{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29921/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29921","id":"gutenberg_29921","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29921","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore","Plants -- Folklore"],"text":"E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Stephanie Eason, and the\nProject Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n(http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nSTORYOLOGY:\n\nEssays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore\n\nby\n\nBENJAMIN TAYLOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLondon:\nElliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C.\n1900.\n\n\n\n\n  To\n  HER MEMORY\n  IN\n  WHOSE DEAR COMPANIONSHIP\n  THESE PAPERS\n  WERE WRITTEN\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe principal object of this Foreword is to inform the expert\nFolkloreist and the case-hardened Mythologist (comparative or otherwise)\nthat the following pages are intended for those who, being neither\nexpert nor case-hardened, come under that gracious and catholic\nterm--general reader. The writer addresses not the scholiast, but the\nordinary person who likes to read about what he has not time to study.\n\nSome portion of what is here printed has appeared in a once popular\nmagazine now defunct. The author hastens to add, for the relief of the\nirreverent, that the journal long survived the ordeal of the\npublication. Nevertheless this book appears on its merits, or otherwise,\nand seeks no support from past attainment. Neither does it make any\npretension to originality of matter or method, though it may, perhaps,\ncontain one or two new ideas.\n\nIt is unnecessary to add that the publication is made only at the\ntearful entreaty of multitudinous friends. That, of course, is well\nunderstood among myth-hunters.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n       CHAPTER                            PAGE\n\n        PREFACE                            vii\n\n     I. STORYOLOGY                           1\n\n    II. THE MAGIC WAND                      23\n\n   III. THE MAGIC MIRROR                    41\n\n    IV. THE MAGIC MOON                      58\n\n     V. THE DEVIL'S CANDLE                  78\n\n    VI. THE SEA AND ITS LEGENDS             91\n\n   VII. MOTHER CAREY AND HER CHICKENS      104\n\n  VIII. DAVY JONES'S LOCKER                113\n\n    IX. SOME FLOWERS OF FANCY              121\n\n     X. ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE           137\n\n    XI. HERB OF GRACE                      149\n\n   XII. THE ROMANCE OF A VEGETABLE         163\n\n  XIII. THE STORY OF A TUBER               176\n\n   XIV. THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD            188\n\n        INDEX                              201\n\n\n\n\nSTORYOLOGY.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSTORYOLOGY.\n\n\nI.\n\nWhat is a myth?\n\nAccording to Webster, it is 'a fabulous or imaginary statement or\nnarrative conveying an important truth, generally of a moral or\nreligious nature: an allegory, religious or historical, of spontaneous\ngrowth and popular origin, generally involving some supernatural or\nsuperhuman claim or power; a tale of some extraordinary personage or\ncountry that has been gradually formed by, or has grown out of, the\nadmiration and veneration of successive generations.' Here is a choice\nof three definitions, but not one of them is by itself satisfying. Let\nus rather say that a myth is a tradition in narrative form, more or less\ncurrent in more or less differing garb among different races, to which\nreligious or superhuman significations may be ascribable. We say 'may\nbe' ascribable because, although the science of comparative mythology\nalways seeks for such significations, it is probable that the modern\ninterpretations are often as different from the original meaning as\ncertain abstruse 'readings' of Shakespeare are from the poet's own\nthoughts.\n\nIn their introduction to Tales of the Teutonic Lands, Cox and Jones\ndeclare that the whole series of Arthurian legends are pure myths. These\ntales, they say, can be 'traced back to their earliest forms in phrases\nwhich spoke not of men and women, but of the Dawn which drives her white\nherds to their pastures'--the white clouds being the guardians of the\ncattle of the Sun--'of the Sun which slays the dew whom he loves, of the\nfiery dragon which steals the cattle of the lord of light, or the Moon\nwhich wanders with her myriad children through the heaven.' It is\nclaimed that 'a strict etymological connection has been established'\nwith regard to a large number of these and similar stories, 'but the\nlink which binds the myth of the Hellenic Hephaistos with that of the\nVedic Agni justifies the inference that both these myths reappear in\nthose of Regin and of Wayland, or, in other words, that the story of the\nDame of the Fine Green Kirtle is the story of Medeia, and that the tale\nof Helen is the legend of the loves of Conall Gulban. Elsewhere one\nreads that in the myth of Endymion, the Sun who has sunk to his\ndreamless sleep, the Moon appears as Asterodia journeying with her fifty\ndaughters through the sky. 'In the Christian myth she becomes St. Ursula\nwith her eleven thousand virgins--this Ursula again appearing in the\nmyth of Tannhaeuser, as the occupant of the Horselberg, and as the fairy\nqueen in the tale of True Thomas of Ercildoune.' By the same method of\ncomparative mythology, the whole series of the Arthurian stories are\nplaced 'in that large family of heroic legends which have their origin\nin mythical phrases describing the phenomena of the outward world, and\nmore especially those of the day and of the year.'\n\nThis seems hard, for it compels us to believe that our remote ancestors\nwere very much more intelligent, and imaginative, and poetical, and\nreligious than anything else which they have sent down to us would have\nsuggested. It is true that Cox and Jones do not deny that the names\nwhich figure in many of these legends, as in those of Greece, may have\nbeen the names of real personages, but yet the narrative, they say, must\nnot be taken as historical. This may be true, but in what sense can we\nregard it as more probable that the story-makers invented allegories,\nand clothed them with the names of contemporary or preceding heroes,\nthan that they invented tales of wonder to fit these heroes? Is it\neasier to believe, for instance, that Arthur came after the myths, and\nwas tacked on to them, than that the myths, or stories, came after\nArthur, and were tacked on to him? Is there anything in the story of St.\nUrsula and her virgins which could not have had natural 'spontaneous\ngrowth' in an age of deep devotional faith in miracles, that we must be\ncompelled to regard it as purely a mediaevalized version of the Greek\nmyth of the sun and moon?\n\nI am not writing for experts and scholars, and therefore do not use the\nscientific terms and allusions familiar to students of these matters. I\nam merely writing for ordinary persons, who are often puzzled and pained\nby the extraordinary meanings which specialists contrive to twist out of\nsimple and familiar things. It is not too much to say that the\nprofessional mythologists are among the most troublesome meddlers who\ndisturb the repose of '_the average reader_.' Even Mr. Ruskin suffers in\nthis connection. In The Queen of the Air he has given us one of his most\ndelightful books, but there are probably few, outside the circle of\nphilologists and comparative mythologists, who have not thought in\nreading the lovely interpretations of the myths of Athena, that there\nwas more of Ruskin than of the Ancient Greek in the meaning evolved.\nSomehow, it seems easier to think that these things were conceived by a\nProfessor of Art in the nineteenth century, than that they were the\ndeliberate convictions of a primitive people ever so many centuries\nbefore Christ--a people, too, known to be steeped in sensualities, and\naddicted to very barbarous practices.\n\nAre there, then, reasons for supposing that comparative mythologists are\nnot always right--that, in fact, their science is but a doubtful science\nafter all? Mr. Andrew Lang boldly says that there are. In Custom and\nMyth his object is to show the connection between savage customs--or\nrather the customs of savage and uncivilized races--and ancient myths.\nBut before this branch of Storyology is reached, we must consider the\nquestion of the relation between our familiar nursery-tales, the\nfolk-lore of our own and other countries, and the old romances, with\nthese same myths. There is something more than monotony in the theory\nwhich 'resolves most of our old romances into a series of remarks about\nthe weather.' The author of Primitive Culture (Mr. Tylor) rebels against\nthis theory. There is no legend, no allegory, no nursery-rhyme, he says,\nsafe from it, and, as an amusing illustration, he supposes the Song of\nSixpence to be thus interpreted by the mythologists. Obviously, the\nfour-and-twenty blackbirds are four-and-twenty hours, and the pie to\nhold them is the underlying earth covered with the over-arching sky. How\ntrue a touch of nature is it, 'when the pie is opened,' that is, when\nday breaks, 'the birds begin to sing!' The King is the Sun, and his\n'counting out his money' is pouring out the sunshine, the golden shower\nof Danae; the Queen is the Moon, and her transparent honey the\nmoonlight. The maid is the rosy-fingered Dawn, who rises before the Sun,\nher master, and hangs out the clothes (the clouds) across the sky; the\nparticular blackbird who so tragically ends the tale, by 'nipping off\nher nose,' is the hour of sunrise. The time-honoured rhyme really wants,\nas Mr. Tylor remarks, only one thing to prove it a sun-myth, and that\none thing is some other proof than a mere argument from analogy.\n\nThe same proof is wanting for those who would argue that the story of\nRed Riding Hood is only another dawn-myth. Mr. Hussin holds this view,\nbut is not the story of the Cat and the Well capable of the same kind of\nreading? Pussy is the earth; Tommy, who shoves her into the well, is the\nevening or twilight; the well is Night; Johnny Stout is the Dawn who\npulls the earth out of darkness again. There is no limit to this kind of\napplication of so elastic a theory. But the very ease with which such\nexplanations can be attached to any nursery-rhyme or folk-tale should\nwarn us against their probability. As Mr. Tylor says: 'Rash inferences\nwhich, on the strength of mere resemblances, derive episodes of myth\nfrom episodes of nature, must be regarded with utter distrust, for the\nstudent who has no more stringent criterion than this for his myths of\nsun, and sky, and dawn, will find them wherever it pleases him to seek\nthem.'\n\nThe mention of the story of Red Riding Hood suggests a familiar\nfolk-tale, upon which that of Red Riding Hood may or may not have been\nfounded, but which certainly forms the basis of a good many similar\ntales, and has been the subject of a good deal of wise exposition by the\nmythologists. In the story of the Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, as\ntold by Grimm, there is a goat who goes out one day, leaving her seven\nlittle ones safely locked in the house, after warning them to beware of\nthe wolf, whom she describes. The wolf comes begging for entrance,\npretending to be their mother, but they distrust first his voice and\nthen his black paws. He gets his paws whitened and comes back, showing\nthem against the window as proof that he is indeed their mother.\nTherefore they open the door, and he swallows six of them, one after the\nother, without going through the ceremony of mastication. After this he\ngoes back to the wood and falls asleep under a tree, where the\ndisconsolate mother finds him. With the assistance of the seventh and\nyoungest kid, who had escaped by hiding herself in the clock-case, the\nwolf is cut open, and the six kids jump out all alive and kicking.\nStones are then placed in the wolf's stomach, and it is sewed up. When\nthe wolf wakens he cannot account for the jumbling and tumbling in his\nstomach, so he goes to the well to get a drink. But the weight of the\nstones makes him top-heavy; he falls in and is drowned.\n\nNow, there is nothing more remarkable in this story than there is in\nscores of our nursery or household tales, in which not only animals but\nalso inanimate objects are gifted with speech, and in which the love of\nthe marvellous rises superior to natural laws.\n\nAccording to Cox, we must understand the myth of the Wolf and Kids thus:\n'The wolf is here the night, or the darkness, which tries to swallow up\nthe seven days of the week, and actually swallows six. The seventh--the\nyoungest--escapes by hiding herself in the clock-case; in other words,\nthe week is not quite run out, and before it comes to an end, the mother\nof the goats unrips the wolf's stomach and places stones in it in place\nof the little goats, who come trooping out, as the days of the week\nbegin again to run their course.'\n\nVery plausible this, from a comparative mythologist's point of view,\nand not easy to dispute--until we find that a similar tale is current\nall over the world where clock-cases are even yet unknown. We are told\nthat the negroes of Georgia have such a legend; that the natives of\nAustralia have one; that the Zulus have it; that the Indians of North\nAmerica and of British Guiana, and the Malays, all have versions of it.\nIn Brittany it is traceable in the legend of Gargantua; in Germany there\nare several variations; and in Greece it finds its counterpart in the\nlegend of Saturn or Cronus. The Kaffirs tell the same story of a\ncannibal, but the way the negroes have it is like this: 'Old Mrs. Sow\nhad five little pigs, whom she warned against the machinations of Brer\nWolf. Old Mrs. Sow died, and each little pig built a house for himself.\nThe youngest pig built the strongest house. Brer Wolf, by a series of\nstratagems, entrapped and devoured the four elder pigs. The youngest pig\nwas the wisest, and would not let Brer Wolf come in by the door. He had\nto enter by way of the chimney, fell into a great fire the youngest pig\nhad lighted, and was burned to death.' Here we have no clock-case, and\nno resurrection of the victims, but otherwise the _motif_ of the story\nis the same. Certainly the negroes did not receive this tale from the\nwhite races, and it seems equally certain that they had no notion of\ntypifying the dawn or the night, or anything else, but only the popular\nnotion among nearly all primitive peoples that the youngest is usually\nthe most specially gifted and blessed.\n\nThis is Mr. Lang's view: 'In the tale of the Wolf and the Seven Kids,\nthe essence is found in the tricks whereby the wolf deceives his\nvictims; in the victory of the goat; in the disgorging of the kids\nalive; and the punishment of the wolf (as of Cronus in Hesiod) by the\nstone which he is obliged to admit into his system. In these events\nthere is nothing allegorical or mystical, no reference to sunrise or\nstorms. The crude ideas and incidents are of world-wide range, and suit\nthe fancy of the most backward nation.' The only thing in Grimm's tale\nwhich differs materially from those of 'world-wide range' is the\nclock-case--clearly a modern addition, but an item which forms an\nessential factor in Cox's definition of the 'myth.'\n\nSo much by way of illustration; but dozens of tales might be produced,\nall pointing the same way. This is to the belief that, although stories\nhave unquestionably been transmitted from race to race throughout the\nages, and so have become widely distributed over the world, all the\ncurrent nursery, or household, or folk, stories have not necessarily\nbeen so transmitted from some one creative race of myth-makers. We have\njust seen how an evidently modern interpolation (a clock-case) has come\nto be regarded as an essential part of a myth, and it is surely easier\nto believe that the other features are relics of some ancient customs of\nwhich we have no record, than that they bear the ingenious references to\nnatural phenomena which the mythologists suppose.\n\nMax Mueller holds that all the stories of princesses, imprisoned or\nenchanted, and delivered by young lovers, 'can be traced back to\nmythological tradition about the Spring being released from the bonds\nof Winter.' But he requires, first, to have the names of the personages\nof the story, because he traces the connection more by their etymology\nthan by the incidents of the narrative--of which more anon. With regard\nto purely nursery or household tales, the question seems to resolve\nitself pretty much into this: Are they the remains of an older and\nhigher mythology, or are they the foundations upon which the priests and\nmedicine-men and minstrels of later ages built their myths? Are they, in\nshort, surviving relics, or were they germs? The favourite scientific\ntheory adopts the former view; I incline to the latter. There are many\nof the familiar folk-tales which it is impossible to explain, and there\nare many, doubtless, which are in some sort fragments of the old\nmythologies filtered to us through Greece. But, on the whole, it is more\nreasonable to conclude that the simple stories of the marvellous or\nirrational have their origin in 'the qualities of the uncivilized\nimagination.'\n\nThus, with regard to the current superstitions of our peasantry and of\nthe Highlanders, it is much more rational to consider them, as Dr.\nRobert Chambers did, as 'springing from a disposition of the human mind\nto account for actual appearances by some imagined history which the\nappearances suggest,' than as relics of the old-world mythologies. The\nuntutored mind disregards the natural, even in these days of applied\nscience. There is an old weir across the Tweed which the common people,\nforgetting the mill, that had disappeared, pointed out as the work of\none of the imps of Michael Scott, the wizard. Wherever there are\nthree-topped hills there is sure to be a legend of the work of this same\nMichael, or some other wizard. In the same way, deep, clear lakes exist\nin various parts of the country, concerning which traditions survive of\ncities lying at the bottom, submerged for their wickedness, or by the\nmachinations of some evil spirit. Old buildings exist in many parts in\nsuch unfavourable situations that popular tradition can only account for\nthe singularity by the operation of some unfriendly spirit transporting\nthem from their original locality. Large solitary rocks off the coast,\nor on hilltops, have been deposited where they are by witches. Water\nspringing from a rock by the roadside has always been the result of the\nstroke of some magician or saint. Large depressions on hillsides are\ngenerally the footprints of giants, like the mark left by Buddha's foot\nas he ascended to heaven, still to be seen on a hill in Ceylon. The\ncircular green marks in the fields are the rings drawn by the fairies\nfor their midnight dances, and a scaur or cliff bearing the marks of\nvolcanic action or of lightning is invariably associated with some tale\nof diabolic fury. Almost every reader can add instances of natural\nappearances or effects idealized by the workings of the imagination of\nuncivilized or uncultivated minds.\n\n\nII.\n\nOne of the most common forms of these idealized phenomena is that known\nas the 'Fairy-ring,' about which Nether Lochaber has said, in the\nHighlands of Scotland, 'We can perfectly understand how in the good old\ntimes, ere yet the schoolmaster was abroad, or science had become a\npopular plaything, people--and doubtless very honest, decent people,\ntoo--attributed those inexplicable emerald circles to supernatural\nagency; if, indeed, anything connected with the \"good folks\" or \"men of\npeace\" could properly be called supernatural in times when a belief in\nfairies and every sort of fairy freak and frolic was deemed the most\ncorrect and natural thing in the world. Did not these circles, it was\nargued, appear in the course of a single night? In the sequestered\nwoodland glade, nor herd nor milkmaid could see anything odd or unusual\nas the sun went down, and lo! next morning, as they drove their flocks\nafield, there was the mysterious circle, round as the halo about the\nwintry moon.... And if we know better nowadays than to believe these\ngreen circles to be fairy-rings, we also know better than to give the\nslightest credence to certain authors of our own day who have gravely\nasserted that they are caused by electricity.... Fairy-rings ... are in\ntruth caused by a mushroom (_Agaricus pratensis_), the sporule dust or\nseed of which, having fallen on a spot suitable for its growth,\ninstantly germinates, and, constantly propagating itself by sending out\na network of innumerable filaments and threads, forms the rich green\nrings so common everywhere.'\n\nHardly more excusable than the electricity theorists, thinks this\nwriter, are those learned authors who tell us that the West received the\nfirst hint of the existence of fairies from the East at the time of the\nCrusades, and that almost all our fairy lore is traceable to the same\nsource, 'the fact being that Celt and Saxon, Scandinavian and Goth, Lapp\nand Finn, had their \"duergar,\" their \"elfen\" without number, such as\ndun-elfen, berg-elfen, munt-elfen, feld-elfen, sae-elfen and\nwaeter-elfen--elves or spirits of downs, hills and mountains, of the\nfields, of the woods, of the sea, and of the rivers, streams and\nsolitary pools--fairies, in short, and a complete fairy mythology, long\ncenturies before Peter the Hermit was born, or Frank and Moslem dreamt\nof making the Holy Sepulchre a _casus belli_.'\n\nThere is something very suggestive in these remarks, and one thought\nsuggested is particularly in the direction of our inquiry, and that is,\nmay not the theory of the Aryan mythological origin of our folk-tales be\nas imaginary and as groundless as the theory of the Oriental origin of\nfairies? At the same time, let us admit that the superstitious belief in\ncapnomancy--_i.e._, divination by smoke--still said to be prevalent in\nsome parts of the Highlands, is probably the relic of the old sacrifices\nby fire to the gods. In so far the superstition has a mythological\nsignificance, but then, are we not driven back to the consideration\nwhether these gods were not actual personages in the minds of the old\nCeltic worshippers, and not symbols of natural phenomena?\n\nSo much, however, for popular superstitions; and, as regards folk-tales,\nwe must, in speculating as to their origin,[1] 'look not into the\nclouds, but upon the earth; not in the various aspects of nature, but in\nthe daily occurrences and surroundings.' The process of diffusion must\nalways remain uncertain. 'Much may be due to the identity everywhere of\nearly fancy, something to transmission,' but 'household tales occupy a\nmiddle place between the stories of savages and the myths of early\ncivilization.'[2] And as nursery-rhymes are but the simplified form of\nhousehold or folk-tales, let us consider with Mr. Lang the relation\nbetween savage customs and ancient myths.\n\nThe foundation of the method of comparative mythology is the belief that\n'myths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl is the\nresult of a disease of the oyster.' The method of inquiry is to examine\nthe names which occur in the stories, and having found or invented a\nmeaning for these names, to argue back from them to a meaning in the\nmyths. But then almost each scholar has his peculiar fancy in etymology,\nand while one finds a Sanskrit root, another finds a Greek, a third a\nSemitic, and so on. Even when they agree upon the derivation of the\nproper names, the scholars seldom agree upon the interpretation of them,\nand thus the whole system is full of perplexity and confusion to all who\napproach its study with unbiassed minds. There is a further division\namong the mythologists, for there are some who have a partiality for\nsun-myths, others for cloud-myths, sky-myths and fire-myths, and each\nseeks to work out an interpretation of an old-world story to suit his\nown taste in myths. How can they be all right? And in whom can we have\nconfidence when we find so much disagreement, first, on the derivation\nof names, and second, on their meaning after the derivation is\ndiscovered? And then, how do we know that words had the same meaning to\nthe ancients as they have to us? Was the sky, for instance, to the\noriginal story-makers 'an airy, infinite, radiant vault,' as it is to\nus, or was it a material roof, or even a person? And, further, how is it\nthat we find the same myth, with slight alterations, in various parts of\nthe world, but with totally different names?\n\nIn opposition to the method of reading myths by the philological\nanalysis of names, there is the method of reading them by folk-lore,\n_i.e._, by a comparison of the folk-tales and customs of primitive\npeoples. The student of folk-lore has to collect and compare the similar\nrelics of old races, the surviving superstitions and traditions, and the\nideas which still live. He is thus led to compare the usages, myths, and\nideas of savages with those which remain among the European\npeasantry--classes which have least altered by education, and have shown\nthe smallest change in progress. It is thus that we find even in our own\ncountry and in our own day such things as the beliefs in fairies and\ndivination by smoke, which are as old as time. Similarly, the\nharvest-custom which is still practised by the children in parts of\nrural England and Scotland--the dressing up of the last gleaning in\nhuman shape, and conducting it home in musical procession--is parallel\nwith a custom in ancient Peru, and with the Feast of Demeter of the\nSicilians. But that does not necessarily prove any original connection\nbetween Peruvians, Scotch and Sicilians, any more than the fact that the\nnegroes of Barbadoes make clay figures of their enemies and mutilate\nthem, as the Greeks and Accadians of old used to do, proves any\nconnection between the negroes and the Greeks and Accadians. If we find\nthe Australians spreading dust round the body of a dead man in order to\nreceive the impression of the footprints of any ghostly visitor, the\nsame custom has been observed among the Jews, among the Aztecs, among\nthe French, and even among the Scotch. Where we find, therefore, an\napparently irrational and anomalous custom in any country, we must look\nfor a country where a similar custom prevails, and where it is no longer\nirrational and anomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of\nthe people among whom it prevails. When we read of Greeks dancing about\nin their 'mysteries' with live serpents, it seems unintelligible, but\nwhen we read of Red Indians doing the same thing with live rattlesnakes,\nwe can understand the meaning because we can see implied a test of\nphysical courage. May not a similar motive have originated the Greek\npractices?\n\nThe method of folk-lore, then, is 'to compare the seemingly meaningless\ncustoms or manners of civilized races with the similar customs and\nmanners which exist among the uncivilized, and still retain their\nmeaning. It is not necessary for comparison of this sort that the\nuncivilized and the civilized race should be of the same stock, nor need\nwe prove that they were ever in contact.'[3] Similar conditions of mind\nproduce similar practices, apart from identity of race, or borrowing of\nideas and manners. In pursuing this method we have to compare the\ncustoms and tales of the most widely separated races, whereas the\ncomparative mythologists, who hold it correct to compare Greek, Slavonic,\nCeltic and Indian stories because they occur in languages of the same\nfamily, and Chaldean and Greek stories because the Chaldeans and the\nGreeks are known to have been in contact, will not compare Greek,\nChaldean, Celtic, or Indian stories with those of the Maoris, the\nEskimos, or the Hottentots, because these last belong to a different\nlanguage-family, and are not known to have ever been in contact with\nAryan races.\n\nThe 'bull-roarer,' a toy familiar to most children, is one example\nselected by Mr. Lang. It is a long, thin, narrow piece of wood,\nsharpened at both ends; attached to a piece of string, and whirled\nrapidly and steadily in the air, it emits a sound which gradually\nincreases to an unearthly kind of roar. The ancient Greeks employed at\nsome of their sacred rites a precisely similar toy, described by\nhistorians as 'a little piece of wood, to which a string was fastened,\nand in the mysteries it is whirled round to make a roaring noise.' The\nperformers in the 'mysteries' at which this implement was used daubed\nthemselves all over with clay. Demosthenes describes the mother of\nAeschines as a dabbler in mysteries, and tells how Aeschines used to\nassist her by helping to bedaub the initiate with clay and bran. Various\nexplanations have been offered of these practices, but let us see how\nthey tally with any prevailing customs. First, the bull-roarer is to be\nfound in almost every country in the world, and among the most primitive\npeoples. It is so simple an instrument that it is within the scope of\nthe mechanical genius of the most degraded savages, and therefore it is\nquite unnecessary to suppose that the idea of it was ever transmitted\nfrom race to race. And as an instrument employed in religious rites or\nmysteries, it is found in New Mexico, in Australia, in New Zealand and\nin Africa, to this day. Its use in Australia is to warn the women to\nkeep out of the way when the men are about to celebrate their tribal\nmysteries. It is death for women to witness these rites, and it is also\nforbidden for them to look upon the sacred turndun, or bull-roarer. In\nthe same way, among the Greeks, it was forbidden for men to witness the\nrites of the women, and for women to witness those of the men. Among the\nIndians of Zuni, Mr. Cushing found the same implement used by the\npriests to summon the tribe to the sacrificial feasts. In South Africa,\nMr. Tylor has proved that the bull-roarer is employed to call the men\nonly to the celebration of sacred functions, and the instrument itself\nis described in Theal's Kaffir Folklore.\n\nNow, the same peoples who still employ the bull-roarer as a sacred\ninstrument also bedaub their bodies with clay, for no apparent reason\nunless it may be to frighten their enemies or repel intruders. We thus\nfind still prevailing in our own time among savage races practices which\nare perfectly analogous to practices which prevailed among the Greeks.\nThe reasonable inference, therefore, is not that the bull-roaring and\nbody-daubing were first used in the rites of a civilized race of Greeks,\nand thence transmitted to Africa, Australia and America, but that the\nemployment of these things by the Greeks was a survival of the time when\nthe Greeks were in the same savage condition as are the peoples among\nwhom we find the same things now.\n\nThe Greek story of Saturn is familiar to every schoolboy. Saturn, it\nwill be remembered, wounds and drives away his father, Uranus, because\nof his unkindness to himself and his brothers. Afterwards Saturn marries\nhis sister Rhea, and has several children--Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon\nand Zeus--whom he swallowed as they were born, lest they might serve him\nas he served Uranus. But Rhea didn't like this, and at the time when\nZeus was born she ran away to a distant place. Saturn followed, and,\nasking for the child, was given a stone, which he swallowed without\nlooking at it. Zeus grew up in security, and in due time gave his father\na dose which made him disgorge, first, the stone (which was placed at\nDelphi, where it became an object of public worship), and then the\nchildren, one after another, all living and hearty.\n\nThe tale is told in various ways, but these are the main incidents. It\nis interpreted by the mythologists to typify, in its first part, the\nbirth of the world and the elements; and the second part is held by some\nto typify the operations of time, by others the alternations of night\nand day--the stone swallowed by Saturn being the sun, which he\nafterwards disgorges at daybreak. By others Saturn is held to be the sun\nand ripener of the harvests; by others, again, the storm-god, who\nswallows the clouds, whose sickle is the rainbow, and whose blood is the\nlightning; by others still Saturn is regarded as the sky, which swallows\nand reproduces the stars, and whose sickle is the crescent moon. There\nis a great deal of diversity of opinion, it will be observed, about this\nmyth of Saturn, or Cronus, but it is curious to note how all the leading\nincidents of this myth may be traced in various parts of the world.[4]\nAmong the Maoris, the story of Tutenganahau is told, and this is a story\nof the severing of heaven and earth, very similar to the Greek story. In\nIndia and in China, legends tell of the former union of heaven and\nearth, and of their violent separation by their own children. As regards\nthe swallowing performances of Saturn, they find analogues in tales\namong the Australians, among the Red Indians, among the natives of\nBritish Guiana, and among the Kaffirs.\n\nThe conclusion, then, is that the first part of the Saturn myth is\nevidently the survival of an old nature-myth which is common to races\nwho never had any communication with the Greeks. The second part is\nunintelligible, except as just such a legend as might be evolved by\npersons in the same savage intellectual condition as, say, the Bushmen,\nwho account for celestial phenomena by saying that a big star has\nswallowed his daughter and spat her out again.\n\nAny myth which accounts for the processes of nature or the aspects of\nnatural phenomena may, says Mr. Lang, conceivably have been invented\nseparately, therefore it is not surprising to find the star-stories of\nsavages closely resembling those of civilized races. The story of the\nlost sister of the Pleiades, according to the Greek myth, finds a\nparallel in a tradition among the Australians. Of star-lore generally,\nit may be said that it is much the same even among the Bushmen of\nAfrica, as it was among the Greeks and Egyptians, and as it is among the\nAustralians and Eskimos.\n\nAnother interesting inquiry is to trace the legend current among the\nGreeks, and known to us as that of Jason and the Golden Fleece, in the\nStoryology of the Africans, the Norse, the Malagasies, the Russians, the\nItalians, the Samoans, the Finns, the Samoyedes and the Eskimo. Some of\nthe resemblances are so exceedingly close and curious as to severely\nshake our belief in the dawn-sun-spring-lightning interpretations of the\nmythologists. They drive us to the conclusion that the Jason myth is not\na story capable of explanation as a nature-myth, or as a result of 'a\ndisease of language'; for as is pertinently remarked, 'So many languages\ncould not take the same malady in the same way; nor can we imagine any\nstories of natural phenomena that would inevitably suggest this tale to\nso many diverse races.' The rational theory is that the Jason story,\nlike its analogues among strange races, had its origin in a time of\nsavage conditions, when animals were believed to talk, when human\nsacrifices and cannibalism were practised, and when efforts to escape\nbeing eaten were natural.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE MAGIC WAND.\n\n\nIt is sufficiently remarkable that the rod, besides being an emblem of\nauthority, is also an instrument of the supernatural. An indispensable\ninstrument, one may say; for was ever a magician depicted in book, in\npicture, or in the mind's eye, without a wand? Does even the most\namateurish of prestidigitateurs attempt to emulate the performances of\nthe once famous Wizard of the North, without the aid of the magic staff?\nThe magician, necromancer, soothsayer, or conjurer, is as useless\nwithout his wand as a Newcastle pitman is without his 'daug.'\n\nAt first thought it might be assumed that the association of the rod or\nwand with necromancy is merely an indication of power or authority, in\nthe same way as the sceptre is associated with kingship. But there is\nsomething more in it. Magic has been well called 'the shadow of\nreligion,' and the early religious idea found expression in symbols.\nThese symbols, as we know, have in many cases retained a certain\nsignificance long after the ideas they were meant to convey have been\nlost, or abandoned, or modified. If we bear these things in mind, it is\nnot difficult to discover a religious origin for the symbolic wand of\nnecromancy.\n\nMr. Moncure Conway, in his book on Demonology and Devil-lore, mentions a\nthing which seems peculiarly apposite to our subject. In the old town of\nHanover there is a certain schoolhouse, in which, above the teacher's\nchair, there was originally a representation of a dove perched upon a\nrod--the rod in this case being meant to typify a branch. Below the dove\nand rod there was this inscription: 'This shall lead you unto all\nTruth.' But the dove has long since disappeared, and there remains now\nbut the rod and the inscription. It is natural that the children of the\nschool should apply the admonition to the rod, ignorant that the rod was\nbut the supporter of a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Thus has the pious\ndesign of inculcating a Divine lesson left only an emblem of mysterious\nterror. In some way, too, has the magic wand lost its religious\nsignificance and become but a dread implement of the occult.\n\nYet we might trace the origin of the magician's wand to the very same\nroot as that of the iron rod of the Hanover schoolhouse. We may find it\nin the olive-branch brought by the dove into the ark--a message of\nDivine love and mercy--and therefore a connecting-link between human\nneeds and desires and superhuman power. To construe a mere symbol into a\nrealized embodiment of the virtue symbolized were surely as easy in this\ncase as in that of the Eucharist.