Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore
by Charles Hardwick · English · Gutenberg #39934 · 825,260 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore
Author: Charles Hardwick
Release date: June 6, 2012 [eBook #39934]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS AND FOLK-LORE ***
Produced by David Edwards, Stephen Blundell and the Online
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book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Archaic, dialect and variant spellings remain as printed. Greek text
has been transliterated and placed within {braces}, the oe ligature
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[Illustration: THE SPECTRE HUNTSMAN
C. Potter, Delt.
W. Morton, Sculpt.
_Page 153._]
TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS,
AND
FOLK-LORE,
(CHIEFLY LANCASHIRE AND THE NORTH OF ENGLAND:)
=Their affinity to others in widely-distributed localities;=
THEIR
EASTERN ORIGIN AND MYTHICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
BY
CHARLES HARDWICK,
AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF PRESTON AND ITS ENVIRONS," "MANUAL FOR PATRONS AND
MEMBERS OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES," ETC.
"Thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes."--_Matthew_, c. xi. v. 25.
"Every fiction that has ever laid strong hold of human belief is the
mistaken image of some great _truth_, to which reason will direct
its search, while half reason is content with laughing at the
superstition, and unreason with disbelieving it."--_Rev. J.
Martineau._
MANCHESTER:
A. IRELAND & CO., PALL MALL.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
1872.
TO
HIS VERY DEAR AND EVER KIND FRIEND,
ELIZA COOK,
THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
AS A VERY HUMBLE BUT SINCERE TRIBUTE
TO HER POETIC GENIUS
AND
HER PRIVATE WORTH,
BY ITS AUTHOR,
CHARLES HARDWICK.
PREFACE.
Our nursery legends and popular superstitions are fast becoming matters
of history, except in the more remote and secluded portions of the
country. The age of the steam engine, and the electric battery, and the
many other practical adaptations of the triumphs of physical science, is
apparently not the one in which such "waifs and strays" from the
mythical lore of the dim and distant Past are very likely to be much
sought after or honoured. But now that the light of modern
investigation, and especially that ray furnished by recent discoveries
in philological science, has been directed towards their deeper and more
hidden mysteries, profound philosophical historians have begun to
discover that from this apparently desolate literary region much
reliable knowledge may be extracted, leading to conclusions of the most
interesting and important kind, with reference to the early history of
our race. The labours of the brothers Grimm, Dr. Adalbert Kuhn,
Professor Max Müller, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, have recently
received considerable attention from philosophic enquirers into the
origin and early development of the people from whom nearly all of the
European, and some of the Asiatic, modern nationalities have sprung.
It is found that many of these imperfect, and sometimes grotesque,
traditions, legends, and superstitions are, in reality, not the
"despicable rubbish" which the "learned" have been in the habit of
regarding them, but rather the crude ore, which, when skilfully smelted
down, yields, abundantly, pure metal well worthy of the literary hammer
of the most profound student in general history, ethnology, or the
phenomena attendant upon psychological development.
Professor Henry Morley, in the chapter on Ethnology, in his "English
Writers," after noticing "how immediately and easily particular words,
common in their application, would become available for common use," and
"how often _images of the seen would become symbols of the unseen_,"
truly says, "The world about us is not simply mirrored, but _informed
with a true soul_, by all the tongues that syllable man's knowledge and
his wants. The subtlest harmonies of life and nature may lie hidden in
the very letters of the alphabet."
The subject has been but recently introduced, in a thoroughly popular
form, to the English reader. Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse,"
and occasional papers by local writers, intensified and extended the
interest taken in this species of research. The publication, in 1863, by
Mr. Walter K. Kelly, of his "Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
Folk-Lore," however, may be said to have given a still greater impetus
to popular investigation in this direction. This is largely to be
attributed to the fact that he has summarised in a very pleasing manner
much of the abstruse learning of the German philologists and
mythologists to whom reference has already been made.
Whilst contemplating the publication of some "Supplementary Notes to the
History of Preston and its Environs," the early chapters of which, of
course, would necessarily deal with what is termed the "pre-historic
period," Mr. Kelly's work came into my hands. I was induced to
considerably enlarge my plan, in consequence of the value I immediately
placed upon its contents, and of the suggestion in the following
paragraph, which appears in its preface:
"In not a few instances I have been able to illustrate Dr. Kuhn's
principles by examples of the folk-lore of Great Britain and Ireland,
and would gladly have done so more copiously had matter for the purpose
been more accessible. My efforts in that direction have made me
painfully aware how much we are behind the Germans, not only as to our
insight into the meaning of such relics of the past, but also as to our
industry in collecting them. The latter defect is indeed a natural
consequence of the former, and it is to be hoped that our local
archæologists will no longer be content to labour under either of them
when once they have found what far-reaching knowledge may be extracted
out of old wives' tales and notions. Only four years ago the editor of
'Notes and Queries' spoke hypothetically (in the preface to 'Choice
Notes') of a time to come when the study of folk-lore (he was I believe
the inventor of that very expressive and sterling word) should have
risen from a pleasant pastime to the rank of a science. Already his
anticipation has been realised, and henceforth every careful collector
of a novel scrap of folk-lore, or of even a well-marked variety of an
old type, may entertain a reasonable hope that he has in some degree
subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical
historian."
In 1865-6 I published a series of the "Supplementary Notes" referred to,
in the _Preston Guardian_ newspaper. The general favour with which they
were received, and the increasing interest I felt in the subject,
induced me to continue my researches, with the view to the ultimate
publication of the present volume. The original papers, as well as other
essays afterwards published elsewhere, have not only been carefully
revised, and, in some instances, rearranged, but the quantity of new
matter added in each chapter is such as to render the work in every
respect much more complete, and more worthy of being regarded as having,
in some small degree, "subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the
philosophical historian." I would gladly persuade myself that I have, at
least, rendered what many regard as frivolous, and others as very
abstruse and very "dry reading," interesting, attractive, and
instructive to the general reader. If I succeed in this respect, my
chief object will have been accomplished.
The various authorities relied upon or quoted are sufficiently indicated
in the body of the work to render a catalogue of them here unnecessary.
I may add, however, that the principal portions of the papers
contributed by my friend, Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., to the
"Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society," have
since been incorporated with a portion of the collection of the late Mr.
Jno. Harland, F.S.A., and published in a volume by F. Warne and Co.,
entitled "Lancashire Folk Lore."
74, HALSTON STREET, HULME,
_Manchester, April, 1872._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTIES, AND
REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.
Etymology. Philology. The Aryan theory of the common origin of most
of the European races of men. Sanscrit. The Rig Vedas. Probable
element of truth at the base of Geoffrey of Monmouth's mythical
History of the Britons. The Brigantes. The Ph[oe]nicians. The
Hyperboreans. Stonehenge. Bel or Baal, the sun-god. The Persian
Ormusd. Temple of Mithras in Northumberland. The "Bronze age." The
Cushites or Hamites of Ancient Arabia. Palæoliths, or ancient stone
weapons. The Belisama (Ribble). Altars dedicated to Belatucadrus in
the North of England. The Brigantes of the East, Spain, Ireland,
and the North of England. The Aryan fire-god Agni, and his
retainers, the Bhrigus, etc. Altars in the North of England
dedicated to Vitires, Vetiris, or Veteres. Vithris (Odin). Vritra
of the Hindoo Vedas. Altars dedicated to Cocidius, The Styx,
Acheron, and Cocytus of the Greeks. The Coccium of Antoninus, at
Walton, near Preston. Ancient local nomenclature. The Belisama. The
Irish god Samhan. The Aryan god Soma. The "heavenly soma." The
amrita or nectar, the "drink of the gods." Madhu. Mead. Brewing and
lightening. Bel, the luminous deity of the Britons. Deification of
rivers. The Wharf, the Lune, etc. The Solway and Eden (Ituna of
Ptolemy). Idunn, the goddess of youth and beauty. Swan maidens.
Eagle shirts. Frost giants, etc. The "Luck of Eden Hall." Phallic
symbols. The Dee (the Seteia of Ptolemy). Dêvas, deities, evil
spirits, devils. The Severn, Sabrina, Varuna. War between the dêvas
and the asuras. The Vedic serpent, Sesha. The chark. Churning the
sea, or brewing soma. The lake of Amara, or of the gods, and the
Sitanta mountains, at the head of the Nile. The second Avatâra of
Vishnu. The Setantii, ancient inhabitants of Lancashire. The Humber
(the Abus of Ptolemy). The Vedic Arbhus. The Elbe. Elemental
strife. The Wash (the Metaris of Ptolemy). The Vedic Mithra, the
friend of Varuna, the god of daylight. Figurative interpretation.
The origin of language. Page 1
CHAPTER II.
FIRE OR SUN WORSHIP AND ITS ATTENDANT SUPERSTITIONS.
Fire worship denounced by the earlier ecclesiastics. Remnant in
modern times. Allhalloween. Beltain fires. Derbyshire tindles and
Lancashire teanlas. African notions of the Sun and Moon. Bonfires.
The gunpowder plot. Midsummer fires. The elder Aryan fire-gods Agni
and Rudra, and their attendants. Prometheus, the fire-bringer, the
inventor of the chark, or earliest fire-kindling instrument.
Original or "need-fire." Cattle disease. Fire superstitions.
Burning wheels, etc. Sacrifices to the god Bel, and to the sun-god
Fro or Fricco, in the North of England, etc. The feast of St. John
the Baptist. Bone-fires. Dragons and serpents. Agni and the
Midsummer demons. Ahi and Kuyava the destroyers of vegetation. The
great Vedic serpent Sesha. St. George and other dragon slayers.
Dragons, fiery serpents, and huge worms of the North of England,
"blasters of the harvest." The Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf. The
monster Grendel, of Hartlepool. Dragons and imprisoned maidens, and
treasure hid in caves. Merlin's prophecy. Red and white dragons.
Dragon poison converted into medical balm. Figurative
interpretation. The thunderstorm reduces the heat, waters the
parched earth, and promotes vegetable growth. A modern hypothesis
as to the origin of dragon superstitions. Page 28
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTMAS AND YULE-TIDE SUPERSTITIONS AND OBSERVANCES.
Christmas amusements. Date of the nativity. Remnants of pagan
superstition denounced by the Church. Etymology of the word Yule.
Commencement of the year at the vernal equinox. Old and new styles.
Old style yet in use in Lancashire. Clerical denunciation of New
Year's gifts. Curious gifts on New Year's Day in Elizabeth's reign.
The wassail bowl. The Saxon "wacht heil" and "drinc heil." Singular
New Year's day superstitions. Meat, drink, money, and candles
interred with the dead. No fire-light or business credit given on
New Year's day. Recent instances in Lancashire. Divination at
Christmas. Red and dark-haired visitors on New Year's morn.
Antagonism of the Celtic and Teutonic races. Forecasting the
weather. Twelve days' sleep of the Vedic Ribhus in the house of the
sun-god Savitar. The mistletoe and other plants sprung from the
lightning. The oak and the ash. The heavenly asvattha, the _ficus
religiosa_, of the Aryan mythology, the prototype of the yggdrasil
or cloud-tree of the Scandinavians. Merlin's tree that covers Great
Britain and Ireland. Jack and the bean-stalk. Thorns blossoming on
old Christmas eve. German Christmas trees. The boar's head. The
boar an Aryan type of the wind. His tusks the lightning. Popular
belief that pigs can see the wind. Page 53
CHAPTER IV.
EASTER SUPERSTITIONS AND CEREMONIES.
Sun dancing on Easter morn. Etymology of the word Easter. Original or
need-fire. Easter eggs. The red or golden egg an Aryan sun-type.
Easter eggs protection against fire. Hand-ball playing by the
clergy. Easter mysteries, moralities, or miracle plays. Paschal or
"pace" eggs. Lancashire "pace-egging." Lifting of women on Easter
Monday, and of men on the following day, a custom still practised
in Lancashire. Cross-buns at Easter. Thor's hammer. Ancient
marriage oaks. Mid-lent or "mothering" Sunday. Simnel cakes.
Curious customs in Lancashire and Shropshire. Etymology of the word
"simnel." Braggat Sunday and Braggat ales. Lenten fare. Beans and
peas. Curious ancient and modern superstitions connected therewith.
Touching for the king's evil. Divine right of kings. Page 70
CHAPTER V.
MAY-DAY CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS.
Mock battle between summer and winter. The vernal equinox. Joy on the
return of Spring. Bell-ringing and horn-blowing. Midnight gathering
of wild flowers and green branches of trees. May-day garlands and
decorations. Rush-bearing in Lancashire. Well dressing in
Derbyshire. The Roman Floralia. May-poles denounced by the
Puritans. King James I. at Hoghton Tower, Lancashire. Speech about
"libertie to piping and honest recreation." Whitsun-ales and Morris
dances. Washington Irving's first sight of a May-pole at Chester.
Modern May-day ceremonies in Cheshire. Gathering hawthorn blossom.
The _Mimosa catechu_, or sacred thorn of India, sprung from the
lightning. The Glastonbury thorn. Singular superstition respecting
it. Children's love of wild flowers. May-day dew good for ladies'
complexions. May-day dew, the milk of the Aryan heavenly cows
(clouds), believed to increase the milk of their earthly
prototypes. Page 83
CHAPTER VI.
WITCHCRAFT.
The Lancashire witches--Dame Demdike, etc. Witch superstitions of
Aryan origin. Dethroned retainers of the elder gods. The Fates or
Destinies. Waxen and clay images. The doom of Meleager. Reginald
Scot on witchcraft in 1584. Opinions of Wierus, a German
physician, in 1563. Singular confessions of presumed witches.
Numbers put to death. The belief in witchcraft countenanced by the
church, the legislature, and the learned. Sir Kenelm Digby's
opinion. Singular medical superstitions. King James I. and Agnes
Simpson, the Scotch witch. The Lancashire witches and Charles I.
Witchcraft in Hertfordshire in 1761. Ralph Gardiner's Malicious
Invective. A Scotch witchfinder. Matthew Hopkins. Laws relating to
witchcraft in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Draci,
cloud-gods, or water-spirits, with hands perforated like colanders.
Singular tradition of the dun cow at Grimsargh, near Preston.
Witches' influence on the butter and milk of cows. Durham,
Yorkshire, and Warwick dun cow traditions. Red cow milk. Ushas, the
Vedic dawn-goddess. Red heifers set apart for sacrifice. Guy of
Warwick and his porridge pot. Black, white, and grey witches. The
Teutonic _deæ matres_, or mother goddesses. The three Fates. The
weird sisters of Shakspere. The "theatrical properties" of witches
of Aryan origin. The sieve, the cauldron, and the broom or besom.
Witches spirits of the air. Hecate the Pandemonium Diana.
Personifications of elemental strife. The brewing of storms. Aryan
root of these superstitions. Hares disguised witches. Boadicea's
hare. The goddess Freyja and her attendant hares. Singular hare
superstition in Cornwall. "Mad as a March hare." Cats weatherwise
animals. Sailors say a frisky cat has got "a gale of wind in her
tail." Sailors' prejudice against commencing a voyage on a Friday.
Singular charge against the Knights Templars. The broom or besom
represents the implement with which the Aryan demi-gods swept the
sky. A type of the winds. Curious Lancashire custom: hanging out a
besom when the lady of the house is absent, to announce to bachelor
friends that bachelor habits may be indulged in. The broom the
oldest wine-bush. Dutch broom-girls. Eight classes of witches.
Gipsies: their Eastern origin. Modern fortune tellers. The witch's
familiar. Singular Somerset, Middlesex, and Lancashire superstitions
at the present day. Witchcraft amongst the Maories, and in
Equatorial Africa. Deathbed of a Burnley witch, and transference
of her familiar spirit with her last breath. Page 96
CHAPTER VII.
FAIRIES AND BOGGARTS.
Puck or Robin Goodfellow. Peris, Pixies, and Ginns. Queen Mab.
Lancashire boggarts and fairies. The bargaist. The fairy of Mellor
Moor, Lancashire. Lumb Farm boggart, near Blackburn. "Boggart Ho'
Clough," near Manchester. George Cheetham's boggart. The devil made
a monk. The headless dog or woman at Preston. Raising the devil.
"Raw head and bloody bones." Edwin Waugh's account of the
Grislehurst boggart. The laying of boggarts. Driving a stake
through the body of a cock buried with the boggart. Sacred or
lightning birds. Superstitions about cocks and hens. Killing a
Lancashire wizard. Cruel sacrifice of chanticleer. Divining by
means of a cock. Boggarts scared by a cock crowing. The cock an
emblem of Æsculapius. The black cock crows in the Niflheim, or
"land of gloom." The lion afraid of a white cock. Father Morolla's
account of the revivification of a dead cock. The cockatrice. A
cruelly slaughtered cock and red cow's milk a sovereign remedy for
consumption. The Scandinavian golden coloured cock's crowing the
signal for the dawn of the Ragnarock, "the great day of arousing."
The Hindoos "cast out devils" by the aid of a cock slaughtered as a
sacrifice. Modern Jewish custom. Game cock feathers in the bed
cause a dying person to linger in pain. Hothersall Hall boggart,
Lancashire, laid beneath a laurel tree, watered with milk. Rowan,
ash, and red thread potential against boggarts, witches, and devils.
Scandinavian and German boggarts. The Hindoo pitris or fathers.
Zwergs, dwarfs, "ancients" or ancestors. Good fairies, elves, etc.
Lord Duffin transported by fairies from Scotland to Paris.
Classical ghost story. Singular superstition, of Eastern character,
at Darwen, Lancashire. A somewhat similar one in Australia. Fairy
rings, their imaginary and real origin. Page 124
CHAPTER VIII.
FERN-SEED AND ST. JOHN'S-WORT SUPERSTITIONS.
Human invisibility. The helmet of Hades or Pluto, and the Teutonic
"invisible cap." Modern references to this singular superstition.
Ferns, luck-bringing plants. Said to have sprung from the
lightning. St. John's-wort. German story of accidental
invisibility. St John's eve. Fern seed, a love charm. Samuel
Bamford's Lancashire story in "Boggart Ho' Clough," near
Manchester. St. John superseded the Scandinavian Baldr. The
_Osmunda regalis_. _Osmunda_, one of the appellations of Thor.
The vervain, a plant of spells and enchantments. The Sanscrit
parna and the modern fern. Origin of the name "Boggart
Ho' Clough." Page 143
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPECTRE HUNTSMAN AND THE FURIOUS HOST.
Hunting the white doe in the Vale of Todmorden, Lancashire. The
"Gabriel Ratchets." The wish-hounds. The "Gabriel hounds" in
Yorkshire. The classic Orion, "the mighty hunter." The classic
white doe and its mediæval descendants. The fair maid of Kent. A
fawn attendant on the Greek deities of the morning. Odin, the wild
huntsman, and the furious host. The Yule host of Iceland.
Personification of storm and tempest. Herod, the "Chasse Maccabei,"
and the Wandering Jew. The "seven whistlers" in Lancashire and
Yorkshire. Restless birds believed to be the souls of the damned
condemned to perpetual motion, on the Bosphorus. The wandering
Odin and his two ravens, representing Thought and Memory. The
Wandering Jew's last appearance in the flesh. Temporary death of
the weather-gods typical of the seasons. Odin slain by the wild
boar. Thammuz and the Greek Adonis. Odin lord of the gallows.
Odin's spear. Roland's "Durandal," the sword of Chrysâôr, of
Theseus, and of Sigurd. Arthur's "Excalibur" and others. Their
Aryan prototype, Indra's thunderbolt. Magic cudgels. The lad and
the "rascally innkeeper." Indra and Vritra, and the Panis. Long
Aryan winters. Hackelberg's coit throwing. King Arthur's similar
exploit in Northumberland. The devil's doings at Kirkby Lonsdale,
at Leyland church, and at Winwick. Etymology of the word "Winwick."
Odin buried in the cloud mountain. Heroes slumbering in caves.
Frederic Barbarossa, Henry the Fowler, Charlemagne, and the
renowned Arthur. Arthur's death and translation to Avalun. The
Eildon Hills and the Sewingshields castle traditions. The
"Helmwind," near Kirkoswald, Cumberland. Sir Tarquin's castle at
Manchester. Arthur's battles on the Douglas. Arthur still alive as
a raven. The Gjallar horn. A Cheshire legend says Arthur reposes in
the "Wizard's Cave," at Alderley Edge. Ancient reputation of
Britain for tempests and pestilential storms. The departure of the
genii. A similar superstition in equatorial Africa. Irish
superstitions. The furious host. Wandering souls of the unquiet
dead. The Aryan Maruts and Ribhus. The approach of the furious
host. The black coach legend. The yelping hound. The stray hound of
Odin. The Lancashire and Dorsetshire black dog fiends. The "Trash"
or "Skriker" of East Lancashire. Cerberus and the Vedic Sarvari.
