Chapter 3

"'Twas night, when every creature, void of cares,The common gift of balmy slumbers shares;The statues of my gods (for such they seem'd),Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem'd,Before me stood, majestically bright,Full in the beams of Phœbe's entering light.Then thus they spoke and eased my troubled mind:'What from the Delian god thou go'st to find,He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.Those powers are we, companions of thy fate,Who from the burning town by thee were brought,Thy fortune follow'd, and thy safety wrought.Through seas and lands, as we thy steps attend,So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,A town that o'er the conquer'd world shall reign.Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;Nor let thy weary mind to labours yield:But change thy seat; for not the Delian godNor we have given thee Crete for our abode.A land there is, Hesperia call'd of old,(The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold—Th' Œotrians held it once), by later fameNow call'd Italia from the leader's name.Iasius there, and Dardanus, were born;From thence we came and thither must return.Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet:Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.'Astonished at their voices and their sight,(Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;I saw, I knew their faces, and descry'd,In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied),I started from my couch; a clammy sweatOn all my limbs, and shivering body, sate.To heaven I lift my hands with pious haste,And sacred incense in the flames I cast."[33]

Among Christian nations visions of this character have also been common; and the religious writings of every age of the Church contain numerous instances of apparitions of the Trinity, of our Lord, of the canonized, and the powers of evil.

But the most familiar phase of the ghost-belief is that of the visible manifestation of the spirits of the dead; and probably few, if any, races are without a superstition of this nature.

The Grecians and Romans believed that the souls of the dead (manes) roamed about the earth, having power to interfere with the affairs of man and inflict evil. The spirits of those who had been virtuous during life were distinguished by the name oflares(under which name we have in a previous page alluded to them as tutelary deities) ormanes;and the spirits of the wicked were termedlarvæ, orlemures, and often terrified the good, and haunted the wicked and impious. These ghosts were also deified, and they were known as theDii Manes;and the stones erected over the graves in Roman burial-grounds had usually inscribed upon them the letters D.M., or D.M.S., that is,Dîs Manibus, orDîs Manibus Sacrum,—"Sacred to the Manes Gods." Sacrifices were offered to these deities, the offerings being termedreligiosæ, in contradistinction to those offered to the superior gods, which were denominatedsacræ;and during the festivals held in honour of the ghosts (LemuriaorLemuralia), it was customary to burn black beans over thegraves, and to beat kettles and drums, in order that, by the noxious odour of the former, and the noise of the latter, the ghosts might be frightened away, and no longer terrify their relations.

We have already given several examples illustrative of the parallelism which exists between the accounts we possess of the apparitions of Grecian and Roman deities, and those manifestations of celestial personages which are recorded to have occurred in more modern times. A similar resemblance exists between the accounts given of the spectral appearance of the spirits of the dead.

In the Odyssey (B. XI), Ulysses, previous to descending into hell, is described as offering "solemn rites and holy vows" to the dead:—

"When lo! appear'd along the dusky coasts,Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts;Fair, pensive youths, and soft, enamour'd maids;And wither'd elders, pale and wrinkled shadesGhastly with wounds, the form of warriors slainStalk'd with majestic port, a martial train:These and a thousand more swarm'd o'er the ground,And all the dire assembly shriek'd around."

A striking illustration of the similarity of ancient and modern ghost-stories, in all essential points, is contained in the description given in the Æneis (B. II) of the apparition of the ghostof Hector to Æneas, at the destruction of Troy:—

"'Twas in the dead of night, when sleep repairsOur bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:A bloody shroud he seem'd, and bath'd in tears;Such as he was when by Pelides slain,Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain;Swoll'n were his feet, as when the thongs were thrustThrough the bored holes; his body black with dust;Unlike that Hector, who return'd from toilsOf war, triumphant in Æacians' spoils,Or him, who made the fainting Greeks retire,And launch'd against their navy Phrygian fire.His hair and beard stood stiffen'd with his gore,And all the wounds he for his country boreNow streamed afresh, and with new purple ran."

An equally, if not more marked example, is recorded by Pliny, the consul at Sura.

A house at Athens was grievously haunted by a spirit, which, during the night, restlessly roamed through the apartments, dragging, apparently, a heavy chain after it. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired the house, determined to reduce the spirit to order and silence. In the depth of the night, while pursuing his studies, the silence was broken by the noise of rattling chains, which approached the room where he sat. Presently, a spectre entered, and beckoned to him, but the philosopher took no notice. The spectre agitated its chains anew, and then he arose and, following his ghostly guide, he was led into the court-yard of the house, to a certain spot, when the spectre vanished. He marked the place, and on the following day caused the ground to be dug up and searched, when beneath it they found the skeleton of a man in chains. The bones were publicly burned, and from that time the spirit ceased to haunt the mansion.

