_CHARMS AND COUNTER CHARMS._
During these times when such superstitious beliefs were almost
universally accepted--when the sources from which evils might be
expected to spring were about as numerous as the unchecked fancies of
men could make them--we must naturally conceive that the people who
believed such things must have lived in a continual state of fear. And
in many instances this was really the case; but the common result was
not so, for fortunately the bane and antidote were generally found
together, and the means for preventing or exorcising these devil-imposed
evils were about as numerous as the evils themselves. I have already in
a former chapter mentioned incidentally some of these charms and
preventives, but as this incidental treatment cannot possibly cover the
field, I shall here speak of them separately.
Tennant, in his _Tour through Scotland_, states that farmers placed
boughs of the mountain ash in their cow-houses on the second day of May
to protect their cows from evil influences. The rowan tree possessed a
wonderful influence against all evil machinations of witchcraft. A staff
made of this tree laid above the boothy or milk-house preserved the milk
from witch influence. A churn-staff made of this wood secured the butter
during the process of churning. So late as 1860 I have seen the rowan
tree trained in the form of an arch over the byre door, and in another
case over the gate of the farmyard, as a protection to the cows. It was
also believed that a rowan tree growing in a field protected the cattle
against being struck by lightning.
Mr. Train describes the action of a careful farmer's wife or dairymaid
thus:--
"Lest witches should obtain the power
Of Hawkie's milk in evil hour,
She winds a red thread round her horn,
And milks thro' row'n tree night and morn;
Against the blink of evil eye
She knows each andidote to ply."
The same author, writing in 1814, says:--"I am acquainted myself with an
Anti-Burgher clergyman who actually procured from a person who pretended
to such skill in these charms two small pieces of carved wood, to be
kept in his father's cow-house as a security for the health of his
cows." The belief in the potency of the rowan tree to ward off evil is
no doubt a survival of ancient tree worship. Of this worship, the Rev.
F.W. Farrar says:--"It may be traced from the interior of Africa, not
only in Egypt and Arabia, but also onwards uninterruptedly into
Palestine and Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, the
Philippine Islands, China, Japan, and Siberia; also westward into Asia
Minor, Greece, Italy, and other countries; and in most of the countries
here named it obtains at the present day, combined, as it has been, in
other parts with various forms of idolatry." Were it our object, it
could also be shown that tree worship has been combined with
Christianity. The rowan tree was held sacred by the Druids, and is often
found among their stone monuments. There is a northern legend that the
god of thunder (Thor), when wading the river Vimar, was in danger of
being swept away by its current, but that, grasping a tree which grew on
the bank, he got safely across. This tree was the mountain ash, which
was ever after held sacred; and when these nations were converted to
Christianity, they did not fall away from their belief in the sanctity
of the rowan tree.
Not many years ago, I was told of a miraculous make of butter which was
reported to have occurred in the west of Lanarkshire a short time
before. One morning, a farmer's wife in that district and her
maid-servant wrought at the kirn, but, do as they would, no butter would
appear. In this dilemma, they sat down to consider about the cause, and
then they recollected that a neighbouring woman had come into the
kitchen, where the kirn was standing the previous evening, to borrow
something, but was refused. The servant was at once despatched with the
article in question, and half-a-dozen eggs as a gift, to the old woman,
and instructed to make an apology for not having given the loan the
evening before. The woman received the gift, and gratefully expressed
her wish that the farmer and his wife would be blest both in their
basket and their store. The effect, said my informant, was miraculous.
Before the servant returned, the butter began to flow, and in such
quantity as had never before been experienced.
Apropos of this superstition with reference to milk, the following
incident occurred not many years back in the West Highlands. An old
woman, who kept a few cows, was in sore distress of mind because some
of her ill-disposed neighbours had cast an evil eye upon them, in
consequence of which their milk in a very short time _blinked_ (turned
sour), and churn as she might, she could never obtain any butter. She
had tried every remedy she knew of, or that had been recommended to her,
but without any good effect. At length, in her extremity, she applied to
the parish minister, and laid her case before him. He patiently listened
to her complaint, and expressed great sympathy for her, and then very
wisely said, "I'll tell you how I think you will succeed in driving away
the evil eye. It seems to me that it has not been cast on your cows, but
on your dishes. Gang hame and tak' a' your dishes down to the burn, and
let them lie awhile in the running stream; then rub them well and dry
with a clean clout. Tak' them hame and fill each with boiling water.
