The following very curious story is from theEyrbyggja Saga, one of the oldest and noblest of the Icelandic histories. As it results in an action unique in its way,—a lawsuit brought against a party of ghosts who haunted a house,—it well merits attention from all lovers of curiosities.
In the summer of 1000, the year in which Christianity was established in Iceland, a vessel came off the coast near Snæfellness, full of Irish and natives of the Hebrides, with a few Norsemen among them; the ship came from Dublin, and lay alongside of Rif, waiting a breeze which might waft her into the firth to Dögvertharness. Some people went off in boats from the ness to trade with the vessel. They found on board a Hebridean woman called Thorgunna, who, hinted the sailors, had treasures of female attire in her possession the like of which had never been seen in Iceland. Now when Thurida, the housewife at Frod river, heard this, she was all excitement to get a glimpse of these treasures, for she was a dashing, showy sort of a woman. She rowed out to the ship,and on meeting Thorgunna, asked her if she had really some first-rate ladies’ dresses? Of course she had, was the answer; but she was not going to part with them to any one. Then might she see them? humbly asked Thurida. Yes, she might see them. So the boxes were opened, and the Iceland lady examined the foreign apparel. It was good, but not so very remarkable as she had anticipated; on the whole she was a bit disappointed, still she would like to purchase, and she made a bid. Thorgunna at once refused to sell. Thurida then invited the Hebridean lady home on a visit, and the stranger, only too glad to leave the vessel, accepted the invitation with alacrity.
On the arrival of the lady with her boxes at the farm, she asked to see her bed, and was shown a convenient closet in the lower part of the hall. There she unlocked her largest trunk, and drew forth a suit of bed-clothes of the most exquisite workmanship, and she spread over the bed English linen sheets and a silken coverlet. From the box she also extracted tapestry hangings and curtains to surround the couch; and the like of all these things had never been seen in the island before.
Thurida opened her eyes very wide, and asked her guest to share bed-clothes with her.
“Not for all the world,” replied the strange lady, with sharpness; “I’m not going to pig it in the rushes, foryou, ma’am!”
An answer which, the Saga writer assures us, didnot particularly gratify the good woman of the house.
Thorgunna was stout and tall, disposed to become fat, with black eyebrows, a head of thick bushy brown hair, and soft eyes. She was not much of a talker, not very merry, and it was her wont to go to church every day before beginning her daily task. Many people took her to be about sixty years old. She worked at the loom every day except in haymaking time, and then she went forth into the fields and stacked the hay she had made. The summer that year was wet, and the hay had not been carried on account of the rain, so that at Frod river farm, by autumn, the crop was only half cut, and the rest was still standing.
One day appeared bright and cloudless, and the farmer, Thorodd, ordered the house to turn out for a general haymaking. The strange lady worked along with the rest, tossing hay till the hour of nones, when a black cloud crossed the sky from the north, and by the time that prayers had been said such a darkness had come on that it was almost impossible to see. The haymakers, at Thorodd’s command, raked their hay together into cocks, but Thorgunna, for no assignable reason, left hers spread. It now became so dark that there was no seeing a hand held up before the face, and down came the rain in torrents. It did not last many minutes, and then the sky cleared, and the evening was as bright as had been the morning.
It was observed by the haymakers on their return to their work that it had rained blood, for all the grass was stained. They spread it, and it soon dried up; but Thorgunna tried in vain to dry hers, it had been so thoroughly saturated that the sun went down leaving it dripping blood, and all her clothes were discoloured. Thurida asked what could be the meaning of the portent, and Thorgunna answered that it boded ill to the house and its inmates. In the evening, late, the strange woman returned home, and went to her closet and stripped the stained clothes off her. She then lay down in her bed and began to sigh. It was soon ascertained that she was ill, and when food was brought her she would not swallow it.
Next morning the bonder came to her bedside to inquire how she felt, and to learn what turn the sickness was likely to take. The poor lady told him that she feared her end was approaching, and she earnestly besought him to attend to her directions as to the disposal of her property, not changing any particular, as such a change would entail misery on the family. Thorodd declared his readiness to carry out her wishes to the minutest detail.
“This, then,” said she, “is my last request. I desire my body to be taken to Skalholt, if I die of this disease, for I have a presentiment that that place will shortly become the most sacred in the island, and that clerks will be there who will chant over me; and do you reimburse yourself from mychattels for any outlay in carrying this into effect. Let your wife Thurida have my scarlet gown, lest she be put out at the further distribution of my effects, which I propose. My gold ring I bequeath to the Church; but my bed, with its curtains, tapestry, coverlet, and sheets, I desire to have burned, so that they go into nobody’s possession. This I desire, not because I grudge the use of these handsome articles to anybody, but because I foresee that the possession of them would be the cause of innumerable quarrels and heart-burnings.”
Thorodd promised solemnly to fulfil every particular to the letter.
The complaint now rapidly gained ground, and before many days Thorgunna was dead. The farmer put her corpse into a coffin; then took all the bed-furniture into the open air, and, raising a pile of wood, flung the clothes on top of it, and was about to fire the pile, when, with a face pale with dismay, forth rushed Thurida to know what in the name of wonder her husband was about to do with those treasures of needlework, the coverlet, sheets, and curtains of the strange lady’s bed.
“Burn them! according to her dying request,” replied Thorodd.
“Burn them?” echoed Thurida, casting up her hands and eyes; “what nonsense! Thorgunna only desired this to be done because she was full of envy lest others should enjoy these incomparable treasures.”
“But she threatened all kinds of misfortunesunless I strictly obeyed her injunctions; and I promised to do what she bid,” expostulated the worthy man.
“Oh, that is all fancy!” exclaimed the wife; “what misfortune can these articles possibly bring upon us?”
Thorodd still stood out; but in his house, as in many another, the gray mare was the better horse, and what with entreaties, embraces, and tears, he was forced to effect a compromise, and relinquish to his wife the hangings and the coverlet in order that he might secure immunity for burning the pillow and the sheets. Yet neither party was satisfied, says the historian.