A belief in ghosts was one of the most prominent of the superstitions of the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe. It was customary with the Scandinavians, as with the Grecians, to perform certain ceremonies at the tombs of the dead, to propitiate the ghosts, and facilitate their entrance into the halls of bliss.

The ghosts of the departed warriors, after they had entered their airy halls, were supposed to pursue pleasures similar in character to those which had engaged their attention on earth. They listened to the strains of immortal bards; followed the chase over the illimitable fields of heaven; visited the scenes of their former glories; and when resting within their tombs, they would talk of mortal men, and sing the songs of other worlds. Airy and unsubstantial as a wreath of mist, they often wandered on the surface of the earth. The ghost of a mighty hero, clothed in a panoply of lurid clouds, and armed with a meteor, might be seen brooding o'er his tomb, or attended "by aridge of formless shades," it swept across former battle-fields. The men of bygone days, wreathed in their vapoury robes, and reposing on clouds, hovered on the midnight blast, which bore in its mighty cadences the echoing sounds of the voices of the dead; or "like the new moon seen through the gathered mist, when the sky pours down its flaky snow, and the world is silent and dark,"[34]the spirits of the maidens glided over the rugged hills, or roamed on the pebbly shore.

The early Scandinavian traditions and historical writings, are pregnant with ghosts and other supernatural agents. Mr. Howitt[35]quotes from one of the Eddaic songs, which records the lives of a hero named Helge and his wife Sigrun, the following singularly interesting scene.

Helge died, and the body was laid in its cairn. In the evening Sigrun's maid passed the cairn, and saw the ghost of Helge ride into it with a numerous train. Addressing the ghost, the maid said, "Is it an illusion that I see, or the Eve of the Mighty, that ye ride your horses and urge them with your spurs? Or are the heroes bound for their homes?" The ghost replied, "It is no illusion which thou seest, nor the Eve of the Mighty; though thou seest us, and we urge our horses with our spurs; neither are the heroes bound for their homes."

The maid then went to her mistress and said, "Haste thee, Sigrun, from the hill of Seva, if the leader of the battle thou desirest to see. Open is the cairn; Helge is come; the war-scars bleed. Helge bade thee to still his dripping wound." Sigrun went to the cairn, and entering it, said to the shade of her dead husband, "Now am I as joyful of our meeting as Odin's ravens when, long-fasting, they scent the warm food, or the day-wearied when they behold the close of day. I will kiss my lifeless king before thou throwest off thy bloody cuirass. Thy hair, O Helge! is pierced through with frost, or with the dew of death is the hero slain. Cold are the hands of the friend of Högne. How, therefore, King, shall I find a cure for thee?"—"Thou only, Sigrun! on the hill of Seva," replied the ghost, "art the cause that Helge is here, slain by the dew of sorrow. Thou weepest, gold-adorned one! burning tears, maid of the sun-glowing south! Before thou sleepest, every tear shall fall bloody on the breast of the Prince, pierced through with the cold of thy grief. But we will drink the precious mead together, though we have lost gladness and lands. Yet no one sings a songof woe, though he sees a wound in my breast. Now are the brides closed in the cairns, and the princely maidens are laid beside us."

Sigrun made a bed in the cairn, and said, "Here have I, Helge, prepared rest for thee; rest free from all trouble. Son of the Ylfinga! I will sleep in thy arms as formerly, when my hero lived." The ghost answered, "No longer will I say that thou art unfaithful on the hill of Seva. Since thou sleepest in the embrace of the dead in the cairn, thou fair daughter of Högur! And yet thou livest, offspring of kings! Time is to ride the red ways. Let the pale steed tramp the steeps of the air. In the west must we be, by the bridge Vindhjalen, ere the cock in Walhalla wakes the sons of victory."

In the Eyrbyggja Saga (written beforeA.D.1264; period when the events recorded occurred,A.D.883) is an account of certain spectral apparitions which followed the death of a lady whose commands upon the death-bed had not been obeyed. This story is almost unique in character, and it is a singularly interesting example of the ghost-belief of Iceland at an early period.

