Milton, in the "L'Allegro," writes of him in a different office, and--

"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,

To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

When in one night ere glimpse of morn,

His shadowy flail has thrashed the corn,

That ten day-lab'rers could not end:

Then lies him down the lubber-fiend,

And stretched out all the chimney's length,

Basks at the fire his hairy strength,

And cropfull out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings."

Another noted characteristic of this fairy is mentioned in the fine old

song of Ben Johnson's:--

"When house or hearth doth sluttish lye,

I pinch the maidens black and blue;

The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,

And lay them naked all to view.

Twixt sleepe and wake

I do them take

And on the key-cold floor them throw:

If out they cry

Then forth I fly,

And loudly laugh out, ho! ho! ho!"

The hobgoblin is one of the widest-spread forms of fairy belief. In

England it is also termed _Boggard_, _Puck_, _Robin Goodfellow_, and

_Robin Hood_; it is the _Brownie_ of Scotland; the _Cluricaune_,

_Luricaune_, _Leprochaune_, &c., of Ireland; the _Kobold_ of Germany;

the _Servant_ of Switzerland; the _Nis_ of Denmark and Norway; the

_Niägruiser_ of the Feroes; the _Tomt-gubbe_, or _Tont_, of Sweden; the

_Phynnoderee_ of the Isle of Man; the _Monaciello_ of Naples; the

_Duende_ of Spain; the _Lutin_, or _Gobelin_, of France; and the _Para_

of Finland appears to have some affinity with it.

The derivation of some of the principal names of this fairy is also of

interest. From the Sclavonic _Bôg_, signifying _God_, come the words

_boggard_ and _boggart_; the Scottish _Bogle_, a hill-fairy; and

probably, also, the words _Bug-bear_ and _Bugaboo_; and from the

Icelandic _Puki_, an evil spirit, come the English _Puke_, a devil, as

also _Puck_; the Friesland _Puk_; the German _Putz_, or _Butz_; the

Devonshire _Pixie_; the Irish _Pouke_; the Welsh _Pwcca_, and the words

_big_ and _bug_,--all names of certain varieties of the fairy-belief,

and having the signification of an evil spirit.

Certain forms of pagan worship would appear to have been perpetuated

unmodified in Christian countries even to the present time. A remarkable

and singular illustration of this is found in Ireland.

Off the north-west coast of that kingdom are situated the islands of

Inniskea, containing a population of about 400 human beings. Nominally

the inhabitants are Christians, and under Roman Catholic tuition; in

reality, they observe the ancient forms of Irish clan government, and

are idolaters, worshipping rocks and stones. Their chief god is a stone

idol termed _Nee-vougi_, which has been preserved from time immemorial.

It is clothed in homespun flannel, which arises from the custom of its

votaries offering portions of their dress when addressing it. These

fragments are sewed upon it by an old woman who has charge of the idol,

and who officiates as priestess. It is invoked, among other things, to

dash helpless ships upon the coast, and to calm the sea in order that

the fishing may be successful.[30]

The adoration of rocks and stone pillars is one of the most ancient

forms of idolatry on record. It probably took its origin from the custom

of erecting stone pillars as a memorial, and consecrating them as altars

on any extraordinary event or occasion. The earliest mention of this

custom is found in Genesis (cxxviii, v. 10):--

"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took up the stone he had

put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the

top of it.

"And he called the name of that place Beth-El ... saying ... this stone

which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house."

Stones thus erected as memorials, and consecrated as altars, in the

course of time were considered to be the abode of, or rather to be

filled with, the divine power, which had manifested itself there; and

ultimately stone pillars were used as symbols of the Deity. Singularly

formed rocks and stones were also regarded in a similar light; and

traces of this very ancient form of idolatry may be found in all parts

of the world.

The "_animated stones_" of antiquity, which received divine honours,

derived their names from Beth-El, as for example, Baithulia, Bethyllia,

and Βαιτολια, signifying consecrated or living stones; and one

of the modifications of Jupiter, _Jupiter Lapis_ (a stone), was derived

from this form of idolatry, and the most solemn of the Roman oaths was

that taken in the name of this god.

Numerous traces of superstition are found scattered throughout England,

and the countries of Western Europe, which are the lineal, although

degenerated descendants of the superstitions of the mythological era of

the respective nations, or rather races, dwelling there.

There are few large towns in Great Britain which do not contain one or

more persons who profess to practise astrology, magic, or

divination--_wise men_, as they are popularly designated; and the belief

in charms and omens is far from being eradicated among a large mass of

the population, particularly among those who dwell in secluded or

mountainous districts.

Not unfrequently events happen by which we may gauge the extent to which

these superstitions are still entertained. Those who marked the effect

which the appearance of the late comet had on the minds of many in this

country, would perceive that a somewhat powerful feeling of

superstitious dread, on the occurrence of remarkable celestial events,

remained. The alarm excited among the credulous in England was, however,

if anything, less marked than that caused in many parts of the

continent[31] and in America.

Three years ago we had an opportunity of witnessing a singular

exhibition of fear, which was excited in the inhabitants of the most

impoverished districts of Leeds, by the prevalence of a brilliant

display of the aurora borealis. The scene paralleled the descriptions

recorded of the effects produced by similar phenomena in the Middle

Ages. The prevailing impression was, that the world was on the point of,

if not in, the actual process of destruction; and in many the alarm

became extreme, when, during the most magnificent period of the

phenomena, several of the streamers became of a deep crimson and blue

tint.

This display of the aurora extended over a vast extent of country, and a

singular example of the feelings with which it was regarded in Spain was

recorded at the time in the daily papers.

On the evening on which it occurred, it so happened that the subject of

the homily in one of the churches of Madrid was the destruction of the

world, and the day of judgment. At the conclusion of the service, and as

the congregation were issuing from the church, the northern heavens were

glowing with the brilliant and ever-varying light of the aurora.

Startled by a phenomenon which is of somewhat rare occurrence in Spain,

the idea at once occurred that the terrible events upon which the priest

had been descanting were about to come to pass; the people rushed back

to the steps of the altar, and while the aurora continued, the terror

and confusion beggared all description.

Another indication of the influence which the superstitions we have

named exercise on the minds of certain classes, is the number of works

on astrology, principally reprints, which have issued from the press

during the last eight or nine years.

This ancient superstition, which is still practised by the Mahomedans,

Chinese, &c., retains a hold upon the minds of many, even now. Its

practice in this country is, however, most frequently combined with some

of the minor forms of magic and divination; and those who profess a

knowledge of these arts chiefly direct them to the ignoble purpose of

detecting stolen articles.

In America, it would seem, from the advertisements which from time to

time appear in the newspapers, that this superstition is flourishing

with some vigour. We subjoin, in a note, specimens of these

advertisements.[32]

The belief in charms and omens, which was one of the most important of

the superstitions of antiquity, is still entertained by the lower orders

in many counties, and it forms one of the most striking features of the

current folk-lore.

The Devonshire peasant will recite the 8th Psalm on three consecutive

days, for three weeks, over his child, in order to prevent its being

attacked with the thrush; and should the disease, notwithstanding this

precaution, occur, he either plucks three rushes from a running stream,

passes them through the mouth of the child, and then casts them into the

stream, believing that the disease will decrease and disappear as the

rushes float away; or seizing a duck, he will force it to open wide its

bill, and then placing it close to the mouth of the child, he hopes to

see the affection vanish as the duck inhales the infant's breath.

The peasantry of Norfolk, Northampton, &c. have, for the prevention of

epileptic fits, implicit confidence in a ring made from nine sixpences,

obtained, by gift, from persons of the opposite sex, or from the money

contributed at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

There is a charm for cramp in the leg which must be familiar to most

persons. It runs thus:--

"The devil is tying a knot in my leg!

Mark, Luke, and John, unloose it, I beg!

Crosses three we make to ease us,

Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus."

This formula, with a little modification, was applicable also to other

fleeting but painful affections. Coleridge states that when he was at

the Blue-coat School there was a charm for one's foot when asleep, which

ran thus:--

"Foot, foot, foot! is fast asleep!

Thumb, thumb, thumb! in spittle we steep;

Crosses three we make to ease us," &c.

We have seen a charm for the toothache, which we believe has now fallen

into desuetude, but which, from its singularity, is worthy of

preservation. It is as follows:--

"In the name of God: Amen.

"As Jesus Christ passed through the gates of Jerusalem, he heard one of

his disciples weeping and wailing. Jesus saith unto him, Simon Peter,

why weepest and wailest thou? Simon Peter saith unto him: Lord, the pain

in my tooth is so grievous, I can do nothing. Jesus saith unto him:

Arise, Simon, and the pain in thy tooth shall be eased; and whosoever

shall keep those words in remembrance or writing shall never be

troubled with the pain in the tooth:--

"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."

The coral and bells which are suspended round the necks of children for

their amusement, were originally used with very different intentions.

Those who professed the occult sciences attributed several very

wonderful properties to coral, it being regarded by them as a

preservative against evil spirits, poison, and certain diseases.

The ringing of bells was also, formerly, considered to be of great

effect in terrifying and causing evil spirits to fly away. Nor did their

influence cease there; they were esteemed efficacious for the dispersion

of tempests; or, it would be more correct to say, that a cotemporary

superstition was, that tempests, thunder and lightning, and high winds,

were caused by evil spirits, or devils, who in this manner endeavoured

to wreak their rage on man; hence, in the Golden Legend of Wynken de

Worde, it is said that "evil spirytes that ben in the region of th'

ayre, dowt much when they hear the bells rongen, an this is the cause

why the bells ben rongen when it thondreth, and whanne great tempests

and outrages of wether happen, to the ende that the feinds and wycked

spirytes should be abashed and flee, and cease of the movynge of

tempest." This superstition probably dates from the period when it

became customary to exorcise, bless, and baptize the bells suspended in

churches,--a custom which originated in the tenth century.

The use of the coral and bells was derived from these superstitions, and

they were at first suspended from the neck as an amulet which was

protective from the influence of evil spirits.

Certain events are still regarded as omens by the peasantry in many

districts.

If a magpie cross our path, it is said that we shall prove unlucky,

unless we immediately cross ourselves; and an old rhyme says of the

magpie:--

"One is a sign of sorrow; two are a sign of mirth;

Three are a sign of a wedding; and four a sign of a birth."

In Devonshire, if a person sees four magpies, it is regarded as an omen

of death in his family. If a pigeon is seen sitting on a tree, or comes

into the house; or if a swarm of bees alight on a dead tree, or the dead

bough of a living tree, it forebodes death in the family of the owner.

