Even the devil is powerless at the sound of cock-crow. An amusing story is told on the Continent of how a farmer’s wife tricked the devil by means of this spell. It appears that her husband was mourning the loss of his barn—either by wind or fire—when a stranger addressed him, and said: ‘That I can easily remedy. If you will just write your name in your blood on this parchment, your barn shall be fixed and ready to-morrow before the cock crows; if not, our contract is void.’ But afterwards the farmer repented of the bargain he had made, and, on consulting his wife, she ran out in the middle of the night, and found a number of workmen employed on the barn. Thereupon she cried with all her might, ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo! cock-a-doodle-doo!’ and was followed by all the cocks in the neighbourhood, each of which sent forth a hearty ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ At the same moment all the phantom workmen disappeared, and the barn remained unfinished. In a pretty Swedish ballad of ‘Little Christina,’ a lover rises from the grave to console his beloved. One night Christina hears light fingers tapping at the door; she opens it and sees her betrothed. She washes his feet with pure wine, and for a long while they converse. Then the cocks begin to crow, and the dead get them underground. The young girl follows her sweetheart through the white forest, and when they reach the graveyard, the fair hair of the young man begins to disappear. ‘See, maiden,’ he says, ‘how the moon has reddened all at once; even so, in a moment, thy beloved will vanish.’ She sits down on the tomb, and says, ‘I shall remain here till the Lord calls me.’ Then she hears the voice of her betrothed, ‘Little Christina, go back to thy dwelling-place. Every time a tear falls from thine eyes my shroud is full of blood. Every time thy heart is gay, my shroud is full of rose-leaves.’ These folk-tales are interesting, as embodying the superstitions of the people among whom they are current.
A similar idea prevails in India, where the cock is with the Hindoos, as with the English peasant, a most potent instrument in the subjugation of troublesome spirits. A paragraph in the ‘Carnatic Times’ tells us how a Hindoo exorcist tied his patient’s hair in a knot, and then with a nail attached it to a tree. Muttering some ‘incantatory’ lines, he seized a live cock, and holding it over the girl’s head with one hand, he, with the other, cut its throat. The blood-stained knot of hair was left attached to the tree, which was supposed to detain the demon. It is further supposed that ‘one or a legion thus exorcised will haunt that tree till he or they shall choose to take possession of some other unfortunate.’
It was said that chastity was of itself a safeguard against the malignant power of bad ghosts; a notion to which Milton has referred:
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,
That breaks the magic chains at curfew-time,
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o’er true virginity.
The cross and holy water have, too, generally been considered sacred preservatives against devils and spirits, illustrations of which will be found in many of our old romances.[297]
Fire, like water,[298] has been employed for the purpose of excluding or barring the ghost, and Mr. Frazer writes how ‘the Siberians seek to get rid of the ghost of the departed by leaping over a fire. At Rome, mourners returning from a funeral stepped over fire,’ a practice which still exists in China. A survival of this custom prevails among the south Slavonians, who, on their return from a funeral, are met by an old woman carrying a vessel of live coals. On these they pour water, or else they take a live coal from the hearth and fling it over their heads. The Brahmans simply touched fire, while in Ruthenia ‘the mourners merely look steadfastly at the stove or place their hands on it.’[299] It is noteworthy that in the Highlands of Scotland and in Burma, the house-fires were always extinguished when a death happened; for fear, no doubt, of the ghost being accidentally burnt.
The Eskimos drive away spirits by blowing their breath at them,[300] and the Mayas of Yucatan had evil spirits which could be driven away by the sorcerers; but they never came near when their fetiches were exposed. They had a ceremony for expelling evil spirits from houses about to be occupied by newly married persons.[301] The natives of Brazil so much dread the ghosts of the dead that it is recorded how some of them have been struck with sudden death because of an imaginary apparition of them. They try to appease them by fastening offerings on stakes fixed in the ground for that purpose.[302]
Mutilations of the dead were supposed to keep his ghost harmless, and on this account Greek murderers hacked off the extremities of their victims. Australians cut off the right thumb of a slain enemy that his ghost might not be able to draw the bow. And in Arabia, Germany, and Spain, as the ghosts of murderers and their victims are especially restless, everyone who passes their graves is bound to add a stone to the pile.[303]
In Pekin, six or seven feet away from the front of the doors, small brick walls are built up. These are to keep the spirits out, which fly only in straight lines, and therefore find a baulk in their way. Another mode of keeping spirits away in the case of children is to attire them as priests, and also to dress the boys as girls, who are supposed to be the less susceptible to the evil influence. In fact, most countries have their contrivances for counteracting, in one way or another, the influence of departed spirits—a piece of superstition of which European folk-lore affords abundant illustrations.