Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches of Some Unrevealed Religions

But what a strange world was that of the Scotch peasant in those far off days – far off at least they seem, on account of the immense social revolution that has taken place, and set between the now and the then a profound chasm. Men often speak of the hard-headedness and matter-of-fact stolidity of the Scotch nature; but is it not true that below the surface lies an abundant fountain of wild, quaint, original fancy? And how, in the olden time, it surrounded itself with signs and omens and wonders! How it loved to put itself in communion, as it were, with that other world which lies beyond and yet around us, which perplexes us with its subtle intelligence, which we cannot discern, though of its presence we are always sensible! From the cradle to the grave the Scotch peasant went his way attended by the phantoms of this mysterious world; always recognising its warnings, always seeing the shadows which it cast of coming events, and so burdening himself with a weight of grim and eëry superstition, that we marvel he did not stumble and grow faint, seeing that his dreary Calvinistic creed could have brought him little hope or comfort. Nay, it is a question whether his superstition did not partly grow out of, or was fostered by, his hard, cold religion. Superstition is the shadow of Religion, and from the shadow we may infer the nature of the substance or object that casts it.

But of these darker things we shall not speak. Let us trace a few of the common traditions and customs of the people, though in doing so we digress, perhaps, from the main lines of the present volume. While less impressive than the mere mystical practices, they proceeded from the same source, – an imagination haunted by the formidable presence of Nature, by the forms of lofty mountains, by the mysteries of pine-clad ravines, and the murmurs of storm-swept lochs and falling waters. For it has been truly said that the Scotch people have been made what they are by Scotland; that the Land has moulded and fashioned the People; and that in their literature, their religion, their manners, their history, the influence is seen of the physical characteristics of the country.

On the birth of a child – to begin at the beginning – we read that both mother and offspring were “sained,” a lighted fir-candle being carried three times round the bed, and a Bible, with a bannock or bread and cheese being placed under the pillow, while a kind of blessing was indistinctly uttered. Sometimes a fir-candle was set on the bed to keep off fairies. If the new-born showed any symptoms of fractiousness, it was supposed to be a changeling; and to test the truth of the supposition, the child was placed suddenly before a peat-fire, when, if really a changeling, it made its escape by the “lum,” throwing back words of scorn as it disappeared. Great was the eagerness to get the babe baptised, lest it should be stolen by the fairies. If it died unchristened, it wandered in woods and solitary places, bewailing its miserable fate. In Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd,” Bauldy, describing Manse the witch, says of her: —

“At midnight hours o’er the kirkyard she raves,And howks unchristened weans out of their graves.”

It was considered “unlucky” to mention the name of an “unchristened wean;” and even at baptism the name was commonly written on a slip of paper, which was handed to the officiating minister. What care was taken that the consecrated water should not enter the child’s eyes! For if such a mishap occurred, his future life, wherever he went and whatever he did, would be constantly marred by the presence of wraiths and phantoms. If the babe remained quiet at the font, it was supposed to be destined to a brief career; and hence, to extort a cry, the woman who received it from the father would handle it roughly or even pinch it. If a boy and girl were baptised together, much anxiety was evinced lest the girl should first receive the rite. And why? In the “Statistical Account of Scotland,” the minister of an Orcadian parish says: “Within these last seven years the minister has been twice interrupted in administering baptism to a female child before the male child, who was baptised immediately after. When the service was over, he was gravely told he had done very wrong, for, if the female child was first baptised, she would, on her coming to the years of discretion, most certainly have a strong beard, and the boy would have none.”

Following up the course of human life through the honeyed days of “wooing and wedding,” we find it darkened still by the clouds of Superstition. If a maiden desired to call up the image of her future husband, she read the third verse, seventeenth chapter of the Book of Job after supper, washed the supper dishes, and retired to bed without uttering a single word, placing before her pillow the Bible, with a pin thrust through the verse she had read. It is curious to observe the use of the Bible in these wild and foolish customs: was it not an indirect testimony to the reverence, not always intelligent, perhaps, but certainly sincere, in which the holy book was held? Nor are we certain that it is not sometimes turned to worse purposes in these “enlightened days,” when a pseudo-science seeks to convert it into the battle-field of audacious theories, and an ignorant intolerance too often professes to discover in its bright and blessed pages an excuse for its uncharitable follies.

