| | | | | | FOLK LORE is a modern word, telling in its very | construction of the period of its formation. We | feel as sure that it belongs to the stratum of the | Teutonic Archaism as we do that 'Popular | Superstition’ is of the Latin Deposit. Even the | former, in comparison with that of its lengthy | synonym, is a proof of the different estimation it | has attained. The monosyllables give dignity, the | polysyllables cast a slur. Folk, as connected | with the great conquering Volken, are ancient | and honourable; but popular and vulgar, albeit | from the same root, have both deteriorated in | significance in their transit through Latin. Lore | infers something to be learnt and sought out; | superstition is the excess of belief, and implies | that it ought to be discarded and forgotten. | In effect the beliefs and customs that fell under | the stigma of superstition, were driven to such | remote corners under that opprobrious title, | that now that they have become lore, and | scholars and philologists perceive their value, | contempt for them has become so current that | their repositories among the peasantry are | ashamed of them, and it requires no small amount | of address to enable an educated person to | extract an account of them, more especially | since, strange and interesting as they may be to | the antiquary, many are far more honoured in | the breach than in the observance. Parson, | doctor, and school-master, must blame and | condemn them in practice, even though the next | generation will lose much that is racy and | amusing. | | On the whole we believe that the old nurse's | fable is more in vogue than it has been at any | other age of the world. | Strong-minded men seem as a rule to have | always despised mere portents and auguries, | and only to have accepted the fables that | accounted for natural phenomena because no | other solution had been discovered. And the | religion of truth always waged war against them. | A true Israelite under the old dispensation was | taught to be as free from all superstition as a | Christian of the present day; and from Moses | on to the later books of the Old Testament, | there is a continual denunciation of the various | magic practices that were caught from the | heathens. The early Christian teachers in like | manner forbade all varieties of divination, and | modes of securing good luck, on the same | principle, i.e., that the Second Commandment | is infringed by trust in whatever is not of God; | and in the interesting work at the head of our | paper, Mr. Henderson has brought together | many quotations showing the constant testimony | of the Fathers and earlier ecclesiastics against | such practices. He collects many such | denunciations throughout the Middle Ages, and | adds that apparently the Reformation, by | diminishing popular reliance on Saints and | Angels, absolutely caused the balance to swing | back towards the old remnants of heathenism; | so that instead of the fairies and elves being, | as merry Bishop Corbett says, | they would rather have | lifted their heads when relieved from the censure | of the Church. This is possible, but it may also be | that our greater evidence of popular credulity | may be caused by the more prominent relief | into which a lower grade of persons were raised | by the greater fullness of history, and by their | own increasing importance. | However, there has been, and very rightly, a | universal endeavour for at least two centuries, to | argue away, laugh down and eradicate all such | superstitions, until they have almost perished from | the surface, and only remain niched in a few | credulous and ignorant minds in remote place, | now and then coming into full light, chiefly in | some case of obtaining money on false | pretences, or of savage revenge on some | supposed witch. And when practical and | mischievous faith in these superstitions has | passed away, it has become the part of | scholars to collect them and compare them as | valuable and instructive remnants of ancient | beliefs. Such researches in able hands have led | to very important conclusions, and it is highly | desirable that every indication of popular belief | should at once be noticed down, just as a | specimen in natural history in a new place is | recorded not so much for its own sake as for its | connexion with congeners. | | Folk Lore is a very vague term. It includes all that traditional | mass of tales, sayings, beliefs, customs, observances, and | auguries that are, or recently were, afloat among the people, | accepted and acted upon by the lower orders, and more or less | even by the upper classes. In these there is a certain amount of | simple truth. Some are remnants of Church customs now | disused, and some are relics of old Teuton heathenism. Often, we | believe that superstition is the vulgarising of Reverence. Awe, | devoid of actual fear, is incomprehensible to the rude and | coarse, and when the vulgar see certain things, places, or | persons treated with distant respect, they immediately | conclude that some dire material effect is apprehended from a | contrary course. Thus the poor women keep their children | quiet in church by appalling threats of what the parson will do | to them; and the legend of Queen Elizabeth's maid of honour | who died of the prick of a needle on Sunday, has no doubt | done much to produce the Englishwoman's horror of touching | that implement; though the rules of the Evangelical Lutheran, | Madame Nathusius, represent the pattern German girl as | regarding fancy work as part of her Sunday recreation. | The real range of Folk Lore is world-wide; Kaffir, Negro, | Maori, continually amaze us with the resemblance of their | traditions to our own; but within this mighty circuit there are | divisions; and those superstitions which belong to the | Indo-European nations are the most easily compared, as well as the | most interesting to ourselves; while again we shall find that | the most accessible traditions, and those most easy to compare | and classify, are those of the countries where the population | consists of Teutons or Kelts, in various proportions, with civilization | derived from Rome. | Much has been done towards such collections, ever since | the brothers Grimm set the example in Germany. Mr. Edgar | Taylor introduced their 'Mahrehen' in England in an elegant | selected translation, which, however, coming in the full swing | of Edgeworthism, was, we fear, generally regarded as almost | too unintellectual for a nursery book. Yet its notes gives it a | value even above that of the beautiful recent edition de luxe, | containing all the Mahrehen. Sir Walter Scott meanwhile | was, from taste and instinct, collecting all that Border | tradition could afford him, viewing it, however, chiefly as poetic | material. Croker's Irish tales were a most valuable | contribution in themselves, and were told so charmingly as to | awaken, the popular taste and curiosity. Mr. Knightley began | to collect and harmonize the old tales and fairy legends of | different countries; and though no collector has equalled the | pair who deserve to be mythologically celebrated as the | Giants Grimm, yet | | the dwarfs standing on their shoulders begin to see further | than even the giants themselves, and collectors and | interpreters alike have multiplied within the last few years. | Among the interpreters we would mention Professor Muller, | Mr. Cox, Mr. S. B. Gould, and Mr. Kelly; among the collectors | Mr. Dasent for Norway and Iceland, Mr. Campbell for the | High-lands, Mr. Hunt for Cornwall, Mr. Hadlam and Mr. | Wilkinson for Lancashire, Mr. Henderson for the counties of | Durham and Northumberland as well as for the Border | districts. Here he has been fortunate enough to become | possessed of a MS. collection, made by a young man named | Wilson, at the request of Sir Walter Scott, but which had failed | to reach his hands. Add to these the Rev. J. C. Atkinson's | contributions to the Monthly Packet, of the Folk Lore still fresh | among the Danish sprung population of Cleveland ~~ a work | which we hope to see complete and published in a full and | separate form. We believe that almost any curiosity of Folk | Lore, which can be gathered direct from the peasantry, | ought to be at once sent with sufficient evidence to some | collector of these matters, since there is much yet to be | established respecting the geographical distribution (if it may | so be called) of certain myths and customs, and much light is | thrown on differences of national character by the forms that | the same story or belief will assume. No time is to be lost, for | even in Cornwall Mr. Hunt tells us that stories he heard and | happily recorded thirty-five years ago, have now become | extinct. | It must be confessed, however, that researches after English | Folk Lore are apt to be disappointing. Our people in the | true-blooded Anglian and Saxon counties, are too busy, too | practical, too shy of being laughed at, too sophisticated to dwell | much on any tradition that does not connect itself with | immediate results. They are not narrators of stories, and care | little for battle-fields. | Mr. Henderson, indeed, relates how a Sunday scholar at | Durham preferred a lesson from the Book of Joshua to one | from Samuel, because of the fighting in it, and then told his | teacher that there had been a great battle fought close to | Durham once ~~ | But Durham was peopled partly by Kelts, and partly by | Northmen, and against this young poet may be set the old | | woman of Berkshire, who with the White Horse and the | Dragon's Hill before her eyes, was far from clear whether the | battles they commemorated had not been a review, the firing | of which she herself had heard. Naseby Field is said to be | believed to be haunted with battle noises, but in general we | fear that where the spot is remembered at all, it is only as a | local lion, attracting strangers and bringing profit. There is no | perspective in the popular mind. Even in the Keltic, and | therefore naturally imaginative Cornwall, the terrible | Tregeagle figures as an unjust attorney of not many | generations ago, but falls in with ancient British hermits, and | saints; and the saints have the characters and powers of their | predecessors the giants, hurl rocks about, and even pelt | each other, as did SS. Just and Sennan, whose two rocks meet | midway in the air, united, and formed one enormous granite | mass. All that is before the memory of the grandmother of the | oldest inhabitant, is in one plane of far Antiquity, including | King Arthur, Oliver Cromwell, and the French Revolution. | Christmas mummers in the south of England always call St. | George 'King Geaarge,' a village girl who was taken to see | Windsor Castle, wrote to her mother that she had seen the |

