to the settlers that the heathen Indians and Roman Catholic Frenchmen
were particularly favoured by the demons, who sometimes adopted their
appearance, and showed themselves in their likeness, to the great
annoyance of the colonists. Thus, in the year 1692, a party of real or
imaginary French and Indians exhibited themselves occasionally to the
colonists of the town of Gloucester, in the county of Essex, New
England, alarmed the country around very greatly, skirmished repeatedly
with the English, and caused the raising of two regiments, and the
dispatching a strong reinforcement to the assistance of the settlement.
But as these visitants, by whom they were plagued more than a fortnight,
though they exchanged fire with the settlers, never killed or scalped
any one, the English became convinced that they were not real Indians
and Frenchmen, but that the devil and his agents had assumed such an
appearance, although seemingly not enabled effectually to support it,
for the molestation of the colony.[8]
[Footnote 8: "Magnalia," book vii. article xviii. The fact is also
alleged in the "Life of Sir William Phipps."]
It appears, then, that the ideas of superstition which the more ignorant
converts to the Christian faith borrowed from the wreck of the classic
mythology, were so rooted in the minds of their successors, that these
found corroboration of their faith in demonology in the practice of
every pagan nation whose destiny it was to encounter them as enemies,
and that as well within the limits of Europe as in every other part of
the globe to which their arms were carried. In a word, it may be safely
laid down, that the commonly received doctrine of demonology, presenting
the same general outlines, though varied according to the fancy of
particular nations, existed through all Europe. It seems to have been
founded originally on feelings incident to the human heart, or diseases
to which the human frame is liable--to have been largely augmented by
what classic superstitions survived the ruins of paganism--and to have
received new contributions from the opinions collected among the
barbarous nations, whether of the east or of the west. It is now
necessary to enter more minutely into the question, and endeavour to
trace from what especial sources the people of the Middle Ages derived
those notions which gradually assumed the shape of a regular system of
demonology.
LETTER III.
Creed of Zoroaster--Received partially into most Heathen
Nations--Instances among the Celtic Tribes of Scotland--Beltane
Feast--Gudeman's Croft--Such abuses admitted into Christianity after
the earlier Ages of the Church--Law of the Romans against Witchcraft
--Roman customs survive the fall of their
Religion--Instances--Demonology of the Northern
Barbarians--Nicksas--Bhargeist--Correspondence between the Northern
and Roman Witches--The power of Fascination ascribed to the
Sorceresses--Example from the "Eyrbiggia Saga"--The Prophetesses of
the Germans--The Gods of Valhalla not highly regarded by their
Worshippers--Often defied by the Champions--Demons of the
North--Story of Assueit and Asmund--Action of Ejectment against
Spectres--Adventure of a Champion with the Goddess Freya--Conversion
of the Pagans of Iceland to Christianity--Northern Superstitions
mixed with those of the Celts--Satyrs of the North--Highland
Ourisk--Meming the Satyr.
The creed of Zoroaster, which naturally occurs to unassisted reason as a
mode of accounting for the mingled existence of good and evil in the
visible world--that belief which, in one modification or another,
supposes the co-existence of a benevolent and malevolent principle,
which contend together without either being able decisively to prevail
over his antagonist, leads the fear and awe deeply impressed on the
human mind to the worship as well of the author of evil, so tremendous
in all the effects of which credulity accounts him the primary cause, as
to that of his great opponent, who is loved and adored as the father of
all that is good and bountiful. Nay, such is the timid servility of
human nature that the worshippers will neglect the altars of the Author
of good rather than that of Arimanes, trusting with indifference to the
well-known mercy of the one, while they shrink from the idea of
irritating the vengeful jealousy of the awful father of evil.
The Celtic tribes, by whom, under various denominations, Europe seems to
have been originally peopled, possessed, in common with other savages, a
natural tendency to the worship of the evil principle. They did not,
perhaps, adore Arimanes under one sole name, or consider the malignant
divinities as sufficiently powerful to undertake a direct struggle with
the more benevolent gods; yet they thought it worth while to propitiate
them by various expiatory rites and prayers, that they, and the
elementary tempests which they conceived to be under their direct
command, might be merciful to suppliants who had acknowledged their
power, and deprecated their vengeance.
