The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-12
SHADOW LEGENDS
ZuIus Believe the Bodily Shade Is
 the Future Spirit.
TAKING AWAY ONES SHADOW.
Why Some Races Are Forbidden to Look Into a Dark Pool of Water. The Way Donald Mckay Managed to Escape the Clutches of the Devil.

Look Into a Dark Pool of Water
 The Way Donald Mckay Managed to
 Escape the Clutches of the Devil.
 That mysterious counterpart of a human being which lengthens with the day and disappears with the sun, to reappear more faintly with the rising of the moon. which we call a shadow. has always struck the imagi- nation of man. It has played a promi- nent part in primitive superstition and in later folklore. Shadows or shades was the classical name or figure for the spirits of the departed which still remains in use.
 This idea is not sconfined to civilized races. Among thetZulus the spirit is the shade. Bishop Galloway. whose knowledge of Zulu beliefs and modes of thought was unrivaled, says that the Zulus connect the bodily shade with the future disembodied spirit. They believe that the shadow cast by the body will ultimately become the '.itongo." or spirit, when the body dies, and they say that the long shadow shortens "as man approaches his end and contracts into a very little thing. When they see the shadow of man thus contracting, they know he will die. The long shadow goes away when a man is dead, and it is that which is meant when it is said, The shadow has departed There is, how ever, a short shadow which remains with the body and is buried with it. The long shadow becomes an ances- tral spirit.
 Identification of the shadow in any mysterious or spiritual way with the person whose body casts it, naturally leads to respect for the strange second self To tread on the shadow of a chief is an insult to the chief himself. In the Institutes of Manu, the ancient Hindu law giver. the law runs:
 "Let him not Intentionally pass over the shadow of sacred images, of a natural or spiritual father, of a king, any reverend parsonage, nor of one who has just performed a sacrifice.
 There are traces of the survival of these primitive ways of regarding a mans shadow in the English country feeling that it is unlucky to cross the path of a newly married man as he leaves the altar; and in another rural belief that it is unlucky to cross the path of horses ploughing when the sun is shining behind them.
 Association between shadows and mirrored representations of the human form is obviously natural, so it is not surprising to find superstitions about the shadow mingled with widely scat tered versions of the Narcissus legend. The story of the beautiful youth who became enamored of his own image, as he saw 1t represented in the water, and languished thereafter till he died, has its origin in the belief that trouble follows from beholding the watery image.
 "Let him not look at his own image in water; that is a settled rule," com mands Manu, the Hindu law giver.
 The reason for the prohibition is to be found in the beliefs of man in a primitive state of civilization. The Melanesians of the Pacific, says a learned observer, say: There is a stream in Saddle island, or, rather, a pool in a stream, into which if any one looks he dies; the malignant spirit takes hold upon his life by means of his reflection in the water" Some such idea as this was probably the root of the Narcissus legend.
 The Zulus explain why it is ill to look into the water of pool by story of a great beast in the water which can seize the shadow of a man and when his shadow is gone a man no longer wishes to turn back, but. de sires to enter the pool. He goes in, dies, and is eaten by the great beast which inhabits it. So, says Bishop Galloway, men are forbidden to lean over and look into a dark pool, it be- ing feared that their shadow should be taken away"
 There are other ways in which man may lose his shadow. There was a temple of Jupiter in Arcadia which. if entered by those who were for bidden to do so, robbed them of their shadows.
 In the north of Scotland there are some quaint legends of folk who lost this usual attendant In Sutherland they tell more than one story of wizard named Donald-Duival Mckay. Donald went to school in Italy where the black art was taught by the devil, who sat in the professors chair, and at the end of each term claimed as his own the last scholar to depart. Break ing up at this academy was naturally a scramble, none wishing to be last.
 On one occasion Donald was really the last. but just as the devil was about to seize him, the resourceful Donald pointed to his own shadow, which fell behind him, saying, Take thou the hindmostr' Accordingly. his shadow was seized, while he himself escapes, and after his return to Scot land was never seen to have shadow!
 A companion illustration of "deil talk the in'most." from Aberdeenshire, is a story of a witch helped laird watch ing his reapers, whose shadow was seized by Satan. and who was ever after shadowless. In literature Cha misso's famous tale of Peter Schle- mihP' is a we'll known example of