Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 17

Woe to the coward that ever he was born, That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!

_A whirlwind_ expelled the horse dealer from the cavern, the entrance to which he could never find again."

In the neighbourhood of Kirkoswald, on the Eden, in c.u.mberland, a district prolific in Arthurian legends, it is said that "a peculiar wind called the _Helmwind_, sometimes blows with great fury in this part of the country. It is believed by some persons to be an electrical phenomenon." Perhaps this fact may have some remote connection with the superst.i.tion under consideration.

Sir Walter remarks that although his legend refers to Sheriffmoor, and 1715, a similar story is related in the reign of Elizabeth by Reginald Scot. Indeed, it is told with some variations in several localities, both in the Highlands and in the northern counties of England. In Hodgson's "Northumberland" it is described in the following terms:--

"Immemorial tradition has a.s.serted that King Arthur, his queen, Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds, were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there till some one should first blow a bugle-horn, that lay on a table near the entrance of the hall, and then, with 'the sword of the stone,' cut a garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields, about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briers and nettles, as he supposed, into a deep subterranean pa.s.sage. Full in the faith that the entrance into King Arthur's hall was now discovered, he cleared the briery portal of its weeds and rubbish, and, entering a vaulted pa.s.sage, followed, in his darkling way, the thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant light, which, as he advanced, grew gradually brighter, till, all at once, he entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which, a fire without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor, blazed with a high and lambent flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the faithful and _deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds_; and, on a table before it, the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and, as the sword was being slowly sheathed, the spell a.s.sumed its ancient power, and they all sank gradually to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands, and exclaimed:--

O woe betide that evil day On which this witless wight was born, Who drew the sword--the garter cut, But never blew the bugle-horn.

Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to the enchanted hall."

The Arthur legend is repeated, with some slight variations, by the country people about Alderley Edge, Cheshire. The sleeping warriors are said to repose in the recesses of a place called the "Wizard's Cave."

An old Cornish legend avers that King Arthur is still alive in the form of a raven; and certain superst.i.tious people refuse to shoot these birds, from a fear that they might inadvertently destroy the mythic warrior.

King Arthur and his knights have been so popular in Lancashire, that the Rev. John Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, seriously relates the story of Sir Tarquin and Lancelot of the Lake as an historical event pertaining to this county. According to him, Tarquin's castle was at Manchester, and the lake from which Sir Lancelot derived his surname the now almost thoroughly drained Martin Mere. He contends that discovered remains demonstrate that three of the battles won by Arthur, and ascribed by tradition to the neighbourhood of the Douglas, were fought near Wigan and Blackrod. Geoffrey of Monmouth, however, only mentions one battle as being fought on the banks of the Douglas. He says:--

"The Saxons, under the command of Colgrin, were attempting to exterminate the whole of the British race. They had also entirely subdued all that part of the island which extends from the Humber to the sea of Caithness.... Hereupon he (Arthur) marched to (towards) York, of which, when Colgrin had intelligence, he met him with a very great army, composed of Saxons, Scots, and Picts, _by the river Duglas_, where a battle happened with the loss of the greater part of both armies.

Notwithstanding, the victory fell to Arthur, who pursued Colgrin to York, and there besieged him."

The "historical" Arthur, however, has long been looked upon by the best historians as a mythical or fict.i.tious personage, the representative, or impersonation as it were, of the national valour and superst.i.tion.[31]

Dr. Kuhn and others regard all the stories of these caverned heroes as merely relatively modernised forms of Odin and his terrible host. They refer the weapon suspended in the cave to "that of Heimdallr, the Sverdas or sword-G.o.d, and warder of Bifrost Bridge," to whom belongs the "Gjallar horn with which he will warn the G.o.ds that the frost giants are advancing to storm Valhalla." The mighty conflict in which they expect to be engaged "will be fought before the end of the world, when heaven and earth shall be destroyed, and the aesir G.o.ds themselves shall perish, and their places shall be filled by a new creation and new and brighter G.o.ds." This dark myth is by some writers regarded as a foreshadowing of the downfall of paganism and the advent of a higher civilisation and purer religion under the Christian dispensation.

