Frisian mother says, warningly: De Fingerbiter is buten, "the Finger-biter is outside." Among the formidable evil spirits who war against or torment the child and its mother are the Hebrew Lilith, the long-haired night-flier; the Greek Strigalai, old and ugly owl-women; the Roman Caprimulgus, the nightly goat-milker and child-killer, and the wood-god Silvanus; the Coptic Berselia; the Hungarian "water-man," or "water-woman," who changes children for cripples or demons; the Moravian Vestice, or "wild woman," able to take the form of any animal, who steals away children at the breast, and substitutes changelings for them; the Bohemian Polednice, or "noon-lady," who roams around only at noon, and substitutes changelings for real children; the Lithuanian and Old Prussian Laume, a child-stealer, whose breast is the thunderbolt, and whose girdle is the rainbow; the Servian Wjeschtitza, or witches, who take on the form of an insect, and eat up children at night; the Russian "midnight spirit," who robs children of rest and sleep; the Wendish "Old mountain-woman"; the German (Brunswick) "corn-woman," who makes off with little children looking for flowers in the fields; the Röggenmuhme ("rye-aunt"), the Tremsemutter, who walks about in the cornfields; the Katzenveit, a wood spirit, and a score of bogies called Popel, Popelmann, Popanz, Butz, etc.; the Scotch "Boo Man," "Bogie Man," "Jenny wi' the Airn Teeth," "Jenny wi' the lang Pock"; the English and American bogies, goblins, ogres, ogresses, witches, and the like; besides, common to all peoples, a host of werwolves and vampires, giants and dwarfs, witches, ogres, ogresses, fairies, evil spirits of air, water, land, inimical to childhood and destructive of its peace and enjoyment. The names, lineage, and exploits of these may be read in Ploss, Grimm, Hartland, etc. In the time of the Crusades, Richard Coeur de Lion, the heroking of England, became so renowned among the Saracens that (Gibbon informs us) his name was used by mothers and nurses to quiet their infants, and other historical characters before and after him served to like purpose. To the children of Rome in her later days, Attila, the great Hun, was such a bogy, as was Narses, the Byzantian general (d. 568 A.D.), to the Assyrian children. Bogies also were Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490 A.D.), the Hungarian king and general, to the Turks; Tamerlane (Timur), the great Mongolian conqueror (d. 1405 A.D.), to the Persians; and Bonaparte, at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, in various parts of the continent of Europe. These, and other historical characters have, in part, taken the place of the giants and bogies of old, some of whom, however, linger, even yet, in the highest civilizations, together with fabulous animals (reminiscent of stern reality in primitive times), with which, less seriously than in the lands of the eastern world, childhood is threatened and cowed into submission. The Ponka Indian mothers tell their children that if they do not behave themselves the Indaciñga (a hairy monster shaped like a human being, that hoots like an owl) will get them; the Omaha bogy is Icibajt; a Dakota child-stealer and bogy is Añungite or "Two Faces" (433. 386, 473). With the Kootenay Indians, of south-eastern British Columbia, the owl is the bogy with which children are frightened into good behaviour, the common saying of mothers, when their children are troublesome, being, "If you are not quiet, I'll give you to the owl" (203). Longfellow, in his Hiawatha, speaks of one of the bogies of the eastern Indians: : Among the Nipissing Algonkian Indians, koko is a child-word for any terrible being; the mothers say to their children, "beware of the koko." Champlain and Lescarbot, the early chroniclers of Canada, mention a terrible creature (concerning which tales were told to frighten children) called gougou, supposed to dwell on an island in the Baie des Chaleurs (200. 239). Among the bogies of the Mayas of Yucatan, Dr. Brinton mentions: the balams (giant beings of the night), who carry off children; the culcalkin, or "neckless priest"; besides giants and witches galore (411. 174, 177). Among the Gualala Indians of California, we find the "devildance," which Powers compares to the haberfeldtreiben of the Bavarian peasants,—an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching from the arm-pits down to the mid-thighs, zebra-painted on his breast and legs with black stripes, bear-skin shako on his head, and his arms stretched out at full length along a staff passing behind his neck. Accoutred in this harlequin rig, he dashes at the squaws, capering, dancing, whooping; and they and the children flee for life, keeping several hundred yards between him and themselves." It is believed that, if they were even to touch his stick, their children would die (519. 194). Among the Patwin, Nishinam, and Pomo Indians, somewhat similar practices are in vogue (519. 157, 160, 225). From the golden age of childhood, with its divinities and its demons, we may now pass to the consideration of more special topics concerning the young of the races of men. CHAPTER IX. CHILDREN'S FOOD. Der Mensch ist, was er isst.- Feuerbach. For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. - Coleridge. Man did eat angels' food. - Psalm lxxviii. 25. Honey. man is what he eats,". says Der Mensch ist, was er isst, 66 Feuerbach, and there were food-philosophies long before his time. Among primitive peoples, the food of the child often smacks of the Golden Age. Tennyson, in Eleanore, sings: "Or, the yellow-banded bees, Fed thee, a child lying alone, With white honey, in fairy gardens cull'd— A glorious child dreaming alone, In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down, With the hum of swarming bees Into dreamful slumber lull'd." This recalls the story of Cretan Zeus, fed, when an infant, by the nymphs in a cave on Mount Ida with the milk of the goat Amalthea and honey brought by the bees of the mountain. In the sacred books of the ancient Hindus we read: "The father puts his mouth to the right ear of the new-born babe, and murmurs three times, 'Speech! Speech!' Then he gives it a name. Then he mixes clotted milk, honey, and butter, and feeds the babe with it out of pure gold" (460. 129). Among the ancient Frisians and some other Germanic tribes, the father had the right 66 to put to death or expose his child so long as it had not taken food; but so soon as the infant had drunk milk and eaten honey he could not be put to death by his parents" (286. 69). The custom of giving the new-born child honey to taste is referred to in German counting-out rhymes, and the ancient Germans used to rub honey in the mouth of the new-born child. The heathen Czechs used to drop honey upon the child's lips, and in the Eastern Church it was formerly the custom to give the baptized child milk and honey to taste (392. II. 35). When the Jewish child, in the Middle Ages, first went to school, one of the ceremonial observances was to have him lick a slate which had been smeared with honey, and upon which the alphabet, two Bible verses, and the words "The Tora shall be my calling" were written; this custom is interestingly explanative of the passage in Ezekiel (iii. 3) where we read "Then I did eat it [the roll of a book given the prophet by God]; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness." There were also given to the child sweet cakes upon which Bible verses were written. Among the Jews of Galicia, before a babe is placed in the cradle for the first time, it is customary to strew into the latter little pieces of honey-comb. Among the Wotjaks we find the curious belief that those who, in eating honey, do not smear their mouth and hands with it, will die. With children of an older growth, the second Golden Age, honey and cakes again appear. Magyar maidens at the new moon steal honey and cakes, cook them, and mix a part in the food of the youth of their desires; among the White Russians, the bridal couple are fed honey with a spoon. Even with us "the first sweet month of matrimony," after the "bless you, my children" has been spoken by parents, church, and state, is called. the "honey-moon," for our Teutonic ancestors were in the habit of drinking honey-wine or mead for the space of thirty days after marriage (392. IV. 118, 211). In wedding-feasts the honey appears again, and, as Westermarck observes, the meal partaken of by the bride and bridegroom practically constitutes the marriage-ceremony among the Navajos, Santal, Malays, Hovas, and other primitive peoples (166. 419). In Iceland, in ancient times, "the food of sucklings was sweetened by honey," and "in the mouths of weakly children a slice of meat was placed at which they sucked." Among other inter L |