In Derbyshire, if the sun shines through the boughs of the apple-trees

on Christmas day, it is considered as a presage of a good crop the

ensuing year.

Of all the superstitions entertained previous to the advent of Christ,

none have, however, been more fully perpetuated among Christian nations

than that of spectral apparitions,--the visible appearance of the

deities worshipped, or of the disembodied spirits of the dead--_ghosts_.

This was due not only to the nature of the causes inducing spectral

apparitions (causes which are inseparable from the physical constitution

of man), but also to the confirmation which the belief was thought to

receive from Holy Writ.

The character of the superstition, as it has been retained down to the

verge of the present period in our own country, and as it is still

entertained in many countries, is very similar to that which it bore in

the remotest periods of antiquity.

The deities of those nations who had distinct and defined ideas

respecting their gods, are reputed to have appeared from time to time to

their votaries, assuming the form in which they were most commonly

pourtrayed in the temples.

Thus the gods which Æneas bore from the destruction of Troy and carried

into Crete, appeared to him in that island:

"'Twas night, when every creature, void of cares,

The common gift of balmy slumbers shares;

The statues of my gods (for such they seem'd),

Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem'd,

Before me stood, majestically bright,

Full in the beams of Phœbe's entering light.

Then thus they spoke and eased my troubled mind:

'What from the Delian god thou go'st to find,

He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.

Those powers are we, companions of thy fate,

Who from the burning town by thee were brought,

Thy fortune follow'd, and thy safety wrought.

Through seas and lands, as we thy steps attend,

So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.

An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,

A town that o'er the conquer'd world shall reign.

Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;

Nor let thy weary mind to labours yield:

But change thy seat; for not the Delian god

Nor we have given thee Crete for our abode.

A land there is, Hesperia call'd of old,

(The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold--

Th' Œotrians held it once), by later fame

Now call'd Italia from the leader's name.

Iasius there, and Dardanus, were born;

From thence we came and thither must return.

Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet:

Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.'

Astonished at their voices and their sight,

(Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;

I saw, I knew their faces, and descry'd,

In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied),

I started from my couch; a clammy sweat

On all my limbs, and shivering body, sate.

To heaven I lift my hands with pious haste,

And sacred incense in the flames I cast."[33]

Among Christian nations visions of this character have also been common;

and the religious writings of every age of the Church contain numerous

instances of apparitions of the Trinity, of our Lord, of the canonized,

and the powers of evil.

But the most familiar phase of the ghost-belief is that of the visible

manifestation of the spirits of the dead; and probably few, if any,

races are without a superstition of this nature.

The Grecians and Romans believed that the souls of the dead (_manes_)

roamed about the earth, having power to interfere with the affairs of

man and inflict evil. The spirits of those who had been virtuous during

life were distinguished by the name of _lares_ (under which name we have

in a previous page alluded to them as tutelary deities) or _manes_; and

the spirits of the wicked were termed _larvæ_, or _lemures_, and often

terrified the good, and haunted the wicked and impious. These ghosts

were also deified, and they were known as the _Dii Manes_; and the

stones erected over the graves in Roman burial-grounds had usually

inscribed upon them the letters D.M., or D.M.S., that is, _Dîs Manibus_,

or _Dîs Manibus Sacrum_,--"Sacred to the Manes Gods." Sacrifices were

offered to these deities, the offerings being termed _religiosæ_, in

contradistinction to those offered to the superior gods, which were

denominated _sacræ_; and during the festivals held in honour of the

ghosts (_Lemuria_ or _Lemuralia_), it was customary to burn black beans

over the graves, and to beat kettles and drums, in order that, by the

noxious odour of the former, and the noise of the latter, the ghosts

might be frightened away, and no longer terrify their relations.

We have already given several examples illustrative of the parallelism

which exists between the accounts we possess of the apparitions of

Grecian and Roman deities, and those manifestations of celestial

personages which are recorded to have occurred in more modern times. A

similar resemblance exists between the accounts given of the spectral

appearance of the spirits of the dead.

In the Odyssey (B. XI), Ulysses, previous to descending into hell, is

described as offering "solemn rites and holy vows" to the dead:--

"When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,

Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts;

Fair, pensive youths, and soft, enamour'd maids;

And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades

Ghastly with wounds, the form of warriors slain

Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train:

These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground,

And all the dire assembly shriek'd around."

A striking illustration of the similarity of ancient and modern

ghost-stories, in all essential points, is contained in the description

given in the Æneis (B. II) of the apparition of the ghost of Hector to

Æneas, at the destruction of Troy:--

"'Twas in the dead of night, when sleep repairs

Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,

When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:

A bloody shroud he seem'd, and bath'd in tears;

Such as he was when by Pelides slain,

Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain;

Swoll'n were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust

Through the bored holes; his body black with dust;

Unlike that Hector, who return'd from toils

Of war, triumphant in Æacians' spoils,

Or him, who made the fainting Greeks retire,

And launch'd against their navy Phrygian fire.

His hair and beard stood stiffen'd with his gore,

And all the wounds he for his country bore

Now streamed afresh, and with new purple ran."

An equally, if not more marked example, is recorded by Pliny, the consul

at Sura.

A house at Athens was grievously haunted by a spirit, which, during the

night, restlessly roamed through the apartments, dragging, apparently, a

heavy chain after it. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired the house,

determined to reduce the spirit to order and silence. In the depth of

the night, while pursuing his studies, the silence was broken by the

noise of rattling chains, which approached the room where he sat.

Presently, a spectre entered, and beckoned to him, but the philosopher

took no notice. The spectre agitated its chains anew, and then he arose

and, following his ghostly guide, he was led into the court-yard of the

house, to a certain spot, when the spectre vanished. He marked the

place, and on the following day caused the ground to be dug up and

searched, when beneath it they found the skeleton of a man in chains.

The bones were publicly burned, and from that time the spirit ceased to

haunt the mansion.

A belief in ghosts was one of the most prominent of the superstitions of

the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe. It was customary with the

Scandinavians, as with the Grecians, to perform certain ceremonies at

the tombs of the dead, to propitiate the ghosts, and facilitate their

entrance into the halls of bliss.

The ghosts of the departed warriors, after they had entered their airy

halls, were supposed to pursue pleasures similar in character to those

which had engaged their attention on earth. They listened to the strains

of immortal bards; followed the chase over the illimitable fields of

heaven; visited the scenes of their former glories; and when resting

within their tombs, they would talk of mortal men, and sing the songs of

other worlds. Airy and unsubstantial as a wreath of mist, they often

wandered on the surface of the earth. The ghost of a mighty hero,

clothed in a panoply of lurid clouds, and armed with a meteor, might be

seen brooding o'er his tomb, or attended "by a ridge of formless

shades," it swept across former battle-fields. The men of bygone days,

wreathed in their vapoury robes, and reposing on clouds, hovered on the

midnight blast, which bore in its mighty cadences the echoing sounds of

the voices of the dead; or "like the new moon seen through the gathered

mist, when the sky pours down its flaky snow, and the world is silent

and dark,"[34] the spirits of the maidens glided over the rugged hills,

or roamed on the pebbly shore.

The early Scandinavian traditions and historical writings, are pregnant

with ghosts and other supernatural agents. Mr. Howitt[35] quotes from

one of the Eddaic songs, which records the lives of a hero named Helge

and his wife Sigrun, the following singularly interesting scene.

Helge died, and the body was laid in its cairn. In the evening Sigrun's

maid passed the cairn, and saw the ghost of Helge ride into it with a

numerous train. Addressing the ghost, the maid said, "Is it an illusion

that I see, or the Eve of the Mighty, that ye ride your horses and urge

them with your spurs? Or are the heroes bound for their homes?" The

ghost replied, "It is no illusion which thou seest, nor the Eve of the

Mighty; though thou seest us, and we urge our horses with our spurs;

neither are the heroes bound for their homes."

The maid then went to her mistress and said, "Haste thee, Sigrun, from

the hill of Seva, if the leader of the battle thou desirest to see. Open

is the cairn; Helge is come; the war-scars bleed. Helge bade thee to

still his dripping wound." Sigrun went to the cairn, and entering it,

said to the shade of her dead husband, "Now am I as joyful of our

meeting as Odin's ravens when, long-fasting, they scent the warm food,

or the day-wearied when they behold the close of day. I will kiss my

lifeless king before thou throwest off thy bloody cuirass. Thy hair, O

Helge! is pierced through with frost, or with the dew of death is the

hero slain. Cold are the hands of the friend of Högne. How, therefore,

King, shall I find a cure for thee?"--"Thou only, Sigrun! on the hill of

Seva," replied the ghost, "art the cause that Helge is here, slain by

the dew of sorrow. Thou weepest, gold-adorned one! burning tears, maid

of the sun-glowing south! Before thou sleepest, every tear shall fall

bloody on the breast of the Prince, pierced through with the cold of thy

grief. But we will drink the precious mead together, though we have lost

gladness and lands. Yet no one sings a song of woe, though he sees a

wound in my breast. Now are the brides closed in the cairns, and the

princely maidens are laid beside us."

Sigrun made a bed in the cairn, and said, "Here have I, Helge, prepared

rest for thee; rest free from all trouble. Son of the Ylfinga! I will

sleep in thy arms as formerly, when my hero lived." The ghost answered,

"No longer will I say that thou art unfaithful on the hill of Seva.

Since thou sleepest in the embrace of the dead in the cairn, thou fair

daughter of Högur! And yet thou livest, offspring of kings! Time is to

ride the red ways. Let the pale steed tramp the steeps of the air. In

the west must we be, by the bridge Vindhjalen, ere the cock in Walhalla

wakes the sons of victory."

In the Eyrbyggja Saga (written before A.D. 1264; period when the events

recorded occurred, A.D. 883) is an account of certain spectral

apparitions which followed the death of a lady whose commands upon the

death-bed had not been obeyed. This story is almost unique in character,

and it is a singularly interesting example of the ghost-belief of

Iceland at an early period.