Tempests and the howling of the wind appear to have been regarded with superst.i.tious reverence from the earliest times in the British islands.

Plutarch speaks of the return to Delphos from Britain of a certain grammarian, named Demetrius, who related some curious stories with respect to the then but little known country. Amongst other things the travelled sage narrated to Plutarch and his friends the following story:--"There are many desert islands scattered about Britain, some of which have the name of being the islands of genii and heroes; that he had been sent by the emperor, for the sake of describing and viewing them, to that which lay nearest to the desert isles, and which had but few inhabitants; all of whom were esteemed by the Britons sacred and inviolable. Very soon after his arrival there was great turbulence in the air, and many portentous storms; the winds became tempestuous, and fiery whirlwinds rushed forth. When these ceased, the islanders said that the departure of some one of the superior genii had taken place.

For, as a light when burning, say they, has nothing disagreeable, but when extinguished, is offensive to many; so likewise lofty spirits afford an illumination benignant and mild, but their extinction and destruction frequently, as at the present moment, excite winds and storms, and often infect the atmosphere with pestilential evils.

Moreover, that there was one island there, where Saturn was confined by Briareus in sleep: for that sleep had been devised for his bonds; and that around him were many genii as his companions and attendants."

Singularly enough, M. Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land,"

found a similar superst.i.tion to obtain amongst the West Coast Equatorial Africans. They believe that the Oguisi or "spirit" brings the plague amongst them in the form of a whirlwind. An impression got abroad that the white man who was advancing into their territories was the veritable Oguisi, and consequently, owing to their fetich superst.i.tion, they expected disaster therefrom. He says:--"The King of the Niembouai, like most of the other monarchs of these regions, did not show himself on my arrival--he was absent until about noon to-day. I have been told that the reason why the chiefs keep away from the villages until I have been in them some time is, that they have a notion that I bring with me a whirlwind which may do them some great harm; so they wait until it has had time to blow away from the village before they make their appearance."

It is somewhat remarkable that the tradition of the "wild hunt," or the "furious host," has become obsolete, or nearly so, in Ireland, inasmuch as that country has preserved, with much minuteness, many other Aryan myths. What does remain in Ireland, however, is singularly in accordance with the properties a.s.signed to the elder storm-G.o.ds, Indra and Rudra, and their followers, the Ribhus and the Maruts, in the Rig Veda.

A writer in the _Athenaeum_, in 1847, makes the following observations:--"The ideas of the Irish peasantry respecting the state of departed souls are very singular. According to the tenets of the church to which the majority of them belong, the souls of the departed are either in paradise, h.e.l.l, or purgatory. But popular belief a.s.signs the air as a fourth place of suffering, where unquiet souls wander about until their period of penance is past. On a cold, or wet, or stormy night, the peasant will exclaim with real sympathy 'Musha! G.o.d help the poor souls that are in the shelter of the ditches, or under the eaves this way!' And the good 'chanathee' or mother of a family will sweep the hearth, that the poor souls may warm themselves when the family retires.

The conviction that the spirits of the departed sweep along with the storm or shiver in the driving rain, is singularly wild and near akin to the Scandinavian myth." The ident.i.ty of this superst.i.tion with some of the Aryan myths, is very easily perceived. Kelly says:--"Indra has for friends and followers the Maruts, or spirits of the winds, whose host consists, at least in part, of the souls of the pious dead; and the Ribhus, who are of similar origin, but whose element is rather that of the sunbeams or the lightning, though they too rule the winds, and sing like the Maruts the loud song of the storm."

The same writer gives the following graphic description of the popular feeling and action on the approach of this mythic cavalcade:--"The first token which the furious host gives of its approach is a low song that makes the hearer's flesh creep. The gra.s.s and the leaves of the forest wave and bow in the moonshine as often as the strain begins anew.

