THE HUMAN BODY.
Superstitions about Deformity, Moles, &c.--Tingling of the
Ear--The Nose--The Eye--The Teeth--The Hair--The Hand--Dead
Man's Hand--The Feet.
In the preceding pages we have given a brief survey of that
widespread folk-lore with which the life of man has been invested,
stage by stage, from the cradle to the grave. In like manner the
popular imagination has, in most countries from the earliest times,
woven round the human body a thick network of superstitions, many
of which, while of the nature of omens, are supposed to indicate
certain facts, such as the person's character, the events connected
with his life, and to give that insight into his future career which
eager curiosity would strive to ascertain. Thus, according to an old
prejudice, which is not quite extinct, those who are defective or
deformed are marked by nature as prone to mischief, in accordance
with which notion Shakespeare makes Margaret, speaking of Richard,
Duke of Gloucester, in _King Richard III._ (Act i., sc. 3), say:--
"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rotting hog
Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell."
Moles, too, have generally been thought to denote good or ill-luck
from their position on the body. Thus one on the throat is a sign
of luck, but one on the left side of the forehead near the hair is
just the reverse. Again, a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is
an indication of riches, but one on the breast signifies poverty.
Indeed, if we are to believe the "Greenwich Fortune-teller," a
popular chap-book in former years, omens to be drawn from moles are
almost unlimited.
Referring, however, more especially to the folk-lore associated with
the different parts of the human body, this, as we have already
stated, is very extensive, being in many cases the legacy bequeathed
to us by our ancestors. Commencing, then, with the ear, there is a
well-known superstition that a tingling of the right one is lucky,
denoting that a friend is speaking well of one; a tingling of the
left implying the opposite. This notion differs according to the
locality, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which
denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy.
Shakespeare, in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (Act iii., sc. 1), makes
Beatrice say to Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her, "What
fire is in mine ears?" in allusion, it is generally supposed, to
this popular fancy, which is old as the time of Pliny, who says,
"When our ears tingle some one is talking of us in our absence."
Sir Thomas Browne also ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian
angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation
is favourable or not to the person. The Scotch peasantry have an omen
called the "death-bell"--a tingling in the ears which is believed to
announce some friend's death. Hogg alludes to this superstition in
his "Mountain Bard":--
"O lady, 'tis dark, an' I heard the death-bell,
An' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee,"
and gives also an amusing anecdote illustrative of it:--"Our two
servant-girls agreed to go on an errand of their own, one night after
supper, to a considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade
them, but could not prevail; so, after going to the apartment where
I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and coming close to the back of
the door made two or three sweeps round the lip of the glass with
my finger, which caused a loud shrill sound, and then overheard the
following dialogue:--
"_B._ 'Ah, mercy! the dead-bell went through my head just now with
such a knell as I never heard.'
"_I._ 'I heard it too.'
"_B._ 'Did you indeed? That is remarkable. I never knew of two
hearing it at the same time before.'
"_I._ 'We will not go to Midgehope to-night.'
"_B._ 'I would not go for all the world! I shall warrant it is my
poor brother Wat. Who knows what these wild Irish may have done to
him?'"
The itching of the nose, like that of the ears, is not without
its signification, denoting that a stranger will certainly appear
before many hours have passed by, in allusion to which Dekker, in
his "Honest Whore," says:--"We shall ha' guests to-day; my nose
itcheth so." In the north of England, however, if the nose itches it
is reckoned a sign that the person will either be crossed, vexed,
or kissed by a fool; whereas an old writer tells us that "when a
man's nose itcheth it is a signe he shall drink wine." Many omens,
too, are gathered from bleeding of the nose. Thus Grose says, "One
drop of blood from the nose commonly foretells death or a very
severe fit of sickness; three drops are still more ominous;" and
according to another notion one drop from the left nostril is a sign
of good luck, and _vice versâ_. Bleeding of the nose seems also
to have been regarded as a sign of love, if we may judge from a
passage in Boulster's "Lectures," published early in the seventeenth
century:--"'Did my nose ever bleed when I was in your company?' and,
poor wretch, just as she spake this, to show her true heart, her
nose fell a-bleeding." Again, that bleeding of the nose was looked
upon as ominous in days gone by, we may gather from Launcelot's
exclamation in the _Merchant of Venice_ (Act ii., sc. 5), "It was
not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at
six o'clock"--a superstition to which many of our old writers refer.