Hermes and the Vedic Sârameyas. The howling dog, an embodiment of
the wind and herald of death. Recent example of the power of this
superstition in Lancashire. Acute sense of smell probably at the
root of this personification. Dogs supposed to be able to see
spirits. Dr. Marigold's dog and the approach of domestic storms.
Will-o'-whisps, or souls of unbaptised children. The Maruts after a
storm assume the form of new-born babes, as Hermes returned to his
cradle after tearing up the forests. Odin sometimes chases the wild
boar, sometimes Holda, or Bertha, his wife. The hell-hunt. Hell or
Hela, the goddess of death. The English hunt. England the realm of
Hela. Niflheim, the world of mists, and the Greek Hades. Nastrond
and the modern Hell. After death punishment for crimes done in the
body. Valhalla and the Gothic Hell and Devil. Contrast between the
Eastern and Northern notions of Hell, and Shakspere's powerful
description thereof. Wandering spirits of the Greek and Aryan
mythologies. Yorkshire ballad concerning the passage of the soul
over Whinney Moor. Cleveland belief in the efficacy of a gift of a
pair of shoes to a poor man. Salt placed on the stomach of a
corpse. Salt an emblem of eternity and immortality. Flights of
birds. The seven whistlers. The bellowing of cows. Odin and his
host carry off cows. The Milky-way or the _kaupat_ to heaven. The
Ashton heriot. Figurative character of Odin's accessories. Examples
from Greek archæic art of the gradual evolution of mythological
personification from physical phenomena. Orpheus the Aryan Arbhus.
The nightmare. The Maruts. The Valkyrs or wild riders of Germany.
The "Black Lad" of Ashton-under-Lyne. The wild rider. The demon
Tregeagle, or tyrant lord of Cornwall, and his endless labours.
Tam O'Shanter and the witches. Bottomless pools. Sir Francis Drake
and the hearse drawn by headless horses. The wish hounds. Poetic
sympathy. The Ashton "Black Lad" or tyrant lord. Bamford's poem
"The Wild Rider." Earthly heroes substituted for Odin. Page 153
CHAPTER X.
GIANTS, MYTHICAL AND OTHERWISE.
The Giant's Dance, Stonehenge. The Ramayana and giants of Ceylon. The
wild men of Hanno, the Carthaginian. Gorillas. The giants of
Lancashire, Shropshire, Cornwall, Ireland, and India compared.
Gogmagog and Corineus. The Cyclops. Patagonian and other modern
giants. Giants and monsters according to Pliny. Shakspere's
monsters. The Amorites. The giants Og and Sihon. Remains of the
ancient cities of Bashan. Sir Jno. Mandeville's Indian giants. Red
Indian traditions of giants and gigantic pachyderms. Discoveries of
huge fossil bones. Aryan Râkshasas or Atrins (devourers). Giants
and devils. Milton's fallen angels. The trolls and giants of
Scandinavia. Dethroned deities. The Æsir gods. Their overthrow by
the light of the Christian dispensation. Nikarr, an appellation of
Odin, the Old Nick of the present day. Giants degraded forms of
original Aryan personifications of the forces of nature. Ancient
and modern examples. Allegory. Lord Bacon's opinion. Passage into
the heroes of romance. The King Arthur legends. The Anglo-Saxon
poem, Beowulf. The monster Grendel of Hartlepool. The Arthur legend
of Tarquin and Sir Lancelot, at Manchester. The Round table.
Anachronisms in romance literature. The "Sangreal." Urien, the
Arthur of the North of England. The Welsh bards, Taliesin and
Llywarch Hen or the Old. Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of
Newbury. Walter Map. Giants' coits and erratic boulders. Lancashire
and Cheshire giants, near Stockport. Chivalry and the plundering
Barons of the middle ages. Mythical Dwarfs. Tom Thumb. Connection
of Druidical with Brahminical superstition. Page 197
CHAPTER XI.
WERE-WOLVES AND THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
Bodies of birds and animals supposed to be tenanted by the souls of
men. Instances from Shakspere. The Druids. The Egyptian,
Pythagorean, and the Hindoo Doctrines. The Taliesin romance. The
bell-tolling ox at Woolwich. Were-wolves. Irish were-wolves. King
John a were-wolf. Greek and Roman were-wolves. German were-wolves.
Swan shirts and eagle shirts. Irish Mermaids. Bears. Detection of
were-wolves. Vampires. Witches transformed into cats. Were-wolves,
like witches, burnt at the stake. The witches' magic bridle, which
transformed human beings into horses. Lancashire witches
transformed into greyhounds. Margery Grant, a recently deceased
Scotch witch, sometimes transformed into a pony, and sometimes into
a hare. Men transformed into crocodiles. Owl transformations. The
owl, the baker, and the baker's daughter. Bakers transformed into a
cuckoo and a woodpecker. The White Doe of Rylstone. The Manx wren,
the robin, the stork, etc., each supposed to enshrine the soul of a
human being. Men transformed into leopards, etc., in Africa. Greek
Lykanthropy. Aryan conception of the howling wind as a wolf. The
souls of the damned were-wolves in Hell. The wolf a personification
of the darkness of the Night. Greek forms of this myth in Apollo
and Latona his mother. Personifications of natural phenomena.
Children suckled by wolves. Page 224
CHAPTER XII.
SACRED AND OMINOUS BIRDS, ETC.
Sacred Birds. Beautiful Welsh legend of the robin. Stork legends in
Germany. Their nests built upon wheels (sun emblems) placed on the
roofs of houses. Remains in Danish "Kitchen middens." Birds of evil
omen. The owl. Shakspere's profound insight. Cuckoo superstitions.
Transformation of cuckoos into sparrowhawks. The cuckoo the
messenger of Thor. The wren hunted to death in the Isle of Man,
Ireland, and some parts of France. A sacred bird in England.
Swallows and crickets. Ravens, crows, jackdaws, etc., ominous birds.
Lancashire superstitions of this class. The "Seven Whistlers." The
Woodpecker. Picus and Pilumnus. Fire and soul bringers. Weather
prophets. The stormy petrel, the heron, and the crane. The
lady-bird. Rats leaving ships about to founder at sea. Page 242
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DIVINING OR "WISH"-ROD, AND SUPERSTITIONS RESPECTING TREES AND PLANTS.
Searching for hidden treasure at Cuerdale, near Preston. Midnight
excavations on the site of the Roman station at Walton, near
Preston. How to prepare a divining rod. The rowan tree. Divination
by upright rods. Recent attempt to discover metallic ores by the
divining rod. Anecdote of M. Linnæus. Form of the wish-rod. The
mystic number three. The mistletoe. Neptune's Trident. The
horseshoe, a divining instrument. Other divining instruments. The
mandrake. Resemblance in form to the human body. The caduceus or
the rod of Hermes. Modern conjurer's magic wands. The palasa tree
or the "imperial _mimosa_" of the East. Aryan legend of its
lightning origin. The mountain ash, the thorn, etc. Bishop Heber's
anecdote respecting the Hindoo form of the superstition. African
sacred trees. Recent instances of this superstition in England,
Scotland, and Australia. The pastoral crook, and the lituus, or
staff, of the ancient augurs, etc. Phallic symbols. Novel use of
the Bible. The divining rod but of recent importation into
Cornwall. Recent instances of divination or "dowzing" for water.
Finding drowned bodies. "Corpse candles." Page 252
CHAPTER XIV.
WELL WORSHIP AND SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH WATER.
Well worship. Medical virtues of water. Symbol of purity. Sacred
wells. St. Helen's well, at Brindle, near Preston. Curious examples
of local corruption of names. Pin dropping. Pin wells in France,
Wales, Scotland, Northumberland, and the West of England. A form of
divination. Protection against hanging. Other curious forms of this
superstition. Curing rickets in children and insanity. Reported
miraculous cures. Well dressing. Recent death of Margery Grant, a
"Scotch witch," who worked cures with holy water. The deification
of rivers and streams. Ancient lake dwellings, Healing lake in
Scotland. Bottomless pools. Stagnant water. Jenny Greenteeth.
"Nickar, the soulless." Scotch kelpies. Burns's "Address to the
Deil." Superstition on the Solway. African superstition of this
class. Page 267
CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSION.
Antiquity of the superstitions commented upon. The common origin of
most of them. Tenacity of superstition and traditionary lore. Some
perhaps have resulted from similar conditions, without any
necessary connection with each other. Supposed communication of
America with Asia in ancient times. Phallic worship in Central
America. Singular custom in the Polynesian Islands. Migration of
the Miocene flora. The Atlantis of the Ancients. Superstitions in
Abyssinia and the Malay Archipelago. Traditions and superstitions
frequently glide into each other. Instances. Scotch warriors at
Preston. Sunken churches. Secret passages beneath rivers. All
ruined castles, abbeys, etc., said to have been battered by
Cromwell's cannon. Recent discoveries in Sanscrit. Max Müller's
interpretation of Greek myths. Anthropomorphism, or the
personification of natural forces. Growth of a myth. Vedic and
other examples. Wordsworth's interpretation of Greek myths.
Figurative expression, the groundwork of all poetry, at the root of
all language. Shakspere's appreciation of the poetic value of
popular mythology. Importance of the study of these despised
superstitions to philological, ethnological, and psychological
science, as well as to the sound philosophical interpretation of
general history. Page 283
TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS,
AND
FOLK-LORE.
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTIES, AND
REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
_Shakspere._
On several occasions, when discussing obscure questions of early
topography or ancient nomenclature, although readily acknowledging the
value of all facts in connection with genuine etymological science, I
have recommended great caution in the use of this powerful but somewhat
capricious archæological ally. I yet retain a strong impression that
this caution is still a necessary condition of truly scientific
historical or antiquarian research. Consequently, several of the
presumed etymologies in the present work are advanced with diffidence,
and with a thorough conviction that some of them may prove to be
illusive. The suggestion of a probability, however, is a very different
thing to dogmatic assertion in such matters, a practice which cannot be
too much condemned.
It is not very many years since the writer of the article "Language," in
Knight's Cyclopædia, felt it his duty, in introducing the subject, to
use the following strong expressions:--
"That division of grammar which is called etymology has been disgraced
by such puerile trifling, and has been pursued with such an utter
disregard to anything like scientific principles, as to create in the
minds of many persons a suspicion against everything presented to their
notice under the name of etymology. Such persons have viewed etymology
as nothing else than a dexterous play upon words, and have looked upon
etymologists as little better than indifferent punsters. That the
generality of writers upon this subject scarcely deserve any better
appellation will hardly be denied by anyone who has studied etymology on
true philological principles; and, if any doubt were entertained upon
the point, it would only be necessary to refer to such works as Damm's
'Homeric Lexicon,' and Lennep's 'Etymology of the Greek Language,' which
are full of such wild conjectures and such extravagant etymologies, that
we cannot be surprised that a study which has produced such results
should have been considered ridiculous and absurd."
The writer afterwards refers to the extent, and explains the nature of
the progress which had been made during the twenty or thirty years
previous to the date of his own paper. (1839). He justly attributes this
progress to the "comparison of many languages with each other;" but he
especially insists that "nothing has perhaps contributed to this
improvement more than the discovery of Sanscrit (for as it has been
justly observed, it may properly be called a discovery), which was found
to bear such a striking resemblance both in its more important words and
in its grammatical forms to the Latin and Greek, the Teutonic and
Sclavonic languages, as to lead to the conclusion that all must have
been derived from a common source."
An able writer in the _Saturday Review_ truly describes the science of
comparative philology as "the great discovery of modern scholarship, the
discovery which more than any other unites distant ages and countries in
one tie of brotherhood." Hence its great value to antiquarian students
of every class.
Further investigation has fully demonstrated the truth of the views thus
expressed. Not only is the affinity of the languages now admitted
without dispute, but the consanguinity of the peoples and the identity
of many of their popular traditions and superstitions have been
demonstrated with scientific precision by such writers as the brothers
Grimm, Dr. Kuhn, Dr. Roth, Max Müller, Farrer, Dasent, the Rev. G. W.
Cox, and others, who have devoted special attention to the subject.
This common ancestry is sometimes styled Indo-European; but the phrase
being open to objection, as including more than the precise facts
justify, the term Aryan, or Arian, is now generally preferred. Some
writers regard the Aryans as descendants of Japhet, and the Semitic
tribes as the progeny of Shem. In the latter they include the Hebrews,
the Ph[oe]nicians, the Arabs, and Ethiopians; and their languages are
radically distinct from those of the Aryan family. The country about the
upper Oxus river, now mainly included in the dominions of the Khan of
Bockhara, is generally agreed upon as the locality from whence the
various members of the Aryan family originally migrated, some northward
and westward over Europe, and others southward and eastward into India.
The Kelts, the Teutons, the Greeks, Latins, Letts, and Sclaves are all
European branches of this original stock. The Persians and the high
caste Hindoos are the principal descendants of the southern and
south-eastern migration. The chief elements of the British population at
the present time are Keltic, represented by the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic
tribes, and the Teutonic, which includes Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and
Danish and Norse Scandinavians.
The non-Aryan races inhabiting Europe are not relatively very extensive
or important. The chief are the Magyars and the Turks. There are besides
some Tatars and Ugrians in Russia, a few Basques in the south-west of
France and on the neighbouring Spanish frontier, and the Laps and Fins
in Northern Europe.
The oldest writings extant in the Sanscrit branch of the Aryan tongue
are termed the "Vedas." These works include a collection of hymns
chanted or sung by the earlier south-eastern emigrants. It is believed
this collection was formed about fourteen hundred years before the birth
of Christ. According to ancient Hindoo authority, these hymns are coeval
with creation. It is asserted that Brahma breathed them from his own
mouth, or, in other words, that he milked them out from fire, air, and
the sun. Some traditions state that they wore scattered abroad or lost;
and that a great sage, "Vyasa, the arranger," collected them together
about 5,000 years ago. Vyasa, who was assisted in his labours by many
other sages, taught the Vedic literature or religion to four distinct
pupils. Payla learnt the Rig Veda, Vais'ampayana the Yajur Veda, Jaimini
the Sama Veda, and Sumantu the Atharvan'a. The three first-mentioned are
named collectively the sacred Trayi, or the Triad. These versions were
afterwards much extended and commented upon by after sages.
The term Veda is derived from the Sanscrit root _vid_, which signifies
to know. It implies the sum of all knowledge. By another etymology it is
held to imply revealed knowledge, or that species of wisdom which
contains within itself the evidence of its own truth. Rig is from the
root _rich_, to laud, and implies that the Vedic knowledge is delivered
in the form of hymns of praise.
Max Müller regards the Vedas as containing the key note of all
religion, natural as well as revealed. They exhibit a belief in God, a
perception of the difference between good and evil, and a conviction
that the Deity loveth the one and hateth the other. The degenerate
religion of the modern Hindoos, and especially the worship of Krishnah,
is described by a recent writer, as (in comparison with that of the
Vedas) "a moral plague, the ravages of which are as appalling as they
are astounding."
Walter Kelly says:--"The Sanscrit tongue, in which the Vedas are
written, is the sacred language of India; that is to say, the oldest
language, the one which was spoken, as the Hindoos believe, by the gods
themselves, when gods and men were in frequent fellowship with each
other, from the time when Yama descended from heaven to become the first
of mortals. This ancient tongue may not be the very one which was spoken
by the common ancestors of Hindoos and Europeans, but at least it is its
nearest and purest derivative; nor is there any reason to believe that
it is removed from it by more than a few degrees. Hence the supreme
importance of the Sanscrit vocabulary and literature as a key to the
languages and supernatural lore of ancient and modern Europe."
This discovery of the Sanscrit writings, and especially of the Vedas,
has already exercised considerable influence upon etymological science.
Before its introduction the main element in such inquiries consisted in
the tracing _backwards_ words corrupted or obscure in modern English to
their original roots in Keltic, Teutonic, Greek, or Latin. The Sanscrit,
however, being a _written_ form of one of the earliest of the varieties
of these cognate tongues, gives the etymological student the advantage
of a flank or rear position, by means of which he may sometimes decipher
the meaning of a doubtful term, by the inverse or _ascending_ process,
and thus gain some knowledge of its original meaning, perhaps long since
lost by the descendants of those who first introduced it into the
ancient language of Great Britain.[1]
It is by no means improbable that the idle historical legends related by
Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, respecting the arrival of Brutus and
his Trojan followers in Britain, after the destruction of Priam's
imperial city by the allied Greeks, may have just so much foundation in
fact as might be furnished by a time-honoured tradition respecting the
eastern home from which our remote ancestors originally migrated. The
natives of Britain, on first coming in contact with the early merchants
and traders from the Mediterranean shores, would doubtless hear
something of the Iliad and the Æneid, with the heroes of which they
might innocently confound their own remote and vaguely conceived
demi-deities or warlike human ancestry. Notwithstanding the just
contempt in which these legends are held by modern historians, there
still exists a kind of instinctive faith that a very remote tradition,
however much it may have been overlaid and disfigured by relatively
modern inventions, lies at the base of the main story. Emigrants from
Iberia (situated between the Caspian and the Euxine Seas) are said to
have settled in Greece (the Pelasgi), and in Tuscany and Spain (the
Iberians). In Laurent's "Ancient Geography" is the following
passage:--"In the Caucasus were found the Bruchi, the modern Burtani or
Britani, a free tribe, rich in silver and gold." It is not improbable
that the advent of emigrants of this tribe in England may underlie the
legend of the Trojan Brutus and his followers. Eastern Albania too may
have contributed, along with its neighbours, to the migratory hordes
which passed to the west. The earliest name by which Britain was known
to the Greeks and Romans is Albion. The Gaels of Scotland still speak of
the island as Albin. In Merlin's famous prophecy, in Geoffrey of
Monmouth's British History, the country is frequently named Albania. The
universal tradition of the North German and Scandinavian tribes is that
they came from the neighbourhood of the Caucasus to the North West of
Europe. An early Odin is said to have introduced from the east the
worship of the sun. Another at the head of the Æsir warriors imported
the Runic alphabet. He is styled Mid Othin. Two other chiefs of this
name figure in their legendary history.
Dr. Leigh held the opinion that the Brigantes, and especially the
Setantii, or the Lancashire portion of the then population, were a mixed
race, consisting of Kelts, Ph[oe]nicians, and Armenians. His only
reason for this conjecture appears to have been based on the fact that
one of the chief rivers was named Belisama, which, he says, "in the
Ph[oe]nician language, signifies the Moon or the Goddess of Heaven," and
that Ribel, now the name of the same river, in the Armenian tongue
signifies Heaven. Mr. Thornber says "Belisama means Queen of Heaven, and
that the Romans paid divine honours to the Ribble under the title of
Minerva Belisama." This conjecture apparently rests on the statement of
Leigh, and the fact that the Roman temple at Ribchester was dedicated to
Minerva. There appears to be, however, some error here respecting the
sex of Bel. The Ph[oe]nician "Queen of Heaven," or "Queen of the Stars,"
was named Astroarche or Astarte. She is supposed by some to be identical
with the Greek Juno, or Selene (the moon), by others she is regarded as
the planet Venus. The Armenians were a branch of the Aryan family, and
the Ph[oe]nicians, as I have before said, were of the Semitic stock.[2]
Sanchuniathon, the ancient Ph[oe]nician historian, says that the
Ph[oe]nicians worshipped the sun as "the only lord of heaven," under the
name Beelsamen, which was equivalent to the Greek Zeus or the Latin
Jupiter. Baal is formed from a root which signifies, and is literally
equivalent to, lord or owner. A Maltese inscription "Malkereth Baal
Tsor," is interpreted "King of the city, Lord of Tyre." In the
Septuagint Baal is called Hercules; in the Ph[oe]nician language Orcul,
light of all. One writer adds "Baal was Saturn; others have considered
Baal to be the planet Jupiter. A supreme idol might easily be compared
with those of other nations; hence arose this variety of opinions."
Amongst the many conjectures as to the origin of Stonehenge is one put
forth by Godfrey Higgins, that it was built by Druids, "the priests of
Oriental colonies, who emigrated from India." Mr. Davis, the author of
"Celtic Researches," refers to a passage in Diodorus Siculus, in which
it is stated, on the authority of Hecatæus, that a round temple existed
in Britain dedicated to Apollo. Mr. Davis conjectures that Stonehenge is
the edifice referred to.
The late Rev. John Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, in "Essays,"
published in 1858, strongly advocates the "Hyperborean theory," founded
on the passage in Diodorus referred to. This view of the case implies
that the Hyperboreans migrated mainly by water from Central Asia, not
long after the days of Noah; that they eventually occupied Great
Britain, Spain, and Gaul, west of the Alps; that the Druid priests of
Stonehenge were in sympathy and constant communication with those of
Delphi; that they were civilised to a large extent, and were intimately
related by blood with the Pelasgians of Ancient Greece.
