Particular marks on the person were looked on as having reference to one's destiny. A mole on the chin told that the person thus adorned would be prosperous and esteemed. A mole on the right breast denoted sudden accidents and reverse of fortune; one on the left breast was a sign of success and of an amorous disposition. The mole on the right breast foretold that the issue would be girls; that on the left indicated that the children would be boys. A mole under the left breast of a man was a sign of him having an unsettled mind, fond of rambling, and light in his conduct. A similar mark under a lady's left breast showed her to be sincere in love. A mole on the right knee gave tokens of the person so marked being destined to trouble and misfortunes. A mole on the left knee portended a good spouse, with great riches, to the happy individual so marked. A mole on either foot foreboded sudden illness, or unexpected misfortune, and one on any part of the shoulders indicated imperceptible decline and gradual decay in health and fortune. There were many other ways of divining the fate and dispositions of man, such as by the hand, foot, hair, mouth, ears, tongue, eyes, chin, walk, conversation, and complexion; but as it would be unprofitable to treat all these separately, we pass them without further notice in this chapter.
Mysterious knockings and unaccountable noises were indicative of the death of a relative. Warnings of this description were common and believed in. Educated people, as well as the ignorant, were victims of this kind of superstition. In the beginning of the last century a highly respectable gentleman in England was one night surprised by a sudden knock at the street door, so loud that he thought an attempt was being made to break it open. Springing from bed, he seized a brace of pistols, and was hastening to the door, when a second knock, louder than the first, was heard. A third knock followed just as he was withdrawing the bolt, but on looking out not a single person was to be seen, though it was clear moonlight, and nothing to prevent him seeing a long way off. Next post brought a letter informing him that a near relation in London had died just at the time the knocking alarmed him and his family, for they too heard the startling sounds. The disturbed persons firmly believed that, in one way or another, the knockings had reference to their friend's death.
A few years afterwards, the same gentleman, sitting one night at twelve o'clock with a sick brother, heard a noise, as of the driving of nails into a coffin, in the workshop of an undertaker, who was a neighbour. The gentleman thought it was very unkind of the undertaker, an intimate acquaintance of the sick person, to disturb him. As soon as the noise of nail-driving ceased, other and more disagreeable sounds reached his ears. The street door was opened, and, as he thought, two or three men went upstairs with a coffin. He naturally suspected that all this was a forerunner of his brother's death; and so it turned out to be. The invalid died next day at noon. Those who live in our time may think that the gentleman was insane, and that what he heard resulted from him having a diseased brain. If he was labouring under delusions, others must have been deranged too; for it was not uncommon in those days for an undertaker and his family to be advised of an early order to make a coffin by the sound of planes and hammers at work in the workshop. Gravediggers were not without their early notices of funerals. Sometimes the church bell would toll at midnight, the graveyard gate would be thrown open by unseen hands, and a living form be seen to enter alone; or it might be that the whole funeral cortege which would appear in the flesh a few days later, could be observed in spirit in the dreary hours of night. If the deceased person had lived a good and holy life, his spectre appeared in a pleasant, comely form; but if his career was a wicked one, he passed in a hideous shape, probably attended by infernal spirits.
CHAPTER XLII.
Ornithomancy—Mohammed's Pigeons—A Gigantic Fowl—Cock-crowing—Sacred Geese saving a City—Phenomenon at Rome before Cæsar's Death—Young Swallows—Virtue of a Goose's Tongue—Crows' Hearts—Divination by means of a Sieve—Detection of Crime—Capnomancy—Catoptromancy—Dactyliomancy—Cledonism—Onomancy—Names—Romans toasting their Mistresses—How Success in War was ascertained—Loss of Ships' Colours—Importance attached to Regimental Standards—Consecrated Banners—Flag of the Prophet—Battle of the Standard—A Highland Superstition.
Ornithomancy was a popular way of searching into futurity. Mohammed had holy pigeons, which came to his ears and conversed with him about things that were to happen. And the Prophet, it will be recollected, gave an account of a multitude of angels that appeared to him in all kinds of shapes, some of which were in the form of birds. One of the angel birds resembled a white cock, so prodigiously large that its height extended from the first to the second heavens—a distance of five hundred years' journey, according to the rate we usually travel on earth. Many Mohammedans will have it that the sacred bird was even larger than what we have stated. They assert that the fowl's head reached to the seventh heavens; and in describing him, they say his wings were decked with carbuncles and pearls, and that he extended his pinions from the east to the west to a distance proportionate to his height. This winged creature was represented as the chief angel of the cocks, and was said to crow so loud every morning that every living creature, except men and fairies, heard it. Following the example of this great bird, the smaller cocks, before sunrise, herald that bright luminary as he speeds to the west.
When the Gauls under Brennus had scaled the Capitol without arousing even the sentinels or the watch-dogs, the sacred geese, kept in the court of the temple in honour of Juno, heard the approach of the enemy and commenced cackling. The patrician, Manlius, struck with the noise, roused his fellow-soldiers—the Gauls were discovered, attacked, and driven back. Thenceforth Roman geese were fattened, but not eaten. A golden image of a goose was made to commemorate their vigilance, and upon a certain day in every year one was placed in a litter, and carried in state about the city, while a dog was impaled upon a stake, to denote the national contempt for that animal. A singular circumstance happened at Rome about twenty-four hours before Cæsar's death. A little bird was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a flock of other birds was seen to follow in close pursuit, apparently to destroy the little bird, or to deprive it of a sprig of laurel it carried through the air. The bird was overtaken, and torn to pieces by its pursuers.
We are told that if one take young swallows and put them in a pot to cook them, he will, on taking off the lid, find two of the swallows kissing each other, and two turning one from the other. If the kissing birds be dissolved in oil of roses, they will prove effectual, when applied according to custom, in securing the affections of the most blooming young lady in the parish; but in making use of the birds found back to back, for creating sympathetic feelings, they require to be pounded into an ointment, and applied to the eyelids of him or her whose affections are sought. If the tongue of a goose be cut out when the fowl is alive, and laid on the breast of a man or woman when asleep, he or she will confess every sin of life. When a man carried the heart of a male crow, and his wife the heart of a female crow, they lived in peace and happiness. It was customary with the good housewives of England, on placing eggs in a nest for incubation, to swing a lighted candle over them, as a charm to prevent hawks, crows, and other birds of prey, flying away with the young birds hatched from the eggs.
Divination by means of a sieve was often resorted to. The sieve was suspended after the operator had repeated a particular form of words, and, by certain manipulations, information was obtained concerning thefts, etc. The names of suspected parties were repeated while the implement was made to turn round; and on the guilty person being named, the sieve, instead of turning swiftly and steadily, began to oscillate and shake. This was a very ancient practice, in which great faith was put. Theocritus mentions a woman who was very skilful in her art. At times the sieve was suspended by a thread, or fixed at the point of a pair of scissors, giving it room to turn, and naming, as before, the suspected persons. Coscinomancy was practised in England at no distant date.