The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 35

The Mahometans are very superst.i.tious touching the beard. They bury the hairs which come off in combing it, and break them first, because they believe that angels have charge of every hair, and that they gain them their dismissal by breaking it. They used to wear pasteboard covers over their beards at night, lest they should turn upon them and rumple them in their sleep. The famous Raskolniki Schismatics had a similar superst.i.tion about the beard. They believed that the divine image of man resided in it.

_A Royal Sportsman._

When the King of Naples (the greatest sportsman of Europe) was in Germany, about the year 1792, it was said in the German papers that he had killed, in Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, 5 bears, 1,820 wild boars, 1,968 stags, 13 wolves, 354 foxes, 15,350 pheasants, 1,121 rabbits, 16,354 hares, 1,625 she-goats, 1,625 roebucks and 12,435 partridges.

_Origin of Attar of Roses._

In the "Histoire Generale de l'Empire du Mogol," compiled by Catrou the Jesuit, this perfume is said to have been discovered by accident.

"Nur-Jahan, the favorite wife of the Mogul Jahan-Ghur, among her other luxuries, had a small ca.n.a.l of rose water. As she was walking with the Mogul upon its banks, they perceived a thin film upon the water, which was an essential oil made by the heat of the sun. They were delighted with its exquisite odor, and means were immediately taken for preparing by art a substance like that which had been thus fortuitously produced."

_Effect of a New Nose._

Van Helmont tells a story of a person who applied to Taliacotius to have his nose restored. This person, having a dread of an incision being made in his own arm, for the purpose of removing enough skin therefrom for a nose, induced a laborer, for a remuneration, to allow the skin for the nose to be taken from his arm. About thirteen months after the adscit.i.tious nose suddenly became cold, and, after a few days, dropped off, in a state of putrefaction. The cause of this unexpected occurrence was investigated, when it was discovered that, at the same moment in which the nose grew cold, the laborer at Bologna expired.

_Cader Idris Couch._

On the very summit of Cader Idris there is an excavation in the solid rock, resembling a couch; and the residents of the vicinity say that whoever rests for the night in the couch, will be found in the morning dead, or raving mad, or endued with supernatural genius.

_Rights and Lefts._

Centuries ago shoes were made, as now, "rights and lefts." The shoes found in the tomb of Bernard, King of Italy, were "rights and lefts."

Shakespeare describes his smith as-

"Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste, Had falsely _thrust upon contrary feet_."

Scott, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," observes, "that he who receiveth a mischance will consider whether he put not on his shirt wrong side outwards, or his _left_ shoe on his _right_ foot."

_Efficacy in a Mutilated Saint._

There is a church connected with the convent at Chartreux, Provence. It was dedicated to St. John, and over the portico were colossal statues of the four evangelists, which have been thrown down, and the fragments lie scattered about. When Miss Plumptre and her party visited the spot, they observed a woman upon her knees over a fragment of stone, muttering to herself. When asked whether there was any particular virtue in the stone, she replied, in French: "Ah, yes? 'Tis a piece of St. John." She seemed to think that the saint's intercession in her behalf, mutilated as he was, might still avail her.

_Feasts at Coronations._

The quant.i.ty of provisions consumed at the coronations of some of the English kings was extraordinary. For that of King Edward I., February 10th, 1274, the different sheriffs of twelve of the counties were ordered to deliver, at Windsor, a total of 440 oxen, 743 swine, 430 sheep and 22,560 fowls.

_A Baker's Dozen._

The "baker's dozen" is an old saying. In "The Witch," written by Thomas Middleton, about 1620, we find the following:-

_Firestone._-"May you not have one o'clock into the dozen, mother?"

_Witch._-"No."

_Firestone._-"Your spirits are the more unconscionable than _baker's_."

_Wonderful Exhibition with Bees._

On the 14th day of October, 1766, Mr. Wildman, of Plymouth, who had made himself famous throughout the west of England for his command over bees, was sent for to wait on Lord Spencer, at his seat at Wimbledon, in Surrey, and he attended accordingly. Several of the n.o.bility and persons of fashion were a.s.sembled, and the countess had provided three stocks of bees. The first of his performances was with one hive of bees hanging on his hat, which he carried in his hand, and the hive they came out of in his other hand; this was to show that he could take honey and wax without destroying the bees. Then he returned to his room, and came out with them hanging on his chin with a very venerable beard. After showing them to the company, he took them out upon the gra.s.s walk facing the windows, where, a table and a table-cloth being provided, he set the hive upon the table and made the bees hive therein. Then he made them come out again and swarm in the air, the ladies and n.o.bility standing amongst them, and no person stung by them. He made them go on the table and took them up by handfuls, and tossed them up and down like so many peas; he then made them go into the hive at the word of command.

