Message #143239

[The Creeper]

In Germany, England, 128 Scotland, and other places even as far off as India and Madagascar, it is still believed that, if after death a person see his image reflected in a mirror in the same room as the dead, he will shortly die himself; hence in many places it is customary to cover up looking-glasses in a death-chamber. Bombay Sunis not only cover the looking-glasses in the room of a dying person, but do so habitually in their bedrooms before retiring to rest. 129

The Zulus and Basutos of South Africa have almost precisely similar notions. We have no need however to go so far afield for instances of a belief of a similar kind.

The following story is given by a correspondent of the Spectator, of February 17, 1894, as told to him "last month" by an old woman, in a Somerset village about ten miles from Bristol.

"Old John, that do live out to Knowle Hill, have a-told I, his vaether George had a sister, an' when her wer' young, a man what lived next door come a-courten of she. But she wouldn't have none on him. But she were took bad, an' had a ravennen appetite, an' did use to eat a whole loaf at once. Zoo her brother thought she wer' overlooked; an' he went down to Somerton, where a man did bide who wer' a real witch, and zo zoon as George got to un, he did zay: 'I do knaw what thee bist a-cwome var; thy zister be overlooked by the neighbour as do live next door. I'll tell 'ee what to do, an' 'twont cost thee no mwore than a penny.' Zoo her told un to goo whoam an' goo to the blacksmith an' get a new nail, an' not to let thick nail out of her hand till her'd a-zeed un make a track, then her were to take an' nail down the track. Zoo George did as her wer' twold, an' when her zeed the man make a track, her took the nail in one hand an' the hammer in t'other, an' a-nailed down the track. And the man did goo limping vrom



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