VIEW OF COUNTRY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE,
CONTINUED—AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF ITS _SUPERSTITIONS_.
The popular creed, during the age of Shakspeare, was perhaps more
extended and systematised than in any preceding or subsequent period
of our history. For this effect we are indebted, in a great measure,
to the credulity and superstition of James the First, the publication
of whose Demonology rendered a profession in the belief of sorcery and
witchcraft a matter of fashion and even of interest; for a ready way to
the favour of this monarch was an implicit assumption of his opinions,
theological and metaphysical, as well as political.
It must not be inferred, however, that at the commencement of the
seventeenth century, the human mind was unwilling or unprepared
to shake off the load which had oppressed it for ages. Among the
enlightened classes of society, now rapidly extending throughout the
kingdom, the reception of these doctrines was rather the effect of
court example than of settled conviction; but as the vernacular bards,
and especially the dramatic, who ever hold unbounded influence over the
multitude, thought proper, and certainly, in a poetical light, with
great effect, to adopt the dogmata and machinery of James, the reign of
superstition was, for a time, not only upheld, but extended among the
inferior orders of the people.
"Every goblin of ignorance," observes Warton, speaking of this period,
"did not vanish at the first glimmerings of the morning of science.
Reason suffered a few demons still to linger, which she chose to
retain in her service under the guidance of poetry. Men believed, or
were willing to believe, that spirits were yet hovering around, who
brought with them _airs from heaven, or blasts from hell_, that the
ghost was duely released from his prison of torment at the sound of
the curfew, and that fairies imprinted mysterious circles on the turf
by moon-light. Much of this credulity was even consecrated by the name
of science and profound speculation. Prospero had not yet _broken and
buried his staff_, nor _drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet
sound_. It was now that the alchymist, and the judicial astrologer,
conducted his occult operations by the potent intercourse of some
preternatural being, who came obsequious to his call, and was bound to
accomplish his severest services, under certain conditions, and for a
limited duration of time. It was actually one of the pretended feats
of these fantastic philosophers, to evoke the queen of the Fairies in
the solitude of a gloomy grove, who, preceded by a sudden rustling of
the leaves, appeared in robes of transcendent lustre. The Shakspeare of
a more instructed and polished age would not have given us a magician
darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the cauldron
of incantation."[315:A]
The history of the popular mythology, therefore, of this era, at a
time when it was cherished by the throne, and adopted, in its fullest
extent, by the greatest poetical genius which ever existed, must
necessarily occupy a large share of our attention. So extensive,
indeed, is the subject, and so full of interest and curiosity, that to
exhaust it in this division of the work, would be to encroach upon that
symmetry of plan, that relative proportion which we wish to preserve.
The four great subjects, therefore, of _Fairies_, _Witchcraft_,
_Magic_, and _Apparitions_, will be deferred to the Second Part, and
annexed as Dissertations to our remarks on the _Midsummer-Night's
Dream_, _Macbeth_, the _Tempest_, and _Hamlet_.
As a consequent of this decision, the present chapter, after noticing,
in a _general_ way, the various credulities of the country, will dwell,
at some length, on those periods of the year which have been peculiarly
devoted to superstitious rites and observances, and include the residue
of the subject under the heads of _omens_, _charms_, _sympathies_,
_cures_, and _miscellaneous superstitions_.
It is from the _Winter-Night's Conversation_ of the lower orders of the
people that we may derive, in any age, the most authentic catalogue of
its superstitions. This fearful pleasure of children and uneducated
persons, and the eager curiosity which attends it, have been faithfully
painted by Shakspeare:—
"_Hermione._ Pray you sit by us,
And tell's a tale.
_Mamillius._ Merry, or sad, shall't be?
_Her._ As merry as you will.
_Mam._ A sad tale's best for winter:
I have one of sprites and goblins.
_Her._ Let's have that, sir.
Come on, sit down:—Come on, and do your best
To fright me with your sprites: you're powerful at it.
_Mam._ There was a man,——
_Her._ Nay, come, sit down; then on.
_Mam._ Dwelt by a church-yard;—I will tell it softly;
Yon crickets shall not hear it.
_Her._ Come on then,
And give't in mine ear."[316:A]
For the particulars forming the subject-matter of these tales, and
for their effect on the hearers, we must have recourse to writers
contemporary with the bard, whose object it was to censure or detail
these legendary wonders. Thus Lavaterus, who wrote a book _De
Spectris_, in 1570, which was translated into English in 1572, remarks
that "if when men sit at the table, mention be made of spirits and
elves, many times wemen and children are so afrayde that they dare
scarce go out of dores alone, least they should meete wyth some evyl
thing: and if they chaunce to heare any kinde of noise, by and by they
thinke there are some spirits behynde them:" and again in a subsequent
page, "simple foolish men—imagine that there be certayne elves or
fairies of the earth, and tell many straunge and marvellous tales of
them, which they have heard of their grandmothers and mothers, howe
they have appeared unto those of the house, have done service, have
rocked the cradell, and (which is a signe of good luck) do continually
tary in the house."[317:A] He has the good sense, however, to reprobate
the then general custom, a practice which has more or less prevailed
even to our own times, of frightening children by stories and assumed
appearances of this kind. "It is a common custome," he observes, "in
many places, that at a certaine of time the yeare, one with a nette
or visarde on his face maketh Children afrayde, to the ende that ever
after they should laboure and be obediente to their Parentes: afterward
they tel them that those which they saw, were Bugs, Witches, and
Hagges, which thing they verily believe, and are commonly miserablie
afrayde. How be it, it is not expedient so to terrifie Children. For
sometimes through great feare they fall into dangerous diseases, and
in the nyght crye out, when they are fast asleep. Salomon teacheth us
to chasten children with the rod, and so to make them stand in awe: he
doth not say, we must beare them in hande they shall be devoured of
Bugges, Hags of the night, and such lyke monsters."[317:B] But it is to
Reginald Scot that we are indebted for the most curious and extensive
enumeration of these fables which haunted our progenitors from the
cradle to the grave. "In our childhood," says he, "our mother's maids
have so terrified us with an _ouglie divell_ having hornes on his head,
fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eies like a bason, fanges
like a dog, clawes like a beare, a skin like a Niger, and a voice
roaring like a lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we heare one
crie Bough: and they have so fraid us with _bull-beggers_, _spirits_,
_witches_, _urchens_, _elves_, _hags_, _fairies_, _satyrs_, _pans_,
_faunes_, _syrens_, _kit with the can'sticke_, _tritons_, _centaurs_,
_dwarfes_, _giants_, _imps_, _calcars_, _conjurors_, _nymphes_,
_changlings_, _Incubus_, _Robin good-fellowe_, the _spoorne_, the
_mare_, the _man in the oke_, the _hell-waine,_ the _fierdrake_, the
_puckle Tom thombe_, _hob gobblin_, _Tom tumbler_, _boneless_, and such
other bugs, that we are afraid of our own shadowes: in so much as some
never feare the divell, but in a darke night; and then a polled sheepe
is a perillous beast, and manie times is taken for our father's soule,
speciallie in a churchyard, where a right hardie man heretofore scant
durst passe by night, but his haire would stand upright."[318:A]
That this mode of passing away the time, "the long solitary winter
nights," was as much in vogue in 1617 as in 1570 and 1580, is apparent
from Burton, who reckons among the _ordinary recreations_ of _winter_,
tales of _giants_, _dwarfs_, _witches_, _fayries_, _goblins_, and
_friers_.[318:B]
The predilection which existed, during this period of our annals
for the marvellous, the terrible, and romantic, especially among
the peasantry, has been noticed by several of our best writers.
Addison, in reference to the genius of Shakspeare for the wild and
wonderful in poetry, remarks, that "our forefathers loved to astonish
themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms,
and inchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a
ghost in it; the churchyards were all haunted; every large common had
a circle of fairies belonging to it; and there was scarce a shepherd
to be met with who had not seen a spirit[318:C];" and Mr. Grose, after
enumerating several popular superstitions, extends the subject in a
very entertaining manner. "In former times," says he, "these notions
were so prevalent, that it was deemed little less than atheism to doubt
them; and in many instances the terrors caused by them embittered the
lives of a great number of persons of all ages; by degrees almost
shutting them out of their own houses, and deterring them from going
from one village to another after sun-set. The room in which the head
of a family had died, was for a long time untenanted; particularly if
they died without a will, or were supposed to have entertained any
particular religious opinions. But if any disconsolate old maiden,
or love-crossed bachelor, happened to dispatch themselves in their
garters, the room where the deed was perpetrated was rendered for ever
after uninhabitable, and not unfrequently was nailed up. If a drunken
farmer, returning from market, fell from Old Dobbin and broke his
neck,—or a carter, under the same predicament, tumbled from his cart
or waggon, and was killed by it,—that spot was ever after haunted and
impassable: in short, there was scarcely a bye-lane or cross-way but
had its ghost, who appeared in the shape of a headless cow or horse; or
clothed all in white, glared with its saucer eyes over a gate or stile.
Ghosts of superior rank, when they appeared abroad, rode in coaches
drawn by six headless horses, and driven by a headless coachman and
postilions. Almost every ancient manor-house was haunted by some one
at least of its former masters or mistresses, where, besides divers
other noises, that of telling money was distinctly heard: and as for
the churchyards, the number of ghosts that walked there, according to
the village computation, almost equalled the living parishioners: to
pass them at night, was an achievement not to be attempted by any one
in the parish, the sextons excepted; who perhaps being particularly
privileged, to make use of the common expression, never saw any thing
worse than themselves."[319:A]
Of these superstitions, as forming the subject of _a country
conversation in a winter's evening_, a very interesting detail has been
given by Mr. Bourne; the picture was drawn about a hundred years ago;
but, though even then partially applicable, may be considered as a
faithful general representation of the two preceding centuries.
