What are these,
So wither'd and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question?
Shakspere.
The county of Lancaster especially has been famous for its witches—or infamous, rather, if the reader prefer the latter epithet. Certainly, the hanging of the poor old women from Pendle side, for their supposed sorcery, is neither a legislative nor a judicial feat to feel very proud of, especially in these days of "spirit-rapping mediums" and dark séance performers, who supply writing done by invisible hands, and cause heads to be thumped by malignant imps in the shape of discordant fiddles, trumpets, and tambourines. This modern necromancery, it must not be forgotten, is performed under aristocratic patronage, and for a monetary consideration which would have rejoiced greatly the hearts that beat wildly beneath the weather-worn skins of poor old Dame Demdike and her compeers. Truly, popular superstition, as well as tradition, is "tough." Forms, manners, and customs may change externally, but it requires the lapse of long, long periods of time to totally eradicate from the imagination of an entire people all faith in any mystery, however absurd to modern scientific minds, to which their ancestors once clung with simple earnest truthfulness. The witchcraft of the old Demdike and Chattox school, in all its essential features, is derived from the early superstitions of our Eastern Aryan progenitors. Nay, the mystical character of many of its more vulgar "stage properties," such as cauldrons, besoms, sieves, hares, cats, &c., was recorded with all due solemnity in the Rig Vedas of the Southern Aryans, some three thousand two hundred years ago. Pliny says that, in his day, the Britons celebrated magic rites with so many similar ceremonies that one might suppose them to have been instructed therein by the Persians. In the Britain of our day, after passing through both Keltic, Teutonic, Greek, and Roman channels, these superstitions yet exist either in the traditionary lore of the rustic population, or the more elevated art forms with which poetry, sculpture, and painting have clothed them. The diamond crystal and the charred willow branch are near relatives of the carbon family; and it may truly be said that a similar relationship exists between the weird "folk lore" of the wild moorlands or the lonely mountain glens and the noble artistic creations of a Shakspere, a Walter Scott, an Ovid, a Homer, an Apelles, or a Phidias. Truly, "one touch of Nature makes the whole world kin," and especially if that touch be given by a finger which has been dipped deeply in the dark pool of mysticism.
Witches appear, on the whole, and in more modern times especially, to typify evil or malignant influences, and are not unfrequently degraded forms of the deities of a preceding mythology. Kelly, on the authority of Schwartz and others, speaks of the "human witches" of Northern nations as "degenerate and abhorred representatives of the ancient goddesses and their attendants, who were themselves developments of the primitive conception of the cloud-women; but witches, even in their degraded state, exhibit a multitude of characteristics by which we can recognise the originals of whom they are but loathsome caricatures. Their alleged May-day meetings, for instance, on the Brocken, the Blocksberg, and at Lucken Hare, in the Eildon Hills, are not, as commonly supposed, merely reminiscences of certain popular gatherings in heathen times, but were originally assemblages of goddesses and their retinues, making their customary progress through the land at the opening of the spring, and visible to their believing votaries in the shifting clouds about the summits of the mountains. Even the May-day night dances of the witches, with the devil for the master of the ceremonies in the shape of a buck goat, are but coarse representations of weather tokens of the early spring; they are analogous in all but their ugliness to the dances of the nymphs, led by the goat-footed Pan at the same glad season of the year amongst the clouds on the windy mountain tops of Arcadia." The witch revelling at Alloway Kirk, as detailed in several Scottish traditions, and rendered immortal by the genius of Burns, seems to confirm this view.
Amongst the infernal deities of classical mythology were the Fates or Destinies, named Parcæ. They were, like Shakspere's weird sisters, three in number, and are said by some to have been the offspring of Erebus and Nox, and by others of Jupiter and Themis. Their mode of divination was a spinning process. When determining the future life or career of a mortal, Clotho held the distaff, while Lachesis did the spinning and Atropos cut the thread. According to Ovid, these divining deities were equally successful in their occult labours when without, as when with, some necessary "staple" on which to exercise their spinning ingenuity or skill.
Witches were supposed to compass the death of any obnoxious individual by making an image of the victim in wax. As this slowly melted before a fire, or under other applied heat, it was believed the original would in like manner sicken and decay. Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar results. This superstition yet obtains to a great extent in the East and elsewhere. Dubois, in his "People of India," speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay, and write the names of the objects of their animosity on the breasts thereof. These are afterwards pierced with thorns or otherwise mutilated, "so as to communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented."
There is considerable affinity, in this phase of the superstition, to the classic solar myth which records the doom of Meleager. The M[oe]ræ, the three sisters, or the Fates, informed Althæa, the mother of the future hero, when in his cradle, that her son would die when a certain brand they pointed out on the hearth was totally consumed. She instantly snatched it away, plunged it into water, and hid it in a secret place. In later years, Meleager slew a brother of Althæa, which so exasperated the mother that she laid her curse upon her son. She brought out the brand from its hiding place, and flung it on the fire. As it burnt away, the strength of the hero decayed, and, with the extinguishing of its last spark, he expired. Mr. Cox says Meleager's life is that "of the sun, which is bound up with the torch of day; when the torch burns out he dies."
The gradual change of the old Aryan superstition into its more modern form would seem to be indicated by a passage in the writings of Pomponius Mela, who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The old writer, describing what his translator terms a "Druidical nunnery," says it "was situated in an island in the British sea, and contained nine of these venerable vestals, who pretended that they could raise storms and tempests by their incantations, could cure the most incurable diseases, could transform themselves into all kinds of animals, and foresee future events."
Reginald Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," published in 1584, describes the nature of the faith in this superstition as it existed in his day, and for ridiculing which he was covered with obloquy, and his book was not only "refuted" by King James I. and a host of others, but it was ignominiously consigned to the flames by the hands of the common hangman. This shrewd old writer says:
"No one endued with common sense but will deny that the elements are obedient to witches and at their commandment, or that they may, at their pleasure, send rain, hail, tempests, thunder, lightning, when she, being but an old doting woman, casteth a flint stone over her left shoulder towards the west, or hurleth a little sea sand up into the element, or wetteth a broom-sprig in water, and sprinkleth the same in the air; or diggeth a pit in the earth, and, putting water therein, stirreth it about with her finger; or boileth hogs' bristles; or layeth sticks across upon a bank where never was a drop of water; or burieth sage till it be rotten; all which things are confessed by witches, and affirmed by writers to be the means that witches used to move extraordinary tempests and rain."
