Chapter IX (2)

It is still recorded by tradition, relates Mr. Scott, that "the wife of a farmer in Lothian having been carried off by the fairies, she, during the year of probation, repeatedly appeared on Sunday, in the midst of her children, combing their hair. On one of these occasions she was accosted by her husband; when she related to him the unfortunate event which had separated them, instructed him by what means he might win her, and exhorted him to exert all his courage, since her temporal and eternal happiness depended on the success of his attempt. The farmer, who ardently loved his wife, set out on Hallowe'en, and, in the midst of a plot of furze, waited impatiently for the procession of the fairies. At the ringing of the fairy bridles, and the wild unearthly sound which accompanied the cavalcade, his heart failed him, and he suffered the ghostly train to pass by without interruption. When the last had rode past, the whole troop vanished, with loud shouts of laughter and exultation; among which he plainly discovered the voice of his wife, lamenting that he had lost her for ever."[344:A]

Numerous have been the ceremonies, spells, and charms, which formerly distinguished All-Hallow-Eve. In England, except in a few remote places in the North, they have ceased to be observed for the last half century; but in the West of Scotland they are still retained with a kind of religious veneration, as is sufficiently proved by the inimitable poem of Burns, entitled _Halloween_, which, in a vein of exquisite poetry and genuine humour, minutely details the various superstitions, which have been practised on this night from time immemorial. Of these, as including all which prevailed in England, and which were, in a great degree, common to both countries, in the time of Shakspeare, we shall give a few sketches, nearly in the words of Burns, as annexed in the notes to his poem, merely observing that one of the spells, that of sowing hemp-seed, is omitted, as having been already described among the rites of Midsummer-Eve.

The _first_ ceremony of Hallow-Eve consisted in the lads and lasses pulling each a _stock_, or plant of kail. They were to go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and to pull the first they met with. Its being big or little, straight or crooked, was prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or wife. If any _yird_, or earth, stuck to the root, that was considered as the _tocher_, or fortune; and the taste of the _custoc_, that is, the heart of the stem, was deemed indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, were placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brought into the house, were, according to the priority of placing the _runts_, the names in question.

In the _second_, the lasses were to go to the barn-yard, and pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wanted the _top-pickle_, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question would come to the marriage-bed any thing but a maid.

The _third_ depended on the burning of nuts, and was a favourite charm both in England and Scotland. A lad and lass were named to each particular nut, as they laid them in the fire, and accordingly as they burnt quietly together, or started from beside each other, the course and issue of the courtship were to be determined.

In the _fourth_, success could only be obtained by strictly adhering to the following directions. Steal out, all alone, to the _kiln_, and, darkling, throw into the _pot_, a clue of blue yarn; wind it in a new clue off the old one: and, towards the latter end, something will hold the thread; demand, who holds it? and an answer will be returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the christian and sirname of your future spouse.

To perform the _fifth_, you were to take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; you were then to eat an apple before it, combing your hair all the time; when the face of your conjugal companion, _to be_, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.

The _sixth_ was likewise a solitary charm, in which it was necessary to go _alone_ and _unperceived_ to the _barn_, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible, least the _being_, about to appear, should shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then you were to take the machine used in winnowing the corn, and go through all the attitudes of letting down the grain against the wind; and on the third repetition of this ceremony, an apparition would be seen passing through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure of your future companion for life, and also the appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life.

To secure an effective result from the _seventh_, you were ordered to take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a _Bear-stack_, and fathom it three times round; when during the last fathom of the last time, you would be sure to catch in your arms the appearance of your destined yoke-fellow.

In order to carry the _eighth_ into execution, one or more were injoined to seek a south running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds lands meet," and to dip into it the left shirt-sleeve. You were then to go to bed in sight of a fire, and to hang the wet sleeve before it to dry; it was necessary, however, to lie awake, when at midnight, an apparition, having the exact figure of the future husband or wife, would come, and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it.[346:A]

For the due performance of the _ninth_, you were directed to take three dishes; to put clean water in one, foul water in another, and to leave the third empty: you were then to blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes were ranged, ordering him to dip the left hand; when, if this happened to be in the clean water, it was a sign that the future conjugal mate would come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretold, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. This ceremony was to be repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes was to be altered.[347:A]

Such are the various superstitions which were formerly observed at peculiar periods of the year, and which still maintain a certain portion of credit among the peasantry of Scotland and the North of England. To the catalogue of Saints thus loaded with the rites of popular credulity, may be added one whose celebrity seems to be entirely founded on the casual notice of Shakspeare. In his Tragedy of _King Lear_, Edgar introduces _St. Withold_ as an opponent, and a protector against the assaults, of that formidable Incubus, the Night-mare:—

