In 1115, differences having arisen touching the elevation of Hugh de Montaigu to the Bishopric of Auxerre, the case was brought before Pope Pascal II., who decided in favour of his consecration, and ordained him himself. It was urged by his friends in his favour, that on the opening of the book above his head, during the ceremony, these words stood out at the head of the page, “Ave Maria! graciâ plena!” and this was regarded as a token of his chastity, humility, and exemplary piety, and of the favour in which he was held by the Blessed Virgin.
According to the use of the ancient church of Terouanne, on the reception of a new canon, it was customary to open at random the Psalter, after that the volume had been sprinkled by the dean with holy water, and the paragraph at the head of the page was transcribed in the letters patent of the new canon. The same custom was in force, as late as last century, in the cathedral of Boulogne, and the bishop, De Langle, tried in vain in 1722 to abolish it.
The Bollandists relate that St. Petrock ofCornwall, when in doubt whether to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or not, was decided by opening his Bible at the passage in Isaiah, “Et erit sepulchrum ejus gloriosum.” A similar story is told of St. Poppo, a Belgian saint of the eleventh century.
The anecdote is well known of King Charles and Lord Falkland consulting the Sortes Virgilianæ in the library at Oxford. The lines they met with and which were so singularly verified afterwards, are marked with their initials in the book, which is still preserved.
Rabelais refers to the Sortes Virgilianæ when he makes Panurge consult them on the subject of his marriage.
Gregory of Tours, sad at heart because of the desolation produced by the ravages of Count Leudaste in and around the city, entered his oratory; “and,” as he tells us himself, “full of trouble, I took up the Psalms of David, in hopes of finding, when I opened the book, some verse which might bring me consolation. And I found this: ‘He brought them out safely, that they should not fear; and overwhelmed their enemies with the sea.’”
Gregory relates another story akin to the subject. Clovis, at the moment when he was marching against Alaric, king of the Visigoths, sent his deputies to the Church of St. Martin, at Tours, saying to them, “Go, and maybe, in the holy temple you will find some presage of victory.” After having given them presents for the sacred place, he added: “O LordGod! if Thou art on my side, if Thou art determined to deliver into my hands this unbelieving nation, hostile to Thy name, grant that I may see Thy favour, or the entry of my servants into the basilica of St. Martin, that I may know if Thou deignest to be favourable to Thy suppliant.”
The envoys having hastened to Tours, entered the cathedral at the moment when the Precentor gave out the Antiphon: “Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou shalt throw down mine enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn their backs upon me: and I shall destroy them that hate me” (Ps. xviii. 37, 40).
Hearing this, they gave thanks to God, presented their offerings, and returned with joy to announce the omen to their king.
Divination by Scripture has been forbidden by several national councils, probably on account of the superstitious use made of it. The sixteenth canon of the Council of Vannes, held in 465, forbids clerks under pain of excommunication, consulting the Sortes Sacræ. This prohibition was extended to the laity by the forty-second canon of the Council of Agde, in 506. “Aliquanti clerici sive laici student auguriis, et sub nomine fictœ religionis, per eas, quas sanctorum sortes vocant, diviniationis scientiam profitentur, aut quarumcunque scripturorum inspectione futura promittunt.” It was also forbidden by the Council of Orleans in 511; again by that of Auxerre in 595; by that of Selingstadt in 1022;by that of Enham, in 1009; and by a capitulary of Charlemagne, in 789.
Related to Sortes Sacræ are those messages which are supposed to be conveyed by the chance hearing or reading of a passage of Scripture. These are not, however, to be regarded in the light of superstition, and it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that certain texts accidentally met with may influence for good or bad those who are in a disposition of mind to be so affected.
The well-known story of St. Augustine’s conversion is to the point. He relates himself how sitting in a garden-house, in great trouble of mind, he heard a voice say, “Tolle, lege”; whereupon he took up the sacred Scriptures and read, “Not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. xiii. 13, 14).
St. Anthony was moved to the assumption of the religious life by accidentally hearing—“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me” (St. Matt, xix. 21).
St. Louis when trying a murderer was much inclined by his natural tenderness of disposition to pardon the man; but his resolution to let justice take her course was strengthened by opening his Psalter at the words, “Feci judicium et justitiam.”
But, to conclude, the true use of Holy Scripture is best learned from our English Collect, which asks that we may read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its glorious lessons, taken as a whole, and not wring disjointed directions for conduct from stray passages.
Gage, the Dominican, a great admirer of chocolate, a man who combated with all his energy the objections which medical men of the seventeenth century made to its use, derived its name fromatte, the Mexican word for water, and the sound it makes when poured out,—choco, choco, choco, choco!
O Professor Max Müller! what do you say to this? Whatever the derivation of the name may be, the composition of the beverage is well known. Cacao, sugar, long-pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, almonds, mace, aniseed, are the main constituents, and the cake-chocolate used in Britain is believed to be made of about one-half genuine cacao, the remainder of flour or Castile soap.
We are not going any further into the mysteries of its composition, which may be ascertained from any encyclopædia, for our business is with a circumstance in connection with its history probably known to few.
And first for our authority—the afore-mentioned Dominican. Thomas Gage was born of a goodfamily in England; his elder brother was Governor of Oxford in 1645, when King Charles retreated thither during the Great Rebellion. Whilst still young, Thomas had been sent to Spain for education, and had entered the Dominican order, and having been, like so many Spanish ecclesiastics, fired with missionary zeal, he embarked at Cadiz for Vera Cruz, whence he betook himself to Mexico, near which town he made a retreat, previous to devoting himself to a life of toil in the Philippines.
However, the accounts he received of these islands were so discouraging, and the monastic life in Mexico was so inviting, that he postponed his expedition indefinitely. But Gage had no intention of spending his life in ease: he hurried over the different districts of Mexico and Guatemala, making himself acquainted with the languages spoken wherever he went, and he laboured indefatigably as priest to several parishes of great extent.
