FAIRIES, OR WANDERING SPIRITS.
Fairies, says a certain author, are a sort of intermediate beings,
between men and women, having bodies, yet with the power of rendering
them _invisible_, and of passing through all sorts of enclosures. They
are remarkably small of stature, with fair complexions, whence they
derive their name, _fairies_. Both male and female are generally
clothed in green, and frequent mountains, the sunny side of hills,
groves, and green meadows, where they amuse themselves with dancing,
hand in hand, in a circle, by moonlight. The traces of their feet are
said to be visible, next morning, on the grass, and are commonly called
_fairy rings_, or _circles_.
Fairies have all the passions and wants of men, and are great lovers of
cleanliness and propriety; for the observance of which, they frequently
reward servants, by dropping money in their shoes. They likewise punish
sluts and slovens by pinching them black and blue. They often change
their weak and starveling elves, or children, for the more robust
offspring of men. But this can only be done before baptism; for which
reason it is still the custom, in the Highlands, to watch by the cradle
of infants till they are christened. The word _changeling_, now
applied to one almost an idiot, attests the current belief of these
superstitious mutations.
Some fairies dwell in mines, and in Wales nothing is more common than
these subterranean spirits, called _knockers_, who very good naturedly
point out where there is a rich vein of lead or silver. In Scotland
there was a sort of domestic fairies, from their sun-burnt complexions,
called _brownies_. These were extremely useful, performing all sorts of
domestic drudgery.
In the Life of Dr. Adam Clarke, we have the following account of a
circumstance that took place in the town of Freshford, county of
Kilkenny, Ireland, showing the superstition prevailing in that country
concerning the influence of these fairy beings: "A farmer built himself
a house of three apartments, the kitchen in the middle, and a room for
sleeping, &c., on either end. Some time after it was finished, a cow of
his died--then a horse; to these succeeded other smaller animals, and
last of all his _wife_ died. Full of alarm and distress, supposing
himself to be an object of _fairy indignation_, he went to the
_fairy man_, that is, one who pretends to know _fairy_ customs, haunts,
pathways, antipathies, caprices, benevolences, &c., and he asked his
advice and counsel on the subject of his losses. The wise man, after
having considered all things, and cast his eye upon the house, said,
'The fairies, in their night walks from _Knockshegowny_ Hill, in county
_Tipperary_, to the county of _Kilkenny_, were accustomed to pass over
the very spot where one of your rooms is now built; you have blocked up
their way, and they were very angry with you, and have slain your
cattle, and killed your wife, and, if not appeased, may yet do worse
harm to you.' The poor fellow, sadly alarmed, went, and with his own
hands, deliberately pulled down the timbers, demolished the walls, and
left not one stone upon another, but razed the very foundation, and
left the path of these capricious gentry as open and as clear as it was
before. How strong must have been this man's belief in the existence of
these demi-natural and semi-supernatural beings, to have induced him
thus to destroy the work of his own hands!"
In Spenser's epic poem, called the Fairy Queen, the imagination of the
reader is entertained with the characters of fairies, witches,
magicians, demons, and departed spirits. A kind of pleasing horror is
raised in the mind, and one is amused with the strangeness and novelty
of the persons who are represented in it; but to be affected by such
poetry requires an odd turn of thought, a peculiar cast of fancy, with
an imagination naturally fruitful and superstitious.
The Gypsies are a class of strolling beggars, cheats, and fortune
tellers. They have been quite numerous in all the older countries, and
are so still in some of them; but in the United States there are but
few, some one or two tribes in the west, and a small party of them in
New York state. They are probably called Gypsies from the ancient
Egyptians, who had the character of great cheats, whence the name might
afterwards pass proverbially into other languages, as it did into the
Greek and Latin; or else the ancient Egyptians being much versed in
astronomy, or rather astrology, the name was afterwards assumed by
these modern fortune tellers. In Latin they are called _Egyptii_; the
Italians called them _Cinari_, or _Cingani_; the Russians, _Zigani_;
the Turks and Persians, _Zingarri_; the Germans, _Ziguenor_; the
Spaniards, _Gitános_; the French, _Bohemians_, from the circumstance
that Bohemia was the first civilized country where they made their
appearance.
