FOLKLORE AND MYTH
Folk-tale, and indeed folklore of every description, is worthy of study by the student of myth; for not only will he often find that the principles which govern it are identical with those of myth, but he will glean much knowledge of methods from those who work this neighbouring row in the vineyard of tradition.
Some people regard mythology as merely a branch of wider study of folklore, but in the definitions in the first the chapter of this work we called the former "the study of a primitive or early form of religion while it was a living faith," and folklore "the study of primitive religion and customs still practised." Let us now examine the writings of the great authorities on folklore and see what they have to say upon this interesting subject.
Sir George Gomme, in his Folklore as an Historical Science (p. 148), says: "The folk-tale is secondary to the myth. It is the primitive myth dislodged from its primitive place. It has become a part of the life of the people independently of its primary form and object and in a different sense. The mythic or historic fact has been obscured, or has been displaced from the life of the people. But the myth lives on through the affections of the people for the traditions of their older life. They love to tell the story which their ancestors revered as myth, even though it has lost its oldest and most impressive significance. The artistic setting of it, born of the years through which it has lived, fashioned by the minds which have handed it down and embellished it through the generations, has helped its life. It has become the fairy tale or the nursery tale. It is told to grown-up people, not as belief, but as what was once believed; it is told to children, not to men; to lovers of romance, not to worshippers of the unknown; it is told by mothers and nurses, not by philosophers or priestesses; in the gathering ground of home life, or in the nursery, not in the hushed sanctity of a great wonder."
Coming down to hard-and-fast definition, Sir George Gomme says: "The myth belongs to the most primitive stages of human thought, and is the recognisable explanation of some natural phenomenon, some forgotten or unknown object of human origin, or some event of lasting influence; the folk-tale is a survival preserved amidst culture-surroundings of a more advanced stage, and deals with events and ideas of primitive times in terms of the experience or of episodes in the lives of unnamed human beings; the legend belongs to an historical personage, locality, or event. These are new definitions, and are suggested in order to give some sort of exactness to the terms in use. All these terms—myth, folk-tale, and legend—are now used indiscriminately with no particular definiteness. The possession of three such distinct terms forms an asset which should be put to its full use, and this cannot be done until we agree upon a definite meaning for each."
Dean Macculloch in his valuable Childhood of Fiction (p. 432) says: "The mythological school represented by the writings of De Gubernatis, Cox, Max Müller, and others, have found the origin of folk-tales in the myths of the Aryan race. Folk-tales are the detritus of such Aryan myths, when the meaning of the myths themselves was long forgotten. The whole theory falls to the ground when it is discovered that exactly similar stories are told by non-Aryan races, and that the incidents of such stories are easily explainable by actual customs and ideas of savages and primitive folk everywhere. On the other hand, many folk-tales have originated as myths explanatory of existing customs, or by way of explaining phenomena which seemed to depend on these customs, and when the customs fell into desuetude the myths remained as folk-tales. The incidents of existing folk-tales, again, have frequently been embodied in mythologies—Greek, Celtic, Japanese. Thus there is throughout an intimate connection between mythology and folk-tales, though not of the kind which De Gubernatis and others imagined." Again: "Folk-tales have a vital connection with myth and saga, though the connection is far from that insisted on by Max Müller and the mythological school. Still another link of connection may be perceived in many European Märchen, where the gods and mythic figures of an earlier faith have been metamorphosed into ogres, witches, and fairies, and where the dimly-remembered customs of that earlier religion have supplied incidents for the story inventor of a later age."
In a note to his Mythology and Folklore (p. 7) Sir George Cox furnishes the philological view of the relation of mythology to folklore: "It is, perhaps, open to doubt whether the terms mythology and folklore are likely to retain permanently their present relative meanings. Neither term is altogether satisfactory; but the distinction between tales susceptible of philological analysis and those which are not must nevertheless be carefully maintained, as indispensable to any scientific treatment of the subject. In his introduction to The Science of Language Mr Sayce admits 'that it is often difficult to draw the line between folklore and mythology, to define exactly where the one ends and the other begins, and there are many instances in which the two terms overlap one another.'"
