FIENDS, GHOSTS, AND SPRITES.
INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE
OF
BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL.
By JOHN NETTEN RADCLIFFE.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1854.
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS,
LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.
FIENDS, GHOSTS, AND SPRITES.
A belief in the supernatural has existed in all ages and among all nations.
To trace the origin of this belief, the causes of the various modifications it has undergone, and the phases it has assumed, is, perhaps, one of the most interesting researches to which the mind can be given,—interesting, inasmuch as we find pervading every part of it the effects of those passions and affections which are most powerful and permanent in our nature.
So general is the belief in a supreme and over-ruling Power, possessing attributes altogether different from and superior to human powers, and bending these and the forces of nature to its will, that the thought has been entertained by many that it is inborn in man. Such a doctrine is, however, refuted by an acquaintance with the inlets and modes of obtaining knowledge; by the fact that reason is necessary to its discovery; and by its uselessness.[1] "There are neither innate ideas nor innate propositions; but there is an innate power of understanding that shows itself in primitive notions, which, when put into speech, are expressed in propositions, which propositions, decomposed, produce, under the influence of abstraction and analysis, distinct ideas."[2]
Others have asserted and maintained that man derives his knowledge of the existence of Deity, and, consequently, of the supernatural, from the exercise of reason upon himself and his own powers by self-reflection. If he reflects upon the wonderful power of liberty and free-will which he possesses, on his relation to surrounding beings and things, and particularly on his imperfect, limited, and finite powers, it is argued that the antithetical proposition of infinite must of necessity be admitted. "I cannot have the idea of the finite and of imperfection without having that of perfection and of infinite. These two ideas are logically correlative."[3] Or if man extends his reasoning powers to the study or the contemplation "of the beauty, the order, the intelligence, the wisdom, and the perfection displayed throughout the universe; and as there must of necessity be in the cause what is witnessed in the effect, you reason from nature to its author, and from the existence of the perfection of the one you conclude the existence and perfection of the other."[4]
But many theologists maintain that the knowledge of a Deity, and of the existence of supernatural beings, is derived solely from revelation; and stern and prolonged have been the struggles in this country between the upholders of the rival tenets.
That no idea of a Deity, such as that which the Christian entertains, is to be found among the vague and undefined notions of supernatural power which are contained in the mythologies of pagan nations; that even the conceptions of Plato are to be summed up in the phrase "the unknown God;" and that the perfect idea of the Godhead is to be derived solely from Scripture, can be satisfactorily shown. But the conclusion sought to be established from this, that all our ideas of the supernatural are derived from this source, does not necessarily follow.
The postulate that man can derive a knowledge of the supernatural from the exercise of his mental powers alone, cannot either be affirmed or denied, but it is not improbable.
Perhaps the nearest approach to correctness which we are as yet capable of on this subject is as follows:—
After the creation of man, God revealed himself. The perfect knowledge of the Deity thus obtained, was perpetuated by a fragment of the human race, notwithstanding the baneful effects of the fall; and at the epoch of the deluge, the solitary family which escaped that mighty cataclysm, formed a centre from which anew the attributes and powers of the Godhead were made known in all their truth and purity. But again sin prevailed, and with the exception of one race, who alone treasured the true knowledge of the Deity, mankind lost by degrees the pure faith of their fathers; and as they receded from the light, the idea of the Godhead became obscured, and in the progress of time well nigh lost, and the vague and imperfect ideas of a supernatural Power derived from tradition, prompted to a terror and awe of some invisible yet mighty influence, unknown and inexplicable, but which was manifested to man in the more striking objects and the incomprehensible phenomena of nature, which were regarded and worshipped as the seats of this unknown Power, forming the substratum of those wonderful systems of mythology which have characterised successive eras and races.
"Once," writes Plato, referring to the earlier traditions of the Greeks, "one God governed the universe; but a great and extraordinary change taking place in the nature of men and things, infinitely for the worse (for originally there was perfect virtue and perfect happiness on earth), the command then devolved on Jupiter, with many inferior deities to preside over different departments under him."[5]
To state the influence which each of the elements indicated above—tradition and reason—have had in the development of mythology, is doubtless impossible.
The existence of the first element, tradition, is, to those who admit the truth of Scripture, undeniable, and it gives a clue to the elucidation of the leading principle in the belief in those gods, dæmons, fiends, sprites, &c., which, summed up, have constituted the objects of worship of different nations.
I. As in the course of generations the pristine revelation of the Godhead to man became obscured, and a vague and traditionary belief alone remained,—the conceptions, the thoughts and imaginations of each generation being implanted in the succeeding one, and influencing it by the force of habit, education, and authority,—man, impressed with an imperfect notion of a supernatural Power, and ignorant of the forces of the material world, on seeking to unfold the source of those changes which he beheld in the budding forth of spring, the fervid beauty of summer, the maturity of autumn, and the stern grandeur of winter, conceived that the wonderful phenomena ever going on around him owed their origin and effects to the influence of supernatural agency, and marking their apparent dependence upon the sun and other orbs in space, he offered adoration to those luminaries. But when he still further analysed the changes occurring on the surface of the globe, and comprehended the influence of the more palpable forces and elements, and the inexhaustible variety and seeming disconnectedness of the phenomena which he witnessed, incapable of otherwise solving the mysteries which surrounded him, he deemed each as the work of a potent and indwelling Spirit.[6]
Thus man concluded that he was surrounded by a world of supernatural beings, of different powers, attributes, and passions. The sun and moon, the planets and stars, were conceived to be the abodes of spiritual existences; and the effects caused by those orbs which more immediately influence our earth, were considered as the indications of the powers of their respective deities. So also the air, its clouds and currents; the ocean, with its mighty progeny of lakes and rivers; and the earth, its hills, dales, and organic forms, were peopled with incorporeal beings. Every object of beauty shadowed forth the operations of a beneficent Spirit; while devastating storms, barren places and deserts, and the convulsions of nature, betokened the malignancy of dæmons or fiends. According as a country's surface is harsh, rugged, barren, and storm-tossed, or clothed with lovely verdure and basking in the rays of a fervid sun, so do we find the principal characters of its mythology; stern, gigantic, and fierce gods or dæmons, or spirits more kind towards man, and full of beauty and grace. The passions and affections of man, for the same reasons, were considered to be under the sway of supernatural beings; in short, every operation of nature in the organic or inorganic, in the mental or physical worlds, was deemed an indication of the existence of a supernatural Being which ruled and governed it.[7]
These powers in the progress of time were personified and represented as possessed of passions and propensities similar to those of man; for the same finite and imperfect reason which had concluded that they dwelt in the phenomena they were supposed to explain, also deemed, being unable to conceive any higher type of existence than was seen in man himself, that they differed simply in degree of power, and were alike subject to those appetites and passions which characterised humanity.
This source of belief in spiritual existences is found dominant in the systems of mythology of all nations; and as it arises from causes which are inherant in man, it can easily be understood why there is so great a similarity in the primary mythological conceptions of different races.
The mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome furnish a very perfect illustration of the influence which this cause has exercised in the development of the belief in supernatural beings, and no better method of illustration can be adopted, than a sketch of the physical signification of the principal deities, and classes of deities, of those countries.
The primitive religion of the Greeks and Romans would appear to have consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies (Sabaism):—the Titans are nearly all personifications of the celestial orbs. Subsequently, their mythology assumed a more physical character, and the offspring of Cronos (Saturn, time), or the personifications of the firmament, atmosphere, sea, &c., formed the leading deities of the more developed system of religion, and the reign of Jupiter commenced.
In this system, the god Jupiter is symbolical of the upper regions of the atmosphere (Æther). Euripides writes:—
"The vast, expanded, boundless sky behold,
See it with soft embrace the earth enfold;
This own the chief of deities above,
And this acknowledge by the name of Jove."[8]
At a later period this god was conceived to represent the soul of the world, diffused alike through animate and inanimate nature; or, as Virgil poetically describes it in the Æneid—(Book vi.):
"The heaven and earth's compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole.
This active mind infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence man and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main."
The god Apollo signifies the sun,—his prophetic power being symbolical of its influence in dispelling darkness; his knowledge of medicine and healing, signifies the influence of that luminary in revivifying and restoring the powers of organic life; his skill in music is symbolical of the central position of the sun among the seven planets, and its making harmony with them; and the harp upon which this god is depicted as playing, is furnished with seven strings, in emblem of the seven planets. Pan represents the universal world, and he is the emblem of fecundity. Hence this god is depicted in his upper part as a man, in his lower parts as a beast; "because the superior and celestial part of the world is beautiful, radiant and glorious, as the face of this god, whose horns resemble the rays of the sun, and the horns of the moon. The redness of his face is like the splendour of the sky; and the spotted skin that he wears is an image of the starry firmament. In his lower parts he is shagged and deformed, which represents the shrubs, and wild beasts, and trees of the earth below. His goat's feet signify the solidity of the earth; and his pipe of seven reeds, that celestial harmony which is made by the seven planets. He has a shepherd's hook, crooked at the top, in his hand, which signifies the turning of the year into itself."[9]
The goddess Cybele was symbolical of the earth; Juno, of the air—the link between earthly and heavenly natures; Vulcan, of fire; Æolus, of the winds; Diana, of the moon; Neptune, of the sea; Rusina, of the country; Ceres, of the fruits of the earth; Collina, of the hills; Vallonia, of the valleys; Silvanus, of the woods, which teemed also with inferior deities—satyrs and fauns; Seia presided over all seed; Flora, flowers; Proserpina cherished the corn when it had sprung above the earth; Volasia folded the blade round it ere the beard broke out; Nodosus watched over the joints and knots of the stalk; Patelina governed the opened ear; Lactusa took charge when it became milky; Matura guarded and conducted it to maturity; Hostilina presided over the crop; and Tutelina, over the cutting.
Nymphs, goddesses of lovely form, and light and airy beauty, sported about the earth; a Dryad presided over every tree; a Hamadryad was born, lived, and died with each oak; Oreads dwelt on the mountains; Napëæ, in the groves and valleys; Lemoniads, in the meadows and fields; Nereiads, in the ocean; Naiads, at the fountains; Fluviales, by the rivers: and Lirinades, by lakes and ponds.
Vesta presided over the vital heat of the body; Janus opened the gate of life to infant man; Opis assisted him when he came into the world; Nascio presided over the moment of birth; Cunia watched over the cradle, and while he lay and slept; Vagitanus, or Vaticanus, took care while the infant cried; Rumina presided while the child sucked the breast; Potina guarded the infant drinking; Educa watched over it while it received food; Ossilago "knit its bones" and hardened its body; Carna presided over the safety of the inward parts; the goddess Nundina had charge of the child on the ninth day—the day of purification; Statilinus taught the infant to stand and walk, and preserved it from falling; Fabulinus looked after the child when it began to speak; Paventia preserved it from fright; Juventus protected the beginning of youth; Agenoria excited man to action; Strenua encouraged him to behave bravely on all occasions; Stimula urged him to extraordinary exertions; Horta exhorted him to noble actions; Quis gave peace and quietude; Murcia rendered man lazy, idle, and dull; Adeona protected him in his outgoings and incomings; Vibilia guarded wanderers; Vacuna protected the lazy and idle; Fessonia refreshed the weary; Meditrina healed injuries; Vitula presided over and gave mirth; Volupia governed pleasures; Orbona was a goddess supplicated that she might not leave parents destitute of children; Pellonia drove away enemies; Numeria endued men with the power of casting numbers; Sentia gave just and honourable sentiments; Augerona removed anguish from the mind; and Consus presided over good counsels.
