(_Continued from page 284._)
[Transcriber's note: see Mirror 486]
Such is the tale, which is either of itself the fragment of some popular
superstition, or has given rise to many coincident legends. "I am sure,"
says the kind friend who furnished us with the narrative, speaking of the
Beresford from whom she received it, "that neither he, nor any of his
relations, disbelieves the statements recorded." Possibly not; nor dare we
profess to be utterly sceptical--simply as Christians--to all narratives
of this description; but, allowing the possibility, nay, the necessity in
some cases, of supernatural agency, still, a spirit should have some just
and striking reason for its permitted appearance; and we cannot exactly
discover the object of Sir Tristram's mission. Would it be unfair to
hazard a conjecture that the lady, being a Catholic, married in Captain
Georges a Protestant (a supposition which the double performance of the
marriage ceremony with him seems to favour), whom, being anxious to
convert to her own faith, she thought to deceive, by the "cunningly
devised fable" of a spirit with a burning hand, into the Papistical tenet
of purgatory? and, that by a confusion of real circumstances with her
original fiction, is derived the remarkable family tradition recorded?
Leaving this speculation for the private rumination of our readers, we
proceed:
The stories of the young lady suffocated by accidentally enclosing herself
in a chest with a spring lock[7]--of the girl frightened into complete
idiotcy by those who placed a skeleton, or, as some say, a skull only, in
her bed[8]--and of ladies, bishops, &c. obtaining their livelihoods
privately by highway robbery[9], with similar narratives, rather romantic
than superstitious, are general property, and to be met with under various
modifications throughout England. The tale of the King of the Cats[10], a
German tradition, has its exact counterpart in an Irish one, related to us
as an original Hibernian legend, and published some time since in an
excellent work, which having now disappeared, we may perhaps venture to
give, as a novelty, the little tradition in these pages:
A man passing, late at night, a ruined house, observed that it was
lighted, and heard a great mewing, as of a conclave of cats, within. As he
marvelled at the circumstance, a cat jumped upon one of the broken walls,
and said--"Tell Dildrum that Doldrum's dead." The man, little dreaming of
these words being addressed to him, pursued his way home; where, when he
arrived, a good, fire, an excellent supper, and his wife's conversation,
seem to have banished for a time from his recollection what he had seen
and heard. At last, he began to laugh so heartily that he was nearly
choked, and his wife pressed him to tell her the cause of his mirth. This
he did; but no sooner had he uttered the words "Tell Dildrum that
Doldrum's dead," when his own favourite grimalkin, who had lent an
attentive ear to his narrative, whilst demurely basking before the fire,
started upon his feet, and exclaiming, "O murder! and is Doldrum dead?"
dashed up the chimney, and was never seen more.
[7] Vide _Mirror_, vol. ii. p. 157, for the story of "The Rosewood
Trunk."
[8] Vide _Mirror_, vol. v. p. 93, for the story of "Mary M'Cleod."
[9] Vide _Mirror_, vol. viii. p. 90, for the story of "The Lady of
Edenmere"--by the author of this article.
[10] Vide _Mirror_, vol. xii. p. 267, for the "Ghost Story"--by
M.G. Lewis.
A Scottish tradition concerning The Cat o' the Craigs, as given by a
correspondent in vol. iv. of the _Mirror_, p. 85, and which has a most
fatal termination, is evidently but another version of the same story.
In a little work just published, on "Cambrian Superstitions," by Mr.
Howells, several are mentioned so exactly similar to those prevalent in
Ireland, Scotland, and England, as to leave no doubt of their common
origin. The Welsh coast has also its spectre-ships, like America and the
seas of the Cape, ere shipwreck.
The _Mirror's_ able correspondent VYVYAN has, in vol. xii. p. 408, noticed
the connexion between the German Peter Klaus and Emperor Barbarossa, with
the oriental Seven Sleepers and the American Rip Von Winkle. We may add,
that there is a similar Welsh superstition respecting the enchanted
slumber of King Arthur, and his expected reappearance upon earth before
the last day, to take part in the holy wars of the times. The Poles and
Turks, if we mistake not, have among them a corresponding legend; and
whilst Sir W. Scott has given us that of the purchase of horses by Thomas
the Rhymour, and the magic slumbers of the gigantic men-at-arms appointed
to ride them, in the subterranean mews, H. has rescued very happily from
oblivion a coincident English superstition. The legendary lore of
mountainous and mining countries, is, with little variation, the same; and
whether America, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Wales, or our own peculiar
mining districts in England be the locale of such, still may be
discovered, under different names indeed, and circumstances, the demons of
the mines, the guardians of hidden treasures, the freakish dwarfs and
fays, who delight in unexpectedly enriching the poor and virtuous, whilst
they delude most miserably all idle and worthless treasure-seekers, &c.
Nay, what, we may inquire, are the oriental genii of kings, and lamps,
&c., but modifications of one and the same superstition? And what are the
said Ginns--who erect splendid palaces in the course of a few brief hours,
and transport them at pleasure from place to place--but the Evil Ones of
more modern times and northern countries, who build, according to popular
tradition, bridges, and mills, &c.?--who cleave mountains, excavate
ditches, and fly away with monasteries and hermitages, in an incredibly
short space of time?
However, we have finished; for less than a folio could not do that justice
to our subject in its various bearings which it requires;--nor, indeed,
would less than an intimate acquaintance with all the tongues and
traditions of all nations that are, or ever have been, upon the face of
the earth--so intermingled are divine revelations, corrupt mythologies,
wild and palpable fictions, fantastic imaginings, exaggerated allegories,
poetical machinery, and the very insanity of human hopes, fears, and
wishes, &c. &c., in the great and never to be analyzed body of popular
superstition!
Can any of the readers of the _Mirror_ throw additional light on the
subject of coincident traditions?--Can any of its contributors show the
connexion which subsists between oriental mythology, allegory, and
legendary lore, with that of the Scandinavian nations? This Sir Walter
Scott has omitted to do;--but this might afford, even formed of the
materials to be gleaned from various desultory sources, another volume
upon "Demonology and Witchcraft."