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THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY
* * * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
=The Watch Fires of ’76= Illustrated =$1.25=
=The Campaign of Trenton= =.50=
=Burgoyne’s Invasion of 1777= =.50=
=The Taking of Louisburg= =.50=
=The Battle of Gettysburg= =.50=
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=Around the Hub= A Boys’ Book about Boston =1.12=
=New England Legends and Folk Lore= Illus’d =2.00=
=The Making of New England= Illustrated =1.50=
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_Any book in the above list sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of
price, by_
LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON MASS.
* * * * * *
THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY
“_Lord, what fools these mortals be!_”
[Illustration: HALLOWE’EN.]
THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY
by
SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE
Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill
Boston
Lee and Shepard
MCM
Copyright, 1900, by Samuel Adams Drake.
_All rights reserved._
THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A RECKONING WITH TIME 1
II. THE FOLK-LORE OF CHILDHOOD 25
III. WEATHER LORE 34
IV. SIGNS OF ALL SORTS 47
V. CHARMS TO GOOD LUCK 55
VI. CHARMS AGAINST DISEASE 85
VII. OF FATE IN JEWELS 109
VIII. OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE 122
IX. OF EVIL OMENS 144
X. OF HAUNTED HOUSES, PERSONS, AND PLACES 182
XI. OF PRESENTIMENTS 208
XII. THE DIVINING-ROD 229
XIII. WONDERS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE 234
XIV. “SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT” 244
XV. FORTUNE-TELLING, ASTROLOGY, AND PALMISTRY 259
[Illustration]
I
A RECKONING WITH TIME
“Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too
superstitious.”
To say that superstition is one of the facts of history is only to
state a truism. If that were all, we might treat the subject from
a purely philosophical or historical point of view, as one of the
inexplicable phenomena of an age much lower in intelligence than our
own, and there leave it.
But if, also, we must admit superstition to be a present, a living,
fact, influencing, if not controlling, the everyday acts of men, we
have to deal with a problem as yet unsolved, if not insolvable.
I know it is commonly said that such things belong to a past age--that
they were the legitimate product of ignorance, and have died out with
the education of the masses. In other words, we know more than our
ancestors did about the phenomena of nature, and therefore by no means
accept, as they did--good, superstitious souls!--the appearance of a
comet blazing in the heavens, or the heaving of an earthquake under our
feet, as events having moral significance. With the aid of electricity
or steam we perform miracles every day of our lives, such as, no doubt,
would have created equal wonder and fear for the general stability of
the world not many generations ago.
Very true. So far as merely physical phenomena are concerned, most of
us may have schooled ourselves to disunite them wholly from coming
events; but as regards those things which spring from the inward
consciousness of the man himself, his intuitions, his perceptions,
his aspirations, his imaginative nature, which, if strong enough, is
capable of creating and peopling a realm wholly outside of the little
world he lives in--“ay, there’s the rub.” Who will undertake to span
the gulf stretching out a shoreless void between the revelations of
science and the incomprehensible mysteries of life itself? It is upon
that debatable ground that superstition finds its strongest foothold,
and, like the ivy clinging round old walls, defies every attempt to
uproot it. As Hamlet so cogently puts it,--
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Superstition, we know, is much older than recorded history, and we now
stand on the threshold of the twentieth century; yet just in proportion
as humanity has passed over this enormous space of time, hand in hand
with progress, superstition has followed it like its shadow. That
shadow has not yet passed away.
There is no sort of use in denying the proneness of weak human nature
to admit superstition. It is an open door, through which the marvellous
finds easy access. Imbibed in the cradle, it is not even buried in the
grave. “Age cannot stale, nor custom wither” those ancient fables of
ghosts, giants, goblins, and brownies told by fond mothers to children
to-day, just as they were told by mothers centuries ago. Even the
innocent looking Easter egg, which continues to enjoy such unbounded
popularity with old and young, comes of an old Aryan myth; while the
hanging up of one’s stocking, at Christmas, is neither more nor less
than an act of superstition, originating in another myth; or, in plain
English, no Santa Claus, no stocking.
How much of childhood’s charm in the greatest of all annual festivals,
the world over, would remain if Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, and St.
Nicholas were stripped of their traditional, but wholly fictitious,
character? One of our popular magazines for children--long life to
it!--flourishes under the title of St. Nicholas to-day; and during the
very latest observance of the time-honored festival, a leading journal
in New England’s chief city devoted considerable space in its editorial
columns to an elaborate defence of that dear old myth Santa Claus,
with whom, indeed, we should be very loth to part, if only for the sake
of old associations.
It is also noticed that quite recently stories of the wonderful
brownies have enjoyed their greatest popularity. For a time these
spindle-shanked, goggle-eyed puppets could be seen in every household,
in picture-books, on book covers, in the newspapers--in short,
everywhere. Should the children be told that there never were any
such creatures as fairies or brownies, there would be an end to all
the charm they possess; for, unquestionably, their only hold upon
the popular mind rests upon the association with olden superstition.