At five o'clock in the afternoon he exhibited again with the three swarms of bees, one on his head, one on his breast, and the other on his arm, and waited on Lord Spencer in his room, who had been too much indisposed to see the former experiment; the hives which the bees had been taken from were carried by one of the servants. After this exhibition he withdrew, but returned once more to the room with the bees all over his head, face and eyes, and was led blind before his lordship's window. One of his lordship's horses being brought out in his body clothes, Mr. Wildman mounted the horse, with the bees all over his head and face (except his eyes); they likewise covered his breast and left arm: he held a whip in his right hand, and a groom led the horse backwards and forwards before his lordship's window for some time. Mr.

W. afterwards took the reins in his hand, rode round the house, dismounted, and at his word of command the bees sought their hives. The performance surprised and gratified the earl and countess and all the spectators who a.s.sembled to witness the bee-master's extraordinary exhibition.-_Annual Register_, 1766.

_A Treacherous Talisman._

Gubner mentions that a Jew once presented himself before Duke Albrecht, of Saxony, and offered him a charm, engraved with rare signs and characters, which should render him invulnerable. The duke, determined to try it, had the Jew led out in the field, with his charm round his neck; he then drew his sword, and at the first thrust ran the Jew through.

_The Cavern Chapel._

Waldron, in his "Description of the Isle of Man" (1731), speaking of a crypt or subterranean chapel near Peel Castle, says: "Within are thirteen pillars, on which the whole chapel is supported. They have a superst.i.tion that whatsoever stranger goes to see this cavern out of curiosity, and omits to count the pillars, shall do something to occasion his being confined there."

_Glas...o...b..ry Thorn._

This famous hawthorn, which grew on a hill in the church-yard of Glas...o...b..ry Abbey, was said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, who, having fixed it in the ground with his own hand on Christmas day, the staff took root immediately, put forth leaves, and the _next_ day was covered with milk-white blossoms. It was declared that this thorn continued to blow every Christmas day during a long series of years, and that slips from the original plant are still preserved, and continue to blow every Christmas day to the present time. There certainly was in the abbey church-yard a hawthorne-tree which blossomed in winter, and was cut down in the time of the civil wars; but that it always blossomed on Christmas day was a mere tale of the monks, calculated to inspire the vulgar with notions of the sanct.i.ty of the place.

_Buying and Selling._

There was a singular custom at Rome in connection with the purchase of provisions. Purchaser and vendor simultaneously closed, and then suddenly opened, one of their hands or some of their fingers. If the number of fingers on both sides was even, the vendor obtained the price which he had previously asked: but if the number was uneven, the buyer received the goods for the sum he had just tendered.

_Fairy Treasure._

In the Leverian Museum were deposited "Orbicular sparry bodies, commonly called fairies' money, from the banks of the Tyne, Northumberland."

Ramon, a character in the play of "The Fatal Dowry," 1632, says-

But not a word of it, 'tis fairies' treasure; Which but reveal'd, brings on the babbler's ruine.

_Hour Gla.s.ses in Coffins._

A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine," 1746, says: "In June, 1718, as I was walking in the fields, I stopt in Clerkenwell church-yard to see a grave-digger at work. He had dug pretty deep, and was come to a coffin which had lain so long that it was quite rotten, and the plate eaten so with rust that he could not read anything of the inscription. In cleaning away the rotten pieces of wood, the grave-digger found an hour-gla.s.s close to the left side of the skull, with sand in it, the wood of which was so rotten that, it broke where he took hold of it.

Being a lover of antiquity, I bought it of him, and made a drawing of it as it then appeared. Some time after, mentioning this affair in company of some antiquarians, they told me that it was an ancient custom to put an hour-gla.s.s into the coffin as an emblem of the sand of life being run out; others conjectured that little hour-gla.s.ses were anciently given at funerals, like rosemary, and by the friends of the dead put in the coffin or thrown into the grave."

_Macduff's Cross._

The law of Clan Macduff was a privilege of immunity for homicide anciently enjoyed by those who could claim kindred with Macduff, Earl of Fife, within the ninth degree. Macduff's cross stood on the march or boundary between Fife and Strathearn, above Newburg. Any homicide possessed of the right of clanship who could reach it, and who gave nine kye (cows) and a clopindash (a young cow) was free of the slaughter committed by him.