The older advocates of the Asiatic origin of the Aryan peoples were led captive by the proverb, “Ex oriente lux.” This phrase doubtless influenced philologists like Pott and Müller, while to Grimm must be credited the complementary epigram, “the irresistible impulse towards the West[851].” Along with the fallacy hidden in these aphorisms there is some amount of truth. Berkeley’s assertion, “Westward the course of Empire takes its way,” is historically justified, and is still apposite to a large degree. The more modern idea, expressed by Kipling, “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet[852],” though correct as a key to manners and customs, may be much canvassed if applied to actual migrations of men. To carry our parallels further would lead us to the purely fanciful, and would evoke the derision of the scornful. Yet the mention of one more whimsical belief may be pardoned on the ground of its age. Peter Heylyn gave utterance to the idea two and a half centuries ago, though it is likely that he was a borrower from earlier geographers. He tells us that the poets turn their faces to the West, the Fortunate Islands, “so memorized and chanted by them.” To the poets, then, the North is the right hand, the South is left. But to the “Augures of old, and in our days, to Priests and Men in holy Orders, [who] usually in sacrifice and divine oblations convert themselves unto the East,” the South is the right hand. Astronomers face the South, because in that way the motions of the planets may best be observed. Finally, geographers, who have “so much to do with the Elevations of the Pole,” turn their faces to the North, and, to them, the left hand is West[853].
If the West, according to one superstition, is the realm of death, what shall be said of the North? From that quarter no sunny rays are sent forth. The North blast brings ice and snow. A time-honoured tradition makes all fogs and storms rise from the Northern heavens[854]. Even to-day the Wiltshire peasant avers that thunder always comes from the North, though the sound may reach the ear from another direction[855]. The Northern slopes of an undulating meadow are overrun with moss and tussocks of coarse grass. But lichens, lovers of sunlight, avoid the North side of trees. An East-to-West wall built further North of East than 41° 26´ can, in latitude 51° N., receive no rays of the sun except on the South side. In the same manner a chancel which is deflected very much towards the North gets no sunshine on that side, except in the early morning, and then only in the summer season. Let hardy souls, like Kingsley, extol the North wind, if they desire, but the mass of men will still hold the icy blast in detestation. Hence the superstitions regarding the North are closely knit with physical dislike and discomfort, and rest on a basis of sound reason.
Bearing these facts in mind, we are not astonished to learn that early beliefs allocated the North to the Spirit of Evil. The idea is rife throughout the heathen legends of Northern nations[856]. The underworld, in Teutonic mythology, is placed under the third root of the ash tree, Yggdrasill, “low down toward the North,” where there is cold, eternal night. In this mist-hell, the unhappy sojourner wanders down valleys deep and dark; he enters joyless caverns; oftentimes, too, he hears the roaring of the waterfall which belongs to the demons[857]. Nor are such ideas confined to heathen folk. Again and again, in the Old Testament, especially in Job and Isaiah, “the sides of the North” are represented as the abode of the Prince of Darkness[858]. Even the New Testament has faint allusions to the same belief. Naturally, then, English literature became permeated with this idea. Shakespeare, all-embracing in his references to prevailing superstitions, makes La Pucelle invoke demons—“substitutes under the lordly monarch of the North[859].” In Paradise Lost we are told how the banded powers of Satan appear in “the spacious North,” where the arch-rebel has erected his throne[860]. Milton recurs to the idea several times; thus, in one of the sonnets, we meet with the epithet, “the false North[861].” Later poets, perhaps unconsciously imitating Milton, have expressed the same fancy. Kirke White, in the Christiad, the poem on which, as Southey tells us, the hapless young poet bestowed most pains, placed his hosts of demons among the impenetrable fogs and lamenting gales—
“Where the North Pole, in moody solitude,
Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around[862].”
