The Malcolm Hamilton noticed by Pynnar as possessor of “the middle proportion of Dirrinefogher,” subsequently held the rectory of Devenish, which he retained in commendam with his archbishopric till his death in 1629. The proportion of Dirrinefogher, however, with its castle, was escheated to the crown in 1630; and shortly after, the old chapel of Monea was converted into a parish church, the original church being inconveniently situated on an island of Lough Erne.
Monea Castle served as a chief place of refuge to the English and Scottish settlers of the vicinity during the rebellion of 1641, and, like the Castle of Tully, it has its tales of horror recorded in story; but we shall not uselessly drag them to light. The village of Monea is an inconsiderable one, but there are several gentlemen’s seats in its neighbourhood, and the scenery around it is of great richness and beauty.
P.
ON THE SUBJUGATION OF ANIMALS BY MEANS OF CHARMS, INCANTATIONS, OR DRUGS.
First Article.
ON SERPENT-CHARMING, AS PRACTISED BY THE JUGGLERS OF ASIA.
Many of my readers will doubtless recollect that in a paper on “Animal Taming,” which appeared some weeks back in the pages of this Journal, I alluded slightly to the charming of animals, or taming them by spells or drugs. It is now my purpose to enter more fully upon this subject, and present my readers with a brief notice of what I have been able to glean respecting it, as well from the published accounts of remarkable travellers, as from oral descriptions received from personal friends of my own, who had opportunities of being eye witnesses to many of the practices to which I refer.
The most remarkable, and also the most ancient description of animal-charming with which we are acquainted, is that which consists in calling the venomous serpents from their holes, quelling their fury, and allaying their irritation, by means of certain charms, amongst which music stands forth in the most prominent position, though, whether it really is worthy of the first place as an actual agent, or is only thus put forward to cover that on which the true secret depends, is by no means perfectly clear.
Even in scripture we find the practice of serpent-charming noticed, and by no means as a novelty; in the 58th Psalm we are told that the wicked are like the “deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which hearkeneth not unto the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely!” And in the book of Jeremiah, chap. viii, the disobedient people are thus threatened—“Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed.” These are two very remarkable passages, and I think we may, without going too far, set down as snake-charmers the Egyptian magi who contended against Moses and Aaron before the court of the proud and vacillating Pharaoh, striving to imitate by their juggling tricks the wondrous miracles which Moses wrought by the immediate aid of God himself. The feat of changing their sticks into serpents, for instance, is one of every-day performance in India, which a friend of mine has assured me he many times saw himself, and which has not been satisfactorily explained by any one.
The serpent has long been an object of extreme veneration to the natives of Hindostan, and has indeed, from the very earliest ages, been selected by many nations as an object of worship; why, I cannot explain, unless it originated in a superstitious perversion of the elevation of the brazen serpent in the wilderness by Moses. In India the serpent is not, however, altogether regarded as a deity—merely as a demon or genius: and the office usually supposed to be peculiar to these creatures is that of guardians. This is perhaps one of the most widely spread notions respecting the serpent that we are acquainted with. Herodotus mentions the sacred serpents which guarded the citadel of Athens, and which he states to have been fed monthly with cakes of honey; and adds, that these serpents being sacred, were harmless, and would not hurt men. A dragon was said to have guarded the golden fleece (or, as some think, a scaly serpent), and protected the gardens of the Hesperides—a singular coincidence, as it is of gardens principally that the Indians conceive the serpent to be the guardian.