Gage’s account of the cultivation of the cacao and the manufacture of chocolate is interesting, his treatise on its medical properties—conceived in the taste and spirit of his day—curious, and his personal narrative lively and amusing.
One little statement must not be passed over. Chocolate, it seems, is useful as a cosmetic; Creole ladies eat it to deepen their skin tint, just on the same principle, observes Gage, as English ladies devour whitewash from the walls to clarify their complexion.
Chiapa was a central point for Gage’s labours during a considerable period. At that time it was a small cathedral town, containing 400 Spanish families, and 100 Mexican houses in a faubourg by itself.
The cathedral served as parish church to the inhabitants: one Dominican and one Franciscan monastery, besides a poverty-stricken nunnery, supplied the religious requirements of the diocesan city. No Jesuits there! quoth Gage, with a little rancour. Those good men seldom leave rich and opulent towns; and when you learn the fact that there are no Jesuits at Chiapa, you may draw the immediate inference that the town is poor, and the inhabitants not liberally disposed.
Liberally disposed! The high and stately Creole Dons, who claimed descent from half the noble families of Spain; the grand representatives of the De Solis, Cortez, De Velasco, De Toledo, De Zerna, De Mendoza, who lived by cattle-jobbing and by pasturing droves of mules on their farms, and who gave themselves the airs of dukes, and were as ignorant and not so well behaved as the donkeys they reared; who ate a dinner of salt and kidney-beans in five minutes, and spent an hour at their doors picking their teeth, wiping their moustaches, and boasting of the fricasees and fricandoes they had been tasting—these men liberally disposed!
They contributed nothing to the treasury of the Church, but gave the clergy considerable trouble.These Creoles particularly disliked and resented any allusion to their duty of almsgiving, and a request for charity was by them regarded as a personal affront.
Gage was soon intimate with the bishop, Dom Bernard de Salazar, a very worthy prelate, perhaps a littleweebit too fond of the good things of this present life, but otherwise most exemplary, very energetic, and as bold as a saint in reforming abuses which had crept into the Church.
Talk of abuses, and you may be sure that woman is at the bottom of them! A certain czar, whenever he heard of a misfortune, at once asked, “Who wasshe?” knowing that some woman had originated it. The same view may perhaps be taken of abuses and corruptions in the Church.
Dom Bernard de Salazar had the misfortune to live in a perpetual state of contest with the ladies of his flock, and the subject of dispute was chocolate. It was a brave struggle—bravely fought on both sides.
The prelate fulminated all the censures at his disposal in his ecclesiastical armoury; the ladies, on their side, made use of all the devices and intrigues stored in their little heads, and gained the day—of course.
Now the great subject of altercation was as follows. The ladies of Chiapa were so addicted to the use of chocolate, that they would neither hear Low Mass, much less High Mass, or a sermon, withoutdrinking cups of steaming chocolate, and eating preserves, brought in on trays by servants, during the performance of divine service; so that the voice of the preacher, or the chant of the priest, was drowned in the continual clatter of cups and clink of spoons; besides, the floor, after service, was strewn withbon-bonpapers, and stained with splashes of the spilled beverage.
How could that be devotion which was broken in upon by the tray of delicacies? How could a preacher warm with his subject whilst his audience were passing to each other sponge-cake and cracknels?
Bishop Salazar’s predecessor had seen this abuse grow to a head without attempting to correct it, believing such a task to be hopeless. The new prelate was of better metal. He commenced by recommending his clergy, in their private ministrations, to urge its abandonment. The priests entreated in vain. “Very well,” said the bishop, “then I shall preach about it.” And so he did. At first his discourse was tender and persuasive, but his voice was drowned in the clicker of cups and saucers. Then he waxed indignant. “What! have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you?” The ladies looked up at the pulpit with unimpassioned eyes, while sipping their chocolate, then wiped their lips, and put out their hands for some comfits.
The bishop’s voice thrilled shriller and louder—he looked like an apostle in his godly indignation. Crash!—down went a tray at the cathedral door, and every one looked round to see whose cups were broken.
“What was the subject of the sermon?” asked masters of their apprentices every Sunday for the next month, and the ready answer came, “Oh! chocolate again!”
After a course on the guilt of church desecration, the bishop found that the ladies were only confirmed in their evil habits.
Reluctantly, the bishop had recourse to the only method open to him, an excommunication, which was accordingly affixed to the cathedral gates. By this he decreed that all persons showing wilful disobedience to his injunctions, by drinking or eating during the celebration of divine service, whether of Mass (high or low), litanies, benediction, or vespers, should beipso factoexcommunicate, be deprived of participation in the sacraments of the Church, and should be denied the rite of burial, if dying in a state of impenitence. This was felt to be a severe stroke, and the ladies sent a deputation to Gage and the prior of the Dominican monastery of St. James, entreating them to use their utmost endeavours to bring about a reconciliation, and effect a compromise, a compromise which was to consist in Monseignor’s revoking his interdict, and in their—continuing to drink chocolate.
Gage and the prior undertook the delicate office, and sought the bishop.
Salazar received them with dignity, and listened calmly to their entreaties. They urged that this was an established custom, that ladies required humouring, that they were obstinate—the prelate nodded his head—that their digestions were delicate, and required that they should continually be imbibing nourishment; that they had taken a violent prejudice against him, which could only be overcome by his yielding to their whims; that if he persisted, seditions would arise which would endanger the cause of true religion; and, finally, the prelate’s life was menaced in a way rather hinted at than expressed.