On the evening of the day when the corpse was being removed to a distant place of sepulture, an apparition of the lady was seen busily preparing victuals in the kitchen of the house where thebearers reposed for the night. On the night when the conductors of the funeral returned home, a spectral appearance resembling a half-moon glided around the boarded walls of the mansion, in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and continued its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. "This apparition was renewed every night during the whole week, and was pronounced by Thorer with the wooden leg to presage pestilence and mortality." Shortly after, a herdsman showed signs of being persecuted by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed, "and then" (to quote literally from Sir Walter Scott's abstract of the Saga) "commenced a scene of ghost-seeing unheard of in the annals of superstition. The first victim was Thorer, who had presaged the calamity. Going out of doors one evening, he was grappled by the spectre of the deceased shepherd as he attempted to re-enter the house. His wooden leg stood him in poor stead in such an encounter; he was hurled to the earth and so fearfully beaten that he died in consequence of the bruises. Thorer was no sooner dead than his ghost associated itself to that of the herdsman, and joined him in pursuing and assaulting the inhabitants of Froda. Meantime an infectious disorder spread fast amongst them, and several of the bondsmen died one afterthe other. Strange portents were seen within doors, the meal was displaced and mingled, and the dried fish flung about in a most alarming manner, without any visible agent. At length, while the servants were forming their evening circle around the fire, a spectre resembling the head of a seal-fish was seen to emerge out of the pavement of the room, bending its round black eyes full on the tapestried bed-curtains of Thorgunna (the deceased lady). Some of the domestics ventured to strike at the figure; but, far from giving way, it rather erected itself further from the floor, until Kiartan, who seemed to have a natural predominance over these supernatural prodigies, seizing a huge forge-hammer, struck the seal repeatedly on the head, and compelled it to disappear, forcing it down into the floor, as if he had driven a stake into the earth. This prodigy was found to intimate a new calamity. Thorodd, the master of the family, had some time before set forth on a voyage to bring home a cargo of dried fish; but, in crossing the river Enna, the skiff was lost, and he perished with the servants who attended him. A solemn funeral feast was held at Froda, in memory of the deceased, when, to the astonishment of the guests, the apparition of Thorodd and his followers seemed to enter the apartment dripping with water. Yet this vision excited less horror than might have been expected; for the islanders, though nominally Christians, retained, among other superstitions, a belief that the spectres of such drowned persons as had been favourably received by the goddess Rana were wont to show themselves at their funeral feast. They saw, therefore, with some composure, Thorodd and his dripping attendants plant themselves by the fire, from which all mortal guests retreated to make room for them. It was supposed this apparition would not be renewed after the conclusion of the festival. But so far were their hopes disappointed, that, so soon as the mourning guests had departed, the fires being lighted, Thorodd and his comrades marched in on one side, drenched as before with water; on the other entered Thorer, heading all those who had died in the pestilence, and who appeared covered with dust. Both parties seized the seats by the fire, while the half-frozen and terrified domestics spent the night without either light or warmth. The same phenomenon took place the next night, though the fires had been lighted in a separate house, and at length Kiartan was obliged to compound matters with the spectres by kindling a large fire for them in the principal apartment, and one for the family and domestics in a separate hut. This prodigy continued during the whole feast of Jol. Other portents also happened to appal this devoted family; the contagious disease again broke forth, and when any one fell a sacrifice to it, his spectre was sure to join the troop of persecutors, who had now almost full possession of the mansion of Froda. Thorgrima Galldrakinna, wife of Thorer, was one of these victims; and, in short, of thirty servants belonging to the household, eighteen died, and five fled for fear of the apparitions, so that only seven remained in the service of Kiartan."

The trouble and annoyance from the spectres had now reached so serious a pitch that, by the advice of a maternal uncle, Kiartan instituted judicial measures against the spectres.

"A tribunal being then constituted, with the usual legal solemnities, a charge was preferred by Kiartan against Thorer with the wooden leg, by Thordo Kausa against Thorodd, and by others chosen as accusers against the individual spectres present, accusing them of molesting the mansion, and introducing death and disease among its inhabitants. All the solemn rites of judicial procedure were observed on this singular occasion; evidence was adduced, charges given, and the cause formally decided. It does not appear that the ghosts put themselves on their defence, so that sentence of ejectment was pronounced against them individually in due and legal form. When Thorer heard the judgment, he arose, and saying, 'I have sat while it was lawful for me to do so,' left the apartment by the door opposite to that at which the judicial assembly was constituted. Each of the spectres, as they heard their individual sentence, left the place, saying something which indicated their unwillingness to depart, until Thorodd himself was solemnly appointed to depart. 'We have here no longer,' said he, 'a peaceful dwelling, therefore will we remove.' Kiartan then entered the hall with his followers, and the priest, with holy water, and celebration of a solemn mass, completed the conquest over the goblins, which had been commenced by the power and authority of the Icelandic law."

The spectral phenomena of the ancient Swedish folk-lore differs in no respect from the current histories of recent date. An interesting example of this is found in the beautiful ballad of Sir Ulf and Lady Sölfverlind.