"old King killing the dragon,"

and in Cornwall there is | scarcely a tradition about King Arthur himself. | Without cultivation there seems to be an essential vulgarity in | the English mind. Witness the deterioration of ballads that | have been current among the people in England compared | with those that have had the same lot in Scotland. For | instance, we will take the mournful ditty where the jealous | elder sister drowns the younger. In the Scottish ballad the | miller is thus summoned: ~~ | After drawing out the unfortunate lady ~~ | | | | We quote from Mr. Chamber's version, but the wild weird, | ghastly beauty is the same in every Scotch variety, but contrast | the poetic grandeur of this poem, every word of which is | homely, with the two English versions given in Mr. Hughes' | ‘Scouring of the White Horse’. The Berkshire runs thus, as to | the discovery of the body: ~~ | The other version, from the Welsh border, describes minutely | how a fiddle was constructed from the poor lady's interior, | and reproached all the family ~~ but oh! how unlike the | Scottish harp ~~ and ending with the true legal consolation: | ~~ | | | There is a certain grim humour in both these, and the last | almost looks like a conscious travestie of Binnorie: but | scarcely any genuine ballad of the English populace is | otherwise than grotesquely ridiculous, even when most horrible. | The very best always have some painful triviality and | absurdity; the 'Children in the Wood' itself is full of | paltrinesses; Widdrington and his stumps spoil Chevy Chase, | at best greatly inferior to the Scottish Battle of 0tterburn, | where Douglas’s death is marvellously beautiful; and the | uniform conclusion of ballads of unhappy lovers is wilful bathos, | Denmark, the prolific source of ballads, we believe, invented | the regulation termination by which | | Scotland, the country of burying lands in desolated convent | churches, touchingly made the two to intertwine, but some | practical Englishman caused the sexton to hack them down | with his hook because they encumbered the path. Is it that | the English nature so revolts in indignation at having been | touched, that it immediately makes game of the subject? Or | is it that there is absolutely no sense of the ridiculous? | Whatever has been orally transmitted, such as the mumming | dialogues, carols, May-day songs, &c., have always become | hopelessly confused and vulgarised in a manner that, if we may | trust collectors, does not befal the songs and rhymes of Scotland, | Denmark, Germany, Brittany, or Italy. | English poetic genius stands as high as that of any other | nation, but it would appear as if appreciation of the poetical was in | our own country, confined to the cultivated classes. Abroad | though the demarcation of rank was more defined, yet | everywhere but in France there was less dissimilarity of | feeling between the gentleman and peasant, than here, | where the one might be the more refined, but the other less | so. Moreover, learning has probably never been out of reach of | an intelligent person in England, since Richard II. refused to | grant his nobles' petition that their serfs might be forbidden to | learn to read. First monasteries, then grammar, and dame, | schools put book learning within the reach of | anyone whose mind was active enough to seek | for it; and a clever lad, rising into the position of a scholar, left | the homely songs of tradition to those who had | | not the sentiment to mould them or even the power to preserve | them accurately. | Peace and prosperity are also very depoetizing elements, | since they leave no landmarks in the mind, and on a silent | people, much absorbed in present interests, and happily without | a notion of long standing family feuds. Traditions are hardly ever | handed on ~~ among what we are no longer allowed to call | the genuine Anglo Saxons. Celtic or Danish admixtures make a | great difference in the tenacity traditions, and thus all the best | and fullest come from our northern and western countries, | which often explain otherwise incomprehensible usages and | sayings of the south and east. Folk Lore may be classified as | consisting of beliefs in supernatural appearances; of custom, | spells and sayings, and of old stories; and each class of these | are partly derived from old heathen, partly from Christian | usages. | Among these, the most universal and abiding article of popular | credence is the appearance of ghosts. This hardly deserves | to be termed mere popular superstition, for we verily believe | that more thoughtful and cultivated persons would confess that | they regarded such phantoms as veritable mysteries, than | could now be found to acknowledge any faith in them among | the half educated; but as it was among the untaught that the | traditions were fostered and preserved, ghosts are classed | among vulgar fables. | The question has often been carefully argued, and the result | seems to be that there is no impossibility in a certain | intercourse between the departed spirit and persons still | living, and therefore that each single instance must rest on its | own evidence. The favourite Reductio ad absurdum is that, | when a ghost is seen in the ordinary dress of the person it | represents, the question is asked whether these are the | ghosts of the garments? but this seems to us unreasonable. | When we think of our friends, they appear before our mind's eye | attired as we are used to see them, and thus by whatever | means the impression of the presence of the deceased is | produced, the memory recalls him as he has appeared in life. | There is no doubt that the senses often imagine themselves | to have been cognizant of that which has produced an effect | on the mind, e.g., though an earthquake is silent in itself, yet | from the similarity of the sensations it occasions with those | produced by a thunderstorm, it is common to believe that there | is a rumbling sound underground; and in the instance of a | ship of war lying at anchor on New Zealand, where the | concussion resembled the shock of the discharge of cannon, | many persons below the thought that they heard the report of | all the guns fired off at once while those on deck were | | convinced that there had been no sound at all. Many supernatural | appearances, related in good faith may thus be accounted for, | without the eyes and ears having been concerned. Spirit may | communicate with spirit, though no outward figure be pictured on | the retina, no vibration meet the tympanum, yet these are so | exclusively the media of perception that the mind and memory | believe the impression to have been conveyed through them. This | must be the case in a dream. | Allowing, however, for much imagination, much imposture and | exaggeration, there is a large residuum of apparitions that have | never been disproved, and which can only be wondered at. The | most frequent and best authenticated of these are the cases in | which the wraith or phantom of a person dying or recently dead | manifests itself. Madame de Gentis tells us in her memoirs that | she and her only son a child of three years old, sickened at | the same time with the measles, and the child's death was | kept a secret from her by her friends, but from the moment he | expired till she recovered, she saw him continually hovering over | her on the top of the bed, and that she felt no doubt of the true | state of the case. Whether this deserves to be called a sick | mother's fancy, or whether the lively lady herself be worthy of | credit, this is only one of many such stories. A