Amulets and Charms among the Chaldaeans, Jews, and
Persians--Amulets among the Greeks and
Romans--Ecclesiastics forbidden to wear Amulets and
Phylacteries--Amulets and Charms very
numerous--Pericles' Amulet--Lord Bacon's Opinion of
Charms--Cramp Rings and Eel Skins--Moss off a Dead
Man's Skull--How to remove Warts--Cure for St. Vitus'
Dance--Effect of Music--Kittens and Pigeons used as
Cures--Yawning and Laughing, Fear and Shame--Diseases
cured by Charms--Surprise a Cure for Hooping-cough--A
Mad Dog's Bite--Touch of a Torpedo--Philosophers'
Opinions of Amulets--Bane and Antidote--Mr. E.
Chambers on Amulets--Poets on Enchantments--A
Dairymaid's Charm--A Charm sent by a Pope to an
Emperor.
Amulets and charms were in great variety among the Chaldaeans, Jews,
and Persians. They were also held in estimation among the Greeks and
Romans, chiefly on account of their supposed virtue in exciting or
conquering the passion of love. The Council of Laodicea forbade
ecclesiastics to wear amulets and phylacteries, on pain of
degradation. St. Jerome was likewise opposed to their use.
Nevertheless, although amulets and charms are not held in the same
repute they once were, their efficacy is not supposed to be entirely
gone. Among early Christians amulets and charms were acknowledged to
possess peculiar virtues beneficial to man. Amulets and charms were,
and are, so numerous that it would be a herculean task to give an
account of one half of them. Where the inhabitants were destitute of
medical resources, amulets and charms were employed for the
alleviation of bodily suffering. Pericles wore an amulet about his
neck, as such charms were supposed to be capable of preserving the
wearers from misfortune and disease. Lord Bacon was of opinion that if
a man wore a planet seal, it might aid him in obtaining the affection
of his sweetheart, give him protection at sea and in battle, and make
him more courageous. Cramp rings and eel skins were worn round the
limbs, to prevent sickness; and people were sometimes cured by laying
sticks across each other in front of their beds at night. Moreover,
the sticks thus placed prevented demons approaching the couch of rest.
The moss off a dead man's skull, says the great Mr. Boyle, is an
effectual remedy against bleeding at the nose. We are told by Lord
Verulam, that when he was at Paris he had above one hundred warts on
his hands, and that they were removed by the English ambassador's lady
rubbing them with a piece of bacon, afterwards nailed to a post. In
five weeks the bacon, being exposed to the sun, melted away, and the
warts disappeared.
St. Vitus' dance was cured by the sufferer visiting the tomb of the
saint, near Ulm, every May. The bites of certain reptiles are rendered
harmless by music. Dr. Sydenham orders, in cases of iliac passion, a
live kitten to be laid on the abdomen. Pigeons, split alive and
applied to the soles of the feet, are efficacious in fevers and
convulsions. Quincey says that yawning and laughing are infectious,
and so are fear and shame; and from these, by a system of reasoning
peculiarly his own, he endeavours to prove that amulets may be
sufficient to counteract, if not to entirely hinder, infection.
Throughout the Mohammedan dominions the people were convinced that
charms were indispensable to their well-being. By charms they cured
every kind of disease, provided predestination had not determined that
the sick man's days were at an end. Surprise, it is urged, removes the
hooping-cough; looking from a precipice, or seeing a wheel turn
swiftly, causes giddiness. "Why then," asks a wise man, "may not
amulets or charms, by their secret influence, produce the effects
ascribed to them? Who can comprehend by what impenetrable means the
bite of a mad dog produces hydrophobia? Why does the touch of a
torpedo induce numbness? When these causes and effects are explained,"
he concludes, "so may the virtue of amulets be accounted for." Ancient
philosophers laid it down, as a proof of ignorance, the condemnation
of a science not easily understood. In this way the advocates of
amulets and charms have been enabled to silence people who have had
the hardihood to throw odium on their superstitions. Believers in
amulets and charms remind us that it is a well-ascertained fact in
nature, that for every bane there is an antidote. Wherever the
stinging nettle grows, the slimy stem of the dock is near; whenever
the wasp stings, honey gathered by the industrious bee may be had,
without going far, to put on the injured part; when the cold is most
intense without, the fire burns brightest within; and if there be evil
spirits seeking man's hurt, there are good angels hovering round him
for his protection.
Mr. E. Chambers, who published his _Cyclopaedia, or A Universal
Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_, in 1728, says that an amulet
(_amuletum_) is a kind of medicament hung about the neck or other part
of the body to prevent or remove diseases. Amulets, he proceeds, are
frequently nothing else than spells or charms, consisting of quaint
words and characters, supposed to have the virtue of warding off ill.
And Mr. Chambers informs his readers, under the word "charm," that a
charm is a magic power or spell, by which, with the assistance of the
devil, sorcerers and witches are supposed to do wondrous things, far
surpassing the power of nature.
Ancient poets, who were of a superstitious turn of mind, attached no
small importance to amulets and charms. One of them says:
"Enchantments pluck out of the sky,
The moon though she be plac'd on high;
Dame Circe with her charms so fine,
Ulysses' mates did turn to swine:
The snake with charms is burst in twain,
In meadows where she doth remain.
* * * * *
These herbs did Meris give to me,
And poysons pluckt at Pontos,
For there they grow and multiply,
And do not so amongst us.
With these she made herself become
A wolf, and hid her in the wood;
She fetched up souls out of the tombe,
Removing corn from where it stood."