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;
He met the Night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!"[347:B]

Warburton informs us, that this agency of the Saint is taken from a story of him in his legend, and that he was thence invoked as the patron saint against the distemper, called the night-mare; but Mr. Tyrwhitt declares, that he could not find this adventure in the common legends of St. Vitalis, whom he supposes to be synonymous with St. Withold. It is probable that Shakspeare took the hint, for the ascription of this achievement to Withold, from Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, where a similar power is attributed to St. George. That writer, after mentioning that there are magical cures for the night-mare, gives the following as an example:—

"St. George, S. George, our ladies knight,
He walkt by daie, so did he by night:
Untill such time as he hir found,
He hir beat and he hir bound.
Untill hir troth she to him plight,
She would not come to hir (him) that night:"[348:A]

a form which is quoted nearly verbatim, and professedly as a night-spell, in the _Monsieur Thomas_ of Fletcher.[348:B] It should be observed, that the influence over _incubi_ ascribed by our poet to St. Withold, has been subsequently given to other Calendarian saints, and especially to that dreaded personage St. Swithin, who is indebted to Mr. Colman, in his alteration of _Lear_, for the transference of this singular power.

The mass of popular credulity, indeed, is so enormous, that, limited, as we are in this chapter, to the consideration of only a portion of the subject, it is still difficult, from the number and variety of the materials, to present a sketch which shall be sufficiently distinct and perspicuous. It is highly interesting, however, to observe to what striking poetical purposes Shakspeare has converted these imbecillities of mind, these workings of fear and ignorance; how by his management almost every article which he has selected from the mass of vulgar delusion, assumes a capability of impressing the strongest and most cultivated mind with grateful terror or sublime emotion. No branch, for instance, of the popular creed has been more extended, or more burdened with folly, than the belief in OMENS, and yet what noble imagery has not the poet drawn forth from this accumulation of fear-struck fancy and childish apprehension.

With the view of placing the detail of this vast groupe in a clearer light, it will be necessary to ascertain, what were the principal _omens_ most accredited in the days of Shakspeare, and after giving a catalogue of those most worthy of notice, to exhibit a few pictures by the poet as founded on some of the most remarkable articles in the enumeration, and afterwards to fill up the outline with additional circumstances from other resources.

How prone the subjects of Elizabeth were to pry into futurity, through the medium of _omens_, _auguries_, and _prognostications_, may be learnt from the following passage in Scot, taken from his chapter on the "common peoples fond and superstitious collections and observations." "Amongst us," says he, "there be manie wemen and effeminat men (manie papists alwaies, as by their superstition may appeere) that make great divinations upon the shedding of salt, wine, &c. and for the observation of daies, and houres use as great witchcraft as in anie thing. For if one chance to take a fall from a horse, either in a slipperie or stumbling waie, he will note the daie and houre, and count that time unlucky for a journie. Otherwise, he that receiveth a mischance, wil consider whether he met not a cat, or a hare, when he went first out of his doores in the morning; or stumbled not at the threshold at his going out; or put not on his shirt the wrong side outwards; or his left shoo on his right foote.

"Many will go to bed againe, if the neeze before their shooes be on their feet; some will hold fast their left thombe in their right hand when they hickot; or else will hold their chinne with their right hand whiles a gospell is soong. It is thought verie ill lucke of some, that a child, or anie other living creature, should passe betweene two friends as they walke together; for they say it portendeth a division of freendship.—The like follie is to be imputed unto them, that observe (as true or probable) old verses, wherein can be no reasonable cause of such effects: which are brought to passe onlie by God's power, and at his pleasure. Of this sort be these that follow:

"Remember on S. Vincent's daie,
If that the sunne his beames displaie.—

If Paule th' apostles daie be cleare,
It dooth foreshew a luckie yeare.—

If Maries purifieng daie,
Be cleare and bright with sunnie raie,
Then frost and cold shall be much more,
After the feast than was before, &c."[350:A]

In the almanacks of Elizabeth's and James's reigns, it was customary, not only to mark the days supposed to have an influence over the weather, but to distinguish, likewise, those considered as lucky or unlucky for making bargains, or transacting business on; and, accordingly, Webster represents a character in one of his plays declaring—

"By the almanack, I think
To choose good days and shun the critical;"[351:A]

and Shakspeare, referring to the same custom and the same doctrine, makes Constance in _King John_ exclaim,—

"What hath this day deserv'd? What hath it done;
That it in golden letters should be set,
Among the high tides, in the kalendar?
Nay rather —————————————
—— if it must stand still, let wives with child
Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day,
Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd:
But (except) on this day, let seamen fear no wreck;
No bargains break, that are not this day made:
This day, all things begun come to an ill end;
Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!"[351:B]

But of omens predictive of good and bad fortune, or of the common events in life, the catalogue may be said to have no termination, and we must refer the reader, for this degrading display of human weakness and folly, to the Vulgar Errors of Browne, and to the Commentaries of Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, confining the subject to that class of the ominous which has been deemed portentive of the great, the dreadful, and the strange, and which, being surrounded by a certain degree of dignity and awe, is consequently best adapted to the genius of poetry.