But we must continue our resumé. It is curious to read that the wedding-dress might not be “tried on” before the wedding-day, and if it did not fit, it might not be cut or altered, but was adjusted in the best manner possible. The bride, on the way to church, was forbidden to look back, for to do so was to ensure a succession of disasters and quarrels in the married state. It was considered inauspicious, moreover, if she did not “greet” or weep on the marriage-day; a superstition obviously connected with the wide-spread idea of the necessity of propitiating the Fates which inspired the advice of Amasis to the too fortunate Polycrates,66 that he should fine himself for his success by throwing some costly thing into the sea. It was thought well to marry at the time of the growing moon, and among fisher-folk a flowing tide was regarded as “lucky.” These customs were puerile enough, undoubtedly, but before we censure them too severely we may ask whether our modern bridals are wholly free from superstitious observances; whether we do not still pretend to “bribe” the fickle Fortune by showers of rice and old slippers rained on the departing couple!

It is needless to say that the “last scene of all” was invested with all the attributes of grotesque terror the wayward popular imagination could invent. Before it took place the light of the “death-candle” – the Welsh call it the “corpse-candle” – might be seen hovering from chamber to chamber; or the cock crowed before midnight; or the “dead-drap,” a sound as of water falling monotonously and lingeringly, broke the silence of the night; or three dismal and fatal knocks were heard, at regular intervals of one or two minutes’ duration; or over the doomed person fluttered the image of a white dove. And when the spirit had departed, the doors and windows were immediately opened wide; the clocks were stopped; the mirrors were covered; and it was held to disturb the rest of the dead, and to be fatal to the living, if a tear fell upon the winding sheet. And thus, from the cradle to the grave, Superstition dogged the steps of life; nor even at the grave did it cease to vex and worry the minds of men with the fancies and visions born of excited imaginations.

That such fancies, that customs so wild and grotesque, should have existed in Scotland, and among a well-educated people, down to a comparatively recent date, might be matter of wonder, if we were not aware of the tenacity with which the heart clings to the “use and wont” of the Past. Nor trivial as some, and inexcusable as all of them seem to the philosophic eye, is it wise to regard them too contemptuously. They seem to us to show how difficult man found it to realise to himself the idea of a living, personal God, – of a God, a Father, ever watching over the welfare of His children, chastening them in His mercy, but never refusing them the light of His countenance when they have sought Him with faith in the hour of sorrow and darkness. For want of this strengthening, consoling, elevating idea, he has endeavoured to support himself by the feeble prop of superstitious credulity, and instead of yielding wholly and trustfully to the love of God the Father, has vainly striven to secure some glimpse or foreshadowing of the Future, and to avert evil by peurile practices and idle traditions.

We may next be allowed to point out the kinship in superstition which prevails all over the world; so that the observance or custom which seems peculiar to England or Scotland, is found in India or Tartary. This remarkable similarity indicates a certain general tendency to attach an “ominous significance” to particular things and events. Take as an illustration, the act of sneezing. In Asia as well as Europe, among Semitic peoples as well as among Aryan, it is usual to connect with the act some form of blessing. Sometimes the sneezer is blessed by the bystander; sometimes he blesses himself; if a Mohammedan, he blesses God. In Italy, for example, the salutation addressed to him runs: “May God preserve you!” or “May you have children!” In Hindi it takes the form of “Sadàji’s” (May you live for ever!) and a similar salutation is used by the Jews of Austria.

But in different places and at different times sneezing has been made to carry a very different meaning. Among the Arabs, if, while a person is making an assertion which some may think hazardous or dubious, another sneezes, the speaker appeals to the omen as a confirmation of what he is saying. A writer in the “Calcutta Review” thinks this notion as old as the Greeks of the time of Xenophon, as appears from a well known passage in Chap. ii. Book iii. of the Anabasis: Ἐπεὶ περί σωτηρὶας ἡμῶν λεγόντον οἰωνὸς τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ σωτῆρος ἐφάνη. Sneezing among the Hindus, if it occur behind your back, is regarded as so unfavourable an omen, that they at once abandon the work on which at the time they may have been engaged.

Various but not satisfactory attempts have been made to explain these customs. Thus, the Mohammedan accounts for his “Al hamdu-l Allah” by the tradition that, when the breath of life was breathed into the nostrils of Adam, he sneezed, and immediately uttered those words. While in Europe the custom of blessing the sneezer has been traced to the occurrence in Italy in the middle ages of some fatal epidemic, of which one of the symptoms was sneezing.

The superstition which regards as a favourable omen the throbbing of the eye, was well known to the ancient Greeks, is common in England, and flourishes all over India. In England, it is the man’s right eye and the woman’s left that is auspicious; and so it was in the Greece of Theocritus, and so it is in India and Persia.

