Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 27

There continueth a settled perswasion among a great part of the people there about, and the same received by tradition, that the Roman soldiers of the marches did plant here every where in old time for their use certain medicinable herbs, for to cure wounds; whence it is that some emperic pract.i.tioners of chirurgery in Scotland, flock here every year in the beginning of summer, to gather such simples and wound-herbes; the vertue whereof they highly commend as found by long experience, and to be of singular efficacy.'"

Many wells have been famous for the cure of "rickety" children. The mothers generally plunged them _three times into the water_, as they drew them three times through the cleft rowan or ash tree, with a similar object. In my youth I remember being solemnly informed, on bathing for the first time at the cold bath below the Maudlands, on Preston Marsh, that three distinct plunges into the fearfully cold liquid was the orthodox number, especially if medical benefit was the object sought.

The "Maddern or Madron Well, in Cornwall," and another, appear to be the only wells in that district that, like the one in Brindle, properly come under the designation of "_pin wells_." The curative properties of the former were held in very high repute. Bishop Hale, of Exeter, relates, in his "Great Mystery of G.o.dliness," a singular anecdote respecting its presumed miraculous power. Referring to the case of a well-known cripple, he says, "This man, for sixteen years, was forced to walke upon his hands, by reason of the sinews of his leggs were soe contracted that he cold not goe or walke on his feet, who upon monition in a dream to wash in that well, which accordingly he did, was suddenly restored to the use of his limbs; and I sawe him both able to walk and gett his own maintenance. I found here was neither art nor collusion--the cure done, author our invisible G.o.d," etc.

In a MS., dated 1777, formerly in the library of Thomas Artle, Esq., and published by Davis Gilbert, F.R.S., in his "Parochial History of Cornwall," there is some curious information respecting this cla.s.s of superst.i.tions, which throws some light on the practices, formerly of ordinary occurrence, at St. Helen's Well, Brindle. The writer says:--

"In Madron Well--and, I have no doubt, in many others--may be found frequently the pins which have been dropped by maidens desirous of knowing 'when they were to be married.' I once witnessed the whole ceremony performed by a group of beautiful girls, who had walked on a May morning from Penzance. Two pieces of straw, about an inch long each, were crossed and the pin run through them. This cross was then dropped into the water, and the rising bubbles carefully counted, as they marked the number of years which would pa.s.s ere the arrival of the happy day.

This practice also prevailed amongst the visitors to the well at the foot of Monacuddle Grove, near St. Austell. On approaching the waters, each visitor is expected to throw in a crooked pin; and, if you are lucky, you may possibly see the other pins rising from the bottom to meet the most recent offering. Rags and votive offerings to the genius of the waters are hung around many of the wells."

We have accounts of similar customs in North Britain and in the Hebrides. J. F. Campbell, in his "Popular Tales of the West Highlands,"

says:--"Holy healing wells are common all over the Highlands, and people still leave offerings of pins and nails, and bits of rag, though few would confess it. There is a well in Islay, where I myself have, after drinking, deposited copper caps amongst a h.o.a.rd of pins and b.u.t.tons, and similar gear, placed in c.h.i.n.ks in the rocks and trees at the edge of the 'Witches Well.' There is another well with similar offerings freshly placed beside it, in an island in Loch Meree, in Ross-shire, and many similar wells are to be found in other places in Scotland."

A spring in connection with the ancient abbey at Glas...o...b..ry retained its reputation for sanct.i.ty and medical virtue until a very recent period. In consequence of some astounding, or, indeed, miraculous cure supposed to have been effected by its agency, immense numbers of invalids flocked to it in the years 1750 and 1751. It is said that, in the month of May, in the latter year, ten thousand persons visited Glas...o...b..ry, under the influence of this superst.i.tion.

