Folk-lore of Shakespeare

Owl. The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken of by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superstitions associated with it. At the outset, many of the epithets ascribed to it show the prejudice with which it was regarded – being in various places stigmatized as “the vile owl,” in “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. I); and the “obscure bird,” in “Macbeth” (ii. 3), etc. From the earliest period it has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil277 describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido’s death. Ovid,278 too, constantly speaks of this bird’s presence as an evil omen; and indeed the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most of the ancient poets. This superstitious awe in which the owl is held may be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain appearance, its loud and dismal cry,279 as well as to its being the bird of night.280 It has generally been associated with calamities and deeds of darkness.281 Thus, its weird shriek pierces the ear of Lady Macbeth (ii. 2), while the murder is being committed:

“Hark! – Peace!It was the owl that shriek’d, the fatal bellman,Which gives the stern’st good night.”

And when the murderer rushes in, exclaiming,

“I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?”

she answers:

“I heard the owl scream.”

Its appearance at a birth has been said to foretell ill-luck to the infant, a superstition to which King Henry, in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6), addressing Gloster, refers:

“The owl shriek’d at thy birth, an evil sign.”

Its cries282 have been supposed to presage death, and, to quote the words of the Spectator, “a screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers.” Thus, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), we are told how

“the screech-owl, screeching loud,Puts the wretch that lies in woeIn remembrance of a shroud;”

and in “1 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), it is called the “ominous and fearful owl of death.” Again, in “Richard III.” (iv. 4), where Richard is exasperated by the bad news, he interrupts the third messenger by saying:

“Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?”

The owl by day is considered by some equally ominous, as in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 4):

“the owl by day,If he arise, is mock’d and wonder’d at.”

And in “Julius Cæsar” (i. 3), Casca says:

“And yesterday the bird of night did sit,Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigiesDo so conjointly meet, let not men say,‘These are their reasons, – they are natural;’For, I believe, they are portentous thingsUnto the climate that they point upon.”

Considering, however, the abhorrence with which the owl is generally regarded, it is not surprising that the “owlet’s wing”283 should form an ingredient of the caldron in which the witches in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) prepared their “charm of powerful trouble.” The owl is, too, in all probability, represented by Shakespeare as a witch,284 a companion of the fairies in their moonlight gambols. In “Comedy of Errors” (ii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse says:

“This is the fairy land: O, spite of spites!We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites.If we obey them not, this will ensue,They’ll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue!”

Singer, in his Notes on this passage (vol. ii. p. 28) says: “It has been asked, how should Shakespeare know that screech-owls were considered by the Romans as witches?” Do these cavillers think that Shakespeare never looked into a book? Take an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary (1594, 8vo), probably the very book he used: “Strix, a scritche owle; an unluckie kind of bird (as they of olde time said) which sucked out the blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the favour of children; an hagge or fairie.” So in the “London Prodigal,” a comedy, 1605: “Soul, I think I am sure crossed or witch’d with an owl.”285 In “The Tempest” (v. 1) Shakespeare introduces Ariel as saying:

“Where the bee sucks, there suck I,In a cowslip’s bell I lie,There I couch when owls do cry.”

Ariel,286 who sucks honey for luxury in the cowslip’s bell, retreats thither for quiet when owls are abroad and screeching. According to an old legend, the owl was originally a baker’s daughter, to which allusion is made in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims: “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be.” Douce287 says the following story was current among the Gloucestershire peasantry: “Our Saviour went into a baker’s shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size, whereupon the baker’s daughter cried out, ‘Heugh, heugh, heugh!’ which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that bird for her wickedness.” Another version of the same story, as formerly known in Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour. Similar legends are found on the Continent.288

Parrot. The “popinjay,” in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3), is another name for the parrot – from the Spanish papagayo– a term which occurs in Browne’s “Pastorals” (ii. 65):

“Or like the mixture nature dothe displayUpon the quaint wings of the popinjay.”