The following is an old translation from Virgil:
"From thence a virgin priest is come
From out Massyla land,
Sometimes the temple there she kept,
And from her heavenly hand
The dragon meat did take: she kept
Also the fruit divine,
With herbs and liquors sweet that still
To sleep did men incline.
The minds of men (she saith) from love
With charms she can unbind,
In whom she list: but others can
She cast to cases unkind.
The running streams do stand, and from
Their course the stars do wreath,
And souls she conjure can: then shalt
See sister underneath
The ground with roring gape and trees,
And mountains turn upright."
Ovid is made to say:
"The river I can make retire
Into the fountains whence they flow,
(Where at the banks themselves admire)
I can make standing waters go;
With charms I drive both sea and cloud,
I can make it calm and blow aloud,
The viper's jaws, the rocky stone,
With words and charms I break in twain;
The force of earth congeal'd in one,
I move, and shake both woods and plain;
I make the souls of men arise,
And pull the moon out of the skies.
* * * * *
And thrice she spake the words that caus'd
Sweet sleep and quiet rest;
She staid the raging of the sea,
And mighty floods supprest."
Other poets, writing of charms, say:
"With charms the corn is spoiled so
As that it vades the barren grass;
With charms the springs are dried low,
That none can see where water was.
The grapes from vines, the mast from oaks,
And beats down fruit with charming strokes.
* * * * *
She plucks each star out of his throne,
And turneth back the raging waves;
With charms she makes the earth to cone,
And raises souls out of their graves:
She burns men's bones as with fire,
And pulleth down the lights from heaven,
And makes it snow at her desire,
Even in the midst of summer season.
* * * * *
The course of nature ceased quite,
The air obeyed not his law,
The day delayed by length of night,
Which made both day and night to yaw;
And all was through that charming gear,
Which caus'd the world to quake for fear.
* * * * *
They talked with tongues of birds,
Consulting with the salt sea coasts,
They burst the snake with witching words,
Soliciting the spiritual ghosts;
They turn the night into the day,
And also drive the light away:
And what is 't that cannot be made
By them that do apply this trade."
Sir Thomas Brown mentions that a chalked tile at each corner of a
field and one in the centre thereof were rural charms that prevented
weeds growing; and the three following charms are given in Herrick's
_Hesperides_:
"This I'le tell ye by the way,
Maidens when ye leavens lay,
Cross your dough, and your dispatch
Will be better for your batch.
In the morning when ye rise,
Wash your hands and cleanse your eyes,
Next be sure to have a care
To disperse the water farre,
For as farre as that doth light,
So farre keeps the evil spright.
If ye fear to be affrighted,
When ye are (by chance) benighted;
In your pocket for a trust
Carry nothing but a crust;
For that holy piece of bread
Charms the danger and the dread."
Here are older charms in metre:
"With blessynges of Saynt Germayne
I will me so determyne,
That neyther for nor vermyne
Shall do my chyckens harme.
For your gese seke Saynt Legearde,
And for your duckes Saynt Leonarde,
There is no better charme.
Take me a napkin folte
With the byas of a bolte,
For the healing of a colte
No better thynge can be;
For lampes and for bottes
Take me Saynt Thomas Lattes,
On my life I warrande ye."
In the _Hesperides_ we also find the following spell:
"Holy water come and bring:
Cast in salt for seasoning:
Set the brush for sprinkling.
Sacred spittle bring ye hither:
Meale and it now mix together,
And a little oyle to either.
Give the tapers here their light;
Ring the saints' bell to affright
Far from hence the evil sprits.
And good Saynt Francis' gyrdle,
With the hamlet of a hyrdle,
Are wholesome for the pyppe.
Besides these charms afore
I have feates many more
That kepe still in store,
Whom I now over hyppe."
The same writer quaintly says:
"A charm or an allay for love,
If so be a toad be laid
In a sheep-skin newly flaid,
And that ty'd to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever."
Butler, in his _Hudibras_, describes the supposed power of a cunning
man thus:
"Not far from hence doth dwell
A cunning man hight Sidrophel,
That deals in destiny's dark counsels,
And sage opinion of the moon sells;
To whom all people, far and near,
On deep importances repair;
When brass and pewter hap to stray,
And linen slinks out of the way;
When geese and pullen are seduced,
And sows of sucking pigs are chows'd;
When cattle feel indisposition,
And need the opinion of physician;
When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep
And chickens languish of the pip;
When yeast and outward means do fail,
And have no power to work on ale;
When butter does refuse to come,
And love proves cross and humoursome;
To him with questions and with urine
They for discovery flock, or curing."
In the seventeenth century, dairymaids, when churning, used a charm,
said over the churn in the following lines:
"Come, butter, come,
Come, butter, come;
Peter stands at the gate,
Waiting for a buttered cake,
Come, butter, come."
This having been said three times, the butter came straightway; and
very good butter it was, on the good saint being invoked.
A holy Pope of the good old times sent the following lines to an
exalted Emperor:
"Balme, Virgine-wax, and holy water,
An Agnus Dei make,
A gift than which none can be greater,
I send thee for to take.
From fountain clear the same hath issue
In secret sanctified;
'Gainst lightning it hath soverain virtue,
And thunder-cracks beside.
Each hainous sin it wears and wasteth,
Even as holy precious blood;
And women while their travel lasteth
It saves, it is so good.
It doth bestow great gifts and graces
On such as well deserve;
And borne about in noisome places,
From peril doth preserve.
The force of fire, whose heat destroyeth,
It breaks and bringeth down;
And he or she that this enjoyeth
No water shall them drown."