TRUTH IN THE MARVELLOUS.
Antiquarian research, conducted in the prosaic spirit of the present day, has dealt cruel blows at many time-honoured traditions. We are taught that the story of the siege of Troy was a mere romance—that Troy itself never existed; that Arthur’s Round Table was a myth; that the accidental appearance of a Countess’s garter at a ball was not responsible for the institution of the highest order of knighthood; that a certain other Countess never freed the citizens of Coventry by riding through their streets with innocence for her only dress; that the Maid of Orleans was never burned, but married, and lived happy ever afterwards. We hardly know what historic relation we are to be allowed to believe. While, however, historical inquiry has discredited many pleasant stories, hard science has come to the aid of romance, and has testified to the veracity of some narrators who have been accused of imposing on the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious by the relation of wonders unworthy of credence in enlightened times. The stories of the appearance in the heavens of blazing sceptres, fiery serpents, and swords of fire dipped in blood, when read in the light of the calm and unbiased observations of some meteors in recent times, are descriptions of physical phenomena sufficiently rare to be accounted supernatural by nations whose acquaintance with the heavenly bodies did not extend beyond the regular movements of the sun, moon, and planets. There is no doubt that the authors of these accounts related truthfully what they saw, employing the language which best conveyed their impressions.
With what awe the visit of a meteorite may be regarded, even in this nineteenth century, by unlearned country-folk, may be gathered from the account of one which fell at Juvenas, in Ardèche, on the 15th of June 1821, and which formed the subject of a curious procès verbal drawn up by the mayor of the commune. It was first seen at three P.M. as a fireball, in a clear sky, while the sun was shining brightly; and it sunk five feet into the ground. The inhabitants were so alarmed, that it was more than a week before they could make up their minds to search for this strange visitant. ‘They deliberated for a long time whether they should go armed to undertake this operation, which appeared so dangerous; but Claude Serre, the sexton, justly observed that if it was the Evil One, neither powder nor arms would prevail against him—that holy-water would be more effectual; and that he would undertake to make the evil spirit fly;’ after which reassuring speech, they set to work and dug up the aërolite, which weighed over two hundred pounds.
We read in the classic poets that on certain momentous occasions, statues have been so affected as to perspire, as if they were living human beings. These stories have been passed over as mere poetic fictions; but probably they rest on a substantial foundation. The phenomenon is doubtless that which is observed when a fire has been lighted for the first time in a room which has for a lengthened period been allowed to remain cold: the walls and other objects are seen to run down with moisture, which appears as if exuded from their surface. The same thing occurs when a long-continued frost is succeeded by mild weather. The appearance is familiar enough to us, who are accustomed to sudden variations of temperature; but in warmer and more equable climates, the requisite conditions are probably rare; and the appearance of copious moisture on statues composed of substances on which dew is not commonly found, may well have been accounted a prodigy.
We may not be disposed to admit that the fiery cross seen by Constantine was a miraculous intimation; but we cannot set aside the account as necessarily apocryphal; for a celestial cross was seen in Migné, near Poitiers, in December 1826. It was observed during a religious service, and the preacher in his sermon had referred to the cross of Constantine. The awe-struck congregation, on perceiving the visible cross in the sky, of shining silver, edged with red, immediately fell upon their knees, accepting the sign as a divine testimony to the truth of what had just been told them. The source of the phenomenon was afterwards found in a wooden cross which had been erected near the chapel, the shadow of which had been cast by the declining sun on a rising mist.
The Flying Dutchman was obviously another instance of atmospheric reflection, and similar phantom ships have been described by modern travellers. The Enchanted Island, or Isle of Ghosts, which had its place in old charts in the mid-Atlantic, and so perplexed the mariners of the middle ages by its varying appearance, defying all attempts to reach its shores, has since been recognised as a fogbank.
Among the wonders recorded in the reign of William Rufus, it is said that on a night in 1095, the stars seemed falling like a shower of rain from heaven to earth, or, according to the Chronicle of Reims, were driven like dust before the wind. A tradition is recorded as prevailing in Thessaly that on a certain night in August the heavens were opened and burning torches were seen through the aperture. These are clearly but highly coloured accounts, by persons of limited knowledge of natural phenomena, of specially brilliant displays of shooting-stars. The last corresponds with the August meteors.