Since the above was written, the following paragraph, from the _Banffshire Journal_, has come under my notice. It demonstrates the retention to the present day not only of the ancient superst.i.tion respecting wells, but likewise of some others to which I have referred in previous chapters:--

"A MODERN SCOTCH WITCH.--On the 23rd of February, there died at Mill of Ribrae, parish of Forglen, Margaret Grant, at the advanced age of 69 years; and as she represented a cla.s.s which is regarded as becoming very few in number in the present day, two or three remarks on the chief features of her character may not be unacceptable. Margaret was superst.i.tious, and fully and firmly believed, up to her dying day, that she possessed power to remove or avert the ills and aliments of both man and beast, especially of the latter; and this by means of various incantations, ceremonies, and appliances--such as fresh cuttings of 'ra'n tree,' some of which she always carried about with her. She would carefully place so many before and so many behind the particular beast she meant to benefit. Another potent charm was what she called 'holy water,' taken, no doubt, from some 'old and fabulous well.' This she also generally carried along with her, and used partly in sprinkling the pathway of the individuals she designed to bless--the rest to be mixed in common water to wash the hands and face. In the case of such as she was desirous should prosper, and be defended from evil, she would go round and round their dwellings, carrying along a rod of her wonder-working 'ra'n tree'--and this was usually done at a very early hour in the morning. She also believed herself to be trans.m.u.table, and that she was at times actually changed by evil-disposed persons into a pony or hare, and rode for great distances, or was hunted by dogs, as the case might be. We have heard of several other strange enchantments which Margaret practised when she had opportunity, and was allowed. But in all her foibles there was ever conspicuous the design of doing good."

From this it would appear that Margaret Grant was a witch of the white kind, they having, as I have previously shown, power only for good. The black were potent only for evil, and the grey ones were a combination of the other two.

I have previously referred to the "well-dressings," or the decoration of springs and fountains, yet very common in some counties, and especially in Derbyshire, and suggested that they owe their origin to the Roman Floralia, or to a still older custom, the common Aryan root of both.

Crofton Croker speaks of the existence of "well worship" in Ireland; Dr.

O'Conner, in his "Travels in Persia," notices its prevalence in the East; and Sir William Betham, in his "Gael and Cymbri," says, "The Celtae were much addicted to the worship of fountains and rivers as divinities." He adds, "They had a deity called Divona, or the river-G.o.d."

It seems, therefore, very clear that this superst.i.tion, in one form or another, is not only widely disseminated, but that its origin may, with safety, be ascribed to a very remote period in the history of humanity.

The deification of rivers and streams appears to have very generally prevailed amongst the ancients. Young and beautiful women, under the general name of Naiads, in the Greek and Roman mythologies, were believed to preside over brooks, springs, and rivers. Many of the heroic personages described by the early Greek poets are said to be the offspring of nymphs of this cla.s.s.

Each river was supposed to be under the protection of its presiding deity. Their sources were especially sacred, and religious ceremonies were performed in their immediate vicinity. As at the c.l.i.tumnus, so beautifully described by Byron, in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," temples were erected near the fountains which gave them birth, and small pieces of money were frequently thrown into their crystal streams with the view to the propitiation of the presiding deities. Sacrifices were offered to them, and no bather was allowed to lave his limbs near the source of any consecrated stream, because the contact of the naked body was held to pollute the water. Sir John Lubbock, in his dissertation on the lacustrine dwellings which have recently been discovered in Alpine districts of Europe, as well as in some other localities, has the following pertinent observations on this subject:--

"It has been suggested that the early inhabitants of Switzerland may have worshipped the Lakes, and that the beautiful bracelets, etc., may have been offerings to the G.o.ds. In fact, it appears from ancient writers that among the Gauls, Germans, and other nations, many lakes were regarded as sacred. M. Aymard has collected several instances of this kind. According to Cicero, Justin, and Strabo, there was a lake near Toulouse in which the neighbouring tribes used to deposit offerings of gold and silver. Tacitus, Virgil, and Pliny also mention the existence of sacred lakes. Again, so late as the sixth century, Gregory of Tours, who is quoted by M. Troyon and M. Aymard, tells us that on Mount Hela.n.u.s there was a lake which was the object of popular worship.