Sir Ulf was a nobleman who had married a wife from a foreign country. After they had lived together eight years, and had had a family of three children, the Lady Sölfverlind died. In a short time he married again, and by his second wife, the Lady Stineborg, he had also several children. This lady, however, proved a cruel step-mother; for, as the ballad reads:—

"Lady Stineborg's children went out to play,Lady Sölfverlind's children sate weeping all day.This know we of Ulf.The youngest child it wept so loud,That it woke its mother beneath the sod.This know we of Ulf.Lady Sölfverlind spoke to the angel-band:'Is it granted to visit the earthly land?'This know we of Ulf.'It is granted from heaven to earth to go,But thou must return ere the first cock crow.'This know we of Ulf.She came to the door, she tirled at the pin;'Rise up, my children, and let me in.'This know we of Ulf.'On sticks and stones why lie you thus?''Nothing besides is given to us.'This know we of Ulf.'Why look ye, my children, so grim and so grey?''We have not been washed since thou went away.'This know we of Ulf.'Rise up, Lady Stineborg, hearken to me,For I have a few words to speak unto thee!'This know we of Ulf.'I left behind me both upland and low,Yet now my children must supperless go.'This know we of Ulf.'I left behind me both oxen and kine,Yet now they go barefoot, these children of mine.'This know we of Ulf.'I left soft down pillows, full many a one,Now hard sticks and stones are the bed they lie on!'This know we of Ulf.'Hadst thou to my children shown tenderness sweet,God the Father in heaven had found thee a seat!'This know we of Ulf.'Have thy children in me a hard step-mother known?Henceforth will I love them as well as my own!'This know we of Ulf.There ne'er was a lovelier sight in the sky,Than Sölfverlind taking her children on high.This know we of Ulf."[36]

"Lady Stineborg's children went out to play,Lady Sölfverlind's children sate weeping all day.This know we of Ulf.

The youngest child it wept so loud,That it woke its mother beneath the sod.This know we of Ulf.

Lady Sölfverlind spoke to the angel-band:'Is it granted to visit the earthly land?'This know we of Ulf.

'It is granted from heaven to earth to go,But thou must return ere the first cock crow.'This know we of Ulf.

She came to the door, she tirled at the pin;'Rise up, my children, and let me in.'This know we of Ulf.

'On sticks and stones why lie you thus?''Nothing besides is given to us.'This know we of Ulf.

'Why look ye, my children, so grim and so grey?''We have not been washed since thou went away.'This know we of Ulf.

'Rise up, Lady Stineborg, hearken to me,For I have a few words to speak unto thee!'This know we of Ulf.

'I left behind me both upland and low,Yet now my children must supperless go.'This know we of Ulf.

'I left behind me both oxen and kine,Yet now they go barefoot, these children of mine.'This know we of Ulf.

'I left soft down pillows, full many a one,Now hard sticks and stones are the bed they lie on!'This know we of Ulf.

'Hadst thou to my children shown tenderness sweet,God the Father in heaven had found thee a seat!'This know we of Ulf.

'Have thy children in me a hard step-mother known?Henceforth will I love them as well as my own!'This know we of Ulf.

There ne'er was a lovelier sight in the sky,Than Sölfverlind taking her children on high.This know we of Ulf."[36]

The ghost-belief of Hindostan is one of the most important of the popular superstitions of that country. It differs from that of more westerly countries in the degree of reality with which the natives have invested it; for while the former look upon the interference of the spirits of the dead in the events of ordinary life as a circumstance of rare occurrence, and regard manifestations of this nature with an awe befitting their solemnity and supernatural character, the latter lives in an atmosphere of spectral beings, which are the spirits of those who have lived a wicked life on earth, and retain their malignant disposition unabated after death, if indeed it is not increased in intensity by the devil-like nature they assume, and exercise their evil powers in all the affairs of life, haunting the localities which they previously inhabited, and terrifying and tormenting alike friend and foe. Neither are their terrors confined to mere occasional apparition, and to the fear excited by this, but to the power which they possess of interference by physical force; for they belabour with blows, or grievously affect with bodily ailments, the unhappy individuals whom they haunt, and often subject to inexpressible tortures those who have had the ill-hap to offend them. Hence the Hindoo dreads a ghost not so much on account of its supernatural character, abstractedly considered, as for the physical evil it may inflict upon him.

The ghosts of the wicked, and of the unmarried (as it is thought in some provinces), are alone permitted to wander on earth, and they have a partiality, like our own ghosts, for frequenting solitary places, woods, caverns, and ruins, from which they issue to exercise their baleful powers on man.

Sometimes a ghost will haunt a certain house, or a plot of ground, and become so obstreperous, that the occupier of the house is obliged to desert it, and the proprietor of the land to allow it to become waste. But it has happened that if the spirit was that of an old proprietor, a deed executed in its name has appeased it, and it has no more troubled the place.