The ancient name of this remarkable relic of the past is unfortunately
lost, "Stonehenge" being evidently of Saxon origin, and in no way
connected with its architects; the tale told by Nennius, about the
murder of four hundred and sixty British nobles, through the treachery
of Hengist, being a later romance invented to account for its Saxon
name, Stanhengist. W. G. Palgrave, in his "Central and Eastern Arabia,"
describes the ruins of a "structure" which so nearly resembles the
famous Wiltshire relic, that he calls it an "Arabian Stonehenge." He
adds that the natives spoke of a similar ancient edifice as still
existing in a part of the country which he did not visit.
Sir John Lubbock in his "Pre-historic Times," after alluding to the
mythical character of the expedition to Ireland of Aurelius Ambrosius
and Merlin, as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in search of the sacred
materials employed in the erection of the megalithic edifice, says the
larger stones are evidently similar in lithological character to the
immense numbers yet strewn over Salisbury plain, and locally termed
"Sarcens." He adds,--
"Stonehenge is generally considered to mean the hanging stones, as
indeed was long ago suggested by Wace, an Anglo-Norman poet, who says:
Stanhengues ont mom Englois
Pieres pandues en Francois,
but it is surely more natural to derive the last syllable from the
Anglo-Saxon word 'ing,' a field; as we have Keston, originally
Kyst-staning, the field of stone coffins. What more natural than that a
new race, finding this magnificent ruin, standing in solitary grandeur
on Salisbury Plain, and able to learn nothing of its origin, should call
it simply the _place of stones_? What more unnatural than that they
should do so, if they knew the name of him in whose honour it was
erected?"
After disposing of some other arguments in favour of a post-Roman date
for the edifice, and expressing his conviction that this structure and
its kindred one at Abury were used as temples for worship, Sir John
Lubbock says,--
"Stonehenge may then I think be regarded as a monument of the Bronze
Age, though apparently it was not all erected at one time, the inner
circle of small unwrought blue stones being probably older than the
rest; as regards Abury, since the stones are all in their natural
condition, while those of Stonehenge are roughly hewn, it seems
reasonable to conclude that Abury is the older of the two, and belongs
either to the close of the Stone Age, or to the commencement of that of
Bronze."
Some writers regard the British or Keltic god Bel or Beil as not
immediately the Belus or Baal of the Asiatic nations, but that it
"designates _an exalted luminous deity_, peculiar to the Celts." This is
the view of Jacob Grimm, and it is endorsed by W. K. Kelly. Another
writer thinks that "the general character of Asiatic idolatry renders it
likely that Baal meant originally the true lord of the universe, _and
that his worship degenerated_ into the worship of a powerful body in the
material world."
The origin of the not yet entirely exploded superstition respecting the
"divine right of kings" may have something to do with this primæval sun
or fire worship. The Anglo-Saxon princes claimed descent from Odin or
Woden, who, as will afterwards be shown, is evidently the Teutonic
representative of the Aryan Indra, or the luminous or lightning-god. A
recent writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ says:--
"Every king of Egypt considered himself a direct descendant of the sun,
and over his name was 'Son of the Sun;' and as the sun was Phrè, so each
king was called Phrè. As in the East at the present time, the Ottoman
Emperor is termed by the Arabs, 'Sooltan ebn Sooltan'--Emperor son of an
Emperor. The king considered that his authority and the virtues and
powers of his rule were direct emanations from the solar disc. This idea
is beautifully set forth in a device from a tomb in the cemetery of El
Emarna, where may be observed Ammophis, with his queen and their
children, standing at a window or gallery of their palace, and are all
engaged in throwing to their subjects, who are standing below with hands
upraised to receive them, collars of distinction, vases, rings of money,
symbols of life, and other blessings. These gifts the disc of the sun,
which is represented above, is in the act of bestowing upon them. The
king and his family were the only media of communication between the
sun, the source of all blessings, and the people. This is significantly
set forth by the rays which projected life into their mouths, and
infused into their hearts courage, wisdom, and justice."
Frances Power Cobbe, in her "Cities of the Past," after visiting the
ruins of Baalbec, quotes several beautiful passages from Du Perron's
_Zend Avesta_, illustrative of the purity of the sentiment of the
earlier fire-worshippers. She says:--
"In what degree this high Persian faith (still existing in no ignoble
type among the Parsees of India) was connected with the sun-worship of
the gross Ph[oe]nician mythology, it is hard to conjecture. Perhaps
there was no relation at all, and Baal (or Bel), the sun-god, never
received in his impure fanes the homage of a true worshipper of Ormusd,
the supremely wise Lord, of whom the _Zend Avesta_ only tells us his
light is hidden under all that shines. At least the faith of which
Heliogabalus was hierophant had fallen as low as ever the religious
sentiment of human nature may be debased. Yet does the 'golden star,'
Zoroaster, throw a mysterious halo over the fire worship of East and
West; that faith which blazed out in the Bactrian plains before the dawn
of history, and which lights yet its memorial fires each midsummer eve
in the vales of the Christian Scotland and Ireland."
She might have added, at least until very recently, the hills and dales
of Lancashire and some other parts of England.
It is not improbable that before the corruption referred to took place,
the Keltic emigrants to this country may have arrived at their western
home, and so have introduced the worship of Baal or Bel in something
like its pristine purity; and hence the distinction between the famous
deity of Heliopolis and his presumed representative in Britain. A
semi-subterranean temple, dedicated to the worship of Mithras, the
Persian Sun or Apollo, was discovered in 1822 at Housesteads,
Northumberland (Borcovicus), on the line of the great Roman wall. Mr.
Hodgson describes it in detail in a contribution to the Arch. ÆL. O.S.,
vol. 1. This worship appears to have belonged to the debased form
referred to. It evoked edicts from several Roman emperors decreeing its
suppression, but without avail. This cruel and degrading superstition
was, however, not introduced into the western portion of the "old
world," until shortly before the advent of Christ. An altar, dedicated
to this deity, found in the cave temple at Housesteads, was erected A.D.
253. Remains of Mithraic worship have been found at York and Chester,
and other places, including Chesterholm (Vindolana), and Rutchester
(Vindobala), on the line of the great Roman wall. This worship of
Mithras is evidently but a corrupt descendant from the ancient Aryan
adoration of Mithra, the god of daylight.
From these and other reasons, yet to be advanced, I am inclined to
regard the introduction of the British god Bel or Beil as appertaining
to a much earlier epoch in our history than the advent of the
Ph[oe]nician merchants, who, most probably, did visit the Belisama,
Portus Setantiorum, and other harbours on the Lancashire and Cheshire
coast, for trading purposes, but at a relatively much more recent
period.
Mr. John Baldwin, in his "Pre-historic Nations," contends that the
"Bronze Age in Western Europe was introduced by a foreign people of the
Cushite race, culture, and religion, and that for a very long period it
was controlled and directed by their influence." He further adds:--
"The first settlements of the Arabian Cushites in Spain and Northern
Africa cannot have been later than 5,000 years before the Christian
era.... Probably the Cushite race, religion, and civilisation first went
to the ancient Finnic people of Britain, Gaul, and the Scandinavian
countries from Spain and Africa. The beginning of the Bronze Age in
these countries was much older than the period of Tyre. The Tyrian
establishments in those western countries seem to have been later than
the Aryan immigration that created the Keltic peoples and languages; and
it may be that the Tyrians introduced the 'Age of Iron' not long after
their arrival, for it was evidently much older than the time of the
Romans."
Professor Nilsson refers the ancient bronze instruments, etc., to
Ph[oe]nician influence, and describes some sculpture on two stones on a
tumulus near Kivik, which, Mr. Baldwin observes, "even Sir John Lubbock
admits, 'may fairly be said to have a Ph[oe]nician or Egyptian
appearance.'"
Mr. Baldwin traces to Arabian Cushite colonies the very ancient
civilisation of Egypt, Caldea, and the southern portion of India, as
well as Ph[oe]nicia and the western nations. Another stone, described by
Professor Nilsson, is an obelisk symbolising Baal. Referring to this
monument, Mr. Baldwin says:--
"The festival of Baal or Balder, celebrated on midsummer night in the
upper part of Norway, reveals the Cushite race, for the midnight fire in
presence of the midnight sun did not originate in that latitude. This
festival of Baal was celebrated in the British Islands until recent
times. Baal has given such names as Baltic, Great and Little Belt,
Belteburga, Baleshangen, and the like." He asks, "What other people
could have brought the worship of Baal to Western Europe in pre-historic
times? We see them in the stone circles, in the ruins at Abury and
Stonehenge, in the festival of Baal that lingered until our own times;
and there is something for consideration in the fact that Arabia has
still the ruins of ancient structures precisely like Stonehenge. It is
probable that the Arabians, or their representatives in Spain and North
Africa, went northward and began the Age of Bronze more than 2,000 years
before Gades [Cadiz] was built."
Mr. Baldwin draws a marked distinction between the modern Mohammedan
Semitic population of Arabia and their great Cushite, Hamite, or
Ethiopian predecessors. The former, he says, "are comparatively modern
in Arabia," they have "appropriated the reputation of the old race," and
have unduly occupied the chief attention of modern scholars.
Dr. Hooker, at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, described
a race of men in a district of Eastern Bengal, who erect, at the present
day, monuments similar to those termed, in Western Europe, Druidical.
With his own eyes he had seen "dolmens" and "cromlechs" not six months
old. He says that they call a stone by the same name as is given to it
in the Keltic idioms of Wales and Brittany, though, he adds, little of
the character of their language is yet known.
Sir John Lubbock, referring to the very ancient stone weapons found in
Denmark, Switzerland, France, England, and other countries, termed
_palæoliths_, says:--"Some implements of the same type have been found
in Spain, in Assyria, and in India. The latter have been described by
Mr. Bruce Foote; they were found in the Madras and North Arcot
districts, and are of quartzite, and in several cases were found by
Messrs. Foote and King, _in situ_, at depths of from three to ten feet.
The specimens figured will show how closely they resemble our European
specimens, and it is interesting that in the words of Mr. Foote, 'the
area, over which the lateritic formations were spread, has undergone, as
already stated, great changes since their deposition. A great part of
the formation has been removed by denudation, and deep valleys cut into
them are now occupied by the alluvium of various rivers.'"
In several parts of Britain, and especially in Cumberland, altars have
been found dedicated by Roman legionaries or their auxiliaries to a god
named Belatucadrus. Mr. Thomas Wright (Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 292),
after referring to a small one erected at Ellanborough by Julius
Civilis, says:--
"Several others dedicated to this deity have been found at Netherby,
Castlesteads, Burgh-on-the-sands, Bankshead, and other places. In some
instances, as in an altar found at Drumburgh, the deity is addressed by
the epithet, DEO SANCTO BELATVCADRO. In some altars he is identified
with Mars, as on one found at Plumpton Wall, dedicated DEO MARTI
BELATVCADRI ET NVMINIB AVGG. Several attempts have been made to derive
the name from Hebrew, Welsh, or Irish, and it has been hastily taken for
granted that this god was identical with the Ph[oe]nician Baal. Altars
to Belatucadrus have been found at Kirkby Thore, at Welp Castle, and at
Brougham, in Westmorland. The one at Brougham was dedicated by a man
named Andagus, which sounds like a Teutonic name."
Since the preceding paragraphs were written, I have seen in the
Manchester Natural History Museum, a rude altar dedicated to this god,
which, I am informed, was found some years ago at Ribchester, on the
Ribble. As I had not previously seen or heard of it, it is not mentioned
in my published "History of Preston and its Environs." The inscription
is somewhat defaced, but the DEO MARTI BELATVCADRI is very distinct. It
appears, like the one found at Plumpton Wall, to have been dedicated to
this god, and to the gods of the emperor (NVMINIB AVGG), or, as some
think, to the reigning emperor himself. The dedicator is Julius
Augustalis, the prefect of some military corps, the name of which I
cannot, at present, satisfactorily decipher.
The compounding of the name of _Baal_ or _Bel_ with other words is
common, as in the ancient name of the Ribble--_Belisama_. This
_Belatucadrus_ appears to belong to this class, at least so far as
_cadrus_ is concerned, for at Risingham, in Northumberland, an altar was
found dedicated to MOGONT CAD, which may perhaps mean, when written in
full, in the nominative case, MOGONTIS CADRUS. Horsley imagined it
probable that the CAD had reference to the _Gadeni_, a Caledonian tribe;
but Mr. Wright regards this as very doubtful. The Welsh word _cad_ means
war, battle, tumult, etc. May not CADRUS, therefore, be a Keltic synonym
for Mars?
Other altars have been found dedicated to gods that may probably be
traced to an Eastern origin. One found at Birrens, in Scotland, exhibits
a winged deity, holding a spear in her right hand and a globe in her
left. The dedication is to the goddess _Brigantia_. Mr. Wright says:--
"It was supposed this was the deity of the Brigantes, but I am not aware
that this country was ever called _Brigantia_, and it is not probable
the conqueror would worship the deity of a vanquished tribe. I feel more
inclined to think the name was taken from _Brigantium_, in Switzerland,
a town which occupied the site of the modern Bregentz. An altar found at
Chester was dedicated DEAE NYMPHAE BRIG, which in this case would be 'To
the Nymph Goddess of Brigantium.'"
Another ancient city styled Brigantium, now Briançon, was situated on an
opposite spur of the Alps, in the country of the Taurini, now Piedmont.
Ancient geographers speak of a tribe of Thracians, who were styled
Briges. In Laurent's work, the river at present named the Barrow, in
Ireland, is termed the Birgus. A people on the eastern coast of Ireland
were called Brigantes, and the name Brigantina is still retained in the
province of Gallicia, in Spain. Some authorities contend that the
Gaedhels or Gaels, the Gaelic or Erse element of our population,
originally entered Ireland and the south-west of England from Spain.
From Ireland they spread, northward, to the western isles and highlands
of Scotland, and westward, to the Isle of Man and the North of England
and Wales. In one of the preserved extracts from the lost book of Drom
Sneachta, supposed to have been written before the advent of St.
Patrick, is what is termed "the Prime Story of Irruption and Migration."
From this we learn that the ancient Milesian inhabitants themselves had
traditions respecting their advent from Spain, which referred to the
prior occupation of the country by two other branches of the Gaelic
race, viz., the Firbolgs and the Tuatha dé Dannan. The story says the
Milesians left Scythia for Egypt, but returned, and afterwards migrated
to Spain by way of Greece. After a long residence in the peninsula, they
built the city of Bragantia. About 1700 B.C., a colony of them landed at
the mouth of the Slaney, in Wexford, under the command of the eight sons
of Milesias or Galamah. In two battles they defeated their predecessors,
and divided the country amongst themselves. The Cymri, another branch of
the Keltic stock, on the contrary, entered Britain from Gaul, and were,
eventually, to a considerable extent, driven upon the Gaelic tribes in
the West of England and Wales by the pressure of their Teutonic
successors. Professor H. Morley says that that portion of the population
"in the North of England, who battled against the gradual progress of
expulsion," was "known as Briganted, fighting thieves. Brigant is Welsh
for thief and highlander." Brig and Brigant meaning top or summit, in
modern Welsh, and Brigantwys the people of the summit, Brigantes has
doubtless only originally meant the dwellers in the hilly country. The
habits of the brigands of Greece, Spain, and Italy, of the present day,
sufficiently account for its application to mountain hordes organised
for the purposes of plunder and bloodshed.
Perhaps the Aryan mythology will supply a common source for all these
local appellations. Walter K. Kelly ("Curiosities of Indo-European
Tradition") says:--"Agni, the god of fire (Latin, _ignis_), has for
retainers the Bhrigus and the Angirases. They are his priests on earth
whilst they dwell there in mortal form; and after death they are his
friends and companions in heaven. They are also the companions of the
clouds and storms"--in other words, personifications of some
characteristics of clouds and storms. He afterwards speaks of "_Bhrigu,
the father of a mythological family of that name_." The root of the word
means "_fulgent burning_." The Bhrigus and a kindred mythical race, the
Phlegyans, incurred the displeasure of the gods. The latter were
condemned to the torments of Tartarus. Bhrigu, being an ancestor of the
Brahmans, was more leniently treated. His father, Varuna, however, sent
him "on a penitential tour to several hells, that he might see how the
wicked are punished, and be warned by their fate."
The clouds and storms of the Alpine mountains and the Lancashire and
Yorkshire hills would amply justify the appellation of the term
Brigantium, or the country of the Brigantes, in the minds of Aryan
emigrants, to both localities. The Bhrigus, according to Dr. Kuhn, were
"brewers" of storms, or yielders of the heavenly soma, the drink of the
gods; in other words, the distillers of rain water, which rendered the
earth fruitful. The country of the Brigantes is the term given by the
Roman historians to that part of England which lies north of the Humber
and the Mersey, and includes the lesser tribes named the Volantii and
the Setantii, or Sistuntii, which occupied the western or Lancashire
coast, and perhaps that of Cumberland.
Another very common name on altars in the north of England is Vitires,
Vetiris, or Veteres. Mr. Thomas Wright regards this as a "foreign
deity," and thinks "it must have belonged to a national mythology." But
he adds, "As the altars were dedicated apparently by people of widely
different countries, they give us no assistance in appropriating this
deity. The word has been supposed to be identical with Vithris, one of
the names of the northern Odin, the Woden of the Germans." This name for
Odin has evidently some relationship to the Vritra (or Ahi, the dragon)
of the Hindoo Vedas.
Some altars have been found at Lancaster and in Cumberland, dedicated to
Cocidius or Cocideus. According to the Ravenna manuscript, it is
probable a temple to this god existed near the Roman Wall, of sufficient
importance to name the place Fanococidi. The name of this god may
probably be traced to an Aryan source. I can, however, at present, offer
no better suggestion than that it may have some reference to the Stygian
ferryman, which is of Aryan origin. The river or arm of the sea over
which the dead are ferried, by Charon, is variously named by the Greeks
as the Styx, the Acheron, and the Cocytus. Perhaps the latter term may
likewise furnish a clue to the derivation of the name Coccium of the
Itineraries, which I and others have placed at Walton, near Preston.[3]
It has previously been suggested by others that this station may have
been named after either the god Cocidius or the Emperor Cocceius Nerva.
The assumption that it was derived from Cocytus or Cocidius would in no
way vitiate the truthfulness of the usual derivation from the Keltic
_coch gwi_, or red water, from the red rock in the Ribble, as it is easy
to imagine such a description to have been given to the "river of
death." That the station was named after Cocceius Nerva is improbable,
as all the known evidence, including the site, coins, and the British
foundation beneath the Roman remains, indicate it to have been one of
Agricola's posts. He entered Lancashire in the year 79, and Nerva did
not commence his reign until 96. He only reigned about two years.
A very large proportion of the names of mountains and streams in any
part of Britain are corruptions, in a greater or lesser degree, of words
belonging to the aboriginal or Keltic tongue. With the aid of the Welsh,
the Gaelic, and the Irish, the meaning of many can be satisfactorily
ascertained, such as the Darwen (Dwrgwen, white, or beautiful stream),
Wyre (gwyr, pure, lively), Old Man (alt maen, high hill), Pennygent
(Penygwyn, white head or summit), or, which I think better, Pen y gwynt,
windy head or summit, from its exposed situation. Others are, however,
by no means so satisfactorily explained on similar grounds. Mr. Davies
in a very able contribution to the Philological Society's Transactions,
on "The Races of Lancashire," with reference to the Ribble, says:--
"The name of this well known river has much perplexed antiquarian
philologists. I can only venture to suggest that it may be compounded of
rhe (active, fleet), and bala (a shooting out, a discharge, the outlet
of a lake), and may refer to its rapid course as an estuary."
With our knowledge, from Ptolemy, of the existence of a "Belisama
Estuarium" on the Lancashire coast, in the second century, and which can
be otherwise shown, on the best available evidence, to apply to the
Ribble, the Rhi-bell, or River Bell, is a much more satisfactory
derivation; and more especially so as a god _bel_ or _beil_ of the
_beltain_ fires is conceded (as I have previously shown) to the early
Keltic inhabitants of Britain. The altar, recently found at Ribchester,
dedicated to the British god Belatucadrus, proves, at least, that
votaries of that deity dwelt in the Ribble valley, as well as in
Cumberland, &c.
Godfrey Higgins, in his "Celtic Druids," speaks of Samhan or Saman as
"one of the gods, the most revered in Ireland." He says:--"An annual
solemnity was instituted to his honour, which is yet celebrated on the
evening of the first day of November, which yet at this day is called
the _Oidhche Samhna_, or the night of _Samhan_." He further informs us
that he was "also called _Bal-Sab_ or Lord of Death," and that "_Samhan_
was also the sun, or rather the image of the sun," and adds:--
"These attributes of _Samhan_ seem at first contradictory, but they are
not unusual amongst the heathen gods. With the Greeks, Dionysos, the
good Demiurge, is identified with Hades. In Egypt, Osiris was the lord
of Death; with the Scandinavians, Odin, the god beneficent, was, at the
same time, King of the infernal regions. This deity was above all the
others whom we have named, but he was below the supreme being Baal. If
Samhan were the sun, as we see he was, he answers to Mithra of the
Persians, who was the middle link between Oromasdes and
Arimanes--between the Creator and the Destroyer, and was called the
_Preserver_."[4]
With the aid of the Hindoo Vedas, perhaps some light may be thrown on
this subject, as well as upon the origin of the names of some other
rivers in the neighbourhood, which have hitherto eluded satisfactory
explanation.