Virtue also was worshipped as a goddess; and the several species of virtue were considered each as emanating from some godlike power, and Faith, Hope, Justice, Piety, Peace, Fidelity, Liberty, and Money, were worshipped as good deities; while, on the other hand, Envy, Contumely, Impudence, Calumny, Fraud, Discord, Fury, Fame, Fortune, Fever, and Silence, were supplicated as evil deities.
Minerva was symbolical of wisdom and chastity; Mercury, of eloquence—speech; Venus of ungovernable passions and desire; Saturn, time; Momus, mockery; Silenus, jesting; Mars, war; and Bacchus, wine. The Muses each represented an accomplishment. Thus, Calliope presided over epic poetry; Clio, history; Erato, elegy and amorous song; Thalia, comedy, gay, light, and pleasing song; Melpomene, tragedy; Terpsichore, dancing; Euterpe, music; Polyhymnia, religious song; and Urania, the knowledge of celestial events.
Themis taught mankind what was honest, just, and right; Astræa was the goddess of justice; Nemesis punished vice, rewarded virtue, and taught mankind their duty.
Every action of man, both in his collective and individual capacity—everything in relation to his household and domestic affairs—was also conceived to be governed by supernatural powers, which were classed under the names of Penates and Lares.
The Penates, as may well be imagined, were almost numberless, but they may be divided into three classes: 1st, those which presided over kingdoms and provinces; 2nd, those which presided over cities only; and 3rd, those presiding over houses and families. To instance to what an extent this belief was carried, a penate named Ferculus looked after the door; the goddess Cardua after the hinges; and Limentius protected the threshold.
The Lares were of human origin, and they presided also over houses, streets, and ways. Subsequently their power was extended to the country and the sea.
To each person was also assigned two deities, termed genii. These spirits were subsidiary to the gods already mentioned, it being one of their duties to carry the prayers of men to them. The genii differed in nature and disposition, and were divided into two classes—the good and the bad. The good genius excited men to all actions of honour and virtue; the evil genius excited him to all manner of wickedness. The Greeks termed these genii dæmons, either from the terror and dread they created when they appeared, or from the wise answer they returned when consulted as oracles.
The ravages caused by an ever-gnawing conscience and by the effects of the evil passions, were attributed to three supernatural powers termed the Furies—Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra—who became symbolical of the avengers of wickedness; and lastly, Night, Sleep, and Death—Nox, Mors, and Somnus—were elevated among the gods.
This brief sketch will serve to show the leading principle entering into the formation of the Grecian and Roman mythology—a mythology containing more than 30,000 gods; and it will illustrate how every hidden power of nature as well in the organic as the inorganic world; and how every equally inexplicable operation of the human mind was referred, for an explanation, to the influence of a supernatural power, which in the progress of time was personified, worshipped, and pourtrayed in such a form as best set forth the effects it was conceived to produce.
This source of the belief in the supernatural, as we have already stated, will be found to have prevailed among all nations; hence their primary mythological conceptions are one and the same, modified by the difference of climate, habits, &c.
Thus, of the gods of the ancient Britons—Belin, Plennyd, or Granwyn, possessed the attributes of, and was the same with, Apollo; Gwydion, or Teutath, had all the attributes of Mercury; Daronwy, Taranwy, or Taranis, the thunderer, of Jove; Anras, or Andraste, of Bellona; He-us, Hesus, Hugadarn, or Hu-ysgwn, united the characters of Bacchus and Mars; Ked and Keridwen answered to Ceres; Llenwy to Proserpine; Olwen and Dwynwen to Venus; and Neivion to Neptune.[10]
In the Scandinavian mythology the principal gods are personifications of physical and mental powers. Odin, the most powerful of the three beings first educed from chaotic confusion, possesses the attributes of Mercury; and according to Finn Magnusen, Vili is the personification of light; Ve, of fire. The two ravens which are depicted as sitting constantly upon the shoulders of Odin, represent Mind and Memory; and of the principal gods, we find that Thor is symbolical of thunder; Baldur of the sun; Njord rules over the winds, sea, &c.; Frey is the god of rain, sunshine, and the fruits of the earth; Tyr, of war; Bragi, of wisdom and poetry; Vidar, of silence; Forseti, of law and justice; Loki is the personification of evil; Frigga is the goddess of the earth; and night, day, the moon, time, the present, the past, and the future, healing, chastity, abundance, love, courtesy, wisdom, and every form and passion and power of nature which the Scandinavians had separated and distinguished, each had its special and worshipped god.
The original worship of the Hindoos[11] was directed to the heavenly bodies, the elements, and natural objects. In the mandras, or prayers, which form the principal part of the Vedas, or sacred writings, the firmament, the sun, moon, fire, air, and spirit of the earth, are most frequently addressed. These writings inculcate the worship of the elements and planets, and differ from the more recent and legendary poems which teach the worship of deified heroes and sages. In the Sanhitâ of the Rig-veda, the invocations which it contains are chiefly addressed to the deities of fire, the firmament, the winds, the seasons, the sun, and the moon, who are invited to be present at the sacrifices, or are appealed to for wealth or for their several beneficial qualities. The personified attributes of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, signifying respectively creation, preservation, and destruction, are due to a later and more refined era of Hindoo mythology; and the eight inferior deities ranking next in order to the Trimurti, and termed Lokapalas, are all personifications of natural objects and powers. Thus Indra is the god of, and is symbolical of the visible heavens, thunder, lightning, storm, and rain; Agni, of fire; Yama, of the infernal regions; Surya, of the sun; Varuna, of water; Parana, of wind; Kuvera, of wealth; and Soma, or Chandra, of the moon.
The celebrated line which it is enjoined should be repeated without intermission, and which is the most holy passage in the Vedas, reads literally, "Let us meditate on the adorable light of Savitri (the sun—the divine ruler); may it guide our intellects." This, it is asserted, is addressed to the sun as the symbol of a divine and all-powerful being, and it is regarded as a proof of the monotheism of the Vedas. This explanation is, however, considered by some to be far from satisfactory, and to offer greater difficulties than the text ever can when taken in a natural light.
The creed of Buddha contains similar traces of elemental worship. The five Buddhas and the five Bodhisattwas would appear to be personifications of the principal natural elements and phenomena.
In Persian mythology we find a similar deification of natural phenomena. In the creed of Zoroaster, which was a modification of pre-existing beliefs, there is an eternal almighty Being, Zernane Akherene (illimitable, uncreated time), who created Ormuzd (light, goodness); and Ahrimann (darkness, evil). Ormuzd created the universe, and the genii, or deities of light, of whom there are three classes.
1st Class. The seven Amshaspands, including Ormuzd himself. The remaining are Bahman, the genius of the region of light; Ardibehesht, of ethereal fire; Sharwir, of metals; Sarpandomad, of fruitfulness; Khudad, of time; Amerdad, of the vegetable world, flocks, and herds.
2nd Class. The twenty-seven Izeds, male and female—the elementary deities: e.g. Khorsid, the deity of the sun; Mah, of the moon; Tashter, of the dog-star, and of rain; Rapitan, the deity of heat, &c. These deities were probably worshipped before the belief was reduced to a system.
3rd Class. The Fervers—the vivifying principles of nature, the ideal types of the material universe, corresponding in general with the ideas of Plato. Every one, even Ormuzd, has his Ferver. "An Iranite has thus constantly by his side his ideal type, or uncorrupted material image, to guide him through life and preserve him from evil."[12]
The Iranite worships light, fire, and water, as emblems of Ormuzd, in whom these elements are united; he does not worship the elementary spirits attached to them.
In China, the state religion—the religious system of Confucius—embodies the following objects of worship, arranged in three classes:—
1st Class. Ta sze, or great sacrifices, includes the worship of the heavens (Yâng), and the earth (Yin); and while worshipping the material heaven, they appear to consider that there exists an animating intelligence (Tae-keih) which presides over the world, rewarding virtue and vice. This class includes also deified sovereigns.
2nd Class. Choong-sze, medium sacrifices, includes the worship of gods of the land and grain, the sun and moon, genii, sages, gods of letters, inventors of agriculture, manufacturers, and useful arts.
3rd Class. Seaon-sze, or lesser sacrifices, includes the worship of the ancient patron of the healing art; innumerable spirits of deceased statesmen, eminent scholars, martyrs to virtue, &c.; the principal phenomena of nature, as the clouds, rain, wind, thunder, each of which has its presiding god; the military banners (like the Romans); the god of war; Loong-wang, the dragon-king; the gods of rain and the watery elements; and Tien-how, the queen of heaven and goddess of the weather. The Chinese also believe in good and evil genii, and in tutelar spirits presiding over families, houses, and towns.[13]
In Africa, the mythology of its different nations is based on natural objects and phenomena. The natives of Ashanti and the neighbouring districts worship water, lakes, rivers, mountains, rocks and stones, leopards, panthers, wolves, crocodiles, &c., all of which are more or less powerful "fetishes;" and the Nubian worships the moon. The natives of Tahiti and the islands of the South Sea also derive their principal ideas of supernatural beings from material objects. In Mangareva, the largest of the Gambier Islands, the gods adored by the natives were principally personifications of natural objects. A god named Tea was the deity and creator of the sun, wind, and water; Rongo was the god of rain; Tairi, of thunder; Arikitenow, of the ocean; A-nghi, of storms and famine; Napitoiti, of death, &c. The Tahitan conceives also that animals, trees, stones, &c., possess souls which, like his own, after destruction will have a subsequent existence. On the vast continent of South America we find numerous traces of elemental and natural worship. The aborigines of Paraguay supplicate the sun, moon, stars, thunder, lightning, groves, &c. In the district bounded by the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro, and the Cassequiare, including an extent of about 8000 square miles, and scattered also over a still greater extent of this continent, are found rocks covered with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles and tigers, household utensils, and of the sun and moon,—doubtless objects of adoration to nations of whose existence even tradition has not preserved a trace. It is also probable that the rocks thus engraved were regarded as sacred; for the Macusi Indians, inhabiting one portion of the districts where these sculptures are found, have the tradition that "the sole survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing stones into human beings."[14] The Incas of Peru—the children of the sun—built magnificent temples, and adored that luminary; and the sculptures on the walls of the colossal temples and buildings of the Aztecs, the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, as well as the remains of the pyramids of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan, teach the same lesson with regard to that extinct race. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico still perpetuate the holy fire "by the side of which the Aztecan kept a continual watch for the return to earth of Quetzalcoatl, the god of air." In a solitary cave of the mountains is preserved the undying fire, and its dim light is seen by the hunter if, by chance, led by the chase, he passes near to this lonely temple.[15] Among the tribes which inhabit the more northerly parts of the American continent, we find also similar traces of the important influence which natural phenomena have exercised in the development of their ideas of supernatural existences.
We could not well close this sketch without allusion to the Shaman religion, which is diffused throughout the principal nations of Asiatic Russia, a great part of the Tartars, the Eins, Samoiedes, Ostiaks, Mandshurs, Burats, and Tungsees; and it is even professed among the Coriaks and Techuks, and people of the eastern islands. This system of religion is essentially founded upon the observation of natural phenomena: it teaches that the gods (Burchans) arose from the general mass of matter and spirit; and while inculcating the existence of a spiritual world, it instils the belief in the self-existence of matter.
These remarks will sufficiently show the important influence which the observation of natural phenomena has had in the development of the belief in the Supernatural of most nations; and it will fully indicate the primary reason of the correspondence of their principal mythological conceptions. A consideration of the different habits, degree of civilization, locality, &c., will also indicate the principal reason of the various modifications which the same mythological conception is found to present among different nations.
