The lamb teaching the sheep to graze. (Welsh).

The lazy person has no legs. (Arabian).

"None so blind as those who won't see." (English). "None so deaf as those who won't hear." (French, Italian, Spanish, Danish).

The pestle has fallen in one village, and headaches are felt in another. (Bengalese).

The injury inflicted is felt by another.
"Other folks' burdens kill the ass.'
"Other folks' cares kill the ass.'

(English). (Spanish).

There is a difference between Peter and Peter. (Spanish).

The river flowing upwards. (Hindustani).

Used in referring to something impossible.

The story of one who wandered through the jungle in search of a lamb that he had on his shoulder. (Tamil). See Wit and Humour in Proverbs: "One man's beard is burning, another goes to light his cigarette by it."

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Proverbs of absent-mindedness are numerous:
"By mistake he poured butter-milk into butter-
milk." (Telugu). "Searching the village for
the copper pot which is under his arm." "The
shoemaker is sitting on his awl and beats his boy
for taking it." "The child is on her hip and she
searches the Maharwada for it." (Marathi).
"The milk is on the fire, and the thoughts else-
where." 'Crying a child through the town, and
it is in the nurse's lap." (Bengalese). "Ye're
like the man that sought his horse, and him on its
back." (Scotch). "You look for the horse you
ride on." (Russian). "He looks for his ass and
sits upon his back." (French). "The butcher
looked for his knife while he had it in his mouth."
"The butcher looked for the candle, and 'twas
in 's hat." (English).

The world going upside down, the horse mounted on the horseman. (Gaelic).

Thou readest the Psalms to the inhabitants of the tombs. (Arabian).

"The Psalms are seldom read by Moslems because they assert that the Christians have interpolated them; yet they acknowledge that David was inspired by Heaven when he composed and sang them. Nobody thinks, however, of reading or reciting to the dead."-J. L. Buckhardt.

You are unlike other men: you do what no one else would think of doing.

To ask the blind if it is daybreak. (Welsh).

To bind the water with thread.

(Persian).

This saying is used by the Persians for two purposes: (1) He is engaged in an impossible or useless occupation; and

(2) He is accomplishing his purposes by stratagem.

To cool the eyes by applying butter to the soles of the feet. (Marathi).

The man high in authority and influence benefits himself by bestowing favours on those who occupy a lower station in life.

To dip up the great ocean with a small shell. (Japanese).

To give a shellful of medicine to a sick mountain. (Marathi).

The means would be inadequate and the procedure absurd, but no more absurd than attempting to remedy a great evil by the use of insignificant

measures.

To give the loaf and ask for the slice. (Welsh).

To grease a lump of lard. (Welsh).

To keep a dog and bark yourself. (English, Scotch, Welsh). To keep servants in the house and do your own work.

To make a peg firm by shaking it. (Marathi).

To render an opinion regarding a matter about which one has made few inquiries and is only partially informed.

To make a young tree grow in the divan passage. (Osmanli). This would be impossible as the divan passage is usually paved with stone and is in constant use.

To pound water in a mortar. (Persian).

To show the path to one who knows it. (Welsh).

To tie a priest's hair in a knot. (Japanese).

Which would be impossible owing to the fact that the priests shave their heads.

Using a mirror to look at one's bracelets. (Bengalese). Exerting oneself to discover that which is plainly visible.

"Why, man, have you got up into the tamarind tree?" He replied," To pluck grass for my kitten." (Tamil). "You fellow, Why did you go up the cocoanut tree? When thus addressed, he replied, "I went to get grass for the calf." (Tamil).

Equivalent to the common phrase, "It's none of your business."

You dance in a net and think nobody sees you. (English).

SUPERSTITION IN PROVERBS

See Fortune and Luck in Proverbs.

After a dream of a wedding comes a corpse. (English). It was a common superstition of olden times that when anyone, particularly lovers, dreamed about marriage, death and disaster were sure to follow. To dream about a wedding always "denotes the death of some near friend or relation, with loss of property and severe disappointment."

Old English Chapbook. "To dream you are married is ominous of death and very unfavourable to the dreamer; it denotes poverty, a prison, and misfortune."

Old English Chapbook.

A gift on the thumb is sure to come; a gift on the finger is sure to linger. (English).

This proverb does not refer, as is often supposed, to presents that may be received or withheld, but to some impending good or evil. "Gift" was a colloquial word that was applied in mediæval times to the white spots that sometimes appear on the finger nails.

"Specks on the fingers, fortune lingers;

Specks on the thumbs, fortune surely comes." It was the custom of people in olden times to count the white spots that they saw on their nails and touch them one after another, beginning with those on the thumb and proceeding to those on each of the fingers. As this was done the counter would say, 'Gift-Friend-Foe-Sweetheart to come-Journey to go." Sometimes "Letter" was substituted for "Sweetheart to come."

A hair of the dog that bit you. (English). "To take a hair of the same dog."

(English).

To take more of the liquor that intoxicated you." "Early we rose, in haste to get away;

And to the hostler this morning, by day,

This fellow called: 'What ho! fellow, thou knave!
I pray thee let me and my fellow have

A hair of the dog that bit us last night-
And bitten were we both to the brain aright.
We saw each other drunk in the good ale glass,
And so did each one each other, that there was.'
John Heywood.

Another and older meaning was that when a person
had been bitten by a dog it was desirable to secure
one of the animal's hairs and place it on the
wound for a cure.

A king reigns on land, in half-filled-up tanks reigns the water sprite. (Assamese).

The water sprite is an evil spirit that is supposed to haunt the swamps and marshes and lead people astray.

A man had better ne'er be born as have his nails on a
Sunday shorn. (English).

"Cut them on Monday, cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday, cut them for sorrow;

Cut them on Saturday, see your sweetheart to-
morrow."-Old English Rhyme.

A serpent unless it devours a serpent grows not to a dragon. (Latin and Greek).

A Sunday child never dies of plague. (French). "A child of Sunday and Christmas Day Is good and fair, and wise and gay."

Bush natural; more hair than wit. (English).

Meaning that when a person has a large quantity
of hair on his head he is deficient in intellect.
Shakespeare refers to this superstition in Two
Gentlemen of Verona (Act III, Scene 1) when