“Enough, my sons!” said the bishop, with composure; “the souls under my jurisdiction must be in a perilous condition when they have forgotten that there must be obedience in little matters as well as in great. Whether I am assaulting an established custom, or a new abuse, matters little. It is a bad habit; it is sapping the foundations of reverence and morality. God’s house was built for worship, and for that alone. My children must come to His temple either to learn or to pray. Learn they will not, for they have forgotten how to pray: prayer they are unused to, for the highest act of adoration the Church can offer is only regarded by them as an opportunity for the gratification of their appetites. You recommend me to yield totheir vagaries. A strange shepherd would he be, who let his sheep lead him; a wondrous captain, who was dictated to by his soldiers! As for the cause of true religion being endangered, I judge differently. Religionisendangered; but it is by children’s disobedience to their spiritual legislators, and by their own perversity. I am sorry for you, my sons, that you should have undertaken a fruitless office; but you may believe me, that nothing shall induce me to swerve from the course which I deem advisable. My personal safety, you hint, is endangered; my life, I answer, is in my Master’s hands, and I value it but as it may advance His glory.”
When the ladies heard that their request had been refused, they treated the excommunication with the greatest contempt, scoffing at it publicly, and imbibing chocolate in church, “on principle,” more than ever; “Just,” says Gage, “drinking in church as a fish drinks in water.”
Some of the canons and priests were then stationed at the cathedral doors to stop the ingress of the servants with cups and chocolate-pots. They had received injunctions to remove the drinking and eating vessels, and suffer the servants to come empty-handed to church. A violent struggle ensued in the porch, and all the ladies within rushed in a body to the doors, to assist their domestics. The poor clerks were utterly routed and thrown in confusion down the steps, whilst, with that odious well-known clink, clink, the trays came in as before.
Another move was requisite, and, on the following Sunday, when the ladies came to church, they found a band of soldiers drawn up outside, ready to barricade the way against any inroad of chocolate; a stern determination was depicted on the faces of the military—that if cups and saucersdidenter the sacred edifice, it should be over their corpses.
The foremost damsels halted, the matrons stood still, the crowd thickened, but not one of the pretty angels would set foot within the cathedral precincts: a busy whisper circulated, then a hush ensued, and with one accord the ladies trooped off to the monastery churches, and there was no congregation that day at the minster.
The brethren of St. Dominic and of St. Francis were nothing loath to see their chapels crowded with all the rank and fashion of Chiapa; for, with the ladies came money-offerings, and they blinked at the chocolate cups for—a consideration. This was allowed to continue a few Sundays only. Our friend the bishop was not going to be shelved thus, and a new manifesto appeared, inhibiting the friars from admitting parishioners to their chapels, and ordering the latter to frequent their cathedral.
The regulars were forced to obey; not so the ladies—they would go when they pleased, quotha! and for a month and more, not one of them went to church at all. The prelate was in sore trouble: he hoped that his froward charge would eventuallyreturn to the path of duty, but he hoped on from Sunday to Sunday in vain.
Would that the story ended as stories of strife and bitterness always should end; so that we might tell how the ladies yielded at length, how that rejoicings were held and a general reconciliation effected:—but the historian may not pervert facts, to suit his or his readers’ gratification.
On Saturday evening the old bishop was more than usually anxious; he paced up and down his library, meditating on the sermon he purposed preaching on the following morning—a fruitless task, for he knew that no one would be there but a few poor Mexicans. Sick at heart, he all but wished that he had yielded for peace sake, but conscience told him that such a course would have been wrong; and the great feature in Salazar’s character was his rigid sense of duty. He leaned on his elbows and looked out of a window which opened on a lane between the palace and the cathedral.
“Silly boy!” muttered the prelate. “Luis is always prattling with that girl. I thought better of the fair sex till of late.” He spoke these words as his eyes caught his page, chattering at the door with a dark-eyed Creole servant-maid of the De Solis family. Presently the bishop clapped his hands, and a domestic entered. “Send Luis to me.”
When the page came up, the old man greeted him with a half-smile.
“Well, my son, I wish my chocolate to bebrought me; I could not think of breaking off that longtête-à-têtewith Dolores, but this is past the proper time.”
“Your Holiness will pardon me,” said the lad; “Dolores brought you a present from the Donna de Solis; the lady sends her humble respects to your Holiness, and requests your acceptance of a large packet of very beautiful chocolate.”
“I am much obliged to her,” said the bishop; “did you express to the maiden my thanks?”
Luis bowed.
“Then, child, you may prepare me a cup of this chocolate, and bring it me at once.”
“The Donna de Solis’s chocolate?”
“Yes, my son, yes!”
When the boy had left the room, the old man clasped his hands with an expression of thankfulness.
“They are going to yield! This is a sign that they are desiring reconciliation.”
Next day the cathedral was thronged with ladies. The service proceeded as usual, but the bishop was not present.
“How is the bishop?” was whispered from one lady to another, with conscious glances; till the query reached the ears of one of the canons who was at the door.
“His Holiness is very ill,” he answered. “He has retired to the monastery of St. James.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“He is suffering from severe pains internally.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“Physicians have been sent for.”
For eight days the good old prelate lingered in great suffering.
“Tell me,” he asked very feebly; “tell me truly, what is my complaint?”
“Your Holiness has been poisoned,” replied the physician.
The bishop turned his face to the wall. Some one whispered that he was dead, when he had been thus for some while. The dying man turned his face round, and said:
“Hush! I am praying for my poor sheep! May God pardon them.” Then, after a pause: “I forgive them for having caused my death, most heartily. Poor sheep!”
And he died.
Since then there has been a proverb prevalent in Mexico: “Beware of tasting Chiapa chocolate.”
Gage, the Dominican, did not remain long in Chiapa after the death of his patron: he seldom touched chocolate in that town unless quite certain of the friendship of those who offered it to him; and when he did leave, it was from fear of a fate like the bishop’s,—he having incurred the anger of some of the ladies.
The cathedral presented the same scene as before; the prelate had laboured in vain, and chocolate was copiously drunk at his funeral.