There was one Jupiter for Europe, and another for Africa; and the varied forms under which this god was worshipped, derived from the locality, habits, and other peculiarities of his worshippers, were very numerous. At Athens, the great Jupiter was the Olympian; at Rome, the Capitoline. There was the mild and the thundering Jupiter, the Jupiter Nicephorus, Opitulus, Fulminator, &c., all differing in some subordinate characters.
Ammon, of Egypt; Belus, of the Babylonians; Ibis, of the Phœnicians; Allah, of the Arabians; Beel, Baal, Beelphagor, Beelzebub, Beelzemer, &c., all possess the attributes of Jupiter, and are the same with that god.
The Buddha of India; Fohi, of the Chinese; Odin, or Woden, of the Scandinavians; and Gwydion, of the Ancient Britons, correspond with Mercury.
Vishnu, Brahma, Siva, and Krishna, the latter both of the Irish and Sanscrit, correspond with Apollo; whilst Arun, of the Irish and Hindoo superstitions, corresponds with the Aurora of the Greeks.
It is peculiarly interesting to mark in the writings of classic authors the earlier traces of a correct explanation of the causes operating in the changes observed in nature, and their influence in modifying the mythological ideas of the period. Socrates penetrated so far in the interpretation of certain physical phenomena as to discover that they might be explained without having recourse to the idea of supernatural agency. This is most interestingly shown in Aristophanes' comedy of "The Clouds" (B.C. 440). In this comedy, written for the purpose of throwing ridicule and contempt on the sophistical philosophy of Socrates, Strepsiades, an aged and ignorant man, is represented as suffering from the excesses and expenses of his son Phidippides. He conceives the idea of studying logic, in order, by mere subtle reasoning, to overcome and cheat his creditors. He enrols himself as a pupil of Socrates, and in Act I, Scene 2, the following scene occurs:—
Str. Is not Olympian Jupiter our God?
Soc. What Jupiter? nay, jest not—there is none.
Str. How say'st thou? who then rains?—this first of all
Declare to me.
Soc. Why these (the clouds): by mighty signs
This I will prove to thee. Hast ever seen
Jove raining without clouds?—if it were so,
Through the clear fields of ether must he rain,
While these were far away.
Str. Now by Apollo,
Full well hast thou discours'd upon this point;
Till now, in truth, I thought 'twas Jupiter,
Distilling through a sieve. But tell me next,
Who is the thunderer?—this awakes my dread.
Soc. They thunder as they roll.
Str. But how, I pray?
Say, thou who darest all.
Soc. When they are fill'd
With water, and perforce impell'd along,
Driven precipitate, all full of rain,
They meet together, bursting with a crash.
Str. But who compels them thus to move along?
Is not this Jove?
Soc. No, but th'ætherial whirl.
In a subsequent part of the comedy (Act III, Scene 1) Strepsiades is represented as speaking of this idea of a whirlwind as a deified being, thus admirably showing the tendency of man to consider that which he could not comprehend as the result of supernatural agency, and to personify it.
Str. Thou swearest now, by Jove.
Phid. I do.
Str. Thou see'st how good it is to learn,
There is no Jove, Phidippides.
Phid. Who then?
Str. A whirlwind reigns; having driven him, Jove, away.
It would seem, also, that Socrates himself was subject to the influence of this feeling; for a passage in Act V, Scene 1,[16] has led to the conclusion "that in the school of Socrates was placed an earthen image (δῖνος, the name of an earthen vessel as well as of the whirlwind, who has usurped the honours and attributes of Jove). (See Schol. ad Vesp. 617.) This, probably, was done by the philosopher as a sort of compensation for having expelled Jupiter (τὸν Διά) from his mythological system."[17]
II. But the ideas derived from the contemplation of natural phenomena were not the sole sources of mythology, such as we have received it. Other and most powerful causes operated, and of those next in degree of importance were those feelings which prompted to the deification of men.
Persæus, a disciple of Zeno, "says, that they who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of man, should be esteemed as gods; and the very things, he says, which are healthful and beneficial, should have divine appellations; so that he thinks it not sufficient to call them the discoverers of gods, but that they themselves should be deemed divine."[18]
The author of the "Book of Wisdom" in the Apocrypha, details other causes which tended to the same result. He writes, (Chapter xiv, v. 15-21):—
"Thus, some parent mourning bitterly for a son who hath been taken from him, makes an image of his child: and him who before was to his family as a dead man, they now begin to worship as a god; rites and sacrifices being instituted, to be observed by his dependents. And in process of time, custom having established these as a law, an image set up by an impious tyrant receives divine honours. A man being unable to render such respect in their presence to those who dwelt remote from them, and having received their likeness, brought from far, they have proceeded to make a conspicuous image of any king to whom they inclined to pay divine honours, by which means, though absent, the ruler receives their solicitous homage, as though present with them. The exquisite pains bestowed by the artist has likewise contributed to this worship of the absent by ignorant men; for being willing to give perfect satisfaction to him for whom he doth it, he avails himself of all the resources of his art to produce a perfect resemblance. Thus the multitude, allured by the beauty of the statue, come to regard as a god him whom before they honoured but as a man. And this hath been the great delusion of humanity, that out of affection for the dead, or subserviency to their rulers, men have given to stocks and stones the incommunicable name of God."
Most systems of mythology contain examples of deities which have been derived from this source.
"It has been a general custom, likewise," writes Cicero,[19] "that men who have done important service to the public should be exalted to heaven by fame and universal consent. Thus Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Æsculapius and Liber, became gods; * * * thus, likewise, Romulus, or Quirinus—for they are thought to be the same—became a god. They are justly esteemed as deities, since their souls subsist and enjoy eternity, from whence they are perfect and immortal beings."
The Chinese, at the present day, deify and adore their deceased emperors, as well as the spirits of eminent statesmen, scholars, martyrs to virtue, &c.
It has occasionally happened that some great sage, on his apotheosis, had attributed to him that which he had simply expounded during life, and thus became the personification of the religious ideas he had entertained. Buddha, who lived, as nearly as can be ascertained, about 1000 years before Christ, attempted to reform Brahminical India. After death he was deified by his converts, and became the embodiment of the principles he had advocated when on earth; and his name, with various modifications, was applied to the system of cosmogony and religion which he had advocated. The Grand Lamas (Chaberons) of Thibet are regarded as incarnations (avatars) of Buddha, and as such are adored by the Thibetians and the various tribes of Tartars who roam over the vast district which extends from the banks of the Volga to Corea, in the Sea of Japan.
After the persecution which terminated in the expulsion of the followers of Buddha from Hindostan, the Hindoos, not content with their celestial gods or heroes, extended their adoration to various living individuals, particularly to the Brahmins and priests. Daughters under eight years of age are worshipped by them as forms of the goddess Bhavani (Venus); and at certain seasons of the year the Brahmin is worshipped by his wife, and the wives of Brahmins by other men.
Some writers have thought that all the gods of the ancients consisted of deified men. This is, however, an error; for the deification of men was an act second in order to the worship of natural objects and phenomena. The chronological position of this element of mythology has, among other reasons, led Bonomi to arrive at some interesting conclusions on the respective ages of the palaces of Nineveh.
On the walls of the palace at Khorsabad are found sculptured the winged and human-headed bulls, emblems of wisdom or the sun, the four-winged figures, typical of Ibis or Cronos, eagle-headed divinities, and other figures, which are conceived to be symbolical of constellations, and of astronomical phenomena. From these nobler and simpler ideas of Divinity it is inferred, that when this palace was built the worship of the Assyrians was comparatively pure. But on the walls of Nimroud, in addition to the symbolical representations found at Khorsabad, there are also indications of an increased number of divinities, from the presence of deified men; hence a reason for the belief in the degeneracy of the system of religion at the period when this palace was built, and consequently its more recent date.[20]
III. Another element has also exercised a considerable influence upon the mythologies of some nations, namely, Scriptural narrative and traditions. It is not improbable that several of the heathen myths have been derived from this source. Many, indeed, believe that all mythology arises from corrupted Scripture, and it is asserted that Deucalion is merely another name for Noah; Hercules for Samson; Arion for Jonah, and Bacchus is either Nimrod or Moses—for the former supposition the similarity of name being assigned; for the latter, among others, one of the names and some of the actions of this God. Thus, Bacchus was named Bicornis, double-horned; and the face of Moses appeared double-horned when he came down from the mountain where he had spoken to God,—the rays of glory darting from his brow having the semblance of radiant horns. The Bacchæ drew waters from the rocks by striking them with their thyrsi; and wherever they went, the land flowed with milk, honey, and wine. Bacchus caused the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes to dry up, by striking them with his thyrsus, and passed through them dry-shod,—an action similar to that of Moses at the passage of the Red Sea, &c. That Scripture narrative has had an important influence in determining the formation of mythology, is highly probable; and we have already shown that the primary revelation of a Godhead at the creation of man supplied an important initial excitement to that development of the belief in the supernatural which occurred subsequent to the fall of man. The influence of Scriptural traditions on the myths of various nations it is probably impossible to unravel satisfactorily.
IV. Again, it has been supposed that the myths of the ancients, and of modern pagan nations, were allegorical; and that they were designed to represent a philosophical, moral, or religious truth under a fabulous form. Thus, the myth of the giant Typhon cutting away and carrying off the sinews of Jupiter, and that they were afterwards stolen from him by Mercury, and restored to Jupiter, is supposed to refer to powerful rebellions, by which the sinews of kings—their revenue and authority—are cut off; but by mildness of address, and wisdom of edicts, influencing the people, as it were, in a stolen manner, they recover their power and reconcile their subjects. And in the myth of the expedition of the gods against the giants, when the ass Silenus became of great service in dispersing them, on account of the terror excited by his braying, it is considered to be an allegory of those vast projects of rebels, which are mostly dissipated by light rumours and vain consternation. Minerva was fabled to have been born out of the head of Jupiter, because it was deemed that man did not in himself possess wisdom, but he derived it from divine inspiration; and this goddess was born armed, because a wise man clothed in wisdom and virtue is fortified against all the harms of life.
This element has undoubtedly had an important influence in the formation of the various myths, but it refers rather to an advanced stage in mythology, and to that period of development when a nation has made some progress in arts and literature.
These elements, and doubtless also others of which the effects are less easily unfolded, e.g. intercourse between various nations, dispersion of tribes, &c., have all exercised a greater or less degree of influence on the development and formation of the mythologies of different nations.
If we contemplate a race in the earlier phases of its existence, or one degraded in the scale of being, we find that its ideas of the supernatural are confined to the deification and worship of the simplest and most striking of the objects and phenomena of nature: as it has increased in civilization and learning, those deities have been represented in symbolical forms; and as civilization and the cultivation of the mind advances, and the knowledge of surrounding nature has become increased, so have the number of deities been multiplied by the deification of the less evident powers of nature, of kings, and of distinguished men, and then also allegory has come into play. Every variation in the character of a nation, and every era, has impressed more or less distinct marks on its mythology; and mythology, as we receive it now, is the sum of all those changes which have been impressed upon it from its earliest formation.
When Christianity dawned upon the world, its effect was not the immediate eradication or dispersion of the superstitious beliefs and observances then entertained: it induced a change in the form and nature of those beliefs.
At the commencement of the Christian era, certain men, inspired by the Holy Ghost, were enabled to cast aside all those thoughts and feelings derived from habit, education, and authority, and to receive at once, in all its purity and fulness, the light of the gospel—perhaps the most wonderful of all the miracles of Holy Writ. Such was not the case, however, with the majority of the earlier Christians. They did not thus throw off the superstitious beliefs of pagan origin, but modified them so as to concur, as they thought, with Scripture.