On the evening of the day when the corpse was being removed to a distant

place of sepulture, an apparition of the lady was seen busily preparing

victuals in the kitchen of the house where the bearers reposed for the

night. On the night when the conductors of the funeral returned home, a

spectral appearance resembling a half-moon glided around the boarded

walls of the mansion, in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and

continued its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. "This

apparition was renewed every night during the whole week, and was

pronounced by Thorer with the wooden leg to presage pestilence and

mortality." Shortly after, a herdsman showed signs of being persecuted

by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed, "and then" (to

quote literally from Sir Walter Scott's abstract of the Saga) "commenced

a scene of ghost-seeing unheard of in the annals of superstition. The

first victim was Thorer, who had presaged the calamity. Going out of

doors one evening, he was grappled by the spectre of the deceased

shepherd as he attempted to re-enter the house. His wooden leg stood him

in poor stead in such an encounter; he was hurled to the earth and so

fearfully beaten that he died in consequence of the bruises. Thorer was

no sooner dead than his ghost associated itself to that of the herdsman,

and joined him in pursuing and assaulting the inhabitants of Froda.

Meantime an infectious disorder spread fast amongst them, and several of

the bondsmen died one after the other. Strange portents were seen

within doors, the meal was displaced and mingled, and the dried fish

flung about in a most alarming manner, without any visible agent. At

length, while the servants were forming their evening circle around the

fire, a spectre resembling the head of a seal-fish was seen to emerge

out of the pavement of the room, bending its round black eyes full on

the tapestried bed-curtains of Thorgunna (the deceased lady). Some of

the domestics ventured to strike at the figure; but, far from giving

way, it rather erected itself further from the floor, until Kiartan, who

seemed to have a natural predominance over these supernatural prodigies,

seizing a huge forge-hammer, struck the seal repeatedly on the head, and

compelled it to disappear, forcing it down into the floor, as if he had

driven a stake into the earth. This prodigy was found to intimate a new

calamity. Thorodd, the master of the family, had some time before set

forth on a voyage to bring home a cargo of dried fish; but, in crossing

the river Enna, the skiff was lost, and he perished with the servants

who attended him. A solemn funeral feast was held at Froda, in memory of

the deceased, when, to the astonishment of the guests, the apparition of

Thorodd and his followers seemed to enter the apartment dripping with

water. Yet this vision excited less horror than might have been

expected; for the islanders, though nominally Christians, retained,

among other superstitions, a belief that the spectres of such drowned

persons as had been favourably received by the goddess Rana were wont to

show themselves at their funeral feast. They saw, therefore, with some

composure, Thorodd and his dripping attendants plant themselves by the

fire, from which all mortal guests retreated to make room for them. It

was supposed this apparition would not be renewed after the conclusion

of the festival. But so far were their hopes disappointed, that, so soon

as the mourning guests had departed, the fires being lighted, Thorodd

and his comrades marched in on one side, drenched as before with water;

on the other entered Thorer, heading all those who had died in the

pestilence, and who appeared covered with dust. Both parties seized the

seats by the fire, while the half-frozen and terrified domestics spent

the night without either light or warmth. The same phenomenon took place

the next night, though the fires had been lighted in a separate house,

and at length Kiartan was obliged to compound matters with the spectres

by kindling a large fire for them in the principal apartment, and one

for the family and domestics in a separate hut. This prodigy continued

during the whole feast of Jol. Other portents also happened to appal

this devoted family; the contagious disease again broke forth, and when

any one fell a sacrifice to it, his spectre was sure to join the troop

of persecutors, who had now almost full possession of the mansion of

Froda. Thorgrima Galldrakinna, wife of Thorer, was one of these victims;

and, in short, of thirty servants belonging to the household, eighteen

died, and five fled for fear of the apparitions, so that only seven

remained in the service of Kiartan."

The trouble and annoyance from the spectres had now reached so serious a

pitch that, by the advice of a maternal uncle, Kiartan instituted

judicial measures against the spectres.

"A tribunal being then constituted, with the usual legal solemnities, a

charge was preferred by Kiartan against Thorer with the wooden leg, by

Thordo Kausa against Thorodd, and by others chosen as accusers against

the individual spectres present, accusing them of molesting the mansion,

and introducing death and disease among its inhabitants. All the solemn

rites of judicial procedure were observed on this singular occasion;

evidence was adduced, charges given, and the cause formally decided. It

does not appear that the ghosts put themselves on their defence, so that

sentence of ejectment was pronounced against them individually in due

and legal form. When Thorer heard the judgment, he arose, and saying,

'I have sat while it was lawful for me to do so,' left the apartment by

the door opposite to that at which the judicial assembly was

constituted. Each of the spectres, as they heard their individual

sentence, left the place, saying something which indicated their

unwillingness to depart, until Thorodd himself was solemnly appointed to

depart. 'We have here no longer,' said he, 'a peaceful dwelling,

therefore will we remove.' Kiartan then entered the hall with his

followers, and the priest, with holy water, and celebration of a solemn

mass, completed the conquest over the goblins, which had been commenced

by the power and authority of the Icelandic law."

The spectral phenomena of the ancient Swedish folk-lore differs in no

respect from the current histories of recent date. An interesting

example of this is found in the beautiful ballad of Sir Ulf and Lady

Sölfverlind.

Sir Ulf was a nobleman who had married a wife from a foreign country.

After they had lived together eight years, and had had a family of three

children, the Lady Sölfverlind died. In a short time he married again,

and by his second wife, the Lady Stineborg, he had also several

children. This lady, however, proved a cruel step-mother; for, as the

ballad reads:--

"Lady Stineborg's children went out to play,

Lady Sölfverlind's children sate weeping all day.

This know we of Ulf.

The youngest child it wept so loud,

That it woke its mother beneath the sod.

This know we of Ulf.

Lady Sölfverlind spoke to the angel-band:

'Is it granted to visit the earthly land?'

This know we of Ulf.

'It is granted from heaven to earth to go,

But thou must return ere the first cock crow.'

This know we of Ulf.

She came to the door, she tirled at the pin;

'Rise up, my children, and let me in.'

This know we of Ulf.

'On sticks and stones why lie you thus?'

'Nothing besides is given to us.'

This know we of Ulf.

'Why look ye, my children, so grim and so grey?'

'We have not been washed since thou went away.'

This know we of Ulf.

'Rise up, Lady Stineborg, hearken to me,

For I have a few words to speak unto thee!'

This know we of Ulf.

'I left behind me both upland and low,

Yet now my children must supperless go.'

This know we of Ulf.

'I left behind me both oxen and kine,

Yet now they go barefoot, these children of mine.'

This know we of Ulf.

'I left soft down pillows, full many a one,

Now hard sticks and stones are the bed they lie on!'

This know we of Ulf.

'Hadst thou to my children shown tenderness sweet,

God the Father in heaven had found thee a seat!'

This know we of Ulf.

'Have thy children in me a hard step-mother known?

Henceforth will I love them as well as my own!'

This know we of Ulf.

There ne'er was a lovelier sight in the sky,

Than Sölfverlind taking her children on high.

This know we of Ulf."[36]

The ghost-belief of Hindostan is one of the most important of the

popular superstitions of that country. It differs from that of more

westerly countries in the degree of reality with which the natives have

invested it; for while the former look upon the interference of the

spirits of the dead in the events of ordinary life as a circumstance of

rare occurrence, and regard manifestations of this nature with an awe

befitting their solemnity and supernatural character, the latter lives

in an atmosphere of spectral beings, which are the spirits of those who

have lived a wicked life on earth, and retain their malignant

disposition unabated after death, if indeed it is not increased in

intensity by the devil-like nature they assume, and exercise their evil

powers in all the affairs of life, haunting the localities which they

previously inhabited, and terrifying and tormenting alike friend and

foe. Neither are their terrors confined to mere occasional apparition,

and to the fear excited by this, but to the power which they possess of

interference by physical force; for they belabour with blows, or

grievously affect with bodily ailments, the unhappy individuals whom

they haunt, and often subject to inexpressible tortures those who have

had the ill-hap to offend them. Hence the Hindoo dreads a ghost not so

much on account of its supernatural character, abstractedly considered,

as for the physical evil it may inflict upon him.

The ghosts of the wicked, and of the unmarried (as it is thought in some

provinces), are alone permitted to wander on earth, and they have a

partiality, like our own ghosts, for frequenting solitary places, woods,

caverns, and ruins, from which they issue to exercise their baleful

powers on man.

Sometimes a ghost will haunt a certain house, or a plot of ground, and

become so obstreperous, that the occupier of the house is obliged to

desert it, and the proprietor of the land to allow it to become waste.

But it has happened that if the spirit was that of an old proprietor, a

deed executed in its name has appeased it, and it has no more troubled

the place.

These spirits are called, in the Deccan, _Vîrikas_, and in the more

southerly parts of India, _Paisâchi_. It is customary to erect small

shrines to them, formed of a pile of stones, on the top of which is a

sheltered cavity, containing an image, or a rough, shapeless stone, to

which offerings of cloth, rice, &c., are presented from time to time.

This propitiatory sacrifice is, in general, found to be an efficient

method of obtaining immunity from the malignant pranks of the ghosts;

but if it be neglected, they will visit the unfortunate sinner with

torments and misfortune, or, appearing to him by night, intimate the

miseries hanging over his head, unless he quickly amends himself, and

offers up the necessary gifts.

Dr. Buchanan relates a story of the apparition of a _Paisâchi_ which

occurred during his journey in Mysore. His cook had been taken ill, and

died; orders had been given to secure his effects for the benefit of his

wife and children, "but on inspection, after his death, no money could

be found. Whether he had been plundered as soon as he became insensible,

and that a guilty conscience occasioned fears among his companions, or

whether the sudden manner of his death occasioned suspicions, I cannot

say; but it was immediately believed that he would become a _Paisâchi_,

and all my people were filled with terror. The butler imagined that the

_Paisâchi_ appeared to him at night with a black silk handkerchief tied

round its head, and gave him instructions to take all the effects of the

deceased to his family; upon this, the latter, being a man of courage,

put his shoes on the right side of the door, which he considered to be a

sure preventive against such intruders. Next night a cattle-driver,

lying in all the agonies of nocturnal terror, saw the appearance of a

dog enter, and smell round the place where the man had died; when, to

his utter dismay, the spectre gradually grew larger and larger, and at

length, having assumed the form of the cook, vanished with a shriek. The

poor man had not the courage to use the slippers, but lay till morning

in a kind of stupor. After this, even the minds of the _sepoys_ were

appalled, and when I happened to be awake I heard the sentries, by way

of keeping up their courage, singing with a tremulous voice."

