488 BCRMA, ITS PEOPLE A.VD PRODUCTIOXS. 



2so\v the account above given of tlie Spirit-Fire proves, I tliiuk, that such myths 

 arise by a process soiuetliin<;- similar to dreams. An action in the life of a popular 

 licro or teacher, or a natural object or phenomenon, creates a certain impression on the 

 imaginative but untutored brain of a man in a rude or credulous age, and straightway 

 tlie busy brain weaves a nexus of events round the prominent idea, just as the brain 

 of one of ourselves does in sleep under the peculiar stimulus of some nerve or other 

 which is. stimulated into action for the time being or affected by some accidental cause. 



In the present age, too, we arc so accustomed to subuiit all questions and state- 

 ments to a rigid and searching examination, that wo are too apt to forget, that this 

 critical frame of mind was wholly wanting in those early days when the bulk of 

 myths sprang into existence. 



It happens, mon^over, that, from personal psychological experience, I can offer a 

 still more circumstantial explanation of the genesis of myth, and the promulgation of 

 absolute myth, the product of the imaginative exercise of the brain, in all good faith 

 and honesty, for actual occurrences, and I believe that the experience I am aljout to 

 describe atfords a key to the origin of all marvellous, not to say incredible stories, or 

 mylhs as we call them, from the mouths of men whom we know or have grounds for 

 supposing to be veracious and trustworthy, however wild their utterances. 



I was once working in the Punjab, and had devoted much and deep thought to the 

 (]Uestion of the ' erratic' blocks found along tlie course of the Sohau river below Kawal 

 I'indee, and near its junction with the Indus. The point to decide was, had these 

 blocks travelled up the valley of the Solum from the ludus, rafted by ice during floods 

 (as I now believe them to have done), or were they transported with ' moraines ' 

 down the course of the stream from the Murrce direction ? Whilst this cjuestion was 

 occupying much of my thought, I one night dreamed that I had found a fine collection 

 of these ' erratics' close to the trunk road in the bed of the Sohan. On rising I had 

 no recollection of any dream, but during that day or the next, the recollection tliat I 

 had seen these erratics came so strongly Isack on me, that I entered the circumstance 

 in my note-book. Some short time afterwards, crossing the Sohan river nearer to its 

 source, I was surprised to find no erratics in its bed. and as my efforts to remember 

 the particular details of the arrangement of the 'erratics' lower down were futile, 

 though I remembered the fact of having seen them (as I supposed), I took an early 

 opportunity of examining the spot near the trunk road, whore I believed them to 

 occur. On visiting the spot, no erratics were to be seen, so that I had not only been 

 myself deceived by a di'cam, but I was for a time wholly ignorant that it was a cb'eam. 

 and not a real observation I was relying on. That is all, and a very curious and 

 jiregnant psychological experience I consider it ; for give a wide application to the 

 principle or key here disclosed, and we are at once enabled to reconcile the veracity 

 and good failh of the writers of many a marvellous story or myth with the supremacy 

 and the nndeviating operation of tho Laws of Nature, whose suspension would other- 

 ^^•ise seem necessary before such myths could bo re;dly believed. Had circurast;inces 

 not permitted, and led to a re-examination of the ground, in the above instance, and 

 had 1 not fortunately undeceived myself in time, I should have gone on believing as a 

 fact, wliat WHS in reality the mere jiroduct of unconscious action in my own brain. 



In connexion with the (^volution of marsh gas, I may make a passing allusion to 

 the ])henomeuon " Will of the Wisp," which is well known in Burma, and to explain 

 which a myth has sprung up just as happened in the case of the Spirit-Fire. The 

 fiiUowiiig passage relating to the subject was written by myself and published in the 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of liengal for 18G3, page 299. 



"In Burmali it is believed that there is a class of wizards whose heads become 

 dissociated from their bodies duriug the night, and wander about the jungle feeding 

 on carrion, the bodies remaining at home, and the Ignis-fatuus is supposed to proceed 

 from the mouth of one of these wandering heads. If a head is secured whilst abroad, 

 it loudly claims to be released, and if detained more than twelve hours from rejoining 

 its body, both head and liody perish, and it is believed that such heads have often been 

 captured, though I need hardly add none of my informants had themselves seen one. 



" This superstition calls to mind the one formerly current in Europe, that the body 

 of a witch might reuuiin at home, or its semblance, whilst the -spirit was at its evil 