Pour it out and lay them aside to dry. The evil eye cannot withstand
boiling water. Sca'd it out and ye'll get butter." The prescription was
followed, and a few weeks after the woman called upon the minister and
thanked him for the cure, remarking that she had never seen anything so
wonderful.
Mr. Joseph Train, from whose notes we have already quoted, mentions a
ceremony, not of a private but of a public nature, and embracing a large
district of country, at the performance of which he was present. The
object to be obtained was the prevention of a threatened outbreak of
disease among the cattle. "In the summer of 1810," says Mr. Train,
"while remaining at Balnaguard, a village of Perthshire, as I was
walking along the banks of the Tay, I observed a crowd of people
convened on the hill above Pitna Cree; and as I recollected having seen
a multitude in the same place the preceding day, my curiosity was
roused, so that I resolved to learn the reason of this meeting in such
an unfrequented place. I was close beside them before any of the company
had observed me ascending the hill, their attention being fixed upon two
men in the centre. One was turning a small stock, which was supported by
two stakes standing perpendicularly, with a cleft at the top, in which
the crown piece went round in the form a carpenter holds a chisel on a
grinding stone; the other was holding a small branch of fir on that
which was turning. Directly below it was a quantity of tow spread on the
ground. I observed that this work was taken alternately by men and
women. As I was turning about in order to leave them, a man whom I had
seen before, laid his hand on my shoulder, and solicited me to put my
finger to the stick; but I refused, merely to see if my obstinacy would
be resented; and suddenly a sigh arose from every breast, and anger
kindled in every eye. I saw, therefore, that immediate compliance with
the request was necessary to my safety.
"I was soon convinced that this was some mysterious rite performed
either to break or ward off the power of witchcraft; but, so intent were
they on the prosecution of their design, that I could obtain no
satisfactory information, until I met an old schoolmaster in the
neighbourhood, from whom I had obtained much insight into the manners
and customs of that district. He informed me that there is a distemper
occasioned by want of water, which cattle are subject to, called in the
Gaelic language _shag dubh_, which in English signifies 'black haunch.'
It is a very infectious disease, and, if not taken in time, would carry
off most of the cattle in the country." The method taken by the
Highlanders to prevent its destructive ravages is thus: "All fires are
extinguished between the two nearest rivers, and all the people within
that boundary convene in a convenient place, where they erect a machine,
as above described; and, after they have commenced, they continue night
and day until they have forced fire by the friction of the two sticks.
Every person must perform a portion of this labour, or touch the machine
in order not to break the charm.
"During the continuance of the ceremony they appear melancholy and
dejected, but when the fire, which they say is brought from heaven by an
angel, blazes in the tow, they resume their wonted gaiety; and while one
part of the company is employed feeding the flame, the others drive all
the cattle in the neighbourhood over it. When this ceremony is ended,
they consider the cure complete; after which they drink whiskey, and
dance to the bagpipe or fiddle round the celestial fire till the last
spark is extinguished."
Here, within our own day, is evidently an act of fire-worship: a direct
worship of Baal by a Christian community in the nineteenth century.
There were other means of preventing disease spreading among cattle
practised within this century. When murrain broke out in a herd, it was
believed that, if the first one taken ill were buried alive, it would
stop the spread of the disease, and that the other animals affected
would then soon recover. Were a cow to cast her calf: if the calf were
to be buried at the byre door, and a short prayer or a verse of
Scripture said over it, it would prevent the same misfortune from
happening with the rest of the herd. If a sheep dropped a dead lamb, the
proper precaution to take was to place the lamb upon a rowan tree, and
this would prevent the whole flock from a repetition of the mishap.
It was an old superstition that the body of a murdered person would
bleed on the presence or touch of the murderer. We find this belief
mentioned as far back as the eleventh century. In an old ballad of that
period occurs the following passage:--
"A marvel high and strange is seen full many a time--
When to the murdered body nigh the man that did the crime,
Afresh the wounds will bleed. The marvel now was found--
That Hagan felled the champion with treason to the ground."