Every year the inhabitants of the neighbourhood brought to it offerings of clothes, skins, cheeses, cakes, etc. Traces of a similar superst.i.tion may still be found lingering in remote parts of Scotland and Ireland; in the former country I have myself seen a sacred spring surrounded by the offerings of the neighbouring peasantry, who seemed to consider pence and half-pence as the most appropriate and agreeable sacrifice to the spirit of the waters."

A correspondent of the _Inverness Courier_ states, as recently as last year (1871), that he had recently witnessed a strange instance of the existence of this superst.i.tion, "at a loch in the district of Strathnaver, county of Sutherland." The editor says,--

"Dipping in the loch for the purpose of effecting extraordinary cures is stated to be a matter of periodical occurrence, and the 14th appears to have been selected as immediately after the beginning of August in the old style. The hour was between midnight and one o'clock, and the scene, as described by our correspondent, was absurd and disgraceful beyond belief, though not without a touch of weird interest, imparted by the darkness of the night and the superst.i.tious faith of the people. 'The impotent, the halt, the lunatic, and the tender infant were all waiting about midnight for an immersion in Lochmanur. The night was calm, the stars countless, and meteors were occasionally shooting about in all quarters of the heavens above. A streaky white belt could be observed in the remotest part of the firmament. Yet with all this the night was dark--so dark that one could not recognise friend or foe but by close contact and speech. About fifty persons, all told, were present near one spot, and I believe other parts of the loch side were similarly occupied, but I cannot vouch for this--only I heard voices which would lead me so to infer. About twelve stripped and walked into the loch, performing their ablutions three times. Those who were not able to act for themselves were a.s.sisted, some of them being led willingly and others by force, for there were cases of each kind. One young woman, strictly guarded, was an object of great pity. She raved in a distressing manner, repeating religions phrases, some of which were very earnest and pathetic. She prayed her guardians not to immerse her, saying that it was not a communion occasion, and asking if they could call this righteousness or faithfulness, or if they could compare the loch and its virtues to the right arm of Christ. These utterances were enough to move any person hearing them. Poor girl! what possible good could immersion do to her? I would have more faith in a shower-bath applied pretty freely and often to the head. No male, so far as I could see, denuded himself for a plunge. Whether this was owing to hesitation regarding the virtues of the water, or whether any of the men were ailing, I could not ascertain. These gatherings take place twice a year, and are known far and near to such as put belief in the spell. But the climax of absurdity is in paying the loch in sterling coin. Forsooth, the cure cannot be effected without money cast into the waters! I may add that the practice of dipping in the loch is said to have been carried on from time immemorial, and it is alleged that many cures have been effected by it.'"

Some pools, streams, or lakes, such as Acheron and Avernus, were a.s.sociated with the infernal regions, or the nether world, and its mythical inhabitants. The mother of the monster Grendel, slain by the Anglo-Saxon hero, Beowulf, according to the ancient poem, dwelt in the recesses of a bottomless pool, beneath the dark shadow of a dense wood in the neighbourhood of Hartlepool, on the coast of Durham. The Scottish Kelpie is a kind of "mischievous water spirit said to haunt fords and ferries at night, _especially in storms_."

Burns says in his "Address to the Deil":--

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, An' float the jinglin icy-boord, Then water-kelpies haunt the foord, By your direction: An 'nighted travellers are allur'd To their destruction.

An' aft your moss-traversing s.p.u.n.kies Decoy the wight that late and drunk is: The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys Delude his eyes, Till in some miry slough he sunk is, Ne'er more to rise.

In the same poem Burns refers to the devil himself as an aquatic spirit.

He says:--

Ae dreary, _windy_, winter night, The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light, Wi' you, mysel I got a fright Ayout the lough; Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight Wi' waving sough.

The cudgel in my neive did shake, Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake, When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick-quaick Amang the springs, Awa ye squattered, like a drake, On whistling wings.