Next day preparations were made for flitting the corpse to Skalholt, and trustworthy men were appointed to accompany it. The body was swathed in linen, but not stitched up; it was then put into the coffin and placed on horseback. So they started with it over the moor, and nothing particular happened till they reached Valbjarnar plain, where there are many pools and morasses, and the corpse had repeated falls into the mire. Well, after a bit they crossed the North river at Eyar ford, but the water was very deep, for there had been heavy rains.
At nightfall they reached Stafholt, and asked the farmer to take them in. He declined peremptorily, probably disliking the notion of housing a corpse, and he shut the door in their faces. They could go no farther that night, as the White river was before them, which was very deep and broad and could onlybe traversed in safety by day; so they took the coffin into an outhouse, and after some trouble persuaded the farmer to let them sleep in his hall; but he would not give them any food, so they went supperless to bed. Scarcely, however, was all quiet in the house before a strange clatter was heard in the shed serving as larder. One of the farm servants, thinking that thieves were breaking in, stole to the door, and on looking in, beheld a tall naked woman, with thick brown hair, busily engaged in preparing food. The poor fellow was so frightened that he fled back to his bed, quaking like an aspen leaf. In another moment the nude figure stalked into the hall, bearing victuals in both hands, and these she placed on the table. By the dim light the bearers recognised Thorgunna, and they understood now that she resented the churlishness of the host, and had left her coffin to provide food for them. The farmer and his wife were now speedily brought to terms, and leaving their beds they displayed the utmost alacrity in supplying the necessities of their guests. A fire was lighted; the wet clothes were taken off the travellers; curd and beer, and a stew of Iceland-moss were set before them.
Hist!—a little noise in the outhouse! It is only Thorgunna stepping back into her coffin.
Nothing transpired of any moment during the rest of the journey. The bearers had but to narrate the story of the preceding night’s events, and they were sure of a ready welcome wherever they halted.
At Skalholt all went well; the clerks accepted the gold ring, and chanted over the body: they buried her deep, and put green turf over her. So, their errand accomplished, the servants of Thorodd returned home.
At Frod river there was a large hall, with a closed bedroom at one end of it. On each side of the hall were closets; in one of these closets dried fish were stacked up, and flour was kept in the other. Every evening, about meal-time, a great fire was lighted in the hall, and men used to sit before it ere they adjourned to supper. The same night that the funeral party returned the men were sitting chatting round the fire, when suddenly they perceived a phosphorescent half-moon grow into brilliancy on the wall of the apartment, and travel slowly round the hall against the sun. The appearance continued all the while the men sat by the fire, and was visible every evening after. Thorodd asked Thorir Stumpleg, his bailiff, what this portended; and the man replied that it boded death to some one, but to whom he could not say.
One day a shepherd came in, gloomy, and muttering to himself in a strange manner. When addressed, he answered wildly, and they thought he must have lost his wits. The man remained in this state for some little while. One night he went to bed as usual, but in the morning when the men came to wake him, they found him lying dead in his place.
He was buried in the church.
A few nights after, strange sounds were heard outside the house; and one night when Thorir Stumpleg went outside the door, he saw the shepherd stride past him. Thorir attempted to slip indoors again, but the shepherd grasped him, and after a short tussle cast him in, so that he fell upon the hall floor bruised and severely injured. He succeeded in crawling to his bed, but he never rose from it again. His body was purple and swollen. After a few days he died, and was buried in the churchyard. Immediately after, his spectre was seen to walk in company with that of the shepherd.
A servant of Thorir now sickened, and after three days’ illness died. Within a few days five more died. The fast preceding Christmas approached, though in those days the fashion of fasting was not introduced. In the closet containing dried fish, the stack was so big that the door could not be closed, and when fish were wanted, a ladder was placed against the pile and the top fish were taken away for use. In the evening, as men sat over the fire, the stack of dried fish was suddenly upset, and when people went to examine it, they could discover no cause. Just before Yule, also, Thorodd, the bonder, went out in a long boat with seven men to Ness, after some fish, and they were out all night. The same evening, the fires having been kindled in the hall at Frod river, a seal’s head was seen to rise out of the floor of the apartment. A servant girl, whofirst saw it, rushed to the door, and catching up a bludgeon which lay beside it, struck at the seal’s head. The blow made the head rise higher out of the floor, and it turned its eyes towards the bed-curtains of Thorgunna. A house-churl now took the stick and beat at the apparition, but he fared no better, for the head rose higher at each stroke till its forefins appeared, and the fellow was so frightened that he fainted away. Then up came Kiartan, the bonder’s son, a lad of twelve, and snatching up a large iron mallet for beating the fish, he brought it down with a crash on the seal’s head. He struck again and again, till he drove it into the floor, much as one might drive a pile; he then beat down the earth over it.
It was noticed by all that on every occasion the lad Kiartan was the only one who had any power over the apparitions.
Next morning it was ascertained that Thorodd and his men had been lost, for the boat was driven ashore near Enni; but the bodies were never recovered.
Thurida, and her son Kiartan, immediately invited all their kindred and neighbours to a funeral feast. They had brewed for Yule, and now they kept the banquet in commemoration of the dead. When all the company had arrived, and had taken their places—the seats of the dead men being, as customary, left vacant—the hall door was darkened, and the guests beheld Thorodd and his servantsenter, dripping with water. All were gratified, for at that time it was considered a token of favourable acceptance with the goddess Ran if the dead men came to the wake; “and,” says the Saga writer, “though we are Christian men, and baptized, we have faith in the same token still.” The spectres walked through the hall without greeting any one, and sat down before the fire. The servants fled in all directions, and the dead men sat silently round the flames till the fire died out, then they left the house as they had entered it. This happened every evening as long as the feast continued, and some deemed that at the conclusion of the festivities the apparition would cease. The wake terminated, and the visitors dispersed. The fire was lighted as usual towards dusk, and in, as before, came Thorodd and his retinue, dripping with water; they sat down before the hearth, and began to wring out their clothes. Next came in the spectres of Thorir Stumpleg and the six who had died in bed after him, and had been buried; they were covered with mould, and they proceeded to shake the mould off their clothes upon Thorodd and his men.
