mentions it under this designation, when, in Macbeth, he refers to its use in divination. He says: Augurs and understood relations have By maggot pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The woodpecker, perhaps, of all the fire-bringing birds, has most permeated the ancient mythologies. The Latins named it Picus, whose brother (or double), Pilumnus, was the god of bakers and millers. In early times the millers pounded their corn with a pestle, and pilum signified both pestle and javelin, which are equally types of the thunderbolt. The tapping of the beak of the woodpecker was regarded as partaking of a similar character. On the birth of a child it was customary at Rome to prepare a couch for Pilumnus and Picumnus, who were believed to bring the fire of life, and were supposed to remain until the vitality of the infant was indisputable. The Romans likewise styled the woodpecker Martus and Feronius, from the god Mars and the Sabine goddess Feronia. The name Feronia is indicative of fire or soul bringing, and is intimately connected with that of Phoroneus, the Prometheus of a Peloponessian legend, relating to the original procuration of the heavenly fire. Dr. Kuhn says both names are identical with the epithet commonly applied to the Aryan fire-god Agni, Churanyu, which signifies "one who pounces down, or bears down rapidly." Picus was the son of Saturn, and the first King of Latium, as well as a fire-bringing bird. This, Kelly observes, "is only another way of saying that he, too, like Manu, Minyas, Minos, Phoroneus, and other fire-bringers, is the first man; and therefore it is that, under the name of Picumnus, he continued in latter times to be the guardian genius of children, along with his brother Pilumnus." A remarkable coincidence between the Anglo-Saxon pedigree of Odin, which makes Beav, or Beovolf, one of his ancestors, and the story of the first King of Latium, is noticed by Grimm. Beewolfthat is, bee-eater-is the German name for the woodpecker. Many other birds were believed to forecast the weather, such as the barn door fowl, the stormy petril, the heron, and the crane, all of which appear but to be modifications of the Aryan lightning birds so often referred to. In the Greek version of the myth, the raven represents the dark cloud. Originally, however, the cloud referred to was white; but Apollo, having sent his favourite bird to the fountain for water, was imposed upon by the feathered idler and glutton; he, therefore, turned his plumage black, and condemned him as a punishment to a continuous croaking for water to quench his thirst. Amongst insects, the lady-bird appears to have been a fire-bringer, and is yet much in vogue in matters of augury. Gay says:— This lady-fly I take from off the grass, Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass. I know not whether the dandelion can be classed among the lightning plants, but I remember well the blowing away of its ripened winged seeds with the view to ascertain the time of the day, as well as to solve much more profound mysteries. In the "Athenium Oracle" the following curious rejoinder appears to the query:-"Why rats, toads, ravens, screech owls, are ominous; and how they came to foreknow fatal events ?". The writer replies: "Had the querist said unlucky instead of ominous he might easily have met with satisfaction; a rat is so because it destroys many a Cheshire cheese, &c. A toad is unlucky because it poisons." [This is now known to be erroneous.] "As for ravens and screech owls, they are just as unlucky as cats, when about their courtship, because they make an ugly noise, which disturbes their neighbourhood. 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." Old Reginald Scot, as early as the sixteenth century, stoutly contended "that to prognosticate that guests approach to your house on the chattering of pies or haggisters, [a Kentish term for magpie,] is altogether vanity and superstition." The Shipping Gazette, in April, 1869, contained a communication entitled "A Sailor's Notion about Rats," in which the following passage occurs: "It is a well authenticated fact that rats have often been known to leave ships in the harbour previous to their being lost at sea. Some of those wiseacres who want to convince us against the evidence of our senses will call this superstition. As neither I have time, nor you space, to cavil with such at present, I shall leave them alone in their glory." It is difficult to decide whether the supersti tion, the bad logic, or the self-sufficiency of the writer of this sentence most predominates. It is a pity he did not edify the "wiseacres" as to how "the evidence of our senses" could by any possibility bring us in contact with the motive of rats, with whom we have had no intercourse either of a mental or moral kind. But perhaps the said "Shipmaster" has, after taking rats into his council, rejected their advice, and lost his bark in consequence. Truly it is a difficult matter to determine where abject superstition ends and ordinary credulity begins. The fact that rats do sometimes