Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 15

And when a year was pa.s.sed away, All pale on her bier the young maid lay!

And the glow-worm came With its silvery flame, And sparkled and shone Through the night of St. John; And they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay.

Vernaleken says the Slavocks believe that any person approaching too near to the fern, at the time of its "efflorescence," will be overcome by drowsiness, and that beings of a supernatural character will successfully resist any attempt to lay hands on the plant. Bivot has a statement to a somewhat similar effect.

A remarkable story respecting the magical quality of fern seed is related by Jacob Grimm, in his "Deutsche Mythologie." It is said to be a popular one with the people of Westphalia. A man, in search of a foal, pa.s.sed through a meadow on Midsummer's Eve, when some ripening fern seed fell into his shoes. He did not return home until the following morning, when he was astonished to find that his wife and children appeared utterly unconscious of his presence. When he called out to them, "I have not found the foal," the greatest alarm and confusion followed, for the members of his household could hear his voice but failed to detect his person. Fancying he was hiding in jest, his wife called out his name. He answered, "Here I am right before you. Why do you call me?" This but increased their terror. The man perceiving that he was, to them invisible, thought it not improbable that something in his shoes, which felt like sand, might really prove to be fern seed. He accordingly pulled them off, and as he scattered the grains on the floor resumed his visibility to the eyes of his astounded family.

In an ancient "Calendar of the Romish Church," the 23rd June, the vigil of the nativity of John the Baptist, is stated to be prolific in supernatural phenomena. Amongst others we are informed that "waters are swum in during the night, and are brought in vessels that hang for the purposes of divination;" that "fern is in great estimation with the vulgar, on account of its seed." We are further informed that "herbs of different kinds are sought with many ceremonies." Monsieur Bergerac, in his "Satyrical Characters," translated "out of the French, by a Person of Honour," in 1658, makes a magician of the period enumerate amongst his many powers and duties the "wakening of the country fellow on St.

John's eve to gather his hearb, fasting and in silence." Brand says that "a respectable countryman, at Heston, in Middles.e.x," had stated to him that he had often been "present at the ceremony of catching the fern seed at midnight on the eve of St. John the Baptist. The attempt, he said, was often unsuccessful, for the seed was to fall into the plate of its own accord, and that, too, without shaking the plant."

Referring to our Lancashire superst.i.tions Mr. T. T. Wilkinson says:--"Fern seed is still said to be gathered on the Holy Bible, and is believed to be able to render those invisible who will dare to take it; and herbs for the use of man and beasts are still collected when their proper planets are ruling in the heavens."

Ceremonies on St. John's Eve are likewise regarded as very potent in matters matrimonial. Bivot describes a party of fair ladies who say,--"We have been told divers times that if we fasted on Midsummer Eve, and then at twelve o'clock at night laid a cloth on the table, with bread and cheese, and a cup of the best beer, setting ourselves down as if we were going to eat, and leaving the door of the room open, we should see the persons whom we should afterwards marry, come into the room and drink to us."

The belief in the power of fern seed in the domain over which Cupid is said to preside, still lingers in various parts of Lancashire. The best story of this cla.s.s that I have met with, is related by Samuel Bamford, in his "Pa.s.sages in the Life of a Radical." One Bangle, a Lancashire youth, "of ardent temperament but bashful withal," had become enamoured of the daughter of a neighbouring farmer.

"His modest approaches had not been noticed by the adored one; and, as she had danced with another youth at Bury fair, he imagined she was irrecoverably lost to him, and the persuasion had driven him melancholy.

Doctors had been applied to, but he was no better; philters and charms had been tried to bring down the cold-hearted maid, but all in vain....

At length sorcerers and fortune-tellers were thought of, and 'Limping Billy,' a noted seer, residing at Radcliffe Bridge, having been consulted, said the lad had no chance of gaining power over the damsel, unless he could take St. John's fern seed; and if he could but secure three grains of that, he might bring to him whatever he wished, that walked, flew, or swam."