Thus, the Scriptures enunciated the doctrine of one sole, omnipotent, and omniscient God; and it fully defined a power of evil, and denounced idolatry. Hence the early Christian fathers were led to conceive, and teach, that the gods of the heathen were devils; and further, that their history, attributes, and worship, had been taught to mankind by the devils themselves.
"Powers that erst in heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial,—blotted out and razed,
By their rebellion from the book of life,—
... wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted, to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible
Glory of Him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute adorn'd
With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities;
Then were they known to man by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world."[21]
This phase being given to the existing superstitions, it will readily be understood how, under the form of devils, most of the principal classes of deities in pagan mythology were retained and believed in. Thus the elemental and primary gods of paganism were perpetuated under the name of fiends, dæmons, genii, &c.; and the terms salamanders, undines, &c., expressed certain spirits of fire and of water; in the form of fairies, elves, sylphs, &c., were retained the graceful Nymphs—Oreads, Dryads, &c.—of antiquity,—
"The light militia of the lower sky;"
the hidden parts of the earth were peopled with dwarfs, and other spirits of a more powerful nature; and spectral apparitions frighted the midnight hours of the watcher.
It is, therefore, to the retention of certain pagan superstitions in a modified form, that we are to attribute the origin of the belief in those unnumbered spirits, which, under the names of fiends, dæmons, genii, fairies, fays, elves, sylphs, sprites, &c., have been supposed to surround us, and have hampered the imaginations of all Christian nations, and of which, to use the words of Pope—
"Some in the fields of purest æther play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day;
Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky;
Some, less refined, beneath the moon's pale light,
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain;
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide."[22]
The belief that the heathen deities were devils, naturally led to the further conclusion, that the priests who sacrificed to those gods, and who were regarded as the medium of communication between the gods and man, held immediate converse with devils,—a belief subsequently extended to idolators in general, and to all those practising magic and sorcery. Instances of the natural alliance of a mythological idea to a Christian belief might be multiplied.
The power of evil, enunciated by the Scriptures, and spoken of as the "Devil," was early reputed to have appeared in a visible form, assuming the aspect of the god Pan, or of a faun or satyr, that is, a horned figure, with hirsute frame, and the lower extremities of a goat, which indeed, until recently, was considered to be the most orthodox form of visibility for his Satanic Majesty. The connection of the power of evil with the gods of the most gloomy and hidden parts of nature is obvious: Pan, indeed, was the god of terror.
Frequently, also, Satan appeared under the form of a goat. The goat is an emblem of the sin-offering, and of the wicked at the day of judgment; hence it became symbolical of the Prince of Darkness, and in this form the devil most commonly appeared to the Jews, according to the Rabbins. In Leviticus (xvii. 7), where it is written "they shall no more offer sacrifices to devils," it is literally, to "hairy-ones"—goats. The symbol of the goat prompted to the nature of the form given to Pan in the Grecian and Roman mythology. Indeed, the Greeks derived their worship of that god from Egypt, where he was adored under the form of a goat; and it is fabled that he captivated Diana under the aspect of a white goat.
A singular superstition of the connection of the goat with Satan is entertained in some districts of this island. It is asserted that a goat is never visible for twenty-four hours consecutively, as once in that time it must visit Satan to have its beard combed![23]
Another example of the wedding of a pagan myth to the Christian religion is this:—Most heathen nations believed in the existence of deities whose especial duty was to guard the threshold of the house, and prevent the entrance of evil spirits.
The Grecians and Romans had their Penates and Lars, and the Genoese retain the superstition at the present day.
The Lars (familiares) were the souls of men, who lingered about the dwellings and places they had formerly inhabited and frequented. They were represented by small images resembling monkeys, and covered with dog's skin; and these images were placed in a niche behind the door, or around the hearth. At the feet of the Lar was placed the figure of a dog, to intimate vigilance; and special festivals were devoted to them in the month of May, when offerings of fruit were presented, and the images were crowned with flowers.
Plautus (Aulularia) represents a Lar as using the following words:—
"I am the family Lar
Of this house whence you see me coming out.
'Tis many years now that I keep and guard
This family; both father and grandsire
Of him that has it now, I aye protected."
Beneath the threshold of the Assyrian palaces at Nineveh were found images of a foul and ugly appearance (teraphim), some having a lynx's head and human body, others a lion's body and human head. Sentences were also inscribed on the threshold, and the winged bulls and figures were placed on each side of the portal. The intention was, doubtless, the prevention of the entrance of evil deities, and the protection of the household.[24]
The Chinese, Hindoos, and natives of Ashanti, believe in the existence of similar deities. The Bhûtas of Hindostan are a species of malevolent spirit, which are worshipped as tutelary deities. Every house and each family has its particular Bhûta, which is often represented by a shapeless stone. Daily sacrifices are offered to it, in order to propitiate its evil disposition, and incline it to defend the house from the machinations of neighbouring Bhûtas. The native of Ashanti offers also daily sacrifices to his tutelary deity, which, under the form of a stone painted red, is placed upon a platform within his hut.
There are several remnants of this ancient superstition still in vogue in England. The common practice of nailing a horse-shoe behind the door, to terrify witches and prevent the entrance of evil spirits, is familiar to most persons. Formerly it was the custom to nail the horse-shoe to the threshold. Aubrey writes, in his Miscellanies: "Most houses of the west end of London have the horse-shoe on the threshold." In Monmouth Street, in 1797, many horse-shoes were to be seen fastened to the threshold. In 1813, Sir Henry Ellis counted seventeen horse-shoes in this position in that street, but in 1841 the number had diminished to five or six.
In some parts of England, naturally perforated stones are suspended behind the doors, with the same intention;[25] in others, jugs, of singular and often frightful form, are built into the walls of the cottages—an interesting approximation to the Assyrian teraphim; and in Glamorganshire the walls of the houses are whitewashed, in order to terrify wandering spirits,—a mode of prevention which we should like to see more generally adopted, as it would doubtless prove of some effect in impeding the access of those roaming spirits of evil with which we have to contend most at the present day—cholera and fever.
According to Durandus, the dedication-crosses of the Roman Catholic churches were adopted under the influence of a feeling in every respect analogous to this ancient superstition. He writes that the crosses were used, "first, as a terror to evil spirits, that they, having been driven forth thence, may be terrified when they see the sign of the cross, and may not presume to enter therein again. Secondly, as a mark of triumph, for crosses be the banners of Christ, and the signs of his triumph.... Thirdly, that such as look on them may call to mind the passion of Christ, by which He hath consecrated his church; and their belief in his passion."[26]
But the influence of mythology on Christianity did not terminate with the mere natural results of previous education, habits, &c. The church, under and subsequent to the reign of Constantine, reposing in the protection of the civil power, and not content with the natural veneration due to those early Christians who had struggled for the cross, and fallen martyrs or distinguished themselves by their long and protracted sufferings, insensibly, perhaps, at the first, and influenced by the same amiable feelings which led the pagan to deify his benefactors, indulged a degree of reverence to the memory of those holy men, which soon ripened into superstitious observances, and ultimately to their canonization and invocation. The Fathers of that period—Athanasius, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, &c.—encouraged the belief; and a rage was developed for the search of the remains and resting-places of the holy dead, to whom prayers were offered; and, in its encouragement of invocation of the dead, visions, miracles, prophetic dreams, relics, &c., the Roman church at this time rivalled the omens, divinations, oracles, and hero-worship of one of the later phases of mythology.
The church even sought to promote the spread of Christianity by the adoption of certain pagan rites and ceremonies. No more remarkable and interesting example of this is to be found than in the annals of our own country. In the year of our Lord 601, in a letter "sent to the Abbot Mellitus, then going into Britain," Pope Gregory wrote as follows:—
"I have, upon mature deliberation on the affairs of the English, determined ... that the temples of the idols of that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed, let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples be well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that the temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed. And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for these on this account, as that on the day of dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and no more offer beasts to the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance; to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God."[27]
In A.D. 726, Pope Gregory II expressed his approval of image-worship, and because the Greek emperor refused to accede to this form of idolatry, he caused the tribute paid to him by Rome to be suspended, and even went to the extent of excommunicating him; and in 789, the second Nicene council re-established and confirmed the adoration of images.
Examples of the influence of these doctrines in the Roman and other churches may be multiplied.
The censers and lustration vessels of the priesthood are copied from the sacrificial vessels which were used in the pagan temples; the woollen fillet was transformed into the priest's amice; and the lituus, or curved staff of the soothsayer, became the crozier of the bishop.
The sacred fountains of antiquity were perpetuated in a Christian form by dedication to a saint. Examples of this are afforded by the wells of St. Elian, in Denbighshire; St. Winifred, in Flintshire, &c.
In no respect, however, has the Romish church so closely followed the example of pagan nations, and borrowed from mythology, as in the deification of men, and the adoption of tutelary divinities.
As the mythology of ancient Rome and Greece had its gods who presided over countries, cities, towns, and the numerous actions and duties of man in his civil and religious life, to each of whom worship was offered and altars erected, so also the Romish church encouraged the belief in guardian saints, and in this respect its calendar rivals the Pantheon.
As fully did this church adopt the principle of the deification (canonization) of men—one of the most prominent of the characteristics of idolatry.
Thus the Romish calendar contains guardian saints of countries: St. George is the tutelary saint of England; St. Andrew, of Scotland; St. Patrick, of Ireland; St. Denis, of France; and St. Peter, of Flanders. Austria possesses two guardian saints, St. Colman and St. Leopold; Germany has three, St. Martin, St. Boniface, and St. George Cataphrastus; and so on of all the countries of Europe.
There are also guardian saints of cities. St. Egidius presides over Edinburgh, St. Nicholas, Aberdeen; St. Peter succeeded Mars at Rome; St. Frideswide, Oxford; St. Genevieve, Paris; St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Januarius, Naples, &c.
Of the general body of tutelary saints the following list will afford an illustration:—
St. Agatha presides over nurses; St. Catherine and St. Gregory over studious persons; St. Christopher, St. Hermus, and St. Nicholas, over mariners; St. Cecilia, over musicians; St. Cosmos and Damian, over physicians, surgeons, and philosophers; St. Dismas and St. Nicholas, over thieves; St. Eustace and St. Hubert, over hunters; St. Felicitas, over young children; St. Julian, over pilgrims; St. Leonard and St. Barbara, over captives; St. Luke, painters; St. Martin and St. Urban over ale-knights, to prevent them falling in the kennel; St. Æthelbert and Ælian are invoked against thieves, &c.
St. Agatha presides over valleys; St. Anne, riches; St. Barbara, hills; St. Florian, fire; St. Sylvester, woods, &c.
St. Thomas presides over divines; St. Thomas à-Becket, blind men; St. Valentine, lovers; St. Winifred, virgins; St. Joseph, carpenters; St. Anthony, swineherds and grocers; St. Arnhold, millers; St. Blaise, wool-combers; St. Catherine, spinners; St. Clement, tanners; St. Cloud, nailsmiths; St. Dunstan, goldsmiths; St. Elry, blacksmiths, farriers, &c.; St. Florian, mercers; St. Francis, butchers; St. George, clothiers; St. Goodman and St. Ann, tailors; St. Gore, potters; St. Hilary, coopers; St. Leodager, drapers; St. Crispin, shoemakers, &c.
St. Anthony protects hogs; St. Ferriol, geese; St. Gertrude, mice and eggs; St. Hubert, dogs; St. Joy, horses, &c.
Numerous saints were invoked against diseases: e.g., St. Clara against sore eyes; St. Genow, gout; St. Marus, palsies and convulsions; St. Sigismund, fevers, &c.