Among further superstitions connected with the nose we may mention
one in Cornwall, known as "the blue vein," an illustration of which
occurs in Mr. Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England," who
relates the following little anecdote:--"A fond mother was paying
more than ordinary attention to a fine healthy-looking child, a boy
about three years old. The poor woman's breast was heaving with
emotion, and she struggled to repress her sighs. Upon inquiring if
anything was really wrong, she said, 'The old lady of the house had
just told her that the child could not live long because he had a
blue vein across his nose.'" This piece of folk-lore, which caused
the anxious mother such distress, is not confined to the West of
England, but crops up here and there throughout the country. While
speaking of the nose, we may just note that it is the subject of
various proverbs. Thus "to put the nose out of joint" means to
supplant one in another's favour, and the popular one of "paying
through the nose," implying extortion, may, it has been suggested,
have originated in a poll-tax levied by Odin, which was called in
Sweden a nose-tax, and was a penny per nose or poll. Once more,
we have the term "nose of wax" applied to a person who is very
accommodating, and one may occasionally hear the phrase "wipe the
nose" used in the sense of affront.
Leaving the nose, however, we find similar odd fancies attached
to the eye. In many places we are told that "it's a good thing to
have meeting eyebrows, as such a person will never know trouble,"
although, curious to say, on the Continent quite a different
significance is attributed to this peculiarity. In Greece, for
instance, it is held as an omen that the man is a vampire, and in
Denmark and Germany it is said to indicate that he is a werewolf. In
China, also, there is a proverb that "people whose eyebrows meet can
never expect to attain to the dignity of a minister of state." There
can be no doubt that, according to the general idea, meeting eyebrows
are not considered lucky:--
"Trust not the man whose eyebrows meet,
For in his heart you'll find deceit."
Thus, Charles Kingsley, in "Two Years Ago," speaks of this idea
in the following passage:--"Tom began carefully scrutinising Mrs.
Harvey's face. It had been very handsome. It was still very clever,
but the eyebrows clashed together downwards above her nose, and
rising higher at the outward corners, indicated, as surely as the
restless down-drop eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable
of great inconsistencies, possibly of great deceit."
Again, the itching of the right eye is considered a lucky omen, an
idea that is very old, and may be traced as far back as the time of
Theocritus, who says:--
"My right eye itches now, and I shall see my love."
According to the antiquary Grose, however, who collected together
so many of the superstitions prevalent in his day, "When the right
eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they
will laugh." The power of fascination has generally been considered
to be a peculiar quality of the eye, a notion by no means obsolete,
and numerous charms have been resorted to for counteracting its
influence. In our chapter on "Birth and Infancy" we have already
spoken of the danger to which young children are said to be subject
from the malevolent power of some evil eye, and of the pernicious
effects resulting from it. Shakespeare gives several references to
it, one of which occurs in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (Act v., sc.
5), where Pistol says of Falstaff:--
"Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth."
And once more, in _Titus Andronicus_ (Act ii., sc. 1), Aaron speaks
of Tamora as
"----fetter'd in amorous chains--
And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes,
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus."
It was not very long ago that a curious case of this superstition was
brought before the guardians of the Shaftesbury Union, in which an
applicant for relief stated his inability to work because he had been
"overlooked" by his sister-in-law. Although his wife had resorted
for help to a wise-woman, yet she was unable to remove the spell
under which he lay, and thus the unfortunate man, incapable of labour,
applied for relief, which he did not obtain.
In the next place, some of the superstitions connected with the teeth
are quaint, and afford opportunities to the credulous for drawing
omens of various kinds. Thus, to dream about teeth is held to be a
warning that sorrow of some kind is at hand; and it is even unluckier
still to dream of one's teeth falling out. It is also frequently the
custom, for the sake of luck, to throw a tooth when extracted into
the fire, a practice which, as we have already seen, is frequently
most scrupulously kept up in the case of young children, to make
sure of the remainder of their teeth coming properly. Furthermore,
to have teeth wide apart is a sign of prosperity, and is said to
indicate one's future happiness in life. As an instance of this piece
of folk-lore we may quote the following, narrated by a correspondent
in _Notes and Queries_:--"A young lady the other day, in reply to an
observation of mine, 'What a lucky girl you are!' replied, 'So they
used to say I should be when at school.' 'Why?' 'Because my teeth
were set so far apart; it was a sure sign I should be lucky and
travel.'" Trivial as many of these superstitions may seem, yet they
are interesting, inasmuch as they show how minutely the imagination
has at different times surrounded the human body with countless items
of odd notions, some of which in all probability originated from
practical experience, while others have been the result of a thousand
circumstances, to ascertain the history of which would be a matter of
long and elaborate research.
Passing on to the hair, there is a popular notion that sudden fright
or violent distress will, to use Sir Walter Scott's words, "blanch at
once the hair." Thus, in Shakespeare's _1 Henry IV._ (Act ii., sc.
4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, says:--
"Thy father's beard is turned white with the news."
