WITCHCRAFT.
What are these,
So wither'd and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question?
_Shakspere._
The county of Lancaster especially has been famous for its witches--or
infamous, rather, if the reader prefer the latter epithet. Certainly,
the hanging of the poor old women from Pendle side, for their supposed
sorcery, is neither a legislative nor a judicial feat to feel very proud
of, especially in these days of "spirit-rapping mediums" and dark
_séance_ performers, who supply writing done by invisible hands, and
cause heads to be thumped by malignant imps in the shape of discordant
fiddles, trumpets, and tambourines. This modern necromancery, it must
not be forgotten, is performed under aristocratic patronage, and _for a
monetary consideration_ which would have rejoiced greatly the hearts
that beat wildly beneath the weather-worn skins of poor old Dame Demdike
and her compeers. Truly, popular superstition, as well as tradition, is
"tough." Forms, manners, and customs may change externally, but it
requires the lapse of long, long periods of time to totally eradicate
from the imagination of an entire people _all faith_ in any mystery,
however absurd to modern scientific minds, to which their ancestors once
clung with simple earnest truthfulness. The witchcraft of the old
Demdike and Chattox school, in all its essential features, is derived
from the early superstitions of our Eastern Aryan progenitors. Nay, the
mystical character of many of its more vulgar "stage properties," such
as cauldrons, besoms, sieves, hares, cats, &c., was recorded with all
due solemnity in the Rig Vedas of the Southern Aryans, some three
thousand two hundred years ago. Pliny says that, in his day, the
Britons celebrated magic rites with so many similar ceremonies that one
might suppose them to have been instructed therein by the Persians. In
the Britain of our day, after passing through both Keltic, Teutonic,
Greek, and Roman channels, these superstitions yet exist either in the
traditionary lore of the rustic population, or the more elevated art
forms with which poetry, sculpture, and painting have clothed them. The
diamond crystal and the charred willow branch are near relatives of the
carbon family; and it may truly be said that a similar relationship
exists between the weird "folk lore" of the wild moorlands or the lonely
mountain glens and the noble artistic creations of a Shakspere, a Walter
Scott, an Ovid, a Homer, an Apelles, or a Phidias. Truly, "one touch of
Nature makes the whole world kin," and especially if that touch be given
by a finger which has been dipped deeply in the dark pool of mysticism.
Witches appear, on the whole, and in more modern times especially, to
typify evil or malignant influences, and are not unfrequently degraded
forms of the deities of a preceding mythology. Kelly, on the authority
of Schwartz and others, speaks of the "human witches" of Northern
nations as "degenerate and abhorred representatives of the ancient
goddesses and their attendants, who were themselves developments of the
primitive conception of the _cloud-women_; but witches, even in their
degraded state, exhibit a multitude of characteristics by which we can
recognise the originals of whom they are but loathsome caricatures.
Their alleged May-day meetings, for instance, on the Brocken, the
Blocksberg, and at Lucken Hare, in the Eildon Hills, are not, as
commonly supposed, merely reminiscences of certain popular gatherings in
heathen times, but were originally assemblages of goddesses and their
retinues, making their customary progress through the land at the
opening of the spring, and visible to their believing votaries in the
shifting clouds about the summits of the mountains. Even the May-day
night dances of the witches, with the devil for the master of the
ceremonies in the shape of a buck goat, are but coarse representations
of weather tokens of the early spring; they are analogous in all but
their ugliness to the dances of the nymphs, led by the goat-footed Pan
at the same glad season of the year amongst the clouds on the windy
mountain tops of Arcadia." The witch revelling at Alloway Kirk, as
detailed in several Scottish traditions, and rendered immortal by the
genius of Burns, seems to confirm this view.
Amongst the infernal deities of classical mythology were the Fates or
Destinies, named Parcæ. They were, like Shakspere's weird sisters,
three in number, and are said by some to have been the offspring of
Erebus and Nox, and by others of Jupiter and Themis. Their mode of
divination was a spinning process. When determining the future life or
career of a mortal, Clotho held the distaff, while Lachesis did the
spinning and Atropos cut the thread. According to Ovid, these divining
deities were equally successful in their occult labours when without, as
when with, some necessary "staple" on which to exercise their spinning
ingenuity or skill.
Witches were supposed to compass the death of any obnoxious individual
by making an image of the victim in wax. As this slowly melted before a
fire, or under other applied heat, it was believed the original would in
like manner sicken and decay. Images were frequently formed of other
materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar
results. This superstition yet obtains to a great extent in the East and
elsewhere. Dubois, in his "People of India," speaks of magicians who
make small images in mud or clay, and write the names of the objects of
their animosity on the breasts thereof. These are afterwards pierced
with thorns or otherwise mutilated, "so as to communicate a
corresponding injury to the person represented."
There is considerable affinity, in this phase of the superstition, to
the classic solar myth which records the doom of Meleager. The M[oe]ræ,
the three sisters, or the Fates, informed Althæa, the mother of the
future hero, when in his cradle, that her son would die when a certain
brand they pointed out on the hearth was totally consumed. She instantly
snatched it away, plunged it into water, and hid it in a secret place.
In later years, Meleager slew a brother of Althæa, which so exasperated
the mother that she laid her curse upon her son. She brought out the
brand from its hiding place, and flung it on the fire. As it burnt away,
the strength of the hero decayed, and, with the extinguishing of its
last spark, he expired. Mr. Cox says Meleager's life is that "of the
sun, which is bound up with the torch of day; when the torch burns out
he dies."
The gradual change of the old Aryan superstition into its more modern
form would seem to be indicated by a passage in the writings of
Pomponius Mela, who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The
old writer, describing what his translator terms a "Druidical nunnery,"
says it "was situated in an island in the British sea, and contained
nine of these _venerable vestals_, who pretended that they could raise
storms and tempests by their incantations, could cure the most incurable
diseases, could transform themselves into all kinds of animals, and
foresee future events."
Reginald Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," published in 1584,
describes the nature of the faith in this superstition as it existed in
his day, and for ridiculing which he was covered with obloquy, and his
book was not only "refuted" by King James I. and a host of others, but
it was ignominiously consigned to the flames by the hands of the common
hangman. This shrewd old writer says:
"No one endued with common sense but will deny that the elements are
obedient to witches and at their commandment, or that they may, at their
pleasure, send rain, hail, tempests, thunder, lightning, when she, being
but an old doting woman, casteth a flint stone over her left shoulder
towards the west, or hurleth a little sea sand up into the element, or
wetteth a broom-sprig in water, and sprinkleth the same in the air; or
diggeth a pit in the earth, and, putting water therein, stirreth it
about with her finger; or boileth hogs' bristles; or layeth sticks
across upon a bank where never was a drop of water; or burieth sage till
it be rotten; all which things are confessed by witches, and affirmed by
writers to be the means that witches used to move extraordinary tempests
and rain."
The elaborate title-page of this curious work, vividly illustrates the
condition of the public mind on this subject in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries:--"Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft; Familiars; and
their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and
children, or other creatures by disease or otherwise; their flying in
the Air etc.: To be but imaginary Erronious conceptions and novelties;
wherein also the lewde, unchristian practises of Witchmongers, upon
aged, melancholy, ignorant and superstitious people in extorting
confessions by inhumane terrors and Tortures is notably detected. Also
the knavery and confederacy of Conjurors. The impious blasphemy of
Inchanters. The imposture of Soothsayers, and infidelity of Atheists.
