Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 11

And previous to departing, Hecate further says:--

Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see, _Sits in a foggy cloud_, and stays for me.

Hecate, in the cla.s.sical mythology, is the Pandemonium name for Diana.

This G.o.ddess was known by the latter appellation on earth, and by that of Luna in heaven. Hence the absurdity of converting her into a burly masculine ba.s.so in the so-called "Locke's music," introduced with very questionable taste into Shakspere's sublime tragedy of Macbeth.

Proserpina, the wife of Pluto, is confounded with Hecate. She was supposed to preside over sorceries and incantations.

Grimm, although he, in one of his tales, speaks of "angels drawing water in a perforated vessel," seems not to have clearly interpreted the mythic import of the sieve. He, however, expressly says that it "appears to be a sacred archaic implement to which marvellous powers were attributed." Liebrecht speaks of a tribe of water-spirits, or cloud-G.o.ds, the Draci of Languedoc, with "hands perforated like colanders." The Grecian Naiads, with their urns, and the various river-G.o.ds, from old Tiber or Ilissus to Father Thames, are but more artistic modifications of a similar thought.

There is a tradition, in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh, near Preston, to the effect that during some drought, "in the olden time," a gigantic dun cow appeared and gave an almost unlimited supply of milk, which saved the inhabitants from death. An old woman--of the witch fraternity, I suspect--however, with the view to obtain from the beast more than the usual number of pails-full, milked the cow with a sieve, riddle, or colander, which, of course, never became full, as the precious liquid pa.s.sed through the orifices into a vessel below. When full, the latter was replaced by an empty one of a similar character. The tradition adds that the cow either died of grief, on detecting the imposture, or from sheer exhaustion, I forget which. A locality is still pointed out, named "Cow Hill," where gossips aver that, in relatively recent times, the huge bones of the said cow were disinterred. Over the porch of a house on the way from Goosnargh to Longridge, I remember, not very long ago, seeing a large bone, apparently a rib, placed in a conspicuous position.

This was stated to have been a portion of the skeleton so disinterred. I fancied at the time that, in Polonius's phraseology, the bone in question was suggestive of something "very like a whale." It is not improbable, however, that at some early period, the remains of the huge extinct ox, the _bos primigenius_, or even the _elephas primigenius_ or fossil mammoth, may have been exhumed in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh.

Many bones and skulls of the former have been dredged from the bed of the Ribble, and others taken from the fluvial drift excavated in the valley when preparing for the foundations of the piers of the railway bridges in the neighbourhood of Preston. Bones of two species of fossil elephant, two species of rhinoceros, and other extinct pachyderms of huge dimensions, have recently been found in connection with early flint implements, indicative of the presence of man, in the fresh water gravel belonging to what Lyell terms the post-pliocene period of the earth's history, both in France and in several parts of England. Some such discovery, grafted upon the ancient Aryan tradition respecting the heavenly cows, or rain-giving clouds, opportunely rescuing the parched vegetation from premature decay, might very easily eventuate in such a tradition as the one current in Grimsargh at the present day.

Some of the deeds of the Saxon giant, the celebrated Guy of Warwick, appear to enshrine elements of myths of a similar character. In the "Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet," we read:--

By gallant Guy of Warwick slain Was Colbrand, that gigantic Dane.

Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt A dun cow bigger than elephaunt: But he, to prove his courage sterling, His whinyard in her blood embrued.

He cut from her enormous side a sirloin, And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew'd, Then butcher'd a wild boar, and eat him barbicu'd.[23]

We have here the cow, or rain cloud, the boar, typical of the lightning, and the human giant or warrior subst.i.tute for Indra or Odin, in the Aryan and Teutonic mythologies.

The ribs of the gigantic dun cow, said to have been slain by the redoubtable Guy, are still preserved at Warwick. A similar rib is to be seen in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, and another at Chesterfield. At an inn in Lincolnshire, a huge scapula is exhibited as a relic of the famous dun cow. The tradition at Bristol a.s.serts that, at some former period, the said bovine monster supplied the whole of the city with milk. This coincides with the Grimsargh tradition. One Warwick legend too a.s.serts that the cow had been driven mad by the overmilking of a witch. Another says that the cow was slain by Guy during a season of great scarcity, and that the consumption of its flesh saved the inhabitants from perishing of famine. The large rib in the Foljambe Chapel, Warwick, is said to measure seven feet four inches in length, and from twelve to thirteen inches in circ.u.mference. Frank Buckland, in his "Curiosities of Natural History," says, "the ribs of the dun cow at Warwick and the gigantic rib at St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, are the bones of whales."