\n\nBut if this suggestion of the origin of the magician's wand be thought\ntoo hypothetical, there will be less objection to our finding it in\nAaron's rod. Moses was commanded to take a rod from the chiefs of each\nof the twelve tribes, and to write upon each rod the name. The rods were\nthen to be placed in the Tabernacle, and the owner of the one which\nblossomed was designated as the chosen one. The rod of the house of Levi\nbore the name of Aaron, and this was the only one of the twelve which\nblossomed. Here once more was the rod used to connect human needs with\nDivine will; but now a special virtue is made to appear in the rod\nitself. This virtue appeared again, when Pharaoh called all the\nsorcerers and magicians of Egypt to test their enchantments with\nAaron's. All these magicians bore wands, or rods, and when they threw\nthem on the ground the rods turned into serpents. Aaron's rod also\nturned into a serpent, and swallowed all the others. Now, here we find\ntwo things established. First, that even in these early days necromancy\nwas a profession, and the rod a necessary implement of the craft; and,\nsecond, that the rod was esteemed not merely an emblem of authority, or\na mere ornament of office, but as a thing of superhuman power in itself\nalthough the power could only be evoked by the specially gifted.\n\nWe find the beginning of the idea in the story of Moses' rod which\nturned into a serpent when he cast it on the ground at the Divine\ncommand. This was what led up to the trial of skill with the Egyptian\nmagicians, and seems to have been the first suggestion in early history\nof the miraculous virtues of the rod. Then we must remember that it was\nby the stretching forth of the rod of the prophet that all the waters of\nEgypt were made to turn into blood, and that the plagues of frogs and\nlice were wrought, and that the hail was called down from heaven which\ndestroyed the crops and flocks of the Egyptians. In fact, all the\nmiracles performed in the land of Egypt were made to appear more or less\nas the result of the application of the magic rod, just as to this day\nthe clever conjurer appears to produce his wonderful effects with his\nwand.\n\nIt was by the stretching forth of the rod of Moses that the Red Sea\ndivided, and that the water sprang from the rock. The staff of Elisha\nand the spear of Joshua may also be cited in this connection, and other\nexamples in Holy Writ may occur to the reader. They are mentioned here\nin no spirit of irreverence, but merely as evidence that the magic\nvirtue of the rod was a fixed belief in the minds of the early writers.\n\nBelief in the vitalizing power of the rod may be found embalmed in many\na curious mediaeval legend. The budding rod, borrowed from the tradition\nof Aaron's, is, for instance, very frequent. Thus in the story of St.\nChristophoros, as preserved in Von Buelow's Christian Legends of Germany,\nwe read of the godly man carrying the Child-Christ on his back through a\nraging torrent, and afterwards lying down on the banks of the stream,\nexhausted, to sleep. The staff which he stuck in the ground ere he lay\ndown, budded and blossomed before he awoke, and in the morning he found\na great umbrageous tree bearing fruit, and giving shelter to hundreds of\ngorgeous birds. There are many such legends in the traditions of all the\nChristian nations, and the collection and comparison of them would be an\ninteresting and instructive task, but one too large for our present\npurpose.\n\nIt is related by Holinshed, in connection with many wonderful visions\nwhich were seen in Scotland about A.D. 697, that once when the Bishop\nwas conducting the service in the church of Camelon, with the\ncrozier-staff in his hand, 'it was kindled so with fire that by no means\nit could be quenched till it was burnt even to ashes.' This was supposed\nto have been the handiwork of the devil, who has on other occasions used\nthe staff or wand to emphasize his intentions or mark his spite. Thus,\nof the famous Dr. Fian it is narrated in the 'Newes from Scotland,\ndeclaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was\nburned at Edenborough in Januarie last 1591; which Doctor was Register\nto the Devill, that sundrie times Preached at North-Baricke Kirke to a\nnumber of notorious Witches,' etc.--that he made the following, among\nhis other confessions: 'That the devill had appeared unto him in the\nnight before, appareled all in blacke, with a white wand in his hande,\nand that the devill demanded of him if he would continue his faithfull\nservice according to his first oath and promise made to that effect,\nwhome (as hee then said) he utterly renounced to his face, and said unto\nhim in this manner: \"Avoide, avoide, Satan, for I have listened too\nmuch unto thee, and by the same thou hast undone me, in respect whereof\nI utterly forsake thee.\" To whom the devill answered, \"That once, ere\nthou die, thou shalt be mine,\" and with that (as he sayed) the devill\nbrake the white wand, and immediately vanished from sight.' After which,\nthe chronicle goes on to tell how the redoubtable doctor actually\nescaped from prison, and began to resume his Satanic practices.\n\nThis brings us to the most frequent use of the rod in superstitions--for\nthe purposes of divination. There is a suggestion of the practice by\nNebuchadnezzar, when he 'stood at the parting of the way, at the head of\ntwo ways, to use divinations, he made his arrows bright,' etc. He then\nthrew up a bundle of arrows to see which way they would alight, and\nbecause they fell on the right hand he marched towards Jerusalem.\nDivination by the wand is also suggested in the shooting of an arrow\nfrom a window by Elisha, and by the strokes upon the ground with an\narrow by which Joash foretold the number of his victories.\n\nSir Thomas Browne speaks of a common 'practice among us to determine\ndoubtful matters by the opening of a book and letting fall of a staff.'\nThe 'staff' business is not quite so familiar in present days, but the\nopening of a book for prophetic guidance is, perhaps, more common than\nmost people suppose.\n\nSir Thomas Browne also speaks of a 'strange kind of exploration and\npeculiar way of Rhabdomancy' used in mineral discoveries. That is,\n'with a fork of hazel, commonly called Moses his rod, which, freely held\nforth, will stir and play if any mine be under it. And though many there\nare,' says the learned doctor, 'who have attempted to make it good, yet\nuntil better information, we are of opinion, with Agricola, that in\nitself it is a fruitless exploration, strongly scenting of pagan\nderivation and the _virgula divina_ proverbially magnified of old. The\nground whereof were the magical rods in poets--that of Pallas, in Homer;\nthat of Mercury, that charmed Argus; and that of Circe, which\ntransformed the followers of Ulysses. Too boldly usurping the name of\nMoses' rod, from which notwithstanding, and that of Aaron, were probably\noccasioned the fables of all the rest. For that of Moses must needs be\nfamous unto the Egyptians, and that of Aaron unto many other nations, as\nbeing preserved in the Ark until the destruction of the Temple built by\nSolomon.'\n\nOne may look in vain, perhaps, for modern instances of the divining-rod\nunder the name of 'Moses his rod,' as old Sir Thomas found it.\n\nIt is curious, however, that Sir Thomas Browne, who was so fond of\ndelving among ancient writers, makes no reference to a striking passage\nin Herodotus. That historian, speaking of the Scythians, says, 'They\nhave amongst them a great number who practise the art of divination. For\nthis purpose they use a number of willow-twigs in this manner: they\nbring large bundles of these together, and having untied them, dispose\nthem one by one on the ground, each bundle at a distance from the rest.\nThis done, they pretend to foretell the future, during which they take\nup the bundles separately and tie them again together.'\n\nFrom this it may be seen that while the divining-rod was a familiar\ninstrument 450 years before Christ, it was also then disbelieved in by\nsome. Curious to think that what the old historian of Halicarnassus was\nwise enough to ridicule four centuries and a half before the birth of\nChrist, there are yet people, nineteen centuries after His advent,\nsimple enough to accept!\n\nHerodotus goes on to tell that this mode of divination was hereditary\namong the Scythians, so how many centuries earlier it may have been\npractised one can hardly guess. He says that the 'enaries, or effeminate\nmen, affirm that the art of divination was taught them by the goddess\nVenus,' a statement which will carry some significance to those who are\nfamiliar with the theories so boldly advocated by the author of Bible\nFolklore.\n\nNow, the attempt to divine by means of rods, arrows, staffs or twigs is\nevidently a good deal older than Herodotus, and it is to be found among\nalmost every race of people on the face of the earth. Let us say\n'almost,' because Mr. Andrew Lang instances this as one form of\nsuperstition which is not prevalent among savage races; or rather, to\nuse his exact words, 'is singular in its comparative lack of copious\nsavage analogues.' The qualification seems to be necessary, because\nthere are certainly some, if not 'copious,' instances among savage\npeoples of the use of the divining-rod in one form or other. And Mr.\nLang is hardly accurate in speaking of the 'resurrection' of this\nsuperstition in our own country. It has, in fact, never died, and there\nis scarcely a part of the country where a 'diviner' has not tried\nhis--or her, for it is often a woman--skill with the 'twig' from time to\ntime. These attempts have seldom been known beyond the immediate\nlocality and the limited circle of those interested in them, and it is\nonly of late years, since folklore became more of a scientific and\ngeneral study, that the incidents have been seized upon and recorded by\nthe curious. From the time of Moses until now the 'rod' has been almost\ncontinuously used by innumerable peoples in the effort to obtain\nsupplies of water.\n\nIn ancient times it was used, as we have seen, for a variety of other\npurposes; but its surviving use in our generation is to indicate the\nlocality of hidden springs or of mineral deposits. There are cases on\nrecord, however, so recently as the last century, when the rod was used\nin the detection of criminals, and a modified application of it to a\nvariety of indefinite purposes may even be traced to the planchette,\nwhich, at this very day, is seriously believed in by many persons who\nare ranked as 'intelligent.'\n\nNow, of the use of the divining-rod in England, Mr. Thiselton-Dyer thus\nwrote some years ago: 'The _virgula divinatoria_, or divining-rod, is a\nforked branch in the form of a Y, cut off a hazel-stick, by means of\nwhich people have pretended to discover mines, springs, etc.,\nunderground. It is much employed in our mining districts for the\ndiscovery of hidden treasure. In Cornwall, for instance, the miners\nplace much confidence in its indications, and even educated, intelligent\nmen oftentimes rely on its supposed virtues. Pryce, in his Mineralogia\nCornubiensis, tells us that many mines have been discovered by the rod,\nand quotes several; but after a long account of the method of cutting,\ntying and using it, rejects it, because 'Cornwall is so plentifully\nstored with tin and copper lodes, that some accident every week\ndiscovers to us a fresh vein,' and because 'a grain of metal attracts\nthe rod as strongly as a pound, for which reason it has been found to\ndip equally to a poor as to a rich lode.'\n\nBut in Lancashire and Cumberland also, Mr. Dyer goes on to say, 'the\npower of the divining-rod is much believed in, and also in other parts\nof England.' The method of using it is thus described. The small ends,\nbeing crooked, are to be held in the hands in a position flat or\nparallel to the horizon, and the upper part at an elevation having an\nangle to it of about seventy degrees. The rod must be grasped strongly\nand steadily, and then the operator walks over the ground. When he\ncrosses a lode, its bending is supposed to indicate the presence\nthereof. Mr. Dyer's explanation of the result is simple: 'The position\nof the hands in holding the rod is a constrained one--it is not easy to\ndescribe it; but the result is that the hands, from weariness speedily\ninduced in the muscles, grasp the end of the twig yet more rigidly, and\nthus is produced the mysterious bending. The phenomena of the\ndivining-rod and table-turning are of precisely the same character, and\nboth are referable to an involuntary muscular action resulting from\nfixedness of idea. These experiments with a divining-rod are always made\nin a district known to be metalliferous, and the chances are, therefore,\ngreatly in favour of its bending over or near a mineral lode.'\n\nThe theory of 'involuntary muscular action' is a favourite explanation,\nand the subject is one well worthy of the investigation of all students\nof psychology. But how does this theory square with the story of\nLinnaeus, told by a writer in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1752? 'When\nLinnaeus was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secretary highly\nextol the virtues of his divining-rod, he was willing to convince him of\nits insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of 100 ducats\nunder a ranunculus which grew up by itself in a meadow, and bid the\nsecretary find it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and\nLinnaeus's mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present,\nso that when Linnaeus went to finish the experiment by fetching the gold\nhimself, he was utterly at a loss where to find it. The man with the\nwand assisted him, and told him that it could not lie in the way they\nwere going, but quite the contrary; so pursued the direction of the\nwand, and actually dug out the gold. Linnaeus adds, that such another\nexperiment would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him.'\n\nThe explanation of this case by the incredulous would, of course, be\nthat the owner of the wand had made a private mark of his own, and thus\nknew better than Linnaeus where the gold lay.\n\nThe divining-rod, however, is not used only in districts which are known\nto abound in metalliferous deposits, when minerals are being searched\nfor, but has frequently been used by prospectors in new countries. Thus\nwe recall that Captains Burton and Cameron in their book about the Gold\nCoast, tell how the rod was used by the early British explorers on the\nGambia River. One Richard Jobson, in 1620, landed and searched various\nparts of the country, armed with mercury, nitric acid, some large\ncrucibles, and a divining-rod. He washed the sand and examined the rocks\nbeyond the Falls of Barraconda, with small success for a long time. At\nlast, however, he found what he declared to be 'the mouth of the mine\nitself, and found gold in such abundance as surprised him with joy and\nadmiration.' But what part the divining-rod played in the discovery is\nnot related, and, for the rest, 'the mine' has disappeared as\nmysteriously as it was discovered. No one else has seen it, and all the\ngold that now comes from the Gambia River is a small quantity of dust\nwashed down from the mountain-ridges of the interior. It is curious,\nhowever, to find civilized Europeans carrying the divining-rod to one of\nthe districts where, according to Mr. Andrew Lang, it has no analogue\namong the primitive savages.\n\nI have mentioned, on the authority of Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, some of the\ndistricts of England in which the divining-rod is still more or less\nused. But something of its more extended use may be learned from Mr.\nHilderic Friend's Flowers and Flower-Lore. That writer informs us of a\ncurious custom of the hop-pickers of Kent and Sussex for ascertaining\nwhere they shall stand to pick. One of them cuts as many slips of hazel\nas there are bins in the garden, and on these he cuts notches from one\nupwards. Each picker then draws a twig, and his standing is decided by\nthe number upon it. This is certainly an interesting instance of the\ndivination by twigs reduced to practical ends. The same writer regards\nthe familiar 'old-wife' fortune-telling by tea-leaves as merely another\nvariation of this old superstition. It does seem to have some analogy to\nseveral of the practices to which we have briefly referred, and one\nfinds another analogy in the Chinese custom of divining by straws.\n\nThe divining-rod of England is described by Mr. Friend much in the same\nway as by Mr. Dyer. But, according to Mr. Friend, hazel was not always,\nalthough it has for a long time been, the favourite wood for the\npurpose. Elder, at any rate, is strictly forbidden, as deemed incapable\nof exhibiting magical powers. In Wiltshire and elsewhere Mr. Friend\nknows of the magic rod having been used recently for detecting water. It\nmust be cut at some particular time when the stars are favourable, and\n'in cutting it, one must face the east, so that the rod shall be one\nwhich catches the first rays of the morning sun, or, as some say, the\neastern and western sun must shine through the fork of the rod,\notherwise it will be good for nothing.'\n\nThe same superstition prevails in China with regard to rods cut from the\nmagic peach-tree. In Prussia, it is said, hazel-rods are cut in spring,\nand when harvest comes they are placed in crosses over the grain to keep\nit good for years, while in Bohemia the rod is used to cure fevers. A\ntwig of apple-tree is, in some parts, considered as good as a hazel-rod,\nbut it must be cut by the seventh son of a seventh son. Brand records\nthat he has known ash-twigs used, and superstitiously regarded, in some\nparts of England; but the hazel is more generally supposed to be popular\nwith the fairies, or whoever may be the mysterious spirits who guide the\ndiviner's art. Hence perhaps the name, common in some parts, of\nwitch-hazel, although, of course, philologists will have it that the\ntrue derivation is wych. In Germany the witch-hazel is the\n_zauber-streuch_, or the magic-tree, and it is probable that both witch\nand wych are from the Anglo-Saxon _wic-en_, to bend. It is curious, at\nany rate, that while in olden times a witch was called _wicce_, the\nmountain-ash, which, as we have seen, has supposed occult virtues, was\nformerly called _wice_. Whether this root has any connection with\nanother name by which the magic wand is known--viz., the\nwishing-rod--may be doubted, but there is clearly a close connection\nbetween the hazel-twig of superstitious England and the\n_Niebelungen-rod_ of Germany, which gave to its possessor power over all\nthe world.\n\nOf the employment of the divining-rod for the detection of criminals\nthere are many cases on record, but the most famous in comparatively\nrecent times is that of Jacques Aymar of Lyons. The full details of the\ndoings of this remarkable person are given by Mr. Baring-Gould in his\nCurious Myths of the Middle Ages; but the story is told more concisely\nby another writer: 'On July 5, 1692, a vintner and his wife were found\ndead in the cellar of their shop at Lyons. They had been killed by blows\nfrom a hedging-knife, and their money had been stolen. The culprits\ncould not be discovered, and a neighbour took upon him to bring to Lyons\na peasant out of Dauphine, named Jacques Aymar, a man noted for his\nskill with the divining-rod. The Lieutenant-Criminel and the Procureur\ndu Roi took Aymar into the cellar, furnishing him with a rod of the\nfirst wood that came to hand. According to the Procureur du Roi the rod\ndid not move till Aymar reached the very spot where the crime had been\ncommitted. His pulse then beat, and the wand twisted rapidly. Guided by\nthe wand, or by some internal sensation, Aymar now pursued the track of\nthe assassins, entered the court of the Archbishop's palace, left the\ntown by the bridge over the Rhone, and followed the right bank of the\nriver. He reached a gardener's house, which he declared the men had\nentered, and some children confessed that three men, whom they\ndescribed, had come into the house one Sunday morning. Aymar followed\nthe track up the river, pointed out all the places where the men had\nlanded, and, to make a long story short, stopped at last at the door of\nthe prison of Beaucaire. He was admitted, looked at the prisoners, and\npicked out as the murderer a little hunchback, who had just been\nbrought in for a small theft. The hunchback was taken to Lyons, and he\nwas recognised on the way by the people at all the stages where he had\nstopped. At Lyons he was examined in the usual manner, and confessed\nthat he had been an accomplice in the crime, and had guarded the door.\nAymar pursued the other culprits to the coast, followed them by sea,\nlanded where they had landed, and only desisted from his search when\nthey crossed the frontier. As for the hunchback, he was broken on the\nwheel, being condemned on his own confession.'\n\nThis is briefly the story of Jacques Aymar, which is authenticated by\nvarious eye-witnesses, and of which many explanations have been tendered\nfrom time to time. Mr. Baring-Gould commits himself to no definite\nexpression of opinion, but says: 'I believe that the imagination is the\nprincipal motive force in those who use the divining-rod; but whether it\nis so solely I am unable to decide. The powers of Nature are so\nmysterious and inscrutable that we must be cautious in limiting them,\nunder abnormal conditions, to the ordinary laws of experience.' As,\nhowever, Jacques Aymar failed ignominiously under all the subsequent\ntrials to which he was subjected, the most reasonable explanation of his\nsuccess, with regard to the Lyons murder, is that he was by nature a\nclever detective, and that he was favoured by circumstances after he had\nonce caught a clue.\n\nTo return to the employment of the divining-rod in England, we find\nnumerous instances of its application in searching for water, and these\ninstances happen to be among the best authenticated of any on record.\nSome years ago a writer in the _Times_ boldly declared that he had\nhimself seen the rod successfully used in seeking for water. He had even\ntried it himself, with the determination that the rod should not be\nallowed to twist, 'even if an ocean rolled under his feet.' But he\nconfessed that it did twist in spite of him, and that at the place was\nfound a concealed spring.\n\nThen it is recorded of Lady Milbanke, mother of Lord Byron's wife, that\nshe had found a well by the violent twisting of the twig held in the\northodox way in her hand--turning so violently, indeed, as almost to\nbreak her fingers. Dr. Hutton was a witness of the affair, and has\nrecorded his experience, which is quoted in a curious book called\nJacob's Rod, published in London many years ago. This case, and others,\nwere cited by a writer in the twenty-second volume of the _Quarterly\nReview_. De Quincey also asserted that he had frequently seen the\ndivining-rod successfully used in the quest of water, and declared that,\n'whatever science or scepticism may say, most of the tea-kettles in the\nVale of Wrington, North Somersetshire, are filled by Rabdomancy.' Mr.\nBaring-Gould also quotes the case of a friend of his own who was\npersonally acquainted with a Scotch lady who could detect hidden springs\nwith a twig, which was inactive in the hands of others who tried it on\nthe same spots.\n\nOther instances might be cited, but enough has been said to show that\nthe magic rod, from the earliest periods, has been an instrument of\nsupernatural attributes, and that even to this day in our own country it\nis still believed by some to have the special faculty of indicating the\npresence of minerals and water. With regard to minerals, there are no\ninstances so well authenticated as those concerning the discovery of\nwater. With regard to these last a considerable amount of haziness still\nexists, and, without venturing to pronounce them all fictions or\nproductions of the imagination, it may be possible to find an\nexplanation in a theory of hydroscopy. It is held that there are some\nfew persons who are hydroscopes by nature--that is to say, are endowed\nwith peculiar sensations which tell them the moment they are near water,\nwhether it be evident or hidden, a concealed watercourse or a\nsubterranean spring. If the existence of such a faculty, however\nexceptional, be clearly established, it will afford an explanation of\ncertain successes with the divining-rod.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE MAGIC MIRROR.\n\n\nThere is an old superstition, current, probably, in most parts of the\ncountry, that the breaking of a mirror will be followed by bad\nluck--usually a death in the family. This is, doubtless, the survival of\na still older superstition--the belief in certain magic qualities of the\nmirror, which enabled it in certain circumstances to reflect the distant\nand to forecast the future. Nor was this superstition so childish as\nwere some other popular delusions of old, for it had a certain\nphilosophic basis. It is the peculiar property of the mirror to\nrepresent truth; to reproduce faithfully that which is; to show us\nourselves as others see us. This is the idea expressed by Hamlet: 'To\nhold the mirror up to Nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her\nown image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.'\n\nThe mirror has been, from time immemorial, a favourite form of charm for\nthe exorcism of devils, and, indeed, to this day some of the African\ntribes believe that the best defence they have against their extremely\nugly devil is a mirror. If they keep one at hand, the devil must see\nhimself in it before he can touch them, and be so terrified at his own\nugliness that he will turn tail and flee.\n\nWe may take this symbolically--that a man shrinks from his worst self\nwhen it is revealed to him; but the untutored mind is prone to mistake\nsymbol for fact. In this way, while the ancient philosophers may have\nused the mirror as a symbol of the higher nature of man, so polished and\nclarified that it showed him his lower nature in all its deformity, the\ncrowd came to regard the crystal as an actual instrument of divination.\n\nSome of the oldest romances in the world have to do with the magical\noperation of the mirror. In the Gesta Romanorum there is a story of a\nknight who went to Palestine, and who while there was shown by an\nEastern magician in a mirror what was going on at home. In the Arabian\nNights the story of Prince Ahmed has a variant, an ivory tube through\nwhich could be discovered the far-distant--a sort of anticipation of Sam\nWeller's 'double million magnifying gas microscope of hextra power.'\n\nIn the story of Prince Zeyn Alasnam, the enchanted mirror was able to\nreflect character, and was called the Touchstone of Virtue. Here again\nwe have Hamlet's idea of holding the mirror up to Nature. The young\nKing, Zeyn Alasnam, had eight beautiful statues of priceless value, and\nhe wanted a ninth to make up his set. The difficulty was to find one\nbeautiful enough; but the Prince of Spirits promised to supply one as\nsoon as Zeyn should bring him a maiden at least fifteen years old, and\nof perfect beauty; only the maiden must not be vain of her charms, and\nshe must never have told an untruth. Zeyn employed his magic mirror, and\nfor a long time without success, as it always became blurred when he\nlooked into it in the presence of a girl. At last he found one whose\nimage was faithfully and brilliantly reflected--whose modesty and\ntruthfulness were attested by the mirror. He took her with reluctance to\nthe Prince of Spirits, because he had fallen in love with her himself;\nbut his faithfulness to the contract was duly rewarded. On returning\nhome, he found that the ninth statue, placed on its pedestal by the\nPrince of Spirits according to promise, was no cold marble, but the\npeerless and virtuous maiden whom he had discovered by means of his\nmirror.\n\nParacelsus, in one of his treatises on Magic, gives the following\naccount of the uses to which 'the witches and evil spirits' sometimes\nput the mirror.\n\n'They take a mirror set in a wooden frame and put it into a tub of\nwater, so that it will swim on the top with its face directed towards\nthe sky. On the top of the mirror, and encircling the glass, they lay a\ncloth saturated with blood, and thus they expose it to the influence of\nthe moon; and this evil influence is thrown towards the moon, and\nradiating again from the moon, it may bring evil to those who love to\nlook at the moon. The rays of the moon, passing through the ring upon\nthe mirror, become poisoned, and poison the mirror; the mirror throws\nback the poisoned ether into the atmosphere, and the moon and the mirror\npoison each other, in the same manner as two malicious persons, by\nlooking at each other, poison each other's souls with their eyes. If a\nmirror is strongly poisoned in this manner, the witch takes good care of\nit; and if she desires to injure someone, she takes a waxen image made\nin his name, she surrounds it with a cloth spotted with blood, and\nthrows the reflex of the mirror through the opening in the middle upon\nthe head of the figure, or upon some other part of its body, using at\nthe same time her evil imagination and curses; and the man whom the\nimage represents may then have his vitality dried up, and his blood\npoisoned by that evil influence, and he may become diseased and his body\ncovered with boils.'\n\nThis, of course, is not divination, but sorcery.\n\nParacelsus gives very minute directions for the making of a magic\nmirror. The material should be the 'electrum magicum,' which is a\ncompound of ten parts of pure gold, ten of silver, five of copper, two\nof tin, two of lead, one part of powdered iron, and five parts of\nmercury. When the planets Saturn and Mercury conjoin, the lead has to be\nmelted and the mercury added. Then the metal must cool, while you wait\nfor a conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn and Mercury; when that occurs,\nyou melt the amalgam of lead and mercury, and add the tin, previously\nmelted in a separate crucible, at the exact moment of conjunction. Again\nyou wait for a conjunction of either of the above-named planets with\nthe Sun, when you add the gold; with the Moon, when you add the silver;\nwith Venus, when you add the copper. Finally, when a conjunction of\neither of the planets occurs with Mars, you must complete your mixture\nwith the powdered iron, and stir up the whole molten mass with a dry rod\nof witch-hazel.\n\nThus far your metal; but the mirror is not made yet. It must be of about\ntwo inches diameter, and must be founded in moulds of fine sand at the\nmoment when a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus occurs. The mirror must\nbe smoothed with a grindstone and polished with tripoly and a piece of\nlime-wood; but all the operations must be conducted only when the\nplanetary influences are favourable.\n\nBy selecting the proper hours, three different mirrors may be prepared,\nand then, at a time of conjunction of two 'good' planets, while the Sun\nor Moon 'stands on the house of the lord of the hour of your birth,' the\nthree mirrors should be placed in pure well-water and left for an hour.\nAfter this they may be wrapped in clean linen and kept ready for use.\n\nWith a mirror made in this way from the 'electrum magicum,' Paracelsus\nsays:\n\n'You may see the events of the past and the present, absent friends or\nenemies, and see what they are doing. You may see in it any object you\nmay desire to see, and all the doings of men in daytime or at night. You\nmay see in it anything that has been ever written down, said, or spoken\nin the past, and also see the person who said it, and the causes that\nmade him say what he did, and you may see in it anything, however secret\nit may have been kept.'\n\nMirrors made of the 'electrum magicum' are warranted antipathetic to all\nevil influences, because there is hidden in the metal a 'heavenly power\nand influence of the seven planets.'\n\nThe plastic and creative power of the mind is the power of imagination;\nbut the power of imagination is, or should be, controlled by the will.\nIt is not alone the mediaeval dabblers in the occult who have adopted, or\nendeavoured to adopt, various means for suspending the will and making\nthe imagination passive.\n\nThe ancient Pythoness, as Dr. Franz Hartmann, the modern German exponent\nof the Science of Magic, pointed out, attempted to heighten her\nreceptivity by the inhalation of noxious vapours; uncivilized peoples\nuse poison, or the maddening whirl of the dance; others use opium, Indian\nhemp, or other narcotics--all for the same purpose, to suspend the will,\nrender the mind a blank, and excite the brain so as to produce morbid\nfancies and illusions. The fortune-teller and the clairvoyant employ\nmethods of their own for concentrating their attention, so as produce a\ncondition of mental passivity. The Indian adept prides himself on being\nable to extract volition and suspend imagination by the mere exercise of\nwill.\n\nA favourite device to bring about mental passivity has always been by\nstaring at mirrors, or crystal, or sheets of water, or even pools of ink.\n\n'There are numerous prescriptions for the preparation of magic mirrors,'\nsays Dr. Hartmann in his work on Magic, 'but the best magic mirror will\nbe useless to him who is not able to see clairvoyantly, while the\nnatural clairvoyant may call that faculty into action by concentrating\nhis mind on any particular spot, a glass of water, ink, a crystal, or\nanything else. For it is not in the mirror where such things are seen,\nbut in the mind; the mirror merely serves to assist in the entering of\nthat mental state which is necessary to produce clairvoyant sight. The\nbest of all mirrors is the soul of man, and it should be always kept\npure, and be protected against dust, and dampness, and rust, so that it\nmay not become tarnished, but remain perfectly clear, and able to\nreflect the light of the divine spirit in its original purity.'\n\nA German writer of the fifteenth century takes a less favourable view of\nwhat he calls pyromancy, although pyromancy is really divination by\nfire. He reports the practices of certain Masters of Magic, who made\nchildren look into a wretched mirror for the purpose of obtaining\ninformation in an unholy manner. 'Young boys are said to behold future\nthings and all things, in a crystal. Base, desperate, and faint-hearted\nChristians practise it, to whom the shadow and the phantom of the devil\nare dearer than the truth of God. Some take a clear and beautifully\npolished crystal, or beryl, which they consecrate and keep clean, and\ntreat with incense, myrrh, and the like. And when they propose to\npractise their art, they wait for a clear day, or select some clean\nchamber in which are many candles burning. The Masters then bathe, and\ntake the pure child into the room with them, and clothe themselves in\npure white garments, and sit down and speak in magic sentences, and then\nburn their magic offering, and make the boy look into the stone, and\nwhisper in his ears secret words which have, as they think, some holy\nimport, but which are verily words of the devil.'\n\nA sixteenth-century German tells of a man at Elbingen, in Prussia, who\n'predicted hidden truths' by means of a mirror, and sold the knowledge\nto his customers. Many crystal-seeing old hags are referred to as being\nupon terms of intimacy with Black Kaspar. Indeed, in German literature,\nboth historical, philosophical, legendary, and romantic, we find endless\nreferences to the magic mirror and the divining crystal.\n\nModern romancists still find dramatic use for the old superstitions.\nQuite recently a novel of the present day centred its interest upon an\nancient mirror, which exchanged its reflection for the mind of him who\ngazed into it--a practical and startling realization of the idea that\nthe glass reveals one's true self. Then, not to multiply incidents,\nWilkie Collins, in The Moonstone, introduces what Mr. Rudyard Kipling in\nanother story calls the 'ink-pool'; and readers of Dante Gabriel\nRossetti will recall to mind the doings of the Spirits of the Beryl.\n\nIn a large number of stories the magic mirror is not a looking-glass at\nall. But the beryl, the ink-pool, Dr. Dee's famous spherical speculum,\nthe rock crystal, or even a glass of water, may all, according to the\nadepts, have the same properties as Vulcan's mirror, in which Penelope,\nthe wife of Ulysses, beheld, according to Sir John Davies, a vision of\nall the wonder and grandeur of Queen Elizabeth's Court to be. Even a\npolished sword-blade has been asserted to have made an effective magic\nmirror, and it is recorded that Jacob Boehme penetrated into the\ninnermost secrets of nature and the hearts of men by means of a tin cup.\n\nAs to cups, the Septuagint gives one to understand that the cup placed\nby Joseph in the sack of Benjamin in Egypt was not an ordinary\ndrinking-vessel, but a divining-cup. Now, the way of divining with a cup\nwas to fill it with pure water, and to read the images which were then\nreflected.\n\nSome writers have supposed, from the mention of Urim and Thummim in\nExodus, that divination by mirror was a recognised institution among the\nJews. Urim signifies 'lights,' and Thummim 'reflections,' and the names\nwere applied to the six bright and six dark precious stones on the\nbreastplate of the high priest when he went to seek special revelations.\n\nCambuscan's mirror was, according to Chaucer, of Oriental origin. It was\ngiven by the King of Tartary to the King of Araby, and it seemed to\npossess all the virtues of several kinds of magic mirrors. Thus it\nshowed whether love was returned, whether an individual confronted with\nit were friend or foe, and what trouble was in store for those who\nconsulted it. Merlin's mirror, also called Venus's looking-glass, had\nsome of these properties, but was made in Wales, and was given by\nMerlin to King Ryence. It revealed what was being done by friend or foe\nat a distance, and it also enabled the fair Britomart to read the\nfeatures, and also the name, of her future husband.\n\nThe consultation of a pool, on certain special occasions, for the\nlineaments of 'the coming man,' has been a common enough practice with\nlove-sick damsels in much more recent times.