The delusion of Pythonists, Figure-casters, Astrologers, and vanity of
Dreamers. The fruitlesse beggerly act of Alchimistry. The horrible act
of Poisoning and all the tricks and conveyances of juggling and
legerdemain are fully deciphered. With many other things opened that
have long lain hidden: though very necessary to be known for the
undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of
poor, aged, deformed, ignorant people; frequently taken, arraigned,
condemned and executed for Witches, when according to a right
understanding, and a good conscience, Physic, Food, and necessaries
should be administered to him. Whereunto is added a treatise upon the
nature and substance of Spirits and Divels, &c., all written and
published in Anno 1584. By REGINALD SCOT, Esquire. Printed by R. C. and
are to be sold by Giles Calvert dwelling at the Black Spread-Eagle, at
the West-End of Pauls, 1651."
Wierus, a German physician, indeed, in 1563, published a work, in which
he undertook the refutation of many of the so-called facts and phenomena
which were believed to pertain to witchcraft, but he apparently dared
not to venture a direct denial of the existence of sorcery or demoniacal
possession. He, however, did much, considering the conditions by which
he was surrounded. He thanked God that his labour had not been in vain,
but that it had "in many places caused the cruelty against innocent
blood to slacken." He claimed, and certainly deserved, the civic wreath,
for having saved the lives of so many of his fellow-citizens.
Doubtless, in addition to the genuine superstition, there existed, as at
the present time, a certain amount of imposture in connection therewith,
although, owing to the heavy penalties inflicted by the law, the
credulous element may be supposed to have largely preponderated. It is
somewhat remarkable that the celebrated Pendle witches, Demdike,
Chattox, &c., were pronounced _genuine_ sorcerers, and were hanged
accordingly, at Lancaster, in the year 1612; while the eight from
Samlesbury, near Preston, were acquitted, because they were suspected to
be not the _genuine_ article, but a fraudulent imitation thereof.
So thoroughly saturated was the public mind with a belief in witchcraft,
until a relatively recent period, that hundreds were yearly executed for
this supposed crime. Howell, in his "State Trials," estimates that, in
one hundred and fifty years, thirty thousand persons suffered death as
witches in England alone!
Bishop Jewel, when preaching a sermon before Queen Elizabeth, exhorted
her Majesty to use her authority to check the "tremendous operations of
the devil by exterminating his agents, the witches and wizards, who were
then very numerous."
Reginald Scot gives us a very graphic full-length portrait of the devil
of popular superstition in the sixteenth century. He says, "Our mothers'
mayds terrifie us with the ouglie devil, with hornes on his head, fier
in his mouth, a huge tayle in his breach, eies like basons, fangs like a
boar, claws like a tiger, a skin like a bear, and a voice roaring like a
lion."
A Keltic hairy wood-demon was called _Dus_, hence our modern "the
Deuce." A similar Teutonic monster was named _Scrat_, hence our "Old
Scratch."
In 1633, seventeen Pendle witches were condemned to die; but Charles I.
pardoned them. Strange as it may appear, some of them confessed
themselves guilty. Such is the fascinating influence of superstition,
that imposture itself gradually yields to its power. There is an old
Lancashire saying that if a man will only tell a lie a certain number of
times he will eventually himself regard it as a truth. One of the
seventeen Pendle witches last referred to, Margaret Johnson, in her
confession said, "Good Friday is one constant day for a generall
meetinge of witches, and that on Good Friday last they had a generall
meetinge neere Pendle Water syde." One of the Samlesbury "impostors," a
girl named Grace Sowerbutts, stated that she had been induced to join
the sisterhood, and she gave an account of the means adopted to acquire
the diabolical potency, which, it appears, was not considered
satisfactory by the judges, even of that day. Flying over Ribble with
their "familiars" was one of the ordinary feats of the gang, according
to this youthful witch. Perhaps Grace's face wanted the orthodox number
of wrinkles to gain her credence in an affair of so much mystery and
importance at that period.
A remarkable instance of this species of delusion occurred at Salem, in
New England, in 1682. During the excitement which prevailed in
Massachusetts at this time, about twenty persons were put to death for
witchcraft. One woman confessed that she had ridden from Andover to a
witch meeting on a broomstick. She added that the stick broke, and that
the lameness under which she at the time suffered resulted from the
accident. Her daughter and grand-daughter confirmed her evidence, and
declared they all signed Satan's book together. Others confessed to
equally strange delusions. And yet, it appears the inhabitants of Rhode
Island formed an exception to the rule, for they declared "there were no
witches on earth, nor devils,--except the New England ministers, and
such as they!"
Hallam notices a parallel case of delusion recorded in the "Memoirs of
Du Clercq," which happened at Arras, in 1459. He says:--
"A few obscure persons were accused of '_vauderie_, or witchcraft.'
After their condemnation, which was founded on confessions obtained by
torture, and afterwards retracted, an epidemical contagion of
superstitious dread was diffused all around. Numbers were arrested,
burned alive, by order of a tribunal instituted for the detection of
this offence, or detained in prison; so that no person in Arras thought
himself safe. It was believed that many were accused for the sake of
their possessions, which were confiscated to the use of the church. At
length the Duke of Burgundy interfered, and put a stop to the
persecutions."
That the fraudulent element most probably entered largely into the
motives of witch prosecutions is attested by some instances in
connection with the Lancashire trials. Mr. Crossley, in the
republication of "Potts's Discovery of Witches," by the Chetham Society,
says "the main interest in reviewing this miserable band of victims will
be felt to centre in Alice Nutter. Wealthy, well-conducted,
well-connected, and placed probably on an equality with most of the
neighbouring families, and the magistrates before whom she was
committed, she deserves to be distinguished from the companions with
whom she suffered, and to attract an attention which has never yet been
directed to her. That James Dervice, on whose evidence she was
convicted, was instructed to accuse her by her own nearest relatives,
and that the magistrate, Roger Nowell, entered as a confederate into the
conspiracy against her on account of a long-disputed boundary, are
allegations which tradition has preserved, but the truth or falsehood of
which, at this distance of time, it is scarcely possible satisfactorily
to examine. Her mansion, Rough Lee, is still standing, a very
substantial and rather fine specimen of the houses of the inferior
gentry, _temp._ James I., but now divided into cottages."
It was likewise suspected by the magistrates that a seminary priest,
named Thompson, _alias_ Southworth, had instigated the girl Sowerbutts
to make the charges in the Samlesbury case previously referred to.
Some excuse for the popular frenzy on the subject may be found in the
fact that not only did the king and the highest legal authorities in the
land recognise the crimes of sorcery and witchcraft, but dignitaries of
the church, like Bishop Jewel, in Elizabeth's reign, complained of the
great increase in the number of those offenders. Such men as Sir Thomas
Brown, indeed, went so far as to stigmatise the sceptical on the subject
as guilty of atheism.
Sir Kenelm Digby seems to have doubted. Nevertheless, in his
"Observations on the Religio Medici," after expressing his doubts, he
adds:--"Neither do I deny there are witches; I only reserve my assent
till I meet with stronger motives to carry it." Sir Kenelm, however,
notwithstanding his scepticism about witchcraft, could swallow tolerably
large doses of the marvellous. In a letter to J. Winthorp, jun.,
governor of New England, he says:--
"For all sorts of agues, I have of late tried the following magnetical
experiment with infallible success. Pare the patient's nails when the
fit is coming on, and put the parings into a little bag of fine linen or
sarsanet, and tie that about a live eel's neck in a tub of water. The
eel will die and the patient will recover. And if a dog or hog eat that
eel they will also die."