Several centuries after this, we find it mentioned in another ballad,
entitled "Young Huntin":--
"O white were his wounds washen,
As white as a linen clout,
But when Lady Maisry she cam' near,
His wounds they gushed out."
The reason for this marvel was ascribed by the Rev. Mr. Wodrow, to the
wonderful providence of God, who had said, "thou shalt not suffer a
murderer to live," and had, in order that the command might be justly
carried out, provided the means whereby murderers might be readily
detected. This superstition certainly survived within this century, and
I have heard many instances adduced to prove the truth of bleeding
taking place on the introduction of the murderer.
Another curious form of belief was prevalent among some persons, that
the body of a suicide would not decay until the time arrived when, in
the ordinary course of nature, he would have died. This was founded upon
another belief, that there is a day of death appointed for every man,
which no one can pass; but as man is possessed of a free will, he may,
by his own wicked determination, shorten the union of his soul and body,
but that there his power ends: he cannot in reality kill either soul or
body, for were he to possess this power, he would possess the power to
alter the decrees of God, which is a power impossible for man to
possess. This was a mad, not deep, sort of metaphysics; but there was
sufficient method in its madness to cause it to gain the suffrages of a
large number of people. It was affirmed that those who had examined into
the matter had found that the bodies of suicides were mysteriously
preserved from decomposition until the day arrived on which they would
naturally--that is, according to God's decree--have died. About the year
1834, I was taking a walk along the banks of the canal north of Glasgow,
and sat down beside a group of well-dressed men, who were conversing on
general topics, and amongst other things touched on the matter of
suicides--proximity to the canal probably suggested the subject. One of
the group pointed out a quiet spot where he affirmed that _Bob Dragon_,
an old Glasgow celebrity, had been buried. Bob, he said, had committed
suicide; but his relations being aware that, in consequence of this act,
his property, according to law, became forfeited to the Crown, had him
buried secretly in this out-of-the-way spot, and obtained another
corpse, which they put into the coffin in his house. But, several years
after, some persons who were digging at this quiet spot on the canal
bank discovered the real body of Bob--the throat being cut--and the
corpse as fresh as the day on which the act was committed. Bob's
relations, on hearing of this discovery, gave the finders a handsome
gift to rebury the body and keep the matter secret. Within the last ten
years I have heard the same affirmation made respecting persons who have
drowned themselves.
Persons whose _yea_ is unvaryingly _yea_, and whose _nay_ is unvaryingly
_nay_, generally resort to no form of oath or imprecation to gain
credence to their statements, for their truthfulness is seldom called in
question--at least, where they are well known. But with those who are
lax in their statements--who tell the truth or tell lies just as for the
moment the one or the other appears to suit them best--the case is
different. When they speak something strange or important, they find
their veracity questioned, and require to place themselves in
circumstances where it may be thought they are under compulsion, for
their own welfare, to speak the truth. Commonly, they ask Providence to
injure them in some way if in the present instance they have said the
thing which is not true. Well, it was believed in the days of which I
write, and within my own day, that Providence did interfere in this way,
and many stories were current in confirmation of this belief. One such
will suffice as an illustration. A married woman, _enciente_ for the
first time, having had words with her husband about something she denied
having either said or done, wished that, if her statement were untrue,
she might never give birth to the child. She was taken at her word, for
she lived many years in delicate health, but the child was never born.
The villagers who remembered her said that at times she _swelled_ as if
she was about to be confined, and at other times was as _jimp_ as a
young girl.
Akin to belief in the potency of such wishes as were uttered as tests of
truthfulness was doubtless the generally accredited, though of course
seldom witnessed, form of compact with the devil. When a person agreed
to serve the devil, his Satanic Majesty caused the mortals who sought
his service and favour to place one hand under their thigh and the other
over their head, and wish that the devil would take all that lay between
their hands if they were unfaithful to their vow. The form of oath by
expression of a wish was common to both Jews and Gentiles.
