Balder the Beautiful Part 22

In China also the faith in similar transformation is reflected in the following tale. A certain man in Sung-yang went into the mountains to gather fuel. Night fell and he was pursued by two tigers, but scrambled up a tree out of their reach. Then said the one tiger to the other tiger, "If we can find Chu-Tu-s.h.i.+, we are sure to catch this man up the tree." So off went one of them to find Chu-Tu-s.h.i.+, while the other kept watch at the foot of the tree. Soon after that another tiger, leaner and longer than the other two, appeared on the scene and made a grab at the man's coat. But fortunately the moon was s.h.i.+ning, the man saw the paw, and with a stroke of his axe cut off one of its claws. The tigers roared and fled, one after the other, so the man climbed down the tree and went home. When he told his tale in the village, suspicion naturally fell on the said Chu-Tu-s.h.i.+; next day some men went to see him in his house.

They were told that they could not see him; for he had been out the night before and had hurt his hand, and he was now ill in bed. So they put two and two together and reported him to the police. The police arrived, surrounded the house, and set fire to it; but Chu-Tu-s.h.i.+ rose from his bed, turned into a tiger, charged right through the police, and escaped, and to this day n.o.body ever knew where he went to.[762]

[Werewolves among the Toradjas of Central Celebes.]

The Toradjas of Central Celebes stand in very great fear of werewolves, that is of men and women, who have the power of transforming their spirits into animals such as cats, crocodiles, wild pigs, apes, deer, and buffaloes, which roam about battening on human flesh, and especially on human livers, while the men and women in their own proper human form are sleeping quietly in their beds at home. Among them a man is either born a were-wolf or becomes one by infection; for mere contact with a were-wolf, or even with anything that has been touched by his spittle, is quite enough to turn the most innocent person into a were-wolf; nay even to lean your head against anything against which a were-wolf has leaned his head suffices to do it. The penalty for being a were-wolf is death; but the sentence is never pa.s.sed until the accused has had a fair trial and his guilt has been clearly demonstrated by an ordeal, which consists in dipping the middle finger into boiling resin. If the finger is not burnt, the man is no were-wolf; but if it is burnt, a werewolf he most a.s.suredly is, so they take him away to a quiet spot and hack him to bits. In cutting him up the executioners are naturally very careful not to be bespattered with his blood, for if that were to happen they would of course be turned into were-wolves themselves. Further, they place his severed head beside his hinder-quarters to prevent his soul from coming to life again and pursuing his depredations. So great is the horror of were-wolves among the Toradjas, and so great is their fear of contracting the deadly taint by infection, that many persons have a.s.sured a missionary that they would not spare their own child if they knew him to be a were-wolf.[763] Now these people, whose faith in were-wolves is not a mere dying or dead superst.i.tion but a living, dreadful conviction, tell stories of were-wolves which conform to the type which we are examining. They say that once upon a time a were-wolf came in human shape under the house of a neighbour, while his real body lay asleep as usual at home, and calling out softly to the man's wife made an a.s.signation with her to meet him in the tobacco-field next day.

But the husband was lying awake and he heard it all, but he said nothing to anybody. Next day chanced to be a busy one in the village, for a roof had to be put on a new house and all the men were lending a hand with the work, and among them to be sure was the were-wolf himself, I mean to say his own human self; there he was up on the roof working away as hard as anybody. But the woman went out to the tobacco-field, and behind went unseen her husband, slinking through the underwood. When they were come to the field, he saw the were-wolf make up to his wife, so out he rushed and struck at him with a stick. Quick as thought, the were-wolf turned himself into a leaf, but the man was as nimble, for he caught up the leaf, thrust it into the joint of bamboo, in which he kept his tobacco, and bunged it up tight. Then he walked back with his wife to the village, carrying the bamboo with the werewolf in it. When they came to the village, the human body of the were-wolf was still on the roof, working away with the rest. The man put the bamboo in a fire. At that the human were-wolf looked down from the roof and said, "Don't do that."