It is demonstrable that the author of the term folklore, the late Mr W. J. Thorns (1803-1885), deputy librarian of the House of Lords and founder and editor of Notes and Queries, did not intend it to include mythology. He said that he intended it to designate "that department of the study of antiquities and archæology which embraces everything relating to ancient observances and customs, to the notions, beliefs, traditions, superstitions, and prejudices of the common people." It will be remarked that this definition does not include "the study of a primitive or early religion while it was a living faith."
But the study of folklore is, as has been said, greatly capable of assisting the student of myth. A Roman sword or a Saxon cup exhumed after many centuries are no less the blade once wielded by a Roman, or the vessel from which the Saxon imbibed, solely because centuries have elapsed since they were in use by their original owners, nor do they fail to yield us information concerning the lives and habits of those to whom they belonged. In the same manner a story or custom long embedded in the earth of superstition is no less capable of throwing light upon ancient religion and thus upon ancient myth. Many folk-tales are merely 'broken-down' myths, but by no means all folk-tales are so, as numbers were invented for purposes of amusement and partake of the character of fiction.
As an instance of the manner in which folk-belief can influence true myth we have only to look at the tales of the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur, Merlin, and many of the lesser figures of the galaxy of Camelot are in reality British Celtic deities metamorphosed into medieval knights. A similar instance, perhaps of added interest because of its novelty, has recently come under the notice of the writer.
THE LEGEND OF ST TRIDUANA
The story of St Triduana and her healing well, situated at Restalrig, near Edinburgh, is a tale of the kind the student of myth delights to encounter; for what may appear to the uninitiated to be an ordinary saintly legend is, he readily sees, a fragment of true myth.
The story of the sainted lady who, in her latter days, dwelt at Restalrig, or Lestalryk, is in the grand style, and combines the poignant pathos of Euripidean tragedy with the fanaticism of mistaken religious zeal. The glorious virgin Triduana of Colosse, we are told, arrived in Scotland from Achaia, in Greece, with the holy St Regulus, or Rule, the traditional founder of St Andrews, at some date between A.D. 237 and the eighth century. This mission was evidently that entrusted to bring the relics of St Andrew to Scotland and charged with the plantation of the Christian faith in that country. The lady found a retreat at Rescobie, in Forfarshire, where she dwelt in great piety; but her Grecian beauty proved a snare for the susceptibilities of the Pictish king Nectanivan or Nechtan, who became hotly enamoured of her. Flying before his zealous wooing, she came to Dunfallandy in Athol, where his emissaries speedily discovered her. Perturbed and seemingly incredulous that a monarch should rate her charms so highly, Triduana asked of the King's messengers what so great a prince desired of her, a poor virgin dedicated to God. The reply was couched in terms which betray the Celt, and we are left with the firm conviction that he who vouchsafed it was none other than the King's seanachaidh or bard. "He desireth," said that person, "the most excellent beauty of thine eyes, which if he obtain not he will surely die." Triduana's retort was typical of the Christian martyr, and we are left wondering whether she was possessed with a fanaticism which surpassed her sense of humour, or of a grim penchant for the ridiculous which transcended all fanaticism. "What he seeketh he shall surely have," she exclaimed, and thereupon she plucked out her eyes, skewered them on a thorn, and handed them to the King's messengers with the words: "Take that which your prince desireth." Later she betook herself to Restalrig, where she pursued the life religious until her death.
Throughout the Middle Ages the shrine and well of St Triduana were famous for the cure of blindness, and to it came pilgrims from all parts of Scotland and the north of England. Sir David Lyndsay makes two allusions to it. Devotees thronged to St Tredwell, he says, "to mend their eine," and again he states in his curious inventory of saints in The Monarchie:
Sanct Tredwall, als, thare may be sene
Quhilk on ane prick hes baith her ene.
At Rescobie, her first place of sojourn in Scotland, each September brought round a St Trodlin's Fair.