"Nothing is commoner in _Country Places_," says this historian of
credulity, "than for a whole family in a _Winter's Evening_, to sit
round the fire, and tell stories of _apparitions_ and _ghosts_. Some of
them have seen spirits in the shapes of cows, and dogs and horses; and
some have seen even the devil himself, with a cloven foot.
"Another part of this conversation generally turns upon _Fairies_.
These, they tell you, have frequently been heard and seen; nay that
there are some still living who were stolen away by them, and confined
seven years. According to the description they give of them, who
pretend to have seen them, they are in the shape of men, exceeding
little: They are always clad in green, and frequent the woods and
fields; when they make cakes (which is a work they have been often
heard at) they are very noisy; and when they have done, they are full
of mirth and pastime. But generally they dance in Moon-light when
mortals are asleep, and not capable of seeing them, as may be observed
on the following morn; their dancing places being very distinguishable.
For as they dance hand in hand, and so make a _circle_ in their dance,
so next day there will be seen _rings_ and _circles_ on the grass.
"Another tradition they hold, and which is often talked of, is, that
there are particular places allotted to spirits to walk in. Thence it
was that formerly, such frequent reports were abroad of this and that
particular place being haunted by a spirit, and that the common people
say now and then, such a place is dangerous to be passed through at
night, because a spirit walks there. Nay, they'll further tell you,
that some spirits have lamented the hardness of their condition, in
being obliged to walk in cold and uncomfortable places, and have
therefore desired the person who was so hardy as to speak to them, to
gift them with a warmer walk, by some well grown _hedge_, or in some
_shady vale_, where they might be shelter'd from the rain and wind.
"The last topick of this conversation I shall take notice of, shall be
the tales of _haunted_ houses. And indeed it is not to be wondered at,
that this is never omitted. For formerly almost every place had a house
of this kind. If a house was seated on some melancholy place, or built
in some old romantic manner; or if any particular accident had happened
in it, such as murder, sudden death, or the like, to be sure that house
had a mark set on it, and was afterwards esteemed the habitation of a
ghost. In talking upon this point, they generally show the occasion of
the house's being _haunted_, the merry pranks of the spirit, and how it
was laid. Stories of this kind are infinite, and there are few villages
which have not either had such an house in it, or near it."[321:A]
The quotations which we have now given from writers contemporary with,
and subsequent to, Shakspeare, will point out, in a _general_ way, the
prevalent superstitions of the _country_ at this period, and the topics
which were usually discussed round the fire-side of the cottage or
manorial hall, when the blast blew keen on a December's night, and the
faggot's blaze was seen, by fits, illumining the rafter'd roof.
The progress of science, of literature, and rational theology, has,
in a very great degree, dissipated these illusions; but there still
lingers, in hamlets remote from general intercourse, a somewhat similar
spirit of credulity, where the legend of unearthly agency is yet
listened to with eager curiosity and fond belief. These vestiges of
superstitions which were once universally prevalent, have been seized
upon with avidity by many modern poets, and form some of the most
striking passages in their works. More particularly the ghostly and
traditionary lore of the cotter's winter-night, has been a favourite
subject with them. Thus Thomson tells us, that
————— "the village rouzes up the fire,
While well attested, and as well believed,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin-story round;
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all:"[321:B]
and Akenside, still more poetically, that
—————————— "by night
The village-matron round the blazing hearth
Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes,
And evil spirits; of the death-bed call
Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.
At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd
With shivering sighs: till eager for th' event,
Around the beldame all erect they hang,
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd."[322:A]
The lamented Kirke White has also happily introduced a similar picture;
having described the day-revels of a Whitsuntide wake, he adds,
——————————— "then at eve
Commence the harmless rites and auguries;
And many a tale of ancient days goes round.
They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells
Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,
Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,
And still the midnight tempest.—Then anon,
Tell of uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide
Along the lone wood's unfrequented path,
Startling the nighted traveller; while the sound
Of undistinguished murmurs, heard to come
From the dark centre of the deep'ning glen,
Struck on his frozen ear:"[322:B]
and lastly Mr. Scott, in his highly interesting poem entitled Rokeby,
speaking of the tales of superstition, adds,
"When Christmas logs blaze high and wide,
Such wonders speed the festal tide,
While Curiosity and Fear,
Pleasure and pain, sit crouching near,
Till childhood's cheek no longer glows,
And village-maidens lose the rose.
The thrilling interest rises higher,
The circle closes nigh and nigher,
And shuddering glance is cast behind,
As louder moans the wintery wind."
Cant. ii. st. 10.
After this brief outline of the common superstitions of the country, as
they existed in the days of Shakspeare, and as they still linger among
us, we shall proceed, in conformity with our plan, to notice those
Days which have been peculiarly devoted to superstitious rites and
observances.
In entering upon this subject, however, it will be necessary to remark,
that as several of these days are still kept by the vulgar in the
same manner, and with the same spirit of credulity which subsisted
in the reign of Elizabeth, it would be superfluous to enter at large
into a detail of their ceremonies, and that to mark the coincidence
of usage, occurring at these periods, will be nearly all that can be
deemed requisite. Thus on _St. Paul's Day_, on _Candlemas Day_, and
on _St. Swithin's Day_, the prognosticators of weather still find as
much employment, and as much credit as ever.[323:A] _St. Mark's Day_
is still beheld with dread, as fixing the destinies of life and death,
and _Childermas_ still keeps in countenance the doctrine of lucky and
unlucky days.
A similarity nearly equal may be observed with regard to the rites
of lovers on ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. The tradition, that birds choosing
their mates on this day, occasioned the custom of drawing valentines,
has been the opinion of our poets from Chaucer to the present hour.
Shakspeare alludes to it in the following passage:
"Good-morrow friends. Saint Valentine is past;
_Begin these wood-birds but to couple now_?"[324:A]
The ceremony of this day, however, has been attributed to various
sources beside the rural tradition just mentioned. The legend itself
of St. Valentine, a presbyter of the church, who was beheaded under
the Emperor Claudius, we are assured by Mr. Brand, contains nothing
which could give rise to the custom; but it has been supposed by some
to have originated from an observance peculiar to carnival time, which
occurred about this very period. It was usual, on this occasion, for
vast numbers of knights to visit the different courts of Europe, where
they entertained the ladies with pageantry and tournaments. Each lady,
at these magnificent feasts, selected a knight, who engaged to serve
her for a whole year, and to perform whatever she chose to command. One
of the never-failing consequences of this engagement, was an injunction
to employ his muse in the celebration of his mistress.
Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary, has accounted for the term
_Valentine_, by stating that Madame Royale, daughter of Henry the
Fourth of France, having built a palace near Turin, which, in honour
of the Saint, then in high esteem, she called _the Valentine_, at the
first entertainment which she gave in it, was pleased to order that the
ladies should receive their lovers _for the year_ by lots, reserving to
herself the privilege of being independent of chance, and of _choosing_
her own partner. At the various balls which this gallant princess
gave, during the year, it was directed that each lady should receive
a nosegay from her lover, and that, at every tournament, the knight's
trappings for his horse should be furnished by his allotted mistress,
with this proviso, that the prize obtained should be hers. This custom,
says Menage, occasioned the parties to be called _Valentines_.