The elaborate title-page of this curious work, vividly illustrates the condition of the public mind on this subject in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:—"Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft; Familiars; and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures by disease or otherwise; their flying in the Air etc.: To be but imaginary Erronious conceptions and novelties; wherein also the lewde, unchristian practises of Witchmongers, upon aged, melancholy, ignorant and superstitious people in extorting confessions by inhumane terrors and Tortures is notably detected. Also the knavery and confederacy of Conjurors. The impious blasphemy of Inchanters. The imposture of Soothsayers, and infidelity of Atheists. The delusion of Pythonists, Figure-casters, Astrologers, and vanity of Dreamers. The fruitlesse beggerly act of Alchimistry. The horrible act of Poisoning and all the tricks and conveyances of juggling and legerdemain are fully deciphered. With many other things opened that have long lain hidden: though very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of poor, aged, deformed, ignorant people; frequently taken, arraigned, condemned and executed for Witches, when according to a right understanding, and a good conscience, Physic, Food, and necessaries should be administered to him. Whereunto is added a treatise upon the nature and substance of Spirits and Divels, &c., all written and published in Anno 1584. By REGINALD SCOT, Esquire. Printed by R. C. and are to be sold by Giles Calvert dwelling at the Black Spread-Eagle, at the West-End of Pauls, 1651."
Wierus, a German physician, indeed, in 1563, published a work, in which he undertook the refutation of many of the so-called facts and phenomena which were believed to pertain to witchcraft, but he apparently dared not to venture a direct denial of the existence of sorcery or demoniacal possession. He, however, did much, considering the conditions by which he was surrounded. He thanked God that his labour had not been in vain, but that it had "in many places caused the cruelty against innocent blood to slacken." He claimed, and certainly deserved, the civic wreath, for having saved the lives of so many of his fellow-citizens.
Doubtless, in addition to the genuine superstition, there existed, as at the present time, a certain amount of imposture in connection therewith, although, owing to the heavy penalties inflicted by the law, the credulous element may be supposed to have largely preponderated. It is somewhat remarkable that the celebrated Pendle witches, Demdike, Chattox, &c., were pronounced genuine sorcerers, and were hanged accordingly, at Lancaster, in the year 1612; while the eight from Samlesbury, near Preston, were acquitted, because they were suspected to be not the genuine article, but a fraudulent imitation thereof.
So thoroughly saturated was the public mind with a belief in witchcraft, until a relatively recent period, that hundreds were yearly executed for this supposed crime. Howell, in his "State Trials," estimates that, in one hundred and fifty years, thirty thousand persons suffered death as witches in England alone!
Bishop Jewel, when preaching a sermon before Queen Elizabeth, exhorted her Majesty to use her authority to check the "tremendous operations of the devil by exterminating his agents, the witches and wizards, who were then very numerous."
Reginald Scot gives us a very graphic full-length portrait of the devil of popular superstition in the sixteenth century. He says, "Our mothers' mayds terrifie us with the ouglie devil, with hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, a huge tayle in his breach, eies like basons, fangs like a boar, claws like a tiger, a skin like a bear, and a voice roaring like a lion."
A Keltic hairy wood-demon was called Dus, hence our modern "the Deuce." A similar Teutonic monster was named Scrat, hence our "Old Scratch."
In 1633, seventeen Pendle witches were condemned to die; but Charles I. pardoned them. Strange as it may appear, some of them confessed themselves guilty. Such is the fascinating influence of superstition, that imposture itself gradually yields to its power. There is an old Lancashire saying that if a man will only tell a lie a certain number of times he will eventually himself regard it as a truth. One of the seventeen Pendle witches last referred to, Margaret Johnson, in her confession said, "Good Friday is one constant day for a generall meetinge of witches, and that on Good Friday last they had a generall meetinge neere Pendle Water syde." One of the Samlesbury "impostors," a girl named Grace Sowerbutts, stated that she had been induced to join the sisterhood, and she gave an account of the means adopted to acquire the diabolical potency, which, it appears, was not considered satisfactory by the judges, even of that day. Flying over Ribble with their "familiars" was one of the ordinary feats of the gang, according to this youthful witch. Perhaps Grace's face wanted the orthodox number of wrinkles to gain her credence in an affair of so much mystery and importance at that period.
A remarkable instance of this species of delusion occurred at Salem, in New England, in 1682. During the excitement which prevailed in Massachusetts at this time, about twenty persons were put to death for witchcraft. One woman confessed that she had ridden from Andover to a witch meeting on a broomstick. She added that the stick broke, and that the lameness under which she at the time suffered resulted from the accident. Her daughter and grand-daughter confirmed her evidence, and declared they all signed Satan's book together. Others confessed to equally strange delusions. And yet, it appears the inhabitants of Rhode Island formed an exception to the rule, for they declared "there were no witches on earth, nor devils,—except the New England ministers, and such as they!"
Hallam notices a parallel case of delusion recorded in the "Memoirs of Du Clercq," which happened at Arras, in 1459. He says:—
"A few obscure persons were accused of 'vauderie, or witchcraft.' After their condemnation, which was founded on confessions obtained by torture, and afterwards retracted, an epidemical contagion of superstitious dread was diffused all around. Numbers were arrested, burned alive, by order of a tribunal instituted for the detection of this offence, or detained in prison; so that no person in Arras thought himself safe. It was believed that many were accused for the sake of their possessions, which were confiscated to the use of the church. At length the Duke of Burgundy interfered, and put a stop to the persecutions."
That the fraudulent element most probably entered largely into the motives of witch prosecutions is attested by some instances in connection with the Lancashire trials. Mr. Crossley, in the republication of "Potts's Discovery of Witches," by the Chetham Society, says "the main interest in reviewing this miserable band of victims will be felt to centre in Alice Nutter. Wealthy, well-conducted, well-connected, and placed probably on an equality with most of the neighbouring families, and the magistrates before whom she was committed, she deserves to be distinguished from the companions with whom she suffered, and to attract an attention which has never yet been directed to her. That James Dervice, on whose evidence she was convicted, was instructed to accuse her by her own nearest relatives, and that the magistrate, Roger Nowell, entered as a confederate into the conspiracy against her on account of a long-disputed boundary, are allegations which tradition has preserved, but the truth or falsehood of which, at this distance of time, it is scarcely possible satisfactorily to examine. Her mansion, Rough Lee, is still standing, a very substantial and rather fine specimen of the houses of the inferior gentry, temp. James I., but now divided into cottages."
It was likewise suspected by the magistrates that a seminary priest, named Thompson, alias Southworth, had instigated the girl Sowerbutts to make the charges in the Samlesbury case previously referred to.
Some excuse for the popular frenzy on the subject may be found in the fact that not only did the king and the highest legal authorities in the land recognise the crimes of sorcery and witchcraft, but dignitaries of the church, like Bishop Jewel, in Elizabeth's reign, complained of the great increase in the number of those offenders. Such men as Sir Thomas Brown, indeed, went so far as to stigmatise the sceptical on the subject as guilty of atheism.
Sir Kenelm Digby seems to have doubted. Nevertheless, in his "Observations on the Religio Medici," after expressing his doubts, he adds:—"Neither do I deny there are witches; I only reserve my assent till I meet with stronger motives to carry it." Sir Kenelm, however, notwithstanding his scepticism about witchcraft, could swallow tolerably large doses of the marvellous. In a letter to J. Winthorp, jun., governor of New England, he says:—
"For all sorts of agues, I have of late tried the following magnetical experiment with infallible success. Pare the patient's nails when the fit is coming on, and put the parings into a little bag of fine linen or sarsanet, and tie that about a live eel's neck in a tub of water. The eel will die and the patient will recover. And if a dog or hog eat that eel they will also die."