maid servant in | the family of Sir Stamford Ruffles was one night sitting alone | in the kitchen when she saw her soldier brother, then in India, | pass before her, with a handkerchief that she had given him, | round his head. It proved that at this very time, he had almost, | with his last breath, desired to have his head bound with his sister’s | handkerchief. Mr. Henderson has another story to the same effect, | on the authority of a clerical friend, who heard it from the aunt who | witnessed it. She was about fourteen years old, when, as she was | playing with the children of a gentleman living near Ripon one | of them cried, | The whole set of children distinctly recognized | the form and features of the brother, who was then in India, and | one ran into the house and told her father, who made light of it to | her, but noted the day and hour, and these of course | corresponded with the time of the young man's death. | We give another instance on the authority of Mrs. | Schimmel-penninck, whose stern realistic breeding was no | school for credulity: ~~ | | | Such apparitions as these are quite frequent enough to be | regarded as established. The appearance of Protesilaus to | Laodamia was probably founded on similar occurrences | among the Greeks; and Mr. Henderson tells us that St. | Macarius the younger of Alexandria, A.D. 373, declares that the | spirit | Without exactly adopting the explanation of good | Saint, we own ourselves inclined to believe that in those kinds | of death where a stupor or trance precedes actual dissolution, | the spirit may be, in a manner, absent from the flesh, and yet | not entirely removed to its resting-place; and thus that its own | last thoughts and impulses may actually render it present to | the persons to whom it is most attached or whom it last | recollected. Thus in the cases above cited, the two dying | youths in India evidently flew to their relatives | | and young Petty, on becoming worse, probably thought of the | doctor. We believe a great proportion at least of these | apparitions were of person whose death took place in the | manner above mentioned. We have heard of one case where the | death was through convulsions, when the struggle is always | long and apparently unconscious and many more, in cases of | drowning. The dripping hand which announced the shipwreck of | Hugh Miller's father, was perhaps an instance of this kind. And | we have heard a curious, and to our own knowledge, true story, | of the master of a sailing vessel who had promised his | favourite aunt to announce his death to her if he were lost at | sea. In process of time, he did appear wet and dripping, but | strange to say, not to the aunt who had made the tryste, but to | his wife. Of course his safety was despaired of, but he at | length returned home, and it appeared that his ship had been | lost on the South American coast; he had staid by her to the | last, and at the time of his apparition had been brought off so | nearly drowned as to be insensible. Surely this would seem as if | in his extremity his promise had as it were, borne away his | spirit, and yet that it had flown to the person most prominent in | his thoughts. An apparition almost exactly similar to this is | related in a curious old book of the 17th century, called the | 'Secrets of the Invisible World Disclosed;’ by Andrew Moreton, | Esq.; the 4th edition being printed in 1740. His story is as | follows: ~~ | Andrew Moreton, Esq., who tells this story as from his | personal knowledge, intends throughout his book to argue | against apparitions being attributed to the Devil, or being taken | to be spirits of the individuals they represent, considering them | rather as the work of an intermediate class of spiritual beings, | of limited power and knowledge, and some beneficent, some | malignant. He argues stoutly, but most of the stories he | adduces rather fail of supporting his theory, | | which is the greater reason for believing his honesty in the | narration. He always gives his grounds for attaching more or | less credit to his narration, and mostly tells whether they came | to him on the immediate authority of his informant or | otherwise. Another story told by him agrees with the | hypothesis that it is the communication between spirit and | spirit that creates the sense of having seen a phantom. Two | brothers residing in London, sons of an old baronet, whom Mr. | Moreton indicates as Sir G.H., had long been courting the | same lady, and at last quarreled so desperately about her, as | actually to challenge one another to fight a duel. The affair | was to come off at five o’clock in the morning, without | seconds, as of course none would have undertaken the office | for so unnatural a rencontre. The younger brother was at the | place almost as soon as it was light and was amazed at | finding his rival there already. He drew his sword, and was | surprised to see his antagonist coming to meet him with his | sword likewise in his hand, but as he came nearer, to his | astonishment he found that it was not his brother, but his old | father, whom he had believed to be safe at home, sixty miles | off, and that the weapon was only the little cane Sir G. was | wont to carry. | he said, The youth answered by declaring | that it had been a cowardly shift in his brother Tom to | challenge him, and send his father. The old | gentleman answered that it was no time to talk but to fight, | adding, ~~ words which Jack had the day before | used in his altercation with his brother ~~ and therewith | drawing his sword, he advanced on his son, who, in horror, | threw down his sword and scabbard on the ground, crying | And as his father ran upon him, he sprang aside, and | seemed about to run away. His father stooped, picked up the | sword, and stood still, and Jack, in his bewilderment, walked a | good way back towards the town, but finding his father did not | follow him, he decided, though weaponless, to keep his | appointment, went back, but saw no-one | , and sitting down on the grass, waited for nearly two | hours, and when at last he decided on going home, he found | his sword lying at the very place where he had dropped it. | and he returned to his lodgings, where he was soon | sought out by an old family servant, who brought him word | that the esquire, as his brother was called in the household | was desirous of hearing whether he had not seen something | extraordinary that morning, adding that he would have come | himself, had he not been very | | unwell. Jack further found that his father was ill in bed in his | own home, or at least had been so when he had sent the | servant to town a few days before. He dispatched the man to | his brother with the reply, that he had either seen his father or | the devil, whereupon the esquire came in haste; they had a | complete reconciliation, and, comparing notes, found that as | the elder son approached the place intended for the duel, he, | too, had been met by his father who asked him where he was | going? He made some trifling excuse about joining a party | who were going to Hampton Court, but his father reddened | with anger, stamped his foot, and declared that he knew the | real end to be the murder of his younger son; nor would he | listen to any arguments, telling the esquire that he knew Jack | to be more earnest and honourably minded to the lady than | himself, and had given his consent to his marriage with her, | and ended by commanding him to be reconciled to his brother. | The two young men, being thoroughly friends, inquired at their | father’s usual lodgings and at

