CAVE-HUNTING.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Legends and Superstitions connected with Caves.—The Physical Division of the Subject.—The Biological.—The Inhabitants of Caves.—Men and Animals.—Ethnological, Archæological, and Geographical Bearings.—The three Classes of Bone-Caves: Historic, Prehistoric, Pleistocene.—History of Cave Exploration in Europe: Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Southern Europe.
Caves have excited the awe and wonder of mankind in all ages, and have figured largely in many legends and superstitions. In the Roman Mythology, they were the abode of the Sibyls, and of the nymphs, and in Greece they were the places where Pan, Bacchus, Pluto, and the Moon were worshipped, and where the oracles were delivered, as at Delphi, Corinth, and Mount Cithæron; in Persia they were connected with the obscure worship of Mithras. Their names, in many cases, are survivals of the superstitious ideas of antiquity. In France and Germany they are frequently termed “Fairy, Dragons’, or Devils’ Caves,” and, according to M. Desnoyers, they are mentioned in the invocation of certain canonized anchorites, who dwelt in them after having dispossessed and destroyed the dragons and serpents, the pagan superstition appearing in a Christian dress.
In the Middle Ages they were looked upon as the dwellings of evil spirits, into the unfathomable abysses of which the intruder was lured to his own destruction. Long after the fairies and little men had forsaken the forests and glens of Northern Germany, they dwelt in their palaces deep in the hearts of the mountains,—in “the dwarf holes,” as they were called—whence they came, from time to time, into the upper air. Near Elbingrode, for example, in the Hartz, the legend was current in the middle of the last century, that when a wedding-dinner was being prepared the near relations of the bride and bridegroom went to the caves, and asked the dwarfs for copper and brass kettles, pewter dishes and plates, and other kitchen utensils.[1] “Then they retired a little, and when they came back, found everything they desired set ready for them at the mouth of the cave. When the wedding was over they returned what they had borrowed, and in token of gratitude, offered some meat to their benefactors.” Allusions, such as this, to dwarfs, according to Professor Nilsson, point back to the remote time when a small primeval race, inhabiting Northern Germany, was driven by invaders to take refuge in caverns,—a view that derives support from the fact that in Scandinavia the tall Northmen were accustomed to consider the smaller Lapps and Finns as dwarfs, and to invest them with magic power, just as in Palestine the smaller invading peoples considered their tall enemies giants. The cave of Bauman’s hole, also in the Hartz district, was said, in the middle of the last century, to have been haunted by divers apparitions, and to contain a treasure guarded by black mastiffs; and in Burrington Combe, in Somersetshire, some twenty years ago, a cave was dug out by a working man, under the impression that it contained gold. The hills of Granada are still believed, by the Moorish children, to contain the great Boabdil and his sleeping host, who will awake when an adventurous mortal invades their repose, and will issue forth to restore the glory of the Moorish kings.
It is, indeed, no wonder that legends and poetical fancies such as these should cluster round caves, for the gloom of their recesses, and the shrill drip of the water from the roof, or the roar of the subterranean water-falls echoing through the passages, and the white bosses of stalagmite looming like statues through the darkness, offer ample materials for the use of a vivid imagination. The fact that often their length was unknown, naturally led to the inference that they were passages into another world. And this is equally true of the story of Boabdil, of that of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, in the north of Ireland, and of the course of the river Styx, which sinks into the rocks and flows through a series of caverns that are the dark entrance-halls of Hades. The same idea is evident in the remarkable story, related by Ælian (Lib. xvi. 16). “Among the Indians of Areia there is an abyss sacred to Pluto, and beneath it vast galleries, and hidden passages and depths, that have never been fathomed. How these are formed the Indians tell not, nor shall I attempt to relate. The Indians drive thither (every year) more than 3,000 different animals—sheep, goats, oxen, and horses—and each acting either from dread of the dreadful abyss, or to avert an evil omen in proportion to his means, seeks his own and his family’s safety by causing the animals to tumble in; and these, neither bound with chains nor driven, of their own accord finish their journey as if led on by some charm; and after they have come to the mouth of the abyss they willingly leap down, and are never more seen by mortal eyes. The lowing, however, of the cattle, the bleating of the sheep and of the goats, and the whinnying of the horses are heard above ground, and if anyone listen at the mouth, he will hear sounds of this kind lasting for a long time. Nor do they ever cease, because beasts are driven thither every day. But whether the sound is made by those recently driven in, or by some of those driven in some time before, I do not express an opinion.” The Roman Catholic Church took advantage of this feeling of superstitious awe, as late as the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation it was believed that a cave at Bishofferode would prove the death of some person in the course of the year, unless a public yearly atonement were made. Accordingly a priest came, on a certain day, to the chapel on the hill opposite, whence he passed in solemn procession to the cave, “and let down into it a crucifix, which he pulled up again, and took this occasion to remind them of hell, and to avoid the punishment due to their sins.”
The beauty of the interiors of some of the caves could not fail to give rise to more graceful fancies than these. The fantastic shapes of the dripstone, with which they are adorned, now resembling Gothic pillars supporting a crystalline arcade, or jutting out in little spires and minarets, and very generally covering the floor with a marble-like pavement, and in some cases lining the pools of water with a fretwork of crystals that shine like the facets of a diamond, were fitting ornaments for the houses of unearthly beings, such as fairies.