The gods of the Vedas appear to have been, more or less,
personifications of what were termed "the elements." The sun, the moon,
the sky or firmament, the dawn and evening twilight, the sea, lightning,
clouds, rain, wind, frost, fire, &c., and their attendant active
phenomena, contributed mainly to the construction of their mythological
edifice. Indra was god of the firmament, the earliest thunderer, the
forerunner of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor; Agni was the god of fire, and Soma
was the deity who brought down to earth the celestial liquor, the "drink
of the gods," the amrita of the Vedas, the nectar of the Greeks. Soma
was so designated because the "soma plant, which the Hindoos now
identify with the _Asclepias acida_ or _Sarcostemma viminale_,"
contained "a milky juice of a sweetish sub-acid flavour, which, being
mixed with honey and other ingredients, yielded to the enraptured
Aryans the first fermented liquor their race had ever known." All
celestial or atmospheric phenomena were named from earthly objects.
Clouds were called rocks and cows, and the mountain streams of the
former and the milk of the latter were the liquid nourishers and
fertilisers of the soil. The lightning-god was believed to pierce the
rock or the rain cloud, and so water the parched earth. Walter Kelly
says:--
"The identity of the heavenly soma with the cloud-water, and the close
connection in which fire and soma are brought in various Aryan legends,
prove that the drink of the gods was conceived to be a product of the
storm. It appears also that the earthly soma was boiled or brewed before
it was fermented, whence it must have followed, as a matter of course,
that its divine counterpart should be supposed to undergo the same
process. Hence it is manifest that we cannot claim for any of the later
ages the credit of having invented the metaphor involved in the common
saying, 'It's brewing a storm.' In that phrase, as in many others, we
only repeat the thoughts of our primæval ancestors."
Dr. Kuhn identifies the modern word _brew_ with the _brajj_ of the Rig
Veda, which has reference to the roasting of barley for brewing
purposes, and is intimately connected with the Bhrigus, beings who
"brewed and lightened" the heavenly soma out of the stormy phenomena of
the mountain regions. In the Welsh of the present day, _brygu_ means to
grow out, to overspread. One modern Welsh word, _brwysg_, means drunk,
and another _brwys_, fertile, luxuriant. The double use of the term at
the present time, is, therefore, in singular harmony with the hypothesis
of Kuhn, and adds much to its probability. Kelly says:--"One of the
synonyms of soma is _madhu_, which means a mixed drink; and this word is
the _methu_ of the Greeks, and the _mead_ of our own Saxon, Norse, and
Celto-British ancestors."
Near Rutchester, in Northumberland, the ancient Vindobala, is an
excavation made in the solid rock, the cause or use of which is not with
certainty known. It is 12 feet long, 4-1/2 feet broad, and 2 feet deep,
"and has a hole close to the bottom at one end." It is locally named the
"Giant's Grave." It is not improbable, from remains discovered near it,
that it has had some connection with a temple dedicated to the worship
of Mithras. A manuscript by Sir David Smith, preserved in Alnwick
Castle, referring to this singular excavation, says:--"The old peasants
here have a tradition that the Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer
of the bells of heather (heath), and that this trough was used in the
process of making such drink." Dr. Collingwood Bruce, commenting on the
above, says:--"The opinion long prevailed in Northumberland that the
_Picts_ had the art of preparing an intoxicating liquor from
heather-bells, and that the secret died with them."
The names of the gods underwent much change as time advanced, and the
race was scattered. Bel became the _luminous deity_ of some of the
settlers in Britain; Soma became a higher deity in importance than Indra
or Agni, and absorbed their attributes. In the Zend version the drink
soma is spelled haoma. The hymns addressed to Soma, in a later age, are
styled Sama Vedas. Hence it may easily be inferred the Belisama of
Ptolemy is a Latinised form of the British words which indicated that
the Ribble water was the "liquor of the gods" furnished by Bel and Sama
for the fertilisation of the earth. The hoary rocky mountains of
Pennygent, Ingleborough, and Pendle, and the storm-clouds that contended
with lightning about their summits, furnish sufficiently characteristic
natural phenomena to justify the appropriateness of the appellation.
This deification of rivers was by no means an uncommon occurrence. Sir
William Betham, in his "Gael and Cymbri," says, expressly, "the Celtæ
were much addicted to the worship of fountains and rivers as divinities.
They had a deity called Divona, or the river god." The Wharf, which
springs not far from the source of the Ribble, received these honours
from legionaries of Rome or some of their auxiliaries, who appear to
have worshipped the stream as the water-goddess "Verbeia." The Roman
name appears to be merely a Latin form of the ancient British word of
which the modern name Wharf is a corruption. The Lune, too, appears to
have had similar honours conferred upon it, as is evidenced by an altar
found at Skerton, near Lancaster, inscribed DEO JALONO. The word _Lune_
was anciently written _Lone_, and the hundred is still named Lonsdale.
Indeed, the personification of rivers is not yet extinct. We speak of
"Old Father Thames" to this day.
The Ituna Estuarium of Ptolemy is universally assigned to the Solway,
the chief river entering it being called the Eden at the present time.
As _t_ and _d_ are convertible, and the Latin _i_ was pronounced _e_, as
on the continent now, Eduna most probably expresses to our ears the
ancient sound, which is the exact counterpart of the modern one, the
Latin terminal letter not entering into the question. Does the Vedic and
Teutonic mythologies throw any light on the derivation of this name?
Kelly says:--
"The cloud-maidens are known in the Vedas as _Apas_ (waters), and are
styled brides of the gods (Dêvapatnis) and _Návyah_, _i.e._, navigators
of the celestial sea. Nearly related to them, but less divine, are the
_Apsarases_; damsels whose habitat is between the earth and the sun.
They are the houris of the Vedic paradise, destined to delight the souls
of heroes. Their name means either 'the formless' or 'the water going,'
and they appear to have been personifications of the manifold but
ill-defined forms of the mists; but other natural phenomena may also
have been represented under their image."
Kelly further informs us that these inferior cloud-maidens possessed
raiment or "shirts of swan plumage," by means of which they "transformed
themselves into water-fowl, especially swans." He adds that "the Persian
peris, and the German swan-maidens, changed their forms in the same way,
and by the same means." Indeed, they are "the originals" of these
"swan-maidens," and are closely related to the Elves, Mahrs, and
Valkyries, of the Teutonic mythology. The same writer further states
that "Odin's Valkyries (riders in the wild hunt) had their swan-shirts,
and the Norse goddess Freyja" (from whence our Friday), "had her
falcon-shirt,[5] which she lent to Loki, when he went in quest of Thor's
stolen hammer, and to rescue Idunn," (elsewhere spelled Idhunn) "the
goddess of youth, from captivity among the frost giants. Thiassi, who
kept her in custody, had an eagle-shirt, and his follow giant, Suttungr,
had another, in which he pursued Odin."
These wild riders of the stormy sky, like their prototypes in the Vedas,
personify or typify "rain senders." Mr. Kelly says, in the Teutonic form
of the myth, the manes of their horses "dropped dew upon the earth,
filled the drinking horns for the gods and the warriors in Odin's hall;
and like them, white maidens, elves, and witches offer full goblets and
horns to thankless mortals, who usually run away with the beaker after
spilling its contents on the ground."
It is a somewhat singular circumstance that the most celebrated relict
of this old pagan superstition, or myth, is preserved at Edenhall, on
the bank of the very river to which I am referring. Tradition says the
goblet was secured, in the orthodox way, by an ancestor of the
Musgraves, or one of his retainers, ages ago. Sir Walter Scott has
rendered the story immortal. He makes the following distich salute the
ears of the bold plunderer, as he hurriedly decamps from the fairy
revel:--
If this glass do break or fall,
Farewell the luck of Edenhall.
The "Luck of Edenhall," as the very ancient glass vessel is styled, is
believed to be of Venetian manufacture, and dates, probably, from the
century preceding the Norman conquest.
The Rev. G. W. Cox, in his valuable work on the "Mythology of the Aryan
Nations," ranks this cup amongst the numerous phallic symbols. Referring
to this subject, he says:--"We have seen the myth starting from its
crude and undisguised form, assume the more harmless shape of goblets or
horns of plenty and fertility; of rings and crosses, of rods and spears,
of mirrors and lamps. It has brought before us the mysterious ships
endowed with the powers of thought and speech, beautiful cups in which
the wearied sun sinks to rest, the staff of wealth and plenty with which
Hermes guides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven,
the cup of Dêmetêr into which the ripe fruit casts itself by an
irresistible impulse. We have seen the symbols assume the character of
talismanic tests, by which the refreshing draught is dashed from the
lips of the guilty; and, finally, in the exquisite legend of the
Sangreal the symbols have become a sacred thing, only the pure in heart
may see and touch."
The goddess of youth (Idunn), with her attendant swans and water-fowl,
is not an inapt personification of the lovely Eden, in its lower course;
while the wild moors and crags, where the eagles nestled, and amongst
which its many tributary streamlets spring, aptly enough answers to the
homes of the frost giants, who, in severe winters, held captive the
congealed waters.
It may be thought that this, being a Teutonic etymology, is not so
satisfactory as if it were Keltic. But its pertinence is corroborated by
the fact that, in the Welsh of the present day, _edn_ means fowl or
bird, _edyn_ winged one, and _ednyw_ spirit, essence.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on "First Principles," when treating of
"Laws in General," argues elaborately on the order in which the sense of
law, or a recognition of "that constant course of procedure" which the
term implies, was gradually developed in the human intellect. After
showing that there are several derivative principles, some earlier
arrived at than others from the relative frequency of the occurring
phenomena and their immediate influence upon, or of "personal concern"
to, the aboriginal savage, he has some observations very pertinent to
the present question. He says:--"The solidification of water at a low
temperature is a phenomenon that is simple, concrete, and of much
personal concern. But it is neither so frequent as those which we saw
are earliest generalised, nor is the _presence of the antecedent so
uniformly conspicuous_. Though in all but tropical climates, mid-winter
displays the relation between cold and freezing with tolerable
constancy; yet, during the spring and autumn, the occasional appearance
of ice in the mornings has not very manifest connection with the
coldness of the weather. Sensation being so inaccurate a measure, it is
not possible for the savage to experience the definite relation between
a temperature of 32° and the congealing of water; and hence the
long-continued conception of _personal_ agency. Similarly, but still
more clearly, with the winds, the absence of regularity, and the
inconspicuousness of the antecedents, allowing the mythological
explanation to survive for a great period."
The names of the Severn and the Dee, and some other rivers or estuaries,
will admit of similar interpretation from similar sources. Mr. Kelly
says:--"The collective appellation of the Vedic gods is Dêvas, and this
name has passed into most of the Indo-European languages; for
corresponding to the Sanscrit _dêva_ is the Latin _deus_, Greek _theós_,
Lithuanian _déwas_, Lettish _dews_, Old Prussian _deiws_, Irish _dia_,
Welsh _duw_, Cornish _duy_. Amongst the German races the word _dêva_
survives only in the Norse plural _tìvar_, gods; and amongst those of
the Sclave stock the Servians alone preserve a trace of it in the word
_diw_, giant. The daêvas of the Medes and Persians were in early times
degraded from the rank of gods to that of demons by a religious
revolution, just as the heathen gods of the Germans were declared by the
Christian missionaries to be devils; and the modern Persian _div_, and
Armenian _dev_, mean an evil spirit. Dêva is derived from _div_, heaven
(properly 'the shining'), and means the heavenly being."
This appears to be a satisfactory and conclusive answer to a very
pertinent question put by George Borrow in the last chapter of his work
on "Wild Wales." He says:--"How is it that the Sanscrit _devila_ stands
for what is wise and virtuous, and the English devil for all that is
desperate and wicked?" A similar answer is given to this question by the
fate which the Teutonic gods of Western Europe underwent on the final
triumph of Christianity. Dasent says:--"They were cast down from honour,
but not from power. They lost their genial kindly influence as the
protectors of men and the origin of all things good; but their existence
was tolerated; they became powerful for ill, and degenerated into
malignant demons."
In the Hindoo mythology, it appears revolutions took place at a very
early date. In the early Vedic hymns Dêva is "addressed as Dyanish pitâ,
_i.e._, Heaven Father, and his wife is Mata Prithivi, Mother Earth. He
is the Zeus Pater of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the Romans, the German
Tius, and the Norse Tyr. Dyanish pitâ was the god of the blue firmament,
but even in the Vedic times his grandeur was considerably on the wane.
Indra, the new lord of the firmament, had left him little more than a
titular sovereignty in his own domain, while Varuna, another heavenly
monarch, who was still in the plenitude of his power, commanded more
respect than the _roi fainéant_, his neighbour. The all-covering
Varuna,[6] the Uranos of the Greeks, was lord of the celestial sea and
of the realm of light above it, that highest heaven in which the Fathers
dwelt with their King Yama. After the southern branch of the Aryans had
entered India, Varuna was brought down from the upper regions, to be
thenceforth the god of the earthly sea, which had then for the first
time become known to his votaries."
May not this Varun be possibly the true root of the name Severn?
Etymologists are not at all agreed as to its derivation. Some say it was
anciently called Hafren, and that this term is identical with Severn,
the latter being merely a corruption of the former. This is the
prevalent opinion. The Severn, indeed, yet retains the name Hafren, from
its source to Llanidloes. Its principal upper tributary which enters it
a little below Welshpool is called the Vyrnwy. May not this be the true
Welsh root of the word? If such be the case, there is nothing improbable
in the conjecture that Hafren is a Keltic corruption of the Sanscrit
Varun, especially as the _f_ and _v_ are readily "convertible." The Se
may be a prefix, of which more anon.[7]
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his "British History," states that King Locrin
divorced his queen Guendol[oe]na, and married a beautiful captive named
Estrildis. On the death of the king, the divorced queen commanded
"Estrildis and her daughter Sabre to be thrown into the river now called
the Severn, and published an edict through all Britain that the river
should bear the damsel's name, hoping by this to perpetuate her memory,
and by that the infamy of her husband. So that to this day the river is
called in the British tongue Sabren, which by the corruption of the name
is, in another language, Sabrina."
Milton, speaking of Sabrina as the goddess of the river, styles her "the
daughter of Locrine, that had the sceptre from his father Brute." As the
mythical or rather non-historical character of Brute and his progeny is
now almost universally conceded, it is not improbable that the river
named the maiden (if she ever existed in the flesh) rather than that her
immersion changed its designation. Sabrina, or Savrina (for the _b_ and
_v_ are convertible), may therefore but be the Latinised form of the old
Welsh Hafren and the Sanscrit Varuna, with the prefix _se_ added
thereto.
The Dee is described as the Seteia Estuarium by Ptolemy. The Roman city
Deva (Chester) was situated on its banks. The _se_ is generally regarded
as a prefix in this case, and it may likewise be so in the word Severn.
_D_ and _t_ being convertible, the names of the river and city evidently
spring from one root. The Rev. John Whitaker, the historian of
Manchester, in interpreting the term Se-tan-tiu, says it may mean "the
inferior or southerly country of water, and express the particular
position of Lancashire with respect to the Volantii and the sea."[8]
The Se, in these cases, may have a somewhat similar import, or it may
have reference to the Vedic great serpent Sesha, concerning which there
is a curious story in the Hindoo poems. The Dêvas had been at war with
their enemies, the Asuras, and, being thirsty with the work (or the
country needing rain), a truce was agreed upon, and both sides joined
their efforts "in churning the ocean to procure amrita" (or soma) "the
drink of immortality. They took Mount Mandara for a churning stick, and
wrapping the great serpent Sesha round it for a rope, they made the
mountain spin round to and fro, the Dêvas pulling at the serpent's tail,
and the Asuras at its head. Mount Mandara was more anciently written
Manthara, and Manthara is the Sanscrit name of the churning stick which
is used by every dairy in India."[9] The purely figurative character of
this is easily seen. It is but another form of expressing the
fertilisation of the earth by means of the rain which is engendered by
the "strife of the elements." The churning stick and cord are but
another form of the Hindoo pramantha, or fire churn, "or chark," by
which the sacred or "need-fire" was produced amongst the Greeks and
Romans, as well as the Keltæ and other Aryan tribes, before the
discovery of the use of flint and steel. The "chark" represented the
power of the sun, and it is not impossible our remote Eastern ancestors
were aware that the sun really does, in a sense, "churn" or "brew" the
ocean water, and distribute its vapours over mountain and plain, and by
this means convert even an otherwise barren wilderness into a fertile
garden, making it literally "blossom like the rose."
That this superstition has not yet become extinct in India is attested
by the following paragraph, which appeared in the newspapers in the year
1869:--"The inhabitants of Burmah have an idea that pulling at a rope
will produce rain. Two parties tug against each other. One is a raining
party, the other is a fair weather party. By previous arrangement the
rain party are allowed to be victorious. On the occasion of the late
continued drought this proceeding was attended with the happiest
results."
Geoffrey of Monmouth says that an "invading king of the Huns, named
Humber, was defeated by Locrin on the banks of that river, and drowned
in its flood, on account of which it has since borne his name." This, of
course, is merely idle romance. Some writers contend that the name was
originally Chumber, that Northumberland means North Cumri-land, of which
the present Cumberland is a relic. It is not improbable that the Mersey
derived its name from Mercia, or the territory from the boundary river.
It, in conjunction with the Humber, divided Northumbria from Mercia
during the heptarchy. The Mersey is still called the Cheshire Waters by
some of the inhabitants on the south-west of Manchester.
It is somewhat singular that no Roman writer or Itinerary mentions the
Humber. Ptolemy speaks of a river Abus, which is generally identified
with that stream, but this helps us not to the etymology of the modern
name. It is not altogether improbable, however, that the Aryan mythology
may throw some light upon the ancient appellations. We are informed by
Max Müller that, previous to the dispersion of the Aryan tribes, the
Ribhus were called Arbhus, and that this latter term is identical with
the Greek Orpheus. From this root likewise is derived the German Alb or
Alp; plural _Elbe_ or Elfen; English Elf, with its plural Elves. In the
modern Welsh the word _elod_ means intelligence, spirit, _elaeth_
spiritual being, and _elford_ both demon and intellectual existence. The
Rev. G. W. Cox says that Alpheios, the mythic huntsman, "is the child of
the waters.... He is, in short, the Elf, or water sprite, whose
birth-place is the Elbe, or flowing stream." If the name of the German
river _Elbe_ (Albis) be derived from this source, the probability is
heightened that the Abus of Ptolemy may have intimate relationship to
the Aryan Arbhus, or Ribhus. These mystic beings were followers, like
the Bhrigus and the Maruts, of Agni and Indra, "personifications of fire
and firmament." Kelly says:--"The element of the Ribhus is rather that
of the sunbeams or the lightning, though they too rule the winds, and
sing, like the Maruts, the loud song of the storm.[10] Their name means
the 'artificers,' and not even the divine workman of Olympus was more
skilled than they in all kinds of handicraft. The armour and weapons of
the gods, the chariots of the Asvins (deities of the dawn), the
thunderbolt and the lightning steed of Indra, were of their workmanship.
They made their old decrepid parents young and supple-jointed again. But
the feat for which they were most renowned is the revival of the
slaughtered cow on which the gods had feasted. Out of the hide alone
these wonder-working Ribhus reproduced the perfect living animal; and
this they did not once, but again and again. _In other words, out of a
small portion of the imperishable cloud that had melted away in rain
and seemed destroyed, they reproduced its whole form and substance._"
Similar feats were ascribed to the Northern thunder-god, Thor, whose
practice it was to kill the two buck goats that drew his car, cook them
for supper, and bring them to life again next morning by touching them
with his hammer.
Kelly further adds that in "the gloomy season of the winter solstice the
Ribhus _sleep for twelve days in the house of the sun-god Savitar_; then
they _wake up and prepare the earth to clothe itself anew with
vegetation, and the_ FROZEN WATERS TO FLOW _again_."
The tributaries of the Humber are remarkable on account of their
liabilities to sudden floods; and their constant recurrence, after long
periods of drought, would suggest to a primæval people the interference
of celestial beings which possessed the attributes assigned to these
Arbhus or Ribhus. Referring to the Greek form of this myth, Kelly
says:--
"We see how the cruder idea of the Ribhus sweeping trees and rocks in
wild dance before them by the force of their stormy song grew under the
beautifying touch of the Hellenic imagination into the legend of that
master of the lyre whose magic tones made _torrents pause and listen,
rocks and trees descend with delight from their mountain beds_, and
moved even Pluto's unrelenting heart to pity."
