BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME

FROM THE

SAGE

ENDOWMENT FUND
THE GIFT OF

Hcnrg M. Sage
1891

A-m^im

%iijUi^.0
..

Cornell University Library

GR65
Tom

.C64

Tit

3
olin

Tot

an essay on savage philosop

1924 029 897 778

The
tine

original of

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is in

Cornell University Library.

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the United States on the use of the

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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029897778

TOM

TIT TOT

'

What

all are shuffled up

Even so, upon the conhere huddle up a gallymafry of diverse

diversitie soever there

together under the

name

sideration of names, I will

be in herbs,

of a saUade.

articles.'

Of Na/mes.

Montaiohb,

tr.

Flokio.

'

TOM

TIT TOT

AN ESSAY ON
SAVAGE PHILOSOPHY
IN FOLK-TALE
BY

EDWARD CLODD
Sometime President of the Folk-Lore Society
Author of The Childhood of the World
'

'

The Story of Creation,' Pioneers

'

of Evolution,' etc. etc.

LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND
3

CO.

HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.

1898
K

A> H+btM-ui.

Edinburgh

Her Majesty
T. and A. Constable, Printers to

TO

MY

'DITH

'

PREFACE
The

sentence from Montaigne, which faces the

title-page of this little book, indicates its scope

and purpose.
It

based upon studies in the philosophy

is

of folk-tales, in the course of which a large

number of examples of

curious

beliefs

and

customs bearing on the main incident in cer-

Some

tain groups have been collected.

are

now

humour

Suffolk tale, whose vivacity and

the

it

first

place

among the

variants with which

'

of

materials

Rumpelstiltskin

illustrative

departments of barbaric culture

the difficulty which has been
selections

that

secure

it is classed.

Those who have had experience

ing

of these

up together' round an old

'shuffled

suffice

in the gather-

of

the

several

will appreciate
felt

in

making

to interpret the central

PREFACE

viii

idea

without

of examples.

obscuring

by a

it

If the book, which

multiplicity
is

mainly for popular reading, therefore

pretence to exhaustiveness,

the virtue of being

it

designed

makes no

may perhaps have

less tedious.

E. C.

Rosemont, 19 Carleton Road,

Tufnell Park, N., April 1898.

CONTENTS
InTKODUCTIONj

....
....

....
.

1.

The Story

2.

Variants of Tom Tit Tot

of

Tom Tit Tot,

...

3.

On

4.

Incidental Features of the Stories,

the Diffusion of Stories,

(a) Superstitions

(6)

Woman

(e)

The

and Farmer,

Gullible Devil,

17

27
32

33
36
47

...

53

Barbaric Ideas about Names,

6.

Magic through Tangible Things

Hair

Nails, Refuse, Saliva, Portrait,

Magic through Intangible Things

Reflection, Name,

....

5.

7.

...

about Iron,

as Spinster

Scotch, Tyrolese,

Basque, Indian, Welsh,

">

PAOE

and
.

57

Shadow,
79

CONTENTS
PAGE
8.

Taboo between Relatives,

115

Euphemisms and Name Changes,

125

(6)

Taboo on Names of Kings and

147

(c)

Taboo on Names of the Dead,

164

(d)

Taboo on Names of Gods,

173

(a)

9.

114

Taboo,

Words

of Power,

(a) Creative

192

Words,

194

(6)

Mantrams,

198

(c)

Passwords,

205

(d) Spells

(e)

10.

Priests,

and Amulets,

Cure Charms,

216

The Name and the

Appendix

208

Soul,

Bibliography

op the

231

Tom Tit Tot

Group op Folk-tales,
Index,

........

239

243

INTRODUCTION
In commenting on the prominent example of the
conversion of the old epics into allegories which
is

supplied by Tennyson's Idylls of the King,

whereby the legends

without

'

dream

lose their
'

gaining the reality of ordinary

Leslie Stephen

remarks that

'

as

reality

Mr.

life,'

soon as the

genuine inhabitants of Fairyland can be interpreted

as

three virtues

cease to fascinate' him.

most people

will agree.

or three

With
For

graces, they

that confession

alike to those

who

told the story, and to their hearers, these 'in-

habitants of Fairyland' were no buckram-clad

personifications of Moralities like the characters
in

the

Mystery Plays of four centuries ago.

They were

real dwellers in a real

Wonderland,

whose

limits are only those of the broad, deep

earth,

and of the heavens above

it.