Remains of these superstitions might be traced till past the middle of
the last century, though fast becoming obsolete, or passing into mere
popular customs of the country, which the peasantry observe without
thinking of their origin. About 1769, when Mr. Pennant made his tour,
the ceremony of the Baaltein, Beltane, or First of May, though varying
in different districts of the Highlands, was yet in strict observance,
and the cake, which was then baken with scrupulous attention to certain
rites and forms, was divided into fragments, which were formally
dedicated to birds or beasts of prey that they, or rather the being
whose agents they were, might spare the flocks and herds.[9]
[Footnote 9: See Tennant's "Scottish Tour," vol. i. p. III. The
traveller mentions that some festival of the same kind was in his time
observed in Gloucestershire.]
Another custom of similar origin lingered late among us. In many
parishes of Scotland there was suffered to exist a certain portion of
land, called _the gudeman's croft_, which was never ploughed or
cultivated, but suffered to remain waste, like the TEMENOS of a pagan
temple, Though it was not expressly avowed, no one doubted that "the
goodman's croft" was set apart for some evil being; in fact, that it was
the portion of the arch-fiend himself, whom our ancestors distinguished
by a name which, while it was generally understood, could not, it was
supposed, be offensive to the stern inhabitant of the regions of
despair. This was so general a custom that the Church published an
ordinance against it as an impious and blasphemous usage.
This singular custom sunk before the efforts of the clergy in the
seventeenth century; but there must still be many alive who, in
childhood, have been taught to look with wonder on knolls and patches of
ground left uncultivated, because, whenever a ploughshare entered the
soil, the elementary spirits were supposed to testify their displeasure
by storm and thunder. Within our own memory, many such places,
sanctified to barrenness by some favourite popular superstition,
existed, both in Wales and Ireland, as well as in Scotland; but the high
price of agricultural produce during the late war renders it doubtful if
a veneration for greybearded superstition has suffered any one of them
to remain undesecrated. For the same reason the mounts called Sith
Bhruaith were respected, and it was deemed unlawful and dangerous to cut
wood, dig earth and stones, or otherwise disturb them.[10]
[Footnote 10: See "Essay on the Subterranean Commonwealth," by Mr.
Robert Kirke, minister of Aberfoyle.]
Now, it may at first sight seem strange that the Christian religion
should have permitted the existence of such gross and impious relics of
heathenism, in a land where its doctrines had obtained universal
credence. But this will not appear so wonderful when it is recollected
that the original Christians under the heathen emperors were called to
conversion by the voice of apostles and saints, invested for the purpose
with miraculous powers, as well of language, for communicating their
doctrine to the Gentiles, as of cures, for the purpose of authenticating
their mission. These converts must have been in general such elect
persons as were effectually called to make part of the infant church;
and when hypocrites ventured, like Ananias and Sapphira, to intrude
themselves into so select an association, they were liable, at the
Divine pleasure, to be detected and punished. On the contrary, the
nations who were converted after Christianity had become the religion of
the empire were not brought within the pale upon such a principle of
selection, as when the church consisted of a few individuals, who had,
upon conviction, exchanged the errors of the pagan religion for the
dangers and duties incurred by those who embraced a faith inferring the
self-denial of its votaries, and at the same time exposing them to
persecution. When the cross became triumphant, and its cause no longer
required the direction of inspired men, or the evidence of miracles, to
compel reluctant belief, it is evident that the converts who thronged
into the fold must have, many of them, entered because Christianity was
the prevailing faith--many because it was the church, the members of
which rose most readily to promotion--many, finally, who, though content
to resign the worship of pagan divinities, could not at once clear their
minds of heathen ritual and heathen observances, which they
inconsistently laboured to unite with the more simple and majestic faith
that disdained such impure union. If this was the case, even in the
Roman empire, where the converts to the Christian faith must have found,
among the earlier members of the church, the readiest and the soundest
instruction, how much more imperfectly could those foreign and barbarous
tribes receive the necessary religious information from some zealous and
enthusiastic preacher, who christened them by hundreds in one day? Still
less could we imagine them to have acquired a knowledge of Christianity,
in the genuine and perfect sense of the word, when, as was frequently
the case, they only assumed the profession of the religion that had
become the choice of some favoured chief, whose example they followed in
mere love and loyalty, without, perhaps, attaching more consequence to a
change of religion than to a change of garments. Such hasty converts,
professing themselves Christians, but neither weaned from their old
belief, nor instructed in their new one, entered the sanctuary without
laying aside the superstitions with which their young minds had been
imbued; and accustomed to a plurality of deities, some of them, who
bestowed unusual thought on the matter, might be of opinion that, in
adopting the God of the Christians, they had not renounced the service
of every inferior power.