Otherwise they would be only so many commonplace rag dolls.
Kipling’s popular “Jungle Stories,” probably more widely read than any
stories of the century, give still further effect to the same idea.
Now, is not the plea that these are mere harmless nothings by far the
most short-sighted one that could be advanced? The critical thought
to be impressed here is that about the first teaching little children
receive is a lesson in superstition, and that, too, at a time when
their young minds are most susceptible to lasting impressions. We have
yet to hear of the mother, nursery-maid, or governess, who begins the
story of Cinderella or Bluebeard with the warning that it is not “a
real true story,” as children say.
Are children of a larger growth any less receptive to the marvellous?
“Great oaks from little acorns grow.” The seed first planted in virgin
soil later bears an abundant harvest. Stage plays, operas, poetry,
romances, painting, and sculpture dealing with the supernatural
command quite as great a popularity, to-day, as ever. Fortune telling,
palmistry, astrology, clairvoyance, hypnotism, and the rest, continue
to thrive either as a means of getting a living, or of innocent
diversion, leaving their mark upon the inner consciousness just the
same in one case as in the other.
So much being undeniable, it stands with every honest inquirer after
truth to look these facts in the face without blinking. Ignorance we
dare not plead. The dictates of a sound common sense will not permit us
to dismiss what we do not understand with a laugh, a shrug, or a sneer.
“To scold is not to answer.”
Superstition is not easily defined. To say that it is a disposition to
believe more than is warranted by reason, leaves us just as helpless
as ever; for where reason is impotent we have nothing tangible left to
fall back upon. There is absolutely no support on which to rest that
lever. Religion and philosophy, which at first fostered superstition,
long ago turned against it all the forces they possessed. Not even
science may hope to overthrow what can only be reached through the
inner consciousness of man, because science can have little to do with
the spiritual side of man. That intangible something still eludes
its grasp. If all these combined forces of civilization have so far
signally failed to eradicate superstition, so much the worse for
civilization.
We might also refer to the efforts of some very erudite scholars to
interpret modern superstition by the aid of comparative mythology.
Vastly interesting, if not wholly convincing, theories have been
constructed on this line. Instructive, too, is the fact that some
of our most familiar nursery stories may be traced to the ancient
folk-lore of still older peoples. Even a remote antiquity is claimed
for the familiar nursery tale of “Jack and Jill”; while something very
similar to the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” is found, in its
purity, in the grewsome werewolf folk-lore of Germany; and “Jonah’s
Gourd,” of the East, we are told, probably is the original of “Jack and
the Beanstalk” of the West.
But the very fact of the survival of all these hoary superstitions,
some of them going back so far that all further trace is lost,
certainly furnishes food for thought, since they seemingly enjoy as
great a popularity as ever.
Superstition being thus shown to be as old as human history, the
question naturally arises, not how it may have originated in the Dark
Ages, but how it has kept its hold so tenaciously throughout all the
succeeding centuries down to our own time.
Most peoples, barbarians even, believed in some sort of a future state,
in the principle of good and evil, and of rewards and punishments.
There needs no argument then to account for the insatiable longing to
pry into futurity, and to discover its hidden mysteries. The same idea
unsettled the minds of former generations, nor can it be truthfully
said to have disappeared before the vaunted wisdom of this utilitarian
age. Like all forbidden fruit, this may be said to be the subject of
greatest anxiety to weak human kind.
What then is this talisman with the aid of which we strive to penetrate
the secrets of the world beyond us?
Man being what he is, only “a little lower than the angels,” endowed
with the supernatural power of calling up at will mental images of both
the living and the dead, of building air-castles, and peopling them
according to his fantasy, as well in Cathay as in Spain, of standing
by the side of an absent friend on the summit of Mont Blanc, one moment
among the snows, the next flitting through the garden spots of sunny
Italy--if he is thus capable of transporting himself into an enchanted
land by the mere exercise of the power of his imagination--what could
better serve him as a medium of communication with the unknown, and
what shall deter him from seeking to fathom its deepest mysteries?
Napoleon said truly that the imagination governs the universe. Every
one has painted his own picture of heaven and hell as well as Dante
or Milton, or the divine mysteries as truly as Leonardo or Murillo.
Surely, the imagination could go no further.
Assuming this to be true, there is little need to ask why, in this
enlightened age, the attempt should be made to revive vagaries already
decrepit, that would much better be allowed to go out with the departed
century, unhonored and unsung. Such a question could proceed only from
a want of knowledge of the true facts in the case.
But whether superstition is justified by the dictates of a sound common
sense, is not so material here, as whether it actually does exist;
and if so, to what extent. That is what we shall try to make clear in
the succeeding pages. The inquiry grows interesting in many ways, but
most of all, we think, as showing the slow stages by which the human
mind has enfranchised itself from a species of slavery, without its
counterpart in any direction to which we may turn for help or guidance.
Even science, that great leveller of popular error, limps here.
