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    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
    Ebook186 pages2 hours

    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

    By Sabine Baring-Gould

    3.5/5

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    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateFeb 20, 2015
    ISBN9781473371040

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    • 3/5
      Baring-Gould covers an interesting array of topics, from well-known subjects like the Pied Piper of Hamelin and William Tell, to obscure subjects like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and Bishop Hatto. For this, he deserves thanks and many stars in his rating. However I had to delete a star or two due to his annoying habit of presuming readers are fluent in Latin and French. Granted, when Baring-Gould wrote this, most of his intended readers probably could speak fluent Latin and French but it is perhaps too much to ask readers of the 2005 reprint to understand, for example, Appendix D (on "Shipping the Dead"), which almost entirely consists of a dense Latin tract containing references to "carne familiariter agnitus" (which I translated as "meat is familiar to Aunt Agnes") and "eosdem circinabat fluminis fluctus" (which I'd like to think refers to "someone's fart circulating around the room").Also, the stories did get repetitive after a while as Baring-Gould painstakingly repeats the story numerous times as he shows that many different areas of Europe have similar stories. And I think I got my Olafs mixed up at one point.
    • 4/5
      A fresh and interesting book of myths despite its age. Thanks to Laurie King's "The Moor" for making me aware of the author.

    Book preview

    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages - Sabine Baring-Gould

    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

    by

    Sabine Baring-Gould

    Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    Contents

    Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

    Sabine Baring-Gould

    The Wandering Jew.

    Prester John.

    The Divining Rod.

    The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

    William Tell.

    The Dog Gellert.

    Tailed Men.

    Antichrist and Pope Joan.

    The Man in the Moon.

    The Mountain of Venus.

    Fatality of Numbers.

    The Terrestrial Paradise.

    Sabine Baring-Gould

    Reverend Sabine Baring Gould was born on 28th January 1834, in the parish of St. Sidwell, Exeter, England. He is remembered as a priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar – and his bibliography consists of more than 1240 publications. Baring-Gould is perhaps most famous for his hymns however, the best-known being ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ and ‘Now the Day is Over.’

    The eldest son of Edward Baring-Gould and his first wife, Sophia Charlotte (née Bond), Sabine was named after a great-uncle, the Arctic explorer Sir Edward Sabine. Because the family spent much of his childhood travelling round Europe, most of his education was by private tutors. He only spent about two years in formal schooling, first at King’s College School, London and then, for a few months at Warwick Grammar School. It was during his time at Warwick that Baring-Gould contracted a bronchial disease, of the kind that was to plague him throughout his life.

    In 1852, Baring-Gould was admitted to Cambridge University, earning the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1857, them Master of Arts in 1860 from Clare College, Cambridge. Shortly afterwards, he became the curate (assistant to the Parish Priest) at Horbury Bridge, West Riding of Yorkshire, and later relocated to become perpetual curate at Dalton, near Thirsk. Baring-Gould married Grace Taylor, the daughter of a millhand and thus of much lower social status, in 1868. The couple enjoyed a very happy marriage however, and had fifteen children, all but one of whom lived to adulthood. The pairing lasted until Grace’s death forty-eight years later, and when he buried his wife in 1916, Baring-Gould had carved on her tombstone the Latin motto, Dimidium Animae Meae (‘Half my Soul’).

    Baring-Gould became the rector of East Mersea in Essex in 1871, where he spent ten years, thereafter filling his father’s place at the family estates of Lew Trenchard in Devon – as the parson of the parish. Here, Baring-Gould lived at the beautiful family manor, which has been preserved to this day. It was during this time that Baring-Gould was really able to focus his attention on folksongs, that he mostly made and collected with the help of the ordinary people of Devon and Cornwall. His first book of songs; Songs and Ballads of the West (1889–91), was published in four parts between 1889 and 1891. The musical editor for this collection was Henry Fleetwood Sheppard, though some of the songs included were noted by Baring-Gould’s other collaborator Frederick Bussell. Baring-Gould and Sheppard produced a second collection named A Garland of Country Songs during 1895.

    Baring-Gould also collaborated with another folk song collector, Cecil Sharp, with whom he published English Folk Songs for Schools in 1907. This collection of fifty-three songs was widely used in British schools for the next sixty years. Although he had to modify the words of some songs which were too rude for the time, he left his original manuscripts for future students of folk song, thereby preserving many beautiful pieces of music and their lyrics. Baring-Gould was also a prolific writer himself, penning The Broom-Squire set, in the Devil’s Punch Bowl (1896), Mehalah and Guavas; The Tinner (1897), a collection of ghost stories, and a sixteen-volume The Lives of Saints. His folkloric studies resulted in The Book of Were-Wolves (1865), one of the most frequently cited works of lycanthropy (the study of Werewolves).

    Baring-Gould died on 2nd January 1924, at his home in Lew Trenchard, and was buried next to his beloved wife, Grace. He wrote two volumes of reminiscences: Early Reminiscences, 1834-1864 and Further Reminiscences, 1864-1894.

    POPE JOAN.

    From Joh. Wolfii Lect. Memorab. (Lavingæ, 1600.)

    CURIOUS MYTHS

    OF

    THE MIDDLE AGES.

    BY

    S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

    MEDIÆVAL MYTHS.

