Note 5 — Chapter III · THE GODLINGS OF DISEASE.

Of these deities the most familiar is Sîtalâ, “she that loves the cool,” so called euphemistically in consequence of the fever which accompanies small-pox, the chief infant plague of India, which is under her control. Sîtalâ has other euphemistic names. She is called Mâtâ, “the Mother” par excellence; Jag Rânî, “the queen of the world;” Phapholewâlî, “she of the vesicle;” Kalejewâlî, “she who attacks the liver,” which is to the rustic the seat of all disease. Some call her Mahâ Mâî, “the great Mother.” These euphemistic titles for the deities of terror are common to all the mythologies. The Greeks of old called the awful Erinyes, the Eumenides, “the well-meaning.” So the modern Greeks picture the small-pox as a woman, the enemy of children, and call her Sunchoremene, “indulgent,” or “exorable,” and Eulogia, “one to be praised or blessed;” and the Celts call the fairies “the men of peace” and “the good people,” or “good neighbours.”5