The man drew the bamboo from the fire, but a moment afterwards he put it in the fire again, and again the human were-wolf on the roof looked down and cried, "Don't do that." But this time the man kept the bamboo in the fire, and when it blazed up, down fell the human were-wolf from the roof as dead as a stone.[764] Again, the following story went round among the Toradjas not so very many years ago. The thing happened at Soemara, on the Gulf of Tomori. It was evening and some men sat chatting with a certain Hadji Mohammad. When it had grown dark, one of the men went out of the house for something or other. A little while afterwards one of the company thought he saw a stag's antlers standing out sharp and clear against the bright evening sky. So Hadji Mohammad raised his gun and fired. A minute or two afterwards back comes the man who had gone out, and says he to Hadji Mohammad, "You shot at me and hit me. You must pay me a fine." They searched him but found no wound on him anywhere. Then they knew that he was a were-wolf who had turned himself into a stag and had healed the bullet-wound by licking it. However, the bullet had found its billet, for two days afterwards he was a dead man.[765]

[Were-wolves in the Egyptian Sudan.]

In Sennar, a province of the Egyptian Sudan, the Hammeg and Fungi enjoy the reputation of being powerful magicians who can turn themselves into hyaenas and in that guise scour the country at night, howling and gorging themselves. But by day they are men again. It is very dangerous to shoot at such human hyaenas by night. On the Jebel Bela mountain a soldier once shot at a hyaena and hit it, but it dragged itself off, bleeding, in the darkness and escaped. Next morning he followed up the trail of blood and it led him straight to the hut of a man who was everywhere known for a wizard. Nothing of the hyaena was to be seen, but the man himself was laid up in the house with a fresh wound and died soon afterwards. And the soldier did not long survive him.[766]

[The were-wolf story in Petronius.]

But the cla.s.sical example of these stories is an old Roman tale told by Petronius. It is put in the mouth of one Niceros. Late at night he left the town to visit a friend of his, a widow, who lived at a farm five miles down the road. He was accompanied by a soldier, who lodged in the same house, a man of Herculean build. When they set out it was near dawn, but the moon shone as bright as day. Pa.s.sing through the outskirts of the town, they came amongst the tombs, which lined the highroad for some distance. There the soldier made an excuse for retiring behind a monument, and Niceros sat down to wait for him, humming a tune and counting the tombstones to pa.s.s the time. In a little he looked round for his companion, and saw a sight which froze him with horror. The soldier had stripped off his clothes to the last rag and laid them at the side of the highway. Then he performed a certain ceremony over them, and immediately was changed into a wolf, and ran howling into the forest. When Niceros had recovered himself a little, he went to pick up the clothes, but found that they were turned to stone. More dead than alive, he drew his sword, and, striking at every shadow cast by the tombstones on the moonlit road, he tottered to his friend's house. He entered it like a ghost, to the surprise of the widow, who wondered to see him abroad so late. "If you had only been here a little ago," said she, "you might have been of some use. For a wolf came tearing into the yard, scaring the cattle and bleeding them like a butcher. But he did not get off so easily, for the servant speared him in the neck." After hearing these words, Niceros felt that he could not close an eye, so he hurried away home again. It was now broad daylight, but when he came to the place where the clothes had been turned to stone, he found only a pool of blood. He reached home, and there lay the soldier in bed like an ox in the shambles, and the doctor was bandaging his neck. "Then I knew," said Niceros, "that the man was a were-wolf, and never again could I break bread with him, no, not if you had killed me for it."[767]

[Witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into animals.]

These stories may help us to understand the custom of burning a bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their mischievous pranks;[768] and like were-wolves they can in their animal disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend the disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his or her true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the brow or between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a were-wolf;[769] and it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have had the bullet blessed in a chapel of St. Hubert or happen to be carrying about you, without knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise the bullet will merely rebound from the were-wolf like water from a duck's back.[770] However, in Armenia they say that the were-wolf, who in that country is usually a woman, can be killed neither by shot nor by steel; the only way of delivering the unhappy woman from her bondage is to get hold of her wolf's skin and burn it; for that naturally prevents her from turning into a wolf again. But it is not easy to find the skin, for she is cunning enough to hide it by day.[771] So with witches, it is not only useless but even dangerous to shoot at one of them when she has turned herself into a hare; if you do, the gun may burst in your hand or the shot come back and kill you. The only way to make quite sure of hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver sixpence or a silver b.u.t.ton in your gun.[772] For example, it happened one evening that a native of the island of Tiree was going home with a new gun, when he saw a black sheep running towards him across the plain of Reef. Something about the creature excited his suspicion, so he put a silver sixpence in his gun and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep became a woman with a drugget coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her quite well, for she was a witch who had often persecuted him before in the shape of a cat.[773]

[Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has transformed herself are inflicted on the witch herself.]

Again, the wounds inflicted on a witch-hare or a witch-cat are to be seen on the witch herself, just as the wounds inflicted on a were-wolf are to be seen on the man himself when he has doffed the wolfs skin. To take a few instances out of a mult.i.tude, a young man in the island of Lismore was out shooting. When he was near Balnagown loch, he started a hare and fired at it. The animal gave an unearthly scream, and then for the first time it occurred to him that there were no real hares in Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.[774] Again, at Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his broadsword, and put them to flight. As they were scurrying away he struck at them and cut off a leg of one of the cats. To his astonishment it was a woman's leg, and next morning he found one of the witches short of the corresponding limb.[775] Glanvil tells a story of "an old woman in Cambridge-s.h.i.+re, whose astral spirit, coming into a man's house (as he was sitting alone at the fire) in the shape of an huge cat, and setting her self before the fire, not far from him, he stole a stroke at the back of it with a fire-fork, and seemed to break the back of it, but it scambled from him, and vanisht he knew not how. But such an old woman, a reputed witch, was found dead in her bed that very night, with her back broken, as I have heard some years ago credibly reported."[776]

In Yorks.h.i.+re during the latter half of the nineteenth century a parish clergyman was told a circ.u.mstantial story of an old witch named Nanny, who was hunted in the form of a hare for several miles over the Westerdale moors and kept well away from the dogs, till a black one joined the pack and succeeded in taking a bit out of one of the hare's legs. That was the end of the chase, and immediately afterwards the sportsmen found old Nanny laid up in bed with a sore leg. On examining the wounded limb they discovered that the hurt was precisely in that part of it which in the hare had been bitten by the black dog and, what was still more significant, the wound had all the appearance of having been inflicted by a dog's teeth. So they put two and two together.[777]

The same sort of thing is often reported in Lincolns.h.i.+re. "One night,"

said a servant from Kirton Lindsey, "my father and brother saw a cat in front of them. Father knew it was a witch, and took a stone and hammered it. Next day the witch had her face all tied up, and shortly afterwards died." Again, a Bardney b.u.mpkin told how a witch in his neighbourhood could take all sorts of shapes. One night a man shot a hare, and when he went to the witch's house he found her plastering a wound just where he had shot the hare.[778] So in County Leitrim, in Ireland, they say that a hare pursued by dogs fled to a house near at hand, but just as it was bolting in at the door one of the dogs came up with it and nipped a piece out of its leg. The hunters entered the house and found no hare there but only an old woman, and her side was bleeding; so they knew what to think of her.[779]

[Wounded witches in the Vosges.]

Again, in the Vosges Mountains a great big hare used to come out every evening to take the air at the foot of the Mont des Fourches. All the sportsmen of the neighbourhood tried their hands on that hare for a month, but not one of them could hit it. At last one marksman, more knowing than the rest, loaded his gun with some pellets of a consecrated wafer in addition to the usual pellets of lead. That did the trick. If puss was not killed outright, she was badly hurt, and limped away uttering shrieks and curses in a human voice. Later it transpired that she was no other than the witch of a neighbouring village who had the power of putting on the shape of any animal she pleased.[780] Again, a hunter of Travexin, in the Vosges, fired at a hare and almost shot away one of its hind legs. Nevertheless the creature contrived to escape into a cottage through the open door. Immediately a child's cries were heard to proceed from the cottage, and the hunter could distinguish these words, "Daddy, daddy, come quick! Poor mammy has her leg broken."[781]

[Wounded witches in Swabia.]

