66 Amongst the other virtues ascribed to dew gathered on May-day morning, its supposed power over the complexion yet finds believers. Old Pepys, in his most interesting, if sometimes stupid, diary, says :— My wife away down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre, and to lay there to-night, and so to gather May dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with; and I am contented with it." Kelly says: "The Aryan idea, that the rain clouds were cows, has been well preserved among the Northern nations. It is a very common opinion that rain and dew, the milk of the heavenly cows, are capable of increasing the milk of the earthly cows; hence a dewy May morning is welcomed as giving promise of a good dairy year." Mannhardt speaks of a practice in North Germany of tying a May bush to the tail of the leading cow on May-day morning, in order that she may brush up the potent dew, and so increase the contents of her udder. But the strangest faith in the potency of May-dew is related by Sir John Mandeville. The quaint old traveller seriously assures us that in Ethiopia there are male and female diamonds that enter into matrimonial relationship and have offspring! Nay, he declares that he himself has "often tymes assayed it," and found that the precious stones do grow year by year, on one condition, namely, that they be well wetted with May-dew! He says :— "And ther be sume of the gretnesse of a bene, and sume als grete as an haselle note. And thei ben square and poynted of here owne kinde, bothe aboven and benethen, withouten worchinge of mannes hond. And thei growen to gedre, male and femele. And thei ben norysscht with the dew of Hevene. And thei engendren comounly, and bryngen forthe smale children, that multiplyen and growen alle the yeer. I have often tymes assayed, that gif a man kepe hem with a litylle of the roche, and wete hem with May dew ofte sithes, thei schulle growe everyche yeer; and the small wole waxen grete.". Sir Kenelm Digby, two centuries ago, in a letter to the younger Winthorp, governor of New England, expresses his great faith in the efficacy of dew in the cure of deliriums, frenzies, and manias; but he does not intimate any preference for dew gathered on Mayday. All dew does not appear, however, to have possessed these curative qualities. Some, indeed, was of a malignant or deadly character. Ariel, in "the Tempest," speaks of "the deep nook" in the harbour where once, Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew Caliban, when venting his rage on Prospero and Miranda, can find no stronger curse than the following:— As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, May not this dew superstition have relationship, in some of its phases, to the classic myth of Kephalos (the head of the sun), Procris (the dew), and Eos (the east or morning)? Mr. Cox says "it sprung from three simple phrases, one of which said, 'The sun loves the dew;' while the second said that 'the morning loves the sun;' and the third added that the sun killed the dew.' Hence both the good and evil influences attendant thereon. CHAPTER VI. WITCHCRAFT. What are these, So wither'd and so wild in their attire; That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, Shakspere. THE County of Lancaster especially has been famous for its witches or infamous, rather, if the reader prefer the latter epithet. Certainly, the hanging of the poor old women from Pendle side, for their supposed sorcery, is neither a legislative nor a judicial feat to feel very proud of, especially in these days of "spirit-rapping mediums" and dark séance performers, who supply writing done by invisible hands, and cause heads to be thumped by malignant imps in the shape of discordant fiddles, trumpets, and tambourines. This modern necromancery, it must not be forgotten, is performed under aristocratic patronage, and for a monetary consideration which would have rejoiced greatly the hearts that beat wildly beneath the weatherworn skins of poor old Dame Demdike and her compeers. 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. Nay, the mystical character of many of its more vulgar "stage properties," such as cauldrons, besoms, sieves, hares, cats, &c., was recorded with all due solemnity in the Rig Vedas of the Southern Aryans, some three thousand two hundred years ago. Pliny says that, in his day, the Britons celebrated magic rites with so many similar ceremonies that one might suppose them to have been instructed therein by the Persians. In the Britain of our day, after passing through both Keltic, Teutonic, Greek, and Roman channels, these superstitions yet exist either in the traditionary lore of the rustic population, or the more elevated art forms with which poetry, sculpture, and painting have clothed them. The diamond crystal and the charred willow branch are near relatives of the carbon family; and it may truly be said that a similar relationship exists between the weird "folk lore" of the wild moorlands or the lonely mountain glens and the noble artistic creations of a Shakspere, a Walter Scott, an Ovid, a Homer, an Apelles, or a Phidias. Truly, "one touch of Nature makes the whole world kin," and especially if that touch be given by a finger which has been dipped deeply in the dark pool of mysticism. Witches appear, on the whole, and in more modern times especially, to typify evil or malignant influences, and are not unfrequently degraded forms of the deities of a preceding mythology. Kelly, on the authority of Schwartz and others, speaks of the "human witches" of Northern nations as "degenerate and abhorred representatives of the ancient goddesses and their attendants, who were themselves developments of the primitive conception of the cloud-women; but witches, even in their degraded state, exhibit a multitude of characteristics by which we can recognise the originals of whom they are but loathsome caricatures. Their alleged May-day meetings, for instance, on the Brocken, the Blocksberg, and at Lucken Hare, in the Eildon Hills, are not, as commonly supposed, merely reminiscences of certain popular gatherings in heathen times, but were originally assemblages of goddesses and their retinues, making their customary progress through the land at the opening of the spring, and visible to their believing votaries in the shifting clouds about the summits of the mountains. Even the May-day night dances of the witches, with the devil for the master of the ceremonies in the shape of a buck goat, are but coarse representations of weather tokens of the early spring; they are analogous in all but their ugliness to the dances of the nymphs, led by the goat-footed Pan at the same glad season of the year amongst the clouds on the windy mountain tops of Arcadia." The witch revelling at Alloway Kirk, as detailed in several Scottish traditions, and rendered immortal by the genius of Burns, seems to confirm this view. Amongst the infernal deities of classical mythology were the Fates or Destinies, named Parcæ. They were, like Shakspere's weird sisters, H three in number, and are said by some to have been the offspring of Erebus and Nox, and by others of Jupiter and Themis. Their mode of divination was a spinning process. When determining the future life or career of a mortal, Clotho held the distaff, while Lachesis did the spinning and Atropos cut the thread. According to Ovid, these divining deities were equally successful in their occult labours when without, as when with, some necessary “staple” on which to exercise their spinning ingenuity or skill. Witches were supposed to compass the death of any obnoxious individual by making an image of the victim in wax. As this slowly melted before a fire, or under other applied heat, it was believed the original would in like manner sicken and decay. Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar results. This superstition yet obtains to a great extent in the East and elsewhere. Dubois, in his "People of India," speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay, and write the names of the objects of their animosity on the breasts thereof. These are afterwards pierced with thorns or otherwise mutilated, "so as to communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented." There is considerable affinity, in this phase of the superstition, to the classic solar myth which records the doom of Meleager. The Moræ, the three sisters, or the Fates, informed Althæa, the mother of the future hero, when in his cradle, that her son would die when a certain brand they pointed out on the hearth was totally consumed. She instantly snatched it away, plunged it into water, and hid it in a secret place. In later years, Meleager slew a brother of Althæa, which so exasperated the mother that she laid her curse upon her son. She brought out the brand from its hiding place, and flung it on the fire. As it burnt away, the strength of the hero decayed, and, with the extinguishing of its last spark, he expired. Mr. Cox says Meleager's life is that "of the sun, which is bound up with the torch of day; when the torch burns out he dies.” The gradual change of the old Aryan superstition into its more modern form would seem to be indicated by a passage in the writings of Pomponius Mela, who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The old writer, describing what his translator terms a “Druidical nunnery," says it "was situated in an island in the British sea, and contained nine of these venerable vestals, who pretended that they could raise storms and tempests by their incantations, could cure the most incurable diseases, could transform themselves into all kinds of animals, and foresee future events." |