If, indeed, the laws of the empire could have been supposed to have had
any influence over those fierce barbarians, who conceived that the
empire itself lay before them as a spoil, they might have been told that
Constantine, taking the offence of alleged magicians and sorcerers in
the same light in which it was viewed in the law of Moses, had denounced
death against any who used these unlawful enquiries into futurity. "Let
the unlawful curiosity of prying into futurity," says the law, "be
silent in every one henceforth and for ever.[11] For, subjected to the
avenging sword of the law, he shall be punished capitally who disobeys
our commands in this matter."
[Footnote 11: "Codex," lib. ix. tit. 18, cap. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8.]
If, however, we look more closely into this enactment, we shall be led
to conclude that the civil law does not found upon the prohibitions and
penalties in Scripture; although it condemns the _ars mathematica_ (for
the most mystic and uncertain of all sciences, real or pretended, at
that time held the title which now distinguishes the most exact) as a
damnable art, and utterly interdicted, and declares that the
practitioners therein should die by fire, as enemies of the human
race--yet the reason of this severe treatment seems to be different from
that acted upon in the Mosaical institutions. The weight of the crime
among the Jews was placed on the blasphemy of the diviners, and their
treason against the theocracy instituted by Jehovah. The Roman
legislators were, on the other hand, moved chiefly by the danger arising
to the person of the prince and the quiet of the state, so apt to be
unsettled by every pretence or encouragement to innovation. The reigning
emperors, therefore, were desirous to place a check upon the mathematics
(as they termed the art of divination), much more for a political than a
religious cause, since we observe, in the history of the empire, how
often the dethronement or death of the sovereign was produced by
conspiracies or mutinies which took their rise from pretended
prophecies. In this mode of viewing the crime, the lawyers of the lower
empire acted upon the example of those who had compiled the laws of the
twelve tables.[12] The mistaken and misplaced devotion which Horace
recommends to the rural nymph, Phidyle, would have been a crime of a
deep dye in a Christian convert, and must have subjected him to
excommunication, as one relapsed to the rites of paganism; but he might
indulge his superstition by supposing that though he must not worship
Pan or Ceres as gods, he was at liberty to fear them in their new
capacity of fiends. Some compromise between the fear and the conscience
of the new converts, at a time when the church no longer consisted
exclusively of saints, martyrs, and confessors, the disciples of
inspired Apostles, led them, and even their priestly guides, subject
like themselves to human passions and errors, to resort as a charm, if
not as an act of worship, to those sacrifices, words, and ritual, by
which the heathen, whom they had succeeded, pretended to arrest evil or
procure benefits.
[Footnote 12: By this more ancient code, the punishment of death was
indeed denounced against those who destroyed crops, awakened storms, or
brought over to their barns and garners the fruits of the earth; but, by
good fortune, it left the agriculturists of the period at liberty to use
the means they thought most proper to render their fields fertile and
plentiful. Pliny informs us that one Caius Furius Cresinus, a Roman of
mean estate, raised larger crops from a small field than his neighbours
could obtain from more ample possessions. He was brought before the
judge upon a charge averring that he conjured the fruits of the earth,
produced by his neighbours' farms, into his own possession. Cresinus
appeared, and, having proved the return of his farm to be the produce of
his own hard and unremitting labour, as well as superior skill, was
dismissed with the highest honours.]