Presently the sounds come nearer and nearer, and swell into the music of a thousand instruments. Then bursts the hurricane, and the oaks of the forest come crashing down. The spectral appearance often presents itself in the shape of a great black coach, on which sit hundreds of spirits singing a wonderfully sweet song. Before it goes a man, who loudly warns everybody to get out of the way. All who hear him must instantly drop down with their faces to the ground, as at the coming of the wild hunt, and hold fast by something, were it only a blade of gra.s.s; for the furious host has been known to force many a man into its coach and carry him hundreds of miles away through the air."

The black coach version of the legend of the furious host yet survives in the North of England. Mr. Henderson says:--"Night after night, too, when it is sufficiently dark, the headless coach whirls along the rough approach to Langley Hall, near Durham, drawn by black and fiery steeds."

In a work ent.i.tled "Rambles in Northumberland," it is referred to in the following terms:--"When the death-hea.r.s.e, drawn by headless horses, and driven by a headless driver, is seen about midnight, proceeding rapidly, but without noise, towards the churchyard, the death of some considerable person in the parish is sure to happen at no distant period." It is likewise referred to in Rees's Diary as a "vision of a coach drawn by six black swine, and driven by a black driver."

Grose says:--"We sometimes read of ghosts striking violent blows; and that, if not made way for, they overturn all impediment, _like a furious whirlwind_." Yet singularly enough in the same paragraph, speaking on the authority of Glanvil of the apparition of an old woman, he informs us that "if a tree stood in her walk," the spectator "observed her always to go through it." Notwithstanding this feat, the old lady must have had some materiality about her, for on being lifted from the ground by human hands at her request, her ghostship "felt just like a bag of feathers."

"The furious host" seems to have differed in some legends from the "wild hunt" of Odin and his followers, and yet in others they appear as it were in combination. Indeed, the name Woden, itself, signifies the "Furious One;" and hence, doubtless, we have the link which legitimately connects them together. "_Wud_" still signifies "mad" in some existing Scottish dialects. The hounds of the "spectre huntsman" are believed to be human souls transformed into air; which in their wild career strip the hedges of the linen placed there to dry; they eat up or scatter abroad meal and the ashes that lay on the peasant's hearth. The hound sometimes left behind in the household, through which the wild hunt has pa.s.sed, is supposed to repose on the hearth for a whole year, during which time it lives upon ashes, and howls and whines, until the spectre horseman returns, when it jumps on its feet, wags its tail with joy, and rejoins its ancient comrades. Kelly says:--"There is only one way amongst the Germans of ridding the house sooner of the unwelcome guest, and that is to brew beer in eggsh.e.l.ls. The hound watches the operation and exclaims

Though I am now as old as the old Bohemian wold, Yet the like of this I ween, in my life I ne'er have seen.

And it goes, and is seen no more. On Christmas evenings especially, that is to say, at the season of the winter solstice, it is very unsafe to leave linen hanging out of doors, for the wild huntsman's hounds will tear it to pieces." The soughing of the wind through crevices, windows, or doorways in buildings, or narrow pa.s.sages in the hills, like that at Cliviger, was believed to be the howling of Odin's hounds, and to indicate the pa.s.sage of "the furious host."

