Part 17

Jamieson, in his “Scottish Dictionary,” remarks that this practice of twining the rowan about the horns of cows bears a certain resemblance to an ancient custom of the Romans in their _Palilia_, or feast celebrated at the end of April, whose object was the preservation of the flocks. He says:—

The Shepherd, in order to purify his sheep, was in the dusk of the evening to bedew the ground around them with a wet branch, then to adorn the fold with leaves and _green branches_ and to cover the door with garlands.

In China it is customary for the Taouist priests to perform certain magical rites on the completion of a new pigsty, and before the admission of the animals to their new quarters. An altar is erected in honor of the Chu-Lan-Too-Tee, or genii of pigsties, and the walls of the compartments of the sty are adorned with strips of red paper, upon which are Chinese characters, signifying, “Let the enemies of horses, cows, sheep, fowls, dogs, and pigs be appeased.”[484]

V. IMAGES OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS USED AS CHARMS

The belief that cities or towns may be protected from the incursions of noxious animals, birds, or insects, by an image or figure representing one of these creatures, is of great antiquity. This seems to be on the principle of the homœopathic doctrine, “Like cures like.” A homely illustration of the same idea is afforded by the shrewd farmer who hangs up a dead crow in his cornfield to protect the crops. On the other hand, the eccentric French writer, Antoine Mizauld, recommended the following as an effective charm for attracting a large number of crows to one spot: As soon as the constellation of the Virgin rises above the horizon, the figure of a half crow is to be painted on a piece of cloth, while these words are repeated: “Let no crow in all this district move away without coming to this image, in whatever spot it may be buried.” The piece of cloth, with its magical figure, is then interred and the charm is complete.[485]

Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, the philosopher and pretended magician of the first century, is said to have freed Antioch from scorpions and flies by means of the brazen image of a scorpion. The French bishop, Gregory of Tours, mentions an ancient popular belief that no serpents or dormice were to be seen in Paris. In his time, however, or toward the close of the sixth century, while workmen were removing the mud which covered one of the arches of the Bridge of Paris, they found imbedded therein two brazen images of a serpent and dormouse, which were taken away; and thenceforth, he says, the city was infested by prodigious numbers of dormice and snakes. In Jean Baptiste Thiers’s treatise on Superstitions (Paris, 1679), we find allusion to a serpent of brass at Constantinople, which long served as a talisman to bar the entrance of living serpents. But when the city was captured by Mahomet II. in 1453, that monarch broke the teeth of the image by the force of an arrow-shot; and immediately a legion of serpents attacked the inhabitants, but without doing them any harm, for the teeth of all were broken. In the reign of Charlemagne it was customary in Piedmont to use a formula for blessing holy water with which to drive away noxious animals from the crops, and with such success that not a single mole could be found in the whole town of Aosta, nor within three thousand paces beyond its boundaries.

Mr. Andrew Lang, in his volume entitled “Custom and Myth,” says that, in a church of a certain old Saxon town, the verger is wont to exhibit to visitors a silver mouse dedicated to Our Lady; explaining that the town was infested with mice until this now precious relic was presented by some ladies as a propitiatory offering, whereupon the creatures disappeared at once.

According to the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, the therapeutic virtues of plants were indicated by certain peculiarities of their external appearance. Thus _Dracontium_, or great dragon, a plant which has a fancied resemblance to this mythical monster, was thought to be a preservative against serpents; and the scorpion-grass (_Myosotis_), whose flower-spike was not unlike a scorpion’s tail, was deemed an antidote to the stings of noxious insects.

