In Altmark [198] the demons who bewitch cattle are called 'Bihlweisen,' and are believed to bury certain diabolical charms under thresholds over which the animals are to pass, causing them to wither away, the milk to cease, etc. The prevention is to wash the cattle with a lotion of sea cabbage boiled with infusion of wine. In the same province it is related that once there appeared in a harvest-field at one time fifteen, at another twelve men (apparently), the latter headless. They all laboured with scythes, but though the rustling could be heard no grain fell. When questioned they said nothing, and when the people tried to seize them they ran away, cutting fruitlessly as they ran. The priests found in this a presage of the coming cattle plague. The Russian superstition of the plough, above mentioned, is found in fragmentary survivals in Altmark. Thus, it is said that to plough around a village and then sit under the plough (placed upright), will enable any one to see the witches; and in some villages, some bit of a plough is hung up over a doorway through which cattle pass, as no devil can then approach them. The demons have a natural horror of honest work, and especially the culture of the earth. Goethe, as we have seen, notes their fear of roses: perhaps he remembered the legend of Aspasia, who, being disfigured by a tumour on the chin, was warned by a dove-maiden to dismiss her physicians and try a rose from the garland of Venus; so she recovered health and beauty. CHAPTER XII. DEATH. The Vendetta of Death--Teoyaomiqui--Demon of Serpents--Death on the Pale Horse--Kali--War-gods--Satan as Death--Death-beds-- Thanatos--Yama--Yimi--Towers of Silence--Alcestis--Hercules, Christ, and Death--Hel--Salt--Azraël--Death and the Cobbler-- Dance of Death--Death as Foe, and as Friend. Savage races believe that no man dies except by sorcery. Therefore every death must be avenged. The Actas of the Philippines regard the 'Indians' as the cause of the deaths among them; and when one of them loses a relative, he lurks and watches until he has spied an 'Indian' and killed him. [199] It is a progress from this when primitive man advances to the belief that the fatal sorcerer is an invisible man--a demon. When this doctrine is taught in the form of a belief that death entered the world through the machinations of Satan, and was not in the original scheme of creation, it is civilised; but when it is inculcated under a set of African or other non-christian names, it is barbarian. The following sketch, by Mr. Gideon Lang, will show the intensity of this conviction among the natives of New South Wales:--