GYPSY AMULETS.
"Knew many an amulet and charm
Which would do neither good nor harm,
In Rosicrucian lore as learned
As he that veré adeptus earned."--Hudibras.
With pleasant plausibility Heine has traced the origin of one kind of
fairy-lore to the associations and feelings which we form for familiar
objects. A coin, a penknife, a pebble, which has long been carried
in the pocket or worn by any one, seems to become imbued with his or
her personality. If it could speak, we should expect to hear from it
an echo of the familiar voice of the wearer; as happened, indeed, in
Thuringia in the year 1562, when a fair maid, Adelhait von Helbach,
was carried into captivity by certain ill-mannered persons. "Now her
friends, pursuing, knew not whither to go, when they heard her voice,
albeit very small and feeble, calling to them; and, seeking, they
found in the bush by the road a silver image of the Virgin, which she
had worn: and this image told them which road to take. Following the
direction, they recovered her; the Raubritter who bore her away being
broken on the wheel, and the image hung up for the glory of the Virgin,
who had spoken by it, in the Church of our Lady of Kalbrunn." Again,
these objects have such strange ways of remaining with one that we
end by suspecting that they have a will of their own. With certain
persons these small familiar friends become at last fetishes, which
bring luck, giving to those who firmly believe in them great comfort
and endurance in adversity.
Who has not been amazed at the persistency with which some button
or pebble picked up, or placed perchance in the pocket, remains
in all the migrations of keys and pencils and coins, faithful to
the charge? How some card or counter will lurk in our pocket-book
(misnamed "purse") or porte-monnaie, until it becomes clear as
daylight that it has a reasonable intelligence, and stays with us
because it wants to. As soon as this is recognized--especially by
some person who is accustomed to feel mystery in everything, and who
doubts nothing--the object becomes something which knows, possibly,
a great deal which we do not. Therefore it is to be treated with care
and respect, and in due time it becomes a kind of god, or at least
the shrine of a small respectable genius, or fairy. I have heard of
a gentleman in the Western United States who had a cane in which,
as he seriously believed, a spirit had taken up its abode, and he
reverenced it accordingly. The very ancient and widely-spread belief
in the efficiency of magic wands probably came from an early faith in
such implements as had been warranted to have magic virtues as weapons,
or to aid a pedestrian in walking. Hence it happened that swords which
had been enchanted, or which had taken lives, were supposed to have
some indwelling intelligence. Hence also the names given to swords,
and indeed to all weapons, by the Norsemen. It was believed that the
sword of an executioner, after it had beheaded a certain number of
men, pined for more victims, and manifested its desire by unearthly
rattling or ringing. Apropos of which I have in my possession such a
gruesome implement, which if experience in death could give it life,
or make it ring in the silent watches of the night, would be a ghastly,
noisy guest indeed. I once told the story in "The Gypsies" (Boston,
1881)--now I have something to add to it. I had met in London with an
Indian gypsy named Nano, who informed me that in India he had belonged
to a wandering tribe or race who called themselves Rom, or Romani,
who spoke Romani jib, and who were the Gypsies of the Gypsies. I have
in my possession a strange Hindu knife with an enormously broad blade,
six inches across towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted
in bronze with a little silver. I never could ascertain till I knew
Nano what it had been used for. Even the old king of Oude, when he
examined it, went wrong and was uncertain. Not so the gypsy. When he
was in my library, and his keen black eyes rested on it, he studied
it for a moment, and then said: "I know well enough that knife. I
have seen it before; it is very old, and it was long in use--it was
the knife used by the public executioner in Bhotan. It is Bhotani."
Nano had volunteered the explanation, and whatever his moral character
might be, he was not given to romantic invention. Time passed, I went
to America, stayed there four years, and returned. In 1888 I became
a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Art,
and was on the Central Committee. One day we had a meeting at the
house of a distinguished architect. When it was over, my host showed
me his many treasures of art, or archæology. While examining these,
my attention was attracted by an Indian knife. It was precisely
like mine, but smaller. I asked what it was, and learned that it had
long been used in some place in the East for the express purpose of
sacrificing young girls. And in all respects it was what we might call
the feminine counterpart of my knife. And if I ever had any lingering
doubt as to the accuracy of Nano's account, it disappeared when I
saw the one whose history was perfectly authentic. A few years ago in
Heidelburg there were sold at auction a great number of executioners'
swords, some of which had been used for centuries. A gentleman who
had a special fondness for this kind of bric-à-brac, had for many
years collected them.
It may be here observed that the knife forms a special feature in all
witch-lore, and occurs frequently among the Hungarian and Italian gypsy
charms, or spells. It is sometimes stuck into a table, while a spell
is muttered, protesting that it is not the wood which one wishes to
hurt, but the heart of an enemy. Here the knife is supposed in reality
to have an indwelling spirit which will pass to the heart or health
of the one hated. In Tam O'Shanter there is a knife on the witches'
table, and in Transylvania, as in Tuscany, a new knife, not an old
one, is used in divers ceremonies. Sometimes an old and curious knife
becomes an amulet and is supposed to bring luck, although the current
belief is that any pointed gift causes a quarrel.
But to return to the fetish or pocket-deity which is worn in so many
forms, be they written scrolls, crosses, medals or relics--c'est
tout un. Continental gypsies are notable believers in amulets. Being
in a camp of very wild Cigany in Hungary a few years ago, I asked
them what they wore for bakt, or luck; whereupon they all produced
small seashells, which I was assured were potent against ordinary
misfortunes. But for a babe which was really ill they had provided an
"appreciable" dose in the form of three Maria Theresa silver dollars,
which were hung round its neck, but hidden under its clothes. And I
may here remark that all through many lands, even into the heart of
Africa, this particular dollar is held in high esteem for magical
purposes. From one to another the notion has been transferred, and
travellers and traders are often puzzled to know why the savages
will have no coin save this. From Russia to the Cape it is the same
story, and one to be specially studied by those ethnologists who do
not believe in transmission, and hold that myths and legends are of
local growth and accounted for by similar local conditions.
The gypsies were very desirous to know what my charm was. Fortunately
I had in my pocket a very fine fossil shark's tooth which I had
purchased in Whitby, and this was greatly admired by the learned of
the tribe. Mindful of good example, I obtained for myself specimens
of the mystic shells, foreseeing that they would answer as passes and
signs among the fraternity in Germany and elsewhere. Which, indeed,
came to pass a few days ago in the town of Homburg, when looking from
my window in the Schwedenpfad I saw two very honest-looking gypsies
go by. Walking forth, I joined them, and led them into a garden, where
over beer and cigars we discussed "the affairs of Egypt." These Romanys
were from the Tyrol, and had the frank bold manner of the mountain-men
blended with the natural politeness of the better class of gypsy. I had
taken with me in my pocket, foreseeing its use, a small bag or purse,
containing an assortment of objects such as would have puzzled anybody
except a Red Indian, a negro, or any believer in medaolin or Voodoo,
or my new acquaintance; and after a conversation on dúrkepen (in
Anglo-gypsy, dukkerin) or fortune-telling, I asked the men what they
wore. They wished to see my amulets first. So I produced the shells;
which were at once recognized and greatly admired, especially one,
which is something of a curiosity, since in its natural markings
is the word NAV very plainly inscribed: Nav, in gypsy, meaning "the
name." The elder gypsy said he had no charm; he had long been seeking
a good one, but had not as yet met with the correct article. And then
he begged me--gracious powers, how he did beg!--to bestow on him one
of my shells. I resolved to do so--but at another time.
The younger gypsy, who was a pasche-paskero, a musician, and had with
him a rare old violin in a wonderfully carved wooden case at least
two centuries old, was "all right" on the fetish question. He had his
shell, sewn up in a black leather bag, which he wore by a cord round
his neck. Then I exhibited my small museum. Every object in it was
carefully and seriously examined. My shark's tooth was declared to be
a very good fetish, a black pebble almost equal to the shell, and an
American Indian arrow-head of quartz passed muster as of possible
though somewhat doubtful virtue. But an English sixpence with a
hole in it was rejected as a very petty and contemptible object. I
offered it in vain as a present to my friends: they would not accept
it. Neither did they want money: my dross might perish with me. It
was the shell--the precious beautiful little shell on which the Romany
in search of a fetish had set his heart; the shell which would bring
him luck, and cause him to be envied, and ensure him admiration in the
tents of the wanderers from Paris to Constantinople. He admitted that
it was the very shell of shells--a baro seréskeri sharkuni, or famous
sea-snail. I believe the gypsies would have given me their fine old
Stainer violin and the carved case for it. Failing to get the shell,
he implored me to give him the black pebble. I resolved to give him
both in free gift the next time we met, or as a parting souvenir. Alas
for the Romany chal!--we never met again. The police allow no gypsies
in Homburg, and so they had to move on. I sought them that night and I
sought them next day; but they were over the hills and far away. But I
have no doubt that the fame of the shell on which Nature has written
the Name--the very logos of magic itself--spread ere the summer was
past even to the Carpathians. Something tells me that it is not played
out yet, and that I shall hear anon something regarding it.
The cult of the shell is widely spread. One day in a public-house, in
the West End of London, I, while taking my glass of bitter, entered
into conversation with a rather tall, decently-attired brunette
Alsatian girl, who spoke French and German, and who knew a few words
of Romany, which she said she had picked up by accident--at least
she professed not to be gypsy, and to know no more. Being minded to
test the truth of this, I casually exhibited one of my shells and
said it was a Hungarian gypsy amulet for la bonne fortune. She began
to beg earnestly for it, without getting it. On several occasions at
long intervals, when I met her in the street, she again implored me
for the treasure, saying that she believed "if she had it, her luck
would turn to good." And, being convinced of her gypsyism, I said,
"It will do you no good unless you have faith." To which she replied,
in a tone which indicated truth itself: "But I have faith--absolute,
entire faith in it." Which seeing, and finding that she was a true
convert to the power of the holy shell, I gave it to her with my
blessing, knowing that it would be a joy and comfort to her in all
the trials of life.
This reminds me that I have seen, and indeed possess, a pearl-shell
bearing the image of Saint Francis of Assisi, such as is sold by
thousands at his shrine, and which are supposed to possess certain
miraculous innate or intrinsic virtues. Thus, if worn by children,
they are a cure for croup. "Ah--but that is a very different thing,
you know."
An idol is an object, generally an image, worshipped for its own
sake--being supposed to not only represent a god, but to have some
immanent sanctity. The Catholic priest, and for that matter all
Brahmins or bonzes, assure us that their sacred images are "only
symbols, not regarded as really dwelling-places of divinity." They
are not, so to speak, magnified amulets. Yet how is it that, if this
be true, so many images and pictures are regarded and represented by
priests as being able of themselves by the touch to cure tooth-ache,
and all other ills which flesh and bones are heirs to. Why is one image
especially good for tooth-ache, while another of the same person cures
cramp? Why, if they are all only "symbols," is one more healing or
holy than another? How can our Lady of Embrun be of greater aid than
our Lady of Paris? The instant we ascribe to an image or a shell real
power to act, we make of it an inspired being in itself, and all the
sophistry in the world as to its being a means of faith, or a symbol,
or causing a higher power to act on the suppliant, is rubbish. The
devotee believes tout bonnement that the image works the cure, and if
he did not, any other image of the Virgin or Saint would answer the
same purpose. This chaff has been thrashed out a thousand times--or
many tens of thousand times in vain,--as vain so far as effects go
as is the remarkably plain First Commandment. And it will last, while
one fetish endures, that the hierophant will call it a mere "symbol,"
and the ignorant worshipper, absolutely unable to comprehend him, will
worship the symbol as the thing itself--as he is really expected to do.