Commenting on this poem, Allan Cunningham relates a characteristic anecdote. He says,--"The Prince and Power of the air is a favourite topic of rustic speculation. An old shepherd told me he had, when a boy, as good as seen him. 'I was,' said he, 'returning from school, and I stopped till the twilight groping trouts in a _burn, when a thunder storm came on_. I looked up, and just before me a _cloud_ came down as dark as night--the _queerest-shaped cloud_ I ever saw; and there was something terrible about it, for when it was close to me, I saw as plain as I see you, a dark form within it, thrice the size of any earthly man.

It was the Evil One himself, there's nae doubt o' that. 'Samuel,' I said, 'did you hear his _cloven foot_ on the ground?' 'No,' replied he, 'but I saw one of his _horns_--and O, what waves o' fire were rowing after him!' The Devil frequently makes his appearance in our old mysteries, but he comes to work unmitigated mischief, and we part with him gladly. The '_Hornie_,' 'Satan,' 'Nick,' or 'Clootie,' who lives in the imaginations of the peasantry, is not quite such a reprobate, though his shape is anything but prepossessing. Nor is he an object of much alarm; a knowledge of the scriptures and a belief in heaven are considered sure protectors; and a peasant will brave a suspicious road at midnight if he can repeat a psalm."

The _horn_ and the _cloven foot_ in such intimate connection with the descent over the burn of a mysterious dark cloud accompanied by waves of fire, is suggestive of the Aryan thunder and rain clouds and of their attendant lightning-G.o.d. The peasant's faith in the efficacy of a psalm in overcoming the evil influence is rather corroborative of this, as the superst.i.tious fear for the dethroned G.o.ds of the old mythology long survived the introduction of Christianity in the country. It is yet firmly believed in Lancashire that, after going through some mysterious magic formula, and repeating the Lord's prayer _backwards_, that his Satanic majesty will appear in the centre of a circle previously defined. In my youth, "raising the devil," was not considered by the knowing ones to be a particularly arduous task; the getting rid of him, afterwards, was the great difficulty. Some contended that the recital of a certain psalm or other pa.s.sage from the scriptures was alone efficacious. Others held that holy water was his especial abhorrence, and that the repet.i.tion of the Lord's prayer, in its proper order, was essential to success.

I remember well, when very young, being cautioned against approaching to the side of stagnant pools of water partially covered with vegetation.

At the time, I firmly believed that, if I disobeyed this instruction, a certain water "boggart" named "Jenny Greenteeth" would drag me beneath her verdant screen and subject me to other tortures besides death by drowning. This superst.i.tion is yet very common in Lancashire.

In "Brother Fabian's Ma.n.u.script" there is a description of a water-sprite, which appears to be one of the many singular forms which the memory of the dethroned aesir G.o.d, Wodin or Odin, has a.s.sumed in the popular imagination:--

Where, by the marishes, bloometh the bittern, Nickar, the soulless one, sits with his ghittern; Sits inconsolable, friendless and foeless, Waiting his destiny, Nickar the soulless.

Sir Noel Paton, R.S.A., has recently exhibited a picture of this mythic sprite, treated with great aesthetic power and poetic sympathy. The colour, the light and shade, the surrounding accessories, as well as the quaint melancholy features of the "doomed one," and his still quainter frog-like feet, all combine to leave a single harmonious emotional impression. This is further enhanced by the presence of the partially obscured moon and the solitary star, as well as the sedges and other plants, which, with the lonely bittern, (now extinct in Britain) affect marshy places; and by the Batrachian reptile which crawls from the water towards the feet of the "fallen G.o.d," who, whilst patiently awaiting his destiny, lulls his senses to sleep with the music of his ghittern, a singularly old-fashioned instrument apparently allied to the modern guitar. This myth is evidently one form of the popular superst.i.tion which connected natural phenomena of a peculiar character with the memory of Nickarr (old Nick), or the dethroned Odin of our Teutonic ancestors. Nickarr, it has previously been shown, was one of the appellations pertaining to this deity.