Its supposed restlessness before rain is referred to in “As You Like It” (iv. 1): “More clamorous than a parrot against rain.” It was formerly customary to teach the parrot unlucky words, with which, when any one was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, “Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies” – an allusion to which custom we find in “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4), where Dromio of Ephesus says: “prophesy like the parrot, beware the rope’s end.” To this Butler hints, where, speaking of Ralpho’s skill in augury, he says:289

“Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,That speak and think contrary clean;What member ’tis of whom they talk,When they cry rope, and walk, knave, walk.”

The rewards given to parrots to encourage them to speak are mentioned in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 2):290 “the parrot will not do more for an almond.” Hence, a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put before a man seems to have been “An almond for a parrot.” To “talk like a parrot” is a common proverb, a sense in which it occurs in “Othello” (ii. 3).

Peacock. This bird was as proverbially used for a proud, vain fool as the lapwing for a silly one. In this sense some would understand it in the much-disputed passage in “Hamlet” (iii. 2):

“For thou dost know, O Damon dear,This realm dismantled wasOf Jove himself; and now reigns hereA very, very – peacock.”291

The third and fourth folios read pajock,292 the other editions have “paiock,” “paiocke,” or “pajocke,” and in the later quartos the word was changed to “paicock” and “pecock,” whence Pope printed peacock.

Dyce says that in Scotland the peacock is called the peajock. Some have proposed to read paddock, and in the last scene Hamlet bestows this opprobrious name upon the king. It has been also suggested to read puttock, a kite.293 The peacock has also been regarded as the emblem of pride and arrogance, as in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 3):294

“Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while,And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;We’ll pull his plumes, and take away his train.”

Pelican. There are several allusions by Shakespeare to the pelican’s piercing her own breast to feed her young. Thus, in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Laertes says:

“To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;And like the kind life-rendering pelican,Repast them with my blood.”

And in “King Lear,” where the young pelicans are represented as piercing their mother’s breast to drink her blood, an illustration of filial impiety (iii. 4), the king says:

“Is it the fashion, that discarded fathersShould have thus little mercy on their flesh?

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1

“Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of ‘A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,’” 1845, p. xiii.

2

“Fairy Mythology,” p. 325.

3

Aldis Wright’s “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” 1877, Preface, pp. xv., xvi.; Ritson’s “Fairy Mythology,” 1875, pp. 22, 23.

4

Essay on Fairies in “Fairy Mythology of Shakspeare,” p. 23.

5

“Fairy Mythology,” 1878, p. 325.

6

Notes to “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” by Aldis Wright, 1877, Preface, p. xvi.

7

“Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” pp. 100-107.

8

See Croker’s “Fairy Legends of South of Ireland,” 1862, p. 135.

9

“Fairy Mythology,” 1878, p. 316.

10

Wirt Sikes’s “British Goblins,” 1880, p. 20.

11

This is reprinted in Hazlitt’s “Fairy Tales, Legends, and Romances, illustrating Shakespeare and other English Writers,” 1875, p. 173.

12

“Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of the Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” printed for the Shakespeare Society, p. viii.

13

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 508-512.

14

Thoms’s “Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” p. 88.

15

See Nares’s Glossary, vol. ii. p. 695.

16

Mr. Dyce considers that Lob is descriptive of the contrast between Puck’s square figure and the airy shapes of the other fairies.

17

“Deutsche Mythologie,” p. 492.

18

See Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology,” pp. 318, 319.

19

“Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” pp. 79-82.

20

Showing, as Mr. Ritson says, that they never ate.

21

“Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,” 1831, p. 121.

22

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 115.

23

“Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 50.

24

Agate was used metaphorically for a very diminutive person, in allusion to the small figures cut in agate for rings. In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff says: “I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1) Hero speaks of a man as being “low, an agate very vilely cut.”

25

See Grimm’s “Deutsche Mythologie.”

26

Thoms’s “Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” 1865, pp. 38, 39.

27

See Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology,” 1878, p. 208.

28

See also Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” 1852, vol. iii. p. 32, etc.

29

Gunyon’s “Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and Superstitions,” p. 299.

30

Chambers’s “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 671.