There was another kind of wish which was believed to obtain fulfilment
during life, that was the expressed wish of the innocent against those
who had wronged them. The belief in the fulfilment of such wishes was
grounded on the theological supposition that God in his justice would in
time punish the wrong-doer. I remember a rather pertinent example of
this: a proof they would have said in former days--a coincidence we
would say in these days. A simple-minded--_half-witted_--young woman was
taken advantage of by a young man resident in the neighbourhood, to the
public scandal of the village. He denied the paternity of the baby, and
made oath to that effect before the kirk-session. As he did so, the
girl, looking at him, wished that the hand he held up might lose its
cunning, as evidence of God's judgment upon the false swearer. In less
than a year from that time a disease came into his right hand, and he
was never afterwards able to use it. Not many years ago, I saw the same
man going through the village selling tea, and, as he passed along the
street, many of the older inhabitants remarked how wonderfully _Poor
Meg's_ wish had been fulfilled.
Employment of certain charms to influence for good or evil prevailed in
this century to a great extent. Some of these it is difficult to trace
to their origin. About forty years ago, a certain married couple lived
unhappily together. The wife did all she could to make her husband
comfortable, but still he abused her without cause. At length, after
suffering much, she applied to a woman who professed to have power over
the affections, and for this purpose prepared love philters. The woman
gave her a charm, which was to be sewn between the lining and cloth of
her husband's vest without his knowledge. She carried these instructions
out, and with extraordinarily successful results, for, while the husband
wore this vest, he never gave her so much as an angry word.
One Walter Donaldson was in the habit of beating his wife, and making
her life bitter. She made application to Isabell Straguhan, who
possesses magic influences, who took pieces of paper and sewed them
thick with thread of divers colours, and put them in the barn among the
corn. From that time forth the said Walter never lifted hand against his
wife, nor did once find fault with her whatsoever she did, and was
entirely subdued to her love.
The following was related to me as a fact, by a person who said that he
tried it:--There is a certain crooked bone in a frog, which, when
cleaned and dried over a fire on St. John's eve, and then ground fine
and given in food to any person, will win the affections of the
receiver to the giver, and in young persons will produce a desire for
each other's society, culminating eventually in marriage; also, when a
married couple do not agree well together, it will reconcile them, and
bring about a mutual affection.
At the commencement of this century, belief in the influence of the
mandrake plant over the affections still existed in this country. Belief
in this plant is as old as history. Leah, the neglected wife of Jacob,
doubtless intended to influence her husband by the use of it, whilst
Rachel procured the plant for a different purpose, but for both purposes
it was considered efficatious, and in both cases, the narrative shows,
successful. By both eastern and western nations this plant was credited
with wonderful powers, even to the extent of working miracles. In this
country it was believed to be watched by Satan, but if the plant were
pulled during certain holy seasons, or by holy persons, Satan could not
only be robbed with impunity, but he would become the servant of the
person who pulled the plant, and do for him whatever he desired; but woe
to the unholy person who attempted to pull the plant, especially at a
non-sacred time; he drops down dead, and Satan possesses his soul.
It was a prevalent belief that the seventh son in a family had the gift
of curing diseases, and that he was by nature a doctor who could effect
cures by the touch of his hand. It was reported that such a man resided
in Iona, who had effected cures by rubbing the diseased part with his
hand on two Thursdays and two Sundays successively, doing so in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It was requisite to the
cure that no fee should be taken by such endowed persons. In the West
of Scotland the formula of cure was different in different localities;
in some parts a mere touch was all that was necessary, in others, and
this was the more general method, some medicine was given to assist the
cure.
Written charms were also believed in as capable of effecting cures, or,
at least, of preventing people from taking diseases. I have known people
who wore written charms, sewed into the necks of their coats, if men,
and into the headbands of petticoats if women. These talismans, in many
cases, I have little doubt, did real good in this way, that they
supplied their wearers with a courage which sufficed to brace up their
nervous system--which drove out fear, in fact,--a very important
condition for health, as physicians well know. These talismans were so
generally and thoroughly believed in, and so numerous and apparently
well-attested were the evidences of their beneficial effects, that in
years not long past, medical men believed in their efficacy, and
promulgated various theories to account for it.
