An Introduction to Mythology

by Lewis Spence

When Gordon landed he made straight for an inn, where he ordered a copious supply of liquor. After a brief exit he returned with half a dozen boatmen dressed in their best, and commenced a drinking-bout which lasted until two o'clock next morning. For two successive days after this he loafed about the town and the shore, chatting with the boatmen, much to the annoyance of the person who was engaged to watch his movements. Two days only remained now, and on the morning of the sixth day of his holiday he was seen to embark in a ferryman's boat, in which he proceeded down the Firth alone. His follower found some difficulty in hiring a craft, and by the time he had procured one Gordon's little vessel was concealed behind the huge bulk of Inchkeith. The boatman who hired out the vessel to the spy insisted on accompanying him, and he had perforce to assent to this. After they had passed Inchkeith, Gordon's boat was seen far in advance and close inshore on the Midlothian side of the river. On the right, near North Berwick, Gordon steered his craft inside of the rocky islet known as the Lamb, nearly opposite to where the picturesque village of Dirleton now stands. Here the Leith man shipped his oars, and gazing ahead fancied that he saw two gigantic figures moving to and fro, busily engaged in digging. At this point the boatman refused to approach any farther, rowed his passenger back, and landed him at Prestonpans, whence he made his way home.

Gordon returned as usual, but on the very same day he gave a week's notice of his intention to leave his situation. At the end of that time it was rumoured that he had bought up nearly the entire buildings on one side of the Broad Wynd, and it was this gigantic investment which gave rise to the story that he must have sold himself to the Devil. He was now known and addressed as 'Laird' Gordon, visited his tenants in turn, and when they announced their intention of giving up their houses "because they disliked becoming tenants of the Deil," he passed no comment upon their resolution. But there was not much house-room in Leith in those days, and one by one the objectors returned; but they never succeeded in getting an interview with Gordon, for when they called upon him he was either deeply engaged or had just left the house. As term-time drew nigh frantic endeavours were made to see him, but he could never be found alone: a tall dark man of authoritative mien always accompanied him. This personage was silent unless directly appealed to, but he seemed to control the Warlock Laird's every movement. On one occasion Gordon summoned all the tenants together, and, entering alone the room where they were met, he desired such of them as were in earnest in their applications to stand on their heads and strike their feet against the wall. This they very naturally refused to do, whereupon his sombre-looking companion appeared, and at once every man found himself standing on his head and kicking his heels in the air. Those who wished to retain their houses were allowed to do so, but were subjected to many annoyances by Gordon and his familiar, who paid them visits at all manner of unreasonable hours. On one occasion they were brought together into one house and compelled to dance until they fell down through sheer exhaustion. Those who had occupied new dwellings were so persecuted and tormented that they were glad to return to the Broad Wynd in order to free themselves of annoyance. But one day these cantrips ceased, and for many weeks nothing was seen of the Warlock Laird. When the day came round to call upon him and disburse rents, the tenants went in a body to the Yard-heads. A strange-looking man opened the door of Gordon's house at their summons and they were ushered into an apartment where they did not remain long before they heard piercing shrieks of agony mingled with prayers for mercy proceeding from the room directly overhead. They were about to leave the house, when the door of the room they were in was dashed open and Gordon rushed into their midst, closely pursued by his fiendish companion. He earnestly besought their protection, but they were so paralysed with fear as to be incapable of assisting him in any way. The dark and sinister-looking being who had companioned him so long threw himself on the trembling wretch and dragged him forcibly into the passage outside. A great slamming of doors and clanking of chains followed: then a terrible explosion shook the house from cellar to garret. Terrified beyond expression, Gordon's tenants made what haste they could to escape from so dangerous a locality, and on reaching the doorway they discovered that the tower connected with the house had been hurled to earth and that a strong sulphurous odour hung about its ruins. Some of them even asserted that as they crossed the threshold the ground in front of the house opened and they saw Gordon descending through it, accompanied by his mysterious companion. Nevermore was Anthony Gordon seen in the streets of the port, and his house remained a shunned and dreaded spot until time laid the cottage in ruins beside the prostrate tower.

Some twenty years afterward a beggar unacquainted with the local traditions was taking shelter among the ruins of the Warlock's house when he stumbled upon a small iron-bound chest, in which were the titles of the properties in Broad Wynd. With these he immediately absconded, and returning some six months afterward posed as the Warlock's heir and assumed possession of the property; but a curse seemed to rest upon it. The tale says that the dreadful visions by which he was haunted drove him to seek refuge in intoxication, although the converse is more probably true! He drank heavily, and was found dead one morning with his throat cut. So, in this very commonplace manner, the legend ends. The date of it cannot be ascertained, but it is probable that it may be placed somewhere about the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The manner in which the legend ends bears a strong resemblance to at least one version of the Faust story—that given by Wierus or Wier, the great demonologist, who in his De præstigiis dæmonum (Basel, 1563) tells how Faust was found with his neck wrung after the house had been shaken by a terrific din. Some students who occupied a chamber near by said that between twelve and one o'clock at midnight there blew a mighty storm of wind against the house as though it would have shaken the foundations out of their place. The students, alarmed, leapt from their beds, and then they became aware of a hissing in the hall as of thousands of snakes and adders. With that the hall door flew open and Dr Faustus rushed out, crying, "Murder, murder!" but after a little they heard him no more. Next day they found his mangled remains in the hall where the Devil had destroyed him.

