Note 28 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

In a village in Lucknow, noticeable among the trees is a “single mango tree, of fine growth and comely shape. It is the survivor of some old grove, which the owner, through straitened circumstances, has reluctantly cut down. He called it Jâk, or Sakhiya, the witness of the place where the old grove stood.”28 Jâk is, as we have seen, the Corn spirit. The preservation of these little patches of the primeval jungle, with a view to conciliate the sylvan spirits of the place, is exactly analogous to what is known in Scotland as the “Gudeman’s Croft,” “Cloutie’s Croft,” or “Gudeman’s Field.” Often in Northern India little patches are left uncultivated in the corners of fields as a refuge for the spirits, as in North Scotland many farmers leave a corner of the field untilled, and say it is for the “Aul Man,” or the Devil.29