That danger, death, or preternatural occurrences should be preceded by warnings or intimations, would appear comformable to the idea of a superintending providence, and therefore faith in such omens has been indulged in, by almost every nation, especially in the infancy of its civilisation. The most usual monitions of this kind are, _Lamentings heard in the air_; _shakings and tremblings of the earth_; _sudden gloom at noon-day_; _the appearance of meteors_; _the shooting of stars_; _eclipses of the sun and moon_; _the moon of a bloody hue_; _the shrieking of owls_; _the croaking of ravens_; _the shrilling of crickets_; _the night-howling of dogs_; _the clicking of the death-watch_; _the chattering of pies_; _the wild neighing of horses, their running wild and eating each other_; _the cries of fairies_; _the gibbering of ghosts_; _the withering of bay-trees_; _showers of blood_; _blood dropping thrice from the nose_; _horrid dreams_; _demoniacal voices_; _ghastly apparitions_; _winding sheets_; _corpse-candles_; _night-fires_, and _strange and fearful noises_. Of the greater part of this tremendous list Shakspeare has availed himself; introducing them as the precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman events. Thus, previous to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, he tells us, that—

"In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets—
—Stars with trains of fire and dews of blood 'appear'd,'
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse:"[352:A]

and again, as predictive of the same event, he adds, in another place—

—————— "There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets."[352:B]

The circumstances which are related as preceding and accompanying the murder of Duncan are, perhaps, still more awful and impressive. "The night," says Lennox,

—————— "has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;
And prophecying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.

_Macb._ 'Twas a rough night."

"_Old M._ Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time, I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

_Rosse._ Ah, good father,
Thou see'st the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is it night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth intomb,
When living light should kiss it?

_Old M._ 'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.

_Rosse._ And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange and certain,)
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.

_Old M._ 'Tis said, they eat each other.

_Posse._ Thy did so; to the amazement of mine eyes,
That look'd upon't."[353:A]

In the play of _King Richard II._ also, the poet has with great taste and skill selected the following prodigies, as forerunners of the death or fall of kings:—

"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,—
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings."[354:A]

Omens of the same portentous kind are said to have attended the births of Owen Glendower and Richard III., and Shakspeare has accordingly availed himself of the tradition in a manner equally poetical and striking; the former says of himself,—

———————— "At my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward:——
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields:"[354:B]

and Henry VI., in his interview with Richard in the Tower, reproaching the tyrant for his cruelties, tells him, as indicative of his future deeds, that

"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung."[354:C]

_Dreams_, considered as prognostics of good or evil, are frequently introduced by Shakspeare.

"My dreams will sure prove ominous to day,"

exclaims Andromache[355:A]; while Romeo declares,

"My dreams presage some joyful news at hand."[355:B]

But it is chiefly as precursors of misfortune that the poet has availed himself of their supposed influence as omens of future fate. There are few passages in his dramas more terrific than the dreams of Richard the Third and Clarence; the latter, especially, is replete with the most fearful imagery, and makes the blood run chill with horror.

_Dæmoniacal voices and shrieks, or monitory intimations and appearances_ from the tutelary genius of a family, were likewise imagined to precede the deaths of important individuals; a superstition to which Shakspeare alludes in the following lines from his _Troilus and Cressida_:

"_Troil._ Hark! you are call'd: Some say, the Genius so
Cries, _Come!_ to him that instantly must die."[355:C]

This superstition was formerly very prevalent in England, and still prevails in several districts of Ireland, and in the more remote parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Howell tells us, that he saw at a lapidary's in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four persons of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom, the inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and fluttered around the bed, while the patient was in the last agony[355:D]; and Glanville, remarks Mr. Scott, mentions one family, the members of which received this solemn sign by music, the sound of which floated from the family-residence, and seemed to die in a neighbouring[355:E] wood. It is related, that several of the great Highland families are accustomed to receive intimations of approaching fate by domestic spirits or tutelary genii, who sometimes assume the form of a bird or of a bloody spectre of a tall woman dressed in white, shrieking wildly round the house. Thus, observes Mr. Pennant, the family of Rothmurcas had the _Bodach-an-dun_, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kinchardines, the _Spectre of the Bloody Hand_; Gartinley house was haunted by _Bodach-Gartin_; and Tullock Gorms by _Maug-Moulach_, or _the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand_. In certain places, he says, the death of the people is supposed to be foretold by the cries of _Benshi_, or the _Fairy's Wife_, uttered along the very path where the _funeral_ is to pass; and it has been added by others, that when the Benshi becomes visible, she appears in the shape of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair.

