Note 1 — I.—INTRODUCTORY.

It must not, however, be supposed that these superstitious beliefs differ to any material extent from those current amongst humanity elsewhere. The variations will be found to lie rather in detail than in principle; and just as white replaces black for the mourning colour, but leaves untouched the custom of adopting a special costume as a sign of grief, so it will be found that a variation or even apparent contradiction in the beliefs we are about to deal with are in like manner the outcome of motives common to the inhabitants of almost all countries alike. Thus, the Scottish custom of opening the windows of the room in which a person has died, to give the soul free egress, is, in some parts of China, paralleled by the practice of making a hole in the roof. The Lancashire superstition as to the “first foot” on New Year’s Day finds its Chinese counterpart in the dislike expressed to meeting a woman or a Buddhist priest under such conditions. I forbear to here enlarge upon such agreements in superstition, as they will be found treated of at length in the following pages. The one grand distinction between Chinese and European folk-lore lies, as above intimated, in the different powers they exert over the respective communities. In the one case it is either a matter only of amused indifference or of interested research to all but the lowest classes of the population. In the other it represents an all-pervading system of regulations believed in or complied with by high and low alike. We must not, however, forget at how very recent a date we, who now pride ourselves on our civilization and enlightenment, were emancipated from the thraldom of similar and equally oppressive beliefs. To turn for a moment to the page of western history, we find that the belief in omens, divinations, &c., has, ever since the earliest times, influenced communities beside whom we incline, with somewhat undue arrogance, to term the Chinese “barbarous.” St. Chrysostom and many of the early fathers inveighed against popular superstitions in no measured way. In the eighth century we find a Council of Church dignitaries, Pope Gregory III., Charlemagne and his successors, and the abbots and bishops of Scotland and France, vehemently denouncing beliefs similar in all respects to those in vogue in China. The great Martin Luther himself believed in superstitions as gross as any recorded.1 We turn with abhorrence from the story of Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, and cannot forget that, almost within the memory of our own great grandfathers, the Puritans of the New World outvied in their superstitious bigotry the worst absurdities recorded in Chinese annals. It is well to recall these matters to mind, because the enlightenment of the present day is apt to sneer too unreservedly at the blind gropings after truth of less favoured races. The popular folk-lore of Norway, Germany and Brittany presents features quite as quaint as those we shall come across in dealing with their Asiatic congeners.