Authorities are divided as to the exact site of St Triduana's Well. Indeed, much confusion attaches to the subject. A well dedicated to St Margaret, and roofed by a structure obviously copied from or copied by the chapter-house hard by Restalrig Church, stood for many generations on a site now covered by the locomotive works of the North British Railway Company. (Its groined roof now shelters another St Margaret's Well in the King's Park.) This well I do not believe to have been, as is generally stated, that of St Triduana, afterward known as St Margaret's. I incline to the belief that the building known as the 'chapter-house,' close to Restalrig Church, and almost certainly a chapel of St Triduana, sheltered the original well. This building was erected at the close of the fifteenth century, and was probably the second or third so raised over the miraculous well to which came the stricken from all over broad Scotland. It is a notable fact that since the restoration of this chapter-house modern engineering skill has proved unequal to the task of stemming the flow of water, which constantly remains at the same level here. Was not this, then, the ancient bath-house of the shrine of St Trid, down whose steps groped the sightless in hope of the precious boon of light?
What is the mythical kernel to this saintly tale?
Firstly, be it noted, St Triduana does not figure in the Roman calendar.
Secondly, such wells as hers are by no means uncommon in Britain. Well-worship is still to be traced in the Celtic or semi-Celtic portions of the country—Wales, Lancashire, and Scotland. In Teutonic Southern England, although many wells are still known as 'holy,' no trace of any reason for regarding them as such remains; but a fully developed ritual is still observed in drawing from many wells in Wales. Thus at St Tegla's Well, near Wrexham, coppers are cast into the water, the well is thrice perambulated, and a cock left as an offering by the patient who suffers from epilepsy. Semi-Celtic Shropshire, too, is rich in wells which cure sore eyes, and Miss C. S. Burne of that county, in Shropshire Folklore, suggests that the legend in the Scandinavian prose Edda of Odin giving his eye in return for a draught of water from the wisdom-giving well of Mimir might perhaps account for it. I myself had arrived at the same conclusion before perusing Miss Burne's work, and I further think that the theory is strengthened by Odin being a sun-god; the round 'eye' of the sun pierces the depths of the dark water in which it is reflected. Indeed I advanced some such explanation in the article "Mimir" in my Dictionary of Mythology, published in 1910.
We know that after the introduction of Christianity into ancient Gaul those well-spirits in which Celtic imagination delighted were frequently metamorphosed into saints, and that the teeming Gallic pantheon added many a name to the calendar of Rome. May not the same be true of our Restalrig saint? The name is obviously Latinized. It appears as 'Triduana' in a charter of James IV, but to the people she was St Trid, and we have seen that Rescobie folk called her Trodlin—an affectionate diminutive. We probably have in Trid-well a spot where the mystic rites of some Celtic goddess of the spring were celebrated. Was not the 'Young Tamlane' of Carterhaugh, near Selkirk, such a well-spirit or deity?
There's nane that goes by Carterhaugh
But maun leave him a wad
or pledge. Also he was "a wee, wee man." The portion of the ballad that makes him a mortal kidnapped by fairies is only a clumsy late explanation of the older myth of well-sprite or god, obviously lurking beneath. Is Triduana the old British goddess Keridwen who possessed the mystic cauldron Amen, conferring inspiration (or clear sight) on whoever drank of its waters?
Another good example of myth run to seed in folk-tale is the fairly widespread story of the musician who ventures to explore an underground passage, and never returns. The mythological pedigree of this tale is very clear indeed; but it seems better in the interests of the reader (having first reasoned from effect to cause) to reverse the usual method of folklore for once and argue from known cause to effect. Starting, then, with such myths as those of Orpheus, Ishtar, and others, in which the object is to demonstrate how death may be vanquished and the dead restored, we find the plot turned to the uses of folklore, the heroes entering upon a quest in the Underworld of Fairyland or the abode of a dishonoured goddess, rather than in the sad shades of Hades. Thus Ogier the Dane essays the Land of Faerie, and Tannhäuser enters the Hill of Venus or Holda—the Hörselberg—as Thomas the Rhymer enters the Hill of Ercildoune. Is there a formula? Can we reduce the general circumstances to a least common denominator something like this?