In most countries they live in the woods and forests; but in England,
where every inch of land is cultivated, the covered cart and little
tent are their houses, and they seldom remain more than three days in
the same place.
Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female Gypsy.
She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philters, by means of
which love can be awakened in any individual towards any particular
object; and such is the credulity of the human race, even in the most
enlightened countries, that the profits arising from these practices
are great. The following is a case in point: Two females, neighbors and
friends, were tried, some years since, for the murder of their
husbands. It appeared that they were in love for the same individual,
and had conjointly, at various times, paid sums of money to a Gypsy
woman to work charms to captivate his affections. Whatever little
effect the charms might produce, they were successful in their
principal object, for the person in question carried on for some time a
criminal intercourse with both. The matter came to the knowledge of the
husbands, who, taking means to break off this connection, were both
poisoned by their wives. Till the moment of conviction, these wretched
females betrayed neither emotion nor fear; but at this juncture their
consternation was indescribable. They afterwards confessed that the
Gypsy, who had visited them in prison, had promised to shield them from
conviction by means of her art. It is therefore not surprising that in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when a belief in sorcery was
supported by the laws of all Europe, these people were regarded as
practisers of sorcery, and punished as such, when, even in the
nineteenth, they still find people weak enough to place confidence in
their claims to supernatural power.
In telling fortunes, the first demand of the Gypsy, in England, is
invariably a sixpence, in order that she may cross her hands with
silver; and here the same promises are made, and as easily believed, as
in other countries, leading to the conclusion that mental illumination,
amongst the generality of mankind, has made no progress whatever; as we
observe in the nineteenth century the same gross credulity manifested
as in the seventeenth, and the inhabitants of one of the countries most
celebrated for the arts of civilization imposed upon by the same stale
tricks which served to deceive, two centuries before, in Spain, a
country whose name has long and justly been considered as synonymous
with every species of ignorance and barbarity.
In telling fortunes, promises are the only capital requisite, and the
whole art consists in properly adapting these promises to the age and
condition of the parties who seek for information. The Gitános are
clever enough in the accomplishment of this, and generally give perfect
satisfaction. Their practice lies chiefly amongst females, the portion
of the human race most given to curiosity and credulity. To the young
maidens they promise lovers, handsome invariably, and oftentimes rich;
to wives, children, and perhaps another husband; for their eyes are so
penetrating, that occasionally they will develop your most secret
thoughts and wishes; to the old, riches, and nothing but riches--for
they have sufficient knowledge of the human heart to be aware that
avarice is the last passion that becomes extinct within it. These
riches are to proceed either from the discovery of hidden treasure, or
from across the water. The Gitános, in the exercise of this practice,
find dupes almost as readily amongst the superior classes, as the
veriest dregs of the population.
They are also expert in chiromancy, which is the determining, from
certain lines upon the hand, the quality of the physical and
intellectual powers of the possessor, to which lines they give
particular and appropriate names, the principal of which is called the
"line of life." An ancient writer, in speaking of this art, says, "Such
chiromancy is not only reprobated by theologians, but by men of law and
physic, as a foolish, vain, scandalous, futile, superstitious practice,
smelling much of divinery and a pact with the devil."
The Gitános in the olden time appear to have not unfrequently been
subjected to punishment as sorceresses, and with great justice, as the
abominable trade which they have always driven in philters and
decoctions certainly entitled them to that appellation, and to the
pains and penalties reserved for those who practised what is generally
termed "witchcraft."
Amongst the crimes laid to their charge, connected with the exercise of
occult powers, there is one of a purely imaginary character, which if
they were ever punished for, they had assuredly but little right to
complain, as the chastisement they met with was fully merited by
practices equally malefic as the one imputed to them, provided that
were possible. _It was the casting the evil eye._
In the Gitáno language, casting the evil eye is called _zuerelar
nasula_, which simply means making sick, and which, according to the
common superstition, is accomplished by casting an evil look at people,
especially children, who, from the tenderness of their constitution,
are supposed to be more easily blighted than those of a more mature
age. After receiving the evil glance, they fall sick, and die in a few
hours.