31

Among the various conjectures as to the cause of these verdant circles, some have ascribed them to lightning; others maintained that they are occasioned by ants. See Miss Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” vol. i. p. 218; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 480-483; and also the “Phytologist,” 1862, pp. 236-238.

32

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 112.

33

Ritson’s “Fairy Mythology,” 1878, pp. 26, 27.

34

Quoted by Brand, “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 481.

35

Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 483.

36

Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Illustrations of Fairy Mythology,” p. 167; see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 122, 123.

37

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 126, 127.

38

See Croker’s “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,” p. 316.

39

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 493.

40

Ritson’s “Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare,” 1875, p. 29.

41

Some copies read them.

42

“Fairy Mythology,” pp. 27, 28.

43

We may compare Banquo’s words in “Macbeth” (ii. 1):

“Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.”

44

“Comedy of Errors” (iv. 2) some critics read:

“A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough.”

45

This superstition is fully described in chapter on Birth.

46

“Superstitions of Witchcraft,” 1865, p. 220.

47

“Shakspere Primer,” 1877, p. 63.

48

“Rationalism in Europe,” 1870, vol. i. p. 106.

49

“Demonology and Witchcraft,” 1881, pp. 192, 193.

50

“Shakespeare,” 1864, vol ii. p. 161.

51

See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 51.

52

Webster’s Works, edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 238.

53

“Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and Superstition,” 1879, p. 322.

54

Spalding’s “Elizabethan Demonology,” 1880, p. 86.

55

“Notes to Macbeth” (Clark and Wright), 1877, p. 137.

56

Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, book iii. chap. 16. See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 235.

57

“Elizabethan Demonology,” pp. 102, 103. See Conway’s “Demonology and Devil-lore,” vol. ii. p. 253.

58

“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 8.

59

Graymalkin – a gray cat.

60

Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” p. 181.

61

Olaus Magnus’s “History of the Goths,” 1638, p. 47. See note to “The Pirate.”

62

See Hardwick’s “Traditions and Folk-Lore,” pp. 108, 109; Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-Lore,” pp. 214, 215.

63

In Greek, ἑπι ῥιπους πλειν, “to go to sea in a sieve,” was a proverbial expression for an enterprise of extreme hazard or impossible of achievement. – Clark and Wright’s “Notes to Macbeth,” 1877, p. 82.

64

“Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, book iii. chap. i. p. 40; see Spalding’s “Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 103.

65

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. iii. pp. 8-10.

66

Douce, “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 245, says: “See Adlington’s Translation (1596, p. 49), a book certainly used by Shakespeare on other occasions.”

67

See Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,” 1879, p. 181.

68

See Pig, chap. vi.

69

“Notes to Macbeth,” by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 84.

70

See Jones’s “Credulities, Past and Present,” 1880, pp. 256-289.

71

Allusions to this superstition occur in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 2), “love is a familiar;” in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), “I think her old familiar is asleep;” and in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 7), “he has a familiar under his tongue.”

72

See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, p. 85.

73

Sec Dyce’s “Glossary,” pp. 18, 19.

74

“Notes to Macbeth” (Clark and Wright), pp. 81, 82.

75

We may compare the words “unquestionable spirit” in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), which means “a spirit averse to conversation.”

76

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 450, 451.

77

Vast, i. e., space of night. So in “Hamlet” (i. 2):

“In the dead waste and middle of the night.”

78

See p. 104.

79

See Hardwick’s “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore,” 1872, pp. 153-176.

80

“Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. i. p. 378.

81

“Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 49.

82

Harsnet’s “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures,” p. 225.

83

“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 517-519.

84

Ibid. vol. i. pp. 365-367.

85

See Jones’s “Credulities, Past and Present,” 1880, p. 133.

86

See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, p. 393; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 264.

87

Ibid. p. 378.

88

Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. x. p. 292.

89

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 255, 256.

90

Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. viii. p. 208.

91

See Knight’s “Life of Shakespeare,” 1843, p. 63.

92

“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 241.

93

See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, p. 176, for popular adages on the Continent.

94

“Weather-Lore,” pp. 175, 176.

95

Napier’s “Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,” 1879, p. 141.

96

Quoted in Southey’s “Commonplace Book,” 1849, 2d series, p. 462.