An adventurous person, usually a musician or maker of poetry, ventures underground (1) in myth to recover a beloved one from the clutches of death, (2) in folklore to gain the love of the Queen of Faerie, or some discredited goddess who takes her place.
But we have not yet plumbed the depths of mythic degeneration. From the allurements of Fairyland we descend still farther to the more dusty shadows of the underground passage. Very numerous are the local tales which tell of these. Thus in Edinburgh a piper accompanied by his dog (for so were the dead ever accompanied in primitive times) dares the dangers of an underground passage from the cliff-perched Castle to Holyrood Palace. The sound of his pipes guides those who follow his progress standing in the streets above, but at a certain point the music ceases and the piper never returns.
A SCOTTISH FAUST
In this volume it has been the policy of the author to give where possible examples which have come within his own personal notice, thus avoiding such as have done service again and again in works on myth and folklore; but to show how a folk-tale of universal fame and interest may become localized we will repeat one of these here. The Faust legend, based upon the pact with Satan, has many variants; but surely it is surprising to a degree to discover it as a local story in a Scottish lowland community.
Persons who sell themselves to the Devil are met with in the popular fiction of all European countries; but the legend of the 'Warlock Laird' of Leith, or its dénouement at least, so closely resembles the Faust story that we can hardly help ascribing a common origin to them.
In that part of Leith once known as the Lees quarter resided a person known as the Warlock Laird. His house was dissimilar from those which surrounded it, for although the portion which served as a dwelling was only one story in height, from the back of it rose a tall, circular tower about fifty feet high, enriched with curious little turrets and lit with many strange windows. For what purpose the tower had been erected is not known, and although it had been built for many years when Gordon first took up residence in the cottage attached to it, it was locally understood that he had erected it for the convenience of private consultations with the enemy of mankind. In popular romance a magician usually does business in a tower; ergo, a magician must have a tower; or is it necessary that every tower should have its magician? However that may be, Gordon, not a native, and well past middle age when he came to reside in Leith, specially selected this house as most suitable to his requirements, whatever those requirements were.
He gave out that he had spent many years at sea. When he first came his resources were slender, and he was glad to accept the situation of a labourer in a cooper's yard for a very small weekly stipend. When he had been for some months in this employment, he requested leave of absence for a week. On his return at the termination of that period it was remarked that he appeared to be better off than before: he looked sleeker, wore good clothes, and had money to spend; but he continued his work, and matters took their normal course until, a year later, he asked for another holiday. At the expiry of this vacation a still more marked change was visible in his circumstances: he purchased a ruinous old house and gave more for it than was considered fair value. Suspicion began to be aroused among his neighbours. He spent his money freely, and this in itself may have suggested that he must have come by it lightly. It was even whispered that he had been a pirate, and that he was drawing gold from some hidden hoard as necessity arose. Once more he demanded a holiday, and his request was granted as usual, but this time he was not permitted to go away without a watch being set upon his movements. Those who had resolved to observe his actions while on holiday were rather disappointed, as on the first day of his leave he remained at home all the time. But on the following day he took ship for Kirkcaldy, on the sands of which he landed without any suspicions that he was being watched by a person, disguised as an elderly woman, sitting next him in the boat.
When Gordon landed he made straight for an inn, where he ordered a copious supply of liquor. After a brief exit he returned with half a dozen boatmen dressed in their best, and commenced a drinking-bout which lasted until two o'clock next morning. For two successive days after this he loafed about the town and the shore, chatting with the boatmen, much to the annoyance of the person who was engaged to watch his movements. Two days only remained now, and on the morning of the sixth day of his holiday he was seen to embark in a ferryman's boat, in which he proceeded down the Firth alone. His follower found some difficulty in hiring a craft, and by the time he had procured one Gordon's little vessel was concealed behind the huge bulk of Inchkeith. The boatman who hired out the vessel to the spy insisted on accompanying him, and he had perforce to assent to this. After they had passed Inchkeith, Gordon's boat was seen far in advance and close inshore on the Midlothian side of the river. On the right, near North Berwick, Gordon steered his craft inside of the rocky islet known as the Lamb, nearly opposite to where the picturesque village of Dirleton now stands. Here the Leith man shipped his oars, and gazing ahead fancied that he saw two gigantic figures moving to and fro, busily engaged in digging. At this point the boatman refused to approach any farther, rowed his passenger back, and landed him at Prestonpans, whence he made his way home.