He adds, "I have known one that cured all deliriums and frenzies
whatsoever, and at once taking, with an elixer made of dew, nothing but
dew purified and nipped up in a glass and digested 15 months till all of
it has become a grey powder, not one drop of humidity remaining. This I
know to be true, and that first it was as black as ink, then green, then
grey, and at 22 months' end it was as white and lustrous as any oriental
pearl. But it cured manias at fifteen months' end."
The sapient James I., of England, before he left his northern kingdom,
was so profoundly agitated on hearing the rumour that one Agnes Sampson
and two hundred other Scotch witches "had sailed in sieves from Leith to
North Berwick church to hold a banquet with the devil," that he ordered
the wretched woman to be put to the torture in his presence, and
appeared to feel pleasure in questioning her during her suffering. It
was afterwards affirmed that Agnes and her two hundred weird sisters
"had baptised and drowned a black cat, thereby raising a dreadful
storm," which had nearly proved fatal to a ship that carried the
superstitious monarch. The poor woman, though she protested her
innocence to the last, perished at the stake, supplicating in vain for
mercy from the king and her Christian fellow-subjects. Strange to say,
the second batch of witches condemned at Lancaster in 1633, but pardoned
by Charles I., were accused of similarly interfering with the weather
during a royal cruise. A letter in the State Paper Office, written May
16, 1634, by Sir William Pelham to Lord Conway, contains the
following:--
"The greatest news from the country is of a huge pack of witches which
are lately discovered in Lancashire, whereof 'tis said 19 are condemned,
and that there are at least 60 already discovered, and yet daily there
are more revealed: there are divers of them of good ability, and they
have done much harm. I hear it is suspected that they had a hand in
raising the great storm, wherein his Majesty [Charles I.] was in so
great danger at sea in Scotland."
The writer of the article "Hertfordshire," in "Knight's Cyclopædia," has
the following singular reference to the belief in witchcraft in that
part of England, about the middle of last century:--
"There has been no public event since (_temp._ Charles I.) of any moment
connected with the county; but a circumstance which occurred in April of
the year 1751, deserves notice as marking the extent of popular
ignorance and barbarity at that period. A publican near Tring being
troubled with fits, conceived that he was bewitched by an old woman
named Osborne. Notice was given by the crier that two witches were to be
tried by ducking; and in consequence a vast mob assembled at the time
appointed. The old woman and her husband, who had been in Tring
workhouse, were removed into the church for safety; but the mob obtained
possession of the old man and the old woman, whom they then dragged two
miles to a muddy stream, ducked them and otherwise so maltreated them
that the woman died on the spot, and the man with difficulty recovered.
Thomas Colley, one of the perpetrators, was executed on the spot; but so
strong was the infatuation of the populace, that it was thought
necessary to have a guard of more than 100 troopers to escort the
cavalcade to the place of execution."
Yes, the ignorance and infatuation had ceased to be "respectable," which
fact, doubtless, has a marvellous influence on our mental and moral
optics, when contemplating many other historical delusions, as well as
those connected with supposed witches and their malevolent doings.
A singular instance of combined delusion and imposture with respect to
witchcraft, is related in Ralph Gardiner's "malicious invective against
the government of Newcastle-on-Tyne," entitled "England's Grievance
Discovered in Relation to the Coal-Trade," and published in 1655. It
appears that about five or six years previously, the magistrates of the
borough had sent two of their sergeants into Scotland, "to agree with a
Scotchman, who pretended knowledge to find out Witches by pricking them
with pins, to come to Newcastle, where he should try such who should be
brought to him, and to have twenty shillings a peece for all he could
condemn as witches, and free passage thither and back again." Many poor
women were subjected to much indignity by this fellow, who caused them
to be stripped partially naked, when he inserted pins into various parts
of their flesh, to find a place from which no blood would issue, as he
pretended. On one occasion, however, he was detected and compelled to
acknowledge that a respectable woman, whom he had grossly treated and
condemned, was "not a child of the Devil," as he had previously
insisted. It appears that this worthy afterwards visited other parts of
Northumberland, "to try women there, where he got some three pound a
peece." The author adds, "it was conceived if he had staid he would have
made most of the women in the North Witches for mony." He gives the
names of fifteen poor wretches who were hanged at Newcastle at this
impostor's instigation, and says, "These poor souls never confessed
anything, but pleaded innocence: And one of them by name Margaret Brown
beseeched God that some remarkable sign might be seen at the time of
their execution, to evidence their innocence, and as soon as ever she
was turned off the ladder, _her blood gushed out upon the people to the
admiration of the beholders_!" The said witchfinder at length met with
the fate he so richly merited. He was, in the words of the indignant
author, "laid hold on in Scotland, cast into prison, indicted,
arraigned, and condemned for such like villainie exercised in Scotland.
And upon the gallows he confessed he had been the death of about two
hundred and twenty women in England and Scotland for the gain of twenty
shillings a peece, and beseeched forgiveness. And was executed."
Singularly enough, our author himself met with a similar untimely fate,
but for a very different crime, as appears from the following MS. note,
in the copy of Gardiner's work before the present writer, purporting to
be extracted from a "MS. Life of Barnes, p. 420":--"Upon some methods
agreed on for reformation of Manners in the Town according to that
clause in the charter which empowers them to make By-laws, there was one
Gardiner writ a malicious Invective against the Government of Newcastle,
but he got his Reward, being afterwards at York hanged for Coyning."
The celebrated "witchfinder," Hopkins, was equally unfortunate with his
Scotch compeer. Some individuals, with more acumen than the
superstitious masses, took it into their heads to experiment upon
Hopkins himself. Accordingly they seized him, tied his thumbs and toes
together, after his own fashion, when operating on others. On placing
him on the water he swam as buoyantly as his victims. "This," says one
writer, "cleared the country of him, and it was a great pity that they
did not think of the experiment sooner." Hopkins's method of discovering
witches is, at least, as old as the days of Pliny the elder.
In the "Covntrey Ivstice," by "Michael Dalton, Lincoln's Inn, Gent,"
published in 1618, are some curious illustrations of the state of the
law with regard to witchcraft, at the period. The author says:--
"Now against these witches the Iustices of peace may not alwaies expect
direct euidence, seeing all their works are the works of darknesse, and
no witnesses present with them to accuse them: And therefore for their
better discouerie, I thought good here to insert certaine obseruations
out of the booke of discouery of the Witches that were arraigned at
Lancaster, _Ann. Dom._ 1612, before Sir _Iames Altham_, and Sir _Edw.
Bromely_ Iudges of Assise there.
"1. They haue ordinarily a familiar, or spirit, which appeareth to them.
"2. Their said familiar hath some bigg or place vpon their body, where
he sucketh them.
"3. They haue often pictures of clay, or waxe (like a man, &c.) found in
their house.
"4. If the dead body bleed, vpon the Witches touching it.
"5. The testimony of the person hurt, vpon his death.
"6. The examination and confession of the children or servants of the
Witch.
"7. Their owne voluntary confession, which exceeds all other euidence."
Bodin, a French writer, in his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," published in
1587, says, "On half-proof or strong presumption, the judge may proceed
to torture." The judge might, moreover, in his opinion, lie with
impunity, and promise a suspected person a pardon on confession, without
the intention of carrying it into effect. But this is not much from a
man, who could cite with approval and even relish, the decision of a
magistrate that a person "who had eaten flesh on a Friday should be
burned alive unless he repented, and if he repented, yet he was hanged
out of compassion." Yet this same Bodin was a Protestant, forsooth!