It was also an accepted belief that diseases could be transferred to
animals, and even to vegetables. Cures held to be so effected were,
according to one medical theory, cures by "sympathy." A few instances,
culled from a work published during the latter half of the seventeenth
century (1663), entitled _The Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy_,
will illustrate this theory:--A medical man had been very ill of an
obstinate _marasmar_ (?) which so consumed him that he became quite a
skeleton, notwithstanding every remedy which he had tried. At length he
tried a sympathetic remedy: he took an egg, and having boiled it hard
in his own urine, he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in
different parts, and then buried it in an ant-hill. As the ants wasted
the egg he found his strength increase, and he soon was completely
cured. A daughter of a French officer was so tormented by a _paronychia_
(?) for four days together, that the pain kept her from sleeping; by the
order of a medical man she put her finger into a cat's ear, and within
two hours was delivered from her pain. And a councillor's wife was cured
of a _panaritium_ (?) which had vexed her for four days by the same
means. In both cases the cat had received the pain in its ear and
required to be held. The gout is cured by sympathy: by the patient
sleeping with puppies, they take the disease, and the person recovers. A
boy ill with the king's evil could not be cured, his father's dog took
to licking the sores, the dog took the sores, and the boy was completely
cured. A gentleman having a severe pain in the arm was cured by beating
red coral with oak leaves, and applying it to the part affected till
suppuration: a hole was then made in the root of an oak towards the
east, and the mixture put into it and the hole plugged up with a peg of
the same tree, and from that time the pain did altogether cease; and
when afterwards the mixture was removed from the tree, immediately the
torments returned worse than before. Sir Francis Bacon records a cure of
warts: he took a piece of lard with the skin on it, and after rubbing
the warts with it the lard was exposed out of a southern window to
putrify, and the warts wore away as it putrified. Harvey tried to remove
tumours and excrescences by putting the hand of a dead person that had
died of a lingering disease upon them till the part felt cold. In
general the application was effective.
This idea of cure by sympathy retained its hold on the people till this
century, and is not yet entirely gone.
There was another theory, which we may call the magnetic theory. The
philosophy of this theory contended that "The body when diseased
resembled a gun; when loaded, it contains powder and ball, which, by the
mere touch of a little spring, sets the whole machinery of the gun in
motion, whereby the ball is expelled. So also the mere touch or outward
contact of certain bodies or substances has power, like a magnet, to set
in action the machinery of nature by which the disease is
dispelled--sometimes slowly, but often suddenly like the bullet from the
gun. Helmont had a little stone, which, by plunging in oil of almonds,
imbued the oil with such sanative power that it cured almost any
disease. It was sometimes applied inwardly, sometimes outwardly. A
gentleman who had an unwieldy groom procured for him a small fragment of
this stone, and, by licking it with the tip of his tongue every morning,
in three weeks he was reduced in bulk round the waist by a span without
affecting his general health. A gentleman in France who procured a small
fragment of this stone cured several persons of inveterate diseases by
letting them lick it. The stone _Lapis Nephriticus_ bound upon the pulse
of the wrist of the left hand prevents stone, hysterics, and stops the
flux of blood in any part. A compound metal called _electrum_, which is
a mixture of all metals made under certain constellations and shaped
into rings and worn, prevents cramps and palsy, apoplexy, epilepsy, and
severe pains; and in the case of a person in a fit of the falling
sickness, a ring of this metal put on the ring finger is an immediate
cure. A little yarrow and mistletoe put into a bag and worn upon the
stomach, prevents ague and chilblains. A powder made of the common
mistletoe, given in doses of three grains at the full of the moon to
persons troubled with epilepsy, prevents fits; and if given during a fit
it will effect an immediate and permanent cure. A woman with rupture of
the bladder was reported to have been cured by wearing a little bag hung
about her neck containing the powder made from a toad burnt alive in a
new pot. The same prescription was also said to have cured a man of
stone in the bladder."