This spectre hound or dog is a very common sprite in Lancashire. I remember well being terrified in my youth in Preston, by Christmas recitals of strange stories of its appearance, and the misfortune which its howling was said to forebode. The Preston black dog was without a head, which rendered the said howling still more mysterious to my youthful imagination. A gentleman recently related to me a story respecting this "dog-fiend," which he had direct from a Manchester tradesman's own lips, who thoroughly believed in the supernatural character of his nocturnal a.s.sailant. This tradesman, a Mr. Drabble, a.s.sured my friend that the celebrated black headless dog-fiend, on one occasion, about the year 1825, suddenly appeared before, or rather behind, him, not far from the then Collegiate Church; and, placing its fore paws upon his shoulders, actually ran him home at a rapid rate, in spite of his strenuous resistance. He was so terrified at the incident that he rushed into bed in his dirty clothes, much to the surprise and dismay of his family. This particular dog-boggart is believed yet by many to have been "laid" and buried under the dry arch of the old bridge across the Irwell, on the Salford side of the river; and that the spell to which it has been subjected will endure for 999 years, which, I suppose, in vulgar as well as legal parlance, is supposed to be nearly equivalent to the more comprehensive term--"for ever."

In Larwood and Hotten's "History of Signboards," I find the following:--"This Black Dog may have derived its name from the canine spectre that still frightens the ignorant and fearful in the rural districts, just as the terrible Dun Cow and the Lambton Worm were the terror of the people in olden times. Near Lyme Regis, Dorset, there is an alehouse which has this black fiend in all his ancient ugliness painted over the door. Its adoption there arose from a legend that the spectral black dog used to haunt at nights the kitchen fire of a neighbouring farm-house, formerly a Royalist mansion, destroyed by Cromwell's troops. The dog would sit opposite the farmer; but one night a little extra liquor gave the man additional courage, and he struck at the dog, intending to rid himself of the horrid thing. Away, however, flew the dog, and the farmer after him, from one room to another, until it sprang through the roof, and was seen no more that night. In mending the hole, a lot of money fell down, which, of course, was connected in some way or other with the dog's strange visit. Near the house is a lane still called Dog Lane, which is now the favourite walk of the black dog, and to this _genius loci_ the sign is dedicated."

I am inclined to think that the "Trash" or "Skriker" described by Mr.

Wilkinson, of Burnley, has some relationship to the strayed hound of Odin, and more especially so, as the spectre huntsman is well known in the neighbourhood of the Cliviger gorge. He says:--

"The appearance of this sprite is considered a certain death-sign, and has obtained the local names of 'Trash' or 'Skriker.' He generally appears to one of the family from which death is about to select his victim, and is more or less visible according to the distance of the event. I have met with persons to whom the barghaist has a.s.sumed the form of a white cow or a horse; but on most occasions 'Trash' is described as having the appearance of a large dog, with very broad feet, s.h.a.ggy hair, drooping ears, and 'eyes as large as saucers.' When walking, his feet make a loud splashing noise, like old shoes in a miry road, and hence the name of 'Trash.' The appellation, 'Skriker,' has reference to the screams uttered by the sprite, which are frequently heard when the animal is invisible. When followed by any individual, he begins to walk backwards, with his eyes fixed full on his pursuer, and vanishes on the slightest momentary inattention. Occasionally he plunges into a pool of water, and at other times he sinks at the feet of the person to whom he appears with a loud splashing noise, as if a heavy stone was thrown into the miry road. Some are reported to have attempted to strike him with any weapon they had at hand, but there was no substance present to receive the blows, although the Skriker kept his ground. He is said to frequent the neighbourhood of Burnley at present, and is mostly seen in G.o.dly Lane and about the Parochial Church; but he by no means confines his visits to the churchyard, as similar sprites are said to do in other parts of England and Wales."

Grose tells us that dogs have "the faculty of seeing spirits," and he instances the case of one David Hunter, a neatherd to the Bishop of Down and Connor, whose dog accompanied him _quietly_, when, from an impulse he was unable to restrain, he wandered after the apparition of an old woman by which he was haunted. "But," Grose adds, "they usually show signs of terror, by whining and creeping to their master for protection; and it is generally supposed that they often see things of this nature when their owner cannot; there being some persons, particularly those born on a Christmas-eve, who cannot see spirits."