Indeed, the old herbalists of England claimed by the sole use of herbs, not only to cure all fleshly ills, but to drive away or keep at a distance wolves, leopards, and all venomous wild beasts.[486]

In Tibet, according to L. Austine Waddell, M. B., ferocious mastiffs are permitted to roam at large in the night, a source of terror to wayfarers, who therefore carry about charms consisting of “the picture of a dog muzzled and fettered by a chain, terminated by the mystic and all-powerful thunderbolt sceptre,” while along the dog’s body are written certain Sanskrit magical sentences.[487]

VI. WORDS USED AS CHARMS

The English word “charm” is derived from the Latin _carmen_, a verse; and the magical potency of a sentence used as a charm was believed to rest in the words themselves, and not in the person who uttered them. In the opinion of the cabalistic magicians of the Middle Ages, the power of a charm of words depended upon its being unintelligible.

The Latin poet, Varius, wrote in the first century B. C. that old women, by the sole use of words as charms, were able not only to restrain and subjugate wild animals and serpents, but also to drive away noxious creatures and vermin. Few early writers allude to this practice, which appears, however, to have been much in vogue in different countries towards the close of the mediæval period. The Swiss theologian, Felix Hammerlein (1389-1457), wrote of a peasant living near Zurich who was able, by repeating a magic formula, to rid infested premises of adders, vipers, lizards, and other reptiles;[488] and in some parts of Normandy it was a custom formerly to place small rolls of hay under the fruit trees. The hay was then set on fire by means of torches carried by young children, who repeated meanwhile: “Mice, caterpillars, and moles, get out of my field; I will burn your beard and your bones; trees and shrubs, give me three bushels of apples.” Hampson remarks that this incantation somewhat resembles one employed by the ancient Grecians against beetles, whom they held responsible for the destruction of their corn. These magical lines are thus translated: “Fly, beetles, the ravenous wolf pursues you.”[489]

It was currently reported among the ancients that the famous philosopher, Pythagoras, not only possessed the faculty of predicting storms and earthquakes, but that he had by a magical word been enabled to tame a Daunian bear, and had also prevented an ox from eating beans by whispering in his ear.[490]

Antoine Mizauld, the French physician and astrologer, affirmed that, according to Ptolemy, in order to drive away serpents, one should prepare a talisman by engraving the figure of two serpents upon a square piece of copper and pronouncing a charm of words as follows: “With this image I forbid serpents to harm any one, and command them to leave the place where it shall be buried.” In like manner, says the same authority, to expel rats and mice, one has only to represent an image of one of these creatures upon a piece of tin or copper, and at the proper time, as determined by astrology, command them to depart.

In order to expel snakes, insects, and vermin from their dwellings, the Bulgarian women of Turkey, on the last day of February, endeavor to frighten the creatures by beating copper vessels all over the house, while shouting, “Out with you, snakes, scorpions, flies, bugs, and fleas!” One of the vessels is then taken into the court-yard, the pests being expected to follow it. And in Serfo, an island of the Grecian archipelago, at the commencement of the vintage a bunch of grapes is thrown into each house to expel the vermin, while this formula is repeated: “The black grape will sicken you; the black grape will poison you! Out with you, rats and fleas!”[491]

In Albania, when locusts or cockchafers devastate the fields, a number of women, having caught some of the insects, form a mock funeral procession, and proceed to drown them in some convenient stream. And while on their way thither they chant in turn the following dirge, which all repeat in chorus:—

O locusts, O cockchafers, parents kind, Orphaned you have left us all behind.

And this proceeding is thought to be destructive to the whole swarm of insects.[492]

The following charm against foxes was formerly used in France, and was to be repeated thrice a week:—

Foxes, both male and female, I conjure you in the name of the Holy Trinity, that ye neither touch nor carry off any of my fowls, whether roosters, hens or chickens; nor eat their nests, nor suck their blood, nor break their eggs, nor do them any harm whatever.[493]

The Roman Catholic Church formerly sanctioned the use of certain sentences as charms against vipers, and the following may serve as a specimen:—

I conjure thee, O serpent, in this hour, by the five holy wounds of Our Lord, that thou remove not out of this place, as certainly as God was born of a pure Virgine. Otherwise, I conjure thee, serpent, by Our Lady St. Mary, that thou obey me, as wax obeyeth the fire, and as fire obeyeth water, that thou neither hurt me nor any other Christian, as certainly as God was born of an immaculate Virgine, in which respect I take thee up. _In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_.… Otherwise, O vermine, thou must come as God came unto the Jews.[494]