\n\nThe wonderful looking-glass of Lao, described by Lien Chi Altangi in\nGoldsmith's Citizen of the World, reflected the mind as well as the\nbody, and the Emperor Chusi used to make his ladies dress both their\nheads and their hearts before it every morning. Great, however, as are\nthe Chinese in divination, and numerous as are their superstitions, we\ndo not find, _pace_ Oliver Goldsmith, that the mirror occupies any\nprominent place in their magic.\n\nOne of the most famous dealers in catoptromancy (divination by mirror)\nin this country was Dr. John Dee, who flourished about the middle of the\nsixteenth century. He had a speculum called the Shew Stone, and\nsometimes the Holy Stone, with which he divined by the aid of a medium\nnamed Kelly. This Kelly was a notoriously bad character, so his example\ndoes not carry out the popular idea that the seer must be a stainless\nchild, or some absolutely pure-minded being. Dr. Dee professed to have a\nnumber of regular spirit-visitors, whom he described with much\ncircumstantial minuteness, and thus his mirror-magic seems to have\npossessed more of the character of spiritualistic manifestations than\nof the usual Oriental crystallomancy.\n\nThe famous Cagliostro--Prince of Scoundrels, as Carlyle called him--used\na bottle of pure water, into which he directed a child to gaze, with\nresults which were not always satisfactory.\n\nThe Orientalist, Lane, published some sixty years ago, or more, a\ncircumstantial narrative of an experience he had with an Egyptian\nmagician, along with Mr. Salt, a British Consul. Invocations were\nliberally used, in order to summon the two genii of the magician, and\nverses were recited from the Koran, in order that the eyes of the\nmedium--a boy--should be opened in a supernatural manner. The magician\nselected one at random from a group of boys, and drew in the palm of the\nboy's right hand a magic square, inscribed with Arabic figures. He then\npoured ink into the centre, and told the boy to gaze fixedly, while he\nhimself proceeded to drop more written invocations, on slips of paper,\ninto a chafing-dish.\n\nFor some time the boy saw nothing but the reflection of the magician,\nand then he began to describe various scenes. At last Lane asked that\nLord Nelson should be called up, and the boy said that he saw a man in\ndark-blue clothes, with his left arm across his breast. It was explained\nthat the boy saw things as in a mirror, and that Nelson's empty right\nsleeve worn across the breast naturally appeared in the glass as the\nleft arm. Now, the boy may have heard of Nelson, but could scarcely have\nseen him, though the figure of so famous a man must have been familiar\nto the magician. Hypnotism has, therefore, been suggested as the\nexplanation of what Lane witnessed, and which seemed so miraculous at\nthe time.\n\nMany scholars, philosophers, and scientific students of mediaeval times,\nwho had no pretence to magic, had yet firm faith in the power of\nmirrors, constructed in a special manner and under auspicious planetary\ninfluences, to reveal both the distant-present and the future.\n\nOne of the modern adepts was a French magician, who foretold by his\nmirror the death of a Prince, and the regency of the Duc d'Orleans.\n\nThere are many published prescriptions for the making of a magic mirror,\nbut that which has already been given from Paracelsus is a fair specimen\nof the ultra-scientific method. Among directions for the use of the\ncrystal may be cited those of Barth:\n\n'When a crystal has been ground and polished, it is dedicated to some\nspirit or other; this is called its consecration. Before being used, it\nis charged--that is, an invocation is made to the spirit, wherein a\nvision is requested of the things that one wishes to experience.\nOrdinarily, a young person is chosen to look into the glass and behold\nthe prayed-for vision. After a little time the crystal becomes enveloped\nin a cloud, and a tiny vision appears, which represents in miniature the\npersons, scenes, and things that are necessary to supply the required\ninformation. When the information has been obtained, the crystal is\ndischarged, and after receiving thanks for the services he has\nperformed, the spirit is dismissed.'\n\nIn modern crystal-gazing and mirror-reading, however, there is no\ninvocation.\n\nAn American spiritualist says that he once put a crystal into the hands\nof a lady who knew nothing about its reputed virtues, but who\nstraightway began to describe a scene which she saw in it, and which\nturned out afterwards to be a simultaneous incident at Trebizond. The\nmediumistic influence of the spirit of a North American Indian may not\ncommend the story to non-spiritualists.\n\nThe experiences of the Countess Wurmbrand, as related in her curious\nbook, Visionen im Wasserglass, are more matter-of-fact, perhaps, but\nwere also assisted by a mysterious spirit, who enabled her to read\npictures in the glass and to describe them to her husband. She was more\nsuccessful in her time than more recent experimenters and psychologists\nof her own country have been since.\n\nThe Society for Psychical Research have given much attention to the\nsubject, and have reported some remarkable observations--especially\nthose of Miss Goodrich, a lady who has made several scores of\nexperiments of her own in crystal-reading, always taking notes\nimmediately. She tried the back of a watch, a glass of water, a mirror,\nand other reflecting surfaces, before arriving at the conclusion that\npolished rock crystal affords the best speculum for divination.\n\nHaving reached this point, the lady draped her selected crystal in\nblack, set it where no surrounding objects could be reflected in it, and\nsought it when in search of light and leading. Sometimes her\nconsultations were very practical. Thus, one finds among her notes:\n\n'I had carelessly destroyed a letter without preserving the address of\nmy correspondent. I knew the county, and searching a map, recognised the\nname of the town, one unfamiliar to me, but which I was sure I should\nknow when I saw it. But I had no clue to the name of the house or\nstreet, till at last it struck me to test the value of the crystal as a\nmeans of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short inspection supplied\nme with \"Hibbs House,\" in gray letters on a white ground, and having\nnothing better to suggest from any other source, I risked posting my\nletter to the address so strangely supplied. A day or two brought an\nanswer headed \"Hibbs House\" in gray letters on a white ground.'\n\nLet us take an example of another of Miss Goodrich's crystal-readings,\nand let it be remembered that they are all reported as experiments of\nour own day:\n\n'One of my earliest experiences was of a picture, perplexing and wholly\nunexpected--a quaint oak chair, an old hand, a worn black coat-sleeve\nresting on the arm of the chair--slowly recognised as a recollection of\na room in a country vicarage which I had not entered, and but seldom\nrecalled, since I was a child of ten. But whence came this vision? What\nassociation has conjured up this picture? What have I done to-day? At\nlength the clue is found. I have to-day been reading Dante, first\nenjoyed with the help of our dear old vicar many a year ago.'\n\nAnd again: 'I happened to want the date of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which I\ncould not recall, though feeling sure that I knew it, and that I\nassociated it with some event of importance. When looking in the\ncrystal, some hours later, I found a picture of an old man, with long,\nwhite hair and beard, dressed like a Lyceum Shylock, and busy writing in\na large book with tarnished massive clasps. I wondered much who he was,\nand what he could possibly be doing, and thought it a good opportunity\nof carrying out a suggestion which had been made to me of examining\nobjects in the crystal with a magnifying-glass. The glass revealed to me\nthat my old gentleman was writing in Greek, though the lines faded away\nas I looked, all but the characters he had last traced, the Latin\nnumerals LXX. Then it flashed into my mind that he was one of the Jewish\nElders at work on the Septuagint, and that this date, 277 B.C., would\nserve equally well for Ptolemy Philadelphus. It may be worth while to\nadd, though the fact was not in my conscious memory at the moment, that\nI had once learnt a chronology on a mnemonic system which substituted\nletters for figures, and the _memoria technica_ for this date was, \"Now\nJewish Elders indite a Greek copy.\"'\n\nOne may, perhaps, find a simple and easy explanation of Miss Goodrich's\nmirror-reading, in a theory of unconscious cerebration. The crystal\nsimply assisted her memory, and recalled incidents and scenes, just as\na chance odour, a bar of music, a word, a look, a name, will often do\nfor most of us. Clearly there is nothing necessarily either magic or\nspiritualistic in this particular example of the magic mirror.\n\nThere are, however, some other experiments recorded which seem to be\nonly explainable on a theory of telepathy; but Mr. Max Dessoir,\ncommenting on the evidence of Miss Goodrich in an American Review,\nattributes the whole phenomena merely to 'revived memory.'\n\nThis is all very well as to past events, but what shall we say to a case\nsuch as the following, among Miss Goodrich's experiments?\n\n'In January last I saw in the crystal the figure of a man crouching at a\nsmall window, and looking into the room from the outside. I could not\nsee his features, which appeared to be muffled, but the crystal was\nparticularly dark that evening, and the picture being an unpleasant one,\nI did not persevere. I concluded the vision to be a result of a\ndiscussion in my presence of the many stories of burglary with which the\nnewspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with a passing\nsatisfaction that the only windows in the house divided into four panes,\nas were those of the crystal picture, were in the front attic, and\nalmost inaccessible. Three days later a fire broke out in that very\nroom, which had to be entered from outside through the window, the face\nof the fireman being covered with a wet cloth as a protection from the\nsmoke, which rendered access through the door impossible.'\n\nWas this coincidence, or prevision, or what Mr. Dessoir calls the\n'falsification of memory'? The thing was either a miracle, which none of\nus is prepared to accept, or the after-confusion of a vague foreboding\nwith an actual occurrence in the mind of the observer. Mr. Dessoir\nsuggested another explanation of crystal pictures in the doctrine of the\ndouble consciousness of the human soul; but that opens up another\nsubject.\n\nWhile we have seen that mirror and crystal-reading is one of the most\nancient of occult practices, we have also seen that it is practised in\nour own country even at this day. Moreover, it is said that there is in\nEngland a wholesale manufacture of magic mirrors as a regular\nindustry--the site of which, however, the present writer is unable to\nspecify.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE MAGIC MOON.\n\n\nCertainly since, and probably long before, Job 'beheld the moon walking\nin brightness,' all the peoples of the earth have surrounded that\nluminary with legends, with traditions, with myths, and with\nsuperstitions of various kinds. In our time, and in our own country, the\nsentiment with which the orb of night is regarded is a soft and pleasing\none, for\n\n  'That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,\n    Whom mortals call the moon,'\n\nis supposed to look with approval upon happy lovers, and with sympathy\nupon those who are encountering the proverbial rough places in the\ncourse of true love. Why the moon should be partial to lovers one might\neasily explain on very prosaic grounds--perhaps not unlike the reasoning\nof the Irishman who called the sun a coward because he goes away as soon\nas it begins to grow dark, whereas the blessed moon stays with us most\nof the night!\n\nExcept Lucian and M. Jules Verne, one does not readily recall anyone who\nprofesses to have been actually up to the moon. Lucian had by far the\nmost eventful experience, for he met Endymion, who entertained him\nroyally, and did all the honours of the planet to which he had been\nwafted from earth in his sleep. The people of Moonland, Lucian assures\nus, live upon flying frogs, only they do not eat them; they cook the\nfrogs on a fire and swallow the smoke. For drink, he says, they pound\nair in a mortar, and thus obtain a liquid very like dew. They have\nvines, only the grapes yield not wine, but water, being, in fact,\nhailstones, such as descend upon the earth when the wind shakes the\nvines in the moon. Then the Moonfolk have a singular habit of taking out\ntheir eyes when they do not wish to see things--a habit which has its\ndisadvantages, for sometimes they mislay their eyes and have to borrow a\npair from their neighbours. The rich, however, provide against such\naccidents by always keeping a good stock of eyes on hand.\n\nLucian also discovered the reason of the red clouds which we on earth\noften see at sunset. They are dyed by the immense quantity of blood\nwhich is shed in the battles between the Moonfolk and the Sunfolk, who\nare at constant feud.\n\nThe reason why the gentler sex are so fond of the moon is satirically\nsaid to be because there is a man in it! But who and what is he? An old\nwriter, John Lilly, says: 'There liveth none under the sunne that knows\nwhat to make of the man in the moone.' And yet many have tried.\n\nOne old ballad, for instance, says:\n\n  'The man in the moon drinks claret,\n    But he is a dull Jack-a-Dandy.\n  Would he know a sheep's head from a carrot,\n    He should learn to drink cyder and brandy'\n\n--which may be interesting, but is certainly inconsequential. It is\ncurious, too, that while the moon is feminine in English, French, Latin\nand Greek, it is masculine in German and cognate tongues. Now, if there\nis a man in the moon, and if it be the case, as is asserted by\nantiquarians, that the 'man in the moon' is one of the most ancient as\nwell as one of the most popular superstitions of the world, the\nmasculine is surely the right gender after all. Those who look to\nSanscrit for the solution of all mythological, as well as philological,\nproblems will confirm this, for in Sanscrit the moon is masculine. Dr.\nJamieson, of Scottish Dictionary fame, gets out of the difficulty by\nsaying that the moon was regarded as masculine in relation to the earth,\nwhose husband he was; but feminine in relation to the sun, whose wife\nshe was!\n\nWith the Greeks the moon was a female, Diana, who caught up her lover\nEndymion; and Endymion was thus, probably, the first 'man in the moon.'\nThe Jews, again, have a tradition that Jacob is in the moon; and there\nis the nursery story that the person in the moon is a man who was\ncondemned for gathering sticks on Sunday. This myth comes to us from\nGermany--at all events, Mr. R. A. Proctor traced it there with much\ncircumstantiality. Mr. Baring-Gould, however, finds in some parts of\nGermany a tradition that both a man and a woman are in the moon--the man\nbecause he strewed brambles and thorns on the church path to hinder\npeople from attending Sunday mass, and the woman because she made butter\non Sunday. This man carries two bundles of thorns, and the woman her\nbutter-tub, for ever. In Swabia they say there is a mannikin in the\nmoon, who stole wood; and in Frisia they say it is a man, who stole\ncabbages. The Scandinavian legend is that the moon and sun are brother\nand sister--the moon in this case being the male. The story goes that\nMani, the moon, took up two children from earth, named Bil and Hjuki, as\nthey were carrying a pitcher of water from the well Brygir, and in this\nmyth Mr. Baring-Gould discovers the origin of the nursery rhyme of Jack\nand Jill. 'These children,' he says, 'are the moon-spots, and the fall\nof Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing\nof one moon-spot after another as the moon wanes.'\n\nIn Britain there are references in the ancient monkish writings to a man\nin the moon; and in the Record Office there is an impression of a seal\nof the fourteenth century bearing the device of a man carrying a bundle\nof thorns in the moon. The legend attached is, 'Te Waltere docebo cur\nspinas phebo gero' ('I will teach thee, Walter, why I carry thorns to\nthe moon'), which Mr. Hudson Taylor, who describes the seal, thinks to\nbe an enigmatical way of saying that honesty is the best policy--the\nthorns having evidently been stolen.\n\nChaucer has more than one reference to the man in the moon, and so have\nmost of the older poets. Shakespeare not only refers frequently to 'a'\nman, but in the Midsummer Night's Dream Peter Quince distinctly\nstipulates that the man who is to play 'the moon' shall carry 'a bush of\nthorns.'\n\nThe man in the moon, according to Dante, is Cain, carrying a bundle of\nthorns, and yet in that planet he found located only those comparatively\nmild sinners who had partly neglected their vows. A French legend, on\nthe other hand, identifies 'the man' with Judas Iscariot. _Per contra_,\nin India the Buddhist legend places a hare in the moon, carried there by\nIndra for kindly service rendered to him on earth.\n\nMay not this hare of the Indian mythology be the moon-dog of some of our\nown legends? Peter Quince, we know, recommended that the moon should\nhave a dog as well as a bundle of sticks, and the association of the\nquadruped in the story is very common. The North American Indians\nbelieve that the moon is inhabited by a man and a dog. The Maoris\nbelieve in the man, but not in the dog, which is not surprising when we\nremember the limited fauna of the antipodes. The Maori legend runs\nsomething like this. A man called Rona went out one night to fetch water\nfrom a well, but, falling, sprained his ankle so as to be unable to\nreturn home. All at once the moon, which had risen, began to approach\nhim. In terror he clung to a tree, which gave way, and both tree and\nRona fell on the moon, where they remain even unto this day. Here we\nhave clearly a variation of the 'bundle of sticks' legend, but there is\nan absence of apparent cause and effect in the Maori legend which is\nunsatisfactory.\n\nMore precise is the Bushman legend, quoted by Dr. Bleek. According to\nthis, the moon is a man who incurs the wrath of the sun, and is\nconsequently pierced by the knife (the rays) of the latter, until there\nis only a little piece of him left. Then he cries for mercy for his\nchildren's sake, and is allowed to grow again until once more he offends\nhis sunship; the whole process being repeated monthly.\n\nDr. Rink relates a curious tradition of the Eskimo, not quite quotable\nhere, the gist of which is that a man who desired to make his sister his\nwife was transformed into the moon, while the woman became the sun.\nSomething like the same legend has been traced as far south as Panama.\nAnother notable thing about Eskimo traditions is that the moon is\nassociated with fertility in woman. This superstition is both very\nancient and very widespread, and, indeed, seems to have been the root\nboth of the moon-worship of the Oriental nations and of the mysterious\nrites of the Egyptians referred to by Herodotus. Luna is identified by\nsome mythologists with Soma of the Indian mythology, _i.e._, the emblem\nof reproduction.\n\nIn China, according to Dr. Dennys, the man in the moon is called\nYue-lao, and he is believed to hold in his hands the power of\npredestining marriages. He is supposed to tie together the future\nhusband and wife with an invisible silken cord, which never parts while\nlife lasts. Miss Gordon-Cumming, in her interesting account of\nWanderings in China, relates that, in the neighbourhood of Foo-Chow, she\nwitnessed a great festival being held in honour of the full moon, which\nwas mainly attended by women. There was a Temple-play, or sing-song,\ngoing on all day and most of the night, and each woman carried a stool\nso that she might sit out the whole performance. This recalls what Mr.\nRiley states in The Book of Days, as related by John Andrey in the\nseventeenth century: 'In Scotland, especially among the Highlanders, the\nwomen make a courtesy to the new moon, and our English women in this\ncountry have a touch of this, some of them sitting astride on a gate or\nstile the first evening the new moon appears, and saying, \"A fine moon!\nGod bless her!\" The like I observed in Herefordshire.'\n\nAs illustrative of this superstition may be instanced a curious practice\nin this country, in olden times, of divination by the moon. It is quoted\nby Mr. Thiselton-Dyer from an old chap-book: 'When you go to bed (at the\nperiod of harvest moon) place under your pillow a Prayer-Book open at\nthe part of the matrimonial service, which says, \"With this ring I thee\nwed\"; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a\nsmall heart-cake, a crust, and the following cards: a ten of clubs, nine\nof hearts, ace of spades, and ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin\nhandkerchief, and, on getting into bed, cover your hands, and say:\n\n  \"Luna, every woman's friend,\n  To me thy goodness condescend:\n  Let me this night in visions see\n  Emblems of my destiny.\"\n\n\nIt is certainly hard to imagine pleasant dreams as the result of such a\nvery uncomfortably-stuffed pillow.\n\nIn this same connection may be named other items of folklore related by\nMr. Dyer. For instance, in Devonshire it is believed that if on seeing\nthe first new moon of the year you take off one stocking and run across\na field, you will find between two of your toes a hair which will be the\ncolour of the lover you are to have. In Berkshire the proceeding is more\nsimple, for you merely look at the new moon, and say:\n\n  'New moon, new moon, I hail thee!\n  By all the virtue in thy body,\n  Grant this night that I may see\n  He who my true love shall be!'\n\n\nThe result is guaranteed to be as satisfactory as it is in Ireland,\nwhere the people are said to point to the new moon with a knife, and\nsay:\n\n  'New moon, true morrow, be true now to me,\n  That I to-morrow my true love may see!'\n\n\nIn Yorkshire, again, the practice was to catch the reflection of the new\nmoon in a looking-glass, the number of reflections signifying the number\nof years which will elapse before marriage. All these superstitions are\nsuggestive of that which Tylor calls 'one of the most instructive\nastrological doctrines'--namely, that of the 'sympathy of growing and\ndeclining nature with the waxing and waning moon.' Tylor says that a\nclassical precept was to set eggs under the hen at new moon, and that a\nLithuanian precept was to wean boys on a waxing and girls on a waning\nmoon--in order to make the boys strong and the girls delicate. On the\nsame grounds, he says, Orkney-men object to marry except with a growing\nmoon, and Mr. Dyer says that in Cornwall, when a child is born in the\ninterval between an old and a new moon, it is believed that he will\nnever live to manhood.\n\nDr. Turner relates several traditions of the moon current in Samoa.\nThere is one of a visit paid to the planet by two young men--Punifanga,\nwho went up by a tree, and Tafaliu, who went up on a column of smoke.\nThere is another of a woman, Sina, who was busy one evening cutting\nmulberry-bark for cloth with her child beside her. It was a time of\nfamine, and the rising moon reminded her of a great bread-fruit--just as\nin our country it has reminded some people of a green cheese. Looking\nup, she said: 'Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of\nyou?' The moon was so indignant at being taken for an article of food,\nthat she came down forthwith and took up woman, child and wood. There\nthey are to this day, for in the full moon the Samoans still see the\nfeatures of Sina, the face of the child, and the board and mallet.\n\nMr. Andrew Lang finds in an Australian legend of the moon something\noddly like Grimm's tale of the Wolf and the Kids, which, again, he\nlikens to the old Greek myth of Cronos. The Australian legend is that\nbirds were the original gods, and that the eagle especially was a great\ncreative power. The moon was a mischievous being, who walked about the\nearth doing all the evil he could. One day he swallowed the eagle. The\neagle's wives coming up, the moon asked where he could find a well. They\npointed out one, and while he was drinking, they struck him with a stone\ntomahawk, which made him disgorge the eagle. This legend is otherwise\nsuggestive from the circumstances that among the Greeks the eagle was\nthe special bird of Zeus, and it was the eagle which carried off\nGanymede.\n\nThere is another Australian fable that the moon was a man, and the sun a\nwoman of doubtful reputation who appears at dawn in a coat of red\nkangaroo-skin belonging to one of her lovers. In Mexico, also, the moon\nis a man, across whose face an angry immortal once threw a rabbit; hence\nthe marks on the surface of the planet. These same marks are accounted\nfor in the Eskimo legend already mentioned as the impressions of the\nwoman's sooty fingers on the face of her pursuer. By some mythologists\nthe moon is thought to be Medea, but it is more common to interpret\nMedea as the daughter of the sun, _i.e._, the dawn.\n\nIt is certainly not a little curious to find the moon-lore, as the\nstar-lore, having so many points of resemblance among such\nwidely-separated and different peoples as the Greeks, the Egyptians, the\nAustralians, the Eskimos, the Bushmen of South Africa, the North\nAmerican Indians, and the New Zealand Maoris. The comparative\nmythologists would argue from this resemblance a common origin of the\nmyth, and a distribution or communication from one race to the other.\nThe folk-lore mythologists would infer nothing of the sort. They say\nthere is nothing remarkable in all savage races imputing human motives\nand sex to the heavenly bodies, for, in fact, to this day there are\nsavages, as in the South Pacific, who suppose even stones to be male and\nfemale, and to propagate their species. On this method of interpretation\nthe hypothesis is not that the Australians, Indians, etc., received\ntheir myths from, say, the Greeks, either by community of stock or by\ncontact and borrowing, but because the ancestors of the Greeks passed\nthrough the same intellectual condition as the primitive races we now\nknow. And thus it is that in listening to the beautiful legends of the\nGreeks, we are but, as Bacon says, hearing the harsh ideas of earlier\npeoples 'blown softly through the flutes of the Grecians.'\n\nNow, beside the personality of the moon, and the peculiar influence he\nor she is supposed to exercise on mortals, there has survived an old\nsuperstition that the moon has direct influence on the weather. Apropos\nof this association, there is a pretty little Hindoo legend which is\ncurrent in Southern India, and which has been translated by Miss Frere,\ndaughter of Sir Bartle Frere. This is the story as told her by her\nLingaet ayah:\n\n'One day the Sun, the Moon, and the Wind went out to dine with their\nuncle and aunt, the Thunder and Lightning. Their mother (one of the most\ndistant stars you see far up in the sky) waited alone for her\nchildren's return. Now, both the Sun and the Wind were greedy and\nselfish. They enjoyed the great feast that had been prepared for them,\nwithout a thought of saving any of it to take home to their mother; but\nthe gentle Moon did not forget her. Of every dainty dish that was\nbrought round she placed a small portion under one of her beautiful long\nfingernails, that the Star might also have a share in the treat. On\ntheir return, their mother, who had kept watch for them all night long\nwith her bright little eye, said: \"Well, children, what have you brought\nhome for me?\" Then the Sun (who was eldest) said: \"I have brought\nnothing home for you. I went out to enjoy myself with my friends, not to\nfetch a dinner for my mother!\" And the Wind said: \"Neither have I\nbrought anything home for you, mother. You could hardly expect me to\nbring a collection of good things for you, when I merely went out for my\nown pleasure.\" But the Moon said: \"Mother, fetch a plate; see what I\nhave brought you;\" and shaking her hands, she showered down such a\nchoice dinner as never was seen before. Then the Star turned to the Sun,\nand spoke thus: \"Because you went out to amuse yourself with your\nfriends, and feasted and enjoyed yourself without any thought of your\nmother at home, you shall be cursed. Henceforth your rays shall ever be\nhot and scorching, and shall burn all that they touch. All men shall\nhate you, and cover their heads when you appear\"; and this is why the\nsun is so hot to this day. Then she turned to the Wind, and said: \"You\nalso, who forgot your mother in the midst of your selfish pleasures,\nhear your doom. You shall always blow in the hot, dry weather, and shall\nparch and shrivel all living things, and men shall detest and avoid you\nfrom this very time\"; and this is why the wind in the hot weather is\nstill so disagreeable. But to the Moon she said: \"Daughter, because you\nremembered your mother, and kept for her a share in your own enjoyment,\nfrom henceforth you shall be ever cool, and calm, and bright. No noxious\nglare shall accompany your pure rays, and men shall always call you\nblessed\"; and that is why the moon's light is so soft, and cool, and\nbeautiful even to this day.'\n\nIt is remarkable, nevertheless, that among Western peoples, at any rate,\nthe moon has usually been associated with the uncanny. It is an old\nbelief, for instance, that the moon is the abode of bad spirits; and in\nthe old story of the Vampire it is notable that the creature, as a last\nrequest, begged that he might be buried where no sunlight, but only\nmoonlight, might fall on his grave. Witches were supposed to be able to\ncontrol the moon, as witness the remark of Prospero in The Tempest:\n\n  'His mother was a witch, and one so strong,\n  That could control the moon.'\n\n\nThe Rev. Timothy Harley, who has collected much moon-lore, suggests that\nif the broom on which witches rode to the moon be a type of the wind,\n'we may guess how the fancy grew up that the airy creation could control\nthose atmospheric vapours on which the light and humidity of the night\nwere supposed to depend.'\n\nBut the 'glamour' of the moon is not a mere poetic invention or a\nlover's fancy. Mr. Moncure Conway reminds us that _glam_, in its\nnominative form _glamir_, is a poetical name for the moon, to be found\nin the Prose Edda. It is given in the Glossary as one of the old names\nfor the moon. Mr. Conway also says that there is a curious old Sanscrit\nword, _glau_ or _glav_, which is explained in all the old lexicons as\nmeaning the moon. Hence 'the ghost or goblin Glam (of the old legend of\nGrettir) seems evidently to have arisen from a personification of the\ndelusive and treacherous effects of moonlight on the benighted\ntraveller.'\n\nSimilar delusive effects are found referred to in old Hindoo writings,\nas, for instance, in the following passages from Bhasa, a poet of the\nseventh century:\n\n'The cat laps the moonbeams in the bowl of water, thinking them to be\nmilk; the elephant thinks that the moonbeams threaded through the\nintervals of the trees are the fibres of the lotus-stalk; the woman\nsnatches at the moonbeams as they lie on the bed, taking them for her\nmuslin garment. Oh, how the moon, intoxicated with radiance, bewilders\nall the world!'\n\nAgain:\n\n'The bewildered herdsmen place the pails under the cows, thinking that\nthe milk is flowing; the maidens also put the blue lotus-blossom in\ntheir ears, thinking that it is the white; the mountaineer's wife\nsnatches up the jujube fruit, avaricious for pearls. Whose mind is not\nled astray by the thickly-clustering moonbeams?'\n\nSuch was the 'glamour' of Glam (the moon) in ancient eyes, and still it\nworks on lovers' hearts. The fascination has been felt and expressed by\nnearly all the poets, and by none better, perhaps, than by Sir Philip\nSidney:\n\n  'With what sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!\n      How silently, and with how wan a face!\n      What, may it be, that even in heavenly place\n  That busy archer his sharp arrow tries?\n      Sure if that long with love-acquainted eyes\n  Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case.\n      I read it in thy looks--thy languish'd grace\n  To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.'\n\n\nThe number of human beings who have, articulately or inarticulately,\ncried with Endymion, 'What is there in thee, Moon, that thou should'st\nmove my heart so potently?' are not to be measured in ordinary figures.\n\nTo return, however, to the bad side of Luna's character. We read that in\nAssyria deadly influences were ascribed to the moon. In Vedic mythology\nthere is a story, which Mr. Moncure Conway tells in Demonology and\nDevil-lore, of a quarrel between Brahma and Vishnu as to which was the\nfirst born. Siva interferes, and says he is the first born, but will\nrecognise as his superior whoever is able to see the crown of his head\nor the soles of his feet. Vishnu thereupon transforms himself into a\nboar, pierces underground, and thus sees the feet of Siva, who salutes\nhim on his return as the firstborn of the gods. Now, De Gubernatis\nregards this fable as 'making the boar emblem of the hidden moon'; and\nMr. Conway thinks there is no doubt that the boar at an early period\nbecame emblematic of the wild forces of Nature. 'From being hunted by\nKing Odin on earth, it passed to be his favourite food in Valhalla, and\na prominent figure in his spectral hunt.' But it is with the moon, not\nwith Odin, that we are at present concerned, and so note two curious\nitems mentioned by Conway. In Sicilian legend, he says, 'Zafarana, by\nthrowing three hog's bristles on embers, renews her husband's youth';\nand in Esthonian legend, a prince, by eating pork, acquires the faculty\nof understanding the language of birds. All this opens up a very\nsuggestive field of inquiry. Thus, Plutarch says that the reason why the\nJews would not eat swine's flesh was because Adonis was slain by a boar,\nand Bacchus and Adonis, he says, were the same divinities. Now, if we\nturn to Herodotus, we find that wonderful narrator saying: 'The only\ndeities to whom the Egyptians offer swine are Bacchus and Luna; to these\nthey sacrifice swine when the moon is full, after which they eat the\nflesh,' which at other times they disdained. The meaning of these\nsacrifices is understood by those interested, and I do not propose to go\nfurther into the matter. All I wish to do is to point out the curious\ninvolvements, among so many nations, of the moon and the boar.\n\nMay we not even trace a connection with the superstition current in\nSuffolk, according to 'C. W. J.,' in The Book of Days? 'C. W. J.' says\nthat in his part of the world it is considered unlucky to kill a pig\nwhen the moon is on the wane; and if it is done, the pork will waste in\nboiling. 'I have known,' he says, 'the shrinking of bacon in the pot\nattributed to the fact of the pig having been killed in the moon's\ndecrease; and I have also known the death of poor piggy delayed or\nhastened so as to happen during its increase.' Truly the old\nsuperstitions die hard!\n\nThe moon's supposed influence on the weather is a matter of general\nknowledge. The writer last quoted mentions it as a very prevalent belief\nthat the general condition of the atmosphere throughout the world,\nduring any lunation, depends on whether the moon changed before or after\nmidnight. Another superstition is, that if the new moon happens on a\nSaturday the weather will be bad during the month. On the other hand, in\nSuffolk the old moon in the arms of the new one is accounted a sign of\nfine weather; contrary to the belief in Scotland, where, it may be\nremembered, in the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, it is taken as a presage\nof storm and disaster.\n\nShakespeare has many allusions to the moon's influence on the weather,\nas: 'The moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger, washes the\nair'; 'The moon, one thinks, looks with a watery eye; and when she\nweeps, weeps every little flower'; 'Upon the corner of the moon there\nhangs a vaporous drop profound'; and so forth. Then we have the old\nproverb: 'So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods\nafter.' Other beliefs are mentioned by Mr. Harley, such as, that if\nChristmas comes during a waning moon, we shall have a good year, and\nthe converse; that new moon on Monday is a certain sign of good weather;\nthat a misty moon indicates heavy rain; that the horns of the moon\nturned upward predict a good, and turned downward a bad, season; that a\nlarge star near the moon is a certain prognostication of storm.\n\nIn fact, the superstitions in this connection are legion, and are not\nconfined to any country. They are as common in China, where the moon is\nstill worshipped, as they are in England, where, in some places, old men\nstill touch their hats and maidens still bob a courtesy in sight of the\nnew moon. Thus the relics of moon-worship are about us still, as well as\na strong popular belief that the moon is an active physical agent. That\nthe actual influence of the moon on the tides lies at the basis of the\nbelief in its influence on the weather is probable; and, at any rate, it\nis curious that the Persians held that the moon was the cause of an\nabundant supply of water and rain; while in a Japanese fairy-tale the\nmoon is made to rule over the blue waste of the sea with its\nmultitudinous salt waters. The horticultural superstitions about sowing\nand planting according to the age of the moon is, no doubt, a product of\nthe fusion of the meteorological superstition and that of the old-world\nbelief in Luna being the goddess of reproduction.\n\nAny who have still doubts on the meteorological question cannot do\nbetter than refer to a letter of Professor Nichol's--once Professor of\nAstronomy in the University of Glasgow--which is quoted in The Book of\nDays. He asserts positively, as the result of scientific observation,\nthat no relation whatever exists between the moon and the weather.\n\nBut does any exist between the moon and the brain? 