Mr. Brand, in his observations on Bourne's Antiquities, thinks, that
the usages of this day are the remains of an antient superstition in
the Church of Rome, of choosing _patrons_ for the year ensuing, at
this season; "and that, because ghosts were thought to walk on the
night of this day, or about this time[325:A];" but Mr. Douce, with
more probability, considers them as a relic of paganism. "It was the
practice in ancient Rome," he observes, "during a great part of the
month of February, to celebrate the _Lupercalia_, which were feasts in
honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named _februata_,
_februalis_, and _februlla_. On this occasion, amidst a variety of
ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which
they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early
Christian church, who by every possible means endeavoured to eradicate
the vestiges of Pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutation
of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of
particular saints instead of those of the women: and as the festival
of the _Lupercalia_ had commenced about the middle of February, they
appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's day for celebrating the new
feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is, in part,
the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the lives of the
saints, the Reverend Alban Butler. It should seem, however, that it
was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which
the common people had been much accustomed; a fact which it were easy
to prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions:
and accordingly the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved,
but modified by some adaptation to the Christian system. It is
reasonable to suppose that the above practice of choosing mates would
gradually become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so
chosen would be called _Valentines_, from the day on which the ceremony
took place."[326:A]
The modes of ascertaining the _Valentine_ for the ensuing year, were
nearly the same in Shakspeare's age as at the present period; they
consisted either in drawing lots on Valentine-eve, or in considering
the first person whom you met early on the following morning, as the
destined object. In the former case the names of a certain number
of one sex, were, by an equal number of the other, put into a vase;
and then every one drew a name; which for the time was termed their
_Valentine_, and was considered as predictive of their future fortune
in the nuptial state; in the second there was usually some little
contrivance adopted, in order that the favoured object, when such
existed, might be the first seen. To this custom Shakspeare refers,
when he represents Ophelia, in her distraction, singing,
"Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine."[326:B]
The practice of addressing verses, and sending presents, to the person
chosen, has been continued from the days of James I., in which the
gifts of Valentines have been noticed by Moresin[327:A], to modern
times; and we may add a trait, not now observed, perhaps, on the
authority of an old English ballad, in which the lasses are directed to
pray _cross-legged_ to Saint _Valentine_, for good luck.[327:B]
It was a usage of the sixteenth century, in its object laudable
and useful, for the inhabitants of towns and villages, during the
summer-season, to meet after sunset, in the streets, and for the
wealthier sort to recreate themselves and their poorer friends with
banquets and bonefires. Of this custom Stowe has left us a pleasing
account:—"In the moneths of June, and July," he relates, "on the
Vigiles of festivall dayes, and on the same festivall dayes in the
evenings, after the sun-setting, there were usually made bonefires
in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them. The
wealthier sort also before their dores, neere to the said bonefires,
would set out tables on the vigiles, furnished with sweet bread,
and good drink, and on the festivall dayes with meates and drinks
plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and
passengers also to sit, and be merry with them in great familiarity,
praysing God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called
bonefires, as well of amity amongst neighbours, that beeing before at
controversie, were there by the labour of others reconciled, and made
of bitter enemies, loving friends; as also for the virtue that a great
fire hath, to purge the infection of the ayre."[328:A] These rites
were, however, more particularly practised on MIDSUMMER-EVE, the Vigil
of Saint John the Baptist, a period of the year to which our ancestors
paid singular attention, and combined with it several superstitious
observances. "On the Vigill of Saint John Baptist," continues Stowe,
"every man's dore beeing shadowed with greene Birch, long Fennell,
Saint John's Wort, Orpin, white Lillies, and such like, garnished upon
with Garlands of beautifull flowers, had also Lamps of glasse, with
Oyle burning in them all the night, some hung out branches of yron
curiously wrought, containing hundreds of Lamps lighted at once, which
made a goodly shew."[328:B]
Of some of the superstitions connected with this Eve, Barnabe Googe
has left us an account in his translation of Neogeorgius, which was
published, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, in 1570:—
"Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,
When bonfires great, with lofty flame, in every towne doe burne,
And young men round about with maydes doe daunce in every street,
With garlands wrought of mother-wort, or else of vervaine sweet,
And many other flowers faire, with violets in their hands;
Where as they all doe fondly thinke that whosoever stands,
And thorow the flowers behold the flame, his eyes shall feele no
paine.
When thus till night they daunced have, they throgh the fire amaine
With striving mindes doe run, and all their herbs they cast
therein;
And then, with words devout and prayers, they solemnly begin,
Desiring God that all their illes may there confounded be;
Whereby they thinke, through all that yeare, from agues to be
free."[328:C]
This _Midsummer-Eve Fire_ and the rites attending it, appear to be
reliques of pagan worship, for Gebelin in his _Allegories Orientales_
observes, that at the moment of the Summer Solstice the ancients, from
the most remote antiquity, were accustomed to light fires, in honour of
the New Year, which they believed to have originally commenced in fire.
These fires or Feux de joie were accompanied with vows and sacrifices
for plenty and prosperity, and with dances and leaping over the
flames, "each on his departure snatching a firebrand of greater or less
magnitude, whilst the rest was scattered to the wind, in order that it
might disperse every evil as it dispersed the ashes."[329:A]
Many other superstitions, however, than those mentioned by Googe,
were practised on this mysterious eve. To one of the most important
Shakspeare alludes in the _First Part of King Henry the Fourth_,
where Gadshill says of himself and company, "We have the receipt of
_fern-seed_, we walk _invisible_."[329:B] Jonson and Fletcher have also
ascribed the same wonderful property to this plant, the first in his
_New Inn_.
—————— "I had
No medicine, Sir, to go invisible,
No _fern-seed_ in my pocket;"[329:C]
the second in the _Fair Maid of the Inn_,—
————— "had you Gyges' ring,
Or the _herb_ that gives invisibility?"[329:D]
It was the belief of our credulous ancestors, that the _fern-seed_
became visible only on St. John's Eve, and at the precise moment of
the birth of the Saint; that it was under the peculiar protection of
the Queen of Faery, and that on this awful night, the most tremendous
conflicts took place, for its possession, between sorcerers and
spirits; for
"The wond'rous one-night seeding ferne,"
as Browne calls it[330:A], was conceived not only to confer
_invisibility at pleasure_, on those who succeeded in procuring it, but
it was also esteemed of sovereign potency in the fabrication of charms
and incantations. Those, therefore, who were addicted to the arts
of magic, and possessed sufficient courage for the enterprise, were
believed to watch in solitude during this solemn period, in order that
they might seize the seed on the instant of its appearance.
The achievement, however, was accompanied with great danger; for if the
adventurer were not protected by spells of mighty power, he was exposed
to the assaults of demons and spirits, who envied him the possession
of the plant, and who generally took care that he should lose either
his life or his labour in the attempt. "A person who went to gather it,
reported that the spirits whisked by his ears, and sometimes struck his
hat, and other parts of his body; and at length, when he thought he had
got a good quantity of it, and secured it in papers and a box, when he
came home, he found both empty."[330:B]
Another superstition, of a nature highly impressive and terrible,
consists in the idea that any person fasting on _Midsummer-Eve_, and
sitting in the church-porch, will at midnight see the spirits of those
who are to die in the parish during that year, approach and knock at
the church door, precisely in the order of time in which they are
doomed to depart. It is related, by the author of _Pandemonium_, that
one of the company of watchers, on this night, having fallen into a
profound sleep, his ghost or spirit, whilst he lay in this state, was
seen by the rest of his companions, knocking at the church-door.[330:C]
Of these wild traditions of the "olden time" Collins has made a most
striking use in his Ode to Fear:—
"Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve, abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe,
Their pebbled beds permitted leave;
And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!"
The observance of _Midsummer-Eve_ by rejoicings, spells, and charms,
has continued until within these fifty years, especially in Cornwall,
in the North of England, and in Scotland. Bourne, in 1725, tells us,
that "on the Eve of St. John Baptist, commonly called _Midsummer-Eve_,
it is usual in the most of country places, and also here and there in
towns and cities, for both old and young to meet together, and be merry
over a large fire, which is made in the open street. Over this they
frequently leap and play at various games, such as running, wrestling,
dancing, &c. But this is generally the exercise of the younger sort;
for the old ones, for the most part, sit by as spectators, and
enjoy themselves and their bottle. And thus they spend their time
till mid-night, and sometimes till cock-crow[331:A];" and Borlase,
in his History of Cornwall, about thirty years later, states, that
"the Cornish make bonefires in every village on the Eve of St. John
Baptist's and St. Peter's Days."[331:B]
It was a common superstition in the days of Shakspeare, and for two
centuries preceding him, that the future husband or wife might be
discovered on this Eve or on St. Agnes' night, by due fasting and by
certain ceremonies; thus, if a maiden, fasting on _Midsummer-Eve_, laid
a clean cloth at midnight, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sate down,
with the street door open, the person whom she is fated to marry will
enter the room, fill the glass, drink to her, bow and retire.[332:A]
A similar effect, as to the visionary appearance of the destined
bridegroom, was supposed to follow the sowing of hempseed on this
night, either in the field or church-yard. Mr. Strutt, depicting the
manners of the fifteenth century, has given this latter superstition,
from the mouth of an imaginary witch, in the following rhymes:—
"Around the church see that you go,
With kirtle white and girdle blue,
At midnight thrice, and hempseed sow;
Calling upon your lover true,
Thus shalt thou say;
These seeds I sow: swift let them grow,
Till he, who must my husband be,
Shall follow me and mow:"[332:B]
a charm which appears to have been in vogue even in the time of Gay,
who, in his Shepherd's Week, makes Hobnelia say,—
"At _eve_ last _midsummer_ no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hempseed brought;
I scatter'd round the seed on every side,
And three times in a trembling accent cried,
"This hempseed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true-love be, the crop shall mow."
I straight look'd back, and if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth."
The Spell, line 27.
Another mode, which prevailed in the 16th and 17th centuries, of
procuring similar information on this festival, through the medium of
dreams, consisted in digging for what was called the plantain coal;
the search was to commence exactly at noon, and the material, when
found, to be placed on the pillow at night. Of a wild-goose expedition
of this kind Aubrey reports himself to have been a spectator. "The last
summer," says he, "on the day of St. John Baptist, 1694, I accidentally
was walking in the pasture behind Montague-house: it was twelve
o'clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most
of them well habited, on their knees, very busy, as if they had been
weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter was; at last, a
young man told me that they were looking for a coal under the root of
a plantain, to put under their heads that night, and they should dream
who would be their husbands: it was to be found that day and hour."
He adds, "the women have several magical secrets handed down to them
by tradition for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes' night, 21st January,
take a row of pins, and pull out every one one after another, saying a
paternoster, or 'our father,' sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you
will dream of him or her you shall marry[333:A];" spells to which Ben
Jonson alludes, when he says,—
——— "On sweet St. Agnes' night
Please you with the promis'd sight;
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers."[333:B]
That it was the custom, in Elizabeth's and James's days, to tell tales
or perform plays and masques on Christmas-Eve, on Twelfth Night, and
on _Midsummer-Eve_, may be drawn from the dramas of Shakspeare, and
the masques of Jonson. The _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ of the former,
appears to have been so called, because its exhibition was to take
place on that night, for the _time of action_ of the piece itself, is
the vigil of May-Day, as is that of the _Winter's Tale_ the period of
sheep-shearing. It is probable also, as Mr. Steevens has observed, that
Shakspeare might have been influenced in his choice of the fanciful
machinery of this play, by the recollection of the proverb attached to
the season, and which he has himself introduced in the _Twelfth-Night_,
where Olivia remarks of Malvolio's apparent distraction, that it "is
a very _Midsummer madness_[334:A];" an adage founded on the common
opinion, that the brain, being heated by the intensity of the sun's
rays, was more susceptible of those flights of imagination which border
on insanity, than at any other period of the year.
