Note 395 — Chapter VI · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY

In Zeph. i. 9 there is an allusion to the practice of the Philistine priests of ‘leaping’ over the threshold. For the origin and reason of this sacredness of the threshold see Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, pp. 10-13, 116-126, 143. ‘In Finland it is regarded as unlucky if a clergyman steps on the threshold when he comes to preach at a church.... In the Lapp tales the same idea appears.’ (Jones and Kropf, Folk-Tales of the Magyars, p. 410.)