Charles Hardwick

“ The inner life of a well of waters, bursting from its grave in the earth, may be religiously said to form a type of the soul purified by death, rising into a glorified existence and the fulness of light. The tranquil beauty of the rising waters, whispering the softest music, like the healthful breathing of a sleeping infant, sends a feeling of happiness through the soul of the thoughtful observer, and the inner man is purified by its influence, as the outer man is cleansed by ablution. ”

“ It became the Hell where the old man hews wood for the Christmas fire, and where the Devil in his eagerness to buy the flitch of bacon yields up the marvellous quern which is 'good to grind almost anything.' It was not so pleasant, indeed, as Heaven, or the old Valhalla, but it was better to be there than shut out in the outer cold beyond its padlocked gates. ”

“ The blinding of this monster is the natural sequel when his mere brute force is pitted against the craft of his adversary. In his seeming insignificance and his despised estate, in his wayworn mien and his many sorrows, Odysseus takes the place of the Boots or Cinderella of Teutonic folk-lore; and as the giant is manifestly the enemy of the bright being whose splendours are for the time being hidden beneath a veil, so it is the representative of the sun himself who pierces out his eye ”

“ All of these legends have been resolved into figurative and sometimes highly poetic descriptions of natural phenomena, and especially what is termed the "elemental strife." The horse's leg thrown down by Odin represents the crooked lightning's flash; the gold its brightness, and the stench its sulphurous odour. The wild boars which he hunts are stormy wind-clouds; the fair ladies the light white scudding vapours that seem to coquette with the squally wind. ”

“ The hooting owl, Tutursel, flies before him, and ravens, birds peculiarly sacred to Woden, accompany the chase. Whoever sees it approach must fall flat on the ground, or shelter himself under any odd number of boards, nine or eleven, otherwise he will be borne away through the air and set down hundreds of miles away from home, among people who speak a strange tongue. It is still more dangerous to look out of the window when Odin is sweeping by. The rash man is struck dead, or at least gets a box on the ear that makes his head swell as big as a bucket, and leaves a fiery mark on his cheek. ”

“ The sun, the moon, the sky or firmament, the dawn and evening twilight, the sea, lightning, clouds, rain, wind, frost, fire, &c., and their attendant active phenomena, contributed mainly to the construction of their mythological edifice. Indra was god of the firmament, the earliest thunderer, the forerunner of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor; Agni was the god of fire, and Soma was the deity who brought down to earth the celestial liquor, the "drink of the gods," the amrita of the Vedas, the nectar of the Greeks. ”

“ But to the dwellers in the North heat brings with it sensations of joy and comfort, and life without fire has a dreary outlook; so their Hel ruled in a cold region over those who were cowards by implication, while the mead-cup went round and huge logs blazed and crackled in Valhalla for the brave and beautiful who had dared to die on the field of battle. But under Christianity the extremes of heat and cold have met, and Hel, the cold, uncomfortable goddess, is now our Hell, where flames and fires abound, and where the devils abide in everlasting flame. ”

“ Thus, these despised and contemned traditionary superstitions of our progenitors are found, nevertheless, to enshrine much valuable material, by a careful study of which we may obtain a deeper insight into some of the more subtle or hidden features of the human soul, the nature and progress of man's intellectual growth, of the origin and development of language as a medium of mental intercommunion, and of the true natural basis on which rest some of the greatest triumphs of plastic and poetic art that have astonished, delighted, and instructed mankind for countless generations. ”

“ On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and, on a table before it, the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and, as the sword was being slowly sheathed, the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all sank gradually to rest ”

“ The instinct of rats leaving an old ship is because they cannot be dry in it, and an old house because, perhaps, they want victuals. A raven is much such a prophet as our conjurors or almanac makers, foretelling events after they are come to pass: they follow great armies, as vultures, not as foreboding battle, but for the dead men, dogs, horses, &c., which, especially in a march, must be daily left behind them. But the foolish observations made on their croaking before death, etc., are for the most part pure humour, and have no grounds besides foolish tradition or a sickly imagination. ”

“ On May-day, in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meadowes and greene woods, there to rejoyce their spirites with the beauty and savour of sweete flowers, and with the harmony of birds praysing God in their kind. ”