The estuary on the opposite coast of Britain to the Severn, now known as
the Wash, is called by Ptolemy, Metaris. May not this name have had,
originally, some connection with Varuna's friend Mithra? Kelly says:--
"When the sun was still a wheel, a store of gold, a swan or a flamingo,
an eagle, falcon, horse, and many other things, it was also the eye of
Varuna; just as amongst the Anglo-Saxons and other Germans it was held
to be the eye of Woden. Varuna and Mithra (the friend), _the god of
daylight_, used to sit together at morning on a golden throne, and
journey at even in a brazen car."
The sun, at the dawn at least, gilded the waves of the eastern estuary,
and shed its ruddier glow at evening on the western or Severn sea. Under
any interpretation, the coincidence of so many names and half-hidden
characteristics, to say the least, is very remarkable.
There is nothing extravagant in this attempt to show that the terms thus
applied conveyed both a literal, or earthly, as well as a figurative, or
celestial, meaning. All mythology is fashioned out of such materials.
Primitive languages are limited in the number of their words, and, of
necessity, are highly figurative. The tongues of all the North American
Indians, as well as those of the tribes of Aryan and Semitic origin,
markedly exhibit this peculiarity. Farrer, in his essay on the "Origin
of Language," says:--
"To call things which we have never seen before by the name of that
which most nearly resembles them is a practice of every-day life. That
children at first call all men 'father' and all women 'mother' is an
observation as old as Aristotle. The Romans gave the name of Lucanian
_ox_ to the elephant, and _camelopardus_ to the giraffe, just as the New
Zealanders are stated to have called horses _large dogs_. The astonished
Caffers gave the name of _cloud_ to the first parasol which they had
seen; and similar instances might be adduced almost indefinitely. They
prove that it is an instinct, if it be not a necessity, to borrow for
the unknown the names already used for things known."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The _Pall Mall Gazette_, of January, 1867, contained a paragraph
announcing the success which had attended the labours of M. Lejean, who
had been sent by the French government "on a journey of scientific
exploration to India and the Persian Gulf." M. Lejean, in a letter from
Abushehr (Bendershehr), reports to the French Minister of Public
Instruction, discoveries "of so extraordinary a nature," that the writer
in the _Gazette_ "scarcely likes to repeat them without further
confirmation." Amongst other matters, he says:--"They extend from the
oldest times to the Alexandrine period, and from the Arians to Buddhism.
He speaks of having discovered ante-Sanscrit idioms (_langues
paléo-ariennes_) 'still spoken between Kashmir and Afghanistan by the
mountain tribes,' and he undertakes to prove 'that these languages have
a more direct connection with the European languages than Sanscrit.'"
Should this prove correct, a careful analysis of this speech or tongue
may throw much light, either confirmative or otherwise, on many of the
more recondite questions discussed in this work.
[2] Baldwin, however, in his recent work, "Pre-historic Nations,"
contends that the Ph[oe]nicians, as well as the ancient Egyptians and
others, were descended from the old Cushite Arabs, and were therefore
"Hamitic" rather than "Semitic" in their origin.
[3] History of Preston and its Environs, p. 36.
[4] The Hindoo Trimürtti or Triad, namely, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva,
likewise represents the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer.
[5] The falcon, as well as the eagle, was a "fire-bringer or
lightning-bird."
[6] "Varuna and the demon Vitri both derive their names from var, vri,
to cover, to enfold."
[7] Since the above was written, the Rev. G. W. Cox's "Mythology of the
Aryan Nations" has been published. At page 78, vol. 2, speaking of the
youth of Paris, the seducer of Helen, he says:--"In his early life he
has the love of Oinônê, the child of the river-god Kebrên, and thus a
being akin to the bright maidens who, like Athenê and Aphroditê, are
born from the waters." In a note he adds "that this name Kebrên is
probably the same as Severn, the intermediate forms leave little room
for doubting."
[8] Since the above was written, I have seen, in Captain Speke's
"Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," the map of Eastern
Equatorial Africa, which accompanied a paper, published in the third
volume of "Asiatic Researches, in 1801." Speke, referring to this paper,
says:--"It was written by Lieutenant Wilford, from the 'Purans' of the
ancient Hindus.... It is remarkable that the Hindus have christened the
source of the Nile _Amara_, which is the name of a country at the
north-east corner of the Victoria N'yanza. This, I think, shows clearly,
that the ancient Hindus must have had some kind of communication with
both the northern and southern ends of the Victoria N'yanza." I find on
this map, on the west side of the inland sea styled "Lake of Amara or of
the Gods," a range of hills named "_Sitanta M^ts_." They are in close
contiguity to the "_Soma Giri_" or "Mountains of the Moon," and seem to
be a lower or inferior branch of that range, bordering upon the waters
of the great lake. This appears to be a further confirmation of the high
probability which exists that some of the very ancient local
nomenclature of Britain and Western Europe is of Eastern origin. Ptolemy
speaks not only of a people inhabiting the district of which Lancashire
forms a part, which he names the _Setantii_, but of a harbour on the
coast, the _Portus Setantiorum_, which I and others have fixed at the
Wyre. [See "History of Preston and its Environs." p. 36.]
[9] The second "Avatâra" of Vishnu was in the form of a tortoise, when
Vishnu placed himself under the mountain Mandara, while the gods and
demons churned the Milky Sea for ambrosia. This incarnation is called
the _Kurma_. This churning appears to have produced other miraculous
results. Amongst the "gifts" of the ocean on this auspicious occasion,
two especially fell to the share of Vishnu himself, namely, a miraculous
jewel, named _Kaustubha_, and S'rî, the goddess of Beauty and
Prosperity. The Venus of the Greeks was said to have been produced from
the foam of the sea, in the neighbourhood of the island _Cythera_, hence
one of the numerous appellations of the goddess--_Cytherea_.
[10] The modern Welsh word _aban_ signifies din, tumult, uproar.
CHAPTER II.
FIRE OR SUN WORSHIP AND ITS ATTENDANT SUPERSTITIONS.
Most glorious orb! thou wert a worship, ere
The mystery of thy making was reveal'd!
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,
Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd
Themselves in orisons! Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown--
Who chose thee for his shadow!
_Byron._
Let us meditate on the adorable light of the divine ruler,
(Savitri, the sun); may it guide our intellects.
_Vedic Hymn._
In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd, thee, O man!
Thou breathing dial! Since thy day began
The present hour was ever markt with shade.
_W. Savage Landor._
I have said that some remains of the fire worship of Bel or Beil, until
very recently, might be found in Lancashire and the North of England, as
well as at present in Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, I am inclined to
think certain English customs of the peasantry, at the present day, may,
with perfect truthfulness, be referred to this source, although the
original objects of the ceremonies may have been, either wholly or in
part, obliterated by time, or obscured by the action of more recent
rites and traditional observances.
Amongst these may be instanced a superstition prevalent in the North of
England and many other places, that a funeral procession, when arrived
at the churchyard, must move in the sun's course; that is, from east to
west; otherwise evil resulted to the spirit of the departed. This
sentiment is not confined to religious ceremonies, but is respected when
passing the bottle in convivial assemblies; and in several other matters
of ordinary every-day life. The fact that Brand, and most of the earlier
writers after the Reformation, speak of these superstitions as "Popish,"
in no way invalidates the assignment to them of an Aryan origin. As
early as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute the Great, we
find laws strictly prohibiting the people from worshipping, or
venerating, "the sun, moon, sacred groves and woods, and hallowed hills
and fountains." Decrees were again and again pronounced in vain against
many of these practices by the ecclesiastical authorities. In the canons
of the Northumberland clergy, quoted by Wilkins and Hallam, we read as
follows:--
"If a king's thane deny this (_the practice of heathen superstition_),
let twelve be appointed for him, and let him take twelve of his kindred
(or equals, _maga_), and twelve British strangers; and if he fail, then
let him pay for his breach of law, twelve half-marcs: if a landowner (or
lesser thane) deny the charge, let as many of his equals and as many
strangers be taken as for a royal thane; and if he fail, let him pay six
half-marcs: If a ceorl deny it, let as many of his equals and as many
strangers be taken for him as for the others; and if he fail, let him
pay twelve oræ for his breach of law."
This demonstrates that all classes, whatever their rank, found it
difficult to shake off the superstitions of their forefathers. Some of
them became amalgamated with more modern festive ceremonies, and were
eventually intermingled with the formulæ of the Christian worship
itself. Sir Jno. Lubbock, in his recent work, "The Origin of
Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," endorses this view. He
says: "When man, either by natural progress, or the influence of a more
advanced race, rises to the conception of a higher religion, _he still
retains his old beliefs, which long linger on, side by side with_, and
yet in utter opposition to, the higher creed. The new and more powerful
spirit is an addition to the old Pantheon, and diminishes the importance
of the older deities; gradually, the worship of the latter sinks in the
social scale, and becomes confined to the ignorant and the young. Thus a
belief in witchcraft still flourishes among our agricultural labourers
and the lowest classes in our great cities, and the deities of our
ancestors survive in the nursery tales of our children. We must,
therefore, expect to find in each race, traces--nay, more than
traces--of lower religions."
In the Irish Glossary of Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel, written in the
beginning of the tenth century, the author says, in his time "four great
fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids, viz.,
in February, May, August, and November." General Valancey says the Irish
have discontinued their November fires and substituted candles; while
the Welsh, though they retain the fire, "can give no reason for the
illumination." All Saints' Day is on the first of November, and its
vigil is termed Allhalloween, or Nutcrack night. Those festivals had
all reference to the seasons, and their influence on the fruitfulness of
the earth. Brand says "it is customary on this night with young people
in the north of England to dive for apples, or catch at them, when stuck
upon one end of a kind of hanging beam, at the other extremity of which
is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their mouths only, their hands
being tied behind their backs." Robert Burns tells us that Halloween is
thought to be a "night when witches, devils, and other mischief making
beings, are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly
those ærial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand
anniversary." Scotch girls, on this evening, pull, blindfolded, cabbage
stalks, in order to divine the size and figure of their future husbands.
Nuts are roasted or flung into the fire for a similar purpose both in
Scotland and England. Gay describes the latter ceremony as follows:--
Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name;
This with the _loudest bounce_ me sore amazed,
That in a _flame of brightest colour_ blazed;
_As blazed the nut so may thy passion grow_,
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!
We possess some interesting accounts of these gatherings in various
parts of Scotland during the latter portion of the last century. In
Perthshire, heath, broom, and dressings of flax were tied to poles,
lighted, and carried round the villages and fields. One minister says
the people "set up bonfires in every village. When the bonfire is
consumed, the ashes are carefully collected into the form of a circle.
There is a stone put in near the circumference, for every person of the
several families interested in the bonfire; and whatever stone is
removed out of its place or injured before the next morning, the person
represented by that stone is devoted, or _fey_, and is supposed not to
live twelve months from that day. The people received the consecrated
fire from the Druid priests next morning, the virtues of which were
supposed to continue a year." A similar authority says, "the custom of
making a fire in the fields, baking a consecrated cake, &c., on the 1st
of May is not yet quite worn out."
In Derbyshire these fires were called _Tindles_, and were kindled at the
close of the last century. In some localities the ceremony is called a
_Tinley_. Sir William Dugdale says, "On All-Hallow Even the master of
the family anciently used to carry a bunch of straw, fired, about his
corne, saying--
"Fire and red low
Light on my _teen low_."
In Lancashire they are called _tandles_ and _teanlas_. In Ireland
May-day eve is called _neen na Bealtina_, the eve of Bael fires. The
practice of divination by the roasting of nuts is yet common in
Lancashire. The hollow cinder, too, which leaps from a coal fire, is
supposed to augur wealth or death to the person against whom it strikes,
in proportion as its shape nearest resembles a purse or a coffin.
Mr. Thornber, the historian of Blackpool, and Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, of
Burnley, author of a series of valuable papers on Lancashire
superstitions published in the "Transactions of the Lancashire and
Cheshire Historic Society," have furnished some curious information of a
local character with reference to this ancient fire-worship. The latter
says:--"Such fires are still lighted in Lancashire, on Hallowe'en, under
the names of Beltains or Teanleas; and even the _cakes_ which the Jews
are said to have made in honour of the Queen of Heaven, are yet to be
found at this season amongst the inhabitants of the banks of the
Ribble.... Both the fires and cakes, however, are now connected with
superstitious notions respecting purgatory, &c., but their origin and
perpetuation will scarcely admit of doubt." He further observes:--"The
practice of 'causing children to pass through the fire to Moloch,' so
strongly reprobated by the prophet of old, may be cited as an instance
in which Christianity has not yet been able to efface all traces of one
of the oldest forms of heathen worship."
Mr. Thornber says:--"The conjoint worship of the sun and moon, the Samen
and Sama, husband and wife of nature, has been from these early times so
firmly implanted that ages have not uprooted it. Christianity has not
banished it.... In my youth, on Hallowe'en, under the name of Teanla
fires, I have seen the hills throughout the country illuminated with
sacred flames, and I can point out many a cairn of fire-broken
stones--the high places of the votaries of Bel--where his rites have
been performed on the borders of the Ribble age after age. Nor at this
day are these mysteries silenced; with a burning whisp of straw at the
point of a fork on Sama's festival at the eve of All-hallows, the farmer
in some districts of the Fylde encircles his field to protect the coming
crop from noxious weeds, the tare and darnel; the old wife refuses to
sit the eggs under her crackling hen after sunset; the ignorant boy sits
astride a stile, as he looks at the new moon; the bride walks not
widdershins to church on her nuptial moon; and if the aged parent
addresses not the young pair in the words of Hanno, the Carthaginian in
the P[oe]nula of Plautus, 'O that the good Bel-Samen may favour them,'
or, like the Irish peasant, 'The blessing of Sama and Bel go with you;'
still, we have often heard the benediction, 'May the sun shine bright
upon you,' in accordance with the old adage,
'Blest is the corpse the rain fell on,
Blest the bride on whom the sun shone.'"
M. Du Chaillu, in his recent "Journey into Ashango-land and further
penetration into Equatorial Africa," speaks of a certain superstitious
reverence for fire and faith in its medical virtues by the inhabitants
of the region he traversed. He relates the following beautiful story
respecting their astronomical notions:--"I was not always so solitary in
taking my nightly observations, for sometimes one and another of my men
or Mayola" (the king or chief), "would stand by me. Of course, I could
never make them comprehend what I was doing. Sometimes I used to be
amused by their ideas about the heavenly bodies. Like all other
remarkable natural objects, they are the subject of whimsical myths
amongst them. According to them, the sun and moon are of the same age,
but the sun brings daylight and gladness and the moon brings darkness,
witchcraft, and death--for death comes from sleep, and sleep commences
in darkness. The sun and moon, they say, once got angry with each other,
each one claiming to be the eldest. The moon said, 'Who are you, to dare
to speak to me? You are alone; you have no people. What! are you to
consider yourself equal to me? Look at me,' she continued, showing the
stars shining around her, 'these are my people; I am not alone in the
world like you.' The sun answered, 'Oh, moon, you bring witchcraft, and
it is you have killed all my people, or I should have as many attendants
as you.' According to the negroes, people are more liable to die when
the moon first makes her appearance and when she is last visible. They
say that she calls the people her insects and devours them. The moon
with them is the emblem of time and death."
The Teutonic tribes appear, contrary to the general faith of their Aryan
kindred, to have regarded the sun as a female and the moon as a male
deity. Palgrave, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," says:--"They had
an odd notion that if they addressed that power as a goddess, their
wives would be their masters."
I am strongly inclined to think that the continuance of the practice of
lighting bonfires on the 5th of November owes quite as much to the
associations connected with the ancient teanla fires of Allhalloween, as
to any present Protestant horror of the treason of Guy Fawkes and his
band of conspirators. It may be quite true that the House of Commons, in
February, 1605-6 did ordain that the 5th of November should be kept as
"_a holiday_ FOR EVER in thankfulness to God for our deliverance, and
detestation of the Papists;" but ordinances of this class seldom produce
more than a temporary excitement amongst large masses of the people. I
remember, in my youth, "assisting" at the celebration of several
"bonfire days" in Preston and its neighbourhood, sometimes as amateur
pyrotechnic artist, when we enjoyed our "fun" without any reference to
Protestant or Catholic proclivities. Few, except the better educated,
knew what the "Gunpowder Plot" really meant. Some associated it mainly
with our own pyrotechnic efforts and other attendant consumption of the
explosive compound, on the then special occasion. I rather fancy the
ancient November "Allhallow fires" have in their decadence, merged into
the modern "Gunpowder Plot" bonfires; and hence the reason why, in some
rural districts, they yet abound, while they are fast disappearing from
our more populous towns. I was surprised to find, when riding on an
omnibus from Manchester for about five miles on the Bury-road, on the
evening of a recent anniversary of this "holiday," that I could count,
near and on the horizon, fires of this description by the dozen, and
yet, while in Manchester, I had remained ignorant of the fact that
bonfire associations were influencing the conduct of any section of
society. The merging of one superstition, custom, habit, or tradition,
into another, is one of the most ordinary facts of history.
Mr. Richard Edwards, in his "Land's End District," gives a very graphic
account of the bonfires lighted up in Cornwall on _Midsummer eve_. Some
of the details sufficiently resemble those of our northern "gunpowder
plot" demonstrations to prove that a Guy Fawkes and an Act of Parliament
are not absolutely necessary to make a bonfire festivity attractive to
the descendants of the fire-worshippers of old. He says:--
"On these eves a line of tar barrels, relieved occasionally by large
bonfires, is seen in the centre of each of the principal streets in
Penzance. On either side of this line, young men and women pass up and
down, swinging round their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of
folded canvas steeped in tar, and nailed to the ends of sticks between
three and four feet long; the flames of some of these almost equal those
of the tar barrels. Rows of lighted candles, also, when the air is calm,
are fixed outside the windows or along the sides of the streets. In St.
Just and other mining parishes, the young miners, mimicking their
father's employments, bore rows of holes in the rocks, load them with
gunpowder, and explode them in rapid succession by trains of the same
substance. As the holes are not deep enough to split the rocks, the same
little batteries serve for many years.... In the early part of the
evening, children may be seen wreathing wreaths of flowers,--a custom in
all probability originating from the ancient use of these ornaments when
they danced around the fires. At the close of the fireworks in Penzance,
a great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from the neighbourhood
of the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand
in hand, forming a long string, and run through the streets, playing
'thread the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and
ofttimes leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have, on these
occasions, seen boys following one another, jumping through flames
higher than themselves. But while this is now done innocently, in every
sense of the word, we all know that the passing of children through fire
was a very common act of idolatry; and the heathen believed that all
persons, and all living things, submitted to this ordeal, would be
preserved from evil throughout the year."
I remember well the bonfire processions during election periods, at
Preston, above forty years ago, in the palmy days of the late Mr. Henry
Hunt. It is not improbable that a remnant of the old superstition
hovered about them; and that a latent belief in the "luck-bringing"
qualities of fire, to a slight extent, influenced their promoters.
A few years ago I visited, in company with Mr. Thornber, a field at
Hardhorn, near Poulton, and was shown by that gentleman some of the
stones yet remaining of what he has for many years regarded as the
remains of a very ancient Teanlea cairn. Some of the stones bore marks
of fire. The mound must, however, have been neglected for a length of
time, inasmuch as the shrewd old farmer who had destroyed it had no
recollection or traditionary knowledge respecting the use to which it
had been appropriated. But from the ashes and other indications of fire
which the upper portion of the cairn presented, the worthy husbandman
felt confident that "it hed bin a blacksmith's forge i' th' olden time."
Godfrey Higgins in his "Celtic Druids," asserts, on the authority of
Hayman Rooke, that "so late as the year 1786, the custom of lighting
fires was continued at the Druid temple at Bramham, near Harrowgate,
Yorkshire, on the eve of the summer solstice." The Bramham crags
referred to present a singularly curious specimen of the partial
disintegration of huge rocks belonging to the millstone grit series.
Their present peculiar forms are not now attributed by the learned to
human agency, in any marked degree at least, but to the denuding action
of water, frost, and other geological conditions or phenomena.
Nevertheless, from the wild and even weird aspect of the group and its
elevated site, it is by no means improbable that it has been used in
early times as a place of worship, or as the locality for the
performance of superstitious rites of the class referred to. Doubtless,
other localities of a similar character might be pointed out. "Beacon
Fell," near "Parlick Pike," and the "Tandle Hills," near Rochdale, may
have been used as places of public assembly, and for the performance of
similar superstitious observances. The same may be said of Ingleborough,
which yet exhibits remains of Keltic occupation.
