From India Mr. W. Crooke reports similar exorcisms and charms to cure and to protect cattle.[204] Thus there is employed in Northern India the _Ajaypâl jantra_, i. e. 'the charm of the Invincible Protector,' one of Vishnu's titles, in his character as the earth-god Bhûmiya--in Scotland it would be the charm of the Invincible Fairy who presides over the flocks and to whom libations are poured--in order to exorcize diseased cattle or else to prevent cattle from becoming diseased. This _Ajaypâl jantra_ is a rope of twisted straw, in which chips of wood are inserted. 'In the centre of the rope is suspended an earthen platter, inside which an incantation is inscribed with charcoal, and beside it is hung a bag containing seven kinds of grain.' The rope is stretched between two poles at the entrance of a village, and under it the cattle pass to and fro from pasture. The following is the incantation found on one of the earthen saucers:--'O Lord of the Earth on which this cattle-pen stands, protect the cattle from death and disease! I know of none, save thee, who can deliver them.' In the Morbihan, Lower Brittany, we seem to see the same folk-custom, somewhat changed to be sure; for on St. John's Day, the christianized pagan sun-festival in honour of the summer solstice, in which fairies and spirits play so prominent a part in all Celtic countries, just outside a country village a great fire is lit in the centre of the main road and covered over with green branches, in order to produce plenty of smoke, and then on either side of this fire and through the exorcizing smoke are made to pass all the domestic animals in the district as a protection against disease and evil spirits, to secure their fruitful increase, and, in the case of cows, abundant milk supply. Mr. Milne, while making excavations in the Carnac country, discovered the image of a small bronze cow, now in the Carnac Museum, and this would seem to indicate that before Christian times there was in the Morbihan a cult of cattle, preserved even until now, no doubt, in the Christian fête of St. Cornely, just as in St. Cornely's Fountain there is preserved a pagan holy well. It ought now to be clear that both pre-Christian and Christian exorcisms among Celts have shaped the Fairy-Faith in a very fundamental manner. And anthropologically the whole subject of exorcism falls in line with the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the belief in fairies in Celtic countries. TABOOS