Walburgar, writing in the following century, is not much less tolerant
of judicial mendacity. He does not, indeed, recommend direct lying, but
equivocation. The judge may inform the suspected that her confession
will induce in him favourable action, that a new house should be built
for her, and that it will tend to the saving of her life. And yet, after
the poor deluded creature has committed herself, he regards it as
perfectly just and honourable that the sapient administrator of the law
should inform her that his action in burning her will be favourable to
the commonwealth, that her new house will be of wood at the stake, and
that the destruction of her body will tend to the salvation of her soul!
In Würtzburg, as recently as 1749, a girl was burnt alive as a legally
condemned practitioner of witchcraft. Witches were burned in Scotland
till 1772, and in France in 1718. The severe acts passed in the reign
of James I., condemnatory of witchcraft, were not repealed till the 9th
George II. (1736).
There appears to have been three kinds of witches--the black, the white,
and the grey. The black had power only for evil, the white for good, and
the grey possessed authority both in matters good and evil. These seem
to have originally been merely personifications of the black, white, and
grey-coloured clouds of the Aryan elemental conflicts. Perhaps Shakspere
formed his principal group of three from the circumstance that the
destiny of his hero was influenced to some extent by one of each class.
Many altars, of the period of the Roman occupation, dedicated to the
_deæ matres_, or mother goddesses, have been found in various parts of
the north of England. It is believed they were introduced by Teutonic
auxiliaries. These deities have undergone much change in their
transference to more modern superstitions; but some of their attributes
may be detected without difficulty. Mr. Thomas Wright, in "Celt, Roman,
and Saxon," says:
"They are sometimes regarded as the three Fates--the _norni_ of the
north, the _wæleyrian_ of the Anglo-Saxons (the weird sisters,
transformed in Shakspere into three witches) disposing of the fates of
individuals, and dealing out life and death. But they are also found
distributing rewards and punishments, giving wealth and property, and
conferring fruitfulness. They are the three fairies who are often
introduced in the fairy legends of a later period, with these same
characteristics."
I have said that many of the "theatrical properties" of mediæval
witchcraft may be traced to an Aryan origin. The chief of these, the
cauldron, is familiar to all from Shakspere's admirable pictures in
Macbeth. I have previously referred to the fact that the phrase "brewing
a storm" is derived from this source. Cauldron stories are common
amongst ancient tribes. Guy of Warwick's "porridge pot" is of this
class. Kelly says, speaking of the "genii of the lightning, the beings
who brewed and lightned in the storm,"--
"If the Bhrigus or their associates were brewers they must needs have
had brewing utensils; at the very least they must have had a brewing
pot; and therefore we are justified in referring back the origin of the
witches' cauldron to the remotest antiquity. Perhaps the oldest example
of such a vessel of which there is any distinct record is the cauldron
which Thor carried off from the giant Hymir, to brew drink for the gods
at Oegir's harvest feast. It was five miles deep, and modern expounders
of the Eddic myths are of opinion that it was the vaulted sky."
It must be borne in mind that the "heavenly liquor," so much vaunted,
was neither more nor less than rain water, "brewed" by the action of the
storm deities and their assistants, whether dignified by the name of
soma, amrita, or nectar.
Robert Hunt, in his "Superstitions of Old Cornwall," describes the
_modus operandi_ of a celebrated witch at Fraddam, when engaged in
brewing a liquor of "wondrous potency," which clearly exhibits the
"elemental strife" that lies at the base of these superstitions. She
"collected with the utmost care all the deadly things she could obtain,
with which to brew her famous drink. In the darkest night, in the midst
of the wildest storms, amidst the flashings of lightnings and the
bellowings of the thunder, the witch was seen riding on her black
ram-cat over the moors and mountains in search of her poisons. At length
all was complete--the horse-drink was boiled, the hell-broth was brewed.
It was in March, about the time of the equinox; the night was dark, and
the King of Storms was abroad."
Olaus Magnus speaks of the storm-raising powers and propensities of the
Scandinavian witches as amongst their most remarkable attributes.
The sieve, amongst all nations of the Aryan stock, and even of some
others, has been regarded as a mythical implement of this class. Witches
used them as boats, notwithstanding their inability to float on water.
The supernatural, of course, easily overcame so trifling a physical
difficulty. The premier weird woman in Shakspere's group, referring to
the scoff she had received from a sailor's wife, says:--
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger;
But _in a sieve I'll thither sail_,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, I'll do.
It is not improbable that witch-sailing would be originally through the
air rather than on the water. The sieve, amongst the Aryans, was a cloud
emblem; the implement by means of which water was filtered into
rain-drops. The upper regions were more affected by witches than the
oceanic "waste of waters." In the opening scene in Macbeth, the
well-known trio, at the conclusion of their _séance_, "hover through the
fog and filthy air." They appear to have intimate relationship to the
clouds and the weather:--
_1st Witch_--When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
_2nd Witch_--When the hurly-burly's done;
When the battle's lost and won.
Though unable to totally wreck the seaman's bark, the first witch
assures her companions that "it shall be tempest toss'd." When Banquo
asks Macbeth, "Whither are they vanished?" the latter answers:--
Into the air; and what seemed corporal melted
As breath into the wind.
In his letter to his wife, he likewise observes: "They made
themselves--air, into which they vanished." Hecate, in the third act,
after giving instructions to the weird host, says:--
I'm for the air; this night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a _vapourous drop_ profound
I'll catch, ere it come to the ground;
And that distill'd by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
And previous to departing, Hecate further says:--
Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,
_Sits in a foggy cloud_, and stays for me.
Hecate, in the classical mythology, is the Pandemonium name for Diana.
This goddess was known by the latter appellation on earth, and by that
of Luna in heaven. Hence the absurdity of converting her into a burly
masculine basso in the so-called "Locke's music," introduced with very
questionable taste into Shakspere's sublime tragedy of Macbeth.
Proserpina, the wife of Pluto, is confounded with Hecate. She was
supposed to preside over sorceries and incantations.
Grimm, although he, in one of his tales, speaks of "angels drawing water
in a perforated vessel," seems not to have clearly interpreted the
mythic import of the sieve. He, however, expressly says that it "appears
to be a sacred archaic implement to which marvellous powers were
attributed." Liebrecht speaks of a tribe of water-spirits, or
cloud-gods, the Draci of Languedoc, with "hands perforated like
colanders." The Grecian Naiads, with their urns, and the various
river-gods, from old Tiber or Ilissus to Father Thames, are but more
artistic modifications of a similar thought.
There is a tradition, in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh, near Preston,
to the effect that during some drought, "in the olden time," a gigantic
dun cow appeared and gave an almost unlimited supply of milk, which
saved the inhabitants from death. An old woman--of the witch fraternity,
I suspect--however, with the view to obtain from the beast more than the
usual number of pails-full, milked the cow with a sieve, riddle, or
colander, which, of course, never became full, as the precious liquid
passed through the orifices into a vessel below. When full, the latter
was replaced by an empty one of a similar character. The tradition adds
that the cow either died of grief, on detecting the imposture, or from
sheer exhaustion, I forget which. A locality is still pointed out, named
"Cow Hill," where gossips aver that, in relatively recent times, the
huge bones of the said cow were disinterred. Over the porch of a house
on the way from Goosnargh to Longridge, I remember, not very long ago,
seeing a large bone, apparently a rib, placed in a conspicuous position.
This was stated to have been a portion of the skeleton so disinterred. I
fancied at the time that, in Polonius's phraseology, the bone in
question was suggestive of something "very like a whale." It is not
improbable, however, that at some early period, the remains of the huge
extinct ox, the _bos primigenius_, or even the _elephas primigenius_ or
fossil mammoth, may have been exhumed in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh.