When a Turk chances to encounter a serpent, he is wont to invoke the aid of Chah-Miran, the serpent-king, and in the name of this deity he bids the reptile depart. Now Chah-Miran has long been dead, but the astute Turk reasons that serpents are not aware of this fact, for, if they were, the human race would be helpless against their attacks.[495]

As preservatives from the stings of insects, and to prevent the croaking of frogs, the Moslems use scraps of paper containing magical formulæ, or sentences from the Koran engraved on stones or pieces of metal;[496] and a method formerly in vogue in France, to protect pigeons from the incursions of scorpions, consisted in writing the word “Adam” on each of the four walls of the pigeon-house.[497]

The natives of Mirzapur, in cases of scorpion-bite, recite a charm meaning as follows: “Black scorpion of the limestone, green thy tail and black thy mouth, God orders thee to go home. Come out, scorpion, at the spell. Come out, come out!”[498]

The following charm against insects is in vogue in Lesbos: In the evening a black-handled knife is stuck in some spot where the insects congregate, and certain Greek verses are repeated, of which the following is a translation:—

I got three naughty bairns together, One a wasp, one caterpillar, And a swarming ant the other. Whate’er ye eat, whate’er ye drink, Hence, hence avaunt, To the hills and mountains flee, And unto each fruitless tree.

The knife is to remain in the same spot until the next morning, and is then to be removed. This completes the charm, and the insects are expected to depart at once.[499]

In Great Britain there formerly prevailed a belief that rats could be rhymed to death by anathematizing them in metrical verse, a practice mentioned by Shakespeare and contemporary poets, and which is even to-day not wholly obsolete.[500]

In southern Germany, during the campaigns of Napoleon I., mice with inked feet were placed upon the map of Europe, and their tracks were held to foretell the routes by which the French soldiers would advance.[501]

The Hindus consider the rat to be a sacred animal, and among the lower classes of the natives of western India it is thought unlucky to call a rat by his own name, so they speak of him as the “rat-uncle.”[502]

VII. SUPERSTITIOUS DEALINGS WITH WILD ANIMALS

In encountering a wild animal, the ancients deemed it a matter of great importance that a man should see the beast before the latter was aware of a human presence. If a wolf, for example, first perceived the man, the brute was master of the situation, and the man was bereft alike of speech and strength; whereas the wolf, if first seen by the man, became an easy prey. The side from which a wild beast approached was also of moment. Thus the “Geoponica” warned its readers not to allow a hyena to approach from the right side, lest one be rendered motionless by the fascination of its presence; but if it appeared on the left side, the animal might be attacked with confidence.

Various wonderful tales are current among the natives of Senegambia, and other districts of western Africa, regarding the lion. This noble animal, it is said, forbears to attack a man who salutes him with a respectful gesture, and the same gallant instinct restrains the beast from harming a woman.[503] In most lion-haunted regions, however, the natives do not have such implicit confidence in the courtesy and forbearance of wild animals, but trust rather to the efficacy of various amulets. The Kaffirs of southeastern Africa, for example, on encountering a lion or leopard in the forest, proceed at once to nibble a so-called lion-charm, which is merely a small bit of wood or root. And if the animal moves away without molesting him, the Kaffir attributes his security to the magic power of the charm, not realizing that his escape is due to the natural dread of man which is characteristic of animals generally.[504]

So, too, the priests of Mexico were accustomed to rub their bodies with a certain ointment which they believed to be an efficient protection against wild beasts, its pungent odor acting as a charm, so that they were enabled to wander unmolested amid the wildest solitudes.[505] The skilled hunter, however, confident in his own prowess, depends neither upon the alleged gallantry of lions nor the potency of amulets, but rather on his trusty rifle.