The inmates of the house deserted the room, and remained without light and heat in another apartment. Next day the fire was not lighted in the hall but in the other room; the farm-people reckoning upon the ghosts keeping to the hall. But no! in came the spectral train, and upon the living men vacating their seats, the ghosts occupied them, andsat looking grimly into the red fire till it died out, whilst the terrified servants spent the evening in the hall.
On the third day two fires were kindled—one in the hall for the ghosts, and another in the small chamber for the living men; and so it had to be done throughout the whole of Yule.
Fresh disturbances now began in the fish closet, and it seemed as though a bull were among the fish, tossing them about; and this went on night and day. A man set the ladder against the stack and climbed to the top. He observed emerging from the pile of stockfish a tail like that of a cow which had been singed, but soft and covered with hair like that of a seal. The fellow caught the tail and pulled at it, calling lustily for help. Up ran men and women, and all dragged at the tail, but none of them could pull it out; it seemed stiff and dead, yet suddenly it was whisked out of their hands, and rasped the skin off their palms. The stack was now taken down, but no traces of the tail could be found, only it was discovered that the skin had been peeled off the fish, and at the bottom of the stack not a bit of flesh was left upon them.
Thorgrima, the widow of Thorir Stumpleg, fell ill shortly after this; on the evening of her burial she was seen in company with Thorir and his party. All those who had seen the tail were now attacked, and died—men and women. In the autumn there had been thirty household servants at Frod river, ofthese now eighteen were dead, the ghosts had frightened five away, and at the beginning of the month of May there remained but seven.
Things had come to such a pass as to render ruin imminent, unless some decisive measure were pursued to rid the house of the spectres that haunted it. Kiartan, accordingly, determined on consulting Snorri, the Lawman, his mother’s brother, and one of the shrewdest men Iceland ever produced. Kiartan reached his uncle’s house at Helgafell at the same time that a priest arrived from Gizor White, the apostle of Iceland. Snorri advised Kiartan to take the priest with him to Frod river, to burn all the bed-furniture of Thorgunna, to hold a court at his door, and bring a formal action at law against the spectres, and then to get the priest to sprinkle the house with holy water, and to shrive the survivors on the farm. Along with him Snorri sent his son Thord Kausi, with six men, that he might summons Kiartan’s father, considering that there might be a little delicacy in the son bringing an action against the ghost of his own father.
So it was settled, and Kiartan rode home. On his way he called at neighbours’ houses and asked help: so that by the time he reached Frod river his party was considerably swelled. It was Candlemas day, and they drew up at the farm door just after the fires had been lighted and the ghosts had assumed their customary places. Kiartan found his mother in bed, with all the premonitory symptomsof the same complaint which had carried off so many others in the house. The lad passed the spectres, and going up to the bed of Thorgunna, removed the quilt and curtains and every article which had belonged to her. Then he pushed boldly up to the fire past the ghosts, and took a brand from it.
In a few minutes he had made a pile of brushwood, and had thrown the bed-furniture on the top. The flames roared up around the luckless articles and consumed them. A court was next constituted at the door, according to proper legal forms, and Kiartan summoned Thorir Stumpleg, whilst Thord Kausi summoned Thorodd for entering a gentleman’s house without permission, and bringing mischief and death among his retainers.
Every spectre there present was summoned by name in due and legal form. The plaintiffs argued their case, and witnesses were called and examined. The defendants were asked what exceptions they had to plead, and upon their remaining silent, sentence was pronounced. Each case was taken separately, and the court sat long. The first action disposed of was that against Thorir. He was ordered to leave the house forthwith. Upon hearing this decree of the court, Stumpleg rose from his chair and said—
“I sat whilst sit I might,” and hobbled out of the hall by the door opposite to that before which the court was held.
The case of the shepherd was next disposed of. On hearing the sentence he rose,—
“I go; better had I been dismissed before,” he vanished through the door.
When Thorgrima was ordered to depart, she followed the others, saying,—
“I remained whilst to remain was lawful.”
Each who left said a few words which evinced a disinclination to desert the fireside for the grave and sea depths.
The last to go was Thorodd, and he said,—
“There is now no peace for us here; we are flitting one by one.”
After this Kiartan went in, and the priest took holy water and sprinkled the walls of the house; then he sang mass, and performed many ceremonies.
So the spectres haunted Frod river no more; Thurida got better rapidly, and the prospects of the farm mended.
Punishment is efficacious in deterring from crime only if it be certain and speedy. Severity is quite a minor point, and it will be found that the deterring effect of punishment is by no means proportionate to its cruelty.
The first requisite is certainty, for human nature is so constituted that if there be a chance of escape, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be found to run the risk. A slight punishment, if certain, is infinitely more likely to produce the required results than the most terrible exhibition of cruelty upon representative criminals. If certainty be a main requisite, speediness is also necessary; lasting and cruel punishments harden but do not reclaim.
Of this our forefathers in the middle ages were profoundly ignorant. With an inefficient police, it was not to be expected that one tithe of the malefactors, then so numerous, should fall into the hands of justice, and the authorities endeavoured to make up for this imperfection by exaggerated severity, and by grotesqueness in the punishments they inflicted.
I have said our forefathers in the middle ages, for the Anglo-Saxons and Danes were far too sensible to resort to cruel or absurd penalties, when milder and reasonable ones would answer their purpose.
Thus the laws of Canute direct that the correction of a criminal should be so regulated that it may appear seemly in the eyes of Him who said, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,” and they enjoin that the judge should not be unduly severe, but lean rather to a gentle punishment; and also that if it appeared likely that the criminal was fully penitent and inclined to amend, full mercy should be shown to him.
Indeed it was a feature characteristic of Saxon and Danish laws, that compensation should be aimed at and the reclamation of the criminal, rather than retribution. Capital punishments were sanctioned, but in all cases an opportunity was offered for the substitution of a fine. Thus, by the law of King Ina, if a thief were caught, he was sentenced to death, but his life could be redeemed by pecuniary satisfaction being made to the persons robbed. So the fine inflicted on a murderer was regulated according to the sum at which the life of the murdered party was valued; thus, if a man slew a freeman, he had to make compensation to the amount of one hundred shillings, but for the murder of a thrall a much less sum was demanded. If a freeman slew his thrall, he paid a nominal fine tothe king for a breach of the peace; but if a slave killed his master, the doctrine of blood for blood was carried into effect, as the thrall had no personal property to pay in compensation for his crime.