According to J. B. Friedrich, "Symbolik der Natur," the sea-shell, on
account of its being a product of the sea, or of the all-generating
moisture; and much more probably from its shape, is an emblem
of woman herself. Therefore as "Venus, Love's goddess, was born
of the sea," shells are dedicated to her. ("Museo Bourbonico,"
vol. vi. p. 10. Kugler, "Handbuch Geschichte der Malerei,"
Berlin, 1837, vol. iv. p. 311. Also translated by Sir H. Austin
Layard). Being one of the great emblems of productive Nature, or
of life and light, and opposed to barrenness, absence of pleasure,
darkness, or negation, it was of course a charm against witchcraft
or evil. That the gypsies have retained it as a powerful agent for
"luck," is extremely interesting, showing to what a degree they are
still influenced by the early symbolism which effectively formed not
one but many mythologies. Among the Hungarian gypsies the virtue or
magical power of a shell is in proportion to the degree of resemblance
above mentioned, which it possesses, as Wlislocki expressly declares.
This association of shells, with the mysterious and magical, is to
be found among gypsies in the East, as is shown by the following:
from my work entitled "The Gypsies." It describes something which I
saw many times in Cairo:--
"Beyond the door which, when opened, gave this sight, was a dark,
ancient archway, twenty yards long, which opened on the glaring,
dusty street, where camels with their drivers, and screaming saïs
or carriage-runners and donkey-boys and crying venders kept up the
wonted Oriental din. But in the archway, in its duskiest corner,
there sat in silence and immovable, a living picture--a dark,
handsome woman, of thirty years, who was unveiled. She had
before her on the gateway floor, a square of cloth and a few
shells. Sometimes an Egyptian of the lower class stopped, and
there would be a grave consultation. She was a fortune-teller,
and from the positions which the shells assumed when thrown she
predicted what would come to pass. And then there would be a
solemn conference and a thoughtful stroking of the beard, if the
applicant was a man, and then the usual payment to the oracle,
and a departure. And it was all world-old primæval Egyptian,
as it was Chaldæan, for the woman was a Rhagarin, or gypsy, and
as she sat so sat the diviners of ancient days by the wayside,
casting shells for auspices, even as arrows were cast of old,
to be cursed by Israel.
"It is not remarkable that among the myriad manteias of olden
days there should have been one by shells. The sound of the sea
when heard in a nautilus or conch is marvellously "like that of
ocean surges murmuring far."
"Shake me and it awakens--then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."
All of this is very strange to children and not less so to all
unsophisticated folk, and I can remember how in boyhood I was
told and listened with perfect faith to the distant roaring, and
marvelled at the mystery of the ocean song being thus for ever kept
alive inland. The next step to this is to hear in the sea-murmuring
something like voices, and this is as curious as it is true--that if
the mind be earnestly given to it, and the process be continued for
a long time during several days, many persons, and probably all in
time, will come to distinguish or hear human utterances and eventually
words. There is no special faith required here; the mind even of the
most sceptical or unimaginative will often turn back on itself, and
by dint of mere perseverance produce such effects. An old pitcher or
jug of a peculiar shape is also declared to be admirably adapted for
this purpose, and I have one of Elizabeth's time which was trawled
up from the sea near Lowestoft which would fulfil every requisition.
In 1886 I was by moonlight in a camp of gypsies in the old Roman
amphitheatre near Budapest. It was a very picturesque sight, what
with the blazing fire, the strangely-dressed men, the wild shrieking,
singing, and dancing women. And when, as I have before mentioned, they
showed me the shells which they carried for amulets, they exhibited one
much larger of conch-like form, the tip of which had been removed and
to which there was attached a flexible tube. This was used in a very
remarkable trick. The shell, or one like it, is put into the hands of
the person consulting the oracle, who is directed to listen to the
voice of the Nivashi, or spirit of the air. Then he is blindfolded,
the tube applied, and through it the gypsy speaks in a trained soft
voice. Thus, in conchomanteia, the oracles still live and devotees
still hear the fairies talk.
Now, be it observed that hearing is the most deceptive of the
senses--as the reader may have seen exemplified by a lecturer,
when the audience were persuaded that he was fiddling on one cane
with another, or blowing a flute tune on one, when the music was
made by a confederate behind a screen. I myself, a few days since,
when in the Köppern Thal, verily believed I heard the murmur and
music of children's voices--when lo! it proved to be the babbling
brook. Some years ago--I forget where it happened in England, but I
guarantee the truth of what I tell--it was found that the children
in a certain village were in the habit of going to an ancient tomb
in which there was a round hole, putting their ears to it, and, as
they said, of listening to what the dead people were saying. It is
facile enough to understand that among them there would be some whose
unconscious creative faculty would lead them to literally hearing
words or songs. There is another ancient and beautiful mystical
association with shells. The conch when pierced formed a trumpet,
whose notes seemed to be allied to the murmuring of the wind and
waves heard in the shell when applied to the ear. The sea-god Triton
blew upon a shell--"meaning thereby the roaring of the waves." "And
in analogous wise a shell is represented on the Tower of the Winds
in Athens, to represent Boreas, the north-east wind, and the roaring
of the storm" (Millin, "Gallerie Mythologique"). The resemblance of
wind to the human voice has probably occurred to every human being,
and has furnished similes for every poet. That these voices should be
those of spirits is a natural following. So the last Hebrew oracle,
the Bath Kol, or Daughter of the Voice, survives in shells and lives
in gypsy-lore. And so we find in rags and patches on the garments of
Egyptian fellahin the edges of Pharaoh's garment, which in olden time
it was an honour for kings to kiss.