He adds, "I have known one that cured all deliriums and frenzies whatsoever, and at once taking, with an elixer made of dew, nothing but dew purified and nipped up in a glass and digested 15 months till all of it has become a grey powder, not one drop of humidity remaining. This I know to be true, and that first it was as black as ink, then green, then grey, and at 22 months' end it was as white and lustrous as any oriental pearl. But it cured manias at fifteen months' end."
The sapient James I., of England, before he left his northern kingdom, was so profoundly agitated on hearing the rumour that one Agnes Sampson and two hundred other Scotch witches "had sailed in sieves from Leith to North Berwick church to hold a banquet with the devil," that he ordered the wretched woman to be put to the torture in his presence, and appeared to feel pleasure in questioning her during her suffering. It was afterwards affirmed that Agnes and her two hundred weird sisters "had baptised and drowned a black cat, thereby raising a dreadful storm," which had nearly proved fatal to a ship that carried the superstitious monarch. The poor woman, though she protested her innocence to the last, perished at the stake, supplicating in vain for mercy from the king and her Christian fellow-subjects. Strange to say, the second batch of witches condemned at Lancaster in 1633, but pardoned by Charles I., were accused of similarly interfering with the weather during a royal cruise. A letter in the State Paper Office, written May 16, 1634, by Sir William Pelham to Lord Conway, contains the following:—
"The greatest news from the country is of a huge pack of witches which are lately discovered in Lancashire, whereof 'tis said 19 are condemned, and that there are at least 60 already discovered, and yet daily there are more revealed: there are divers of them of good ability, and they have done much harm. I hear it is suspected that they had a hand in raising the great storm, wherein his Majesty (Charles I.) was in so great danger at sea in Scotland."
The writer of the article "Hertfordshire," in "Knight's Cyclopædia," has the following singular reference to the belief in witchcraft in that part of England, about the middle of last century:—
"There has been no public event since (temp. Charles I.) of any moment connected with the county; but a circumstance which occurred in April of the year 1751, deserves notice as marking the extent of popular ignorance and barbarity at that period. A publican near Tring being troubled with fits, conceived that he was bewitched by an old woman named Osborne. Notice was given by the crier that two witches were to be tried by ducking; and in consequence a vast mob assembled at the time appointed. The old woman and her husband, who had been in Tring workhouse, were removed into the church for safety; but the mob obtained possession of the old man and the old woman, whom they then dragged two miles to a muddy stream, ducked them and otherwise so maltreated them that the woman died on the spot, and the man with difficulty recovered. Thomas Colley, one of the perpetrators, was executed on the spot; but so strong was the infatuation of the populace, that it was thought necessary to have a guard of more than 100 troopers to escort the cavalcade to the place of execution."
Yes, the ignorance and infatuation had ceased to be "respectable," which fact, doubtless, has a marvellous influence on our mental and moral optics, when contemplating many other historical delusions, as well as those connected with supposed witches and their malevolent doings.
A singular instance of combined delusion and imposture with respect to witchcraft, is related in Ralph Gardiner's "malicious invective against the government of Newcastle-on-Tyne," entitled "England's Grievance Discovered in Relation to the Coal-Trade," and published in 1655. It appears that about five or six years previously, the magistrates of the borough had sent two of their sergeants into Scotland, "to agree with a Scotchman, who pretended knowledge to find out Witches by pricking them with pins, to come to Newcastle, where he should try such who should be brought to him, and to have twenty shillings a peece for all he could condemn as witches, and free passage thither and back again." Many poor women were subjected to much indignity by this fellow, who caused them to be stripped partially naked, when he inserted pins into various parts of their flesh, to find a place from which no blood would issue, as he pretended. On one occasion, however, he was detected and compelled to acknowledge that a respectable woman, whom he had grossly treated and condemned, was "not a child of the Devil," as he had previously insisted. It appears that this worthy afterwards visited other parts of Northumberland, "to try women there, where he got some three pound a peece." The author adds, "it was conceived if he had staid he would have made most of the women in the North Witches for mony." He gives the names of fifteen poor wretches who were hanged at Newcastle at this impostor's instigation, and says, "These poor souls never confessed anything, but pleaded innocence: And one of them by name Margaret Brown beseeched God that some remarkable sign might be seen at the time of their execution, to evidence their innocence, and as soon as ever she was turned off the ladder, her blood gushed out upon the people to the admiration of the beholders!" The said witchfinder at length met with the fate he so richly merited. He was, in the words of the indignant author, "laid hold on in Scotland, cast into prison, indicted, arraigned, and condemned for such like villainie exercised in Scotland. And upon the gallows he confessed he had been the death of about two hundred and twenty women in England and Scotland for the gain of twenty shillings a peece, and beseeched forgiveness. And was executed." Singularly enough, our author himself met with a similar untimely fate, but for a very different crime, as appears from the following MS. note, in the copy of Gardiner's work before the present writer, purporting to be extracted from a "MS. Life of Barnes, p. 420":—"Upon some methods agreed on for reformation of Manners in the Town according to that clause in the charter which empowers them to make By-laws, there was one Gardiner writ a malicious Invective against the Government of Newcastle, but he got his Reward, being afterwards at York hanged for Coyning."
The celebrated "witchfinder," Hopkins, was equally unfortunate with his Scotch compeer. Some individuals, with more acumen than the superstitious masses, took it into their heads to experiment upon Hopkins himself. Accordingly they seized him, tied his thumbs and toes together, after his own fashion, when operating on others. On placing him on the water he swam as buoyantly as his victims. "This," says one writer, "cleared the country of him, and it was a great pity that they did not think of the experiment sooner." Hopkins's method of discovering witches is, at least, as old as the days of Pliny the elder.
In the "Covntrey Ivstice," by "Michael Dalton, Lincoln's Inn, Gent," published in 1618, are some curious illustrations of the state of the law with regard to witchcraft, at the period. The author says:—
"Now against these witches the Iustices of peace may not alwaies expect direct euidence, seeing all their works are the works of darknesse, and no witnesses present with them to accuse them: And therefore for their better discouerie, I thought good here to insert certaine obseruations out of the booke of discouery of the Witches that were arraigned at Lancaster, Ann. Dom. 1612, before Sir Iames Altham, and Sir Edw. Bromely Iudges of Assise there.
"1. They haue ordinarily a familiar, or spirit, which appeareth to them.
"2. Their said familiar hath some bigg or place vpon their body, where he sucketh them.
"3. They haue often pictures of clay, or waxe (like a man, &c.) found in their house.
"4. If the dead body bleed, vpon the Witches touching it.
"5. The testimony of the person hurt, vpon his death.
"6. The examination and confession of the children or servants of the Witch.
"7. Their owne voluntary confession, which exceeds all other euidence."
Bodin, a French writer, in his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," published in 1587, says, "On half-proof or strong presumption, the judge may proceed to torture." The judge might, moreover, in his opinion, lie with impunity, and promise a suspected person a pardon on confession, without the intention of carrying it into effect. But this is not much from a man, who could cite with approval and even relish, the decision of a magistrate that a person "who had eaten flesh on a Friday should be burned alive unless he repented, and if he repented, yet he was hanged out of compassion." Yet this same Bodin was a Protestant, forsooth!
