For long I despaired of finding anything that might be regarded as a missing link; but Bohemia is the country that seems to have supplied it at last. The following letter will show that in Europe, as well as in Far Cathay, there still exists in our own generation the remnant of a belief that drought may in certain circumstances be caused by a human corpse, and that such a corpse is in some mysterious way associated with feathers. "In the Bohemian village of Metschin," says a writer in _Folk-lore_,[250] "the body of the schoolmaster, who was buried early in May amid many marks of respect from the inhabitants, is to be exhumed. There, as elsewhere, a great drought prevails, and the story has got about that a cushion with feathers was put under his head. Nine-tenths of the population believe that this is the cause of the drought, hence the proposal to exhume him and remove the cushion, which is in reality filled with hay. Is this case parallel to the prejudice against the feathers of certain birds in beds and pillows, or is there some special connection between feathers and rain? More particularly in Australia feathers and hair are associated with rainmaking." It will be noticed that in China the drought-causing demon grows the feathers on its own body, whereas in Bohemia it merely lies on a feathered pillow. That the two beliefs had a common origin, and that the two British superstitions already cited may be connected with them, will not, perhaps, be regarded as altogether beyond the bounds of possibility. FOOTNOTES: [213] See pp. 262 _seq._ [214] _The Religious System of China_, vol. i. p. 212. For full details as to the procedure at Chinese funerals and the religious ceremonies connected therewith, the reader is referred to Dr. De Groot's monumental work, which deals minutely with this and kindred subjects. [215] See p. 263. Needless to say, the ancestral temples of great or wealthy families are on a very much grander scale. [216] See p. 256. [217] Instead of red ink it is in some parts of China customary to use blood extracted from a cock's comb. For an explanation of this, and for a full description of the ceremony of dotting the tablet, see De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 214-19. [218] See illustration. [219] The terms used are honorific. [220] That is, the eldest son of his father. [221] See illustration facing next page, and that facing p. 278. [222] _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 114. [223] We may smile at Chinese simplicity in such matters, but exactly the same ideas have existed in the West. "A woman in our parish," writes a resident in Wiltshire, "had her leg amputated and got a little coffin made for it. She caused it to be buried in the churchyard"--with the view of joining it there at some future day. Many similar cases have been observed in Ireland, and doubtless in many other parts of western Europe. (See _Folk-lore_, March 1907, pp. 82-3, and June 1907, p. 216.)