[A] We learn from a German writer the origin of this cruel custom. When the Danes ruled In England, the native inhabitants of some town formed a conspiracy to regain possession of it by murdering the Danish usurpers. Their design, however, was defeated by the crowing of some cocks. When the English afterwards regained authority, they instituted the barbarous and childishly resentful practice of throwing at cocks tied to a stake on the commemoration day of their disappointment through the vigilance of the cocks.
[B] “At St Petersburgh, in Russia (says Dr Granville), they have no cock-pits; but they have a goose-pit, where in the spring they fight ganders trained to the sport, and to peck at each other’s shoulders till they draw blood. These ganders have been sold as high as five hundred roubles each; and the sport prevails to a degree of enthusiasm among the hemp-merchants. Strange that the vicious and inhuman curiosity of man can delight to arouse and stimulate the principles of enmity and cruelty in these apparently peaceful and sociable birds!
The barbarities of which the human character is capable from habitual indulgence in such brutal sports are almost inconceivable.
Every one has heard the horrible story of Ardesolf of Tottenham, who, about forty years since, bring disappointed by a famous game-cock refusing to fight, was incited by his savage passion to roast the animal alive whilst entertaining his friends. The company, alarmed by the dreadful shrieks of the victim, interfered, but were resisted by Ardesolf, who threatened death to any who should oppose him; and in a storm of raging and vindictive delirium, and uttering the most horrid imprecations, he dropped down dead. I had hoped to find this one among the thousand fanatical lies which have been coined in the insane expectation that truth can be advanced by the propagation of falsehood; but to my sorrowful disappointment, on a late inquiry among the friends of the deceased miscreant, I found the truth of the horrible story but too probable.”—Mowbray’s Treatise on Poultry.
ALEXANDER AND THE TREE.
“From this tree it was that the Voice came which spake of old to Iskander (Alexander the Great), saying, as an oracle, ‘Iskander indeed cometh into India, but goeth from thence into the Land of Darkness.’”—Apocryphal History of Alexander the Great.
The sun is bright, the air is bland,
The heavens wear that stainless blue
Which only in an Orient land
The eye of man may view;
And lo! around, and all abroad,
A glittering host, a mighty horde—
And at their head a demigod
Who slays with lightning-sword!
The bright noon burns, but idly now
Those warriors rest by copse and hill,
And shadows on their Leader’s brow
Seem ominous of ill:
Spell-bound, he stands beside a tree,
And well he may, for through its leaves
Unstirred by wind, come brokenly
Moans, as of one that grieves!
How strange! he thought:—Life is a boon
Given, and resumed—but how? and when?
But now I asked myself how soon
I should go home agen!
How soon I might once more behold
My mourning mother’s tearful face;
How soon my kindred might enfold
Me in their dear embrace!