[71] Allusions to this superstition occur in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 2), “love is a familiar;” in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), “I think her old familiar is asleep;” and in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 7), “he has a familiar under his tongue.”
[72] See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, p. 85.
[73] Sec Dyce’s “Glossary,” pp. 18, 19.
[74] “Notes to Macbeth” (Clark and Wright), pp. 81, 82.
CHAPTER III.
GHOSTS.
Few subjects have, from time immemorial, possessed a wider interest than ghosts, and the superstitions associated with them in this and other countries form an extensive collection in folk-lore literature. In Shakespeare’s day, it would seem that the belief in ghosts was specially prevalent, and ghost tales were told by the firelight in nearly every household. The young, as Mr. Goadby, in his “England of Shakespeare,” says (1881, p. 196), “were thus touched by the prevailing superstitions in their most impressionable years. They looked for the incorporeal creatures of whom they had heard, and they were quick to invest any trick of moonbeam shadow with the attributes of the supernatural.” A description of one of these tale-tellings is given in the “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 1):
“Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
I am for you again: pray you, sit by us,
And tell’s a tale.
Mam.Merry or sad shall’t be?
Her. As merry as you will.