Creeping through perforated stones was a Druidical ceremony, and is practiced in the East Indies. Barlase mentions a stone in the parish of Marsden, Cornwall, through which many persons have crept for pains in their backs and limbs, and many children have been drawn for the rickets. He adds that two brass pins were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of this stone, for oracular purposes.
St. Helena Coins.
Among amulets in repute in the Middle Ages were the coins attributed to St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. These and other coins marked with a cross were thought especially efficacious against epilepsy, and are generally found perforated for the purpose of being worn suspended from the neck.
Weighing a Witch.
At Wingrave, in Buckinghamshire, in 1759, a case occurred of the old popular witchcraft trial by weighing against the church Bible. One Susannah Hameokes, an elderly woman, was accused by a neighbor of being a witch. The overt act offered in proof was, that she had bewitched the said neighbor's spinning-wheel, so that she could not make it go round either one way or the other. The complaining party offered to make oath of the fact before a magistrate, on which the husband of the poor woman, in order to justify his wife, insisted that she should be tried by the church Bible, and that the accuser should be present. The woman was accordingly conducted by her husband to the ordeal, attended by a great concourse of people, who flocked to the parish church to see the ceremony. Being stripped of nearly all her clothes, she was put into one scale and the Bible into another, when, to the no small astonishment and mortification of her accuser, she actually outweighed it, and was honorably acquitted of the charge.
Poetry of Omens.
Omens constitute the poetry of history. They cause the series of events which they are supposed to declare to flow into epical unity, and the political catastrophe seems to be produced not by prudence or by folly, but by the superintending destiny. The numerous tokens of the death of Henry IV. are finely tragical. Mary de Medicis, in her dream, saw the brilliant gems of her crown change into pearls, the symbol of tears and mourning. An owl hooted until sunrise at the window of the chamber to which the king and queen retired at St. Denis, on the night preceding her coronation. During the ceremony, it was observed, with dread, that the dark portals leading to the royal sepulchre, beneath the choir, were gaping and expanded. The flame of the consecrated taper held by the queen was suddenly extinguished, and twice her crown nearly fell to the ground. The prognostications of the misfortunes of the Stuarts have equally a character of solemn grandeur; and we are reminded of the portents of Rome when we read how the sudden tempest rent the royal standard on the Tower of London. Charles I., yielding to his destiny, was obstinate in the signs of evil death. He refused to be clad in the garments of Edward the Confessor, in which all his predecessors had been arrayed, and he would be attired in white velvet. Strongly did the Earl of Pembroke attempt to dissuade him—for the prophecy of the misfortunes of the white king had long been current; but his entreaties were in vain, and Charles was crowned invested with the raiment which indicated his misfortunes.—Quarterly Review.
House Crickets.
It is singular that the house cricket should, by some weak persons, be considered a lucky, and by others an unlucky, inmate of a dwelling. Those who hold the former opinion consider its destruction the means of bringing misfortune on their habitations. "In Dumfriesshire," says Sir William Jardine, "it is a common superstition, that if crickets forsake a house which they have long inhabited, some evil will befall the family—generally the death of some member is portended. In like manner, the presence or return of this cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the family."