And

to

INTRODUCTION

them

convert

into vehicles of edification

is

not

merely to empty them of their primitive significance,

but to make vain the attempt to under-

stand the conditions which gave birth and long

renown to saga and

past

when

no sharp
troll

and

these were

lines severed

In the dim;

fireside tale.

woven out of old traditions,

nature from super-nature ;i

fairy were part of the vagaries

which

seemed to make up the sum of things at whose

man

to conceive

that unbroken order might be found.

Their old

core

it

entered not -the mind of

mythologies, full of crude and coarse detail, were

no fables to the ancient Greeks slowly rising

above the

barbaric

level

of

ancestors

plane with the Gold Coast savage

his

who

on a

believes

medicine-man when, handing on the tradi-

tional

cosmogony of the

tribe,

he

world was made by a big spider.

natured child,

who

in

many

tells

how

The

healthy-

the

things represents the

savage stage of thinking, listens without question

to the stories of the Giant

who hid

his heart in

a duck's egg on an island out of harm's way, as

he vainly hoped

and of Beauty and the Beast,

where the princess's curiosity led to the retrans-

INTRODUCTION

formation of the enchanted prince to the shape

of loathly monster.

To

the secular arm, therefore, be delivered

any and every book which, catering

youngsters, throttles the

life

for the

of the old folk-

tales vs^ith coils of explanatory notes,

and heaps

on their maimed corpses the dead weight of

bibliographical appendices.

Nevertheless, that

which delighted our childhood may instruct our

manhood; and

notes, appendices,

and

all

the

gear of didactic exposition, have their place

elsewhere in helping the

student, anxious

reach the seed of fact which

pulp of

is

covered by the

For, to effect this

fiction.

to

is

to

make

approach to man's thoughts and conceptions of

himself and his

surroundings, to

his

way of

looking at things, and to explanation of his

conduct both in work and play.

folk-tale

and the game are

alike pressed into the

human mind.

Turn

wherei

may, the pastimes of children are seen to

mimic

service of study of the

we

Hence the

the serious pursuits of men.

romps, their tin

dolls

soldiers, guns,

Their dances and

and trumpets, the

and other apparatus of the nursery, and the

INTRODUCTION

4
strategic

combats of the playground, have a high

The game

antiquity.
fingers

do

hold up

in

'

game

one played

Mexico.

'

Hot

wall-paintings,

under

its

'

Buck, buck, how many

'

was played

The

of Imperial Rome.
kinda,' or

of

ancient Greek

of the

shell,'

among

the

cockles

'

has

'

ostra-

counterpart

its

Navajoes

New

of

depicted on Egyptian

is

and a wooden toy-bird with wheels

Fayum cemetery, is
use among Yakut and

wings, found in the

identical with specimens in

Aino

in the streets

children.

The

players of

All

'

Round

the

Mulberry Tree' probably represent a dance of

old round a sacred bush
'

'

Green Gravel

Jenny Jones are funeral games

'

relics

of divination

and

'

'

Cat's Cradle

'

and

'

Forfeits

'

are

belongs

to the string puzzles which are played all the

world over by savage and

Whether game and

civilised.

story

embody

serious ele-

ments, or are the outcome of lighter moods,

it

is

this

trivial

strive to reach.

of

tales,

or earnest purpose that

And, notably

we

in the analysis

that effort has been well justified in

bringing us, often when least

suspected,

near

some deposit of early thought, near some guesses

INTRODUCTION
at a philosophy which

common

embraces

and destiny; and

origin

all

life

in a

in putting us

into touch with instinctive feelings of the un-

cultured

mind whose

validity has been proved

by reason and experience.

superficial acquaintance with folk-tales re-

veals the fact that

many

of

them

are capable

of division into a series of well-marked groups

united by a

common

motif,

round which imagi-

nation has played, 'truth' being thus 'embodied

in a tale.'

ture

is

And

the interest in this cardinal fea-

the greater

if it

can be shown to contain

some primitive philosophy of things which

hasj

expressed itself in beliefs that have ruled man's

conduct, and in rites and ceremonies which are

the 'outward and visible signs' of the

beliefs.

Several groups answer to this requirement.