"There be many miracles assigned to saints," writes Barnaby Rich, in 1619, "that they say are good for all diseases: they can give sight to the blind, make the deafe to hear; they can restore limbs that be crippled, and make the lame go upright; they be good for horse, swine, and many other beasts. And women, also, have shee-saints.... They have saints to pray to when they be grieved with a third-day ague, when they be pained with toothache, or when they would be revenged on their angry husbands.
"They have saints that be good amongst poultry when they have the pip, for geese when they do sit, to have a happy success in goslings; and, to be short, there is no disease, no sickness, no griefe, either amongst men or beasts, that hath not his physician among the saints."[28]
The Romish church also adopted the pagan belief in apparitions, and as the latter had supported the argument in favour of the existence of the gods by the fiction of their occasional manifestations in a visible form, so the former endeavoured to sustain its dogmas by fables of the apparition, from time to time, of its saints.
It is needless to dwell upon the manner in which this church pandered to the credulity of the people in this respect, for an example is before the world even at the present time in the apparition of the Blessed Virgin near La Salette, a village about four miles from Corps, a small town situated on the road between Grenoble and Gap.
The story is as follows:—On the 19th September, 1846, the Blessed Virgin appeared to two children, the one a boy aged 11, and the other a girl aged 14 years, who were watching cows near a fountain, in the hollow of a ravine in the mountains, about four miles from the church of La Salette. When first seen, she was in a sitting position, the head resting upon the hands, and she "had on white shoes, with roses about her shoes. The roses were of all colours. Her socks were yellow, her apron yellow, and her gown white, with pearls all over it. She had a white neckerchief, with roses round it; a high cap, a little bent in front; a crown round her cap with roses. She had a very small chain, to which was attached a crucifix; on the right were some pincers, on the left a hammer; at the extremities of the cross was another huge chain, which fell, like the roses, round her handkerchief. Her face was white and long."
Addressing the children, tears coursing down her cheeks, she spoke to them on the wickedness of the peasantry, particularly their neglect of the Sabbath and of the duties of Lent, when they "go like dogs to the butchers' stalls." Then she foretold that if the men would not be converted, there should be no potatoes at Christmas, all the corn should be eaten up by animals, or if any did grow up, it should fall to dust when thrashed. There should be a great famine, preceding which "children below seven years of age should have convulsions, and die in the arms of those who held them; and the rest should do penance by hunger. Nuts and grapes also should perish. But if men were converted, then the rocks and stones shall be changed into heaps of corn, and potatoes shall be sown all over the land." "The lady," in addition, confided to each of the children a secret which was not to be told to the other, but which they confided to the Pope in 1851. Then, after a little gossiping conversation, "the lady" vanished.
Soon after this apparition had been noised abroad, it was discovered that the waters of the fountain were possessed of marvellous healing properties, and many miraculous cures were effected by its use. Pilgrims flocked to the scene of the vision, and it is affirmed that in one day 60,000 of the faithful ascended the mountain.
Among others, the present Bishop of Orleans made a pilgrimage to the "holy mountain," and he was so impressed by the solemn feelings excited by treading on such holy ground, that he often ejaculated, "It cannot be but that the finger of God is here." Other ecclesiastics of rank also visited the spot, and the whole affair was officially sanctioned.
Nor did the matter rest here, for churches are being built, and dedicated to "Our Lady of Salette," in different countries; and a society has been established in England bearing her name.
We have already alluded to the sacred fountains of heathen nations, and in the holy fountain of Salette we witness the modern development of a similar superstition. So also in the apparition of the Virgin the same credulity is traced which prompted the ancients to believe in the occasional appearance of their deities.
It is related that Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter, by Leda the wife of Tyndarus, were seen fighting at the battle of Regillus; and that, subsequently, mounted on white horses, they appeared to P. Vatienus, as he journeyed by night to Rome, from his government of Reate, and told him that King Perses had that day been taken prisoner.
On these legends Cicero remarks; "Do you believe that the Tyndaridæ, as you called them, that is, men sprung from men, and buried in Lacedemon, as we learn from Homer, who lived in the next age,—do you believe, I say, that they appeared to Vatienus on the road, mounted on white horses, without any servant to attend them, to tell the victory of the Romans to a country fellow rather than to M. Cato, who was that time the chief person of the senate? Do you take that print of a horse's hoof, which is now to be seen on a stone at Regillus, to be made by Castor's horse? Should you not believe, what is probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as the Tyndaridæ, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies, which had been reduced to ashes, should mount on horses and fight in an army? If you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and not amuse us with fabulous stories."
"Do you take these for fabulous stories?" says Balbus. "Is not the temple built by Posthumius in honour of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still subsisting?... Ought not such authorities to move you?"
"You oppose me," replies Cotta, "with stories, but I ask reasons of you."[29]
It would seem then that the parallelism is perfect, even to the building of temples, and the official recognition of the truth of the event.
Of the individual personages of ancient mythology very few traces remain in England, and these principally belong to the fairy belief. This superstition, of which the analogue is found in the Nymphs, Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, Lemoniads, and Nerieds, of ancient Greece and Rome, is still prevalent in certain districts of this country; and the extinction of the general belief, among the lower orders, of one of the most noted of the personages which are met with in fairy lore, the hobgoblin, is comparatively of recent date. The name is, however, still familiar, and in use for certain vague manifestations of the supernatural, although the actual signification of the term is, to a great extent, lost sight of.
The hobgoblin is worthy of notice not only for its intrinsic interest, but also for the illustration which it affords of the intimate relationship which is often found to exist between the superstitions of different and even far distant nations.
This spirit, in his palmy days, was that fairy which attached itself to houses, and the neighbourhood of dwellings and churches (for even sacred edifices were not exempted from its influence). In disposition it was mischievous and sportive, although it often deigned, during the night, to perform many menial offices, and whatsoever building it attached itself to prospered. It was apt to take offence, particularly if, as a reward, money or clothes were placed for it in that part of the house it most frequented; but it was partial to cream, or some delicately prepared eatable, and any housewife who was careful to conciliate the spirit by administering to this taste, was certain to be well rewarded. As might be anticipated, it was a favourite character with poets, and descriptions of its propensities and actions abound. Thus, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream" (Act II, Sc. 1), one of the Fairies is represented as addressing this spirit, and saying:—
"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skims milk, and labours in the quern,
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm;
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work and they shall have good luck,
Are not you he?
Puck. Thou speakest aright,
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal;
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and reeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there."
Milton, in the "L'Allegro," writes of him in a different office, and—
"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail has thrashed the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end:
Then lies him down the lubber-fiend,
And stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And cropfull out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings."
Another noted characteristic of this fairy is mentioned in the fine old song of Ben Johnson's:—
"When house or hearth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.
Twixt sleepe and wake
I do them take
And on the key-cold floor them throw:
If out they cry
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out, ho! ho! ho!"
The hobgoblin is one of the widest-spread forms of fairy belief. In England it is also termed Boggard, Puck, Robin Goodfellow, and Robin Hood; it is the Brownie of Scotland; the Cluricaune, Luricaune, Leprochaune, &c., of Ireland; the Kobold of Germany; the Servant of Switzerland; the Nis of Denmark and Norway; the Niägruiser of the Feroes; the Tomt-gubbe, or Tont, of Sweden; the Phynnoderee of the Isle of Man; the Monaciello of Naples; the Duende of Spain; the Lutin, or Gobelin, of France; and the Para of Finland appears to have some affinity with it.
The derivation of some of the principal names of this fairy is also of interest. From the Sclavonic Bôg, signifying God, come the words boggard and boggart; the Scottish Bogle, a hill-fairy; and probably, also, the words Bug-bear and Bugaboo; and from the Icelandic Puki, an evil spirit, come the English Puke, a devil, as also Puck; the Friesland Puk; the German Putz, or Butz; the Devonshire Pixie; the Irish Pouke; the Welsh Pwcca, and the words big and bug,—all names of certain varieties of the fairy-belief, and having the signification of an evil spirit.
Certain forms of pagan worship would appear to have been perpetuated unmodified in Christian countries even to the present time. A remarkable and singular illustration of this is found in Ireland.
Off the north-west coast of that kingdom are situated the islands of Inniskea, containing a population of about 400 human beings. Nominally the inhabitants are Christians, and under Roman Catholic tuition; in reality, they observe the ancient forms of Irish clan government, and are idolaters, worshipping rocks and stones. Their chief god is a stone idol termed Nee-vougi, which has been preserved from time immemorial. It is clothed in homespun flannel, which arises from the custom of its votaries offering portions of their dress when addressing it. These fragments are sewed upon it by an old woman who has charge of the idol, and who officiates as priestess. It is invoked, among other things, to dash helpless ships upon the coast, and to calm the sea in order that the fishing may be successful.[30]
The adoration of rocks and stone pillars is one of the most ancient forms of idolatry on record. It probably took its origin from the custom of erecting stone pillars as a memorial, and consecrating them as altars on any extraordinary event or occasion. The earliest mention of this custom is found in Genesis (cxxviii, v. 10):—
"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took up the stone he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
"And he called the name of that place Beth-El ... saying ... this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house."
Stones thus erected as memorials, and consecrated as altars, in the course of time were considered to be the abode of, or rather to be filled with, the divine power, which had manifested itself there; and ultimately stone pillars were used as symbols of the Deity. Singularly formed rocks and stones were also regarded in a similar light; and traces of this very ancient form of idolatry may be found in all parts of the world.
The "animated stones" of antiquity, which received divine honours, derived their names from Beth-El, as for example, Baithulia, Bethyllia, and Βαιτολια, signifying consecrated or living stones; and one of the modifications of Jupiter, Jupiter Lapis (a stone), was derived from this form of idolatry, and the most solemn of the Roman oaths was that taken in the name of this god.
Numerous traces of superstition are found scattered throughout England, and the countries of Western Europe, which are the lineal, although degenerated descendants of the superstitions of the mythological era of the respective nations, or rather races, dwelling there.
There are few large towns in Great Britain which do not contain one or more persons who profess to practise astrology, magic, or divination—wise men, as they are popularly designated; and the belief in charms and omens is far from being eradicated among a large mass of the population, particularly among those who dwell in secluded or mountainous districts.
Not unfrequently events happen by which we may gauge the extent to which these superstitions are still entertained. Those who marked the effect which the appearance of the late comet had on the minds of many in this country, would perceive that a somewhat powerful feeling of superstitious dread, on the occurrence of remarkable celestial events, remained. The alarm excited among the credulous in England was, however, if anything, less marked than that caused in many parts of the continent[31] and in America.
Three years ago we had an opportunity of witnessing a singular exhibition of fear, which was excited in the inhabitants of the most impoverished districts of Leeds, by the prevalence of a brilliant display of the aurora borealis. The scene paralleled the descriptions recorded of the effects produced by similar phenomena in the Middle Ages. The prevailing impression was, that the world was on the point of, if not in, the actual process of destruction; and in many the alarm became extreme, when, during the most magnificent period of the phenomena, several of the streamers became of a deep crimson and blue tint.
This display of the aurora extended over a vast extent of country, and a singular example of the feelings with which it was regarded in Spain was recorded at the time in the daily papers.
On the evening on which it occurred, it so happened that the subject of the homily in one of the churches of Madrid was the destruction of the world, and the day of judgment. At the conclusion of the service, and as the congregation were issuing from the church, the northern heavens were glowing with the brilliant and ever-varying light of the aurora. Startled by a phenomenon which is of somewhat rare occurrence in Spain, the idea at once occurred that the terrible events upon which the priest had been descanting were about to come to pass; the people rushed back to the steps of the altar, and while the aurora continued, the terror and confusion beggared all description.
Another indication of the influence which the superstitions we have named exercise on the minds of certain classes, is the number of works on astrology, principally reprints, which have issued from the press during the last eight or nine years.
