"STABIT QUOCUNQUE JECERIS."
(Vol. vii., p. 65.)
This little Query may perhaps come under the category you mention in the address of your opening Number for the year, although it might be a sufficient reply merely to say that it was the legend round the common Manx halfpenny, encircling the three legs of man on its reverse; but when we consider these three conjoined limbs in their awkward and impossible position, the propriety of the legend may be doubted, and its presence attributable only to the numismatic necessity of accompanying the figure with its motto. The following epigram has been composed by some Manxman thoroughly convinced of the propriety of the application:
"Reader! thou'st seen a falling cat,
Light always on his feet so pat;
A shuttlecock will still descend,
Meeting the ground with nether end;
The persevering Manksman thus,
A shuttlecock or pauvre puss;
However through the world he's tost—
However disappointed, crost—
Reverses, losses, Fortune's frown,
No chance or change can keep him down.
Upset him any way you will,
Upon his legs you'll find him still.
For ever active, brisk, and spunky,
Stabit jeceris quocunque."
Where, however, we perceive in the last line the rhyme has destroyed the metre of the Latin poet, if the words be really a classical quotation, which I should wish to form into a Query for some of your readers.
But the emblem, as the famous Triquetra, is one of the most ancient and celebrated of antiquity. It figures on the oldest coins of Metapontum; and subsequently on many of those of Sicily, particularly on those of Palermo and Syracuse, as island cities; for to islands, from one use of its name in the Greek word ΧΗΛΗ, as a jutting promontory, a break-water, or a jetty, was it more especially appropriated. Hence it is even now borne in the Neapolitan blazon for Sicily: as Britain, if she followed the continental examples, would be entitled to quarter it in her full imperial escutcheon, not only for Man, but for Malta; by which latter it was early taken as the device. But under this distinctive name as Chele, it only figured the potency which all pointed or angular forms and substances possessed insensitively or in a triple degree. To understand this, we should consider the force that all pointed or sharp instruments possess: the awl, the wedge, the adze, are well known for their assistance to the mechanic; and the transference of the idea to non-physical aid was so easy, and so consonant to the human mind, that, when we speak of the acuteness of an intellect, the point of an epigram, the keen edge of a sarcasm, we are scarcely conscious that we indulge at all in the maze of metaphor.
Nor was the adaptation of the figure less suitable to the purposes of superstition, by which it
was seized on, both for the purpose of driving away the evil one or forcing him to appear: all edged tools, or angular forms, gave complete mastery over him. Therefore, the best method of obtaining sight of the otherwise invisible spirits of the air, is by putting the head beneath the legs, the human fork or angle—the true Greek chele—as it is also used by Saxo-Grammaticus in a dialogue between Bearco and Ruta, to see Odin riding on the whirlwind:
"Bearco. At nunc ille ubi sit qui vulgo dicitur Othin
Armipotens, uno semper contentus ocello;
Dic mihi Ruta, precor, usquam si conspicis illum?
Ruta. Adde oculum proprius et nostras prospice chelas,
Ante sacraturus victrici lumina signo,
Si vis presentem tuto cognoscere Martem.
Bearco. Sic potero horrendum Frigæ spectare maritum," &c.
So boys in the north put their heads between their legs to see the devil looking over Lincoln: and I am indebted to a mention of my Shakspeare's Puck and his Folk-lore in the Maidstone Journal for the proof that this belief still exists in Ireland from an anecdote told by Curran, who, in the absence of a Währwolf on which to try its efficacy, would prove it on a large mastiff by walking backwards to it in this posture, "while the animal made such a grip at the poor barrister's hinder region, that Curran was unable to sit with any gratification to himself for some weeks afterwards."
Permit me to refer such readers as are curious to know more on this subject, to the above work, p. 73. But if you still can find room for a continental proof of the efficacy of a pair of shears as very powerful chele, not only for driving away Satan, but altogether banishing him from earth, allow me to adduce from a most excellent collection of tales, Traditions of the Bavarian Territories (Sagenbuch der Baierischen Lande), just published by Herr A. Schöppner, under the auspices of the ex-king, the following tale, No. 757, "Die Scharfe Scheere" (The Sharp Scissors):
"Outside the parish church of Münnerstadt, you see a gravestone with a pair of shears sculptured on it. He who rests under it was a pious tailor, who was often disturbed by the Devil in his devotions. The latter appeared to him frequently, and whispered him to throw plenty of cabbage into his hell (a technical German term for its receptacle, I know not if usual amongst the English gentle craft), and otherwise played him many insidious pranks. Our tired Schneider complained of the evil to a pious hermit, who advised him, the next time the Prince of Darkness made his appearance, to take the shears and cut off his tail. The tailor resolved to follow his advice; and, on the next visitation, he lopped the tail clean from his body. The Devil halloed out murder! went off, and ever afterwards left the tailor in peace. But the shears remained a long time as an heirloom in the family, and their form was sculptured on his tombstone in remembrance. Since then, the Devil walks through Münnerstadt without a posterial adornment, and therefore not now recognisable; which is the reason that many people assert that there is no longer any Devil."
Well might Herrick, in his Hesperides, inculcate:
"Hang up hooks and shears to scare
Hence the hag that rides the mare."
William Bell, Phil. Doc.
17. Gower Place.