Superstition amongst the People--Difficulty of dealing
with it--Examples of Superstitions still prevalent in the
Highlands--Cock-crowing at untimely hours--Itching of the
Nose--Ringing in the Ears--The "Dead-Bell"--Sir Walter
Scott--Hogg--Mickle.
We live in an age of intense literary and intellectual activity; the
tendency of the highest culture of our time [March 1876], however,
it is complained, being towards materialism and scepticism, the
latter either in the form of indifferentism or absolute negation. The
great mass of our people, however--the uneducated or only partially
educated--stand at the other extreme; for whilst it is complained that
those of the highest culture believe too little, or don't believe at
all, the common people, it is averred, believe too much. And it is
perfectly true that the latter are indeed superstitious to an extent
of which the mere outsider can have no adequate conception; and yet,
philosophically pondered, there can be no difficulty, we think,
in arriving at the conclusion that of the two evils over-belief
is better than its opposite; that it is better, upon the whole,
to believe too much than too little. A man with any form of creed,
even if it be false, may be led in time to believe aright, whereas
the case of the utterly creedless man is well-nigh hopeless. For
our own part, therefore, we do not look upon the superstitions of
our people with such horror and alarm as many well-meaning persons,
clerical or lay, feel or feign when brought in contact with an evil
which, let the philosophers say what they will, has its good as well
as its bad side. We greatly doubt if, under present circumstances, and
in their present stage of civilisation, the inhabitants of Scotland
generally, and of the Highlands, with which we are best acquainted,
in particular, would be at all so religious and devout a people as
they are confessedly allowed to be, were it not for the substratum
of superstition that underlies their better founded beliefs and
religious aspirations. Constantly en rapport with the supernatural
and the unseen, they are more disposed than they might otherwise be
to believe in and shape the conduct of their daily lives in accordance
with the doctrine of a future world, with its rewards and punishments,
feeling and acknowledging in a very remarkable manner, even through
the medium of their superstitions--if erroneous, yet not always
degrading--the full force and meaning of what the apostle speaks of in
a general way as "the powers of the world to come." An interesting
paper might be written in support of the theory here indicated,
a theory that to some may seem a paradox, but meanwhile it must lie
over for some more fitting occasion. Such a task requires time; for of
all the delicate tasks that the philosophic mind can concern itself
with, the most delicate is the endeavour to discover and recognise
the spirit of good things in things evil, and of reason in things
unreasonable. Meanwhile, it is the truth, account for it as we may,
that notwithstanding the multiplication of ministers and churches,
schoolmasters and school boards, "Increase of Episcopate" Bill, and all
the rest of it, there is still a lively undercurrent of superstition
amongst our people, do what you can to stamp it out or otherwise;
and that those who believe in it most implicitly are by no means
the worst people either. An example of a very common superstition
is the following:--A few evenings ago, at an accidental gathering
of some half-dozen families in a house in our neighbourhood, the
subjoined conversation took place with regard to a recent death in the
parish. Mrs. B.--"I suppose you have all heard of the death of X. L.,
poor fellow. It was reported he was better yesterday, but I knew last
night that I should hear of a death some time to-day, and knowing of
no one else at present unwell, I decided that it must be X. L.'s death
that was foretold me." Mrs. C.--"Foretold you! how?" Mrs. B.--"Why,
thus: long after dark last night, as I was busy getting the children's
supper, the cock, that had gone to roost as usual, suddenly stood
up on his perch, and crowed a long and loud crow that startled us
all; and I made Katie say the Lord's Prayer, for I knew that a cock
crowing at an hour so untimeous meant a death in our neighbourhood,
and nothing else. On inquiry, I find that X. L. died just about that
time." Mrs. D.--"I knew it too, that there was to be a death in our
neighbourhood. My nose itched so much all last evening, and the itching
was on the left nostril side, and I was certain that it was to be the
death of a male that I should hear of. I had not, however, heard that
X. L. was so very poorly." Mrs. F.--"While at breakfast this morning,
I could hardly eat anything, so loud and persistent was the ringing
in my ears. It was just like the tolling of the church bell." Now,
the reader must remember that these were highly respectable women,
of some education, and in every way of good repute; and yet they had
no idea at all that there was anything silly or wrong about their
superstition, of which they made no secret, and which was reported to
us immediately afterwards by one who was present. Now, we ask, if one
was present and heard it all, how could he best deal with the believer
in this superstition, a superstition so wide-spread that it may be said
to be universal. Any attempt at getting angry and driving it out of
them by the mere force and weight of your superior enlightenment would