There is a class of men called _Cani_, or _Shaycana_, who are supposed

to have the power of ejecting and frightening away troublesome spirits

by the performance of certain mystic ceremonies. It is requisite, first,

to ascertain whether the offending ghost is that of a stranger, or if it

belong to any deceased member of the family; for it would seem that much

more powerful incantations are required to get rid of a family ghost,

which seems to have the opinion that it has a right to haunt its

relations in the flesh, than to eject the ghost of a stranger. The

latter, according to Dr. Buchanan, may be got rid of for a fanam, or

about ninepence sterling; the former requires expensive sacrifices and

many prayers, therefore the fee is much larger.

The Chinese have a great dread of ghosts, particularly of the ghosts of

those who have come to an untimely end. They suspend in their houses,

for the purpose of preventing the entrance of these spirits, and of

defending themselves from their influence, a cruciform piece of iron, to

which is attached pieces of perforated money, the coinage of emperors

who have been deified, and who are conceived to exercise a protective

power over their votaries.

The superstitions of the modern Egyptians and of the Arabs are rich in

ghosts.

The term _éfreet_ is applied to the ghosts of dead persons, as well as

to evil genii, by the Egyptians; and the following story, related by Mr.

Lane, will illustrate the nature of this superstition as it is

entertained by that people.

"I had once a humorous cook, who was somewhat addicted to the

intoxicating hhasheesh: soon after he had entered my service, I heard

him, one evening, muttering and exclaiming on the stairs, as if in

surprise at some event; and then politely saying, "But why are you

sitting here in the draught? Do me the favour to come up into the

kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little." The civil

address not being answered, was repeated and varied several times, till

I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. "The

éfreet of a Turkish soldier," he replied, "is sitting on the stairs,

smoking his pipe, and refuses to move; he came up from the well below:

pray step and see him." On my going to the stairs, and telling the

servant that I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I

had a clear conscience. He was told afterwards that the house had long

been haunted; but asserted that he had not been previously informed of

the supposed cause; which was the fact of a Turkish soldier having been

murdered there. My cook professed to see this éfreet frequently

after."[37]

The Arabs entertain a considerable degree of fear and respect for

ghosts.

Mr. Bayle St. John states that when travelling through the Libyan

desert, in 1847, he saw a burial-place of the Bedouin Arabs, in the

centre of which were confusedly scattered "camel-howdahs"

(_tachterwans_), stirrups, household utensils, small ploughs, &c.,

which had been left there by the Arabs, when commencing a journey, under

the care of the ghost of a defunct sheikh, who had been interred

there.[38]

Some of the aboriginal tribes of South America believe in the occasional

apparition of the souls of the dead.

Soon after the Roman Catholic mission was established at Bahia, an

eclipse of the moon occurred; the savages, fully armed, rushed in terror

to the mission, and when the priest inquired the cause of their alarm,

they responded that the moon was the abode of the souls of the dead, and

that on that night they had collected there in such numbers that they

darkened its surface: this was a sure sign of evil.

Such is a brief sketch of the ghost-belief of several nations, ancient

and modern.

This belief, in its essential characteristics, was the same in the

remote periods of antiquity as in more recent times; and a similar

analogy exists between the modifications of it which are now entertained

in different and widely separated countries.

The variations which it is found to possess are dependent upon those

peculiarities of habit, religion, and social life which characterize

each nation. This fact gives an important clue by which we may unravel

the actual nature of the phenomena which are embodied in the belief. But

previously to entering upon this task it is requisite to point out a

remote consequence of mythological and legendary lore which exercises a

highly important influence on the minds of most if not all persons at

the present time.

The numerous myths which were retained, the implicit faith reposed in

them, and the great extent to which the practice of the occult sciences

was carried in the Middle Ages, fostered ideas respecting the influence

which supernatural beings exercised in the ordinary affairs of life,

which rivalled in extent and variety those entertained before the

Christian era; but they received perhaps a more gloomy character from

the doctrine of the agency of devils.

The prevalence of these superstitions throws a wild and weird-like

shadow over the history of those periods, and one of the chief results

was that the records of local and general events became pregnant with

mysterious occurrences and supernatural interpositions; and a mass of

legends, teeming with remnants of ancient myths, more or less modified,

giants, demons, witches, wizards, ghosts, portents, &c., have been

perpetuated to modern times, and have formed an inexhaustible mine to

the novelist and romance-writer.

There are few localities in England which do not possess legends or

tradition of this nature; and the standard nursery and children's tales

are full of supernatural personages and occurrences in which are set

aside all the known laws of matter and force, and time and space are

alike annihilated. Many of these tales are of great interest, for in

them we find degenerated forms of some of the most ancient traditions

and myths of our own and other races.

The adventures of _Jack the Giant-Killer_, the most celebrated of all

celebrated nursery heroes, are for the most part derived from the

fabulous era of our own country, and from Scandinavian mythology; and

the whole tale is a degraded and vitiated tradition in which the deeds

of Corineus, a celebrated personage in the mythical history of Britain,

and Prince Arthur; the adventures of Thor, the god of thunder, and other

Scandinavian deities, are jumbled together in strange confusion.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his British History[39] states that the early

inhabitants of this island were giants. Brutus, a grandson of Ascanius,

the companion of Æneas in his flight from Troy, and Corineus, also of

Trojan descent, guided by a dream, discovered Britain, and delighted

with "the pleasant situation of the place, the plenty of rivers

abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods," they

became desirous of fixing their habitation in so desirable a country,

and landing, drove the giants into the fastnesses of the mountains, and

divided the country.

To Corineus was apportioned that part of the island which we call

Cornwall, and it is recorded that he had selected this portion of the

island for his share, because "it was a diversion to him to encounter

the said giants, which were in greater numbers there than in all the

other provinces that fell to the share of his companions."

Corineus is described as being "an ardent man in matters of council, and

of great courage and boldness; who in an encounter with any person, even

of gigantic stature, would immediately overthrow him as if he were a

child."

In the same fabulous history (B. X, ch. 3) it is stated, that a giant

who had invaded our shores, and taken refuge at the top of St. Michael's

Mount, was attacked by King Arthur in the night and killed; the country

being thus freed "from a most destructive and voracious monster."

Some of Jack's principal adventures are derived from the ancient Eddas

and Sagas of Scandinavia.

The incident which represents Jack as having overheard a giant, upon

whose hospitality he had intruded, muttering--

"Though you lodge with me this night,

You shall not see the morning light;

My club shall dash your brains out quite;"

and in which he had evaded the catastrophe by placing a log of wood in

the bed, he lying quietly in a corner, while the giant furiously beat

with his club the inanimate object, thinking to dash him to pieces; and

the delightfully cool response of Jack to the wonder-struck giant when

he beheld him safe and sound in the morning, and inquired if he had not

been disturbed in the night,--"No, nothing worth mentioning, I believe a

rat struck me with his tail two or three times:"--this incident is a

modification of an adventure which occurred to Thor on his journey to

the land of giants, and it is found in some form or other in the

folk-lore of every nation in the north of Europe.

Thor, while journeying to the land of giants, met with one of that race

named Skrymir. They formed a companionship, and the whole of the

provisions were placed in the giant's wallet. At night, when they

stopped to rest, Skrymir at once lay down and fell asleep, previously

handing the wallet to Thor in order that he might refresh himself. Thor

was unable to open it, and wroth with the giant for his apparent

insensibility and the mode in which he had tied the knots, he seized his

mighty hammer and flung it at the giant's head. Skrymir awaking, asked

whether a leaf had fallen on his head, and then he fell asleep again.

Thor again struck him with his hammer, and it apparently sank deep into

his skull; and the giant again awoke, and asked, "Did an acorn fall on

my head? How fares it with thee, Thor?" Thor, incensed beyond measure,

waited until the giant again slept, and then exerting all his power,

dashed his hammer at the head of the sleeping monster, into which it

sank up to the handle. Skrymir, rising up, rubbed his cheek and said,

"Are there any birds perched on this tree? Methought, when I awoke, some

moss from the branches fell on my head."

Skrymir, distrusting Thor, had before he slept interposed a huge rock

betwixt himself and the god, and upon this Thor had unwittingly

exercised his strength.

The adventure in which Jack is represented as outwitting a giant in

eating, by placing his food in a large leathern receptacle beneath his

vesture, and then ripping it up, and defying the giant to do the same,

whereupon the giant seizes a knife, plunges it into his breast and

kills himself, is contained also in stories which are prevalent among

the Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Servians, and Persians.

The Swedish version is as follows:--"In the evening, when the giant and

his boy were about to sup, the crone placed a large dish of porridge

before them. "That would be excellent," said the boy, "if we were to try

which could eat the most, father or I." The giant was ready for the

trial, and they began to eat with all their might. But the boy was

crafty: he had tied his wallet before his chest, and for every spoonful

that entered his mouth, he let two fall into the wallet. When the giant

had despatched seven bowls of porridge, he had taken his fill, and sat

puffing and blowing, and unable to swallow another spoonful; but the boy

continued with just as much good-will as when he began. The giant asked

him how it was, that he who was so little could eat so much. "Father, I

will soon show you: when I have eaten as much as I can contain, I slit

up my stomach, and then I can take in as much again." Saying these

words, he took a knife and ripped up the wallet, so that the porridge

ran out. The giant thought this a capital plan, and that he would do the

like. But when he stuck the knife in his stomach, the blood began to

flow, and the end of the matter was that it proved his death."[40]

The sword of sharpness, and the cloak which rendered the wearer

invisible, and by the aid of which Jack won so many important victories,

are two of the principal supernatural elements in the _Nibelungenlied_.

In this ancient legend, which contains the same tragical story as the

still more ancient Scandinavian poem, the _Völundar-Kvida_, the sword

"Balmurg" is described:--

"a broad and mighty blade,

With such keen-cutting edges, that straight its way it made,

Where'er it smote on helmet:"

and the cloud-cloak which Siegfried took from the dwarf Albric, is

pourtrayed as--

"A vesture that hight cloud-cloak, marvellous to tell,

Whoever has it on him, may keep him safe and well

From cuts and stabs of foemen; him none can hear or see,

As soon as he is in it, but see and hear can he

Whate'er he will around him, and thus must needs prevail;

He grows besides far stronger; so goes the wondrous tale."[41]

The story of _Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper_, is of great antiquity,

and versions of it are found in many countries.

Ælian, who lived about A.D. 225, relates that, as Rhodope, a celebrated

Greek courtezan, who had been carried into Egypt, was bathing one day,

an eagle carried off one of her slippers, and as it flew over Memphis,

where king Psammetichus was at that time sitting in tribunal, it let

fall the sandal into his bosom. Astonished at the occurrence, and at the

smallness of the sandal, he caused inquiries to be made for its owner,

whom, when he had discovered, he married.

