Caprice set up altars of earth, and bring
together a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taosse to conjure the
spirits to gratify their wishes."
["Lamas were of various extraction; at the time of the great assemblies,
and of the Khan's festivities in Shangtu, they erected an altar near the
Khan's tent and prayed for fine weather; the whistling of shells rose up
to heaven." These are the words in which Marco Polo's narrative is
corroborated by an eye-witness who has celebrated the remarkable objects
of Shangtu (Loan king tsa yung). These Lamas, in spite of the
prohibition by the Buddhist creed of bloody sacrifices, used to sacrifice
sheep's hearts to Mahakala. It happened, as it seems, that the heart of an
executed criminal was also considered an agreeable offering; and as the
offerings could be, after the ceremony, eaten by the sacrificing priests,
Marco Polo had some reason to accuse the Lamas of cannibalism.
(Palladius, 28.) - H. C.]
The practice of weather-conjuring is not yet obsolete in Tartary, Tibet,
and the adjoining countries.[6]
Weather-conjuring stories were also rife in Europe during the Middle Ages.
One such is conspicuously introduced in connection with a magical fountain
in the romance of the Chevalier au Lyon:
"Et s'i pant uns bacins d'or fin
A une si longue chaainne
Qui dure jusqu'a la fontainne,
Lez la fontainne troveras
Un perron tel con tu verras
* * * *
S'au bacin viaus de l'iaue prandre
Et dessor le perron espandre,
La verras une tel tanpeste
Qu'an cest bois ne remandra beste,"
etc. etc.[7]
The effect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut
illustrating a Welsh version of the same tale in the first volume of the
Mabinogion. And the existence of such a fountain is alluded to by
Alexander Neckam. (De Naturis Rerum, Bk. II. ch. vii.)
In the Cento Novelle Antiche also certain necromancers exhibit their
craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently): "The weather
began to be overcast, and lo of a sudden rain began to fall with continued
thunders and lightnings, as if the world were come to an end, and
hailstones that looked like steel-caps," etc. Various other European
legends of like character will be found in Liebrecht's Gervasius von
Tilbury, pp. 147-148.
Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world; but it is remarkable
that those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means of a
rain-stone.
Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid to
Circe:
"Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit;
Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat,
* * * *
Tunc quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum,
Et nebulas exhalat humus." - Metam. XIV. 365.
And to Medea: -
- "Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes
In fontes rediere suos ... (another feat of the Lamas)
... Nubila pello,
Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque, vocoque." - Ibid.
