“I scatter Delphid’s, perjured Delphid’s bones.”
--First Delphid injured me, he raised my flame,
And now I burn this bough in Delphid’s name;
As this doth blaze, and break away in fume,
How soon it takes, let Delphid’s flesh consume,
Iynx, restore my false, my perjured swain,
And force him back into my arms again.--
As this devoted _wax_ melts o’er the fire,
Let Mindian Delphy melt in warm desire!
_Idylliums_, p. 12, 13.
Samoetha burns the bough in the name of her false lover, and terms the
wax _devoted_. With this the more modern ritual of witchcraft
corresponded. The name of the person, represented by the image, was
invoked. For according to the narrative given concerning the witches of
Pollock-shaws, having bound the image on a spit, they “turned it before
the fire,--saying, as they turned it, _Sir George Maxwell, Sir George
Maxwell_; and that this was expressed by all of them.” Glanvil’s
Sadducismus, p. 391.
According to Grilland, the image was baptized in the name of Beelzebub.
Malleus, ut. sup., p. 229.
There is nothing analogous to the Grecian rite, mentioned by Theocritus,
of strewing _salt_. For Grilland asserts that, in the festivals of the
witches, salt was never presented. Ibid., p. 215. It was perhaps
excluded from their infernal rites as having been so much used as a
sacred symbol.]
The following are among the twenty-eight “singular vertues” attributed
by Butler to Honey: “... It breedeth good blood, it prolongeth old age
... yea the bodies of the dead being embalmed with honey have been
thereby preserved from putrefaction. And _Athenæus_ doth witness it to
be as effectual for the living, writing out of Lycus, that the Cyrneans,
or inhabitants of Corsica, were therefore long-lived, because they did
dailie vse to feed on honey, whereof they had abundance: and no
marvaile: seeing it is so soveraigne a thing, and so many waies
available for man’s health, as well being outwardly as inwardly applied.
It is drunke against the bite of a serpent or mad dogs: and it is good
for them having eaten mushrooms, or drunke popy, etc.”[716]
In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times,[717] there are two
chapters devoted to the “Vertues of Honey.”
There is a story, that a man once came to Mohammed, and told him that
his brother was afflicted with a violent pain in his belly; upon which
the prophet bade him give him some honey. The fellow took his advice;
but soon after coming again, told him that the medicine had done his
brother no manner of service: Mohammed answered, “Go and give him more
honey, for God speaks truth, and thy brother’s belly lies.” And the dose
being repeated, the man, by God’s mercy, was immediately cured.[718]
In the sixteenth chapter of the Koran, Mohammed has likewise mentioned
honey as a medicine for men.[719]
Athenæus tells us that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he
had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age,
and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of
the Thesmophonian festival came round, and the women of his household
besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might
not be debarred from their share of the festivities, was persuaded and
ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he
lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days
after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus,
Athenæus adds, had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a
man, who had asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best
health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts
with honey and his outward man with oil. Bread and honey was the chief
food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who
says that those who ate this for breakfast were free from disease all
their lives.[720]
“The gall of a vulture,” says Moufet, quoting Galen, in Euporist,
“mingled with the juice of horehound (twice as much in weight as the
gall is) and two parts of honey cures the suffusion of the eyes.
Otherwise he mingles one part of the gall of the sea-tortoise, and four
times as much honey, and anoints the eyes with it. Serenus prescribes
such a receipt to cause one to be quick-sighted:
Mingle Hyblæan honey with the gall
Of Goats, ’tis good to make one see withall.”[721]
We are told in the German Ephemerides, that a young country girl, having
eaten a great deal of honey, became so inebriated with it, that she
slept the whole day, and talked foolishly the day following.[722]
Bevan, in his work on the Honey-Bee, mentions the following instances of
a curious use to which propolis is sometimes put by the Bees: A snail,
says he, having crept into one of Mr. Reaumur’s hives early in the
morning, after crawling about for some time, adhered, by means of its
own slime, to one of the glass panes. The Bees, having discovered the
snail, surrounded it, and formed a border of propolis round the verge of
its shell, and fastened it so securely to the glass that it became
immovable.