This ancient superstition, which is still practised by the Mahomedans, Chinese, &c., retains a hold upon the minds of many, even now. Its practice in this country is, however, most frequently combined with some of the minor forms of magic and divination; and those who profess a knowledge of these arts chiefly direct them to the ignoble purpose of detecting stolen articles.
In America, it would seem, from the advertisements which from time to time appear in the newspapers, that this superstition is flourishing with some vigour. We subjoin, in a note, specimens of these advertisements.[32]
The belief in charms and omens, which was one of the most important of the superstitions of antiquity, is still entertained by the lower orders in many counties, and it forms one of the most striking features of the current folk-lore.
The Devonshire peasant will recite the 8th Psalm on three consecutive days, for three weeks, over his child, in order to prevent its being attacked with the thrush; and should the disease, notwithstanding this precaution, occur, he either plucks three rushes from a running stream, passes them through the mouth of the child, and then casts them into the stream, believing that the disease will decrease and disappear as the rushes float away; or seizing a duck, he will force it to open wide its bill, and then placing it close to the mouth of the child, he hopes to see the affection vanish as the duck inhales the infant's breath.
The peasantry of Norfolk, Northampton, &c. have, for the prevention of epileptic fits, implicit confidence in a ring made from nine sixpences, obtained, by gift, from persons of the opposite sex, or from the money contributed at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
There is a charm for cramp in the leg which must be familiar to most persons. It runs thus:—
"The devil is tying a knot in my leg!
Mark, Luke, and John, unloose it, I beg!
Crosses three we make to ease us,
Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus."
This formula, with a little modification, was applicable also to other fleeting but painful affections. Coleridge states that when he was at the Blue-coat School there was a charm for one's foot when asleep, which ran thus:—
"Foot, foot, foot! is fast asleep!
Thumb, thumb, thumb! in spittle we steep;
Crosses three we make to ease us," &c.
We have seen a charm for the toothache, which we believe has now fallen into desuetude, but which, from its singularity, is worthy of preservation. It is as follows:—
"In the name of God: Amen.
"As Jesus Christ passed through the gates of Jerusalem, he heard one of his disciples weeping and wailing. Jesus saith unto him, Simon Peter, why weepest and wailest thou? Simon Peter saith unto him: Lord, the pain in my tooth is so grievous, I can do nothing. Jesus saith unto him: Arise, Simon, and the pain in thy tooth shall be eased; and whosoever shall keep those words in remembrance or writing shall never be troubled with the pain in the tooth:—
"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."
The coral and bells which are suspended round the necks of children for their amusement, were originally used with very different intentions.
Those who professed the occult sciences attributed several very wonderful properties to coral, it being regarded by them as a preservative against evil spirits, poison, and certain diseases.
The ringing of bells was also, formerly, considered to be of great effect in terrifying and causing evil spirits to fly away. Nor did their influence cease there; they were esteemed efficacious for the dispersion of tempests; or, it would be more correct to say, that a cotemporary superstition was, that tempests, thunder and lightning, and high winds, were caused by evil spirits, or devils, who in this manner endeavoured to wreak their rage on man; hence, in the Golden Legend of Wynken de Worde, it is said that "evil spirytes that ben in the region of th' ayre, dowt much when they hear the bells rongen, an this is the cause why the bells ben rongen when it thondreth, and whanne great tempests and outrages of wether happen, to the ende that the feinds and wycked spirytes should be abashed and flee, and cease of the movynge of tempest." This superstition probably dates from the period when it became customary to exorcise, bless, and baptize the bells suspended in churches,—a custom which originated in the tenth century.
The use of the coral and bells was derived from these superstitions, and they were at first suspended from the neck as an amulet which was protective from the influence of evil spirits.
Certain events are still regarded as omens by the peasantry in many districts.
If a magpie cross our path, it is said that we shall prove unlucky, unless we immediately cross ourselves; and an old rhyme says of the magpie:—
"One is a sign of sorrow; two are a sign of mirth;
Three are a sign of a wedding; and four a sign of a birth."
In Devonshire, if a person sees four magpies, it is regarded as an omen of death in his family. If a pigeon is seen sitting on a tree, or comes into the house; or if a swarm of bees alight on a dead tree, or the dead bough of a living tree, it forebodes death in the family of the owner. In Derbyshire, if the sun shines through the boughs of the apple-trees on Christmas day, it is considered as a presage of a good crop the ensuing year.
Of all the superstitions entertained previous to the advent of Christ, none have, however, been more fully perpetuated among Christian nations than that of spectral apparitions,—the visible appearance of the deities worshipped, or of the disembodied spirits of the dead—ghosts.
This was due not only to the nature of the causes inducing spectral apparitions (causes which are inseparable from the physical constitution of man), but also to the confirmation which the belief was thought to receive from Holy Writ.
The character of the superstition, as it has been retained down to the verge of the present period in our own country, and as it is still entertained in many countries, is very similar to that which it bore in the remotest periods of antiquity.
The deities of those nations who had distinct and defined ideas respecting their gods, are reputed to have appeared from time to time to their votaries, assuming the form in which they were most commonly pourtrayed in the temples.
Thus the gods which Æneas bore from the destruction of Troy and carried into Crete, appeared to him in that island:
"'Twas night, when every creature, void of cares,
The common gift of balmy slumbers shares;
The statues of my gods (for such they seem'd),
Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem'd,
Before me stood, majestically bright,
Full in the beams of Phœbe's entering light.
Then thus they spoke and eased my troubled mind:
'What from the Delian god thou go'st to find,
He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.
Those powers are we, companions of thy fate,
Who from the burning town by thee were brought,
Thy fortune follow'd, and thy safety wrought.
Through seas and lands, as we thy steps attend,
So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.
An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,
A town that o'er the conquer'd world shall reign.
Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;
Nor let thy weary mind to labours yield:
But change thy seat; for not the Delian god
Nor we have given thee Crete for our abode.
A land there is, Hesperia call'd of old,
(The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold—
Th' Œotrians held it once), by later fame
Now call'd Italia from the leader's name.
Iasius there, and Dardanus, were born;
From thence we came and thither must return.
Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet:
Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.'
Astonished at their voices and their sight,
(Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;
I saw, I knew their faces, and descry'd,
In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied),
I started from my couch; a clammy sweat
On all my limbs, and shivering body, sate.
To heaven I lift my hands with pious haste,
And sacred incense in the flames I cast."[33]
Among Christian nations visions of this character have also been common; and the religious writings of every age of the Church contain numerous instances of apparitions of the Trinity, of our Lord, of the canonized, and the powers of evil.
But the most familiar phase of the ghost-belief is that of the visible manifestation of the spirits of the dead; and probably few, if any, races are without a superstition of this nature.
The Grecians and Romans believed that the souls of the dead (manes) roamed about the earth, having power to interfere with the affairs of man and inflict evil. The spirits of those who had been virtuous during life were distinguished by the name of lares (under which name we have in a previous page alluded to them as tutelary deities) or manes; and the spirits of the wicked were termed larvæ, or lemures, and often terrified the good, and haunted the wicked and impious. These ghosts were also deified, and they were known as the Dii Manes; and the stones erected over the graves in Roman burial-grounds had usually inscribed upon them the letters D.M., or D.M.S., that is, Dîs Manibus, or Dîs Manibus Sacrum,—"Sacred to the Manes Gods." Sacrifices were offered to these deities, the offerings being termed religiosæ, in contradistinction to those offered to the superior gods, which were denominated sacræ; and during the festivals held in honour of the ghosts (Lemuria or Lemuralia), it was customary to burn black beans over the graves, and to beat kettles and drums, in order that, by the noxious odour of the former, and the noise of the latter, the ghosts might be frightened away, and no longer terrify their relations.
We have already given several examples illustrative of the parallelism which exists between the accounts we possess of the apparitions of Grecian and Roman deities, and those manifestations of celestial personages which are recorded to have occurred in more modern times. A similar resemblance exists between the accounts given of the spectral appearance of the spirits of the dead.
In the Odyssey (B. XI), Ulysses, previous to descending into hell, is described as offering "solemn rites and holy vows" to the dead:—
"When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,
Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts;
Fair, pensive youths, and soft, enamour'd maids;
And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shades
Ghastly with wounds, the form of warriors slain
Stalk'd with majestic port, a martial train:
These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground,
And all the dire assembly shriek'd around."
A striking illustration of the similarity of ancient and modern ghost-stories, in all essential points, is contained in the description given in the Æneis (B. II) of the apparition of the ghost of Hector to Æneas, at the destruction of Troy:—
"'Twas in the dead of night, when sleep repairs
Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,
When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:
A bloody shroud he seem'd, and bath'd in tears;
Such as he was when by Pelides slain,
Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain;
Swoll'n were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust
Through the bored holes; his body black with dust;
Unlike that Hector, who return'd from toils
Of war, triumphant in Æacians' spoils,
Or him, who made the fainting Greeks retire,
And launch'd against their navy Phrygian fire.
His hair and beard stood stiffen'd with his gore,
And all the wounds he for his country bore
Now streamed afresh, and with new purple ran."
An equally, if not more marked example, is recorded by Pliny, the consul at Sura.
A house at Athens was grievously haunted by a spirit, which, during the night, restlessly roamed through the apartments, dragging, apparently, a heavy chain after it. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired the house, determined to reduce the spirit to order and silence. In the depth of the night, while pursuing his studies, the silence was broken by the noise of rattling chains, which approached the room where he sat. Presently, a spectre entered, and beckoned to him, but the philosopher took no notice. The spectre agitated its chains anew, and then he arose and, following his ghostly guide, he was led into the court-yard of the house, to a certain spot, when the spectre vanished. He marked the place, and on the following day caused the ground to be dug up and searched, when beneath it they found the skeleton of a man in chains. The bones were publicly burned, and from that time the spirit ceased to haunt the mansion.
A belief in ghosts was one of the most prominent of the superstitions of the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe. It was customary with the Scandinavians, as with the Grecians, to perform certain ceremonies at the tombs of the dead, to propitiate the ghosts, and facilitate their entrance into the halls of bliss.
The ghosts of the departed warriors, after they had entered their airy halls, were supposed to pursue pleasures similar in character to those which had engaged their attention on earth. They listened to the strains of immortal bards; followed the chase over the illimitable fields of heaven; visited the scenes of their former glories; and when resting within their tombs, they would talk of mortal men, and sing the songs of other worlds. Airy and unsubstantial as a wreath of mist, they often wandered on the surface of the earth. The ghost of a mighty hero, clothed in a panoply of lurid clouds, and armed with a meteor, might be seen brooding o'er his tomb, or attended "by a ridge of formless shades," it swept across former battle-fields. The men of bygone days, wreathed in their vapoury robes, and reposing on clouds, hovered on the midnight blast, which bore in its mighty cadences the echoing sounds of the voices of the dead; or "like the new moon seen through the gathered mist, when the sky pours down its flaky snow, and the world is silent and dark,"[34] the spirits of the maidens glided over the rugged hills, or roamed on the pebbly shore.
The early Scandinavian traditions and historical writings, are pregnant with ghosts and other supernatural agents. Mr. Howitt[35] quotes from one of the Eddaic songs, which records the lives of a hero named Helge and his wife Sigrun, the following singularly interesting scene.
Helge died, and the body was laid in its cairn. In the evening Sigrun's maid passed the cairn, and saw the ghost of Helge ride into it with a numerous train. Addressing the ghost, the maid said, "Is it an illusion that I see, or the Eve of the Mighty, that ye ride your horses and urge them with your spurs? Or are the heroes bound for their homes?" The ghost replied, "It is no illusion which thou seest, nor the Eve of the Mighty; though thou seest us, and we urge our horses with our spurs; neither are the heroes bound for their homes."