“ The hounds of the "spectre huntsman" are believed to be human souls transformed into air; which in their wild career strip the hedges of the linen placed there to dry; they eat up or scatter abroad meal and the ashes that lay on the peasant's hearth. The hound sometimes left behind in the household, through which the wild hunt has passed, is supposed to repose on the hearth for a whole year, during which time it lives [172] upon ashes, and howls and whines, until the spectre horseman returns, when it jumps on its feet, wags its tail with joy, and rejoins its ancient comrades. ”

“ Hence the many traditions of heroes slumbering in caves, awaiting the signal for future battle, and their triumph over the enchantment that has held them for ages spell-bound. Frederic Barbarossa—he of the red beard like Odin—is yet believed by the German peasantry to rest in a cavern, surrounded by his knights, in the Kyffhäuser mountain, "leaning his head upon his arm, at a table through which his beard has grown, or around which, according to other accounts, it has grown twice. When it has thrice encircled the table he will awake up to battle. ”

“ As the "Lancashire witches" of the present day do "work their spells" upon their masculine friends, though in a more pleasing form and agreeable manner than their haggard and aged predecessors, it is not improbable that the emblem of power may have accompanied the transmission of the once dreaded appellation. Brooms, after being used in the performance of divers mythical ceremonies, were hung up in houses, and regarded, like pieces of the rowan or mountain ash-tree, as powerful charms against the entrance of evil doers. ”

“ It was a hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long since dead; the last earl, before dying, hid it in the earth-cave, and for three hundred winters the great scather held the cave, until some man, finding by chance a rich cup, took it to his lord. Then the den was searched while the worm slept; again and again when the dragon awoke there had been theft. He found not the man, but wasted the whole land with fire; nightly, the fiendish air-flyer made fire grow hateful to the sight of men. Then it was told to Beowulf.... He sought out the dragon's den and fought with him in awful strife. ”

“ The hen's golden egg is the sun itself. The demon of darkness has stolen these things; the cloud gives no rain, but hangs dusky in the sky, veiling the light of the sun. Then the lightning spear of the ancient storm-god, Odin, leaps out from the bag that concealed it (the cloud again) , the robber falls, the rain patters down, the sun shines once more." In other words we have the Sanscrit Vritra, the dragon, or "dark thief," stealing the herds [162] of Indra, and hiding them in the cave of the Panis (the dark cloud) , and the weapon of the lightning-god effecting their liberation. ”

“ It does not matter whether you take Dorus as the son of Apollo or the son of Helen; he equally symbolises the power of light; while his brother Æolus, through all his descendants, chiefly in Sisyphus, is confused or associated with the real god of the winds, and represents to you the power of the air. And then, as this conception enters into art, you have the myths of Dædalus, the flight of Icarus, and the story of Phrixus and Helle, giving you continual associations of the physical air and light, ending with the power of Athena over Corinth as well as over Athens. ”

“ The trader in horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's feet. 'All these men,' said the wizard in a whisper, 'will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmoor.' At the extremity of this extraordinary depôt hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the horse dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. ”

“ The new and more powerful spirit is an addition to the old Pantheon, and diminishes the importance of the older deities; gradually, the worship of the latter sinks in the social scale, and becomes confined to the ignorant and the young. Thus a belief in witchcraft still flourishes among our agricultural labourers and the lowest classes in our great cities, and the deities of our ancestors survive in the nursery tales of our children. ”

“ Truly, popular superstition, as well as tradition, is "tough." Forms, manners, and customs may change externally, but it requires the lapse of long, long periods of time to totally eradicate from the imagination of an entire people all faith in any mystery, however absurd to modern scientific minds, to which their ancestors once clung with simple earnest truthfulness. The witchcraft of the old Demdike and Chattox school, in all its essential features, is derived from the early superstitions of our Eastern Aryan progenitors. ”

“ In this picture, as in the storms of the desert, the sun becomes the one great eye of an enormous monster, who devours every living thing that crosses his path, as Polyphêmos devoured the comrades of Odysseus. ”

