The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 38

"To G.o.d doth our doda call, oy dodo oy dodo le!

That dewy rain may fall, oy dodo oy dodo le!

And drench the diggers all, oy dodo oy dodo le!

The workers great and small, oy dodo oy dodo le!

Even those in house and stall, oy dodo oy dodo le!"

Corresponding to the Servian _dodola_, and thought to be equally efficacious, is the [Greek: _pyrperuna_] of the Modern Greeks. With them the custom is: "When it has not rained for a fortnight or three weeks, the inhabitants of villages and small towns do as follows. The children choose one of themselves, who is from eight to ten years old, usually a poor orphan, whom they strip naked and deck from head to foot with field herbs and flowers: this child is called pyrperuna. The others lead her round the village, singing a hymn, and every housewife has to throw a pailful of water over the pyrperuna's head and hand the children a para (1/4 of a farthing)" (462. I. 594).

In a Wallachian song, sung by children when the grain is troubled by drought, occurs the following appeal: "Papaluga (Father Luga), climb into heaven, open its doors, and send down rain from above, that well the rye may grow!" (462. II. 593). This brings us naturally to the consideration of the rain-rhymes in English and cognate tongues.

_Rain-Rhymes_.

Mr. Henderson, treating of the northern counties of England, tells us that when the rain threatens to spoil a boy's holiday, he will sing out:--

"'Rain, rain, go away, Come again another summer's day; Rain, rain, pour down, And come no more to our town.'

or:--

'Rain, rain, go away, And come again on was.h.i.+ng day,'

or, more quaintly, yet:--

'Rain, rain, go to Spain; Fair weather, come again,'

and, _sooner_ or _later_, the rain will depart. If there be a rainbow, the juvenile devotee must look at it all the time. The Sunderland version runs thus:--

'Rain, rain, pour down Not a drop in our town, But a pint and a gill All a-back of Building Hill.'"

Mr. Henderson remarks that "such rhymes are in use, I believe, in every nursery in England," and they are certainly well known, in varying forms in America. A common English charm for driving away the rainbow brings the child at once into the domain of the primitive medicine-man.

Schoolboys were wont, "on the appearance of a rainbow, to place a couple of straws or twigs across on the ground, and, as they said, 'cross out the rainbow.' The West Riding [Yorks.h.i.+re] receipt for driving away a rainbow is: 'Make a cross of two sticks and lay four pebbles on it, one at each end'" (469. 24, 25).

Mr. Gregor, for northeastern Scotland, reports the following as being sung or shouted at the top of the voice by children, when a rainbow appears (246. 153, 154):--

(1) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame, The coo's wi' a calf, The yow's wi' a lam, An' the coo 'ill be calvt, Or ye win hame."

(2) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame; Yir father an yir mither's aneth the layer-stehm; Yir coo's calvt, yir mare's foalt, Yir wife'll be dead Or ye win hame."

(3) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame, Yir father and mither's aneth the grave stehn."

Even more touching is the appeal made by the children in Berwicks.h.i.+re, according to Mr. Henderson (469. 24, 25):--

"Rainbow, rainbow, hand awa' hame, A' yer bairns are dead but ane, And it lies sick at yon gray stane, And will be dead ere you win hame.

Gang owre the Drumaw [a hill] and yont the lea And down by the side o' yonder sea; Your bairn lies greeting [crying] like to dee, And the big tear-drop is in his e'e."

Sometimes the child-priest or weather-maker has to employ an intermediary. On the island of Rugen and in some other parts of Germany the formula is (466 a. 132):--

"Leeve Katriene Lat de stinnen schienen, Lat'n ragen overgahn, Lat de stunnen wedder kam'n."

["Dear (St.) Catharine, Let the sun s.h.i.+ne, Let the rain pa.s.s off, Let the sun come again."]

In Eugen the glow-worm is a.s.sociated with "weather-making." The children take the little creature up, put it on their hand and thus address it (466 a. 133):--

"Sunnskurnken fleeg weech, Bring mi morgen good wader, Lat 'en ragen overgahn, Lat de sunnen wedder kam'n, Bring mi morgen good wader."

If the insect flies away, the good weather will come; if not, there will be rain.

The Altmark formula, as given by Danneil (_Worterb_., p. 81) is:--

"Herrgottswormk'n, fleg nao'n Himmel, segg din Vaoder un Mutter, dat't morgen un aowermorg'n G.o.d Wad'r wart." ["Little G.o.d's-worm, fly to heaven, tell your father and mother to make it fine weather to-morrow and the day after to-morrow."]

Another rain-rhyme from Altmark, sung by children in the streets when it rains, is harsh in tone, and somewhat derisive as well (p. 153):--

"Rag'n blatt, maok mi nich natt, Maok den olln Paop'n natt De'n Bud'l vull Geld hat."

["Rain, don't make me wet, Make the old priest wet, Who has a purse full of money."]

Concerning the Kansa Indians, Rev. J. Owen Dorsey informs us that the members of the Tcihacin or Kanze gens are looked upon as "wind people,"

and when there is a blizzard the other Kansa appeal to them: "O, Grandfather, I wish good weather! Please cause one of your children to be decorated!" The method of stopping the blizzard is as follows: "Then the youngest son of one of the Kanze men, say one over four feet high, is chosen for the purpose, and painted with red paint. The youth rolls over and over in the snow and reddens it for some distances all around him. This is supposed to stop the storm" (433. 410).

With the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, as with the Shushwaps and Nootka, twins are looked upon in the light of wonderful beings, having power over the weather. Of them it is said "while children they are able to summon any wind by motions of their hands, and can make fair or bad weather. They have the power of curing diseases, and use for this purpose a rattle called K.'o'qaten, which has the shape of a flat box about three feet long by two feet wide." Here the "weather-maker" and the "doctor" are combined in the same person. Among the Tsims.h.i.+an Indians, of British Columbia, twins are believed to control the weather, and these aborigines "pray to wind and rain: 'Calm down, breath of the twins'" (403. 51).

In the creation-legend of the Indians of Mt. Shasta (California), we are told that once a terrific storm came up from the sea and shook to its base the wigwam,--Mt. Shasta itself,--in which lived the "Great Spirit"

and his family. Then "The 'Great Spirit' commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind be still, cautioning her at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign before she delivered her message." But the temptation to look out on the world was too strong for her, and, as a result, she was caught up by the storm and blown down the mountain-side into the land of the grizzly-bear people. From the union of the daughter and the grizzly-bear people sprang a new race of men. When the "Great Spirit" was told his daughter still lived, he ran down the mountain for joy, but finding that his daughter had become a mother, he was so angry that he cursed the grizzly-people and turned them into the present race of bears of that species; them and the new race of men he drove out of their wigwam,--Little Mt. Shasta,--then "shut to the door, and pa.s.sed away to his mountains, carrying his daughter; and her or him no eye has since seen." Hence it is that "no Indian tracing his descent from the spirit mother and the grizzly, will kill a grizzly-bear; and if by an evil chance a grizzly kill a man in any place, that spot becomes memorable, and every one that pa.s.ses casts a stone there till a great pile is thrown up" (396. III. 91).

Here the weather-maker touches upon deity and humanity at once.

CHAPTER XXII.