The next season distinguished by any very remarkable tincture of the
popular creed, is Michaelmas, or the Feast of ST. MICHAEL AND ALL
ANGELS. When ever this day comes, says Bourne, "it brings into the
minds of the people, that old opinion of _Tutelar Angels_, that every
man has his _Guardian Angel_; that is one particular angel who attends
him from his coming in, till his going out of life, who guides him
through the troubles of the world, and strives as much as he can, to
bring him to heaven."[334:B]
That the doctrine of the ministry of angels, and their occasional
interference with the affairs of man, is an _old opinion_, cannot
be denied. It pervades the whole of the Old and New Testaments, and
appears to have been an article of the patriarchal creed; for from the
Book of Job, perhaps the oldest which exists, may be drawn not only
the doctrine of the ministration of angels, but that of their division
into certain distinct orders, such as angels, intercessors, destroyers,
&c.[334:C] With this general information we ought to have been content:
but superstition has been busy in promulgating hierarchies, the
offspring of its own heated imagination; in minutely ascertaining the
numbers and offices of angels in heaven and on earth; and in naming
and appropriating certain of them as the guardians and protectors of
kingdoms, cities, families, and individuals. The mythologies of Persia,
Arabia, and Greece, abound with these arbitrary arrangements; Hesiod
declares that the angels appointed to watch over the earth, amount
exactly to thirty-thousand[335:A]; and Plato divides the world of
spirits good and bad into nine classes, in which he has been followed
by some of the philosophising Christians. The angelic hierarchy of
Dionysius, however, is the one usually adopted; he professes to
interfere only with good spirits, and divides his angels, perhaps in
imitation of Plato, into nine orders; the first he terms _seraphim_,
the second _cherubim_, the third _thrones_, the fourth _dominations_,
the fifth _virtues_, the sixth _powers_, the seventh _principalities_,
the eighth _archangels_, and the ninth _angels_.[335:B] Not content
with this he goes still farther, and has assigned to every country, and
almost to every person of eminence, a peculiar angel, thus to Adam he
gives _Razael_; to Abraham, _Zakiel_; to Isaiah, _Raphael_; to Jacob,
_Peliel_; to Moses, _Metraton_, &c., speaking, as Calvin observes, not
as if by report, but as though he had slipped down from heaven, and
told of the things which he had seen there.[335:C]
Of this systematic hierarchy the greater portion formed, during the age
of Shakspeare, and for nearly a century afterwards, an important part
of the popular creed, as may be ascertained from an inspection of Scot
on Witchcraft in 1584, Heywood's _Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells,
their Names, Orders, and Offices_, in 1635, and from Burton's Anatomie
of Melancholy, which, though first published in 1617, continued to
re-appear in frequent editions until the close of the seventeenth
century.
The doctrine of _Guardian Angels_, as appropriated to individuals,
more especially appears to have been entertained by Shakspeare and
his contemporaries; an idea pleasing to the human mind, though,
in the opinion of the most acute theologians, not warranted by
Scripture; where only the general ministry of angels is recorded; and,
accordingly, the collect of the day, in our admirable Liturgy, merely
refers to, and prays for, such general interference in our behalf.
The assignment of a good angel, or of a good and bad angel to every
individual, as soon as created, is supported by the English Lavaterus
in 1572, and recorded as the general object of belief, by the rational
Scot, in his interesting discourse on spirits.
"Saint Herome in his Commentaries," says Lavaterus, "and other fathers
do conclude, that God doth assigne unto every soule assoone as he
createth him his peculiar Angell, which taketh care of him. But whether
that every one of the elect have hys proper angell, or many angells
be appoynted unto him, it is not expresly sette foorth, yet this is
most sure and certayne, that God hath given his angells in charge to
have regard and care over us. Daniel witnesseth in his tenth chapter,
that angells have also charge of kingdomes, by whom God keepeth and
protecteth them, and hindreth the wicked counsels of the devill. It
may be proved by many places of the Scripture, that all Christian men
have not only one angell, but also many, whome God imployeth to their
service. In the 34 psalm it is sayde, the angell of the Lorde pitcheth
his tentes rounde about them whiche feare the Lorde, and helpeth them:
which ought not to be doubted but that it is also at this daye, albeit
we see them not. We reade that they appearing in sundrye shapes, have
admonished menne, have comforted them, defended them, delivered them
from daunger, and also punished the wicked. Touching this matter, there
are plentiful examples, whiche are not needefull to be repeated in
this place. Somtimes they have eyther appeared in sleep, or in manner
of visions, and sometimes they have perfourmed their office, by some
internall operations: as when a man's mynde foresheweth him, that a
thing shall so happen, and after it happeneth so in deede, which thyng
I suppose is doone by God, through the minesterie of angells. Angells
for the most part take upon them the shapes of men, wherein they
appeare."[337:A]
"Monsieur Bodin, M. Mal. and manie other papists," observes Scot, who
gives us his opinion on the nature of angels, "gather upon the seventh
of Daniel, that there are just ten millians of angels in heaven. Manie
saie that angels are not by nature, but by office. Finallie, it were
infinite to shew the absurd and curious collections hereabout. I for
my part thinke with Calvine, that angels are creatures of God; though
Moses spake nothing of their creation, who onelie applied himselfe to
the capacitie of the common people, reciting nothing but things seene.
And I saie further with him, that they are heavenlie spirits, whose
ministration and service God useth: and in that respect are called
angels. I saie yet againe with him, that it is verie certaine, that
they have no shape at all; for they are spirits, who never have anie:
and finallie, I saie with him, that the Scriptures, for the capacitie
of our wit, dooth not in vaine paint out angels unto us with wings;
bicause we should conceive, that they are readie swiftlie to succour
us. And certeinlie all the sounder divines doo conceive and give out,
that both the names and also the number of angels are set downe in
the Scripture by the Holie-ghost, in termes to make us understand the
greatnesse and the manner of their messages; which (I saie) are either
expounded by the number of angels, or signified by their names.
"Furthermore, the schoole doctors affirme, that foure of the superior
orders of angels never take anie forme or shape of bodies, neither are
sent of anie arrand at anie time. As for archangels, they are sent
onlie about great and secret matters; and angels are common hacknies
about everie trifle; and that these can take what shape or bodie they
list: marie they never take the forme of women or children. Item, they
saie that angels take most terrible shapes: for _Gabriel_ appeared to
_Marie_, when he saluted hir, _facie rutilante, veste coruscante,
ingressu mirabili, aspectu terribili_, &c.: that is, with a bright
countenance, shining attire, wonderfull gesture, and a dredfull visage,
&c. _It hath beene long, and continueth yet a constant opinion, not
onlie among the papists; but among others also, that everie man hath
assigned him, at the time of his nativitie, a good angell and a
bad._ For the which there is no reason in nature, nor authoritie in
Scripture. For not one angell, but all the angels are said to rejoise
more of one convert, than of ninetie and nine just. Neither did one
onlie angel conveie Lazarus into Abraham's bosome. And therefore I
conclude with Calvine, that he which referreth to one angel, the care
that God hath to everie one of us, dooth himselfe great wrong."[338:A]
That Shakspeare embraced the doctrine common in his age, which assigns
to every individual, at his birth, a good and bad angel, an idea highly
poetical in itself, and therefore acceptable to a fervid imagination,
is evident from the following remarkable passages:
"There is a good angel about him—but the devil out-bids him
too."[338:B]
"You follow the young prince up and down like his ill angel."[338:C]
"Thy daemon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
Where Cæsar's is not; but near him, thy angel
Becomes a Fear, as being o'erpowered——
———————— I say again, thy spirit
Is all afraid to govern thee near him;
But, he away, 'tis noble;"[338:D]
and in Macbeth the same imagery is repeated—
—————— "near him,
My genius is rebuk'd; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Cæsar's."[338:E]
These lines from _Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Macbeth_, which are
founded on a passage in North's Plutarch, where the soothsayer says to
Antony, "thy Demon, (that is to say, the good angell and spirit that
keepeth thee) is affraied of his," sufficiently prove that the Roman
Catholic doctrine of a good and evil angel is _immediately_ drawn from
the belief of Pagan antiquity in the agency of good and evil genii, a
dogma to which we know their greatest philosophers were addicted, as is
apparent from the Demon of Socrates.
