PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 83 



streams and springs were deemed of virtue against 

 barrenness. Dr. Ploss cites divers classical writers 

 as recording the claims of the river Elatus in Arcadia, 

 the Thespian spring on the island of Helicon, the 

 spring near the temple of Aphrodite on Hymettos, 

 and the warm springs of Sinuessa in Campania. 

 Others might easily be found, if necessary, both ancient 

 and modern. A curious rite is repeated among the 

 Serbs. A young, sterile married woman cuts a reed, 

 fills it with wine, and sews it, together with an old 

 knife and a wheaten cake, in a linen bag. Holding 

 this bag under her left arm she wades in flowing water, 

 while some one on the brink prays for her : " Fulfil 

 my prayer, O God ; O mother of God;" and so on 

 through the whole gamut of sanctities. During this 

 prayer the wader drops the bag in the stream, and 

 coming out sets her feet in two caldrons, out of 

 which her husband must lift her and carry her home. 

 Here we have unmistakably a prayer and offerings 

 of food and drink to the water, the latter remaining 

 but little changed from ancient times, while the former 

 has put on a Christian guise. 1 Among the Mordwins 

 in the Russian Government of Tambov the barren 

 woman goes at midnight to a river holding in her 

 hands a live cock which she has previously loaded 

 with silken threads hung with tiny bells. She pros- 

 trates herself a certain number of times ; then, praying 

 the ved-ava, or water-spirit, to render her fertile, she 

 flings the bird into the water. In the adjoining 

 Government of Penza, she takes some oatmeal, millet 

 and hops and one kopeck in a basket, and placing 

 the whole on the river-bank, she prays the ved-ava 

 1 Ploss, Weib, i. 437, citing Petrowitsch 



