the fact appears to be self-evident. Yet there was a time when there
was something in a name. We have abundant evidence from the history of
the ancients, and from observations of savage tribes, to show that they
believed in some inseparable and mysterious connection between a name
and the object bearing it, which has given rise to a remarkable series
of superstitions, some of which have left traces even amongst ourselves.
The Jews believed that the name of a child would have a great influence
in shaping its career; and we have a remarkable instance of this sort
of superstition in quite a different quarter of the world. Catlin, the
historian of the Canadian Indians, tells us that when he was among
the Mohawks, an old chief, by way of paying him a great compliment,
insisted on conferring upon him his own name, _Cayendorongue_. ‘He had
been,’ Catlin explains, ‘a noted warrior; and told me that now I had
a right to assume to myself all the acts of valour he had performed,
and that now my name would echo from hill to hill over all the Five
Nations.’
The generosity of the Mohawk chief will doubtless be more appreciated
when we observe that it is seldom the superstition takes the form of
giving one’s name away as in his case; on the contrary, most savages
are very much opposed to mentioning their names. A well-known writer
points out that the Indians of British Columbia have a strange
prejudice against telling their own names, and his observation is
confirmed by travellers all over the world. In many tribes, if the
indiscreet question is asked them, they will nudge their neighbour
and get him to answer for them. The mention of a name by the unwary
has sometimes been followed by unpleasant results. We are told, for
instance, by Mr Blackhouse, of a native lady of Van Diemen’s Land who
stoned an English gentleman for having, in his ignorance of Tasmanian
etiquette, casually mentioned the name of one of her sons. Nothing
will induce a Hindu woman to mention the name of her husband; in
alluding to him she uses a variety of descriptive epithets, such as
‘the master,’ &c., but avoids his proper name with as scrupulous care
as members of the House of Commons when speaking of each other in the
course of debate. Traces of this may be seen even in Scotland; one
may often come across women in rural districts who are in the habit
of speaking of their husbands by no other name than ‘he.’ To such an
extent is this superstition carried among some savage tribes, that the
real names of children are concealed from their birth upwards, and they
are known by fictitious names until their death.
The fear of witchcraft probably is the explanation of all those
superstitions. If a name gets known to a sorcerer, he can use it as a
handle wherewith to work his spells upon the bearer. When the Romans
laid siege to a town, they set about at once to discover the name of
its tutelary deity, so that they might coax the god into surrendering
his charge. In order to prevent their receiving the same treatment at
the hands of their enemies, they carefully concealed the name of the
tutelary deity of Rome, and are said to have killed Valerius Soranus
for divulging it. We have several examples in our nursery tales of the
concealment of a name being connected with a spell. It is made use of
by Wagner in the plot of his opera of _Lohengrin_, where the hero,
yielding to the curiosity of his lady-love, divulges the secret of his
name, and has in consequence to leave her and return to a state of
enchantment. In Grimm’s tale of _The Gold Spinner_, again, we have an
instance of a spell being broken by the discovery of the sorcerer’s
name.
Reluctance to mention names reaches its height in the case of dangerous
or mysterious agencies. In Borneo, the natives avoid naming the
smallpox. In Germany, the hare must not be named, or the rye-crop will
be destroyed; and to mention the name of this innocent animal at sea,
is, or was, reckoned by the Aberdeenshire fishermen an act of impiety,
the punishment of which to be averted only by some mysterious charm.
The Laplanders never mention the name of the bear, but prefer to speak
of him as ‘the old man with the fur-coat.’ The motive here appears to
be a fear that by naming the dreaded object his actual presence will
be evoked; and this idea is preserved in one of our commonest sayings.
Even if the object of terror does not actually appear, he will at
least listen when he hears his name; and if anything unpleasant is
said of him he is likely to resent it. Hence, in order to avoid even
the semblance of reproach, his very name is made flattering. This
phenomenon, generally termed euphemism, is of very common occurrence.
