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CHAPTER VII. 



FISHES IN MODERN FOLK-LORE. 



Survival of Zoolatry in Modern Folk-lore — Mermaid Superstitions — 

 Water-horses and Water-bulls — How Fishes got their Shapes — 

 Feminine influences Sinister — Parsons of ill-omen to Fishermen 

 — Fish annoyed by Bells — Fish-prognostications — As Weather- 

 prophets — Fishes in Medicine — Superstitions as to Origin of 

 certain Fishes. 



Face to face with the living myths and superstitions of 

 the present, one feels, as I think it is Max Muller says, 

 like a geologist who in a country ramble should sud- 

 denly find himself confronted with a herd of megatheria. 

 For the world has not all grown old together, and there 

 are still in existence to-day people who have not aged 

 a bit in their intelligence since the " once-upon-a-time " 

 period which we — the precocious youngsters and the wise- 

 acres of the human family — only now retain as the com- 

 mencement of children's fairy-tales. We ourselves, for 

 instance, have long ago learned to look down as from 

 a superior pedestal upon the beast-world, and loftily 

 bespeak sympathy for the " poor dumb brute." But it is 

 not so all the world over ; for there are nations breathing 

 the same air with us, sharing the same sun and moon, 

 launching boats on the same seas, who still to-day, in 

 the nineteenth century, in the age of electricity, speak 

 respectfully of beasts, birds, and fishes as of equals. 

 There are actually some also who still look up to and 



