to be rectified by the burning of juniper, sometimes of rosemary. “He
doth sacrifice two pence in juniper to her every morning.” (“Every Man
out of his Humor,” Ben Jonson) “Then put fresh water into both the
bough-pots, and burn a little juniper in the hall chimney. Like a beast,
as I was, I pissed out the fire last night.” (“Mayor of Tumborough,”
Beaumont and Fletcher.) “Burn a little juniper in my murrin; the maid
made it in her chamber-pot.”—(“Cupid’s Rev.” Beaumont and Fletcher, iv.
3; contributed by Dr. Fletcher.)
The diuretic effects of juniper berries are well known; we may conjecture
that the “water of juniper” superseded another fluid induced by the use
of the berries.
The “fore-spoken water” with which sick cattle are sprinkled in the
Orkneys, is still to be noted in places in the Highlands.—(See Brand,
“Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 274, art. “Physical Charms.”)
The following spell is from Herrick’s “Hesperides,” p. 304:—
“Holy water come and bring;
Cast in salt for seasoning;
Set the brush for sprinkling.”
(Idem, vol. iii. p. 58, art. “Sorcerer.”)
“The charmer muttered some words over water, in imitation of Catholic
priests consecrating holy water.”—(“Phil. of Magic,” Salverte, p. 52.
Shetland Islands.)
According to Dalyell, this “fore-spoken water” was made of water, salt,
and the saliva of the conjurer.—(See “Superstitions of Scotland,” p. 98.)
“For information of a cherished relative and his fate, in the other
world, they apply to the fetich-priest, who takes a little child and
bathes his face with lustral-water.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 65.)
The “lustral water” of the foregoing paragraph, is made of “snails and
vegetable butter.”—(Idem, p. 88.)
Reginald Scot gives a “cure” for one “possessed,” one point of which is
that the victim “must mingle holy water with his meate and his drink, and
holy salt also must be a portion of the mixture.” (“Discoverie,” p. 178.)
Witches were required to drink holy water at their trials.—(Idem, p. 21.)
Salt was called “divine” by the ancients.—(See “Morals,” Plutarch,
Goodwin’s English edit., Boston, 1870, vol. iii. p. 338.)
“Both Greeks and Romans mixed salt with their sacrificial cakes; in their
lustrations, also, they made use of salt and water, which gave rise, in
after times, to the superstition of holy water.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol.
iii. p. 161, art. “Salt Falling.”)
The Scottish use of salt and water, as already noted, is described by
Black (“Folk Medicine,” p. 23); and by Napier (“Folk-Lore,” pp. 36, 37.)
Salt is put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,”
New York, Nov. 10, 1889.) “No one will go out on any material affairs
without putting some salt in their pockets; much less remove from one
house to another, marry, put out a child, or take one to nurse, without
salt being interchanged.” (Dalyell, “Superst. of Scotland,” p. 96.)
Salt is not used by the Eastern Inuit: “Le sel leur répugne, peut-être
parceque l’atmosphère et les poissons crus en sont déjà saturés.”—(“Les
Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 33.)
Having shown that witches were exorcised in France, England, Scotland,
etc., by sprinkling with urine, we have reason to claim the following
treatment to be at least cousin-german to our subject. In the west of
Scotland, a peasant suffering from a mysterious and obstinate disease,
was reputed to be under the influence of the “evil eye.” The following
remedy was then resorted to: “An old sixpence is borrowed from some
neighbor, without telling the object to which it is to be applied; as
much salt as can be lifted upon the sixpence is put into a tablespoonful
of water and melted; the sixpence is then put into the solution, and the
soles of the feet and palms of the hands of the patient are moistened
three times with the salt water; it is then tasted three times, and the
patient ‘scored aboun the breath,’ that is, by the operator dipping the
fore finger into the salt water and drawing it along the brow. When this
is done, the contents of the spoon are thrown behind and right over
the fire, the throwers at the same time saying: ‘Lord preserve us from
all scathe.’”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 47, art. “Fascination of
Witches.”)