In Swabia the witches are liable to accidents of the same sort when they go about their business in the form of animals. For example, there was a soldier who was betrothed to a young woman and used to visit her every evening when he was off duty. But one evening the girl told him that he must not come to the house on Friday nights, because it was never convenient to her to see him then. This roused his suspicion, and the very next Friday night he set out to go to his sweetheart's house. On the way a white cat ran up to him in the street and dogged his steps, and when the animal would not make off he drew his sword and slashed off one of its paws. On that the cat bolted. The soldier walked on, but when he came to his sweetheart's house he found her in bed, and when he asked her what was the matter, she gave a very confused reply. Noticing stains of blood on the bed, he drew down the coverlet and saw that the girl was weltering in her gore, for one of her feet was lopped off. "So that's what's the matter with you, you witch!" said he, and turned on his heel and left her, and within three days she was dead.[782] Again, a farmer in the neighbourhood of Wiesensteig frequently found in his stable a horse over and above the four horses he actually owned. He did not know what to make of it and mentioned the matter to the smith. The smith said quietly, "The next time you see a fifth horse in the stable, just you send for me." Well, it was not long before the strange horse was there again, and the farmer at once sent for the smith. He came bringing four horse-shoes with him, and said, "I'm sure the nag has no shoes; I'll shoe her for you." No sooner said than done. However, the smith overreached himself; for next day when his friend the farmer paid him a visit he found the smith's own wife prancing about with horse-shoes nailed on her hands and feet. But it was the last time she ever appeared in the shape of a horse.[783]

[The miller's wife and the two grey cats.]

Once more, in Silesia they tell of a miller's apprentice, a st.u.r.dy and industrious young fellow, who set out on his travels. One day he came to a mill, and the miller told him that he wanted an apprentice but did not care to engage one, because hitherto all his apprentices had run away in the night, and when he came down in the morning the mill was at a stand.

However, he liked the looks of the young chap and took him into his pay.

But what the new apprentice heard about the mill and his predecessors was not encouraging; so the first night when it was his duty to watch in the mill he took care to provide himself with an axe and a prayer-book, and while he kept one eye on the whirring, humming wheels he kept the other on the good book, which he read by the flickering light of a candle set on a table. So the hours at first pa.s.sed quietly with nothing to disturb him but the monotonous drone and click of the machinery. But on the stroke of twelve, as he was still reading with the axe lying on the table within reach, the door opened and in came two grey cats mewing, an old one and a young one. They sat down opposite him, but it was easy to see that they did not like his wakefulness and the prayer-book and the axe. Suddenly the old cat reached out a paw and made a grab at the axe, but the young chap was too quick for her and held it fast. Then the young cat tried to do the same for the prayer-book, but the apprentice gripped it tight. Thus balked, the two cats set up such a squalling that the young fellow could hardly say his prayers. Just before one o'clock the younger cat sprang on the table and fetched a blow with her right paw at the candle to put it out. But the apprentice struck at her with his axe and sliced the paw off, whereupon the two cats vanished with a frightful screech. The apprentice wrapped the paw up in paper to shew it to his master. Very glad the miller was next morning when he came down and found the mill going and the young chap at his post. The apprentice told him what had happened in the night and gave him the parcel containing the cat's paw. But when the miller opened it, what was the astonishment of the two to find in it no cat's paw but a woman's hand! At breakfast the miller's young wife did not as usual take her place at the table. She was ill in bed, and the doctor had to be called in to bind up her right arm, because in hewing wood, so they said, she had made a slip and cut off her own right hand. But the apprentice packed up his traps and turned his back on that mill before the sun had set.[784]

[The a.n.a.logy of were-wolves confirms the view that the reason for burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch or to compel her to appear.]