Max Muller etymologically identifies the cla.s.sic Cerberus or Kerberos with the Vedic Sarvari, "the dog of night, watching the path to the lower world." Grimm says that the dog is an embodiment of the wind and an attendant of the dead both in the mythology of the Germans and the Aryans, and that both these attributes are conspicuous in the wild hunt superst.i.tions. Dogs, he adds, see ghosts, as well as the G.o.ddess of death, Hel, although she is invisible to human eyes. Kuhn contends that the name of Yama's canine messengers, Sarameyas, was borne in Greek form, by the messenger of the Greek G.o.ds, Hermeias or Hermes, the conductor of the shades of the departed to the realm of Hades. With the aid of Athene, Hermes conducted Heracles in safety, with the dog Kerberos, out of Hades.

In the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" (1631) is the following reference to this superst.i.tion:--

I know thee well; I heare the watchfull dogs, With hollow howling, tell of thy approach; The lights burne dim, affrighted with thy presence; And this distempered and tempestuous night Tells me the ayre is troubled with some devill.

The superst.i.tion that the howling of a dog, especially in the night time, portends the death of some person in the immediate neighbourhood, is yet, at the present day, firmly believed in, even by the middle, and by no means uneducated, cla.s.ses in Lancashire. I listened, not very long ago, to the serious recital of a story by one who heard the howling and knew well the party whose death immediately followed. He himself, being sick at the time, deemed his own end approaching, but was relieved of his terror on being informed that a well-known neighbour had just expired.

It is by no means improbable that the extremely delicate sense of smell possessed by some of the canine species or varieties, as especially exhibited in the scenting of game and carrion or putrid flesh, may have influenced the original personification of the dog as an attendant on the dead.

Charles d.i.c.kens, in a recent Christmas story, describes, with his usual felicity, a rather singular phase of this "howling hound" superst.i.tion.

It appears that Dr. Marigold's dog, true to the instincts of his bl.u.s.tering race, could snuff an approaching storm of a "domestic"

character with the most unerring precision. Certainly there are localities in which the blasts of old Boreas, and the storm songs of the Maruts, are infinitely more disagreeable than they are in certain others. To encounter them alone on the bleak mountain top, or in a wild gorge, like that of Cliviger, on an "old-fashioned Christmas" or New Year's-eve, is not productive of exactly the same kind of satisfaction as results from attentively listening to their wild harmonies when seated in a warm corner of one's own "snuggery," with plenty of good cheer, and a select few of tried old friends partaking of the hospitality characteristic of the season. Dr. Marigold, who is neither more nor less than the witty and loquacious "Cheap John," of mock-auction renown, thinks, very properly, that his peripatetic place of business was a very unsuitable locality for domestic hurricanes. He says:--"We might have had such a pleasant life. A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and kettle, a fire-place for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off on a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors', you cook your stew, and you would not call the Emperor of France your father. But have a _temper_ in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then? Put a name to your feelings! My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it was a mystery to me, but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl and bolt. At such times I wished I was him."

The large "saucer eyes" of Skriker, and his "_vanishing_ on the slightest momentary inattention," are suggestive of some connection with lightning or the ignis fatuus, or wild fire; and, singularly enough, I find Will-o'-whisp traditions bear considerable resemblance to those which appertain to the furious host. Mr. Thoms, in his "Shakspere Notelets," has some curious information on this subject. He says:--

"According to some these phantoms are believed to be the souls of children who have died unbaptised; while others again believe them to be the restless spirits of wicked and covetous men, who have not scrupled, for the sake of their own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, to remove their neighbours'

landmarks. In Brittany, we learn from Villemarque, the _Porte-brandon_ appears in the form of a child bearing a torch, which he turns like a burning wheel; and with this it is said he sets fire to the villages, which are sometimes suddenly in the middle of the night wrapped in flames. In Lusatia, where these wandering children are also supposed to be the souls of unbaptised children, they are believed to be perfectly harmless, and to be relieved from their destined wanderings as soon as any pious hand throws a handful of consecrated ground after them."

This form of superst.i.tion prevails yet to a considerable extent in the north of England and Scotland.