In Andalusia, a belief in the evil eye is very prevalent among the
lower orders. A stag's horn is considered a good safeguard, and on that
account, a small horn, tipped with silver, is frequently attached to
the children's necks, by means of a cord braided from the hair of a
black mare's tail. Should the evil glance be cast, it is imagined that
the horn receives it, and instantly snaps asunder. Such horns may be
purchased at the silversmiths' shops at Seville.
The Gypsies sell remedies for the evil eye, which consist of any drugs
which they happen to possess, or are acquainted with. They have been
known to offer to cure the glanders in a horse, (an incurable
disorder,) with the very same powders which they offer as a specific
for the evil eye.
The same superstition is current among all Oriental people, whether
Turks, Arabs, or Hindoos; but perhaps there is no nation in the world
with whom the belief is so firmly rooted as the Jews; it being a
subject treated of in all the old rabbinical writings, which induces
the conclusion that the superstition of the evil eye is of an antiquity
almost as remote as the origin of the Hebrew race.
The evil eye is mentioned in Scripture, but not in the false and
superstitious sense we have spoken of. Evil in the eye, which occurs in
Prov. xxiii. 5, 6, merely denotes niggardness and illiberality. The
Hebrew words are _ain ra_, and stand in contradistinction to _ain
toub_, or the benignant in eye, which denotes an inclination to bounty
and liberality.
The rabbins have said, "For one person who dies of sickness, there are
ten who die by the evil eye." And as the Jews, especially those of the
East, and of Barbary, place implicit confidence in all that the rabbins
have written, we can scarcely wonder if, at the present day, they dread
this visitation more than the cholera or the plague. "The leech," they
say, "can cure those disorders; but who is capable of curing the evil
eye?"
It is imagined that this blight is most easily inflicted when a person
is enjoying himself, with little or no care for the future, when he is
reclining in the sun before his door, or when he is full of health and
spirits, but principally when he is eating and drinking, on which
account the Jews and Moors are jealous of strangers when they are
taking their meals.
"I was acquainted," says a late writer, "with a very handsome Jewess,
of Fez; she had but one eye, but that one was particularly brilliant.
On asking her how she lost its fellow, she informed me that she was
once standing in the street, at nightfall, when she was a little girl;
a Moor, that was passing by, suddenly stopped, and said, 'Towac Ullah,
(blessed be God,) how beautiful are your eyes, my child!' Whereupon she
went into the house, but was presently seized with a dreadful pain in
the left eye, which continued during the night, and the next day the
pupil came out of the socket. She added, that she did not believe the
Moor had any intention of hurting her, as he gazed on her so kindly;
but that it was very thoughtless in him to utter words which are sure
to convey evil luck." It is said to be particularly dangerous to eat in
the presence of a woman; for the evil eye, if cast by a woman, is far
more fatal and difficult to cure than if cast by a man.
When any one falls sick of the evil eye, he must instantly call to his
assistance the man cunning in such cases. The man, on coming, takes
either a girdle or a handkerchief from off his own person, and ties a
knot at either end; then he measures three spans with his left hand,
and at the end of these three he fastens a knot, and folds it three
times round his head, pronouncing this _beraka_, or blessing: "_Ben
porat Josef, ben porat ali ain_," (Joseph is a fruitful bough, a
fruitful bough by a well;) he then recommences measuring the girdle or
handkerchief, and if he finds three spans and a half, instead of the
three which he formerly measured, he is enabled to tell the name of the
person who cast the evil eye, whether male or female.
