Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 1

Traditions, Superst.i.tions and Folk-lore.

by Charles Hardwick.

PREFACE.

Our nursery legends and popular superst.i.tions are fast becoming matters of history, except in the more remote and secluded portions of the country. The age of the steam engine, and the electric battery, and the many other practical adaptations of the triumphs of physical science, is apparently not the one in which such "waifs and strays" from the mythical lore of the dim and distant Past are very likely to be much sought after or honoured. But now that the light of modern investigation, and especially that ray furnished by recent discoveries in philological science, has been directed towards their deeper and more hidden mysteries, profound philosophical historians have begun to discover that from this apparently desolate literary region much reliable knowledge may be extracted, leading to conclusions of the most interesting and important kind, with reference to the early history of our race. The labours of the brothers Grimm, Dr. Adalbert Kuhn, Professor Max Muller, the Rev. G. W. c.o.x, and others, have recently received considerable attention from philosophic enquirers into the origin and early development of the people from whom nearly all of the European, and some of the Asiatic, modern nationalities have sprung.

It is found that many of these imperfect, and sometimes grotesque, traditions, legends, and superst.i.tions are, in reality, not the "despicable rubbish" which the "learned" have been in the habit of regarding them, but rather the crude ore, which, when skilfully smelted down, yields, abundantly, pure metal well worthy of the literary hammer of the most profound student in general history, ethnology, or the phenomena attendant upon psychological development.

Professor Henry Morley, in the chapter on Ethnology, in his "English Writers," after noticing "how immediately and easily particular words, common in their application, would become available for common use," and "how often _images of the seen would become symbols of the unseen_,"

truly says, "The world about us is not simply mirrored, but _informed with a true soul_, by all the tongues that syllable man's knowledge and his wants. The subtlest harmonies of life and nature may lie hidden in the very letters of the alphabet."

The subject has been but recently introduced, in a thoroughly popular form, to the English reader. Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse,"

and occasional papers by local writers, intensified and extended the interest taken in this species of research. The publication, in 1863, by Mr. Walter K. Kelly, of his "Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore," however, may be said to have given a still greater impetus to popular investigation in this direction. This is largely to be attributed to the fact that he has summarised in a very pleasing manner much of the abstruse learning of the German philologists and mythologists to whom reference has already been made.

Whilst contemplating the publication of some "Supplementary Notes to the History of Preston and its Environs," the early chapters of which, of course, would necessarily deal with what is termed the "pre-historic period," Mr. Kelly's work came into my hands. I was induced to considerably enlarge my plan, in consequence of the value I immediately placed upon its contents, and of the suggestion in the following paragraph, which appears in its preface:

"In not a few instances I have been able to ill.u.s.trate Dr. Kuhn's principles by examples of the folk-lore of Great Britain and Ireland, and would gladly have done so more copiously had matter for the purpose been more accessible. My efforts in that direction have made me painfully aware how much we are behind the Germans, not only as to our insight into the meaning of such relics of the past, but also as to our industry in collecting them. The latter defect is indeed a natural consequence of the former, and it is to be hoped that our local archaeologists will no longer be content to labour under either of them when once they have found what far-reaching knowledge may be extracted out of old wives' tales and notions. Only four years ago the editor of 'Notes and Queries' spoke hypothetically (in the preface to 'Choice Notes') of a time to come when the study of folk-lore (he was I believe the inventor of that very expressive and sterling word) should have risen from a pleasant pastime to the rank of a science. Already his antic.i.p.ation has been realised, and henceforth every careful collector of a novel sc.r.a.p of folk-lore, or of even a well-marked variety of an old type, may entertain a reasonable hope that he has in some degree subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical historian."

In 1865-6 I published a series of the "Supplementary Notes" referred to, in the _Preston Guardian_ newspaper. The general favour with which they were received, and the increasing interest I felt in the subject, induced me to continue my researches, with the view to the ultimate publication of the present volume. The original papers, as well as other essays afterwards published elsewhere, have not only been carefully revised, and, in some instances, rearranged, but the quant.i.ty of new matter added in each chapter is such as to render the work in every respect much more complete, and more worthy of being regarded as having, in some small degree, "subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical historian." I would gladly persuade myself that I have, at least, rendered what many regard as frivolous, and others as very abstruse and very "dry reading," interesting, attractive, and instructive to the general reader. If I succeed in this respect, my chief object will have been accomplished.

The various authorities relied upon or quoted are sufficiently indicated in the body of the work to render a catalogue of them here unnecessary.

I may add, however, that the princ.i.p.al portions of the papers contributed by my friend, Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., to the "Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society," have since been incorporated with a portion of the collection of the late Mr.

Jno. Harland, F.S.A., and published in a volume by F. Warne and Co., ent.i.tled "Lancashire Folk Lore."