The Scotch Kelpies were supposed to be delighted with the last agonies of drowning men and of mariners in distress. Thomas Landseer, in the notes which accompany his admirable ill.u.s.trations of Burns's poem, says:--"It is not twenty years since the piercing shrieks and supplications for help, of a pa.s.sage boat's company, which had been landed on a sandbank at low water, in the Solway Firth, instead of on the c.u.mberland coast, and who found, as the moon rose and the haze dispersed, that they were in mid-channel, with a strong tide setting fast in upon them, were mistaken by the people, both on the Scotch and English sh.o.r.es, for the wailings of Kelpies! The consequence was that the unhappy people (whose boat had drifted from them before their fatal error was discovered) were drowned; though nothing had been easier, but for the rooted superst.i.tion of their neighbours ash.o.r.e, than to have effectually succoured them."

The same writer makes the following sensible observations respecting the superst.i.tions referred to by Burns. The poet, however, evidently attributed the phenomena to natural causes:--"This propensity to attribute natural effects to supernatural causes is one of the best known and least intelligible phenomena of the human mind. We are always rejecting the evidence of our senses, to tamper with the imaginary evidence supplied by a.n.a.logous reasoning upon mere abstract principles.

The good wife never dreamed of referring her alarms to the natural objects around her. A humming drone, at twilight by the waters, a rustling in the leaves of the trees about her cottage--if these did not bespeak the presence of the devil, what the d----l else could they indicate? Thus our poet proceeds to tell us that beyond the same loch, he himself had a visible encounter with something LIKE, indeed, to a _bunch of rushes_, waving and shaking in the wind; and after an admirable description of the emotions of fear, by which he was oppressed, he incidentally mentions that the Great Unknown did certainly, with an abrupt and hasty flight, take away like a drake; but even the appropriate note of the fluttering fowl never once awakened his suspicion that it might be the fowl proper and not the foul fiend!"

M. Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land," relates a singular legend, believed in by the natives of Aviia, respecting a series of rapids and a singularly picturesque waterfall which he discovered on the river Ngouyai, and which bears some resemblance to the popular legend about Wayland Smith and to those already referred to. He says:--"Like all other remarkable natural objects, the falls of the Ngouyai, have given rise, in the fertile imaginations of the negroes, to mythical stories. The legend runs that the main falls are the work of the spirit Fougamou, who resides there, and who was _in old times_ a mighty forger of iron; but the rapids above are presided over by Nagoshi, the wife of Samba, who has spoiled this part of the river in order to prevent people from ascending and descending. The falls to which the name Samba is given lie a good day's journey below the Fougamou, but, from the description of the natives, I concluded they were only rapids like the Nagoshi above. The Fougamou is the only great fall of water. It takes its name from the spirit (mbuiri) who is said to have made it, and who watches it constantly, wandering night and day round the falls. A legend on this subject was related to us with great animation by our Aviia guide, to the following effect: In former times people used to go to the falls, deposit iron and charcoal on the river side and say, 'Oh! mighty Fougamou, I want this iron to be worked into a knife or hatchet,' (or whatever implement it might be), and, in the morning, when they went to the place, they found the weapon finished. One day, however, a man and his son went with their iron and charcoal, and had the impertinent curiosity to wait and see how it was done. They hid themselves,--the father, in the hollow of a tree, and the son, amongst the boughs of another tree. Fougamou came with his son and began to work, when suddenly the son said, 'Father, I smell the smell of people!' The father replied, 'Of course you smell people, for does not the iron and charcoal come from the hands of people?' So they worked on. But the son again interrupted his father, repeating the same words, and then Fougamou looked round and saw the two men. He roared with rage, and, to punish the father and son, he turned the tree in which the father was hidden into an ant-hill, and the hiding place of the son into a nest of black ants. Since then Fougamou has not worked iron for the people any more."