Many bones and skulls of the former have been dredged from the bed of
the Ribble, and others taken from the fluvial drift excavated in the
valley when preparing for the foundations of the piers of the railway
bridges in the neighbourhood of Preston. Bones of two species of fossil
elephant, two species of rhinoceros, and other extinct pachyderms of
huge dimensions, have recently been found in connection with early flint
implements, indicative of the presence of man, in the fresh water gravel
belonging to what Lyell terms the post-pliocene period of the earth's
history, both in France and in several parts of England. Some such
discovery, grafted upon the ancient Aryan tradition respecting the
heavenly cows, or rain-giving clouds, opportunely rescuing the parched
vegetation from premature decay, might very easily eventuate in such a
tradition as the one current in Grimsargh at the present day.
Some of the deeds of the Saxon giant, the celebrated Guy of Warwick,
appear to enshrine elements of myths of a similar character. In the
"Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet," we read:--
By gallant Guy of Warwick slain
Was Colbrand, that gigantic Dane.
Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt
A dun cow bigger than elephaunt:
But he, to prove his courage sterling,
His whinyard in her blood embrued.
He cut from her enormous side a sirloin,
And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew'd,
Then butcher'd a wild boar, and eat him barbicu'd.[23]
We have here the cow, or rain cloud, the boar, typical of the lightning,
and the human giant or warrior substitute for Indra or Odin, in the
Aryan and Teutonic mythologies.
The ribs of the gigantic dun cow, said to have been slain by the
redoubtable Guy, are still preserved at Warwick. A similar rib is to be
seen in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, and another at
Chesterfield. At an inn in Lincolnshire, a huge scapula is exhibited as
a relic of the famous dun cow. The tradition at Bristol asserts that, at
some former period, the said bovine monster supplied the whole of the
city with milk. This coincides with the Grimsargh tradition. One Warwick
legend too asserts that the cow had been driven mad by the overmilking
of a witch. Another says that the cow was slain by Guy during a season
of great scarcity, and that the consumption of its flesh saved the
inhabitants from perishing of famine. The large rib in the Foljambe
Chapel, Warwick, is said to measure seven feet four inches in length,
and from twelve to thirteen inches in circumference. Frank Buckland, in
his "Curiosities of Natural History," says, "the ribs of the dun cow at
Warwick and the gigantic rib at St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, are
the bones of whales."
Tom Brown ("Amusements for the Meridian of London," 1700) mentions a
remarkable superstitious reverence for the milk of a red cow. Referring
to the Green Walk, St. James's Park, London, he says: "There were a
cluster of senators talking of state affairs, and the price of corn and
cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk folk crying: 'A can of
Milk, ladies; a can of _Red_ Cow's Milk, sirs?' This appears to be a
remnant of the Aryan reverence for the heavenly fire or the lightning,
which they believed to be typified in the _red_ breast of the robin, the
red mutch of the woodpecker, and the red colour of other
'fire-bringers.'"
In the Vedas, the dawn is symbolised by the goddess Ushas, by
philologists regarded as the prototype of the Greek Eôs, and the Latin
Aurora. The ruddy light on the eastern horizon which preceded the
sunrise, was regarded as a herd of red cows attendant upon her. In the
Vedic hymns she is sometimes addressed as a quail. Kelly says, "Vartikâ,
the Sanscrit name of the bird, corresponds etymologically with ortyx,
its Greek name; and in the myths of Greece and Asia Minor the quail is a
symbol of light and heat."
The early Greek mythology has preserved some remains of this bovine
personification of the ruddy dawn clouds. Mr. Gladstone, in "Juventus
Mundi," says, "Although animal worship has played so considerable a part
in the religions of the East, the traces of it in Homer are few, and,
with one exception, they are also faint. That exception is the
extraordinary sanctity attaching, in the Twelfth Odyssey, to the Oxen of
the Sun, which I have treated as belonging to the Ph[oe]nician system,
and as foreign to the Olympian religion." Notwithstanding this, the
evidence in favour of the Aryan origin of the myth seems indisputable.
Dr. Benisch, in one of his expositions of "Maimonides and Kimchito" to
members of the Society of Hebrew Literature, on the 30th of March, 1871,
stated that he was engaged in a comparison of the Semitic and Aryan
tongues, with a view to establish many more points of contact than are
usually admitted to exist between these two families of speech.
Red cow's milk is an important element in a recipe for the cure of
consumption in Dr. Sampson Jones's "Medicine Boke," published in the
latter portion of the seventeenth century. _Red_ is especially mentioned
as the colour of the heifer set apart for sacrifice for the purification
of sin in Numbers, chapter 19; and _scarlet_ is specified as the colour
of one of the articles "cast into the midst of the burning of the
heifer." Thousands of persons yet believe that there is more warmth in
_red_ flannel than in either black, white, blue, or yellow.
On some public-house signs it is not uncommon to refer to the liquor
sold within as the "dun cow's milk." On one, between York and Durham, we
read the following:--
Oh, come you from the east,
Oh, come you from the west,
If ye will taste the Dun Cow's milk,
Y'll say it is the best.
The Durham legend of St. Cuthbert's dun cow is well known in the North
of England. The eccentric saint would not permit a cow to approach his
sacred residence at Lindisfarne. He excused himself for this strange
freak by averring that "where there is a cow there must be a woman, and
where there is a woman there must be mischief." Has not the Scotchman's
"mountain dew" some figurative relationship to the Aryan heavenly soma?
A belief in the influence of witches on the milk and butter yielding
habits of cows is yet very widely entertained. In his "Ancient and
Modern Manners of the Irish," Camden says: "If a cow becomes dry a witch
is applied to, who, inspiring her with a fondness for some other calf,
makes her yield her milk." He further observes that they slaughter all
hares found amongst their cattle on May-day, from a belief that they are
witches, who, having designs on their butter, have assumed this form the
better to effect their purpose. Other authorities speak of the general
belief in witches sucking the dugs of cows in the form of hares. A
writer in the _Athenæum_, as recently as 1846, refers to a certain
Scotch witch, who, he says, "has been seen a hundred times milking the
cows in the shape of a hare." A Scotch witch, recently deceased, named
Margery Scott, firmly believed that she had been frequently transmuted
into a hare and hunted by dogs.
Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Drolls, Superstitions, and Traditions of Old
Cornwall," relates a very amusing story about "the witch of Treva."
Being without food, the husband of the old crone, who doubted her
pretended supernatural power, asked, as a proof to which he would yield,
that she would walk to St. Ives and back, a distance of five miles, and
procure some substantial human victuals. This she undertook to effect in
the space of half-an-hour. The man kept his eye on her for some time,
after she started on her strange errand, "and at the bottom of the hill
he saw his wife quietly place herself on the ground and disappear. In
her place _a fine hare_ ran on at its full speed." He further adds that
the woman returned within the prescribed time, and brought with her
"good flesh and taties, all ready for aiting!" When the said crone was
carried to her grave, she caused much amazement and even terror by her
mad pranks. "When they were about half way between the house and the
church, a hare started from the roadside and leaped over the coffin. The
terrified bearers let the corpse fall to the ground, and ran away.
Another lot of men took up the coffin and proceeded. They had not gone
far when puss was suddenly seen seated on the coffin, and again the
coffin was abandoned." After considerable labour and much tribulation,
we are informed the parson commenced "the ordinary burial service, and
there stood the hare, which, as soon as the clergyman began 'I am the
resurrection and the life,' uttered a diabolical howl, changed into a
black, unshapen creature, and disappeared!"