These spirits are called, in the Deccan,Vîrikas, and in the more southerly parts of India,Paisâchi. It is customary to erect small shrines to them, formed of a pile of stones, on the top of which is a sheltered cavity, containing an image, or a rough, shapeless stone, to which offerings of cloth, rice, &c., are presented from time to time. This propitiatory sacrifice is, in general, found to be an efficient method of obtaining immunity from the malignant pranks of the ghosts; but if it be neglected, they will visit the unfortunate sinner with torments and misfortune, or, appearing to him by night, intimate the miseries hanging over his head, unless he quickly amends himself, and offers up the necessary gifts.

Dr. Buchanan relates a story of the apparition of aPaisâchiwhich occurred during his journey in Mysore. His cook had been taken ill, and died; orders had been given to secure his effects for the benefit of his wife and children, "but on inspection, after his death, no money could be found. Whether he had been plundered as soon as he became insensible, and that a guilty conscience occasioned fears among his companions, or whether the sudden manner of his death occasioned suspicions, I cannot say; but it was immediately believed that he would become aPaisâchi, and all my people were filled with terror. The butler imagined that thePaisâchiappeared to him at night with a black silk handkerchief tied round its head, and gave him instructions to take all the effects of the deceased to his family; upon this, the latter, being a man of courage, put his shoes on the right side of the door, which he considered to be a sure preventive against such intruders. Next night a cattle-driver, lying in all the agonies of nocturnal terror, saw the appearance of a dog enter, and smell round the place where the man had died; when, to his utter dismay, the spectre gradually grew larger and larger, and at length, having assumed the form of the cook, vanished with a shriek. The poor man had not the courage to use the slippers, but lay till morning in a kind of stupor. After this, even the minds of thesepoyswere appalled, and when I happened to be awake I heard the sentries, by way of keeping up their courage, singing with a tremulous voice."

There is a class of men calledCani, orShaycana, who are supposed to have the power of ejecting and frightening away troublesome spirits by the performance of certain mystic ceremonies. It is requisite, first, to ascertain whether the offending ghost is that of a stranger, or if it belong to any deceased member of the family; for it would seem that much more powerful incantations are required to get rid of a family ghost,which seems to have the opinion that it has a right to haunt its relations in the flesh, than to eject the ghost of a stranger. The latter, according to Dr. Buchanan, may be got rid of for a fanam, or about ninepence sterling; the former requires expensive sacrifices and many prayers, therefore the fee is much larger.

The Chinese have a great dread of ghosts, particularly of the ghosts of those who have come to an untimely end. They suspend in their houses, for the purpose of preventing the entrance of these spirits, and of defending themselves from their influence, a cruciform piece of iron, to which is attached pieces of perforated money, the coinage of emperors who have been deified, and who are conceived to exercise a protective power over their votaries.

The superstitions of the modern Egyptians and of the Arabs are rich in ghosts.

The terméfreetis applied to the ghosts of dead persons, as well as to evil genii, by the Egyptians; and the following story, related by Mr. Lane, will illustrate the nature of this superstition as it is entertained by that people.

"I had once a humorous cook, who was somewhat addicted to the intoxicating hhasheesh: soon after he had entered my service, I heard him, one evening, muttering and exclaiming on the stairs,as if in surprise at some event; and then politely saying, "But why are you sitting here in the draught? Do me the favour to come up into the kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little." The civil address not being answered, was repeated and varied several times, till I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. "The éfreet of a Turkish soldier," he replied, "is sitting on the stairs, smoking his pipe, and refuses to move; he came up from the well below: pray step and see him." On my going to the stairs, and telling the servant that I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I had a clear conscience. He was told afterwards that the house had long been haunted; but asserted that he had not been previously informed of the supposed cause; which was the fact of a Turkish soldier having been murdered there. My cook professed to see this éfreet frequently after."[37]

The Arabs entertain a considerable degree of fear and respect for ghosts.

Mr. Bayle St. John states that when travelling through the Libyan desert, in 1847, he saw a burial-place of the Bedouin Arabs, in the centre of which were confusedly scattered "camel-howdahs" (tachterwans), stirrups, householdutensils, small ploughs, &c., which had been left there by the Arabs, when commencing a journey, under the care of the ghost of a defunct sheikh, who had been interred there.[38]

Some of the aboriginal tribes of South America believe in the occasional apparition of the souls of the dead.

Soon after the Roman Catholic mission was established at Bahia, an eclipse of the moon occurred; the savages, fully armed, rushed in terror to the mission, and when the priest inquired the cause of their alarm, they responded that the moon was the abode of the souls of the dead, and that on that night they had collected there in such numbers that they darkened its surface: this was a sure sign of evil.

Such is a brief sketch of the ghost-belief of several nations, ancient and modern.

This belief, in its essential characteristics, was the same in the remote periods of antiquity as in more recent times; and a similar analogy exists between the modifications of it which are now entertained in different and widely separated countries.