Deception of this kind by means of voices, apparently supernatural,
is of great antiquity. The high priest Savan the Asmunian, of Egypt,
is said to have used acoustic tubes for this purpose, and it is very
evident that the long corridors or passages in the stone temples must
have suggested it as well as whispering galleries. The Hebrew Cabalists
are believed to have made one form of the mysterious Teraphim by taking
the head of a child and so preparing it by magic ceremonies that when
interrogated it would reply. These ceremonies consisted in fact of
skilfully adjusting a phonetic tube to the head. It is very probable
that the widely-spread report of this oracle gave rise to the belief
that the Jews slaughtered and sacrificed children. "Eliphaz Levi,"
or the Abbé Constant, a writer of no weight whatever as an authority,
but not devoid of erudition, and with occasional shrewd insights, gives
it as his belief that the terrible murders of hundreds of children by
Gilles de Retz--the absurdly so-called original of Blue-beard--were
suggested by a recipe for sanguinary sorcery, drawn from some Hebrew
Cabalistical book. Nicephorus (Lib. 7 c. 33) and Cedrenus, as cited
by Grosius in his "Magica" (1597), tell us that when Constantine
was ill a number of children were collected to be slain that the
emperor might bathe in their blood (in quo si se Imperator ablueret,
certo recuperaret), and that because he was moved by the tears of
their mothers to spare their lives, was restored to health by the
saints. It seems to have escaped the attention of writers that at
the very time during the Middle Ages when the Jews were being most
bitterly persecuted for offering children at the Passover, it was
really a common thing among Christians to sacrifice children, maids,
or grown-up people, by burying them alive under the foundations of
castles, &c., to insure their stability--a ghastly sacrifice, which
in after-times took the form of walling-up a cock and finally an
egg. But from an impartial and common-sense standpoint, there could
be no difference between the sacrifice of a child by a Cabalist and
the torturing and burning witches and heretics by ecclesiastics,
unless, indeed, that the latter was the wickeder of the two, since
the babes were simply promptly killed, while the Inquisitors put
their victims to death with every refinement of mental and physical
torture. Both Cabalist and priest were simply engaged in different
forms of one and the same fetish-work which had been handed down
from the days of witchcraft. Nor did Calvin, when he burnt Servetus,
differ in anything from a Voodoo sacrificing "a goat without horns."
Punishing a heretic to please or placate the Deity differs in nothing
from killing any victim to get luck. Other sentiments may be mingled
with this "conjuring," but the true foundation of black witchcraft
(and all witchcraft is black which calls for blood, suffering,
starvation, and the sacrifice of natural instincts), is the mortar
of the fear of punishment, and the stones of the hope of reward,
the bulk of the latter being immeasurably greater than that of the
former, which is a mere Bindemittel, or means of connection.
It is remarkable that nowhere, not even in England, do the gypsies
regard the witch as utterly horrible, diabolical, and damnable. She is
with them simply a woman who has gained supernatural power, which she
uses for good or misuses for evil according to her disposition. The
witch of the Church--Catholic or Protestant--when closely examined is
a very childish conception. She sets forth personal annoyance without
any regard whatever as to whether it is really good in disguise or a
natural result of our own follies. Thus witches caused thunder-storms,
which, because they were terrifying and more or less destructive,
were seriously treated by the Church as unmitigated evils, therefore
as phenomena directly due to the devil and his servants. Theology the
omniscient did not know that storms cleared the air. Witches were
responsible for all pestilences, and very often for all disorders
of any kind--as it was very convenient for the ignorant leech to
attribute to sorcery or moral delinquency or to God, a disease which
he could not cure. For "Theology, the science of sciences," had not
as yet ascertained that plagues and black deaths, and most of the
ills of man are the results of neglect of cleanliness, temperance,
and other sanitary laws. It is only a few years since a very eminent
clergyman and president of a college in America attributed to
"Divine dispensation" the deaths of a number of students, which were
directly due to palpable neglect of proper sanitary arrangements by
the reverend gentleman himself, and his colleagues. But, admitting
the "divine dispensation," according to the mediæval theory, the
president, as the agent, must have been a "wizard"--or conjuror--a
delusion which the most superficial examination of his works would
at once dissipate. But to return--there can be no denial whatever
that according to what is admitted to be absolutely true to-day by
everybody, be he orthodox or liberal, witches, had they existed,
must have been agents of God, busied in preventing plagues instead
of causing them--by raising storms which cleared the air. Even the
Algonkin Indians knew more than the Church in this respect, for they
have a strange old legend to the effect that when the god of Storms,
Wuch-ow-sen, the giant eagle, was hindered by a magician from his
accustomed work, the sea and air grew stagnant, and people died. [24]
The witch was simply another form of the Hebrew Azrael, God's Angel
of Death.