Certainly, what has existed as long as human history must be accepted
as a more or less active force in human affairs. We are not, therefore,
dealing with futilities.
Of the present status of superstition, the most that can be truthfully
said is that some of its worst forms are nearly or quite extinct,
some are apparently on the wane, while those representing, perhaps,
the widest extremes (the most puerile and the most vital), such, for
example, as relate to vapid tea-table gossip on the one hand, and to
fatal presentiments on the other, continue quite as active as ever.
Uncivilized beings are now supposed to be the only ones who still hold
to the belief in witchcraft, although within a very few months it has
been currently reported as a fact that the judge of a certain Colorado
court admitted the plea of witchcraft to be set up, because, as this
learned judge shrewdly argued, more than half the people there believed
in it. The defendant, who stood charged with committing a murderous
assault upon a woman, swore that she had bewitched him, and was
acquitted by the jury, mainly upon his own testimony.
Unquestionably modern hypnotism comes very close to solving the problem
of olden witchcraft, which so baffled the wisdom, as it tormented the
souls and bodies, of our ancestors, with this difference: that, while
witchcraft was believed to be a power to work evil, coming direct from
his Satanic Majesty himself, hypnotism is a power or gift residing in
the individual, like that of mesmerism.
But if it be true that there are very few believers in witchcraft among
enlightened beings to-day, it cannot be denied that thousands of highly
civilized men and women as firmly believe in some indefinable relation
between man and the spirit world as in their own existence; while
tens of thousands believe in such a relation between mind and mind.
Indeed, the former class counts some very notable persons among its
converts. For example, Camille Flammarion, the distinguished scientist,
positively declares that he has had direct communication with hundreds
of departed spirits.[1] And the Reverend M. J. Savage, pastor of the
Church of the Messiah, in New York, is reported to have announced
himself a convert to spiritualism to his congregation not long ago.
The true explanation for all these different beliefs must be sought
for, we think, deep down in the nature of man, which is much the same
to-day in its relation to the supernatural world as it was in the days
of our fathers of bigoted memory. In reality, the supernatural element
exists to a greater or less degree in all of us, and no merely human
agency can pretend to fix its limits.
Unquestionably, then, those beliefs which have exerted so potent an
influence in the past over the minds or affairs of men, which continue
to exert such influence to-day, and, for ought we know to the contrary,
may extend that influence indefinitely, are not to be whistled down
the wind, or kept hidden away under lock and key, especially when we
reflect that the most terrible examples of the frailty of all human
judgments concerning these beliefs have utterly failed to remove the
groundwork upon which they rest.
There still remains the sentimental side of superstition to consider.
What, for example, would become of much of our best literature, if
all those apt and beautiful figures culled from the rich stores of
ancient mythology--the very flowers of history, so to speak--were
to be weeded out of it with unsparing hand? What would Greek and
Roman history be with their gods and goddesses left out? With what
loving and appreciative art our greatest poets have gathered up the
scattered legends of the fading past. Some one has cunningly said that
superstition is the poetry of life, and that of all men poets should be
superstitious.
As a matter of history, it is well known that our Puritan ancestors
came over here filled full of the prevalent superstitions of the
old country; yet even they had waged uncompromising warfare against
all such ceremonious observances as could be traced back to heathen
mythology. Thus, although they cut down May-poles, they had too much
reverence for the Bible to refuse to believe in witches. Writers like
Mr. Hawthorne have supposed that the wild and extravagant mysteries of
their savage neighbors, may, to some extent, have become incorporated
with their own beliefs. However that may be, it is certain that the
Puritan fathers believed in no end of pregnant omens, also in ghosts,
apparitions, and witches, as well as in a personal devil, with whom,
indeed, later on, they had no end of trouble. In short, if anything
happened out of the common, the devil was in it. So say many to-day.
A certain amount of odium has attached itself to the Puritan fathers of
New England, on this account, among unreflecting or ill-natured critics
at least, just as if, upon leaving Old England, those people would
be expected to leave their superstitions behind them, like so much
useless luggage. As a matter of fact, rank superstition was the common
inheritance of all peoples of that day and generation, whether Jew or
Gentile, Frenchman or Dutchman, Virginian or New Englander. Of its wide
prevalence in Old England we find ample proof ready to our hand. For
example:
“At Boston, in Lincolnshire, Mr. Cotton being their former minister,
when he was gone the bishop desired to have organs set up in the
church, but the parish was unwilling to yield; but, however, the bishop
prevailed to be at the cost to set them up. But they being newly up
(not playing very often with them) a violent storm came in at one
window and blew the organs to another window, and brake both organs and
window down, and to this day the window is out of reputation, being
boarded and not glazed.”[2]
Still further to show the feeling prevailing in England toward
superstition at the time of the settlement of this country, in the
historical essay entitled “With the King at Oxford,” we find this
anecdote: The King (Charles I.), coming into the Bodleian Library on
a certain day, was shown a very curious copy of Virgil. Lord Falkland
persuaded his Majesty to make trial of his fortune by thrusting a knife
between the leaves, then opening the book at the place in which the
knife was inserted. The king there read as follows:--
“Yet let him vexed bee with arms and warres of people wilde,
And hunted out from place to place, an outlaw still exylde:
Let him go beg for helpe, and from his childe dissevered bee,
And death and slaughter vile of all his kindred let him see.”