In another place, Du Chaillu says,--"I was much amused by the story one of the men related about the dry and wet seasons. The remarkable dryness of the present season had been talked over a good deal, and it was this conversation which led to the story. As usual with the African, the two seasons were personified, _Nchanga_, being the name of the wet, and _Enomo_ that of the dry season. One day, the story went, Nchanga and Enomo had a great dispute as to which was the older, and they came at last to lay a wager on the question, which was to be decided in an a.s.sembly of the people of the air or sky. Nchanga said, 'When I come to a place rain comes.' Enomo retorted, 'When I make my appearance the rains goes.' The people of the air all listened, and, when the two disputants had ceased, they exclaimed, 'Verily, verily, we cannot tell which is the eldest, you must be both of the same age.'"

CHAPTER XV.

CONCLUSION.

More strange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact; One sees more devils than vast h.e.l.l can hold; That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt; The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination: That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear.

_Shakspere._

In the preceding chapters the chief object I have had in view has been to show that many superst.i.tions and legends yet, or recently, familiar to the people of our northern counties, were, like their congeners in other portions of Europe, descendants from one common parentage. I have dealt almost entirely with that species of folk-lore which I think has been originally communicated _orally_ from one generation to another, and not so much with that which may be termed the _literary_ fictions of Europe and the East, except in so far as there is good reason to know that the latter are built upon the former. Still Oriental scholars a.s.sure us that "many of our best European fictions, as well single stories as whole collections, may be traced from Europe to Arabia, and from Arabia to India, and that the _Indian_ form of the story or collection _almost invariably bears the marks of an earlier origin than any other form_, and appears to be, if not the original form, at least the oldest surviving one."[36]

Doubtless many other traditionary observances, now nearly obsolete, might be traced to a similar origin to that which I have ascribed to those treated of in this work. Sufficient, however, I believe, has been done to demonstrate the fact that many of them are of much greater antiquity than has generally been supposed. A national religion may be changed in a relatively short period of time, but superst.i.tion and tradition, in some form or other, hold their own amongst the populace for ages after their original significance has perished.[37] Hallam, referring to the religious condition of the Britons at the time of the heptarchy, says "the retention of heathen superst.i.tions was not incompatible, in that age, with a cordial faith" in Christianity.

The late war in Mexico has afforded a striking modern instance of the truth of this proposition. The Christianity of the native Mexican Indians, according to a writer in the _Pall Mull Gazette_ (July, 1867), "is of a very crude and undeveloped kind, and indeed it is very doubtful whether in some parts of the country it has ever really eradicated the old religion. _But it is quite certain that it has not eradicated the old superst.i.tions._ Just as many Pagan feasts in Southern Italy have been converted into Christian feasts by mere change of name, so has the Christianity of the Mexicans been grafted on to their old belief and superst.i.tions, and although they may not quite have believed that the arrival of the Emperor Maximilian was really the fulfilment of the long promised second advent of their ancient G.o.d Quetzalcoatle, yet he nevertheless had a white face and a yellow beard, and came from the West in a ship, and was of an ill.u.s.trious descent, and there is no doubt of the fact that the Mexican Indians received him with open arms, and with a more or less superst.i.tious veneration, looking to him for the regeneration of their country and for a release from the dominion of the Spanish creoles."

The Maories, like several branches of the Aryan race, deified, during life, some of their own warriors. "Watches and white men also were at first regarded as deities; the latter," says Sir John Lubbock, "not perhaps unnaturally, as being armed with thunder and lightning." The Dyaks of Sarawak regard the late Sir James Brooke as a species of deity.

After explaining the conditions under which they lived previous to his advent amongst them, and the vast amelioration in the conditions of their existence attendant upon his rule, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, in his "Malay Archipelago," says,--

"And the unknown stranger who had done all this for them, and asked for nothing in return, what could he be? How was it possible for them to realise his motives? Was it not natural that they should refuse to believe he was a man? for of pure benevolence combined with great power, they had had no experience amongst men. They naturally concluded that he was a superior being, come down upon earth to confer blessings upon the afflicted. In many villages where he had not been seen, I was asked strange questions about him. Was he not as old as the mountains? Could he not bring the dead to life? And they firmly believe that he can give them good harvests, and make their fruit trees bear an abundant crop."