Although this has been styled "a whimsical notion," yet in its
support various instances of its occurrence have been from time
to time recorded. The hair of Ludwig of Bavaria, for example, it
is said, became almost suddenly white as snow on his learning the
innocence of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death on a
suspicion of infidelity; and the same thing, we are told, happened
to Charles I. in a single night, when he attempted to escape from
Carisbrooke Castle. A similar story is told of the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette, when her flight from France was checked at Varennes.
According to another notion, excessive fear has occasionally caused
the hair to stand on end, a belief which Shakespeare has recorded. In
_Hamlet_ (Act iii., sc. 4), in that famous passage where the Queen
is at a loss to understand her son's mysterious conduct and strange
appearance, during his conversation with the ghost which is hidden to
her eyes, she says:--
"And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end."
Once more, too, in that graphic scene in the _Tempest_ (Act i., sc.
2), where Ariel describes the shipwreck, he says:--
"All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me; the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring--then like reeds, not hair--
Was the first man that leap'd."
The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being said to
prognosticate the loss of children, health, or property; whereas many
consider it imprudent to throw it away, or to leave the smallest
scrap lying about. One reason assigned for this notion is that if
hair is left about, birds might build their nests with it, a fatal
thing for the person from whose head it has fallen. Thus, should
a magpie use it for any such purpose--by no means an unlikely
circumstance--the person's death will be sure to happen "within a
year and a day." Some say, again, that hair should never be burnt,
but only buried, a superstition founded on a tradition that at the
resurrection its owner will come in search of it. On the other hand,
it is customary with some persons to throw a piece of their hair
into the fire, drawing various omens from the way it burns. Should
it gradually smoulder away, it is an omen of death; but its burning
brightly is a sign of longevity, and the brighter the flame the
longer the life. In Devonshire, too, if the hair grows down on the
forehead and retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered
an indication that the person will have a long life. There is a very
prevalent idea that persons who have much hair or down on their arms
are, to quote the common expression, "born to be rich," although the
exception, in this as in many other similar cases, rather proves the
rule; but abundance of hair on the head has been supposed to denote a
lack of brains, from whence arose an odd proverb, "Bush natural, more
hair than wit." Once more, Judas is said to have had red hair, and
hence, from time immemorial, there has been a strong antipathy to it.
Shakespeare, in _As You Like It_ (Act iii., sc. 4), alludes to this
belief, when he makes Rosalind say of Orlando:--
"His very hair is of the dissembling colour."
To which Celia replies:--
"Something browner than Judas's."
It has been conjectured, however, that the odium attached to red
hair took its origin in this country from the aversion felt to
the red-haired Danes. One reason, perhaps, more than another why
this dislike to it arose, originated in the circumstance that the
colour was thought ugly and unfashionable, and the antipathy to
it, therefore, would naturally be increased by this opinion. Thus,
in course of time, a red beard was also held in contempt, and was
regarded as an infallible token of a vile disposition. Yellow hair,
too, was formerly esteemed a deformity, and in ancient tapestries
both Cain and Judas are represented with yellow beards, in allusion
to which, in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (Act i., sc. 4), Simple,
when interrogated, says of his master, "He hath but a little wee
face, with a little yellow beard--a Cain-coloured beard." While
alluding to beards, we may note that in former years they gave rise
to various customs, many of which, however, have long ago fallen
into disuse. Thus, dyeing beards was a common practice, and our
readers may recollect how Bottom, in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_
(Act i., sc. 2), is perplexed as to what beard he should wear in
performing his part before the Duke. He says, "I will discharge
it either in your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard,
your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard,
your perfect yellow." It was evidently quite as much the habit for
gentlemen to dye their beards in Shakespeare's day as it is said to
be for ladies to dye their locks now-a-days. When beards, too, were
the fashion, to mutilate or cut off one was considered an irreparable
outrage.
Pursuing our subject, we find that the cheek is not without its quota
of folk-lore; for, like the ear, nose, and eye, it is considered
ominous when one's cheek itches. According to Grose, "If the right
cheek burns, some one is speaking to the person's advantage; if the
left, to their disadvantage." One may still occasionally hear the
following charm uttered by a person whose cheek suddenly burns:--
"Right cheek! left cheek! why do you burn?
Cursed be she that doth me any harm;
If she be a maid, let her be staid;
If she be a widow, long let her mourn;
But if it be my own true love--burn, cheek, burn."
Again, the hand has been honoured with a very extensive folk-lore,
and the following extract from an old writer shows that nearly every
peculiarity of the hand has been made emblematical of some personal
trait of character. Thus, we are told:--"A great thick hand signifies
one not only strong, but stout; a little slender hand, one not only
weak, but timorous; a long hand and long fingers betoken a man not
only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally ingenious. Those
short, on the contrary, note a fool, and fit for nothing; a hard
brawny hand signifies one dull and rude; a soft hand, one witty,
but effeminate; a hairy hand, one luxurious. Long joints signify
generosity; yet, if they be thick withal, one not so ingenious. The
often clapping and folding of the hands note covetousness; and their
much moving in speech, loquacity. Short and fat fingers mark a man
out as intemperate and silly; but long and lean, as witty. If his
fingers crook upward, that shows him liberal; if downward, niggardly.