One of the Saxon forms of the goddess Freyja, according to Mannhardt,
has hares for trainbearers, and another walks at night in the fields of
Aargau, accompanied by a hare of silver-grey colour. The prevalent
superstition that a hare crossing the highway before any person
prognosticated ill-fortune, doubtless, has its origin in the witchcraft
association. Perhaps the story of the hare's nest, to which children are
sent in search of eggs at Easter, in Swabia and Hesse, according to
Meier, is the original of our "_mare's nest_," and has some reference to
the supposed supernatural attributes of the animal. Mannhardt says the
hare is reputed to be a fire and soul bringer; that many kinder-brünnen
(baby fountains) are so named from this circumstance; and that children
are supposed to be procured from the hare's form, as well as from the
parsley bed. We learn from Cæsar that the Ancient Britons held the hare
in reverence, and refused, therefore, to kill it for food.
Sir Jno. Lubbock, Lyell and others are of opinion that to the existence
of this feeling may be attributed the almost total absence of the bones
of the hare amongst the _débris_ of the ancient Swiss lake dwellings,
and the kjökkenmöddings or shell mounds of Denmark. The superstition yet
exists amongst the Laplanders of the present day. According to Burton,
the Somal Arabs reject it as the Hottentot men do, although their women
may partake of it as food, and M. Schlegel informs us that the Chinese
entertain a prejudice against the animal. Owing to a false impression
respecting the hare chewing its cud, the Jews pronounced it to be
unclean, and therefore rejected it as food. Boadicea, Queen of the
Iceni, when she had harangued her soldiers, opened the drapery around
her bosom and let go a hare, which she had concealed. The frightened
animal's antics, according to the then orthodox laws of divination,
indicated a successful issue to the pending expedition. The warrior
queen improved the occasion, led her enthusiastic troops against the
highly disciplined Roman legions, and vanquished them.
Kelly is satisfied of the Aryan origin of the animal's supernatural
reputation. He says,--"The hare is no doubt mythically connected with
the phenomena of the sky, but upon what natural grounds it has been
credited with such meteoric relations is a point not yet determined. I
incline to think it will be found to lie, in part at least, in the
habits which the animal displays about the time of the vernal equinox,
and which have given rise to the popular saying, 'as mad as a March
hare.' And perhaps this very restlessness in rough weather has been the
cause of the animal being regarded as a disguised witch, actively
engaged in 'brewing storms.'"
Cats, as well as hares, have the reputation of being weather wise; hence
their association with witches or "wise women." Hecate was supposed to
frequently assume the feline form. Shakspere's witches evidently held it
in reverence. One says, with great solemnity, on a momentous occasion,
"Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd." A very strong belief yet obtains,
amongst persons better educated than the Lancashire peasantry, that cats
can see better in the dark than in the light, and that they possess nine
lives, or, in other words, that they require killing nine times, before
they remain permanently defunct. The author of "Choice Notes" says that
sailors have a firm belief that the presence of a dead hare on board
ship is certain to bring about bad weather. They likewise object to
having cats on board, and when one happens to be more frisky than usual,
like a "mad March hare," they have a saying that "the cat has got a gale
of wind in her tail." The same authority says that the throwing of a cat
overboard will infallibly bring on a storm. Mannhardt says, in Germany,
anyone who, during his lifetime, may have made cats his enemies, is
certain to be accompanied to the grave with wind and rain. A writer in
_Notes and Queries_ refers to a Dutch superstition of this class, in
which a rainy wedding day is supposed to result from the bride's
neglecting to feed her cat. Walter Kelly thinks "the question why the
chariot of the goddess Freyja was drawn by cats, and why Holda was
attended by maidens riding on cats, or themselves disguised in feline
form, is easily solved. Like the lynx, and the owl of Pallas Athenê, the
cat owes its celestial honours above all to its eyes, that gleam in the
dark like fire, but the belief in its supernatural powers may very
probably have been corroborated by the common observation that the cat,
like the stormy boar, is a weather wise animal."
This connection of the goddess Freyja (whence our Friday) with the
feline personification of stormy weather, may lay at the root of the
prejudice of sailors against commencing a voyage on that day. That this
superstition has yet strong hold on the nautical imagination, was
recently (1871), attested by the fact that, in consequence of the loss
of the ill-fated turret-ship, "Captain," which had left port on a
Friday, the "Agincourt," in order to satisfy the clamour of the crew,
did not leave Gibraltar on the presumedly fatal day. The departure of
the last-named war-ship on the Saturday, however, did not prevent her
striking on the "Pearl Rock" shortly afterwards. This fact might,
perhaps, stagger Jack's faith for a moment, but superstition is tougher
than actual experience in many of its phases, and Friday will still be a
black letter day in the sailor's calendar.
Hallam, in his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,"
when discussing the probabilities of the guilt or innocence of the
Knights Templars, concerning which there still exists great diversity of
opinion, refers to the evidence adduced by M. von Hammer as the most
difficult of refutation. This authority contends that the adoption of
the infamous practices of the Gnostic superstition, which the Templars
are said to have imported from the East, is proved by certain obscene
sculptures found in secret places in edifices erected by the members of
this order in various parts of Europe. He says these scandalous figures
resemble those in the Gnostic churches. Hallam adds, however, "The
Stadinghi, heretics of the thirteenth century, are charged, in a bull of
Gregory IX., with exactly the same profaneness, even including the
_black cat_ [canis aut gattus niger] as the Templars of the next
century. This is said by Von Hammer to be confirmed by sculptures." May
not these coincidences have arisen from the common Aryan origin of the
pagan superstitions; and, in some instances, at least, in the figurative
meaning of the sculptures referred to? There was a famous "cat stone" in
Leyland old church, which was said to be the "devil in the form of a
cat," who "throttled" an individual that witnessed his removal, by
night, of the stones used by the builders of the church in the day-time.
The morals, as well as the manners, of the thirteenth century were very
different to those of the nineteenth; and yet I could point out, within
Lancashire and Cheshire, at least two instances, where obnoxious
sculpture of this class has been preserved from mediæval times to the
present day.
The notorious besom or broomstick is an instrument in the operations of
witchcraft common to all the Aryan nations. According to the "Asiatic
Register," for 1801, the Eastern, as well as the European witches,
"practice their spells by dancing at midnight, and the principal
instrument they use on such occasions is a broom." It is regarded as "a
type of the winds, and therefore an appropriate utensil in the hands of
the witches, who are wind makers and workers in that element."
Dr. Kuhn says, "In the Mark, an old broom is burned in order to raise a
wind. Sailors, after long toiling against a contrary wind, on meeting
another ship sailing in an opposite direction, will throw an old broom
before the vessel, which, they contend, will reverse the wind, and
consequently cause it to blow in their favour."
Burns, in his "Address to the Deil," makes his witches and warlocks
"skim the muirs and dizzy crags" on "ragweed nags," "wi' wicked speed."
Witches notoriously ride swiftly and easily through the air astride of
a broomstick.[24] Hence this superstition may be said to personify the
light scudding clouds that pass rapidly across the sky, and herald
squally weather. Dr. Kuhn regards the broom as the implement used by the
Aryan demi-deities in sweeping the sky; for that such was a portion of
the duty devolving upon its riders may be inferred from the still
existing Hartz tradition that witches must dance away all the snow upon
the Blocksberg, on the first of May.