'Whom the gods would\ndestroy, they first make mad'; and the moon was supposed to be the\ninstrument--nay, still is, as the very word 'lunacy' implies. The old\nastrologers used to say that she governed the brain, stomach, bowels,\nand left eye of the male, and the right eye of the female. Some such\ninfluences were evidently believed in by the Jews, as witness Psalm\ncxxi.: 'The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.' It\nmay be remarked that Dr. Forbes Winslow is not very decided in\ndismissing the theory of the influence of the moon on the insane. He\nsays it is purely speculative, but he does not controvert it. The\nsubject is, however, too large to enter upon here. Whether or not it be\ntrue that 'when the moon's in the full then wit's on the wane,' it\ncertainly is not true, as appears to be believed in Sussex, that the new\nMay Moon has power to cure scrofulous complaints.\n\nBefore leaving the subject, it is well to mention a remarkable\ncoincidence to which Mr. Harley draws attention. In China, where\nmoon-worship largely prevails, during the festival of Yue-Ping, which is\nheld during the eighth month annually, incense is burned in the temples,\ncakes are made like the moon, and at full moon the people spread out\noblations and make prostrations to the planet. These cakes are\nmoon-cakes, and veritable offerings to the Queen of Heaven, who\nrepresents the female principle in Chinese theology. 'If we turn now to\nJeremiah vii. 18, and read there, \"The women knead dough to make cakes\nto the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other\ngods,\" and remember that, according to Rashi, these cakes of the Hebrews\nhad the image of the god or goddess stamped upon them, we are in view of\na fact of much interest.' The interest becomes greater when we learn\nthat in parts of Lancashire there exists a precisely similar custom of\nmaking cakes in honour of the Queen of Heaven.\n\nFrom these facts, the discovery of two buns, each marked with a cross,\nin Herculaneum, and other evidences, we are driven to the conclusion\nthat the 'hot-cross buns' of Christian England are in reality but a\nrelic of moon-worship!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE DEVIL'S CANDLE.\n\n\nSo much legendary lore and so many strange fables have had their origin\nin the mandrake, or the 'Devil's Candle,' as the Arabians call it, that\nit is worth while to endeavour to trace if any, and what, analogy there\nbe between it and the mandragoras of the Greeks and the Soma of the\nIndian mythology.\n\nThe mandrake is so called from the German _Mandragen_, 'resembling\nman'--at least, so says Mr. Thiselton-Dyer; but this derivation is not\nquite satisfactory. The botanical name is _Mandragora officinalis_, and\nsometimes the May-apple, or _Podophyllum peltatum_, is also called\nmandrake; but the actual plant of fact and fancy belongs to the\n_Solanum_, or potato family.\n\nAlthough one may doubt if the English name be really derived from the\nGerman _Mandragen_, it is certain that the Germans have long regarded\nthe plant as something uncanny. Other names which they have for it are\n_Zauberwurzel_, or Sorcerer's Root, and _Hexenmaennchen_, or Witch's\nMannikin, while they made little dolls or idols from it, which they\nregarded with superstitious veneration, and called _Erdmann_, or\nEarth-man.\n\nYet in other places, according to one authority, the mandrake was\npopularly supposed to be 'perpetually watched over by Satan; and if it\nbe pulled up at certain holy times and with certain invocations, the\nevil spirit will appear to do the bidding of the practitioner.' A\nsuperstition once common in the South of England was that the mandrake\nhad a human heart at its root, and, according to Timbs, it was generally\nbelieved that the person who pulled it would instantaneously fall dead;\nthat the root shrieked or groaned whenever separated from the earth; and\nthat whoever heard the shriek would either die shortly afterwards or\nbecome afflicted with madness.\n\nTo this last superstition there is direct reference made by Shakespeare\nin Romeo and Juliet:\n\n  'And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,\n  That living mortals hearing them run mad.'\n\n\nFrequent allusions to this superstition are to be found in the old\npoets, although it is held by some that the effects claimed for\ndecoctions of the mandrake really refer to those of the nightshade. This\nconfusion has certainly arisen at times, but the most general idea\nconcerning the mandrake was that it was a stimulant rather than a\nnarcotic. It is true that Shakespeare regarded mandragora as an opiate,\nfor he makes Cleopatra to exclaim:\n\n  'Give me to drink mandragora,\n  That I might sleep out this great gap of time\n  My Antony is away.'\n\n\nAnd, again, when in Othello he makes Iago say:\n\n  'Nor poppy, nor mandragora,\n  Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world\n  Can ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep\n  Which thou owedst yesterday.'\n\n\nBut, on the other hand, we find Apuleius--himself, by the way, not\nunsuspected of magical arts--writing that when the root of the mandrake\nis steeped in wine it produces vehement intoxication. The same idea is\nreflected in Mrs. Browning's Dead Pan:\n\n  'In what revels are ye sunken\n  In old Ethiopia?\n  Have the Pygmies made you drunken,\n  Bathing in mandragora,\n  Your divine pale lips that shiver\n  Like the lotus in the river?'\n\n\nAnd there can be little doubt that the mysterious 'Lhasis,' referred to\nby Sir William Davenant[5]--a word whose etymology is so obscure--is\nnothing else than the mandrake or mandragora; if so, then we see that\nthe plant was valued for its exciting and stimulating effects rather\nthan as an opiate.\n\nMany commentators and most dictionaries dispose of Reuben's mandrakes as\nsomething altogether different from the plant now known by the name; but\nthere is really no warrant for such a conclusion. The _Mandragora\nofficinalis_ is quite common in Celicia, Syria, and elsewhere in the\nEast, and is easily identifiable with the root of Baaras, which Josephus\ndescribes in the Wars of the Jews. This root, he says, is in colour like\nto that of flame, and towards the evening it sends out a certain ray\nlike lightning. It is not easily to be pulled, it will not yield\nquietly, and it is certain death to anyone who dares pull it, unless he\nhangs it with the head downwards. As to the uses of the root, Josephus\ncontinues: 'After all his pains in getting it, it is only valuable on\naccount of one virtue it hath: that if it only be brought to sick\npersons, it quickly drives away those called Demons, which are no other\nthan the spirits of the wicked, which enter into men that are alive and\nkill them, unless they can obtain some help against them'; and the root\nwas esteemed a useful stimulant, although in Baaras, at any rate, it\nseems to have lost its reputation as a love-philtre. It is noteworthy\nthat Josephus also tells how Solomon had great skill in enchantments,\nand cast out devils by means of this root--an accomplishment he is said\nto have learned from some of the numerous foreign ladies with whom he\nsurrounded himself.\n\nNow, it is interesting to turn from the old Jewish historian to the old\nEnglish herbalist, Gerarde, who in 1597 wrote in his Herball pointing\nout how, by 'the corruption of time and the errour of some,' mandragora\nhas been mistaken for what he calls Circaea, or Enchanter's Nightshade.\nBut of the mandrake, or mandragoras, Gerarde says: 'There hath been many\nridiculous tales brought up of this plant, whether of old wives, or some\nrunagate surgeons, or physickemongers, I know not; but sure some one or\nmore that sought to make themselves famous or skillful above others were\nthe first brochers of the errour'--that the root resembles a man. 'They\nadd further,' he says, 'that it is never, or very seldome, to be found\ngrowing naturally, but under a gallowes, where the matter that hath\nfallen from the dead body hath given it the shape of a man, and the\nmatter of a woman the substance of a female plant, with many other such\ndoltish dreames. The fable further affirms that he who would take up a\nplant thereof ... he should surely die in short space after.'\n\nThis is clearly Josephus's 'root of Baaras' over again. Gerarde further\nholds it to be the identical mandragoras of the Greeks, and called\nCircaea because it was used by Circe for love-potions and enchantments.\nIf this be so, then what was the 'moly' given to Odysseus by Hermes\nwherewith to counteract the charms of Circe? Was it a totally different\nplant, or was it merely the same applied on the homoeopathic principle?\nMr. Andrew Lang thinks they cannot be the same, because the 'moly' is\ndescribed by Homer as having a black root and a white flower, while the\nmandragoras is described by Pliny as having a yellow flower and white,\nfleshy roots. But we know that Homer is somewhat confusing in the matter\nof colours, and it is possible that various shades of the purplish\nflower of the true mandrake might appear to one observer as white, and\nto another as yellow. Upon the whole, the probability is that the two\nnames meant one and the same plant, for the characteristics are too\npeculiar to be alike possessed by different species. If the moly were\nnot mandragoras there is nothing else known to modern botany that it\ncould be, unless it were rue, with which some scholars have sought to\nidentify it, but not very successfully.\n\nThe learned author of Pseudosia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors, at any\nrate, was clearly of opinion that moly and mandragoras were one and the\nsame. He quotes also from Pliny that the ancient way of pulling the root\nwas to get on the windward side of the plant, and with a sword to\ndescribe three circles about it, whilst the operator kept his face\nturned to the west. The dangers attending the plucking of mandrakes are\nshrewdly disposed of by Sir Thomas Browne with the remark that it is\n'derogatory unto the Providence of God ... to impose so destructive a\nquality on any plant ... whose parts are usefull unto many.' The same\nauthor mentions the superstition that the mandrake grows under gallows,\nfructified by the decaying bodies of criminals, that it grows both male\nand female, and that it shrieks upon eradication. This last idea he\nderides as 'false below confute, arising perhaps from a small and\nstridulous noise which, being firmly rooted, it maketh upon divulsion of\nparts.' 'A slender foundation,' he remarks, 'for such a vast conception;\nfor such a noise we sometimes observe in other plants--in parsnips,\nliquorish, eringium, flags, and others.'\n\nThe belief that the root of the mandrake resembles the human figure is\ncharacterized by the writer last quoted, as a 'conceit not to be made\nout by ordinary inspection, or any other eyes than such as regarding the\nclouds behold them in shapes conformable to pre-apprehensions.' It is\ntraceable to the bifurcation of the root; a formation, however, which\nis frequently found 'in carrots, parsnips, briony, and many others.'\nThere is no other importance, therefore, to be attached to 'the epithet\nof Pythagoras, who calls it anthropomorphon, and that of Columella, who\nterms it semihomo;' nor to Albertus, 'when he affirmed that mandrakes\nrepresent mankind with the distinction of either sex.' The roots, which\nwere commonly sold in various parts of Europe 'unto ignorant people,\nhandsomely made out the shape of man or woman. But these are not\nproductions of nature but contrivances of art, as divers have noted....\nThis is vain and fabulous, which ignorant people and simple women\nbelieve; for the roots which are carried about by impostors are made of\nthe roots of canes, briony, and other plants.' And the method of\nmanufacture is then explained by the erudite doctor. It is evident from\nwhat has been cited that the prevalence of the superstition, and the\nexistence of the German _erdmann_, were matters of common knowledge in\nthe latter half of the seventeenth century.\n\nBut the superstition can be traced still later, for as recently as 1810\nsome of these root-images were to be seen on sale in certain parts of\nFrance, and were purchased as love-charms. It is said that even now at\nthis very day bits of the _Mandragoras officinalis_ are worn by the\nyoung men and maidens of Greece to bring them fortune in their\nlove-affairs.\n\nIn some parts of England--viz., in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and\nSomersetshire--the briony is called mandrake, and a small portion of the\nroot is frequently given to horses among their food to make them sleek\nand improve their condition, and it is still also sold 'for medicinal\nand other purposes.' Yet in other places it is called 'Devil's Food,'\nbecause Satan is supposed to be perpetually watching over it and to\njealously guard its magical properties. It is partly on this account,\nand partly because of its supposed effect in stimulating the passions,\nthat the Arabs sometimes call the mandrake Tuphacel-sheitan, or Devil's\nApple, although it is otherwise known as the Stone Apple. In many parts\nof Europe the mandrake is believed to possess, in common with some other\nplants, the power of opening locks and unshoeing horses.\n\nThe belief that the mandrake had some peculiar association with the\ndevil has made it a favourite plant with sorcerers and workers of\nenchantment in all ages. Lord Bacon refers to it as a favourite in his\ntime, 'whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the\nform of a face at the top of the root,' and leaving the natural threads\nof the root 'to make a broad beard down to the foot.' Mr. Moncure\nConway, however, says that the superstition rightly belonging to the\nmandrake was often transferred to other roots--probably in ignorance as\nto the identity of the real plant.\n\n'Thus,' he says, 'the author of Secrets du Petit Albert says that a\npeasant had a bryonia root of human shape, which he received from a\ngipsy. He buried it at a lucky conjunction of the moon with Venus' (the\nreader will not fail to note the reference to the Goddess of Love) 'in\nspring, and on a Monday, in a grave, and then sprinkled it with milk in\nwhich three field-mice had been drowned. In a month it became more\nhumanlike than ever. Then he placed it in an oven with vervain, wrapped\nit afterwards in a dead man's shroud, and so long as he kept it he never\nfailed in luck at games or work.'\n\nThen we learn from the same author that a German horse-dealer, of\nAugsburg, once lost a horse, and being poor, wandered in despair to an\ninn. There some men gave him a mandrake, and on his return home he found\na bag of ducats on the table. His wife, however, did not like the\nbusiness, and persuaded the man to return to give back the root to those\nfrom whom he got it. But he could not find the men again, and soon after\nthe house was burned down, and both horse-dealer and wife perished.\n\nThe only suggestion from this story is that the mandrake was supposed to\nbring 'devil's luck,' although, if so, it is difficult to understand why\nthe _erdmanns_ were so carefully preserved from generation to\ngeneration. One German writer, Rist, says that he has seen one more than\na century old, which had been kept in a coffin, on which was a cloth\nbearing a picture of a thief on the gallows and a mandrake growing\nunderneath.\n\nColes, who wrote The Art of Simpling, in 1656, says the witches use the\nmandrake-roots, 'according to some, or, as I rather suppose, the roots\nof briony, which simple people take for the true mandrake, and make\nthereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they\nintend to exercise their witchcraft.' But their professions must at\ntimes have been even larger, for it is on record that a witch was\nexecuted near Orleans, in France, about 1605, who was charged with\nhaving kept a living mandrake-fiend, having the form of a female ape!\n\nSo much for the mandrake, of which, however, a good deal more might be\nsaid. But what has been said serves to establish that it was identical\nwith the mandragora, and with the mandragoras of the Greeks; that it was\nprobably also the briony; that superstitions have attached to it in all\ncountries and from time immemorial, which ascribed to it occult virtues;\nthat the powers it exercised varied a good deal according to locality\nand time, but that two main conceptions have almost universally\nprevailed, viz., that it was a stimulant, and a potent instrument in\naffairs of the heart.\n\nWhat, then, is the Soma, or Homa, of the Hindu mythology--the ambrosia\nof the Indian gods? It has been the subject of much discussion and some\ndifference among comparative mythologists. Soma was the chief deity\namong the ancient Hindus--the author of life, the giver of health, the\nprotector of the weak, and the guide to immortality. Once he took upon\nhimself the form of man, but was slain by men and braised in a mortar.\nThe similarity with the Christian legend is remarkable, and the method\nof death should be borne in mind. After his death, Soma rose in flame to\nheaven, 'to be the benefactor of the world and the mediator between God\nand man.'\n\nOne of the articles of faith with the Hindus, therefore, is that they\nmust hold communion with Soma, and they are taught thus to pray to him:\n'O Soma! thou art the strength of our heroes and the death of our\nenemies, invincible in war! Fulfil our vows in battle, fight for us!\nNone can resist thee; give us superiority! O Soma immortal! May we drink\nto thee and be immortal like thee!' Mr. Baring-Gould says that the whole\nlegend of Soma is but the allegorical history of the plant _Sarcostemma\nviminalis_, which is associated with passionate love 'because of the\nintoxicating liquor which is derived from its juice. It is regarded as a\ngodsend. The way in which it is prepared is by crushing it in a mortar;\nthe juice is then thrown on the sacrificial flame and so rises to\nheaven.' The same writer tells us that a similar worship prevailed among\nthe Iranians, who called the juice Homa, but they did not ferment it,\nand although they ascribed to it divine attributes, they did not make\nHoma a supreme deity. But both with them and with the Hindus, 'the\npartaking of the juice was regarded as a sacramental act, by virtue of\nwhich the receiver was embued with a portion of the divine nature.'\n\nAnother writer, the author of Bible Folklore, says that the 'old Soma\nwas the same as the Persian Homa, a brilliant god, who gives sons to\nheroes, and husbands to maidens. The juice of the plant, pounded in an\niron mortar, is greenish in colour, and is strained through a cloth and\nmixed with the sap of a pomegranate branch; the yellow juice is then\nstrained through a vessel with nine holes. Among the Parsees it is\ndrunk, not as by the Brahmins in large quantities by sixteen priests,\nbut in small quantities by the two chief priests, and is thus not\nintoxicating.'\n\nThe symbol is confused with the deity, and 'Soma is at once the\nlife-giving spring of the juice of immortality, and the juice itself'--a\nconfusion not without analogy in some of the superstitions narrated of\nthe mandrake. But of old Soma was drunk as mead was drunk by the\nScandinavians, before and after battle. It gave power and good fortune\nas well as light and happiness, and when elevated into a god was\nsupposed to be the origin of all creation.\n\nNow, of the _Sarcostemma_ it is to be noted that it belongs to the\nfamily of _Asclepiadaceae_, which have all something more or less\n'fleshy' looking about some parts of them, which, like the _Apocyneae_,\nwere in the old world credited with medicinal properties, and which are\ngenerally acrid, stimulating, and astringent. There are many poisonous\nmembers of the family, such as the dog's-bane and wolf's-bane of our own\ncountry, favourite plants with the enchanters, while the cowplant of\nCeylon is of the same species.\n\nIn Garrett's Dictionary of India it is stated that the Soma of the Vedas\nis no longer known in India, and the same statement is repeated by many\nwriters. It is certainly not indubitable that the _Sarcostemma\nviminalis_ was the plant of wondrous virtues that was deified. On the\nother hand, we find that these ascribed virtues closely resemble those\nattributed to the mandrake, and it is known that the Aryan people\nreceived many of their ideas and superstitions from the old Jewish\ntribes.\n\nWe have seen, further, that belief in the peculiar power of the mandrake\nin certain directions was a settled belief at a very early period of the\nJewish history, and we thus arrive at the very probable suggestion that\nthe original Soma was neither more nor less than the mandrake of Reuben,\nthe 'Baaras root' of Josephus, the mandragoras of the Greeks, the moly\nof Homer, the mandragora of Shakespeare, the mandragen of Germany, and\nthe mandrake, again, of England.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SEA AND ITS LEGENDS.\n\n\nOne of the oldest superstitions connected with the sea is undoubtedly\nthat which associated peril with the malefic influence of some\nindividual on shipboard. We find it in the case of the seamen of Joppa,\nwho, when overtaken by a 'mighty tempest' on the voyage to Tarshish,\nsaid to each other, 'Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for\nwhose cause this evil is cast upon us.' The lot, as we know, fell upon\nJonah, and after some vain wrestling with the inevitable, the men at\nlast 'took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased\nfrom her raging.'\n\nWithout offering here any comment on, or explanation of, the Scriptural\nnarrative, let us compare it with the following remarkable story, which\nthat indefatigable delver after old-world wonders, Charles Kirkpatrick\nSharpe, reproduced.\n\nSomewhere about midsummer of the year 1480, a ship, sailing out of the\nForth for a port in Holland, was assailed by a furious tempest, which\nincreased to such a remarkable degree for the mild season of the year,\nthat the sailors were overcome with fear, and gave themselves up for\nlost. At length an old woman, who was a passenger by the vessel, came on\ndeck and entreated them to throw her overboard as the only means of\npreserving their own lives, saying that she had long been haunted by an\n'incubus' in the shape of a man, from whose grasp she could not free\nherself. Fortunately for all parties there was another passenger on\nboard--a priest--who was called to the rescue. After a long admonition,\nand many sighs and prayers, 'there issued forth of the pumpe of the\nship,' says Hollinshed, 'a foul and evil-favoured blacke cloud, with a\nmightie terrible noise, flame, smoke, and stinke, which presentlie fell\ninto the sea, and suddenlie, thereupon, the tempest ceassed, and the\nship passing in great quiet the residue of her journie, arrived in\nsafetie at the place whither she was bound.'\n\nThere is doubtless some association between this class of superstition\nand the old Talmudic legend, according to which the devils were\nspecially angered when, at the creation, man received dominion over the\nthings of the sea. This was a realm of unrest and tempest, which the\ndevils claimed as belonging to themselves. But, says the legend,\nalthough denied control of the life that is in the sea, the devils were\npermitted a large degree of power over its waters, while over the winds\ntheir rule was supreme.\n\nThere is scarcely a current legend or superstition which cannot be\ntraced to very remote sources. Thus, in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian\ncosmogony there was a Triad which ruled the three zones of the\nuniverse: the heaven, by Anu; the surface of the earth and the\natmosphere, by Bel; and the under-world, by Nonah. Now, Nonah is held to\nbe both the same as the Assyrian Hea, or Saviour, and as the Noah of the\nBible. So when Tiamat, the dragon, or leviathan, opens 'the fountains of\nthe great deep,' and Anu, 'the windows of heaven,' it is Hea, or Noah,\nwho saves the life of man.\n\nThis legend is supposed by M. Francois Lenormant to explain an allusion\nin one of the most ancient Accadian manuscripts in the British Museum to\n'the serpent of seven heads, that beats the sea.' This Hydra was the\ntype of the destructive water-demon who figures in the legends of all\ncountries.\n\nIn the same way, to the Syrian fish deities, Dagon and Artergatis, must\nwe look for the origin of our Undines and fish-maidens, and mermaidens.\n\nThe 'Nixy' of Germany has by some been supposed traceable to 'Old Nick';\nbut this is not probable, since St. Nicholas has been the patron-saint\nof sailors for many centuries. It was during the time of the Crusades\nthat a vessel on the way to the Holy Land was in great peril, and St.\nNicholas assuaged a tempest by his prayers. Since then he has been\nsupposed to be the protector of mariners, even as Neptune was in ancient\ntimes; and in most Roman Catholic countries you will find in seaport\ntowns churches dedicated to St. Nicholas, to which sailors resort to\nreturn thanks for preservation at sea, and to make votive offerings.\n\nThe German Nixy was, no doubt, a later form of the old Norse water-god\nNikke. You meet with him again, in another form, in Neckan, the\nsoulless, of whom Matthew Arnold sings:\n\n  'In summer on the headlands\n    The Baltic sea along\n  Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,\n    And sings his plaintive song.'\n\n\nThe 'Nixa' along the Baltic coast was once, however, much feared by the\nfishermen. It was the same spirit which appears as the Kelpie in\nScotland--a water-demon which caused sudden floods to carry away the\nunwary, and then devoured them.\n\nThere was a river-goddess in Germany, whose temple stood at Magdeburg,\nof whom a legend exists that she also once visited earth and went to\nmarket in a Christian costume, where she was detected by a continual\ndripping of water from the corner of her apron. Generally speaking,\nhowever, the Nixies may be described as the descendants of the Naiads of\nancient times, and as somewhat resembling the Russian Rusalkas, of which\nthe peasantry live in much dread.\n\nA Russian peasant, it is said, is so afraid of the water-spirits that he\nwill not bathe without a cross round his neck, nor ford a stream on\nhorseback without signing a cross on the water with a scythe or knife.\nIn some parts these water-spirits are supposed to be the transformed\nsouls of Pharaoh and his host, when they were drowned, and the number is\nalways being increased by the souls of those who drown themselves.\n\nIt is said that 'in Bohemia' fishermen have been known to refuse aid to\ndrowning persons lest 'Vodyany' would be offended and prevent the fish\nfrom entering the nets.\n\nThis 'Vodyany,' however, seems rather a variant of the old Hydra, who\nreappears in the diabolical names so frequently given to boiling springs\nand dangerous torrents. The 'Devil's Tea-kettles' and 'Devil's\nPunch-bowls' of England and America have the same association as the\nweird legends connected with the Strudel and Wirbel whirlpools of the\nDanube, and with the rapids of the Rhine, and other rivers. Curiously\nenough, we find the same idea in The Arabian Nights, when 'The sea\nbecame troubled before them, and there arose from it a black pillar\nascending towards the sky, and approaching the meadow, and behold it was\na Jinn of gigantic stature.'\n\nThis demon was a waterspout, and waterspouts in China are attributed to\nthe battles of dragons. 'The Chinese,' says Mr. Moncure Conway, 'have\ncanonised of recent times a special protectress against the storm-demons\nof the coast, in obedience to the wishes of the sailors.'\n\nThe swan-maidens, who figure in so many legends, are mere varieties of\nthe mer-maiden, and, according to the Icelandic superstition, they and\nall fairies were children of Eve, whom she hid away on one occasion when\nthe Lord came to visit her, because they were not washed and\npresentable! They were, therefore, condemned to be invisible for ever.\n\nA Scotch story, quoted by Mr. Moncure Conway, rather bears against this\ntheory. One day, it seems, as a fisherman sat reading his Bible, a\nbeautiful nymph, lightly clad in green, came to him out of the sea, and\nasked if the book contained any promise of mercy for her. He replied\nthat it contained an offer of salvation to 'all the children of Adam,'\nwhereupon she fled away with a loud shriek, and disappeared in the sea.\nBut the beautiful stories of water-nymphs, of Undines and Loreleis, and\nmer-women, are too numerous to be even mentioned, and too beautiful, in\nmany cases, to make one care to analyze.\n\nThere is a tradition in Holland that when, in 1440, the dikes were\nbroken down by a violent tempest, the sea overflowed the meadows. Some\nwomen of the town of Edam, going one day in a boat to milk their cows,\ndiscovered a mermaid in shallow water floundering about with her tail in\nthe mud. They took her into the boat, brought her to Edam, dressed her\nin women's clothes, and taught her to spin, and to eat as they did. They\neven taught her something of religion, or, at any rate, to bow\nreverently when she passed a crucifix; but they could not teach her to\nspeak. What was the ultimate fate of this remarkable creature is not\ndisclosed.\n\nEverybody, of course, is familiar with the old sea-legend of the _Flying\nDutchman_, whether in stories of phantom ships, or in the opera of\nWagner. The spirit of Vanderdecken, which is still supposed to roam the\nwaters, is merely the modern version of our old friend, Nikke, the\nNorwegian water-demon. This is a deathless legend, and used to be as\ndevoutedly believed in as the existence of Mother Carey, sitting away up\nin the north, despatching her 'chickens' in all directions to work\ndestruction for poor Jack. But Mother Carey really turns out on inquiry\nto be a most estimable being, as we shall presently see.\n\n'Sailors,' says Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, 'usually the boldest\nMen alive, are yet frequently the very abject slaves of superstitious\nFear. They have various puerile Apprehensions concerning Whistling on\nShipboard, carrying a Corpse, etc., all which are Vestiges of the old\nWoman in human Nature, and can only be erased by the united Efforts of\nPhilosophy and Religion.'\n\nIt is to be regretted, however, that the good Brand did not devote as\nmuch attention to the superstitions of sailors as he did to those of\nsome other folks.\n\nAs is the case with almost all folk-lore, little variety is to be found\nin the sea superstitions of different nations. The ideas of the\nsupernatural on shipboard are pretty much the same, whether the flag\nflown be the Union Jack, the German Eagle, the French Tricolor, the\nAmerican Stars and Stripes, or even the Chinese Dragon. These\nsuperstitions are numerous, and are tenaciously preserved, but yet it\nwould not be fair to say that seamen are, as a class, more superstitious\nthan landsmen of their own rank. The great mystery of the sea; the\nuncertainty of life upon its bosom; the isolation and frequent\nloneliness; the wonder of the storms, and calms, and lights--everything\nconnected with a sailor's occupation is calculated to impress him with\nthe significance of signs and omens.\n\nThat mariners do not like to have a corpse on board is not remarkable,\nfor many people ashore get rather 'creepy' if they have to sleep in a\nhouse where lies a dead body. Moreover, the old idea of bad luck which\nled to the throwing overboard of Jonah, is in this case transferred from\nthe living to the dead. The objection to whistling is also explainable\nby the time-honoured practice of 'whistling for a wind,' for an\ninjudicious whistler might easily bring down a blow from the wrong\nquarter.\n\nThere are some animals and birds which have a peculiar significance at\nsea. The cat, for instance, is generally disliked, and many sailors will\nnot have one on board at any price. If there is one which becomes\nunusually frisky, they will say the cat has got a gale of wind in her\ntail. On one part of the Yorkshire coast, it is said, sailors' wives\nwere in the habit of keeping black cats to insure the safety of their\nhusbands at sea, until black cats became so scarce and dear that few\ncould afford to buy one. Although Jack does not like a cat in the ship,\nhe will not throw one overboard, for that would bring on a storm.\n\nMiss L. A. Smith, in her book about the Music of the Waters, states that\na dead hare on a ship is considered a sign of an approaching hurricane;\nand Cornish fishermen declare that a white hare seen about the quays at\nnight indicates that there will be rough weather.\n\nThe pig is an object of aversion to Japanese seamen, and also to Filey\nfishermen, who will not go to sea if they meet one in the early morning.\nBut, indeed, the pig seems to be generally disliked by all\nseafarers--except in the form of salt pork and bacon.\n\nRats, however, are not objected to; indeed, it would be useless to\nobject, for they overrun all ships. And rats are supposed to leave a\nvessel only when it is going to sink. A Welsh skipper, however, once\ncleared his ship of them without the risk of a watery grave, by drawing\nher up to a cheese-laden ship in harbour. He quietly moored alongside,\nand, having left the hatches open all night, cast off with a chuckle in\nthe morning, leaving a liberal legacy to his neighbour.\n\nThe stormy petrel is supposed to herald bad weather, and the great auk\nto tell that land is very near. This is true enough as regards the auk,\nwhich never ventures beyond soundings; but one doubts the truth of the\npopular belief that when the sea-gulls hover near the shore, a storm is\nat hand. The Scotch rhyme runs:\n\n  'Seagull, seagull, sit on the sand;\n  It's never good weather when you're on the land!'\n\n\nMr. Thiselton-Dyer quotes from Sinclair's Statistical Account of\nScotland, in confirmation of this belief, that in the county of Forfar,\n'when they appear in the fields, a storm from the southeast generally\nfollows; and when the storm begins to abate, they fly back to the\nshore.' This does not accord with the present writer's experience of the\nwest coast of Scotland, where the sea-gulls frequent the lochs and\nhillsides far inland all the summer. Naturally there are storms\nsometimes after their appearance, but just as often fine weather\ncontinues. As well say that the flocks of these beautiful birds that\nfollow in the wake of a tourist steamer, to pick up unconsidered\ntrifles, presage sea-sickness to the passengers!\n\nOne has heard that in Cornwall sailors will not walk at night along\nportions of the shore where there have been many wrecks, because they\nbelieve that the souls of the drowned haunt such localities, and that\nthe 'calling of the dead' is frequently audible. Some even say that they\nhave heard the voices of dead sailors hailing them by name. One can\nreadily excuse a timorousness in Jack in such circumstances. Many\npersons besides sailors shrink from localities which have been the\nscenes of murder or sudden death.\n\nFriday is the sailor's pet aversion, as an unlucky day on which to sail\nor begin work. But this is not surprising, when we remember that Friday\nhas everywhere more superstition and folk-lore attached to it than any\nother day in the week, originating, perhaps, as Mr. Thiselton-Dyer\nsuggests, from the fact that it was the day on which Christ was\ncrucified. Lord Byron had the superstitious aversion to Friday; and even\namong the Brahmins no business must be commenced on this day. In\nLancashire a man will not 'go a-courting on Friday'; and Brand says: 'A\nrespectable merchant of the city of London informed me that no person\nwill begin any business, that is, open his shop for the first time, on a\nFriday.' The 'respectable merchant' might be hard to find nowadays, but\nstill one does not need to go to sailors to find a prejudice against\nFriday.\n\nOther things which are accounted unlucky by superstitious seamen are: to\nsneeze on the left side at the moment of embarking; to count the men on\nboard; to ask fishermen, before they start, where they are bound for; to\npoint with the finger to a ship when at sea; to lose a mop or\nwater-bucket; to cut the hair or nails at sea, except during a storm.\n\nThese are a few of the sea superstitions as preserved in rhyme:\n\n  'The evening gray, and the morning red,\n  Put on your hat or you'll wet your head.'\n\n(Meaning that it will rain.)\n\n  'When the wind shifts against the sun,\n  Trust it not, for it will run.'\n\n(That is, soon change again.)\n\n  'When the sun sets in the clear,\n  An easterly wind you need not fear.\n\n  'The evening red and morning gray\n  Are sure signs of a fine day.'\n\n(A distich not peculiar to followers of the sea.)\n\n  'But the evening gray and morning red\n  Makes the sailor shake his head.'\n\n\nThis refers to the barometer:\n\n  'First rise, after low,\n  Indicates a stronger blow.'\n\nAnd this:\n\n  'Long foretold, long last;\n  Short notice, soon past.'\n\nThese, however, are hardly superstitions, but maxims based on\nexperience. Of the same character are the following:\n\n                  'In squalls\n  When the rain's before the wind\n  Halyards, sheets, and braces mind.'\n\nAlso,\n\n  'When the wind's before the rain\n  Soon you may make sail again.'\n\nAnd\n\n  'When the glass falls low,\n  Prepare for a blow;\n  When it rises high,\n  Let all your kites fly.\n\n  'A rainbow in the morning,\n  Sailors take warning;\n  A rainbow at night\n  Is the sailor's delight.'\n\n\nThe Manx fishermen have some curious sayings about herrings. Thus the\ncommon expression, 'As dead as a herring,' is due to them. They say\nalso, 'Every herring must hang by its own gills'; and their favourite\ntoast is, 'Life to man and death to fish.' They count one hundred and\ntwenty-four fish to the hundred, thus: they first sort out lots of one\nhundred and twenty, then add three to each lot, which is called 'warp,'\nand then a single herring, which is called 'tally.' Before shooting the\nnets at sea, every man goes down on his knees at a sign from the skipper\nof the boat, and, with his head uncovered, prays for a blessing on the\nfishing. This, at least, used to be the general practice, but in how\nprevailing at the present day is doubtful.\n\nThe sound of the death-bell is often supposed to be heard at sea before\na wreck, and this idea may be either associated with the bell-buoy which\nmarks many sunken, dangerous rocks, or with the religious ceremonies of\nthe old days.