[CHAPTER VI.]
CHARMS AND COUNTER CHARMS.
uring these times when such superstitious beliefs were almost universally accepted—when the sources from which evils might be expected to spring were about as numerous as the unchecked fancies of men could make them—we must naturally conceive that the people who believed such things must have lived in a continual state of fear. And in many instances this was really the case; but the common result was not so, for fortunately the bane and antidote were generally found together, and the means for preventing or exorcising these devil-imposed evils were about as numerous as the evils themselves. I have already in a former chapter mentioned incidentally some of these charms and preventives, but as this incidental treatment cannot possibly cover the field, I shall here speak of them separately.
Tennant, in his Tour through Scotland, states that farmers placed boughs of the mountain ash in their cow-houses on the second day of May to protect their cows from evil influences. The rowan tree possessed a wonderful influence against all evil machinations of witchcraft. A staff made of this tree laid above the boothy or milk-house preserved the milk from witch influence. A churn-staff made of this wood secured the butter during the process of churning. So late as 1860 I have seen the rowan tree trained in the form of an arch over the byre door, and in another case over the gate of the farmyard, as a protection to the cows. It was also believed that a rowan tree growing in a field protected the cattle against being struck by lightning.
Mr. Train describes the action of a careful farmer's wife or dairymaid thus:—
"Lest witches should obtain the power
Of Hawkie's milk in evil hour,
She winds a red thread round her horn,
And milks thro' row'n tree night and morn;
Against the blink of evil eye
She knows each andidote to ply."
The same author, writing in 1814, says:—"I am acquainted myself with an Anti-Burgher clergyman who actually procured from a person who pretended to such skill in these charms two small pieces of carved wood, to be kept in his father's cow-house as a security for the health of his cows." The belief in the potency of the rowan tree to ward off evil is no doubt a survival of ancient tree worship. Of this worship, the Rev. F.W. Farrar says:—"It may be traced from the interior of Africa, not only in Egypt and Arabia, but also onwards uninterruptedly into Palestine and Syria, Assyria, Persia, India, Thibet, Siam, the Philippine Islands, China, Japan, and Siberia; also westward into Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and other countries; and in most of the countries here named it obtains at the present day, combined, as it has been, in other parts with various forms of idolatry." Were it our object, it could also be shown that tree worship has been combined with Christianity. The rowan tree was held sacred by the Druids, and is often found among their stone monuments. There is a northern legend that the god of thunder (Thor), when wading the river Vimar, was in danger of being swept away by its current, but that, grasping a tree which grew on the bank, he got safely across. This tree was the mountain ash, which was ever after held sacred; and when these nations were converted to Christianity, they did not fall away from their belief in the sanctity of the rowan tree.