Fines were imposed by the Anglo-Saxons for all kinds of personal injuries.
Thus by the laws of King Ethelbert, for breaking a man’s front tooth the fine imposed was six shillings, but a molar was regarded as worth only one shilling, and a canine tooth was valued at six. King Alfred however, revised these laws, and taking into consideration the fact that the molar is a double tooth, and that it is a very serviceable tooth besides, he raised its market value to fifteen shillings.
If a man struck out the eye of another and blinded him, he was obliged to make satisfaction with fifty shillings, and one who was in a troublesome mood and had plenty of loose cash to dispose of, might break a neighbour’s rib for three shillings, and dislocate his shoulder for twenty. According to the decrees of the Witan, a fine of one shilling was enacted for crushing the finger-nail of a neighbour, but if the thumb-nail had suffered, three shillings was its value.
A testy Saxon might venture to pull the nose of his enemy if he had three shillings to spare, but then he had to be cautious, for if the pull were sufficiently violent to make the nose bleed, he had to pay six shillings. It was the almost universal custom throughout Europe that forgiveness shouldbe judged according to the laws of their native country, and not according to the law of the land in which the offence was committed; and “thus,” says Dr. Henry, “the nose of a Spaniard was perfectly safe in England, because it was valued at thirteen marks, but the nose of an Englishman ran a great risk in Spain, because it was valued at twelve shillings. An Englishman might have broken a Welshman’s head for a mere trifle, but few Welshmen could afford to return the compliment.”
Among the Anglo-Saxons the penalty inflicted on coiners was the loss of one hand; hardly a cruel sentence in comparison with that which was inflicted during the middle ages, up to the close of the sixteenth century, namely, boiling alive in oil or water.
An old German code of laws gives the following horrible directions: “Should a coiner be caught in the act, then let him be stewed in a pan, or in a caldron half an ell deep for the body, so that the man may be bound to a pole which shall be passed through the rings of the caldron, and which shall be tightly strapped and bound to upright posts on either side, and thus he shall be made to stew in oil and wine.” A scene such as this was witnessed in Sweden in 1500, by Archbishop Olaus Magnus of Upsala, and instances without number might be cited from German and French city registers. Taking one town alone, Lübeck, we find that a poor fellow who gave himself out to be the dead king FrederickII., and who was probably an inoffensive madman, was thus put to death in 1287.
A second instance occurred in the year 1329, when the man was boiled in the market-place in the midst of a vast concourse of people. A similar sentence was pronounced in 1459, and again in 1471, but in this instance, at the last moment, in consideration of the earnest entreaty of the bishop, the sentence was commuted to burning alive on a pile of faggots, at the Mühlenthor. This poor wretch was less fortunate than the coiner Jacob von Jülich, who, when crouching in the caldron, and shrieking with agony, obtained the mercy of having his head struck off.
In the sixteenth century, coiners were hanged instead of boiled: till lately, however, the caldron which was used for this horrible purpose was visible in the market-place of Osnabrück.
A punishment much in vogue during the middle ages for those who were guilty of stabbing with intent to wound, but without causing death, was sufficiently terrible. The hand which had dealt the blow was placed upon a table with the fingers spread out, and the weapon which had been used was struck violently into the back of the hand, pinning it to the table, and the criminal had to draw his hand away without removing the knife. This was statute law pretty nearly throughout Europe, and it continued in force till the middle of the seventeenth century, but the Frisian laws permitted the penalty to beremitted if the culprit chose to pay compensation to the amount of twenty-five gulden.
In 1638, Count Anthony Gunter of Oldenburg ordered a post to be erected before the church, or in the market, and the criminal to be fastened to it by a knife driven through his hand; and thus he was to stand for three hours. This law was not abrogated in Germany till 1661.
Mutilation was common enough in the middle ages. We find in the laws of William the Conqueror—
“We forbid that criminals of any sort should be killed or hanged, but let their eyes be plucked out, or let their hands and feet be chopped off, so that nothing may remain of the culprit but a living trunk, as a memorial of his crime.” How different this from the tone of Saxon laws.
At Avignon, in 1245, false witnesses had their noses and upper lips cut away, and the same penalty was inflicted in Switzerland on blasphemers.
Eugène Sue suggested that capital punishment should be replaced by privation of sight. But if his system were carried into effect, those unhappy individuals who have either been born blind or have lost their sight by accident, would be compelled to carry about with them a certificate to the effect that they were honest men, as did the Arab grammarian Zamakuschari, who died in 1144. This writer, having had a foot frost-bitten in Kharism, carried ever about with him an attestation to the fact, signed by anumber of persons of credit, so that no one would regard him as a criminal who had suffered mutilation.
Our own King John, according to Matthew Paris, invented a punishment of great cruelty. Geoffry, Archdeacon of Norwich, having offended him, he had him encased in a sheet of lead, which was folded round him and fitted to his shoulders like a cloak. The unhappy man died of the burden and of horror. “This,” says an Anglo-Norman writer, “is the judgment of ‘pain fort et dure’; to wit, the condemned shall be placed in a low chamber locked. And he shall lie naked on the ground without litter, bedding, or cloth, and without anything over him; and he shall lie on his back with his head to the west, and his feet to the east, and one arm shall be drawn to one quarter of the room by a rope, and the other arm in like manner to the other quarter, and in the same way shall his legs be extended, and upon his body shall be placed iron and stone, as much as he can bear; the first day he shall have three lumps of barley bread, but nothing to drink, and next day he shall drink thrice, as much as he wants, of water brought from near at hand to the prison, excepting that it be running water, and he shall have no bread, and this succession shall be followed till he dies.”