74, HALSTON STREET, HULME, _Manchester, April, 1872._

CHAPTER I.

THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTIES, AND REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

_Shakspere._

On several occasions, when discussing obscure questions of early topography or ancient nomenclature, although readily acknowledging the value of all facts in connection with genuine etymological science, I have recommended great caution in the use of this powerful but somewhat capricious archaeological ally. I yet retain a strong impression that this caution is still a necessary condition of truly scientific historical or antiquarian research. Consequently, several of the presumed etymologies in the present work are advanced with diffidence, and with a thorough conviction that some of them may prove to be illusive. The suggestion of a probability, however, is a very different thing to dogmatic a.s.sertion in such matters, a practice which cannot be too much condemned.

It is not very many years since the writer of the article "Language," in Knight's Cyclopaedia, felt it his duty, in introducing the subject, to use the following strong expressions:--

"That division of grammar which is called etymology has been disgraced by such puerile trifling, and has been pursued with such an utter disregard to anything like scientific principles, as to create in the minds of many persons a suspicion against everything presented to their notice under the name of etymology. Such persons have viewed etymology as nothing else than a dexterous play upon words, and have looked upon etymologists as little better than indifferent punsters. That the generality of writers upon this subject scarcely deserve any better appellation will hardly be denied by anyone who has studied etymology on true philological principles; and, if any doubt were entertained upon the point, it would only be necessary to refer to such works as Damm's 'Homeric Lexicon,' and Lennep's 'Etymology of the Greek Language,' which are full of such wild conjectures and such extravagant etymologies, that we cannot be surprised that a study which has produced such results should have been considered ridiculous and absurd."

The writer afterwards refers to the extent, and explains the nature of the progress which had been made during the twenty or thirty years previous to the date of his own paper. (1839). He justly attributes this progress to the "comparison of many languages with each other;" but he especially insists that "nothing has perhaps contributed to this improvement more than the discovery of Sanscrit (for as it has been justly observed, it may properly be called a discovery), which was found to bear such a striking resemblance both in its more important words and in its grammatical forms to the Latin and Greek, the Teutonic and Sclavonic languages, as to lead to the conclusion that all must have been derived from a common source."

An able writer in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ truly describes the science of comparative philology as "the great discovery of modern scholarship, the discovery which more than any other unites distant ages and countries in one tie of brotherhood." Hence its great value to antiquarian students of every cla.s.s.

Further investigation has fully demonstrated the truth of the views thus expressed. Not only is the affinity of the languages now admitted without dispute, but the consanguinity of the peoples and the ident.i.ty of many of their popular traditions and superst.i.tions have been demonstrated with scientific precision by such writers as the brothers Grimm, Dr. Kuhn, Dr. Roth, Max Muller, Farrer, Dasent, the Rev. G. W.

c.o.x, and others, who have devoted special attention to the subject.

This common ancestry is sometimes styled Indo-European; but the phrase being open to objection, as including more than the precise facts justify, the term Aryan, or Arian, is now generally preferred. Some writers regard the Aryans as descendants of j.a.phet, and the Semitic tribes as the progeny of Shem. In the latter they include the Hebrews, the Phnicians, the Arabs, and Ethiopians; and their languages are radically distinct from those of the Aryan family. The country about the upper Oxus river, now mainly included in the dominions of the Khan of Bockhara, is generally agreed upon as the locality from whence the various members of the Aryan family originally migrated, some northward and westward over Europe, and others southward and eastward into India.

The Kelts, the Teutons, the Greeks, Latins, Letts, and Sclaves are all European branches of this original stock. The Persians and the high caste Hindoos are the princ.i.p.al descendants of the southern and south-eastern migration. The chief elements of the British population at the present time are Keltic, represented by the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic tribes, and the Teutonic, which includes Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and Danish and Norse Scandinavians.

The non-Aryan races inhabiting Europe are not relatively very extensive or important. The chief are the Magyars and the Turks. There are besides some Tatars and Ugrians in Russia, a few Basques in the south-west of France and on the neighbouring Spanish frontier, and the Laps and Fins in Northern Europe.

The oldest writings extant in the Sanscrit branch of the Aryan tongue are termed the "Vedas." These works include a collection of hymns chanted or sung by the earlier south-eastern emigrants. It is believed this collection was formed about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. According to ancient Hindoo authority, these hymns are coeval with creation. It is a.s.serted that Brahma breathed them from his own mouth, or, in other words, that he milked them out from fire, air, and the sun. Some traditions state that they wore scattered abroad or lost; and that a great sage, "Vyasa, the arranger," collected them together about 5,000 years ago. Vyasa, who was a.s.sisted in his labours by many other sages, taught the Vedic literature or religion to four distinct pupils. Payla learnt the Rig Veda, Vais'ampayana the Yajur Veda, Jaimini the Sama Veda, and Sumantu the Atharvan'a. The three first-mentioned are named collectively the sacred Trayi, or the Triad. These versions were afterwards much extended and commented upon by after sages.

