At Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws
down rain whenever water is poured on it. When the Wakondyo, a tribe
of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the Wawamba, who dwell
at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors of a
"rain-stone." In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba wash
the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full of
water. After that the rain cannot fail to come. In the arid wastes
of Arizona and New Mexico the Apaches sought to make rain by
carrying water from a certain spring and throwing it on a particular
point high up on a rock; after that they imagined that the clouds
would soon gather, and that rain would begin to fall.
But customs of this sort are not confined to the wilds of Africa and
Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World. They have
been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe.
There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those
"wild woods of Broceliande," where, if legend be true, the wizard
Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade.
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