Of this omen, and of another of a similar kind, Mr. Scott has made his usual poetical use in the _Lady of the Lake_, where he relates of Brian, the lone Seer of the Desert, that

"Late had he heard in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream,
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride."

This last passage, he informs us, "is still believed to announce death to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle, is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family-residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity."[356:A]

That the apparition of the Benshie, and the whole train of spectral and dæmoniacal warnings, were in full force in Ireland, during the seventeenth century, we have numerous proofs; the former was commonly called the _Shrieking Woman_, and of the latter a most remarkable instance is given by Mr. Scott, from the MS. Memoirs of the accomplished Lady Fanshaw. "Her husband, Sir Richard, and she, chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit a friend, the head of a sept, who resided in his ancient baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight, she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and looking out of bed, beheld, by the moon-light, a female face and part of the form, hovering at the window. The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, loose and dishevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the apparition. 'A near relation of my family,' said he, 'expired last night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family and castle, the female spectre whom you have seen always is visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat.'"[357:A]

Another set of omens predictive of disaster, supernatural agency, and death, was drawn from the appearances of lights, tapers, and fires. When a flame was seen by night resting on the tops of soldiers' lances, or playing and leaping by fits among the masts and sails of a ship, it was deemed the presage of misfortune; of defeat in battle in the one instance, and of destruction by tempest in the other. As the forerunner of a storm, Shakspeare has introduced it in his _Tempest_, where Ariel says,—

—————— "Sometimes I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join."[358:A]

It was also conceived, that the presence of unearthly beings, ghosts, spirits, and demons, was instantly announced by an alteration in the tint of the lights which happened to be burning; a very popular notion, which the poet adopts in his _Richard the Third_, the tyrant exclaiming, as he awakens,

"_The lights burn blue_—it is now dead midnight;
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.——
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd,
Came to my tent."[358:B]

But, the chief superstition annexed to this branch of omens, was founded on the idea, that lights and fires, commonly called _corpse-candles_ and _tomb-fires_, preceded deaths and funerals; an article of belief which was equally prevalent among the Celtic and Teutonic nations; and was cherished therefore with the same credulity in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as in Scandinavia, Germany, and England. In this island, during the sixteenth century, it was generally credited by the common people, that when a person was about to die, a pale flame would frequently appear at the window of the room in which he was laid, and, after pausing there for a moment, would glide towards the church-yard, minutely tracing the path where the future funeral was to pass, and glowing brightly, for a time, on the spot where the body was to be interred. Sometimes, however, instead of lights, a procession was seen by the dim light of the moon: "there have bin seene some in the night," says the English Lavaterus, "when the moone shin'd, going solemnlie with the corps, according to the custome of the people, or standing before the dores, as if some bodie were to be caried to the church to burying."[359:A] In Northumberland the fancied appearance of the corpse-light was termed seeing the _Waff_ (the blast or spirit) of the person whose death was to take place.

In Wales this superstition was formerly so general, especially in the counties of Cardigan, Caermarthen, and Pembroke, that scarcely any individual was supposed to die without the previous signal of a corpse-candle. Mr. Davis, a Welshman, in a letter to Mr. Baxter, observes, that "they are called candles, from their resemblance, not of the body of the candle, but the fire; because that fire doth as much resemble material candle-lights, as eggs do eggs: saving that in their journey, these candles are sometimes visible, and sometimes disappear; especially if any one comes near to them, or in the way to meet them. On these occasions they vanish, but presently appear again behind the observer, and hold on their course. If a little candle is seen, of a pale or bluish colour, then follows the corpse, either of an abortive, or some infant; if a large one, then the corpse of some one come to age. If there be seen two, three, or more, of different sizes,—some big, some small,—then shall so many corpses pass together, and of such ages or degrees. If two candles come from different places, and be seen to meet, the corpses will do the same; and if any of these candles be seen to turn aside, through some bye-path leading to the church, the following corpse will be found to take exactly the same way."[359:B]

Among the Highlanders of Scotland, likewise, the same species of omen was so implicitly credited, that it has continued in force even to the present day. Of this Mrs. Grant has given us, in one of her ingenious essays, a most remarkable instance, and on the authority, too, of a very pious and sensible clergyman, who was accustomed, she says, "to go forth and meditate at even; and this solitary walk he always directed to his churchyard, which was situated in a shaded spot, on the banks of a river. There, in a dusky October evening, he took his wonted path, and lingered, leaning on the churchyard-wall, till it became twilight, when he saw two small lights rise from a spot within, where there was no stone, nor memorial of any kind. He observed the course these lights took, and saw them cross the river, and stop at an opposite hamlet. Presently they returned, accompanied by a larger light, which moved on between them, till they arrived at the place from which the first two set out, when all the three seemed to sink into the earth together.