“ The mythology of the Southern Aryans presents a similar confusion; their tribe of demons, the Râkshasas or Atrins (devourers) , Kelly regards as the "earliest originals of the giants and ogres of our nursery tales. They can take any form at will, but their natural one is that of a huge misshapen giant 'like a cloud,' with hair and beard of the colour of red lightning. They go about open-mouthed, gnashing their monstrous teeth and snuffing after human flesh. Their strength waxes most terrible in twilight, and they know how to increase its effect by all sorts of magic. ”

“ At the close of the fireworks in Penzance, a great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in hand, forming a long string, and run through the streets, playing 'thread the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and ofttimes leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have, on these occasions, seen boys following one another, jumping through flames higher than themselves. ”

“ I am not alone in the world like you.' The sun answered, 'Oh, moon, you bring witchcraft, and it is you have killed all my people, or I should have as many attendants as you.' According to the negroes, people are more liable to die when the moon first makes her appearance and when she is last visible. They say that she calls the people her insects and devours them. The moon with them is the emblem of time and death."
The Teutonic tribes appear, contrary to the general faith of their Aryan kindred, to have regarded the sun as a female and the moon as a male deity. ”

“ There is doubtless much force in Hallam's observation that "similarity of laws and customs may often be traced to natural causes in the state of society rather than to imitation." Yet the strong tendency of all humanity to imitation of every kind, the "toughness of tradition," and the longevity of superstitious belief, are nevertheless equally powerful agents in the mental development of humanity, and demand the most careful consideration and regard, when the nature and character of progressive civilisation, in any age or country, is subjected to philosophical analysis. ”

“ Some writers, indeed, who advocate the hypothesis of man's descent by "natural selection" or "evolution," from the lower animals, contend that some antitype of humanity may have lived in the Miocene period, but of this we have no evidence. The extinct gigantic animals, found in connection with the oldest known remains of man, are pachyderms, which in no way resemble, either in their habits, or by the most strained metaphor, in their forms, the dragons and serpents of the Aryan mythology or their modern descendants in British history and tradition. ”

“ To hidden treasure, where it lies;
Mankind is (sure) that rod divine,
For to the wealthiest ever they incline!
S. Sheppard, 1651. Faith in the power of the "wish" or "divining rod" is by no means extinct in the North of England. In modern times it is chiefly believed to be potent in the detection of metallic veins, hidden treasure, or subterranean springs of water. Our ancestors, however, held that this mystic instrument was endowed with the faculty of bringing "luck" or good fortune to its possessor, and of causing his slightest wish or desire to receive fulfilment. ”

“ Indra was another conception of the bright sunny sky, but, partly because its etymological meaning was obscured, partly through the more active poetry and worship of certain Rishis, this name gained a complete ascendancy over that of Dyu, and nearly extinguished the memory in India of one of the earliest, if not the earliest, name by which the Aryans endeavoured to express their first conception of the deity. Originally, however, and this is one of the most important discoveries which we owe to the study of the Veda—originally Dyu was the bright heavenly deity in India as well as in Greece. ”

“ Cox justly observes, "exhibits the germ, and more than the germ, of the myth of Hermes returning like a child to his cradle after tearing up the forests." Hermes, as a personification of both the gentle breeze and the stormy wind, gives forth soothing as well as martial music, and his plaintive breath was supposed "to waft the spirits of the dead to their unseen home." Crantz says the Greenland Esquimaux "lay a dog's head by the grave of a child, for the soul of a dog can find its way everywhere, and will show the ignorant babe the way to the land of souls." ”

“ How long will they rise? [296]
"Those mortals who beheld the pristine Ushas dawning have passed away: to us she is now visible, and they approach who will behold her in after times.
"Ushas, endowed with truth, who art the sister of Bhava, the sister of Varuna, be thou hymned first of the gods.
"Unimpeding divine rites, although wearing away the ages of mankind, the dawn shines the likeness of the mornings that have passed, or that are to be for ever, the first of those that are to come.
"She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. ”

“ The superstition that the howling of a dog, especially in the night time, portends the death of some person in the immediate neighbourhood, is yet, at the present day, firmly believed in, even by the middle, and by no means uneducated, classes in Lancashire. I listened, not very long ago, to the serious recital of a story by one who heard the howling and knew well the party whose death immediately followed. ”