be a false move, sure to be attended by no good results. Laughing at
the whole affair might perhaps be a more successful way of dealing
with the nonsense, but in neither way would you be likely to make
them look at the matter from your particular light and point of
view. Admitting that it was rank superstition and sheer nonsense,
there was this one good thing attending it; it led to much moralising
on the shortness and uncertainty of human life, and the unabidingness
generally of all sublunary things; and the superstition was perhaps
more effectual in this direction than would be the most carefully
composed sermon. But the philosophic aspect of the case apart, let
us inquire why the facts mentioned should be held as premonitory of
death. The crowing of the cock has probably some connection with the
denial of St. Peter, and in it, too, may perhaps be traced a faint
remnant of the bird divination of the ancients. As to the itching
of the nose, we confess our inability to say anything satisfactory,
beyond the fact that in old times anything unusual and difficult to
be reasonably accounted for in man's physical economy, as well as
in his mental, was at once attributed to a supernatural cause. Of
this the ringing in the ears, as well as the itching in the nose,
must be held to be an example. The well-known ringing in the ears
does come with extraordinary suddenness, as we have all experienced,
and when it comes makes the most staid philosopher look foolish and
out of sorts for the moment. Its connection with death is perhaps to
be traced to the passing bell of early and mediæval times, and to the
tolling of bells at funerals even in our own day. Sir Walter Scott,
who knew the peasantry of Scotland so well, and sympathised so much
even with their superstitions, has a happy reference to the death-bell
in a passage in Marmion:--
"For soon Lord Marmion raised his head,
And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said--
'Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seem'd in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister's soul?
Say, what may this portend?'
Then first the Palmer silence broke
(The livelong day he had not spoke),
'The death of a dear friend.'"
On this passage there is an interesting note very apropos to our
subject:--"Among other omens to which faithful credit is given among
the Scottish peasantry is what is called the 'dead-bell,' explained by
my friend James Hogg to be that tinkling in the ears which the country
people regard as the secret intelligence of some friend's decease." He
tells a story to the purpose in the "Mountain Bard," p. 26--
"O lady, 'tis dark, an' I heard the dead-bell,
An' I darena gae younder for gowd nor fee."
"By the dead-bell," says Hogg, "is meant a tinkling in the ears,
which our peasantry in the country regard as a secret intelligence
of some friend's decease. Thus this natural occurrence strikes many
with superstitious awe. This reminds me of a trifling anecdote which
I will relate as an instance. Our two servant girls agreed to go an
errand of their own one night after supper, to a considerable distance,
from which I strove to persuade them, but could not prevail. So, after
going to the apartment in which I slept, I took a drinking-glass,
and coming close to the back of the door, made two or three sweeps
round the lips of the glass with my fingers, which caused a loud,
shrill sound. I then overheard the following dialogue:--B.--"Ah,
mercy! the dead-bell went through my head just now with such a knell
as I never heard." C.--"I heard it too." B.--"Did you indeed? That
is remarkable. I never knew of two hearing it at the same time
before." C.--"We will not go to Midgehope to-night." B.--"No! I
wouldn't go for all the world! I warrant it is my poor brother, Wat;
who knows what these wild Irishes may have done to him?" Tinkling,
however, which both Scott and Hogg use, is not the word. It is more
of a ringing, so clear and loud at times, that we once heard a little
girl say "there was a bell in her head." Our authorities above confess
that it is called the "dead-bell" amongst the peasantry, and by bell
they mean not a tinkling but a loud and very pronounced sound, as if
of solid metal striking hollow metal, and causing the bell-sound with
which we are all so familiar. Mickle, in his fine ballad Cumnor Hall,
has a reference to the same superstition:--
"The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall."
To sneer at such beliefs, and pooh-pooh them superciliously and
from a philosophical stand-point, is easy; it has been tried
with but little satisfactory result. The true philosopher will
be more and more disposed, the more he deals with such matters,
and the closer he examines them, to fall back on Hamlet's dictum,
"That there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of
in our philosophy." So ineradicable is superstition of this sort,
that you may battle with it long enough--we have battled with it for
years--and find it at last by no means the weaker of your assaults,
no matter how cautiously and circuitously you select to deal with it.
After an unusually mild and open season, we have just had a taste of
downright winter in the bitterly cold gales and drifting snow-storms of
the last few days. Our weatherwise old folks are of course delighted
that winter in proper dress and form has come at long last; better
late than never, is the cry, and a bright and warm spring in due
course is confidently predicted.