"The good man went into the churchyard, and threw a few stones on the spot where the lights disappeared. Next morning he walked out early, called for the sexton, and shewed him the place, asking if he remembered who was buried there. The man said, that many years ago, he remembered burying in that spot, two young children, belonging to a blacksmith on the opposite side of the river, who was now a very old man. The pastor returned, and was scarce sat down to breakfast, when a message came to hurry him to come over to pray with the smith, who had been suddenly taken ill, and who died next day."[360:A]

_Fiery and meteorous exhalations_, shooting through the lower regions of the air, and sinking into the ground, were also deemed predictive of death. The individual was pointed out by these fires either falling on his lands or garden, or by gleaming with a lurid light over the family burying-place. Appearances of this kind were called _tomb-fires_ by the Scandinavians, and _tan-we_ by the Welsh, who believed that no freeholder died without a meteor having been seen to sparkle and vanish on his estate. In fact, as Shakspeare has expressed it, there could happen

"No natural exhalations in the sky:"

but were considered as

———————— "prodigies, and signs,
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven."[361:A]

The idea that _sudden and fearful noises_ are frequently heard before death takes place, and are indications of such an event, was very common at the period of which we are writing, both on the continent and in this country. "It happeneth many times," says the English Lavaterus, "that when men lye sicke of some deadly disease, there is something heard going in the chamber, like as the sicke men were wonte, when they were in good health: yea and the sicke parties themselves, do many times heare the same, and by and by gesse what wil come to passe. And divers times it commeth to passe, that when some of our acquaintaunce or friends lye a dying, albeit they are many miles off, yet there are some great stirrings or noises heard. Sometimes we think that the house will fall on our heads, or that some massie and waightie thing falleth downe throughout all the house, rendring and making a disordered noise: and shortlie within few monthes after, we understande that those things happened, the very same houre that our friends departed in. There be some men of whose stocke none doth dye, but that they observe and marke some signes and tokens going before: as that they heare the dores and windowes open and shut, that some thing runneth up the staires, or walketh up and downe the house, or doth some one or other such like thing.

"There was a certain parishe priest, a very honest and godly man, whom I knewe well, who in the plague time, could tell before hand, when any of his parishe should dye. For in the night time he heard a noise over his bed, like as if one had throwne downe a sacke full of corne from his shoulders: which when he heard he would say: Nowe an other biddeth me farewell. After it was day, he used to inquire who died that night, or who was taken with the plague, to the end he might comfort and strengthen them, according to the duty of a good pastour.

"In Abbeys, the Monks, servaunts or any other falling sicke, many have heard in the night, preparation of chests for them, in such sorte as the coffin makers did afterwards prepare in deede.

"In some country villages, when one is at death's dore, many times there are some heard in the evening, or in the night, digging a grave in the Churcheyarde, and the same the next day is so found digged, as these men did heare before."[362:A]

The next class of superstitions which we shall notice in this chapter, is that depending on CHARMS and SPELLS, a fertile source of knavery and credulity, and which has been chiefly exercised, in our poet's time and since, by old women. Of this occupation, and its attendant folly and imposition, the bard has given us a sketch, in his _Merry Wives of Windsor_, in the person of the _Old Woman of Brentford_, who is declared by _Ford_ to be "a witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!—We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of _fortune-telling_. She works by _charms_, by _spells_, by the figure, and such daubery as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing."[362:B]

That women of this description, or as Scot has delineated them, in one instance, indeed, deviating from the _portly_ form of Shakspeare's cunning Dame, "_leane_, hollow-eied, old, beetle browed women[362:C]," were, as dealers in charms, spells and amulets, a very numerous tribe, in the days of Elizabeth and James, we have every reason to believe, from contemporary evidence; but it appears that the trade of _fortune-telling_ was then, as now, chiefly exercised by the wandering horde of _gipsies_, to whose name and characteristic knavery, our great poet alludes, in _Antony and Cleopatra_, where the Roman complains that Cleopatra,

"Like a right _gipsy_, hath, _at fast and loose_,
Beguil'd him to the very heart of loss."[362:D]

Of this wily people, of the juggle referred to in these lines, and of their profession of fortune-telling, Scot thus speaks in his thirteenth book:—"The AEGYPTIANS juggling witchcraft or sortilegie standeth much in _fast or loose_, whereof though I have written somewhat generallie already (p. 197), yet having such opportunitie I will here shew some of their particular feats; not treating of their common tricks which is so tedious, nor of their _fortune-telling_ which is so impious; and yet both of them meere cousenages."[363:A] He then describes two games of _fast and loose_; one with a handkerchief, and the other with whip cords and beads; but as these much resemble the modern trick of _pricking at the belt or girdle_, explained by Sir J. Hawkins, in a note on the passage just quoted from our poet, it will not be necessary to notice them further in this place.