Which may all lead to the question: If a belief in witches as utterly
evil servants of the devil could be held as an immutable dogma of
the Church and a matter of eternal truth for eternal belief--to
prove which there is no end of ingenious argument and an appalling
array of ecclesiastical authority cited in the black-letter "Liber
de Sortilegiis" of Paulus Grillandus, now lying before me (Lyons,
1547), as well as in the works of Sprenger, Bodinus, Delrio, and the
Witch-bull of Pope Innocent--and if this belief be now exploded even
among the priests, what proof have we that any of the dogmas which
went with it are absolutely and for ever true? This is the question
of dogmatik, versus development or evolution, and witchcraft is its
greatest solvent. For when people believe, or make believe, in a thing
so very much as to torture like devils and put to death hundreds
of thousands of fellow-beings, mostly helpless and poor old women,
not to mention many children, it becomes a matter of very serious
import to all humanity to determine once for all whether the system or
code according to which this was done was absolutely right for ever,
or not. For if it was true, these executions and the old theory of
witchcraft were all quite right, as the Roman Church still declares,
since the Pope has sanctioned of late years several very entertaining
works in which modern spiritualists, banjo-twangers, table-turners,
&c., are declared to be really wizards, who perform their stupendous
and appalling miracles directly by the aid of devils. And, by the way,
somebody might make an interesting work not only on the works in the
Index Librum Prohibitorum, which it entails seventy-six distinct kinds
of damnation to read, but also on those which the Pope sanctions--I
believe, blesses. Among the later of the latter is one which pretends
to prove that Jews do really still continue to sacrifice Christian
children at the Passover feast--and, for aught I know, to eat them,
fried in oil, or "buttered with goose-grease"--apropos of which, I
marvel that the Hebrews, instead of tamely denying it, do not boldly
retort on the Christians the charge of torturing their own women and
children to death as witches, which was a thousand times wickeder
than simply bleeding them with a penknife, as young Hugh of Lincoln
was said to have been disposed of by the Jew's daughter.
But people all say now--that was the age, and the Church was still
under the influence of barbarism, and so on. Exactly; but that
admission plainly knocks down and utterly destroys the whole platform
of dogmatism and the immutable and eternal truth of any dogma whatever,
for it admits evolution--and to seize on its temporary fleeting forms
and proclaim that they are immutable, is to mistake the temporal
for the eternal, the infinitesimal fraction for the whole. This is
not worshipping God, the illimitable, unknown tremendous Source of
Life, but His minor temporary forms, "essences," or "angels," as the
Cabalists termed the successive off-castings of His manifestations.
In Being's flood, in action's storm
I work and weave--above, beneath,
Work and weave in endless motion
Birth and death, an infinite ocean
A seizing and giving
The fire of the living.
'Tis thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.
Now there are infinite numbers of these garments, but none of them
are God, though the Church declared that what they had of them were
truly Divine. So Oriental princes sent their old clothes to distant
provinces to be worshipped, as Gessler sent his hat: it is an old,
old story, and one which will be long repeated in many lands.
I have, not far back, mentioned a work on witchcraft by Paulus
Grillandus. Its full title is "Tractatus de Hereticis et sortilegiis,
omnifariam Coitio eorumque penis. Item de Questionibus et Tortura ac
de Relaxatione Carceratorum"--that is, in brief, a work on Heretics,
Witches breakers of the Seventh Commandment of all kinds, Examination
by Torture, and Imprisonment. It was a leading vade mecum, or standard
guide, in its time for lawyers and the clergy, especially the latter,
and reads as if it had come from the library of hell, and been written
by a devil, though composed, according to the preface, to promote
the dignity and glory of the Christian Church. I can well believe
that a sensitive humane person could be really maddened by a perusal
and full comprehension of all the diabolical horrors which this book
reveals, and the glimpses which it gives of what must have been endured
literally by millions of heretics and "witches," and all men or women
merely accused by anybody of any kind of "immorality," especially of
"heresy." I say suspected or accused--for either was sufficient to
subject a victim to horrible agonies until he or she confessed. What is
most revolting is the calm, icy-cold-blooded manner in which the most
awful, infernal cruelties are carefully discussed--as, for instance,
if one has already had any limbs amputated for punishment whether
further tortures may then be inflicted? It is absolutely a relief to
find that among the six kinds of persons legally exempted from the
rack, &c.--there are only six and these do not include invalids--are
pregnant women. But such touches of common humanity are rare indeed
in it. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that the whole
spirit of this work--which faithfully reflects the whole spirit of the
"justice" of the Middle Ages--inclines in a ferocious, wolfish manner
to extend and multiply punishment of the most horrible kinds to every
small offence against the Church--to manufacture and increase crime
as if it were capital for business, and enlarge the sphere of torture
so as to create power and awe.
Nous avons changé tout cela, say the descendants of those fiends
in human form. But if it was wrong then why did you do it if you
were infallible inspired judges? And if you now believe that to be
atrocious which was once holy, and a vast portion of your whole system,
how can you say that the Church does not follow the laws of evolution
and progress--and if so, where will it stop? It is a curious reflection
that if the Pope and Cardinals of 1890 had lived four hundred years
ago they would (with the exception, perhaps, of the Spaniards) have
all been burned alive for heresy. Which is literally true.
Within a minute's walk from where I sit, and indeed visible from my
window in this town of Homburg vor der Höhe, are two round towers of
other days--grim and picturesque relics of the early Middle Ages. One
is called the Hexenthurm or Witches' Tower. In it gypsies, witches,
and heretics were confined--it was the hotel specially reserved
for them when they visited Homburg, and in its cells which are of
the smallest between walls of the thickest, I or you, reader, might
be confined to-day, but for one Martin Luther and certain laws of
evolution or progress of which Paulus Grillandus did not dream.