These illustrations show that the Northern quarter of the heavens was the source of much superstition. The simple childish myth was often amplified. Origen taught that the place of everlasting damnation was at the earth’s centre, and that the entrance was situated at the North Pole. Each time the Aurora Borealis flashed, the gates of hell opened anew, and the wicked on earth were warned of their doom[863]. The doctrine of fear of the North creeps in everywhere. The parish church, according to some writers, is most suitably built on the North side of the graveyard, so that it may not cast a shadow on the graves[864]. This “rule” is undoubtedly beset by many transgressions, but it embodies a tendency, and I have noticed some remarkable confirmations. Many churchyards have but a very narrow strip of ground lying to the North of the edifice. In spite of these instances, I consider that the generalization is too definite, and that the alleged reason lacks adequate support. The superstition concerning the Northern, or Devil’s door, on the contrary, is general and well-authenticated.
Fig. 66. Gateway, at Eastern entrance to St Stephen’s church, Coleman Street, London. The carving (5 feet × 2½ feet) on the upper portion was originally over the North gateway. The subject is the Day of Judgement, and the figures are in high relief. The Judge is seen enthroned above, Satan is falling from heaven, and the dead are rising from their coffins. Representations of this kind are often called “Dooms.”
The building itself affords evidence of the current superstition. Part of this testimony was put forward, inferentially, when the South was being considered; one or two additional facts may now be noticed. On the Northern gate of the church, there were sometimes represented the terrible scenes connected with the Last Judgement. An elaborate example of this treatment formerly existed over the Northern gateway of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and another at St Stephen’s, Coleman Street ([Fig. 66]), though in each case the craftsman’s work now occupies a different position[865]. Gloomy subjects, like the one mentioned, were also reserved for the North face of the church by those Mediaeval sculptors whose sermons in stone warned many long-past generations. Rheims Cathedral has the terrors of the Last Day thus depicted on its North side. The arrangements of the church services also show traces of the influence now under discussion. In the North of Europe, where the usual rule for orienting churches is observed, the Gospel is read from the North side of the altar, so that, according to Mediaeval symbolism, light may be given “to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death[866].” Or, as Durandus has it, the North side is allotted to sinners, and the Gospel calls sinners to repentance[867]. Conversely, the Epistle is read from the South side, the abode of the faithful and the converted. If one person has to read both the Epistle and the Gospel, he crosses from the South to the North before reading the latter service. To account for this change of position, other reasons have been advanced. Some writers think that the spread of the Word from the South to the North is intended; others declare that the crossing over was a matter of mere convenience. Moreover, while a similar custom prevailed in the early churches of Rome, the position of the reader in those days was to the right or left of the celebrant; consequently, where the building was not alined East and West, the mystical interpretation could not apply. Whatever be the origin or the date of the introduction of the custom, it seems fairly conclusive that some such symbolical meaning was understood during the Mediaeval period[868]. Nevertheless, we should be on our guard against the meticulous and over-strained interpretations which the symbolists are wont to produce for the most trivial ceremonies and occurrences. Most readers will recall the passage in Ecclesiastes concerning the fall of the tree to the South, or to the North. On these expressions, Coverdale, in his treatise entitled “Praying for the Dead,” bases a far-fetched fragment of symbolism. It runs as follows: “As men die, so shall they arise; if in faith in the Lord, towards the South, they need no prayers; they are happy, and shall arise in glory presently; if in unbelief, without the Lord, towards the North then are they past all help, in the damned state presently, and shall rise in eternal shame[869].”
To descend to the prosaic affairs of life, we notice some curious facts which seem to confirm the evil reputation of the North. It may be deemed a trifle, but why did our ancestors, under the old open-field system of cultivation, divide their territories into East, West, and South Fields[870], not North? To reply that, since the land was cultivated chiefly under a three-field system, with its three-course rotation of crops, one quarter of the compass must necessarily be omitted, is scarcely satisfactory. Why should it be the North particularly which is avoided in the allotment of areas and in the nomenclature? Besides, where the two-field system was in vogue, we commonly find East and West, rather than North and South. One does not wish to press such nice points, but was it by chance that in the old Lombardic boundary treaties the Northern tract was styled “nulla ora[871]”? Undoubtedly, it is a fair response to say that these matters were instinctively settled on principles of convenience and physical comfort. The motive for the choice was at first probably thus simple, but supplementary ideas sprang up, and tended to harden the preference into a rule. One or two further illustrations will now be given.