The Greeks, for example, called the Furies the ‘Well-disposed ones;’
and the wicked fairy Puck was christened ‘Robin Goodfellow’ by the
English peasantry. The modern Greeks euphemise the name of vinegar into
‘the sweet one.’ Were its real name to be mentioned, all the wine in
the house would turn sour. We have an example of the converse of the
principle of euphemism at work in the case of mothers among the savage
tribes of Tonquin giving their children hideous names in order to
frighten away evil spirits from molesting them.
It is, however, in the case of the most dreaded and most mysterious
of all our enemies—Death—that the superstition becomes most apparent.
‘The very name of Death,’ says Montaigne, ‘strikes terror into people,
and makes them cross themselves.’ Even the unsuperstitious have a
vague reluctance to mentioning this dreaded name. Rather than say, ‘If
Mr So-and-so should _die_,’ we say, ‘If anything should happen to Mr
So-and-so.’ The Romans preferred the expression ‘He has lived’ to ‘He
is dead.’ ‘M. Thiers _a vécu_’ was the form in which that statesman’s
death was announced; not ‘M. Thiers _est mort_.’
The same reluctance is noticeable in mentioning the names of persons
who are dead. A writer on the Shetland Isles tells us that no
persuasion will induce a widow to mention her dead husband’s name.
When we do happen to allude to a deceased friend by name, we often add
some such expression as ‘Rest his soul!’ by way of antidote to our
rashness; and this expression seems to have been used by the Romans in
the same way. As might be expected, we find this carried to a great
extreme among savages. In some tribes, when a man dies who bore the
name of some common object—‘fire,’ for instance—the name for fire
must be altered in consequence; and as proper names among savages are
almost invariably the names of common objects, the rapid change that
takes place in the language and the inconvenience resulting therefrom
may be imagined. Civilisation has indeed made enormous progress from
this cumbersome superstition to our own philosophy, which can ask with
haughty indifference, ‘What’s in a name?’
THE HAUNTED BRIDGE.
A TALE OF THE HIGHLANDS.
There are probably few readers who are not familiar, to a greater or
lesser extent, with the well-ventilated subject of superstition in the
Highlands of Scotland. There are few mountain countries throughout
the world that are not rich in lore and legend relating to the
supernatural: their very configuration suggests that agencies more
than ordinary have been employed in shaping out their features. It is
curious to notice how very largely the demoniac theory enters into the
calculations of the peasantry. For one Fairy glen or knowe there are a
dozen Devil’s mills, bridges, caldrons, or punchbowls; in fact, it is
almost always the beings that are supposed to be baleful and inimical
to the human race that have had their personality perpetuated in these
legends. This certainly seems a little incongruous; but as this is not
a treatise on demonology, we are content to leave it so.
Superstition is part of the being of the mountaineer. Brave even to
rashness, he will face the natural dangers that beset his life—in the
torrent, on the peak, or in the forest; he fears no odds when he meets
his foes. And yet this man, who can tread the dizzy ledge on the face
of a precipice, who can hurl himself on levelled steel, is more timid
and frightened than a child, when he conceives that forces other than
earthly are being brought to bear on him. It is partly to the style
and manner of his life that he owes this. He is brought more into the
presence of nature than his neighbour of the plains; he becomes imbued
with the spirit of his surroundings; the deep dark gloom of the woods,
the lonesomeness of the mountain solitudes, the voices of the storm and
of the torrent, and of their reproductions in the echoes, appeal to
him; and a poetical imagination begotten of such an existence finishes
the process. Thus the roar of a waterfall in its dark chasm becomes to
him the howlings of some demon prisoned among the rocks; the sighing
of the wind through the forest trees is caused by the passage of
spirits; the mists that furl around the mountain peaks and are wafted
so silently across crest and corrie are disembodied ghosts; and the
sounds that break the stillness of the night are the shrieks and yells
of fiends and their victims.