Forever closed the impenetrable door;
It naught avails that in its torpid veins
Year after year, life’s loitering spark remains.
EVANS.
Maraldi, another eminent Apiarian, states that a snail without a shell
having entered one of his hives, the Bees, as soon as they observed it,
stung it to death; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they
covered it all over with an impervious coat of propolis.
For soon in fearless ire, their wonder lost,
Spring fiercely from the comb the indignant host,
Lay the pierced monster breathless on the ground,
And clap in joy their victor pinions round:
While all in vain concurrent numbers strive
To heave the slime-girt giant from the hive--
Sure not alone by force instinctive swayed,
But blest with reason’s soul-directing aid,
Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour,
Thick, hard’ning as it falls, the flaky shower;
Embalmed in shroud of glue the mummy lies,
No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise.
EVANS.[723]
Xenophon tells us that all the soldiers, who ate of the honey-combs,
found in the villages on the mountains of the Colchians, lost their
senses, and were seized with such violent vomiting and purging, that
none of them were able to stand upon their legs: that those who ate but
little, were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen,
and some like dying persons. In this condition, this writer adds, great
numbers lay upon the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and a
general sorrow prevailed. The next day, they all recovered their senses,
about the same hour they were seized; and, on the third and fourth days,
they got up as if they had taken physic.[724]
Pliny accounts for this accident by saying there is found in that
country a kind of honey, called from its effects, Thænomenon, that is,
that those who eat it are seized with madness. He adds, that the common
opinion is that this honey is gathered from the flowers of a plant
called _Rhododendros_, which is very common in those parts. Tournefort
thinks the modern _Laurocerasus_ is the Rhododendros of Pliny, from the
fact that the people of that country, at the present day, believe the
honey that is gathered from its flowers will produce the effects
described by Xenophon.[725]
The missionary Moffat in South Africa found some poisonous honey, which
he unknowingly ate, but with no serious consequences. It was several
days, however, before he got rid of a most unpleasant sensation in his
head and throat. The plant from which the honey had been gathered was an
Euphorbia.[726]
“In Podolia,” says the chronicler Hollingshed, “which is now subject to
the King of Poland, their hives (of Bees) and combes are so abundant,
that huge bores, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the
honie, before they can recover & find the meanes to come out.”[727]
Honey was offered up to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.[728]
Dr. Sparrman has described a Hottentot dance, which he calls the
Bee-dance. It is in imitation of a swarm of Bees; every performer as he
jumps around making a buzzing noise.[729]
“To have a Bee in one’s bonnet” is a Scottish proverbial phrase about
equivalent to the English, “To have a maggot in one’s head”--to be
hair-brained. Kelly gives this with an additional word: “There’s a Bee
in your bonnet-_case_.” In Scotland, too, it is said of a confused or
stupefied man, that his “head is in the Bees.”[730] These proverbial
expressions were also in vogue in England.[731]
The following beautiful epigram, on a Bee inclosed in amber, is from the
pen of Martial: “The Bee is inclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of
the sisters of Phaëton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It
has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that
the Bee itself would have desired such a death.
The Bee inclosed, and through the amber shown,
Seems buried in the juice that was her own.