The Maruts or storm-winds of the Sanscrit myths, who rode on tawny-coloured horses, roared like lions, shook the mountains, and tore up trees, when their wild work was done, Max Muller informs us, a.s.sumed again, "according to their wont, the form of new-born babes," a phrase which, as Mr. c.o.x justly observes, "exhibits the germ, and more than the germ, of the myth of Hermes returning like a child to his cradle after tearing up the forests." Hermes, as a personification of both the gentle breeze and the stormy wind, gives forth soothing as well as martial music, and his plaintive breath was supposed "to waft the spirits of the dead to their unseen home." Crantz says the Greenland Esquimaux "lay a dog's head by the grave of a child, for the soul of a dog can find its way everywhere, and will show the ignorant babe the way to the land of souls." The Pa.r.s.ees place a dog before the dying, from a similar superst.i.tious belief.

There is much probability in the suggestion that Shakspere had some of these superst.i.tions in view when he placed in the mouth of Macbeth, while contemplating the murder, and its consequences, of the "gracious Duncan," the following magnificent metaphors:--

And Pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind!

The furious host, in the German versions, is sometimes "a cavalcade of the dead," and not exactly a wild hunt, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Kelly says:--"Sometimes it gallops through the stormy air as a herd of wild boars; but the spirits of which it consists generally appear in human form. They are of both s.e.xes and of all ages, souls of unchristened babes being included among them; for Holda or Bertha often joins the hunt." When Odin rides at the head of a full field, he is believed to chase a horse or a wild boar; but when he alone appears at the heels of his yelping pack, it "is in pursuit of a woman with long snow-white b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Seven years he follows her; at last he runs her down, throws her across his horse, and carries her home." These seven years are regarded by commentators as having reference to the seven winter months of the year, during which "the spell bound" lightning and storm-G.o.d was unable, owing to the prevailing cold weather, to continue in active chase of his flying bride. This latter myth concerning the chased maiden seems to be the counterpart or prototype of the spectre huntsman, who "is believed to pursue a milk-white doe round the Eagle's Crag, in the Vale of Todmorden, on All-Hallow Eve," as related by Mr.

Wilkinson. In Germany the wild hunt chases a whole flock of elfish beings, the moss-wifekins and wood-maidens, whose lives are bound up with those of the forest trees. Holda and Bertha are but local or characteristic appellations for the G.o.ddess Freyja (whence our Friday), the wife of Odin. In some parts of Germany the wild hunt is called the dead hunt (Heljagd), and, in others, the English hunt (_die Engelske jagd_), which are synonymous, England being but, at one period, "another name for the nether world." Hel or Hela, was the name of both the Scandinavian and German G.o.ddess of death. Kuhn, referring to the dispute whether the ancient locality of departed souls was Great Britain or Brittany, decides in favour of the former, and informs us that the German peasants to this day use such expressions as the following: "How the bells are ringing in England!" "How my children are crying in England!" when referring to the nether or lower regions.

The dismal realm of Hela, which was a journey of nine days' dreary descent from Heaven, was termed Niflheimr, the world of mists. It was said to be situated under one of the roots of the great world-tree, Yggdrasil, but it appears not to have been regarded, like the modern h.e.l.l, as a place of torment or punishment for sins committed on earth.

It seems to have had more relationship to the Greek Hades. All departed souls, good and evil, dwelt in Hela's realm, with the exception of those of heroes slain in battle, which were conveyed at once to Valhalla, by Odin himself. Kelly says:--

"But the idea of retribution after death for crimes done in the body was not unknown to German paganism. It was part of the Aryan creed, and the Vedas speak of the G.o.ddess Nirriti, and her dreadful world Naraka, the destined abode of all guilty souls. It is not conceivable that such a tradition could have died out, even for a time, amongst any of the pagan Indo-Europeans."

In support of his position, Kelly cites the following pa.s.sage from Kemble's "Saxons in England":--