Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 7

Referring to the histories of the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester and of Jane Sh.o.r.e, who were accused of practising this mode of witchcraft, Shakespeare, in "2 Henry VI." (i. 2), makes the former address Hume thus:

"What say'st thou, man? hast them as yet conferr'd With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch, With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?

And will they undertake to do me good?"

She was afterwards, however, accused of consulting witches concerning the mode of compa.s.sing the death of her husband's nephew, Henry VI. It was a.s.serted that "there was found in the possession of herself and accomplices a waxen image of the king, which they melted in a magical manner before a slow fire, with the intention of making Henry's force and vigor waste away by like insensible degrees."

A similar charge was brought against Jane Sh.o.r.e, the mistress of Edward IV., by Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Thus, in "King Richard III." (iii.

4), Gloucester asks Hastings:

"I pray you all, tell me what they deserve That do conspire my death with devilish plots Of d.a.m.ned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd Upon my body with their h.e.l.lish charms?"

And he then further adds:

"Look how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up: And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Sh.o.r.e, That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."

This superst.i.tion is further alluded to in "King John" (v. 4) by Melun, who, wounded, says:

"Have I not hideous death within my view, Retaining but a quant.i.ty of life, Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?"

And, again, in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 4), Proteus says:

"for now my love is thaw'd; Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, Bears no impression of the thing it was."[67]

[67] See Henderson's "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,"

1879, p. 181.

Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar results-a piece of superst.i.tion which still prevails to a great extent in the East. Dubois, in his "People of India" (1825), speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay, and then write the names of their animosity on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s thereof; these are otherwise pierced with thorns or mutilated, "so as to communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented." They were also said to extract moisture from the body, as in "Macbeth" (i. 3):

"I will drain him dry as hay."

Referring to the other mischievous acts of witches, Steevens quotes the following from "A Detection of d.a.m.nable Driftes Practised by Three Witches, etc., arraigned at Chelmisforde, in Ess.e.x, 1579:" "Item-Also she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie, who, dislyking her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie." Hence in "Macbeth" (i. 3) in reply to the inquiry of the first witch:

"Where hast thou been, sister?"

the second replies:

"Killing swine."

It appears to have been their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbors, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Harsnet observes how, formerly, "A sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft."[68]

[68] See _Pig_, chap. vi.

Mr. Henderson, in his "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties" (1879, p.

182), relates how a few years ago a witch died in the village of Bovey Tracey, Devons.h.i.+re. She was accused of "overlooking" her neighbors'

pigs, so that her son, if ever betrayed into a quarrel with her, used always to say, before they parted, "Mother, mother, spare my pigs."

Multiples of three and nine were specially employed by witches, ancient and modern. Thus, in "Macbeth" (i. 3), the witches take hold of hands and dance round in a ring nine times-three rounds for each witch, as a charm for the furtherance of her purposes:[69]

"Thrice to thine and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine.

Peace! the charm's wound up."

[69] "Notes to Macbeth," by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 84.

The love of witches for odd numbers is further ill.u.s.trated (iv. 1), where one of them tells how

"Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined,"

this being the witches' way of saying four times.

In Fairfax's "Ta.s.so" (book xiii. stanza 6) it is said that

"Witchcraft loveth numbers odd."

This notion is very old, and we may compare the following quotations from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (xiv. 58):

"Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore."

And, again (vii. 189-191):

"Ter se convert.i.t; ter sumtis flumine crinem Irroravit aquis; ternis ululatibus ora Solvit."

Vergil, too, in his "Eclogues" (viii. 75), says:

"Numero deus impare gaudet."

The belief in the luck of odd numbers is noticed by Falstaff in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 1):

"They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death!"

In "King Lear" (iv. 2) when the Duke of Albany tells Goneril,

"She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap, perforce must wither And come to deadly use"-

he alludes to the use that witches and enchanters were commonly supposed to make of withered branches in their charms.[70]

[70] See Jones's "Credulities, Past and Present," 1880, pp.

256-289.

Among other items of witch-lore mentioned by Shakespeare may be noticed the common belief in the intercourse between demons and witches, to which Prospero alludes in the "Tempest" (i. 2):

"Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!"

This notion is seriously refuted by Scot in his "Discovery of Witchcraft" (book iv.), where he shows it to be "flat knavery."

The offspring of a witch was termed "Hag-seed," and as such is spoken of by Prospero in the "Tempest" (i. 2).

Witches were also in the habit of saying their prayers backwards: a practice to which Hero refers in "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), where, speaking of Beatrice, she says:

"I never yet saw man, How wise, how n.o.ble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward."