Note 45.1 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

Coming back to the Life-token proper, it would seem that it is sometimes connected, not with the individual concerned, but with the relative or friend left behind. When a Zulu warrior goes on a hostile expedition his wife hangs up her own sleeping-mat against the door or wall of the hut. If the shadow be cast sharp and clear, her husband is well; if otherwise, “he will never look upon the sun again.”45.1 The Coptic Christian legends contain the same plentiful supply of miracles which the accounts of other saints furnish. The life of the Coptic saint Shnudi, by his disciple Visa, relates that another saint, Mar Thomas, foretold to Shnudi that the latter should be informed of Mar Thomas’s death by the breaking in two of the stone whereon Shnudi used to sit and meditate.45.2 In this case Mar Thomas appoints the life-token; and he displays a lofty recklessness about the condition of furniture which does not belong to him. But the appointment by the person whose life is the subject of inquiry is not usual, where the token is in no way connected with him. The friend left behind can generally manage a life-token without his assistance. Frequently, however, the aid of a sorcerer is called in. Among the western islanders of Torres Straits the sorcerer on these occasions goes through some jugglery with a crocodile’s tooth, which he pretends to swallow and bring out again through his hand. After this he sends it on a journey in the direction where the man is supposed to be, and divines his life or death by the condition of the tooth when it returns.46.1 In Brittany a sailor’s wife who has been long without tidings of her husband makes a pilgrimage to one of the shrines innumerable in that country, and lights before the saints a taper wherewith she has provided herself. If her husband be yet alive and well, it burns with a clear, steady flame; otherwise the flame will be poor and intermittent, and will go out.46.2 John Banks, a dramatist of the Restoration, refers to one form of the superstition still, or very lately, living in Scotland, as well as in other parts of Europe. The passage runs as follows:—