Gordon returned as usual, but on the very same day he gave a week's notice of his intention to leave his situation. At the end of that time it was rumoured that he had bought up nearly the entire buildings on one side of the Broad Wynd, and it was this gigantic investment which gave rise to the story that he must have sold himself to the Devil. He was now known and addressed as 'Laird' Gordon, visited his tenants in turn, and when they announced their intention of giving up their houses "because they disliked becoming tenants of the Deil," he passed no comment upon their resolution. But there was not much house-room in Leith in those days, and one by one the objectors returned; but they never succeeded in getting an interview with Gordon, for when they called upon him he was either deeply engaged or had just left the house. As term-time drew nigh frantic endeavours were made to see him, but he could never be found alone: a tall dark man of authoritative mien always accompanied him. This personage was silent unless directly appealed to, but he seemed to control the Warlock Laird's every movement. On one occasion Gordon summoned all the tenants together, and, entering alone the room where they were met, he desired such of them as were in earnest in their applications to stand on their heads and strike their feet against the wall. This they very naturally refused to do, whereupon his sombre-looking companion appeared, and at once every man found himself standing on his head and kicking his heels in the air. Those who wished to retain their houses were allowed to do so, but were subjected to many annoyances by Gordon and his familiar, who paid them visits at all manner of unreasonable hours. On one occasion they were brought together into one house and compelled to dance until they fell down through sheer exhaustion. Those who had occupied new dwellings were so persecuted and tormented that they were glad to return to the Broad Wynd in order to free themselves of annoyance. But one day these cantrips ceased, and for many weeks nothing was seen of the Warlock Laird. When the day came round to call upon him and disburse rents, the tenants went in a body to the Yard-heads. A strange-looking man opened the door of Gordon's house at their summons and they were ushered into an apartment where they did not remain long before they heard piercing shrieks of agony mingled with prayers for mercy proceeding from the room directly overhead. They were about to leave the house, when the door of the room they were in was dashed open and Gordon rushed into their midst, closely pursued by his fiendish companion. He earnestly besought their protection, but they were so paralysed with fear as to be incapable of assisting him in any way. The dark and sinister-looking being who had companioned him so long threw himself on the trembling wretch and dragged him forcibly into the passage outside. A great slamming of doors and clanking of chains followed: then a terrible explosion shook the house from cellar to garret. Terrified beyond expression, Gordon's tenants made what haste they could to escape from so dangerous a locality, and on reaching the doorway they discovered that the tower connected with the house had been hurled to earth and that a strong sulphurous odour hung about its ruins. Some of them even asserted that as they crossed the threshold the ground in front of the house opened and they saw Gordon descending through it, accompanied by his mysterious companion. Nevermore was Anthony Gordon seen in the streets of the port, and his house remained a shunned and dreaded spot until time laid the cottage in ruins beside the prostrate tower.
Some twenty years afterward a beggar unacquainted with the local traditions was taking shelter among the ruins of the Warlock's house when he stumbled upon a small iron-bound chest, in which were the titles of the properties in Broad Wynd. With these he immediately absconded, and returning some six months afterward posed as the Warlock's heir and assumed possession of the property; but a curse seemed to rest upon it. The tale says that the dreadful visions by which he was haunted drove him to seek refuge in intoxication, although the converse is more probably true! He drank heavily, and was found dead one morning with his throat cut. So, in this very commonplace manner, the legend ends. The date of it cannot be ascertained, but it is probable that it may be placed somewhere about the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The manner in which the legend ends bears a strong resemblance to at least one version of the Faust story—that given by Wierus or Wier, the great demonologist, who in his De præstigiis dæmonum (Basel, 1563) tells how Faust was found with his neck wrung after the house had been shaken by a terrific din. Some students who occupied a chamber near by said that between twelve and one o'clock at midnight there blew a mighty storm of wind against the house as though it would have shaken the foundations out of their place. The students, alarmed, leapt from their beds, and then they became aware of a hissing in the hall as of thousands of snakes and adders. With that the hall door flew open and Dr Faustus rushed out, crying, "Murder, murder!" but after a little they heard him no more. Next day they found his mangled remains in the hall where the Devil had destroyed him.
