Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer

“ Hence the Feux Follet, as it is called, is a source of terror, and its weird appearance is much dreaded by old and young; many stories being told of the injury done to unwary travelers by its wicked knavery.
Again, a Danish tradition affirms that Jack-o'-lanterns are the spirits of unrighteous men, who by a false glimmer seek to mislead the wayfarer and to decoy him into bogs and moors. The best safeguard against them, when they appear, is to turn one's cap inside out. One should never point at them, as they will come if pointed at. ”

“ There is a physical advantage in whistling which should excuse it against all the canons of propriety or 'good form.' It is often remarked that the average girl is so narrow-chested, and in that respect compares so unfavorably with her brother, which may be due in some measure to the habit of whistling which every boy acquires." An eminent medical authority says: "All the men whose business it is to try the wind-instruments made at the various factories before sending them off for sale are, without exception, free from pulmonary affections. ”

“ Indeed, few subjects have given rise to a greater variety of popular every-day sayings than whistling. Thus the expression, to "pay for one's whistle"—a favorite phrase with George Eliot—means to gratify one's fancy. Again, a thing worthy of notice is said in common parlance to be "worth the whistle"; the reference obviously being to the ordinary way of calling up a dog. Heywood, for instance, in one of is proverbs, says, "It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling." Shakespeare, too, makes Goneril say to Albany, in "King Lear" (Act iv, scene 2) :
"I have been worth the whistle." ”

“ In some districts of North Germany the villagers say that if one whistles in the evening it makes the angels weep. Speaking, however, of ladies in connection with whistling, it is a widespread superstition that it is at all times unlucky for them to whistle, which, according to one legend, originated in the circumstance that, while the nails for our Lord's cross were being forged, a woman stood by and whistled. ”

“ The following passage from a modern writer [11] proves, too, that in some places the idea of Puck as a delusive fairy haunting the woods and fields is not yet extinct: "The peasants in certain districts of Worcestershire say that they are sometimes what they call 'Poake-ledden,' that is, they are occasionally waylaid in the night by a mischievous sprite whom they call Poake, who leads them into ditches, bogs, pools, and other such scrapes, often sets up a loud laugh, and leaves them, quite bewildered, in the lurch." ”

“ The Russians in the Ukraine tell a queer story about a whistling robber of olden times, who evidently was a person of gigantic proportions, for he was in the habit of sitting on nine oak-trees at once. One of the nicknames given to him was "Nightingale," on account of his extraordinary whistling powers. Should an unwary traveler come across his path, he would whistle so melodiously that his victim would quickly faint away, whereupon he stepped forward and killed him outright. ”

“ As the action of blowing wind-instruments is the same as that of whistling, the effects should be the same. Whistling has been popularly styled the "devil's music," the reason, in all probability, being that, when persons are up to anything wrong and likely to be caught, they assume an air of indifference by whistling. ”

“ As may be imagined, the jokes to which this fresh wonder of creation gave rise were unlimited; and Thackeray was in the habit of relating an amusing story of his own experience in connection with it. It appears that he was one day in the shop when an American came in to see this startling freak of nature; after hearing the talented niollusk go through its usual performance, he walked contemptuously out, remarking at the same time that "it was nothing to an oyster he knew of in Massachusetts, which whistled 'Yankee Doodle' right through, and followed its master about the house like a dog." ”

“ IN whatever way regarded, either as a graceful accomplishment or as the spontaneous expression of light-heartedness, whistling has in our own and foreign countries generally attracted considerable attention. Why it should have been invested with so much superstitious awe it is difficult to say, but it is a curious fact that the same antipathy which it arouses among certain classes of our own countrymen is found existing in the most distant parts of the earth, where, as yet, civilization has made little or imperceptible progress. ”

“ Thus he who in his lifetime has been guilty of such a crime is believed to have no peace or rest in his grave after death, but to rise every midnight, and, with a lantern in his hand, to proceed to the spot where in days gone by the landmark had stood which he had fraudulently removed. ”

“ A Brittany piece of folk-lore is that the "Porte-brandon" appears in the form of a child bearing a torch, which he turns round like a burning wheel—occasionally setting fire to the villages which from some inexplicable cause are suddenly wrapped in flames. ”

“ Franklin says the "ambitious who dance attendant on court, the miser who gives this world and the next for gold, the libertine who ruins his health for pleasure, the girl who marries a brute for money, all in the long run pay too much for their whistle." ”

“ The good man, runs the story, was so terribly frightened, that, forgetting all his kind intentions, he took to his heels and ran home as fast as his legs could take him. In Lusatia, where the same superstition prevails, these fires are supposed to be quite harmless, and the souls of the unbaptized children to be relieved from their destined wanderings so soon as any pious hand throws a handful of consecrated ground after them. ”