The belief in charms against noxious animals is widespread; for not alone in African jungles does this form of superstition prevail: it is found among civilized people as well, and more particularly in southern lands; indeed, wherever venomous creatures abound. In a collection of amulets belonging to Professor Joseph Belucci, of Perugia, Italy, which was exhibited at the Paris Exposition, 1891, were a number of perforated stones and other objects used by Italians as charms to protect the bearer against the bite of serpents and reptiles.[506]

VIII. LEGAL PROSECUTION OF ANIMALS

Legal proceedings were formerly instituted against vermin, who were thus treated as if they were human beings endowed with consciences and responsible for their actions. Prosecutions of animals were common in France and Switzerland, with a view to protect communities from their depredations. Thus rats and mice, and also bulls, oxen, cows, and mares; sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs; moles, leeches, caterpillars, and various reptiles, were liable to punishment by legal process.[507] The Roman Catholic Church claimed full power to anathematize all animate and inanimate things, founding its authority on the Scriptural precedents of the malediction pronounced on the serpent in the garden of Eden, and the cursing of the barren fig-tree by our Lord.[508] The belief in the moral responsibility of animals was also thought to be warranted by the old Mosaic law as declared in Genesis ix. 5:—

And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man.

Also in Exodus xxi. 28:—

If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.

In the Code of the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, and in that of the Athenian legislator, Draco, provision was made for the formal trial of animals for misdemeanors.[509] A vestige of the unreasonable belief that brutes and even inanimate objects were accountable for their actions is to be found in that now obsolete term of English law, _deodand_, meaning, according to Blackstone, “a personal chattel which was the immediate cause of the death of a rational creature, and for that reason given to God; that is, forfeited to the Crown to be applied to pious uses.” The _deodand_ was of Grecian ancestry, as appears from the ceremonies connected with the offering of a sacrifice by the Athenians. When the animal or victim had been dispatched by an axe in the hands of the officiating priest, the latter immediately fled, and to evade arrest he threw away the axe. This instrument was then seized by his pursuers, and an action entered against it. The advocate for the axe pleaded that it was less guilty than the grinder who sharpened it; the grinder laid the blame on the grindstone which he had used; and thus the whole process became a farce and a mockery of justice.[510]

We learn from the writings of the Benedictine monk, Leonard Vair, that in certain districts of Spain, in the fifteenth century, when the inhabitants wished to drive away grasshoppers or noxious vermin, they chose a conjurer as judge and appointed counsel for the defendants, with a prosecuting attorney, who demanded justice in behalf of the aggrieved community. The mischief-makers were finally declared guilty, and either duly anathematized or formally excommunicated,[511] the technical distinction between the two sentences being doubtless to them a matter of profound indifference. At this period, also, prosecutions of pigs or sows guilty of devouring young infants were not uncommon.

Barthélémy Chassaneux, a famous French advocate of the sixteenth century, first won distinction by the originality of his pleas in defense of some rats in a notable trial at Autun. He represented to the judge that his clients found it extremely difficult to obey the summons issued to them by the court, owing to their being obliged to traverse a region abounding in cats, who were, moreover, especially alert on account of the notoriety of the legal proceedings.[512]

Chassaneux wrote that the people of Autun had long agitated the question how best to rid the province of Burgundy of locusts, and he expressed the belief that a sure method of accomplishing so desirable a result was by the scrupulous payment of all tithes and ecclesiastical dues, and by causing a woman to walk barefoot round the infested fields.[513]

After the seventeenth century, prosecutions of animals and the use of incantations for their expulsion became less common. The Ritual of Séez in 1743 forbade such practices without the special permission of the church, but the same volume contains a formula for driving away grasshoppers, maybugs, and other insects. Mr. C. G. Leland states, in his “Gypsy Sorcery,” that exorcism has been vigorously applied in the United States, not only against the Colorado beetle and army worm, but also for the suppression of blizzards and the grape disease. It has not had much success hitherto, probably owing, as he naïvely remarks, to the uncongenial climate.