\n\nAt Malta it is, or was, usual to ring the church bells for an hour\nduring a storm 'that the wind may cease and the sea be calmed,' and the\nsame custom prevails both in Sicily and Sardinia.\n\nA Cornish legend of the bells of a church, which were sent by ship that\nwas lost in sight of the town, owing to the blasphemy of the captain,\nsays that the bells are supposed to be in the bay, and they announce by\nstrange sounds the approach of a storm.\n\nThere is a suggestion of Sir Ralph the Rover in this legend; but,\nindeed, the superstitions of those connected with the sea are so\ninterwoven, that it is not easy to disentangle them, and they are\nnumerous enough to need a book to themselves. No doubt our mariners\nderived many of them from the old Spanish navigators who once swayed the\nmain, for the Spaniards are one of the most superstitious peoples in the\nworld.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMOTHER CAREY AND HER CHICKENS.\n\n\nWho was Mother Carey the appearance of whose 'chickens' is supposed by\nthe mariner to foretell a coming storm? This question is often asked,\nbut seldom answered, and so a little light on the subject is desirable.\n\nCharles Kingsley gives a very vivid picture of her. In his charming book\nabout The Water-Babies, he tells how little Tom, in search of his old\nmaster, Grimes, is instructed to find his way to Peacepool and Mother\nCarey's Haven, where the good whales go when they die. On his way he\nmeets a flock of petrels, who invite him to go with them, saying: 'We\nare Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas\nto show the good birds the way home.' So he comes to Peacepool at last,\nwhich is miles and miles across; and there the air is clear and\ntransparent, and the water calm and lovely; and there the good whales\nrest in happy sleep upon the slumbering sea.\n\nIn the midst of Peacepool was one large peaked iceberg. 'When Tom came\nnear it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he had ever seen--a\nwhite marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot\nof the throne there swam away, out and in, and into the sea, millions of\nnew-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever dreamed.\nAnd they were Mother Carey's chickens, whom she makes out of the\nsea-water all the day long.'\n\nNow, this beautiful fancy of Kingsley's--and how beautiful it is can\nonly be realized by a reading of the whole story--is based upon fact, as\nall beautiful fancies must be.\n\nThe fundamental idea of Kingsley's picture is that of a fruitful and\nbeneficent mother. And Mother Carey is just the Mater Cara of the\nmedieval sailors. Our Mother Carey's chickens are the 'Birds of the Holy\nVirgin,' of the South of Europe, the 'Oiseaux de Notre Dame' of the\nFrench seamen.\n\nOne reason for associating the petrel with the Holy Mother may possibly\nhave been found in its supposed sleeplessness. The bird was believed\nnever to rest, to hatch its eggs under its wings, and to be incessantly\nflying to and fro on the face of the waters on messages of warning to\nmariners. Even to this day sailors believe that the albatross, the\naristocratic relative of the petrel, sleeps on the wing; and the power\nof the albatross, for good and evil, readers of the Ancient Mariner will\nremember. We say for good and evil, because opinion fluctuated. Thus:\n\n  'At length did cross an albatross,\n  Through the fog it came;\n  As if it had been a Christian soul,\n  We hailed it in God's name.'\n\n\nWhen the mariner with his crossbow did shoot the albatross, the crew\nsaid:\n\n  'I had done a hellish thing,\n  And it would work them woe;\n  For all averred I had killed the bird\n  That made the breeze to blow.\n  \"Ah, wretch!\" said they, \"the bird to slay,\n  That made the breeze to blow!\"'\n\n\nAnd once more, when the weather cleared, they changed:\n\n  'Then all averred I had killed the bird\n  That brought the fog and mist;\n  \"'Twas right,\" said they, \"such birds to slay,\n  That bring the fog and mist!\"'\n\n\nColeridge got his idea from Wordsworth, who got it from a passage in\nShelvocke's voyages, where a long spell of bad weather was attributed to\nan albatross following the ship.\n\nThe poet who sang,\n\n  'Oh, stormy, stormy peterel!\n    Thou art a bird of woe,\n  Yet would I thou could'st tell me half\n    Of the misery thou dost know!'\n\nhas, however, misunderstood the feeling with which that little harbinger\nis regarded. So have many other persons. The petrel is not a bird of\nwoe, but a bird of warning.\n\nThe Virgin Mary--Mater Cara--was the special protectress of the early\nChristian seamen, just as Amphitrite had been the tutelary genius of\nhis Greek, and Venus of his Roman, progenitors, and just as Isis, the\nmoon goddess, had been the patroness of the Egyptian navigators. The\nCatholic mariner still believes that the Virgin has especial power over\nthe winds and the sea.\n\nAt Marseilles is the shrine of the Notre Dame de la Garde, greatly\nvenerated by all the Provencal sailors; at Caen is the shrine of Notre\nDame de Deliverance; at Havre, that of Notre Dame des Neiges. Brand\ntells, in his book of Antiquities, that on Good Friday Catholic mariners\n'cock-bill' their yards in mourning and hang and scourge an effigy of\nJudas Iscariot. The practice still continues, and as recently as 1881 a\nLondon newspaper contained an account of the ceremony performed on board\nseveral Portuguese vessels in the London Docks. The proceedings always\nclosed with a Hymn to the Virgin Mary.\n\nIn Rome, at the Church of Santa Maria della Navicella, there is a small\nmarble ship which was offered by Pope Leo the Tenth in execution of a\nvow after his escape from shipwreck. The first thing done by Magellan\nand his crew after their safe return to Seville was to perform penance\nbarefooted, clad only in their shirts, and bearing lighted tapers in\ntheir hands, at the shrine of Our Lady of Victory. And it is related of\nColumbus, that on safe arrival after a storm at the Azores, 'The Admiral\nand all the crew, bearing in remembrance the vow which they had made the\nThursday before, to go barefooted, and in their shirts, to some church\nof Our Lady at the first land, were of opinion that they ought to\ndischarge this vow. They accordingly landed, and proceeded, according to\ntheir vow, barefooted, and in their shirts, toward the hermitage.'\n\nCountless instances might be cited, but these will suffice to show the\nestimation in which Mater Cara was held by Catholic seamen.\n\nHow it came to be supposed that the smaller _Procellariae_ are only\nvisible before a storm is not very apparent. In point of fact, there is\nno more reason for associating the petrel specially with storms than\nthere is for the belief expressed in the old Scotch couplet quoted in\nthe last chapter:\n\n  'Seagull, seagull, sit in the sand;\n  It's never good weather when you're on the land!'\n\n\nAs a matter of fact, seagulls do fly far inland in fine weather, and\nespecially during ploughing-time. And also, as a matter of fact, the\npetrel lives at sea both in fine weather and foul, because he is\nuncomfortable on land. It is only the breeding season that he spends on\nshore; while the seagull is just as much at home on the land as on the\nsea.\n\nThe scientific name of the petrel tribe is _Procellariae_, from the Latin\n_procella_--a storm. It is a large family, all the members of which are\ndistinguished by a peculiar tube-like arrangement of the nostrils. Their\nfeet, also, are peculiar in being without any back toe, so that they can\nonly with great difficulty rise on the wing from dry land.\n\nMother Carey's chickens are among the smaller species of this family,\nand they have both a shorter bill and a longer leg than their relatives.\nBut all the _Procellariae_ are noted for ranging further from land than\nany other of the sea-birds. Thus they are often visible from ship-board\nwhen no other animal life can be sighted; and thus it was, doubtless,\nthat their appearance suggested safe harbour, and consequent thanks to\nMater Cara, to the devout seaman.\n\nWhy the petrels are associated with storms is thus not easily explained,\nseeing that they are abroad in all weathers; but a feasible suggestion\nwas advanced by Pennant. It is that they gather from the water\nsea-animals which are most abundant before or after a storm, when the\nsea is in a state of unusual commotion. All birds are highly sensitive\nto atmospheric changes, and all sea-birds seem to develop extra activity\nin threatening and 'dirty' weather.\n\nThere is another interesting thing about Mother Carey's chicken, and\nthat is, that he is also called petrel, from the Italian 'Petrello,' or\nLittle Peter. This is because he is supposed to be able, like the\napostle, to walk on the water, and as in fact he does after a fashion,\nwith the aid of his wings.\n\nNow, St. Peter, both as a fisherman and for his sea-walking, was always\na favourite saint with sailors, and was often invoked during storms. He\nwas the patron saint of Cortez, as he was also of the Thames watermen.\nThere is an old legend that St. Peter went on board a fisherman's boat\nsomewhere about the Nore, and that it carried him, without sails or\noars, to the very spot which he selected as the site for Westminster\nAbbey.\n\nIn the Russian ports of the Baltic there is firm belief in a species of\nwater-spirits called Rusalkas, who raise storms and cause much damage to\nthe shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St.\nPeter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the\nspots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and\nforefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its\nmouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St.\nPeter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory\nwas an easy transition.\n\nWith fishermen, as was natural, St. Peter was held in high honour; and\nin Cornwall and Yorkshire, until recently, it was customary to light\nbonfires, and to hold other ceremonies, on St. Peter's Day, to signalize\nthe opening of the fishing season, and to bespeak luck. An old writer\nsays of these customs at Guisboro', in Yorkshire, that:\n\n'The fishermen, on St. Peter's daye, invited their friends and kinfolk\nto a festivall kept after their fashion, with a free hearte, and no show\nof niggardnesse. That day their boats are dressed curiously for the\nshowe, their masts are painted, and certain rytes observed amongst them\nwith sprinkling their bows with good liquor, which custome or\nsuperstition, sucked from their ancestors, even continueth down unto\nthis present tyme.'\n\nPerhaps at 'this present tyme' the ceremonies are not so elaborate; but\nsurvivals of the 'custome or superstition' are to be found yet in our\nfishing villages.\n\nIt is probable that the observers of St. Peter's Day do not know the\norigin of their curious customs. It is certain that sailors, as a class,\ndo not now know why their favourite little bird is called petrel. We\nhave tried to remove the stigma which in modern times has come to rest\nupon Mother Carey's chickens. Let us no longer do them wrong by\nsupposing that they are always the harbingers of woe. They have a busy\nand a useful life, and it is one, as we have seen, with tender, even\nsacred, associations.\n\nIt may be recalled as an interesting, although not an agreeable item,\nthat in the days of the French Revolution there was a notorious brood of\nMother Carey's chickens in Paris. They were the female rag-tag-and-bobtail\nof the city, whose appearance in the streets was understood to forebode\na fresh political tumult. What an insult to our feathered friends to\nbestow their honoured name on such human fiends!\n\nThe real Mother Carey is she who appeared to Tom and Ella in Peacepool,\nafter they had learned a few things about themselves and the world. They\nheard her voice calling to them, and they looked, crying:\n\n'\"Oh, who are you, after all? You are our dear Mrs.\nDo-as-you-would-be-done-by.\"\n\n'\"No, you are good Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did; but you are grown quite\nbeautiful now!\"\n\n'\"To you,\" said the Fairy; \"but look again.\"\n\n'\"You are Mother Carey,\" said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice, for he\nhad found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened\nhim more than all that he had ever seen.\n\n'\"But you are grown quite young again.\"\n\n'\"To you,\" said the Fairy; \"but look again.\"\n\n'\"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!\"\n\n'And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them\nat once.\n\n'\"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.\"\n\n'And they looked into her great, deep soft eyes, and they changed again\nand again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.\n\n'\"Now read my name,\" said she at last, and her eyes flashed for one\nmoment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her\nname, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.\n\n'They were only water-babies, and just beginning to learn the meaning of\nlove.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nDAVY JONES'S LOCKER.\n\n\nThis expression of what may be called nautical slang has now become\nalmost classic. At all events, everybody knows it; and most people may\nbe presumed to know that to 'go to Davy Jones's Locker' is equivalent to\n'losing the number of your mess,' or, as the Californian miners say,\n'passing in your checks.' Being especially a sea-phrase, it means, of\ncourse, to be drowned. But how did the phrase originate? And who was\nDavy Jones? These questions must have frequently occurred to many, and\nit is worth while seeking an answer to them. There is an explanation for\neverything, if one only knows how to look for it.\n\nThis saying about Davy Jones is a very old one--so old, that it cannot\npossibly have any reference to the famous Paul Jones. In fact, one hears\nvery often of 'Davy's Locker' without any reference to 'Jones' at all.\nThen 'Davy,' again, is a vulgar slang expression for affidavit, but it\nis also used in thief-parlance by way of an oath. 'So help me Davy!' is\nthe slang equivalent for the concluding sentence of the oath\nadministered in the police-courts with which these gentry are familiar.\nIt has thus been inferred that 'Davy' is a slang expression of somewhat\nblasphemous import; but this is by no means certain.\n\nIt is much more likely to be associated with, or to have the same origin\nas, the 'Duffy' of the West Indian negroes. Among them Duffy means a\nghost; and in the vocabulary of the gutter it may easily have been taken\nas the equivalent of soul. The transition from Duffy to Davy is by no\nmeans difficult.\n\nBut how, then, did the vagabond users of 'flash' language get hold of\nthis word? It is probable enough that it was brought home by the sailors\nfrom the West Indies, and picked up at the docks by the waifs and strays\nof our vast vagrant population. On the other hand, it is just as likely\nthat the West Indian negroes picked up 'Duffy' from our own sailors; and\nthat, in fact, Duffy is just the nigger contraction of Davy Jones. There\nis certainly a very close connection, both in sound and meaning, between\nthe two expressions.\n\nWe must go further back and further away, however, to get to the root of\nthis matter. And, if we inquire diligently, we shall find our Davy in\nthe Deva of the Indian mythology. The original Sanskrit meaning of Deva\nwas 'The Shining One,' but in the operation of what has been called 'the\ndegradation of Deities' in the Oriental religions, it became synonymous\nwith our devil. In fact, we owe the word 'devil' to this same Sanskrit\nroot; and it is noteworthy that while Deva meant the Good Spirit to the\nBrahmans, it meant the Evil Spirit to the Parsees. In this root we may\nalso find the explanation of the gipsy word for God, which, curiously\nenough, is Devel.\n\nWhile it is easy to trace the transition from Deva to the sailor's Davy,\none may note another curious thing. The name of the fabulous Welshman,\nTaffy, the thief, is a corruption of Dyved, which, as signifying an evil\nspirit, is the Cymric form of Deva. This would almost suggest that the\naddition of the apparent surname, Jones, was a Welsh performance. But\nthis is only an amusing conjecture, not without a certain aptness.\n\nFor the origin of Jones we must look to Jonah, who in nautical history\nis regarded as the embodiment of malevolence at sea. The prophet Jonah\nis not the only one who has been committed to the deep to appease the\nstorm-fiends, whose anger his presence was supposed to have aroused. It\nis easy to account for this from the Bible narrative. 'The mariners were\nafraid, and cried every man unto his God. And they said, every one to\nhis fellow, \"Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose\ncause this evil is upon us.\" So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon\nJonah. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the\nsea ceased from her raging.'\n\nThe superstition of sailors is proverbial, and to this day they believe\nin good or ill luck being brought to a vessel by persons and things. In\nolden times there were many sacrifices to this Jonah superstition; and\neven in comparatively recent times, Holcroft, the actor, on a voyage to\nScotland, narrowly escaped a watery grave, because the men took him for\n'the Jonas.' And to this day 'He's a Jonah' is an expression often\nenough heard on ship-board applied to some unwelcome passenger.\n\nHere, then, we have the Sanskrit origin of Davy, and the Biblical origin\nof Jones, both words embodying much the same idea to the mind of the\nprimitive seamen.\n\nBut what of the 'locker'?\n\nThis, of course, is a familiar piece of ship-furniture which it was not\ndifficult to transfer to the mythical demon of the deep. Lieutenant\nBassett thought that the locker might be the whale's belly in which\nJonah found refuge; but this is hardly in harmony with the meaning of\nthe phrase. In the sense in which it is thus used, locker does not mean\na temporary resting-place or submarine harbour of refuge, but a place of\nfinal deposit. It is possible, indeed, to find the origin of the word\nlocker as here applied in Loki, the personification of evil in the\nScandinavian mythology. Loki, like Deva, was not always an evil spirit,\nbut he became eventually identified with Satan. He became a flame-demon,\na sort of incarnate spirit of fire.\n\nThere is good reason for believing in this theory of the Scandinavian\norigin of the word 'locker' as used in the connection we are\nconsidering. It is to be remembered that, in olden times, death by\ndrowning was even more dreaded than now, because drowned bodies were\nsupposed to be debarred from the Resurrection. Going far back, we find\nthat the sea was the abode of Typhoeus, who, besides being a\nhurricane-raising, was also a fire-breathing, demon, and was feared as\nthe quencher of the sun, who sank at night into his bosom. The legend of\nSt. Brandan and his burning islands preserved the idea that Hades was\nvery near to the bottom of the ocean. Thus, then, we may readily\nperceive the conception of Loki having his receptacle for drowned\nmariners in the bed of the sea. A belief prevailed long into the Middle\nAges that the sea-bottom was the abode of many demons, who lay in wait\nfor passengers, to drag them down to the infernal depths.\n\nThus, then, Davy Jones's Locker became, by a mixture of theogonies, 'the\nocean, the deep sea-bottom, the place to which the body was committed,\nand to which the souls of the wicked fled.'\n\nThis meaning is now somewhat modified. Sailors do not, as Smollett says\nthey did in his day, regard Davy Jones as the fiend who presides over\nall the evil spirits of the deep, and who is seen in various shapes,\nwarning the devoted wretches of death and woe. In fact, it is not Davy\nJones they think of at all now, but his Locker; for to go to Davy's\nLocker is to be lost at sea and to find a watery grave.\n\nThere is, however, a curious survival of the personal element still to\nbe traced in some of the sailors' chanties. Take, for instance, that\nremarkable one about 'Burying the Dead Horse,' which still puzzles the\npassengers on board the packets sailing to the Antipodes. Without going\ninto the question of the song and its attendant ceremonies just now,\nthe following lines may be quoted as bearing on our subject:\n\n  'You poor old horse, what brought you here,\n  After carrying turf for many a year?\n  From Bantry Bay to Ballyack,\n  When you fell down and broke your back?\n  You died from blows and sore abuse,\n  And were salted down for the sailors' use.\n  The sailors they the meat despise;\n  They turned you over and ---- your eyes;\n  They ate the meat and picked the bones,\n  And gave the rest to Davy Jones.'\n\n\nAll the offal of a ship is thrown over to Davy Jones--doubtless because\nthere is nothing else to be done with it.\n\nThe favourite demon, if one may use the expression, of British sailors\nis now Old Nick, and one may trace his origin even more easily than that\nof Davy Jones. We can follow him through Saxon, German, Danish and\nNorwegian transitions to one of the names of Odin--Hnickar--for even\nAll-father Odin shared the fate of his Oriental predecessors, and became\ndemonized. Others, again, have carried the name Hnickar back still\nfurther to the Egyptian Nika, the serpent of the lower world, 'the\nTyphonic enemy of the Sun in his night-journey.'\n\nIt is to the same root that we owe the Necken of the Baltic, and the\nNixies--the water-fays--of the German legends. It is to the Norwegian\nNoekke, also, that we owe the Wild Huntsman of the Sea, on which the\nstory of the _Flying Dutchman_ and a host of other legends of demon\nvessels and demon mariners are founded.\n\nThere is, however, some confusion in the nautical mythology between the\noriginal Old Nick and the popular Saint Nicholas. This saint became the\nChristian successor of Neptune, as the protector of seamen. 'This\nsaintly Poseidon,' says Mr. Conway, 'the patron of fishermen, in time\nbecame associated with the demon whom the British sailor feared if he\nfeared nothing else. He was also of old the patron of pirates; and\nrobbers were called \"St. Nicholas' clerks.\"'\n\nIt is certainly one of the curiosities of plutology that the patron\nsaint of children who is still honoured at Christmas as Santa Claus\nshould be the same as the dreaded Old Nick of the seafarers.\n\nThese investigations are extremely interesting, and may lead us far; but\nour present purpose is merely to find an explanation of a popular\nphrase.\n\nIt is more difficult to explain a number of other marine personalities,\nwho are as lively to-day on shipboard as they were generations ago.\nThere is, for instance, old Mister Storm-Along, of whom the chanty-man\nsings:\n\n  'When Stormy died, I dug his grave--\n  I dug his grave with a silver spade;\n  I hove him up with an iron crane,\n  And lowered him down with a golden chain.'\n\nWho was he? And who was the famous Captain Cottington, of whom it is\nrelated, in stentorian tones and with tireless repetition, that:\n\n  'Captain Cottington, he went to sea,\n  Captain Cottington, he went to sea-e-e-e,\n  Captain Cottington, he went to sea,\n  Captain Cottington, he went to sea-e!'\n\n\nWho, also, was 'Uncle Peleg,' of whom a somewhat similarly exhaustive\nhistory is chanted? And, still more, who was the mysterious Reuben\nRanzo, with whose name every fo'cs'le of every outward-bound British or\nAmerican ship is constantly resounding?\n\n  'Pity Reuben Ranzo--\n    Ranzo, boys, a Ranzo!\n  Oh, pity Reuben Ranzo--\n    Ranzo, boys, a Ranzo!'\n\nHe had a remarkable career, this Reuben, according to the song. He was a\ntailor by trade; went to school on the Monday, learnt to read on\nTuesday, and by Friday he had thrashed the master. Then he went to sea,\nand, after some ignominious experiences, married the captain's daughter,\nand became himself the captain of a whaler. But who was he? And how does\nhe come to exercise such a fascination over all mariners, even unto this\nday?\n\nThis is one of the mysteries of the ocean. The sea is covered with\nmystery, and with phantom shapes. Every ship that sails is peopled with\na crew of dim shadows of the past that none can explain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nSOME FLOWERS OF FANCY.\n\n\nThat the lily should symbolize purity seems appropriate enough, but why\nshould parsley in olden times have been associated with death? It is\nrecorded that a few bundles of parsley once threw a whole Greek army\ninto panic, because in Greece the tombs of the dead were strewn with the\nherb. With them 'to be in need of parsley' was equivalent to being\nbeyond hope.\n\nThe name itself offers little explanation of this superstition, for it\nis derived from the Latin _petroselinum_, which, again, was taken from\nthe Greek name signifying the 'plant of the rocks.' According to the\nmyth, however, it sprang from the blood of Archemorus, or Orpheltes, the\nson of Lycurgus, King of Nemaea. Archemorus was killed by a serpent while\nhis foster-mother was showing the soldiers of Adrastus where they might\nfind a fountain. On the place where he died there sprang up the parsley,\nwhich the Greeks, in grief for his loss, wove into chaplets for the\nvictors at the Nemaean games. At these games it was always customary to\ndeliver a funeral oration in memory of Archemorus, while the\nparticipators were dressed in mourning. Hence the association of parsley\nwith death among the Greeks, and the long-prevailing Western belief that\nthe plant is 'unlucky,' is only another instance of the marvellous\nlongevity of superstitions.\n\nIt is said by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer that in Devonshire to transplant\nparsley is accounted a serious offence against the tutelary spirit of\nthe herb, and is certain to be punished within the year by some great\nmisfortune. In South Hampshire the country people will never give\nparsley away, for fear of trouble; and in Suffolk it is believed that if\nit be sown on any other day than Good Friday it will not grow double.\nThe _Folklore Record_, some years ago, gave the case of a gentleman near\nSouthampton whose gardener refused to sow some parsley-seed when\nordered, because 'it would be a bad day's work' for him to do so; the\nmost he would do was to bring a plant or two, and throw them down for\nthe master to pick up if he chose. To give them, however, the man\nregarded as fatal.\n\nBut even to move parsley is regarded in some places to be unlucky, and\nwe have heard of a parish clerk in Devonshire who was bedridden, and who\nwas popularly supposed to owe his trouble to having moved some\nparsley-beds. There is a similar superstition in Germany, and many\nreaders have probably often come across an old saying, that 'Parsley\nfried will bring a man to his saddle and a woman to her grave.' The\nallusion to the saddle is obscure; but it is obvious that all the\nsuperstitious dread of parsley is a survival of the old Greek fable\nimmortalized in the Nemaean games.\n\nThat the rose should be associated with death may appear strange to\nsome, yet so it was. The Greeks certainly used the rose in their funeral\nrites and for the decoration of their tombs. The Romans used it for\nsimilar purposes, and often bequeathed legacies for the express purpose\nof keeping their tombs adorned with the flower. Whether it was by them\nthat the practice was introduced into England is not capable of direct\nproof, but it is worthy of note that at Ockley, a place where the Romans\nwere often located in large numbers, it was a custom of comparatively\nrecent experience for girls to plant roses upon the graves of their dead\nlovers. Hence, no doubt, its origin in Gay's riddle:\n\n  'What flower is that which royal honour craves,\n  Adjoins the Virgin, and 'tis strewn on graves?'\n\nThe answer is 'Rosemary,' which, although sometimes understood to mean\nthe Rose of the Virgin Mary, is neither a rose, nor is it in any special\nway associated with the Virgin.\n\nOn the other hand, the rose is associated by most Catholics with the\nMother of the Saviour, and in Italy especially, during the celebrations\nof May, the rose is abundantly used. By some it has been thought that\nthe early association of the rose with death led to the expression\n'under the rose,' applied to anything to be done in secret or silence.\nOthers, again, have ascribed the origin of that expression to the\nperfect beauty of the flower, which, as language is unable to portray\nit, may be a symbol of silence. Sir Thomas Browne, however, says the\norigin was either in the old custom of wearing chaplets of roses during\nthe 'Symposiack meetings,' or else because the rose was the flower of\nVenus, 'which Cupid consecrated unto Harpocrates, the god of silence.'\nThere is a basis of probability in both theories, and all know that the\nrose was peculiarly the property of the Goddess of Love. Indeed,\naccording to the old fable, the flower was originally white until dyed\nby the blood which flowed from the foot of Venus, pierced by a thorn as\nshe ran to the aid of her loved Adonis. Hence Spenser says:\n\n  'White as the native rose, before the change\n  Which Venus's blood did in her leaves impress.'\n\n\nAccording to others, however, it was the blood of Adonis which dyed the\nflower. Thus Bion, in his Lament: 'A tear the Paphian sheds for each\nblood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on the earth are turned to\nflowers. The blood brings forth the rose, and the tears the wind-flower.\nWoe, woe, for Adonis! he hath perished, the lovely Adonis!' This\ntradition is preserved in the German name, _Adonis-blume_, which,\nhowever, is usually applied to the anemone.\n\nThe rose being the emblem of love, and love having a natural abhorrence\nof publicity, it is not difficult to conceive the connection with\nsilence. It is said that the Romans used to place a decoration of roses\nin the centre of their dining-rooms, as a hint to the guests that all\nthat was said at the banqueting-table was in the nature of 'privileged\ncommunications,' and in old Germany a similar custom long prevailed. In\nthe sixteenth century a rose was placed over confessionals, and the\ninference is that the hint was then well understood.\n\nThere was also an obvious meaning in the adoption by the Jacobites of\nthis flower as the emblem of the Pretender, to whose service they were\nsecretly sworn. It was the white rose that was especially affected by\nthe Stuarts, and the Pretender's birthday, the 10th of June, was for\nlong known as 'White Rose Day,' much as 'Primrose Day' is now definitely\nassociated with the late Lord Beaconsfield. The story of the Wars of the\nRoses is, of course, known to everybody, and how, in consequence of\nthese feuds, the rose became the emblem of England, as the thistle is of\nScotland, and the shamrock of Ireland.\n\nIn the East there is even more of poetic significance attached to the\nrose than with us. It is related of Sadi, the Persian poet, that, when a\nslave, he earned his freedom by the adroit use of the flower. One day he\npresented a rose to his master, with the remark, made with all humility,\n'Do good to thy servant whilst thou hast the power, for the season of\npower is often as transient as the duration of this flower.' This was in\nallusion to the Eastern fancy, which makes the white rose the emblem of\nlife--transient and uncertain. In Persia they have a festival called\n'The Feast of the Roses,' which lasts during the blooming of the\nflowers. One of their great works is called The Garden of Roses, and in\nall their poems and tales they closely associate the rose with the\nbulbul or nightingale. The belief is that the bird derives his melody\nfrom the beauteous flower, and they say, 'You may place a handful of\nfragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale, but he wants nothing\nmore than the odour of his beloved rose.'\n\nThomas Moore seizes, with happy effect, on this legend in Lalla Rookh,\nwhich poem, indeed, is redolent of roses. But poetry generally is as\nfull of the rose as the rose is of poetry, and it would take a volume to\ndeal adequately with all the fancies and superstitious associations of\nthe queen of flowers. Before quitting the subject, however, we should\nnot overlook the Oriental traditions of how the rose received its\nvarious colours. It is said that when Mohammed was journeying to heaven,\nthe sweat which fell from his forehead produced white roses, and that\nwhich fell from Al Borak produced yellow roses. But an older tradition\nis given by Sir John Mandeville. It is that of Zillah, the beauteous\nmaiden of Bethlehem, who, being falsely accused, was condemned to be\nburned alive. At the stake the flames passed over her and shrivelled up\nher accuser, while, on the spot where she stood, sprang up a garden of\nroses--red where the fire had touched, and white where it had passed.\n'And theise werein the first roseres that ever ony man saughe.'\n\nReference has been made to the lily as the emblem of purity, but,\ncuriously enough, this innocent-looking flower has its baleful\nsuperstitions as well.\n\nIn Devonshire it is accounted unlucky to plant a bed of\nlilies-of-the-valley, and to do so is to ensure misfortune, if not\ndeath, within a year. Yet this flower has always been closely associated\nwith the Virgin Mary, and according to one legend, it sprang from some\nof the milk which fell to the ground as she was nourishing the infant\nJesus. The Greeks, however, had a similar legend, ascribing the origin\nof the flower to a drop of Juno's milk. The Greeks have always made a\nfavourite of the lily, and even to this day use it largely in making up\nbridal wreaths, while the sacred significance which Christians have\nfound in the flower may be traceable to our Lord's use of it in imagery.\n\nIn this connection the legend of the budding lily of St. Joseph may be\nrecalled, and also the fact that the mediaeval painters generally\ndepicted the Madonna with a lily in her hand. There is a tradition that\nthe lily was the principal ornament in the crown of Solomon, and that it\ntypified love, charity, purity, and innocence--a combination of virtues\nhardly to be found in the character of the wise King himself.\n\nNor must we forget that the sacred flower of the East--the lotus--is a\nlily, and that even to name it seems to carry ineffable consolation to\nthe Buddhist. Thus, the universal prayer of the Buddhists--that prayer\nwhich is printed on slips and fastened on cylinders which are\nincessantly revolving in Thibet--'Om mani padme hum!' means simply, 'Oh,\nthe jewel in (or of) the lotus! Amen!' So Sir Edwin Arnold, in The\nLight of Asia:\n\n  'Ah, Lover! Brother! Guide! Lamp of the Law!\n  I take my refuge in Thy name and Thee!\n  I take my refuge in Thy Law of Good!\n  I take my refuge in Thy Order! Om!\n  The dew is on the lotus. Rise, Great Sun,\n  And lift my leaf, and mix me with the wave.\n  \"Om mani padme hum,\" the sunrise comes.\n  The dewdrop slips into the shining sea!'\n\n\nThe lily, or lotus, was held sacred also in ancient Egypt, and the\ncapitals of many of the buildings bear the form of an open lotus-flower.\nAnd naturally, in a land of Buddhism like China, the lotus occupies\nthere an important place, both in art, in poetry, and in popular fancy.\nIt is recorded that the old Jews regarded the lily, or lotus (_Lilium\ncandidum_), as a protection against enchantment, and it is said that\nJudith wore a wreath of lilies when she went to visit Holofernes, by way\nof counteractant charm.\n\nThe lotus which is the sacred lily of the East must not be confounded\nwith the mysterious plant mentioned by Ulysses, and of which Tennyson\nhas sung--the plant of oblivion and sensuousness. That there is an\nelement of enchantment about the lily we have seen is still believed in\nour own country, but the association of misfortune with it is not\nuniversal. On the contrary, in some parts the leaf of the lily is\nsupposed to have curative virtues in cases of cuts and wounds, and\nGerarde, the old herbalist, even says that 'the flowers of\nlily-of-the-valley, being close stopped up in a glass, put into an\nant-hill, and taken away again a month after, ye shall find a liquor in\nthe glass, which being outwardly applied, helpeth the gout.' One hears,\nperhaps, of no modern experiments having been made with this remedy. But\nif not to cure gout, the flower has, it appears, been used to pay rents,\nfor Grimm says that some lands in Hesse were held upon the condition of\npresenting a bunch of lily-of-the-valley every year. This, of course,\nwould not be the whole burden, and the custom had, no doubt, a religious\norigin and significance.\n\nThe flower is often associated with the sword of justice, and both the\nDominicans and the Cistercians held it in high honour. It is worth\nnoting, too, that some traditions make the lily the favourite flower of\nSt. Cecilia, although the popular legend makes the angel bring her a\nbouquet of roses every night from Paradise.\n\nBut how did the lily become the badge of France? One tradition is that\nit was adopted by the French kings because it was the emblem of purity,\nand closely associated with both Christ and Solomon. One old legend has\nit that after one of the great battles of the Crusaders, the French\nbanners were found covered with lilies. According to others, the Fleur\nde lys is merely a corruption of Fleur de Luce, or Fleur de Louis, and\nwas not a lily at all, but the purple iris, which Louis the Seventh\nadopted for his emblem on his departure to the Holy Land. On the other\nhand, there is a legend that a shield of azure bearing the device of\nthree golden lilies was presented by an angel to Clothilde, the wife of\nClovis, and it is claimed that the lily has been the true national\nemblem of France ever since the time of that Sovereign. Whatever the\norigin, however, of Fleur de lys, it certainly means lily now, and the\nLily of France is a symbol as definite as the Rose of England, as the\nShamrock of Ireland, or as the Thistle of Scotland.