Wright calls attention to the fact that at the meetings of witches, “at
times, every article of luxury was placed before them, and they feasted
in the most sumptuous manner. Often, however, the meats served on the
table were nothing but toads and rats, and other articles of a revolting
nature. In general they had no salt, and but seldom bread.” After these
feasts came “wild and uproarious dancing and revelry.... Their backs,
instead of their faces, were turned inwards.... It may be observed, as
a curious circumstance, that the modern waltz is first traced among the
meetings of the witches and their imps.... The songs were generally
obscene or vulgar, or ridiculous.”—(“Sorcery and Magic,” Thomas Wright,
London, 1851, pp. 310, 311, 328, 329.)
Reginald Scot also states that the waltz was derived from the dance of
the witches.—(See “Discoverie,” p. 36.)
The presents which the devil gave to witches all turned into filth the
next morning.—(See Grimm, “Teut. Mythol.,” vol. iii. p. 1070.)
For a specimen of the filthy in literature, read the dream of Zador of
Vera Cruz, who wished to sell his soul to the devil, in “El Bachiller de
Salamanca,” Le Sage, Paris, 1847, part iv. cap. 2, p. 129.
The best explanation of the above story—which represents Zador as making
a compact with his satanic majesty whereby in exchange for Zador’s soul
the devil discloses a gold mine in a graveyard, from which the poor dupe
extracts enough for his present needs, and then marks the locality by an
ingenious method, only to be awakened by his angry wife to the mortifying
consciousness that he has defiled his own bed—is that it reflects the
current opinion of the Spaniards of Le Sage’s era in regard to the
transmutability of the gifts received from the evil one. See the story of
the god “Kutka.”
“Popular tales, which most frequently arise from traditions ... are
remnants of olden times, and illustrate them.... When a vicious or evil
spirit is mentioned in any tale or popular tradition, I consider it
always implies a reminiscence of some being who formerly, during the
supremacy of a religion now rejected, was worshipped as a god. He is
considered to benefit his worshippers, but to molest those who hold
another belief. Mankind, when in a rude state, often attribute their own
intolerance to their gods. Thus mankind creates his own god after his own
image.”—(Sven Nilson, “The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,” edited
by Sir John Lubbock, London, 1868, Preface, liii.)
Speculation would lead to no profitable result were we to endeavor by its
aid—the only means now left us—to fathom the obscurity surrounding the
rites and dances, and especially the foods of those witches’ gatherings.
Doctor Dupouy, in “Le Moyen Age Médical,” to which special attention
is due, advances an opinion which seems to cover much of the ground
in a logical manner. This in one word, amounts to the belief that the
witches’ gatherings of Europe were not figments of the imagination, but
really existed, and were the conventions of votaries of the cults stamped
out of existence, and only traceable in the distorted and outlandish
features which would most naturally commend themselves to an ignorant
peasantry. “Among these sorcerers there were old panderers, who knew from
personal experience all practices of debauchery, and who gave the name
of ‘vigils’ to the saturnalia indulged in among villagers on certain
nights,—gatherings composed of bawds and pimps, to which were invited
numerous novices in libidinousness. These sorcerers and witches also knew
the remedies that young girls must take when they wish to destroy the
physiological results of their own imprudence, and what old men needed
to restore their virility. They knew the medicinal qualities of plants,
especially those that stupefied.”—(Translated by T. C. Minor, M.D., under
title of “Medicine in the Middle Ages,” p. 40.)
The initiates in witchcraft may have been compelled to adopt loathsome
foods as a test of the sincerity of their purposes, or they may have
taken them to induce an intoxication such as that of the Zuñis of New
Mexico and the wild tribes of Siberia. There is still another hypothesis
to be considered before relinquishing this topic. The best food, we
know, was always offered to the deities of the ruling sect, and the use
of any of the appurtenants of the rites of the ruling religion in the
ceremonial of a superseded cult was looked upon as the veriest sacrilege
and blasphemy. For example, the use of holy water at the witches’ sabbath
was considered a worse crime than that of being a witch. Therefore
we may conclude that, as the votaries of the superseded religion did
not dare to employ the best, they necessarily had to fall back upon
inferior material out of which to construct their oblations; and as they
assembled generally in mountain recesses, in caves, etc., where nothing
better could be had, they offered themselves in sacrifice,—that is, they
recurred to the old practices of human sacrifice, if indeed they had
ever abandoned them, and gave the pledges of their own hair, saliva,
urine, and egestæ.
