The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 39

_Picture Omens._

Archbishop Laud, not long before the disastrous circ.u.mstance happened which hastened his tragical end, on entering his study one day, found his picture at full length on the floor, the string which held it to the wall having snapped. The sight of this struck the prelate with such a sense of the probability of his fate, that from that time he did not enjoy a moment's peace. The Duke of Buckingham was struck by an occurrence of a similar kind; he found his picture in the Council Chamber fallen out of its frame. This accident, in that age of omens, was looked upon with a considerable degree of awe.

_Felling Oaks._

In the "Magna Britannia," the author, in his "Account of the Hundred of Croydon," says: "Our historians take notice of two things in this parish which may not be convenient to us to omit, viz: A great wood called Norwood, belonging to the archbishops, wherein was anciently a tree called the Vicar's Oak, where four parishes met, as it were, in a point.

It is said to have consisted wholly of oaks, and among them was one that bore a mistletoe, which some persons were so hardy as to cut for the gain of selling it to the apothecaries of London, leaving a branch of it to sprout out; but they proved unfortunate after it, for one of them fell lame and others lost an eye. At length, in the year 1678, a certain man, notwithstanding that he was warned against it, upon the account of what the others had suffered, ventured to cut the tree down, and he soon after broke his leg.

"To fell oaks has long been counted fatal, and such as believe it produce the instance of the Earl of Winchilsea, who, having felled a curious grove of oaks, soon after found his countess dead in her bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon ball."

_Lord Bacon's Dream._

When Lord Bacon, as he himself records, dreamt in Paris that he saw "his father's house in the country plastered all over with black mortar," his feelings were highly wrought upon; the emotions under which he labored were of a very apprehensive kind, and he had no doubt that the next intelligence from England would apprise him of the death of his father.

The sequel proved that his apprehensions were well grounded, for his father actually died the same night in which he had his remarkable dream.

_Reckless Disregard of Omens._

P. Claudius, in the First Punic War, caused the sacred chickens, who would not leave their cage, to be pitched into the sea, saying: "If they will not eat, they must drink."

_Sailors' Whistling._

Zoraster imagined there was an evil spirit that could excite violent storms of wind. The sailors are tinctured with a superst.i.tion of the kind, which is the reason why they so seldom whistle on s.h.i.+p-board; when becalmed, their whistling is an invocation.

_The Hinder Well-spout Unlucky._

A curious instance of popular superst.i.tion, in defiance of plain facts to the contrary, is related in a letter written in the year 1808, published in Dr. Aikin's "Athenaeum." The writer says that in the year 1801, he visited Glasgow, and, pa.s.sing one of the princ.i.p.al streets in the neighborhood of the Iron Church, observed about thirty people, chiefly women and girls, gathered round a large public pump, waiting their turn to draw water. The pump had two spouts, behind and before; but he noticed that the hinder one was carefully plugged up, no one attempting to fill her vessel from that source, although she had to wait so long till her turn came at the other spout.

On inquiry, the visitor was informed that, though the same handle brought the same water from the same well through either and both of the spouts, yet the populace, and even some better informed people, had for a number of years conceived an idea, which had become hereditary and fixed, that the water pa.s.sing through the hindermost spout would be _unlucky and poisonous_. This prejudice received from time to time a certain sanction; for in the spout, through long disuse, a kind of dusty fur collected, and this, if at any time the water was allowed to pa.s.s through, made it at first run foul-thus confirming the superst.i.tious prejudice of the people, who told the traveler that it was certain death to drink of the water drawn from the hindermost spout. The magistrates had sought to dispel the ignorant terror of the populace, by cleaning out the well repeatedly in their presence, and explaining to them the internal mechanism of the pump, but all was in vain.

_a.s.suming the Form of a Bird._

That the soul quits the dead body in the form of a bird, is a wide-spread belief, and has been the subject of superst.i.tious fancies from the earliest times. In the Egyptian hieroglyphics, a bird signifies the soul of man.

In the legend of St. Polycarp, who was burned alive, his blood extinguished the flames, and from his ashes arose a white dove which flew towards heaven. It was said that a dove was seen to issue from the funeral pyre of Joan of Arc.

In the Breton ballad of "Lord Nann and the Korrigan" there is an allusion to spirit-bearing doves-

"It was a marvel to see, men say, The night that followed the day, The lady in earth by her lord lay, To see two oak-trees themselves rear From the new-made grave into the air;

"And on their branches two doves white, Who were there hopping gay and light; Which sang when rose the morning ray, And then toward heaven sped away."