As I was sketching the tower, an old woman told me that there were many
strange tales about it. That I can well believe but I dare say they
are all summed up in the following ballad from the German of Heine:--
"The Witch."
"Folks said when my granny Eliza bewitched,
She must die for her horrid transgression;
Much ink from his pen the old magistrate pitched,
But he could not extort a confession.
And when in the kettle my granny was thrown
She yelled 'Death' and 'Murder!' while dying;
And when the black smoke all around us was blown,
As a raven she rose and went flying.
Little black grandmother, feathered so well,
Oh, come to the tower where I'm sitting:
Bring cakes and bring cheese to me here in the cell,
Through the iron-barred window flitting.
Little black grandmother, feathered and wise,
Just give my aunt a warning,
Lest she should come flying and pick out my eyes
When I merrily swing in the morning."
Horst in his "Dæmonomagie," a History of the Belief in Magic, Demoniac
marvels, Witchcraft, &c., gives the picture of a Witch-tower, at
Lindheim in the Wetterau, with all its terrible history, extracted
from the town archives. It is a horrible history of torturing and
burning at the stake of innumerable women of all ages, the predominant
feature being that any accusation by anybody whatever, or any rumour
set afloat in any way, amply sufficed to bring an enemy to death,
or to rob a person who had money. Hysterical women and perverse or
eccentric children frequently originated these accusations merely to
bring themselves into notice.
There was till within a few years a Witches' Tower in Heidelberg. It
was a very picturesque structure in an out-of-the-way part of the
town, in nobody's way, and was therefore of course pulled down by the
good Philistine citizens, who have the same mania in Heidelberg as
"their ignorant-like" in London, Philadelphia, or any other town,
for removing all relics of the olden time.
In connection with sorcery and gypsies, it is worth observing that in
1834 the latter, in Swabia, or South Germany, frequently went about
among the country-people, with puppet-shows, very much of the Punch
kind, and that they had a rude drama of Faust, the great wizard,
which had nothing to do with that of Goethe. It was derived from
the early sources, and had been little by little gypsified into a
melodrama peculiar to the performers. August Zoller, in his "Bilder
aus Schwaben" (Stuttgard, 1834), gives the following description of
it. The book has a place in all Faust libraries, and has been kept
alive by this single passage:--
"There is a blast of a trumpet, and the voice of a man proclaims
behind the scenes that the play is to begin. The curtain is drawn,
and Faust leaning against the background--which represents a
city--soliloquizes:
"'I am the cleverest doctor in the world, but all my cleverness
does not help me to make the beautiful princess love me. I will
call up Satan from the under-world to aid me in my plans to win
her. Devil--I call thee!'
"Meanwhile Faust's servant--the funny man--has entered and amused
the public with comical gestures. The appearance of the devil is
announced by a firework (Sprühteufel) fizzing and cracking. He
descends from the air, there being no arrangements for his coming
up. The servant bursts into a peal of laughter, and the devil asks:
"'Faust thou hast called me; now, what is thy wish?'
"'I love the lovely princess--canst thou make her love me?'
"'Nothing is easier. Cut thy finger and sign to me thy life;
then all my devilish art will be at thy service till thou hast
committed four murders.'
"Faust and the devil fly forth, the servant making sarcastic
remarks as to the folly of his master, and the curtain falls.
"In the second act the fair princess enters--she is three times as
large as Faust, but bewails his absence in a plaintive voice and
departs. Faust enters and calls for a Furio who shall carry him
to Mantua. Enter three Furios (witches) who boast their power. 'I
can carry you as swiftly as a moor-cock flies,' says one. This is
not swift enough for Faust. 'I fly as fast as bullet from a gun,'
says the second. The master answers:
"'A right good pace, but not enough for Faust.' To the third:
'How fast art thou?'
"'As quick as Thought.'
"'That will suffice--there's naught so swift as Thought. Bear me
to Mantua, to her I love, the princess of my heart!'
"The Furio takes Faust on her back, and they fly through the
air. The servant makes, as before, critical and sarcastic remarks
on what has passed, and the curtain falls.
"In the third act the devil persuades Faust to murder his father,
so as to inherit his treasures, 'for the old man has a tough
life.' In the fourth, maddened by jealousy, he stabs the princess
and her supposed lover. The small sarcastic servant takes the
murdered pair by the legs, and drags them about, cracking jokes,
and giving the corpses cuffs on their ears to bring them again
to life.
"In the fifth act, the clock strikes eleven. Faust has now filled
to the brim the measure of his iniquity. The devil appears,
proves to him that it is time to depart; it strikes twelve; the
smoke of a fizzling squib and several diabolical fire-crackers
fills the air, and Faust is carried away, while the small servant,
as satanical and self-possessed as ever, makes his jokes on the
folly of Faust--and the curtain falls."
This is the true Faust drama of the Middle Ages, with the
ante-Shakespearian blending of tragedy and ribald fun. But this same
mixture is found to perfection in the early Indian drama--for instance,
in "Sakuntala"--and it would be indeed a very curious thing should
it be discovered that the gypsies, who were in all ages small actors
and showmen of small plays, had brought from the East some rude drama
of a sorcerer, who is in the end cheated by his fiend. Such is, in
a measure, the plot of the Baital Pachisi or Vikram and the Vampire,
which is borrowed from or founded on old traditions, and the gypsies,
from their familiarity with magic, and as practical actors, would,
in all probability, have a Faust play of some kind, according to the
laws of cause and effect. In any case the suggestion may be of value
to some investigator.