The maid then went to her mistress and said, "Haste thee, Sigrun, from the hill of Seva, if the leader of the battle thou desirest to see. Open is the cairn; Helge is come; the war-scars bleed. Helge bade thee to still his dripping wound." Sigrun went to the cairn, and entering it, said to the shade of her dead husband, "Now am I as joyful of our meeting as Odin's ravens when, long-fasting, they scent the warm food, or the day-wearied when they behold the close of day. I will kiss my lifeless king before thou throwest off thy bloody cuirass. Thy hair, O Helge! is pierced through with frost, or with the dew of death is the hero slain. Cold are the hands of the friend of Högne. How, therefore, King, shall I find a cure for thee?"—"Thou only, Sigrun! on the hill of Seva," replied the ghost, "art the cause that Helge is here, slain by the dew of sorrow. Thou weepest, gold-adorned one! burning tears, maid of the sun-glowing south! Before thou sleepest, every tear shall fall bloody on the breast of the Prince, pierced through with the cold of thy grief. But we will drink the precious mead together, though we have lost gladness and lands. Yet no one sings a song of woe, though he sees a wound in my breast. Now are the brides closed in the cairns, and the princely maidens are laid beside us."
Sigrun made a bed in the cairn, and said, "Here have I, Helge, prepared rest for thee; rest free from all trouble. Son of the Ylfinga! I will sleep in thy arms as formerly, when my hero lived." The ghost answered, "No longer will I say that thou art unfaithful on the hill of Seva. Since thou sleepest in the embrace of the dead in the cairn, thou fair daughter of Högur! And yet thou livest, offspring of kings! Time is to ride the red ways. Let the pale steed tramp the steeps of the air. In the west must we be, by the bridge Vindhjalen, ere the cock in Walhalla wakes the sons of victory."
In the Eyrbyggja Saga (written before A.D. 1264; period when the events recorded occurred, A.D. 883) is an account of certain spectral apparitions which followed the death of a lady whose commands upon the death-bed had not been obeyed. This story is almost unique in character, and it is a singularly interesting example of the ghost-belief of Iceland at an early period.
On the evening of the day when the corpse was being removed to a distant place of sepulture, an apparition of the lady was seen busily preparing victuals in the kitchen of the house where the bearers reposed for the night. On the night when the conductors of the funeral returned home, a spectral appearance resembling a half-moon glided around the boarded walls of the mansion, in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and continued its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. "This apparition was renewed every night during the whole week, and was pronounced by Thorer with the wooden leg to presage pestilence and mortality." Shortly after, a herdsman showed signs of being persecuted by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed, "and then" (to quote literally from Sir Walter Scott's abstract of the Saga) "commenced a scene of ghost-seeing unheard of in the annals of superstition. The first victim was Thorer, who had presaged the calamity. Going out of doors one evening, he was grappled by the spectre of the deceased shepherd as he attempted to re-enter the house. His wooden leg stood him in poor stead in such an encounter; he was hurled to the earth and so fearfully beaten that he died in consequence of the bruises. Thorer was no sooner dead than his ghost associated itself to that of the herdsman, and joined him in pursuing and assaulting the inhabitants of Froda. Meantime an infectious disorder spread fast amongst them, and several of the bondsmen died one after the other. Strange portents were seen within doors, the meal was displaced and mingled, and the dried fish flung about in a most alarming manner, without any visible agent. At length, while the servants were forming their evening circle around the fire, a spectre resembling the head of a seal-fish was seen to emerge out of the pavement of the room, bending its round black eyes full on the tapestried bed-curtains of Thorgunna (the deceased lady). Some of the domestics ventured to strike at the figure; but, far from giving way, it rather erected itself further from the floor, until Kiartan, who seemed to have a natural predominance over these supernatural prodigies, seizing a huge forge-hammer, struck the seal repeatedly on the head, and compelled it to disappear, forcing it down into the floor, as if he had driven a stake into the earth. This prodigy was found to intimate a new calamity. Thorodd, the master of the family, had some time before set forth on a voyage to bring home a cargo of dried fish; but, in crossing the river Enna, the skiff was lost, and he perished with the servants who attended him. A solemn funeral feast was held at Froda, in memory of the deceased, when, to the astonishment of the guests, the apparition of Thorodd and his followers seemed to enter the apartment dripping with water. Yet this vision excited less horror than might have been expected; for the islanders, though nominally Christians, retained, among other superstitions, a belief that the spectres of such drowned persons as had been favourably received by the goddess Rana were wont to show themselves at their funeral feast. They saw, therefore, with some composure, Thorodd and his dripping attendants plant themselves by the fire, from which all mortal guests retreated to make room for them. It was supposed this apparition would not be renewed after the conclusion of the festival. But so far were their hopes disappointed, that, so soon as the mourning guests had departed, the fires being lighted, Thorodd and his comrades marched in on one side, drenched as before with water; on the other entered Thorer, heading all those who had died in the pestilence, and who appeared covered with dust. Both parties seized the seats by the fire, while the half-frozen and terrified domestics spent the night without either light or warmth. The same phenomenon took place the next night, though the fires had been lighted in a separate house, and at length Kiartan was obliged to compound matters with the spectres by kindling a large fire for them in the principal apartment, and one for the family and domestics in a separate hut. This prodigy continued during the whole feast of Jol. Other portents also happened to appal this devoted family; the contagious disease again broke forth, and when any one fell a sacrifice to it, his spectre was sure to join the troop of persecutors, who had now almost full possession of the mansion of Froda. Thorgrima Galldrakinna, wife of Thorer, was one of these victims; and, in short, of thirty servants belonging to the household, eighteen died, and five fled for fear of the apparitions, so that only seven remained in the service of Kiartan."
The trouble and annoyance from the spectres had now reached so serious a pitch that, by the advice of a maternal uncle, Kiartan instituted judicial measures against the spectres.
"A tribunal being then constituted, with the usual legal solemnities, a charge was preferred by Kiartan against Thorer with the wooden leg, by Thordo Kausa against Thorodd, and by others chosen as accusers against the individual spectres present, accusing them of molesting the mansion, and introducing death and disease among its inhabitants. All the solemn rites of judicial procedure were observed on this singular occasion; evidence was adduced, charges given, and the cause formally decided. It does not appear that the ghosts put themselves on their defence, so that sentence of ejectment was pronounced against them individually in due and legal form. When Thorer heard the judgment, he arose, and saying, 'I have sat while it was lawful for me to do so,' left the apartment by the door opposite to that at which the judicial assembly was constituted. Each of the spectres, as they heard their individual sentence, left the place, saying something which indicated their unwillingness to depart, until Thorodd himself was solemnly appointed to depart. 'We have here no longer,' said he, 'a peaceful dwelling, therefore will we remove.' Kiartan then entered the hall with his followers, and the priest, with holy water, and celebration of a solemn mass, completed the conquest over the goblins, which had been commenced by the power and authority of the Icelandic law."
The spectral phenomena of the ancient Swedish folk-lore differs in no respect from the current histories of recent date. An interesting example of this is found in the beautiful ballad of Sir Ulf and Lady Sölfverlind.
Sir Ulf was a nobleman who had married a wife from a foreign country. After they had lived together eight years, and had had a family of three children, the Lady Sölfverlind died. In a short time he married again, and by his second wife, the Lady Stineborg, he had also several children. This lady, however, proved a cruel step-mother; for, as the ballad reads:—
"Lady Stineborg's children went out to play,
Lady Sölfverlind's children sate weeping all day.
This know we of Ulf.
The youngest child it wept so loud,
That it woke its mother beneath the sod.
This know we of Ulf.
Lady Sölfverlind spoke to the angel-band:
'Is it granted to visit the earthly land?'
This know we of Ulf.
'It is granted from heaven to earth to go,
But thou must return ere the first cock crow.'
This know we of Ulf.
She came to the door, she tirled at the pin;
'Rise up, my children, and let me in.'
This know we of Ulf.
'On sticks and stones why lie you thus?'
'Nothing besides is given to us.'
This know we of Ulf.
'Why look ye, my children, so grim and so grey?'
'We have not been washed since thou went away.'
This know we of Ulf.
'Rise up, Lady Stineborg, hearken to me,
For I have a few words to speak unto thee!'
This know we of Ulf.
'I left behind me both upland and low,
Yet now my children must supperless go.'
This know we of Ulf.
'I left behind me both oxen and kine,
Yet now they go barefoot, these children of mine.'
This know we of Ulf.
'I left soft down pillows, full many a one,
Now hard sticks and stones are the bed they lie on!'
This know we of Ulf.
'Hadst thou to my children shown tenderness sweet,
God the Father in heaven had found thee a seat!'
This know we of Ulf.
'Have thy children in me a hard step-mother known?
Henceforth will I love them as well as my own!'
This know we of Ulf.
There ne'er was a lovelier sight in the sky,
Than Sölfverlind taking her children on high.
This know we of Ulf."[36]
The ghost-belief of Hindostan is one of the most important of the popular superstitions of that country. It differs from that of more westerly countries in the degree of reality with which the natives have invested it; for while the former look upon the interference of the spirits of the dead in the events of ordinary life as a circumstance of rare occurrence, and regard manifestations of this nature with an awe befitting their solemnity and supernatural character, the latter lives in an atmosphere of spectral beings, which are the spirits of those who have lived a wicked life on earth, and retain their malignant disposition unabated after death, if indeed it is not increased in intensity by the devil-like nature they assume, and exercise their evil powers in all the affairs of life, haunting the localities which they previously inhabited, and terrifying and tormenting alike friend and foe. Neither are their terrors confined to mere occasional apparition, and to the fear excited by this, but to the power which they possess of interference by physical force; for they belabour with blows, or grievously affect with bodily ailments, the unhappy individuals whom they haunt, and often subject to inexpressible tortures those who have had the ill-hap to offend them. Hence the Hindoo dreads a ghost not so much on account of its supernatural character, abstractedly considered, as for the physical evil it may inflict upon him.
The ghosts of the wicked, and of the unmarried (as it is thought in some provinces), are alone permitted to wander on earth, and they have a partiality, like our own ghosts, for frequenting solitary places, woods, caverns, and ruins, from which they issue to exercise their baleful powers on man.
Sometimes a ghost will haunt a certain house, or a plot of ground, and become so obstreperous, that the occupier of the house is obliged to desert it, and the proprietor of the land to allow it to become waste. But it has happened that if the spirit was that of an old proprietor, a deed executed in its name has appeased it, and it has no more troubled the place.
These spirits are called, in the Deccan, Vîrikas, and in the more southerly parts of India, Paisâchi. It is customary to erect small shrines to them, formed of a pile of stones, on the top of which is a sheltered cavity, containing an image, or a rough, shapeless stone, to which offerings of cloth, rice, &c., are presented from time to time. This propitiatory sacrifice is, in general, found to be an efficient method of obtaining immunity from the malignant pranks of the ghosts; but if it be neglected, they will visit the unfortunate sinner with torments and misfortune, or, appearing to him by night, intimate the miseries hanging over his head, unless he quickly amends himself, and offers up the necessary gifts.