The narrative goes on to say that the king’s majesty was “much
discomposed” by this uncanny incident, and that Lord Falkland, in order
to turn the king’s thoughts away from brooding over it, proposed making
the trial himself.
We continue to draw irrefragable testimony to the truth of our
position from the highest personages in the realm. Again, according to
Wallington, Archbishop Laud, arch persecutor of the Puritans, has this
passage in his diary: “That on such or such a day of the month he was
made archbishop of Canterbury, and on that day, which was a great day
of honor to him, his coach and horses sunk as they came over the ferry
at Lambeth, in the ferry-boat, and he prayed that this might be no ill
omen.”
Our pious ancestors put a good deal of faith in so-called “judgments,”
or direct manifestations of the divine wrath toward evildoers, as all
readers of Mather’s “Remarkable Providences” well know. But they were
by no means alone in such beliefs. It is related of the poet Milton,
after he became blind, that the Duke of York (later James II.) asked
him if he did not consider the loss of his eyesight as a judgment
inflicted upon him for what he had written of the late king. In reply
Milton asked the duke, if such afflictions were to be regarded as
judgments from heaven, in what manner he would account for the fate of
the late king; ... he, the speaker, had only lost his eye, while the
king had lost his head.”
John Josselyn, Gent., an Englishman, but no Puritan, who spent some
time in New England, chiefly at Scarborough in Maine, published, in
1672, in England, a little book under the title of “New England’s
Rarities Discovered.” Some things which Josselyn “discovered” would be
rarities indeed to this generation. For instance, he describes the
appearance of several prodigious apparitions--all of which has a value
in enabling us properly to gauge the tone and temper of popular feeling
where the book was written, and where it was published. One of his
“rarities” is worth repeating here, if only for the pretty sentiment
it embodies. He says of the twittering chimney-swallows, “that when
about to migrate they commonly throw down (the chimney) one of their
young into the room below, by way of gratitude,” presumably in return
for the hospitalities of the house. He then goes on to say, “I have
more than once observed that, against the ruin of a family, these birds
will forsake the house and come no more.” This comes from a more or
less close observer, who himself occupied the relation we desire to
establish, namely that of a transplanted Englishman, so thoroughly
grounded in old superstition that all the marvels he relates are told
with an air of truth quite refreshing.
An amusing instance of how far prevalent superstition can lead astray
minds usually enlightened is soberly set forth in Governor Winthrop’s
celebrated history. It is a fit corollary to the organ superstition,
just narrated.
“Mr. Winthrop the younger, one of the magistrates, having many books
in a chamber, where there was corn of divers sorts, had among them
one wherein the Greek Testament, the Psalter and the Common Prayer
were bound together. He found the Common Prayer eaten with mice, every
leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor any other of his
books, though there were above a thousand.”
All these superstitious beliefs were solemnly bequeathed by the fathers
to their children under the sanction of a severe penal code, together
with all the accumulated traditions of their own immediate ancestors.
And in some form or other, whether masquerading under some thin
disguise or foolish notion, superstition has continued from that day to
this. As Polonius says:
“... ’Tis true, ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true.”
Although a great many popular beliefs may seem puerile in the extreme,
they none the less go to establish the fact to be kept in mind. Since I
began to look into the matter I have been most astonished at the number
of very intelligent persons who take care to conform to prevailing
beliefs in things lucky or the reverse. It is true Lord Bacon tells
us that “in all superstitions wise men follow fools.” But this blunt
declaration of his has undoubted reference to the schoolmen, and to the
monastic legends which were such powerful aids in fostering the growth
of superstition as it existed long before Bacon’s time:--
“A bone from a saintly anchorite’s cave,
A vial of earth from a martyrs grave.”
The class of persons just spoken of, is, however, so keenly sensitive
to ridicule that only some chance remark betrays their real mental
attitude.
With the unlettered it is different. Superstition is so much more
prevalent among them that less effort is made at concealment. Perhaps
the many agencies at work to put it down have not had so fair a trial
in the country as in the city. And yet the recent “Lucky-Box” craze
makes it difficult to draw the line. Be that as it may, it would hardly
be an exaggeration to say that some rural communities in New England
are simply honeycombed with it. Indeed, almost every insignificant
happening is a sign of something or other.
One result of my own observation in this field of research is, that
women, if not by nature more superstitious than men, hold to these
old beliefs much more tenaciously than men. In the country, it is the
woman who is ready to quarrel with you, if, in some unguarded moment,
you should venture to doubt the potency of her manifold signs. In the
city, it is still the woman who presents her husband with some charm or
other to be worn on his watch-chain, as a safeguard against disease,
inconstancy, late hours, or other uncounted happenings of life,
believing, as she does, more or less implicitly, in its traditional
efficacy. In all that relates to marriage, too, women are usually most
careful how they disregard any of the accepted dicta on a subject of so
much concern to their future happiness, as will appear later on.