The hanging out of a broom when a man's wife is from home, to intimate
to the husband's unmarried friends that the usual matrimonial restraint
is temporarily suspended, and that bachelor fare and bachelor habits
will be the order of the day, for a time, is yet well known in
Lancashire. I am not aware how far it is practised or understood in
other parts of the country, neither have I been able to find a
satisfactory explanation of its origin. As the "Lancashire witches" of
the present day do "work their spells" upon their masculine friends,
though in a more pleasing form and agreeable manner than their haggard
and aged predecessors, it is not improbable that the emblem of power may
have accompanied the transmission of the once dreaded appellation.
Brooms, after being used in the performance of divers mythical
ceremonies, were hung up in houses, and regarded, like pieces of the
rowan or mountain ash-tree, as powerful charms against the entrance of
evil doers. Perhaps the "bachelor husband" of by-gone times removed the
broom to the outside of the house with the view to destroy its power
over the interior, as well as to inform his roystering friends that the
coast was clear, and that there existed no impediment to unlimited
jollification.[25] Dr. Kuhn says in several parts of Westphalia, at
Shrovetide, cows' horns are decorated with white besoms with white
handles. After the house has been swept by them, they are hung, as a
kind of talisman, over or near the door of the cow-house. Have these
white besoms any relationship to those ornamental ones formerly much
hawked in England by German peasant girls, who likewise sung in the
streets the once popular song, "Buy a broom?"
Gaule says there were "eight classes of witches distinguished by their
operations: first, the diviner, gipsy or fortune telling witch; second,
the astrologian, star-gazing, planetary, prognosticating witch; third,
the chanting, canting, or calculating witch, who works by signs or
numbers; fourth, the venefick, or poisonous witch; fifth, the exorcist,
or conjuring witch; sixth, the gastromantick witch; seventh, the
magical, speculative, sciential, or arted witch; eighth, the
necromancer."
Many of the practices of the modern gipsies seem to have much in common
with the older witchcraft. Fortune telling, divination, &c., appear to
be their chief professional avocations at the present time,
notwithstanding the magisterial rigour to which such imposture is
subjected. Much learned discussion has been evoked concerning the origin
of this singular people. They appear to have been first generally
noticed in Europe about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Some are
said, however, to have arrived in Switzerland somewhat earlier. They
were styled gipsies because they were believed to have wandered into
Europe from Egypt. Their language, and their superstitions, however,
show their true origin to have been Indian. Some writers contend that
they left that country at the time of the celebrated Timour's invasion,
early in the fifteenth century, and that their first resting place being
in the country called Zinganen, near the mouth of the Indus, probably
explains why in some countries they are called Zingari. Their next
resting place being Egypt most probably gave rise to their English
appellation. On the whole it seems not improbable that they spring from
the pariahs or lowest caste of Hindoos, now named Suders. The glass
globe or egg-shaped instrument, in which they profess to detect
supernatural revelations, appears to belong either to the sun image or
thunderbolt type of the Aryan mythology. Some of their conjuring,
juggling, and other feats of skill are suggestive of a similar
paternity. But the identity of the languages, in several essentials,
notwithstanding much corruption of the gipsy dialects, in consequence of
their admixture with those of other nations, is perhaps the most
conclusive proof of the Hindoo origin of these Zingari tribes.
The superstitious belief in the supernatural yet exists in Lancashire,
as well as in other counties of England, to a much greater extent than
highly educated people are apt to imagine. Gipsies ply their trade with
profit, and "wise women" and witches are by no means extinct. The county
of Somerset has recently furnished two remarkable illustrations of this.
The following appeared in the public press in June, 1871:--
"LINGERING SUPERSTITION.--At Wincanton, in Somersetshire, the
magistrates have had before them a charge arising out of the belief in
witchcraft which still prevails in that county. Ann Green accused a
labourer named William Higham of assaulting her. It appeared that the
defendant had long laboured under the delusion that he was 'overlooked'
by the complainant, and in order to break the spell he stabbed her
twice. The sleeves of the garments which were worn by the complainant
were produced in court, saturated with blood. The prisoner gravely
informed the Bench that he did it to destroy Mrs. Green's power over
him, but that he had not yet found any relief. The prisoner's mother
said she had not been able to rest for a fortnight past, as he was
constantly saying that Mrs. Green was 'overlooking' him, and that it
would kill him. He was ordered to find sureties or to be imprisoned for
three weeks."
The following "went the round of the papers" in July, 1870:--
"A strange case of superstition has been brought before the magistrates
of Wincanton, in Somerset. A young man named Lamb, fancying that a
certain young woman, Mary Crees, had bewitched him, rushed upon her,
seized her by the throat, and pulling out his penknife, attempted to
wound her. In reply to the Bench he said, 'She overlooks I; that's as
true as the hat's in my hand, and I wanted to draw blood to stop her.'
Two years ago he fell down in a fit on seeing her."
The _Manchester Examiner and Times_, of June 24th, 1871, contained the
following "short leader":--
"The metropolitan police have been engaged in a laudable attempt at
putting down fortune-telling. They made a 'raid' the other evening upon
several professors of the cabalistic art, and in one house found thirty
or forty young women waiting to have their 'fortunes told.' Perhaps the
most important of the gentlemen arrested on the occasion was a Mr.
George Shepherd, who, however, appeared in handbills printed for
extensive circulation under the name of 'Professor Cicero, of Rome,
Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land.' His rooms were fitted up with
all the symbols of his craft, in every branch of which he professed to
be an adept. The fees varied from sixpence to half-a-crown, according
to the nature of the service rendered, and a list was found in the place
showing the number of visitors--that is, customers--in so many
consecutive weeks. These figures, which have a certain interest as
throwing light upon the prevalence of popular credulity, ran as follow:
662, 250, 502, 380, 512, 513, 430, 89, 466. In Easter-week, including
Good Friday, there were only 217 callers, proving that the attractions
of a holiday outweigh even those of a visit to a modern temple of
divination. But the subject has a serious as well as a romantic side.
The four 'Professors' were all 'found guilty,' and committed to gaol for
three calendar months with hard labour. Probably no effectual stop will
be put to a very silly practice until the dupes are convicted as well as
the prime agents. It is perfectly well known that fortune-telling is
illegal, and a penalty should attach to all who figure in the
transaction, whether as seconds or principals."
The following appeared in a Manchester paper in 1865:--
"SUPERSTITION IN SALFORD.--At the Salford Town Hall, yesterday, John
Rhodes, apparently a respectable man, living at 226, Regent Road, was
charged, under the Vagrancy Act, with telling fortunes. A girl, named
Ellen Cooper, stated that she saw the prisoner at his house, on Tuesday.