Old versions of this story are found in Norway, Germany, Sweden,

Denmark, France, Italy, Wallachia, Servia, Russia, Poland, and

Wales.[42]

In _Jack and the Bean-stalk_, the bean is evidently a version of the ash

Ygdrasil of the Edda, reaching from hell to heaven; and the golden hen,

harp, &c., are familiar features in northern stories.

_Puss in Boots_, the _Seven-league Boots_, &c., have their prototypes in

Scandinavian folk-lore; and the two last-mentioned tales, as well as

others, are probably of considerable antiquity.

Tales derived from these sources and composed of such elements, and

fables in which beasts, birds, and fishes are represented as speaking

and reasoning in a manner that puts man to the blush, are among the

earliest things engrafted in the infant mind; and ever now

"By night

The village-matron round the blazing hearth,

Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,

Breathing astonishment--of witching rhymes,

Of evil spirits: of the death-bed call

Of him who robb'd the widow, and devoured

The orphan's portion: of unquiet souls

Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt

Of deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walk

At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave

The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.

At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,

Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd

With shiv'ring sighs; till eager for the event,

Around the beldam all erect they hang,

Each trembling heart with grateful terror quell'd."

Ideas of mysterious and supernatural powers, vague, undefined, and

frightful, are thus instilled into the child, and influence it unchecked

and uncontrolled by the Scriptural doctrines of the invisible which are

taught to it. At first the two trains of thought derived from these

antithetical sources go on separately and distinctly; the more frightful

and wonderful events of legendary lore and fable having a much greater

influence, and forming a deeper impression on the mind of the child,

whose reasoning powers are still in abeyance to the emotions, than the

Scriptural doctrines of the supernatural. As it advances in years these

trains of thought insensibly blend; the more rampant absurdities of the

supernatural framework of legendary and ghost-lore are discarded; but

the less obvious and more insidious portions remain to a greater or

less extent, and they are so graven in the mind, that they become part

and parcel of it, and in whatever manner they may be subsequently

modified in form, it is probable that they are never eradicated, but

form a medium which gives a false and deceptive gloss to all our ideas

upon those matters which are not immediately within the ken of reason,

or which are more clearly attributable to other agency than the forces

of the material word--such matters, for example, as are contained in

Holy Writ.

Hence our ideas of the supernatural are derived from two sources--from

legendary lore and from Scripture; and this results, that although in

after-life the more glaring errors and absurdities of the former are

removed, those only being retained which are thought to be compatible

with Holy Writ, yet the idea of the supernatural thus obtained, foreign

from revelation, is retained in a vague and undefined form, and its

origin and sources being lost sight of, it is regarded as an innate

consciousness of the existence of supernatural beings, and prompts to

the ready reception and belief of mysterious and not readily explicable

phenomena being the result of supernatural agency.

That proclivity to the belief in supernatural interpositions, that vague

notion of spiritual beings, that so-called innate consciousness of the

existence of the supernatural, which most persons possess more or less

of, and which is totally inconsistent with the clear and perfect

doctrine of the invisible taught in the Gospel, is, we believe, derived

solely from the infant mind and earlier periods of youth being poisoned

by the supernatural events and phenomena detailed in fabulous,

legendary, and ghost-lore.[43]

This substratum of superstition is the prime cause of the retention of

those figments of degenerated and christianized mythology which are yet

found among us, and for the persistence of the most generally received

of these figments--_ghosts_. It is also a highly important element in

the formation of that state of the mind which is from time to time

manifested in singular and wide-spreading delusions respecting the

communication of the spirit-world with man, and of which we have

examples before us at the present time in the prevalent follies of

"spirit-rapping" and "table-talking."

The belief in ghosts does not now possess those glaring features which

were attached to it at the commencement of the present century, hence it

is less obtrusive; but it is very far from being extinguished, as some

would teach, and its "etiology" is of interest, because it leads to the

elucidation of the principal causes and sources of the fallacies to

which the senses of man are subject, and by which he has been led in

the remotest periods of antiquity, as well as at the present time, to

frame those mighty trammels of superstition from which the mind in vain

strives to disentangle itself completely.

The doctrine that the spirits of the dead return to visit the scenes

which were dear to them during the body's existence, is in itself

awfully solemn and sublime. Man, prone to believe in supernatural

interpositions (from causes already explained), and trusting altogether

to the evidence of his senses, for many ages received this doctrine

unquestioned; and aided by a fertile imagination, he clothed it with

attributes which, although absurd in the main, yet as appealing to some

of the deepest and warmest affections and passions of our nature, cannot

even now be contemplated without exciting sensations of awe, if not

fear.

The thought that the spirits of those who, during life, were bound

to us by the closest ties of affection, are ever near, scrutinizing

our actions and thoughts, and prompting us ever and anon to that

course which would most tend to our profit here and our joy

hereafter[44]--shielding us, like guardian angels, from the wiles

of those wandering spirits who, like the "Wicked One" that came

softly up to Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and

"whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he

verily thought had proceeded from his own mind,"[45] seek to tempt

us to destruction,--such a thought thrills through the soul of every

one, and fills it with strange and undefined emotions of blended joy

and fear.

Few can free themselves altogether from the emotion of terror which is

almost necessarily connected with scenes polluted by murder, or by other

outbreaks of man's foulest passions. This feeling acting on the minds

of the superstitious and ignorant, has led them to people with spectres

all those places which have obtained notoriety from being the scene of

some terrible ebullition of human frailty and wickedness.

Thus, the glen where murder had been committed; the pond in which the

mother had immersed her new-born infant; the hoary ruin pregnant with

horrid legends of the past; the rocks over which the inebriated drunkard

fell; the four cross roads where the suicide was impaled; the dwelling

of the miser, or of him who did unjustly to the orphan; and the

willow-banks of the still-flowing river into which the love-lorn maiden

had cast herself,--each had its spectre, and at the midnight hour the

ghost of the murdered bared to the moon the mementos of its foul and

most unnatural end; the spectre of the murderer, writhing in agony,

rattled its gibbet-chains; the suffocating sobs of the drowning infant

were borne on the fitful breeze; hideous spectres hovered o'er the

deserted ruin; the ghost of the miser guarded its quondam treasures; the

cruel guardian and the suicide shrieked forth the agonies of the damned;

and the phantom of the deceived maiden gliding on the banks of her

watery grave, mingled its plaintive wails with each sough of the

midnight wind.

But, alas! this prolific source of terror and romance must be consigned

to the delusions of the past; and the churchyard--erst pregnant with

"thin-sheeted phantoms"--is now also shorn of its gloomy horrors, and

regarded alone as the last quiet resting-place of man on earth.

Even when glimpses of the spirit-world are vouchsafed to those who still

firmly believe in occasional visitations from its inhabitants, it would

seem that the fashion of their appearance has become more in accordance

with the quiet well-regulated ideas of the age. The major part of those

terrible attributes of the nether world, that of old were delighted in,

are no longer exhibited, and they are numbered with the things that have

been. The form which appertained to Satan himself--the cloven foot, the

forked tail, the hirsute frame, and the horned head--must also vanish

before the march of civilisation; hence Mephistopheles, in the "Faust"

of Goëthe, is represented as saying:--

"Refinement too, which smoothens all

O'er which it in the world has pass'd,

Has been extended in its call,

And reached the devil, too, at last.

That northern phantom found no more can be,

Horns, tail, and claws, we now no longer see,

As for the foot--I cannot spare it,

But were I openly to wear it,

It might do greater harm than good

To me among the multitude.

And so like many a youth beside,

Who bravely to the eye appears,

Yet something still contrives to hide,

I've worn false calves for many years!"

The phenomena upon which the belief of the occasional manifestation of

disembodied spirits to man is founded, may be accounted for without

having recourse to the doctrine of supernatural interposition.

Our senses and our reasoning powers are apt to err. We may deceive

ourselves, and are liable to be deceived by an erroneous appreciation of

the sensations which we receive from the objects surrounding

us--_illusions_--but of the nature of which we may readily convince

ourselves.

Illusions of the _sight_ may arise either from an error of judgment, or

from a disordered state of the eye.

Of those illusions arising from an error of judgment, perhaps none bear

directly upon our subject. Examples of this kind of illusion are the

broken appearance of a stick partially immersed in water; the apparent

movement of trees, houses, &c., past a train in motion, or the banks of

a river past a steamboat.

Illusions arising from a disordered condition of the eye, prompting the

imagination, are a prolific source of ghost-seeing.

In the obscurity of the evening, or during the darkness of the night

(particularly on those nights which are cloudy, and the darkness seems

to rest on the ground), the difficulty with which we distinguish any

object to which the attention is directed, is liable to induce a

disordered state of the eye, the effects of which are very startling.

"The imperfect view which we obtain of such objects forces us to fix the

eye more steadily upon them; but the more exertion we make to ascertain

what they are, the greater difficulties do we encounter to accomplish

our object. The eye is actually thrown into a state of the most painful

agitation, the object will swell and contract, and partly disappear, and

it will again become visible when the eye has recovered from the

delirium into which it has been thrown."[46]

This illusion is increased by a disturbed condition of the pupil of the

eye.

The pupil is surrounded by a muscle called the _iris_, by the

contraction and dilatation of which the size of the opening is increased

or diminished, and a greater or less amount of light admitted to the

eye. On a dark night, or during the twilight, the pupil is dilated to

its utmost extent, so that every available ray of light may enter. In

this condition the eye is not able to accommodate itself to near

objects, and they become more indistinct; shadowy, and confused.

Under these circumstances, an object to which the attention is strongly

attracted, may appear to assume strange variations in form,--now

increasing, now diminishing in size, now approaching nearer, now going

further off, or anon disappearing altogether; and a bush, a guide-post,

a stoop, &c., will seem as though it assumed the most startling changes

in size and appearance. Add the effects of the imagination, and we shall

at once perceive a source of the various goblins, boggards, and other

strange sights which have been supposed to haunt many of our byeways and

deserted places.