Of the general, and as it may be termed, the patriarchal, doctrine of
the ministry of angels, no poet has made so admirable an use as Milton,
who tells us, in his Paradise Lost, that
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep,
All these, with ceaseless praise, his works behold,
Both day and night. How often, from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard
Celestial voices, through the midnight air,
Sole or responsive to each other's note,
Singing their great Creator! oft, in bands,
While they keep watch; or, nightly walking round,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds,
In full harmonic number join'd; their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven."[339:A]
We must be permitted to observe, in this place, that Dr. Horsley
has, with great propriety, drawn a marked distinction between
the full-formed hierarchy of fanciful theologians, and the
Scripture-account of angelic agency; while he reprobates the one, he
supports the other; "those," says he, "who broached this doctrine (of
an hierarchy of angels governing this world) could tell us exactly
how many orders there are, and how many angels in each order; that
the different orders have their different departments in government
assigned to them; some, constantly attending in the presence of
God, form his cabinet council; others are his provincial governors;
every kingdom in the world having its appointed guardian angel, to
whose management it is intrusted: others again are supposed to have
the charge and custody of individuals. This system is, in truth,
nothing better than Pagan polytheism." He then subsequently and most
judiciously gives us the following summary of Biblical information on
the subject: "that the holy angels," he remarks, "are often employed
by God in his government of this sublunary world, is indeed clearly to
be proved by holy writ: that they have powers over the matter of the
universe analogous to the powers over it which men possess, greater
in extent, but still limited, is a thing which might reasonably be
supposed, if it were not declared: but it seems to be confirmed by many
passages of holy writ, from which it seems also evident that they are
occasionally, for certain specific purposes, commissioned to exercise
those powers to a prescribed extent. That the evil angels possessed,
before the fall, the like powers, which they are still occasionally
permitted to exercise for the punishment of wicked nations, seems
also evident. That they have a power over the human sensory (which is
part of the material universe), which they are occasionally permitted
to exercise, by means of which they may inflict diseases, suggest
evil thoughts, and be the instruments of temptations, must also be
admitted."[340:A]
We shall conclude these observations on St. Michael's Day by adding,
that in both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was the custom
of landlords to invite their tenants on this day, and to dine them in
their great halls on _Geese_; birds which were then only kept by the
gentry, and therefore esteemed a great delicacy. We must consequently
set aside the tradition which attributes the introduction of this bird
on the festival of St. Michael to Queen Elizabeth; the tale avers,
that, being on her road to Tilbury Fort, she dined on Michaelmas Day
1588, at Sir Neville Umfreville's seat, near that place, and that
the knight, recollecting her partiality for high-seasoned food, had
taken care to procure for her a savoury goose, after eating heartily
of which she called for a _half-pint bumper of Burgundy_, and had
scarcely drank it off to the destruction of the _Spanish Armada_, when
she received the news of that joyful event; delighted with the speedy
accomplishment of her toast, she is said to have annually commemorated
this day with a goose, and that, of course, the example was followed
by the Court and through the kingdom at large. The custom, however,
must be referred to a preceding age, in which it will be found that the
nobility and gentry had usually this delicious bird at their tables,
both on St. Michael's and St. Martin's Day.[341:A]
We now approach another remarkably superstitious period of the year,
the observance of which took place on the 31st of October, being the
_Vigil of All Saints' Day_, and has been therefore commonly termed
ALL HALLOW EVE. In the North of England, and in Scotland, this was
formerly a night of rejoicing and of the most mysterious rites and
ceremonies. As beyond the Tweed the harvest was seldom completely
got in before the close of October, _Halloween_ became a kind of
Harvest-home-feast; thus, Mr. Shaw informs us, in his History of the
Province of Moray, that "a solemnity was kept, on the Eve of the first
of November, as a thanksgiving for the safe Ingathering of the produce
of the fields. This I am told, but have not seen it, is observed in
Buchan, and other countries, by having _Hallow-Eve Fires_ kindled on
some rising ground."[341:B] In England Hallow-eve has been generally
called _Nut-crack Night_, from one of the numerous spells usually
had recourse to at this season; and in Shakspeare it is alluded to
under the customary appellation of _Hallowmas_, where Speed tells
Valentine in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, that he knows him to be
in love, because he has learnt "to speak puling, like a beggar at
Hallowmas[341:C];" a simile which refers to a relique of the Roman
Catholic Festival of _All Souls Day_ on the 2d of November, when
prayers were offered up for the repose of the souls of the departed;
it being the custom, in Shakspeare's time, and is still, we believe,
observed in some parts of the North, for the poor on _All-Saints-Day_
to go _a souling_, as they term it, and in a plaintive or _puling_
voice to petition for _soul-cakes_. "In various parts of England,"
remarks Brady, "the remembrance of monastic customs is still preserved
by giving oaten cakes to the poor neighbours, conformably to what
was once the general usage, particularly in Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Herefordshire, &c. when, by way of expressing gratitude, the receivers
of this liberality offered the following homely benediction:
"God have your _saul_,
Bones and all;"
bearing more the appearance, in these enlightened days, of rustic
scoff, than of thankfulness."[342:A]
What has rendered All-Hallow-Eve, however, a period of mysterious
dread, is the tradition, that on this night the host of evil spirits,
witches, wizards, &c. are executing their baneful errands, and that the
fairy court holds a grand annual procession, during which, those who
have been carried off by the fairies may be recovered, provided the
attempt be made within a year and a day from the abstraction of the
person stolen. That this achievement, which was attended with great
peril, could only be performed on Hallow-Eve, and that this night was
esteemed the anniversary of the elfin tribe, may be established on the
evidence of our northern poets. Montgomery, in his _Flyting against
Polwart_, published about 1584, thus mentions the procession:
"In the hinder end of harvest, on All-hallow een,
When our _gude neighbours_ dois ride, if I read right,
Some buckled on a bunewand, and some on a been,
Ay trottand in troups from the twilight;
Some saidled a she-ape, all grathed into green,
Some hobland on a hemp stalk, hovard to the hight,
The king of Pharie and his court, with the elf queen,
With many elfish incubus was ridand that night;"[343:A]
and in the ballad called _Young Tamlane_, whose antiquity is
ascertained from being noticed in the _Complaynt of Scotland_, the
chief incident of the story is the recovery of Tamlane from the power
of the fairies on this holy eve:—
"This night is Hallowe'en, Janet;
The morn is Hallowday;
And, gin ye dare your true love win,
Ye have nae time to stay.
The night it is good Hallowein,
When fairy folk will ride;
And they, that wad their true love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide."[343:B]
It is still recorded by tradition, relates Mr. Scott, that "the wife of
a farmer in Lothian having been carried off by the fairies, she, during
the year of probation, repeatedly appeared on Sunday, in the midst of
her children, combing their hair. On one of these occasions she was
accosted by her husband; when she related to him the unfortunate event
which had separated them, instructed him by what means he might win
her, and exhorted him to exert all his courage, since her temporal and
eternal happiness depended on the success of his attempt. The farmer,
who ardently loved his wife, set out on Hallowe'en, and, in the midst
of a plot of furze, waited impatiently for the procession of the
fairies. At the ringing of the fairy bridles, and the wild unearthly
sound which accompanied the cavalcade, his heart failed him, and he
suffered the ghostly train to pass by without interruption. When the
last had rode past, the whole troop vanished, with loud shouts of
laughter and exultation; among which he plainly discovered the voice
of his wife, lamenting that he had lost her for ever."[344:A]
Numerous have been the ceremonies, spells, and charms, which formerly
distinguished All-Hallow-Eve. In England, except in a few remote
places in the North, they have ceased to be observed for the last
half century; but in the West of Scotland they are still retained
with a kind of religious veneration, as is sufficiently proved by
the inimitable poem of Burns, entitled _Halloween_, which, in a vein
of exquisite poetry and genuine humour, minutely details the various
superstitions, which have been practised on this night from time
immemorial. Of these, as including all which prevailed in England, and
which were, in a great degree, common to both countries, in the time of
Shakspeare, we shall give a few sketches, nearly in the words of Burns,
as annexed in the notes to his poem, merely observing that one of the
spells, that of sowing hemp-seed, is omitted, as having been already
described among the rites of Midsummer-Eve.
The _first_ ceremony of Hallow-Eve consisted in the lads and lasses
pulling each a _stock_, or plant of kail. They were to go out, hand
in hand, with eyes shut, and to pull the first they met with. Its
being big or little, straight or crooked, was prophetic of the size
and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or
wife. If any _yird_, or earth, stuck to the root, that was considered
as the _tocher_, or fortune; and the taste of the _custoc_, that is,
the heart of the stem, was deemed indicative of the natural temper
and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary
appellation, the runts, were placed somewhere above the head of the
door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brought into
the house, were, according to the priority of placing the _runts_, the
names in question.
In the _second_, the lasses were to go to the barn-yard, and pull each,
at three several times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wanted the
_top-pickle_, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in
question would come to the marriage-bed any thing but a maid.
The _third_ depended on the burning of nuts, and was a favourite
charm both in England and Scotland. A lad and lass were named to each
particular nut, as they laid them in the fire, and accordingly as they
burnt quietly together, or started from beside each other, the course
and issue of the courtship were to be determined.
In the _fourth_, success could only be obtained by strictly adhering
to the following directions. Steal out, all alone, to the _kiln_, and,
darkling, throw into the _pot_, a clue of blue yarn; wind it in a new
clue off the old one: and, towards the latter end, something will hold
the thread; demand, who holds it? and an answer will be returned from
the kiln-pot, by naming the christian and sirname of your future spouse.
To perform the _fifth_, you were to take a candle, and go alone to a
looking-glass; you were then to eat an apple before it, combing your
hair all the time; when the face of your conjugal companion, _to be_,
will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.