“Pure prayer ascends to Him that High doth sit,
Down falls the filth for fiends of Hell more fit.”
Such was the answer made to the father of lies by a venerable monk,—
“A godly father sitting on a draught,
To do as need and nature hath us taught.”
The devil had reproached him for saying his prayers at such a
moment.—(Harington, “Ajax,” pp. 33, 34.)
Mooney relates an instance of the abduction of an Irishwoman by fairies.
She managed to impart to her husband the knowledge of the means by which
her rescue could be accomplished: “He must be ready with some urine and
some chicken-dung, which he must throw upon her, and then seize her....
Soon he heard the fairies approaching, and when the noise came in front
of him he threw the dung and urine in the direction of the sound, and
saw his wife fall from her horse.” (“The Medical Mythology of Ireland,”
James Mooney, Amer. Phil. Society, 1887.) The Irish peasantry firmly
believe in the power of the fairies to carry off their children; to
effect a restoration, “a wise woman” is summoned, whose method is to
“heat the shovel in the fireplace, place the changeling upon it, and put
it out upon the dung-hill.” (Idem.) “Fire, iron, and dung, the three
great safeguards against the influence of fairies and the infernal
spirits.”—(Idem.)
The peasantry of Ireland carry about the person “medicine bags” very much
like those in use among the North American Indians. Among the contents
of these bags “are usually found tobacco, garlic, salt, chicken-dung,
lus-crea, and some dust from the roadside.” (Idem.) This is “carried as
a protection against the fairies; ... also as a protection against the
evil eye; and something of the same nature is sewed into the clothing
of the bride when her friends are preparing her for the marriage
ceremony.”—(Idem.)
“A charm to be said each morning by a witch fasting, or at least before
she goes abroad: ‘The fire bite, the fire bite; hog’s turd over it, hog’s
turd over it, hog’s turd over it! The Father with thee; the Son with
thee; the Holy Ghost between us both to be!’ This last refrain three
times; then spit over one shoulder, and then over the other, and then
three times right forward.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 177.)
“Item. They hang ... garlicke in the roof of the house for to keep away
witches and spirits, ... and so they do alicium likewise.”—(Idem, p. 192.)
Garlic was put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,” New
York, Nov. 10, 1889.)
Garlic could not be eaten by the monks or nuns of Thibet (Bhikshuni);
to eat it was considered a sin. “140. Si une Bhikshuni mange de l’ail,”
etc. But in a footnote it is stated that it might be eaten when it was
the only remedy for some disease or infirmity; but even then the patient
should not enter a dormitory, a latrine, could not expound the law,
mingle with brahmins, enter a park, a market, or a temple until he had
undergone a three days’ purification, been bathed and fumigated.—(See
“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société
Asiatique.)
XLIV.
A FEW REMARKS UPON TEMPLE OR SACRED PROSTITUTION, AND UPON THE HORNS OF
CUCKOLDS.
“The bawds of Amsterdam believed (in 1637) that horse’s dung dropped
before the house and put fresh behind the door ... would bring good luck
to their houses.”—(“Le Putanisme d’Amsterdam,” p. 56, quoted in Brand,
“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 18, article “Sorcery.”)
While a sacred origin cannot be claimed for prostitution in general,
all, or nearly all, temples must in the early ages of mankind have
been provided with prostitutes. The necessity for such a provision is
obvious. Man’s superstition and ignorance invested certain localities,
or the guardian spirits of those localities, with the power to work him
weal or woe, unless kept in good humor by oblations and sacrifices.
Temples were erected on such foundations, tended by priests, who waxed
fat and enriched themselves, because the right of asylum attached to
their position, although such a right did not absolutely attach to
the little communities which insensibly grew up around these temples.
The necessities of national administration and of international or
inter-tribal arbitration, would naturally attract periodically to those
temples the law-makers, the great chiefs and their followers, perhaps to
settle their disputes or arrange their treaties by personal discussion,
perhaps by the decision of the arch-priest.