“There are many ways,” says Del Rio, “in which the Philosopher’s Stone is made. Writers contest with each other which is the right way. Pauladamus opposes the opinion of Brachescus; Villanosanus will have none of the mode of Trevisanus. So one assails another, and all call each other foolish and ignorant.” But however they may have disputed how to make it, no one succeeded in finding the right way, for no one knew where to look for it; and yet the Philosopher’s Stone was before all their eyes to be enjoyed by all alike, but to be appropriated by none. This precious stone, which went by various names, the “Universal Elixir,” the “Elixir of Life,” the “Water of the Sun,” was thought to procure to its happy discoverer and possessor riches innumerable, perpetual health, a life exempt from all maladies and cares and pains, and even in the opinion of some—immortality. It transmuted lead into gold, glass into diamonds, it opened locks, it penetrated everywhere; it was the sovereign remedy to all disease, it was luminous in the darkest night. To fashion it—sothe alchemists said—gold and lead, iron, antimony, vitriol, sulphur, mercury, arsenic, water, fire, earth, and air were needed; to these must be added the egg of a cock, and the spittle of doves. Really, said one shrewd and satiric writer, it only wanted oil, vinegar, and salt, to make of it a salad.
Now the curious thing is—as we shall see in the sequel—the alchemists were not far out in their opinion. All these ingredients, or rather most of them—the cock’s egg and the dove’s spittle only excepted—are to be found combined in the Philosopher’s Stone, and only recent science has established this fact.
As the possessor of this stone was sure to be the most glorious, powerful, rich, and happy of mortals, as he could at will convert anything into gold, and enjoy all the pleasures of life, it is not surprising that the Philosopher’s Stone was sought with eagerness. It was sought, but, as already said, never found, because the alchemists looked for it in just the place where it wasnotto be found, in their crucibles. Medals were struck on which were inscribed “Per Sal, Sulphur, Mercurium, Fit Lapis Philosophorum,” which was a simplification of the receipt. On the reverse stood, “Thou Alpha and Omega of Life, Hope and Resurrection after Death.” It was identified with Solomon’s seal; it was called Orphanus, the One and Only. It was thought at one time that the Emperor had it in his crown, this Orphanus, and that it blazed like the sun at night; but the Germanemperors enjoyed so little prosperity that philosophers came to the conclusion that the stone in the imperial crown was something quite different; it brought ill-luck rather than good-fortune.
Zosimus, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century, is one of the first in Europe to describe the powers of this stone, and its capacity for making gold and silver. The alchemists pretended to derive their science from Shem, or Chem, the son of Noah, and that thence came the name alchemy, andchemistry. All writers upon alchemy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, to prove that Moses was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It is recorded that Moses was so wroth with the Israelites for their idolatry, “that he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” This, say the alchemists, he never could have done had he not been in possession of the Philosopher’s Stone; by no other means could he have made the powder of gold float upon the water.
At Constantinople, in the fourth century, the transmutation of metals was very generally believed in, and many treatises upon the subject appeared. Langlet du Fresnoy, in hisHistory of Hermetic Philosophy, gives some account of these works. The notion of the Greek writers seems to have been that all metals were composed of two ingredients, the one metallic matter, the other a red inflammablematter which they called sulphur. The pure union of these substances formed gold; but other metals were mixed with and contaminated by various foreign ingredients. The object of the Philosopher’s Stone was to dissolve and expel these base ingredients, and so to liberate the two original constituents whose marriage produced gold.
For several centuries after this the pursuit flagged or slept in Europe, but it reappeared in the eighth century among the Arabians, and from them re-extended to Europe. We are not going to trace the history of alchemydownwards, and see one student after another wreck his genius and time on this rock, nor see what use was made of the belief in it by impostors to enrich themselves at the expense of the credulous—we will follow the superstitionupwards, and track the stone to the spring of the belief in its supernatural powers. The search for the stone will take us through strange country, give us many scrambles; but, if the reader will condescend to accompany me, I believe I shall be able to bring him to the very real and original stone itself.
The following story I give as it was told to me by some Yorkshire mill lasses, in their own delightful vernacular. I forewarn the reader that the golden ball in the story is the same as the Philosopher’s Stone, as we shall hear presently:
“There were two lasses, daughters of one mother, and as they came home from t’ fair, they saw a right bonny young man stand i’ t’ house-door before them.He had gold on t’ cap, gold on t’ finger, gold on t’ neck, a red gold watch-chain—eh! but he had brass. He had a golden ball in each hand.[24]He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged. One o’ t’ lasses, ’twas t’ youngest, lost her ball. She was by a park-paling, and she tossed the ball, and it went up, up, and up, till it went over t’ paling, and when she climbed to look, t’ ball ran along green grass, and it went raite forward to t’ door of t’ house, and t’ ball went in, and she saw ’t no more.
“So she was taken away to be hanged by t’ neck till she were dead, acause she’d lost her ball.
[“But she had a sweetheart, and he said he would get the ball. So he went to t’ park-gate, but ’twas shut; so he climbed hedge, and when he got to t’ top of hedge, an old woman rose up out o’ t’ dyke afore him, and said, if he would get ball, he must sleep three nights i’ t’ house. He said he would.
“Then he went into t’ house, and looked for t’ ball, but couldna find it. Night came on, and he heard spirits move i’ t’ courtyard; so he looked out o’ t’ window, and t’ yard was full of them, like maggots i’ rotten meat.
“Presently he heard steps coming upstairs. He hid behind t’ door, and was still as a mouse. Then in came a big giant five times as tall as he, andt’ giant looked round, but did not see t’ lad, so he went to t’ window and bowed to look out; and as he bowed on his elbows to see spirits i’ t’ yard, t’ lad stepped behind him, and wi’ one blow of his sword he cut him in twain, so that the top part of him fell in t’ yard, and t’ bottom part stood looking out o’ t’ window.
“There was a great cry from t’ spirits when they saw half t’ giant tumbling down to them, and they called out, ‘There comes half our master, give us t’ other half.’