Tom Brown ("Amus.e.m.e.nts for the Meridian of London," 1700) mentions a remarkable superst.i.tious reverence for the milk of a red cow. Referring to the Green Walk, St. James's Park, London, he says: "There were a cl.u.s.ter of senators talking of state affairs, and the price of corn and cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk folk crying: 'A can of Milk, ladies; a can of _Red_ Cow's Milk, sirs?' This appears to be a remnant of the Aryan reverence for the heavenly fire or the lightning, which they believed to be typified in the _red_ breast of the robin, the red mutch of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, and the red colour of other 'fire-bringers.'"

In the Vedas, the dawn is symbolised by the G.o.ddess Ushas, by philologists regarded as the prototype of the Greek Eos, and the Latin Aurora. The ruddy light on the eastern horizon which preceded the sunrise, was regarded as a herd of red cows attendant upon her. In the Vedic hymns she is sometimes addressed as a quail. Kelly says, "Vartika, the Sanscrit name of the bird, corresponds etymologically with ortyx, its Greek name; and in the myths of Greece and Asia Minor the quail is a symbol of light and heat."

The early Greek mythology has preserved some remains of this bovine personification of the ruddy dawn clouds. Mr. Gladstone, in "Juventus Mundi," says, "Although animal worship has played so considerable a part in the religions of the East, the traces of it in Homer are few, and, with one exception, they are also faint. That exception is the extraordinary sanct.i.ty attaching, in the Twelfth Odyssey, to the Oxen of the Sun, which I have treated as belonging to the Phnician system, and as foreign to the Olympian religion." Notwithstanding this, the evidence in favour of the Aryan origin of the myth seems indisputable.

Dr. Benisch, in one of his expositions of "Maimonides and Kimchito" to members of the Society of Hebrew Literature, on the 30th of March, 1871, stated that he was engaged in a comparison of the Semitic and Aryan tongues, with a view to establish many more points of contact than are usually admitted to exist between these two families of speech.

Red cow's milk is an important element in a recipe for the cure of consumption in Dr. Sampson Jones's "Medicine Boke," published in the latter portion of the seventeenth century. _Red_ is especially mentioned as the colour of the heifer set apart for sacrifice for the purification of sin in Numbers, chapter 19; and _scarlet_ is specified as the colour of one of the articles "cast into the midst of the burning of the heifer." Thousands of persons yet believe that there is more warmth in _red_ flannel than in either black, white, blue, or yellow.

On some public-house signs it is not uncommon to refer to the liquor sold within as the "dun cow's milk." On one, between York and Durham, we read the following:--

Oh, come you from the east, Oh, come you from the west, If ye will taste the Dun Cow's milk, Y'll say it is the best.

The Durham legend of St. Cuthbert's dun cow is well known in the North of England. The eccentric saint would not permit a cow to approach his sacred residence at Lindisfarne. He excused himself for this strange freak by averring that "where there is a cow there must be a woman, and where there is a woman there must be mischief." Has not the Scotchman's "mountain dew" some figurative relationship to the Aryan heavenly soma?

A belief in the influence of witches on the milk and b.u.t.ter yielding habits of cows is yet very widely entertained. In his "Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish," Camden says: "If a cow becomes dry a witch is applied to, who, inspiring her with a fondness for some other calf, makes her yield her milk." He further observes that they slaughter all hares found amongst their cattle on May-day, from a belief that they are witches, who, having designs on their b.u.t.ter, have a.s.sumed this form the better to effect their purpose. Other authorities speak of the general belief in witches sucking the dugs of cows in the form of hares. A writer in the _Athenaeum_, as recently as 1846, refers to a certain Scotch witch, who, he says, "has been seen a hundred times milking the cows in the shape of a hare." A Scotch witch, recently deceased, named Margery Scott, firmly believed that she had been frequently trans.m.u.ted into a hare and hunted by dogs.

Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Drolls, Superst.i.tions, and Traditions of Old Cornwall," relates a very amusing story about "the witch of Treva."

