Demonology and Devil-lore

4 This great discussion between the animals and sages is given in ‘The Sacred Anthology’ (London: Trübner & Co. New York: Henry Holt & Co.). It is a very ancient story, and was probably written down at the beginning of the christian era.

5 It is a strange proof of the ignorance concerning Hindu religion that Jugernath, raised in a sense for reprobation of cruelty to man and beast, should have been made by a missionary myth a Western proverb for human sacrifices!

6 St. Olaf = Stooley = Tooley.

7

High bloweth Heimdall

His horn aloft;

Odin consulteth

Mimir’s head;

The old ash yet standing

Yggdrasill

To its summit is shaken,

And loose breaks the giant.—Voluspa.

8 ‘Rigveda,’ x. 99.

9 ‘Zoolog. Myth.,’ ii. 8, 10, &c.

10 ‘The Mahawanso.’ Translated by the Hon. George Turnour, Ceylon, 1836, p. 69.

11 It was an ancient custom to offer a stag on the high altar of Durham Abbey, the sacrifice being accompanied with winding of horns, on Holy Rood Day, which suggests a form of propitiating the Wild Huntsman in the hunting season. On the Cheviot Hills there is a chasm called Hen Hole, ‘in which there is frequently seen a snow egg at Midsummer, and it is related that a party of hunters, while chasing a roe, were beguiled into it by fairies, and could never again find their way out.’—Richardson’s ‘Borderer’s Table-Book,’ vi 400. The Bridled Devil of Durham Cathedral may be an allusion to the Wild Huntsman.