“So the lad said, ‘It’s no use of thee, thou pair o’ legs, standing aloan at window, so go join thy brother’; and he cast the bottom part of t’ giant after top part. Now when t’ spirits had gotten all t’ giant they was quiet.
“Next night t’ lad was at the house again, and saw a second giant come in at door, and as he came in, t’ lad cut him in twain; but the legs walked on to t’ chimney and went up it. ‘Go, get thee after thy legs,’ said t’ lad to t’ head, and he cast t’ head up chimney too.
“The third night t’ lad got into bed, and he heard spirits stirring under t’ bed; and they had t’ ball there, and they was casting it to and fro.
“Now one of them had his leg thrussen out from under bed, so t’ lad brings his sword down and cuts it off. Then another thrusts his arm out at t’ other side of t’ bed, and t’ lad cuts that off. So at last he had maimed them all, and they all went crying andwailing off, and forgot t’ ball, and let it lig there, under t’ bed; and the lad took it and went to seek his true love.[25]]
“Now t’ lass was taken to York to be hanged; she was brought out on t’ scaffold, and t’ hangman said, ‘Now, lass, tha’ must hang by thy neck till tha’ be’st dead.’ But she cried out:
‘Stop, stop, I think I see my mother coming!O mother! hast brought my golden ballAnd come to set me free?’‘I’ve neither brought thy golden ballNor come to set thee free,But I have come to see thee hungUpon this gallows tree.’
“Then the hangman said, ‘Now, lass, say thy prayers, for tha’ must dee.’ But she said:
‘Stop, stop, I think I see my father coming!O father! hast brought my golden ballAnd come to set me free?’‘I’ve neither brought thy golden ballNor come to set thee free,But I have come to see thee hungUpon this gallows tree.’
“Then the hangman said, ‘Hast thee done thy prayers? Now, lass, put thy head into t’ noose.’
“But she answered, ‘Stop, stop, I think I see my brother coming,’ etc. After which she excusedherself because she thought she saw her sister coming, and her uncle, then her aunt, then her cousin, each of which was related in full; after which the hangman said, ‘I wee-nt stop no longer, tha’s making gam o’ me.’ But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the crowd, and he held overhead i’ t’ air her own golden ball; so she said—
‘Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming!Sweetheart, hast brought my golden ballAnd come to set me free?’‘Ay, I have brought thy golden ballAnd come to set thee free;I have not come to see thee hungUpon this gallows tree.’”
In this very curious story, the portion within brackets reminds one of the German story of “Fearless John,” in Grimm (K. M.4), of which I remember obtaining an English variant in a chap-book in Exeter when I was a child—alas! now lost. It is also found in Iceland,[26]and is indeed a widely-spread tale. The verses are like others found in Essex in connection with the child’s game of “Mary Brown,” and those of the Swedish “Fair Gundela.” But these points we must pass over. Our interest attaches specially to the golden ball. The story is almost certainly the remains of an old religious myth. The golden ball which one sister has is the sun, the silver ball of the other sister is the moon.The sun is lost; it sets, and the trolls, the spirits of darkness, play with it under the bed, that is, in the house of night, beneath the earth.
But the sun is not only a golden ball, but it is also a shining stone; and here at the outset we tell our secret: the sun is the true Philosopher’s Stone, that turns all to gold, that gives health, that fills with joy.
In primeval times, our rude forefathers were puzzled how to explain the nature of sun and moon and stars, and they thought they had hit on the interpretation of the phenomenon when they said that the stars were diamonds stuck in the heavenly vault, and that the sun was a luminous stone, a carbuncle; and the moon a pearl or silver disk. Even the classic writers had not shaken off this notion. Anaxagoras, Democritus, Metrodorus, all speak of the sun as a glowing stone,[27]and Orpheus[28]calls the opal the sunstone, because of its analogy to that shining ball. So Pliny also.[29]The old Norse spoke of the stars as the “gemstones of heaven,” so did the Anglo-Saxons.[30]
But perhaps the clearest idea we can have of the old cosmogony is from the pictures preserved to us of the world of the dwarfs. When a superior conception of the universe was general, then the oldheathen idea sank, and what had been told of the world of men was referred to the underground world, peopled by the dwarfs, who were the representatives of the early race conquered by the Britons, and by Norse and Teuton, a race probably of Turanian origin. Our British and Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian forefathers knew of the cosmogony of the conquered race, and came to suppose that they inhabited another world to them, a world of which the vault that overarched it was set with precious stones; and as the aboriginal inhabitants were driven to live in caves, or in huts heaped over with turf so as to be like mounds, they regarded them as a subterranean people, and their world to be underground. In a multitude of stories the trolls or dwarfs are said to live in tumuli or cairns. This is nothing more than that their hovels were made of sticks stuck in the ground, gathered together in the middle and turfed over. The Lapp hut, even the Icelandic farmhouse, look like grass mounds. In many tales we hear of human children carried off by the dwarfs, and when these children are recovered they tell of a world in which they have been where the light is given by diamonds and a great carbuncle set in a stony black vault.
William of Newburgh[31]says that at Woolpit (Wolf-pits), near Stowmarket in Suffolk, were somevery ancient trenches. Out of these trenches there once came, in harvest-time, two children, a boy and a girl, whose bodies were of a green colour, and who wore dresses of some unknown stuff. They were caught and taken to the village, where for many months they would eat nothing but beans. They gradually lost their green colour. The boy soon died. The girl survived, and was married to a man of Lynn. At first they could speak no English; but when they were able to do so they said that they belonged to the land of St. Martin, an unknown country, where, as they were once watching their father’s sheep, they heard a loud noise, like the ringing of the bells of St. Edmund’s Monastery. And then, all at once, they found themselves among the reapers at Woolpit. Their country was a Christian land and had churches. There was no sun there, only a faint twilight; but beyond a broad river there lay a land of light. Giraldus Cambrensis in hisItinerary of Walestells another queer story of the underground world, and notices that some of the words used in it are closely related to theBritishtongue.[32]But in neither story are the sun and stars spoken of as stones incrusting the vault.