The curious superstition that ghosts are visible to dogs, to which we find an allusion in Homer’s Odyssey, still flourishes in India. It may have originated in the place given to the dog in the mythology of both Greek and Hindu, or in the position enjoyed by the watch-dog among all the shepherd peoples of the world. The belief belongs to the Semitic as well as the Aryan races; and its true origin after all may be the apparently causeless howling of the dog at night, – the time when “spirits walk abroad.” Whatever the ground of the belief, it is probably in itself the cause of the superstition that the howling of dogs presages death or misfortune.

Another singular coincidence of this kind is furnished “by the custom of spitting on the breast as a charm against fascination.” In his “Greek Antiquities,” Potter notes that it was an ancient Greek custom to spit three times on the breast at the sight of a madman; and Theocritus has, —

τοιάδε μυθίζοισα τρὶς εἰς ἑὸν ἔπτυσε κόλπον.

“Precisely the same effect is attributed to the act among the Aryan inhabitants of India, where its threefold repetition is also insisted on. No sort of reason that we can imagine, can be found for this belief; and in this case the idea is a complex one.

“The notion of a hiccough being an indication that some one is thinking of the person affected, is equally common in Europe and in India.

“The same may be said of the superstition regarding an itching of the palm of the hand; and further the idea that the palm should be rubbed against something to make the event the more sure, prevails both in India and in England. In England it should be ‘rubbed against wood,’ in India on the forehead.”67

We supply but one more illustration, and that shall be in folk lore; a nursery story which presents virtually the same features in the East as in the West. The following is the Hindu parallel to the old Saxon nursery tale of “The Woman that found a Silver Penny.” The coincidence will be seen to be complete.

“Once upon a time, a little bird, on its way through the woods, picked up a pea, and took it to the barbhunja to be split; but, as ill luck would have it, one half of it stuck fast in the mill-handle, and the barbhunja being unable to get it out, the little bird went off to the carpenter, and said, ‘Carpenter, carpenter, come and cut the mill-handle; my pea is in the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ ‘Be off,’ said the carpenter, ‘is it likely I shall come and cut the mill-handle for the sake of a single pea?’

“Then the little bird went to the king, and said, ‘King, king, chide the carpenter; the carpenter won’t cut the mill-handle; my pea has stuck in the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ ‘Be off with you,’ said the king, ‘do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to chide the carpenter?’

“Then the little bird went to the queen, and said, ‘Queen, queen, speak to the king; the king won’t chide the carpenter; the carpenter won’t cut the mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the queen said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to talk to the king?’

“Then the little bird went to the snake, and said, ‘Snake, snake, bite the queen; the queen won’t talk to the king; the king won’t chide the carpenter; the carpenter won’t cut the mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the snake said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to bite the queen?’

“Then the little bird went to the stick, and said, ‘Stick, stick, beat the snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the stick said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to beat the snake?’

“Then the little bird went to the fire, and said, ‘Fire, fire, burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the fire said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to burn the stick?’

“Then the little bird went to the sea, and said, ‘Sea, sea, quench fire; fire won’t burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the sea said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to quench the fire?’

“Then the little bird went to the elephant, and said, ‘Elephant, elephant, dry up the sea; sea won’t quench fire; fire won’t burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the elephant said, ‘Be off with you, to dry up the sea would take the whole host of elephants; do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to assemble all of my kith and kin?’

“Then the bird went to the bhaunr, (a tangled creeping plant,) and said, ‘Bhaunr, bhaunr, snare the elephant; elephant won’t drink up sea; sea won’t quench fire; fire won’t burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the bhaunr said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to snare the elephant?’

“Then the bird went to the mouse, and said, ‘Mouse, mouse, cut bhaunr; bhaunr won’t snare elephant; elephant won’t drink up sea; sea won’t quench fire; fire won’t burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ But the mouse said, ‘Be off with you, do you think that for the sake of a single pea I am going to cut the bhaunr?’

“Then the bird went to the cat, and said, ‘Cat, cat, eat mouse; mouse won’t cut bhaunr; bhaunr won’t snare elephant; elephant won’t drink up sea; sea won’t quench fire; fire won’t burn stick; stick won’t beat snake; snake won’t bite queen; queen won’t talk to king; king won’t chide carpenter; carpenter won’t cut mill-handle; my pea is in the socket of the mill-handle; what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and what shall I take to foreign countries?’ And the cat said, ‘By all means; the mouse is my natural prey, why should I not eat it?’

“So the cat went to eat the mouse; and the mouse went to cut the bhaunr, saying, —

‘Hamko khao, a o, mat koi,Ham bhaunr ko katat loi.’

‘Oh, oh, eat, oh! eat me no one, I will take and cut the bhaunr.’ And the bhaunr went to snare the elephant, saying, ‘Oh, cut, oh! cut me no one, I’ll take and snare the elephant.’ And so on with each one, till it came to the carpenter, who extracted the pea, and the bird took it, and went away rejoicing.”