Two friends, Plant, a country botanist, and Chirrup, a bird catcher, agreed to accompany Bangle in his expedition in search of the potent fern seed. Plant said he knew where the finest specimens of the herb grew, and led the way to the "Boggart Ho' Clough," referred to in the preceding chapter. The three worthies a.s.sembled on the Eve of St. John, at midnight, in this then thickly wooded glen. As a part of the necessary cabalistic implements, Plant brought an earthen dish, "brown and roof" [rough], Chirrup a pewter platter, which he regarded as "breet enough" for their purpose; Bangle's contribution, which he described as "teed wi' web an' woof," and "deep enough," was "a musty dun skull, with the cap sawn off above the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a twine of three strands made of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.... A silence, like that of death, was around them, as they entered the open platting.

Nothing moved either in tree or brake. Through a s.p.a.ce in the foliage the stars were seen pale in heaven, and a crooked moon hung in a bit of blue, amid motionless clouds. All was still and breathless as if earth, heaven, and the elements were aghast.... Gasping, and with cold sweat oozing on his brow, Plant recollected that they were to shake the fern with a forked rod of witch hazel, and by no means must touch it with their hands.... Plant drew his knife, and stepping into a moonlighted bush, soon returned with what was wanted, and then went forward. The green knowe [knoll], the old oaks, the encircled s.p.a.ce, and the fern were now approached; the latter stiff and erect in a gleamy light....

Plant knelt on one knee, and held his dish under the fern. Chirrup held his broad plate next below, and Bangle knelt and rested the skull directly under both on the green sod, the lid being up. Plant said:--

Good St. John, this seed we crave, We have dared; shall we have?

"A voice responded--

Now the moon is downward starting, Moon and stars are now departing; Quick, quick; shake, shake; He whose heart shall soonest break, Let him take.

"They looked, and perceived by a glame that a venerable form, in a loose robe, was near them.

"Darkness came down like a swoop. The fern was shaken; the upper dish flew into pieces; the pewter one melted; the skull emitted a cry, and eyes glared in its sockets; lights broke; beautiful children were seen walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung mournful and enchanting airs. The men stood terrified and fascinated; and Bangle, gazing, bade 'G.o.d bless 'em.' A crash followed as if all the timber in the kloof was being splintered and torn up; strange and horrid forms appeared from the thickets; the men ran as if sped on the wind.

They separated and lost each other."

Plant lay unconscious at home for three days, and "Chirrup was found on the White Moss, raving mad and chasing the wild birds; as for poor Bangle, he found his way home over hedge and ditch, running with supernatural and fearful speed--the skull's eyes glaring at his back, and the nether jaw grinning and jabbering frightful and unintelligible sounds. He had preserved the seed, however, and, having taken it from the skull, he buried the latter at the cross road from whence he had taken it. He then carried the spell out, and his proud love stood one night by his bedside in tears. But he had done too much for human nature--in three months after she followed his corpse, a real mourner, to the grave."

Kelly gives several ill.u.s.trations of the varied forms in which the superst.i.tions respecting this "lightning plant" are presented in other countries, which throw additional light upon some of the incidents in Bamford's story. He says:--"Besides the powers already mentioned, fern has others which distinctly mark its affinity with thunder and lightning. 'In places where it grows the devil rarely practises his glamour. He shuns and abhors the house and the place where it is, and thunder, lightning and hail rarely fall there.'[28] This is in apparent contradiction with the Polish superst.i.tion, according to which the plucking of fern produces a violent thunderstorm; but it is a natural superst.i.tion, that the hitherto rooted and transformed thunderbolt resumes its pristine nature, when the plant that contained it is taken from the ground. In the Thuringian forest fern is called _irrkracet_, or bewildering weed (from _irren_, to err, go astray), because whoever treads on it unawares loses his wits, and knows not where he is. In fact, he is in that condition of mind which we English call 'thunderstruck,' and which Germans, Romans, and Greeks have agreed in denoting by exactly corresponding terms. He has been crazed by a shock from the lightning with which the fern is charged like a Leyden jar.

Instances of a similar phenomenon occur in the legends of India and Greece."

The forms of beauty, referred to by Bamford as appearing amongst the uncouth and "jabbering" sprites on this momentous occasion, are suggestive of the legend of the "bright-day G.o.d" Baldr. Longfellow says,--"Now the glad, leafy Midsummer, full of blossoms and songs of nightingales is come! Saint John has taken the flowers and festival of heathen Balder." It appears that Freyja, in exacting an oath from all created things never to harm this "whitest and most beloved of the G.o.ds," inadvertently overlooked one of the lightning plants. It was an arrow formed from the branch of the mistletoe, flung by the hand of the blind Hodr or Helder, with which Baldr was struck dead. Baldr, says the legend, was buried in the true Scandinavian fashion. His body was placed by the aesir on a funeral pyre, raised on the deck of a ship, and whilst the former was in flames the latter was floated seaward. The "St.