Can it be believed that such a terrible death as this was inflicted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the 25th of March 1586, and that the person who suffered was a woman, on the indictment “that she had harboured and maintained Jesuit and seminarypriests, traitors to the Queen’s Majesty and the laws; and that she had heard mass, and the like.” The law of the land required that those who would not plead “guilty” or “not guilty,” should be made to plead, “by being laid upon the back on the ground, and as much weight laid upon the accused as he or she can bear, and that the accused shall so continue for three days, and should he or she still refuse to plead, then to be pressed to death, the hands and feet tied to a post, and a sharp stone set under the back.” The unfortunate woman,—her name was Margaret Clitheroe,—labouring under the idea that she was being martyred for her religion, whereas she was simply a victim to her own obstinacy in refusing to plead, endured this fearful death. Had she pleaded she would have escaped, for the evidence against her was of so slender a nature that she must have been acquitted. The judge, Clinch, who gave the sentence, did so with great reluctance, and only because, as the law stood, it was impossible for him to evade it.
In the reign of James I., we learn from Sir Walter Scott, a Highland chief in Ross, of the name of M’Donald, hearing that a poor widow had determined to go on foot to Edinburgh to see the king, and obtain from him justice against the chief, sent for her, and telling her that the way was long, and that she would require to be well shod for the journey, had a blacksmith brought, and made him nail her shoes to her feet, in the same way in which horses are shod. The widow, however, was a womanwith a will of her own, and as soon as she had recovered, she betook herself on foot to Edinburgh, and casting herself at the feet of the king, besought of him punishment on the tyrannical chief. King James, indignant at her treatment, had M’Donald seized along with twelve of his accomplices, and had iron soles nailed to their feet. They were exposed in this condition to the public gaze, and were then decapitated.
When Richard Cœur de Lion was on his way to the Holy Land he drew up a code of criminal laws by which discipline was to be maintained among his troops. One of these contains the following article:—“If any one is convicted of theft, boiling pitch shall be poured over his head, and then a pillowful of feathers shall be shaken over it, so that the fellow may be certainly recognised. And he shall be abandoned on the first land where the vessel touches.”
This reminds me of the trick played by certain wags on a poor nun in 1198. They covered her with honey, rolled her in feathers, mounted her on horseback, and paraded her about the town. Philip Augustus, hearing of this, had the unfortunate jokers seized and plunged into a vat of boiling water.
A curious ordinance in force at Dortmund, in Westphalia,A.D.1348, required that, “if two women quarrel so as to come to blows, and at the same time use abusive language, they shall be required to carry, the whole length of the town along the High Street, two stones weighing together one hundredpounds, attached to chains. The first woman shall carry them from the east gate to the west gate, whilst the second goads her on with a needle fastened to the end of a stick,” and both are directed to wear the lightest of all possible costumes. “The second is then to take the stones upon her shoulders and to carry them back to the east gate, the first applying the same stimulus.” This punishment was common all over Germany. In Lübeck the stones were shaped like bottles, in other places they were rudely-carved heads of women with protruding tongues; and in some towns they were in the shape of cats. At Hamburg a procession of women sounding cows’ horns was part of the programme, and at Worms a band of bell-ringers.
The old English cucking-stool for shrews is well known; it was common abroad also, with some customs peculiarly foreign. For instance, the unfortunate persons who had to do penance for their shrewish tongues were sometimes put into a large hamper, or a cage, and so suspended to a gallows, in the evening to be plunged, basket and all, into the nearest pond.
In the museum at Cahors the iron cage in which shrews were dipped is still shown.
Fools’ caps have long served as punishment in village schools, but their use in them was probably derived from the legal practice of condemning certain delinquents to the use of peculiar caps. Thus in Germany some minor crimes were punished by theculprit being sentenced to sit all day on a post in the middle of a canal, with a tall scarlet steeple cap on his head. In Rome, bankrupts were condemned to wear in public black bonnets of a sugar-loaf form. At Lucca they wore them of an orange colour; and in Spain they bore in addition an iron collar.
The ancient Roman manner of punishing parricide, by casting the murderer into the water in a sack which contained as well a cock, an ape, and a serpent, was not unused in the middle ages, and we find it threatened in an ordinance of the Provost of Paris, published on 25th June 1493, in which all persons sick with smallpox are bidden leave Paris at a day’s notice, or suffer the penalty above mentioned.
I might extract accounts of the most fearful of punishments which the cruelty of man could devise, from Oriental sources, but the barbarities practised by the Mussulmans are sickening through their excessive cruelty. Suffering enough has been undergone in our own quarter of the globe, and that too at no great distance of time from the age in which we live.
I will instance, in conclusion, the painful account of the execution of Balthazar Gerard, who assassinated William of Orange, on the 10th of July 1584, as given by Brantôme. “First he was racked with extraordinary cruelty, without his uttering a word, except that he persisted in his former assertion.
“Then, before he died, for eighteen days he was tortured with excessive cruelty. On the first day hewas taken into the public square, where there was a caldron of boiling oil, into which was thrust the arm which had dealt the blow. On the morrow this arm was chopped off, and it fell at his feet. He calmly moved it with his foot, and pushed it before him down from the scaffold. On the third day his breast and the front of his arm were plucked with red-hot pincers; on the following day his back and the back of his arm, and legs, were treated in the same manner. This was continued for eighteen days, and after each torture he was conducted back to prison, he all the while enduring his sufferings with great constancy. The greatest torture of all that he endured, except death, was when he was bound naked in the middle of the square, and around him at a little distance waggon-loads of charcoal were set on fire, and thus he was wrapped in flame. The poor sufferer bore the roasting for a long while, and then at last he lost patience and cried out; whereupon he was removed. For the final torture he was broken on the wheel, but he did not die at once, for they had only broken his legs and arms, so as to make him linger. Thus he lived for six hours, imploring some one to bring him a drop of water, but no one had the courage to give it him. At length the officer was entreated to put an end to this scene, and to strangle him, lest he should die in despair, and so his soul perish. The executioner approached, and when close to him asked how he felt. The tortured man replied, ‘As you left me.’But when the cord was produced to be put round his neck, he raised himself, as though fearing death, as he had not feared it before, and said to the executioner:—‘Ah! pray leave me alone. Do not torture me any more! Pray let me die as I am!’ So having been strangled, his life closed. Awful were the torments he endured!”
In the palmy days of childhood we were taught in nursery jingle, and we implicitly believed, that little girls were made of
Sugar and spiceAnd all that’s nice.
But, growing older, we learned to our disappointment that they were produced from Adam’s rib; and when we asked why woman was made of that particular bone, we were told because it was the most crooked in Adam’s body.
