To the Patagonians the cry of the nightjar on the Cordillera betokens sickness, a certain toad-like lizzard mysteriously lames horses, a fabulous two-headed guanaco is a sure forerunner of epidemic disease, &c. To counteract the influence of these, charms and talismans are liberally employed.
Superstition about the Caul.
One of the superstitions that still clings to seafaring life, is the confidence in the virtues of a child's caul, as a preservative against drowning. The caul is a thin membrane found encompassing the head of some children when born; it was considered a good omen for the child itself, and productive of good fortune and security from danger to the purchaser. The superstition was so common in the primitive church that St. Crysostom felt it his duty to inveigh against it in many of his homilies. In later times midwives sold the caul at enormous prices to advocates, "as an especial means of making them eloquent," and to seamen as "an infallible preservative against drowning." In Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" Face says to Dapper—
"Ye were born with a caul o' your head."
In Digby's "Elvira" (Act V.), Don Sancho says—
"Were we not born with cauls upon our heads?
Think'st thou, chicken, to come off twice arow
Thus rarely from such dangerous adventures?"
The caul is alluded to in a rondeau by Claude de Malleville, born 1597. "Il est né coiffé" is a well-known expression, describing a lucky man, and indicating that he was born with a caul. Weston, in his "Moral Aphorisms from the Arabic" (1801), says that the superstition came from the East, and that there are several Arabic words for it.
The Will-with-a-Wisp.
This phenomenon, known also as "Jack-with-a-Lantern" and "Ignis fatuus," has terrified many a simple-minded rustic, whereas it is simply the phosphuretted hydrogen gas which rises from stagnant waters and marshy grounds. Its origin is believed to be in the decomposition of animal substances. Collins has left us some fine lines upon this phenomenon, beginning—
"Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er lose;
Let not dank Will mislead you to the heath;
Dancing in murky night o'er fen and lake,
He glows to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch'd, low, marshy willow brake."