It would no doubt be easy to multiply instances, all equally well attested and authentic, of the transformation of witches into animals and of the damage which the women themselves have sustained through injuries inflicted on the animals.[785] But the foregoing evidence may suffice to establish the complete parallelism between witches and were-wolves in these respects. The a.n.a.logy appears to confirm the view that the reason for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the witch herself is in the animal, and that by burning it you either destroy the witch completely or at least unmask her and compel her to rea.s.sume her proper human shape, in which she is naturally far less potent for mischief than when she is careering about the country in the likeness of a cat, a hare, a horse, or what not. This principle is still indeed clearly recognized by people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a fear of the police. "When anything living is bewitched in a house, for example, children or animals, they burn or boil the n.o.bler inwards of animals, especially the hearts, but also the lungs or the liver. If animals have died, they take the inwards of one of them or of an animal of the same kind slaughtered for the purpose; but if that is not possible they take the inwards of a c.o.c.k, by preference a black one. The heart, lung, or liver is stuck all over with needles, or marked with a cross cut, or placed on the fire in a tightly closed vessel, strict silence being observed and doors and windows well shut. When the heart boils or is reduced to ashes, the witch must appear, for during the boiling she feels the burning pain. She either begs to be released or seeks to borrow something, for example, salt or a coal of fire, or she takes the lid off the pot, or tries to induce the person whose spell is on her to speak. They say, too, that a woman comes with a spinning-wheel. If it is a sheep that has died, you proceed in the same way with a tripe from its stomach and p.r.i.c.k it with needles while it is on the boil. Instead of boiling it, some people nail the heart to the highest rafter of the house, or lay it on the edge of the hearth, in order that it may dry up, no doubt because the same thing happens to the witch. We may conjecture that other sympathetic means of destruction are employed against witchcraft. The following is expressly reported: the heart of a calf that has died is stuck all over with needles, enclosed in a bag, and thrown into flowing water before sunset."[786]

[There is the same reason for burning bewitched things; similarly by burning alive a person whose form a witch has a.s.sumed, you compel the witch to disclose herself.]

And the same thing holds good also of inanimate objects on which a witch has cast her spell. In Wales they say that "if a thing is bewitched, burn it, and immediately afterwards the witch will come to borrow something of you. If you give what she asks, she will go free; if you refuse it, she will burn, and a mark will be on her body the next day."[787] So, too, in Oldenburg, "the burning of things that are bewitched or that have been received from witches is another way of breaking the spell. It is often said that the burning should take place at a cross-road, and in several places cross-roads are shewn where the burning used to be performed.... As a rule, while the things are burning, the guilty witches appear, though not always in their own shape. At the burning of bewitched b.u.t.ter they often appear as c.o.c.kchafers and can be killed with impunity. Victuals received from witches may be safely consumed if only you first burn a portion of them."[788] For example, a young man in Oldenburg was wooing a girl, and she gave him two fine apples as a gift. Not feeling any appet.i.te at the time, he put the apples in his pocket, and when he came home he laid them by in a chest. Two or three days afterwards he remembered the apples and went to the chest to fetch them. But when he would have put his hand on them, what was his horror to find in their stead two fat ugly toads in the chest. He hastened to a wise man and asked him what he should do with the toads. The man told him to boil the toads alive, but while he was doing so he must be sure on no account to lend anything out of the house. Well, just as he had the toads in a pot on the fire and the water began to grow nicely warm, who should come to the door but the girl who had given him the apples, and she wished to borrow something; but he refused to give her anything, rated her as a witch, and drove her out of the house. A little afterwards in came the girl's mother and begged with tears in her eyes for something or other; but he turned her out also. The last word she said to him was that he should at least spare her daughter's life; but he paid no heed to her and let the toads boil till they fell to bits. Next day word came that the girl was dead.[789] Can any reasonable man doubt that the witch herself was boiled alive in the person of the toads?

[The burning alive of a supposed witch in Ireland in 1895.]