Walburgar, writing in the following century, is not much less tolerant of judicial mendacity. He does not, indeed, recommend direct lying, but equivocation. The judge may inform the suspected that her confession will induce in him favourable action, that a new house should be built for her, and that it will tend to the saving of her life. And yet, after the poor deluded creature has committed herself, he regards it as perfectly just and honourable that the sapient administrator of the law should inform her that his action in burning her will be favourable to the commonwealth, that her new house will be of wood at the stake, and that the destruction of her body will tend to the salvation of her soul!
In Würtzburg, as recently as 1749, a girl was burnt alive as a legally condemned practitioner of witchcraft. Witches were burned in Scotland till 1772, and in France in 1718. The severe acts passed in the reign of James I., condemnatory of witchcraft, were not repealed till the 9th George II. (1736).
There appears to have been three kinds of witches—the black, the white, and the grey. The black had power only for evil, the white for good, and the grey possessed authority both in matters good and evil. These seem to have originally been merely personifications of the black, white, and grey-coloured clouds of the Aryan elemental conflicts. Perhaps Shakspere formed his principal group of three from the circumstance that the destiny of his hero was influenced to some extent by one of each class. Many altars, of the period of the Roman occupation, dedicated to the deæ matres, or mother goddesses, have been found in various parts of the north of England. It is believed they were introduced by Teutonic auxiliaries. These deities have undergone much change in their transference to more modern superstitions; but some of their attributes may be detected without difficulty. Mr. Thomas Wright, in "Celt, Roman, and Saxon," says:
"They are sometimes regarded as the three Fates—the norni of the north, the wæleyrian of the Anglo-Saxons (the weird sisters, transformed in Shakspere into three witches) disposing of the fates of individuals, and dealing out life and death. But they are also found distributing rewards and punishments, giving wealth and property, and conferring fruitfulness. They are the three fairies who are often introduced in the fairy legends of a later period, with these same characteristics."
I have said that many of the "theatrical properties" of mediæval witchcraft may be traced to an Aryan origin. The chief of these, the cauldron, is familiar to all from Shakspere's admirable pictures in Macbeth. I have previously referred to the fact that the phrase "brewing a storm" is derived from this source. Cauldron stories are common amongst ancient tribes. Guy of Warwick's "porridge pot" is of this class. Kelly says, speaking of the "genii of the lightning, the beings who brewed and lightned in the storm,"—
"If the Bhrigus or their associates were brewers they must needs have had brewing utensils; at the very least they must have had a brewing pot; and therefore we are justified in referring back the origin of the witches' cauldron to the remotest antiquity. Perhaps the oldest example of such a vessel of which there is any distinct record is the cauldron which Thor carried off from the giant Hymir, to brew drink for the gods at Oegir's harvest feast. It was five miles deep, and modern expounders of the Eddic myths are of opinion that it was the vaulted sky."
It must be borne in mind that the "heavenly liquor," so much vaunted, was neither more nor less than rain water, "brewed" by the action of the storm deities and their assistants, whether dignified by the name of soma, amrita, or nectar.
Robert Hunt, in his "Superstitions of Old Cornwall," describes the modus operandi of a celebrated witch at Fraddam, when engaged in brewing a liquor of "wondrous potency," which clearly exhibits the "elemental strife" that lies at the base of these superstitions. She "collected with the utmost care all the deadly things she could obtain, with which to brew her famous drink. In the darkest night, in the midst of the wildest storms, amidst the flashings of lightnings and the bellowings of the thunder, the witch was seen riding on her black ram-cat over the moors and mountains in search of her poisons. At length all was complete—the horse-drink was boiled, the hell-broth was brewed. It was in March, about the time of the equinox; the night was dark, and the King of Storms was abroad."
Olaus Magnus speaks of the storm-raising powers and propensities of the Scandinavian witches as amongst their most remarkable attributes.
The sieve, amongst all nations of the Aryan stock, and even of some others, has been regarded as a mythical implement of this class. Witches used them as boats, notwithstanding their inability to float on water. The supernatural, of course, easily overcame so trifling a physical difficulty. The premier weird woman in Shakspere's group, referring to the scoff she had received from a sailor's wife, says:—
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger;
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, I'll do.
It is not improbable that witch-sailing would be originally through the air rather than on the water. The sieve, amongst the Aryans, was a cloud emblem; the implement by means of which water was filtered into rain-drops. The upper regions were more affected by witches than the oceanic "waste of waters." In the opening scene in Macbeth, the well-known trio, at the conclusion of their séance, "hover through the fog and filthy air." They appear to have intimate relationship to the clouds and the weather:—
1st Witch—When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
2nd Witch—When the hurly-burly's done; When the battle's lost and won.
Though unable to totally wreck the seaman's bark, the first witch assures her companions that "it shall be tempest toss'd." When Banquo asks Macbeth, "Whither are they vanished?" the latter answers:—
Into the air; and what seemed corporal melted
As breath into the wind.
In his letter to his wife, he likewise observes: "They made themselves—air, into which they vanished." Hecate, in the third act, after giving instructions to the weird host, says:—
I'm for the air; this night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vapourous drop profound
I'll catch, ere it come to the ground;
And that distill'd by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
And previous to departing, Hecate further says:—
Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.
Hecate, in the classical mythology, is the Pandemonium name for Diana. This goddess was known by the latter appellation on earth, and by that of Luna in heaven. Hence the absurdity of converting her into a burly masculine basso in the so-called "Locke's music," introduced with very questionable taste into Shakspere's sublime tragedy of Macbeth. Proserpina, the wife of Pluto, is confounded with Hecate. She was supposed to preside over sorceries and incantations.
Grimm, although he, in one of his tales, speaks of "angels drawing water in a perforated vessel," seems not to have clearly interpreted the mythic import of the sieve. He, however, expressly says that it "appears to be a sacred archaic implement to which marvellous powers were attributed." Liebrecht speaks of a tribe of water-spirits, or cloud-gods, the Draci of Languedoc, with "hands perforated like colanders." The Grecian Naiads, with their urns, and the various river-gods, from old Tiber or Ilissus to Father Thames, are but more artistic modifications of a similar thought.