This fire-worship, amongst a barbarous people, appears to have had by no
means a strange or unnatural origin. Mr. Walter Kelly, after a very
elaborate analysis, concludes that the Prometheus of the Greeks and the
Vedic Mâtarisvan are "essentially the same." "The elder fire-gods, Agni
and Rudra," he says, "had a troop of fire-kindling attendants, called
Pramathas or Pramâthas," and he regards Prometheus as the Greek form of
this word. He calls attention to the fact that Diodorus says of the
celebrated Titan, that "according to the mythographers he stole fire
from the gods, but that in reality he was the inventor of the
fire-making instrument." The discoverer of the chark, or "fire-drill,"
an instrument for obtaining fire by artificial means, would be so great
a benefactor to a people that had to suffer all the inconveniences
resulting from occasional fireless hearths, that we may well understand
why he should be invested by his astonished and delighted fellow-savages
with miraculous or supernatural powers.[11] Doubtless the production of
fire by the rubbing together of two pieces of dry timber preceded this
discovery, but, under many circumstances, the operation must have been a
most laborious one, and ofttimes impracticable. But with the "chark" the
result was nearly as certain as when flint, steel, and tinder were
employed for this purpose. It was a very simple instrument indeed, but
it has nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence on the destinies of
mankind. It consisted merely of a piece of soft dry wood with a hole
drilled in its centre, into which a rod of hard wood, ash, or oak, was
placed, and caused to revolve with rapidity by a cord, passed round it,
being pulled and slackened at each end alternately. A wheel and its axle
have hence become types of the sun and the thunderbolt. Fire produced in
this original way was considered sacred. Even the Greeks and Romans, as
well as the Kelts, and some Christian populations until recent times,
adopted the same or a similar process in the lighting of fires connected
with religious ceremonies. Mr. Kelly says "the Church has not quite yet
succeeded in effacing the vestiges of their heathen origin. This is
especially evident in the usages of many districts, where the purity of
the Easter fire (an idea borrowed from Pagan tradition) is secured by
deriving the kindling flame either from the consecrated Easter candles,
or from the new-born and perfectly pure element produced by the priest
from flint and steel." The Vedic chark was made from the wood of two
sacred trees; "the sami sprang from heavenly fire sent down to earth,
and the asvattha from the vessel which contained it." Kelly adds:--"The
idea of marriage, suggested by such a union of the two trees, is also
developed in the Veda with great amplitude and minuteness of detail, and
is a very prominent element in the whole cycle of myths connected with
the chark." Doubtless, we have here exposed the root of the entire
system of phallic worship, stripped of much, if not all, of the
grossness afterwards attendant upon it. It appears that amongst the
Peruvians, who were sun-worshippers, the great national festival was
held at the summer solstice. They collected the rays of that luminary in
a concave mirror, by which means they rekindled their fires. Sometimes,
indeed, they obtained their "need-fire" by friction of wood. Amongst the
Mexicans likewise grand religious celebrations took place at the close
of the fifty-second year, when the extinguished fires were rekindled "by
the friction of sticks." This is a very general practice amongst savage
tribes at the present day. Mr. Angus says some of the western tribes of
Australia "have no means of kindling fire. They say that it formerly
came from the north." Should that of one tribe unfortunately become
extinguished, there was nothing for it but journeying to a neighbouring
encampment and borrowing a light. The Tasmanians are in the same
predicament. The Fegeeans obtain fire by friction. So do other South Sea
Islanders, as well as many of the North American Indians. The Dacotahs
and Iroquois use an instrument not unlike the drilling bow at present
employed for a certain class of work in Europe. According to Father
Gabian, fire was utterly unknown to the natives of the Ladrone Islands
"till Magellan, provoked by their repeated thefts, burned one of their
villages. When they saw their wooden houses blazing, they first thought
the fire a beast which fed upon wood, and some of them, who came too
near, being burnt, the rest stood afar off, lest they should be devoured
or poisoned by this powerful animal."
The practice of kindling original or "need-fire" from a superstitious
reverence of its sacred character, is yet very common in various parts
of Germany, Scotland, and Ireland, and even in England. Mr. Kemble
quotes, from the Lanercost Chronicle, of the year 1268, a denunciation
by the pious writer, of a practice which "certain bestial persons, monks
in garb but not in mind," had taught the ignorant peasantry. This
practice consisted in the extraction of fire from wood by friction, and
the setting up of what he styles a "simulacrum Priapi," with a view to
protect their cattle from disease. This image of Priapus is supposed to
refer to the sun-god Fro or Fricco, who, according to Wolf, was
worshipped until a very recent period in Belgium, under the form of
Priapus. Priapus, the god of gardens or fertility, was the son of
Bacchus and Venus. In the more mountainous portions of Wales a remnant
of evidently heathen image-worship, of a somewhat similar character,
survived till relatively modern times. In the reign of Henry the Eighth,
an idol, or what old Fuller calls "a great lubberly image," was removed
from the diocese of St. Asaph, and publicly burnt in Smithfield. This
image was known by the name of "Darvell Gatheron;" and it was said that
the country people were in the habit of sacrificing oxen and sheep to
it. Hence its condemnation by the church authorities.
Grimm refers to a remarkable instance of this superstition, which
occurred in the island of Mull as recently as 1767, which vividly
illustrates the "toughness" of tradition, as Dasent expresses it. He
says:--"In consequence of a disease amongst the black cattle, the people
agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked
thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles,
long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced
before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They failed for several
days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one
householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he
considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants, they
contrived to have them extinguished, and on that morning raised their
fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning,
while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths
from the pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of
incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came as the
master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the
fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked
to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating it once had brought
him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again." Many other
instances might be cited in Scotland and Ireland: but the one most to
the present purpose is related by Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, in which a
Lancashire man "unconsciously resorted to the old worship of Baal, and
consumed a live calf in a fire, in order to counteract the influences of
his unknown enemies." This individual was well known to Mr. Wilkinson.
He firmly believed that witchcraft was at the root of all his troubles,
and that his cattle had died in consequence of its spells. It appears he
had previously tried the famous Lancashire expedient to render his
stables and shippons proof against his supernatural enemies--the nailing
of horseshoes on all his doors--without obtaining the desired result;
so, in desperation, knowing the tradition, he sacrificed a living calf
to the fire-god Bel!
The following paragraph appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, on the 29th
of June, 1867:--
"The accounts given by the Irish newspapers of the extent to which the
old superstition of fire-lighting on Midsummer eve still prevails show
how slowly the relics of Paganism disappear among country people, and
how natural it was that the old idolatries should come at last to be
known as the creed of the 'Pagana,' the dwellers in villages. These
Midsummer fires, lighted annually on the hills, are simply relics of the
worship of Bel. Beltane-day, or Belteine, is still a May-day as well as
a Midsummer festival in the more ignorant districts of Scotland as well
as of Ireland, and similar superstitious practices are connected with
the lighting of the fires; and, what is still more remarkable, the word
is still used in some Scotch almanacs as a term well-known to everybody.
In a number of the _Scotsman_ a few years ago appeared the announcement
that 'On Beltane-day Mr. Robertson was elected convener of the Trades of
Cannongate in Edinburgh.' The next year the following is to be
found:--'On Beltane-day the weavers, dyers, etc., of the Cannongate
re-elected their office bearers.'"[12]
The records of the Presbytery of Dingwall show that as recently as the
latter portion of the seventeenth century, on the island of Innis Maree,
in Loch Maree, bulls were offered up as a sacrifice, and milk offered on
the hill sides as a libation. In the year 1678, the Presbytery took
action against some of the Mackenzie family, "for sacrificing a bull in
a heathenish manner, in the island of St. Rufus, for the recovery of the
health of Cirstane Mackenzie, who was formerly sick and valetudinarie."
Mr. Henderson, in his "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," mentions an
instance, "within fifteen years ago," of "a herd of cattle, in that
county (Moray) being attacked with fever," when, "one of them was
sacrificed by burning alive, as a propitiatory offering for the rest."
Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old
Cornwall," published in 1865, says that he has been informed "that
within the last few years a calf has been thus sacrificed by a farmer in
a district where churches, chapels, and schools abound." He afterwards
adds:--"While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent
instances of this superstition. One of them was the sacrifice of a calf
by a farmer near Pontreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which
had long followed his horses and cows. The other was the burning of a
living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his flocks from spells which
had been cast on 'em.'"
The Midsummer fires, at the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and the yule
log ceremonies at Christmas, may be referred to a similar origin. Brand
says:--"The Pagan rites of this festival (Midsummer Eve) at the summer
solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the winter
solstice at Yule-tide." The wheel, the type of the sun, was common to
both festivities. Darand describes the practice, at the feast of St.
John, of rolling about a wheel, "to signify that the sun, then occupying
the highest place in the zodiac, was beginning to descend." The old
poet, Naogeorgus, describes the wheel as being covered with straw, which
was set on fire at the top of a high mountain, and then despatched on
its downward course. He adds that the people imagined all their ill luck
accompanied the wheel in its descent.
The writer of the old homily _De Festo Sancti Johannis Baptistæ_, when
referring to these observances, speaks of three fires being kindled, one
of which was called "a Bone fire; another is clene woode and no bones,
and that is called a Wode fire, for people to sit and wake thereby; the
third is made of wode and bones, and is called Saynt Johanny's Fyre.[13]
The first fyre, as a great clerke, Johan Belleth, telleth he saw in a
certayne countrey, so in the countrey there was soo greate hete the
which causid that dragons to go together in tokenynge that Johan dyed in
brennynge love and charyté of God and man.... Then as these dragons
flewe in th' ayre, they shed down to the water froth of ther Kynde, and
so envenymed the waters, and caused moche people for to take theyr deth
thereby, and many dyverse sykenesse. Wyse clerkes knoweth well that
dragons hate nothyng more than the stenche of brennynge bones, and
therefore they gaderyd as many as they mighte fynde, and brent them; and
so with the stenche thereof they drove away the dragons, and so they
were brought out of greete dysease."
Brand regards this as a "pleasant piece of absurdity;" but it appears
that the quaint old writer, after all, is but relating that which was
believed to be true in his own age, and which after-gained knowledge
enables us to distinguish as a remnant of the old Aryan superstition or
myth, in a mediæval dress. These rolling fiery wheels, burning brands,
bonfires, and processions round fields, &c., are common to both the
Keltic and Teutonic branches of the Aryan race, and have evidently a
similar origin. Kemble quotes an ancient Latin MS., which he found
among the Harleian collection, which gives a precisely similar
description of the St. John's fires. It is not improbable that it may
have been written by the "learned clerke Johan Belleth," to whom the
writer of the homily refers. Walter Kelly, speaking of it says, "Here we
have again the primitive Aryan dragon Ahi, at his old work in the sultry
midsummer weather." He contends that all the details referred to, as
attendant on the St. John's fires, have been demonstrated by Dr. Kuhn to
be "in striking accordance with the Vedic legend of Indra's fight with
the midsummer demons. The passage quoted by Kemble, besides stating
expressly that the course of the blazing wheel was meant to represent
the descent of the sun from its solstitial height, brings the St. John's
fires in immediate connection with the dragons that poison the waters,
just as did the demon Vritra, otherwise called Ahi, the dragon. He
possessed himself of the sun-wheel and the treasures of Heaven, seized
the (white) women, kept them prisoners in his cavern, and laid a curse
on the waters, until Indra released the captives and took off the curse.
The same conception is repeated in countless legends of mountains that
open on St. John's day, when the imprisoned white women come forth, and
the hour approaches in which the spell laid upon them and upon the
buried treasures will be broken.... Here we see at once that the German"
(and Keltic) "custom was nothing else than a dramatic representation of
the great elemental battle portrayed in the sacred books of the southern
Aryans. In the one the blazing wheel stands on the top of the hill, in
the other the sun stands on the summit of the cloud mountain. Both
descend from their heights, and both are extinguished, the sun in the
cloud sea, behind the cloud mountain, the wheel in the river at the foot
of the hill." One name given to a combatant on the dragon's side is
Kuyava, which is interpreted the "harvest spoiler, or the spoiled
harvest." The following passage in the Rig Veda is uttered by Indra,
when he resolves to destroy the monster,--"Friend Vishnu, stride vastly;
sky give room for the thunderbolt to strike; let us slay Vritra and let
loose the waters." His worshippers likewise exclaim,--"When, thunderer,
thou didst by thy might slay Vritra, who stopped up the streams, then
thy dear steeds grew."
The Rev. G. W. Cox says:--"The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon,
Orthros, or Echidna; in other words it is sprung from Vritra, the dark
thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely
slain by Heracles as the snakes which had assaulted him in his cradle.
Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its
very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis, shuts up
the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as
the storm must constantly supply new clouds, while the vapours are
driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although
Heracles could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the
clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at
its appointed time must again darken the sky."
Dr. Kuhn contends that the clothing of wheels with straw and the
extinguishing of them when set on fire by immersion in a river, as is
done in the vine-growing districts of Germany, with the view to secure a
good harvest, is to be referred to this source. In support of his view,
he enters into an elaborate philological argument to show that _yava_
must have originally meant grass in general, afterwards cereal grasses,
and that its root gave birth to the name of the grain from which the
oldest bread-stuff known was made. He says--"But I go still further, and
I believe that _Kuyava_ was also regarded as the spoiler of vegetation
in general, who parched up the plants used in making the fermented
liquor, soma, and amongst these plants the Hindus included _yava_,
which, in this case, meant barley or rice. It will be seen in the sequel
that the demon possesses himself also of the heavenly soma (the moisture
of the clouds), that he is robbed of it by Indra, and that the like
conception is found also among the Greeks and the Germans. This, then,
sufficiently explains the hope of a good wine year, which was associated
with the victory in the above-described German customs."
The Venerable Bede, in his treatise on the "Nature of Things," gives us
what may be termed the scientific view respecting rain and lightning
which obtained about his time. It is singularly in accordance with Dr.
Kuhn's interpretation of the myth now under consideration. He says:--
"Lightning is produced by the rubbing together of clouds, after the
manner of flints struck together, the thunder occurring at the same
time, but sound reaches the ears more slowly than light the eyes. For
all things the collision creates fire. Some say that while air draws
water in vapour from the depths, it draws also fire heat-wise, and by
their contact the horrid crash of thunder is produced; and _if the fire
conquer, it will be injurious to fruits; if water beneficial_; but that
the fire of lightning has so much the more penetrative power, from being
made of subtler elements than that which is in use by us."
It is merely necessary that the rhetorical figure, personification, be
freely applied to this passage, with due reverence towards the ancient
superstitions, and the mythic element which lies at the root of these
singular customs is reproduced.
It is evident the whole have reference to the influence of the burning
heat of the midsummer sun, which induces long droughts, and parches the
soil and the vegetation; and to the delight engendered when that heat is
mitigated, and the scorched earth is again rendered fruitful by copious
showers, the product of the thunderstorm. And to this source, Mr. Kelly
justly contends, may be referred all the supernatural dragon stories of
our nurseries, whether fought "by Pagan or Christian champions, from
Apollo, Hercules, and Siegfried, down to St. George, and to that modern
worthy More, of Morehall,
Who slew the dragon of Wantley."
The learned Pettingall has shown that the dragon slain by the English
champion and patron, St. George, was, by the ancient Orientals, engraved
on amulets, and that it was intended to symbolise the virtues of
Mithras, the sun. He says, "From the Pagans the use of these charms
passed to the Basilidians, and in their Abraxas, the traces of the
antient Mithras and the more modern St. George, are equally visible. In
the dark ages, the Christians borrowed their superstitions from the
heretics, but they disguised the origin of them, and transformed into
the saint the sun of the Persians and the archangel of the
Gnostics."[14]
Dr. Wilson, when speaking of the art examples pertaining to what is
termed, in Western Europe, the "Stone age," says,--
"In no single case is any attempt made to imitate leaf or flower, bird,
beast, or any simple, natural object; and when in the bronze work of the
later Iron period, imitative forms at length appear, they are chiefly
the snake and dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic
and Teutonic wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, from
the far Eastern cradle-land of their birth."
Marsden, in his "History of Sumatra," says that during an eclipse, the
natives make "a loud noise with sounding instruments, to prevent one
luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to frighten away the
dragon, a superstition that has its source in the ancient systems of
astronomy (particularly the Hindu), where the nodes of the moon are
identified with the dragon's head and tail."
The dragon was the standard of the West Saxons, and of the English
previous to the Norman Conquest. It formed one of the supporters of the
Royal arms borne by all our Tudor monarchs, with the exception of Queen
Mary, who substituted the eagle. Several of the Plantagenet kings and
princes inscribed a figure of the dragon on their banners and shields.
Peter Langtoffe says, at the battle of Lewis, fought in 1264:--
"The King (Henry III.) schewed forth his schild his Dragon full
austere."
Another authority says the said king ordered to be made "a dragon in the
manner of a banner, of a certain red silk embroidered with gold; its
tongue like a flaming fire must always seem to be moving; its eyes must
be made of sapphire, or of some other stone suitable for that purpose."
Notwithstanding the transformations which several of them may have
undergone from relatively modern local influences, there can be little
doubt the fiery-dragon and the numerous huge-worm traditions of the
North of England enshrine relics of Aryan superstitions. Besides the
dragon Ahi, we have the Vedic great serpent Sesha, to which reference
has been made in the first chapter of this work. We find the Dêvas, when
at war with their enemies the Asuras, agreed to a truce in order that
they might "churn the ocean," and so procure some soma or drink of the
gods, or milk the heavenly cows (the clouds) wherewith to slake their
grievous thirst. They coiled this great serpent around a hill or
mountain in the sea, and used him as a rope under whose action the hill
spun rapidly round until the heavenly liquor (rain water) was procured
in sufficient quantity. The famous Lambton worm, when coiled round a
hill, was pacified with copious draughts of milk, and his blood flowed
freely when he was pierced by the spear heads attached to the armour of
the returned crusader.[15] The Linton worm coiled itself round a hill,
and by its poisonous breath, destroyed the neighbouring animal and
vegetable life. The knight who destroyed it used burning pitch in the
operation. The contractions of this huge worm in dying, are said to have
left indented spiral lines on the sides of Warmington hill. The Pollard
worm is described as "a venomous serpent which did much harm to man and
beast," while that of Stockburn is designated as the "worm, _dragon, or
fiery flying serpent_ which destroyed man, woman, and child." These
worms were said to have been slain by the spears or swords of knights,
evidently modern substitutes for the thunderbolt of Indra, the ancient
Aryan "god of the firmament." A _bonâ fide_ slain worm, however, seems
from the records to have been a very small affair in comparison with the
gigantic monsters of the Durham traditions. Towards the end of the
seventeenth century, a writer of the family history of the Somervilles,
referring to the worm which John Somerville slew, in the reign of
William the Lion, avers that it was "in length three Scots yards, and
somewhat bigger than an ordinary man's leg, with a head more
proportionable to its length than greatness, in form and colour like to
our common muir-edders." As the valour of Indra fertilised the earth; so
virtue of a similar quality in a high degree procured broad lands for
the earthly champion, from his grateful sovereign.
It is by no means improbable, if, as Mr. D. Haigh contends, in his
"Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," the scene of the fine old
Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, was near Hartlepool, in the county of Durham,
that these monster worm traditions of the north of England may be the
remains of the mythic superstitions therein embodied.[16] The giant and
sprite Grendel, the "Ghost-slayer," and his equally sanguinary mother,
are evidently personifications of evil influences. After Beowulf had
despatched the male monster, he proceeded to the pool, in the _depths of
which_ he successfully contended with the female. As he and his
followers sat in the deep shadow of the wood overhanging the
"_bottomless_" pool "they saw along the water many of the _worm-kind_,
strange _sea dragons_, also in clefts of the ness Nickers lying."
Professor Henry Morley, in his "English Writers," gives a summary of the
poem, the following passage in which demonstrates the great antiquity of
this superstition:--
"Afterward the broad land came under the sway of Beowulf. He held it
well for fifty winters, until in the dark nights a dragon, which in a
stone mound watched a hoard of gold and cups, won mastery. It was a
hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long since dead; the last earl,
before dying, hid it in the earth-cave, and for three hundred winters
the _great scather_ held the cave, until some man, finding by chance a
rich cup, took it to his lord. Then the den was searched while the worm
slept; again and again when the dragon awoke there had been theft. He
found not the man, but _wasted the whole land with fire_; nightly, the
_fiendish air-flyer made fire grow hateful_ to the sight of men. Then it
was told to Beowulf.... He sought out the dragon's den and fought with
him in awful strife. One wound the poison-worm struck in the flesh of
Beowulf.... Then, while the warrior-king sat deathsick on a stone, he
sent his thanes to see the cups and dishes in the den of the dread
twilight-flyer.... He said, 'I for this gold have wisely sold my life;
let others care now for the people's need. I may be here no longer.'"