When such belief in a hostile principle and its imaginations was become
general in the Roman empire, the ignorance of its conquerors, those wild
nations, Franks, Goths, Vandals, Huns, and similar classes of unrefined
humanity, made them prone to an error which there were few judicious
preachers to warn them against; and we ought rather to wonder and admire
the Divine clemency, which imparted to so rude nations the light of the
Gospel, and disposed them to receive a religion so repugnant to their
warlike habits, than that they should, at the same time, have adopted
many gross superstitions, borrowed from the pagans, or retained numbers
of those which had made part of their own national forms of heathenism.
Thus, though the thrones of Jupiter and the superior deities of the
heathen Pantheon were totally overthrown and broken to pieces, fragments
of their worship and many of their rites survived the conversion to
Christianity--nay, are in existence even at this late and enlightened
period, although those by whom they are practised have not preserved the
least memory of their original purpose. We may hastily mention one or
two customs of classical origin, in addition to the Beltane and those
already noticed, which remain as examples that the manners of the Romans
once gave the tone to the greater part of the island of Britain, and at
least to the whole which was to the south of the wall of Severus.
The following customs still linger in the south of Scotland, and belong
to this class: The bride, when she enters the house of her husband, is
lifted over the threshold, and to step on it or over it voluntarily is
reckoned a bad omen. This custom was universal in Rome, where it was
observed as keeping in memory the rape of the Sabines, and that it was
by a show of violence towards the females that the object of peopling
the city was attained. On the same occasion a sweet cake, baked for the
purpose, is broken above the head of the bride; which is also a rite of
classic antiquity.
In like manner, the Scottish, even of the better rank, avoid contracting
marriage in the month of May, which genial season of flowers and breezes
might, in other respects, appear so peculiarly favourable for that
purpose. It was specially objected to the marriage of Mary with the
profligate Earl of Bothwell, that the union was formed within this
interdicted month. This prejudice was so rooted among the Scots that, in
1684, a set of enthusiasts, called Gibbites, proposed to renounce it,
among a long list of stated festivals, fast-days, popish relics, not
forgetting the profane names of the days of the week, names of the
months, and all sorts of idle and silly practices which their tender
consciences took an exception to. This objection to solemnize marriage
in the merry month of May, however fit a season for courtship, is also
borrowed from the Roman pagans, which, had these fanatics been aware of
it, would have been an additional reason for their anathema against the
practice. The ancients have given us as a maxim, that it is only bad
women who marry in that month.[13]
[Footnote 13: "Malæ nubent Maia."]
The custom of saying God bless you, when a person in company sneezes,
is, in like manner, derived from sternutation being considered as a
crisis of the plague at Athens, and the hope that, when it was attained
the patient had a chance of recovery.
But besides these, and many other customs which the various nations of
Europe received from the classical times, and which it is not our object
to investigate, they derived from thence a shoal of superstitious
beliefs, which, blended and mingled with those which they brought with
them out of their own country, fostered and formed the materials of a
demonological creed which has descended down almost to our own times.
Nixas, or Nicksa, a river or ocean god, worshipped on the shores of the
Baltic, seems to have taken uncontested possession of the attributes of
Neptune. Amid the twilight winters and overpowering tempests of these
gloomy regions, he had been not unnaturally chosen as the power most
adverse to man, and the supernatural character with which he was
invested has descended to our time under two different aspects. The Nixa
of the Germans is one of those fascinating and lovely fays whom the
ancients termed Naiads; and unless her pride is insulted or her jealousy
awakened by an inconstant lover, her temper is generally mild and her
actions beneficent. The Old Nick known in England is an equally genuine
descendant of the northern sea-god, and possesses a larger portion of
his powers and terrors The British sailor, who fears nothing else,
confesses his terror for this terrible being, and believes him the
author of almost all the various calamities to which the precarious life
of a seaman is so continually exposed.