Moreover, just as a witch can a.s.sume the form of an animal, so she can a.s.sume the form of some other human being, and the likeness is sometimes so good that it is difficult to detect the fraud. However, by burning alive the person whose shape the witch has put on, you force the witch to disclose herself, just as by burning alive the bewitched animal you in like manner oblige the witch to appear. This principle may perhaps be unknown to science, falsely so called, but it is well understood in Ireland and has been acted on within recent years. In March 1895 a peasant named Michael Cleary, residing at Ballyvadlea, a remote and lonely district in the county of Tipperary, burned his wife Bridget Cleary alive over a slow fire on the kitchen hearth in the presence of and with the active a.s.sistance of some neighbours, including the woman's own father and several of her cousins. They thought that she was not Bridget Cleary at all, but a witch, and that when they held her down on the fire she would vanish up the chimney; so they cried, while she was burning, "Away she goes! Away she goes!" Even when she lay quite dead on the kitchen floor (for contrary to the general expectation she did not disappear up the chimney), her husband still believed that the woman lying there was a witch, and that his own dear wife had gone with the fairies to the old _rath_ or fort on the hill of Kylenagranagh, where he would see her at night riding a grey horse and roped to the saddle, and that he would cut the ropes, and that she would stay with him ever afterwards. So he went with some friends to the fort night after night, taking a big table-knife with him to cut the ropes. But he never saw his wife again. He and the men who had held the woman on the fire were arrested and tried at Clonmel for wilful murder in July 1895; they were all found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to various terms of penal servitude and imprisonment; the sentence pa.s.sed on Michael Cleary was twenty years' penal servitude.[790]

[Sometimes bewitched animals are buried alive instead of being burned.]

However, our British peasants, it must be confessed, have not always acted up to the strict logical theory which seems to call for death by fire as the proper treatment both of bewitched animals and of witches.

Sometimes, perhaps in moments of weakness, they have merely buried the bewitched animals alive instead of burning them. For example, in the year 1643, "many cattle having died, John Brughe and Neane Nikclerith, also one of the initiated, conjoined their mutual skill for the safety of the herd. The surviving animals were drove past a tub of water containing two enchanted stones: and each was sprinkled from the liquid contents in its course. One, however, being unable to walk, 'was by force drawin out at the byre dure; and the said Johnne with Nikclerith smelling the nois thereof said it wald not leive, caused are hoill to be maid in Maw Greane, quhilk was put quick in the hole and maid all the rest of the cattell theireftir to go over that place: and in that devillische maner, be charmeing,' they were cured."[791] Again, during the prevalence of a murrain about the year 1629, certain persons proposed to stay the plague with the help of a celebrated "cureing stane" of which the laird of Lee was the fortunate owner. But from this they were dissuaded by one who "had sene b.e.s.t.i.a.ll curet be taking are quik seik ox, and making are deip pitt, and bureing him therin, and be calling the oxin and b.e.s.t.i.a.ll over that place." Indeed Issobell Young, the mother of these persons, had herself endeavoured to check the progress of the distemper by taking "ane quik ox with ane catt, and ane grit quant.i.tie of salt," and proceeding "to burie the ox and catt quik with the salt, in ane deip hoill in the grund, as ane sacrifice to the devill, that the rest of the guidis might be fred of the seiknes or diseases."[792] Writing towards the end of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre tells us that "the violent death even of a brute is in some cases held to be of great avail. There is a disease called the _black spauld_, which sometimes rages like a pestilence among black cattle, the symptoms of which are a mortification in the legs and a corruption of the ma.s.s of blood. Among the other engines of superst.i.tion that are directed against this fatal malady, the first cow seized with it is commonly buried alive, and the other cattle are forced to pa.s.s backwards and forwards over the pit. At other times the heart is taken out of the beast alive, and then the carca.s.s is buried. It is remarkable that the leg affected is cut off, and hung up in some part of the house or byre, where it remains suspended, notwithstanding the seeming danger of infection. There is hardly a house in Mull where these may not be seen. This practice seems to have taken its rise antecedent to Christianity, as it reminds us of the pagan custom of hanging up offerings in their temples. In Breadalbane, when a cow is observed to have symptoms of madness, there is recourse had to a peculiar process.