There is a tradition, in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh, near Preston, to the effect that during some drought, "in the olden time," a gigantic dun cow appeared and gave an almost unlimited supply of milk, which saved the inhabitants from death. An old woman—of the witch fraternity, I suspect—however, with the view to obtain from the beast more than the usual number of pails-full, milked the cow with a sieve, riddle, or colander, which, of course, never became full, as the precious liquid passed through the orifices into a vessel below. When full, the latter was replaced by an empty one of a similar character. The tradition adds that the cow either died of grief, on detecting the imposture, or from sheer exhaustion, I forget which. A locality is still pointed out, named "Cow Hill," where gossips aver that, in relatively recent times, the huge bones of the said cow were disinterred. Over the porch of a house on the way from Goosnargh to Longridge, I remember, not very long ago, seeing a large bone, apparently a rib, placed in a conspicuous position. This was stated to have been a portion of the skeleton so disinterred. I fancied at the time that, in Polonius's phraseology, the bone in question was suggestive of something "very like a whale." It is not improbable, however, that at some early period, the remains of the huge extinct ox, the bos primigenius, or even the elephas primigenius or fossil mammoth, may have been exhumed in the neighbourhood of Grimsargh. Many bones and skulls of the former have been dredged from the bed of the Ribble, and others taken from the fluvial drift excavated in the valley when preparing for the foundations of the piers of the railway bridges in the neighbourhood of Preston. Bones of two species of fossil elephant, two species of rhinoceros, and other extinct pachyderms of huge dimensions, have recently been found in connection with early flint implements, indicative of the presence of man, in the fresh water gravel belonging to what Lyell terms the post-pliocene period of the earth's history, both in France and in several parts of England. Some such discovery, grafted upon the ancient Aryan tradition respecting the heavenly cows, or rain-giving clouds, opportunely rescuing the parched vegetation from premature decay, might very easily eventuate in such a tradition as the one current in Grimsargh at the present day.
Some of the deeds of the Saxon giant, the celebrated Guy of Warwick, appear to enshrine elements of myths of a similar character. In the "Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet," we read:—
By gallant Guy of Warwick slain
Was Colbrand, that gigantic Dane.
Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt
A dun cow bigger than elephaunt:
But he, to prove his courage sterling,
His whinyard in her blood embrued.
He cut from her enormous side a sirloin,
And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew'd,
Then butcher'd a wild boar, and eat him barbicu'd.[23]
We have here the cow, or rain cloud, the boar, typical of the lightning, and the human giant or warrior substitute for Indra or Odin, in the Aryan and Teutonic mythologies.
The ribs of the gigantic dun cow, said to have been slain by the redoubtable Guy, are still preserved at Warwick. A similar rib is to be seen in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, and another at Chesterfield. At an inn in Lincolnshire, a huge scapula is exhibited as a relic of the famous dun cow. The tradition at Bristol asserts that, at some former period, the said bovine monster supplied the whole of the city with milk. This coincides with the Grimsargh tradition. One Warwick legend too asserts that the cow had been driven mad by the overmilking of a witch. Another says that the cow was slain by Guy during a season of great scarcity, and that the consumption of its flesh saved the inhabitants from perishing of famine. The large rib in the Foljambe Chapel, Warwick, is said to measure seven feet four inches in length, and from twelve to thirteen inches in circumference. Frank Buckland, in his "Curiosities of Natural History," says, "the ribs of the dun cow at Warwick and the gigantic rib at St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, are the bones of whales."
Tom Brown ("Amusements for the Meridian of London," 1700) mentions a remarkable superstitious reverence for the milk of a red cow. Referring to the Green Walk, St. James's Park, London, he says: "There were a cluster of senators talking of state affairs, and the price of corn and cattle, and were disturbed with the noisy Milk folk crying: 'A can of Milk, ladies; a can of Red Cow's Milk, sirs?' This appears to be a remnant of the Aryan reverence for the heavenly fire or the lightning, which they believed to be typified in the red breast of the robin, the red mutch of the woodpecker, and the red colour of other 'fire-bringers.'"
In the Vedas, the dawn is symbolised by the goddess Ushas, by philologists regarded as the prototype of the Greek Eôs, and the Latin Aurora. The ruddy light on the eastern horizon which preceded the sunrise, was regarded as a herd of red cows attendant upon her. In the Vedic hymns she is sometimes addressed as a quail. Kelly says, "Vartikâ, the Sanscrit name of the bird, corresponds etymologically with ortyx, its Greek name; and in the myths of Greece and Asia Minor the quail is a symbol of light and heat."
The early Greek mythology has preserved some remains of this bovine personification of the ruddy dawn clouds. Mr. Gladstone, in "Juventus Mundi," says, "Although animal worship has played so considerable a part in the religions of the East, the traces of it in Homer are few, and, with one exception, they are also faint. That exception is the extraordinary sanctity attaching, in the Twelfth Odyssey, to the Oxen of the Sun, which I have treated as belonging to the Ph[oe]nician system, and as foreign to the Olympian religion." Notwithstanding this, the evidence in favour of the Aryan origin of the myth seems indisputable. Dr. Benisch, in one of his expositions of "Maimonides and Kimchito" to members of the Society of Hebrew Literature, on the 30th of March, 1871, stated that he was engaged in a comparison of the Semitic and Aryan tongues, with a view to establish many more points of contact than are usually admitted to exist between these two families of speech.
Red cow's milk is an important element in a recipe for the cure of consumption in Dr. Sampson Jones's "Medicine Boke," published in the latter portion of the seventeenth century. Red is especially mentioned as the colour of the heifer set apart for sacrifice for the purification of sin in Numbers, chapter 19; and scarlet is specified as the colour of one of the articles "cast into the midst of the burning of the heifer." Thousands of persons yet believe that there is more warmth in red flannel than in either black, white, blue, or yellow.
On some public-house signs it is not uncommon to refer to the liquor sold within as the "dun cow's milk." On one, between York and Durham, we read the following:—
Oh, come you from the east,
Oh, come you from the west,
If ye will taste the Dun Cow's milk,
Y'll say it is the best.
The Durham legend of St. Cuthbert's dun cow is well known in the North of England. The eccentric saint would not permit a cow to approach his sacred residence at Lindisfarne. He excused himself for this strange freak by averring that "where there is a cow there must be a woman, and where there is a woman there must be mischief." Has not the Scotchman's "mountain dew" some figurative relationship to the Aryan heavenly soma?
A belief in the influence of witches on the milk and butter yielding habits of cows is yet very widely entertained. In his "Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish," Camden says: "If a cow becomes dry a witch is applied to, who, inspiring her with a fondness for some other calf, makes her yield her milk." He further observes that they slaughter all hares found amongst their cattle on May-day, from a belief that they are witches, who, having designs on their butter, have assumed this form the better to effect their purpose. Other authorities speak of the general belief in witches sucking the dugs of cows in the form of hares. A writer in the Athenæum, as recently as 1846, refers to a certain Scotch witch, who, he says, "has been seen a hundred times milking the cows in the shape of a hare." A Scotch witch, recently deceased, named Margery Scott, firmly believed that she had been frequently transmuted into a hare and hunted by dogs.
Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Drolls, Superstitions, and Traditions of Old Cornwall," relates a very amusing story about "the witch of Treva." Being without food, the husband of the old crone, who doubted her pretended supernatural power, asked, as a proof to which he would yield, that she would walk to St. Ives and back, a distance of five miles, and procure some substantial human victuals. This she undertook to effect in the space of half-an-hour. The man kept his eye on her for some time, after she started on her strange errand, "and at the bottom of the hill he saw his wife quietly place herself on the ground and disappear. In her place a fine hare ran on at its full speed." He further adds that the woman returned within the prescribed time, and brought with her "good flesh and taties, all ready for aiting!" When the said crone was carried to her grave, she caused much amazement and even terror by her mad pranks. "When they were about half way between the house and the church, a hare started from the roadside and leaped over the coffin. The terrified bearers let the corpse fall to the ground, and ran away. Another lot of men took up the coffin and proceeded. They had not gone far when puss was suddenly seen seated on the coffin, and again the coffin was abandoned." After considerable labour and much tribulation, we are informed the parson commenced "the ordinary burial service, and there stood the hare, which, as soon as the clergyman began 'I am the resurrection and the life,' uttered a diabolical howl, changed into a black, unshapen creature, and disappeared!"
One of the Saxon forms of the goddess Freyja, according to Mannhardt, has hares for trainbearers, and another walks at night in the fields of Aargau, accompanied by a hare of silver-grey colour. The prevalent superstition that a hare crossing the highway before any person prognosticated ill-fortune, doubtless, has its origin in the witchcraft association. Perhaps the story of the hare's nest, to which children are sent in search of eggs at Easter, in Swabia and Hesse, according to Meier, is the original of our "mare's nest," and has some reference to the supposed supernatural attributes of the animal. Mannhardt says the hare is reputed to be a fire and soul bringer; that many kinder-brünnen (baby fountains) are so named from this circumstance; and that children are supposed to be procured from the hare's form, as well as from the parsley bed. We learn from Cæsar that the Ancient Britons held the hare in reverence, and refused, therefore, to kill it for food.
Sir Jno. Lubbock, Lyell and others are of opinion that to the existence of this feeling may be attributed the almost total absence of the bones of the hare amongst the débris of the ancient Swiss lake dwellings, and the kjökkenmöddings or shell mounds of Denmark. The superstition yet exists amongst the Laplanders of the present day. According to Burton, the Somal Arabs reject it as the Hottentot men do, although their women may partake of it as food, and M. Schlegel informs us that the Chinese entertain a prejudice against the animal. Owing to a false impression respecting the hare chewing its cud, the Jews pronounced it to be unclean, and therefore rejected it as food. Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, when she had harangued her soldiers, opened the drapery around her bosom and let go a hare, which she had concealed. The frightened animal's antics, according to the then orthodox laws of divination, indicated a successful issue to the pending expedition. The warrior queen improved the occasion, led her enthusiastic troops against the highly disciplined Roman legions, and vanquished them.
Kelly is satisfied of the Aryan origin of the animal's supernatural reputation. He says,—"The hare is no doubt mythically connected with the phenomena of the sky, but upon what natural grounds it has been credited with such meteoric relations is a point not yet determined. I incline to think it will be found to lie, in part at least, in the habits which the animal displays about the time of the vernal equinox, and which have given rise to the popular saying, 'as mad as a March hare.' And perhaps this very restlessness in rough weather has been the cause of the animal being regarded as a disguised witch, actively engaged in 'brewing storms.'"
Cats, as well as hares, have the reputation of being weather wise; hence their association with witches or "wise women." Hecate was supposed to frequently assume the feline form. Shakspere's witches evidently held it in reverence. One says, with great solemnity, on a momentous occasion, "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd." A very strong belief yet obtains, amongst persons better educated than the Lancashire peasantry, that cats can see better in the dark than in the light, and that they possess nine lives, or, in other words, that they require killing nine times, before they remain permanently defunct. The author of "Choice Notes" says that sailors have a firm belief that the presence of a dead hare on board ship is certain to bring about bad weather. They likewise object to having cats on board, and when one happens to be more frisky than usual, like a "mad March hare," they have a saying that "the cat has got a gale of wind in her tail." The same authority says that the throwing of a cat overboard will infallibly bring on a storm. Mannhardt says, in Germany, anyone who, during his lifetime, may have made cats his enemies, is certain to be accompanied to the grave with wind and rain. A writer in Notes and Queries refers to a Dutch superstition of this class, in which a rainy wedding day is supposed to result from the bride's neglecting to feed her cat. Walter Kelly thinks "the question why the chariot of the goddess Freyja was drawn by cats, and why Holda was attended by maidens riding on cats, or themselves disguised in feline form, is easily solved. Like the lynx, and the owl of Pallas Athenê, the cat owes its celestial honours above all to its eyes, that gleam in the dark like fire, but the belief in its supernatural powers may very probably have been corroborated by the common observation that the cat, like the stormy boar, is a weather wise animal."
This connection of the goddess Freyja (whence our Friday) with the feline personification of stormy weather, may lay at the root of the prejudice of sailors against commencing a voyage on that day. That this superstition has yet strong hold on the nautical imagination, was recently (1871), attested by the fact that, in consequence of the loss of the ill-fated turret-ship, "Captain," which had left port on a Friday, the "Agincourt," in order to satisfy the clamour of the crew, did not leave Gibraltar on the presumedly fatal day. The departure of the last-named war-ship on the Saturday, however, did not prevent her striking on the "Pearl Rock" shortly afterwards. This fact might, perhaps, stagger Jack's faith for a moment, but superstition is tougher than actual experience in many of its phases, and Friday will still be a black letter day in the sailor's calendar.
Hallam, in his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," when discussing the probabilities of the guilt or innocence of the Knights Templars, concerning which there still exists great diversity of opinion, refers to the evidence adduced by M. von Hammer as the most difficult of refutation. This authority contends that the adoption of the infamous practices of the Gnostic superstition, which the Templars are said to have imported from the East, is proved by certain obscene sculptures found in secret places in edifices erected by the members of this order in various parts of Europe. He says these scandalous figures resemble those in the Gnostic churches. Hallam adds, however, "The Stadinghi, heretics of the thirteenth century, are charged, in a bull of Gregory IX., with exactly the same profaneness, even including the black cat (canis aut gattus niger) as the Templars of the next century. This is said by Von Hammer to be confirmed by sculptures." May not these coincidences have arisen from the common Aryan origin of the pagan superstitions; and, in some instances, at least, in the figurative meaning of the sculptures referred to? There was a famous "cat stone" in Leyland old church, which was said to be the "devil in the form of a cat," who "throttled" an individual that witnessed his removal, by night, of the stones used by the builders of the church in the day-time. The morals, as well as the manners, of the thirteenth century were very different to those of the nineteenth; and yet I could point out, within Lancashire and Cheshire, at least two instances, where obnoxious sculpture of this class has been preserved from mediæval times to the present day.
The notorious besom or broomstick is an instrument in the operations of witchcraft common to all the Aryan nations. According to the "Asiatic Register," for 1801, the Eastern, as well as the European witches, "practice their spells by dancing at midnight, and the principal instrument they use on such occasions is a broom." It is regarded as "a type of the winds, and therefore an appropriate utensil in the hands of the witches, who are wind makers and workers in that element."
Dr. Kuhn says, "In the Mark, an old broom is burned in order to raise a wind. Sailors, after long toiling against a contrary wind, on meeting another ship sailing in an opposite direction, will throw an old broom before the vessel, which, they contend, will reverse the wind, and consequently cause it to blow in their favour."