To illustrate this form of illusion: a man with whom we were acquainted

tells the following tale:--When young, he, one evening, had a quarrel

with his mother about some trifling affair, and in defiance of her grief

and supplications he left home late at night, intending to enter the

army. It was very dark and stormy, and as he proceeded along a bye-path,

suddenly a tall object arrested his attention; startled, he stood still,

when, to his utter horror and astonishment, the object increased in

size, and seemed as though about to pounce upon him; it then vanished,

and anon appeared again. Terrified beyond measure, and conceiving that

Satan had waylaid him for forsaking his mother, the poor man fell on

his knees, and exclaimed: "O good Lord Devil, do not take me, and I'll

go back to my mother, and be a good lad!" It is unnecessary to dwell

upon the goggle eyes burning with flames which he imagined Satan to

possess; suffice it that he remained before the supposed devil some

time, overcome with terror, when a blink of the rising moon showed that

he was laid at the foot of the stump of a tree. Heartily ashamed of his

fear, he rose up, slunk back home, and made peace with his mother.[47]

This will suffice as an example of the most degraded form of ghost-life

with which our highways and byeways have been peopled by the

superstitious and illiterate,--illusions which have arisen from the

effects of a disturbed condition of the visual organ on an excited

imagination. Burns humorously describes this variety of ghost in his

"Address to the Deil:"

"Ae dreary, windy, winter night,

The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light,

Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright,

Ayont the lough:

Ye like a rash-bush stood in sight

Wi' waving sugh.

"The cudgel in my nieve did shake,

Each bristled hair stood like a stake,

When wi' an eldricht stour, quaick--quaick--

Amang the springs,

Awa ye squatter'd like a drake,

On whistling wings."

Another form of illusion is induced by objects seen indistinctly when

the mind is disturbed and pre-occupied by some powerful and painful

emotion.

"A lady was once passing through a wood, in the darkening twilight of a

stormy evening, to visit a friend who was watching over a dying child.

The clouds were thick, the rain beginning to fall; darkness was

increasing; the wind was moaning mournfully through the trees. The

lady's heart almost failed her as she saw that she had a mile to walk

through the woods in the gathering gloom. But the reflection of the

situation of her friend forbade her turning back. Excited and trembling,

she called to her aid a nervous resolution, and pressed onward. She had

not proceeded far, when she beheld in the path before her the movement

of some very indistinct object. It appeared to keep a little distance in

advance of her, and as she made efforts to get nearer to see what it

was, it seemed proportionally to recede. The lady began to feel rather

unpleasantly. There was some pale white object certainly discernable

before her, and it appeared mysteriously to float along at a regular

distance without any effort at motion. Notwithstanding the lady's good

sense and unusual resolution, a cold chill began to come over her; she

made every effort to resist her fears, and soon succeeded in drawing

nearer the mysterious object, when she was appalled at beholding the

features of her friend's child, cold in death, wrapt in its shroud. She

gazed earnestly, and then it remained distinct and clear before her

eyes. She considered it a monition that her friend's child was dead, and

that she must hasten on to her aid; but there was the apparition

directly in her path; she must pass it. Taking up a little stick, she

forced herself along to the object, and behold, some little animal

scampered away. It was this that her excited imagination had transformed

into the corpse of an infant in its winding-sheet."[48]

Sir Walter Scott relates an interesting case of illusion occasioned by

an accidental arrangement of some articles of clothing:--

"Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled,

while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary

friend, to whom the deceased had been well known, was engaged, during

the darkening twilight of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the

publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the

distinguished individual who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed

the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he was deeply

interested in the publication, which contained some particulars relating

to himself and other friends. A visitor was sitting in the apartment who

was also engaged in reading. Their sitting-room opened into an

entrance-hall rather fantastically fitted up with articles of armour,

skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his book,

and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to

shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, right before him, and in

a standing position, the exact representation of his departed friend,

whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He

stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with

which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of

dress and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the

delusion, he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary

accuracy of the resemblance, and stepped onwards towards the figure,

which resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of

which it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by

great-coats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as usually are

found in a country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot

from which he had seen the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his

power, to recall the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this

was beyond his capacity; and the person who had witnessed the

apparition, or, more properly, whose excited state had been the means of

raising it, had only to return, and tell the young friend he had left,

under what a striking hallucination he had for a moment laboured."[49]

The liability to illusion or hallucination in that transitional state of

the mind when it reverts to surrounding objects, after it has been

pre-occupied with some absorbing and intense thought, is very strikingly

shown in the above case. It is very similar to that condition of the

mind which obtains between sleeping and waking, when it is well known

that our dreams are most vivid and brilliant.

Dr. Ferriar relates the following interesting case of illusion

occasioned by a ray of moonlight acting upon the mind of an individual

just awaking from a horrid dream.

"A gentleman was benighted while travelling alone in a remote part of

the highlands of Scotland, and was compelled to ask shelter for the

night at a small lonely hut. When he was conducted to his bedroom, the

landlady observed with mysterious reluctance, that he would find the

window very insecure. On examination, part of the wall appeared to have

been broken down to enlarge the opening. After some inquiry, he was

told, that a pedlar, who had lodged in the room a short time before, had

committed suicide, and was found hanging behind the door in the morning.

"According to one of the superstitions of the country, it was deemed

improper to remove the body through the door of the house; and to convey

it through the window was impossible without removing part of the wall.

Some hints were dropped that the room had been subsequently haunted by

the poor man's spirit.

"My friend laid his arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any

kind, by the bedside, and retired to rest, not without some degree of

apprehension. He was visited in a dream by a frightful apparition, and

awaking in agony, found himself sitting up in bed with a pistol grasped

in his right hand. On casting a fearful glance round the room, he

discovered, by the moonlight, a corpse dressed in a shroud, leaned

against the wall close by the window. With much difficulty he summoned

up resolution to approach the dismal object, the features of which, and

the minutest parts of the funeral apparel, he perceived distinctly. He

passed one hand over it, felt nothing, and staggered back to the bed.

After a long interval, and much reasoning with himself, he renewed his

investigation, and at length discovered that the object of his terrors

was produced by the moonbeams forming a long bright image through the

broken window, on which his fancy, impressed by his dream, had produced

with mischievous accuracy, the lineaments of a body prepared for

interment."

There are some illusions which arise from certain of the laws of action

of impressions on the _retina_--that tissue of the eye in which the

changes necessary to the excitation of the sensation of light by

luminous rays are induced.

A sensation excited in the retina is not momentary, or during the

continuance of the exciting cause alone, but it persists some seconds

after that has been withdrawn. Thus if the end of a burning stick be

rapidly moved in a circle before the eyes, it gives rise to the

sensation of an uninterrupted circle of light; the sensation excited on

each part of the retina enduring for a certain period after the luminous

point has passed.

The following instance is an example of an illusion, having relation to

our subject, from this cause.

A gentleman had been earnestly regarding a small and very beautiful

painting of the Virgin and Child. On turning round from the

contemplation of it, he was surprised at finding a woman of the full

size, with an infant in her arms, standing before him. On examining the

figures more closely he, however, found that the woman wanted the lower

fourth of the body, and this at once led to a correct appreciation of

the nature of the phantom. The painting he had been viewing was a

three-parts length, and it was the persistence of the image upon the

retina for a short period after he had turned from it, which had given

rise to the phantom.

A species of divination is made use of in India which has its origin in

an illusion of this nature, and of which the following is an interesting

example:--

A lady who was about to undertake a long journey, was persuaded by a

Moonshee to walk on the verandah and consult her fate.

"It was a clear calm night, the moon was full, and not the faintest

speck in the sky disturbed her reign. The Ganges was like a flood of

silver light, hastening on in charmed silence; while on the green smooth

sward on which they walked a tall shrub here and there stood erect and

motionless. The young lady, whose impressions were probably deepened by

the mystical words of the Moonshee, felt a kind of awe stealing over

her; she looked round upon the accustomed scene as if in some new and

strange world; and when the old man motioned her to stop, as they

reached an open space on the sward, she obeyed with an indescribable

thrill.

"'Look there,' said he, pointing to her shadow, which fell tall and dark

upon the grass. 'Do you see it?'

"'Yes,' said she faintly, yet beginning to be ashamed. 'How sharply

defined are its edges! It looks like something you could touch!'

"'But look longer, look better, look steadfastly. Is it still definite?'

"'A kind of halo begins to gather round it: my eyes dazzle.'

"'Then raise them to the heavens; fix them on yonder blue sky. What do

you see?'

"'I see it still; but it is as white as mist, and of a gigantic size.'

"'Has it a head?' asked the Moonshee in an anxious whisper.

"'Yes, it is complete in all its parts; but now it

melts--floats--disappears.'

"'Thank God!' said the old man: 'your journey shall be prosperous, such

is the will of Heaven.'"[50]

When a steady gaze is maintained upon an object until the retina is

exhausted, which is shown by the imperfect vision, or "dazzling," and

the eyes are then suddenly directed away from it to an uniformly

coloured surface, an image of the object, from the persistence of the

impression, as already stated, will still remain for a short period upon

the retina; but another phenomenon is also observed, for the exhausted

condition of the retina renders it incapable of responding, during its

continuation, to the impression of the original colour of the object,

and the spectrum appears of a different colour. To this spectral colour

the term _complementary_ or _accidental_ is applied; and if the colour

of the object be red, the complementary colour will be green; if yellow,

deep purple; if black, white, &c., and _vice versâ_. Thus then the

spectral apparition witnessed in the above relation receives a ready

and intelligible explanation.

The sense of _hearing_ is also subject to illusions: for example, when a

timid person mistakes the rustling of leaves in a forest for the voices

of robbers; or the soughing of the wind among the trees, in some place

of evil repute, for the moaning of a wandering and unhappy spirit.

The varied and undefined noises often produced by the wind when sweeping

over an irregular surface, among rocks and trees, on the surface of

water, in forests, or secluded and deep glens; and the mysterious sounds

occasioned by the rushing of the water in the hollows and caverns of a

rock-bound coast, have been fertile sources of illusion among the

superstitious.

The ancient Romans listening to the inexplicable sounds which assailed

the ear in solitary and wooded places, fabled that they were the voices

of the wood deities, or as Lucretius beautifully expresses it:--

"The neighbouring swains believe, or fondly vaunt,

Satyrs and nymphs the rural regions haunt;

That fauns with wanton revel and delight

Disturb the sober silence of the night:

That music's blended notes are heard around,

The plaintive voice, and harp's according sound:

And well they know when Pan, the sylvan god,

(While o'er his brows the piny honours nod,)

With bending lip awakes the vocal reeds,

And the charmed ears of listening satyrs feeds.