There can be very little doubt that the Leith legend was based, in part at least, upon the German one. The story of Faust was commonly known in Britain by the end of the sixteenth century, and so had plenty of time to take on local colour and evolve under local superstition into the shape in which it is here given.

THE 'COMPLEMENTARY' PROCESS

One process in use among folklorists is of interest to students of myth because of its application to mythic material. This process I will call the 'complementary' process for want of a better name. It consists in building up or restoring a ritual act or tale from a number of fragmentary examples, perhaps scattered all over the world. For example, if we find a certain custom in England and an analogous custom in India plus some ritual circumstance which the English custom does not possess, we are justified in believing that the English custom once included it. Or if we find a certain tale in Africa, we may discover another closely resembling it in Ireland and possessing features which explain some break in the African story. The comparative and complementary methods are necessary to both folklorists and mythologists, because an isolated instance is of little use in the study of either science. These must be restored to association with all the known examples of their kind, and the earliest and most complete form may thus be discovered.

Sir George Gomme in his Folklore as an Historical Science (p. 171) says that a "restored and complete example is in a position to be compared either with similar survivals in other countries on the same level of culture, or within the same ethnological or political sphere of influence, or with living customs, rites, or beliefs of peoples of a more backward state of culture or in a savage state of culture. Comparison of this kind is of value. Comparison of a less technical or comprehensive kind may be of value in the hands of a great master; but it is often not only valueless but mischievous in the hands of less experienced writers, who think that comparison is justified wherever similarity is discovered."

One of the common grounds of folklore and myth is that where religious elements obviously enter into folk-belief and custom. These may furnish us with new knowledge of a god or a cult. For example, many fragments of the old religion of Central America still linger in the folklore of the Indians of Guatemala; the witch-lore of Italy is full of obscure allusions to the classical deities of Rome; and the folklore of the Arabs of Egypt here and there touches hands with the ancient religion of that country. In Scotland such examples are frequent. That of the thunder-god Brounger has already been alluded to. It is on record that the fishermen of Newhaven, which Brounger haunted, have an almost equal dislike to hearing the name of a certain Johnny Boag or Boggie, and that they have been known to stay from sea because this name had been mentioned in their hearing while on the way to the boats. The Slavonic word for god is bôg—a word which has run through a number of modifications, but has finished with us Britons as 'bogy,' or 'bogle,' and 'bugbear' (compare Welsh brog, a goblin). At the fishing on the Cromarty Firth a salmon must never be spoken of. If it were, the whole crew would start, grasp the nearest iron thowel, and fervently exclaim, "Cauld iron, cauld iron!" in order to avert the omen. Thus the name was taboo, and it looks as if it were of the class of 'names of power' which may not be spoken. Certain 'hidden' names of the Egyptian deities also must not be spoken, or dire consequences would ensue. "If one of them is uttered on the bank of the river the torrent is set free."[1] It appears then as if 'Salmon' was the appellation of an ancient fish-totem whose name was taboo. Iron is of course the terror of all 'tricksy sprites,' and the theory has been advanced that the prehistoric bronze-users, in whom some see the fairies of folklore, detested and feared the metal employed by the conquering iron-users, seeing in their trenchant blades, against which the bronze leaf-shaped falchion would shiver into pieces, the evidence of a magic power. "In the North of Ireland an iron poker laid across the table kept away the fairies till the child was baptized,"[2] and the efficacy of iron in warding off fairy attacks is notorious all over the Highlands.

Another name which is taboo in the Highlands is that of the minister. I am at a loss to assign a reason for this, unless as the 'descendant' of the pagan priest he was regarded as 'magical.' More understandable is the terror when such words as cat, pig, dog, and hare were mentioned; and of this class the salmon name-taboo may be a member. The first two of the above words should be pronounced 'Theebet' and 'Sandy.' To allude to any animal at sea is unlucky. From Campbell (op. cit., p. 239) we learn that among the Highlanders when in a boat at sea "it is forbidden to call things by the names by which they were known on land." Thus a boat-hook should not be called croman in Gaelic, but a chliob; a knife not sgian but a ghair (the sharp one); a fox, the 'red dog'; and a seal, the 'bald beast.' Even places seen from the sea undergo a change of appellation when the speaker is afloat. It is evident that these precautions were originally adopted from a desire not to incur the displeasure of powerful supernatural beings. Thus when certain tribes of North American Indians periodically sacrifice an eagle, the totem of their tribe, they strive to avert the vengeance of the bird by saying to each other: "A snow-bird has been slain." The supernatural power must be hoodwinked at all costs. What could be the character of a supernatural power who must be deceived in this way? Although Christianity had a firm grip enough on land, was it a negligible quantity when afloat? It is from such examples as these that folklore may assist the mythologist who gropes for the principles of ancient mythic ideas. The student of the mythic system of any race should apply himself with the utmost earnestness to the study of the folklore of its modern representatives.