Burns, in his "Address to the Deil," makes his witches and warlocks "skim the muirs and dizzy crags" on "ragweed nags," "wi' wicked speed." Witches notoriously ride swiftly and easily through the air astride of a broomstick.[24] Hence this superstition may be said to personify the light scudding clouds that pass rapidly across the sky, and herald squally weather. Dr. Kuhn regards the broom as the implement used by the Aryan demi-deities in sweeping the sky; for that such was a portion of the duty devolving upon its riders may be inferred from the still existing Hartz tradition that witches must dance away all the snow upon the Blocksberg, on the first of May.
The hanging out of a broom when a man's wife is from home, to intimate to the husband's unmarried friends that the usual matrimonial restraint is temporarily suspended, and that bachelor fare and bachelor habits will be the order of the day, for a time, is yet well known in Lancashire. I am not aware how far it is practised or understood in other parts of the country, neither have I been able to find a satisfactory explanation of its origin. As the "Lancashire witches" of the present day do "work their spells" upon their masculine friends, though in a more pleasing form and agreeable manner than their haggard and aged predecessors, it is not improbable that the emblem of power may have accompanied the transmission of the once dreaded appellation. Brooms, after being used in the performance of divers mythical ceremonies, were hung up in houses, and regarded, like pieces of the rowan or mountain ash-tree, as powerful charms against the entrance of evil doers. Perhaps the "bachelor husband" of by-gone times removed the broom to the outside of the house with the view to destroy its power over the interior, as well as to inform his roystering friends that the coast was clear, and that there existed no impediment to unlimited jollification.[25] Dr. Kuhn says in several parts of Westphalia, at Shrovetide, cows' horns are decorated with white besoms with white handles. After the house has been swept by them, they are hung, as a kind of talisman, over or near the door of the cow-house. Have these white besoms any relationship to those ornamental ones formerly much hawked in England by German peasant girls, who likewise sung in the streets the once popular song, "Buy a broom?"
Gaule says there were "eight classes of witches distinguished by their operations: first, the diviner, gipsy or fortune telling witch; second, the astrologian, star-gazing, planetary, prognosticating witch; third, the chanting, canting, or calculating witch, who works by signs or numbers; fourth, the venefick, or poisonous witch; fifth, the exorcist, or conjuring witch; sixth, the gastromantick witch; seventh, the magical, speculative, sciential, or arted witch; eighth, the necromancer."
Many of the practices of the modern gipsies seem to have much in common with the older witchcraft. Fortune telling, divination, &c., appear to be their chief professional avocations at the present time, notwithstanding the magisterial rigour to which such imposture is subjected. Much learned discussion has been evoked concerning the origin of this singular people. They appear to have been first generally noticed in Europe about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Some are said, however, to have arrived in Switzerland somewhat earlier. They were styled gipsies because they were believed to have wandered into Europe from Egypt. Their language, and their superstitions, however, show their true origin to have been Indian. Some writers contend that they left that country at the time of the celebrated Timour's invasion, early in the fifteenth century, and that their first resting place being in the country called Zinganen, near the mouth of the Indus, probably explains why in some countries they are called Zingari. Their next resting place being Egypt most probably gave rise to their English appellation. On the whole it seems not improbable that they spring from the pariahs or lowest caste of Hindoos, now named Suders. The glass globe or egg-shaped instrument, in which they profess to detect supernatural revelations, appears to belong either to the sun image or thunderbolt type of the Aryan mythology. Some of their conjuring, juggling, and other feats of skill are suggestive of a similar paternity. But the identity of the languages, in several essentials, notwithstanding much corruption of the gipsy dialects, in consequence of their admixture with those of other nations, is perhaps the most conclusive proof of the Hindoo origin of these Zingari tribes.
The superstitious belief in the supernatural yet exists in Lancashire, as well as in other counties of England, to a much greater extent than highly educated people are apt to imagine. Gipsies ply their trade with profit, and "wise women" and witches are by no means extinct. The county of Somerset has recently furnished two remarkable illustrations of this. The following appeared in the public press in June, 1871:—
"LINGERING SUPERSTITION.—At Wincanton, in Somersetshire, the magistrates have had before them a charge arising out of the belief in witchcraft which still prevails in that county. Ann Green accused a labourer named William Higham of assaulting her. It appeared that the defendant had long laboured under the delusion that he was 'overlooked' by the complainant, and in order to break the spell he stabbed her twice. The sleeves of the garments which were worn by the complainant were produced in court, saturated with blood. The prisoner gravely informed the Bench that he did it to destroy Mrs. Green's power over him, but that he had not yet found any relief. The prisoner's mother said she had not been able to rest for a fortnight past, as he was constantly saying that Mrs. Green was 'overlooking' him, and that it would kill him. He was ordered to find sureties or to be imprisoned for three weeks."
The following "went the round of the papers" in July, 1870:—
"A strange case of superstition has been brought before the magistrates of Wincanton, in Somerset. A young man named Lamb, fancying that a certain young woman, Mary Crees, had bewitched him, rushed upon her, seized her by the throat, and pulling out his penknife, attempted to wound her. In reply to the Bench he said, 'She overlooks I; that's as true as the hat's in my hand, and I wanted to draw blood to stop her.' Two years ago he fell down in a fit on seeing her."
The Manchester Examiner and Times, of June 24th, 1871, contained the following "short leader":—
"The metropolitan police have been engaged in a laudable attempt at putting down fortune-telling. They made a 'raid' the other evening upon several professors of the cabalistic art, and in one house found thirty or forty young women waiting to have their 'fortunes told.' Perhaps the most important of the gentlemen arrested on the occasion was a Mr. George Shepherd, who, however, appeared in handbills printed for extensive circulation under the name of 'Professor Cicero, of Rome, Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land.' His rooms were fitted up with all the symbols of his craft, in every branch of which he professed to be an adept. The fees varied from sixpence to half-a-crown, according to the nature of the service rendered, and a list was found in the place showing the number of visitors—that is, customers—in so many consecutive weeks. These figures, which have a certain interest as throwing light upon the prevalence of popular credulity, ran as follow: 662, 250, 502, 380, 512, 513, 430, 89, 466. In Easter-week, including Good Friday, there were only 217 callers, proving that the attractions of a holiday outweigh even those of a visit to a modern temple of divination. But the subject has a serious as well as a romantic side. The four 'Professors' were all 'found guilty,' and committed to gaol for three calendar months with hard labour. Probably no effectual stop will be put to a very silly practice until the dupes are convicted as well as the prime agents. It is perfectly well known that fortune-telling is illegal, and a penalty should attach to all who figure in the transaction, whether as seconds or principals."