With joy these tales they tell, or tales like these,

And fill the woods with fabled deities."[51]

As the winds swept over the wild heaths of the north, or roared amid the

mountain passes, bearing upon their bosom the heavy mantling clouds

which enwreathed the ghosts of the heroes of old, often in their varied

tones did the ancient Celt conceive that he heard the voices of the

dead; and he who was stricken with misery deemed that his forefathers

called upon him to hasten to the land of shadows. "The ghosts of

fathers," they say, "call away the souls of their race while they behold

them lonely in the midst of woe." Or when an eddy of wind sweeping into

the hall awoke a cadence of music as it played over the strings of the

harps suspended there, the hearers shrunk as the notes thrilled through

them, and fearfully whispered that the ghosts of the dead touched the

strings, and asked whose death of all the mighty the ghostly music

portended. "The harps of the bards, untouched, sound mournful over the

hill."[52]

The supernatural framework of many legends depends upon illusions of the

hearing of a similar character.

At Crosmere, near Ellesmere, in Shropshire, there is a tradition that a

chapel once stood on the borders of the lake, and it was long believed

that when the waters were ruffled by the wind the sound of the bells

might be heard beneath the surface; and an old story records that, long

ago, a church and village were entombed by an earthquake, near the spot

where Raleigh, in Nottinghamshire, now stands; and that at Christmas,

even now, the bells may be heard solemnly tolling deep in the bosom of

the earth.

Among the Cornish miners a very singular superstition prevails, which is

due to the sounds occurring in old and deserted workings, from the

dropping of water and other causes. These noises are supposed to be

produced by certain spirits, which are termed "_Knockers_," and,

according to the author of "Yeast; a Problem," the miners hold that

"they are _the ghosts of the old Jews that crucified our Lord, and were

sent for slaves by the Roman Emperors to work the mines_; and we find

their old smelting-houses, which we call _Jews' houses_, and their

blocks, at the bottom of the great bogs, which we call _Jews' tin_; and

there is a town among us, too, which we call _Market Jew_, but the old

name was _Marazion_, that means the Bitterness of Zion, they tell me;

and bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! We used to break

into the old shafts and adits which they had made, and find old

stags'-horn pickaxes that crumbled to pieces when we brought them to

grass. And they say that, if a man will listen of a still night about

those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them at working, knocking,

and picking, as clear as if there was a man at work in the next

level."[53]

But the most common cause of illusion from sound arises from the

difficulty which all more or less experience, of tracing the direction

of a sound, particularly if it be indistinct. The ascertainment of the

direction of a sound, and the distance of the sonorous body, is an act

of judgment, and it is the result of experience. The power may be

cultivated to a great extent, and many savage tribes possess it in a

very high degree; but among civilized nations, where the sounds

requisite to be attended to are principally of a point-blank character,

and where the necessity for the cultivation of that nicety of hearing

which is required in forest life does not exist, the power of

distinguishing the direction and distance of sounds is very imperfect.

The intensity of the sound, and the position of the ears, contribute to

the formation of a correct judgment; but if the two ears have precisely

the same relation to the point from which the sound issues, as when it

occurs directly before or behind, it is impossible to distinguish by

the sensation alone whether the sound arises in the front or the rear.

The most familiar and striking illustration of the difficulty

experienced in determining the direction of sound, is _ventriloquism_.

By a cultivation of the power of speaking without the aid of the lips,

and by keeping the muscles of the face in a state of passiveness, the

ventriloquist, on giving the mind of the listener a certain leading

idea, will induce him to think that he hears voices issuing from the

floor, from the ceiling, from within him, or from any position but the

correct one; and by a modification of the intensity of the sound, it may

be made to appear as if it arose at different distances, as when voices

are heard in the distance, which gradually approach the listener, come

close to him, pass by, and are again lost in the distance. Although

perfectly aware of the deception, there are few who can correct the

impressions received, and trace them to their legitimate source.

This uncertainty of distinguishing the direction and the nature of

sounds has been a prolific source of belief in supernatural occurrences,

and the majority, if not all, of those mysterious noises which are so

common in old houses, and which it was customary, from inability to

discover their origin, to attribute to spiritual agency, have been due

to this cause. The yielding of wood-work, the scouring of vermin, the

sighing of the wind in chinks and crannies, have been transformed by

excited and superstitious imaginations into the sighing, or whispering,

or knocking of wandering ghosts, and there is, perhaps, not a town or

village in England which has not at one time or other had one or more

houses reputed to be haunted by incorporeal visitants who have thus

announced their presence.

Sir David Brewster relates an interesting example of illusion arising

from this source. "A gentleman devoid of all superstitious feelings, and

living in a house free from any gloomy associations, heard, night after

night, in his bedroom, a singular noise, unlike any ordinary sound to

which he was accustomed. He had slept in the same room for years without

hearing it, and he attributed it at first to some change of

circumstances in the roof or in the walls of the room; but after the

strictest examination no cause could be found for it. It occurred only

once in the night; it was heard almost every night with few

interruptions. It was over in an instant, and it never took place till

after the gentleman had gone to bed. It was always distinctly heard by

his companion, to whose time of going to bed it had no relation. It

depended on the gentleman alone, and it followed him into another

apartment with another bed, on the opposite side of the house.

Accustomed to such investigations, he made the most diligent but

fruitless search into its cause. The consideration that the sound had a

special reference to him alone, operated upon his imagination, and he

did not scruple to acknowledge that the recurrence of the mysterious

sound induced a superstitious feeling at the moment. Many months

afterwards it was found that the sound arose from the partial opening of

the door of a wardrobe which was within a few feet of the gentleman's

head, and which had been taken into the other apartment. This wardrobe

was almost always opened before he retired to bed, and the door being a

little too tight, it gradually forced itself open with a sort of dull

sound, resembling the note of a drum. As the door had only started half

an inch out of its place, its change of position never attracted

attention. The sound, indeed, seemed to come in a different direction,

and from a greater distance.

"When sounds so mysterious in their origin are heard by persons

predisposed to a belief in the marvellous, their influence over the mind

must be very powerful. An inquiry into their origin, if made at all,

will be made more in the hope of confirming than of removing the

original impression, and the unfortunate victim of his own fears will

also be the willing dupe of his own judgment."[54]

Not unfrequently the difficulty of distinguishing the direction of sound

has been made the basis of imposition upon the credulous; and when it is

considered how readily the judgment is led into error in this respect,

even when aware of the deception practised, as in ventriloquism, the

easy facility with which it is imposed upon when superstitious feelings

are excited, and the wide-spread delusions which have thus arisen,

cannot be wondered at.

The Cock-lane ghost is a familiar example of a deception of this

nature: but this, and every other delusion of a similar character,

sink into insignificance before a delusion of our own day and

times--_Spirit-rapping_.

The idea of a communication of the spiritual world with man by the

intervention of _raps_, is not new. A writer in a recent number of

"Notes and Queries,"[55] gives the following example of an early

instance of this kind in England.

"Rushton Hall, near Kettering, in Northamptonshire, was long the

residence of the ancient and distinguished family of Treshams. In the

reign of Queen Elizabeth, the mansion was occupied by Sir Thomas

Tresham, who was a pedant and a fanatic; but who was an important

character in his time by reason of his great wealth and powerful

connections. There is a lodge at Rushton, situate about half-a-mile from

the old hall, now in ruins, but covered all over within and without with

emblems of the Trinity. This lodge is known to have been built by Sir

Thomas Tresham; but his precise motive for selecting this mode of

illustrating his favourite doctrine was unknown until it appeared from a

letter written by himself about the year 1584, and discovered in a

bundle of books and papers inclosed since 1605, in a wall of the old

mansion, and brought to light about twenty years ago. The following

relation of a "rapping" or "knocking" is extracted from this letter:--

"If it be demanded why I labour so much in the Trinity and Passion of

Christ to depaint in this chamber, this is the principal instance

thereof; that at my last being hither committed"--(referring to his

commitments for recusancy, which had been frequent)--"and I usually

having my servants here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after

supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the

"Christian Resolution," in the treatise of "Proof that there is a God,

&c.," there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks

(as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great amazing of

me and my two servants, Fulcis and Nilkton."

Another example of early "spirit-rapping" is the celebrated ghost of

"_Old Jeffreys_," at the Epworth Parsonage, during the childhood of the

Revds. John and Charles Wesley.

The conception of a familiar correspondence between the spirit-world and

man by means of knocks and raps is, however, an idea of modern times,

and for which we are indebted to America, although it would seem that in

1835 we were on the eve of making this unenviable discovery in our own

country, for the invisible cause of certain noisy disturbances in a

house occupied by a Captain Molesworth at Trinity, near Edinburgh, in

that year, would, it is asserted, respond to a question by knocks, if it

could be answered numerically; as, for example, "How many people are

there in the room?" when it would answer by as many knocks. This

so-called spirit seemed at times to be drumming a certain tune. The

knocks in this case had some very intimate connection with a sick girl,

a daughter of Captain Molesworth; for they accompanied her, and

wherever she was there they prevailed most.

In 1846, or 1847, a house in the village of Hydesville, State of New

York, America, was reported to be haunted by certain noises, as

knockings on the doors, panels, floors, ceilings, &c., of which the

source could not be ascertained; and chairs and tables were occasionally

displaced, and crockery broken by some invisible power. When the noises

and disturbances first commenced, it is stated that the house was

occupied by a man named Weekman; but subsequently it passed into the

possession of a person called Fox, who had two daughters, Catherine and

Margaretta, and during their residence in it, not only did the knockings

and irregular motions of the furniture persist, but they increased in

intensity, variety, and frequency of occurrence, and it was ascertained

by the young women that the knocks would mimic sounds which they made,

and even respond to questions put orally. A code of signals in the

affirmative and negative was next arranged, and by going over the

letters of the alphabet, and the affirmative signal duly occurring at

certain letters, which were recorded, a system of correspondence was

established with the invisible, but apparently intelligent, source of

the disturbances. By this method it was ascertained that the cause of

the noises, and other indications of invisible power, professed to be

the spirit of a man named Charles Ryan, who, while in the flesh, had

resided in that house; had been foully murdered there; the corpse

interred in a certain part of the cellar; and had left a family of five

children, all of whom were then alive. These revelations caused, as may

well be imagined, a great sensation in the village, and, notwithstanding

that no such person as Charles Ryan had ever lived there, or in that

house, and that on searching the cellar carefully no remains of a corpse

were found, the imposition and delusion was persisted in. It is scarcely

necessary to add that as yet no one has come forward to claim kindred

with the first of the disembodied spirits that held communication with

man.