THE LUCK OF ODD NUMBERS

“For there’s luck in odd numbers,” says Rory O’More.—SAMUEL LOVER.

I. EARLY SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBERS

In the “Cabala,” or ancient mystic philosophy of the Jews, much importance is attributed to the combination of certain numbers, letters, and words. According to one tradition, the earliest Cabala was given by the angel Raziel to Adam, and orally transmitted through generations until the time of Solomon, by whom it was first embodied in written form. Another report alleges that the cabalistic secrets of nature were received from God by Moses in the Mount, and afterwards taught to Joshua, who communicated them to the seventy elders, and they have since been treasured by the initiated among the Jews.

According to the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, the unit or monad was regarded as the father of Numbers, while the duad, or two, was its mother; and thus is explained one source of the general predilection for odd numbers, the father being esteemed worthy of greater honor than the mother, and the odd numbers being masculine, while the even numbers were feminine. Moreover, the unit, being the origin of all numbers, represented Divinity, as God was the creator and originator of all things.[514] It was also the symbol of Harmony and Order, whereas the duad signified Confusion and Disorder, and represented the Devil.

Plutarch remarks in his “Roman Questions” that the beginning of number, or unity, is a divine thing; whereas the first of the even numbers, Deuz or Deuce, is directly opposite in character. As for the even number, said this writer, it is defective, imperfect, and indefinite; whereas the uneven or odd number is finite, complete, and absolute.

The belief in the lucky significance of odd numbers is of great antiquity, and reference to it is made by Virgil in the eighth Eclogue, and by Pliny, who comments on its prevalence in his time, but offers no explanation therefor. The Roman king, Numa Pompilius, is said to have added days to certain months in order to make an odd number.

It is related, moreover, that the Emperor Julius Cæsar (B. C. 100-44), having once been thrown out of his chariot through some mishap, refused thereafter to set out upon a drive or journey until he had thrice repeated a magic formula; and this practice appears to have been commonly in vogue in those days.[515]

The persistency of a traditional belief is exemplified by the modern association of luck with uneven numbers; and probably the Goddess Fortune herself preferred a three-legged stool. However this may be, it is evident that the legions of her worshipers to-day are firmly convinced of the mystic charm inherent in triplets. The Chinese pagodas, or sacred towers, built by devout persons with the object of improving the luck of a neighborhood, have always an odd number of stories, being from three to thirteen floors high.[516] In Siam, also, this superstition holds universal sway, and its influence in the construction of buildings is especially noticeable; for the Siamese religiously adhere to odd numbers in architecture, and every house must have an uneven number of rooms, windows, and doors; each staircase must have an uneven number of steps.[517]

In the early literature and mythology of the Northern nations much importance was attached to the numbers three and nine, which were held especially sacred and dear to the gods. This fact is shown in their religious ceremonies, and more particularly in their sacrifices, which occurred every ninth month. Each sacrifice, moreover, lasted nine days, and each day nine victims, whether men or animals, were offered up.[518]

II. THE NUMBER THREE

Three, as emblematic of the Trinity, has always been considered a sacred number, and long before the Christian era God was worshiped as a triple Deity. This is true not only of the Assyrians, Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans, but also of the ancient Scandinavians, the Druids, the inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, as well as the Chinese and Japanese.

So from earliest times the Hindus have worshiped their triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. In Holy Writ we find three sister virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity; and in classic mythology are trios of Graces, Fates, and Furies, the three-forked lightning of Jupiter, the three-headed dog, Cerberus, and the trident of Neptune. The tripod was anciently a symbol of prophecy and of divine authority, and the triangle was originally the pagan emblem of a holy triad.

The peculiar significance of the number three was due partly to the fact of its being the first uneven number containing an even one; and from the importance formerly attributed to it may have originated the familiar saying, “The third time never fails.”

In the several codes of ancient Welsh laws are numerous so-called triads, of which the following are curious examples:—