“Observe the result,” preached Jean Raulin, in the beginning of the sixteenth century: “man, composed of clay, is silent and ponderous; but woman gives evidence of her osseous origin by the rattle she keeps up. Move a sack of earth and it makes no noise; touch a bag of bones and you are deafened with the clitter-clatter.”
This observation did not fall to the ground; it was repeated by Gratian de Drusac in hisControversies des Sexes Masculin et Féminin, 1538. The learned in medieval times did not spare women.Jean Nevisan, professor of law at Turin, who died in 1540, is harder still on them in hisSylva Nuptialis. Therein he audaciously asserts that woman was formed by the Author of Good till the head had to be made, andthatwas a production of the great enemy of mankind. “Permisit Deus illud facere dæmonio.”
But the Rabbis are equally unsparing. They assert that when Eve had to be drawn from the side of Adam she was not extracted by the head, lest she should be vain; nor by the eyes, lest they should be wanton; nor by the mouth, lest she should be given to tittle-tattle; nor by the ears, lest she should be inquisitive; nor by the hands, lest she should be meddlesome; nor by the feet, lest she should be a gadabout; nor by the heart, lest she should be jealous; but she was drawn forth by the side; yet, notwithstanding these precautions, she has every fault specially guarded against, because, being extracted sideways, she was perverse.
Another Rabbinical gloss on the text of Moses asserts that Adam was created double; that he and Eve were made back to back, united at the shoulders, and that they were severed with a hatchet. Eugubinus says that their bodies were united at the side.
Antoinette Bourignon, that extraordinary mystic of the seventeenth century, had some strange visions of the primeval man and the birth of Eve. The body of Adam, she says, was more pure, translucent, and transparent than crystal, light and buoyant as air. In it were vessels and streams of light, which enteredand exuded through the pores. The vessels were charged with liquors of various colours of intense brilliancy and transparency; some of these fluids were water, milk, wine, fire, etc. Every motion of Adam’s body produced ineffable harmonies. Every creature obeyed him; nothing could resist or injure him. He was taller than men of this time; his hair was short, curled, and approaching to black. He had a little down on his lower lip. In his stomach was a clear fluid, like water in a crystal bowl, in which tiny eggs developed themselves, like bubbles in wine, as he glowed with the ardour of Divine charity; and when he strongly desired that others should unite with him in the work of praise, he deposited one of these eggs, which hatched, and from it emerged his consort, Eve.
The inhabitants of Madagascar have a strange myth touching the origin of woman. They say that the first man was created of the dust of the earth, and was placed in a garden, where he was subject to none of the ills which now afflict mortality; he was also free from all bodily appetites, and though surrounded by delicious fruit and limpid streams, yet felt no desire to taste of the fruit or quaff the water. The Creator had, moreover, strictly forbidden him either to eat or to drink. The great enemy, however, came to him, and painted to him in glowing colours the sweetness of the apple, the lusciousness of the date, and the succulence of the orange. In vain: the first man remembered the command laidupon him by his Maker. Then the fiend assumed the appearance of an effulgent spirit, and pretended to be a messenger from heaven commanding him to eat and drink. The man at once obeyed. Shortly after a pimple appeared on his leg; the spot enlarged into a tumour, which increased in size and caused him considerable annoyance. At the end of six months it burst, and there emerged from the limb a beautiful girl.
The father of all living turned her this way and that way, sorely perplexed, and uncertain whether to pitch her into the water or give her to the pigs, when a messenger from heaven appeared, and told him to let her run about the garden till she was of a marriageable age, and then to take her to himself as a wife. He obeyed. He called her Bahouna, and she became the mother of all races of men.
There seems to be some uncertainty as to the size of our great mother. The French orientalist, Henrion, member of the Academy, however, fixed it with a precision satisfactory, at least, to himself. He gives the following table of the relative heights of several eminent historical personages:—
It is interesting to have the height of Eve to the decimal of an inch. It must, however, be stated that the measures of the traditional tomb of Eve at Jedda give her a much greater stature. “On entering the great gate of the cemetery, one observes on the left a little wall three feet high, forming a square of ten to twelve feet. There lies the head of our first mother. In the middle of the cemetery is a sort of cupola, where reposes the middle of her body, and at the other extremity, near the door of egress, is another little wall, also three feet high, forming a lozenge-shaped enclosure: there are her feet. In this place is a large piece of cloth, whereon the faithful deposit their offerings, which serve for the maintenance of a constant burning of perfumes over the midst of her body. The distance between her head and feet is 400 feet. How we have shrunk since the creation!”—Lettre de H. A. D., Consul de France en Abyssinie, 1841.
But to return to the substance of which woman was made. This is a point on which the various cosmogonies of nations widely differ. Probably the discoverers of these cosmogonies were men, for they seldom give to woman a very distinguished origin. But then the poets make it up to her. Nature, the singer of the Land of Cakes tells us,
Her ’prentice hand she tried on man,And then she made the lasses, O.
Guillaume de Salluste du Bastas (b. 1544; d. 1590) composed a lengthy poem on the Creation,in which he does ample justice to the ladies. His poem was translated into Latin by Dumonin, and into German, Spanish, Italian, and English.
A specimen will suffice:—
The mother of mortals in herself doth combineThe charms of an Adam, and graces all Divine.Her tint his surpasses, her brow is more fair,Her eye twinkles brighter, more lustrous her hair;Far sweeter her utterance, her chin is quite smooth,Dream of Beauty incarnate, a lover and a love!
Our own Milton has done poor Eve justice in lines which need no quotation.
Pygmalion, says the classic story, which is really a Phœnician myth of creation, made a woman of marble or ivory, and Aphrodite, in answer to his prayers, endowed the statue with life. We do not believe it. No woman was ever marble. She may seem hard and cold, but she only requires a sturdy male voice to bid her
Descend, be stone no more!
to show that the marble appearance was put on, and that she is, and ever was, genuine palpitating flesh and blood.