    The Wandering Jew.

    WHO, that has looked on Gustave Doré’s marvellous illustrations to this wild legend, can forget the impression they made upon his imagination?

    I do not refer to the first illustration as striking, where the Jewish shoemaker is refusing to suffer the cross-laden Savior to rest a moment on his door-step, and is receiving with scornful lip the judgment to wander restless till the Second Coming of that same Redeemer. But I refer rather to the second, which represents the Jew, after the lapse of ages, bowed beneath the burden of the curse, worn with unrelieved toil, wearied with ceaseless travelling, trudging onward at the last lights of evening, when a rayless night of unabating rain is creeping on, along a sloppy path between dripping bushes; and suddenly he comes over against a wayside crucifix, on which the white glare of departing daylight falls, to throw it into ghastly relief against the pitch-black rain-clouds. For a moment we see the working of the miserable shoemaker’s mind. We feel that he is recalling the tragedy of the first Good Friday, and his head hangs heavier on his breast, as he recalls the part he had taken in that awful catastrophe.

    Or, is that other illustration more remarkable, where the wanderer is amongst the Alps, at the brink of a hideous chasm; and seeing in the contorted pine-branches the ever-haunting scene of the Via Dolorosa, he is lured to cast himself into that black gulf in quest of rest,—when an angel flashes out of the gloom with the sword of flame turning every way, keeping him back from what would be to him a Paradise indeed, the repose of Death?

    Or, that last scene, when the trumpet sounds and earth is shivering to its foundations, the fire is bubbling forth through the rents in its surface, and the dead are coming together flesh to flesh, and bone to bone, and muscle to muscle—then the weary man sits down and casts off his shoes! Strange sights are around him, he sees them not; strange sounds assail his ears, he hears but one—the trumpet-note which gives the signal for him to stay his wanderings and rest his weary feet.

    I can linger over those noble woodcuts, and learn from them something new each time that I study them; they are picture-poems full of latent depths of thought. And now let us to the history of this most thrilling of all mediæval myths, if a myth.

    If a myth, I say, for who can say for certain that it is not true? Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,are our Lord’s words, which I can hardly think apply to the destruction of Jerusalem, as commentators explain it to escape the difficulty. That some should live to see Jerusalem destroyed was not very surprising, and hardly needed the emphatic Verily which Christ only used when speaking something of peculiarly solemn or mysterious import.

    Besides, St. Luke’s account manifestly refers the coming in the kingdom to the Judgment, for the saying stands as follows: Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me, and of My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.[2]

    There can, I think, be no doubt in the mind of an unprejudiced person that the words of our Lord do imply that some one or more of those then living should not die till He came again. I do not mean to insist on the literal signification, but I plead that there is no improbability in our Lord’s words being fulfilled to the letter. That the circumstance is unrecorded in the Gospels is no evidence that it did not take place, for we are expressly told, Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;and again, There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.[4]

    We may remember also the mysterious witnesses who are to appear in the last eventful days of the world’s history and bear testimony to the Gospel truth before the antichristian world. One of these has been often conjectured to be St. John the Evangelist, of whom Christ said to Peter, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

    The historical evidence on which the tale rests is, however, too slender for us to admit for it more than the barest claim to be more than myth. The names and the circumstances connected with the Jew and his doom vary in every account, and the only point upon which all coincide is, that such an individual exists in an undying condition, wandering over the face of the earth, seeking rest and finding none.

    The earliest extant mention of the Wandering Jew is to be found in the book of the chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans, which was copied and continued by Matthew Paris. He records that in the year 1228, "a certain Archbishop of Armenia the Greater came on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places in the kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope, to the religious and the prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honor. On his arrival, he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and the monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself and his followers, and a conversation took place between him and the inhabitants of the convent, by means of their interpreters, during which he made many inquiries relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and told many strange things concerning the countries of the East. In the course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard any thing of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to Him, and who is still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which, a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, ‘My lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the Archbishop of Armenia, and he has often seen and conversed with him.’

    He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the said Joseph; to which he replied, ‘At the time of the passion of Jesus Christ, He was seized by the Jews, and led into the hall of judgment before Pilate, the governor, that He might be judged by him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate, finding no fault for which he might sentence Him to death, said unto them, Take Him and judge Him according to your law; the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When, therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall in Pilate’s service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck Him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter? and Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, I am going, and you shall wait till I return. And according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting His return. At the time of our Lord’s suffering he was thirty years old, and when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ’s death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the Apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other divisions of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst the bishops and other prelates of the Church; he is a man of holy conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and very circumspect in his behavior; for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious; and then he relates the events of olden times, and speaks of things which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, of those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also tells of the creed of the Apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this he relates without smiling, or levity of conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking forward with dread to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the Last Judgment he should find him in anger whom, when on his way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers came to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered him, being content with slight food and clothing.’

    Much about the same date, Philip Mouskes, afterwards Bishop of Tournay, wrote his rhymed chronicle (1242), which contains a similar account of the Jew, derived from the same Armenian prelate:—

    Adonques vint un arceveskes De çà mer, plains de bonnes tèques Par samblant, et fut d’Armenie,

    and this man, having visited the shrine of St. Tumas de Kantorbire, and then having paid his devotions at "Monsigour

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