One

of them centres round the tale, referred to above,

of

'

the Giant

who had no Heart

in his Body,'

variants of which have been found from India

to the Highlands, and from the Arctic seaboard

to Africa.
is

The fundamental

idea in this group

the widespread barbaric belief in the separate-

ness of the soul or heart or strength, or whatever^

INTRODUCTION
denominated the seat of

else is

body, whose fate

nevertheless

is

In the Norse example, a

that of the soul.

princess

Delilah

what
tells

in

from the

life,

bound up with

wooed by a giant wheedles him,

in

making known

in

like

secret

her that

fashion,

place
it is

into

heart

his

in

hidden.

is

an egg in a duck swimming

a well in a church on an island,

all

which she

who has

straightway repeats to her true love

stolen into the castle to rescue her.

aid of a

number of

With

helpful animals, a

he squeezes

Fantastic as

it

the

common

feature of folk-tales, the lover gets the egg,

as

He

and

the giant bursts to pieces.

all this

seems,

it

is

only the accre-

tion of varying detail round a serious belief of

which living examples are found throughout the

world.

Obviously that belief

lies

at the base of

the argument by which Herbert Spencer, Tylor,

and others of their school show how theories of

the soul and future

life

were elaborated from

barbaric conceptions of the 'other self which

quitted the body for a time in sleep and dreams

and swoons, leaving

more, although

it

at death

to return

fitfully visiting its old

no

haunts to

INTRODUCTION
help or

harm the

living.

hint on these matters

this reference,

which

lies
is

But more than bare

beyond the purpose of

designed to

make

easier

the passage to the significance of the central idea

of another group of folk-tales, the masterpiece

among which

gives its title to this volume.

'

TOM
The

writer's

TIT TOT

interest

group

that

in

was

awakened some years ago when looking over

a bundle of old numbers of the Ipswich Journal,
in

which some odds and ends of

queries' were collected.

story of
story,

'Tom

'Cap

o'

local

Among

'

notes and

these was the

Tit Tot,' which, with another

Rushes'

(in this the

King Lear

incident of testing the love of the three daughters

is

the motif) had

been sent to Mr. Hindes

Groome, the editor of the

column, by a lady to
in her girlhood

Much

whom

'

notes and queries

they had been told

by an old West

of their value

lies in their

Suffolk nurse.

being almost

certainly derived from oral transmission through

uncultured peasants.

The

story of

'Tom

Tit

TOM

TIT TOT

Tot,' given in the racy dialect of East Anglia,

is

as follows

Wellj once upon a time there were a

she baked

woman and

And when

they come out of

the oven, they was that overbaked, the crust were
too hard to eat. So she says to her darter
five pies.

Maw'r/ 1 says she, ' put you them there pies on

the shelf an' leave 'em there a little, an' they'll
'

come agin
get

'

she

meant, you know, the crust 'ud

soft.

But the

come

gal, she says to herself,

'em now.'
first and last.

agin, I'll ate

and ate 'em

'The

all,

'

And

if they '11
she set to work

Well,

local pronunciation of 'mawther,' which,

(Longmans, 1866),

'

is

remarks Nail

and Provincialisms

of East Anglia
the most curious word in the East Anglian

in his Glossary of the Dialect

A woman

and her mawther mean a woman and

The word is derived from the same root as
her daughter.
maid and cognate words, upon which see Skeat's Etymological
vocabulary.'
'

'

DictioTUxry,

s.v.

Nail gives examples of the use of mawther by Tusser and other

writers.
Tusser (English Dialect Soc, editn. 1878, p. 37) speaks
of 'a sling for a moether, a bowe for a boy.' In Ben JonSon's
Alchymist, Restive says to Dame Pliant (Act iv. 7) Away, you
talk like a foolish m/iwther
In the English Moor (Act iii. 1),
Richard Brome makes a playful use of the word
'

And

'

I am a mother that do want a service.

P.
Qu. O, thou'rt a Norfolk woman (cry thee mercy).
Where maids are mothers and mothers are maids.'

in Blomfield's Suffolk Ballad

'

we read

When
And

once a giggling mawther you,

I a red-faced chubby boy.'

In the Gothic translation of the Gospels, Luke

arise,' is rendered 'Maur, urreis.'

viii. 54,

'

Maid,

'

TOM TIT TOT

10

Well, come supper time the woman she said,

Goo you and git one o' them there pies. I dare
say they've came agin now.'
'

Tlie gal she

went

and there warn't

So back she come and says

an' she looked,

nothin' but the dishes.

Noo, they ain't come agin.'