The variations which it is found to possess are dependent upon those peculiarities of habit, religion, and social life which characterize eachnation. This fact gives an important clue by which we may unravel the actual nature of the phenomena which are embodied in the belief. But previously to entering upon this task it is requisite to point out a remote consequence of mythological and legendary lore which exercises a highly important influence on the minds of most if not all persons at the present time.

The numerous myths which were retained, the implicit faith reposed in them, and the great extent to which the practice of the occult sciences was carried in the Middle Ages, fostered ideas respecting the influence which supernatural beings exercised in the ordinary affairs of life, which rivalled in extent and variety those entertained before the Christian era; but they received perhaps a more gloomy character from the doctrine of the agency of devils.

The prevalence of these superstitions throws a wild and weird-like shadow over the history of those periods, and one of the chief results was that the records of local and general events became pregnant with mysterious occurrences and supernatural interpositions; and a mass of legends, teeming with remnants of ancient myths, more or less modified, giants, demons, witches, wizards, ghosts, portents, &c., have been perpetuated to modern times, and have formed an inexhaustiblemine to the novelist and romance-writer.

There are few localities in England which do not possess legends or tradition of this nature; and the standard nursery and children's tales are full of supernatural personages and occurrences in which are set aside all the known laws of matter and force, and time and space are alike annihilated. Many of these tales are of great interest, for in them we find degenerated forms of some of the most ancient traditions and myths of our own and other races.

The adventures ofJack the Giant-Killer, the most celebrated of all celebrated nursery heroes, are for the most part derived from the fabulous era of our own country, and from Scandinavian mythology; and the whole tale is a degraded and vitiated tradition in which the deeds of Corineus, a celebrated personage in the mythical history of Britain, and Prince Arthur; the adventures of Thor, the god of thunder, and other Scandinavian deities, are jumbled together in strange confusion.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his British History[39]states that the early inhabitants of this island were giants. Brutus, a grandson of Ascanius, the companion of Æneas in his flight from Troy, and Corineus, also of Trojan descent, guided by a dream, discovered Britain, and delighted with "the pleasant situation of the place, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods," they became desirous of fixing their habitation in so desirable a country, and landing, drove the giants into the fastnesses of the mountains, and divided the country.

To Corineus was apportioned that part of the island which we call Cornwall, and it is recorded that he had selected this portion of the island for his share, because "it was a diversion to him to encounter the said giants, which were in greater numbers there than in all the other provinces that fell to the share of his companions."

Corineus is described as being "an ardent man in matters of council, and of great courage and boldness; who in an encounter with any person, even of gigantic stature, would immediately overthrow him as if he were a child."

In the same fabulous history (B. X, ch. 3) it is stated, that a giant who had invaded our shores, and taken refuge at the top of St. Michael's Mount, was attacked by King Arthur in the night and killed; the country being thus freed "from a most destructive and voracious monster."

Some of Jack's principal adventures are derived from the ancient Eddas and Sagas of Scandinavia.

The incident which represents Jack as having overheard a giant, upon whose hospitality he had intruded, muttering—

"Though you lodge with me this night,You shall not see the morning light;My club shall dash your brains out quite;"

and in which he had evaded the catastrophe by placing a log of wood in the bed, he lying quietly in a corner, while the giant furiously beat with his club the inanimate object, thinking to dash him to pieces; and the delightfully cool response of Jack to the wonder-struck giant when he beheld him safe and sound in the morning, and inquired if he had not been disturbed in the night,—"No, nothing worth mentioning, I believe a rat struck me with his tail two or three times:"—this incident is a modification of an adventure which occurred to Thor on his journey to the land of giants, and it is found in some form or other in the folk-lore of every nation in the north of Europe.

Thor, while journeying to the land of giants, met with one of that race named Skrymir. They formed a companionship, and the whole of the provisions were placed in the giant's wallet. At night, when they stopped to rest, Skrymir at once lay down and fell asleep, previously handing the wallet to Thor in order that he might refresh himself. Thor was unable to open it, and wroth with the giant for his apparent insensibility and the mode in which he had tied the knots, he seized his mighty hammer and flung it at the giant's head. Skrymir awaking, asked whether a leaf had fallen on his head, and then he fell asleep again. Thor again struck him with his hammer, and it apparently sank deep into his skull; and the giant again awoke, and asked, "Did an acorn fall on my head? How fares it with thee, Thor?" Thor, incensed beyond measure, waited until the giant again slept, and then exerting all his power, dashed his hammer at the head of the sleeping monster, into which it sank up to the handle. Skrymir, rising up, rubbed his cheek and said, "Are there any birds perched on this tree? Methought, when I awoke, some moss from the branches fell on my head."

Skrymir, distrusting Thor, had before he slept interposed a huge rock betwixt himself and the god, and upon this Thor had unwittingly exercised his strength.