After she had told him the date of her nativity, the prisoner cast her
horoscope, and told her what she might expect would be her future
fortune. For this she paid a shilling, which she understood was his
regular charge. During the time the girl was there, several other
females called on a similar errand, but did not stay. From information
given by the girl, Cooper, two detective officers called at the
prisoner's house on Thursday, where they found him with a female
standing beside him, whose future destiny he was busy calculating, aided
by an astrological work and a large slate. On the latter were what was
apparently intended as a representation of the movements of the heavenly
bodies. In the prisoner's house the officers found a large number of
books, including 'An Introduction to Astrology,' by William Lilly;
'Raphael's Prophetic Alphabet'; 'Occult Philosophy,' by Cornelius
Agrippa (in manuscript); a work on horary astrology, &c. Besides these,
six large volumes were seized, which were filled with the names and the
dates of the nativities of his clients, neatly surrounded, in each case,
with hieroglyphics. In addition to these were manuscripts with forms of
invocations to spirits to do the will and bidding of the invoker; also
love spells, and forms for invoking evil destinies. The text of one of
these was as follows:--'I adjure and command you, ye strong, mighty, and
powerful spirits, who are rulers of this day and hour, that ye obey me
in this my cause by placing my husband in his former situation under the
Trent Brewery Company, and I adjure you to banish all his enemies out of
his way and to make them to crouch in humiliation unto him and
acknowledge all the wrongs they have done unto him, and I bind you by
the name of Almighty God, and by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His
precious blood, and on pain of everlasting damnation, that you labour
for him and complete and accomplish the whole of this my will and
desire, and not depart till the whole of this my will and desire be
fulfilled, and when you have accomplished the whole of these my commands
you shall be released from all these bonds and demands, and this I
guarantee through the blood of the Redeemer and on pain of my future
happiness. Let angels praise the Lord. Amen.' Amongst the papers found
there was sufficient evidence that, amongst the prisoner's many hundreds
of clients, there were those who moved in a sphere of life not peculiar
to the poorer classes. Mr. Roberts defended the prisoner. Mr. Trafford
said the practice was so mischievous that he could not let the prisoner
off without some punishment; he must therefore send him to prison for
seven days."
From the following, which appeared in the _New Zealand Herald_ in 1865,
it appears the belief in witchcraft produces serious results amongst the
Maories:--
"From Kawhia we hear of wars and rumours of wars, instigated probably by
the desire of the semi-friendly natives there to be put on rations and
receive pay. Hone Wetere (John Wesley) late native magistrate there, who
was deposed from his office four years ago for the abduction of a native
woman, the wife of a sawyer named Wright, has been adding to the
interest of native proceedings at the present time by the commission of
a most brutal murder. It seems that this late learned interpreter of the
law had, with a zeal worthy of Matthew Hopkins, condemned an old Maori
woman of 'makutu,' or witchcraft, and punished her by his own hands,
cutting off her head on the spot. This may appear to Auckland
philo-Maories as something startling and, perhaps, out of the way, but
to us here it is no extraordinary event. It is only a few years since
two natives in our district murdered a man and woman for the same
reason, and cooked a copper Maori over their grave. Much about the same
time, at Kawhia, a native and his wife pulled the heart out of their
living child under the impression that the poor infant was bewitched."
M. Paul B. Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land," relates many
striking instances of the popular belief in witchcraft which exists in
Western Equatorial Africa. He says:--
"As usual I heard a harrowing tale of witchcraft in the course of the
day. Few weeks pass away in these unhappy villages without something of
this kind happening. A poor fellow was singing a mournful song, seated
on the ground in the village street; and on enquiring the cause of his
grief I was told that the chief of the village near his having died, and
the magic doctor having declared that five persons had bewitched him,
the mother, sister, and brother of the poor mourner had just been
ruthlessly massacred by the excited people, and his own house and
plantation burnt and laid waste." He describes at length the ceremonies
attending the drinking of the mboundou, or the ordeal by poison, which
he witnessed at Mayolo. If the poison kills the suspected person he is
pronounced guilty; but if, as in three instances he witnessed, the
drinker should, after severe spasms, vomit the deadly potion, he
generally recovers, and is declared innocent of the charge of witchcraft
preferred against him.
From these instances, and others which might be adduced, it is clear
that this superstition is a very ancient and a very universal one, in
some form, and therefore, not necessarily of exclusively Aryan origin;
but that it may result from similar conditions to which humanity is, or
has been, subjected in various parts of the globe. It is not impossible,
however, that the African instances referred to may have some very
remote connection with the Aryan superstitions of a similar character,
for M. Du Chaillu expressly declares his belief that the ancestors of
the present inhabitants of Western Equatorial Africa migrated from the
east. He says:--"The migration of the tribes, as I have already
observed, seems to have followed the same laws as migrations among
ourselves; I did not meet with a single tribe or clan who said they came
from the west; they all pointed to the east as the place they came
from."
Mr. T. T. Wilkinson gives the following very graphic description of a
Burnley witch, but recently deceased:--
"Most nations of all ages have been accustomed to deck the graves of
their dead with appropriate flowers, much as we do at present. The last
words of the dying have, from the earliest times, been considered of
prophetic import; and, according to Theocritus, some one of those
present have endeavoured to receive into his mouth the last breath of a
dying parent or friend, '_as fancying the soul to pass out with it and
enter into their own bodies_.' Few would expect to find this singular
custom still existing in Lancashire, and yet such is the fact.
Witchcraft can boast her votaries in this county even up to the present
date, and she numbers this practice amongst her rites and ceremonies.
Not many years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood of Burnley, a
female whose malevolent practices were supposed to render themselves
manifest by the injuries she inflicted on her neighbours' cattle; and
many a lucky-stone, many a stout horseshoe and rusty sickle, may now be
found behind the doors or hung from the beams of the cow-houses and
stables belonging to the farmers in that locality, which date their
suspension from the time when this good old lady held the country side
in awe. Not one of her neighbours ever dared to offend her openly; and
if she at any time preferred a request it was granted at all hazards,
regardless of inconvenience and expense. If in some thoughtless moment
any one spoke slightingly either of her or her powers, a corresponding
penalty was threatened as soon as it reached her ears, and the loss of
cattle, personal health, or a general 'run of bad luck' soon led the
offending party to think seriously of making peace with his powerful
tormentor. As time wore on she herself sickened and died; but before she
could 'shuffle off this mortal coil,' she must needs _transfer her
familiar spirit_ to some trusty successor. An intimate acquaintance from
a neighbouring township was consequently sent for in all haste, and on
her arrival was immediately closeted with her dying friend. What passed
between them has never fully transpired, but it is confidently affirmed
that at the close of the interview this associate _received the witch's
last breath into her mouth, and with it the familiar spirit_. The
dreaded woman thus ceased to exist, but her powers for good or evil were
transferred to her companion; and on passing along the road from Burnley
to Blackburn we can point out a farm-house at no great distance, with
whose thrifty matron no neighbouring farmer will yet dare to quarrel."
This superstition respecting the reception of the spirit of the dying by
inhaling the last breath, must have existed from a very remote
antiquity. Psychê, the Greek personification of the soul, as a word,
originally, simply meant breath. From the butterfly being the emblem of
Psychê, the word became the name of the beautiful insect likewise. The
Zulus call a man's shadow his soul, which would seem to be analogous to
our churchyard ghost and the _umbra_ of the Romans. The Zulus hold that
a dead body can cast no shadow, because that appurtenance departed from
it at the close of life.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] A pig roasted whole, seasoned with spices, and basted with wine,
was said to be "barbecued." The term is believed to have been imported
from the West Indies.
[24] The Pendle witches, on leaving Malkin tower, mounted their familiar
spirits, in the form of horses, and quickly vanished.
[25] Since the above was written, I have noticed, in Larwood and
Hotten's "History of Signboards," a representation of a public-house
"bush" copied from a MS. of the fourteenth century. The implement, in
this instance, is evidently a common broom or besom. Hence it is not at
all improbable that the Lancashire Benedicts but hang out the earliest
known tavern or inn sign. The authors of the work referred to say: "The
bush certainly must be counted amongst the most ancient and popular of
signs. Traces of its use are not only found amongst Roman and other old
world remains, but during the middle ages we have evidence of its
display." Kelly says "the broom must originally have been supposed, like
the sieve, to be used for some purpose or other in the economy of the
upper regions." Perhaps in the brewing of the "heavenly soma," and hence
its appropriateness as an emblem of "good liquor" of a terrestrial
character.