Fifty years ago the poet Whittier declared that “There is scarcely
a superstition of the past three centuries which has not, at this
very time, more or less hold upon individual minds among us.” The
broad declaration demands less qualification to-day than is generally
supposed.
Most of the examples collected in this volume have come under my
own observation; some have been contributed by friends, many by the
newspapers. If their number should prove a surprise to anybody, I can
only say that mine has fully equalled their own. But let us, at least,
be honest about it. We can conceal nothing from ourselves. Silence may
be golden, but it makes no converts.
[Illustration]
II
THE FOLK-LORE OF CHILDHOOD
“Why this is the best fooling when all is done.”--_Twelfth
Night._
The trite saying that “children and fools are soothsayers” goes
straight to the heart of those familiar superstitions with which the
folk-lore of childhood abounds. We, the children of a larger growth,
often call to mind with what avidity we listened in our childhood’s
days to the nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and the
like creations of pure fancy. We still remember how instantly all the
emotions of our childish nature were excited by the recital of these
marvels--told us, too, with such an air of truth, that never for a
moment did we doubt them. Oh, how we hated Blue Beard, and how we
adored Jack the Giant-Killer! Are we not treated, just as soon as we
are out of the cradle, as if superstition was the first law of nature?
What is the wonder, then, that the effects of these early impressions
are not easily got rid of, or the impressions themselves soon, if ever,
forgotten? “Brownie” is put into the arms of toddling infants before
they can articulate two words plainly. Just as soon as the child is
able to prattle a little, it is taught the familiar nursery rhyme of
“Bye, bye, Baby Bunting,
Papa’s gone a-hunting,”
drawn from ancient folk-lore, with which the rabbit and hare are so
intimately associated. After the innocent face rhymes, found with
little variation, in no less than four different languages, giving
names to each of the chubby little features,--
“Eyes winker, Tom Tinker,” etc.
come the well-known button rhymes, like this:
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief;”
or this one, told centuries ago to children across the water:--
“A tinker, a tailor,
A soldier or sailor,
A rich man, a poor man,
A priest or a parson,
A ploughman or a thief.”
The virgin soil being thus artfully prepared to receive superstition,
the boy or girl goes forth among playmates similarly equipped, with
them to practice various forms of conjuration in their innocent sports,
without in the least knowing what they are doing. Here are a few of
them:--
Making a cross upon the ground before your opponent, at the same time
muttering “criss-cross,” when playing at marbles, to make him miss his
shot, as I have often seen done in my schoolboy days. This is merely a
relic of that superstition attached to making the sign of the cross, as
a charm against the power of evil spirits.
The innocent sounding words “criss-cross” we believe originally to have
been Christ’s Cross.
Children of both sexes count apple seeds by means of the pretty
jingling rhymes, so like to the German flower oracle, often employed by
children of a larger growth. It has been set to music.
“One I love,
Two I love.
Three I love, I say,
Four I love with all my heart,
Five I cast away;
Six he loves,
Seven she loves,
Eight both love;
Nine he comes,
Ten he tarries,
Eleven he courts,
Twelve he marries.”
Holding the pretty field buttercup under another’s chin, in order to
see if he or she loves butter, is a good form of divination. So is the
practice of blowing off the fluffy dandelion top, after the flower has
gone to seed, to determine the hour, as that flower always opens at
about five in the morning, and shuts at about eight in the evening,
thus making it stand in the room of a clock for shepherds. This plant
has also been called the rustic oracle. To find the time of day, as
many puffs as it takes to blow away the downy seed balls gives the
answer. The same method of divination is employed by children to find
out if their mothers want them; or to waft a message to some loved one;
or to know if such or such a person is thinking of them; and whether he
or she lives north, east, south, or west.
To the same general purport is the invocation:
“Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day.”
We understand that the equally familiar form,--
“Snail, snail, put out your horn,”
is repeated in China as well as in this country, though sometimes
altered to
“Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I’ll beat you black as a coal.”
One equally familiar form of childish invocation appears in the pretty
little lady-bird rhyme, so often repeated by the young:--
“Lady-bird, lady-bird,
Fly away home,
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn.”
A favorite way, with boys, of choosing sides for a game of ball is by
measuring the stick. To do this, the leader of one side first heaves
the stick in the air, skilfully catching it, as it falls, at a point as
near a hand’s-breadth to the end as possible, as his opponent must then
measure the stick with him, alternately hand-over-hand, from the point
where it is caught. The one securing enough of the last of the stick
for a hold, has the first choice. This is determination by lot.
Still another form of invocation, formerly much used to clinch a
bargain between boys, when “swapping” jack-knives or marbles, runs to
this effect:--
“Chip, chop, chay,
Give a thing, give a thing,
Never take it back again.”