Dr. Buchanan relates a story of the apparition of a Paisâchi which occurred during his journey in Mysore. His cook had been taken ill, and died; orders had been given to secure his effects for the benefit of his wife and children, "but on inspection, after his death, no money could be found. Whether he had been plundered as soon as he became insensible, and that a guilty conscience occasioned fears among his companions, or whether the sudden manner of his death occasioned suspicions, I cannot say; but it was immediately believed that he would become a Paisâchi, and all my people were filled with terror. The butler imagined that the Paisâchi appeared to him at night with a black silk handkerchief tied round its head, and gave him instructions to take all the effects of the deceased to his family; upon this, the latter, being a man of courage, put his shoes on the right side of the door, which he considered to be a sure preventive against such intruders. Next night a cattle-driver, lying in all the agonies of nocturnal terror, saw the appearance of a dog enter, and smell round the place where the man had died; when, to his utter dismay, the spectre gradually grew larger and larger, and at length, having assumed the form of the cook, vanished with a shriek. The poor man had not the courage to use the slippers, but lay till morning in a kind of stupor. After this, even the minds of the sepoys were appalled, and when I happened to be awake I heard the sentries, by way of keeping up their courage, singing with a tremulous voice."
There is a class of men called Cani, or Shaycana, who are supposed to have the power of ejecting and frightening away troublesome spirits by the performance of certain mystic ceremonies. It is requisite, first, to ascertain whether the offending ghost is that of a stranger, or if it belong to any deceased member of the family; for it would seem that much more powerful incantations are required to get rid of a family ghost, which seems to have the opinion that it has a right to haunt its relations in the flesh, than to eject the ghost of a stranger. The latter, according to Dr. Buchanan, may be got rid of for a fanam, or about ninepence sterling; the former requires expensive sacrifices and many prayers, therefore the fee is much larger.
The Chinese have a great dread of ghosts, particularly of the ghosts of those who have come to an untimely end. They suspend in their houses, for the purpose of preventing the entrance of these spirits, and of defending themselves from their influence, a cruciform piece of iron, to which is attached pieces of perforated money, the coinage of emperors who have been deified, and who are conceived to exercise a protective power over their votaries.
The superstitions of the modern Egyptians and of the Arabs are rich in ghosts.
The term éfreet is applied to the ghosts of dead persons, as well as to evil genii, by the Egyptians; and the following story, related by Mr. Lane, will illustrate the nature of this superstition as it is entertained by that people.
"I had once a humorous cook, who was somewhat addicted to the intoxicating hhasheesh: soon after he had entered my service, I heard him, one evening, muttering and exclaiming on the stairs, as if in surprise at some event; and then politely saying, "But why are you sitting here in the draught? Do me the favour to come up into the kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little." The civil address not being answered, was repeated and varied several times, till I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. "The éfreet of a Turkish soldier," he replied, "is sitting on the stairs, smoking his pipe, and refuses to move; he came up from the well below: pray step and see him." On my going to the stairs, and telling the servant that I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I had a clear conscience. He was told afterwards that the house had long been haunted; but asserted that he had not been previously informed of the supposed cause; which was the fact of a Turkish soldier having been murdered there. My cook professed to see this éfreet frequently after."[37]
The Arabs entertain a considerable degree of fear and respect for ghosts.
Mr. Bayle St. John states that when travelling through the Libyan desert, in 1847, he saw a burial-place of the Bedouin Arabs, in the centre of which were confusedly scattered "camel-howdahs" (tachterwans), stirrups, household utensils, small ploughs, &c., which had been left there by the Arabs, when commencing a journey, under the care of the ghost of a defunct sheikh, who had been interred there.[38]
Some of the aboriginal tribes of South America believe in the occasional apparition of the souls of the dead.
Soon after the Roman Catholic mission was established at Bahia, an eclipse of the moon occurred; the savages, fully armed, rushed in terror to the mission, and when the priest inquired the cause of their alarm, they responded that the moon was the abode of the souls of the dead, and that on that night they had collected there in such numbers that they darkened its surface: this was a sure sign of evil.
Such is a brief sketch of the ghost-belief of several nations, ancient and modern.
This belief, in its essential characteristics, was the same in the remote periods of antiquity as in more recent times; and a similar analogy exists between the modifications of it which are now entertained in different and widely separated countries.
The variations which it is found to possess are dependent upon those peculiarities of habit, religion, and social life which characterize each nation. This fact gives an important clue by which we may unravel the actual nature of the phenomena which are embodied in the belief. But previously to entering upon this task it is requisite to point out a remote consequence of mythological and legendary lore which exercises a highly important influence on the minds of most if not all persons at the present time.
The numerous myths which were retained, the implicit faith reposed in them, and the great extent to which the practice of the occult sciences was carried in the Middle Ages, fostered ideas respecting the influence which supernatural beings exercised in the ordinary affairs of life, which rivalled in extent and variety those entertained before the Christian era; but they received perhaps a more gloomy character from the doctrine of the agency of devils.
The prevalence of these superstitions throws a wild and weird-like shadow over the history of those periods, and one of the chief results was that the records of local and general events became pregnant with mysterious occurrences and supernatural interpositions; and a mass of legends, teeming with remnants of ancient myths, more or less modified, giants, demons, witches, wizards, ghosts, portents, &c., have been perpetuated to modern times, and have formed an inexhaustible mine to the novelist and romance-writer.
There are few localities in England which do not possess legends or tradition of this nature; and the standard nursery and children's tales are full of supernatural personages and occurrences in which are set aside all the known laws of matter and force, and time and space are alike annihilated. Many of these tales are of great interest, for in them we find degenerated forms of some of the most ancient traditions and myths of our own and other races.
The adventures of Jack the Giant-Killer, the most celebrated of all celebrated nursery heroes, are for the most part derived from the fabulous era of our own country, and from Scandinavian mythology; and the whole tale is a degraded and vitiated tradition in which the deeds of Corineus, a celebrated personage in the mythical history of Britain, and Prince Arthur; the adventures of Thor, the god of thunder, and other Scandinavian deities, are jumbled together in strange confusion.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his British History[39] states that the early inhabitants of this island were giants. Brutus, a grandson of Ascanius, the companion of Æneas in his flight from Troy, and Corineus, also of Trojan descent, guided by a dream, discovered Britain, and delighted with "the pleasant situation of the place, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods," they became desirous of fixing their habitation in so desirable a country, and landing, drove the giants into the fastnesses of the mountains, and divided the country.
To Corineus was apportioned that part of the island which we call Cornwall, and it is recorded that he had selected this portion of the island for his share, because "it was a diversion to him to encounter the said giants, which were in greater numbers there than in all the other provinces that fell to the share of his companions."
Corineus is described as being "an ardent man in matters of council, and of great courage and boldness; who in an encounter with any person, even of gigantic stature, would immediately overthrow him as if he were a child."
In the same fabulous history (B. X, ch. 3) it is stated, that a giant who had invaded our shores, and taken refuge at the top of St. Michael's Mount, was attacked by King Arthur in the night and killed; the country being thus freed "from a most destructive and voracious monster."
Some of Jack's principal adventures are derived from the ancient Eddas and Sagas of Scandinavia.
The incident which represents Jack as having overheard a giant, upon whose hospitality he had intruded, muttering—
"Though you lodge with me this night,
You shall not see the morning light;
My club shall dash your brains out quite;"
and in which he had evaded the catastrophe by placing a log of wood in the bed, he lying quietly in a corner, while the giant furiously beat with his club the inanimate object, thinking to dash him to pieces; and the delightfully cool response of Jack to the wonder-struck giant when he beheld him safe and sound in the morning, and inquired if he had not been disturbed in the night,—"No, nothing worth mentioning, I believe a rat struck me with his tail two or three times:"—this incident is a modification of an adventure which occurred to Thor on his journey to the land of giants, and it is found in some form or other in the folk-lore of every nation in the north of Europe.
Thor, while journeying to the land of giants, met with one of that race named Skrymir. They formed a companionship, and the whole of the provisions were placed in the giant's wallet. At night, when they stopped to rest, Skrymir at once lay down and fell asleep, previously handing the wallet to Thor in order that he might refresh himself. Thor was unable to open it, and wroth with the giant for his apparent insensibility and the mode in which he had tied the knots, he seized his mighty hammer and flung it at the giant's head. Skrymir awaking, asked whether a leaf had fallen on his head, and then he fell asleep again. Thor again struck him with his hammer, and it apparently sank deep into his skull; and the giant again awoke, and asked, "Did an acorn fall on my head? How fares it with thee, Thor?" Thor, incensed beyond measure, waited until the giant again slept, and then exerting all his power, dashed his hammer at the head of the sleeping monster, into which it sank up to the handle. Skrymir, rising up, rubbed his cheek and said, "Are there any birds perched on this tree? Methought, when I awoke, some moss from the branches fell on my head."
Skrymir, distrusting Thor, had before he slept interposed a huge rock betwixt himself and the god, and upon this Thor had unwittingly exercised his strength.
The adventure in which Jack is represented as outwitting a giant in eating, by placing his food in a large leathern receptacle beneath his vesture, and then ripping it up, and defying the giant to do the same, whereupon the giant seizes a knife, plunges it into his breast and kills himself, is contained also in stories which are prevalent among the Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Servians, and Persians.
The Swedish version is as follows:—"In the evening, when the giant and his boy were about to sup, the crone placed a large dish of porridge before them. "That would be excellent," said the boy, "if we were to try which could eat the most, father or I." The giant was ready for the trial, and they began to eat with all their might. But the boy was crafty: he had tied his wallet before his chest, and for every spoonful that entered his mouth, he let two fall into the wallet. When the giant had despatched seven bowls of porridge, he had taken his fill, and sat puffing and blowing, and unable to swallow another spoonful; but the boy continued with just as much good-will as when he began. The giant asked him how it was, that he who was so little could eat so much. "Father, I will soon show you: when I have eaten as much as I can contain, I slit up my stomach, and then I can take in as much again." Saying these words, he took a knife and ripped up the wallet, so that the porridge ran out. The giant thought this a capital plan, and that he would do the like. But when he stuck the knife in his stomach, the blood began to flow, and the end of the matter was that it proved his death."[40]
The sword of sharpness, and the cloak which rendered the wearer invisible, and by the aid of which Jack won so many important victories, are two of the principal supernatural elements in the Nibelungenlied. In this ancient legend, which contains the same tragical story as the still more ancient Scandinavian poem, the Völundar-Kvida, the sword "Balmurg" is described:—
"a broad and mighty blade,
With such keen-cutting edges, that straight its way it made,
Where'er it smote on helmet:"
and the cloud-cloak which Siegfried took from the dwarf Albric, is pourtrayed as—
"A vesture that hight cloud-cloak, marvellous to tell,
Whoever has it on him, may keep him safe and well
From cuts and stabs of foemen; him none can hear or see,
As soon as he is in it, but see and hear can he
Whate'er he will around him, and thus must needs prevail;
He grows besides far stronger; so goes the wondrous tale."[41]
The story of Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper, is of great antiquity, and versions of it are found in many countries.
Ælian, who lived about A.D. 225, relates that, as Rhodope, a celebrated Greek courtezan, who had been carried into Egypt, was bathing one day, an eagle carried off one of her slippers, and as it flew over Memphis, where king Psammetichus was at that time sitting in tribunal, it let fall the sandal into his bosom. Astonished at the occurrence, and at the smallness of the sandal, he caused inquiries to be made for its owner, whom, when he had discovered, he married.
Old versions of this story are found in Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Wallachia, Servia, Russia, Poland, and Wales.[42]
In Jack and the Bean-stalk, the bean is evidently a version of the ash Ygdrasil of the Edda, reaching from hell to heaven; and the golden hen, harp, &c., are familiar features in northern stories.
Puss in Boots, the Seven-league Boots, &c., have their prototypes in Scandinavian folk-lore; and the two last-mentioned tales, as well as others, are probably of considerable antiquity.
Tales derived from these sources and composed of such elements, and fables in which beasts, birds, and fishes are represented as speaking and reasoning in a manner that puts man to the blush, are among the earliest things engrafted in the infant mind; and ever now