To _palmistry_, indeed, or the _art of Divination by the lines of the hand_, Shakspeare has allotted a great part of the second scene, in the first act, of _Antony and Cleopatra_, no doubt induced to this by the topographical situation of the opening characters, the play commencing at Alexandria in Egypt.

He has also occasionally adverted in other dramas to the multitude of _charms_, _spells_, and _periapts_ which were in use in his time; and he makes La Pucelle, in accordance with the necromantic powers attributed to her, solemnly invoke their assistance—

"Now help, ye charming spells, and periapts;"[363:B]

but as, to adopt the expression of Scot, he who "should go about to recite all charmes, would take an infinite worke in hand[363:C]," we shall confine ourselves to an enumeration, from this scarce and curious writer, of the evils and the powers, against, and for, which, these charms, were sought; and shall then add a few specimens of their nature, force, and composition. It appears that they were eagerly enquired after in the first place against burning, drowning, pestilence, sword, and famine, against thieves, spirits, witches, and diseases, and of the last class, especially against the venom of serpents, scorpions and other reptiles, the epilepsy, the king's evil, and the bite of a mad dog; and in the second, to enable the wearer to release a woman in travail, to conjure a thorn out of any member, or a bone out of the throat, to open all locks and doors, to know what is said and done behind our backs, to endure the severest tortures without shrinking, &c. &c.

One of the most efficacious of these charms, was a periapt or tablet, called an _Agnus Dei_. This, which was ordered to be constantly worn round the neck, consisted of a little cake, having the impression of a lamb carrying a flag on one side, and Christ's head on the other; and in the centre a concavity sufficiently large to contain the first chapter of St. John's Gospel, written on fine paper, in a very small character. It was a spell potent to protect the wearer against thunder and lightning, fire and water, sin, pestilence, and the perils of childbirth.[364:A]

A charm against shot, or a waistcoat of proof, was thus to be obtained:—"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell: and it must be by hir woven, and also wrought with the needle. In the brest or forepart thereof must be made with needle worke two heads; on the head at the right side must be a hat, and a long beard; the left head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible, that it maie resemble Belzebub, and on each side of the wastcote must be made a crosse."[364:B]

That some of these spells, however, were not carried into execution with quite so much ease, as the two we have just transcribed, will be evident from the directions annexed to the following, entitled a _charm for one possessed_: "The possessed bodie must go upon his or hir knees to the church, how farre soever it be off from their lodging; and so must creepe without going out of the waie, being the common high waie, in that sort, how fowle and durtie soever the same be; or whatsoever lie in the waie, not shunning anie thing whatsoever, untill he come to the church, where he must heare masse devoutlie, and then followeth recoverie."[365:A]

It appears, notwithstanding, that, even among the old women of the sixteenth century, there could be found some who, while they profited by, could, at the same time, despise, the credulity of their neighbours. "An old woman," says Scot, "that healed all diseases of cattell (for the which she never tooke any reward but a penie and a loafe) being seriouslie examined by what words she brought these things to passe, confessed that after she had touched the sicke creature, she alwaies departed immediatlie; saieng:

"My loafe in my lap,
my penie in my pursse;
Thou art never the better,
and I am never the wursse."[365:B]

The same author, after relating the terrible curse or charm of St. Adelbert against thieves, facetiously adds,—"But I will answer this cruell cursse with another cursse farre more mild and civill, performed by as honest a man (I dare saie) as he that made the other.—

"So it was, that a certeine sir JOHN, with some of his companie, once went abroad a jetting, and in a moone light evening robbed a millers weire, and stole all his éeles. The poore miller made his mone to sir John himselfe, who willed him to be quiet; for he would so cursse the theefe, and all his confederates, with bell, booke and candell, that they should have small joy of their fish. And therefore the next sundaie, sir John got him to the pulpit, with his surplisse on his backe, and his stole about his necke, and pronounced these words following in the audience of the people.

All you that have stolne the miller's eeles,
_Laudate Dominum de cœlis_,
And all they that have consented thereto,
_Benedicamus Domino_.