Not none on 'em ? says the mother.
Not none on 'em,' says she.
Well, come agin, or not come agin,' says the
woman, I '11 ha' one for supper.'
But you can't, if they ain't come,' says the gal.
But I ca;n,' says she. ' Goo you and bring the
she,

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

best of 'em.'
'

Best or worst,' says the gal,

you can't ha' one

till

that

's

'

'em

've ate

come

all,

and

agin.'

Well, the woman she were wholly bate, and she

took her spinnin' to the door to spin, and as she

span she sang

'

My darter ha' ate

My darter ha' ate

five, five pies

five, five

to-day

pies to-day.'

The king he were a comin' down the street an

he hard her sing, but what she sang he couldn't
hare, so he stopped and said
What were that you was a singun of, maw'r ?
The woman, she were ashamed to let him hare
what her darter had been a doin', so she sang, 'stids
'

o'

that
'

'

My darter ha' spun five,

My darter ha' spun five,

S'ars o'

of any on

mine

!
'

five skeins

said the king,

as could

do

that.'

to-day

five skeins to-day.'

'

never heerd

tell

TOM
Then he

TIT TOT

11

said
Look you here, I want a wife,
marry your darter. But look you here,'
says he, ''leven months out o' the year she shall
have all the vittles she likes to eat, and all the
gownds she likes to git, and all the cumpny she
likes to hev
but the last month o' the year she '11

and

'

'II

ha' to spin five skeins iv'ry day, an' if she doon't,

shall kill her.'

' All right,' says
the woman for she thowt what
a grand marriage that was. And as for them five
:

skeins,

when te come tew, there 'd be plenty

of gettin' out of

about

it,

and

likeliest,

he

o'

ways

'd ha' forgot

it.

they was married.

An' for 'leven
months the gal had all the vittles she liked to ate,
and all the gownds she liked to git, an' all the
Well, so

cumpny she liked to hev.

But when the time was gettin' oover, she began
to think about them there skeins an' to wonder if
he had 'em in mind.
But not one word did he say
about 'em, an' she whoolly thowt he 'd forgot 'em.
Howsivir, the last day o' the last month, he takes
her to a room she 'd niver set eyes on afore. There
it but a spinnin' wheel and a stool.
An' says he, ' Now, me dear, hare yow '11 be shut in

worn't nothin' in

to-morrow with some vittles and some flax, and if

you hain't spun five skeins by the night, yar hid '11
goo off.'
An' awa' he went about his business.
Well, she were that frightened. She 'd alius been
such a gatless mawther, that she didn't se much as
know how to spin, an' what were she to dew to-

'

TOM TIT TOT

12

come nigh her

morrer, with no one to

She

down on

sat

howshe did

to help her.

a stool in the kitchen,

and lork

cry

on a sudden she hard a sort of a

door.
She upped and
oped it, an' what should she see but a small little
black thing with a long tail. That looked up at her
Howsivir,

all

down on the

knockin' low

right kewrious, an' that said

'

What

'

Wha 's

'

Niver

are

yew

a cryin' for

that to yew
yew mind/ that
.''

'

says she.
said, 'but tell

you 're a cryin' for.'

'That oon't dew me noo good
'

Yew

doon't

know

if I

me what

dew,' says she.

that,' that said, an' twirled

that's tail round.

dew no harm, if that

and she upped and told about

'Well,' says she, 'that oon't

dew no

doon't

good,'

the pies an' the skeins an' everything.

'

is what I '11 dew,'

come to yar winder

This

'I'll

flax an'
'

mornin' an' take the

What 's

it

.''

'

That looked out

:

iv'ry

spun at night.'
says she.
your pay

bring

that said

says the little black thing:

'

my

'11

o'

the corners

o'

that's eyes an'

give you three guesses every night

you hain't guessed it afore

be mine.'
Well, she thowt she 'd be sure to guess that's
name afore the month was up. ' All right,' says she,
to guess

the month

'

's

name,
up,

an' if

yew

shall

I agree.'
'

All right,' that says, an' lork

that's

how

that twirled

tail.

Well, the next day, har husband he took her

TOM

TIT TOT

inter the room, an' there

was the

13

flax an'

the day's

vittles.

Now, there

'

's

the

flax,'

says he,

spun up

this night off

went out

an' locked the door.

He 'd

hardly goon,

goo yar

'

an' if that ain't

hid.'

An' then he

when there was

a knockin'

agin the winder.