The term Veda is derived from the Sanscrit root _vid_, which signifies to know. It implies the sum of all knowledge. By another etymology it is held to imply revealed knowledge, or that species of wisdom which contains within itself the evidence of its own truth. Rig is from the root _rich_, to laud, and implies that the Vedic knowledge is delivered in the form of hymns of praise.

Max Muller regards the Vedas as containing the key note of all religion, natural as well as revealed. They exhibit a belief in G.o.d, a perception of the difference between good and evil, and a conviction that the Deity loveth the one and hateth the other. The degenerate religion of the modern Hindoos, and especially the worship of Krishnah, is described by a recent writer, as (in comparison with that of the Vedas) "a moral plague, the ravages of which are as appalling as they are astounding."

Walter Kelly says:--"The Sanscrit tongue, in which the Vedas are written, is the sacred language of India; that is to say, the oldest language, the one which was spoken, as the Hindoos believe, by the G.o.ds themselves, when G.o.ds and men were in frequent fellowship with each other, from the time when Yama descended from heaven to become the first of mortals. This ancient tongue may not be the very one which was spoken by the common ancestors of Hindoos and Europeans, but at least it is its nearest and purest derivative; nor is there any reason to believe that it is removed from it by more than a few degrees. Hence the supreme importance of the Sanscrit vocabulary and literature as a key to the languages and supernatural lore of ancient and modern Europe."

This discovery of the Sanscrit writings, and especially of the Vedas, has already exercised considerable influence upon etymological science.

Before its introduction the main element in such inquiries consisted in the tracing _backwards_ words corrupted or obscure in modern English to their original roots in Keltic, Teutonic, Greek, or Latin. The Sanscrit, however, being a _written_ form of one of the earliest of the varieties of these cognate tongues, gives the etymological student the advantage of a flank or rear position, by means of which he may sometimes decipher the meaning of a doubtful term, by the inverse or _ascending_ process, and thus gain some knowledge of its original meaning, perhaps long since lost by the descendants of those who first introduced it into the ancient language of Great Britain.[1]

It is by no means improbable that the idle historical legends related by Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, respecting the arrival of Brutus and his Trojan followers in Britain, after the destruction of Priam's imperial city by the allied Greeks, may have just so much foundation in fact as might be furnished by a time-honoured tradition respecting the eastern home from which our remote ancestors originally migrated. The natives of Britain, on first coming in contact with the early merchants and traders from the Mediterranean sh.o.r.es, would doubtless hear something of the Iliad and the aeneid, with the heroes of which they might innocently confound their own remote and vaguely conceived demi-deities or warlike human ancestry. Notwithstanding the just contempt in which these legends are held by modern historians, there still exists a kind of instinctive faith that a very remote tradition, however much it may have been overlaid and disfigured by relatively modern inventions, lies at the base of the main story. Emigrants from Iberia (situated between the Caspian and the Euxine Seas) are said to have settled in Greece (the Pelasgi), and in Tuscany and Spain (the Iberians). In Laurent's "Ancient Geography" is the following pa.s.sage:--"In the Caucasus were found the Bruchi, the modern Burtani or Britani, a free tribe, rich in silver and gold." It is not improbable that the advent of emigrants of this tribe in England may underlie the legend of the Trojan Brutus and his followers. Eastern Albania too may have contributed, along with its neighbours, to the migratory hordes which pa.s.sed to the west. The earliest name by which Britain was known to the Greeks and Romans is Albion. The Gaels of Scotland still speak of the island as Albin. In Merlin's famous prophecy, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History, the country is frequently named Albania. The universal tradition of the North German and Scandinavian tribes is that they came from the neighbourhood of the Caucasus to the North West of Europe. An early Odin is said to have introduced from the east the worship of the sun. Another at the head of the aesir warriors imported the Runic alphabet. He is styled Mid Othin. Two other chiefs of this name figure in their legendary history.