There can be very little doubt that the Leith legend was based, in part at least, upon the German one. The story of Faust was commonly known in Britain by the end of the sixteenth century, and so had plenty of time to take on local colour and evolve under local superstition into the shape in which it is here given.
THE 'COMPLEMENTARY' PROCESS
One process in use among folklorists is of interest to students of myth because of its application to mythic material. This process I will call the 'complementary' process for want of a better name. It consists in building up or restoring a ritual act or tale from a number of fragmentary examples, perhaps scattered all over the world. For example, if we find a certain custom in England and an analogous custom in India plus some ritual circumstance which the English custom does not possess, we are justified in believing that the English custom once included it. Or if we find a certain tale in Africa, we may discover another closely resembling it in Ireland and possessing features which explain some break in the African story. The comparative and complementary methods are necessary to both folklorists and mythologists, because an isolated instance is of little use in the study of either science. These must be restored to association with all the known examples of their kind, and the earliest and most complete form may thus be discovered.
Sir George Gomme in his Folklore as an Historical Science (p. 171) says that a "restored and complete example is in a position to be compared either with similar survivals in other countries on the same level of culture, or within the same ethnological or political sphere of influence, or with living customs, rites, or beliefs of peoples of a more backward state of culture or in a savage state of culture. Comparison of this kind is of value. Comparison of a less technical or comprehensive kind may be of value in the hands of a great master; but it is often not only valueless but mischievous in the hands of less experienced writers, who think that comparison is justified wherever similarity is discovered."
One of the common grounds of folklore and myth is that where religious elements obviously enter into folk-belief and custom. These may furnish us with new knowledge of a god or a cult. For example, many fragments of the old religion of Central America still linger in the folklore of the Indians of Guatemala; the witch-lore of Italy is full of obscure allusions to the classical deities of Rome; and the folklore of the Arabs of Egypt here and there touches hands with the ancient religion of that country. In Scotland such examples are frequent. That of the thunder-god Brounger has already been alluded to. It is on record that the fishermen of Newhaven, which Brounger haunted, have an almost equal dislike to hearing the name of a certain Johnny Boag or Boggie, and that they have been known to stay from sea because this name had been mentioned in their hearing while on the way to the boats. The Slavonic word for god is bôg—a word which has run through a number of modifications, but has finished with us Britons as 'bogy,' or 'bogle,' and 'bugbear' (compare Welsh brog, a goblin). At the fishing on the Cromarty Firth a salmon must never be spoken of. If it were, the whole crew would start, grasp the nearest iron thowel, and fervently exclaim, "Cauld iron, cauld iron!" in order to avert the omen. Thus the name was taboo, and it looks as if it were of the class of 'names of power' which may not be spoken. Certain 'hidden' names of the Egyptian deities also must not be spoken, or dire consequences would ensue. "If one of them is uttered on the bank of the river the torrent is set free."[1] It appears then as if 'Salmon' was the appellation of an ancient fish-totem whose name was taboo. Iron is of course the terror of all 'tricksy sprites,' and the theory has been advanced that the prehistoric bronze-users, in whom some see the fairies of folklore, detested and feared the metal employed by the conquering iron-users, seeing in their trenchant blades, against which the bronze leaf-shaped falchion would shiver into pieces, the evidence of a magic power. "In the North of Ireland an iron poker laid across the table kept away the fairies till the child was baptized,"[2] and the efficacy of iron in warding off fairy attacks is notorious all over the Highlands.