The _sixth_ was likewise a solitary charm, in which it was necessary
to go _alone_ and _unperceived_ to the _barn_, and open both doors,
taking them off the hinges, if possible, least the _being_, about to
appear, should shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then you
were to take the machine used in winnowing the corn, and go through
all the attitudes of letting down the grain against the wind; and on
the third repetition of this ceremony, an apparition would be seen
passing through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other,
having both the figure of your future companion for life, and also the
appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life.
To secure an effective result from the _seventh_, you were ordered to
take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a _Bear-stack_, and fathom
it three times round; when during the last fathom of the last time, you
would be sure to catch in your arms the appearance of your destined
yoke-fellow.
In order to carry the _eighth_ into execution, one or more were
injoined to seek a south running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds
lands meet," and to dip into it the left shirt-sleeve. You were then
to go to bed in sight of a fire, and to hang the wet sleeve before it
to dry; it was necessary, however, to lie awake, when at midnight, an
apparition, having the exact figure of the future husband or wife,
would come, and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of
it.[346:A]
For the due performance of the _ninth_, you were directed to take three
dishes; to put clean water in one, foul water in another, and to leave
the third empty: you were then to blindfold a person, and lead him to
the hearth where the dishes were ranged, ordering him to dip the left
hand; when, if this happened to be in the clean water, it was a sign
that the future conjugal mate would come to the bar of matrimony a
maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretold, with
equal certainty, no marriage at all. This ceremony was to be repeated
three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes was to be
altered.[347:A]
Such are the various superstitions which were formerly observed at
peculiar periods of the year, and which still maintain a certain
portion of credit among the peasantry of Scotland and the North of
England. To the catalogue of Saints thus loaded with the rites of
popular credulity, may be added one whose celebrity seems to be
entirely founded on the casual notice of Shakspeare. In his Tragedy
of _King Lear_, Edgar introduces _St. Withold_ as an opponent, and
a protector against the assaults, of that formidable Incubus, the
Night-mare:—
"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;
He met the Night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!"[347:B]
Warburton informs us, that this agency of the Saint is taken from a
story of him in his legend, and that he was thence invoked as the
patron saint against the distemper, called the night-mare; but Mr.
Tyrwhitt declares, that he could not find this adventure in the
common legends of St. Vitalis, whom he supposes to be synonymous with
St. Withold. It is probable that Shakspeare took the hint, for the
ascription of this achievement to Withold, from Scot's Discoverie
of Witchcraft, where a similar power is attributed to St. George.
That writer, after mentioning that there are magical cures for the
night-mare, gives the following as an example:—
"St. George, S. George, our ladies knight,
He walkt by daie, so did he by night:
Untill such time as he hir found,
He hir beat and he hir bound.
Untill hir troth she to him plight,
She would not come to hir (him) that night:"[348:A]
a form which is quoted nearly verbatim, and professedly as a
night-spell, in the _Monsieur Thomas_ of Fletcher.[348:B] It should be
observed, that the influence over _incubi_ ascribed by our poet to St.
Withold, has been subsequently given to other Calendarian saints, and
especially to that dreaded personage St. Swithin, who is indebted to
Mr. Colman, in his alteration of _Lear_, for the transference of this
singular power.
The mass of popular credulity, indeed, is so enormous, that, limited,
as we are in this chapter, to the consideration of only a portion of
the subject, it is still difficult, from the number and variety of the
materials, to present a sketch which shall be sufficiently distinct
and perspicuous. It is highly interesting, however, to observe to what
striking poetical purposes Shakspeare has converted these imbecillities
of mind, these workings of fear and ignorance; how by his management
almost every article which he has selected from the mass of vulgar
delusion, assumes a capability of impressing the strongest and most
cultivated mind with grateful terror or sublime emotion. No branch,
for instance, of the popular creed has been more extended, or more
burdened with folly, than the belief in OMENS, and yet what noble
imagery has not the poet drawn forth from this accumulation of
fear-struck fancy and childish apprehension.
With the view of placing the detail of this vast groupe in a clearer
light, it will be necessary to ascertain, what were the principal
_omens_ most accredited in the days of Shakspeare, and after giving a
catalogue of those most worthy of notice, to exhibit a few pictures
by the poet as founded on some of the most remarkable articles in the
enumeration, and afterwards to fill up the outline with additional
circumstances from other resources.
How prone the subjects of Elizabeth were to pry into futurity,
through the medium of _omens_, _auguries_, and _prognostications_,
may be learnt from the following passage in Scot, taken from his
chapter on the "common peoples fond and superstitious collections
and observations." "Amongst us," says he, "there be manie wemen and
effeminat men (manie papists alwaies, as by their superstition may
appeere) that make great divinations upon the shedding of salt,
wine, &c. and for the observation of daies, and houres use as great
witchcraft as in anie thing. For if one chance to take a fall from a
horse, either in a slipperie or stumbling waie, he will note the daie
and houre, and count that time unlucky for a journie. Otherwise, he
that receiveth a mischance, wil consider whether he met not a cat, or a
hare, when he went first out of his doores in the morning; or stumbled
not at the threshold at his going out; or put not on his shirt the
wrong side outwards; or his left shoo on his right foote.
"Many will go to bed againe, if the neeze before their shooes be on
their feet; some will hold fast their left thombe in their right hand
when they hickot; or else will hold their chinne with their right hand
whiles a gospell is soong. It is thought verie ill lucke of some, that
a child, or anie other living creature, should passe betweene two
friends as they walke together; for they say it portendeth a division
of freendship.—The like follie is to be imputed unto them, that
observe (as true or probable) old verses, wherein can be no reasonable
cause of such effects: which are brought to passe onlie by God's power,
and at his pleasure. Of this sort be these that follow:
"Remember on S. Vincent's daie,
If that the sunne his beames displaie.—
If Paule th' apostles daie be cleare,
It dooth foreshew a luckie yeare.—
If Maries purifieng daie,
Be cleare and bright with sunnie raie,
Then frost and cold shall be much more,
After the feast than was before, &c."[350:A]
In the almanacks of Elizabeth's and James's reigns, it was customary,
not only to mark the days supposed to have an influence over the
weather, but to distinguish, likewise, those considered as lucky
or unlucky for making bargains, or transacting business on; and,
accordingly, Webster represents a character in one of his plays
declaring—
"By the almanack, I think
To choose good days and shun the critical;"[351:A]
and Shakspeare, referring to the same custom and the same doctrine,
makes Constance in _King John_ exclaim,—
"What hath this day deserv'd? What hath it done;
That it in golden letters should be set,
Among the high tides, in the kalendar?
Nay rather —————————————
—— if it must stand still, let wives with child
Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day,
Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd:
But (except) on this day, let seamen fear no wreck;
No bargains break, that are not this day made:
This day, all things begun come to an ill end;
Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!"[351:B]
But of omens predictive of good and bad fortune, or of the common
events in life, the catalogue may be said to have no termination, and
we must refer the reader, for this degrading display of human weakness
and folly, to the Vulgar Errors of Browne, and to the Commentaries of
Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, confining the subject to that class
of the ominous which has been deemed portentive of the great, the
dreadful, and the strange, and which, being surrounded by a certain
degree of dignity and awe, is consequently best adapted to the genius
of poetry.
That danger, death, or preternatural occurrences should be preceded
by warnings or intimations, would appear comformable to the idea of a
superintending providence, and therefore faith in such omens has been
indulged in, by almost every nation, especially in the infancy of its
civilisation. The most usual monitions of this kind are, _Lamentings
heard in the air_; _shakings and tremblings of the earth_; _sudden
gloom at noon-day_; _the appearance of meteors_; _the shooting of
stars_; _eclipses of the sun and moon_; _the moon of a bloody hue_;
_the shrieking of owls_; _the croaking of ravens_; _the shrilling
of crickets_; _the night-howling of dogs_; _the clicking of the
death-watch_; _the chattering of pies_; _the wild neighing of horses,
their running wild and eating each other_; _the cries of fairies_; _the
gibbering of ghosts_; _the withering of bay-trees_; _showers of blood_;
_blood dropping thrice from the nose_; _horrid dreams_; _demoniacal
voices_; _ghastly apparitions_; _winding sheets_; _corpse-candles_;
_night-fires_, and _strange and fearful noises_. Of the greater part of
this tremendous list Shakspeare has availed himself; introducing them
as the precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman
events. Thus, previous to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, he tells
us, that—
"In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets—
—Stars with trains of fire and dews of blood 'appear'd,'
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse:"[352:A]
and again, as predictive of the same event, he adds, in another place—
—————— "There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets."[352:B]
The circumstances which are related as preceding and accompanying the
murder of Duncan are, perhaps, still more awful and impressive. "The
night," says Lennox,
—————— "has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;
And prophecying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.
_Macb._ 'Twas a rough night."
"_Old M._ Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time, I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.
_Rosse._ Ah, good father,
Thou see'st the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is it night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth intomb,
When living light should kiss it?
_Old M._ 'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.
_Rosse._ And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange and certain,)
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.
_Old M._ 'Tis said, they eat each other.
_Posse._ Thy did so; to the amazement of mine eyes,
That look'd upon't."[353:A]
In the play of _King Richard II._ also, the poet has with great taste
and skill selected the following prodigies, as forerunners of the death
or fall of kings:—
"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,—
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings."[354:A]
Omens of the same portentous kind are said to have attended the births
of Owen Glendower and Richard III., and Shakspeare has accordingly
availed himself of the tradition in a manner equally poetical and
striking; the former says of himself,—
———————— "At my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward:——
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields:"[354:B]
and Henry VI., in his interview with Richard in the Tower, reproaching
the tyrant for his cruelties, tells him, as indicative of his future
deeds, that
"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung."[354:C]
_Dreams_, considered as prognostics of good or evil, are frequently
introduced by Shakspeare.