John's-wort" seems to have superseded the mistletoe in the modern tradition. As both were "lightning plants," this however is not specially remarkable.

Ferns belong to the cla.s.s _Cryptogamia_, or non-flowering plants. They produce no seed, in a true sense, but fructify by means of the sporules, or spores, deposited in _thecae_, on the under side of the fronds. It was formerly believed that they did produce seed, and old botanists describe it as "too minute and obscure" to be readily detected. Singularly enough, the St. John's-wort (Hyperic.u.m), of which there are several species found in Lancashire, is generally confounded in these traditions with the _Osmunda Regalis_, or royal fern, or, as it is sometimes improperly styled, the "_flowering_ fern," which, of course, is an absurdity, as expressing neither more nor less than the flowering non-flowering plant! The name is said to be of Saxon origin, Osmunda being one of the appellations of Thor, who, as we have previously seen, was the "consecrator of marriage." The sporules are very numerous and minute. The common St. John's-wort (_Hyperic.u.m Vulgare._ Lin.) bears a yellow flower, and produces, of course, regular seeds. Hill, in his "British Herbal," published in 1756, says, "A tincture of the flower made strong in white wine is recommended greatly by some against melancholy; but of these qualities we speak with less certainty, though they deserve a fair trial."

Mr. John Ingram, in his "Flora Symbolica," says,--"Vervain, or wild verbena, has been the floral symbol of enchantment from time immemorial."

Ben Jonson says:--

Bring your garlands, and with reverence place The vervain on the altar.

Mr. Ingram adds,--"In some country districts this small insignificant flower still retains a portion of its old renown, and old folks tie it round the neck to charm away the ague; with many it still has the reputation of securing affection from those who take it to those who administer it; and still in some parts of France do the peasantry continue to gather the vervain, with ceremonies and words known only to themselves; and to express its juices under certain phases of the moon.

At once the doctors and conjurors of their village, they alternately cure the complaints of their masters or fill them with dread; for the same means which relieve their ailments enable them to cast a spell on their cattle and on the hearts of their daughters. They insist that this power is given to them by vervain, especially when the damsels are young and handsome. The vervain is still the plant of spells and enchantments, as it was amongst the ancients."

A superst.i.tious feeling yet prevails that the burning of fern attracts rain. A copy of a royal proclamation is preserved in the British Museum, enjoining the country people not to burn the fern on the waysides during a "royal progress" of the merry monarch, Charles II.

The confusion which exists in the minds of the vulgar respecting two very distinct cla.s.ses of these plants, all, however, of lightning origin in the Aryan mythology, is thus commented upon by Kelly:--"It is also a highly significant fact that the marvellous root (St. John's-wort) is said to be connected with fern; for the johnsroot or john's hand is the root of a species of fern (_Polypodium Filix mas._ Lin.), which is applied to many superst.i.tious uses. The fern has large pinnate fronds, and is thus related to the mountain ash and the mimosae. In fact, says Kuhn, it were hardly possible to find in our climate a plant which more accurately corresponds in its whole appearance to the original signification of the Sanscrit name parna as leaf and feather. Nor does the relationship between them end here, for fern, Anglo-Saxon _fearn_, Old German _faram_, _farn_, and Sanscrit _parna_, are one and the same word. It is also worthy of note that whereas one of the German names of the rowan means boarash (eberesche), so also there is a fern (_Polypodium Filix arboratica_) which is called in Anglo-Saxon _eoferfarn_, _eferfarn_, that is boar-fern. In all the Indo-European mythologies the boar is an animal connected with storm and lightning."

Mr. Edwin Waugh, in his "Sketches of Lancashire Life and Localities,"

mentions a curious fact relative to this famous "Boggart Ho' Clough,"

which is not without its significance. He says he was informed that a lawyer, anxious to describe the locality in a legal doc.u.ment, had found, on referring to some old t.i.tle deeds, that a "family of the name of 'Bowker' had formerly occupied a residence situate in or near the clough; and that their dwelling was designated 'Bowker's Hall.'" The lawyer very naturally adopted this as the true origin of the name. Yet Mr. Waugh informs us that the "testimony of every writer who notices the spot, especially those best acquainted with it, inclines to the other derivation."