So honor’d was a life in labor spent:
Such might she wish to have her monument.”[732]
The Septuagint has the following eulogium on the Bee in Prov. vi. 8,
which is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Go to the Bee, and learn
how diligent she is, and what a noble work she produces, whose labors
kings and private men use for their health; she is desired and honored
by all, and though weak in strength, yet since she values wisdom, she
prevails.”[733]
In Spain Bees are in great estimation; and this is evinced by the
ancient proverb:
Abeja y oveja,
Y piedra que traveja,
Y pendola trans oreja,
Y parte en la Igreja,
Desea a su hija, la vieja----
The best wishes of a Spanish mother to her son are, Bees, sheep,
millstones, a pen behind the ear, and a place in the church.[734]
The following anecdote in the history of the Humble-bee (_Bombus_) is
from the account of Josselyn of his voyages to New England, printed in
1674: “Near upon twenty years since there lived an old planter near
_Blackpoint_, who on a Sunshine day about one of the clock lying upon a
green bank not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of
age, to awaken him when he had slept two hours; the old man falls
asleep, and lying upon his back gaped with his mouth wide open enough
for a Hawke to ---- into it; after a little while the lad sitting by
spied a Humble-bee creeping out of his Father’s mouth, which taking wing
flew quite out of sight, the hour as the lad guest being come to awaken
his Father, he jagged him and called aloud Father, Father, it is two
o’clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the Humble-bee
returning, who lighted upon the sleeper’s lip and walked down as the lad
conceived into his belly, and presently he awaked.”[735]
The following, on the different species of Humble-bees, is one of the
popular rhymes of Scotland:
The todler-tyke has a very gude byke,
And sae has the gairy Bee;
But weel’s me on the little red-doup,
The best o’ a’ the three.[736]
When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly murdered in 1679, “upon
the opening of his tobacco box a living humming bee flew out,” which was
explained to be a familiar or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a
child was poisoned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were
“in the shape of bume-bees,” that the former carried the poison “in her
cleugh, wings, and mouth.” A great Bee constantly resorted to another
after receiving the Satanic mark, and rested on it.[737]
An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the thimble-shaped nest,
formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee (_Apis centuncularis_?), which is
a striking instance of the ridiculous superstition which prevails among
the uneducated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on
those of better understandings. “In the beginning of July, 1736, the
learned Abbé Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised by a visit from an
auditor of the chamber of accounts, whose estate lay at a distant
village on the borders of the Seine, a few leagues from Rouen. This
gentleman came accompanied, among other domestics, by a gardener, whose
face had an air of much concern. He had come to Paris in consequence of
having found in his master’s ground many rows of leaves, unaccountably
disposed in a mystical manner, and which he could not but believe were
there placed by witchcraft, for the secret destruction of his lord and
family. He had, after recovering from his first consternation, shown
them to the curate of the parish, who was inclined to be of a similar
opinion, and advised him without delay to take a journey to Paris, and
make his lord acquainted with the circumstance. This gentleman, though
not quite so much alarmed as the honest gardener, could not feel himself
at perfect ease, and therefore thought it advisable to consult his
surgeon upon the business, who, though a man eminent in his profession,
declared himself utterly unacquainted with the nature of what was shown
him, but took the liberty of advising that the Abbé Nollet, as a
philosopher, should be consulted, whose well-known researches in natural
knowledge might perhaps enable him to elucidate the matter. It was in
consequence of this advice that the Abbé received the visit above
mentioned, and had the satisfaction of relieving all parties from their
embarrassment, by showing them several nests formed on a similar plan by
other insects, and assuring them that those in their possession were the
work of insects also.”[738]
In an English paper, the Observer, of July 25, 1813, there is an account
of a “swarm of Bees resting themselves on the inside of a lady’s
parasol.” They were hived without any serious injury to the lady.
In the Annual Register, 1767, p. 117, there was published by M. Lippi,
Licentiate in Physic of the army of Paris, an account of a petrified
Beehive, discovered on the mountains of Siout, in Upper Egypt. Broken
open it disclosed the larvæ of Bees in the cells, hard and solid, and
Bees themselves dried up like mummies. Honey was also found in the
cells![739] The account is curious, but not entitled to much credit.
In the Liverpool Advertiser, and Times, of Nov. 24, 1817, there is a
lengthy account of three Bees being found in a state of animation in a
huge solid rock from the Western Point Quarry. Scientific attention was
attracted, and as appears from the above-mentioned papers of Dec. 5,
1817, the mystery was cleared up by discovering in the rock “a sand
hole” through which the insects had made their way.[740]
ORDER VI.