So (saith he) there is sauce for your éeles my maisters."[366:A]

A third portion of the popular creed may be considered as including the various kinds of superstitious CURES, PREVENTATIVES, and SYMPATHIES; a species of credulity which has suffered little diminution even in the present day; for, though the materials selected for the purpose be different, the folly and the fraud are the same. Instead of animal magnetism and metallic tractors, the public faith, in the days of Shakspeare, rested, with implicit confidence, on the virtues supposed to be inherent in bones, precious stones, sympathetic signs, powders, &c.; and the poet, accordingly, has occasionally introduced imagery founded on these imaginary qualities. Thus, in the _Merchant of Venice_, the high value which Shylock places on his _turquoise_ ring, was derived from this source, the turquoise or Turkey-stone, being considered as inestimable for its properties of indicating the health of the wearer by the increase or decrease of its colour, and for its protective power in shielding him from enmity and peril. That this was the cause of Shylock's deep regret for the loss of his ring, will appear probable from the more direct intimations of his contemporaries, Jonson and Drayton; the former, in his Sejanus, remarking of two parasites, that they would,

"—— true, as turkoise in the dear lord's ring,
Look well or ill with him."[366:B]

and the latter declaring, that

"The turkesse,——who haps to wear,
Is often kept from peril."[366:C]

A more distinct allusion to the sanative virtue of precious stones, is to be found in the celebrated simile in _As You Like It_:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."[367:A]

This stone or jewel was supposed to secure the possessor from the effects of poison, and to be, likewise, a sovereign remedy for the stone.

These important effects are ascribed to it by numerous writers of Shakspeare's time,—by Gesner[367:B]; by Batman[367:C]; by Maplett[367:D]; by Fenton[367:E]; by Lupton[367:F]; by Topsell, and, subsequently, by Fuller.[367:G] It even formed, very early indeed, a part of medical treatment; for Lloyd, in his _Treasure of helth_, recommends its exhibition for the stone, and orders it, after having been _stampt_, to be "geven to the pacyent to drinke in warme wine."[367:H]

To the _Bezoar_ stone also was attributed great potency in expelling the plague and other pestilential diseases; and Gesner has given it an origin even more marvellous than the cures for which it has been celebrated; "when the hart is sick," says he, "and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many teares from which the (Bezoar) stone is gendered."[367:I]

The _Belemnites_ or hag-stones, perforated flints hung up at the bed's head, to prevent the night-mare, or in stables to secure the horses from being hag-ridden, and their manes elf-knotted, were, at this period, in common use. To one of the superstitious evils against which it was held as a protective, Shakspeare alludes, in his _Romeo and Juliet_, where Mercutio exclaims—

———— "This is that very Mab
_That plats the manes of horses in the night_."[368:A]

"It was believed," remarks Mr. Douce, commenting on this passage, "that certain malignant spirits whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night-time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals and vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the thirteenth century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch; and, previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare."[368:B]

The most copious account of the preservative and curative virtues which credulity has ascribed to precious stones, is to be drawn from the pages of Reginald Scot, who appears faithfully and minutely to have recorded the superstitions of his day. "An Agat (they saie) hath vertue against the biting of scorpions or serpents. It is written (but I will not stand to it) that it maketh a man eloquent, and procureth the favour of princes; yea, that the fume thereof dooth turn awaie tempests. Alectorius is a stone about the bignesse of a beane, as cleere as the christall, taken out of a cocks bellie which hath been gelt or made a capon foure yeares. If it be held in ones mouth, it assuageth thirst, it maketh the husband to love the wife, and the bearer invincible:——Chelidonius is a stone taken out of a swallowe, which cureth melancholie: howbeit, some authors saie, it is the hearbe whereby the swallowes recover the sight of their yoong, even if their eies be picked out with an instrument. Geranites is taken out of a crane, and Draconites out of a dragon. But it is to be noted, that such stones must be taken out of the bellies of the serpents, beasts, or birds, (wherein they are) whiles they live: otherwise, they vanish awaie with the life, and so they reteine the vertues of those starres under which they are. Amethysus maketh a droonken man sober, and refresheth the wit. The corall preserveth such as beare it from fascination or bewitching, and in this respect they are hanged about children's necks. But from whence that superstition is derived, and who invented the lie, I knowe not: but I see how redie the people are to give credit thereunto, by the multitude of coralls that waie emploied. Heliotropius stancheth bloud, driveth awaie poisons, preserveth health: yea, and some write that it provoketh raine, and darkeneth the sunne, suffering not him that beareth it to be abused. Hyacinthus dooth all that the other dooth, and also preserveth from lightening. Dinothera hanged about the necke, collar, or yoke of any creature, tameth it presentlie. A Topase healeth the lunatike person of his passion of lunacie. Aitites, if it be shaken, soundeth as if there were a little stone in the bellie thereof: it is good for the falling sicknesse, and to prevent untimelie birth. Chalcedonius maketh the bearer luckie in lawe, quickeneth the power of the bodie, and is of force also against the illusions of the divell, and phantasticall cogitations arising of melancholie. Corneolus mitigateth the heate of the mind, and qualifieth malice, it stancheth bloudie fluxes. Iris helpeth a woman to speedie deliverance, and maketh rainebowes to appeere. A Saphire preserveth the members, and maketh them livelie, and helpeth agues and gowts, and suffereth not the bearer to be afraid: it hath vertue against venome, and staieth bleeding at the nose, being often put thereto. A Smarag is good for the eiesight, and maketh one rich and eloquent. Mephis (as Aaron and Hermes report out of Albertus Magnus) being broken into powder, and droonke with water, maketh insensibilitie of torture. Heereby you may understand, that as God hath bestowed upon these stones, and such other like bodies, most excellent and woonderfull vertues: so according to the abundance of humane superstitions and follies; manie ascribe unto them either more virtues, or others than they have."[370:A]

