Quakers rejected these with other salutations, but they remained in the code of English good manners among high and low till half a century or so ago, and are so little forgotten now, that most people still see the point of the story of the fiddler and his wife, where his sneeze and her hearty 'God bless you!' brought about the removal of the fiddle case. 'Got hilf!' may still be heard in Germany, and 'Felicita!' in Italy.
It is not strange that the existence of these absurd customs should have been for ages a puzzle to curious enquirers. Especially the legend-mongers took the matter in hand, and their attempts to devise historical explanations are on record in a group of philosophic myths, — Greek, Jewish, Christian. Prometheus prays for the preservation of his artificial man, when it gives the first sign of life by a sneeze; Jacob prays that man's soul may not, as heretofore, depart from his body when he sneezes; Pope Gregory prays to avert the pestilence, in those days when the air was so deadly that he who sneezed died of it; and from these imaginary events legend declares that the use of the sneezing formulas was handed down. It is more to our purpose to notice the existence of a corresponding set of ideas and customs connected with gaping. Among the Zulus, repeated yawning and sneezing are classed together as signs of approaching spiritual possession.[1] The Hindu, when he gapes, must snap his thumb and finger, and repeat the name of some God, as Rama: to neglect this is a sin as great as the murder of a Brahman.[2] The Persians ascribe yawning, sneezing, &c., to demoniacal possession. Among the modern Moslems generally, when a man yawns, he puts the back of his left hand to his mouth, saying, 'I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed!' but the act of yawning is to be avoided, for the Devil is in the habit of leaping into a gaping mouth.[3] This may very likely be the meaning of