The process of counting a person out in the familiar phrase as being
“it,” is fairly traced back to the ancient custom of designating a
criminal from among his fellows by lot. The form that we know the best
in New England, a sort of barbaric doggerel, according to Mr. Burton,
is still current in Cornwall, England, and goes in this wise:--
“Ena, mena, bora, mi:
Kisca, lara, mova, di:
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,
Stick, stock, stone dead.”
The resemblance between the foregoing, and what is current among
playfellows on this side of the water easily suggests that the boys
of the “good Old Colony times,” so often referred to with a sigh of
regret, brought their games and pastimes along with them. As now
remembered, the doggerel charm runs as follows:--
“Eny, meny, mony might,
Huska, lina, bony tight,
Huldy, guldy, boo!”
In getting ready for a game of “tag,” “I spy,” or “hide and seek,” the
one to whom this last magic word falls becomes the victim or is said to
be “it.” So in like manner the rhymed formula, following, is employed
in counting a child “out”:--
“One-ery, two-ery, ickery Ann,
Fillicy, fallicy, Nicholas, John,
Queever, quaver, English knaver,
Stinckelum, stanckelum, Jericho, buck.”
A more simple counting-out rhyme is this:
“One, two, three,
Out goes he (or she).”
“Tit, tat, toe,” is still another form, repeated with variations
according to locality.
These few examples may serve to show that what the performers
themselves regard only as a simple expedient in the arranging of their
games, if they ever give the matter a thought, is really a survival of
the belief in the efficacy of certain magical words, turned into rhyme,
to propitiate success. If this idea had not been instilled into our
children by long custom and habit, it is not believed that they would
continue to repeat such unmeaning drivel. Yet, as childish as it may
seem, it advances us one step in solving the intricate problem in hand;
for here, too, “the child is father to the man.”
[Illustration]
III
WEATHER LORE
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”--_Shakespeare._
There is a certain class of so-called signs, that from long use have
become so embedded in the every-day life of the people as to pass
current with some as mere whimsical fancies, with others as possessing
a real significance. At any rate, they crop out everywhere in the
course of common conversation. Most of them have been handed down from
former generations, while not a few exhale the strong aroma of the
native soil itself.
Of this class of familiar signs or omens, affecting only the smaller
and more casual happenings one may encounter from day to day, or
from hour to hour, those only will be noticed which seem based on
actual superstition. Many current weather proverbs accord so exactly
with the observations of science as to exclude them from any such
classification. They are simply the homely records of a simple folk,
drawn from long experience of nature in all her moods. As even the
prophecies of the Weather Bureau itself often fail of fulfilment, it
is not to be wondered at if weather proverbs sometimes prove no better
guide, especially when we consider that “all signs fail in a dry time.”
The following are a few examples selected from among some hundreds:--
When a cat races playfully about the house, it is a sign that the wind
will rise.
It is a sign of rain if the cat washes her head behind her ears; of bad
weather when Puss sits with her tail to the fire.
Spiders crawling on the wall denote rain.
If a dog is seen eating green grass it is a sign of coming wet weather.
Hang up a snake skin for rain.
If the grass should be thickly dotted in the morning with cobwebs
of the ground spider, glistening with dew, expect rain. Some say it
portends the exact opposite. This puts us in mind of Cato’s quaint
saying that “two auguries cannot confront each other without laughing.”
If the kettle should boil dry, it is a sure sign of rain. Very
earnestly said a certain respectable, middle-aged housewife to me:
“Why, sir, sometimes you put twice as much water in the kettle without
its boiling away.”
If the cattle go under trees when the weather looks threatening, there
will be a shower. If they continue feeding, it will probably be a
steady downpour.
A threatened storm will not begin, or the wind go down, until the
turning of the tide to flood. Not only the people living along shore,
but all sailors believe this.
Closely related to the above is the belief that a sick person will not
die until ebb tide. When that goes out, the life goes with it. I have
often heard this said in some seaports in Maine.
These popular notions, concerning the influence of the tides, be it
said, have come down to us from a remote antiquity. The Pythagorean
philosopher, indeed, stoutly affirmed that the ebbing and flowing of
the sea was nothing less than the respiration of the world itself,
which was supposed to be a living monster, alternately drawing in
water, instead of air, and heaving it out again.
Again, an old salt, who had perhaps heard of Galileo’s theory, once
tried to illustrate to me the movement of the tides by comparing it to
that of a man turning over in bed, and dragging the bedclothes with
him, his notion being that as the world turned round, the waters of the
ocean were acted upon in a like manner.
To resume the catalogue:--
A bee was never caught in the rain--that is, if the bee scents rain,
it keeps near the hive. If, on the contrary, it flies far, the day
will be fair. The ancients believed this industrious little creature
possessed of almost human intelligence.
When the squirrels lay in a greater store of nuts than usual, expect a
cold winter.
If the November goose-bone be thick, so will the winter weather be
unusually severe. This prediction appears as regularly as the return of
the seasons.
Many meteors falling presage much snow.
“If it rains before seven,
It will clear before eleven.”