At such gatherings, no inconsiderable amount of barter and traffic would
spring up, and many, of a mercantile turn of mind, would realize the
advantages of a permanent residence. The sailors and merchants from
foreign parts could not always be expected to behave with propriety;
they might, at times, be as anxious to “paint the town red” as the
western cowboy is whenever he is paid off. The women of the city would
be in constant danger of insult; hence, as a wise precaution, a certain
class of young and attractive females were reserved for the service of
the temples,—that is, for the gratification of the sexual passions of
strangers and the enrichment of the priests.
Indeed, until some such mode of detail had been devised and carried into
effect, and perhaps long after that, it seems to have been the custom for
all the women of the city to share in this duty; we read that, at the
temple of Mylitta, it was incumbent upon each woman to prostitute herself
with a stranger at least once in her life, at the temple of that goddess.
The priests would impart to the prostitutes a knowledge of charms
intended to secure good fortune; these charms would, in course of time,
be adopted by prostitutes in general, who had no connection with the
temple at all. Similar survivals can be traced among gamblers. Gambling
was at one time a sacred method of divination. Those who cast omens were
always on the lookout for good signs and bad. One of the best signs was
to meet a man with a hump-back. Gamblers to-day consider themselves
fortunate when they can rub the hump of a cripple.
This sacred prostitution was by no means confined to the Babylonians. The
Hebrews had, attached to their temples, a class of persons of both sexes
termed “Kadeshim,” to whom the opprobrious office of public prostitution
has been attributed; and in numerous other parts of the world the same
sort of personal degradation has been reported. The women devoted to this
service wore a certain uniform. (See Dulaure, “Des Différents Cultes,”
vol. ii. p. 75, speaking of the “Kadeshoth.” See also Smith’s “Dictionary
of the Bible,” New York, 1871, articles, “Harlot” and “Sodomite.”)
“The sons of Eli lay with the women that assembled at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation.”—(1 Samuel ii. 22.)
“Throughout India, and also through the densely inhabited parts of Asia
and modern Turkey, there is a class of females who dedicate themselves
to the service of the Deity whom they adore, and the rewards accruing
from their prostitution are devoted to the service of the temple and
the priests officiating therein. The temples of the Hindus in the
Dekkan possessed these establishments. They had bands of consecrated
dancing-girls, called “women of the idol,” selected in their infancy
by the priests for the beauty of their persons, and trained up with
every elegant accomplishment that could render them attractive.”—(“The
Masculine Cross,” privately printed, 1886, p. 31.)
Réclus has a dissertation upon this subject, which concludes in these
words: “Aussi Juvénal se permettait de demander, ... Quel est le temple
où les femmes ne se prostituent pas?”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 79.)
Lenormant speaks of “the sacred prostitution, which was imposed
once, at least, in a lifetime, upon all women, even those who were
free.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, p. 386.)
“Caindu is an heathenish nation, where, in honor of their idols,
they prostitute their wives, sisters, and daughters to the lust of
travellers.”—(Purchas, vol. v. p. 430. Caindu seems to have been a
territory adjacent to Thibet.)
“Sometimes, at the command of a wizard, a man orders his wife to go to
an appointed place, usually a wood, and abandon herself to the first
person she meets. Yet there are women who refuse to comply with such
orders.”—(Patagonia, “Voyage of Adventure and Beagle,” vol. ii. p. 154.)
“The people of Khasrowan, a Christian province in the Libanus,
inhabited by a peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under
the far-famed cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus, like the
‘Kadeshah’ of the Phœnicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary ‘hand-books,’ but amply deserves the study of the
anthropologist.”—(Burton, “Arabian Nights,” terminal essay, vol. x. 230.)
The religious prostitution of the ancient Babylonians seems also to
survive, in a small degree, in the petty hamlets of Kesfin and Martaouan,
near Aleppo, in Syria. “The women carry their hospitality as far as those
of Babylon of old. This authorized prostitution seems to be a remnant of
the old Asiatic superstitions.”—(Maltebrun, “Universal Geography,” vol.
i. p. 353, lib. 28.) Dulaure cites the case of Martaouan, and also quotes
Marco Polo in evidence of the existence of the same practices in Kamul,
near Tanguth.—(“Des Dif. Cultes,” vol. ii. pp. 598, 599.)
“Most eastern temples, and especially those connected with the solar
cult, had, and for the most part still have, ‘Deva-Dasis’ temple, or
‘God’s women,’ the followers of Mylitta, though generally not seated
so confessedly nor so prominently as those whom Herodotus describes.