Dr. Leigh held the opinion that the Brigantes, and especially the Setantii, or the Lancashire portion of the then population, were a mixed race, consisting of Kelts, Phnicians, and Armenians. His only reason for this conjecture appears to have been based on the fact that one of the chief rivers was named Belisama, which, he says, "in the Phnician language, signifies the Moon or the G.o.ddess of Heaven," and that Ribel, now the name of the same river, in the Armenian tongue signifies Heaven. Mr. Thornber says "Belisama means Queen of Heaven, and that the Romans paid divine honours to the Ribble under the t.i.tle of Minerva Belisama." This conjecture apparently rests on the statement of Leigh, and the fact that the Roman temple at Ribchester was dedicated to Minerva. There appears to be, however, some error here respecting the s.e.x of Bel. The Phnician "Queen of Heaven," or "Queen of the Stars,"

was named Astroarche or Astarte. She is supposed by some to be identical with the Greek Juno, or Selene (the moon), by others she is regarded as the planet Venus. The Armenians were a branch of the Aryan family, and the Phnicians, as I have before said, were of the Semitic stock.[2]

Sanchuniathon, the ancient Phnician historian, says that the Phnicians worshipped the sun as "the only lord of heaven," under the name Beelsamen, which was equivalent to the Greek Zeus or the Latin Jupiter. Baal is formed from a root which signifies, and is literally equivalent to, lord or owner. A Maltese inscription "Malkereth Baal Tsor," is interpreted "King of the city, Lord of Tyre." In the Septuagint Baal is called Hercules; in the Phnician language Orcul, light of all. One writer adds "Baal was Saturn; others have considered Baal to be the planet Jupiter. A supreme idol might easily be compared with those of other nations; hence arose this variety of opinions."

Amongst the many conjectures as to the origin of Stonehenge is one put forth by G.o.dfrey Higgins, that it was built by Druids, "the priests of Oriental colonies, who emigrated from India." Mr. Davis, the author of "Celtic Researches," refers to a pa.s.sage in Diodorus Siculus, in which it is stated, on the authority of Hecataeus, that a round temple existed in Britain dedicated to Apollo. Mr. Davis conjectures that Stonehenge is the edifice referred to.

The late Rev. John Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, in "Essays,"

published in 1858, strongly advocates the "Hyperborean theory," founded on the pa.s.sage in Diodorus referred to. This view of the case implies that the Hyperboreans migrated mainly by water from Central Asia, not long after the days of Noah; that they eventually occupied Great Britain, Spain, and Gaul, west of the Alps; that the Druid priests of Stonehenge were in sympathy and constant communication with those of Delphi; that they were civilised to a large extent, and were intimately related by blood with the Pelasgians of Ancient Greece.

The ancient name of this remarkable relic of the past is unfortunately lost, "Stonehenge" being evidently of Saxon origin, and in no way connected with its architects; the tale told by Nennius, about the murder of four hundred and sixty British n.o.bles, through the treachery of Hengist, being a later romance invented to account for its Saxon name, Stanhengist. W. G. Palgrave, in his "Central and Eastern Arabia,"

describes the ruins of a "structure" which so nearly resembles the famous Wiltshire relic, that he calls it an "Arabian Stonehenge." He adds that the natives spoke of a similar ancient edifice as still existing in a part of the country which he did not visit.

Sir John Lubbock in his "Pre-historic Times," after alluding to the mythical character of the expedition to Ireland of Aurelius Ambrosius and Merlin, as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in search of the sacred materials employed in the erection of the megalithic edifice, says the larger stones are evidently similar in lithological character to the immense numbers yet strewn over Salisbury plain, and locally termed "Sarcens." He adds,--

"Stonehenge is generally considered to mean the hanging stones, as indeed was long ago suggested by Wace, an Anglo-Norman poet, who says:

Stanhengues ont mom Englois Pieres pandues en Francois,

but it is surely more natural to derive the last syllable from the Anglo-Saxon word 'ing,' a field; as we have Keston, originally Kyst-staning, the field of stone coffins. What more natural than that a new race, finding this magnificent ruin, standing in solitary grandeur on Salisbury Plain, and able to learn nothing of its origin, should call it simply the _place of stones_? What more unnatural than that they should do so, if they knew the name of him in whose honour it was erected?"

After disposing of some other arguments in favour of a post-Roman date for the edifice, and expressing his conviction that this structure and its kindred one at Abury were used as temples for worship, Sir John Lubbock says,--

"Stonehenge may then I think be regarded as a monument of the Bronze Age, though apparently it was not all erected at one time, the inner circle of small unwrought blue stones being probably older than the rest; as regards Abury, since the stones are all in their natural condition, while those of Stonehenge are roughly hewn, it seems reasonable to conclude that Abury is the older of the two, and belongs either to the close of the Stone Age, or to the commencement of that of Bronze."

Some writers regard the British or Keltic G.o.d Bel or Beil as not immediately the Belus or Baal of the Asiatic nations, but that it "designates _an exalted luminous deity_, peculiar to the Celts." This is the view of Jacob Grimm, and it is endorsed by W. K. Kelly. Another writer thinks that "the general character of Asiatic idolatry renders it likely that Baal meant originally the true lord of the universe, _and that his worship degenerated_ into the worship of a powerful body in the material world."