Another writer, "A. S.," in "Notes and Queries," October 21, 1871, says:—"During a thunderstorm which passed over this district" (Kettering, in Yorkshire), "on the evening of September 6, on which occasion the lightning was very vivid, an unusual spectacle was witnessed; immense flocks of birds were flying about, uttering doleful affrighted cries, as they passed over the locality, and for hours they kept up a continual whistling like that made by sea birds. There must have been great numbers of them, as they were also observed at the same time, as we learn by the public prints, in the counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln. The nest day, as my servant was driving me to a neighbouring village, this phenomenon of the flight of birds became the subject of conversation, and on asking him what birds he thought they were he told me they were what were called The Seven Whistlers, and that whenever they were heard it was considered a sign of some great calamity, and that the last time he heard them was the night before the great Hartley colliery explosion; he had also been told by soldiers that if they heard them they always expected a great slaughter would take place soon. Curiously enough, on taking up the newspaper the following morning, I saw headed in large letters—'Terrible Colliery Explosion at Wigan,' etc., etc. This I thought would confirm my man's belief in 'the Seven Whistlers.'"
I have heard it seriously asserted in discussion by geologists and mining engineers, that a low state of the barometer generally, if not invariably, accompanies a certain class of accidents in coal pits. Perhaps this peculiar atmospheric condition may explain the coincidences referred to.
Another contributor of the same date, "Viator," gives the following Eastern illustration of this superstition,—"It strikes me as curious that Mr. Pearson should hear on a Lancashire moor a tradition or superstition so similar to that which I have heard on the Bosphorus with reference to certain flocks of birds, about the size of a thrush, which fly up and down the channel, and are never seen to rest on the land or water. I was informed by the man who rowed the caique that they were the souls of the damned, and condemned to perpetual motion."
There is a legend of Odin wandering over the earth, accompanied by his two ravens, one of which represented Thought and the other Memory. Mr. Princeps had a picture in the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1871, illustrating this tradition.
The last time the Wandering Jew is said to have appeared in propriâ personâ was in the year 1604, when he was believed to have been seen three times in France. As his appearance was invariably accompanied with violent and destructive tempests, the peasantry concluded that his mode of locomotion was of a supernatural character, and that the fierce blasts of the storm-god (or fiend) hurled him from place to place. Since the French visits referred to, it seems that the Wandering Jew's advent has not been able to gain much credence. Several times, however, attempts in this direction have been made. Referring to the subject, Brand says:—"I remember to have seen one of these imposters some years ago in the north of England, who made a very hermit-like appearance, and went up and down the streets of Newcastle with a long train of boys at his heels, muttering, 'Poor John alone, alone!' I thought he pronounced his name in a manner singularly plaintive." In a note Brand adds that "Poor John alone" is "otherwise 'Poor Jew alone.'" He mentions a portrait of this man, painted for Sir William Musgrave, Bart., which was inscribed "Poor Joe alone!" which corresponds with the name of a then recent pretender of this class, as recorded by Matthew Paris, on the authority of an Armenian archbishop, who, in 1228, visited the monastery at St. Albans.
The earlier gods of the heathens were supposed, notwithstanding their immortality, to be occasionally subjected to a kind of temporary death. Baldr, the bright day-god, was slain by a stroke of a mistletoe branch, wielded by the hand of the blind Hodr; the Python overcame Apollo; and such is sometimes the strange inconsistency of early traditions and their after development, that the grave of Zeus was a sacred spot to the Ancient Greeks. The spectre huntsman appears to have been subjected to some such death, or protracted trance, periodically.
Odin rode on his dappled grey steed only in rough weather. His mortal enemy seems to have been the wild boar. This animal is also a favourite mythic form of expression in Merlin's famous prophesy. The Germans have a legend that in the form of Hackelberg, or the mantle-wearer, on one occasion he was heard to inquire for the "stumpy tail" that he knew from a vision was destined to overcome him. At a great hunt he killed the animal, and fancied that he had practically given the lie to his dream of the previous night. In his triumph he kicked the slain brute contemptuously; but the tusk of the dead animal (an Aryan personification of the lightning) piercing his leg, inflicted a wound, from the effects of which he died, or, in other words, fell into a deep trance. This evidently represents the season of calm weather, during which the spectre huntsman and his howling pack rest from their labours.
This wild boar legend has near mythological affinity to the Greek one, respecting Adonis, who, whilst hunting, was mortally wounded in the thigh by a wild boar. The waters of the river Adonis assume, at a certain season of the year, a deep red hue, which was said to be caused by the blood of Adonis. Modern investigation has attributed this phenomenon to periodical heavy rains, which bring large quantities of red earth into the river. In Syria, Thammuz, an older prototype or counterpart of Adonis, was worshipped, which worship was denounced by Ezekiel, six centuries before Christ, as amongst the abominations of Judah. Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:—
Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.
Adonis alternately abode with Aphroditê in heaven and Persephonê in hell. This has been held to be "typical of the burial of seed, which, in due season, rises above the ground for the propagation of its species," or of the "annual passage of the sun from the northern to the southern hemisphere."