Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 545 pages of information about Balder the Beautiful, Volume I..

Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 545 pages of information about Balder the Beautiful, Volume I..
up for several years when they were children, some of them seven years, and this so close that they were not to see the sun, for if they should happen to see it they forfeited their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed; and those who were their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and scourged them severely."[52] Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of Bogota, who was not the son but the sister’s son of the king, had to undergo a rigorous training from his infancy:  he lived in complete retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman:  he was surrounded by guards who observed his conduct and noted all his actions:  if he broke a single one of the rules laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and forfeited all his rights to the throne.[53] So, too, the heir to the kingdom of Sogamoso, before succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light.[54] The prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without seeing light.[55] On the day when a Brahman student of the Veda took a bath, to signify that the time of his studentship was at an end, he entered a cow-shed before sunrise, hung over the door a skin with the hair inside, and sat there; on that day the sun should not shine upon him.[56]

[Tabooed persons not allowed to see the sun; certain persons forbidden to see fire.]

Again, women after childbirth and their offspring are more or less tabooed all the world over; hence in Corea the rays of the sun are rigidly excluded from both mother and child for a period of twenty-one or a hundred days, according to their rank, after the birth has taken place.[57] Among some of the tribes on the north-west coast of New Guinea a woman may not leave the house for months after childbirth.  When she does go out, she must cover her head with a hood or mat; for if the sun were to shine upon her, it is thought that one of her male relations would die.[58] Again, mourners are everywhere taboo; accordingly in mourning the Ainos of Japan wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may not shine upon their heads.[59] During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun’s rays would turn them black.[60] On Yule Night it has been customary in parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year.  As a preparation for this pilgrimage, “some secrete themselves for three days previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out altogether from the light of heaven.  Others retire at an early hour of the preceding morning to some out-of-the-way place, such as a hay-loft, where they bury themselves in the hay, that they may

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Project Gutenberg
Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.