A wild song, sung by the boatmen of the Mole, in Venice, declares that the spirit of Daniel Manin, the patriot, is flying about the lagoons to this day in the shape of a beautiful dove.

In the Paris _Figaro_ (October, 1872), is an account of the death of a gipsy belonging to a tribe encamped in the Rue Duhesme. Among other ceremonies, a live bird was held close to the lips of the dying girl, with the view of introducing her soul into the bird.

In certain districts of Russia bread-crumbs are placed in a piece of white linen, outside of the window, for six weeks, under the belief that the soul of the recent inmate will come, in the shape of a bird, to feed upon the crumbs. When Deacon Theodore and his three schismatic brethren were burnt in 1681, the souls of the martyrs, as the "Old Believers"

affirm, appeared in the air as pigeons.

_Talismanic Stones in Birds._

Among the curiosities of ancient credulity was the belief that certain birds possessed stones of remarkable talismanic virtue. One of these was supposed to be found in the brain of the vulture, which gave health to the finder and successful results when soliciting favors. Dioscorides gives an account of the use of an eagle-stone in detecting larceny. The _Alectorius_, a stone worn by the wrestler Milo, was so called from being taken out of the gizzard of a fowl. A stone like a crystal, as large as a bean, extracted from a c.o.c.k, was considered by the Romans to make the wearer invisible. _Corvia_ was the name of a stone obtained from the nest of a crow. The swallow-stone was a Norman superst.i.tion, according to which the bird knows how to find on the seash.o.r.e a stone that restores sight to the blind. Longfellow, in "Evangeline," says-

"Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow Brings from the sh.o.r.e of the sea, to restore the sight of her fledglings."

_Birds Prognosticating Death._

In old times it was believed that certain birds prognosticated death. In Lloyd's "Stratagems of Jerusalem" (1602), he says: "By swallows lighting upon Pirrhus' tents, and lighting upon the mast of Mar. Antonius' s.h.i.+p, sayling after Cleopatra to Egypt, the soothsayers did prognosticate that Pirrhus should be slaine at Argos, in Greece, and Mar. Antonius in Egypt." He alludes to swallows following Cyrus from Persia to Scythia, from which the magi foretold his death. Ravens followed Alexander the Great in returning from India, and going to Babylon, which was a sure presage of his end.

Among the Danish peasantry the appearance of a raven in the village is considered an indication that the parish priest is to die. "There is a common feeling in Cornwall," observes Mr. Hunt, "that the croaking of a raven over the house bodes evil to some of the family." Marlowe, in his "Rich Jew of Malta," described the "sad-presaging raven"-

"That tolls The sick man's pa.s.sport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings."

Gay, in "The Dirge," notices the presage-

"The boding raven on her cottage sat And with hoa.r.s.e croakings warn'd us of our fate."

A number of crows are said to have fluttered about Cicero's head on the very day he was murdered.

An evil prognostic attends the bittern in its flight. Bishop Hall, alluding to a superst.i.tious man, says: "If a bittern flies over his head by night, he makes his will."

Homer has immortalized the crane as foreboding disaster-

"That when inclement winters vex the plain With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain, To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, With noise and order, through the midway sky; To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring, And all the war descends upon the wing."

Here is a saying that includes the magpie as a presager of death-

"One's joy, two's a greet [crying], Three's a wedding, four's a sheet [winding sheet]."

The _burree churree_, an Indian night bird, preys upon dead bodies. The Mohammedans say that should a drop of the blood of a corpse, or any part of it, fall from this bird's beak on a human being, he will die at the end of forty days.

_The Crossbill._

There is an odd superst.i.tion connected with the crossbill, in Thuringia, which makes the wood-cutters very careful of the nests. This bird in captivity is subject to many diseases, such as weak eyes, swelled and ulcerated feet, etc., arising probably from the heat and acc.u.mulated vapors of the stove-heated rooms where they are kept. The Thuringian mountaineer believes that these wretched birds can take upon themselves any diseases to which he is subject, and always keeps some near him. He is satisfied that a bird whose upper mandible bends to the right, has the power of transferring colds and rheumatisms from man to itself; and if the mandible turns to the left, he is equally certain that the bird can render the same service to the women. The crossbill is often attacked with epilepsy, and the Thuringians drink every day the water left by the bird, as a specific against that disease.

_The Ostrich._

The ancient myth about the ostrich was that she did not hatch her eggs by setting upon them, but by the rays of light and warmth from her eyes.