44] is said to represent her. A tradition connects the Peg O’Nell with an ill-used servant at Waddow Hall, who, in revenge for her mistress’s successful malediction in causing her death, was inexorable in demanding every seven years a life to be quenched in the waters of the Ribble. “Peg’s night” was the closing night of the septenniate, and when it came round, unless a bird, a cat, or a dog was drowned in the stream, some human being was certain to fall a victim there.

The sprite of the Tees is called Peg Powler, a sort of Lorelei, says Henderson in his _Folklore of Northern Counties_, with green tresses and an insatiable desire for human life. Children were warned from playing on the banks of this river by threats that Peg Powler would drag them into the water.

A horrid Kelpie or water-horse is said to infest the Yore, near Middleham. Every evening he rises from the stream and ramps along the meadows searching for prey, and it is believed that the Kelpie claims at least one human victim annually.

The River Spey must also have at least one victim yearly, while

Blood-thirsty Dee Each year needs three.

Another curious belief concerning the Dee may also be noted. In his _Itinerary through Wales_ Giraldus Cambrensis states that the inhabitants of places near Chester assert that the waters of the river change their fords every month and that as it inclines more towards England or Wales they can with certainty prognosticate which nation will be successful or unfortunate during the year.

The saying runs that “St. John the Baptist must have a runner, must have a swimmer, must have a climber.” As if this were not enough, in Cologne he requires no less than seven swimmers and seven climbers.

Even to this day some German rivers, such as the Saale and the Spree, require their victims on Midsummer Day. During that parlous season people are careful not to bathe in it. Again, where the beautiful Neckar flows under the ruins of Heidleberg Castle, the spirit of the river seeks to drown three persons, one on Midsummer Eve, one on Midsummer Day, and one on the day after. On these nights if you hear a shriek, as of a drowning man or woman from the water, beware of running to the rescue; for it is only the water-fairy shrieking to lure you to your doom. In Voigtland it was formerly the practice to set up a fine May tree, adorned with all kinds of things, on _St. John’s Day_. The people danced round it, and when the lads had fetched down the things with which it was tricked out, the tree was thrown into the water. But before this was done, they sought out somebody whom they treated in the same manner, and the victim of this horseplay was called “the John.” The brawls and disorders, which this custom provoked, led to a suppression of the whole ceremony which was obviously only a modification of an older custom of actually drowning a human being. At Rotenberg on the Neckar people throw a loaf of bread into the water on St. John’s Day, otherwise the river-god would grow angry and carry away a man. Elsewhere, however, the water-sprite is content with flowers. In Bohemia people cast garlands in the water on Midsummer Eve and if the water-sprite pulls one of them down, it is a sign that the person who threw the garland in will die. In the villages of Hesse the girl who first comes to a well early in the morning of Midsummer Day places on the mouth of the well a gay garland of many sorts of flowers culled by her from fields and meadows. Sometimes a number of such garlands are twined together to form a crown with which the well is decked. At Fluda, in addition to the floral decorations of the wells, the neighbours choose a Lord of the Wells and announce his election by sending him a great nosegay of flowers. His house is decorated with green boughs and children walk in procession to it. He goes from house to house collecting materials for a feast, of which the neighbours partake on the following Sunday. What the other duties of the Lord of Wells may be, we are not told. We may however conjecture, says Sir James Frazer, that in old days he had to see to it that the spirits of the water received their dues from men and maidens on that important day.[45]

In those moments of the civilized man’s life when he casts off hard dull science, and returns to childhood’s fancy, the world-old book of animated nature is open to him anew. Then, says Tylor, the well-worn thoughts come back fresh to him, of the stream’s life that is so like his own; once more he can see the rill leap down the hillside like a child, to wander playing among the flowers; or can follow it as, grown to a river, it rushes through a mountain gorge, henceforth in sluggish strength to carry heavy burdens across the plain. In all that water does, the poet’s fancy can discern its personality of life. It gives fish to the fisher, and crops to the husbandman; it swells in fury and lays waste the land; it grips the bather with chill and cramp, and holds with inexorable grasp its drowning victim:—

“Tweed said to Till, ‘What gars ye tin sae still?’ Till said to Tweed, ‘Though ye rin wi’ speed, And I rin slaw, Yet, where ye drown ae man, I drown twa.’”

What ethnography has to teach of that great element of the religion of mankind, the worship of well and lake, brook and river, is simply this that what is poetry to us was philosophy to early man; that to his mind water acted not by laws of force, but by life and will; that the water-spirits of primeval mythology are as souls which cause the water’s rush and rest, its kindness and its cruelty; that lastly man finds, in the beings which with such power can work him weal and woe, deities with a wider influence over his life, deities to be feared and loved, to be prayed to and praised and propitiated with sacrificial gifts.[46]

“In Australia,” continues Tylor, “special water-demons infest pools and watering places. In the native theory of disease and death, no personage is more prominent than the water-spirit, which afflicts those who go into unlawful pools or bathe at unlawful times, the creature which causes women to pine and die, and whose very presence is death to the beholder, save to the native doctors, who may visit the water-spirit’s subaqueous abode and return with bleared eyes and wet clothes to tell the wonders of their stay. It would seem that creatures with such attributes come naturally into the category of spiritual beings, but in such stories as that of the bunyip living in the lakes and rivers and seen floating as big as a calf, which carries off native women to his retreat below the waters, there appears that confusion between the spiritual water-demon and the material water-monster, which runs on into the midst of European mythology in such conceptions as that of the water-kelpie and the sea-serpent.”