Gypsies in England--that is those "of the old sort"--regard a
shoe-string as a kind of amulet or protection. Many think it is
unlucky to have one's photograph taken, but no harm can come of it
if the one who receives the picture gives the subject a shoe-string
or a pair of laces.
Dr. F. S. Krauss in his curious work, "Sreca, or Fortune and Fate in
the popular belief of the South Slavonians" (Vienna, 1886), draws
a line of distinction between the fetish and amulet. "The fetish,"
he declares, "has virtue from being the dwelling of a protecting
spirit. The amulet, however, is only a symbol of a higher power,"
that is of a power whose attention is drawn by or through it to
the believer or wearer. This, however, like the distinction between
idolatry and worshipping images as symbols of higher beings, becomes
in the minds of the multitude (and for that matter, in all minds),
a distinction without a dot of difference. The amulet may "rest upon
a higher range of ideas, while the fetish stands on its own feet,"
but if both are regarded as bringing luck and if, for instance, one
rosary or image of the same person is believed to bring more luck
than another, it is a fetish and nothing else. An amulet may pretend
to be a genteeler kind of fetish, but they are all of the same family.
The gypsies prepare among the Bosniacs, "on the high plains of Malwan,"
a fetish in the form of a cradle made of nine kinds of wood, to bring
luck to the child who sleeps in it. But Dr. Krauss falls, I presume,
into a very great error, when he attributes to her Majesty the Queen
of England a belief in fetish, on the strength of the following
remarkable passage from the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung:--
"By command of Queen Victoria, Mr. Martin, Director of the
Institute for the Blind, has attended to the making a cradle for
the newly-born child of the Princess of Battenberg. The cradle
is to be made entirely by blind men and women. The Queen firmly
believes that objects made by blind people bring luck."
Truly, if anything could bring luck it ought to be something ordered
with a kind and charitable view from poor and suffering people,
but it is rather hard to promptly conclude that her Majesty believes
in fetish because she benevolently ordered a cradle from the blind,
and that she had no higher motive than to get something which would
bring luck to her grandchild.
It may be observed in connection with this superstition that among
the Hungarian gypsies several spells depend on using different kinds
of wood, and that four are said to have been taken for the true cross.
Gypsies, in common with the rest of the "fetishioners" of all the
world, believe in the virtue of a child's caul. Dr. Krauss found in
Kobas on the Save an amulet which contained such a caul with garlic
and four-leaved clover. This must have been a very strong charm indeed,
particularly if the garlic was fresh.
Another very great magic protector in every country among gypsies
as well as Gentiles, is the thunderbolt, known in Germany as the
Donneraxt, Donnerstein, Donnerkeil, Albschoss, Strahlstein, and
Teufelsfinger. It was called by the Greeks Astropelákia, by the Latins
Gemma cerauniæ, by the Spaniards Piedras de rayo, by the dwellers
in the French High Alps Peyras del tron (pierres de tonerre), by the
Birmans Mogio (the child of lightning), by the Chinese Rai-fu-seki (the
battle-axe of Tengu, the guardian of Heaven), by the Hindoos Swayamphu,
or "the self-originated." Dr. Krauss, from whom I have taken these
remarks, adds that in America and Australia it is also regarded as
a charm protective and luck-bringing. But here there is a confusion
of objects. The thunderbolt described by Dr. Krauss is, I believe,
a petrified shell, a kind of mucro or belemnite. The thunderbolt
of the Red Indians really resembles it, but is entirely different
in its nature. The latter results from lightning entering the sand
fusing it. It sometimes makes in this way a very long tube or rod,
with a point. People, finding these, naturally believed that they
were thunderbolts. I knew an old Penobscot Indian who, seeing the
lightning strike the earth, searched and found such a thunderbolt,
which he greatly prized. In process of time people who found mucrones
in rocks believed them to be the same as the glass-like points of
fused sand which they so much resembled.
The so-called thunderbolt is confused with the prehistoric stone
axe, both bearing the same name in many lands. As this axe is
often also a hammer it is evident that it may have been sacred to
Thor. "The South Slavonian"--or gypsy--"does not distinguish," says
Dr. Krauss, "between the thunderbolt and prehistoric axe. He calls
both strelica." The possession of one brings luck and prosperity in
all business, but it must be constantly carried on the person. Among
the "thirties" there lived in Gaj in Slavonia a poor Jewish peddler
named David. Once he found a strelica. He always carried it about
with him. The peasants envied him greatly its possession. They came
to him in the market-place and cried, "Al si sretan, Davide!" ("Ha,
how lucky thou art, David!") The Slavonian Jews called him, for a joke,
"Strelica."
The prehistoric axe was probably regarded as gifted with fetish power,
even in the earliest age, especially when it was made of certain
rare materials. Thus among the Red Indians of Massachusetts stone
"tomahawks" of veined, petrified wood were specially consecrated
to burial-places, while in Europe axe-heads of jade were the
most coveted of possessions. A. B. Meyer has written a large work,
"Jade und Nephrit Objecte aus dem Ethnographische Museum zu Dresden,
America und Europe" (Leipzig, 1882). It has always been supposed that
the objects of true jade came only from Tartary, and I believe that
I was the first person to discover that it existed in quantities in
Western Europe. The history of this "finding" is not without interest.
It has been usual--it is said for a thousand years--for pilgrims to
Iona to bring away with them as souvenirs a few green pebbles of
a peculiar kind, and to this day, as every tourist will remember,
the children who come to the steamboat offer handsful of them
for sale. When I was there many years ago--in Iona--I also went
away with perhaps twenty of them. One evening, after returning to
London, there were at my home three Chinese gentlemen attached to the
Legation. The conversation turned on Buddhist pilgrimages and Fusang,
and the question, founded on passages in the Chinese annals, as to
whether certain monks had really passed from the Celestial Kingdom to
Mexico in the fifth century and returned. This reminded me of Iona,
and I produced my green pebbles, and told what I knew about them.