Feeling some curiosity as to the true origin of this bit of local nomenclature, I some time ago visited the place, in company with Mr.

Waugh. While we were resting at the farm-house at the head of the clough, I asked a buxom maid if she had ever seen a boggart in the neighbourhood. She candidly confessed that she had not. On my pressing her hard as to whether she knew any one who had been more fortunate, or unfortunate, as the case might be, she said firmly, after a slight scrutiny of my countenance and figure--"Yes; Sam Bamford has!" I put similar questions about an hour afterwards to the maid at the "Bell"

public-house, in Moston Lane, which, to my surprise, elicited exactly similar responses. I pressed this girl still further on the subject; and at length she frankly said,--"I don't think any body, as I know, has sin a boggart i'th clough except Bamford, 'bout it be Edwin Waugh. Ye've heard of him, no doubt!" The girl was astounded on my informing her that Mr. Waugh was present; and still more so when she witnessed the amus.e.m.e.nt which his supposed interview with the redoubtable boggart created amongst the party.

That there have existed traditions of boggarts, ghosts, &c., in the neighbourhood, as in other places, from time immemorial, cannot admit of a doubt; but I nevertheless suspect that the corruption referred to by Mr. Waugh has fixed the precise locality of, at least, one of the stories to which I have referred. Once call a place "Boggart Ho'

Clough," and especially such a place, and I can easily imagine, in a very short time, that many of the floating traditions of the neighbourhood would fasten themselves upon it. This being afterwards rendered more definite by the action of literary exponents of traditionary lore, is quite sufficient to explain the whole of the phenomena pertaining to the question in dispute. It must not be forgotten, either, that by the vernacular appellation the clough is not necessarily supposed to be haunted, but the "_hall_" merely, which stood in it, or somewhere in its neighbourhood.

On the line of the Roman Wall, to the north of Haltwhistle, Dr.

Collingwood Bruce speaks of "a gap of bold proportions having the ominous name of Boglehole." Doubtless many other localities could be pointed out where a nomenclature of a similar kind obtains, and is still believed in by many not necessarily otherwise uneducated people.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Jacob Grimm.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SPECTRE HUNTSMAN AND THE FURIOUS HOST.

He the seven birds hath seen that never part, Seen the seven whistlers on their mighty rounds, And counted them! And oftentimes will start, _For overhead are sweeping Gabriel's hounds_, Doomed with their _impious lord_ the flying hart, To chase for ever on aerial grounds.

_Wordsworth._

"Amongst the most prominent of the demon superst.i.tions prevalent in Lancashire," says Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, "we may first instance that of the Spectre Huntsman, which occupies so conspicuous a place in the folk-lore of Germany and the north. This superst.i.tion is still extant in the gorge of Cliviger, where he is believed to hunt a milk white doe round the Eagle's Crag, in the vale of Todmorden, on All Hallows Eve.

His _hounds_ are said to fly yelping through the air on many other occasions, and, under the local name of '_Gabriel Ratchets_,' are supposed to predict death or misfortune to all who hear the sounds."

This superst.i.tion is known about Leeds, and other places in Yorkshire, as "_Gabble Retchet_," and refers more especially to the belief that the souls of unbaptised children are doomed to wander in this stormy fashion about the homes of their parents.

These peculiar superst.i.tions appear to have nearly died out, or to have become merged into some other legends based on the action of the Aryan storm-G.o.ds, Indra, Rudra, and their attendant Maruts or Winds, both in Great Britain and Ireland. According to a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, of July, 1836, the wild huntsman still lingers in Devonshire.

He says, "the spectre pack which hunts over Dartmoor is called the 'wish hounds,' and the black 'master' who follows the chase is no doubt the same who has left his mark on Wistman's Wood," a neighbouring forest of dwarf oaks.

The late Mr. Holland, of Sheffield, referring to this superst.i.tion, in 1861, says, "I can never forget the impression made upon my own mind when once arrested by the cry of these Gabriel hounds as I pa.s.sed the parish church of Sheffield, one densely dark and very still night. The sound was exactly like the greeting of a dozen beagles on the foot of a race, but not so loud, and highly suggestive of ideas of the supernatural." Mr. Holland has embodied the local feeling on this subject in the following sonnet:--