The above very much resembles the charm of the Bible and key, by which
many persons in England still pretend to be able to discover the thief,
when an article is missed. A key is placed in a Bible, in the part
called Solomon's Song; the Bible and key are then fastened strongly
together, by means of a ribbon, which is wound round the Bible, and
passed several times through the handle of the key, which projects from
the top of the book. The diviner then causes the person robbed to name
the name of any person or persons whom he may suspect. The two parties,
the robbed and the diviner, then standing up, support the book between
them, the ends of the handle of the key resting on the tips of the fore
fingers of the right hand. The diviner then inquires of the Bible,
whether such a one committed the theft, and commences repeating the
sixth and seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song; and if the
Bible and key turn round in the mean time, the person named is
considered guilty. This charm has been, and still is, the source of
infinite mischief, innocent individuals having irretrievably lost their
character among their neighbors from recourse being had to the Bible
and key. The slightest motion of the finger, or rather of the nail,
will cause the key to revolve, so that the people named are quite at
the mercy of the diviner, who is generally a cheat, or professed
conjurer, and not unfrequently a Gypsy. In like manner, the Barbary
cunning man, by a slight contraction of his hand, measures three and a
half spans, where he first measured three, and then pretends to know
the person who has cast the evil eye, having, of course, first
ascertained the names of those with whom his patient has lately been in
company.
When the person who has cast the evil eye has been discovered, by means
of the magical process already described, the mother, or wife, or
sister of the sufferer walks forth, pronouncing the name of the latter
with a loud voice, and, making the best of her way to the house of the
person guilty, takes a little of the earth from before the door of his
or her sleeping apartment. Some of the saliva of the culprit is then
demanded, which must be given early in the morning, before breakfast;
then the mother, or the wife, or the sister goes to the oven, and takes
from thence seven burning coals, which are slaked in water from the
bath in which the women bathe. The four ingredients, earth, saliva,
coals, and water, are then mixed together in a dish, and the patient is
made to take three sips, and what remains is taken to a private place
and buried, the person who buries it making three paces backward,
exclaiming, "May the evil eye be buried beneath the earth." Many people
carry papers about with them, scrawled with hieroglyphics, which are
prepared by the hacumim, or sages, and sold. These papers, placed in a
little bag and hung about the person, are deemed infallible
preservatives from the "ain ara."
Like many other superstitions, the above may be founded on a physical
reality. In hot countries, where the sun and moon are particularly
dazzling, the belief in the evil eye is most prevalent. If we turn to
the Scripture, we shall probably come to the solution of the belief.
"The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." Ps. cxxi.
5, 6. To those who loiter in the sunshine, before the king of day has
nearly reached his bourn in the west, the sun has an evil eye, and his
glance produces brain fevers; and to those who sleep uncovered, beneath
the smile of the moon, her glance is poisonous, producing insupportable
itching in the eye and not unfrequently total blindness: all the
charms, scrawls, and rabbinical antidotes have no power to avert these
effects.
The northern nations have a superstition which bears some resemblance
to the evil eye. They have no brilliant sun and moon to addle the brain
and poison the eye, but the gray north has its marshes, and fenny
ground, and fetid mists, which produce agues, low fevers, and moping
madness, and are as fatal to cattle as to man. Such disorders are
attributed to elves and fairies. This superstition still lingers in
some parts of England, under the name of _elf-shot_, whilst, throughout
the north, it is called _elle-skiod_, and _elle-vild_, (fairy wild.) It
is particularly prevalent amongst shepherds and cowherds, who, from
their manner of life, are most exposed to the effects of the so called
elf-shot.
The Gitános had a venomous preparation called _drao_, or _drow_, which
they were in the habit of flinging into the mangers of the cattle, for
the purpose of causing sickness and death. It was the province of the
women to compound the ingredients of this poison, which answered many
wicked purposes. The stalls and stables were visited secretly, and the
provender of the animals being poisoned, they at once fell sick;
speedily there appeared the Gitános, offering their services on the
condition of no cure no pay, and when these were accepted, the malady
was speedily removed. They used no medicines, or pretended not to, but
charms only, which consisted of small variegated beans, called, in
their language, _bobis_, coming from a Russian word signifying _beans_.