Being without food, the husband of the old crone, who doubted her pretended supernatural power, asked, as a proof to which he would yield, that she would walk to St. Ives and back, a distance of five miles, and procure some substantial human victuals. This she undertook to effect in the s.p.a.ce of half-an-hour. The man kept his eye on her for some time, after she started on her strange errand, "and at the bottom of the hill he saw his wife quietly place herself on the ground and disappear. In her place _a fine hare_ ran on at its full speed." He further adds that the woman returned within the prescribed time, and brought with her "good flesh and taties, all ready for aiting!" When the said crone was carried to her grave, she caused much amazement and even terror by her mad pranks. "When they were about half way between the house and the church, a hare started from the roadside and leaped over the coffin. The terrified bearers let the corpse fall to the ground, and ran away.

Another lot of men took up the coffin and proceeded. They had not gone far when puss was suddenly seen seated on the coffin, and again the coffin was abandoned." After considerable labour and much tribulation, we are informed the parson commenced "the ordinary burial service, and there stood the hare, which, as soon as the clergyman began 'I am the resurrection and the life,' uttered a diabolical howl, changed into a black, unshapen creature, and disappeared!"

One of the Saxon forms of the G.o.ddess Freyja, according to Mannhardt, has hares for trainbearers, and another walks at night in the fields of Aargau, accompanied by a hare of silver-grey colour. The prevalent superst.i.tion that a hare crossing the highway before any person prognosticated ill-fortune, doubtless, has its origin in the witchcraft a.s.sociation. Perhaps the story of the hare's nest, to which children are sent in search of eggs at Easter, in Swabia and Hesse, according to Meier, is the original of our "_mare's nest_," and has some reference to the supposed supernatural attributes of the animal. Mannhardt says the hare is reputed to be a fire and soul bringer; that many kinder-brunnen (baby fountains) are so named from this circ.u.mstance; and that children are supposed to be procured from the hare's form, as well as from the parsley bed. We learn from Caesar that the Ancient Britons held the hare in reverence, and refused, therefore, to kill it for food.

Sir Jno. Lubbock, Lyell and others are of opinion that to the existence of this feeling may be attributed the almost total absence of the bones of the hare amongst the _debris_ of the ancient Swiss lake dwellings, and the kjokkenmoddings or sh.e.l.l mounds of Denmark. The superst.i.tion yet exists amongst the Laplanders of the present day. According to Burton, the Somal Arabs reject it as the Hottentot men do, although their women may partake of it as food, and M. Schlegel informs us that the Chinese entertain a prejudice against the animal. Owing to a false impression respecting the hare chewing its cud, the Jews p.r.o.nounced it to be unclean, and therefore rejected it as food. Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, when she had harangued her soldiers, opened the drapery around her bosom and let go a hare, which she had concealed. The frightened animal's antics, according to the then orthodox laws of divination, indicated a successful issue to the pending expedition. The warrior queen improved the occasion, led her enthusiastic troops against the highly disciplined Roman legions, and vanquished them.

Kelly is satisfied of the Aryan origin of the animal's supernatural reputation. He says,--"The hare is no doubt mythically connected with the phenomena of the sky, but upon what natural grounds it has been credited with such meteoric relations is a point not yet determined. I incline to think it will be found to lie, in part at least, in the habits which the animal displays about the time of the vernal equinox, and which have given rise to the popular saying, 'as mad as a March hare.' And perhaps this very restlessness in rough weather has been the cause of the animal being regarded as a disguised witch, actively engaged in 'brewing storms.'"

Cats, as well as hares, have the reputation of being weather wise; hence their a.s.sociation with witches or "wise women." Hecate was supposed to frequently a.s.sume the feline form. Shakspere's witches evidently held it in reverence. One says, with great solemnity, on a momentous occasion, "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd." A very strong belief yet obtains, amongst persons better educated than the Lancashire peasantry, that cats can see better in the dark than in the light, and that they possess nine lives, or, in other words, that they require killing nine times, before they remain permanently defunct. The author of "Choice Notes" says that sailors have a firm belief that the presence of a dead hare on board ship is certain to bring about bad weather. They likewise object to having cats on board, and when one happens to be more frisky than usual, like a "mad March hare," they have a saying that "the cat has got a gale of wind in her tail." The same authority says that the throwing of a cat overboard will infallibly bring on a storm. Mannhardt says, in Germany, anyone who, during his lifetime, may have made cats his enemies, is certain to be accompanied to the grave with wind and rain. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ refers to a Dutch superst.i.tion of this cla.s.s, in which a rainy wedding day is supposed to result from the bride's neglecting to feed her cat. Walter Kelly thinks "the question why the chariot of the G.o.ddess Freyja was drawn by cats, and why Holda was attended by maidens riding on cats, or themselves disguised in feline form, is easily solved. Like the lynx, and the owl of Pallas Athene, the cat owes its celestial honours above all to its eyes, that gleam in the dark like fire, but the belief in its supernatural powers may very probably have been corroborated by the common observation that the cat, like the stormy boar, is a weather wise animal."