migrate from one ship to another, or from one barn or corn stack to another, from various causes, ought to be quite sufficient to explain such "evidence of our senses as informs us that "rats have often been known to leave ships in harbour previous to their being lost at sea." If they left the ship at all in harbour, it, of necessity must have been before the vessel was lost at sea. The error lies in the assertion, without the slightest "evidence of our senses" to support it, that sailor rats are genuine Zadkiels, and can peep into futurity by the aid of some supernatural power denied to mariners of the genus homo. This superstition, nevertheless, is evidently one of considerable antiquity. Shakspere refers to it in the Tempest. Prospero, describing the vessel in which himself and daughter had been placed with the view to their certain destruction at sea says: They hurried us aboard a bark; Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared A rotten carcase of a boat, not rigged, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats Instinctively had quit it. 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. I have a faint recollection of a story relative to the use of the divining rod, with the view to ascertain the locality of the "buried treasure," since discovered, in the valley of the Ribble, near Preston, and now known as the celebrated "Cuerdale hoard." This treasure, in all human probability, was consigned to the earth immediately after the famous battle of Brunanburh, in the earlier portion of the tenth century. Although it remained undisturbed about nine hundred years, a tradition survived, which asserted that the place of the deposit could be seen from the promontory overlooking the valley on which Walton, or "Law," Church is situated. The late Mr. B. F. Allen, of Preston, remembered a farmer ploughing deeply the whole of an extensive field in the neighbourhood, in the hope of discovering the long-lost treasure, some professor of the art of divination by the "wish rod" having pronounced in favour of the probability of a successful result. Singularly enough, even after the accidental discovery of the treasure chest of the days of Athelstan, the country people of the neighbourhood still nursed the memory of the tradition with great fondness, firmly believing that the "find" referred to was but a foretaste of what was to come. I was forcibly struck with the tenacity of this species of tradition, when engaged digging on the site of the Roman station at the junction of the Darwen and the Ribble, in 1855. The turning up of a few scattered brass coins of the higher empire, led to a rumour that we had come upon "th' buried goud" at last, and caused us some inconvenience. The Cuerdale hoard, it must be remembered, consisted entirely of coins, marks, and bracelets and other ornaments in silver. Mr. Martland, who farmed the land at the time, told me some curious stories respecting this mound at Walton-le-Dale, which would indicate that treasure-seekers had been more than once practising their vocation in the neighbourhood. Some thirteen or fourteen years previously, a hole nine or ten feet long was dug in one night by some unknown persons. A silver coin (most probably Roman) was found on the filling up of the trench. Mr. Martland likewise remembered hearing of a somewhat similar hole having been excavated between forty or fifty years previously, under equally mysterious circumstances, and not far from the same spot. The locality was watched every evening for a fortnight, before the hole was filled up, with the view to ascertain whether the midnight excavators would resume their labours. Nothing was discovered which either identified the parties or explained their object. The general impression, however, was that they were treasure hunters, and that they had acted under some magical or supernatural direction. In a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century, by John Bell, the necessary formulæ for the procuration and preparation of the divining rod are thus described : "When you find in the wood or elsewhere, on old walls or on high hills or rocks, a rowan which has grown out of a berry let fall from a bird's bill, you must go at twilight in the evening of the third day after our Lady's day, and either uproot or break off the said rod or tree; but you must take care that neither iron or steel come nigh it, and that it do not fall to the ground on the way home. Then place the rod under the roof, at a spot under which you have laid sundry metals, and in a short time you will see with astonishment how the rod gradually bends under the roof towards the metals. When the rod has remained fourteen days or more in the same place, you take a knife or an awl which has been stroked with a magnet, and previously stuck through a great Frögroda (?), slit the bark on all sides, and pour or drop in cock's blood, especially such as is drawn from the comb of a cock of one colour; and when this blood has dried the rod is ready, and gives manifest proof of the efficacy of its wondrous nature." |