Bartholin, in his History of Anatomy, speaks of a patrician lady of Verona, Catherine, wife of J. Franciscus Rambaldus, whose skin sparkled with fire when slightly touched. ‘This noble lady,’ he says, ‘the Creator endued with so stupendous a dignity and prerogative of nature, that as oft as her body was but lightly touched with linen, sparks flew out plentifully from her limbs, apparent to her domestic servants, as if they had been struck out of a flint, accompanied also with a noise that was to be heard by all. Oftentimes, when she rubbed her hands upon the sleeve of her smock that contained the sparks within it, she observed a flame with a tailed ray running about, as fired exhalations are wont to do.... This fire was not to be seen but in the dark or in the night, nor did it burn without itself, though combustible matter was applied to it.’ This description of electric sparks is such as would be given by a person who saw the phenomenon for the first time and was ignorant of its cause. The same appearance is sometimes seen by persons of the present generation when divesting themselves of tight-fitting underclothing, and especially when combing their hair with a vulcanite comb; but probably it shows itself only with persons of peculiar constitution.
It is hardly necessary to advert to the part which comets have played in the annals of supernatural manifestations. In classic times, however low the state of knowledge may have been in other departments of physical science, the celestial bodies were never without intelligent observers, and the ancient astronomers no doubt acknowledged comets as having their place in the planetary or sidereal economy. But this knowledge was confined to the learned; to the common people, comets were chariots of fire conveying departed heroes to the abode of demigods. A splendid comet luckily appeared after the death of Julius Cæsar, and confirmed his title to divine honours. In the dark ages, comets were celestial portents, presages of revolution or pestilence. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was accounted profane scepticism to attribute their appearance to natural causes; and even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find an intelligent writer on the natural curiosities of the world adopting the view that these bodies are not allowed to appear except with the special permission of Divine providence, for a specific purpose, in opposition to the theories of astronomers, who are twitted with assigning long periods to the orbits of comets in order that the predictions of their reappearance may not be falsified in the lifetime of the persons making them.
Whether it was owing to the improved means of spreading intelligence afforded by the invention of printing, or to the excitement of men’s minds consequent upon the political and social events of the time, the sixteenth century was prolific in stories of wonderful sights in the heavens and on the earth. Of the many marvellous accounts then circulated, we select the following, which forms the subject of a tract by Abraham Fleming, and purports to have been taken from the evidence of eye-witnesses. The account is titled, ‘A Straunge and Terrible Wunder wrought very late in the Parish Church of Bungay—namely, the fourth of this August in the yeere of Our Lord 1577 ... with the appearance of an horrible shaped thing sensibly perceived of the people then and there assembled.’ The account is couched in terms appropriate to the solemnity of a special manifestation from the spiritual world, and is interspersed with ejaculations expressive of the awe which filled the people’s minds at their witnessing the occurrences described; but the incidents, briefly told, are as follows: A storm of extraordinary fury was raging while the congregation were assembled at divine service; rain came down like a deluge, lightning flashed, and thunder pealed, so that not only dumb creatures were disquieted, but ‘senseless things void of all life and feeling shook and trembled;’ in other words, the fabric and furniture of the building were shaken by the violence of the storm. While the tempest was at its height, a visitor from the lower regions (as the narrator evidently believed) made his appearance in the midst of the congregation, in the form, ‘as they might discerne it,’ of a dog, of a black colour; ‘the sight whereof, together with the fearful flashes of fire which then were seene, moved such admiration in the mindes of the assemblie that they thought doome’s day was already come.’ The ‘Evil One in such a likenesse’ ran with extraordinary speed down the body of the church among the people. Passing between two persons who were on their knees apparently engaged in prayer, he wrung the necks of both of them in an instant, so that they died where they knelt. As he passed by another man he ‘gave him such a gripe on the back that therewithal he was presently drawen togither and shrunk up as it were a piece of lether scorched in a hot fire; or as the mouth of a purse or bag drawn togither with a string.’ This man, however, did not die. Meanwhile, the parish clerk, who was cleaning out the gutter of the church, also saw the ‘horrible shaped thing,’ and was struck to the ground with a violent clap of thunder, but beyond his fall, was not harmed. The stones of the church and the church door, on being afterwards examined, bore evidence of the power of the demon in the marks of his claws or talons; and all the wires, the wheels, and other things belonging to the clock, were wrung in sunder and broken in pieces.