’the Black Swan Yard,’

| where

‘his coach always stood,’

and found that he | was not known to be in town nor expected there. Becoming | very uneasy about him, they agreed to ride home together, | and inquire after him. They found him alive, recovering from | his illness, and much relieved to see them on such good | terms, for not only had he long known of their rivalry and | ill-feeling about the young lady, but twice he had dreamt in one | night that they had actually quarreled, and were on the point of | fighting, but that he had go up at four o’clock in the morning to | prevent it. The impression was so strong that he had actually | written a letter of warning to the esquire, which arrived at his | lodgings a few hours after the two had set out for the country. | Of course there is now no opportunity of testing the veracity of | this adventure, but it has every appearance of authenticity, | and it appears to us that the coincidence proves that there | was some communication between the anxious mind of the | sick and anxious father at home and his sons ~~ perhaps | facilitated by bodily ailment. An almost similar story is told in | the ‘Shepherd’s Calendar,’ by James Hogg, of two brothers of | the name of Beattie. He there says that the circumstances | were made public in the lifetime of the younger brother, and | never contradicted by him, but he gives the tale in a less | credible manner, making the father be brought to the spot in a | dream by the witchcraft of the young lady’s aunt. To these | appearances at the moment of death ~~ or by force of | correspondence of mind ~~ belongs that famous story which | furnished Crabbe with his poem of Lady Barbara. It is curious | to trace the story’s development in the two versions given in | the ‘Diaries of a Lady of Quality,’ | | that collection of contemporary gossip by an intelligent cultivated | woman, which cannot be read without a certain degree of interest. | In her first version, purporting to be a copy made in 1794 by the | Honorable Mrs. Maitland, from the dictation of the Lady Betty | Cobb, to whom Lady Beresford had confessed the whole on | her death-bed, the story is almost exactly what Crabbe versified. | Lord Tyrone and his sister, having been bewildered and | distressed by infidel teaching, agree that the first to die should | come and inform the other whether there were indeed | immortality for the soul. | Lord Tyrone dies, and at the same moment appears to his sister, | then married to Sir Martin Beresford, and not only satisfies her | religious doubts, but predicts the number of her children, her | foolish second marriage, and that she would die at forty-seven, | after the birth of a son. Moreover, as tokens of the reality of his | appearance, he causes the curtains of the bed to be drawn | through a hook from the tester, writes in her pocket-book, and | grasping her wrist with a hand cold as ice, leaves a burnt mark | there that causes her always to wear a velvet ribbon. Of course all | turned out as predicted. After her first husband's death, she lived a | very retired life, only associating with the family of the clergyman | of the parish, and Crabbe has most delicately and ingeniously | marked out the train of persuasions which led her into marrying | this clergyman's, son, who behaved very ill to her. She was | favourably recovering from the birth of the son who was to be | fatal to her, when he father-in-law jestingly told her that he had | settled an old dispute as to her real age, by consulting her | baptismal register and that he found she was forty-seven instead of | forty-eight. she | said, and the next day, sending for him and Lady Betty Cobb, | she told them the real story of her life, and on removing the | ribbon, the sinews of her wrist were found shrunken. She died | shortly after, and the ribbon and writing remained with her friend; | her eldest son, as had been predicted by the ghost, married | Lord Tyrone's daughter. | The second version of the story, which was related to Miss | Wynne by the Llangollen ladies, made Lord Tyrone not the | brother, but the first love, and omitted the whole original compact, | only making him come for the ring he had once given her, and | predicting her husband's death and her own second marriage and | death after the birth of he son. The impress on the wrist, was | made in taking off the ring, which was never seen again. All the | predictions were accomplished, and though she had tried | | to disbelieve the vision at first, it so preyed on her mind that | when her son was born, her husband and the nurse made her | believe it was a daughter, and she was only undeceived, when | nearly recovered, by a housemaid, who spoke of the child as 'he’. | She burst into tears, but was persuaded out of her alarm, and | was going down stairs when she cried | fainted, and died in | a few days' time. | The stubborn facts of the peerage shew that Lady Beresford | was no sister of Lord Tyrone, and that she had lost her first | husband before the death of that nobleman. This, however, is | not much to the purpose, for her husband plays no part in the | story. The Editor of the Diaries, on the authority of a letter to Mr. | F. Pollock, from one of the Beresford family, says that it | was true that | but that it was to cover a scar left by disease early in life, and | that she had really had a dream before her second marriage, | warning her of her unhappiness in it. | We have given this whole process of ghost development | because it is worth observing that there is a certain core of | truth beneath the romantic additions. We believe that those who | are determined on explaining away whatever seems supernatural, | sometimes are quite as inventive as those who work up a brilliant | phantom story. It was a fact that the high spirited Lady | Edgeworth, who firmly took the tallow candle out of the barrel of | gunpowder, where her Irish maid had stuck it, nevertheless | suffered much terror from the supposed antics of elves on the | mound called Fairy mount before her windows. Her | descendants at Edgworthstown accounted for it by supposing | the village people to have, like the Merry Wives of Windsor, | sent their children to play tricks there in order to torment her. | That Irish peasants should send their children by night to a | haunted mound is assuredly as improbable as that some | appearance unaccounted for should take place there. There is | moreover ~~ or more properly was ~~ in the last half century, | every temptation to deny or explain away a ghost story, since | in that strong-minded age, any confession of belief that there | was some unexplained mystery, was supposed to be mere | credulity and contemptible weakness. Even Mrs. Radcliffe, with | all her poetical sense of the weird and terrible, was obliged to | conform to the taste of her age by resolving her ghost into a | waxen image. And when the Beresford family owned that their | ancestress had really had a warning dream, it was, | considering the | | incredulous age, going a good way towards acknowledging the | apparition. | Of Dreams, we say nothing here, for their remarkable | accomplishment has been so often proved that not the most | resolute scepticism has been able to get beyond the theory that | the mind had beep occupied with the subject dreamt of. They | belong to the world of mystery rather than of Folk Lore, and we | have only mentioned the cases in which the appearance of a | wraith or double ganger coincided curiously with a dream of the | person it represented, as if he had been there in spirit. | The apparitions that are most decidedly matters of local | tradition are those that haunt spots where a crime has been | committed or an untimely death has taken place. Littlecote | Hall (see Rokeby) is a well-known instance, and we could quote on | good private authority several more. The instance Mr. | Henderson gives was from Mr. Wilkie's MS. book of Border | traditions: ~~ | of such stories resolve themselves into the fancies of persons, | who, thinking a place ought to be haunted, immediately people it | with sights and sounds of their own imagination, but still ~~ as in | the other case ~~ there are numerous instances where the | noises and appearances are observed by unprepared witnesses, | and fail of being accounted for. We cannot refrain from quoting one, | which ~~ though Judge Halburton has placed it among the | dialogues of his Clockmaker, and has thus given it an air of | invention, we know that he privately declared to be the full | belief in the locality where the events took place ~~ namely | Sable Island, on the coast of Nova Scotia, a desolate, wild and | lonely sandy place, full of hollows scooped out by the | | wind, with a few whortle berries and cranberries growing in | them, in shallower places bent grass, and on the shores wild peas; | but not a tree or shrub on the whole island, which is about thirty | miles long, and from one and a half to two wide, shaped like a | bow, tapering off at both ends, with a lake in it fifteen miles long.

| 'The sand drifts in a gale like snow, and blows up into high | cones. These dance about sometimes, and change places, and | when they do they oncover dead bodies of poor critters that | have been overtaken there.'