\n\nIt is curious how much superstition and romance have clustered round the\nhumble clover-leaf. Not one of us, perhaps, but has in childhood spent\nhours in looking for the four-leaved clover that was to bring untold\nluck. What trouble to find it! What joy when found! And what little\nprofit beyond the joy of the search! As the old couplet has it, somewhat\ninconsequently:\n\n  'With a four-leav'd clover, double-topp'd ash, and green-topp'd seave,\n  You may go before the queen's daughter without asking leave.'\n\n\nThe advantage here suggested is not very obvious, but the Devonshire\npeople had a more defined idea of the virtue of the double clover, and\nthey state it thus:\n\n  'An even-leaved ash,\n    And a four-leaved clover;\n  You'll see your true lover\n    Before the day's over.'\n\n\nBut in Cambridgeshire it seems that the two-leaved clover is the object\nof desire, for there the saying goes:\n\n  'A clover, a clover of two,\n  Put it on your right shoe;\n  The first young man you meet,\n  In field, or lane, or street,\n  You shall have him,\n  Or one of his name.'\n\nThis, while presenting a considerable amount of uncertainty in the\nresult has, at least, the merit of presaging something.\n\nIn other parts, however, and in more ancient days, the carrying of the\nfour-bladed clover was believed to bring luck in play and in business,\nsafety on a journey, and the power of detecting evil spirits. In Germany\nthe clover was held almost sacred whenever it had two or four blades.\nNow, as to luck, a curious thing is stated by the author of the Plant\nLore of Shakespeare. He says that clover is a corruption of _clava_, a\nclub, and that to this day we preserve the emblem of luck on our\nplaying-cards in painting the suit of clubs. Somehow the etymology does\nnot seem very satisfying; but at any rate we all know what 'living in\nclover' means.\n\nYet, perhaps, everyone does not know that in rural districts the clover\nis looked upon as a capital barometer, the leaves becoming rough to the\nfeel when a storm is impending. A writer, quoted by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer,\nsays that when tempestuous weather is coming the clover will 'start and\nrise up as if it were afraid of an assault.'\n\nIt is probable that the association of good luck with the four-bladed\nclover arose from its fancied resemblance to the cross. Support is given\nto this hypothesis by the traditional origin of the shamrock as the\nbadge of Ireland. In the account given of St. Patrick in The Book of\nDays, it is stated that once when the Saint wanted to illustrate the\ndoctrine of the Trinity to his pagan hearers, he plucked a piece of the\ncommon white clover. Now, it seems that the trefoil is called\n_shamrakh_ in Arabic, and was held sacred in Persia. And it is\nremarkable that Pliny says the trefoil is an antidote against the bites\nof snakes and scorpions. It is not by any means certain that the common\nclover was the original shamrock of Ireland; and even to this day many\nclaim the title for the wood-sorrel. Still, for fifty years, at any\nrate, the popular belief has been that the trefoil-clover is the plant\nwhich was plucked by St. Patrick, who drove out the snakes from Ireland,\nwho is still her patron-saint, and whose badge is worn to this day.\n\nBut how did the name come from Arabia, and what is the connection\nbetween Pliny's theory and the legend, of St. Patrick's victory over the\nvermin? These remain among the unsolved mysteries of folk-lore.\n\nWith the emblem of Scotland--the thistle--not so many classical\nassociations and active superstitions are to be found, but yet it is not\ndevoid of folk-lore. Of course opinions differ as to what was or is the\ntrue Scotch thistle, but of the several varieties of thistles many\nbeliefs are entertained. One variety--the Carline--is esteemed in some\nparts as a barometer, as it closes up when rain is approaching. In\nTartary there is a variety which grows to such a size that it is planted\nfor shelter on the windward side of the huts on the Steppes. This\nthistle is called the 'Wind Witch,' because, after the heat of the\nsummer is past, the dried portions take the form of a ball, with which\nthe spirits are supposed to make merry in the autumnal gales.\n\nThe origin of the name thistle is probably Scandinavian, and associated\nwith Thor. The plant was, at any rate, sacred to the Scandinavian god,\nand was believed by the old Vikings to receive the colour of the\nlightning into its blossom, which thereupon became endowed with high\ncurative and protective virtues. There was a species of thistle on\nDartmoor which used to be called Thormantle, and was used in that\ndistrict as a febrifuge. Some writers have said that in Poland some\ninfantile disorders are supposed to be the work of mischievous spirits\nusing thistle-seed.\n\nThe Lady's Thistle, which some believe to be the true Scotch thistle, is\none of the many plants associated with the Virgin. The tradition,\naccording to Brand, is that the white spots on the leaves are due to the\nfalling of some drops of the Holy Mother's milk, a legend we have seen\nto be attached also to the lily. Then the great Emperor Charlemagne's\nname is blended with that of the Carline Thistle, the story being that\nduring the prevalence of an epidemic among his troops he prayed to God\nfor help. An angel appeared, and indicated, by firing an arrow, a plant\nwhich would allay the disease. This was the _Carlina acaulis_, which, of\ncourse, cured all the sick soldiers, and possibly may have some of the\nfebrifuge virtues which the Dartmoor people fancied existed in another\nkind of thistle. Nettle-soup is still a familiar housewife's remedy for\nsome childish ailments.\n\nIn some parts of Germany there is a superstition that sores upon horses'\nbacks may be cured by gathering four red thistle-blossoms before\ndaybreak, and placing them in the form of a square upon the ground with\na stone in the middle. It is not easy to trace the probable origin of\nthis belief, but many of the old herbalists mention the thistle as\nefficacious in cases of vertigo, headache, jaundice, and 'infirmities of\nthe gall.' Says one, 'It is an herb of Mars, and under the sign Aries.'\nTherefore, 'it strengthens the attractive faculty in man and clarifies\nthe blood, because the one is ruled by Mars. The continual drinking the\ndecoction of it helps red faces, tetters, and ringworms, because Mars\ncauseth them. It helps the plague, sores, boils, itches, the bitings of\nmad dogs and venomous beasts, all which infirmities are under Mars.'\nThis same writer agrees with Dioscorides that the root of a thistle\ncarried about 'doth expel melancholy and removes all diseases connected\ntherewith.' In other words, the thistle was held to possess all the\nvirtues now claimed for podophyllum, blue-pill, and dandelion--a\nuniversal antibilious agent!\n\nBut how did the thistle become the emblem of Scotland? Well, there are\nas many traditions on the subject as there are opinions as to which\nvariety of the plant is the true Scottish thistle. It would be tedious\nhere to refer to all, so let us just note that although the _Carduus\nMarianus_, or the Blessed or Lady's Thistle--the origin of whose name we\nhave given--is very commonly accepted, so competent an authority on\nScottish lore as the author of Nether Lochaber rejects both that and all\nother varieties in favour of the _Cnicus acaulis_, or the stemless\nthistle. In doing this, he founds his belief upon the following\ntradition: Once, during the invasion of Scotland by the Norsemen, the\ninvaders were stealing a march in the dark upon the Scots, when one of\nthe barefooted scouts placed his foot upon a thistle, which caused him\nto cry out so loudly that the Scots were aroused, and, flying to their\nhorses, drove back the Danes with great slaughter. Now, this could not\nhappen, says Dr. Stewart, with any of the tall thistles, but only with\nthe stemless thistle, which has sharp, fine spikes, and grows close on\nthe ground.\n\nThis, at least, is as reasonable an explanation as any of the great\nnational badge of Scotland. It but remains to add that the first mention\nof the thistle as a national emblem occurs in an inventory of the jewels\nand other effects of James the Third, about 1467, and its first mention\nin poetry is in a poem by Dunbar, written about 1503, to commemorate the\nmarriage of James the Fourth with Margaret Tudor, and called The\nThrissell and the Rois. The Order of the Thistle dates from James the\nSeventh of Scotland and Second of England, about 1687.\n\nAnd now, as we began with the wreath of parsley, which symbolized death,\nlet us end with the crown of orange-blossoms, which, among us, now\nsymbolizes the twofold life of the married state. Among the Greeks, the\nbrides used to wear garlands of myrtle and roses, because both of these\nplants were associated with the Goddess of Love. In China the orange\nhas, from time immemorial, been an emblem of good luck, and is freely\nused to present to friends and guests. But although the orange is said\nto have been first brought by the Portuguese from China in 1547,\nnevertheless this fruit is supposed to have been the golden apple of\nJuno, which grew in the Garden of Hesperides. As the golden apple was\npresented to the Queen of Heaven upon her marriage with Jupiter, we may\nfind here a definite explanation of the meaning attached to the fruit.\n\nBut, besides this, it seems that orange-blossom was used centuries ago\nby Saracen brides in their personal decorations on the great day of\ntheir lives. It was meant to typify fruitfulness, and it is to be noted\nthat the orange-tree bears both fruit and blossom at the same time, and\nis remarkable for its productiveness. It is possible, then, that the\nidea of orange-blossom for bridal decoration was brought from the East\nby the Crusaders; but it is uncertain at what date the custom began to\nbe followed in England. However introduced, and whether retained as a\nsymbol or merely for the exquisite beauty of the flower, it will\ncontinue to hold its place in the affections of the maiden-bride, to\nwhom it seems to sing:\n\n  'Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,\n  Long continuance and increasing,\n  Hourly joys be still upon you,\n  Juno sings her blessings on you.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE.\n\n\n'Doth not Rosemary and Romeo both begin with a letter?' asks Juliet's\nnurse. Yes, but what did she mean by the query, and by the further\nremark that 'Juliet hath the prettiest sententions of it, of you and\nrosemary, that it would do you good to hear it'? For answer we must make\nsome search into the beliefs and customs of the past.\n\nRosemary is the 'Ros-marinus' of the old herbalists, but it is not a\nnative of Britain, and there is no exact record of when it was\nintroduced here from the South of Europe. Mention of 'Ros-marinus'\noccurs in an Anglo-Saxon vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is\ntranslated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. There is some doubt whether this has\nreference to the actual plant now known to us as rosemary, but in no\ncase was it the Rose of Mary, as some have supposed. It is not a rose,\nand the 'Mary' is from 'marinus,' or 'maris.' The old English spelling\nwas Rosmarin, or Rosmarine; in these forms one finds the word used by\nGower, and Shenstone, and other old poets.\n\nIn the South of Europe the rosemary has long had magic properties\nascribed to it. The Spanish ladies used to wear it as an antidote\nagainst the evil eye, and the Portuguese called it the Elfin plant, and\ndedicated it to the fairies. The idea of the antidote may have been due\nto a confusion of the name with that of the Virgin; but as a matter of\nfact the 'Ros-marinus' is frequently mentioned by old Latin writers,\nincluding Horace and Ovid. The name came from the fondness of the plant\nfor the sea-shore, where it often gets sprinkled with the 'ros,' or dew\nof the sea, that is to say, sea-spray. Another cause of confusion,\nperhaps, was that the leaves of the plant somewhat resemble those of the\njuniper, which in mediaeval times was one of the plants held sacred to\nthe Virgin Mary. In the island of Crete, it is said, a bride dressed for\nthe wedding still calls last of all for a sprig of rosemary to bring her\nluck.\n\nAnd thus we come to find rosemary in close association with both\nmarriage and death, just as the hyacinth was, and perhaps still is,\namong the Greeks. It is interesting to trace the connection by which the\nsame plant came to have two such different uses.\n\nOne of the earliest mentions of rosemary in English literature is in a\npoem of the fourteenth century called 'The Gloriouse Rosemaryne,' which\nbegins thus:\n\n  'This herbe is callit rosemaryn,\n  Of vertu that is gode and fyne;\n  But all the vertues tell I ne can,\n  Nor, I trowe, no erthely man.'\n\n\nNevertheless, the poet proceeds to record at great length many\nastounding virtues, including the restoration of youth to the aged by\nbathing in rosemary water.\n\nThe 'cheerful rosemarie' and 'refreshing rosemarine' of Spenser was once\na great favourite in England, although now it is hardly allowed garden\nspace. Sir Thomas More said: 'I let it run all over my garden walls, not\nonly because my bees love it, but because 'tis the herb sacred to\nremembrance, and therefore to friendship: whence a sprig of it hath a\ndumb language that maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and\nin our burial grounds.'\n\nThe popularity of the plant was doubtless due to the long-enduring scent\nand verdure of the leaves. It is one of the most lasting of evergreens,\nand the pleasant aromatic odour lingers very long after the leaves have\nbeen gathered.\n\nFragrance and endurance, then, are the characteristics of a plant which\ncame to be commonly accepted as an emblem of constancy, and also of\nloving remembrance. Thus it is that Herrick sings of it:\n\n  'Grow for two ends, it matters not at all,\n  Be't for my bridal or my burial.'\n\n\nThus it is that we find Friar Laurence over Juliet's body, saying:\n\n  'Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\n  On this fair corse,'\n\nwhich is certainly not what the nurse meant when she told Romeo of the\n'prettiest sententions.'\n\nHigh medicinal properties were ascribed to the rosemary, so much so that\nold Parkinson writes: 'Rosemary is almost as great use as bayes, both\nfor outward and inward remedies, and as well for civill as physicall\npurposes; inwardly for the head and heart, outwardly for the sinews and\njoynts; for civill uses, as all do know, at weddings, funerals, etc., to\nbestow among friends; and the physicall are so many that you might as\nwell be tyred in the reading as I in the writing, if I should set down\nall that might be said of it.'\n\nOne of the 'physicall' uses was in stirring up the tankard of ale or\nsack, and at weddings a sprig was usually dipped in the loving-cup to\ngive it fragrance as well as luck.\n\nThe virtues of the plant are celebrated in a curious wedding sermon\nquoted by Hone:\n\n'The rosemary is for married men, the which by name, nature, and\ncontinued use, man challengeth as properly belonging to himself. It\novertoppeth all the flowers in the garden boasting man's rule; it\nhelpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memory, and is very medicinal for\nthe head. Another property is, it affects the heart. Let this\nros-marinus, this flower of man, ensign of your wisdom, love, and\nloyalty, be carried not only in your hands but in your heads and\nhearts.'\n\nOne does not easily reconcile this laudation with the popular\nsuperstition that wherever the rosemary flourished there should the\nwoman be the ruling power. And to this superstition, be it noted, has\nbeen ascribed the disfavour into which the plant has fallen among\ngardeners since Shakespeare's time.\n\nThe medical properties may have been over-rated by old Parkinson, but\nsome are recognised even to this day. Thus rosemary is used as an\ninfusion to cure headaches, and is believed to be an extensive\ningredient in hair-restorers. It is also one of the ingredients in the\nmanufacture of Eau-de-Cologne, and has many other uses in the form of\noil of rosemary. It is said that bees which feed on rosemary blossoms\nproduce a very delicately-flavoured honey. Perfumers are greatly\nindebted to it. According to De Gubernatis, the flowers of the plant are\nproof against rheumatism, nervous indisposition, general debility,\nweakness of sight, melancholy, weak circulation, and cramp. Almost as\ncomprehensive a cure as some of our modern universal specifics!\n\nThe medicinal properties of rosemary have been held by some to account\nfor its funeral uses. At all events, an ingenious writer of the\nseventeenth century held that the custom of carrying a sprig at a\nfuneral had its rise from a notion of an 'alexipharmick' or preservative\nvirtue in the herb which would protect the wearer from 'pestilential\ndistempers,' and be a powerful defence 'against the morbid effluvias of\nthe corpse.' For the same reason, this writer asserts, it was customary\nto burn rosemary in the chambers of the sick, just like frankincense,\n'whose odour is not much different from rosemary, which gave the Greeks\noccasion to call it Libanotis, from Libanos (frankincense).'\n\nThe hyssop of the Bible is believed by some to be rosemary, and it is\nsaid that in the East it was customary to hang up a bunch in the house\nas a protection against evil spirits, and to use it in various\nceremonies against enchantment. Perhaps there was some connection\nbetween this custom and that of the Greeks referred to by Aristotle, who\nregarded indigestion as the effect of witchcraft, and who used rue as an\nantidote. The dispelling of the charm was just the natural physical\naction of the herb.\n\nIn Devonshire, however, there was a more mystic use for rosemary in\ndispelling the charms of witches. A bunch of it had to be taken in the\nhand and dropped bit by bit on live coals, while the two first verses of\nthe sixty-eighth psalm were recited, followed by the Lord's Prayer.\nBay-leaves were sometimes used in the same manner; but if the afflicted\none were suffering physically, he had also to take certain prescribed\nmedicines. Rosemary worn about the body was believed to strengthen the\nmemory and to add to the success of the wearer in anything he might\nundertake.\n\nIt is as an emblem of remembrance that rosemary is most frequently used\nby the old poets. Thus Ophelia:\n\n  'There is rosemary for you, that's for remembrance;\n  I pray you, love, remember.'\n\nAnd in The Winter's Tale:\n\n  'For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n  Seeming and savour all the winter long;\n  Grace and remembrance be with you both.'\n\nAnd thus Drayton:\n\n  'He from his lass him lavender hath sent,\n    Showing her love, and doth requital crave;\n  Him rosemary his sweetheart, whose intent\n    Is that he her should in remembrance have.'\n\n\nQuotations might be easily multiplied, but the reader will find in\nBrand's Popular Antiquities numerous references to the plant by writers\nof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.\n\nAs an emblem of rejoicing, rosemary was also often used. Hone quotes a\ncontemporary account of the joyful entry of Queen Elizabeth into London\nin 1558, wherein occurs this passage: 'How many nosegays did her Grace\nreceive at poor women's hands? How often times stayed she her chariot\nwhen she saw any simple body offer to speak to her Grace? A branch of\nrosemary given to her Grace, with a supplication by a poor woman about\nFleet Bridge, was seen in her chariot till her Grace came to\nWestminster.' The object of the particular floral offering in this case\nis not very obvious, unless as an emblematic tribute to the maiden\nqueen.\n\nRosemary used to be carried in the hand at weddings, as well as strewed\non the ground and dipped in the cup. Thus Stow narrates of a wedding in\n1560, that 'fine flowers and rosemary were strewed for them coming\nhome'; and Brand cites numerous instances from old plays. In one, 'the\nparties enter with rosemary, as if from a wedding'; and in Beaumont and\nFletcher's Scornful Lady, the question is asked about a wedding, 'Were\nthe rosemary branches dipped?' This dipping, moreover, was in scented\nwater as well as in the loving-cup, and hence the allusion in Dekker's\nWonderful Year to a bride who had died on her wedding-night:\n\n'Here is a strange alteration; for the rosemary that was washed in sweet\nwater to set out the bridal is now wet in tears to furnish her burial.'\n\nIt is on record that Anne of Cleves wore rosemary at her wedding with\nHenry the Eighth; and in an account of some marriage festivities at\nKenilworth, attended by Queen Elizabeth, there is frequent mention of\nthe plant. An idea of how it was sometimes used is given in a\ndescription of a sixteenth century wedding quoted by the Rev. Hilderic\nFriend: 'The bride being attired in a gown of sheep's russet and a\nkirtle of fine worsted, attired with abillement of gold' (milliner's\nFrench even then!); 'and her hair, yellow as gold, hanging down behind\nher, which was curiously combed and plaited' she was led to church\nbetween two sweet boys, with bride-laces and rosemary tied about her\nsilken sleeves. There was a fair bride-cup of silver-gilt carried before\nher, wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary gilded very fair, and hung\nabout with silken ribands of all colours.'\n\nColes says that the garden rosemary was called _Rosmarinus coronarium_,\nbecause the women made crowns and garlands of it. Ben Jonson says that\nit was customary for the bridesmaids to present the bridegroom next\nmorning with a bunch of rosemary. And Brand says that as late as 1698\nthe custom still prevailed in England of decking the bridal bed with\nsprigs of rosemary.\n\nIn Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one of the characters assembled to await the\nintended bridegroom says: 'Look an' the wenches ha' not found un out,\nand do present un with a van of rosemary and bays, enough to vill a\nbow-pott or trim the head of my best vore-horse; we shall all ha'\nbride-laces and points, I see.' And again, a country swain assures his\nsweetheart at their wedding: 'We'll have rosemary and bayes to vill a\nbow-pott, and with the same I'll trim the vorehead of my best\nvore-horse'--so that it would seem the decorative use was not confined\nto the bride, the guests, and the banquet.\n\nAs a love-charm the reputation of rosemary seems to have come from the\nSouth. There is an old Spanish proverb which runs:\n\n  'Who passeth by the rosemarie,\n    And careth not to take a spray,\n  For woman's love no care has he,\n    Nor shall he, though he live for aye.'\n\n\nMr. Thiselton-Dyer says that rosemary is used in some parts of the\ncountry, as nut-charms are on Halloween, to foretell a lover; only, St.\nAgnes' Eve is the occasion on which to invoke with a sprig of rosemary,\nor thyme, with this formula:\n\n  'St. Agnes, that's to lovers kind,\n  Come, ease the troubles of my mind.'\n\n\nFor love-potions, decoctions of rosemary were much employed.\n\nAs to funereal uses, those who are familiar with Hogarth's drawings will\nremember one of a funeral party with sprigs of rosemary in their hands.\nMisson, a French traveller (_temp._ William the Third), thus describes\nEnglish funeral ceremonies: 'When they are ready to set out, they nail\nup the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of\nrosemary. Everyone takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the\nbody is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs in\nafter it.' Hence Gay:\n\n  'To show their love, the neighbours far and near,\n  Follow'd with wistful looks the damsel's bier;\n  Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore,\n  While dismally the parson walk'd before.\n  Upon her grave the rosemary they threw.'\n\n\nWhether the fact that the rosemary buds in January has anything to do\nwith its funereal uses admits of conjecture, as Sir Thomas Browne would\nsay; but that fact was certainly present to the writer of the following\nverses, which were worthily rescued by Hone from a 'fugitive copy,'\nalthough the writer's name has been lost:\n\n  'Sweet-scented flower! who art wont to bloom\n      On January's front severe,\n      And o'er the wintry desert drear\n  To waft thy waste perfume!\n  Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,\n  And I will bind thee round my brow;\n      And, as I twine the mournful wreath,\n  I'll weave a melancholy song,\n  And sweet the strain shall be, and long--\n      The melody of death.\n\n  'Come, funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell\n      With the pale corse in lonely tomb,\n      And throw across the desert gloom\n  A sweet decaying smell.\n  Come, pressing lips, and lie with me\n  Beneath the lonely alder-tree,\n      And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,\n  And not a care shall dare intrude\n  To break the marble solitude,\n      So peaceful and so deep.\n\n  'And hark! the wind-god, as he flies,\n      Moans hollow in the forest trees,\n      And, sailing on the gusty breeze,\n  Mysterious music dies.\n  Sweet flower! the requiem wild is mine.\n  It warns me to the lonely shrine--\n      The cold turf-altar of the dead.\n  My grave shall be in yon lone spot,\n  Where, as I lie by all forgot,\n      A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.'\n\n\nIn South Wales, in Cheshire, and in Bucks, the custom still obtains,\naccording to Mr. Hilderic Friend, for each mourner to carry a sprig of\nrosemary to the grave, into which it is thrown. For weddings, rosemary\nwas dipped in scented water, but for funerals in plain water. Hence the\nreference in an old play, quoted by Hone:\n\n              'If there be\n  Any so kind as to accompany\n  My body to the earth, let them not want\n  For entertainment. Prythee, see they have\n  A sprig of rosemary, dipp'd in common water,\n  To smell at as they walk along the streets.'\n\n\nIn Dekker's Wonderful Year there is a description of a charnel-house\npavement strewed with withered rosemary, hyacinth, cypress, and yew.\nDuring the Plague rosemary was in such demand for funerals that, says\nDekker, what 'had wont to be sold for twelvepence an armfull went now at\nsix shillings a handfull.' Certainly a remarkable rise. What the price\nwas in 1531 we know not; but in an account of the funeral expenses of a\nLord Mayor of London, who died in that year, appears an item, 'For\nyerbes at the bewyral L0 1 0'--which presumably refers to rosemary.\n\n'Cypresse garlands,' wrote Coles, 'are of great account at funeralls\namong the gentiler sort; but Rosemary and Bayes are used by the commons\nboth at funeralls and weddings. They are all plants which fade not a\ngood while after they are gathered and used, as I conceive, to intimate\nunto us that the remembrance of the present solemnity might not die\npresently, but be kept in minde for many yeares.'\n\nWe have now seen something of the many significations of rosemary, and\nfind an explanation of why the same plant was used for both weddings and\nfunerals, in the fact that it emblemised remembrance by its evergreen\nand fragrant qualities. One may have doubts about the truth of the story\nof the man of whom it is recorded that he wanted to be married again on\nthe day of his wife's funeral because the rosemary which had been used\nat her burial would come in usefully and economically for the wedding\nceremony. But if the story is too good to be true, there is suggestion\nenough in the circumstance referred to by Shakespeare, that\n\n  'Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nHERB OF GRACE.\n\n\nWhy did Ophelia say: 'There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we\nmay call it herb grace o' Sundays, for you must wear your rue with a\ndifference'? For the same reason that Perdita says, in The Winter's\nTale, when welcoming the guests of her reputed father and the shepherd:\n\n                    'Reverend sirs,\n  For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n  Seeming and savour all the winter long;\n  Grace and remembrance be to you both,\n  And welcome to our shearing.'\n\n\nRemembrance, as we have already seen in the last chapter, was symbolized\nby the rosemary, and by both Ophelia and Perdita the rue is taken as the\nsymbol of grace. How this came to be is what we have now to consider;\nbut perhaps Mr. Ellacombe, author of Plant-Lore of Shakespeare, is\nstretching rather far in suggesting that the rue was implied by Antony,\nwhen he used the word 'grace' in addressing the weeping followers\n(Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV., Scene 2) thus:\n\n  'Grace grow where these drops fall.'\n\n\nWhat Ophelia said was: 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray,\nlove, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thought. There's fennel\nfor you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We\nmay call it herb-grace o' Sundays. Oh! you may wear your rue with a\ndifference.'\n\nThere was a method in her madness, and she was distributing her flowers\naccording to the characters and moods of the recipients. Fennel, for\ninstance, emblemised flattery, and columbine ingratitude. Rue emblemised\neither remorse or repentance--either sorrow or grace--so 'you may wear\nyour rue with a difference.'\n\nSo we find the gardener in Richard II. saying, after the departure of\nthe anxious Queen:\n\n  'Here she did fall a tear; here in this place\n  I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;\n  Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n  In the remembrance of a weeping Queen.'\n\n\nThe herb was believed to be endowed with high moral and medicinal\nproperties, yet was supposed to prosper better in one's garden if stolen\nfrom that of a neighbour. But originally it was associated with sorrow\nand pity. The word rue is doubtless of the same root as 'ruth,' and to\nrue is to be sorry for, to have remorse. Ruth is the English equivalent\nof the Latin _ruta_, and in early English appeared as 'rude.' As regret\nis always more or less a mark of repentance, it was the most natural\nthing in the world for the herb of ruth, or sorrow, to become the herb\nof repentance; and as repentance is a sign of grace, so rue became known\nas 'herb of grace.' This, in brief, is the connection, but it is worth\nnoting in passing that rue is only once mentioned in the Bible, and then\nonly along with a number of other bitter herbs, and without any special\nsignificance.\n\nThere is this association between rue and rosemary, that both are\nnatives of some of the more barren coasts of the Mediterranean, and that\nboth were very early admitted to the English herb-garden. The old\nherbalists make frequent mention of rue, and even in Anglo-Saxon times\nit seems to have been extensively used in medicine. Three\npeculiarities--a strong, aromatic smell, a bitter taste, and a\nblistering quality in the leaves--were quite sufficient to establish it\nin the pharmacopoeia of the herb doctors.\n\nThe curative qualities of what Spenser calls the 'ranke-smelling rue'\nwere reputedly of a very varied sort. Most readers will remember the\nreference in Paradise Lost:\n\n  'Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed,\n  Which the false fruit which promised clearer sight\n  Had bred; then purged with euphraie and rue\n  The visual nerve, for he had much to see.'\n\nAnd perhaps its most popular use was as an eyewash. The old writers have\nrecorded some hidden virtues known only to the animal world, such as\nthat weasels prepared themselves for a rat-fight by a diet of rue. Old\nParkinson, the herbalist, says that 'without doubt it is a most\nwholesome herb, although bitter and strong.' He speaks of a 'bead-rowl'\nof the virtues of rue, but warns people of the 'too frequent or\nover-much use thereof.'\n\nAs both a stimulant and a narcotic the plant has even now recognised\nvirtues, and is not without its uses in modern medicine. The Italians\nare said to eat the leaves in salad, but hardly of that species--_Ruta\nmontana_--which botanists say it is dangerous to handle without gloves.\nOur garden species is _Ruta graveolens_ and is used by the French\nperfumers in the manufacture of 'Thieves Vinegar,' or 'Marseilles\nVinegar,' once accounted an effective protection against fevers and all\ninfectious diseases.\n\nA curious instance of the value of the herb in this respect occurred in\n1760. In the summer of that year a rumour arose, and rapidly spread in\nLondon, that the plague had broken out in St. Thomas's Hospital.\nImmediately there was what would nowadays be called a 'boom' in rue, the\nprice of which rose forty per cent. in a single day in Covent Garden. To\nallay the popular alarm a manifesto was issued, signed by the\nphysicians, surgeons, and apothecaries of the hospital, certifying that\nthere were no other than the 'usual' diseases among the patients in the\nwards.\n\nAnother explanation of the origin of the name 'herb of grace' has been\ngiven than that referred to above. Warburton, among others, thinks that\nthe name was adopted because the old Romanists used the plant on Sundays\nin their 'exorcisms.' However this may be, rue, or the herb of grace,\nhas been in this country long accounted an antidote of witchcraft. But\nthen, so it was in the days of Aristotle, before it became 'herb of\ngrace,' and when it was hung round the neck as an amulet. The fact is,\nhowever, that rue became an antidote of witchcraft because it had become\na noted implement in enchantment.\n\nThrough its numerous reputed properties, rue early found its way into\nthe magic cauldron.\n\n  'Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,\n  With nine drops of the midnight dew,\n  From lunary distilling,'\n\nas Drayton has it. In this incantation, again, we have the association\nwith moonwort; and the connection is further illustrated in an old\noracle ascribed to Hecate: 'From a root of wild rue fashion and polish a\nstatue; adorn it with household lizards; grind myrrh, gum, and\nfrankincense with the same reptiles, and let the mixture stand in the\nair during the waning of a moon; then address your words.'\n\nWith regard to the association with moonwort, it is interesting to\nrecall that this is one of the plants supposed to be employed by birds\nfor opening nests and removing impediments. Thus in an anecdote gravely\nrelated to Aubrey, we find this virtue mentioned: 'Sir Bennet Hoskins\ntold me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton, in Herefordshire,\ndid for experiment's sake drive an iron naile thwart the hole of a\nwoodpecker's nest, there being a tradition that the dam will bring some\nleafe to open it. He layed at the bottom of the tree a cleane sheet, and\nbefore many houres passed, the naile came out, and he found a leafe\nlying by it on the sheete. They say the Moonwort will doe such things.'\n\nOn the same subject Coles, the botanist, writes: 'It is said, yea, and\nbelieved, that Moonwort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses\nare made fast, if it be put into the keyhole.' And Culpeper, the\nherbalist, writes thus: 'Moonwort is a herb which, they say, will open\nlocks and unshoe such horses as tread upon it. This some laugh to scorn,\nand these no small fools neither; but country people that I know call it\nUnshoe-the-horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say that on White\nDown in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty horseshoes\npulled off from the feet of the Earl of Essex's horses, being there\ndrawn up in a body, many of them being newly shod, and no reason known,\nwhich caused much admiration.' As well it might! This power of the\nmoonwort is said to be still believed in in Normandy, and a similar\nvirtue was also ascribed to the vervain and the mandrake, both\nassociated with rue.\n\nThis curious property of moonwort it is which is referred to in Divine\nWeekes thus:\n\n  'Horses that, feeding on the grassy hills,\n  Tread upon moonwort with their hollow heels,\n  Though lately shod, at night go barefoot home,\n  Their maister musing where their shoes become.\n  Oh, moonwort! tell me where thou hid'st the smith,\n  Hammer and pinchers, thou unshodd'st them with?\n  Alas! what lock or iron engine is't\n  That can the subtle secret strength resist?\n  Still the best farrier cannot set a shoe\n  So sure but thou, so shortly, canst undo.'\n\n\nThe old alchemists, however, had a more profitable use for moonwort than\nthe unshoeing of horses; they employed it for converting quicksilver\ninto pure silver, at a time when that metal was neither 'degraded' nor\n'depreciated.'\n\nThere is an old and pleasant belief, of which John Ruskin makes\neffective use in driving home one of his morals, that flowers always\nbloom best in the gardens of those who love them. One could easily find\na rationalistic explanation of this sentiment, of course, but it is akin\nto a superstition entertained in some parts that wherever the moonwort\nflourishes the owner of the garden is honest.\n\nThe ingredients thrown into the mystic cauldron by European sorcerers\nwere in close imitation of those of the ancient alchemists. Moncure\nConway has pointed out that among the ingredients used by English and\nScotch witches were plants gathered, as in Egypt, at certain seasons or\nphases of the moon. Chief among such plants were rue and vervain. The\nDruids called vervain the 'Holy herb,' and gathered it when the dog-star\nrose, placing a sacrifice of honey in the earth from which they removed\nit.\n\nIn old Greece and Rome vervain was sacred to the god of war, and in\nScandinavia it was also sacred to Thor. It was, moreover, carried by\nambassadors of peace, and was supposed to preserve from lightning any\nhouse decorated with it. In later times it was believed that a\ndecoction of vervain and rue, mixed, had such a remarkable effect on\ngun-metal that anyone using a gun over which the liquid had been poured\nwould shoot 'as straight as a die.' This may be news to our modern\nmusketry instructors.\n\nHad this belief, one may wonder, anything to do with the special effect\non the eye always supposed to be possessed by rue? Its virtue as an\neye-salve, at any rate, may explain how it came to be regarded as\ncapable of bestowing the 'second sight.' To this day, in the Tyrol it is\nstill believed to confer fine vision. If hallucinations were, as Moncure\nConway assumes, the basis of belief in second sight, then we can\nunderstand the reputed virtues of rue in its narcotic qualities. We have\nseen how it came to be called 'herb of grace,' yet some think it got\nthis name through being used in witchcraft by exorcists to try the\ndevil.