This connection of the G.o.ddess Freyja (whence our Friday) with the feline personification of stormy weather, may lay at the root of the prejudice of sailors against commencing a voyage on that day. That this superst.i.tion has yet strong hold on the nautical imagination, was recently (1871), attested by the fact that, in consequence of the loss of the ill-fated turret-ship, "Captain," which had left port on a Friday, the "Agincourt," in order to satisfy the clamour of the crew, did not leave Gibraltar on the presumedly fatal day. The departure of the last-named war-ship on the Sat.u.r.day, however, did not prevent her striking on the "Pearl Rock" shortly afterwards. This fact might, perhaps, stagger Jack's faith for a moment, but superst.i.tion is tougher than actual experience in many of its phases, and Friday will still be a black letter day in the sailor's calendar.

Hallam, in his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,"

when discussing the probabilities of the guilt or innocence of the Knights Templars, concerning which there still exists great diversity of opinion, refers to the evidence adduced by M. von Hammer as the most difficult of refutation. This authority contends that the adoption of the infamous practices of the Gnostic superst.i.tion, which the Templars are said to have imported from the East, is proved by certain obscene sculptures found in secret places in edifices erected by the members of this order in various parts of Europe. He says these scandalous figures resemble those in the Gnostic churches. Hallam adds, however, "The Stadinghi, heretics of the thirteenth century, are charged, in a bull of Gregory IX., with exactly the same profaneness, even including the _black cat_ [canis aut gattus niger] as the Templars of the next century. This is said by Von Hammer to be confirmed by sculptures." May not these coincidences have arisen from the common Aryan origin of the pagan superst.i.tions; and, in some instances, at least, in the figurative meaning of the sculptures referred to? There was a famous "cat stone" in Leyland old church, which was said to be the "devil in the form of a cat," who "throttled" an individual that witnessed his removal, by night, of the stones used by the builders of the church in the day-time.

The morals, as well as the manners, of the thirteenth century were very different to those of the nineteenth; and yet I could point out, within Lancashire and Cheshire, at least two instances, where obnoxious sculpture of this cla.s.s has been preserved from mediaeval times to the present day.

The notorious besom or broomstick is an instrument in the operations of witchcraft common to all the Aryan nations. According to the "Asiatic Register," for 1801, the Eastern, as well as the European witches, "practice their spells by dancing at midnight, and the princ.i.p.al instrument they use on such occasions is a broom." It is regarded as "a type of the winds, and therefore an appropriate utensil in the hands of the witches, who are wind makers and workers in that element."

Dr. Kuhn says, "In the Mark, an old broom is burned in order to raise a wind. Sailors, after long toiling against a contrary wind, on meeting another ship sailing in an opposite direction, will throw an old broom before the vessel, which, they contend, will reverse the wind, and consequently cause it to blow in their favour."

Burns, in his "Address to the Deil," makes his witches and warlocks "skim the muirs and dizzy crags" on "ragweed nags," "wi' wicked speed."

Witches notoriously ride swiftly and easily through the air astride of a broomstick.[24] Hence this superst.i.tion may be said to personify the light scudding clouds that pa.s.s rapidly across the sky, and herald squally weather. Dr. Kuhn regards the broom as the implement used by the Aryan demi-deities in sweeping the sky; for that such was a portion of the duty devolving upon its riders may be inferred from the still existing Hartz tradition that witches must dance away all the snow upon the Blocksberg, on the first of May.

The hanging out of a broom when a man's wife is from home, to intimate to the husband's unmarried friends that the usual matrimonial restraint is temporarily suspended, and that bachelor fare and bachelor habits will be the order of the day, for a time, is yet well known in Lancashire. I am not aware how far it is practised or understood in other parts of the country, neither have I been able to find a satisfactory explanation of its origin. As the "Lancashire witches" of the present day do "work their spells" upon their masculine friends, though in a more pleasing form and agreeable manner than their haggard and aged predecessors, it is not improbable that the emblem of power may have accompanied the transmission of the once dreaded appellation.