This passage has been closely imitated by Drayton, in the ninth Nymphal of his Muse's Elysium[370:B]; he has made, however, some additions to the catalogue, one of which we have already noticed, and another will be shortly quoted.

Virtues of a kind equally miraculous were attributed to bones and horns; thus Scot tells us, that a bone taken out of a carp's head staunches blood; that the bone in a hare's foot mitigates the cramp, and that the unicorn's horn is inestimable[370:C]; and were we to enumerate the wonders performed by herbs, we might fill a volume. Many of them, indeed, were considered of such potency as to render the persons who rightly used them, either invisible or invulnerable, and, therefore, to those who were engaged to fight a legal duel, an oath was administered, purporting "that they had ne charme, ne herbe of vertue" about them.

Several diseases were held to be incurable, by ordinary means; such as wens, warts, the king's evil, agues, rickets, and ruptures; and the remedies which were adopted present a most deplorable instance of human folly. Tumours were to be dispelled by stroking them nine times with a dead man's hand, and the evil by the royal touch, a miraculous power supposed to have been first exercised by Edward the Confessor, and to have been since hereditary in the royal line, at least to the period of the decease of Queen Anne. Of the discharge of this important function by the Confessor, and of its regal descent, our poet has left us a pretty accurate description:—

"_Malcolm._ ——— Comes the king forth, I pray you?

_Doctor._ Ay, Sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

_Macduff._ What's the disease he means?

_Mal._ 'Tis call'd the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp[371:A] about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction."[371:B]

That Shakspeare had frequently witnessed Queen Elizabeth's exercise of this extraordinary gift, is very probable; for it appears from Laneham, that even on her visits to her nobility, she was in the habit of exerting this sanative power. In his _Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle_, he records "by her highness accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynful and dangerous diseaz called the King's Evil, for that kings and queens of this realm without oother medsin (than by touching and prayer) only doo it."[371:C]

Most of the superstitious cures for warts and agues remain as articles of popular credulity; but the mode of removing ruptures and the rickets which prevailed at this period, and for some centuries before, is now nearly, if not altogether extinct. A young tree was split longitudinally, and the diseased child, being stripped naked, was passed, with the head foremost, thrice through the fissure. The wounded tree was then drawn together with a cord so as to unite it perfectly, and as the tree healed, the child was to acquire health and strength. The same result followed if the child crept through a stone perforated by some operation of Nature; of stones of this kind there are some instances in Cornwall, and Mr. Borlase tells us, in his History of that County, that there was one of this description in the parish of Marden, which had a perforation through it fourteen inches in diameter, and was celebrated for its cures on those who ventured, under these complaints, to travel through its healing aperture.

The doctrine of _sympathetic_ indications and cures was very prevalent during the era of Elizabeth and James, and is repeatedly insisted upon by the writers of that age. One of the most generally credited of these was, that a murdered body bled upon the touch or approach of the murderer; an idea which has not only been adopted by our elder bards as poetically striking, but has been adduced, as a truth, by some of our very grave writers in prose. Among the Dramatists it will be sufficient to produce Shakspeare, who represents the corpse of Henry the Sixth as bleeding on the approach of the Tyrant Richard:—

"O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,
Provokes this deluge most unnatural:"[372:A]

and Drayton seems to have been a firm believer in the same preternatural effect; for he informs us in his forty sixth _Idea_, that,

"In making trial of a murther wrought,
If the vile actors of the heinous deed,
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft't hath been prov'd the breathless corps will bleed."[373:A]