These beans they dropped into the mangers, though they doubtless
administered privately a real and efficacious remedy. By these means
they fostered the idea, already prevalent, that they were people
possessed of supernatural gifts and powers. By means of drao, they
likewise procured themselves food; poisoning swine, as their brethren
in England still do, and then feasting on the flesh, the poison only
affecting the head of the animal, which was abandoned as worthless;
witness one of their own songs:--
"By Gypsy drow the porker died;
I saw him stiff at evening tide;
But I saw him not when morning shone,
For the Gypsies ate him, flesh and bone."
By drao, also, they could avenge themselves on their enemies by
destroying their cattle, without incurring a shadow of suspicion.
Revenge for injuries, real or imaginary, is sweet to all unconverted
minds--to no one more than the Gypsy, who, in all parts of the world,
is, perhaps, the most revengeful of human beings.
But if the Gitános are addicted to any one superstition above others,
it is in respect to the _loadstone_, to which they attribute all kinds
of miraculous powers. They believe that he who is in possession of it
has nothing to fear from steel or lead, from fire or water, and that
death itself has no power over him. The Gypsy contrabandists are
particularly anxious to procure this stone, which they carry upon their
persons in their expeditions. They say, that in the event of their
being pursued by the revenue officers, whirlwinds of dust will arise
and conceal them from the view of their enemies; the horse stealers say
much the same thing, and assert that they are uniformly successful when
they bear about them the precious stone. But it is said by them to
effect much more. It is extraordinary in exciting the amorous
propensities, and on this account it is in great request among the
Gypsy hags. All these women are procuresses, and find persons of both
sexes weak and wicked enough to make use of their pretended knowledge
in the composition of love draughts and decoctions.
In the Museum of Natural Curiosities at Madrid, there is a large piece
of loadstone, originally extracted from the American mines. There is
scarcely a Gitána in Madrid who is not acquainted with this
circumstance, and who does not long to obtain the stone, or a part of
it. Several attempts have been made to steal it, all of which, however,
have been unsuccessful.
A translation of the Gospel of St. Luke was printed in the Gypsy
language, at Madrid, in 1838. The chapters were read over and explained
to some of these strange people, by the late agent of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, in Spain. They said it was _lacho_, and _jucal_,
and _misto_, all of which words express approval of the quality of
a thing; and they purchased copies of the Gypsy Luke freely. The women
were particularly anxious to obtain copies, though unable to read; but
each wished to have one in her pocket, especially when engaged in
thieving expeditions, for they all looked upon it in the light of a
charm, which would preserve them from all danger and mischance; some
even went so far as to say, that in this respect it was equally as
efficacious as the Bar Lachi, or loadstone, which they are generally so
eager to possess. Of this Gospel, five hundred copies were printed, the
greatest part of which were circulated among the Gypsies; but it was
speedily prohibited by a royal ordinance, which appeared in the Gazette
of Madrid, in August, 1838.
Before closing, under this head, we will remark that, although the
Gypsies in general are a kind of wandering outcasts, incapable of
appreciating the blessings of a settled and civilized life, yet among
the Gypsies of Moscow there are not a few who inhabit stately houses,
go abroad in elegant equipages, and are not a whit behind the higher
order of Russians in appearance, nor in mental acquirements. To the
female part of the Gypsy colony of Moscow is to be attributed the merit
of this partial rise from abjectness and degradation, having from time
immemorial so successfully cultivated the vocal art, that, though in
the midst of a nation by whom song is more cherished and cultivated,
and its principles better understood, than by any other of the
civilized globe, the Gypsy choirs of Moscow are, by the general voice
of the Russian public, admitted to be unrivalled in that most amiable
of all accomplishments. It is a fact, notorious in Russia, that the
celebrated Catalini was so enchanted with the voice of one of these
Gypsy songsters, who, after the former had displayed her noble Italian
talent before a splendid audience at Moscow, stepped forward, and with
an astonishing burst of almost angelic melody, so enraptured every ear,
that even applause forgot its duty, and the noble Catalini immediately
tore from her own shoulders a shawl of Cashmere, which had been
presented to her by the Father of Rome, and embracing the Gypsy,
insisted on her acceptance of the splendid gift, saying, that it had
been intended for the matchless songster which she now perceived she
herself was not.