LEPIDOPTERA.
Papilionidæ--Butterflies.
The lepidopterous insects in general, soon after they emerge from the
pupa state, and commonly during their first flight, discharge some drops
of a red-colored fluid, more or less intense in different species,
which, in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable,
have produced the appearance of a “shower of blood,” as this natural
phenomenon is commonly called.
Showers of blood have been recorded by historians and poets as
preternatural--have been considered in the light of prodigies, and
regarded where they have happened as fearful prognostics of impending
evils.
There are two passages in Homer, which, however poetical, are applicable
to a rain of this kind; and among the prodigies which took place after
the death of the great dictator, Ovid particularly mentions a shower of
blood:
Sæpe faces visæ mediis ardere sub astris,
Sæpe inter nimbos guttæ cecidere cruentæ.
With threatening signs the lowering skies were fill’d,
And sanguine drops from murky clouds distilled.
Among the numerous prodigies reported by Livy to have happened in the
year 214 B.C., it is instanced that, at Mantua, a stagnating piece of
water, caused by the overflowing of the River Mincius, appeared as of
blood; and, in the cattle-market at Rome, a shower of blood fell in the
Istrian Street. After mentioning several other remarkable phenomena that
happened during that year, Livy concludes by saying that these prodigies
were expiated, conformably to the answers of the Aruspices, by victims
of the greater kinds, and supplication was ordered to be performed to
all the deities who had shrines at Rome.[741] Again it is stated by
Livy, that many alarming prodigies were seen at Rome in the year 181
B.C., and others reported from abroad; among which was a shower of
blood, which fell in the courts of the temples of Vulcan and Concord.
After mentioning that the image of Juno Sospita shed tears, and that a
pestilence broke out in the country, this writer adds, that these
prodigies, and the mortality which prevailed, alarmed the Senate so
much, that they ordered the consuls to sacrifice to such gods as their
judgment should direct, victims of the larger kinds, and that the
Decemvirs should consult their books. Pursuant to their direction, a
supplication for one day was proclaimed to be performed at every shrine
at Rome; and they advised, besides, and the Senate voted, and the consul
proclaimed, that there should be a supplication and public worship for
three days throughout all Italy.[742] In the year 169 B.C., Livy also
mentions that a shower of blood fell in the middle of the day. The
Decemvirs were again called upon to consult their books, and again were
sacrifices offered to the deities.[743] The account, also, of Livy, of
the bloody sweat, on some of the statues of the gods, must be referred
to the same phenomenon; as the predilection of those ages to marvel,
says Thomas Brown, and the want of accurate investigation in the cases
recorded, as well as the rare occurrence of these atmospherical
depositions in our own times, inclines us to include them among the
blood-red drops deposited by insects.[744]
In Stow’s Annales of England, we have two accounts of showers of blood;
and from an edition printed in London in 1592, we make our quotations:
“Rivallus, sonne of Cunedagius, succeeded his father, in whose time (in
the year 766 B.C.) it rained bloud 3 dayes: after which tempest ensued a
great multitude of venemous flies, which slew much people, and then a
great mortalitie throughout this lande, caused almost desolation of the
same.”[745] The second account is as follows: “In the time of Brithricus
(A.D. 786) it rayned blood, which falling on men’s clothes, appeared
like crosses.”[746]
Hollingshed, Graften, and Fabyan have also recorded these instances in
their respective chronicles of England.[747]
A remarkable instance of bloody rain is introduced into the very
interesting Icelandic ghost story of Thorgunna. It appears that in the
year of our Lord 1009, a woman called Thorgunna came from the Hebrides
to Iceland, where she stayed at the house of Thorodd: and during the hay
season, a shower of blood fell, but only, singularly, on that portion of
the hay she had not piled up as her share, which so appalled her that
she betook herself to her bed, and soon afterward died. She left, to
finish the story, a remarkable will, which, from not being executed, was
the cause of several violent deaths, the appearance of ghosts, and,
finally, a legal action of ejectment against the ghosts, which, it need
hardly be said, drove them effectually away.[748]
In 1017, a shower of blood fell in Aquitaine;[749] and Sleidan relates
that in the year 1553 a vast multitude of Butterflies swarmed through a
great part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings, clothes,
and men with bloody drops, as if it had rained blood.[750] We learn also
from Bateman’s Doome, that these “drops of bloude upon hearbes and
trees,” in 1553, were deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of