She upped and she oped it, and there sure enough
was the little oo'd thing a settin' on the ledge.
Where's the flax ? says he.
Here te be,' says she. And she gonned it to him.
'

'

'

Well,

come the

evenin', a knockin'

She upped

the winder.

an' she

oped

come agin
it,

to

and there

were the little oo'd thing, with five skeins of flax

on his arm.
Here te be,' says he, an' he gonned it to her.
Now, what 's my name ? says he.
What, is that Bill ? says she.
Noo, that ain't,' says he. An' he twirled his tail.
'

'

'

'

'

'

that

Ned

'

Is

'

Noo, that

'

Well,

'

Noo, that

tail

'

says she.

ain't,'

that

says he.

Mark ?

ain't,'

'

An' he twirled his

tail.

says she.

says he.

An' he twirled

his

harder, an' awa' he flew.

Well,

the

is

when

five skeins

there was
har husban' he come in
'
riddy for him.
I see I shorn't hev
:

you to-night, me dare,' says he. ' Yew '11

hev yar vittles and yar flax in the mornin',' says he,
an' away he goes.
Well, ivery day the flax an' the vittles, they was
browt, an' ivery day that there little black impet
An' all
used for to come mornin's and evenin's.

for to kill

'

TOM TIT TOT

14

the day the mawther she set a tryin' fur to think of

names to say to it when te come at night. But she

An' as that got to-warts

the month, the irapet that began for to

niver hot on the right one.

the ind

o'

look soo mahceful, an' that twirled that's

tail faster

gave a guess.
At last te come to the last day but one. The
impet that come at night along o' the five skeins^
an' faster each time she

an' that said

'

What,

'

Is that

'

Noo,

'

Is that

hain't

t'ain't,'

'Noo,
'

Noo,

is

.''

'

my name

?
'

says she.

Methusalem

.'

'

says she.

that norther,' he says.

that looks at her with that's eyes like a

fire,

an' that says,

'Woman,

to-morrer night, an' then yar

away

yet

says she.

that says.

that

t'ain't

Then
cool o'

got

that says.

Sammle

t'ain't,'

'A-well,

yew

Nicodemus

'11

there's only

be mine

!
'

An'

te flew.

Howsomediver, she
Well, she felt that horrud.
hard the king a coming along the passage. In he
came, an' when he see the five skeins, he says,
says he

me

dare,' says he, ' I don't see but what

your skeins ready to-morrer night as
well, an' as I reckon I shorn't ha' to kill you, I '11
So they brought
ha' supper in here to-night.'
supper, an' another stool for him, and down the
'

Well,

yew '11

ha'

tew they sat.

Well, he hadn't eat but a mouthful
he stops and begins to laugh.

or so,

when

TOM
'

'

What

is it ?

'

TIT TOT

15

says she.

A-why/ says he^

I got away to a

'

was out a-huntin to-day,

wood I 'd never

seen afore. An' there was an old chalk pit. An'
I heerd a sort of a hummin', kind o'.
So I got off
my hobby, an' I went right quiet to the pit, an' I
looked down. Well, what should there be but the
funniest little black thing yew iver set eyes on.
an'

place in the

An' what was that a dewin' on, but that had a

little

spinnin' wheel, an' that were a spinnin' wonnerful

fast, an'

a twirlin' that's

tail.

An' as that span,

that sang
'

Well,
if

Nimmy nimmy not.

My name 's Tom Tit

Tot'

when the mawther heerd this, she fared as

jumped outer her skin for joy, but

she could ha'

she di'n't say a word.

Next day, that there
maliceful

little

when he come

thing looked soo

for the flax.

An' when

night came, she heerd that a knockin' agin the

She oped the winder, an' that
winder panes.

come right in on the ledge. That were grinnin'

from are to are, an' Oo tha's tail were twirlin'
round so fast.
'What's my name?' that says, as that gonned
!

her the skeins.

'

Is

that Solomon

.''

'

she says, pretendin' to be

afeai'd.

Noo, t' ain't,' that says, an' that come fudder

inter the room.
says she agin.
'Well, is that Zebedee
'

.'

'


TOMTITTOT

16

'Noo, t'ain't/ says the impet. An' then that

laughed an' twirled that's tail till yew cou'n't
hardly see

it.