97

See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1871, vol. i. pp. 261, 296, 297, 321.

98

In “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1), Edward says:

“henceforward will I bear

Upon my target three fair shining suns.”

99

“Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 283.

100

Ray gives the Latin equivalent “Ab equis ad asinos.”

101

Baring-Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1877, p. 190.

102

Cf. “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2): “Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.”

103

Fiske, “Myths and Mythmakers,” 1873, p. 27.

104

“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1877, p. 197.

105

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 10.

106

For further information on this subject, see Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. pp. 288, 354-356; vol. ii. pp. 70, 202, 203.

107

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.

108

See “English Folk-lore,” pp. 43, 44.

109

“Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. pp. 354, 355.

110

The words “moonish” (“As You Like It,” iii. 2) and “moonlike” (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” iv. 3) are used in the sense of inconstant.

111

See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 18.

112

Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 329.

113

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 16.

114

See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, pp. 174, 226, 227, 250.

115

For further examples, see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 17.

116

See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 116.

117

See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, pp. 182-192.

118

See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. p. 130; “English Folk-Lore,” 1878, pp. 41, 42.

119

See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” pp. 182, 183.

120

See Williams’s “Superstitions of Witchcraft,” pp. 123-125; Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” bk. iv. p. 145.

121

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 405.

122

Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. ii. p. 580.

123

“Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 131.

124

Cf. “Richard III.” (iv. 4); “1 Henry IV.” (i. 1, iii. 1); “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 13); “The Tempest” (i. 2); “Hamlet” (i. 4); “Cymbeline” (v. 4); “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 2); “Richard II.” (iv. 1).

125

“Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 131; see Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 341-348.

126

“Walton’s Lives,” 1796, p. 113, note.

127

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 397.

128

Ibid. p. 3.

129

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 400.

130

Purchas, “His Pilgrimes” (1625, pt. i. lib. iii. p. 133), quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright in his “Notes to The Tempest,” 1875, p. 86.

131

See Puck as Will-o’-the-Wisp; chapter on “Fairy-Lore.”

132

See “Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. x. p. 499; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 410; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 309.

133

A “fire-drake” appears to have been also an artificial firework, perhaps what is now called a serpent. Thus, in Middleton’s “Your Five Gallants” (1607):

“But, like fire-drakes, Mounted a little, gave a crack and fell.”

134

“New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 272.

135

See Thoms’s “Notelets on Shakespeare,” p. 59.

136

“Fairy Mythology,” edited by Hazlitt, 1875, p. 40.

137

Among the many other names given to this appearance may be mentioned the following: “Will-a-wisp,” “Joan-in-the-wad,” “Jacket-a-wad,” “Peg-a-lantern,” “Elf-fire,” etc. A correspondent of “Notes and Queries” (5th series, vol. x. p. 499) says: “The wandering meteor of the moss or fell appears to have been personified as Jack, Gill, Joan, Will, or Robin, indifferently, according as the supposed spirit of the lamp seemed to the particular rustic mind to be a male or female apparition.” In Worcestershire it is called “Hob-and-his-lanthorn,” and “Hobany’s” or “Hobnedy’s Lanthorn.”

138

Mr. Ritson says that Milton “is frequently content to pilfer a happy expression from Shakespeare – on this occasion, ‘night-wanderer.’” He elsewhere calls it “the friar’s lantern.”

139

Thorpe, “Northern Mythology,” 1852, vol. iii. pp. 85, 158, 220.

140

“Notelets on Shakespeare,” pp. 64, 65.

141

Ibid.

142

See Proctor’s “Myths of Astronomy;” Chambers’s “Domestic Annals of Scotland,” 1858, vol. ii. pp. 410-412; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 364, 365.

143

See Patterson’s “Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,” 1841, p. 145.

144

“Letters,” vol. i. p. 310; vol. vi. pp. 1, 187. – Ed. Cunningham.

145

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 369.

146

See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. i. pp. 364-367.

147

See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore.”

148

Batman upon Bartholomæus – “De Proprietatibus Rerum,” lib. xi. c. 3.