Another name which is taboo in the Highlands is that of the minister. I am at a loss to assign a reason for this, unless as the 'descendant' of the pagan priest he was regarded as 'magical.' More understandable is the terror when such words as cat, pig, dog, and hare were mentioned; and of this class the salmon name-taboo may be a member. The first two of the above words should be pronounced 'Theebet' and 'Sandy.' To allude to any animal at sea is unlucky. From Campbell (op. cit., p. 239) we learn that among the Highlanders when in a boat at sea "it is forbidden to call things by the names by which they were known on land." Thus a boat-hook should not be called croman in Gaelic, but a chliob; a knife not sgian but a ghair (the sharp one); a fox, the 'red dog'; and a seal, the 'bald beast.' Even places seen from the sea undergo a change of appellation when the speaker is afloat. It is evident that these precautions were originally adopted from a desire not to incur the displeasure of powerful supernatural beings. Thus when certain tribes of North American Indians periodically sacrifice an eagle, the totem of their tribe, they strive to avert the vengeance of the bird by saying to each other: "A snow-bird has been slain." The supernatural power must be hoodwinked at all costs. What could be the character of a supernatural power who must be deceived in this way? Although Christianity had a firm grip enough on land, was it a negligible quantity when afloat? It is from such examples as these that folklore may assist the mythologist who gropes for the principles of ancient mythic ideas. The student of the mythic system of any race should apply himself with the utmost earnestness to the study of the folklore of its modern representatives.
THE MAGIC OF ITALY
As showing how ancient myth may be embedded in modern folklore, the discoveries of the late Charles Godfrey Leland have an importance it would be difficult to over-estimate. In his preface to his Aradia, the Gospel of the Witches of Italy, he says:
"There are in Italy great numbers of strege, fortune-tellers or witches, who divine by cards, perform strange ceremonies in which spirits are supposed to be invoked, make and sell amulets, and, in fact, comport themselves generally as their reputed kind are wont to do, be they Black Voodoos in America or sorceresses anywhere.
"But the Italian strega or sorceress is in certain respects a different character from these. In most cases she comes of a family in which her calling or art has been practised for many generations. I have no doubt that there are instances in which the ancestry remounts to mediæval, Roman, or it may be Etruscan times. The result has naturally been the accumulation in such families of much tradition. But in Northern Italy, as its literature indicates, though there has been some slight gathering of fairy tales and popular superstitions by scholars, there has never existed the least interest as regarded the strange lore of the witches, nor any suspicion that it embraced an incredible quantity of old Roman minor myths and legends, such as Ovid has recorded, but of which much escaped him and all other Latin writers.
"This ignorance was greatly aided by the wizards and witches themselves, in making a profound secret of all their traditions, urged thereto by fear of the priests. In fact, the latter all unconsciously actually contributed immensely to the preservation of such lore, since the charm of the forbidden is very great, and witchcraft, like the truffle, grows best and has its raciest flavour when most deeply hidden. However this may be, both priest and wizard are vanishing now with incredible rapidity.
"However, they die slowly, and even yet there are old people in the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names of the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus, Mercury, and the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time, and who can astonish even the learned by their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore which may be found in Cato or Theocritus. With one of these I became intimately acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among her sisters of the hidden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden time known to them. It is true that I have drawn from other sources, but this woman by long practice has perfectly learned what few understand, or just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind.
"For brief explanation I may say that witchcraft is known to its votaries as la vecchia religione, or the old religion, of which Diana is the Goddess, her daughter Aradia (or Herodias) the female Messiah, and that this little work sets forth how the latter was born, came down to earth, established witches and witchcraft, and then returned to Heaven. With it are given the ceremonies and invocations or incantations to be addressed to Diana and Aradia, the exorcism of Cain, and the spells of the holy-stone, rue, and verbena, constituting, as the text declares, the regular church-service, so to speak, which is to be chanted or pronounced at the witch-meetings. There are also included the very curious incantations or benedictions of the honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch-supper, which is curiously classical, and evidently a relic of the Roman Mysteries."
[1] Magical Papyrus (Harris) 7, I et seq.
[2] Campbell's Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands, p. 152.