The Bhar-guest, or Bhar-geist, by which name it is generally
acknowledged through various country parts of England, and particularly
in Yorkshire, also called a Dobie--a local spectre which haunts a
particular spot under various forms--is a deity, as his name implies, of
Teutonic descent; and if it be true, as the author has been informed,
that some families bearing the name of Dobie carry a phantom or spectre,
passant, in their armorial bearings,[14] it plainly implies that,
however the word may have been selected for a proper name, its original
derivation had not then been forgotten.
[Footnote 14: A similar bearing has been ascribed, for the same reason,
to those of the name of Fantome, who carried of old a goblin, or
phantom, in a shroud sable passant, on a field azure. Both bearings are
founded on what is called canting heraldry, a species of art disowned by
the writers on the science, yet universally made use of by those who
practice the art of blazonry.]
The classic mythology presented numerous points in which it readily
coalesced with that of the Germans, Danes, and Northmen of a later
period. They recognized the power of Erictho, Canidia, and other
sorceresses, whose spell could perplex the course of the elements,
intercept the influence of the sun, and prevent his beneficial operation
upon the fruits of the earth, call down the moon from her appointed
sphere, and disturb the original and destined course of Nature by their
words and charms and the power of the evil spirits whom they invoked.
They were also professionally implicated in all such mystic and secret
rites and ceremonies as were used to conciliate the favour of the
infernal powers, whose dispositions were supposed as dark and wayward as
their realms were gloomy and dismal. Such hags were frequent agents in
the violation of unburied bodies, and it was believed, by the vulgar at
least, that it was dangerous to leave corpses unguarded lest they should
be mangled by the witches, who took from them the most choice
ingredients composing their charms. Above all, it must not be forgotten
that these frightful sorceresses possessed the power of transforming
themselves and others into animals, which are used in their degree of
quadrupeds, or in whatever other laborious occupation belongs to the
transformed state. The poets of the heathens, with authors of fiction,
such as Lucian and Apuleius, ascribe all these powers to the witches of
the pagan world, combining them with the art of poisoning, and of making
magical philtres to seduce the affections of the young and beautiful;
and such were the characteristics which, in greater or less extent, the
people of the Middle Ages ascribed to the witches of their day.
But in thus adopting the superstitions of the ancients, the conquerors
of the Roman Empire combined them with similar articles of belief which
they had brought with them from their original settlements in the North,
where the existence of hags of the same character formed a great feature
in their Sagas and their Chronicles. It requires but a slight
acquaintance with these compositions to enable the reader to recognize
in the Galdrakinna of the Scalds the _Stryga_ or witch-woman of more
classical climates. In the northern ideas of witches there was no
irreligion concerned with their lore. On the contrary, the possession of
magical knowledge was an especial attribute of Odin himself; and to
intrude themselves upon a deity, and compel him to instruct them in what
they desired to know, was accounted not an act of impiety, but of
gallantry and high courage, among those sons of the sword and the spear.
Their matrons possessed a high reputation for magic, for prophetic
powers, for creating illusions; and, if not capable of transformations
of the human body, they were at least able to impose such fascination on
the sight of their enemies as to conceal for a period the objects of
which they were in search.
There is a remarkable story in the Eyrbiggia Saga ("Historia
Eyranorum"), giving the result of such a controversy between two of
these gifted women, one of whom was determined on discovering and
putting to death the son of the other, named Katla, who in a brawl had
cut off the hand of the daughter-in-law of Geirada. A party detached to
avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned deceived by the
skill of his mother. They had found only Katla, they said, spinning flax
from a large distaff. "Fools," said Geirada, "that distaff was the man
you sought." They returned, seized the distaff, and burnt it. But this
second time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance of a tame
kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled among the ashes. The
party returned yet again; augmented as one of Katla's maidens, who kept
watch, informed her mistress, by one in a blue mantle. "Alas!" said
Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirada, against whom spells avail not."
Accordingly, the hostile party, entering for the fourth time, seized on
the object of their animosity, and put him to death.[15] This species of
witchcraft is well known in Scotland as the _glamour,_ or _deceptio
visus_, and was supposed to be a special attribute of the race of
Gipsies.