A woman foretold the tragical end of James I. of Scotland, in 1436. In the early stage of a journey from Edinburgh to Leith, and in the midst of the way, arose a woman of Ireland, who claimed to be a soothsayer, and as soon as she saw the king, she cried with a loud voice, saying, “My lord king, an ye pass this water, ye shall never turn again to live.” The king was astonished at her words, for but shortly before he had fallen in with a prophecy, that in the self-same year the King of Scots should be slain. And as he rode onward, he called to him one of his knights, and commanded him to return and speak with this woman, and ask of her what she would, and what she meant by her loud crying: and she began and told him what would befall the king if he passed that water. The king asked her how she knew so much, and she said that Huthart told her so. “Sire,” quoth the knight, “men may gallantly talk, nor take heed of yonder woman’s words, for she is but a drunken fool, and wots not what she saith.” And so with his folk he passed the water called the Scottish Sea, towards S. John’s town [Perth,] about four miles from the country of the wild Scots, and there, in a convent of Black Friars, outside the town, he held a great feast. In the course of the revel came “the said woman of Ireland, who called herself a divineress,” and made several vain attempts to gain access to the king. Meanwhile the conspirators matured their plot, removed the king’s guards, attacked him, and slew him.[70]
All the predictions which come true are preserved; we hear nothing of those which fail, for no one has an interest in recording or repeating them; hence an undue importance is gradually attached to what are nothing more than remarkable coincidences. Many others are prophecies “after the event.” Others are based on a careful calculation of probabilities. As in the following example: An Orkney warlock, full of displeasure with James Paplay, a proud and haughty chief, with whose character, doubtless, she was well acquainted, broke forth into a torrent of predictive utterances: “Thou art now the highest man that ever thou shalt be! Thou art gone to shear thy corn, but it shall never do you good! Thou art going to set house with thy wife,—ye shall have no joy of one another. Oil shall not keep you and her; ye shall have such a meit-will [craving,] and shall have nothing to eat, but be fain to eat grass under the stones and wair (sea-weed) under the rocks.” It was seriously asserted that not only were these predictions—or menaces—uttered, but that they were all fulfilled; and it is possible that the prophet may have had something to do with their fulfilment.
A curious anecdote is related of a Scottish minister, who, on the day of the battle of Killiecrankie, was preaching at Anworth, and in his preface before his prayer, according to his usual mode of homely expression, began to this purpose: “Some of you will say, What news, minister? What news about Clavers, who has done so much mischief in this country? That man sets up to be a young Montrose, but as the Lord liveth, he shall be cut short this day. Be not afraid,” added he, “I see them scattered and flying: and as the Lord liveth, and sends this message by me, Claverhouse shall no longer be a terror to God’s people. This day I see him killed—lying a corpse.” And on that day, and at that hour, Claverhouse fell[71] (July 27th, 1689.)
In their anxiety to obtain a glimpse of the dread writing in the Book of Fate, men have resorted to divers strange expedients, applying to warlocks and witches, or seeking to wring a response to their questionings from the creatures of the Invisible World. The ceremony known as Taghairm, or “Echo,” seems to have been peculiar to Scotland. The inquirer was wrapped in a cow’s hide, his head being left free, and was carried by assistants to a solitary spot, or left under the liquid arch formed by the “sheeted column’s silvery perpendicular” in waterfall or cataract: there he remained during the watches of the night, with phantoms fluttering round about him, from whence he was supposed to derive the burden of the oracular response he delivered to his comrades on the following day.
It is probable that this ceremony is the relic of some ancient form of ritual. At all events, the skins of animals played an important part in the old worship. When the Thebans slew a cow on the festival of Jupiter Ammon, his image was clothed with the skin: all present in the temple then struck the carcase, which was buried in a consecrated place.
Pausanias records that a temple in honour of the soothsayer Amphiaraus, the reputed son of Apollo, stood in the territory of Oropus in Attica. Votaries who resorted thither for the purpose of divination, underwent certain lustrations, or purifying rites, sacrificed a ram, and, in expectation of seeing visions, slept upon its skin.
Virgil, in one of the most elaborate scenes of the Æneid, represents to us a similar oblation as being offered at a consecrated fountain, where the priest, to prepare himself for the delivery of responses, slept on the skin:—
“Et cæsarum ovium sub nocte silenti
Pellibus incubuit stratis, somnosque petivit;
Multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris
Et varias audit voces.”[72]
It seems to have been an important part of the heathen ritual to make use of the skin of the sacrificed animal for the purposes of clothing. Lucian, describing the ceremonies practised in the temple of Hierapolis, says that, on his arrival, the head and eyebrows of the novice were shaved; a sheep was then sacrificed; he knelt on the skin, and covering his own head with the head and feet of the animal, prayed that his offering might be accepted while promising a worthier one.
The Spanish invaders of the New World discovered that the religion of its most civilised race, the Aztecs, was founded upon human sacrifices. The number of victims offered up to the Aztec gods is stated in figures which seem almost incredible. Peculiar to the Aztec kingdom was the horrid ceremony entitled “the flaying of men.” The Aztecs having demanded the daughter of some neighbouring potentate as their queen, she was flayed on the very night of her arrival by command of their deity, and a young man clothed in her skin. In this originated the custom that a captive slave, distinguished by the name, the honours, and the ornaments of the divinity, should be sacrificed after a certain time; and another, clothed with his skin, then exacted contributions for the service of the gods, which no one, says Acosta, dared to refuse.