Take time, woman/ that

says ' next guess, an'

you 're mine.' An' that stretched out that's black
hands at her.
Well, she backed a step or two, an' she looked
at it, and then she laughed out, an' says she, a
pointin' of her finger at it
'

'

Nimmy nimmy not,

Tom Tit

Yar name's

Tot.'

when that hard her, that shruck awful an'

awa' that flew into the dark, an' she niver saw it
Well,

noo more.

II

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

There would be
printing the

only profitless monotony in

full texts,

or even in giving abstracts,

of the nuj'.ierous variants of this story which

have been

comment
class of

Here

collected.

as

may

readers,

it suffices

list

of these, with such

perchance be useful to a special

is

supplied in the Appendix.

to remark that in all of the

the plot centres round the discovery of the

of the

'^

maleficent

actor

in

the

little

nam

drama]

and to give a summary of a few of the most

widely spread

stories

in

which, as

might

be

expected, a certain variety of inc ident occ urs^

These are chosen from Scotland, Tyrol, the

Basque

provinces,

variants

from

this

and

the

Far

last containing
1

P. 239.

East,

the

the funda-

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

18

mental

ATo

idea

an

in

Welsh

these follow a

plot.

different

entirely

variant in which our

joy at the defeat of the demon or witch in

jmost of the stories

changed into sorrow for

is

Ithe fairy.

The Scotch Whuppity

'

Stoorie

'

tells

to a fair ae~day,' and was never

heard

His widow was

'

of.

left

lad bairn,' and a sow that

'

'

was soon to

to gi'e up the ghost,'

down with her bairn and

sat

ever she did for the loss

there came an old

o'

woman

more

with a 'sookin'

Going to the sty one day, she saw, to her

the sow ready

man

of a

who gaed

farra.'

distress,

and

as she

'grat sairer than

her ain goodman,'

dressed in green,

who

asked what she would give her for curing the

sow.
gain,

Then they 'watted thooms' on

the bar-

by which the woman promised to give the

green fairy anything she liked, and the sow was

thereupon made

To

well.

the mother's dismay

the fairy then said that she would have the bairn.
'

But,' said she,

by the law we

'

this I

leeve

'11

me my

ye to wut, I canna

on take your bairn

third day after this day

tell

let

right name.'

and

till

the

no' then, if ye can

For two days the poor

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

woman

wandered,

'

19

cuddlin' her bairn,' when, as

she came near an old quarry-hole, she heard the

'burring of a lint-wheel, and a voice lilting a

song,''

and then saw the green

fairy at her wheel,

'singing like ony precentor'

'

Little kens our guid dame at hame

That Whuppity Stoorie is my name.'

Speeding home glad-hearted, she awaited the

coming;

fairy's

and, being a 'jokus woman,'

pulled a long face, begging that the bairn might

be spared and the sow taken, and when this was

spurned, offering herself.
jad,' quo' the fairy,

wad
the

'

wha

'

The

ever meddle wi' the likes

woman threw

deil

's

in the daft

warld

in a' the earthly

off her

o'

thee

mask of

Then

'

grief,

making ' a curchie down to the ground,' quo'

'

o'

might hae had the wit to

me

is

na

fit

Gin a

grund,

fluff o'
it

she,

the likes

to tie the warst shoe-strings o' the

heich and mighty princess,

'

keii that

and,

Whuppity

Stoorie.'

gunpouder had come out

o'

the

couldna hae gart the fairy loup heicher

nor she did; syne doun she came again,

dump

on her shoeheels, and, whurlin' round, she ran

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

20

down the

brae, scraichin' for rage, like a houlet

chased wi' the witches.'

In the Tyrolese story, a count, while hunting

in a forest,

with

fiery

who

knees,

is

suddenly confronted by a dwarf

red eyes

and a beard down to

rolls his eyes in fury,

count that he must pay

and

the

for trespassing on the

mannikin's territory either with his

surrender of his wife.

tells

his

or the

life

The count

pleads for

pardon, and the dwarf so far modifies

his

terms

as to agree that if within a

month the countess

cannot find out his name, she

is

to be

Then,

his.

escorting the count to the forest bounds where

stood an ancient

dwarf

fir-tree, it is

bargained that the

will there await the countess,

have three guesses three times, nine in

month

expires,

and

she then

rendezvous to make her

giving the names,

The dwarf
failure,

'

first

Janne,'

shrieks

with

'

who

shall

all.

The

to the

repairs

round of guesses,

Fichte,"

and

'

Fohre.'

merriment over

and when she returns to the

her

castle she

enters the chapel and offers earnest prayers for

help in guessing the right name.