Mr. John Mitchell Kemble, who published an amended prose translation of
Beowulf, in 1833, considered the poem to be founded upon legends which
existed anterior to the conquest of the northern part of Britain by the
Angles. Beowulf he regarded as the name of a god, one of the ancestors
of Woden, and who appears in the poem "as a defender, a protecting and
redeeming being." The hero belonged to the tribe of Geáts or Goths. This
word etymologists trace to the Anglo-Saxon geótan and geát, which imply
a pouring forth. One of Odin's names amongst the gods, according to the
Edda, was Gautr, the god of abundance. The monster Grendel is thus
described in the English summary of the poem by Professor Henry
Morley:--
"The grim guest was Grendel, he that held the moors, the fen, and
fastness. Forbidden the homes of mankind, the daughters of Cain brought
forth in darkness misshapen giants, elves, and orkens, such giants as
long warred with God, and he was one of these." The reference to the
daughters of Cain would seem to suggest an interpolation by a
transcriber after the introduction of Christianity.
Geoffrey of Monmouth relates a story of a certain mythic King of
Northumbria named Morvidus, who was less fortunate than Beowulf,
inasmuch as he lost his life, and gained nothing for his people by its
sacrifice. But then, we are informed, he "was a most cruel tyrant." It
appears that the land north of the Humber was invaded in great force by
a king of the Moreni (near Boulogne). He was defeated by Morvidus, who
abused his victory by the most monstrous acts of cruelty. Whilst thus
engaged, Geoffrey informs us that "there came from the coasts of the
Irish Sea a most cruel monster, that was continually devouring the
people upon the sea coasts. As soon as he heard of it, he ventured to go
and encounter it alone. When he had in vain spent all his darts upon it,
the monster rushed upon him, and with open jaws swallowed him up like a
small fish."
These dragon monsters are often found in connection with imprisoned
maidens, and treasures buried in caves or the inner recesses of
mountains. Some mythographers regard the maiden as a personification of
the dawn imprisoned by the darkness of the night, and afterwards freed
by the rays of the sun. In the Vedic myths, besides Ahi, the throttling
snake, and Vritra, the dragon, there is Pani, the thief and seducer, who
stole the cows of Indra from their heavenly pastures, hid them in his
dark cloud cave, and attempted to corrupt Sarama (the dawn), when, at
the bidding of the lightning-god, she demanded the restoration of the
plundered cattle. Max Müller, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, contend
that these incidents underlie most of the mythical epics of all the
Aryan nations. They say that the siege of Troy, even, "is a reflection
of the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that every evening
are robbed of their brightest treasures in the West."
The celebrated mediæval metrical romance, "Kyng Alisaunder," translated
into English verse, in the thirteenth century, by an unknown author, is
a complete _repertoire_ of these dragon, worm, and monster
superstitions. According to it, the hero was the son of a magician who
appeared to his mother in the form of a great dragon of the air. At his
birth "the earth shook, the sea became green, the sun ceased to shine,
the moon appeared and became black, the thunder crashed." The original
is said to have been written by Simeon Seth, keeper of the imperial
wardrobe at Constantinople, about the year 1060. It is founded on
Oriental legends, and was translated and enlarged into Latin and French
before the English version appeared. Many of its monstrosities are
evidently degraded forms of Grecian and other Aryan myths.
The celebrated prophecy of Merlin, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of
Britain," is full of malignant dragons, white and red, which fight
furiously, and "cast forth fire with their breath." The red dragon, in
one instance, the prophet says, "shall return to his proper manners, and
turn his rage upon himself. Therefore shall the _revenge of the
Thunderer show itself, for every field shall disappoint the husbandman_.
Mortality shall snatch away the people, and make a desolation over all
countries."
Dragons, huge worms, and serpents appear frequently to be confounded in
Merlin's prophecy.[17] One sentence reads thus: "She shall be
encompassed with the adder of Lincoln, who with a horrible hiss shall
give notice of his presence to a multitude of dragons. Then shall the
dragons encounter and tear one another to pieces. The winged shall
oppress that which wants wings, and fasten its claws into the poisonous
cheeks." In another instance, the Aryan dragon, or harvest destroyer, is
very apparent. Merlin says:--"To him shall succeed a husbandman of
Albania, at whose back shall be a serpent. He shall be employed in
ploughing the ground, that the country may become white with corn. _The
serpent shall endeavour to diffuse his poison, in order to blast the
harvest._" Again he says:--"There shall be a miserable desolation of the
kingdom, and the floors of the harvests shall return to the fruitful
forests. The white dragon shall rise again, and invite over a daughter
of Germany. Our gardens shall be again replenished with foreign seed,
and the red one shall pine away at the end of the pond. After that shall
the German worm be crowned, and the brazen prince buried." Merlin's red
and white dragons are intended directly to personify the British and
Saxon races of men, as the red and white roses in after time served as
emblems of the houses of Lancaster and York; but the origin of the
mythic form of expression is very apparent.
The _Saxon Chronicle_ contains a paragraph under the date 793, which
illustrates the power of this superstition in the North of England at
that period. The passage itself likewise supplies sufficient evidence to
connect its interpretation with the Aryan myth under consideration. We
read: "A. 793. This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the
North-humbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were
excessive whirlwinds and _lightnings_; and _fiery dragons_ were seen
flying in the air. _A great famine soon followed these tokens._"
Mr. Baring-Gould says,--"In a Slovakian legend the dragon sleeps in a
mountain cave through the winter months, but at the equinox bursts
forth. 'In a moment the heaven was darkened and became black as pitch,
only illumined by the fire which flashed from the dragon's jaws and
eyes. The earth shuddered, the stones rattled down the mountain sides
into the glens; right and left, left and right, did the dragon lash his
tail, overthrowing pines and bushes, and snapping them as reeds. He
evacuated such floods of water that the mountain torrents were full. But
after a while his power was exhausted; he lashed no more with his tail,
ejected no more water, and spat no more fire.'" Mr. Gould adds,--"I
think it impossible not to see in this description a spring-tide
thunderstorm."
The following paragraph, published in the _Calcutta Englishman_ last
year (1871), demonstrates that this class of superstition still lingers
in India:--
"AN ASTRONOMICAL PREDICTION.--The _Urdu Akhbar_ says that Maulvi
Mohammed Salimuz-yaman, the famous astronomer of Rampur, whose
deductions have generally turned out right, has foretold that in the
coming year (1872) a blaze of light resembling a shooting star, the like
of which no mortal has yet seen, will be visible in the sky. 'It will
dazzle the eyes of the people of particular places with lustre, and,
after remaining for a _ghari_ (_i.e._, 24 minutes), will vanish. The
direction in which it will make its appearance will be the North Pole,
and accordingly the people of northern countries will see it distinctly.
Probably the natives of China and Persia will likewise have a sight of
it. The effect of this meteor will be that the extent of the globe over
which its light will fall will be visited by famine during the year, and
a large number of the people inhabiting it will be destroyed, while
vegetation will be also scanty.'"
Veritable comets appear to have at times been confounded with these
fiery dragons. On the death of Aurelius Ambrosius, brother to Uther,
father of the renowned Arthur, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth,
"there appeared a star of wonderful magnitude and brightness, darting
forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe of fire, in form of a
dragon, out of whose mouth issued two rays, one of which seemed to
stretch out itself beyond the extent of Gaul, the other towards the
Irish sea, and ended in seven lesser rays."
Geoffrey further informs us that, after Uther's first great victory,
"remembering the explanation which Merlin had made of the star above
mentioned, he commanded two dragons to be made of gold, in likeness of
the dragon which he had seen at the ray of the star. As soon as they
were finished, which was done with wonderful nicety of workmanship, he
made a present of one to the cathedral church of Winchester, but
reserved the other for himself to be carried along with him to his wars.
From this time, therefore, he was called Uther Pendragon, which, in the
British tongue, signifies the dragon's head; the occasion of this
appellation being Merlin's prediction, from the appearance of the
dragon, that he should be king." The same "historical" romancer likewise
informs us that the redoubtable Arthur himself, after he had embarked at
Southampton, on his expedition against Rome, about midnight, during a
brisk gale, in a dream, "saw a bear flying in the air, at the noise of
which all the shores trembled; also a terrible dragon flying from the
west, which enlightened the country with the brightness of its eyes.
When these two met they began a dreadful fight; but the dragon, with its
fiery breath, burned the bear which often assaulted him, and threw him
down scorched to the ground." This, of course, was interpreted to augur
Arthur's victory over the Emperor. Singularly enough, as has been before
observed, we find, in authentic history, that the "Golden Dragon" was
the standard of the _Saxon_ kings of Wessex. When Cuthred defeated
"Ethelbald the Proud," King of Mercia, at Beorgforda (Burford, in
Oxfordshire), in 752, "the golden dragon, the ensign of Wessex," was
borne by his general, Ethelhun, termed "the presumptuous alderman,"
owing to a previous unsuccessful act of rebellion.
Dragon superstitions appear to have been earnestly believed by mediæval
alchemists, and even early chemists and physicians. An old German work
on alchemy (1625) informs us, as "a great wonder and very strange," that
the dragon contains the greatest "medicament," and that "there is a
dragon lives in the forest who has no want of poison; when he sees the
sun or fire he spits venom, which flies about fearfully. No living
animal can be cured of it; even the basilisk does not equal him. He who
can properly kill this serpent has overcome all his danger. His colours
increase in death; physic is produced from his poison, which he
entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This must be
accomplished by him, in order to produce the noblest balm. Such great
virtue as we will point out herein that all the learned shall rejoice."
The poison spitted out on sight of the sun or fire is evidently
analogous to the breath of the Aryan dragon Ahi, who scorched the earth.
The conqueror of the said dragon takes the place of Indra, who, by
discharging his lightning spear into the rain cloud, subdues the
monster, and converts his poison (excessive heat), into a medicine or
balm, which aids in the fertilisation of the earth.
This is in accordance with the Greek legend, which asserted that
Æsculapius or Asklêpios, the god of medicine, "wrought his wonderful
cures through the blood of Gorgo." Hence the serpent became his symbol.
At Epidaurus the god was supposed to manifest himself in the form of a
yellowish brown snake, abundant in that neighbourhood. It frequented the
temple, was large in size, but harmless and easily tamed. The Rev. G. W.
Cox, says, "throughout Hellas, Asklêpios remained the healer and
restorer of life, and accordingly the serpent is everywhere his special
emblem, as the mythology of the Linga would lead us to expect." Again he
says, "the symbol of the Phallos in its physical characteristics
suggested the form of the serpent, which thus became the emblem of life
and healing, and as such appears by the side of the Hellenic Asklêpios,
and in the brazen crucified serpent venerated by the Jewish people until
it was destroyed by Hezekiah."
According to the Edda, the Scandinavians believed that after the various
gods had, for a considerable time, alternately overthrown each other,
the "fiery snake" would consume "universal nature with all-destroying
flames." The word "Edda" means "Mother of Poetry." The contents of the
Edda have been styled "half oriental and half northern."
Remains of ancient serpent worship have been recently discovered in
America and in Scotland. Some writers indeed regard the temples at Abury
and Stonehenge as belonging to this class. One in North America,
described by Mr. Squier, is a mound 700 feet long, fashioned in the form
of a serpent. At the recent meeting of the British Association in
Edinburgh, Mr. John S. Phené, F.G.S., described a mound of this
character, which he had discovered in Argyleshire. A large cairn forms
the head of the monster, which is 300 feet in length. The spinal column,
with its sinuous windings, is distinctly marked out by carefully
adjusted stones, now covered with peat. To detect the exact form of the
entire reptile, it is necessary that the whole should be seen at one
view from above. A megalithic chamber was found beneath the head of the
serpent, or saurian, which contained burnt earth and bones, charcoal,
and charred nutshells, and a flint implement with the edge serrated like
a saw. The mound is described as being in a remarkably perfect
condition, considering its great antiquity.
Some writers, and notably one, some years ago in "Chambers's Journal,"
discoursing on dragon superstitions, have suggested, as remains of the
traditionary Moa of New Zealand is still said to be found in some
portions of the islands, that our early ancestors may have had a slight
knowledge of the existence of some of the huge saurian reptiles, known
to us geologically in the fossil condition. This attempt to give a
naturalistic solution of the problem at first sight is very plausible;
but it falls to the ground at once, when the nature of geological time
is taken into consideration. The earliest remains of man, including the
flint implements in the higher river gravels, pertain to what Lyell
terms the post-pliocene period. The huge lizards or saurians of the
oolitic period had become extinct countless ages previously. The same
may be said, though in a relatively lesser degree, of the huge
Dinotherium found in the Upper Miocene formation. Some writers, indeed,
who advocate the hypothesis of man's descent by "natural selection" or
"evolution," from the lower animals, contend that some antitype of
humanity _may_ have lived in the Miocene period, but of this we have no
evidence. The extinct gigantic animals, found in connection with the
oldest known remains of man, are pachyderms, which in no way resemble,
either in their habits, or by the most strained metaphor, in their
forms, the dragons and serpents of the Aryan mythology or their modern
descendants in British history and tradition. The discovery of their
bones has undoubtedly had something to do with giants and other monsters
of the mythic class, of which more will be said in another chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Du Chaillu, in his "Journey to Ashango-land," relates a story in
which he suddenly struck a light with a lucifer match, to the
astonishment of the benighted Africans, who regarded the feat as an
additional proof of his being the "Oguisi" or "spirit" they had declared
him to be.
[12] The _Dundee Advertiser_, Nov. 1869, contained the following
paragraph:--
HALLOWE'EN AT BALMORAL CASTLE.--This time-honoured festival was duly
celebrated at Balmoral Castle on Saturday evening, in a manner not soon
to be forgotten by those who took part in the enjoyments of the evening.
As the shades of evening were closing in upon the Strath, numbers of
torch-lights were observed approaching the Castle, both from the
cottages on the eastern portion of the estate and also those on the
west. The torches from the western side were probably the more numerous,
and as the different groups gathered together the effect was very fine.
Both parties met in front of the Castle, the torch-bearers numbering
nearly one hundred. Along with those bearing the torches were a great
many people belonging to the neighbourhood. Dancing was commenced by the
torch-bearers dancing a "Huachan" in fine style, to the lilting strains
of Mr. Ross, the Queen's piper. The effect was greatly heightened by the
display of bright lights of various colours from the top of the
staircase of the Tower. After dancing for some time, the torch-bearers
proceeded round the Castle in martial order, and as they were proceeding
down the granite staircase at the northwest corner of the Castle, the
procession presented a singularly beautiful and romantic appearance.
Having made the circuit of the Castle, the remainder of the torches were
thrown in a pile at the south-west corner, thus forming a large bonfire,
which was speedily augmented with other combustibles until it formed a
burning mass of huge proportions, round which dancing was spiritedly
carried on. Her Majesty witnessed the proceedings with apparent interest
for some time, and the company enjoyed themselves none the less heartily
on that account. Mr. Begg, distiller, Lochnagar, had also a splendid
bonfire on Cairnbeg, round which merry groups danced torch in hand.
[13] I have not met with a thoroughly satisfactory etymology of the word
bonfire. It may mean good fire, that is sacred fire, or bone-fire, as
the old writer suggests; but I am inclined to think _boon_ fire is worth
consideration, as the ceremonies and sacrifices were performed in order
to extract a boon, a gift, or favour from the god Bel. Free service
rendered by a tenant to his lord, as part of his tenure, was called boon
work. Dr. Hibbert Ware records an old saying in the north of England to
the effect that when a man has been working for nothing he has "been
served like a boon-shearer."
[14] Since the above was written the following paragraph has appeared in
the newspapers:--
_An Apology for Fire Worship._--Tuesday, the 21st March, 1866, being the
entrance of Sol into the zodiacal sign of the Ram, there was held at the
Persian Embassy, Avenue d'Autin, Paris, the festival of Nourous
Sultaniez, or New Year's Day of the Shah. His Excellency Hassan Ali Khan
presided over a large assemblage of distinguished guests, and informed
them in the course of the festivity that they were celebrating a
red-letter day as old as nineteen centuries before the birth of Christ,
first instituted by Djemchid, of the dynasty of Pischdadiens, who
originated the solar computation of years. His excellency proceeded to
recall the fire-worship of his country, which sprang from the primæval
idolatry having for object that great luminary. It was still to fire
that he fondly looked for the regeneration of Persia. Fire had changed
the face of Europe. With the steam engine, the railroad, the electric
spark, the screw or paddle ship, far more than in gunpowder or rifled
cannon, fire was the great benefactor that would bless one day the land
of his forefathers, who had instinctively worshipped that element in
secret anticipation of what was to come. The remarks of his excellency
were cordially received.
[15] Sir Bernard Burke says the legend asserts that the knight consulted
a witch as to the best method of attacking the monster serpent or
dragon, as this worm is sometimes styled. The witch duly instructed him,
and he was victorious in the combat which followed. A condition,
however, was attached, namely that the knight should follow up the
achievement by slaying as a kind of sacrifice the first living thing he
met. If he failed in this, "for nine generations the lords of Lambton
would never die in their beds." It was intended that a dog should be
placed so as to immediately attract the eye of the conqueror, but
unfortunately the plot was accidentally marred, and the knight's father
first confronted him. Lambton refused to fulfil the condition, under
such circumstances. It is stated to be a fact that afterwards nine
successive lords of Lambton died otherwise than in their beds.
[16] Mr. Haigh fixes Heorot, the site of the mead-hall, or banqueting
home of Hrothgar, chief or king of the Scyldings, at Hartlepool. King
Oswy, brother and successor of St. Oswald, consecrated his daughter
Elfleda to the service of God as a nun, as an act of thanksgiving for
his victory over the pagan Mercian King Penda, at Winwidfield, near
Leeds (some say near Winwick, Lancashire.) Elfleda was placed in the
monastery called Herut-ed (Hartlepool), which is believed to be the
Heorot of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poem extant.
[17] Professor Owen (Palæontology, page 312) gives "slow-worms,
serpents," as the English equivalent of _Ophidia_, the name of his
eleventh order of the class _Reptilia_. Hence the confusion of
traditionary worms, serpents, and dragons is not quite so absurd as
modern non-scientific persons generally imagine. The Rev. G. W. Cox,
referring to the Greek aspect of these mythic monsters, says:--"When the
word Dragon, which is only another form of Dorkas, the clear-eyed
gazelle, became the name for serpents, these mythical beings were
necessarily transformed into snakes."
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTMAS AND YULE-TIDE SUPERSTITIONS AND OBSERVANCES.
Here's merry Christmas come again,
With all it ever used to bring;
The mistletoe and carol strain,
The holly in the window pane,
And all the bloom from hill and plain
That Winter's chilly hand can fling.
. . . . .
It comes with roar of city bells;
It comes with many a village chime;
And many a village grand-dame tells
Of places where the white ghost dwells,
Of demon forms and robbers' cells,
And all the tales for Christmas time.
_Eliza Cook._
If there by any possibility existed a doubt that the religion of the
Messiah was one of _love_ and not of _gloom_, the sunny side of the
argument would be amply vindicated by the fact that, from the earliest
Christian times, the anniversary of the advent of the Saviour was always
celebrated with becoming social enjoyment. "Merrie Christmas," indeed,
in spite of hail and rain, and sleet, and snow, the blustering of old
Boreas, and the frigid embrace of "Jack Frost," has passed into a
proverb. The mass of the British people, notwithstanding their
characteristic constitutional phlegm, contrive to become conspicuously
social at Christmas tide. They appear to have been too closely occupied
with business affairs during the greater portion of the year to indulge
much in the hearty humour and frank good-will which unquestionably form
important elements in the national idiosyncrasy. Their habitual
taciturnity, however, influenced by some law whose action is
diametrically opposed to that which determines the elemental routine,
generally _thaws_ on the approach of Christmas. It is not too much to
say that, at this period of the year, the manly generous side of the
English character is seen to most advantage. Under the genial influence
of Christmas associations, even stern, plodding "men of business" leave
their well-worn official stools and well-thumbed ledgers, and enjoy
heartily the Christmas meal of roast beef and plum pudding in company
with their relatives and friends. Nay, at this festive season, we have
seen the veriest old "money-grubbers" of the city, the most cool and
calculating of the _habitués_ of the stock-exchange, dance and frolic,
and aid the juveniles of their social circles in the perpetration of
practical Christmas jokes, the compounding of "snap-dragon," the
fashioning of mistletoe bushes, etc., to the infinite delight of the
youngsters and their own evident personal gratification. There is,
undoubtedly, a time and a season for all things; and the British public
especially appear for ages to have resolved that "Christmas time" is the
season for the exercise of grateful memories, for the interchange of
social loudness, the propagation of the great principle of progressive
civilisation, "peace and good-will to man,"--yes, and likewise, for the
temperate indulgence in harmless mirth, and hearty, jovial laughter.
Christmas is the season in which pantomimes flourish. By the bye, who
ever heard of a pantomime that was not a "Christmas" one? I am certain I
would not myself,--and I feel certain the most boisterous of the young
imps who giggle themselves into a frightful condition of side-ache and
cheek-ache when witnessing the tricks and jokes, stale or otherwise, of
clown and pantaloon, and the perpetually unfortunate policeman, would
endorse the sentiment,--I would not walk two streets' length, no, not
two yards, to witness the best pantomime in the world on Midsummer's
eve! One would as soon think of asking the cook, as a special mark of
her personal regard, to give us a turn or two on the spit, accompanied
by a copious basting with rancid butter! But it is quite a different
affair on Christmas Eve, or "boxing night." The pantomime is, in every
sense, unquestionably the property of "dear old Christmas," and then,
and then only, can its rollicking fun, farce, fancy, and fairy marvels
be thoroughly understood or enjoyed.
Pantomime, among the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Chinese,
Persians, and other Oriental peoples, was a dramatic performance, in
which action and gesticulation formed the most prominent features. The
modern _ballet_ is, perhaps, its most legitimate descendant at the
present day. The name, however, is derived from two Greek words, which
signify mimicry or "imitation of everything." The modern pantomime,
therefore, with its universal hash of fun and frolic, of fairies and
fiends, deities and dragons, of ghosts, goblins, and giants, of
burlesque and ballet, painting and punning, of music and mountebanking,
responds most accurately to the classical etymon.
Although the profuse but somewhat indiscriminate hospitality, and some
of the ruder of the Christmas games and ceremonies of our mediæval
ancestors, have declined or fallen into general disuse, the anniversary
of the advent of the founder of the national religion yet remains the
chief season set apart especially for genial social intercourse, the
gathering together of relatives and friends, the interchange of mutual
good-will, and of festive enjoyment.
After discussing the various opinions, facts, and conjectures advanced
by others respecting the origin of "yule logs" and Christmas fires,
Brand says: "However this may be, I am pretty confident that the yule
block will be found, in its first use, to have been only a counterpart
of the Midsummer fires, made within doors because of the cold weather at
this winter solstice, as those in the hot season at the summer one, are
kindled in the open air."
Precisely so; yet, as the Midsummer fires were not kindled for the sake
of the warmth they afforded, but as a kind of incantation or a
propitiatory sacrifice to the fire-god or the elements generally, if the
two had a common origin, we may reasonably expect to find a similar
principle or motive at the root of the Christmas observances. At the
summer solstice the sun's heat parched the earth and burnt the
vegetation. Hence the propitiatory ceremony of the fire worshippers. At
the winter solstice his feeble rays were insufficient to the
requirements of vegetable existence, and the severe cold added to the
privations of both and man and beast. Hence the existence of a
corresponding sentiment and corresponding ceremonial observances.
Brand further says: "On the night of this eve our ancestors were wont to
light up candles of _an uncommon size_, called Christmas candles, and
lay a log of wood upon the fire, called a yule-clog or Christmas block,
to illuminate the house, and, as it were, turn night into day. This
custom is, in some measure, still kept up in the north of England."
The early Christians were, and the learned of more modern times are,
divided in opinion as to the precise day of the Nativity. The feast of
the Passover and that of the Tabernacles have each found powerful
advocates. According to St. Chrysostom, the primitive Christians
celebrated the Christmas and Epiphany feasts at one and the same time.
They were not separated till the council of Nice, in the year 325.
Amongst the Armenians, notwithstanding, the two feasts were jointly
celebrated till as recently as the thirteenth century. It has been urged
by some that, as shepherds were watching their flocks by night in the
open air, the birth of Christ could scarcely have occurred in the
winter season. But so long as one time was accepted by the universal
Church, it appeared to be of little moment which theory was adopted. Sir
Isaac Newton, in his "Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel," accounts
for the choice of the 25th December on the ground of its being the
winter solstice. He shows, likewise, that other feasts were originally
fixed at the cardinal points of the year. "The first calendars having
been so arranged by mathematicians at pleasure, without any ground in
tradition, the Christians afterwards took up what they found in the
calendars."
There can be little doubt that this view of the question is correct, and
that many of the curious customs and ceremonies, which were for
centuries religiously observed throughout the land, and many of which
still linger about the holiday celebrations of remote districts, have an
origin older than Christianity itself. The most orthodox and exemplary
writers of the middle ages acknowledge this, and contend that the
practice of the early Christians of appropriating the festive seasons of
their heathen converts was productive of good results.
The testimony of Thomas Warmstry, whose now rare tract, entitled "A
Vindication of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ," was published
in 1648, is strongly in favour of this view. He says: "If it doth
appeare that the time of this festival doth comply with the time of the
heathen's _Saturnalia_, this leaves no charge of impiety upon it: for
since things are best cured by their contraries, it was both wisdom and
piety in the ancient Christians (whose work it was to convert the
heathens from such as well as other superstitions and miscarriages) to
vindicate such times from the service of the devill, by appointing them
to the more solemne and especiall service of God. The _blazes_ are
foolish and vain, not countenanced by the church."
The "blazes" here referred to are evidently the yule logs and immense
candles, which the worthy pastor denounces with orthodox precision.
"Blazes" and "Pandemonium" are yet synonymous terms, in vulgar mouths,
in many parts of Lancashire. Some of the ceremonies of this period,
however, meet with his somewhat qualified approval. He says: "_Christmas
Kariles_, if they be such as are fit for the time, and of holy and sober
composures, and used with Christian sobriety and piety, they are not
unlawfull, and may be profitable if they be sung with grace in the
heart. _New Yeare's gifts_, if performed without superstition, may be
harmless provocations to Christian love and mutuall testimonies thereof
to good purpose, and never the worse because the heathens have had them
at the like times."
One important attribute of the Yule log resulted from the fact that each
succeeding brand received its kindling fire from the remains of its
predecessor; hence its supposed supernatural influences. Herrick
sings:--
_With the last year's brand
Light the new block_, and
For good success in his spending,
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a _teending_.
Etymologists have laboured hard to get at the root of the word Yule;
some of them, however, with but indifferent success. Brand says:--"I
have met with no word of which there are so many and such different
etymologies as this of Yule, of which there seems nothing certain but
that it means Christmas." Some writers, including the venerable Bede,
derive it from _hveol_, the Anglo-Saxon form of our modern English word
wheel, which, as I have already shown, is one of the Aryan types of the
sun. Bede, I think, assigns the true meaning to the term when he says it
is so named "because of the return of the sun's annual course, after the
winter solstice." According to Mr. Davies (Cel. Res. p. 191), the god
Bel or Beli was called Hu. Mallet in his "Northern Antiquities,"
says:--"All Celtic nations have been accustomed to the worship of the
sun; either as distinguished from Thor," (? Bel) "or as considered his
symbol. It was a custom that everywhere prevailed in ancient times to
celebrate a feast at the winter solstice, by which men testified their
joy at seeing this great luminary return again to this part of the
heavens. This was the greatest solemnity in the year. They called it in
many places _Yole_ or _Yuul_, from the word _Hiaul_ and _Houl_, which,
even at this day, signifies the SUN in the languages of Bass-Britagne
and Cornwall."
Brand objects to this etymology, on the ground that it "is giving a
Celtic derivation of a Gothic word (two languages extremely different.)"
This objection, however, falls to the ground with the discovery of the
fact that both languages have a common origin, and that the several
races and their superstitions are but separate developments of Aryan
blood and Aryan mythology. In modern Welsh _gwyl_ means a festival or
holiday, and this may be the true root of the word _gule_, in the phrase
"the _gule_ of August," or Lammas-day. But the Welsh _gwyl_ may itself
be derived from the same root as _yule_, which, to our ears, now only
signifies, as Brand says, "Christmas," or the festive season. _Heulo_,
in modern Welsh, means to "shine as the sun." In India the term _Huli_
festival is applied to the ceremonies attendant upon the sun's entering
into the spring quarter at the vernal equinox.
In ordinary life we meet with very few persons who are aware of the fact
that the practice of regarding the first of January as the commencement
of a new year is of very modern origin, in England, at least. Prior to
1752, in most legal or official matters, and in private records, the
year commenced on the 25th of March. At this time an Act of Parliament
was passed which "directed that the legal year which then commenced in
some parts of this country in March, and in others in January, should
universally be deemed to begin on the first of January." This will
appear to many as a strange species of legislation, savouring somewhat
of the vanity and irreverence for which Canute, the great Danish King of
England, rebuked his courtiers, when he ironically commanded the tide to
cease flowing, lest, forsooth, it should damp his royal shoe-leather.
The commencement of the year, as has been before observed, being not a
fact in physics, but a conventional or civil arrangement for human
convenience, is therefore a legitimate subject for legislative
interference, with the view to arrive at a uniformity of style, and so
facilitate business operations and the enquiries of historians and
students of science.
The practice of celebrating the new year's advent on the first of
January appears to have obtained to a considerable extent in England
long prior to its legal recognition. The famous Puritan writer, Prynne,
in his "Histrio-Mastrix, or a Scourge for Stage Players," published in
1632, has the following slashing tirade against the festive observances
of this period:--
"If we now parallel our grand disorderly Christmases with these Roman
Saturnals and heathen festivals, or our New Yeare's Day (a chiefe part
of Christmas), with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in
mummeries, stageplays, dancing, and such like enterludes, wherein
fidlers and others acted lascivious effeminate parts, and went about
their towns and cities in women's apparel; whence the whole Catholicke
Church (as Alchuvinus and others write), appointed a solemn publike
faste upon this our New Yeare's day (which fast it seems is now
forgotten), to bewail these heathenish enterludes, sports, and lewd
idolatrous practices which have been used on it; _prohibiting all
Christians, under pain of excommunication, from observing the calends,
or first of January (which we now call New Yeare's Day), as holy, and
from sending abroad New Yeare's Gifts upon it (a custom now too
frequent), it being a mere relique of paganisme and idolatry, derived
from the heathen Romans' feast of two-faced Janus_, and a practice so
execrable unto Christians that not only the whole Catholicke Church, but
even four famous Councils" [and an enormous quantity of other
authorities which it is useless to quote] "have positively _prohibited
the solemnization of New Yeare's Day, and the sending abroad of New
Yeare's Gifts, under an anathema and excommunication_."
Although there can be no doubt that the practices referred to were in
existence prior to the introduction of Christianity, yet the threat of
excommunication and anathema failed to root them out of the heart of the
mass of the population, and they survive to the present day. Some of the
gifts made to sovereign princes on the advent of the new year were not
only valuable, but often quaint in device, and sometimes, according to
modern ideas, in singularly bad taste. The accomplished scholar,
soldier, and courtier, Sir Philip Sidney, on the New Year's Day of 1578,
presented to Queen Elizabeth a "cambric chemise, its sleeves and collar
wrought with black work and edged with a small bone lace of gold and
silver. With it was a pair of ruffs interlaced with gold and silver, and
set with spangles which alone weighed four ounces." His friend Fulke
Greville likewise presented an embroidered chemise. On another occasion
of a similar character, (1581), "Sidney made three characteristic
presents--a gold-handled whip, a golden chain, a heart of gold, as
though in token of his entire subservience to her Majesty, and his
complete surrender of himself to the royal keeping." On one occasion,
the Earl of Ormond presented to the Queen "a golden ph[oe]nix, whose
wings and feet glittered with rubies and diamonds, and which rested on a
branch covered with other precious stones. Sir Christopher Hatton
tendered a cross of diamonds, furnished with a suitable motto; also a
gold fancy, imaging a dog leading a man over a bridge, and garnished
with many gems." Lord and Lady Cobham each presented a satin petticoat
elaborately ornamented. Her Majesty, on New Year's Day, it appears, did
not disdain to receive presents from her servants and tradesmen.
Nichols, in his "Royal Progresses," records that a laundress solicited
the Queen's acceptance of three pocket handkerchiefs and a "tooth
cloth." One domestic sought favour with a linen and another with a
cambric nightcap. Apothecaries presented packets of green ginger, orange
candy, and "that kind of stuff." A butler's offering consisted of a meat
knife, "with a bone handle and a motto carved thereon," while the
dustman tendered "two bolts of cambric," the head gardener a silver-gilt
porringer, with a "snail sticking to an oak-leaf for handle," and the
"sergeant of the pastry" a "great quince pie with gilt ornaments." The
Queen, in return, presented her courtiers, etc., with "gilt plate,
showing her esteem by the quantity of the article" apportioned to each
recipient. In his preface Nichols remarks that "the only remains of this
custom at court now is that the two chaplains in waiting, on New Year's
Day, have each a crown piece laid under their plates at dinner."
Old Thomas Warmstry, as we have seen, held much milder language on this
subject than Prynne. He regarded the gifts as "harmless provocations to
Christian love, and mutual testimonies thereof to good purpose,"
notwithstanding their heathen origin. The practice is by no means
extinct at the present time. In many towns shopkeepers present their
customers, on New Year's Day, with candles, nutmegs, spices, etc., in
token of good will.
Brand speaks of an ancient custom, which is yet retained in many places
on New Year's Eve: "Young women went about with a Wassail Bowl of spiced
ale, with some sort of verses that were sung by them as they went from
door to door." This liquor was sometimes called "Lamb's Wool," although
it is difficult to conjecture now for what reason. In the "olden time"
it appears to have been compounded of ale, sugar, nutmeg, toast, and
roasted apples or crabs. The wassail bowl originally meant a
health-drinking vessel, and is of very ancient origin. The name is
derived from two Anglo-Saxon words _wæs hæl_, which signify "be in
health," "wax (grow) in health," or in modern phrase, "good health."
Geoffrey of Monmouth refers to the Saxon practice of health drinking on
important occasions, when describing the visit of the British King
Vortigern to the palace of Hengist, the chieftain of the Teutonic
warriors then recently arrived in Britain. During the banquet, Rowena,
the beautiful daughter of Hengist, "came out of her chamber bearing a
golden cup of wine, with which she approached the King, and making a low
courtsey, said to him, 'Lanerd' (lord) 'King, wacht heil!' The King, at
the sight of the lady's face, was on a sudden both surprised and
inflamed with her beauty, and, calling to his interpreter, asked him
what she said, and what answer he should make her. 'She called you _Lord
King_,' said the interpreter, 'and offered to drink your health. Your
answer to her must be, '_Drinc heil_!' Vortigern accordingly answered
'Drinc heil!' and bade her drink; after which he took the cup from her
hand, kissed her, and drank himself. From that time to this it has been
the custom in Britain, that he who drinks to anyone says 'Wacht heil!'
and he that pledges him answers '_Drinc heil_?'"
In process of time, the practice of drinking healths on solemn or
festive occasions was confounded with ordinary tippling, and the term
wassail became applied indiscriminately to all festive intemperance.
Hamlet says, speaking of the drinking habits of the usurper, Claudius--
The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
The Antiquarian Repertory (1775) contains a rude wood-cut of a bowl
carved on an oaken beam, which had formed a portion of an ancient
chimney recess. The vessel rests on the branches of an apple tree,
alluding perhaps, Sir Henry Ellis suggests, to "part of the materials of
which the liquor was composed." On one side the word _Wass-heil_ is
inscribed, and on the other _Drinc-heile_. A commentator on this relic
informs us that it represents a Wassel Bowl, so beloved of yore by our
hardy ancestors, "who, on the vigil of the New Year, never failed to
assemble round the glowing hearth with their cheerful neighbours, and
then, in the spicy Wassel Bowl (which testified the goodness of their
hearts) drowned every former animosity--an example worthy of modern
imitation. _Wassel_ was the word, Wassel every guest returned, as he
took the circling goblet from his friend, whilst song and civil mirth
brought in the infant year."
A work entitled "Naogeorgus," but generally styled the "Popish Kingdom,"
published in 1570, and translated by Barnabe Googe, thus refers to the
New Year's Day ceremonies of the time:--
The next to this is New Yeare's Day, whereon to every frende
They costly presents in do bring, and Newe Yeare's giftes do sende;
These giftes the husband gives his wife, and father eke the child,
And maister on his men bestowes the like with favour milde;
And good beginning of the yeare they wishe and wishe againe,
According to the auncient guise of heathen people vaine.
These eight days no man doth require his dettes of any man,
Their tables do they furnish out with all the meate they can;
With march paynes, tartes, and custards great, they drink with
staring eyes,
They rowte and revell, feede and feaste, as merry all as pyes;
As if they should at th' entrance of this New Yeare hap to die,
Yet would they have their bellies full, and auncient friends allie.
I remember, very recently, at the conclusion of a public jubilee dinner,
within a very few miles from Manchester, one of the guests suddenly died
of apoplexy. This sad event, of course, caused the adjournment of the
festive gathering. The reason I refer to it here is merely to state
that I heard, to my surprise, one of the country visitors say, in a very
consolatory tone, "Well, poor Joe, God rest his soul! He has, at least,
gone to his long rest wi' a bally full o' good me-at, and that's some
consolation." This seems to illustrate the meaning of the last couplet
in the quotation from "Naogeorgus," the sentiment in which appears to
have some affinity to the Greek and Roman notions of providing the dead
with food and money to aid their passage across the Styx.
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,"
says "it is a singular fact that only the other day I heard of a man in
Cleveland (Yorkshire) being buried two years ago with a candle, a penny,
and a bottle of wine in his coffin: the candle to light him along the
road, the penny to pay the ferry, and the wine to nourish him as he went
to the New Jerusalem. I was told this, and this explanation was given to
me by some rustics who professed to have attended the funeral. This
looks to me as though the shipping into the other land were not regarded
merely as a figure of speech, but as a reality."
One writer says the "high feast of Yule lasted until the twelve days be
passed," and consequently included our new year and twelfth night
festivities. During this period a strong superstition yet obtains in
Lancashire and Yorkshire respecting fire. A singular instance of this
recently occurred to a friend of mine within three miles of Manchester.
Seeing a cottage door open, he entered, and asked the good woman of the
house to give him a light for his cigar. He was somewhat astonished at
her inhospitable response: "Nay, nay, I know better than that." "Better
than what?" he inquired. "Why, better than give a light out of the house
on New Year's Day!" He contrived, notwithstanding, to ignite his cigar
without the woman's assistance, and she seemed content. She had
forgotten the best half of the condition, however, and committed the
very blunder she sought to avoid. According to Sir Henry Ellis, in the
North of England the superstition ordains that you "never allow any to
take a light out of your house on New Year's Day; a death in the
household, before the expiration of a year, is sure to occur if it be
allowed."
Sir Henry Ellis likewise mentions a curious superstition still existing
in Lincolnshire. It is considered unlucky to let anything be taken out
of the house on New Year's Day, before something has been brought into
it. The importation of the most insignificant article, even a piece of
coal, is, it appears, sufficient to prevent the misfortunes occurring,
which the contrary action, it is believed, would render inevitable
during some portion of the year. This sentiment is expressed in the
following popular rhyme:--
Take out, then take in,
Bad luck will begin;
Take in, then take out,
Good luck comes about.
A remarkable instance of the strength of the superstitious reverence for
this day, or rather of the popular belief in the prophetic character of
any incident occurring thereon, recently happened in Manchester. A
publican, name Tilley, refused to serve a glass of whisky _on credit_
during the New Year's Day's festivities, on the score that it was
"unlucky" so to do. He said he preferred making the man a present of the
liquor to the committal of any such act. The refusal so exasperated the
thirsty customer that he stabbed the landlord in the abdomen, and, as
the wound proved fatal, he was condemned to death for wilful murder, but
the sentence was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. Thus
the faith in the tradition produced a more tragic result than the most
superstitious could have dreaded from its ignoration. Singularly enough,
owing to the first day of the year happening on Sunday, the usual
festival was postponed till the following day; so it appears in this
instance the superstition accompanied the merry-making without reference
to the date.
This practice of "bringing in the New Year" with festive rejoicing is
still a very common one, especially in the north of England. A singular
superstition in connection with it is evidently of very ancient origin.
It is considered to be an unlucky omen if the first person who enters a
house on the morning of the first of January happens to be a female.
Another unlucky omen is yet very commonly respected in Lancashire and
elsewhere, even amongst comparatively educated people, at this festive
season. It is considered to bode misfortune if the first person who
enters your house on New Year's morning has a fair complexion and light
hair. I have never heard this very popular prejudice satisfactorily
accounted for. I can only suggest that it most probably arose from the
fact that amongst the Keltic tribes, or the earliest Aryan immigrants,
dark hair prevailed, as amongst the Welsh, Cornish, and Irish of the
present day; and that when they afterwards came in contact with the
Teutonic branch, as enemies, they found their mortal foes to possess
fair skins and light hair. They consequently regarded the intrusion into
their household, at the commencement of the year, of one of the hated
race, as a sinister omen. The beards and hair of the ancient Aryan gods
were golden or red, or fire-coloured. The Teutonic Thor, in this
respect, was the counterpart of Indra and Agni. Red hair, no doubt,
would have its admirers, where these gods were worshipped; and, of
course, it would fall into contempt when the reverse was the case. The
German early Christians, it appears, not only condemned Thor to the
lower regions, but carried their dislike to the very colour of his hair.
Hence the proverb, "Rother-bart, Teufelsart," or "Red-beard,
devil-steered." They went so far, indeed, as to assert, without any
other authority than the speciality of his personal character, that the
beard of the arch-traitor, Judas Iscariot, was of this obnoxious colour.
Dryden refers to it in the triplet which he despatched
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