Robert Means Lawrence

“ Let us suppose, for example, a society of men so passionately devoted to hunting as to make it their sole employment; they would doubtless contract thereby a kind of rusticity and fierceness. But if they happened to imbibe a taste for music, we should quickly perceive a sensible difference in their customs and manners. In short, the exercises used by the Greeks could raise but one kind of passions, namely, fierceness, indignation, and cruelty. But music excites all these, and is likewise able to inspire the soul with a sense of pity, lenity, tenderness, and love. ”

“ A curious superstition about iron locks prevails in Styria and Tyrol. If you procure from a locksmith a brand-new lock and carry it to church at the time of a wedding ceremony, and if, while the benediction is being said, you fasten the lock by a turn of the key, then the young couple’s love and happiness is destroyed. Mutual aversion will supplant affection until you open the lock again. ”

“ How can religion or reason suffer men that are not void of both, to give such impious credit unto an insignificant and senseless mumbling of idle words contrary to reason, without president of any truly wise or learned, and justly suspected of all sensible men? ”

“ When, on the battlefield, a mounted farrier is hard pressed by enemies, he runs the risk of being killed so long as he remains upon his horse with weapons in his hand. But if he alights, kneels down, and with the corners of his hooded cloak or burnous imitates the movements of a pair of bellows, thus revealing his profession, his life is spared. ”

“ When one sees a brass instrument that looks like a trident approaching one's body, and feels long crackling sparks shoot out of its prongs against one's body, it naturally makes a very strong impression upon one's mind. ”

“ The blood sprinkled upon the door-posts and lintel at the time of the great Jewish feast formed the chief points of an arch, and it may be that with this in mind people adopted the horse-shoe as an arch-shaped talisman, and it thus became generally emblematic of good luck.
The same thought may underlie the practice of the peasants in the west of Scotland, who train the boughs of the rowan or mountain-ash tree in the form of an arch over a farmyard gate to protect their cattle from evil. ”

“ Few physicians amongst us are eminent for their skill. Quacks abound like Locusts in Egypt, and too many have recommended themselves to a full Practice and profitable subsistence. This is the less to be wondered at, as the Profession is under no Kind of Regulation. Loud as the call is, to our Shame be it remembered, we have no Law to protect the Lives of the King's Subjects from the Malpractice of Pretenders. Any man at his Pleasure sets up for Physician, Apothecary and Chirurgeon. No candidates are either examined or licensed, or even sworn to fair practice. ”

“ Indeed, there appears to be a quite general belief in different portions of Africa that metal-workers as a class are superior beings,—of higher origin than their fellow-tribesmen. When a savage people, without a knowledge of farriery, acquired by conquest a new territory, and found therein blacksmiths plying their vocation, they naturally regarded these artisans with wonder, not unmixed with fear. ”

“ Unscrupulous charlatans have shrewdness enough to make free use of the power of suggestion in their nefarious practice, though oftentimes doubtless wholly ignorant of its mode of action. The great majority of them, while probably unaware of the existence of subconscious mental life, have always had a vivid realization of the positive fact of the gullibility of human nature, a fact which affords them the keenest pleasure and enduring satisfaction. ”

“ Apropos of horns as symbols of strength, the peasants of Bannú, a district of the Punjab, believe that God placed the newly created world upon a cow’s horn, the cow on a fish’s back, and the fish on a stone; but what the stone rests upon, they do not venture to surmise. According to their theory, whenever the cow shakes her head, an earthquake naturally results. ”

“ The inhabitants of ancient Chaldea, in common with many primitive peoples of later times, cherished the belief that all diseases were caused by demons. Medicine was merely a branch of Magic, and the chief healing agents were exorcisms, incantations, and enchanted beverages. There were, properly speaking, no physicians. Sometimes, wrote François Lenormant, in "Chaldean Magic," disease was regarded as an effect of the wickedness of different demons, and sometimes it appears to have been considered as the work of a distinct malevolent being, who exercised his power upon man. ”

“ The reader finds a scene drawn in stronger colors, and painted more to the life in his imagination, by the help of words, than by an actual survey of the scene which they describe. In this case the poet seems to get the better of nature. He takes indeed the landscape after her, but gives it more vigorous touches, heightens its beauty, and so enlivens the whole piece, that the images which flow from the objects themselves, appear weak or faint in comparison with those that come from the expressions. ”

“ As a practical device for the protection of horses’ feet, the utility of the iron horse-shoe has long been generally recognized; and for centuries, in countries widely separated, it has also been popularly used as a talisman for the preservation of buildings or premises from the wiles of witches and fiends.
To the student of folk-lore, a superstition like this, which has exerted so wide an influence over men’s minds in the past, and which is also universally prevalent in our own times, must have a peculiar interest. ”

“ However, the development in recent years of a widespread interest in all branches of folk-lore warrants the hope that any volume devoted to this subject, and representing somewhat diligent research, may [iv] have a certain value, in spite of its imperfections. The expert folk-lorist may find much to criticise; but this book, treating of popular beliefs, is intended for popular reading. It has been the writer’s aim to make the chapter on the Horse-Shoe as exhaustive as possible, as this attractive symbol of superstition does not appear to have received hitherto the attention which it merits. ”