“You can tell before two.
What it’s going to do.”
There will be as many snow-storms in a winter as there are days
remaining in the month after the first fall of snow.
Children are told, of the falling snow, that the old woman, up in the
sky, is shaking her feather-bed.
High tides on the coast of Maine are considered a sign of rain.
When the muskrat builds his nest higher than usual, it is a sign of a
wet spring, as this means high water in the ponds and streams.
“A winter fog
Will kill a dog,”
which is as much as to say that a thaw, with its usual accompaniments
of fog and rain, is invariably productive of much sickness.
Winter thunder is to old folks death, and to young folks plunder.
“Sound, travelling far and wide,
A stormy day will betide.”
Do business with men when the wind is northwest--that signifies that a
clear sky and bracing air are most conducive to alertness and energy;
yet Hamlet says: “I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
That was certainly a pretty conceit, no matter if it has been lost
sight of, that the sun always dances upon Easter morning.
One of the oldest of weather rhymes runs in this wise:--
“Evening gray and morning red,
Brings down rain on the traveller’s head;
Evening red and morning gray,
Sends the traveller on his way.”
Science having finally accepted what vulgar philosophy so long
maintained, namely that the moon exerts an undoubted influence upon
the tides of the sea, all the various popular beliefs concerning her
influence upon the weather that have been wafted to us over, we know
not how many centuries, find ready credence. If the mysterious luminary
could perform one miracle, why not others? Thus reasoned the ignorant
multitude.
The popular fallacy that the moon is made of “greene cheese,” as sung
by Heywood, and repeated by that mad wag Butler, in “Hudibras,” may be
considered obsolete, we suppose, but in our youth we have often heard
this said, and, it is to be feared, half believed it.
Cutting the hair on the waxing of the moon, under the delusion that it
will then grow better, is another such.
As preposterous as it may seem, our worthy ancestors, or some of them
at least, firmly believed that the Man in the Moon was veritable flesh
and blood.
In “Curious Myths,” Mr. Baring-Gould refers the genesis of this belief
to the Book of Numbers.[3]
An old Scotch rhyme runs thus:--
“A Saturday’s change and a Sunday’s prime,
Was nivver gude mune in nae man’s time.”
If the horns of the new moon are but slightly tipped downward, moderate
rains may be looked for; if much tipped, expect a downpour. On the
other hand, if the horns are evenly balanced, it is a sure sign of dry
weather. Some one says in “Adam Bede,” “There’s no likelihood of a drop
now an’ the moon lies like a boat there.” The popular notion throughout
New England is that when the new moon is turned downward, it cannot
hold water. Hence the familiar sayings of a wet or a dry moon.
If the Stormy Petrel (Mother Cary’s Chicken) is seen following in
the wake of a ship at sea, all sailors know that a storm is brewing,
and that it is time to make all snug on board. As touching this
superstition, I find the following entry in the Rev. Richard Mather’s
_Journal_: “This day, and two days before, we saw following ye ship a
little bird, like a swallow, called a Petterill, which they say doth
follow ships against foule weather.”
Therefore, in honest Jack’s eyes, to shoot one of these little
wanderers of the deep, not only would invite calamity, but would
instantly bring down a storm of indignation on the offender’s head. And
why, indeed, should this state of mind in poor Jack be wondered at,
when he hears so much about kraaken, mermaids, sea-serpents, and the
like chimera, and when those who walk the quarter-deck readily lend
themselves to the fostering of his delusions?
A mare’s tail in the morning is another sure presage of foul weather.
This consists in a long, low-hanging streak of murky vapor, stretching
across a wide space in the heavens, and looking for all the world like
the trailing smoke of some ocean steamer, as is sometimes seen long
before the steamer heaves in sight. The mare’s tail is really the black
signal of the advancing storm, drawn with a smutty hand across the fair
face of the heavens. Hence the legend,--
“Mackerel sky and mare’s tails
Make lofty ships carry low sails.”
If the hedgehog comes out of his hole on Candlemas Day,[4] and sees his
shadow, he goes back to sleep again, knowing that the winter is only
half over. Hence the familiar prediction:--
“If Candlemas day is fair and clear,
There’ll be two winters in the year.”
The same thing is said of the bear, in Germany, as of the hedgehog or
woodchuck.
The Germans say that the badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemas Day,
and if he finds snow on the ground, he walks abroad; but if the sun is
shining, he draws back into his hole again. At any rate, the habits of
this predatory little beast are considered next to infallible by most
country-folk in New England.
A similar prediction carries this form: On Candlemas Day just so far as
the sun shines in, just so far will the snow blow in.
“As far as the sun shines in on Candlemas Day
So far will the snow blow in before May:
As far as the snow blows in on Candlemas Day
So far will the sun shine in before May.”
From these time-honored prophecies is deduced the familiar warning:--
“Just half your wood and half your hay
Should be remaining on Candlemas Day.”