Charles and Philip, dukes of Brunswick.[751]
In Frankfort, in the year 1296, among other prodigies, some spots of
blood led to a massacre of the Jews, in which ten thousand of these
unhappy descendants of Abraham lost their lives.[752]
In the beginning of July, 1608, an extensive shower of blood took place
at Aix, in France, which threw the people of that place into the utmost
consternation, and, which is a much more important fact, led to the
first satisfactory and philosophical explanation of this phenomenon, but
too late, alas! to save the Jews of Frankfort. This explanation was
given by M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of that place, and is thus
referred to by his biographer, Gassendi: “Nothing in the whole year 1608
did more please him than that he observed and philosophized about, the
_bloody rain_, which was commonly reported to have fallen about the
beginning of July; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both in
the city itself, upon the walls of the church-yard of the church, which
is near the city wall, and upon the city walls themselves; also upon the
walls of villages, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round about; for
in the first place, he went himself to see those wherewith the stones
were colored, and did what he could to come to speak with those
husbandmen, who, beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been affrighted
at the falling of said rain, that they left their work, and ran as fast
as their legs could carry them into the adjacent houses. Whereupon, he
found that it was a fable that was reported, touching those husbandmen.
Nor was he pleased that naturalists should refer this kind of rain to
vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft in the air, which congealing
afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form; because such vapours as
are drawne aloft by heat, ascend without color, as we may know by the
alone example of red roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heat
are congealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with the
common people, and some divines, who judged that it was the work of the
devils and witches who had killed innocent young children; for this he
counted a mere conjecture, possibly also injurious to the goodness and
providence of God.
“In the mean while an accident happened, out of which he conceived he
had collected the true cause thereof. For, some months before, he shut
up in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, rare for its
bigness and form; which, when he had forgotten, he heard a buzzing in
the box, and when he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its
coat, to be turned into a beautiful Butterfly, which presently flew
away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an
ordinary sous or shilling; and because this happened about the beginning
of the same month, and about the same time an incredible multitude of
Butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion
that such kind of Butterflies resting on the walls had there shed such
like drops, and of the same bigness. Whereupon, he went the second time,
and found, by experience, that those drops were not to be found on the
house-tops, nor upon the round sides of the stones which stuck out, as
it would have happened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather
where the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where such small
creatures might shroud and nestle themselves. Moreover, the walls which
were so spotted, were not in the middle of towns, but they were such as
bordered upon the fields, nor were they on the highest parts, but only
so moderately high as Butterflies are commonly wont to fly.
“Thus, therefore, he interpreted that which Gregory of Tours relates,
touching a bloody rain seen at Paris in divers places, in the days of
Childebert, and on a certain house in the territory of Seulis; also that
which is storied, touching raining of blood about the end of June, in
the days of King Robert; so that the blood which fell upon flesh,
garments, or stones could not be washed out, but that which fell on wood
might; for it was the same season of Butterflies, and experience hath
taught us, that no water will wash these spots out of the stones, while
they are fresh and new. When he had said these and such like things to
various, a great company of auditors being present, it was agreed that
they should go together and search out the matter, and as they went up
and down, here and there, through the fields, they found many drops upon
stones and rocks; but they were only on the hollow and under parts of
the stones, but not upon those which lay most open to the skies.”[753]
This memorable shower of blood was produced by the _Vanessa urticæ_, or
_V. polychloros_, most probably, since these species of Butterflies are
said to have been uncommonly plentiful at the time when, and in the
particular district where, the phenomenon was observed.[754][755]