\n\nSpeculating on why herbs and roots should have been esteemed magical,\nMr. Andrew Lang concludes that it is enough to remember that herbs\nreally have medicinal properties, and that untutored people invariably\nconfound medicine with magic. Thus it was easy to suppose that a plant\npossessed virtue not only when swallowed, but when carried in the hand.\nThe same writer examines the theory that rue was the Homeric moly, which\nin a former chapter we identified with the mandrake. But Lang rejects\nthat theory, and says that rue was called 'herb of grace' and was used\nfor sprinkling holy water because in pre-Christian times it had been\nsupposed to have effect against the powers of evil. The early\nChristians were thus just endeavouring to combine the old charm of rue\nwith the new potency of holy water.\n\n'Euphrasy and rue,' says Lang, 'were employed to purge and purify mortal\neyes. Pliny is very learned about the magical virtues of rue. Just as\nthe stolen potato is sovran for rheumatism, so \"rue stolen thriveth the\nbest.\" The Samoans think that their most valued vegetables were stolen\nfrom heaven by a Samoan visitor. It is remarkable that rue, according to\nPliny, is killed by the touch of a woman, in the same way as, according\nto Josephus, the mandrake is tamed. These passages prove that the\nclassical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women\nas the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed, Pliny describes a magical manner\nof defending the crops from blight by aid of women, which is actually\npractised in America by the red-man.'\n\nAlthough rue was found in the witches' cauldron, it is also to be found\nas a popular specific against the blight of witchcraft. Concerning this,\nhowever, Moncure Conway says that 'the only region on the Continent\nwhere any superstition concerning rue is found resembling the form it\nassumed in England as affecting the eye is in the Tyrol, where it is one\nof five plants--the others being broom-straw, agrimony, maidenhair, and\nground-ivy--which are bound together, and believed, if carried about, to\nenable the bearer to see witches, or if laid over the door, to keep any\nwitch who shall seek to enter fastened on the threshold.'\n\nIn Scandinavia and North Germany, St. John's wort was used in much the\nsame way for the same purpose.\n\nAs to the vervain, which we have seen to be associated with rue, this is\na plant the use of which against witchcraft was more widely distributed,\njust as its medical virtues were also more extensively known. The\nvervain, indeed, was a sacred plant among the Greeks, as well as among\nthe Druids, who gathered it with solemn religious ceremonies, as they\ndid the sacred mistletoe. Vervain was most esteemed, however, as a love\npotion, but the connection between its virtues in this respect, and its\npower over witches and spirits of evil, opens up a branch of inquiry\naway from our present purpose.\n\nWe speak of vervain in connection with rue, because it was the 'holy\nherb,' just as rue was the 'herb of grace.' Not only was the vervain\nsacred among the early Druids, but it acquired an early sanctity among\nChristians. Thus the legend runs:\n\n  'All hail, thou holy herb, vervain,\n    Growing on the ground;\n  On the Mount of Calvary\n    There wast thou found!\n  Thou helpest many a grief,\n    And staunchest many a wound;\n  In the name of sweet Jesu,\n    I lift thee from the ground.'\n\n\nMr. Thiselton-Dyer says that a wreath of vervain is now presented to\nnewly-married brides in Germany, but whether this is a survival of the\nsanctity of the plant, or of its ancient reputation as a love-philtre\nand charm, is not very clear.\n\nIt is to be feared that vervain has sadly fallen out of favour in this\ncountry, although not many years ago a pamphlet was written to recommend\nthe wearing of vervain tied by white satin ribbon round the neck, as\npreservative against evil influences and infection.\n\n'On the Continent'--rather a wide term--Mr. Hilderic Friend says, 'the\nthree essential plants for composing a magic wreath are rue,\ncrane's-bill, and willow.' The crane's-bill is the Herb Robert, or Robin\nHood, and the willow has always been connected with lovers. Such a\nwreath, then, is made by lovers when they wish to see their 'fate.'\nLove-sick maidens will employ such a wreath to find out how long they\nhave yet to remain single. They walk backwards towards some selected\ntree, and as they walk throw the wreath over their heads until it\nfastens on one of the branches. Failure to 'catch on' requires another\nbackward walk, and so on--each failure to buckle the tree counting as a\nyear of spinsterhood. It seems rather an awkward way of getting at the\nfuture, but if not more blind than other processes of love divination,\nwould at least require the guarantee of the absence of tight-lacing\namong the maidens practising it.\n\nAristotle mentions the use made by the Greeks of rue as a charm against\nevil spirits, and he accounts for it, somewhat singularly, by the habit\nof the Greeks in not sitting down to table with strangers. The\nexplanation is, that when they ate with strangers they were apt to\nbecome excited and nervous, and so to eat too rapidly, with the result\nof flatulence and indigestion. These effects were equivalent to\nbewitchment, as, indeed, disorders of the digestive organs are\nfrequently regarded by many Eastern peoples even to this day. As rue was\nfound to be an effectual antidote to these distressing symptoms, it\nbecame a charm against enchantment.\n\nAmong many old-wife recipes for the cure of warts is the use of rue.\nMost people know the old folk-jingle:\n\n  'Ashen tree, ashen tree,\n  Pray bury these warts of me,'\n\nwhich has to be accompanied by the thrust of a pin into the bark of the\ntree. The idea was doubtless to extract the sap, for the application of\nthistle-juice and the juice of the ranunculus are said to prove\nefficacious in removing warts. In Devonshire they use the juice of an\napple, but in some parts of the country rue is preferred. Other\nwart-curing plants are the spurge, the poppy, the celandine, the\nmarigold, the briony, and the crowfoot.\n\nAs old Michael Drayton remarked:\n\n  'In medicine, simples had the power\n  That none need then the planetary hour\n  To helpe their workinge, they so juiceful were.'\n\nThere is a substratum of truth in this, although it requires a wide\nstretch of imagination, as well as a profundity of faith, to believe\nthat consumption can be cured by passing the body of the patient three\ntimes through a wreath of woodbine cut during the increase of the March\nmoon. Yet to this day some French peasants believe that the curative\nproperties of vervain are most pronounced when the plant is gathered,\nwith proper invocations, at a certain phase of the moon.\n\nThe notion that animals are acquainted with the medical properties of\nplants is an old one, probably older than either Pliny or Aristotle. Our\nown Gerarde, the herbalist, tells that the name celandine was given to\nthat flower (which Wordsworth loved) from a word meaning swallow,\nbecause it is used by swallows to 'restore sight to their young ones\nwhen their eyes be put out.'\n\nThen Coles, the old botanist, also writes: 'It is known to such as have\nskill of Nature what wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures,\ngiving to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply\ndiseases are among them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with Celandine:\nthe wesell knoweth well the virtue of Herb Grace: the dove the verven:\nthe dogge dischargeth his mawe with a kind of grass: and too long it\nwere to reckon up all the medicines which the beasts are known to use by\nNature's direction only.'\n\nA Warwickshire proverb runs to this effect:\n\n  'Plant your sage and rue together,\n  The sage will grow in any weather,'\n\nthe meaning of which is not very clear--but obscurity is a common\ncomplaint of rhymed proverbs. Another rhyme, however, in which rue\nappears, has a more practical note:\n\n  'What savour is better, if physicke be true,\n  For places infected, than wormwood and rue?'\n\nRue, indeed, seems to have been in special request as a disinfectant\nlong before carbolic acid was invented, or Condy heard of, yet, perhaps,\ncontaining the germ of the idea materialised in 'Sanitas.' For\ndisinfecting purposes wormwood and rue were used sometimes together, and\nsometimes separately.\n\nThe connection between plants and heraldic badges is often close, and\nalthough we do not find rue frequent in heraldry, one curious instance\nof it is interesting. In 809 an Order was created whereof the collar was\nmade of a design in thistles and rue--the thistle because 'being full of\nprickles is not to be touched without hurting the skin,' rue because it\n'is good against serpents and poison.'\n\nHere we have a suggestion of the lizards of the old oracle quoted\nabove.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE ROMANCE OF A VEGETABLE.\n\n\nThere used to be a popular acrostic the foundation of which is the\nsubject of much speculation. It turned upon two lines of Scott's famous\npoem, and ran thus:\n\n  '\"Charge, Chester, charge!\n  On, Stanley, on!\"\n    Were the last words of Marmion.\n  Were I in gallant Stanley's place,\n  When Marmion urged him to the chase,\n  A word you then would all espy,\n  That brings a tear to every eye.'\n\nThe answer is 'Onion,' and the speculation which results is: Why does a\nraw onion make the eyes water?\n\nThe Greeks, being aware of this characteristic, called the onion\n_kromuon_; and when they ate it raw, they prudently closed their eyes.\n\nShakespeare's players in the Taming of the Shrew knew all about it:\n\n  'If the boy have not a woman's gift,\n  To rain a shower of commanded tears,\n  An onion will do well for such a shift,\n  Which in a napkin, being close conveyed,\n  Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.'\n\n\nSo did Lafeu:\n\n  'Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon.'\n\n\nSo also did Domitius Enobarbus, who comforted Antony, on reporting the\ndeath of Fulvia, by saying, 'Indeed, the tears live in an onion that\nshould water this sorrow,' and who called himself 'onion-eyed' when the\nRoman addressed his followers before the battle.\n\nThe fact, then, has been known for centuries, but the explanation only\nsince chemistry came to be applied to matters of common life. The onion\nbelongs to the genus _Allium_, all the species of which possess a\npeculiar, pungent, acrid juice, with a powerful odour. The garlic has a\nstronger smell than the onion, but the onion has more of the volatile\noil which all the members of the genus possess.\n\nThe constituents which make the genus valuable as food are: albumen,\nsugar, mucilage, phosphate of lime, and certain salts. All the members\nof the onion tribe yield a heavy volatile oil when distilled with\nwater--an oil so pungent and concentrated that an ounce of it will\nrepresent the essence of forty pounds of garlic. This oil is a compound\nof sulphur, carbon, and hydrogen, and is called sulphide of allyl,\nbecause of its origin in the allium tribe. It is the more volatile,\nsulphurous fumes of this oil which ascend as an onion is cut that cause\nthe eyes to water, just as sulphur fumes do anywhere. It is the less\nvolatile portion of the oil which gives such permanence and adhesiveness\nto the onion odour as to render a knife that has been used to cut one\noffensive for a long time afterwards, in spite of washing.\n\nIn the Arabian Nights the purveyor for the Sultan of Casgar tells a\nstory of a man who lost his thumbs and great-toes through eating garlic.\nThis was a youth who had married a beauteous bride, but was unfortunate\nenough on his marriage-day to eat of a dish strongly flavoured with\ngarlic. The lady was so annoyed that she ordered the bridegroom to be\nbound, and his thumbs and toes cut off, as punishment for presuming to\ncome to her without first purifying his fingers. Ever afterwards the\nunfortunate husband always washed his hands one hundred and twenty times\nwith alkali, after dining off a garlic ragout, for, of course, he did\nnot use a fork. But had he known Menander the Greek's receipt, he might\nhave saved his digits. This was to roast beetroot on hot embers for the\nremoval of the odour of garlic.\n\nIt might be more generally known that if either walnuts, or raw parsley,\nbe eaten along with onions, the smell of the latter will be destroyed,\nand digestion of them assisted.\n\nThere is, one must admit, a certain association of vulgarity with the\nonion. It is a valuable food, and an indispensable accessory to the\nculinary artist; but as used by many people it is not suggestive of\nrefinement. And yet the bulb has not only an honourable character--it\nhas a sort of sacred history.\n\nBoth Pliny and Juvenal, among old writers, and many Egyptologists of our\nown time and country, have recorded that the ancient Egyptians\nworshipped the onion. It is true that Wilkinson, who wrote on the\nManners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, doubts the evidence of\nthis; but he adds that the onion was admitted as a common offering on\nevery altar, and that the priests were forbidden to eat it. In Ellis's\nHistory of Madagascar it is noted that the Malagasy of our time regard\nthe onion as unclean, and forbidden by the idols. The symbolization of\nthe universe in the concentric folds of the onion may be taken as an\nexplanation of the high reverence in which it was assuredly held by some\nancient races.\n\nWhether or not the onion was sacred in Egypt, the garlic, as Herodotus\ntells us, was the daily food of the Egyptian labourer. And the Jews,\nwhen they left Egypt, looked back with fondness to these delicacies. 'We\nremember the fish which we did eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, and\nthe melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic,' so they told\nMoses. The onion is still a common food in Egypt, and sometimes almost\nthe only one of the poorer classes. Moreover, the onions of Egypt are\nmuch sweeter than, and superior in quality to, those of Europe. It is\nalso noteworthy that the onion grows coarser and more bitter as it is\ntraced northward.\n\nHerodotus says that sixteen hundred talents were expended on garlic,\nonions, and radishes for the workmen during the building of the\nPyramids; and it is recorded that an onion taken from the sarcophagus of\nan Egyptian mummy two thousand years old was planted and made to grow.\nWe have also the authority of Pliny for what he calls the foolish\nsuperstition of the Egyptians in swearing by garlic and onions, calling\nthese vegetables to witness when taking an oath.\n\nBotanists seem now agreed that the original habitat of the onion was the\nmountainous region of Central Asia; and, according to the _Gardener's\nChronicle_, it is still found in a wild state in the Himalayas.\n\nThe Mohammedans do not seem to have reverenced the _Allium_ tribe. On\nthe contrary, they have a tradition that when Satan stepped out of the\nGarden of Eden after the fall of man, garlic sprang up where he planted\nhis left foot, and onion where he planted his right foot. This is the\nreason alleged why Mohammed could never bear the smell of either, and\neven fainted when he saw them.\n\nAmong the Greeks both onions and garlic were held in high regard, both\nas articles of food and as medicaments. Theophrastus wrote a book on\nonions, as did also Palladius. Then Homer tells that the onion was an\nimportant part of the banquet that Hecamede spread before Nestor and\nMachaon:\n\n  'Before them first a table fair she spread,\n  Well polished, and with feet of solid bronze;\n  On this a brazen canister she placed,\n  And Onions as a relish to the wine,\n  And pale, clear honey, and pure barley meal.'\n\n\nAmong the Romans the onion seems to have been the common food of the\npeople, although Horace could not understand how they digested it. Its\nuse for promoting artificial tears was also well understood by them, for\nColumella speaks of _Lacrymosa caepe_, and Pliny of _Caepis odor\nlacrymosus_. Ovid, again, says that both onions and sulphur were given\nto criminals to purify them from their crimes, upon the old theory of\npurgation by fumigation. The Romans thought not only that the onion gave\nstrength to the human frame, but that it would also improve the\npugnacious quality of their gamecocks. Horace, however, thought that\ngarlic was a fit poison for anybody who committed parricide. The Emperor\nNero, on the other hand, thought that eating leeks improved the human\nvoice, and as he was ambitious of being a fine singer, he used to have a\nleek diet on several days in each month.\n\nThe onion tribe must have been held in reverence elsewhere than in\nEgypt, for, according to Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, in Poland the flower-stalk\nof the leek is placed in the hands of Christ in pictures and statues.\n\nOn Halloween, in some parts of the country, girls attempt a method of\ndivination by means of a 'Saint Thomas onion.' They peel it, wrap it up\nin a clean handkerchief, and, placing it under their heads, repeat the\nfollowing rhyme:\n\n  'Good St. Thomas, do me right,\n  And see my true love come to-night,\n  That I may see him in the face,\n  And him in my kind arms embrace.'\n\n\nOn the other hand, to dream of an onion is supposed in some parts to\nforetell sickness.\n\nOr else:\n\n  'To dream of eating onions means\n  Much strife in the domestic scenes,\n  Secrets found out, or else betrayed,\n  And many falsehoods made and said.'\n\n\nIt is also a portent of the weather:\n\n\n  'Onion's skin very thin,\n  Mild winter's coming in;\n  Onion's skin thick and tough,\n  Coming winter cold and rough.'\n\n\nIt was the practice in some places to hang up or burn an onion as a\nsafeguard against witchcraft, and the theory of this was that the devil\nrespected it because it was an ancient object of worship. This seems a\nsurvival of the Egyptian story; but Mr. Hilderic Friend says that the\nArabs, Chinese, and many other peoples, to this day employ onions,\nleeks, or garlic for preventing witchcraft, and that he himself has\nfrequently seen them tied up with a branch of sago-palm over the doors\nof Eastern houses for this purpose.\n\nThe old custom of throwing an onion after a bride is doubtless well\nknown. It had the same origin as the old Scotch custom of throwing a\nbesom after a cow on its way to market, to avert the evil-eye, and\ninsure luck.\n\nThe idea of bad dreams being associated with the onion seems due to the\nold herbalists. At all events, Coghan wrote in 1596: 'Being eaten raw,\nthey engender all humourous and contemptible putrefactions in the\nstomacke, and cause fearful dreams, and, if they be much used, they\nsnarre the memory and trouble the understanding.'\n\nOld Gerarde had no opinion of the medical properties of the tribe. Of\nboth leeks and garlic he wrote most disparagingly, as 'yielding to the\nbody no nourishment at all,' but 'ingendereth naughty and sharpe bloud.'\n\nSome of the other old herbalists treat it more kindly, and some ascribe\nalmost every virtue to garlic and onion. Garlic came to be known as\n'Poor Man's Treacle,' and in some old works is thus often described. But\nthe word treacle here has no reference to molasses, and is probably\nderived from the Greek _theriakos_, meaning venomous, for garlic was\nregarded as an antidote against poison, and as a remedy for the plague.\n\nPliny long ago wrote of garlic as a remedy for many of the mental and\nphysical ailments of the country people. It was used by the Romans to\ndrive away snakes; and the Romans seem to have adopted this idea from\nthe ancient Greeks. It was recommended by one old English writer as a\ncapital thing with which to frighten away birds from fruit-trees; and\nhas been recently recommended, in solution, as the best preservative of\npicture-frames from the defilement of flies. Bacon gravely tells of a\nman who lived for several days on the smell of onions and garlic alone;\nand there was an old belief that the garlic could extract all the power\nfrom a loadstone.\n\nThe belief that the eating of onions will acclimatize a traveller seems\nnot uncommon in Eastern countries. Thus, in Burnes' Travels into Bokhara\nit is recorded that at Peshawur 'Moollah Nujieb suggested that we should\neat onions in all the countries we visited, as it is a popular belief\nthat a foreigner becomes acclimated from the use of that vegetable.'\n\nAnd in Morier's Travels in Persia it is said: 'Those who seek for\nsulphur, which is found at the highest accessible point of the mountain\nof Damarvend, go through a course of training previous to the\nundertaking, and fortify themselves by eating much of garlic and\nonions.'\n\nThe general explanation given of how the leek became the emblem of\nWales, and is worn on St. David's Day, is this: In 640 King Cadwallader\ngained a complete victory over the Saxons, owing to the special\ninterposition of St. David, who ordered the Britons always to wear leeks\nin their caps, so that they might easily recognise each other. As the\nSaxons had no such recognisable headmark, they attacked each other as\nfoes, and aided in their own defeat.\n\nThere is a more poetic story. It is that St. David lived in the valley\nof Ewias, in Monmouthshire, spending his time in contemplation:\n\n                           'And did so truly fast\n  As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,\n  And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields,\n  In memory of whom, in each revolving year,\n  The Welshmen, on his day, that sacred herb do wear.'\n\n\nSt. David, however, died in 544, and therefore it is probable that the\nleek was a common and favourite vegetable in Wales during his\nlifetime--that is to say, more than thirteen hundred years ago. A still\nmore prosaic explanation of the Welsh emblem is sometimes offered. It is\nthat it originated in a custom of the Welsh farmers when helping each\nother in a neighbourly way to take their leeks and other vegetable\nprovender with them. Now, as the word leek is from the Anglo-Saxon\n_leac_, which originally meant any vegetable, it is probable enough that\nthe Saxons sneeringly applied the word to the Welsh on account of their\nvegetarian proclivities. We cannot, of course, be sure that the leek was\nworn as a badge in Cadwallader's time, but we have at any rate\nShakespeare's authority for concluding that it was worn by the Welsh\nsoldiers at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.\n\nThe phrase 'to eat the leek'--meaning to retract and 'knuckle-under'--is\nsupposed to have originated in that famous scene in Shakespeare's Henry\nthe Fifth, where Fluellan the Welshman compels Pistol to swallow the\nvegetable at which he had been expressing such abhorrence. But there is\nearlier evidence that the leek was regarded as something ignominious in\nEngland. Thus in Chaucer:\n\n  'The beste song that ever was made\n  Is not worth a leke's blade,\n  But men will tend ther tille.'\n\n\nWithout dwelling on the culinary uses of the onion tribe, which have\nbeen exhaustively described by others, a few applications, not generally\nknown, may be briefly noted.\n\nIn olden times there was a famous ointment called Devil's Mustard, which\nwas supposed to cure cancer, remove tumours, and so forth. It was a\ncompound of garlic and olive-oil, and had a smell which was enough to\nfrighten away any disease--or else to create one. Then the fair dames\nof old had a favourite cosmetic for the hands and face, and one also\nwhich was used as an antiseptic, which was largely composed of garlic.\nLeek ointment, again, made of pounded leeks and hog's lard, was used as\na liniment for burns and scalds.\n\nIt is said that in India, where dyspepsia is common, garlic is found to\nbe a great palliative. It is in many countries regarded as a sure\nantidote against contagion; and persons have been known to put a small\npiece in the mouth before approaching the bed of a fever-stricken\npatient. Whether it has any real virtue of the kind one may doubt, but\nlet us hope that it has more than is ascribed to some so-called\ndisinfectants--the power to kill one bad smell with another.\n\nIn The Family Dictionary, popular in our grandfathers' time, appears the\nfollowing certain remedy for the plague: 'Take away the core of an\nonion, fill the cavity with treacle dissolved or mixed with lemon-juice,\nstop up the hole with the slice you have cut off, roast the whole on hot\nashes so long till well incorporated and mixed together, then squeeze\nout the juice of the roasted onion, and give it to a person seized with\nthe plague. Let him presently lie down in his bed and be well covered up\nthat he may perspire. This is a remedy that has not its equal for the\nplague, provided the patient perspires presently.'\n\nAnd if it did promote perspiration, one can well believe that it might\nbe curative.\n\nNot only has garlic been esteemed as an antidote to the bite of snakes,\nbut it has also been regarded as a cure for hydrophobia, while onions\nhave been claimed as a cure for small-pox, and leeks as an antidote for\npoisonous fungi. Old Celsus, from whom Paracelsus took his name,\nregarded several of the onion tribe as valuable in cases of ague, and\nPliny had the same belief. In our own time the onion is held to be an\nexcellent anti-scorbutic, and is thought to be more useful on ship-board\nthan lime-juice in preventing scurvy.\n\nIn fact, in all skin diseases, and in many inflammatory disorders,\npreparations of the onion have a real value. The juice is also useful in\nstopping bleeding, although one may hesitate to believe, as was\npopularly supposed, that a drop of it will cure earache, and that\npersistent application will remove deafness.\n\nThere still exists, however, a belief that onion-juice is the best\nhair-restorer in the market, in spite of its disagreeable smell.\n\nIt would take too long to mention all the virtues that have been\nclaimed, with more or less reason, for all the members of the _Allium_\ngenus, but it is a curious fact that the onion, which relieves dyspepsia\nand aids the digestion of some, is a certain cause of indigestion in\nothers. Is it not said that Napoleon, who was a martyr to indigestion,\nlost the Battle of Leipsic through having partaken of a too hurried meal\nof beefsteak and onions? It is a savoury dish, but has worked woe to\nmany. One does not wonder that the old writers declared that onions\nbrought bad dreams--if they were eaten raw, or badly cooked, at late\nsupper.\n\nIt is open to grave doubt whether the author of The Family Dictionary\nwas right in saying that 'they that will eat onions daily will enjoy\nbetter health than otherwise.' What is one man's meat is another man's\npoison; and certainly there is no article in common use which produces\nsuch opposite effects upon the human system as the onion. It has often\nbeen found beneficial to individuals in feverish attacks, and yet the\nmalingerers in our garrison hospitals know well how to promote febrile\nsymptoms by a hearty consumption of garlic.\n\nA fitting conclusion to this chapter will be the summary of Sir John\nSinclair, the author of a Code of Health and Longevity:\n\n  'Onyons in physick winneth no consent,\n  To cholerick folke they are no nutriment;\n  By Galen's rule, such as phlegmatic are\n  A stomacke good within them do prepare.\n  Weak appetites they comfort, and the face\n  With cheerful colour evermore they grace,\n  And when the head is naked left of hair,\n  Onyons, being sod or stamp'd, again repair.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE STORY OF A TUBER.\n\n\nThe planting of a tuber by Clusius, in 1588, in the Botanical Gardens at\nVienna, is often referred to as the introduction of the potato into\nEurope. As a matter of fact, however, this was not the first planting,\nfor the Spaniards brought the real potato--_Solanum tuberosum_--home to\nSpain about 1580. From Spain it extended to Italy, and became at once a\ncommon article of food there. From Spain it also extended to Belgium,\nand was cultivated there; and it was from a Belgian that Clusius got the\nroots which he planted at Vienna in 1588.\n\nThen, again, it has been said that Christopher Columbus was the first\nEuropean who ever tasted a potato, and that was in 1492, when he reached\nCuba. From Cuba he brought samples back with him to Genoa. This would\nmake our history one hundred years older, only it so happens that the\n_Solanum tuberosum_ is not a native of these parts, and could not have\nbeen at Cuba when Columbus was there. What he tasted and brought home\nwas the _Convolvulus batatas_, or sweet potato, a very different\narticle, although it gave its name, 'batatas,' to our tuber in the\nmodified form of 'potato.'\n\nThe real potato is a native of Chili, and it has been proved to the\nsatisfaction of naturalists that it did not exist in North America\nbefore the arrival of Europeans. How, then, could Sir John Hawkins bring\nit from Santa-Fe in 1565, or Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1584?\nWell, in the first place, it was the sweet potato that Sir John brought;\nand in the second place, before Sir Walter went to Virginia, the\nSpaniards had brought there the real potato on returning from some of\ntheir South American expeditions. In 1580 they sent it home, and there\nis evidence that by 1580 the _Solanum tuberosum_ had been planted in\nNorth America. By the time Raleigh brought it to England, however, it\nwas already a familiar root in Italy.\n\nBut did he bring it? There are some who say that it was Sir Francis\nDrake who brought the roots and presented them to Sir Walter Raleigh,\nwho planted them on his estate near Cork in the year 1594. M'Culloch,\nhowever, says that 1610 was the year of the introduction into Ireland,\nand other writers say that Raleigh knew so little of the virtues of the\nplant he was naturalizing that he caused the apples, not the tubers, to\nbe cooked and served upon his own table. Buckle, however, says that the\ncommon, or Virginian, potato was introduced by Raleigh in 1586, and\nLyte, who wrote in that year, does not mention the plant; but Gerarde,\nwho published the first edition of his Herbal in 1597, gave a portrait\nof himself with a potato in his hand.\n\nHere, then, we have some negative certainties and some positive\nuncertainties. Columbus did not take the real potato to Genoa in 1492;\nHawkins did not bring it to England in 1565. The Spaniards did take it\nto Spain in or about 1580; but whether Raleigh was the first to bring it\nto Britain, and in what year, remains open to doubt.\n\nDuring the whole of the seventeenth century the potato was quite a\nrarity in this country, and up to 1684 was cultivated only in the\ngardens of the gentry. In Scotland it does not seem to have been grown\nat all, even in gardens, before 1728. Phillips, in the History of\nCultivated Vegetables, says that in 1619 the price in England was one\nshilling a pound. He further says that great prejudices existed against\nit, that it was alleged to be poisonous, and that in Burgundy the\ncultivation of it was prohibited.\n\nThese early prejudices against the potato are explainable on the\nsupposition that the people did not know how to cook it, and possibly\nate it raw, in which state it is certainly unwholesome, if not actually\npoisonous. Then, again, it belongs to a family of ill-repute, the\n_Solanacae_, of which the deadly nightshade and the mandrake are members,\nas well as more honoured specimens like the tomato, tobacco, datura, and\ncayenne-pepper plants. The mandrake, of course, was the subject of\nancient dislike, and perhaps it was natural for our superstitious\nprogenitors to regard with suspicion any relative of that lugubrious\nroot.\n\nEven the tempting appearance of the tomato did not suffice to win favour\nfor it when first introduced into Europe, until somebody discovered\nthat, although undoubtedly sent by the infidels to poison the\nChristians, the Bon Dieu had interfered, and transformed it into an\nagreeable and wholesome fruit.\n\nOne meets with two references to the potato in Shakespeare, and these\nare said to be the earliest notices of it in English literature. Thus in\nTroilus and Cressida: 'The devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potato\nfinger, tickles these together!' In the Merry Wives, Falstaff says: 'Let\nthe sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the time of Green Sleeves; hail\nkissing-comfits, and snow Eringoes.'\n\nThere are several references in the early dramatists, which the curious\nreader may find collected in a note in Steevens's Shakespeare, but which\nhardly serve our purpose. There is one reference, however, by Waller,\nwhich is interesting:\n\n  'With candy'd plantains and the juicy pine,\n  On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine,\n  And with potatoes fat their wanton kine,'\n\nbecause it seems to be the case that, prior to 1588, the Italian\npeasants used the potato as food for their pigs as well as for\nthemselves.\n\nWe are constrained, however, to conclude that Shakespeare and the old\ndramatists referred to the sweet potato, sometimes called the Spanish\npotato. 'Eringoes,' mentioned by Falstaff, were candied roots. Eringo is\ncuriously suggestive of 'Gringo,' which was the name of contempt applied\nby the Spaniards to all foreigners, but especially Englishmen. The word\nwould seem to have been imported by the gentlemen-adventurers from the\nSpanish Main, in the time of Good Queen Bess. If we take 'candied roots'\nin association with 'kissing-comfits,' we are compelled to conclude that\nFalstaff's potato was the 'batatas,' the sweet, fleshy roots of which\nwere described by Columbus to be 'not unlike chestnuts in taste.'\n\nCertain it is that the potato was not regarded in this country as an\nobject of national importance until 1662, when the Royal Society advised\nthat it should be planted. In the history of the Society there is the\nrecord of a recommendation of a committee, dated 1662, urging all the\nFellows who possessed land to plant potatoes, and persuade their friends\nto do the same, 'in order to alleviate the distress that would accompany\na scarcity of food.'\n\nIn Scotland, the first mention of the potato occurs in the household\nbook of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. From Chambers's\nTraditions of Edinburgh we learn that the price in 1701 was half-a-crown\na peck. Robertson, of Irvine discovered what he thought the earliest\nevidence of potatoes in Scotland in the household book of the Eglinton\nfamily. The date of this entry, however, was 1733, and Robert Chambers\nshowed that the date in the Buccleuch book was thirty-two years earlier.\n\nFurther information is given by the Duke of Argyle in Scotland As It\nWas, And As It Is. There we learn that, until long past the middle of\nthe eighteenth century, little or nothing was known of the potato in\nScotland, although in after years it brought about the most prodigious\neffects on the population. The Celts of Ireland first began to use it as\nan adjunct, and then as a main article of food. From them it passed over\nto the Celts of the Hebrides, and was introduced into South Uist by\nMacdonald of Clanranald in 1743. The Highlanders, always suspicious of\nnovelties, resisted the use of it for some years; and the neighbouring\nisland of Bernera was not reached until 1752. It was soon found,\nhowever, that the tuber would grow luxuriantly almost anywhere--even on\nsand, and shingle, and in bogs. It was quickly planted in those patches\nof ditched-off land known in the Highlands as 'lazy beds'--a not\ninappropriate term, which in Ireland is applied to patches of potatoes\nnot sown in drills.\n\nIn Ireland and in the Highlands it quickly came to be the main food of\nthe people during the greater portion of the year; but in the Lowlands\nof Scotland, and the rural districts of England, it was only used as a\nfood accessory, though it soon became an important article of commerce.\nIt has often happened that the potato crops have realized higher prices\nthan any other product of the farm.\n\nIt has been sometimes stated that the man who planted the first field of\npotatoes in Scotland died within the last forty years. This is an error.\nThe first field planted in the Lowlands was at Liberton Muir, about the\nyear 1738, by a farmer named Mutter, who died in 1808. An attempt had\nbeen made some years earlier by a farm-labourer, named Prentice, near\nKilsyth, but not as a farming operation.\n\nIn any case we do not get farther back than about 1730 for\npotato-planting in Scotland, whereas in England, by 1684 the\nrecommendations of the Royal Society had been largely adopted,\nespecially in Lancashire, where the first serious beginning seems to\nhave been made. On the other hand, the cultivation has not extended so\nrapidly in England as in either Ireland or Scotland.\n\nThe annual crop of Ireland is estimated as, on the average, equal to\nabout one thousand three hundred and twenty pounds per inhabitant; that\nof Scotland, about three hundred and ninety pounds; and that of England,\nabout one hundred and twenty pounds. Germany is the next largest\nproducer to Ireland, and also the next largest consumer--the crops being\nequal to about one thousand and sixty pounds per head. Holland and\nBelgium each produce about five hundred and eighty pounds, and France\nabout five hundred and fifty pounds, of potatoes per inhabitant per\nannum.\n\nIt is curious that, although Spain and Italy were the first cultivators\nand users in Europe, the product of each of these countries is now only\nabout fifty-five pounds per head.\n\nThe annual value of the entire potato crop of Europe may be stated at\nabout one hundred and sixty million pounds; and that of the United\nKingdom at about one-tenth of this total. That of North America is about\ntwenty million pounds more; and it is a curious instance of the vagaries\nof time that the _Solarium tuberosum_ is now known in America as the\n'Irish potato,' to distinguish it from the batatas, or sweet potato.