The Grecian husbandmen were accustomed to drive away mice by writing them
a message on a piece of paper and sticking it on a stone in the infested
field. A specimen of such a message, beginning with an adjuration and
concluding with a threat, is to be found in the “Geoponica,” a Grecian
agricultural treatise.
In the endeavor to justify the employment of radical measures against
vermin, some curious questions of casuistry were involved. Rats and
mice being God’s creatures, one ought not to take their lives. But it
was considered entirely proper to drive them off one’s own domain,
while recommending as preferable the well-stocked cellar of a neighbor.
Formulæ of exorcism, or sentences containing warnings to depart, were
written on scraps of paper, which were then well greased and rolled
into little balls, or wrapped about poisoned edibles, and placed in the
rat-holes.[470]
Conjurations of vermin were usually in the name of St. Gertrude, the
first abbess of Nivelle in Belgium, and also the patron saint of
travelers and cats, and protectress against the ravages of the smaller
rodents.
The Spanish ecclesiastic, Martin Azpilcueta, surnamed Navarre, stated
that when rats were exorcised, it was customary to banish them formally
from the territory of Spain; and the creatures would then proceed to the
seashore and swim to some remote island, where they made their home.
The public records of Hameln, in the kingdom of Hannover, state that
in the year 1284 a stranger, in gay and fantastic attire, visited the
town and proclaimed himself a professional rat-catcher, offering for a
consideration to rid the place of the vermin which infested it. The
townsfolk having agreed to his proposal, the stranger began to play a
tune upon his pipe, whereupon the rats emerged in swarms from their
hiding-places and followed him to the river Weser, where they were
all drowned. The people of Hameln now repented of their bargain and
refused to pay the full amount agreed upon, for the alleged reason that
the rats had been driven away by the aid of sorcery. In revenge for
this, the piper played the same tune on the next day, and immediately
all the children of the town followed him to a cavern in the side of
a neighboring hill, called the Koppenberg. The piper and the children
entered the cavern, which closed after them; and in remembrance of this
tragic event several memorials are to be seen in Hameln. Indeed, some
writers maintain that the legend has an historical foundation, and such
appears to have been the opinion of the townspeople, inasmuch as for
years afterwards public and legal documents were dated from the mournful
occurrence.
An old tradition says that mice originally fell upon the earth from the
clouds during a thunder-storm, and hence these animals are emblematic of
storms; they are also mystical creatures, and have a relationship with
Donar, Wodan, and Frigg. In Bavaria profanity is thought to increase the
number of mice in a dwelling, and their appearance in the fields in large
numbers indicates war, pestilence, or famine.[471] Bohemian peasants are
wont to make a certain provision for these elfish rodents; on Christmas
Eve and on the first holiday of the year, whatever food remains from the
midday meal is thrown upon the barn floor, and the following sentence is
repeated: “O mice, eat these remnants and leave the grain in peace!” On
Christmas Eve, also, peas are placed in heaps, shaped like a cross, in
the four corners of a mouse-infested room, lest the vermin get the upper
hand and the premises be overrun. In eastern Prussia, when the harvest
is gathered, the last sheaf of corn is left standing in the field, while
the peasants surround it and sing a hymn as an incantation against
future devastation of their lands by rats or mice. Or, when the corn is
harvested, three inverted sheaves are fixed upon the barn floor for a
like purpose.[472]
According to a Bohemian legend, the mouse was originally a creation of
the Devil, at the time when Noah entered the Ark, attended by the members
of his family and followed by a numerous retinue of animals. The Devil,
so runs the tale, hated the patriarch for his piety, and with evil intent
created the mouse, whom he sent to gnaw a hole in the side of the Ark,
through which the water might enter. But God then created the cat, who
pursued and devoured the mouse, thus frustrating the design of the Evil
One.[473]
At the siege of Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou, in the year 845,
during the reign of King Charles the Bald, the French were much annoyed
by swarms of grasshoppers of unusual size. They were duly exorcised
according to the custom of the times, and having been put to flight, are
reported to have precipitated themselves into a river.[474]
The French writer, St. Foix, in his “Essais historiques sur Paris,” has
recorded that in the year 1120, the Bishop of Laon, in the Department of
Aisne, pronounced an injunction against field-mice, on account of their
ravages; and St. Bernard, a contemporary of that prelate, while preaching
at Foigny in the same diocese, in order to relieve his congregation of
the annoyance caused by a multitude of flies, repeated a formula of
excommunication against them, whereat, according to monkish records, the
flies fell dead in heaps and were gathered up with shovels.
The early Anglo-Saxons not only made use of amulets of wood or other
material, on which were engraven Runic characters, to secure protection
from elves and demons,[475] but they carried about with them the herb
called periwinkle, of the botanical genus _Vinca_, as a charm against
snakes and wild animals.[476]