This brings me to my story. I fancy that most of my readers are
acquainted more or less with the scenery of the Highlands; but in the
case of by far the larger number of them, I venture to say that such
acquaintance extends only to the Highlands in their summer or their
autumn dress. If so, they only half know them. Brave is the tourist who
ventures amid the bens and glens when rude King Boreas lords it over
them; when winter’s wind roars adown the gorges of the hill, staggering
the stalwart pines, mingling the withered leaves and the snowflakes in
the desolate woods. When icicles hang from the hoary rocks, and the
deep drift chokes up the ravines, mantles the slopes of the corries,
and bends in cornices over the threatening cliffs; when the river roars
through the plain—brown and swollen—and its parent torrents are leaping
and raving among the boulders; when the mountain hare and the ptarmigan
are white as the snow that harbours them; and the deer, driven from the
hills by stress of weather, roam in herds through the low-lying woods;
and the mountain fox leaves his cairn and prowls around the farm and
the sheepfold—_then_, if you would enter into the spirit of loneliness
and solitude, take your way to the Highlands. Do not imagine, however,
that such is their condition during the whole of winter; on the
contrary, I have painted a particularly black picture, and it was in
very much better weather that, two or three years ago, I went north, in
December, on a visit to some friends in Inverness-shire. The particular
part of the county I stayed in does not materially affect my adventure,
so I shall not disclose it.
My time sped by very pleasantly, although the district did not afford
many neighbours at short distances; but this was a circumstance
that always procured me an extra hearty welcome when I ventured far
enough from home to call upon any people. On one of these expeditions
I had ridden to a house about eight miles away, and the late hour
of my arrival brought about an invitation to stay for dinner and
spend the evening. My friends pushed their hospitality to such an
extent, that they had almost prevailed upon me to stay the night as
well, when a good-natured challenge changed my wavering plans into
a firm determination to be off. Our conversation after dinner had
not unnaturally turned upon ghost-stories, as the district was an
out-of-the-way one, and the country-folk were fully persuaded of the
existence of kelpies and warlocks of various kinds. What now happened
was that some of the young people fancied they had found the reason
why I was willing to stay all night, and boldly told me that I was
frightened to cross a certain bridge on my way home that had the
reputation of being haunted. I knew the spot well, though I had never
found out its exact story; and when I had assured the country-people
that I had no fears of the experiment, they solemnly shook their heads,
and averred that not for sums untold would they cross the bridge after
nightfall. On the present occasion, as I had been foremost among the
sceptics during the story-telling, I felt my reputation at stake; and
declaring I would on no account remain, I gave orders to have my pony
brought round. The whole party came to the door to see me start—the
elders inveighing against my foolishness in setting off at that time
of night; the young people plying me with horrors, and telling me to
be sure to come round next morning—if alive—and give an account of my
adventures. To all I gave a merry reply, and lighting my pipe, swinging
myself into the saddle, and shouting ‘Good-night,’ I cantered off down
the avenue.
For a couple of miles the road led me down a deep wooded glen. On
both sides the mountains towered aloft to a height of more than two
thousand feet, their lower slopes thickly clad with pine and birch,
their shoulders and summits white from a recent heavy snowfall. The
river poured along tumultuously, close beneath the road, swirling past
frowning cliffs of rock, brawling and battling with heaps of boulders,
shooting in sheets of glancing foam over cascade and rapid. By daylight
the scene was sufficiently grand and impressive; illumined as it now
was by a faint moonlight, it was much more so. The night was calm and
slightly frosty; but overhead, a strong breeze was blowing, and from
time to time the moon was obscured by the flying clouds. The play
of light and shade brought about by this was very beautiful; at one
moment the shaggy hillsides and deep pools of the river were plunged
in deepest shadow; in the next a flood of pale glory poured over them,
painting the rushing stream with silver, shooting shafts of light
among the tall trees, tracing mosaics on the dark surface of the road.