The undergroundRose-garden of Laurin the Dwarf, by Botzen, is, however, illumined by one great carbuncle.[33]The same sun-stone—a white,marvellous stone—reappears in the “Grail Story,” which is from beginning to end a Christianised Keltic myth. In it the Grail is originally not invariably a basin or goblet, but a stone. It is so in Wolfran von Eschenbach’sParzival. In that there is no thought of it as a chalice: it is a stone which feeds and delights all who surround, cherish, and venerate it.
Whatsoever the earth produces, whatsoever exhales,Whatever is good, and sweet, in drink and meat,That yields the precious stone, that never fails.
In the Elder Edda, in theFiölvinnsmal, Svipdagr is represented as climbing to the golden halls of heaven, and when he comes there he asks who reigns in that place. The answer given him is:—
Menglöd is her name ...She here holds sway,And has power overThese lands and glorious halls.
Now Menglöd means she who rejoices in theMen, the Precious Stone,[34]that is, the sun. She is the holder of the sun, as in the Yorkshire story the lass holds the golden ball.
Matthew Paris says that King Richard Cœur de Lion was wont to tell the following story:—“A rich and miserly Venetian, whose name was Vitalis, waswandering in a forest in quest of game for his table, as he was about to give his daughter in marriage. He fell into a pit that had been prepared for wild beasts, and on reaching the bottom found there a lion and a serpent. They did not injure him. By chance a charcoal-burner came that way and heard the lamentations of those in the pit. Moved with pity, he fetched a rope and ladder and released all three. The lion, full of gratitude, brought the collier meat. The serpent brought him a preciousstone. The Venetian thanked him and promised him a reward if he would come to his house. The poor man did so, when Vitalis refused to acknowledge any debt, and threw the collier into prison. However, he escaped, and went with the lion and serpent before the magistrates and told them the tale, and showed them the jewel given him by the serpent. The magistrates thereupon ordered Vitalis to pay to the collier a reasonable reward. The poor man also sold the jewel for a very large sum.”[35]
Richard must have heard this story in the East; there are no lions in Venetian territory. Moreover the story is incomplete. We have the same story in a fuller form in theGesta Romanorum.
A seneschal rode through a wood and fell into a pit, in which were an ape, a lion, and a serpent. A woodcutter saved them all. Next day thewoodcutter went to the castle for the promised reward, but received instead a cudgelling. The following day the lion drove to him ten laden asses, and he had them and the treasure they bore. Next day, as he was collecting wood and had no axe, the ape brought him boughs with which to lade his ass. On the third day the serpent brought him a stone of three colours, by the virtue of which he won all hearts, and came to such honour that he was appointed general-in-command of the emperor’s armies. But when the emperor heard of the stone he bought it of the woodcutter. However, the stone always returned to the original owner, however often he parted with it.
The same story occurs in Gower’sConfessio Amantis. The story spread throughout Europe, and is found in most collections of household tales. It occurs in Grimm’sKinder Märchen(No. 24), and in Basili’s book of Neapolitan tales, thePentamerone(No. 37).
All these were derived from the East, and were brought to Europe by the Crusaders. The story occurs in various Oriental collections. The Pâli tale is as follows:—
In a time of drought, a dog, a serpent, and a man fell into a pit together. An inhabitant of Benares draws them up in a basket, and they all promise him tokens of gratitude. The man of Benares falls into great poverty; the dog thereupon steals the king’s crown whilst he is bathing, andbrings it to his preserver. The man who had been helped by the other betrays him, and the preserver is imprisoned. The poor man is about to be impaled when the serpent bites the queen; and the king learns that she can only be cured by the man who is on his way to execution. So the poor fellow is brought before the prince and the whole story comes out.[36]In this version the stone does not appear; nor does it in the SanskritPantschatantra.[37]But in the MongolSiddhi-kür(No. 13) we have the stone again. A Brahmin delivers a mouse from children who teased it, then an ape, and lastly a bear. He falls into trouble and is put in a wooden box and thrown into the sea. The mouse comes and nibbles a hole in the box, through which he can breathe, the ape raises the lid, and the bear tears it off. Then the ape gives him a wondrous stone, which gives to him who has it power to do and have all he wishes. With this he wishes himself on land, then builds a palace, and surrounds himself with servants. A caravan passes and the leader is amazed to see the new palace, buys the stone of the man, and at once with it goes all the luck and splendour, and the Brahmin is where he was at first. Again the thankful beasts come to his aid. The mouse creeps into the palace of the new owner of the stone and discovers where he hides it, and with the aid of the bear and ape it is again recovered.Here we have the serpent omitted, which is the principal animal to be considered, for really the serpent is the owner of the stone that grows in its head. This idea is very general—that the carbuncle is to be found in a serpent’s head. Pliny has this notion; indeed it is found everywhere.[38]The origin of this myth is that the great serpent is the heaven-god—and on the gnostic seals we have the Demiurge so represented as a crowned or nimbed serpent. In the head of this great heaven-god is the sun, the glorious stone that gives life and light and gladness and plenty. In the West the story was told that the Emperor Theodosius hung in his palace a bell, and all who needed his help were to ring the bell. One day a snake came and pulled the bell. The emperor, who was blind, came out to inquire who needed him; then he learned that a toad had invaded the nest of the serpent. So he ordered the toad to be removed. Next day the grateful serpent brought the emperor a costly stone, and bade him lay it on his eyes. When he did this he recovered his sight.