My visitors regarded the stones with great interest and held
an animated conversation over them in Chinese, which I did not
understand. Observing this I made them presents of the pebbles, and
was thanked with an earnestness which seemed to me to be out of all
proportion to the value of the gifts. Thinking this over the next
day, I wrote to the clergyman at Iona asking him to be so kind as to
send me some of the pebbles, and offering to pay for them. He did so,
sending me by mail a box of the stones. Two or three were very pretty,
one especially. It is of a dark green colour and slightly transparent.
Two years after, when in Philadelphia, meeting with an old friend,
Dr. Joseph Leidy, well known as a man of science, and, inter alia, as
a mineralogist. I showed him my pebble and asked him what it was. He
replied, "It is jade." To my query whether it might not be nephrite
he answered no, that it was true jade of fine quality.
Jade is in China a talismanic stone, many occult virtues and
luck-bringing qualities being ascribed to it. It is very curious,
and possibly something more than a mere chance coincidence, that
the green pebbles of Iona were also carried as charms. It would be
remarkable if even in prehistoric times, or in the stone age, Iona
and Tartary had been connected by superstition and tradition.
Among the gypsies as well as Christians in Servia, nuts, especially
those which are heart-shaped (i.e., double), are carried as fetishes
or amulets. In very early times a nut, as containing like a seed
the principle of germination and self-reproduction, was typical of
life. Being enclosed in a shell it seemed to be in a casket or box
which was of itself a mystical symbol. Hence nuts are often found in
ancient graves. There are many stories accordingly in all countries in
which a nut or egg is represented as being connected with the life of
some particular being or person. The ogre in several tales can live
until a certain egg is broken. In the Graubunden or Grisons there is
the following legend:--
"Once there lived near Fideriseau a rich peasant. To him came a
poor beggar, who asked for alms in vain. Then the man replied,
'If thou wilt give me nothing yet will I give thee something. Thou
shalt keep thy treasure and also thy daughter after thee; yea,
and for years after she is dead her spirit shall know no rest for
taking care of it. But I give thee this nut. Plant it by yonder
great stone, thou stony-hearted fool. From the nut will grow a
tree, and from the tree twigs from which a cradle will be made in
which a child will be rocked who will redeem thy daughter from
her penance.' And after the girl died, a spirit of a pale woman
with dark hair was seen flying nightly near Fideris, and that
for many years, for it takes a long time for an acorn to grow up
into an oak. But as she is no longer seen it is believed that the
cradle has been made and the child born who became the deliverer."
A. B. Elysseeff, in his very interesting article based on Kounavine's
"Materials for the Study of the Gypsies," gives the representation
of four gypsy amulets, also "a cabalistic token" that brings good
luck to its wearer.
"The amulets," writes M. Elysseeff, "are made of wrought iron
and belong to M. Kounavine. The cabalistic sign is designed"
(copied?) "by ourselves, thanks to the amiability of a gypsy
djecmas (sorcerer) of the province of Novogorod. The amulet A was
found by M. Kounavine among the gypsies who roam with their camps
in the Ural neighbourhood; some Bessarabian gypsies supplied B;
C was obtained from a gypsy sorcerer of the Persian frontier,
and D formed a part of some ornaments placed with their dead by
gypsies of Southern Russia.
"The cabalistic sign" (vide illustration at head of chapter)
"represents roughly a serpent, the symbol of Auromori, the evil
principle in gypsy mythology. The figure of an arch surrounded
with stars is, according to M. Kounavine, held by the gypsies as
symbolizing the earth, the meaning of the triangle △ is not
known. The moon and stars which surround the earth and which are,
so to speak, enclosed in the serpent's coils, symbolize the world
lying in evil. This sign is engraved by gypsies upon the plates of
the harness of the horses, of garments, and as designed ornaments."
It may be here remarked that the symbolism of M. Kounavine, while
it may be quite accurate, must be taken with great reserve. If the
"arch" be simply a horse-shoe, all these ornaments, except the serpent,
may be commonly found on the trappings of London dray-horses.
"Amulet A, which also represents the sun, the moon, the stars,
earth, and a serpent, can equally serve as a symbol of the
universe. According to M. Kounavine, Ononi" (the Ammon of the
Egyptians) "and Auromori, are symbolized upon this amulet. Amulet
B represents a man surrounded by a halo, aided by the moon and the
stars, and armed with a sword and arrows. Beneath is represented
the horse; the serpent symbolizes Auromori. As a whole this amulet
represents the conflict between the good and evil principle,
Jandra (Indra) against Auromori.
"Amulet C represents a gleaming star and the serpent, and is
called Baramy (Brama), symbolizing, according to M. Kounavine,
the gypsy proto-divinity.
"Or amulet D, which represents a flaming pyre and some
hieroglyphics, may also symbolize the prayer addressed to the
divinity of the fire."
If these explanations were given by gypsy sorcerers the amulets are
indeed very curious. But, abstractly, the serpent, arrows, stars,
the moon, an archer, a fox, and a plant, occur, all the world over,
on coins or in popular art, with or without symbolism, and I confess
that I should have expected something very different as illustrating
such a remarkable mythology as that given by M. Kounavine. However, the
art of a nation--as, for instance, that of the Algonkin Indians--may
be very far indeed behind its myths and mental conceptions.