An old Californian predicted a dry season for the year 1899, because
he had noticed that the rattlesnakes would not bite of late, a never
failing sign of drought which few, we fancy, would feel inclined to put
to the test.
An unusually cold winter is indicated by the greater thickness of apple
skins, corn husks, and the like.
The direction from which the wind is blowing usually indicates what the
weather will be for the day,--wet or dry, hot or cold,--but here is a
rhymed prediction which puts all such prophecies to shame:--
“The West wind always brings wet weather
The East wind wet and cold together,
The South wind surely brings us rain,
The North wind blows it back again.
If the sun in red should set,
The next day surely will be wet;
If the sun should set in gray,
The next will be a rainy day.”
This falls more strictly in line with many of the so-called signs
which, like the old woman’s indigo, if good would either sink or
swim, she really didn’t know which; or like the predictions of the old
almanac makers, who so shrewdly foretold rain in April, and snow in
December.
[Illustration]
IV
SIGNS OF ALL SORTS
“Authorized by her grandam.”--_Macbeth._
If you sneeze before breakfast, you will have company before dinner.
If you pick the common red field lily, it will make you freckled.
A spark in the candle denotes a letter in the post office for you.
To hand a cup with two spoons in it to any one, is a sign of a coming
wedding in the family.
If a cat is allowed to get into bed with an infant, the child will be
strangled by the animal sucking its breath, or by lying across its
chest.
If my right ear burns, some one is talking about me, hence the familiar
saying, “I’ll make his ears tingle for him.” Pliny records this omen.
Also in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Beatrice exclaims, “What fire is in
mine ears!”
When the right ear itches or burns, the person so affected will shortly
cry; when it is the left, he will laugh. One version runs in this
wise:--
“Left or right
Good at night.”
Late blossoming of vines or fruit trees will be followed by much
sickness. This probably rests upon the theory that a mild autumn will
be a sickly autumn, which is the same thing as saying that unseasonable
weather is pretty sure to be unwholesome weather. The same prediction
is expressed by the old saying that “A green Christmas makes a fat
church-yard.” Both predictions agree with the observations of medical
science.
A spoon in the saucer and another in the cup denote that the person
using them will be a spendthrift, and probably come to want; but two
spoons to one dish of ice-cream denote foresight and true thrift.
“Sing before you eat,
Cry before you sleep.”
Or, if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper.
Pull out one gray hair, and ten will grow in its place.
Should you happen to let drop your scissors, or other sharp instrument,
and they should stick upright in the floor, it is a sign that you will
soon see a stranger.[5]
Dropping the dishcloth has the same significance.
Two cowlicks, growing on the same person’s head, denote that he will
eat his bread in two kingdoms--that is, be a traveller in foreign parts.
Should a cow swallow her cud, the animal will die, unless another cud
be immediately given her.
Hard-hack[6] was thus named by the early colonists, who declared that
the tough stalk turned the edge of the mower’s scythe.
If you see a white horse, you will immediately after see a red-haired
woman.
Bubbles gathering on top of a cup of coffee or chocolate indicate, if
they cluster at the middle, or “form an island” in prophetic parlance,
money coming to you. If, however, the bubbles gather at the sides of
the cup, you will not get the money.
Two chairs, placed by accident back to back, are a sign of a stranger.
Coming in at one door, and immediately going out at another, has the
same meaning.
A tea-stem floating in the tea-cup--a common thing before the day of
tea-strainers--also foreshadows the coming of a stranger. Old people
say “you must butter his head and throw him under the table, if the
charm is to work.” A tea-leaf means the same thing, its length denoting
whether the stranger will be short or tall.
To let fall your fork is a sure sign that you are going to have a
caller on that very evening, or, as the girls declare, have “a beau.”
A very estimable lady said when telling me this, that when she was
a young girl she never had that accident happen to her that she did
not immediately get ready for a caller; and she added that seldom, or
never, was this sign known to fail.
If a young girl has the nosebleed, it is a sign that she is in love.[7]
If your nose itches you will either
“See a stranger,
Kiss a fool,
Or be in danger.”
If your left hand itches, you will shortly receive money; if it is the
right hand, get ready to shake hands with a stranger.
A ringing or “dumb-bell” in the ear denotes that you may expect
startling news of some sort.
A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.
Four persons meeting in a crowded place and shaking hands cross-wise,
is a sign that one of the party will be married within the year.
Should you meet a person on the stairs, one or the other must go back,
or some misfortune will happen to both.
If you should fail to fold up your napkin after a meal at which you are
a guest, you will not again be invited to that table.
Think of the devil and he is at your elbow. The point of this robust
saying is now much softened into “think of some one and he is at your
elbow”; but it seems at first to have had reference to an enemy or to
one you would rather avoid. The saying is quite common to-day.
A very old rhyme about the way in which one wears out a shoe, runs in
this way:--
“Tip at the toe, live to see woe,
Wear at the side, live to be a bride,
Wear at the ball, live to spend all,
Wear at the heel, live to save a deal.”
Even the days of the week possess peculiar significance to the future
welfare of the newborn infant:--