Such theories left ample room for the creation of all sorts of cure
charms, and when such ideas prevailed among the educated in the medical
profession, we need not be surprised that they still survive among many
uneducated persons, although two centuries have gone since. In 1714 one
of the most eminent physicians in Europe, Boerhaave, wrote of chemistry
and medicine:--"Nor even in this affair don't medicine receive some
advantage; witness the cups made of regulus of antimony, tempered with
other metals which communicate a medicinal quality to wine put in them,
and it is ten thousand pities the famous _Van Helmont_ should have been
so unkind to his poor fellow creatures in distress as to conceal from us
the art of making a particular metal which he tells us, made into rings,
and worn only while one might say the Lord's Prayer, would remove the
most exquisite hæmorrhoidal pains, both internal and external, quiet the
most violent hysteric disorders, and give ease in the severest spasms
of the muscles. 'Tis right, therefore, to prosecute enquiries of this
nature, for there is very frequently some hidden virtues in these
compositions, and we may make a vast number of experiments of this kind
without any danger or inconvenience."
As it illustrates the theories just mentioned, we notice here the
influence attributed to the wonderful Lee Penny. This famous charm is a
stone set in gold. It is said to have been brought home by Lochart of
Lee, who accompanied the Earl of Douglas in carrying Robert the Bruce's
heart to the Holy Land. It is called Lee Penny, and was credited with
the virtue of imparting to water into which it was dipped curative
properties, specially influential to the curing of cattle when diseased,
or preventing them taking disease. Many people from various parts of
Scotland whose cattle were affected have made application within these
few years for water in which this stone has been dipped. It is believed
that this stone cannot be lost. It is still in the possession of the
family of Lochart.
Ague, it was believed, could be cured by putting a spider into a goose
quill, sealing it up, and hanging it about the neck, so that it would be
near the stomach. This disease might also be cured by swallowing pills
made of a spider's web. One pill a morning for three successive mornings
before breakfast.
There were numerous cures for hooping-cough of a superstitious
character, practised extensively during the earlier years of this
century, and some are still recommended. The following are a few of
these. Pass the patient three times under the belly, and three times
over the back of a donkey. Split a sapling or a branch of the ash tree,
and hold the split open while the patient is passed three times through
the opening. Find a man riding on a piebald horse, and ask him what
should be given as a medicine, and whatever he prescribes will prove a
certain cure. "I recollect," says Jamieson, "a friend of mine that rode
a piebald horse, that he used to be pursued by people running after him
bawling,--
"Man wi' the piety horse,
What's gude for the kink host?"
He said he always told them to give the bairn plenty of sugar candy. Put
a piece of _red_ flannel round the neck of a child, and it will ward off
the hooping cough. The virtue lay not in the flannel, but in the red
colour. Red was a colour symbolical of triumph and victory over all
enemies. Find a hairy caterpillar, put it into a bag, and hang it round
the neck of the child. This will prove a cure. Take some of the child's
hair and put it between slices of bread and butter, and give it to a
dog; if in eating it, the dog cough, the child will be cured, and the
hooping cough transferred to the dog. A very common practice at the
present day is to take the patient into a place where there is a tainted
atmosphere, such as a byre or a stable, a gas work, or chemical work. I
have seen the gas blown on the child's face, so that it might breath
some of it, and be set a coughing. If during the process the child take
a _kink_, it is a good sign. This idea must, I think, be of modern
origin.
It was believed that if a present were given, especially if it were
given to a sweetheart, and then asked back again, the giver would have a
stye on the eye. Again, a stye on the eye was removable by rubbing it
with a wedding ring. I suspect these two superstitions are portions of
an ancient allegory, which, in time loosing their figurative meanings,
came to be treated as literal facts.
Warts, especially when they are upon exposed parts of the body, are
sometimes a source of annoyance to their possessors, and various and
curious methods were taken for their removal. From their position on the
body they also were regarded as prognostications of good or bad luck. To
have warts on the right hand foreboded riches; a wart on the face
indicated troubles of various kinds.
We have already noticed the cure recommended by the learned Sir Francis
Bacon. The following are a few of the cures which were believed in
within this century. Rub the wart with a piece of stolen bacon. Rub the
wart with a black snail, and lay the snail upon a hedge or dyke. As the
animal decays so will the wart. Wash the wart with sow's blood for three
days in succession.