They tie the legs of the mad creature, and throw her into a pit dug at the door of the fold. After covering the hole with earth, a large fire is kindled upon it; and the rest of the cattle are driven out, and forced to pa.s.s through the fire one by one."[793] In this latter custom we may suspect that the fire kindled on the grave of the buried cow was originally made by the friction of wood, in other words, that it was a need-fire. Again, writing in the year 1862, Sir Arthur Mitch.e.l.l tells us that "for the cure of the murrain in cattle, one of the herd is still sacrificed for the good of the whole. This is done by burying it alive.

I am a.s.sured that within the last ten years such a barbarism occurred in the county of Moray."[794]

[Calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd.]

Sometimes, however, the animal has not even been buried alive, it has been merely killed and then buried. In this emasculated form the sacrifice, we may say with confidence, is absolutely useless for the purpose of stopping a murrain. Nevertheless, it has been tried. Thus in Lincolns.h.i.+re, when the cattle plague was so prevalent in 1866, there was, I believe, not a single cowshed in Marshland but had its wicken cross over the door; and other charms more powerful than this were in some cases resorted to. I never heard of the use of the needfire in the Marsh, though it was, I believe, used on the wolds not many miles off.

But I knew of at least one case in which a calf was killed and solemnly buried feet pointing upwards at the threshold of the cowshed. When our garthman told me of this, I pointed out to him that the charm had failed, for the disease had not spared that shed. But he promptly replied, "Yis, but owd Edwards were a soight too cliver; he were that mean he slew n.o.bb.u.t.t a w.a.n.kling cauf as were bound to deny anny road; if he had n.o.bb.u.t.t tekken his best cauf it wud hev worked reight enuff; 'tain't in reason that owd skrat 'ud be hanselled wi' w.a.n.kling draffle."[795]

Notes:

[262] See Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_*[4] (Berlin, 1875-1878), i.

502, 510, 516.

[263] W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstamme_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 518 _sq._

[264] In the following survey of these fire-customs I follow chiefly W.

Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, kap. vi. pp. 497 _sqq._ Compare also J.

Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] i. 500 _sqq._; Walter E. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), pp. 46 _sqq._; F. Vogt, "Scheibentreiben und Fruhlingsfeuer,"

_Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) pp. 349-369; _ibid._ iv. (1894) pp. 195-197.

[265] _The Scapegoat_, pp. 316 _sqq._

[266] The first Sunday in Lent is known as _Invocavit_ from the first word of the ma.s.s for the day (O. Frh. von Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Bohmen_, p. 67).

[267] Le Baron de Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels, 1861-1862), i. 141-143; E. Monseur, _Le Folklore Wallon_ (Brussels, N.D.), pp. 124 _sq._

[268] emile Hublard, _Fetes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Careme_ (Mons, 1899), pp. 25. For the loan of this work I am indebted to Mrs. Wherry of St. Peter's Terrace, Cambridge.

[269] e. Hublard, _op. cit._ pp. 27 _sq._

[270] A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, legendes et contes des Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), p. 68.

[271] L.F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 56.

The popular name for the bonfires in the Upper Vosges (_Hautes-Vosges_) is _chavandes_.

[272] E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fetes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp.

101 _sq._ The local name for these bonfires is _bures_.

[273] Charles Beauquier, _Les mois en Franche-Comte_ (Paris, 1900), pp.

33 _sq._ In Bresse the custom was similar. See _La Bresse Louhannaise, Bulletin Mensuel, Organe de la Societe d'Agriculture et d'Horticulture de l'Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt de Louhans_, Mars, 1906, pp. 111 _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ p. 100. The usual name for the bonfires is _chevannes_ or _schvannes_; but in some places they are called _fouleres, foualeres, failles_, or _bourdifailles_ (Ch. Beauquier, _op. cit._ p. 34). But the Sunday is called the Sunday of the _brandons, bures, bordes_, or _boides_, according to the place. The _brandons_ are the torches which are carried about the streets and the fields; the bonfires, as we have seen, bear another name. A curious custom, observed on the same Sunday in Franche-Comte, requires that couples married within the year should distribute boiled peas to all the young folks of both s.e.xes who demand them at the door. The lads and la.s.ses go about from house to house, making the customary request; in some places they wear masks or are otherwise disguised. See Ch. Beauquier, _op. cit._ pp. 31-33.