Each clump of ferns, each bush and stump, took uncommon shape, and it
required no great stretch of imagination to convert the boulders and
reefs of rock out in the stream into waterbulls and kelpies. The rush
and roar of the river drowned all other sounds; but with the exception
of the echoing tread of my pony and the occasional bark of a fox from
the hill, there was nothing else to be heard. On my way down the glen I
passed a few scattered cottages, but their occupants were long ago in
bed, although it was not much past ten o’clock.
The wilder part of the glen ended in a fine pass, where the hills
towered almost straight up from the river, and the pines threw so deep
a shadow, that for a few yards it was impossible to see the road.
Just beyond, the mountains retreated to right and left, and through a
short and level tract of meadow-land, road and stream made their way
down to the shores of the loch. Ahead of me I could see its broad bosom
glancing in the moonlight, and the great snow-clad mountains beyond
it. As the improved condition of the road now made rapid progression
easier, I gave the pony his head, and he went along in a style that
promised soon to land me at my destination.
There was only one thing that troubled me—the haunted bridge. Once
past it, and I should thoroughly enjoy my moonlight ride. I do not
know whether it was the thought of the ghost-stories with which we
had beguiled the hours after dinner, and which now kept recurring to
my mind in spite of all effort to the contrary, or whether it was
the solemn and impressive scenery I had passed through in the glen,
that had unstrung me; but the nearer I drew to the bridge the more
uncomfortable I felt regarding it. It was not exactly fear, but a vague
presentiment of evil—the Highland blood asserting itself. I could not
get rid of the sensation. I tried to hum and to whistle, but the forced
merriment soon died a natural death. I was now on the loneliest part of
the road. From the bottom of the glen as far as the bridge—about three
miles—there was not a single cottage; and more than a mile on the other
side of it lay a scattered hamlet. The moon, too, which had hitherto
befriended me, now threatened to withdraw its light; and where clumps
of trees overhung the road the darkness was deep. The pony carried me
along bravely—he knew he was going home; and in a short time a turn in
the road showed me, some distance ahead, a ribbon of white high upon
the dark hillside. It was the stream that ran beneath the fatal bridge.
Better get out of this as soon as possible, I thought; and with voice
and stick I encouraged the pony to increased speed. On we went! The
roar of the haunted stream was loud and near now; the gloom increased
as we plunged deeper into the wood that filled its basin; in another
minute the bridge would be far behind, when, without the least warning,
the pony shied to one side and then stood stock still, quivering all
over. The shock all but sent me flying over its head; but by an effort
I kept my seat. I had not far to look for the cause of the beast’s
fright. Not a dozen yards away were the dimly seen parapets of the
bridge; and on one of them crouched an object that froze me with
terror. There are some moments in which the events of a lifetime pass
in review; there are some glances in which an infinity of detail can
be taken in quicker than eye can close. This was one of them. I do not
suppose that my eye rested on the object of my terror for more than a
second; but in that brief space I saw what seemed like the upper part
of a distorted human body, hunchbacked and without legs, with a face
that glowed with the red light of fire! I can laugh now, when I think
of my fright; but at the moment, I remember getting the pony into
motion somehow with stick, bridle, and voice, and speeding across the
bridge like a thunderbolt, crouching down, Tam o’ Shanter-like, and
momentarily expecting to feel the grip of a clammy hand on my neck!
Hard, hard we galloped through the hamlet I have mentioned; nor did I
slacken the pace until the lights of my abode had gleamed through the
plantation, and we were safe and sound in the stable-yard.
