PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 51 



the bones into flowing water, in the hope of bringing 

 children into the world. 1 



Like some other rites for producing fertility, rites in 

 which fish play a part are performed on the occasion 

 of a marriage. 4< The Brahmans of Kanara take the 

 married pair to a pond and make them throw rice into 

 the water and catch a few minnows. They let all go 

 save one, with whose scales they mark their brows. If 

 there be no pond near, the rite is done by making a 

 fish of wheat-flour, dropping it into a vessel of water, 

 taking it out and marking their foreheads with the 

 paste." 2 The so-called Spanish Jews at Constantinople 

 and elsewhere have a custom that the newly wedded 

 bride and bridegroom immediately after the religious 

 ceremony jump three times over a large platter filled 

 with fresh fish. According to other accounts they 

 step seven times backwards and forwards over a single 

 fish. The ceremony is expounded in the Jewish 

 Chronicle to be the symbol of a prayer for children. 3 

 Thus in the contemplation of the more enlightened 

 members of the community a magical rite has faded 

 into a mere symbol. In our own country a practice 

 analogous to that attributed to the gallants of the 

 seventeenth century still lingers in regard to cattle. 

 A clergyman on the Welsh border wrote to me five or 

 six years ago : " I happened to be talking the other day 

 with our blacksmith's wife when we passed the brook 

 where her husband's apprentice was groping for fish. 

 She remarked : * I wish he could get me a live trout.' 

 I asked for what purpose. She replied : ' To put down 



1 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 54. 



2 Crooke, Things Indian, 222. 



a Lobel, 287 ; N. and Q. 6th ser. viii. 513 ; ix. 134. 