“Often does Pygmalion apply his hands to the work. One while he addresses it in soft terms, at another he brings it presents that are agreeable to maidens, as shells, and smooth pebbles, and little birds, and flowers of a thousand hues, and lilies, and painted balls, and tears of the Heliades, that havedistilled from the trees. He decks her limbs, too, with clothing, and puts a long necklace on her neck. Smooth pendants hang from her ears, and bows from her breast. All things are becoming to her.”—Ovid,Metam.x. 254-266.
There is something tender and kindly in this myth; it represents woman as man would have her, pure as the ivory, modestly arrayed, simple, and delighted with small trifles, birds, and pebbles, and flowers—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. But Hesiod gives a widely different account of the creation of woman. According to him, she was sent in mockery by Zeus to be a scourge to man:—
The Sire who rules the earth and sways the poleHad spoken; laughter fill’d his secret soul:He bade the crippled god his hest obey,And mould with tempering water plastic clay;With human nerve and human voice investThe limbs elastic, and the breathing breast;Fair as the blooming goddesses above,A virgin’s likeness with the looks of love.He bade Minerva teach the skill that shedsA thousand colours in the gliding threads;He call’d the magic of love’s golden queenTo breathe around a witchery of mien,And eager passion’s never-sated flame,And cares of dress that prey upon the frame;Bade Hermes last endue, with craft refinedOf treacherous manners, and a shameless mind.Hesiod,Erga, 61-79.
If such was the Greek theory of the creation ofwoman, it speaks ill for the Greek men; for woman is ever what man makes her. If he chooses her to be giddy and light and crafty, giddy, light, and crafty will she become; but if he demands of her to be what God made her, modest, and thrifty, and tender, such she will ever prove. This our grand old Northern forefathers knew, and they made her creation a sacred matter, and fashioned her from a nobler stock than man. He was of the ash, she of the elm; they called the first woman Embla, or Emla, which means a laborious female—from the rootamr,aml,ambl, signifying “work.” “One day as the sons of Bör were walking along the sea-beach, they found two stems of wood, out of which they shaped a man and a woman. The first, Odin, infused into them life and spirit; the second, Vili, endowed them with reason and the power of motion; the third, Ve, gave them speech and features, hearing and vision.” This reminds one of the ancient Iranian myth of Ahoura Mazda creating the first pair, Meschia and Meschiane, from the Beivas tree. But the Scandinavians also spoke of three primeval mothers: Edda (great-grandmother), Amma (grandmother), and Mother, from whom sprang the three classes of thrall, churl, and earl. It is noticeable that these primeval women are represented as good housewives in the venerable Rîgsmàl, which describes the wanderings of the god Heimdal, under the name of Rîg. The deity comes to the hut of Edda, and at once—
From the ashes she took a loaf,Heavy and thick, with bran mixed;More beside she laid upon the board;There is set a bowl of broth on the table;There is a calf boiled, and cates the best.
Then he goes to the house of Amma, the wife of Afi.
Afi’s wife sat plying her rockWith outspread arms, busked to weave.A hood on her head, a sark over her breast,A kerchief round her neck, and studs on her shoulders.
He next enters the hall of Mother.
The housewife looked on her arms,Smoothed her veil, and fastened her sleeves,Her headgear adjusted. A clasp was on her bosom,Her robe was ample, her sark blue;Brighter her brow, fairer her breast,Whiter her neck than purest snowdrift.She took, did Mother, a figured clothOf white linen, and the table decked.She then took cakes of snow-white wheat,On the table them she laid.She set forth salvers, silver adorned,Full of game, and pork, and roasted birds.In a can was wine, the cups were costly.
Not a word of disparagement of woman is found in those old cosmic lays. The sturdy Northerner knew her value, and he respected her, whilst the frivolous Greek despised her as a toy.
The Provençal troubadours caught the classic misappreciation of woman. Massillia was a Greek colony, and Greek manners, tastes, and habits ofthought prevailed for long in the south-east of France. The troubadours idolised her, as an idol-puppet, but they knew not how to commend, and by commending develop in her those qualities which lie ready to germinate when called for by man—devotion, self-sacrifice, patience, gentleness, and all those homely yet inestimable treasures, the domestic virtues. Pierre de Saint Cloud, in the opening of his poem on Renard, has his fling at poor Eve. He says that Adam was possessed of a magic rod, with which he could create animals at pleasure, by striking the earth with it. One day he smote the ground, and there sprang forth the lamb. Eve caught the rod from his hand, and did as he had done; forthwith there bounded forth the wolf, which rent the creation of Adam. He struck, and the domestic fowls came forth. Eve did likewise, and gave being to the fox. He made the cattle, she the tiger; he the dog, she the jackal.
Turning to America, we encounter a host of myths relative to the first mother. The sacred book of the Quiches tells of the gods Gucumatz, Tepu, and Cuz-cah making man of earth, but when the rain came on he dissolved into mud. Then they made man and woman of wood, but the beings so made were too thick-headed to praise and sacrifice, wherefore they destroyed them with a flood; those who escaped up tall trees remain to this day, and are commonly called monkeys. The three gods having thus failed, consulted the Great White Boarand the Great White Porcupine, and with their assistance made man and woman of white and red maize. And men show by their headstrong character that the mighty boar had a finger in their creation, and women by their fretfulness indicate the great porcupine as having had the making of them.
The Minnatarees have a story that the first woman was made of such rich and fatty soil that she became a miracle of prolificness; she came out of the earth on the first day of the moon of buffaloes, and ere it waned, she had a child at her breast. Every month she bestowed upon her husband a son or a daughter, and these children were fertile equally with their mother. This was rather sharp work, and the Great Spirit, seeing that the world would be peopled in no time, at this rate, killed the first parents, and diminished the productiveness of their children.
The Nanticokes relate that their great ancestor was without a wife, and he wandered over the face of the earth in search of one: at last the king of the musk rats offered him his daughter, assuring him that she would make the best wife in the world, as she could keep a house tidy, was very shrewd, and neat in her person. The Nanticoke hesitated to accept the obliging offer, alleging that the wife was so very small, and had four legs. The Micabou of the musk rats now appeared, and undertook to remedy this defect. “Man of the Nanticokes,” said the spirit, “rise, take thy bride and lead her to theedge of the lake; bid her dip her feet in water, whilst thou, standing over her, shalt pronounce these words:
“For the last time as musk rat,For the first time as woman.Go in beast, come out human!”