\n\nAll this immense development of cultivation does not complete the\ntopographical record of our tuber. It has been introduced into India,\nand is now successfully cultivated both in Bengal and in the Madras\nPresidency. It has found a home in the Dutch East Indies and in China;\nand its tastes and habits are affectionately studied in Australia. But\nas in the tropics it has to be grown at an altitude of three thousand\nfeet, or more, above sea-level, it can never become so common in hot\ncountries as in Europe.\n\nIt is not only as a food-plant that the potato has secured the respect\nand affection of mankind. Starch is made from it both for the laundry\nand for the manufacture of farina, dextrin, etc. The dried pulp from\nwhich the starch has been extracted is used for making boxes. From the\nstem and leaves an extract is made of a narcotic, used to allay pain in\ncoughs and other ailments. In a raw state the potato is used as a\ncooling application for burns and sores. A spirit is distilled from the\ntuber, which in Norway is called 'brandy,' and in other places is used\nfor mixing with malt and vine liquors. Many of the farinaceous\npreparations now so popular in the nursery and sick-room are made\nlargely of potato-starch; and in some places cakes and puddings are made\nfrom potato-flour.\n\nTo the potato are also ascribed properties of another kind. The folklore\nof the plant is meagre, considering its wide distribution, but there are\na number of curious superstitions connected with it. In some parts there\nis a belief that it thrives best if planted on Maundy Thursday; in\nothers, that if planted under certain stars it will become watery. In\nDevonshire the people believe that the potato is a certain cure for the\ntoothache--not taken internally, but carried about in the pocket. It is\nby several writers mentioned as a reputed cure for rheumatism in the\nsame way; only it is prescribed that, in order to be an effective cure\nin such cases, the potato should be stolen. Mr. Andrew Lang mentions an\ninstance of faith in the practice of this cure, which he came across in\na London drawing-room. He regards this belief as a survival of the old\nsuperstitions about mandrake, and as analogous to the habit of African\ntribes who wear roots round the neck as protection against wild animals.\n\nThe value of the potato as food has been much discussed; but it seems to\nrank next to the plantain, and a long way behind either rice or wheat.\nThe author of the Chemistry of Common Life has pointed to the remarkable\nphysiological likeness of tribes of people who live chiefly on rice,\nplantain, and potato. The Hindu, the negro, and the Irishman are all\nremarkable for being round-bellied, and this peculiarity is ascribed to\nthe necessity of consuming a large bulk of food in order to obtain the\nrequisite nourishment.\n\nIt is not, of course, the root of the plant which we consume. The tubers\nknown to the table are the swollen portions of the underground branches,\nand the so-called 'eyes' are really leaf-buds. It is by cuttings from\nthese tubers, however, that the plant is mostly propagated. About\nthree-fourths of the weight of the potato is water, and this may\nexplain the injurious effect which excessive rainfall has on the crops.\nThe disease which attacks the plant, and has been the cause of Irish\nfamines, past and prospective, is a species of fungus, which first\nattacks and discolours the straws, and then spreads downwards to the\ntubers, increasing the quantity of water in them, reducing the quantity\nof starch, and converting the albumen into casein.\n\nWhen this disease once appears it is apt to spread over wide areas where\nthe same climatic influences prevail, and when the disease appears in\nany strength the crops are rapidly rendered unfit for human food. The\ntrouble of the Irish peasantry of the West is that they have no\nalternative crop to fall back on when the potato fails. Their plots are\ntoo small for cereals, and they cannot be persuaded to cultivate\ncabbages and other vegetables along with their tubers. It is thus that,\nwhen the day of tribulation comes, the potato appears to be really a\ncurse rather than a blessing to agricultural Ireland.\n\nThere have been frequent projects for reverting to original types--that\nis to say, for obtaining a fresh supply of the indigenous plant from\nSouth America, and breeding a new stock, as it were. It is a possible\nmode of extirpating the disease which may be resorted to.\n\nThe Irish famine of 1847 was due to the failure of the potato crops in\n1846, preceded by two or three years of bad crops. This failure was due\nto disease, and the eating of the diseased tuber brought on a\npestilence, so that altogether the deaths by starvation and epidemics in\nthat disastrous period amounted to nearly a million and a quarter\npersons. To deal with the distress various sums were voted by Parliament\nto the total amount of over ten millions sterling. This was supplemented\nby private philanthropy in this country, and by generous aid from the\nUnited States and some European countries. What was the actual money\ncost to the world at large of the failure of the Irish potato crop in\n1846 can never be accurately known; but the amount was so enormous as to\ncreate a serious economic problem in connection with the homely tuber.\n\nThere have been several partial failures since in Ireland, although\nnothing so extensive as that of 1846, and in 1872 the disease was very\nbad in England. In that year, indeed, the importation of foreign\npotatoes rose to the enormous value of one million six hundred and\nfifty-four thousand pounds to supply our own deficient crops. In 1876,\nagain, there was great excitement and alarm about the 'Colorado beetle,'\nan importation from America, which was destined, it was said, to destroy\nall our potato-fields. But the beetle proved comparatively harmless, and\nseems now to have disappeared from these shores.\n\nThe Englishman and Scotchman cannot do without his potato as an adjunct;\nbut the error of the Irishman is in making it the mainstay of his life.\nThe words of Malthus in this connection put the matter in a nutshell,\nmuch as he has been abused for his theory of the effects of the potato\non population. 'When the common people of a country,' he says, 'live\nprincipally upon the dearest grain, as they do in England on wheat,\nthey have great resources in a scarcity, and barley, oats, rice, cheap\nsoups, and potatoes, all present themselves as less expensive, yet, at\nthe same time, wholesome means of nourishment; but when their habitual\nfood is the lowest in this scale, they appear to be absolutely without\nresource, except in the bark of trees--like the poor Swedes--and a great\nportion of them must necessarily be starved.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE CENTRE OF THE WORLD.\n\n\nWhere is it? 'At Charing Cross, of course,' says the self-assured\nLondoner; and in one sense he may not be far wrong. 'At Boston,' says\nthe cultured inhabitant of the 'hub' of the universe. 'Wherever I am,'\nsays the autocrat who essays to sway the destinies of nations. Well, we\nall know the story of the Head of the Table, and even if we did not know\nit, instinct would tell us where to look. But the centre of the world,\nin an actual, physical, racial, and mundanely comprehensive sense--where\nis it?\n\nOne does not find it so easy to answer the question as did good old\nHerodotus, who scouted as absurd the idea of the earth being circular.\n'For my own part,' says the Father of History--and of lies, according to\nsome people--'I cannot but think it exceedingly ridiculous to hear some\nmen talk of the circumference of the Earth, pretending without the\nsmallest reason or probability that the ocean encompasses the Earth,\nthat the Earth is round as if mechanically formed so, and that Asia is\nequal to Europe.'\n\nHerodotus found no difficulty in describing the figure and size of the\nportions of the earth whose existence he recognised, but then he said,\n'from India eastward the whole Earth is one vast desert, unknown and\nunexplored.' And for long after Herodotus, the Mediterranean was\nregarded as the central sea of the world, and in the time of Herodotus,\nRhodes was accounted the centre of that centre.\n\nIt is very interesting, however, to trace how many centres the world has\nhad in its time--or rather within the range of written history. The old\nEgyptians placed it at Thebes, the Assyrians at Babylon, the Hindus at\nMount Meru, the Jews at Jerusalem, and the Greeks at Olympus, until they\nmoved it to Rhodes. There exists an old map in which the world is\nrepresented as a human figure, and the heart of that figure is Egypt.\nAnd there exists, or did exist, an old fountain in Sicily on which was\nthis inscription: 'I am in the centre of the garden; this garden is the\ncentre of Sicily, and Sicily is the Centre of the whole Earth.'\n\nIt is a grand thing to be positive in assertion when you are sure of\nyour ground, and the builder of this fountain seems to have been sure of\nhis. But then other people can be positive too, and in that vast desert\neastward of India, imagined by Herodotus, there is the country of China,\nwhich calls itself the Middle Kingdom, and the Emperor of which, in a\nletter to the King of England in this very nineteenth century, announced\nthat China is endowed by Heaven as the 'flourishing and central Empire'\nof the world.\n\nAnd yet, once upon a time, according to some old Japanese writings,\nJapan was known as the Middle Kingdom; and the Persians claimed the same\nposition for Persia; and according to Professor Sayce, the old Chaldeans\nsaid that the centre of the earth was in the heart of the impenetrable\nforest of Eridu.\n\nThis forest, by the way, was also called the 'holy house of the Gods,'\nbut it does not seem to have had anything to do with the Terrestrial\nParadise, the exact location of which Mr. Baring-Gould has laboriously\ntried to identify through the legends of the nations. It is a curious\nfact that a ninth-century map, in the Strasburg Library, places the\nTerrestrial Paradise--the Garden of Eden--in that part of Asia we now\nknow as the Chinese Empire, and it is also so marked in a map in the\nBritish Museum.\n\nIn a letter supposed to have emanated from the mysterious if not\nmythical Prester John, it is written: 'The river Indus which issues out\nof Paradise flows among the plains through a certain province, and it\nexpands, embracing the whole province with its various windings. There\nare found emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyx,\nberyl, sardius, and many other precious stones. There, too, grows the\nplant called Asbestos.'\n\nAnd all this was reported to be just three days' journey from the garden\nfrom which Adam was expelled, but as the geographical position of the\nprovince was not specified the information was a trifle vague. Prester\nJohn, however, described a wonderful fountain, the virtues of which\ncorrespond with those of a well in Ceylon described by Sir John\nMandeville, and this is why some people say that the Garden of Eden was\nin the Island of Spices.\n\nThere is a twelfth-century map of the world at Cambridge, which shows\nParadise on an island opposite the mouth of the Ganges. And in the story\nof St. Brandan, the saint reaches an island somewhere 'due east from\nIreland,' which was Paradise, and on which he met with a man who told\nhim that a stream--which no living being might cross--flowing through\nthe island, divided the world in twain. Another centre!\n\nIn an Icelandic story of the fourteenth century are related the\nmarvellous adventures of one Eirek of Drontheim, who, determined to find\nout the Deathless Land, made his way to Constantinople. There he\nreceived a lesson in geography from the Emperor. The world, he was told,\nwas precisely one hundred and eighty thousand stages, or about one\nmillion English miles, round, and is not propped up on posts, but is\nsupported by the will of God. The distance between the earth and heaven,\nhe was told, is one hundred thousand and forty-five miles, and round\nabout the earth is a big sea called the ocean.\n\n'But what is to the south of the earth?' asked the inquisitive Eirek.\n\n'Oh,' replied the Emperor, 'the end of the earth is there, and it is\ncalled India.'\n\n'And where shall I find the Deathless Land?' he inquired; and he was\ntold that slightly to the east of India lies Paradise.\n\nThereupon Eirek and a companion started across Syria, took ship and\narrived at India, through which they journeyed on horseback till they\ncame to a strait which separated them from a beautiful land. Eirek\ncrossed over and found himself in Paradise, and, strange to say, an\nexcellent cold luncheon waiting for him. It took him seven years to get\nhome again, and, as he died soon after his return, the map of the route\nwas lost.\n\nStill, Eirek's Paradise may not improbably have been Ceylon.\n\nThe latest location of the Garden of Eden is by a recent traveller in\nSomaliland, in the north-east shoulder of Africa and south of the Gulf\nof Aden. This is in the neighbourhood of the country of Prester John,\nbut in its present aspects can by no means be regarded as a Terrestrial\nParadise.\n\nSir John Mandeville's description of the Terrestrial Paradise which he\ndiscovered gives it as the highest place on the earth--so high that the\nwaters of the Flood could not reach it. And in the very centre of the\nhighest point is a well, he said, that casts out the four streams,\nGanges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates--all sacred streams. Now, in the\nEncyclopaedia of India it is stated that 'The Hindus at Bikanir Rajputana\ntaught that the mountain Meru is in the centre surrounded by concentric\ncircles of land and sea. Some Hindus regard Mount Meru as the North\nPole. The astronomical views of the Puranas make the heavenly bodies\nturn round it.' So here again we have a mountain as the terrestrial\ncentre.\n\nIn the Avesta there is reference to a lofty mountain at the centre of\nthe world from which all the mountains of the earth have grown, and at\nthe summit of which is the fountain of waters, whereby grow two\ntrees--the Heavenly Soma, and another tree which yields all the seeds\nthat germinate on earth. From this fountain, according to the Buddhist\ntradition, flow four streams to the four points of the compass, each of\nthem making a complete circuit in its descent.\n\nThis central mountain is the Navel of Waters where originated all\nmatter, and where sits Yama under the Soma tree--just as in the Norse\nlegend the Norns, or Fates, sit by the great central earth-tree,\nYggdrasil.\n\nAccording to the Greek tradition, Jupiter, in order to settle the true\ncentre of the earth, sent out two eagles, one from east and one from\nwest. They met on the spot on which was erected the Temple of Delphi,\nand a stone in the centre of that temple was called the Navel of the\nWorld. A golden eagle was placed on each side of this stone. The design\nis preserved in many examples of Greek sculpture, and the stone itself\nis mentioned in several of the Greek plays.\n\nWith reference to this, Mr. Lethaby, in his Architecture, Mysticism, and\nMyth, observes: 'We may see embodied in this myth of the centre-stone\nthe result of the general direction of thought; as each people were\ncertainly \"the people\" first born and best beloved of the gods, so their\ncountry occupied the centre of the world. It would be related how the\noldest and most sacred city, or rather temple, was erected exactly on\nthe navel. A story like this told of a temple would lead to the marking\nin the centre of its area the true middle point by a circular stone, a\nstone which would become most sacred and ceremonial in its import.'\n\nAnd Dr. Schliemann thus writes of a central circle he unearthed in the\npalace at Tirynthus: 'In the exact centre of the hall, and therefore\nwithin the square enclosed by the four pillars, there is found in the\nfloor a circle of about 3.30 m. diameter. There can be little doubt that\nthis circle indicates the position of the hearth in the centre of the\nmegaron. The hearth was in all antiquity the centre of the house, about\nwhich the family assembled, at which food was prepared, and where the\nguest received the place of honour. Hence it is frequently indicated by\npoets and philosophers as the navel or centre of the house. In the\noldest time it was not only symbolically but actually the centre of the\nhouse, and especially of the megaron. It was only in later days, in the\npalaces of the great Romans, that it was removed from the chief rooms\nand established in a small by-room.'\n\nAll which may be true enough, and yet the placing of the hearthstone in\nthe centre of the house may have had less reference to the earth-centre\nidea, than to the fact that in the circular huts of primitive man it was\nnecessary to have a hole at the apex of the roof. Still, it is\ninteresting to note that, as in the Imperial palace at Constantinople,\nso on the floor of St. Peter's at Rome, and elsewhere, is a flat\ncircular slab of porphyry, associated with all ceremonials.\n\nIs there any connection between the old central hearthstone and the\nDillestein--Lid of Hell--one meets with in Grimm?\n\nWe have seen that the centre of the world is placed in Europe, in Asia,\nand in Africa, but who would expect to find it in America many centuries\nago? Yet the traditions of Peru have it that Cuzco was founded by the\ngods, and that its name signifies 'navel'; and traditions of Mexico\ndescribe Yucatan as 'the centre and foundation' of both heaven and\nearth. We must, however, go back to the East as the most likely quarter\nin which to find it, and as the quarter to which the eyes of man have\nbeen most consistently turned.\n\nTo successive centuries of both Jews and Christians Jerusalem has been\nthe centre of the world, and the Temple the centre of Jerusalem. The\nTalmud gives directions to those who are in foreign countries to pray\nwith their faces towards the sacred land; to those in Palestine to pray\nwith their faces towards Jerusalem; to those in Jerusalem to pray with\ntheir faces towards the Mount; to those in the Temple to pray with their\nfaces towards the Holy of Holies. Now, this was not merely because this\nsacred spot was a ceremonial centre, but also because it was regarded as\nthe geographical centre of the earth. According to the Rabbis the Temple\nwas built on the great central rock of the world.\n\nIt is written in the Talmud: 'The world is like the eyeball of man: the\nwhite is the ocean that surrounds the wall, the black is the world\nitself, and the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image of the pupil is the\nTemple.' And again: 'The land of Israel is situated in the centre of the\nworld, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, and the Temple\nin the centre of Jerusalem, and the Holy of Holies in the centre of the\nTemple, and the foundation-stone on which the world was grounded is\nsituated in front of the ark.' And once more: 'When the ark was removed\na stone was there from the days of the first Prophets. It was called\nFoundation. It was three digits above the earth.'\n\nThis claim is direct enough, and at Jerusalem to this day in the Dome of\nthe Rock, supposed to occupy the site of Solomon's Temple, is a bare\nstone which, as Sir Charles Warren was assured, rests on the top of a\npalm-tree, from the roots of which issue all the rivers of the world.\nThe Mohammedans have accepted this same stone as the foundation-stone of\nthe world, and they call it the Kibleh of Moses. It is said that Mahomet\nonce intended making this the sacred centre of Islam, instead of Mecca,\nbut changed his mind, and predicted that at the Last Day the black\nstone--the Kaabah--will leave Mecca and become the bride of the\nFoundation-stone at Jerusalem. So that there can be no possible doubt of\nthe centre of sacred influences.\n\nConcerning the stone at Jerusalem, Professor Palmer says: 'This Sakhrah\nis the centre of the world, and on the day of resurrection--it is\nsupposed--the Angel Israfil will stand upon it to blow the last trumpet.\nIt is also eighteen miles nearer heaven than any other place in the\nworld, and beneath it is the source of every drop of sweet water that\nflows on the face of the earth. It is supposed to be suspended\nmiraculously between heaven and earth. The effect upon the spectators,\nhowever, was so startling, that it was found necessary to place a\nbuilding round it and conceal the marvel.'\n\nAccording to Hittite and Semitic traditions mentioned by Professor Sayce\nand Professor Robertson Smith, there was a chasm in this central spot\nthrough which the waters of the Deluge escaped.\n\nRight down to and through the Middle Ages Jerusalem was regarded by all\nChristians as the centre of the world; sometimes as the navel of the\nearth; and sometimes as the middlemost point of heaven and earth. The\nHereford map of the thirteenth century, examined by Mr. Lethaby, shows\nthe world as a plane circle surrounded by ocean, round whose borders are\nthe eaters of men, and the one-eyed, and the half-men, and those whose\nheads do grow beneath their shoulders. 'Within this border we find\neverything the heart could desire; the sea is very red, the pillars of\nHercules are pillars indeed; there is the Terrestrial Paradise enclosed\nby a battlemented wall, and unicorns, manticoras, salamanders, and other\nbeasts of fascinating habits are clearly shown in the lands where they\nlive. The centre of all is Jerusalem, a circular walled court, within\nwhich again is a smaller circle, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.'\n\nEven when the earth was recognised as a sphere, the idea of Jerusalem\nbeing the centre was not given up. Dante held to it, and veracious Sir\nJohn Mandeville endeavoured thus to explain away the difficulty: 'In\ngoing from Scotland or from England towards Jerusalem, men go always\nupwards, for our land is in the low part of the earth towards the west;\nand the land of Prester John is in the low part of the world towards the\neast; and they have the day when we have the night, and on the contrary\nthey have the night when we have the day; for the earth and sea are of a\nround form, and as men go upward towards one point they go downward to\nanother. Also you have heard me say that Jerusalem is in the middle of\nthe world; and that may be proved and shown there by a spear which is\nfixed in the earth at the hour of midday, when it is equinoctial, which\ngives no shadow on any side.' Ingenious, if not convincing!\n\nThe Greek Church still regard Jerusalem as the middle of the world, and\nMr. Curzon tells that in their portion of the Holy Sepulchre they have a\nmagnificently decorated interior, in the centre of which is a globe of\nblack marble on a pedestal, under which, they say, the head of Adam was\nfound, and which they declare to be the exact centre of the globe.\n\nThe Mohammedans generally, however, regard the Kaabah at Mecca as--for\nthe present, at any rate--the true centre. This stone is supposed to\nhave been lowered directly from heaven, and all mosques are built to\nlook towards it. Even in the modern schools of Cairo, according to Mr.\nLoftie, the children are taught that Mecca is the centre of the earth.\n\nThe Samaritans, however, look upon Gerizim as the holy mountain and\ncentre of the religious and geographical world. And the Babylonians\nregarded the great Temple of Bel, according to Professor Sayce, as the\nhouse of the Foundation Stone of Heaven and Earth.\n\nGaya, again, is the Mecca of the Buddhists, where Buddha sat under the\ntree when he received enlightenment. This tree is the Bodhi tree\ndescribed by Buddhist writers as surrounded by an enclosure rather of an\noblong than of a square shape, but with four gates opening to the four\ncardinal points. In the middle of the enclosure is the diamond throne\nwhich a voice told Buddha he would find under a Pipal tree, which\ndiamond throne is believed to be of the same age as the earth. 'It is\nthe middle of the great Chiliocosm; it goes down to the limits of the\ngolden wheel and upwards it is flush with the ground. It is composed of\ndiamonds; in circuit it is a hundred paces or so. It is the place where\nthe Buddhas attain the sacred path of Buddhahood. When the great earth\nis shaken this spot alone is unmoved. When the true law decays and dies\nit will be no longer visible.'\n\nAccording to Sir Monier Williams, a stone marked with nine concentric\ncircles is shown at Gaya as the diamond throne, and the Chiliocosm is\nnot the centre of the world alone but of the Universe.\n\nBut in China, also a land of Buddhists, we find another centre, and in\nIndia there is an iron pillar at Delhi, dating from the fourth century,\nsupposed by the Brahmans to mark the centre from their point of view.\nAnd in Southern India the Tamils have the Temple of Mandura, in the\ninnermost sanctuary of which a rock comes through the floor, the roots\nof which are said to be in the centre of the earth.\n\nThe Indian Buddhists, of course, denied that China could be the Middle\nKingdom, as the place where Buddha lived must necessarily be the centre.\nNevertheless, the centre is now found by Chinese Buddhists in the Temple\nof Heaven at Pekin, where is one circular stone in the centre of circles\nof marble terraces, on which the Emperor kneels surrounded by\ncircles--including that of the horizon--and believes himself to be in\nthe Centre of the Universe and inferior only to Heaven.\n\nBut in the sixth century a certain Chinese traveller, called Sung-Yun,\nwent to India for Buddhist studies, and he made his way by the Pamirs,\nthe watershed of the great Asiatic rivers Indus and Oxus. And of this\ncountry he wrote:\n\n'After entering the Tsung Ling mountains, step by step, we crept upwards\nfor four days, and reached the highest point of the range. From this\npoint as a centre, looking downwards, it seemed just as though we were\npoised in mid-air. Men say that this is the middle point of heaven and\nearth.'\n\nThis was written more than thirteen hundred years ago, and men to-day\nstill call this part of Asia the Roof of the World.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  A\n\n  Aaron's rod, 25\n\n  Aeschines, 18\n\n  Agricola, 29\n\n  Albertus, 84\n\n  Animal instinct of cure by plants, 161\n\n  Anthropomorphon, 84\n\n  Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, 193\n\n  Ahmed, Prince, 42\n\n  Aristotle, 153\n\n  Arthurian legends, 23\n\n  Asterodia, 2\n\n  Australian legends, 8, 20, 21\n\n\n  B\n\n  Baaras, root of, 80\n\n  Bacchus, 73\n\n  Bacon, 68, 85\n\n  Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 37-39, 60, 61, 88\n\n  Barth, 52\n\n  Benjamin's sack, 49\n\n  Beryl, the, 48\n    the spirits of the, 48\n\n  Bhasa, 71\n\n  Bion's Lament, 124\n\n  Black Kaspar, 48\n\n  Bodhi Tree, 199\n\n  Book of Days, 73, 75\n\n  Brand's Popular Antiquities, 97, 100, 107\n\n  Breton legends, 8\n\n  British Guiana legends, 8-20\n\n  Britomart, 50\n\n  Browne, Sir Thomas, 28, 29, 83\n\n  Browning's, Mrs., Dead Pan, 80\n\n  Buddha's foot, 11\n\n  'Bull-roarer,' the, 17, 18\n\n  Bushman legend, 63\n\n\n  C\n\n  Cagliostro, 51\n\n  Cain in the Moon, 62\n\n  Cambuscan's mirror, 49\n\n  Camelon, 27\n\n  Capnomancy, 13\n\n  Cat and the Well, 6\n\n  Catoptromancy, 50\n\n  Celestial Paradise, 189\n\n  Chaldaeo-Babylonian legends, 92\n\n  Chaucer, 49, 62\n\n  Chinese legends, 20, 95\n\n  Cingalese legends, 11\n\n  Circaea, or Enchanter's Nightshade, 81\n\n  Circe, 82\n\n  Cleopatra, 79\n\n  Clover leaf, the, 130\n\n  Coles' Art of Simpling, 86\n\n  Columbus, 107\n\n  Columella, 84\n\n  Conway's Demonology, etc., 24, 71, 72, 85, 95\n\n  Cornish legends, 66-103\n\n  Cox and Jones's Tales of Teutonic Lands, 2, 3, 7, 9\n\n  Cronus, 8, 9, 20\n\n  Crusade legends, 129, 136\n\n  Crusades, the, 13, 93\n\n  Cupid, 124\n\n\n  D\n\n  Danae, 5\n\n  Dante, 62\n\n  Davy Jones, 114\n\n  Dawn Myths, 2, 5, 6\n\n  Dee's, Dr., Spherical Speculum, 48, 50\n\n  De Gubernatis, 72\n\n  Dekker's Wonderful Year, 147\n\n  Delphi, 19\n\n  Demeter, 19\n\n  Demosthenes, 18\n\n  Dessoir, Max, 56\n\n  Devil's Kettles, 95\n\n  Devil's Punch-bowls, 95\n\n  Devonian legends, 65, 122, 127\n\n  Dioscorides, 134\n\n  Divination by smoke, 15\n\n  Divining-rod, the, 30-32\n\n  Dove and the ark, 24\n\n  'Duffy,' 114\n\n  Dutch legend, 96\n\n\n  E\n\n  Earth-man, 79\n\n  Eden, the Garden of, 190\n    Eastern idea of, 191\n    Icelandic idea of, 191\n    Mandeville's, Sir J., 192\n    Somaliland, 192\n    Prester John's, 190\n\n  Ellacombe's Plant-Lore of Shakespeare, 149\n\n  Endymion, 72\n\n  Esquimo legend, 67\n\n  Esthonian legend, 73\n\n  Eucharist, the, 24\n\n\n  F\n\n  Fairy-lore, 12, 13\n\n  'Fairy-ring,' the, 12\n\n  Feast of Demeter, 16\n\n  Fian, Dr., 27\n\n  Fleur de lys, the, 130\n\n  Flying Dutchman, the, 96\n\n  Folk-lore methods, 15, 16\n    Bible, 88\n\n  Friend's Flowers and Flower-Lore, 147\n\n\n  G\n\n  Ganymede, 67\n\n  Gargantua, legend of, 8\n\n  Garlic (or 'Poor Man's Treacle'), Pliny on, 170\n    Bacon on, 170\n    Eastern belief in, 170, 173\n\n  Garrett's Dictionary of India, 89\n\n  Gaya and Buddha, 199\n\n  Gerarde's Herball (1597), 81, 128\n\n  Gerizim, 199\n\n  German legends, 60, 93, 94\n\n  Gesta Romanorum, 42\n\n  Glam (the moon), 72\n\n  Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, 50\n\n  'Good folks,' 12\n\n  Goodrich's, Miss, experiments in crystal-reading, 53-55\n\n  Gordon-Cumming's, Miss, Wanderings in China, 64\n\n  Greek legends, 3, 4, 10, 19, 21, 60, 67, 82, 127\n\n  Grimm, Fairy Tales, 6, 66, 129\n\n\n  H\n\n  Hades, 19\n\n  Hamlet, 41\n\n  Harpocrates, 124\n\n  Hartmann, Dr. Franz, 46\n\n  Hephaistos, 2\n\n  Hera, 19\n\n  Hermes, 82\n\n  Herodotus, 29, 30, 63, 73\n\n  Hesiod, 9\n\n  Highland superstitions, 10, 12, 13\n\n  Hindu legends, 20, 68, 71\n\n  Holcroft, the actor, 116\n\n  Holinshed, 27\n\n  Holy Spirit, symbol of the, 24\n\n  Homa, 87, 88\n\n  'Hot-cross buns,' 77\n\n  Hussin, 6\n\n  Hutton's Jacob's Rod, 39\n\n  Hydra, the, 93\n\n\n  I\n\n  Icelandic legend, 95\n\n  'Ink-pool,' the, 48\n\n  Israfil, 196\n\n\n  J\n\n  Jack and Jill, 61\n\n  Jacques Aymar of Lyons, story of, 37, 38\n\n  Jacob Boehme's tin cup, 49\n\n  Jamieson, Dr., and the Moon, 60\n\n  Jason and the Golden Fleece, 21\n\n  Jewish legends, 60, 90\n\n  Jobson, Richard (divining-rod), 34\n\n  Jonah, 115\n\n  Jonson's Tale of a Tub, 145\n\n  Josephus, 65, 81\n\n  Judas Iscariot, 62, 107\n\n\n  K\n\n  Kaabah-stone, 198\n\n  Kaffir legend, 20\n\n  Kingsley's Water-Babies, 105, 111\n\n\n  L\n\n  Lane's Magician, 51\n\n  Lang's Custom and Myth, etc., 4, 8, 14, 17, 21, 30, 34, 66, 82\n\n  Lao's looking-glass, 50\n\n  Leek, the, in Welsh tradition, 171\n\n  Legends:\n    Australian, 8, 20, 21\n    Breton, 8\n    Bushman, 63\n    Ceylon, 11\n    Chaldaeo-Babylonian, 92\n    Chinese, 20, 95\n    Cornish, 66, 103\n    Devonian, 65, 122, 127\n    Dutch, 96\n    Eskimo, 67\n    Esthonian, 73\n    German, 60, 93, 94\n    Greek, 3, 4, 10, 19, 21, 50, 67, 82, 127\n    Highland, 12\n    Hindu, 20, 68, 71\n    Icelandic, 95\n    Jewish, 60, 90\n    Kaffir, 20\n    Lenormant, Francois, 93\n    Lid of Hell, 195\n    Malay, 8\n    Maori, 62, 63\n    North American, 8, 62\n    of British Guiana, 8, 20\n    of St. Cecilia, 129\n    of St. David, 171\n    of St. Patrick, 131\n    of St. Peter, 109\n    of the Crusaders, 129, 136\n    Persian, 125\n    Roman, 124\n    Russian, 94, 110\n    Scandinavian, 61\n    Sicilian, 73\n    Syrian, 93\n    Talmudic, 92\n    Zulu, 8\n\n  Lethaby on Architecture and Myths, 193\n\n  Levi, house of, 25\n\n  Lhasis, 80\n\n  Lien Chi Altangi, 50\n\n  Lilly, John, 59\n\n  Linnaeus, story of, 33\n\n  Lotus legends, 128\n    the Buddhist, 127\n    the Egyptian, 128\n\n  Lucian, 59\n\n  Luna, 63, 73\n\n\n  M\n\n  Magic, 23\n\n  Magellan, 107\n\n  Malay legends, 8\n\n  Mandrake, the, 78, 83\n    anthropomorphon, 84\n    or Devil's Apple, 85\n    or Stone Apple, 85\n\n  Mandura, 200\n\n  Maori legends, 62, 63\n\n  Mecca, 198\n\n  Medea, 67\n\n  Merlin's mirror, 49\n\n  Michael Scott, 11\n\n  Middle Kingdom, the, according to Herodotus, 189\n    Eastern idea of, 189, 197, 200\n    Jewish tradition of, 196\n    Jupiter's, 193\n    Mecca, the, 199\n    Mexican tradition of, 195\n    Prester John, 198\n\n  Midsummer Night's Dream, 62\n\n  Milbanke, Lady, 39\n\n  Mister Storm-Along, 119\n\n  Mohammed, legend of, 126\n\n  Moonfolk, Lucian's, 59\n\n  Moon-lore, Australian, 67\n    Bushman, 67\n    Egyptian, 67\n    English, 70, 74, 76\n    Eskimo, 67\n    Greek, 67, 87\n    Maori, 67\n    North American Indian, 67\n    South African, 67\n\n  Moon, the, 2, 58\n\n  Moon-worship, 76\n\n  Moonwort, 153, 154\n    Conway, Moncure, 155\n    Culpeper, 154\n    in Divine Weekes, 154\n    in legend, 153\n\n  Moses' rod, 25, 26, 29\n\n  Mother Carey's chickens, 97, 104, 109\n\n  Mueller, Max, 9\n\n  Mythology, Chinese, 63\n    Eskimo, 63\n    German, 133\n    Greek, 10, 78, 121\n    Hindu, 63, 87\n    Scandinavian, 116\n    Vedic, 72\n\n\n  N\n\n  Nautical superstitions, 98, 100\n\n  Navel of the World, 193\n\n  Nebuchadnezzar, 28\n\n  Neptune, 93\n\n  Nether Lochaber, 12\n\n  Nikke, 96\n\n  North American legends, 8, 62\n\n\n  O\n\n  Odin, 73\n\n  Odysseus, 82\n\n  Old Nick, 93\n\n  Onion among the Romans, 167\n    as food, 164\n    Homer on, 167\n    in The Arabian Nights, 165\n    Juvenal on, 165\n    Malagasy use of, 166\n    Mohammedan legends of, 167\n    myths, 168, 169\n    Napoleon and, 174\n    of the Greeks, 163, 165\n    of Herodotus, 166\n    Pliny on, 165, 167\n    Shakespeare on, 163\n    Sinclair, Sir J., on, 175\n\n  Ophelia, 148\n\n  Othello, 80\n\n\n  P\n\n  Paracelsus's magic mirror, 43, 44\n\n  Paradise, the Garden of, 190\n\n  Parkinson the Herbalist, 151\n\n  Penelope, 49\n\n  Persian legend, 125\n\n  Peter the Hermit, 13\n\n  Pharaoh, 25\n\n  Pleiades, the, 21\n\n  Pliny, 132\n\n  Plutarch, 73\n\n  Pope Leo X., 107\n\n  Poseidon, 19\n\n  Potato, the, as food, 184\n    Buckle on, 177\n    Christopher Columbus and, 176\n    folklore of, 183\n    Gerarde on, 177\n    in Scotland and Ireland, 181\n    in Shakespeare, 179\n    introduction into Europe, 176\n    Sir Francis Drake and, 177\n\n  Prince Zeyn Alasnam, story of, 42\n\n  Proctor, R. A., 60\n\n  Prose Edda, 71\n\n  Prospero, 70\n\n  Pryce's Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 32\n\n  Pseudosia Epidemica, 83\n\n  Pyromancy, 47\n\n  Pythagoras, 84\n\n\n  R\n\n  Rashi, 77\n\n  Red Riding Hood, 5, 6\n\n  Rhabdomancy, 28, 39\n\n  Rhea, 19\n\n  Riley's Book of Days, 64\n\n  Rink, Dr., 63\n\n  Rod, Moses', 25, 26\n    of the house of Levi, 25\n    the, 23\n    the divining, 30, 32\n\n  Roman legend, 124\n\n  Romeo and Juliet, 79\n\n  Rona in the Moon, 62\n\n  Roof of the World, the, 100\n\n  Rosemary, 123\n\n  Roses, Feast of the, 125\n\n  Rue as a disinfectant, 162\n    as salad, 152\n    derivation of, 150\n    in Aristotle, 153, 159\n    in Drayton, 153\n    in Ellacombe's Plant-Lore of Shakespeare, 149\n    in French perfumery, 152\n    in Milton, 151\n    in Parkinson, 151\n    in Pliny, 157\n    in Shakespeare, 149, 153\n    in Spenser, 151\n    in Warburton's works, 152\n\n  Ruskin's Queen of the Air, 4\n\n  Russian legend, 94, 110\n\n  Ruth, 150\n\n  Ryence, King, 50\n\n\n  S\n\n  St. Brandan, 117\n\n  St. Cecilia, legend of, 129\n\n  St. Christophoros, story of, 26\n\n  St. David, legends of, 171\n\n  St. David's Day, origin of, 171\n\n  St. Joseph, legend of, 127\n\n  St. Nicholas, 93\n\n  St. Patrick, 131\n\n  St. Peter, legend of, 109\n\n  St. Peter's Day, 110\n\n  St. Ursula, 2, 3\n\n  Satan, 79, 85\n\n  Saturn, 8, 19, 20\n\n  Scandinavian legend, 61\n\n  Schliemann, Dr., 194\n\n  Sea chanties, 119, 120\n\n  Septuagint, the, 49\n\n  Shakespeare, 2, 62, 79\n\n  Sharpe, Charles Kirkpatrick, 92\n\n  Shelvocke's voyages, 106\n\n  Shew Stone, 50\n\n  Sicilian legend, 73\n\n  Sidney, Sir Philip, 72\n\n  Solomon's Temple, 196\n\n  Soma, 63, 87, 89, 90, 193\n\n  Song of Sixpence, 5\n\n  Sorcerer's Root, 78\n\n  Spring Myths, 10\n\n  Stormy petrel, 99\n\n  Sung-Yun and the Pamirs, 200\n\n  Superstitions:\n    Accadian, 16\n    Aztec, 16\n    Bushmen, 21\n    Chinese, 75\n    Greek, 16\n    Highland, 10, 12\n    Jewish, 16, 76\n    Nautical, 98, 100, 117\n    Peruvian, 16\n    Red Indian, 16, 20\n    Sicilian, 16\n\n  Syrian legend, 92\n\n\n  T\n\n  Talmudic legend, 92\n\n  Tannhaeuser, 3\n\n  Tylor's Primitive Culture, 5, 65\n\n  Tempest, the, 70\n\n  Theal's Kaffir Folklore, 18\n\n  Thiselton-Dyer, 31, 34, 64, 78, 100, 131, 145\n\n  Thistle, the, 132\n    Stewart, Dr., on, 135\n    of Dioscorides, 134\n\n  Timbs, 79\n\n  True Thomas of Ercildoune, 3\n\n  Tutenganahau, story of, 20\n\n  Tweed, the, 10\n\n  Tylor, 6, 65\n\n  Typhoeus, 117\n\n\n  U\n\n  Ulysses, 42\n\n  Urim and Thummim, 49\n\n\n  V\n\n  Vampire, the, 70\n\n  Vedic Agni, 2\n\n  Venus, 30\n\n  Venus's looking-glass, 49\n\n  Verne, Jules, 59\n\n  Vervain of the Druids, 158\n    Friend on the, 159\n    of the Greeks, 158\n    Thiselton-Dyer on, 158\n\n  Virgin Mary, 106\n\n  Von Buelow's Christian Legends of Germany, 26\n\n  Vulcan's mirror, 49\n\n\n  W\n\n  Warburton, 152\n\n  Warts, the cure of, 160\n\n  'White Rose Day,' 125\n\n  Winslow, Forbes, 76\n\n  Winter's Tale, The, 149\n\n  Winter Myths, 10\n\n  Witches' broom, the, 70\n\n  Witches' Mannikin, 78\n\n  Wolf and Seven Little Kids, 6, 7, 9, 66\n\n  Wurmbrand's Visionen im Wasserglass, 53\n\n\n  Y\n\n  Yama, 193\n\n  Yggdrasil, 193\n\n\n  Z\n\n  Zafarana, 73\n\n  Zeus, 19, 67\n\n  Zillah, legend of, 126\n\n  Zulu legend, 8\n\n\n\n\n_Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London._\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n[1] Farrer: Primitive Manners.\n\n[2] Lang: Custom and Myth.\n\n[3] Lang.\n\n[4] See Custom and Myth.\n\n[5] In 'The Cruel Brother: A Tragedy.'\n\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nPassages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.\n\nThe misprint \"Lihgtning\" was corrected to \"Lightning\" (page 68).\n\nThe misprint \"Catroptromancy\" was corrected to \"Catoptromancy\" (index).\n\nInconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.\n\nAdditional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate\nboth the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as\npresented in the original text.","title":"Storyology: Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":52522}