The story is related by Sam | Slick, as he heard it from a person who had frequently visited it | to catch the horses that are to be found there, running wild in | large herds: ~~ | | | The narrative proceeds to relate that Captain Torrens obtained the | names of some of the most notorious wreckers, one of whom he | heard lived at a solitary place called Salmon Wand. He found, | however, that the man and his family had removed to Labrador, | and following them thither, contrived to lodge in their house | while hunting and fishing in the neighbourhood, and one | evening, in the father's absence, he put on a splendid ring, | which attracted the notice of the daughters, and it was handed | round among them to be admired; thus leading one of the girls | to say it was not so pretty | The mother hastily said the | girl meant one that was bought of a Frenchman, who picked it | up on the sand there, and Torrens presently expressed his | desire of seeing and buying it, but he was answered that it had | been left with a watchmaker at Halifax, who had given twenty | shillings for it, and promised more if it should sell for a greater | sum. Then were at that time only two watchmakers at Halifax, and | in the window of one the captain saw a ring answering to the | description given by the woman. Going into the shop, he asked | its history, and | | was told the same account as the mother had given him. He at | once laid down the twenty shillings, adding, | The ring was identified by the ladies of the | regiment, and the Prince himself, for it was a curious old family | jewel, and it was of course restored to Mrs. Copeland's friends in | England. Captain Torrens was ordered homeland no more was | heard of the wreckers. | Nor can we refrain from quoting the famous apparition at | Messina, which has been recently well told by Lady Herbert, in the ' | Month' for last November: ~~ | | | Lady Herbert's party tried to find the niche; but it had been | covered by a more recent screen. When all the European | countries and even the Now World have such striking beliefs in | common, there is no supposing that they can all be entirely | devoid of foundation. The voice of innocent blood assuredly cries | from the ground, and when we look at the remarkable expiation | enjoined by the law in cases of untraced murder, as an actual | guilt incurved by the very soil of the country, it does seem as if, in | spite of the one great expiation, which speaketh better things than | the blood of Abel, a stain might still attach to the spot where a | victim lies concealed, and thus cause the strange, freakish, | sometimes grotesque as well as terrible manifestations that | haunt the spot Nor indeed does there seem to us, considering; | how absolutely ignorant we are of the spirit world, to be any | inherent impossibility that the soul or the phantom shape of one | who has done some great wrong should haunt the spot, seeking | long in vain for one who should repair the evil. Such is a story ~~ | unfortunately without fixed place or date ~~ | | of a Roman Catholic chaplain, who haunted a library, seeking | long for someone who would | speak to him and hear his story. He had been a careless jovial | man, and one day, when just going out hunting had received a | letter, which he had reason to think contained a confession, | perilous to the interests of many, and unwilling to give up his sport, | as he must do if he were known to have had the letter, he hid it | away in the library, to be produced at his convenience. Out | hunting, he was thrown from his horse and broke his neck, and | ever since he had appeared in the room at certain hours of the | evening, longing to remove and destroy the dangerous letter, but | having no bodily limbs, unable to do it himself, and without power | to entreat any still corporeal being to do it for him, until he had first | been addressed. In like manner, Souvestte relates, in his Sans | Culottes Bas Breton, a fine Breton legend of a farmer who had | stealthily removed his neighbour landmark in his lifetime, ever | flitting disembodied round the stone, longing to restore it. | There is a beautiful class of tales too in which the ghost might | seem a manifestation either of the hovering spirit of the departed or | of a guardian angel in this shape. Such are the stories of the | dead mother who appeared to her children as they were | running down an old stone stair in a ruined castle, when a few | steps more would have carried them headlong into a gaping | vault; of the father, recently deceased, whose still familiar call | brought his son away from under a sheltering tree, which the | next moment was shattered by lightning, and of the mysterious | companion who joined and convoyed a traveller up a lane in | which a robber was lurking to attack him. | The theory that the wraith or spirit really communicates with the | living, according to their power of receptivity, is the pervading | one in Mrs. Crowe's 'Night Side of Nature;' a book in which the | arguments are sometimes striking, though the largo number of | marvels there collected, some on evidence insufficient and others | with evidence suppressed, has cast a certain degree of discredit | en it. Her quotations do in fact almost establish the possibility | that certain appearances in church-yards or over graves, may | have a material existence and physical cause, i.e., the escape of | gases which make themselves visible in the dark to persons of | peculiarly sensitive organizations. In this we fully acquiesce, | having ourselves known of a person who beheld a luminous | appearance in a church-yard, where her companion could | discern nothing. Such appearances it may well be believed | would be more visible over the hastily found hiding place of the | corpse of one murdered than over a properly made grave, and | we thus obtain an almost material means of accounting for such | apparitions as those of the Bow-brig sisters, though | | of course such actions as those of Mrs. Copeland would not thus be | explained. There is likewise a strong concurrence of testimony to | the spectres that in certain: families herald the death of a member | of it. The Norsemen of old believed each family to be attended by, a | certain ancestral spirit, the dis (pl. disir,) perhaps of the same origin as | the lares of Roman households, but though the lar was always in the | shape of a dog, as the dogs of open hearths still attest, the dis | might be in the form of an animal, each family having its own. | Many heraldic; bearings might perhaps be accounted for as | commemorating the family dis; and possibly too some of those | phantom creatures attached to old families, such as the black | dog, which was seen by a young mother in Cornwall lying on her | sick child's bed. She called her husband to drive it away, he knew too | well what it boded, and by the time he had reached the nursery, the | child was dead. Another family is said by Mrs. Crowe to be warned | by the sight of a single swan upon a lake, and white doves are | perhaps the most frequent harbingers ~~ as the fairest. Louis of | Thuringia, the crusader, husband of the dear Saint Elizabeth of | Hungary, was summoned by a flight of white doves. The | Littelton family are said to have a dove monitor, and in | Lancashire the appearance of a white dove at a sick person's | window is thought to indicate either a speedy recovery or the | presence of a good angel to conduct away the soul. Still, to | connect these portents with the disir is far from removing the | mystery, but rather heightens it. | The human form sometimes belonged to the disir, and is the | more common among these heralds of fate. The White Lady | attached to the House of Brandenburg is one instance, and so is | the Bodach Glas, or Grey Man of whom Scott made such effective | Use in foreboding the capture of Fergus Mac Ivor. We believe that | he is really attached to the Eglinton family, and Mr. Henderson | gives an authentic account of his very recent appearance to the | late Earl. Scotland and Ireland are chiefly thus visited: the | Banshee, or White Spectre, seems to belong to many of the | oldest Keltic families in both. No-one | can forget Lady Fanshawe's account of the Banshee, who | so terrified her in the house of Lady Honor O'Brien, without her | being aware either of the tradition or that one of the O'Brien | family was actually lying in the same house at the point of | death. Croker has likewise a most striking story of the Banshee | of the Bumworth family. | These ghastly monitors are not always connected with individual | families, but are sometimes attached to villages and towns ~~ | always, however, we believe, in those parts of England where the | population chiefly came from Scandinavia. It is in Denmark that we | find the origin of this belief. It would seem that there | | has always been a notion that a building required as it were a | living sacrifice. We find it in the old Roman legend of the willing | leap of Curtius; and Copenhagen is said to have been only | founded by the cruel sacrifice of a poor little girl, who was lured | into a vault and then walled up. Mr. Atkinson, quoting from | Danish authorities, tells us that the workman employed in | church-building, used on the day their wall was finished, to seize | on any unfortunate animal who came in their way and build it up alive | within the wall. Its ghost then became a sort of parish official, | called the Kirke-vare or varsel, the church warning, and performed | the function of announcing approaching deaths among the | parishioners. | | Several instances are then adduced of persons meeting these | creatures on their way to houses, where their arrival is invariably | followed by a death. It would seem that throughout the north of | England, the like appearance was believed in under the name of | Barguest, though his existence is not there explained, nor docs | he seem to have any care taken for his accommodation. Mr. | Harland derives the term Barguest from Bar or gate, and ghost; | but Mr. Henderson's Bahr geist or Bier ghost seems to us the | most satisfactory source proposed for the name. A mastiff, a | white rabbit, a pig, a donkey, a horse, or a cow seem to have | been the ordinary shapes, but always with large glaring saucer | eyes. 