The following appeared in a Manchester paper in 1865:—
"SUPERSTITION IN SALFORD.—At the Salford Town Hall, yesterday, John Rhodes, apparently a respectable man, living at 226, Regent Road, was charged, under the Vagrancy Act, with telling fortunes. A girl, named Ellen Cooper, stated that she saw the prisoner at his house, on Tuesday. After she had told him the date of her nativity, the prisoner cast her horoscope, and told her what she might expect would be her future fortune. For this she paid a shilling, which she understood was his regular charge. During the time the girl was there, several other females called on a similar errand, but did not stay. From information given by the girl, Cooper, two detective officers called at the prisoner's house on Thursday, where they found him with a female standing beside him, whose future destiny he was busy calculating, aided by an astrological work and a large slate. On the latter were what was apparently intended as a representation of the movements of the heavenly bodies. In the prisoner's house the officers found a large number of books, including 'An Introduction to Astrology,' by William Lilly; 'Raphael's Prophetic Alphabet'; 'Occult Philosophy,' by Cornelius Agrippa (in manuscript); a work on horary astrology, &c. Besides these, six large volumes were seized, which were filled with the names and the dates of the nativities of his clients, neatly surrounded, in each case, with hieroglyphics. In addition to these were manuscripts with forms of invocations to spirits to do the will and bidding of the invoker; also love spells, and forms for invoking evil destinies. The text of one of these was as follows:—'I adjure and command you, ye strong, mighty, and powerful spirits, who are rulers of this day and hour, that ye obey me in this my cause by placing my husband in his former situation under the Trent Brewery Company, and I adjure you to banish all his enemies out of his way and to make them to crouch in humiliation unto him and acknowledge all the wrongs they have done unto him, and I bind you by the name of Almighty God, and by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His precious blood, and on pain of everlasting damnation, that you labour for him and complete and accomplish the whole of this my will and desire, and not depart till the whole of this my will and desire be fulfilled, and when you have accomplished the whole of these my commands you shall be released from all these bonds and demands, and this I guarantee through the blood of the Redeemer and on pain of my future happiness. Let angels praise the Lord. Amen.' Amongst the papers found there was sufficient evidence that, amongst the prisoner's many hundreds of clients, there were those who moved in a sphere of life not peculiar to the poorer classes. Mr. Roberts defended the prisoner. Mr. Trafford said the practice was so mischievous that he could not let the prisoner off without some punishment; he must therefore send him to prison for seven days."
From the following, which appeared in the New Zealand Herald in 1865, it appears the belief in witchcraft produces serious results amongst the Maories:—
"From Kawhia we hear of wars and rumours of wars, instigated probably by the desire of the semi-friendly natives there to be put on rations and receive pay. Hone Wetere (John Wesley) late native magistrate there, who was deposed from his office four years ago for the abduction of a native woman, the wife of a sawyer named Wright, has been adding to the interest of native proceedings at the present time by the commission of a most brutal murder. It seems that this late learned interpreter of the law had, with a zeal worthy of Matthew Hopkins, condemned an old Maori woman of 'makutu,' or witchcraft, and punished her by his own hands, cutting off her head on the spot. This may appear to Auckland philo-Maories as something startling and, perhaps, out of the way, but to us here it is no extraordinary event. It is only a few years since two natives in our district murdered a man and woman for the same reason, and cooked a copper Maori over their grave. Much about the same time, at Kawhia, a native and his wife pulled the heart out of their living child under the impression that the poor infant was bewitched."
M. Paul B. Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land," relates many striking instances of the popular belief in witchcraft which exists in Western Equatorial Africa. He says:—
"As usual I heard a harrowing tale of witchcraft in the course of the day. Few weeks pass away in these unhappy villages without something of this kind happening. A poor fellow was singing a mournful song, seated on the ground in the village street; and on enquiring the cause of his grief I was told that the chief of the village near his having died, and the magic doctor having declared that five persons had bewitched him, the mother, sister, and brother of the poor mourner had just been ruthlessly massacred by the excited people, and his own house and plantation burnt and laid waste." He describes at length the ceremonies attending the drinking of the mboundou, or the ordeal by poison, which he witnessed at Mayolo. If the poison kills the suspected person he is pronounced guilty; but if, as in three instances he witnessed, the drinker should, after severe spasms, vomit the deadly potion, he generally recovers, and is declared innocent of the charge of witchcraft preferred against him.
From these instances, and others which might be adduced, it is clear that this superstition is a very ancient and a very universal one, in some form, and therefore, not necessarily of exclusively Aryan origin; but that it may result from similar conditions to which humanity is, or has been, subjected in various parts of the globe. It is not impossible, however, that the African instances referred to may have some very remote connection with the Aryan superstitions of a similar character, for M. Du Chaillu expressly declares his belief that the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Western Equatorial Africa migrated from the east. He says:—"The migration of the tribes, as I have already observed, seems to have followed the same laws as migrations among ourselves; I did not meet with a single tribe or clan who said they came from the west; they all pointed to the east as the place they came from."
Mr. T. T. Wilkinson gives the following very graphic description of a Burnley witch, but recently deceased:—
"Most nations of all ages have been accustomed to deck the graves of their dead with appropriate flowers, much as we do at present. The last words of the dying have, from the earliest times, been considered of prophetic import; and, according to Theocritus, some one of those present have endeavoured to receive into his mouth the last breath of a dying parent or friend, 'as fancying the soul to pass out with it and enter into their own bodies.' Few would expect to find this singular custom still existing in Lancashire, and yet such is the fact. Witchcraft can boast her votaries in this county even up to the present date, and she numbers this practice amongst her rites and ceremonies. Not many years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood of Burnley, a female whose malevolent practices were supposed to render themselves manifest by the injuries she inflicted on her neighbours' cattle; and many a lucky-stone, many a stout horseshoe and rusty sickle, may now be found behind the doors or hung from the beams of the cow-houses and stables belonging to the farmers in that locality, which date their suspension from the time when this good old lady held the country side in awe. Not one of her neighbours ever dared to offend her openly; and if she at any time preferred a request it was granted at all hazards, regardless of inconvenience and expense. If in some thoughtless moment any one spoke slightingly either of her or her powers, a corresponding penalty was threatened as soon as it reached her ears, and the loss of cattle, personal health, or a general 'run of bad luck' soon led the offending party to think seriously of making peace with his powerful tormentor. As time wore on she herself sickened and died; but before she could 'shuffle off this mortal coil,' she must needs transfer her familiar spirit to some trusty successor. An intimate acquaintance from a neighbouring township was consequently sent for in all haste, and on her arrival was immediately closeted with her dying friend. What passed between them has never fully transpired, but it is confidently affirmed that at the close of the interview this associate received the witch's last breath into her mouth, and with it the familiar spirit. The dreaded woman thus ceased to exist, but her powers for good or evil were transferred to her companion; and on passing along the road from Burnley to Blackburn we can point out a farm-house at no great distance, with whose thrifty matron no neighbouring farmer will yet dare to quarrel."
This superstition respecting the reception of the spirit of the dying by inhaling the last breath, must have existed from a very remote antiquity. Psychê, the Greek personification of the soul, as a word, originally, simply meant breath. From the butterfly being the emblem of Psychê, the word became the name of the beautiful insect likewise. The Zulus call a man's shadow his soul, which would seem to be analogous to our churchyard ghost and the umbra of the Romans. The Zulus hold that a dead body can cast no shadow, because that appurtenance departed from it at the close of life.