CHECKS AND SPELLS AGAINST GHOSTS
Amongst the qualities ascribed to the cock was the time-honoured belief
that by its crow it dispelled all kinds of ghostly beings--a notion
alluded to by the poet Prudentius, who flourished at the commencement
of the fourth century. There is, also, a hymn said to have been
composed by St. Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury Missal, in
which allusion is made to this superstition. In Blair's 'Grave' the
apparition vanishes at the crowing of the cock, and in 'Hamlet,' on the
departure of the ghost, Bernardo says:
It was about to speak when the cock crew;
to which Horatio answers:
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Whereupon Marcellus adds the well-known lines:
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Even the devil is powerless at the sound of cock-crow. An amusing story
is told on the Continent of how a farmer's wife tricked the devil by
means of this spell. It appears that her husband was mourning the loss
of his barn--either by wind or fire--when a stranger addressed him,
and said: 'That I can easily remedy. If you will just write your name
in your blood on this parchment, your barn shall be fixed and ready
to-morrow before the cock crows; if not, our contract is void.' But
afterwards the farmer repented of the bargain he had made, and, on
consulting his wife, she ran out in the middle of the night, and found
a number of workmen employed on the barn. Thereupon she cried with all
her might, 'Cock-a-doodle-doo! cock-a-doodle-doo!' and was followed
by all the cocks in the neighbourhood, each of which sent forth a
hearty 'Cock-a-doodle-doo!' At the same moment all the phantom workmen
disappeared, and the barn remained unfinished. In a pretty Swedish
ballad of 'Little Christina,' a lover rises from the grave to console
his beloved. One night Christina hears light fingers tapping at the
door; she opens it and sees her betrothed. She washes his feet with
pure wine, and for a long while they converse. Then the cocks begin to
crow, and the dead get them underground. The young girl follows her
sweetheart through the white forest, and when they reach the graveyard,
the fair hair of the young man begins to disappear. 'See, maiden,' he
says, 'how the moon has reddened all at once; even so, in a moment,
thy beloved will vanish.' She sits down on the tomb, and says, 'I
shall remain here till the Lord calls me.' Then she hears the voice
of her betrothed, 'Little Christina, go back to thy dwelling-place.
Every time a tear falls from thine eyes my shroud is full of blood.
Every time thy heart is gay, my shroud is full of rose-leaves.' These
folk-tales are interesting, as embodying the superstitions of the
people among whom they are current.
A similar idea prevails in India, where the cock is with the Hindoos,
as with the English peasant, a most potent instrument in the
subjugation of troublesome spirits. A paragraph in the 'Carnatic Times'
tells us how a Hindoo exorcist tied his patient's hair in a knot, and
then with a nail attached it to a tree. Muttering some 'incantatory'
lines, he seized a live cock, and holding it over the girl's head with
one hand, he, with the other, cut its throat. The blood-stained knot of
hair was left attached to the tree, which was supposed to detain the
demon. It is further supposed that 'one or a legion thus exorcised will
haunt that tree till he or they shall choose to take possession of some
other unfortunate.'
It was said that chastity was of itself a safeguard against the
malignant power of bad ghosts; a notion to which Milton has referred:
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,
That breaks the magic chains at curfew-time,
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
The cross and holy water have, too, generally been considered sacred
preservatives against devils and spirits, illustrations of which will
be found in many of our old romances.[297]
Fire, like water,[298] has been employed for the purpose of excluding
or barring the ghost, and Mr. Frazer writes how 'the Siberians seek
to get rid of the ghost of the departed by leaping over a fire. At
Rome, mourners returning from a funeral stepped over fire,' a practice
which still exists in China. A survival of this custom prevails among
the south Slavonians, who, on their return from a funeral, are met
by an old woman carrying a vessel of live coals. On these they pour
water, or else they take a live coal from the hearth and fling it over
their heads. The Brahmans simply touched fire, while in Ruthenia 'the
mourners merely look steadfastly at the stove or place their hands on
it.'[299] It is noteworthy that in the Highlands of Scotland and in
Burma, the house-fires were always extinguished when a death happened;
for fear, no doubt, of the ghost being accidentally burnt.
The Eskimos drive away spirits by blowing their breath at them,[300]
and the Mayas of Yucatan had evil spirits which could be driven away
by the sorcerers; but they never came near when their fetiches were
exposed. They had a ceremony for expelling evil spirits from houses
about to be occupied by newly married persons.[301] The natives of
Brazil so much dread the ghosts of the dead that it is recorded how
some of them have been struck with sudden death because of an imaginary
apparition of them. They try to appease them by fastening offerings on
stakes fixed in the ground for that purpose.[302]
Mutilations of the dead were supposed to keep his ghost harmless, and
on this account Greek murderers hacked off the extremities of their
victims. Australians cut off the right thumb of a slain enemy that his
ghost might not be able to draw the bow. And in Arabia, Germany, and
Spain, as the ghosts of murderers and their victims are especially
restless, everyone who passes their graves is bound to add a stone to
the pile.[303]
In Pekin, six or seven feet away from the front of the doors, small
brick walls are built up. These are to keep the spirits out, which
fly only in straight lines, and therefore find a baulk in their way.
Another mode of keeping spirits away in the case of children is to
attire them as priests, and also to dress the boys as girls, who are
supposed to be the less susceptible to the evil influence. In fact,
most countries have their contrivances for counteracting, in one way or
another, the influence of departed spirits--a piece of superstition of
which European folk-lore affords abundant illustrations.
Thus, in Norway, bullets, gunpowder, and weapons have no influence on
ghosts, but at the sight of a cross, and from exorcisms, they must
retire. The same belief prevails in Denmark, where all kinds of checks
to ghostly influence are resorted to. It is said, for instance, to
be dangerous to shoot at a spectre, as the bullet will return on him
who shot it. But if the piece be loaded with a silver button, that
will infallibly take effect. A Danish tradition tells how once there
was a horrible spectre which caused great fear and disquietude, as
everyone who saw it died immediately afterwards. In this predicament,
a young fellow offered to encounter the apparition, and to endeavour
to drive it away. For this purpose he went at midnight to the church
path, through which the spectre was in the habit of passing, having
previously provided himself with steel in various shapes. When the
apparition approached, he fearlessly threw steel before its feet,
so that it was obliged instantly to turn back, and it appeared no
more.[304] A common superstition, equally popular in England as on
the Continent, is that when a horseshoe is nailed over the doorway
no spirit can enter. It is also said that 'if anyone is afraid of
spectres, let him strew flax seed before the door; then no spirit
can cross the threshold. A preventive equally efficacious is to place
one's slippers by the bedside with the heels towards the bed. Spectres
may be driven away by smoking the room with the snuff of a tallow
candle; while wax-lights attract them.' And at the present day various
devices are adopted by our English peasantry for warding off from their
dwellings ghosts, and other uncanny intruders.[305]
FOOTNOTES:
[297] See E. Yardley's _Supernatural in Fiction_, pp. 29-31.
[298] See Chapter on 'Ghost Laying.'
[299] _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 112; Ralston's _Songs of the
Russian People_, p. 319.
[300] Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 20.
[301] _Ibid._ p. 29.
[302] _Ibid._ p. 21.
[303] 'The Primitive Ghost,' _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 107.
[304] Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, ii. p. 205.
[305] See Harland and Wilkinson's _Lancashire Folk-lore_, 1867, p. 63.