Upon the first sight of the new moon stand still and take a small
portion of earth from under the right foot, make it into a paste, put it
on the wart and wrap it round with a cloth, and thus let it remain till
that moon is out. The moon's influence and the fasting spittle are very
old superstitions.
The moon or Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal, was the great female deity
of the ancients, and so an appeal to the moon for the purpose of
removing interferences with beauty, such as skin excrescences, was quite
appropriate. Moon worship was practised in this country in prehistoric
times. Bailey, in his _Etymological Dictionary_, under article "Moon,"
says, "The moon was an ancient idol of England, and worshipped by the
Britons in the form of a beautiful maid, having her head covered, with
two ears standing out. The common people in some counties of England are
accustomed at the prime of the moon to say '_It is a fine moon. God
bless her._'"
From a custom in Scotland (particularly in the Highlands) where the
young women make courtesy to the new moon by getting upon a gate or
style and sitting astride, they say--
"All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
I prithee good moon declare to me
This very night who my husband shall be."
Every one knows the popular adage about having money in the pocket when
the new moon is first seen, and that if the coins be turned over at the
time, money will not fail you during that moon. To see the new moon
through glass, however, breaks the charm. It was a prevalent belief that
if a person on catching the first glimpse of new moon, were to instantly
stand still, kiss their hand three times to the moon, and bow to it,
that they would find something of value before that moon was out. Such
practices are evidently survivals of moon worship. How closely does this
last practice agree with what Job says (chap. xxxi, 26),--"If I beheld
the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart
hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also
were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge: for I should have denied
the God that is above."
The good influence of the fasting spittle in destroying the influence of
an evil eye has been already referred to in the previous pages, but it
was also esteemed a potent remedy in curing certain diseases. To moisten
a wart for several days in succession with the fasting spittle removes
it. I have often seen a nurse bathe the eyes of a baby in the morning
with her fasting spittle, to cure or prevent sore eyes. I have heard the
same cure recommended for roughness of the skin and other skin diseases.
Maimonides states that the Jews were expressly forbidden by their
traditions to put fasting-spittle upon the eyes on the Sabbath day,
because to do so was to perform work, the great Sabbath crime in the
eyes of the Pharisees which Christ committed when he moistened the clay
with his spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man therewith on the
Sabbath day. To both Greeks and Romans the fasting spittle was a charm
against fascination. Persius Flaccus says:--"A grandmother or a
superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his
forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action of
her middle finger and her purifying spittle." Here we find that it is
not the spittle alone, but the joint action of the spittle and the
middle finger which works the influence. The middle finger was commonly,
in the early years of this century, believed to possess a favourable
influence on sores; or, rather, it might be more correct to say that it
possessed no damaging influence, while all the other fingers, in coming
into contact with a sore, were held to have a tendency to defile, to
poison, or canker the wound. I have heard it asserted that doctors know
this, and never touch a sore but with the mid-finger.
There were other practices and notions appertaining to the spittle and
spitting, some of which continue to this day. To spit for luck upon the
first coin earned or gained by trading, before putting it into the
pocket or purse, is a common practice. To spit in your hand before
grasping the hand of a person with whom you are dealing, and whose offer
you accept, is held to clinch the bargain, and make it binding on both
sides. This is a very old custom. Captain Burt, in his letters, says
that when in a bargain between two Highlanders, each of them wets the
ball of his thumb with his mouth, and then they press their wet thumb
balls together, it is esteemed a very binding bargain. Children in their
games, which are often imitations of the practices of men, make use of
the spittle. When playing at games of chance, such as _odds or evens_,
_something or nothing_, etc., before the player ventures his guess he
consults an augury, of a sort, by spitting on the back of his hand, and
striking the spittle with his mid-finger, watching the direction in
which the superfluous spittle flies, from him or to him, to right or
left, and therefrom, by a rule of his own, he determines what shall be
his guess. Again, boys often bind one another to a bargain or promise by
a sort of oath, which is completed by spitting. It runs thus:
"Chaps ye, chaps ye,
Double, double daps ye,
Fire aboon, fire below,
Fire on every side o' ye."
After saying this, the boy spits over his head three times, and without
this the oath is not considered binding; but when properly done, and the
promise not fulfilled, the defaulter is regarded as a liar, and is kept
for a time at an outside by his companions.