'To roar like a Barguest,' is a popular comparison, and, till very | recently, Durham, Newcastle, Burnley, and Whitby believed in their | Barguest; nay, in a note, Mr. Atkinson tells us of a sailor at | Whitby, lately dead, who believed that a severe | | swelling in his leg was the effect of meeting an immense shadowy white | dog with saucer eyes in a narrow thoroughfare after dark. In | Yorkshire, the Barguest is called Padfoot, because of the | padding, tramping sound with which it makes its presence | known, in Lancashire, it is called Trash, from its splashing along | with a sound like that made by old shoes in a miry lane, and | Sktiker from its wailing cry. Mr. Harland says he has met persona | who believed themselves to have seen Trash in the form of a | horse or cow, but he is generally more like a very large dog, with | very broad feet, shaggy hair, drooping ears, and the inevitable | saucer eyes. On being seen, he walks backwards, growing smaller | and smaller, and vanishes either when unwatched for a moment, | or in a pool of water with a loud splash. | In general, however, these mysterious beings seem to have fled | before the schoolmaster, and with them those more attractive | beings, the Brownie, the Pixie, the Elf, and the Fay. Nobody of | the present generation ever beheld one of these creatures, except | perhaps a 'Spriggan' recently captured in Cornwall and lost, and | it took a considerable amount of liquor to enable one of the past, | even in Ireland, to discern them. We will not enter on a | discussion on the origin of these beliefs, further than to express | our dissent from the theory that they were human and remnants | of the races conquered by the invaders. It is far more probable | that the same primary idea which peopled Greece so gracefully | with a nymph for every tree and every wave, developed in the | Keltic and Teutonic minds into the Shefro, the Elf, and the Fay, | so curiously similar in all genuine traditions. Is it not, indeed, | according to all analogy that such spirits may have had power to | manifest themselves before the redemption had been fully set | forth, and to linger longest in the lands that were the last to | become Christian? There may have been the truth of a poet's | divination in Milton's lines, inspired by Plutarch's tale of the | weeping and wailing in the lonely isle on the night of the Nativity. | | Is this poetry and not truth? We know that demoniac possession | was never permitted at Jerusalem, and that it prevailed in | proportion to the distance of places from where | | | we know that oracles became dumb in the presence of Christians, | and that their silence was one motive for the concealed | persecution by Julian the apostate; arid it is remarkable that the | first converted lands of Europe, Greece, Italy, and France, though | the two former once teemed with myths of haunting genii or | nymphs, are now the most devoid of those legendary beings. The | regions of the elf, the fairy, and the household spirit, are | Germany and Scandinavia, converted at a comparatively recent | period, and those Keltic portions of France and the British Isles | where Christianity not only came late, but savage remnants of | pagan practice lingered on for ages. Tenacious memories, | imaginative fears, and popular exaggerations, would carry on for | many years, and even centuries, the remembrance of a marvel | witnessed in the days of conflict between spirits of light and of | darkness. Nothing is more curious than the inability of the | popular mind to retain a reasonable fact, however important, | while a superstition, a custom, or a fear, remains fixed for ever, | and sometimes gets a new cause assigned for it. That the eating | of horse-flesh was a religious rite with our heathen forefathers, | brought with them from the steppes of Asia, is a matter of | book knowledge to a few, but the horror of horse-flesh, diligently | inspired by the teachers of Christianity, survives in full force, and | old customs derived from the worship of the animal, such as the | bearing about its skull decked with ribbons on Christmas eve, | and setting it up before a house which is thought in disgrace, were a | short time ago prevalent in our more remote | counties. | The Beltane, or midsummer and midwinter fires, | commemorating the culmination of the sun's course, are the | most universal of nil the Aryan religious ceremonies that have | now become mere popular amusement, with a sense of luck | attached to them. Mr. Kelly's Indo-European Traditions best | explain the astronomical force of this rite, coupled with the | rolling the fiery wheel (whence he derives Jol or Yule) down a | hill side, as it were to show the downward course of the sun | throughout the autumn. The lane of fire over which young men | leapt and animals were driven, seems to have been in use | everywhere, from ancient Rome to further Germany, and | curiously shows how the idea of ensuring good luck is the most | real mode of preserving a significant custom. In Lancashire, the | Beltane fires got mixed with a notion of Purgatory, and in the | Fylde, a moor still bears the latter name, where in the last | generation men used to hold aloft hay-forks with bunches of | burning straw. In Cornwall, the whole district of the Land's End | used to be aglow with these fires, and at Penzance, the children | were | | flowers in the morning, and bonfires blazed in the evening, while | fireworks were showered on the young men and maidens who played | in and out at thread-my-needle, little thinking that Ovid had thus | leapt through the fires in the streets of Rome. This custom was | closely described by Mr. Richard Edmonds, in the last generation, | but Wesleyanism has put an end to it. The more remote parts of | Germany, and the Savoyard nook of the Mediterranean, have not | given up their fires, and, in the brilliant description in 'Denise,' we | find that every house contributes some article, so that much | rubbish is hoarded up for the occasion, as a cheap holocaust to | ensure good luck. In fact, Luck maybe said to be one of the chief | gods of this world, and certainly the greatest preserver of heathen | rites paid to other deities long since past away. A very senseless | worship it is that this idol receives remnants of every variety of | superstition, and paid by the most unlikely persons in the most | unlikely stations. Christian and heathen fashions and beliefs, are | alike kept up in this one word Luck. For instance, an old nurse will | declare it unlucky that a child should not cry at its baptism. This | is a remnant of the belief that it ought to show a certain | consciousness of the exorcism and renunciation of the evil spirit; | and on the other hand, the notion that it is unlucky to cut a child's | nails for the first year, and that when cut, the parings should be | buried under an ash tree, is apparently connected with the ship | Nagelfahr, made of human nails, and the ash tree Yggdrasil. | Nay, the blue woollen threads, or small cords that nursing | mothers, in Mr. Wilkie's time, used to wear round their necks, on | the Teviot side, may be connected With the Brahminical string so | well known in India; just as Mr. Kelly traces the mysterious fame | of the rowan, wiggan, or mountain ash to its likeness (observed | by Bishop Heber) to the Indian palasa, which was consecrated by | Vedic myth, | Happily Christian notions predominate at the birth and baptism | of children, and it is with these that Mr. Henderson's collection | commences. And a very interesting one is mentioned as | prevailing in the north, Much importance attaches to the baby's | first visit to another house, on which occasion it is expected that | he should receive three things ~~ an egg, salt, and white bread | or cake. In the East Riding of Yorkshire; matches are added, |