The same story is told of Charlemagne. He was summoned to judge between a toad and a serpent, and decided for the latter. In gratitude the snake brought the Emperor a precious stone. Charles gave it, set in a ring, to his wife Fastrada. It had the power to attract love. Thenceforth he was inseparable from Fastrada, and when she died hewould not leave her body, but carried it about with him for eighteen years. Then a courtier removed the jewel and flung it into a hot spring at Aix-la-Chapelle. Thenceforth the emperor loved Aix above every spot in the world, and would never leave it.
In the story of Eraclius, the hero finds a stone that has the power of preserving the bearer from injury by water. Eraclius, armed with this stone, lies at the bottom of the Tiber, as one asleep, and is not drowned. InBarlaam and Josaphatthe hermit undertakes to give his pupil a stone which will afford light to the blind, wisdom to fools, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb.
There is a strange story in theTalmud[39]of a serpent that has a stone which gives life. A man goes in quest of it. The serpent tries to swallow the ship in which he sails. Then comes a raven and bites off the serpent’s head and the sea is made red with its blood. A dragon catches the falling stone and touches the dead serpent with it; it revives and again attacks the ship. Then another bird kills the creature, and this time the man catches the stone. The power of the stone was so great that it revived salted birds that lay on the table ready to be eaten, and they flew away.
In Buddhist stories, the original signification of the marvellous stone is completely lost, as completely as in the European mediæval stories. The IndianBuddhists remembered that there was a wondrous stone of which strange stories had been told, and which possessed the most surprising powers, and they made use of the idea to illustrate their doctrine—the stone was no other than the secret of Buddha. He who attained to that was rich, happy, serene. It is called the “Tschinta-mani,” that is, the Wishing-stone, because he who has it has everything that can be desired.
In the Buddhist collection of stories entitledThe Wise Man and the Foolis the tale of the king’s son, Gedon, who, grieved at the misery there is in the world, goes in quest of the “Tschinta-mani.” He takes with him his brother Digdon. They reach a castle, where he is warned to strike at the door with a diamond bat. Then five hundred goddesses will come forth, each bearing a precious stone, but only one of these is the Wishing-stone. He must select the stone without speaking. He does so, and chooses the right one. On his way home, on board ship, a storm arises, and he is wrecked; but, as he bears the precious stone, he is not drowned, and he saves his brother. Digdon, envious, steals the stone, and puts out his brother’s eyes, and goes home. Gedon follows, forgives his brother, recovers the stone and his sight.
Elsewhere the Wishing-stone is described as giving light by night as well as by day, as far as one hundred and twenty voices could be heard calling, the one catching and repeating to another; and bythis light could be seen the seven kinds of treasures falling from heaven like a rain, which are offered to all.
The idea of the marvellous, luminous, enriching, health-giving stone remains, its original significance absolutely lost, and is given a new spell of life, in that it is used as a symbol of the teaching of Buddha.
In Europe, also, the idea of the marvellous stone remains; it is not used allegorically, except in the Grail myth, but it haunts men’s minds; they believe in it, they suppose it must be found, and they try to manufacture it out of all kinds of ingredients.[40]
Neither Arab nor European alchemist, nor Buddhist recluse, dreamed that the stone that gave light, that nourished, that rejoiced, that enriched, was the sun shining above their heads. The conception of the sun as a stone was so old, so rolled and rubbed down, that they had no notion whence it came. The idea remained, and influenced their minds strangely; but it never occurred to them to ask whence the idea was derived.
There is something pitiful in looking at the wasted lives of those old seekers, bowed over their crucibles, inhaling noxious vapours, wearing out thenights in fruitless experiment; but, like all history, that of the alchemists teaches us a lesson—to look up instead of looking down—a lesson to seek happiness, wealth, contentment, in the simple and not the complex, in light instead of in darkness.
I believe that this is the only one of my articles in which I have drawn a moral, but the moral is so obvious that it would have been inexcusable had I passed it over. But I know that as a child I resented the applications inÆsop’s Fables, and perhaps my reader will feel a like objection to having a moral appended to this essay. That I may dismiss him with a smile instead of a frown, I will close with a copy of verses extracted by me some thirty and more years ago, from—I think—a Cambridge University undergraduates’ magazine, verses probably new to my readers; but as they enforce the same moral in a perfectly fresh and charming manner, and as they deserve to be rescued from oblivion, I conclude with them:
I was just five years old, that December,And a fine little promising boy,So my grandmother said, I remember,And gave me a strange-looking toy:In its shape it was lengthy and rounded,It was papered with yellow and blue,One end with a glass top was bounded,At the other, a hole to look through.‘Dear Granny, what’s this?’ I came, crying,‘A box for my pencils? but see,I can’t open it hard though I’m trying,O what is it? what can it be?’‘Why, my dear, if you only look through it,And stand with your face to the light;Turn it gently (that’s just how to do it!),And you’ll see a remarkable sight.’‘O how beautiful!’ cried I, delighted,As I saw each fantastic device,The bright fragments now closely united,All falling apart in a trice.Times have passed, and new years will now find me,Each birthday, no longer a boy,Yet methinks that their turns may remind meOf the turns of my grandmother’s toy.For in all this world, with its beauties,Its pictures so bright and so fair,You may vary the pleasures and dutiesBut still, the same pieces are there.From the time that the earth was first founded,There has never been anything new—The same thoughts, the same things, have redoundedTill the colours have pall’d on the view.But—though all that is old is returning,There is yet in this sameness a change;And new truths are the wise ever learning,For the patterns must always be strange.Shall we say that our days are all weary?All labour, and sorrow, and care,That its pleasures and joys are but dreary,Mere phantoms that vanish in air?Ah, no! there are some darker pieces,And others transparent and bright;But this, surely, the beauty increases,—Only—stand with your face to the light.And the treasures for which we are yearning,Those joys, now succeeded by pain—Arebutspangles, just hid in the turning;They will come to the surface again.B.