The close resemblance between this fable and the English one of “The Silver Penny,” attests a common origin. For it cannot be supposed that either was conveyed by means of oral communication from one country to the other; and the only feasible conclusion seems to be that they are different versions of a nursery tale which belonged to our common Aryan forefathers. There can be no doubt as to its antiquity.68

Among the earlier superstitions of Scotland was a belief in the efficacy of charms, or metrical incantations; a belief prevailing in almost every country and period, and indirectly attesting man’s strong inward conviction of the existence of another world. That communications could be maintained with the unseen creatures that live in the air, and “the ooze;” above, beneath, and around us; that they could be made to assume a bodily form and presence; that storms could be raised or dispelled, evil prevented, secrets discovered, diseases cured, love engendered, – and that all this was possible by the utterance of certain words arranged in metrical form, though generally perfectly meaningless, was never doubted. Many of those used in Scotland evidently had their origin in the reputed efficacy of verses among the ancients; and being of an early date, they are often “intermixed with the formula of the Roman Catholic ritual.” Thus we read that one Elspeth Reoch (in 1616) had been supernaturally instructed to cure distempers by resting on her right knee while pulling a certain herb “betwixt her midfinger and thumb, and saying of, In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” An old and popular charm for curing cattle (1607), is given by Dalyell as follows: —69

“I charge thee for arrow shot,For deer shot, for womb shot,For eye shot, for tongue shot,For liver shot, for lung shot,For heart shot, – all the most:In the Name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.To wind out of flesh and bone,Into oak and stone:In the Name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.Amen.”

Sometimes these invocations were accompanied by the administration of medicinal herbs which had been gathered before sunrise. A woman accused of witchcraft, in 1588, declared that she saw “the guid nychtbours makand thair sawis with pains and fyres, and gadderit thair herbis before the sone rysing as sche did.” Among the various remedies prescribed for “the trembling fever,” or ague, by Katharine Oswald, one related to plucking up a nettle by the root, three successive mornings, before sunrise. A favourite time for this herb-gathering rite was Midsummer; a relic of the old Pagan superstition connected with the sun’s position in the Zodiac. The metrical charm then made use of was popular also in England, —

“Haile be thou, holie hearte,Growing on the ground;All in the Mount CalvarieFirst wast thou found.Thou art good for manie a sore,And healest manie a wound;In the Name of Sweet Jesus,I take thee from the ground.”

“Bleeding at the touch,” has been accepted in several countries as a revelation of guilt. A man suspected of murder was brought to the side of the murdered man’s body, and forced to touch it; if the suspicions were just, blood immediately oozed from the wound, or at the mouth, or nose. Even at the man’s approach this sign of crime would appear. It is easy to see how precarious and dangerous a test was this; how readily it might release the guilty, and betray the innocent. Naturally therefore it was not accepted without reluctance. A man and his sister had quarrelled; he died suddenly, and his body was found in his own house, naked, and with a wound on the face, but bloodless. “Although many of the neighbours in the town came into the house to see the dead corpse, yet she, the sister, never offered to come, howbeit her dwelling was next door, nor had she so much as any seeming grief for his death. But the minister and bailiffs of the town taking great suspicion of her in respect of her carriage, commanded that she should be brought in. But when she came, she came trembling all the way to the house; she refused to come nigh to the corpse, or to touch, saying, that she never touched a dead corpse in her life. But being earnestly entreated by the minister and bailiffs, and her brother’s friends, who was killed, that she would but touch the corpse softly, she granted to do it. But before she did it, the sun shining in at the house, she expressed herself thus: ‘Humbly desiring, as the Lord made the sun to shine and give light into that house, that also He would give light in discovering that murder.’ And with these words, she touching the wound of the dead man very softly, it being white and clean, without any spot of blood or the like, yet immediately, while her finger was upon it, the blood rushed out of it, to the great admiration of all the beholders, who took it as one discovery of the murder, according to her own prayer.”

It will seem astonishing to readers of the present day that a poor creature’s life could be taken away on such fanciful and uncertain evidence.

We read that a Sir James Standsfield was found lying dead in a stream. His body was interred precipitately. Two days afterwards it was exhumed and partially dissected, the neck in particular being laid open, in order to ascertain the cause of death. After being well cleansed, blood burst from that side supported by his son Philip, on returning the body to the coffin for re-interment – not an unlikely result from the straining of the incisions – and it deeply stained his hand. He was arraigned, on this slight ground, for parricide; and in the course of the trial it was gravely argued that it was the will of Providence to disclose by this peculiar incident a secret crime.