The spirit’s directions were obeyed to the letter. The Nanticoke took his glossy little maiden musk rat by the paw, led her to the border of the lake, and whilst she dipped her feet in the water, he used the appointed formulary; thereupon a change took place in the little animal. Her body was observed to assume the posture of a human being, gradually erecting itself, as a sapling, which, having been bent to earth, resumes its upright position. When the little creature became erect, the skin began to fall from the head and neck, and gradually unveiling the body, exhibited the maiden, beautiful as a flowery meadow, or the blue summer sky, or the north lit up with the flush of the dancing lights, or the rainbow which follows the fertilising shower. Her hand was scarce larger than a hazel-leaf, and her foot not longer than that of the ringdove. Her arm was so slight that it seemed as though the breeze must break it. The Nanticoke gazed with delight on his beauteous bride, and his gratification was enhanced when he saw her stature increase to the proportions of a human being.
Other American Indian tribes assert that the Great Spirit, moved with compassion for man, whowasted in solitude on earth, sent a heavenly spirit to be his companion, and the mother of his children. And I believe they are about right. But the Kickapoos tell a very different tale.
There was a time throughout the great world, say they, when neither on land nor in the water was there a woman to be found. Of vain things there were plenty—there were the turkey, and the blue jay, the wood duck, and the wakon bird; and noisy, chattering creatures there were plenty—there were the jackdaw, the magpie, and the rook; and gadabouts there were plenty—there were the squirrel, the starling, and the mouse; but of women, vain, noisy, chattering, gadabout women, there were none. It was quite a still world to what it is now, and it was a peaceable world, too. Men were in plenty, made of clay, and sun-dried, and they were then so happy, oh, so happy! Wars were none then, quarrels were none. The Kickapoos ate their deer’s flesh with the Potowatomies, hunted the otter with the Osages, and the beaver with the Hurons. Then the great fathers of Kickapoos scratched the backs of the savage Iroquois, and the truculent Iroquois returned the compliment. Tribes which now seek one another’s scalps then sat smiling benevolently in each other’s faces, smoking the never-laid-aside calumet of peace.
These first men were not quite like the men now, for they had tails. Very handsome tails they were, covered with long silky hair; very convenient were these appendages in a country where flies werenumerous and troublesome, tails being more sudden in their movements than hands, and more conveniently situated for whisking off the flies which alight on the back. It was a pleasant sight to see the ancestral men leisurely smoking, and waving their flexible tails at the doors of their wigwams in the golden autumn evenings, and within were no squalling children, no wrangling wives. The men doted on their tails, and they painted and adorned them; they platted the hair into beautiful tresses, and wove bright beads and shells and wampum with the hair. They attached bows and streamers of coloured ribbons to the extremities of their tails, and when men ran and pursued the elk or the moose, there was a flutter of colour behind them, and a tinkle of precious ornaments.
But the red men got proud; they were so happy, all went so well with them, that they forgot the Great Spirit. They no more offered the fattest and choicest of their game upon the memahoppa, or altar-stone, nor danced in his praise who dispersed the rains to cleanse the earth, and his lightnings to cool and purify the air. Wherefore he sent his chief Manitou to humble men by robbing them of what they most valued, and bestowing upon them a scourge and affliction adequate to their offence. The spirit obeyed his Master, and, coming on earth, reached the ground in the land of the Kickapoos. He looked about him, and soon ascertained that the red men valued their tails above every otherpossession. Summoning together all the Indians, he acquainted them with the will of the Wahconda, and demanded the instant sacrifice of the cherished member. It is impossible to describe the sorrow and compunction which filled their bosoms when they found that the forfeit for their oblivion of the Great Spirit was to be that beautiful and beloved appendage. Tail after tail was laid upon the block and amputated.
The mission of the spirit was, in part, performed. He now took the severed tails and converted them into vain, chattering, and frisky women. Upon these objects the Kickapoos at once lavished their admiration; they loaded them as before with beads, and wampum, and paint, and decorated them with tinkling ornaments and coloured ribbons. Yet the women had lost one essential quality which as tails they had possessed. The caudal appendage had brushed off man the worrying insects which sought to sting or suck his blood, whereas the new article was itself provided with a sharp sting, called by us a tongue; and far from brushing annoyances off man, it became an instrument for accumulating them upon his back and shoulders. Pleasant and soothing to the primeval Kickapoo was the wagging to and fro of the member stroking and fanning his back, but the new one became a scourge to lacerate.
However, woman retains indications of her origin. She is still beloved as of yore; she is still beautiful, with flowing hair; still adapted to trinketry. Stillshe is frisky, vivacious, and slappy; and still, as of old, does she ever follow man, dangling after him, hanging at his heels, and never, of her own accord, separating from him.
The Kickapoos, divested of their tails, the legend goes on to relate, were tormented by the mosquitoes, till the Great Spirit, in compassion for their woes, mercifully withdrew the greater part of their insect tormentors. Overjoyed at their deliverance, the red men supplicated the Wahconda also to remove the other nuisances, the women; but he replied that the women were a necessary evil and must remain.[1]
This is worse treatment than that which the ladies received from Hesiod. We have all heard of a young and romantic lady who was so enraptured with the ideal of American Indian life as delineated by Fenimore Cooper, that she fled her home, and went to the savages in Canada. We hope she did not fall to the lot of a Kickapoo.
Poor woman! it is pleasanter to believe that she is made from our ribs, which we know come very close to our hearts, and thus to explain the mutual sympathy of man and woman, and thereby to account for that compassion and tenderness man feels for her, and also for the manner in which she flies to man’s side as her true resting-place in peril and doubt. But we have a cosmogony of our own, elucidated from internal convictions, assisted by all the modern appliances of table-rapping andclairvoyancy. According to our cosmogony, woman is compounded of three articles, sugar, tincture of arnica, and soft soap. Sugar, because of the sweetness which is apparent in most women—alas! that in some it should have acidulated into strong domestic vinegar; arnica, because in woman is to be found that quality of healing and soothing after the bruises and wounds which afflict us men in the great battle of life; and soft soap, for reasons too obvious to need specification.