'to light the child on the way to heaven.'

An old woman | at Durham called this receiving alms. He could not claim them | before he was baptised, she said, but now that he is a Christian, | he has a right to go and ask alms

‘of his fellow Christians.' |

Bread, salt, fire, and an egg, are assuredly notable | Christian emblems. The nursery is indeed the storehouse of | ancient observance, there kept up in seriousness | | by the long link of old nurses; while wedding customs are perhaps | maintained more as excuses for mirth and gaiety, on an, occasion | when stock subjects of wit are apt to be valuable. The hurling of the | shoe ~~ now treated as so much a matter of course that the very | newspapers record that the happy pair departed among a perfect | shower of old shoes ~~ is laid by Mr. Henderson, on the authority | of a writer in Notes and Queries, to be the remnant of the transfer of | right in the bride and her property ~~ as when the kinsman of | Elimelech handed his shoe to Boaz in the gate of Bethlehem; but | we much more suspect that these shoes owe their importance to | the old northern belief that Heimdahl, the survivor of the Asa | gods, shall tread his way through the conflagration of all things in a | chaussure made from the remnants of all the old shoes in the world. | Everybody knows that no village bride thinks it etiquette to go to | church and hear her banns published; indeed, the only maid | servant we ever met superior to the scruple, averred that she did | not see why she should not go to hear herself prayed for. We | had always supposed the objection to be a modest dislike to be | subjected to her neighbours' wit and remarks, but | in the north of England it appears that her presence is supposed to | expose her to the risk of having a family of deaf and dumb | children! | To marry a man whose surname begins with the same initial as | the bride's is unlucky. | But to marry without a change of name confers curious powers, | especially that of baking bread which is a certain cure or the | whooping cough. This malady does rejoice in very curious specifics, | none stranger than the Lancashire antidote ~~ namely, a ride upon | a bear, which prevented even liability to the infection, inasmuch | that the old bear wards derived a good part of their income for | mounting children upon Bruin's back! A man riding a piebald horse | becomes endowed for the time with the faculty of suggesting a | remedy. We hear of the tradition in a quotation from Archbishop | Whateley's remains, where the rider suggested, tie a, rope round | the child's neck; and we have ourselves known of a mason who, | riding a piebald steed up the street of a village in Cornwall, was | assailed from almost every cottage door with a cry of 'What is good | for the whooping cough?' to which he promptly and judiciously | replied, White bread and honey.' To this may be added, a cure | attempted in Derry, of giving the patient half a bottle of milk, the | rest of which has been drunk by a ferret; in Sunderland, of | cutting the hair and hanging it on a tree, when the cough is carried | off | | by the unlucky birds who use the material for their nests; and | in Devonshire, of administering the hair, between two slices of | bread and butter, to a dog; at Middlesborough, of passing a | child nine times under the belly of a donkey, or piebald horse. | We ourselves have known in Hampshire, an epileptic boy, | whose mother hoped to cure him by hanging round his neck a | hair

'out of the cross on the back of a he donkey',

or, | as an alternative, a ring, made of three sixpences, given him | by three young women, all bearing the same Christian name. | Rings for this purpose are not! uncommon in any part of the | country; one made from seven damsels in seven parishes, is | mentioned by Mr. Henderson, but they are more usually to be | formed out of a halfcrown from the offertory, and sometimes it | is needful to purchase this halfcrown by pence given by thirty | different individuals. In this, as in the hair from the donkey's | cross, there is no doubt some notion of exorcism, and the | pence were probably pledges of prayers from the contributors. | In the ages of faith, epilepsy was almost always considered as | the direct work of demons, and we believe that many of the | miracles worked at the shrines of saints were on behalf of this | disease. It seems as if those strange specifics were chiefly for | those disorders that are most irregular in their coming and | going, and most baffling to medical art. Whooping-cough, | epilepsy, warts, and ague, seem to be the chief subjects for | charms, even at the present day. Bleeding, too, seems to have | been always treated with spells, from the days when Ulysses | was torn by the boar, down to the present day. All of those | given by Mr. Henderson, collected from the northern counties, | Sussex and Devon, are of a religious character, with | references to the wounds of our Blessed Lord, and no doubt | descended from very ancient time. We have also known of a | parish clerk who rejoiced in the belief that he had checked an | attack of haemorrhage in his vicar by the use of a verse of the | Bible. It appeared that he could not make it available until he | had actually seen the blood, and he refused to divulge what | verse it was, lest he should thus deprive it of its efficacy. | Considering the number of holy healing wells and shrines of | saints that once were scattered over the country, it is | wonderful that no more superstition attaches to the spots once | visited by pilgrims. Besides the .still famous St. Winifred's | Well, which has absolutely curious properties, the wells in | Cornwall have till very recently, at least, maintained their fame | and name. Indeed, it is supposed that a sacrilegious meddler | with them will soon meet his death, and thus they are likely to | be left untouched till their antiquarian value is felt. | | Mr. Hunt has seen a newly married pair at the well of St.Keyne, | where the lady, instead of, as in Southey's ballad, taking a bottle to | church, had taken a draught from her thimble, and contended that it | ensured her the supremacy, though her husband had | previously drunk from the hollow 6f his hand. Many wells are | thought to have healing virtues; and St. Madron's and Gulvan | well reply by bubbles to queries as to the fidelity of true loves, | or the welfare of the absent .. Till recently Redruth Well was in | great request to supply baptismal water, and St Ludgvan's Well | was supposed to have been blessed by its patron to secure all | christened in its water from the gallows. A woman of the parish | having poisoned her husband, was hung, to the extreme | consternation of the neighbourhood, and when the parish | registers proved that her baptism had taken place in the next | village, the fame of St. Ludgvan was so much enhanced that | we believe the water is still sent for by parents to fill the font. | On the other hand, no-one will | christen a child who is to be called Joanna, from the well of St. | Leven; for a woman of that name, who was gathering herbs in | her three-cornered garden for her Sunday's dinner, had the | impertinence to rebuke the hermit saint for fishing in the sea on | that day. He replied that he had as much right to go to the sea | for his dinner, as she had to her garden, and predicted that all | who were christened by her name in her parish, should be as | great fools ns herself. In consequence, all the Joannas of Leven | are christened at Sennan, to preserve them from the folly of | censoriousness! | In general, English wells have merely become wishing wells, and | the sole remnant of faith in the power of relics anything like here | recorded, was manifested in a very undesirable fashion. | | Another Christian tradition; mentioned by the same author must | have a long genealogy. An old woman of ninety, at Malton, in | Yorkshire, told the Rev. J.B. Dykes that spiders must not be | killed, because a spider had spun a web over our blessed Lord | in the manger at Bethlehem, which protected him from all danger. | No doubt this is another version of the story of the spider that | spun a web over the cave where Mahomet was concealed during | his Hejira, and which, we think, recurs in mediaeval hagiology. | It is to Mr. S. B. Gould's curious myths of the Middle Ages, that | we must turn for the tracking of legends such as these, and the | story of the Seven Sleepers, both of which are current among | Christians and Mohametans alike ~~ eastern legends no doubt | that had a tendency to fasten themselves on the beat known | subjects. | Some such legends must have died away ~~ here Shakespeare's | Owl who was a baker's daughter points to a story like that of the | Spotted Woodpecker, or Gertrude bird in Norway, who is said to | have been a woman whose dough our Lord multiplied, but who grew | so covetous that she refused him a morsel, whereupon she was | condemned to seek her food for life between the bark and the | wood. In most parts of England, it is believed that clothes | washed on Good Friday become spotted with blood, and the | reason of this belief is given on the authority of an old woman | of the North Rising, who had been told by a, Methodist girl that | on our Blessed Lord's way to Calvary, a woman who was | washing blirted the thing she was washing in His face, on which | He said,

‘Cursed be everyone | who shall wash on this day.'