Brooms, after being used in the performance of divers mythical ceremonies, were hung up in houses, and regarded, like pieces of the rowan or mountain ash-tree, as powerful charms against the entrance of evil doers. Perhaps the "bachelor husband" of by-gone times removed the broom to the outside of the house with the view to destroy its power over the interior, as well as to inform his roystering friends that the coast was clear, and that there existed no impediment to unlimited jollification.[25] Dr. Kuhn says in several parts of Westphalia, at Shrovetide, cows' horns are decorated with white besoms with white handles. After the house has been swept by them, they are hung, as a kind of talisman, over or near the door of the cow-house. Have these white besoms any relationship to those ornamental ones formerly much hawked in England by German peasant girls, who likewise sung in the streets the once popular song, "Buy a broom?"

Gaule says there were "eight cla.s.ses of witches distinguished by their operations: first, the diviner, gipsy or fortune telling witch; second, the astrologian, star-gazing, planetary, prognosticating witch; third, the chanting, canting, or calculating witch, who works by signs or numbers; fourth, the venefick, or poisonous witch; fifth, the exorcist, or conjuring witch; sixth, the gastromantick witch; seventh, the magical, speculative, sciential, or arted witch; eighth, the necromancer."

Many of the practices of the modern gipsies seem to have much in common with the older witchcraft. Fortune telling, divination, &c., appear to be their chief professional avocations at the present time, notwithstanding the magisterial rigour to which such imposture is subjected. Much learned discussion has been evoked concerning the origin of this singular people. They appear to have been first generally noticed in Europe about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Some are said, however, to have arrived in Switzerland somewhat earlier. They were styled gipsies because they were believed to have wandered into Europe from Egypt. Their language, and their superst.i.tions, however, show their true origin to have been Indian. Some writers contend that they left that country at the time of the celebrated Timour's invasion, early in the fifteenth century, and that their first resting place being in the country called Zinganen, near the mouth of the Indus, probably explains why in some countries they are called Zingari. Their next resting place being Egypt most probably gave rise to their English appellation. On the whole it seems not improbable that they spring from the pariahs or lowest caste of Hindoos, now named Suders. The gla.s.s globe or egg-shaped instrument, in which they profess to detect supernatural revelations, appears to belong either to the sun image or thunderbolt type of the Aryan mythology. Some of their conjuring, juggling, and other feats of skill are suggestive of a similar paternity. But the ident.i.ty of the languages, in several essentials, notwithstanding much corruption of the gipsy dialects, in consequence of their admixture with those of other nations, is perhaps the most conclusive proof of the Hindoo origin of these Zingari tribes.

The superst.i.tious belief in the supernatural yet exists in Lancashire, as well as in other counties of England, to a much greater extent than highly educated people are apt to imagine. Gipsies ply their trade with profit, and "wise women" and witches are by no means extinct. The county of Somerset has recently furnished two remarkable ill.u.s.trations of this.

The following appeared in the public press in June, 1871:--

"LINGERING SUPERSt.i.tION.--At Wincanton, in Somersetshire, the magistrates have had before them a charge arising out of the belief in witchcraft which still prevails in that county. Ann Green accused a labourer named William Higham of a.s.saulting her. It appeared that the defendant had long laboured under the delusion that he was 'overlooked'

by the complainant, and in order to break the spell he stabbed her twice. The sleeves of the garments which were worn by the complainant were produced in court, saturated with blood. The prisoner gravely informed the Bench that he did it to destroy Mrs. Green's power over him, but that he had not yet found any relief. The prisoner's mother said she had not been able to rest for a fortnight past, as he was constantly saying that Mrs. Green was 'overlooking' him, and that it would kill him. He was ordered to find sureties or to be imprisoned for three weeks."

The following "went the round of the papers" in July, 1870:--

"A strange case of superst.i.tion has been brought before the magistrates of Wincanton, in Somerset. A young man named Lamb, fancying that a certain young woman, Mary Crees, had bewitched him, rushed upon her, seized her by the throat, and pulling out his penknife, attempted to wound her. In reply to the Bench he said, 'She overlooks I; that's as true as the hat's in my hand, and I wanted to draw blood to stop her.'

Two years ago he fell down in a fit on seeing her."

The _Manchester Examiner and Times_, of June 24th, 1871, contained the following "short leader":--

"The metropolitan police have been engaged in a laudable attempt at putting down fortune-telling. They made a 'raid' the other evening upon several professors of the cabalistic art, and in one house found thirty or forty young women waiting to have their 'fortunes told.' Perhaps the most important of the gentlemen arrested on the occasion was a Mr.

