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.

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