Indeed, several of these most | apocryphal curses seem to be floating in people's minds. The | legend of the Wandering Jew is of course the typical one of all | these. It is the first in Mr. S. Baring Gould's collection, and he | startles us by the question. Who can say for certain that it is not | true? We had always thought the tale one of the many | personified allegories of which the legends of St. Christopher, St, | Margaret, and St. Alexis, are familiar specimens, and that the | wanderer was the type of his fugitive and vagabond nation. | | Mr. Baring Gould's argument is that we little know all the | wonders wrought by our Lord or can tell whether our explanation of | the words,

There be some standing here that shall not | taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His | Kingdom,

be sufficient. | | | The point in which this legend differs from other current ones, | is that they, like those in the Apocryphal Gospels, generally | involve some direct personal revenge, most unsuitable to the | character of Him who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; | when he suffered he threatened not Whereas to the insolent | shoemaker it is but a gentle prophecy, and the sight of the | crucifixion tends to his conversion. | From these revengeful popular legends, we must honourably | except a Cheshire carol, which we here give at length, because it | is so remarkable. Has it been altered in past reformation days, or | can it come down from times before the Blessed Virgin was | treated as a chief Intercessor? | | | | But to return to Good Friday. Another observance was not long | ago practised near Exeter, namely the breaking 'clomb, i.e., | pottery, the meaning of which only dawned upon the reporter | thereof on hearing; that in Corfu potsherds are hurled from a | steep rock on that day, while curses are uttered on Judas | Iscariot. Lancashire infants are weaned on Good Friday. | Hampshire mothers like to leave off their babies' cap and long | robes on Good Friday, possibly from some lingering notion of | mortification; but in some parts of Devon, peas are sown by | preference, and grafts made on that day, while in the North, it is | considered impious then to touch a hammer or nails ~~ the | instruments of the Passion. | retains nothing of its fast except the sense of unluckiness in | commencing any undertaking. Old women all over England still | will not let their grandchildren go to a new place on a Friday. | We believe few pieces of needlework are begun on that day of | the week. Friday marriages are said in the old rhyme to be for | crosses, and everyone knows that | no sailor ventures to put to sea on that day, but happily the | involuntary voyager on the sea of life who is launched into the | world is not doomed for ~~ | | In general, Sunday is the prime day to be born ~~ on any, that is | save Whitsunday, which is said to predestine its 'natives' to a | violent death ~~ while ordinary Sundays confer the power of | beholding the spiritual world. | Midlent or Refreshment Sunday, was the day when the | Mother, or Cathedral Church of the Diocese was resorted to by all | the neighbourhood in procession, and Easter offerings brought. | The processions ceased in the thirteenth-century, but the name | Mothering Sunday continued, and throughout many parts of | England this title has been the cause of this Sunday being the | great family gathering, when all the scattered members return | home and spend the day, and bring a present to their mother. | Nowhere is this pretty custom so gracefully described as in | 'The Copsley Annals' ~~ a charming book published by Seeley | and Jackson. A simnel cake is the legitimate gift, made of | the finest flour, tinged with saffron, and flavoured with sugar | and lemon. In the book above mentioned, the best materials | for the simnel cake are the mistress's testimony to her young | maid-servant's good conduct The custom is not forgotten in | Gloucester, where two hundred years ago Herrick sung: ~~ | | The beauty of the custom is now lost by the simnel cakes | being sold in shops, which are kept open on the Sunday for | the purpose. The name is said to come from the latin simila, | fine flour. Sweet or mulled ale, called Braget, is the legitimate | accompaniment. Its name is said to be the Welch | word, Bragawd, or Mctheglin, and it is a curious coincidence | that the northern god who enjoys the patronage at once of | poetry and of .the divine beverage should be named Bragi, the | origin of our verb to brag. | We must not tarry over every variety of day-observance. | Christmas customs have often been fully described, but we do | not remember before to have heard of the beautiful | Lancashire notion that cattle go down on their knees, and | bees hum the Hundredth Psalm tune on that night, keeping, | however, carefully to Old Style. In Brittany cattle are Raid to | have the power of speaking during the midnight hour of Christmas | night, and one of Souvestre's collection of Breton Tales, | turns upon the information .they then imparted. An old | Cornishman, near Launceston, in 1790, told Mr. Hunt, then a | child, that he had been to look whether the cattle prayed, but | | he found only the two oldest oxen on their knees, and they |

'made a cruel moan like Christian creatures.'

Perhaps | nothing is more remarkable than the tenacity with which | through ages of neglect and dissent, the Welch have clung to | the service that once was the midnight mass. Young and old all | come forth to church or chapel, to the service which lacks the | celebration that should give it life and meaning. What a field for | restoration! | The dancing of the sun on Easter morning is a nearly universal | belief; but on the borders of Dartmoor it was varied by the | beautiful expectation of seeing the Lamb and banner in its | disc. Girls, who tire now old women, used to go out with a | smoked glass to look for it, and some even thought they saw it. | Indeed the spots on the sun may have at some time assumed | such a shape as to originate the very beautiful idea. | Christmas customs seem to have been kept up for festivity's | sake, and likewise, too, as an excuse for collecting money. This we | are afraid has been the great embalmer of our old Church | customs. Witness

'the grotto'

of oyster shells that | was once no doubt the shrine of S. James, the pilgrim saint of | the scallop shell badge; the May-day doll, once the Blessed | Virgin, with her marybuds and marygolds around her, and | even the

'going a souling'

~~ which is practised in | Cheshire, Lancashire, &c., on All Souls' Day, and which, | though now only an excuse for licensed begging for the village | children, was once a collecting of alms on behalf of souls in | purgatory. Indeed many of these old customs vanish when the | authorities of a parish, feeling the inconvenience of the rude | indiscriminate beggary thus entailed, confer their alms in a | more regular fashion, and turn a deaf ear to the maintainers of | the old custom, who are never a select company, | Antiquarianism and good order are sadly at variance, and an | attempt to unite them seldom succeeds ~~ it only gives a sense | of unwarrantable interference ~~ and it is better to let old | things pass away, though there is no reason that in passing | they should not leave their curious record. | Next to money-getting, marriage divination has been the great | preservative of old days; S. Agnes', Eve and All Saints day | being the prime occasions for these. S. Agnes' Day is chosen | on the lucus a non lucendo principle, because her purity and | contempt of marriage made her the patron of maidens, but the | cause for the universal notions of the divining capacity of All | Hallow E'en, it is impossible to guess at S. John's Eve owes its | peculiar powers to that much more distant tradition before | mentioned, which rendered the summer solstice sacred to the | whole Indo-European world. | | All our authors have some terrible recent persecutions, and | witchcraft is only too certainly still believed in almost | everywhere among the ignorant | How far it was once a real power, and whether there be any | connexion between it and magnetism, it is not for us to say. It is | a subject to need deeper examination than would chime in | here. But of this at least we are sure, that those who deal with | a power they cannot understand, submit themselves to the peril | of the strong delusion that they should believe a lie and it is | more than probable that it is to the same power that inspired | the wizards that peep and mutter, or the oracles that | Christian truth silenced. | Every now and then some trial brings to light a whole tissue of | strange dealings with cunning men or women for the discovery | of stolen goods, or for the recovery of health. Nay, only last year, | we knew of a poor woman who had fallen into a state of morbid | melancholy from the reproaches of her own conscience, she | having been persuaded to ill-wish a neighbour who had | ill-wished her. The neighbour remained undamaged, but the | remorse for the evil-wish took effect on the poor woman's mind, | and threw her into an illness. | The ordeal of the Bible and key is not entirely forgotten, as the | following paragraph, from a newspaper of January 1867 | testifies: ~~ | Here comes again the question ~~ is it faith, is it conscience, | is it magnetism, that has even made these ordeals effective? | Never, never to be answered question, only growing deeper | and more mysterious as we learn more of the effects of spirit | upon matter, and of the influence of the unseen world upon | spirit ~~ an inquiry deeply connected with the credibility of | those constantly wrought, or expected, cures by the shrines of | saints or by healing wells. | Cornwall has a peculiar species of Folk Lore in its Giants ~~ | who bear the credit of many of the wonders of a granitic | country ~~ and are plainly related to the Irish Giants, springing | from the same Keltic fancy exercised on the huge boulders | and mighty fissures of their rugged western coast Spenser and | Milton have brought two at least of these giants into literary | fame, and with great correctness; and strangely enough these | giants have more Irish than Breton, affinities.