* * * * *
To make a really good ghost-story, my narrative should go no further;
but the sequel has still to be told. I invented an excuse to appease
the curiosity of my friends, who naturally were anxious to know what
had sent us home in such a fashion—the pony in a lather, and myself
with a scared, unintelligible expression. I did not want to tell the
real story until I had made some effort to unravel it. With this end in
view, I started on foot soon after breakfast for the house I had dined
at, intending to make a thorough examination of the bridge and the
course of the stream on my way, and to question some of the cottagers
in the hamlet. I was saved the trouble, however. I had not gone much
more than a mile, when I perceived coming along the road towards me a
sturdy pedlar, with a fur cap on his head, and a pack of very large
dimensions fastened on his broad shoulders. Such fellows are very
commonly met with in the outlying districts of the Highlands, where
they do a roaring trade in ribbons, sham jewellery, and smallwares,
besides carrying a fund of gossip from place to place. In the specimen
of the class now before me I was not long in recognising the ghost of
the haunted bridge, and in hailing him I was soon in possession of the
whole story. ‘Yes; he was the man that was sitting on the brig about
eleven o’clock; and was I the gentleman that rode past as if all the
witches in the countryside were at his heels? Faith, it was a proper
fright I had given him.’
‘But tell me,’ I asked, ‘what on earth were you doing there at such a
time of night?’
‘Weel, sir, I was very late of gettin’ across the ferry; and it was
a langer step than I had thocht doon to the village; and I had had a
guid walk the day already, and was tired-like. The brig was kind o’
handy for a rest; so I just sat doon on the dike and had a bit smoke
o’ the pipe. Losh, sir, when ye cam scourin’ past, I thocht it was the
deil himsel’; but then I just thocht that it was mysel’ sitting in the
shadow that had frighted your beastie, and it had run awa’ wi’ you
like. And when I cam the length o’ the village, I just had to creep
into a bit shed; and wi’ my pack and some straw I soon made a bed.’
So here was the whole story. The deep shadow on the bridge had
prevented me from seeing the sitter’s legs; the heavy knapsack had
given him a humpback; the fur cap and the glow of the pipe accounted
for the fiery countenance. With mutual explanations we parted—he to
push his sales in the villages beyond; I, to hurry on to the house in
the glen, whose inmates at first evinced the liveliest interest in the
over-night episode—an interest, however, which waned to disappointment
as I proceeded to explain how the ghost was laid. I may mention that
I omitted the ‘scourin’ past’ portion of the adventure. How they will
chaff me when they read this!
FAIRYLAND IN MIDSUMMER.
Shall I tell you how one day
Into Fairyland we went?
Fairy folk were all about,
Filling us with glad content;
For we came as worshippers
Into Nature’s temple grand,
And the fairies welcome such
With the freedom of the land.
Through the green-roofed aisles we went,
Passing with a careful tread,
For beside our happy feet
Purple orchis raised its head;
And behind, the blue-bells hung,
Fading now like ghosts at morn,
Here and there a white one bent,
Like a ‘maiden all forlorn.’
From the bank across our way
Ragged Robin flaunted red,
And athwart a narrow trench
Feathery ferns their shadows spread.
Fair white campion from the hedge
Raised its starry petals chaste,
And the fragile speedwell blue
Bade us on our journey haste.
Haste? For why? We sought the pool
Where the water-lilies bloom,
And we found it ere the night,
Hidden in a leafy gloom;
All around like sentinels
Yellow iris stood on guard,
Keeping o’er the virgin queens
Ever faithful watch and ward.
Like pale queens the lilies white
On their leafy couches lay,
Where no wanton hand could reach,
No disloyal foot could stray.
Lovingly we bade adieu
To each golden-hearted queen,
And stepped out to where the heath
Laughed to heaven in robe of green.
Here we gathered treasure-trove—
Eyebright, milkwort, cuckoo-shoes—
Till our baskets, overfull,
Many a precious bud must lose;
Till the sunset glory fell
On the blossoms in our hand,
And, with lingering glances, we
Bade farewell to Fairyland.
FLORENCE TYLEE.
* * * * *
The Conductor of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL begs to direct the attention of
CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:
_1st._ All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339
High Street, Edinburgh.’
_2d._ For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps
should accompany every manuscript.
_3d._ To secure their safe return if ineligible, ALL MANUSCRIPTS,
whether accompanied by a letter of advice or otherwise, _should
have the writer’s Name and Address written upon them_ IN FULL.
_4th._ Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a
stamped and directed envelope.
_If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will do his best to
insure the safe return of ineligible papers._
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._