Other implications must be briefly treated. The best ghost or god for this purpose seems to be a divine or kingly person; and in stages when the meaning of the practice is still quite clear to the builders, the dearly-be-loved son or wife of the king is often selected for the honour of tutelary godship. Later this notion passes into the sacrifice of the child or wife of the master mason; many legends or traditions contain this more recent element. In Vortigern’s case, however, the child is clearly a divine being, as we shall see to be true a little later on in certain Semitic instances. To the last, the connexion of children with such sacrifices is most marked; thus when in 1813 the ice on the Elbe broke down one of the dams, an old peasant sneered at the efforts of the Government engineer, saying to him, “You will never get the dyke to hold unless you first sink an innocent child under the foundations.” Here the very epithet “innocent” in itself reveals some last {255}echo of godship. So too, in 1843, when a new bridge was to be built at Halle in Germany, the people told the architects that the pier would not stand unless a living child was immured under the foundations. Schrader says that when the great railway bridge over the Ganges was begun, every mother in Bengal trembled for her infant. The Slavonic chiefs who founded Detinez sent out men to catch the first boy they met and bury him in the foundation. Here once more we have the sacred-chance victim. Briefly I would say there seems to be a preference in all such cases for children, and especially for girls; of kingly stock, if possible, but at least a near relation of the master builder. Mr. Speth points out that horses’ heads were frequently fastened on churches or other buildings, and suggests that they belong to animal foundation-victims. This use of the skull is in strict accordance with its usual oracular destination.