Several committees were appointed to investigate the matter, but they

failed to ascertain the cause of the sounds, and by common consent, no

natural cause being evident, it was assumed, _therefore_, that the cause

was supernatural.

Subsequently, the Fox family removed to Rochester, and singular to say,

the spirit-sounds followed them. Noises began also to be heard in other

houses and towns, and it was soon found that many females, equally with

the Misses Fox, possessed the power of communicating familiarly through

the medium of sounds, with the spirit-world. In an almost incredibly

brief space of time, this delusion swept over the United States, and

multitudes from all ranks and conditions of society gave in their

accession to the system of belief into which it was quickly moulded.

Certain persons only were found to possess the power of summoning the

spiritual knocks at pleasure; these were principally females, and they

were termed "_mediums_." The belief itself was spoken of under the

simple term of "_Spirit-rapping_," and its advocates and believers as

"_Rappers_," or "_Rappites_."

Each "medium," somehow or other, managed to interweave his or her own

views with the spirit-revelations, and the spirits themselves did not

hesitate in simple set phrase to give the lie to one another;

consequently, the revelations and doctrines inculcated are somewhat

varied and inconsistent. The most generally received doctrine at the

present time may, however, be summed up as follows:--The "knocks,"

"raps," and other manifestations of invisible power, are caused by the

spirits of the dead, who, by direct permission of the Almighty

(according to the more religious), or by self-discovery on the part of

the spirits (according to a statement made by the spirit of Benjamin

Franklin), are enabled to communicate with their fellow-men by various

sounds and exhibitions of physical power. This correspondence was

permitted by God in consequence of the great advance which the Americans

in particular, and mankind in general, had made towards perfection; and

it is intimated that if the present rate of progression towards

perfection continue, we shall soon be able to have intercourse by voice

and sight with the spirit-world. As it is, certain persons possess these

privileges in full, and the mass of Christians, _if believers_, have so

grown in goodness that the religion of the present day--Biblical

religion--is no longer needed, and Christianity is to be regarded as a

state of probation that _was_ requisite to attain the perfection now

arrived at; but this transition state being passed, from the elevation

of the spirit-world we can see that many of its doctrines form now a

mighty and dangerous slough, in which we are in danger of being

smothered.

The ideas entertained by mankind respecting spiritual existences are

singularly incorrect; notwithstanding this, however, most of the

spirits, as when in the body, entertain some peculiarity of doctrine,

which shows that even in the "spheres" opinions are divided on this

point. The most general opinion states that the spirit-world surrounds

the earth, and is divided into seven spheres, which are subdivided into

seven other spheres, and these again admit of still further

division,--a geography evidently derived from Mahomedanism, and the old

monkish legends of the septate division of hell, purgatory, and

paradise. In the first of the spheres the lowest orders of spirits

reside. These form the most degraded class of spirit-life, and are

unhappy compared with those in the higher spheres; but the lowest degree

of their unhappiness exceeds the highest degree of man's pleasures. Into

this sphere pass all those who have had an unsatisfactory character on

earth; while those who have been more correct in their conduct pass

immediately into the sphere which approximates to their degree of

goodness. The residence of any spirit in the lower spheres is not

constant; for, exposed to heavenly influences, it goes on gradually

improving, and as it sublimes, it ascends through the higher spheres,

until at last the seventh sphere is attained, where it is fulfilled with

bliss, and enters the presence of God. Hence we find St. Paul and Tom

Paine, Calvin and Napoleon, Wesley and Shelley, united in friendly

brotherhood. There is no hell, such as is taught in the Scriptures, and

no eternal punishment, and man carries into the spirit-world his

passions and propensities, and relative degrees of ignorance and

knowledge. The spirit of Calvin stated that the spirits understood all

languages intuitively; but this has been refuted by an immense majority

of spirits, and it is certain that they know no other languages than

those they were acquainted with on earth. Indeed, it is requisite to

have rudimental education in our own language in heaven. "I have no

friends to teach me how to spell," said a spirit named Jack Waters.

Another, named Frank Copland, was unable to make any satisfactory

communication, from being "an illiterate youth" when he died; and the

"medium" to whom this communication was made, kindly advised the spirit

to get the soul of a deceased sister to teach him. He did so, and in

three months it was ascertained that he had made very creditable

progress in spelling, &c. The amusements of the "spirits" consist of

music, concerts, dancing, card-playing, &c., and they live in a species

of concubinage. They dress according to fancy, but the male spirits

generally wear trousers, hats or turbans, and beards. They have also

condescended to teach certain celestial architectural vagaries. They

_lie_ like mortals, and coolly admit it; and it is occasionally

necessary to put the spirits on oath! They are very liable to error, and

the spirit of General Washington, equally careless of grammar and

orthography, revealed, that they "many times make mistakes, and so we

are called liars; but this is owing to our neglect of the records that

are given us, and also to evel spirits; but we will try to be more

careful or correct after we have becom more use to writing for our

friends." The spirits speak with the utmost contempt and abhorrence of

the religious beliefs of the present day, and regard the Bible as unfit

for general perusal, from the errors (due to the translators) which it

contains; and this assertion is fittingly crowned by the statement that

it emanates under a special communication from St. Paul himself.

Notwithstanding the painful absurdity and frightful blasphemy of these

doctrines (which satisfactorily show the class of persons by whom the

delusion is fostered, and the flagrant character of the imposition),

clergymen, judges, and persons distinguished in literature have

permitted themselves to be led away by the delusion, each establishing

some conscientious clause or giving a peculiar phase to the belief, in

order to exculpate themselves from the charge of contributing to some of

the more outrageous dogmas of this strange delusion.

The phenomena which led to the delusion were sounds of various kinds and

intensity, which were called up by the "medium" at will, apparently in

various parts of the room in which the "_séances_" were held, but

principally beneath the table at which she sat; and the movement of

certain articles of furniture. The intelligent correspondence with the

"raps" (for the furniture-moving was merely indicative of the _power_ of

the suppositious spirits) was by questions uttered audibly, mentally, or

in writing, to which replies were given by repeated raps--an

affirmative; or by silence--a negative; or the words of the response

were spelled out by running over the alphabet--the affirmative knocks

taking place when the finger or pencil rested on the letters required to

form the sentence. Some more highly-gifted mediums, pervaded by a

spiritual afflatus, were enabled to write the answers; and others

shadowed them forth in dancing.

If we reflect for a moment upon the difficulty which most persons

experience in detecting the direction and position of sounds,

particularly when the mind is under the dominion of certain ideas, we

may readily imagine how at the first the delusion of spirit-rapping

obtained credence among the credulous and ignorant. It was, however,

soon ascertained that an imposition was being practised; and very

shortly after the development of the mania, a "medium" came forward and

confessed the deception practised, and the mode in which she had carried

it out. This "medium," named Mrs. Norman Culvers, had been taught the

mode of deception by Margaretta Fox, one of the original "mediums;" and

she stated that the raps were produced by the toes, the listener's mind

being distracted by directing the attention, by a fixed gaze or

otherwise, to certain parts of the room, from which he was instructed

that the sounds came. By the confession of other "mediums," and by

observation, it was ascertained that, in addition to the rapping by the

toes, raps were produced by a lateral movement of the knee-joint, and

the joints of the thumb and fingers (the "cracking" of the joints, a

familiar phenomenon); by the action of the feet against the leg of the

table, or by the movement of the soles of the shoes one against another;

and lastly, by a hammer ingeniously fixed in the woodwork of the table.

It was further shown to demonstration, that in no case when the

"mediums" were placed in positions where none of the before-mentioned

methods of rapping could occur, did the raps take place; that in no case

could the "spirits" reply correctly to a single question, when the

querist, by an impassibility of countenance and scrupulous care over his

actions, did not betray his thoughts, or indicate the letters

constituting the words he required; and that the "spirits" might be led

to answer the most absurd and incorrect questions, utterly unconscious

of imposition or error.

Notwithstanding this exposure, the delusion is persisted in; and it is

principally maintained by the occasional correct replies which are given

by the medium to questions of which none present could be acquainted

with the answer, but the querist; and many men, even of considerable

literary attainments, have been led into the delusion by this simple

phenomenon alone.

A careful examination of the details of the spirit-communications, and

the confessions of the mediums already alluded to, will show that in no

case was there a correct response given to questions when precautions

were taken to guard against the indication given by the countenance or

by the actions to the medium, and even this was not sufficient to

prevent a multitude of errors being fallen into.

The pure spirit-communications which have been received from the

Apostles, Franklin, Washington, &c., vary according to the mediums to

which they have been vouchsafed, and often flatly contradict each other;

in itself a sufficient indication of the glaring character of the

delusion.

Some, admitting the spiritual origin of the "raps" have gone a

little further, and enunciated the opinion that the "rappings" occur

through the influence of electricity or magnetism which the spirits

wield; "and if," writes N. P. Willis, "disembodied spirits are still

moving consciously among us, and have thus _found an agent at

last--electricity--by which they can communicate with the world they

have left_, it must soon, in the progressive nature of things, ripen

to an intercourse between this and the spirit-world." Surely an

electric condition that would cause sonorous "raps," and tables,

chairs, &c., to dance jigs, and imitate ships tossed in a storm,

would be within reach of the test of experiment. Such a test,

however, has never been attempted; and thus it is men, even of high

standing in literature, with the utmost coolness plunge into

conjectures respecting the operations of forces of which they seem

to be unacquainted even with the signification of the terms. For

electricity and magnetism are no vague names, but terms applied to

certain phenomena which are readily ascertained, and without the

presence of which we are not justified in using them.

We have already sufficiently shown the illusions to which the sense of

hearing is liable, and the influence they have had in the formation of

the belief in spirit-rapping is evident. The disposition of the mind in

contributing towards this and allied delusions requires a brief comment.

The substratum of superstition which is found to prevail more or less in

most persons, is a never-failing source of delusion; and it is the

groundwork upon which the impostor acts. Readily excited and brought

into play by phenomena of which the origin is not palpably evident, it

seizes with avidity upon doctrines which pander to its taste for mystery

and wonder; and a suggestion, whether direct or implied, induces a

condition of the mind that interposes an almost insuperable bar to the

healthy action of the reason. This unconscious action of the mind, under

the influence of leading ideas, is the prime foundation of those

illusions of the senses of which we have illustrations in the pseudo

sciences of "mesmerism," "electro-biology," &c., all the phenomena of

which may be produced by simply inducing certain trains of thought.