“ Indeed, it would seem that in past centuries whatever phenomena were of an apparently illusive or hostile character were regarded by primitive science as specially designed to work pain or evil, even although, by way of treacherous bait, they might possess, the most attractive qualities. ”

“ Thus, among the colliers of Leicestershire, we are told how, when trade is brisk and money plentiful, disposing them for a drinking-frolic, they are said to hear the warning voice of the "Seven Whistlers"—birds sent purposely, as they affirm, by Providence to warn them of an impending danger, and on hearing the signal not a man will descend into the pit until the following day. ”

“ Thus, oftentimes, the harmless and beautiful phenomena in nature have been invested with an evil name, simply because our ancestors, living in the childhood of the world, were unable to comprehend their meaning, and so, in all the freshness of their creative fancy, regarded them as demoniacal agencies to thwart and hinder man's progress in moral culture. ”

“ Some maintain that the whistler's mouth is not to be purified for forty days; while, according to the explanation of others, Satan touching a man's body causes him to produce, what they consider, an offensive sound. [2] The natives of the Tonga Islands, Polynesia, hold it to be wrong to whistle, as this act is thought to be disrespectful to God. [3] In Iceland, the villagers have the same objection to whistling, and so far do they carry their superstitious dread of it that "if one swings about him a stick, whip, wand, or aught that makes a whistling sound, he scares from him the Holy Ghost" ”

“ We have already noticed, too, Shakespeare's allusion to Ariel's assuming this form, who, like Puck, is a fairy. The term Puck, which is evidently the same as the old word "Pouke," a devil or evil spirit, still survives, although its spelling in lapse of years has become somewhat altered. ”

“ According to a Netherlandish tradition, [15] because the souls of these wretched children can not enter heaven, they, under the form of "Jack-o'-Lanterns," take their abode in forests, and in dark and desert places, where they mourn over their bitter lot. Whenever they are fortunate enough to see any one, they run up and hasten before him, in order to show the way to some water, that they may get baptized. ”

“ It is worthy, too, of note that, although in these enlightened days every relic of primitive culture is gradually fading from our gaze, the old superstitious fancies associated with this nocturnal visitor still survive with more or less vigor, retaining that hold on the vulgar mind which they formerly possessed. ”

“ Referring to whistling performances, Addison, in one of the earlier numbers of the "Spectator," gives an amusing account of a contest, where a prize of a guinea was to be conferred on the successful competitor who could not only whistle the best, but go through his tune without laughing, and that in spite of the ludicrous antics of a certain merry-andrew, whose special duty it was to try as far as possible to discompose each of the competitors by making grimaces. ”

“ Douce, [5] commenting on the passage in "The Tempest" quoted above, thinks that Shakespeare consulted Batman's "Golden Books of the Leaden Gōddes," who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says, "They were figured like two lamps or crescent lights, one on the top of a mast, the other on the stem or foreship." He adds that, if the first light appears on the foreship and ascends upward, it is a sign of good luck; if either light begins at the topmast and descends toward the sea, it is a sign of a tempest. ”

“ To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool,
There swallowed up and lost from succor far." In Normandy, the peasant believes that the Will-o'-the-Wisp is a cruel and malicious spirit whom it is highly dangerous to encounter. Mademoiselle Bosquet, in her "Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse," says that it follows and persecutes any unfortunate person who runs away from it; his only chance of escape, when sore-pressed, being to throw himself on his face and to invoke the Divine assistance. ”

“ Once more, the old hackneyed proverbs "To wet one's whistle" and "To whistle for more" allude to the whistle drinking-cups of days gone by. It appears that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, silversmiths devoted a large amount of invention to the production of drinking-tankards, which took the form of men, animals, birds, etc., of most grotesque design. ”

“ One cause, perhaps, of the absence of this custom among women may be, in a measure, due to the distortion of the features which it occasions. Thus we know how Minerva cast away, with an imprecation, the pipe, which afterward proved so fatal to Marsyas, when she beheld in the water the disfigurement of her face caused by her musical performance. ”

“ Curiously enough, however, one very seldom hears any of the fair sex indulging in this recreation, although there is no reason, as it has been often pointed out, why they should not whistle with as much facility as the opposite sex. ”

“ This superstition is alluded to in the "Comical Pilgrim's Pilgrimage into Ireland" (1723, page 92) : "An ignis fatuus the silly people deem to be a soul broken out of purgatory." It is also said that the Will–o'-the-Wisp is the soul of a priest [20] who has been condemned to expiate his vows of perpetual chastity by wandering about ”