The adventure in which Jack is represented as outwitting a giant in eating, by placing his food in a large leathern receptacle beneath his vesture, and then ripping it up, and defying the giant to do the same, whereupon the giant seizesa knife, plunges it into his breast and kills himself, is contained also in stories which are prevalent among the Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Servians, and Persians.

The Swedish version is as follows:—"In the evening, when the giant and his boy were about to sup, the crone placed a large dish of porridge before them. "That would be excellent," said the boy, "if we were to try which could eat the most, father or I." The giant was ready for the trial, and they began to eat with all their might. But the boy was crafty: he had tied his wallet before his chest, and for every spoonful that entered his mouth, he let two fall into the wallet. When the giant had despatched seven bowls of porridge, he had taken his fill, and sat puffing and blowing, and unable to swallow another spoonful; but the boy continued with just as much good-will as when he began. The giant asked him how it was, that he who was so little could eat so much. "Father, I will soon show you: when I have eaten as much as I can contain, I slit up my stomach, and then I can take in as much again." Saying these words, he took a knife and ripped up the wallet, so that the porridge ran out. The giant thought this a capital plan, and that he would do the like. But when he stuck the knife in his stomach, the blood began to flow, and the end of the matter was thatit proved his death."[40]

The sword of sharpness, and the cloak which rendered the wearer invisible, and by the aid of which Jack won so many important victories, are two of the principal supernatural elements in theNibelungenlied. In this ancient legend, which contains the same tragical story as the still more ancient Scandinavian poem, theVölundar-Kvida, the sword "Balmurg" is described:—

"a broad and mighty blade,With such keen-cutting edges, that straight its way it made,Where'er it smote on helmet:"

and the cloud-cloak which Siegfried took from the dwarf Albric, is pourtrayed as—

"A vesture that hight cloud-cloak, marvellous to tell,Whoever has it on him, may keep him safe and wellFrom cuts and stabs of foemen; him none can hear or see,As soon as he is in it, but see and hear can heWhate'er he will around him, and thus must needs prevail;He grows besides far stronger; so goes the wondrous tale."[41]

The story ofCinderella, or the Glass Slipper, is of great antiquity, and versions of it are found in many countries.

Ælian, who lived aboutA.D.225, relates that, as Rhodope, a celebrated Greekcourtezan, who had been carried into Egypt, was bathing one day, an eagle carried off one of her slippers, and as it flew over Memphis, where king Psammetichus was at that time sitting in tribunal, it let fall the sandal into his bosom. Astonished at the occurrence, and at the smallness of the sandal, he caused inquiries to be made for its owner, whom, when he had discovered, he married.

Old versions of this story are found in Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Wallachia, Servia, Russia, Poland, and Wales.[42]

InJack and the Bean-stalk, the bean is evidently a version of the ash Ygdrasil of the Edda, reaching from hell to heaven; and the golden hen, harp, &c., are familiar features in northern stories.

Puss in Boots, theSeven-league Boots, &c., have their prototypes in Scandinavian folk-lore; and the two last-mentioned tales, as well as others, are probably of considerable antiquity.

Tales derived from these sources and composed of such elements, and fables in which beasts, birds, and fishes are represented as speaking and reasoning in a manner that puts man to the blush, are among the earliest things engrafted in the infant mind; and ever now

"By nightThe village-matron round the blazing hearth,Suspends the infant-audience with her tales,Breathing astonishment—of witching rhymes,Of evil spirits: of the death-bed callOf him who robb'd the widow, and devouredThe orphan's portion: of unquiet soulsRisen from the grave to ease the heavy guiltOf deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walkAt dead of night, and clank their chains and waveThe torch of hell around the murderer's bed.At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'dWith shiv'ring sighs; till eager for the event,Around the beldam all erect they hang,Each trembling heart with grateful terror quell'd."

Ideas of mysterious and supernatural powers, vague, undefined, and frightful, are thus instilled into the child, and influence it unchecked and uncontrolled by the Scriptural doctrines of the invisible which are taught to it. At first the two trains of thought derived from these antithetical sources go on separately and distinctly; the more frightful and wonderful events of legendary lore and fable having a much greater influence, and forming a deeper impression on the mind of the child, whose reasoning powers are still in abeyance to the emotions, than the Scriptural doctrines of the supernatural. As it advances in years these trains of thought insensibly blend; the more rampant absurdities of the supernatural framework of legendary and ghost-lore are discarded; butthe less obvious and more insidious portions remain to a greater or less extent, and they are so graven in the mind, that they become part and parcel of it, and in whatever manner they may be subsequently modified in form, it is probable that they are never eradicated, but form a medium which gives a false and deceptive gloss to all our ideas upon those matters which are not immediately within the ken of reason, or which are more clearly attributable to other agency than the forces of the material word—such matters, for example, as are contained in Holy Writ.