When two boys made an arrangement (I am speaking of what was the custom
fifty years back), either to meet together at a stated time or to do
some certain thing, the arrangement was confirmed by each spitting on
the ground.
When a number of boys or girls were trying to find out a puzzle or guess
put to them, and which they failed to unravel or answer, and when they
were searching for something which had been hidden from them, and which
they could not discover, the usual method of acknowledging that they
were outwitted was by spitting on the ground; in the language of the
day, they would be requested to "spit and gie't o'er," that is, own that
they were beaten. The propounder of the puzzle, or the party who had
hidden the object, was then bound to disclose the matter.
When two boys quarrelled, and one wet the other boy's buttons with his
spittle, this was a challenge to fight or be dubbed a coward.
Mahomet held that bad dreams were from the devil, and advised the
dreamers to seek protection by addressing a short prayer to God, and
then spitting three times over their left shoulder. He further
counselled them to tell the dream to no one, and by following these
instructions no harm, such as the dreams had foreshadowed, would befall
them.
In the case of a person bitten by a dog, a few hairs taken from the
dog's tail, and placed upon the wound either upon or under a poultice,
was regarded as a protection from evil consequences, such as
hydrophobia. I know of an instance in which this remedy was applied so
lately as 1876. This practice is unmistakeably the origin of the toper's
proverb when suffering from headache in the morning,
"Take a hair of the dog that bit you."
I will not enter into the subject of faith in the influence of relics.
Such beliefs existed in Scotland in my young days, and it is almost
unnecessary to say that belief in such things is older than history. In
my youth there was also a belief in the virtue of precious stones, which
added a value to them beyond their real value as ornaments. An
investigation into this matter would tend to throw much light upon many
ancient practices and beliefs, as each stone had its own symbolic
meaning, and its own peculiar influence for imparting good and
protecting from evil and from sickness, its fortunate possessor.
Probably John's description of heaven with its windows of agate, its
doors of pearls or carbuncles, its foundations of amethyst, with
sapphires blue, and sardines clear and red, had relation to the popular
beliefs of the time. I have seen at Mill More, Killin, stones which are
reported to have been used by St. Fillan for curing all sorts of
diseases; and there are not a few persons at the present day who wear
certain polished stones about their persons as a protective influence
against certain diseases.
The ancient Jews had a superstitious idea respecting precious stones,
which gave that strong desire for their possession, which is still
characteristic of the race.
The Diamond was an antidote to Satanic temptation.
Ruby made the possessor brave.
Topaz preserved the bearer against being poisoned.
Amethyst preserved from drunkenness.
Emerald promoted piety.
Sardonyx dispelled unholy thoughts.
There is a legend that God gave to Abraham a precious stone which had
the power of preserving him from all kinds of sickness.
When any person was troubled with a morbid hunger accompanied with pain
in the stomach, it was believed that that affliction was caused by the
sufferer having swallowed some animal, which continued to live in the
stomach, and that when this was empty it knawed the stomach and produced
the pain felt. Several strange instances illustrative of the truth of
this theory were current in my native village. Let one case suffice. An
old soldier having on some long march been induced through extreme
thirst to drink from a ditch, had swallowed some animal. Years after he
was taken ill, and came home. His hunger for food was so great that he
could scarcely be satisfied, and notwithstanding the great quantities of
food which he consumed, he became thinner and thinner, and his hunger
was accompanied with great pain. Doctors could do him no good. At length
he met with a skilly old man, who told him that there was an animal in
his stomach, and advised him to procure a salt herring and eat it raw,
and on no account to take any drink, but go at once to the side of a
pool or burn and lie down there with his mouth open, and watch the
result. He had not lain long when he felt something moving within him,
and by and bye an ugly toad came out of his mouth, and made for the
water. Having drank its fill, it was returning to its old quarters, when
the old soldier rose and killed it. Many in the village had seen the
dead toad. After this the man recovered rapidly. Many other stories of
people swallowing _asks_ (newts), and other water animals which lived in
their stomachs, and produced serious diseases, were current in my young
days. This gave boys a great fear of stretching down and drinking from a
pool, or even a running stream.