Long nails and crooked signify one to be brutish, ravenous, and
unchaste; very short nails, pale and sharp, show him subtle and
beguiling." Among other omens, we are told that the itching of the
right hand signifies that it will shortly receive money, whereas if
the left hand be the one to itch, it is a sign that money will before
very many days have to be paid away. In Suffolk the peasants have the
following rhyme on the subject:--
"If your hand itches,
You're going to take riches;
Rub it on wood,
Sure to come good;
Rub it on iron,
Sure to come flying;
Rub it on brass,
Sure to come to pass;
Rub it on steel,
Sure to come a deal;
Rub it on tin,
Sure to come agin."
A moist hand is said to denote an amorous constitution, and in _2
Henry IV._ (Act i., sc. 2), the Lord Chief Justice enumerates a dry
hand among the characteristics of age and debility.
Palmistry, or divination by means of the hands, a species of
fortune-telling still much practised, we have already described in
another chapter. A superstition, however, which we must not omit to
mention, is the practice of rubbing with a dead hand for the purpose
of taking away disease, instances of which, even now-a-days, are of
occasional occurrence. Mr. Henderson mentions a case that happened
about the year 1853. The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery,
who was suffering from a wen in the neck, went alone, according
to advice given her by a "wise woman," and lay all night in the
out-house, with the hand of a corpse on her wen. She had been assured
that the hand of a suicide was an infallible cure. The shock, at any
rate, to her nervous system from that terrible night was so great
that she did not rally for some months, and eventually she died from
the wen. As a further specimen of this incredible superstition, we
may quote the following case, which happened some years ago in an
Eastern county. A little girl of about eight years of age had from
birth been troubled with scrofulous disease, and had been reared
with great difficulty. Her friends consulted the "wise man" of the
neighbourhood, who told the mother that if she took the girl and
rubbed her naked body all over with the hand of a dead man she would
be cured. The experiment was tried, and the poor little girl was
nearly killed with fright, and, of course, made no progress whatever
towards health.
Many of our readers are, no doubt, acquainted with the famous "dead
man's hand," which was formerly kept at Bryn Hall, in Lancashire. It
is said to have been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a priest who,
according to some accounts, was put to death for his religion in the
time of William III. Preserved with great care in a white silken bag,
this hand was resorted to by many diseased persons, and wonderful
cures are reported to have been effected by this saintly relic. Thus,
we are told of a woman who, afflicted with the small-pox, had this
dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks; and of a poor
lad who was rubbed with it for the cure of scrofulous sores. It is,
indeed, generally supposed that practices of this kind are rare and
of exceptional occurrence, but they are far more common than might
be imagined, although not recorded in newspapers. This is, however,
in a great measure owing to the fact that those who believe in and
have recourse to such rites observe secresy, for fear of meeting with
ridicule from others.
The nails, also, as we have mentioned in our chapter on Childhood,
have their folk-lore, the little specks which are seen on them being
regarded as ominous. Many have their particular days for cutting
the nails. Of the numerous rhymes on the subject, we may quote the
following as a specimen, from which it will be seen that every day
has its peculiar virtue:--
"Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, you cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday, you cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday, see your true love to-morrow;
Cut them on Sunday, the devil will be with you all the week."
This old rhyming-saw differs in various localities, although in the
main points it is the same; as by general consent both Friday and
Sunday are regarded as most inauspicious days for cutting both the
nails and hair.
Once more, to sit cross-legged is said to produce good
fortune; and occasionally at a card-table one may find some
superstitiously-inclined person sitting in this attitude with a
view of securing good luck. Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary,
tells us that in days gone to "sit cross-legged, or with the fingers
pectinated" or shut together, was accounted a sign of bad luck: a
superstition alluded to by Pliny. Referring to the feet, we cannot
do more than just allude to two or three items of folk-lore with
which they are connected. Thus, a flat-footed person is generally
considered to have a bad temper, a notion indeed which daily
experience often proves to be incorrect. The itching of the foot has
been supposed to indicate that its owner will shortly undertake a
strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation popularly styled
"the foot going to sleep," is often charmed away by crossing the
foot with saliva. When the division between the toes is incomplete,
and they are partially joined, they are called "twin toes," and are
said to bring good luck. This section of our "Domestic Folk-lore"
might have been prolonged to an almost indefinite extent had space
permitted, but as the preceding pages amply bear witness to the
prevalence of such ideas, we will proceed to discuss another, and, it
is to be hoped, not less interesting class of superstitions.