Note 200.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

In Brittany a story is told with much circumstance of place and name, relating how a peasant-farmer of the village of Keranniou died, leaving a wife much younger than himself and seven children. After death he reappeared as ghost, and played a variety of tricks. At length his widow found herself pregnant, and, seeking the priest, confessed with tears that the deceased had lain with her several times, insisting that he had been sent back by God because he had not had his full tale of children. The duty of bringing into the world one’s allotted number of children, it may be observed, is a motive in many of the grimmer Breton stories. As her condition became visible the neighbours taunted the unfortunate widow; but the priest took her part openly in the church. A child was born, but without eyes. The ghost appeared again, and took far more interest in it than in any of the children born during his lifetime. The child was extremely precocious, but lived only for seven months. When it died the dead man’s ghost was seen to accompany the funeral procession. From that hour he was never beheld again; and the villagers said he had been waiting for the babe to lead him by the hand to Paradise.200.1 A similar incident is found as far away as among the Bella Coola of the British Columbian fiords. There a husband and wife who were devoted to one another made vows of mutual fidelity, even after the death of either of them. The husband died; and his body was placed, as was usual, in a little dead-hut. The widow wept bitterly, entered the dead-hut and lay down to sleep beside the corpse. In her dreams she saw him once more alive. He begot upon her a child, which was born after the lapse of a fortnight. It was not like other children, for it consisted only of a head without a body. The widow was unwilling to exhibit such a monster; but her mother did not rest until she was allowed to take it in her arms. When she saw what it was she let it fall in terror. The head sank into the earth and disappeared from view.201.1