As sune as they saw her weel-far'd face,
They cast the glamour ower her.
Saxo Grammaticus mentions a particular sect of Mathematicians, as he is pleased to call them, who "per summam ludificandorum oculorum peritiam, proprios alienosque vultus, variis rerum imaginibus, adumbrare callebant; illicibusque formis veros obscurare conspectus." Merlin, the son of Ambrose, was particularly skilled in this art, and displays it often in the old metrical romance of Arthour and Merlin:
Tho' thai com the kinges neighe
Merlin hef his heued on heighe
And kest on hem enchauntement
That he hem alle allmest blent
That non other sen no might
A gret while y you plight &c.
The jongleurs were also great professors of this mystery, which has in some degree descended, with their name, on the modern jugglers. But durst Breslaw, the Sieur Boaz, or Katterfelto himself, have encountered, in magical slight, the tregetoures of father Chaucer, who
---- within a hall large
Have made come in a water and a barge,
And in the halle rowen up and down;
Somtime hath semed come a grim leoun,
And somtime flowres spring as in a mede;
Somtime a vine and grapes white and rede,
Somtime a castel al of lime and ston;
And when hem liketh voideth it anon.
Thus seemeth it to every mannes sight.—
Frankeleene's Tale.
And, again, the prodigies exhibited by the clerk of Orleans to Aurelius:—
He shewd him or they went to soupere
Forestes, parkes, ful of wilde dere;
Ther saw he hartes with hir hornes hie,
The gretest that were ever seen with eie:
He saw of hem an hundred slain with houndes,
And some with arwes blede of bitter woundes:
He saw, when voided were the wilde dere,
Thise fauconers upon a fair rivere,
That with hir haukes han the heron slain:
Tho saw he knightes justen on a plain;
And after this he did him swiche plesance,
That he him shewd his lady on a dance,
On which himselven danced, as him thought:
And whan this maister that this magike wrought,
Saw it was time, he clapt his handes two,
And farewell! all the revel is ago.
And yet remued they never out of the house,
While they saw all thise sights merveillous:
But in his studie ther his bookes be,
They saten still and no wight but this three.
Ibidem.
Our modern professors of the magic natural would likewise have been sorely put down by the Jogulours and Enchantours of the Grete Chan; "for they maken to come in the air the sone and the mone, beseminge to every mannes sight; and aftre, they maken the nyght so dirke, that no man may se no thing; and aftre, they maken the day to come agen, fair and plesant, with bright sone to every mannes sight; and than, they bringin in daunces of the fairest damyselles of the world, and richest arrayed; and after, they maken to comen in other damyselles, bringing coupes of gold, fulle of mylke of diverse bestes; and geven drinke to lordes and to ladyes; and than they maken knyghtes to justen in arms fulle lustyly; and they rennen togidre a gret randoun, and they frusschen togidere full fiercely, and they broken her speres so rudely, that the trenchouns flen in sprotis and pieces alle aboute the halle; and than they make to come in hunting for the hert and for the boor, with houndes renning with open mouthe: and many other things they dow of her enchauntements, that it is marveyle for to se."—Sir John Mandeville's Travels, p. 285. I question much, also, if the most artful illuminatus of Germany could have matched the prodigies exhibited by Pacolet and Adramain. "Adonc Adramain leva une cappe par dessus une pillier, et en telle sort, qu'il sembla a ceux qui furent presens, que parmi la place couroit, une riviere fort grande et terrible. Et en icelle riviere sembloit avoir poissons en grand abondance, grands et petits. Et quand ceux de palaís virent l'eau si grande, ils commencerent tous a lever leur robes et a crier fort, comme sils eussent eu peur d'estre noye; et Pacolet, qui l'enchantement regarda, commenca a chanter, et fit un sort si subtil en son chant qui sembla a tous ceux de lieu que parmy la riviere couroit un cerf grand et cornu, qui jettoit et abbatoit a terre tout ce que devant lui trouvoit, puis leur fut advis que voyoyent chasseurs et veneurs courir apris le Cerf, avec grande puissance de levriers et des chiens. Lors y eut plusieurs de la compagnie qui saillirent au devant pour le Cerf attraper et cuyder prendre; mais Pacolet fist tost le Cerf sailler. "Bien avez joué," dit Orson, "et bien scavez vostre art user."—L'Histoire des Valentin et Orson, a Rouen, 1631. The receipt, to prevent the operation of these deceptions, was, to use a sprig of four-leaved clover. I remember to have heard (certainly very long ago, for, at the time, I believed the legend), that a gypsey exercised his glamour over a number of people at Haddington, to whom he exhibited a common dung-hill cock, trailing, what appeared to the spectators, a massy oaken trunk. An old man passed with a cart of clover; he stopped, and picked out a four-leaved blade; the eyes of the spectators were opened, and the oaken trunk appeared to be a bulrush.