"My dreams will sure prove ominous to day,"
exclaims Andromache[355:A]; while Romeo declares,
"My dreams presage some joyful news at hand."[355:B]
But it is chiefly as precursors of misfortune that the poet has availed
himself of their supposed influence as omens of future fate. There are
few passages in his dramas more terrific than the dreams of Richard the
Third and Clarence; the latter, especially, is replete with the most
fearful imagery, and makes the blood run chill with horror.
_Dæmoniacal voices and shrieks, or monitory intimations and
appearances_ from the tutelary genius of a family, were likewise
imagined to precede the deaths of important individuals; a superstition
to which Shakspeare alludes in the following lines from his _Troilus
and Cressida_:
"_Troil._ Hark! you are call'd: Some say, the Genius so
Cries, _Come!_ to him that instantly must die."[355:C]
This superstition was formerly very prevalent in England, and still
prevails in several districts of Ireland, and in the more remote
parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Howell tells us, that he saw
at a lapidary's in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four
persons of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom,
the inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and fluttered
around the bed, while the patient was in the last agony[355:D]; and
Glanville, remarks Mr. Scott, mentions one family, the members of
which received this solemn sign by music, the sound of which floated
from the family-residence, and seemed to die in a neighbouring[355:E]
wood. It is related, that several of the great Highland families are
accustomed to receive intimations of approaching fate by domestic
spirits or tutelary genii, who sometimes assume the form of a bird or
of a bloody spectre of a tall woman dressed in white, shrieking wildly
round the house. Thus, observes Mr. Pennant, the family of Rothmurcas
had the _Bodach-an-dun_, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kinchardines,
the _Spectre of the Bloody Hand_; Gartinley house was haunted by
_Bodach-Gartin_; and Tullock Gorms by _Maug-Moulach_, or _the Girl
with the Hairy Left Hand_. In certain places, he says, the death of
the people is supposed to be foretold by the cries of _Benshi_, or the
_Fairy's Wife_, uttered along the very path where the _funeral_ is to
pass; and it has been added by others, that when the Benshi becomes
visible, she appears in the shape of an old woman, with a blue mantle
and streaming hair.
Of this omen, and of another of a similar kind, Mr. Scott has made
his usual poetical use in the _Lady of the Lake_, where he relates of
Brian, the lone Seer of the Desert, that
"Late had he heard in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream,
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride."
This last passage, he informs us, "is still believed to announce death
to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an
ancestor slain in battle, is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and
then to ride thrice around the family-residence, ringing his fairy
bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity."[356:A]
That the apparition of the Benshie, and the whole train of spectral
and dæmoniacal warnings, were in full force in Ireland, during
the seventeenth century, we have numerous proofs; the former was
commonly called the _Shrieking Woman_, and of the latter a most
remarkable instance is given by Mr. Scott, from the MS. Memoirs of
the accomplished Lady Fanshaw. "Her husband, Sir Richard, and she,
chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit a friend, the head of
a sept, who resided in his ancient baronial castle, surrounded with
a moat. At midnight, she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural
scream, and looking out of bed, beheld, by the moon-light, a female
face and part of the form, hovering at the window. The distance from
the ground, as well as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the
possibility that what she beheld was of this world. The face was that
of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair, which was
reddish, loose and dishevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror
did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient
Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time,
and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first
excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror,
she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and found him
prepared not only to credit, but to account for the apparition. 'A near
relation of my family,' said he, 'expired last night in this castle.
We disguised our certain expectation of the event from you, lest it
should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was your due.
Now, before such an event happens in this family and castle, the female
spectre whom you have seen always is visible. She is believed to be the
spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded
himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done
to his family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat.'"[357:A]
Another set of omens predictive of disaster, supernatural agency, and
death, was drawn from the appearances of lights, tapers, and fires.
When a flame was seen by night resting on the tops of soldiers' lances,
or playing and leaping by fits among the masts and sails of a ship, it
was deemed the presage of misfortune; of defeat in battle in the one
instance, and of destruction by tempest in the other. As the forerunner
of a storm, Shakspeare has introduced it in his _Tempest_, where Ariel
says,—
—————— "Sometimes I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join."[358:A]
It was also conceived, that the presence of unearthly beings, ghosts,
spirits, and demons, was instantly announced by an alteration in
the tint of the lights which happened to be burning; a very popular
notion, which the poet adopts in his _Richard the Third_, the tyrant
exclaiming, as he awakens,
"_The lights burn blue_—it is now dead midnight;
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.——
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd,
Came to my tent."[358:B]
But, the chief superstition annexed to this branch of omens,
was founded on the idea, that lights and fires, commonly called
_corpse-candles_ and _tomb-fires_, preceded deaths and funerals; an
article of belief which was equally prevalent among the Celtic and
Teutonic nations; and was cherished therefore with the same credulity
in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as in Scandinavia, Germany, and
England. In this island, during the sixteenth century, it was generally
credited by the common people, that when a person was about to die, a
pale flame would frequently appear at the window of the room in which
he was laid, and, after pausing there for a moment, would glide towards
the church-yard, minutely tracing the path where the future funeral was
to pass, and glowing brightly, for a time, on the spot where the body
was to be interred. Sometimes, however, instead of lights, a procession
was seen by the dim light of the moon: "there have bin seene some in
the night," says the English Lavaterus, "when the moone shin'd, going
solemnlie with the corps, according to the custome of the people, or
standing before the dores, as if some bodie were to be caried to the
church to burying."[359:A] In Northumberland the fancied appearance of
the corpse-light was termed seeing the _Waff_ (the blast or spirit) of
the person whose death was to take place.
In Wales this superstition was formerly so general, especially in
the counties of Cardigan, Caermarthen, and Pembroke, that scarcely
any individual was supposed to die without the previous signal of
a corpse-candle. Mr. Davis, a Welshman, in a letter to Mr. Baxter,
observes, that "they are called candles, from their resemblance, not of
the body of the candle, but the fire; because that fire doth as much
resemble material candle-lights, as eggs do eggs: saving that in their
journey, these candles are sometimes visible, and sometimes disappear;
especially if any one comes near to them, or in the way to meet them.
On these occasions they vanish, but presently appear again behind the
observer, and hold on their course. If a little candle is seen, of a
pale or bluish colour, then follows the corpse, either of an abortive,
or some infant; if a large one, then the corpse of some one come to
age. If there be seen two, three, or more, of different sizes,—some
big, some small,—then shall so many corpses pass together, and of such
ages or degrees. If two candles come from different places, and be seen
to meet, the corpses will do the same; and if any of these candles be
seen to turn aside, through some bye-path leading to the church, the
following corpse will be found to take exactly the same way."[359:B]
Among the Highlanders of Scotland, likewise, the same species of omen
was so implicitly credited, that it has continued in force even to the
present day. Of this Mrs. Grant has given us, in one of her ingenious
essays, a most remarkable instance, and on the authority, too, of a
very pious and sensible clergyman, who was accustomed, she says, "to go
forth and meditate at even; and this solitary walk he always directed
to his churchyard, which was situated in a shaded spot, on the banks of
a river. There, in a dusky October evening, he took his wonted path,
and lingered, leaning on the churchyard-wall, till it became twilight,
when he saw two small lights rise from a spot within, where there was
no stone, nor memorial of any kind. He observed the course these lights
took, and saw them cross the river, and stop at an opposite hamlet.
Presently they returned, accompanied by a larger light, which moved on
between them, till they arrived at the place from which the first two
set out, when all the three seemed to sink into the earth together.
"The good man went into the churchyard, and threw a few stones on
the spot where the lights disappeared. Next morning he walked out
early, called for the sexton, and shewed him the place, asking if he
remembered who was buried there. The man said, that many years ago, he
remembered burying in that spot, two young children, belonging to a
blacksmith on the opposite side of the river, who was now a very old
man. The pastor returned, and was scarce sat down to breakfast, when a
message came to hurry him to come over to pray with the smith, who had
been suddenly taken ill, and who died next day."[360:A]
_Fiery and meteorous exhalations_, shooting through the lower regions
of the air, and sinking into the ground, were also deemed predictive
of death. The individual was pointed out by these fires either falling
on his lands or garden, or by gleaming with a lurid light over the
family burying-place. Appearances of this kind were called _tomb-fires_
by the Scandinavians, and _tan-we_ by the Welsh, who believed that no
freeholder died without a meteor having been seen to sparkle and vanish
on his estate. In fact, as Shakspeare has expressed it, there could
happen
"No natural exhalations in the sky:"
but were considered as
———————— "prodigies, and signs,
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven."[361:A]
The idea that _sudden and fearful noises_ are frequently heard before
death takes place, and are indications of such an event, was very
common at the period of which we are writing, both on the continent and
in this country. "It happeneth many times," says the English Lavaterus,
"that when men lye sicke of some deadly disease, there is something
heard going in the chamber, like as the sicke men were wonte, when they
were in good health: yea and the sicke parties themselves, do many
times heare the same, and by and by gesse what wil come to passe. And
divers times it commeth to passe, that when some of our acquaintaunce
or friends lye a dying, albeit they are many miles off, yet there are
some great stirrings or noises heard. Sometimes we think that the house
will fall on our heads, or that some massie and waightie thing falleth
downe throughout all the house, rendring and making a disordered noise:
and shortlie within few monthes after, we understande that those things
happened, the very same houre that our friends departed in. There be
some men of whose stocke none doth dye, but that they observe and marke
some signes and tokens going before: as that they heare the dores and
windowes open and shut, that some thing runneth up the staires, or
walketh up and downe the house, or doth some one or other such like
thing.