They were doubtless the women with mirrors (Ezek. viii. 14) who wept
for Tamuz, the sun-god.” (“Rivers of Life,” Forlong, vol. i. p. 329.)
The African goddess Odudua promised protection “to all those who would
establish themselves in this place, and erect to her a temple in place
of the cabin. Many persons came and established themselves here,
and thus was founded Ado, which means prostitution in memory of the
goddess.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 17.) “The temple erected in this city
is celebrated among the blacks. The neighboring kings offer an ox to
the goddess on her feast-day, and, in accordance with the legend, impure
games are celebrated in her honor.”—(Idem.)
“In the Babylonian worship of the goddess Mylitta, the women who offered
themselves for a price to the stranger at the door of the temple were
distinguished by a peculiar apparel, according to Baruch.... The women
sit in the ways, girded with cordes of rushes and burnt straw,” and
“their resting-places distinguished with cords.”—(Purchas’s “Pilgrims,”
vol. v. p. 56, art. “Hondius’ Babylonia.”)
In Ireland, at the present day, the peasantry make use, in divination and
witchcraft, of “Saint Bridget’s cord,” made of rushes, and corresponding
closely to the cord of the goddess Mylitta.
We are not informed that horns were assumed as a distinctive feature of
such uniform, but we are constantly kept in mind of the fact that many,
if not all, of the deities of the countries adjacent to the Mediterranean
were at one time or another represented with horns as symbols of power.
What, therefore, is more reasonable than to suppose that the woman thus
employed was decked with a head-dress of horns? Or that her husband,
without whose permission such prostitution would have been impossible,
and for whom it must have been an act of equal religious importance, was
similarly decorated?
When new religions had succeeded in trampling into the dust the sacred
usages of the past, the fierce intolerance of the fanatic would have had
no greater delight than in ridiculing that which had been the distinctive
feature, perhaps, of the cult so recently overthrown. Therefore the
association of horns, formerly the typical attribute of the heathen
gods, would be transferred to the betrayed husband, and what had been
the outward sign of the most devout self-negation would be turned into
ridicule and opprobrium.
Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. pp. 181 _et seq._ gives a perfect flood
of information on this subject, but nothing very satisfactory or
definite,—art. “Cornutes.”
“Actæon, a cuckold; from the horns placed on the head of Actæon by
Diana.” (Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.) This myth may
conceal the story of the intrusion of Actæon upon sacred ceremonies of
prostitution or his personal association therewith.
“Highgate; sworn at Highgate. A ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at
the public houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all
travellers of the middling class who stopped there. The party was sworn
on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick; the substance of the oath was
never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress; never to drink
small beer when he could get strong; with many other injunctions of the
same kind, to all of which was added the saving clause,—‘unless you like
it best.’ The person administering the oath was always to be called
father by the juror, and he, in return, was to style him son, under
penalty of a bottle.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang.”)
“Horn Fair; an annual fair, held at Carlton, in Kent, on Saint Luke’s
day, the 18th of October. It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a
printed summons, dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold’s
Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that
town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds upon their
heads; and at the fair there are sold rams’ horns and every sort of
toy made of horn; even the gingerbread figures have horns. The vulgar
tradition gives the following history of the origin of this fair. King
John, or some other of our ancient kings, being at the palace of Eltham
in this neighborhood, and having been out hunting one day, rambled from
his company to this place, then a mean hamlet, when, entering a cottage
to inquire his way, he was struck with the beauty of the mistress, whom
he found alone; and having prevailed over her modesty, the husband,
returning suddenly, surprised them together, and threatening to kill them
both, the king was obliged to discover himself, and to compound for his
safety with a purse of gold, and a grant of the land from this place to
Cuckold’s Point, besides making the husband master of the hamlet. It is
added that, in memory of this, the fair was established for the sale of
horns, and all sorts of goods made of that material.”—(Grose, idem.)
“In Minorca, the inhabitants have as much hatred of the word ‘cuerno’ as
they have of ‘diablo.’” (See Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. p. 186, art.
“Cornutes.”) Possibly we have here an example of the influence of the
early Christian church exerted to make detestable everything connected
with the deposed religion of the Mediterranean.