The same confusion of ideas is seen in the Macedonian ballad of the Haunted Well. Here too the spirit or demon of the well is confounded with the water-serpent. The ballad, as quoted in Mr. Abbott’s _Macedonian Folklore_, runs as follows:—

THE HAUNTED WELL.

Four and five, nine brothers, Eighteen cousins, lads of little luck: A message came to them from the King, bidding them To go forth and fight in the far-off land of the Franks: “Thy blessing, mother, that we may go forth!” “May ye go forth nine brothers and come back eight; May John the youngest never return!” They set forth, and as they crossed the vast plain, They lived forty days without bread, Forty-five more without water, And then they found a dear little fount; but it was a spirit-haunted well: ’Twas thirty fathoms in depth; in breadth twenty. “Halt, dear brothers and let us cast lots, He on whom the lot will fall, let him go in,” The lot falls on John, the youngest. They bind John and let him down: “Draw, dear brothers, draw me out, Here there is no water; but only a Spirit.” “We are drawing, John, we are drawing; but thou stirrest not.” “The serpent has wound itself round my body, the Spirit is holding me. Come, set the Black One also to help you.” When the Black One heard, he neighed loud. He reared on his haunches to draw him out. When he drew out his arms, the mountains gleamed, He draws out his sword also, and the sea gleamed. They drew out John together with the spirit, They lifted their knives to cut it asunder, But instead of cutting the Spirit they cut the rope, And John falls in together with the Spirit: “Leave me, brothers, leave me and go home, Do not tell my dear mother that I am dead, Tell her, brothers, that I am married, That I have taken the tombstone for a mother-in-law, Black Earth for a wife, And the fine grass blades all for brothers and sisters-in-law.”

The maleficent deities are also responsible for floods. When therefore, heavy floods threatened a village or a city in Gujarat, the king or the headman used to go in procession to propitiate the river with flowers, cocoanuts, and other offerings, so that the floods should subside. Similarly, in the Punjab, when a village is in danger of being flooded, the headman makes an offering of a cocoanut and a rupee to the flood-demon. The cocoanut represents the head of a human being and is believed to be acceptable to the water-demon in lieu of a human victim. The headman stands in the water and holds the offering in his hand. When the flood rises high enough to wash the offering from his hand, it is understood that the waters will abate. Some people throw seven handfuls of boiled wheat and sugar into the stream and distribute the remainder among the persons present. Some take a male buffalo, a horse, or a ram, and after boring the right ear of the victim, throw it into the water. If the victim is a horse, it is saddled before it is offered.

In Bengal goats are sacrificed to propitiate the river-goddess in her malignant form when she devastates the land with floods or engulfs the swimmers. The goats are often thrown alive into the water and are taken out by men of the boatman caste, who eat their flesh. Many ascetics perform a special penance in her honour, which consists in spending every night in the month of January, when the cold is intense, seated on a small platform erected over the river and engaged in such prayer and meditation as their sufferings from the cold will allow.[47] Crooke says that when the town and temples at Hardwar were in imminent danger during the Gohna flood, the Brahmans poured vessels of milk, rice and flowers into the waters of Mother Ganges and prayed to her to spare them. Similarly, a story is related in the Folklore Notes of Gujarat of the occurrence of heavy floods in a village in the Jalalpur _taluka_, when a certain lady placed an earthen vessel (ordinarily used for curdling milk), containing _ghee_, afloat on the floods, whereupon the waters were at once seen to recede.

A few years ago the river Musi overflowed and caused terrible destruction. His Highness the Nizam thereupon went to the river, took off his turban, and threw it into the water in the hope that such submissiveness of a prince might appease the wrath of the river.[48]

The calamity of floods should not, however, be exclusively attributed to sheer demoniacal influence of malignant spirits. It may, in some cases, be due to the offence given to patron saints of water. Curtiss relates,[49] on the authority of Rev. J. Steward Crawford, an old resident in Syria, a remarkable incident which occurred at Nebk. The town derives its water-supply from a series of wells connected with one another. Once, owing to heavy rains, there came a succession of three floods which washed away the wells which had been repaired after each catastrophe. This left no room for doubt that the _Vali_ of the wells had been offended. They began to ascertain the reason and discovered that the sacrifices which had been offered to the saint at an annual festival had been intermitted, that people used to perform their ablutions in a portion of the stream which was inside of the courtyard of the _mukam_ (shrine), thus defiling it, and that a dead body had been carried across the stream. All this had angered the saint. Sacrifices were, therefore, offered to propitiate him. A number of sheep were stationed over the stream and their throats were cut so that the blood would run into the water.

It is refreshing to turn from these river wraiths to the spirits of the sea, who are more powerful but less exacting. A cocoanut is enough to keep them in good humour, and a special day is named for this offering, called _Narali Purnima_, or Cocoanut Holiday. On that day multitudes of people flock to the sea-shore in Bombay to offer their _puja_ to the sea to keep it quiet after the monsoon. The Brahmin first offers prayers, then the votary throws into the sea the holy water which the Brahmin pours into the hollow of his hands, then some red lead, then a few flowers and some rice, and last of all the cocoanut. The safety of the seas during the fair season is thus insured.