"There was a certain parishe priest, a very honest and godly man, whom
I knewe well, who in the plague time, could tell before hand, when any
of his parishe should dye. For in the night time he heard a noise over
his bed, like as if one had throwne downe a sacke full of corne from
his shoulders: which when he heard he would say: Nowe an other biddeth
me farewell. After it was day, he used to inquire who died that night,
or who was taken with the plague, to the end he might comfort and
strengthen them, according to the duty of a good pastour.
"In Abbeys, the Monks, servaunts or any other falling sicke, many have
heard in the night, preparation of chests for them, in such sorte as
the coffin makers did afterwards prepare in deede.
"In some country villages, when one is at death's dore, many times
there are some heard in the evening, or in the night, digging a grave
in the Churcheyarde, and the same the next day is so found digged, as
these men did heare before."[362:A]
The next class of superstitions which we shall notice in this chapter,
is that depending on CHARMS and SPELLS, a fertile source of knavery and
credulity, and which has been chiefly exercised, in our poet's time
and since, by old women. Of this occupation, and its attendant folly
and imposition, the bard has given us a sketch, in his _Merry Wives
of Windsor_, in the person of the _Old Woman of Brentford_, who is
declared by _Ford_ to be "a witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!—We
are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the
profession of _fortune-telling_. She works by _charms_, by _spells_, by
the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know
nothing."[362:B]
That women of this description, or as Scot has delineated them, in one
instance, indeed, deviating from the _portly_ form of Shakspeare's
cunning Dame, "_leane_, hollow-eied, old, beetle browed women[362:C],"
were, as dealers in charms, spells and amulets, a very numerous
tribe, in the days of Elizabeth and James, we have every reason to
believe, from contemporary evidence; but it appears that the trade of
_fortune-telling_ was then, as now, chiefly exercised by the wandering
horde of _gipsies_, to whose name and characteristic knavery, our great
poet alludes, in _Antony and Cleopatra_, where the Roman complains that
Cleopatra,
"Like a right _gipsy_, hath, _at fast and loose_,
Beguil'd him to the very heart of loss."[362:D]
Of this wily people, of the juggle referred to in these lines, and
of their profession of fortune-telling, Scot thus speaks in his
thirteenth book:—"The AEGYPTIANS juggling witchcraft or sortilegie
standeth much in _fast or loose_, whereof though I have written
somewhat generallie already (p. 197), yet having such opportunitie I
will here shew some of their particular feats; not treating of their
common tricks which is so tedious, nor of their _fortune-telling_ which
is so impious; and yet both of them meere cousenages."[363:A] He then
describes two games of _fast and loose_; one with a handkerchief, and
the other with whip cords and beads; but as these much resemble the
modern trick of _pricking at the belt or girdle_, explained by Sir J.
Hawkins, in a note on the passage just quoted from our poet, it will
not be necessary to notice them further in this place.
To _palmistry_, indeed, or the _art of Divination by the lines of the
hand_, Shakspeare has allotted a great part of the second scene, in the
first act, of _Antony and Cleopatra_, no doubt induced to this by the
topographical situation of the opening characters, the play commencing
at Alexandria in Egypt.
He has also occasionally adverted in other dramas to the multitude
of _charms_, _spells_, and _periapts_ which were in use in his time;
and he makes La Pucelle, in accordance with the necromantic powers
attributed to her, solemnly invoke their assistance—
"Now help, ye charming spells, and periapts;"[363:B]
but as, to adopt the expression of Scot, he who "should go about to
recite all charmes, would take an infinite worke in hand[363:C],"
we shall confine ourselves to an enumeration, from this scarce and
curious writer, of the evils and the powers, against, and for,
which, these charms, were sought; and shall then add a few specimens
of their nature, force, and composition. It appears that they were
eagerly enquired after in the first place against burning, drowning,
pestilence, sword, and famine, against thieves, spirits, witches,
and diseases, and of the last class, especially against the venom of
serpents, scorpions and other reptiles, the epilepsy, the king's evil,
and the bite of a mad dog; and in the second, to enable the wearer to
release a woman in travail, to conjure a thorn out of any member, or a
bone out of the throat, to open all locks and doors, to know what is
said and done behind our backs, to endure the severest tortures without
shrinking, &c. &c.
One of the most efficacious of these charms, was a periapt or tablet,
called an _Agnus Dei_. This, which was ordered to be constantly worn
round the neck, consisted of a little cake, having the impression of
a lamb carrying a flag on one side, and Christ's head on the other;
and in the centre a concavity sufficiently large to contain the first
chapter of St. John's Gospel, written on fine paper, in a very small
character. It was a spell potent to protect the wearer against thunder
and lightning, fire and water, sin, pestilence, and the perils of
childbirth.[364:A]
A charm against shot, or a waistcoat of proof, was thus to be
obtained:—"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of
flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell: and it
must be by hir woven, and also wrought with the needle. In the brest
or forepart thereof must be made with needle worke two heads; on the
head at the right side must be a hat, and a long beard; the left
head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible, that it maie
resemble Belzebub, and on each side of the wastcote must be made a
crosse."[364:B]
That some of these spells, however, were not carried into execution
with quite so much ease, as the two we have just transcribed, will be
evident from the directions annexed to the following, entitled a _charm
for one possessed_: "The possessed bodie must go upon his or hir knees
to the church, how farre soever it be off from their lodging; and so
must creepe without going out of the waie, being the common high waie,
in that sort, how fowle and durtie soever the same be; or whatsoever
lie in the waie, not shunning anie thing whatsoever, untill he come to
the church, where he must heare masse devoutlie, and then followeth
recoverie."[365:A]
It appears, notwithstanding, that, even among the old women of
the sixteenth century, there could be found some who, while they
profited by, could, at the same time, despise, the credulity of their
neighbours. "An old woman," says Scot, "that healed all diseases of
cattell (for the which she never tooke any reward but a penie and a
loafe) being seriouslie examined by what words she brought these things
to passe, confessed that after she had touched the sicke creature, she
alwaies departed immediatlie; saieng:
"My loafe in my lap,
my penie in my pursse;
Thou art never the better,
and I am never the wursse."[365:B]
The same author, after relating the terrible curse or charm of St.
Adelbert against thieves, facetiously adds,—"But I will answer this
cruell cursse with another cursse farre more mild and civill, performed
by as honest a man (I dare saie) as he that made the other.—
"So it was, that a certeine sir JOHN, with some of his companie, once
went abroad a jetting, and in a moone light evening robbed a millers
weire, and stole all his éeles. The poore miller made his mone to sir
John himselfe, who willed him to be quiet; for he would so cursse
the theefe, and all his confederates, with bell, booke and candell,
that they should have small joy of their fish. And therefore the
next sundaie, sir John got him to the pulpit, with his surplisse on
his backe, and his stole about his necke, and pronounced these words
following in the audience of the people.
All you that have stolne the miller's eeles,
_Laudate Dominum de cœlis_,
And all they that have consented thereto,
_Benedicamus Domino_.
So (saith he) there is sauce for your éeles my maisters."[366:A]
A third portion of the popular creed may be considered as including the
various kinds of superstitious CURES, PREVENTATIVES, and SYMPATHIES;
a species of credulity which has suffered little diminution even in
the present day; for, though the materials selected for the purpose
be different, the folly and the fraud are the same. Instead of animal
magnetism and metallic tractors, the public faith, in the days of
Shakspeare, rested, with implicit confidence, on the virtues supposed
to be inherent in bones, precious stones, sympathetic signs, powders,
&c.; and the poet, accordingly, has occasionally introduced imagery
founded on these imaginary qualities. Thus, in the _Merchant of
Venice_, the high value which Shylock places on his _turquoise_ ring,
was derived from this source, the turquoise or Turkey-stone, being
considered as inestimable for its properties of indicating the health
of the wearer by the increase or decrease of its colour, and for its
protective power in shielding him from enmity and peril. That this
was the cause of Shylock's deep regret for the loss of his ring, will
appear probable from the more direct intimations of his contemporaries,
Jonson and Drayton; the former, in his Sejanus, remarking of two
parasites, that they would,
"—— true, as turkoise in the dear lord's ring,
Look well or ill with him."[366:B]
and the latter declaring, that
"The turkesse,——who haps to wear,
Is often kept from peril."[366:C]
A more distinct allusion to the sanative virtue of precious stones, is
to be found in the celebrated simile in _As You Like It_:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."[367:A]
This stone or jewel was supposed to secure the possessor from the
effects of poison, and to be, likewise, a sovereign remedy for the
stone.
These important effects are ascribed to it by numerous writers
of Shakspeare's time,—by Gesner[367:B]; by Batman[367:C]; by
Maplett[367:D]; by Fenton[367:E]; by Lupton[367:F]; by Topsell,
and, subsequently, by Fuller.[367:G] It even formed, very early
indeed, a part of medical treatment; for Lloyd, in his _Treasure of
helth_, recommends its exhibition for the stone, and orders it, after
having been _stampt_, to be "geven to the pacyent to drinke in warme
wine."[367:H]