Hence our ideas of the supernatural are derived from two sources—from legendary lore and from Scripture; and this results, that although in after-life the more glaring errors and absurdities of the former are removed, those only being retained which are thought to be compatible with Holy Writ, yet the idea of the supernatural thus obtained, foreign from revelation, is retained in a vague and undefined form, and its origin and sources being lost sight of, it is regarded as an innate consciousness of the existence of supernatural beings, and prompts to the ready reception and belief of mysterious and not readily explicable phenomena being the result of supernatural agency.

That proclivity to the belief in supernatural interpositions, that vague notion of spiritual beings, that so-called innate consciousness of the existence of the supernatural, which most persons possess more or less of, and which is totally inconsistent with the clear and perfect doctrine of the invisible taught in the Gospel, is, we believe, derived solely from the infant mind and earlier periods of youth being poisoned by the supernatural events and phenomena detailed in fabulous, legendary, and ghost-lore.[43]

This substratum of superstition is the prime cause of the retention of those figments of degenerated and christianized mythology which are yet found among us, and for the persistence of the most generally received of these figments—ghosts. It is also a highly important element in the formationof that state of the mind which is from time to time manifested in singular and wide-spreading delusions respecting the communication of the spirit-world with man, and of which we have examples before us at the present time in the prevalent follies of "spirit-rapping" and "table-talking."

The belief in ghosts does not now possess those glaring features which were attached to it at the commencement of the present century, hence it is less obtrusive; but it is very far from being extinguished, as some would teach, and its "etiology" is of interest, because it leads to the elucidation of the principal causes and sources of the fallacies to which the senses of man are subject, and by which he has been led in theremotest periods of antiquity, as well as at the present time, to frame those mighty trammels of superstition from which the mind in vain strives to disentangle itself completely.

The doctrine that the spirits of the dead return to visit the scenes which were dear to them during the body's existence, is in itself awfully solemn and sublime. Man, prone to believe in supernatural interpositions (from causes already explained), and trusting altogether to the evidence of his senses, for many ages received this doctrine unquestioned; and aided by a fertile imagination, he clothed it with attributes which, although absurd in the main, yet as appealing to some of the deepest and warmest affections and passions of our nature, cannot even now be contemplated without exciting sensations of awe, if not fear.

The thought that the spirits of those who, during life, were bound to us by the closest ties of affection, are ever near, scrutinizing our actions and thoughts, and prompting us ever and anon to that course which would most tend to our profit here and our joy hereafter[44]—shielding us, like guardian angels, from the wiles of those wandering spirits who, like the "Wicked One" that came softly up to Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and "whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind,"[45]seek to tempt us to destruction,—such a thought thrills through the soul of every one, and fills it with strange and undefined emotions of blended joy and fear.

Few can free themselves altogether from the emotion of terror which is almost necessarily connected with scenes polluted by murder, or by other outbreaks of man's foulest passions. This feeling acting on the minds of the superstitious and ignorant, has led them to people with spectres all those places which have obtained notoriety from being the scene of some terrible ebullition of human frailty and wickedness.

Thus, the glen where murder had been committed; the pond in which the mother had immersed her new-born infant; the hoary ruin pregnant with horrid legends of the past; the rocks over which the inebriated drunkard fell; the four cross roads where the suicide was impaled; the dwelling of the miser, or of him who did unjustly to the orphan; and the willow-banks of the still-flowing river into which the love-lorn maiden had cast herself,—each had its spectre, and at the midnight hour the ghost of the murdered bared to the moon the mementos of its foul and most unnatural end; the spectre of the murderer, writhing in agony, rattled its gibbet-chains; the suffocating sobs of the drowning infant were borne on the fitful breeze; hideous spectres hovered o'er the deserted ruin; the ghost of the miser guarded its quondam treasures; the cruel guardian and the suicide shrieked forth the agonies of the damned; and the phantom of the deceived maiden gliding on the banks of her watery grave, mingled its plaintive wails with each sough of the midnight wind.

But, alas! this prolific source of terror and romance must be consigned to the delusions ofthe past; and the churchyard—erst pregnant with "thin-sheeted phantoms"—is now also shorn of its gloomy horrors, and regarded alone as the last quiet resting-place of man on earth.

Even when glimpses of the spirit-world are vouchsafed to those who still firmly believe in occasional visitations from its inhabitants, it would seem that the fashion of their appearance has become more in accordance with the quiet well-regulated ideas of the age. The major part of those terrible attributes of the nether world, that of old were delighted in, are no longer exhibited, and they are numbered with the things that have been. The form which appertained to Satan himself—the cloven foot, the forked tail, the hirsute frame, and the horned head—must also vanish before the march of civilisation; hence Mephistopheles, in the "Faust" of Goëthe, is represented as saying:—

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