So the old ideas, old myths, are turned and turned about, and form new combinations, and are ever evolving fresh beauties, and teaching fresh truths. Perhaps in the consideration of these ancient myths, and seeing their progressive modifications, their breaking up, their coalitions, we may find the fresh application of the old saw, that there is nothing new under the sun.
THE END
Printed byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.
Footnotes:
[1]Jones,Trad. N. American Indians(1830), vol. iii. 175.
[2]Original edition in Latin. A translation by John Campbell, LL.D., under the title ofHermippus Redivivus, London, 1743. A second edition much enlarged, under the titleHermippus Redivivus, or the Sage’s Triumph over Old Age and the Grave, London, 1749, 8vo. We have seen also an Italian translation. That from which we quote is the German edition.
[3]It is possible that, by the engraver’s fault, the L in the last inscription may have been substituted for an X.
[4]Ἔστρεψεν τὰ ταβλία τῶν πλακουνταρίων.
[5]Εἷς φουσκάριος.
[6]Εἷς Θεὸς, ἀββᾶ Συμεὼν, εἰς τὸν χεῖρα σου θυμιᾷς.
[7]Τί ἐστιν ἔξηχε, ἴδε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐγὼ μόνος ἀπέργης.
[8]Θέλων οὖν ὁ Ὅσιος ἀναλῦσαι τὴν οἰκοδομὴν αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ θριαμβεύσῃ αὐτὸν, ἐν μιᾷ κοιμωμένης τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ μόνης, κᾀκείνου προβάλλοντος οἶνον, ἐπέβη πρὸς αὐτὴν ὃ ἀββᾶς Συμεὼν, καὶ ἐχηματίσατο ἀποδύεσθαι τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ, κ.τ.λ.
[9]Ὥστε ἔστιν ὅτε ἔβαλλον τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν τὰ ἄσεμνα γύναια εἰς τὸν κόλπον αὐτοῦ,καὶ ἐσίαινον, καὶ ἐκόπταζον, καὶ ἐγαργάλιζον αὐτόν.
[10]Ἐβάσταζεν αὐτὸν μία προϊσταμενὴ, καὶ ἄλλη ἑλώριζεν αὐτόν.
[11]Πολλάκις δὲ προσποιεῖσθαι καταφιλεῖν τὰς δούλας. No wonder if one of them said, “Ο Σαλὸς Συμεὼν ἐβιάςατό με.” The maid’s mistress indignantly scolded Symeon, who replied with a smile, “Ἄφες, ἄφες, ταπεινὴ, ἄρτι γεννᾶ σοι, καὶ ἔχεις μικρὸν Συμεών.”
[12]Σειρὰν σαλσικίων.
[13]Σιλίγνια, καὶ πλακοῦντας, καὶ σφαίρια, καὶ ὀψάρια, καὶ οἰνάρια διάφορα, ψαθύρια, καὶ γλυκὺ, καὶ ἁπλῶς ὅσα πάντα ἔχει ὁ βίος λιμβά.
[14]Ἔστι γὰρ ὅτε καὶ τοῦτο ἔλεγε πρὸς μίαν τῶν ἑταιρίδων· θέλεις ἔχο σε φίλην καὶ δίδω σοι ἑκατὸν ὁλοκοτίνα.
[15]Both are published in theActa Sanctorumfor June, T.I., pp. 237-260, with notes by Papebroeck, the Bollandist.
[16]“Monachus aspectu venerabilis, barba prolixa, corpore nudus, capillis canus.” This old monk was St. Luke the Stylite, appearing in vision.
[17]“Unus—cum gravi baculo ascendens ad eum, ipsum graviter ac dure cædens, de ecclesiæ trullo descendere fecit, cum multa festinantia et furore.”—Fr. Barth.
[18]The biographer thinks a dolphin must have bitten his cords, and thus freed him.
[19]A blending is a changeling, or one who is half troll, half human.
[20]They form a huge ancient moraine.
[21]It much resembles the beautiful Marjelen Sea, familiar to the visitor to Aegischhorn.
[22]The writer has been over this portion of the ground, and knows the course pursued.
[23]It is not easy to make out what fell is meant. Possibly it may be the ridge called Thorir’s Head.
[24]In another version one ball wasgold, the othersilver. I sent this story to Mr. Henderson, and it is included in the first edition of hisFolklore of the Northern Counties, but omitted in the second.
[25]The portion within brackets I got from a different informant. The first version was incomplete; the girls had forgotten how the ball was recovered. They forgot also what happened with the second ball.
[26]Powel and Magnusson,Legends of Iceland(1864), p. 161.
[27]Cf. Xenoph.Memor.IV. vii. 7.
[28]The apocryphal Lith. 289.
[29]“Solis gemma candida est, et ad speciem sideris in orbem fulgentes spargit radios” (Hist. Nat.xxxvi. 10, 67.)
[30]Grimm,D. M.p. 665.
[31]Hist. Anglic.i. 27. See also Gervase of Tilbury, cxlv., for an account of the subterranean world reached by the cave in the Peak of Derby.
[32]Itin. Camb.i. 8.
[33]See for account of the gem-lighted underworld, Mannhardt,Germ. Mythol.(1858), p. 447.
[34]Egilson,Lex. poet. linguæ Sept.Men = monile, thesaurus, saxum, lapis.
[35]Roger of Wendover’sFlowers of Hist., s.a. 1196. The story is an addition made to the original by Matthew Paris.
[36]Spiegel,Anecdota Pâlica(1845), p. 53.
[37]Benfy,Pantschatantra(1859), ii. p. 128.
[38]Cf. Benfy,op. cit.i. p. 214.
[39]Bababathra, 74, 6.
[40]I said at the beginning of this article that the alchemists were right in believing the Philosopher’s Stone to be complex, made up of many metals. We know now that the germ idea of the stone is the sun, and the spectroscope allows us to analyse the sun’s light and discover in the solar atmosphere a multitude of metals and ingredients, in fusion.