George Shepherd, who, however, appeared in handbills printed for extensive circulation under the name of 'Professor Cicero, of Rome, Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land.' His rooms were fitted up with all the symbols of his craft, in every branch of which he professed to be an adept. The fees varied from sixpence to half-a-crown, according to the nature of the service rendered, and a list was found in the place showing the number of visitors--that is, customers--in so many consecutive weeks. These figures, which have a certain interest as throwing light upon the prevalence of popular credulity, ran as follow: 662, 250, 502, 380, 512, 513, 430, 89, 466. In Easter-week, including Good Friday, there were only 217 callers, proving that the attractions of a holiday outweigh even those of a visit to a modern temple of divination. But the subject has a serious as well as a romantic side.

The four 'Professors' were all 'found guilty,' and committed to gaol for three calendar months with hard labour. Probably no effectual stop will be put to a very silly practice until the dupes are convicted as well as the prime agents. It is perfectly well known that fortune-telling is illegal, and a penalty should attach to all who figure in the transaction, whether as seconds or princ.i.p.als."

The following appeared in a Manchester paper in 1865:--

"SUPERSt.i.tION IN SALFORD.--At the Salford Town Hall, yesterday, John Rhodes, apparently a respectable man, living at 226, Regent Road, was charged, under the Vagrancy Act, with telling fortunes. A girl, named Ellen Cooper, stated that she saw the prisoner at his house, on Tuesday.

After she had told him the date of her nativity, the prisoner cast her horoscope, and told her what she might expect would be her future fortune. For this she paid a shilling, which she understood was his regular charge. During the time the girl was there, several other females called on a similar errand, but did not stay. From information given by the girl, Cooper, two detective officers called at the prisoner's house on Thursday, where they found him with a female standing beside him, whose future destiny he was busy calculating, aided by an astrological work and a large slate. On the latter were what was apparently intended as a representation of the movements of the heavenly bodies. In the prisoner's house the officers found a large number of books, including 'An Introduction to Astrology,' by William Lilly; 'Raphael's Prophetic Alphabet'; 'Occult Philosophy,' by Cornelius Agrippa (in ma.n.u.script); a work on horary astrology, &c. Besides these, six large volumes were seized, which were filled with the names and the dates of the nativities of his clients, neatly surrounded, in each case, with hieroglyphics. In addition to these were ma.n.u.scripts with forms of invocations to spirits to do the will and bidding of the invoker; also love spells, and forms for invoking evil destinies. The text of one of these was as follows:--'I adjure and command you, ye strong, mighty, and powerful spirits, who are rulers of this day and hour, that ye obey me in this my cause by placing my husband in his former situation under the Trent Brewery Company, and I adjure you to banish all his enemies out of his way and to make them to crouch in humiliation unto him and acknowledge all the wrongs they have done unto him, and I bind you by the name of Almighty G.o.d, and by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His precious blood, and on pain of everlasting d.a.m.nation, that you labour for him and complete and accomplish the whole of this my will and desire, and not depart till the whole of this my will and desire be fulfilled, and when you have accomplished the whole of these my commands you shall be released from all these bonds and demands, and this I guarantee through the blood of the Redeemer and on pain of my future happiness. Let angels praise the Lord. Amen.' Amongst the papers found there was sufficient evidence that, amongst the prisoner's many hundreds of clients, there were those who moved in a sphere of life not peculiar to the poorer cla.s.ses. Mr. Roberts defended the prisoner. Mr. Trafford said the practice was so mischievous that he could not let the prisoner off without some punishment; he must therefore send him to prison for seven days."

From the following, which appeared in the _New Zealand Herald_ in 1865, it appears the belief in witchcraft produces serious results amongst the Maories:--

"From Kawhia we hear of wars and rumours of wars, instigated probably by the desire of the semi-friendly natives there to be put on rations and receive pay. Hone Wetere (John Wesley) late native magistrate there, who was deposed from his office four years ago for the abduction of a native woman, the wife of a sawyer named Wright, has been adding to the interest of native proceedings at the present time by the commission of a most brutal murder. It seems that this late learned interpreter of the law had, with a zeal worthy of Matthew Hopkins, condemned an old Maori woman of 'makutu,' or witchcraft, and punished her by his own hands, cutting off her head on the spot. This may appear to Auckland philo-Maories as something startling and, perhaps, out of the way, but to us here it is no extraordinary event. It is only a few years since two natives in our district murdered a man and woman for the same reason, and cooked a copper Maori over their grave. Much about the same time, at Kawhia, a native and his wife pulled the heart out of their living child under the impression that the poor infant was bewitched."