>

But the next

Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, pp. 72-75.

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

day,

when

she gives the names

and Turken,' repeats the

'

Hafer,'

and

failure,

'

When

the dwarfs unholy glee.

the tree on the third day, he

she wandered from the spot

Pleuten,'

'

calls forth

she comes to

not there.

is

21

So

she reached a

till

lovely valley, and, seeing a tiny house, went on

tiptoe,

and peeping

dwarf singing

his

window heard the

in at the

name

gaily on the hearth.

in a verse as he

The

hopped

countess hurries back

to the tree in high spirits, and

when the dwarf

appears she artfully withholds the secret she has

the last chance

learned

till

guesses,

and the dwarf chortles

he bounds in the
derisively,

air

'

is

hers.
'

'

Pur,' she

Ziege,' then

Purzinigele,' she shouts

and then the dwarf, rolling

eyes in rage, doubles his

fist,

his red

and disappears for

ever in the darkness.^

In Basquefolkjalfiy ar-mother
lazy girl,

when the lord of a

castle

passing at the time, asks what

is

about, and

is

is

Tirolo Kinder-

beating her

hard by, who

all

the pother

told that the girl's beauty

her saucy and indolent.

1852.

is

Then

wnd Hausmdrchen,

makes

follow the usual

pp. 225-232.

Innsbruck,

22

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

incidents, with the exception that a witch, in-

stead of a demon, comes to aid the girl, to

the lord then offers marriage

certain

if

whom

she can get a

amount of work done within a given time,

the witch's bargain being that the girl must re-

member

her name, Marie Kirikitoun, a year and

a day hence.

The wedding

takes place, and as

the year end draws near, sadness

bride, despite the holding of

gladden

her

At

the witch's name.

old

woman knocks

servant tells her that

up to make her
says that

if

For

spirits.

on the

falls

grand

festivals to

she had forgotten

one of the feastings an

at the
all

when a

door, and

the high jinks are kept

mistress cheerful, the

beldame

the lady had seen what she had seen,

her laughter would run free enough.

So the

how

servant bids her come in, and then she tells

she

had seen an old witch leaping and bounding

from one ditch to another, and singing

time,
will

'

all

the

Houpa, houpa, Marie Kirikitoun, nobody

remember

my

name.'

Whereupon the

bride

became merry-hearted, rewarded the old woman,

and told the enraged witch her name when she

came

for fulfilment of the bargain.

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

23

In Sagas Jrom the Far East, a king sends his

son on travel that he

The

knowledge.

may

gain

all

kinds of

prince takes, as his favourite

companion, the son of the prime minister, who,

on their return journey, burning with envy at the

superior

wisdom of

into a forest

and

kills

he utters the word,

'

him.

As

how the

the prince dies,

Abaraschika.'

murderer reaches the palace, he

ing king

him

his royal comrade, entices

prince

fell

tells

sick

When

the

the sorrow-

unto death,

and that he had time to speak only the above

word.

Thereupon the king summoned

his seers

and magicians, and threatened them with death

if

they did not, within seven days, interpret the

meaning of Abaraschika.'
'

That time had

well-

nigh expired when a student came beckoning to

them, bidding them not despair,

ing beneath a

tree,

for,

while sleep-

he had heard a bird telling

his yoiuig ones not to cry for food, since the

Khan would

slay a

thousand men on the morrow

because they could not find out the meaning of

'

Abaraschika.''

was

this

My
'

And

the meaning, said the bird,

bosom

friend hath enticed

into a thick grove, and hath taken away

my

me

life.'

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

24

So the

and magicians hastened to report

seers

what they had heard to the king, who thereupon

put the murderer to death.

The Welsh

sto ry (one of several closely allied

in 3etail) tells that once

upon a time the youth-

on adventure bent, wandered

ful heir of Ystrad,

by the banks of the Gwyrfai stream that

from Quellyn's

As night

lake.

fell

issues

he hid him-

by a bush near the spot where the Tylwyth

self

'

Teg,' or 'Fair Family' (the 'Folk of the

Coat '), held their

cloudless sky,

before

wait

revels.

The moon shone

'little

Among

straightway kindled

his

grew
he

'

people' troop

these was one

love,

for

who

never more

maiden or light-footed dancer had he

The

seeri.

in a

and the youth had not long to

he saw the

forth to the dance.

graceful

Red

longer he watched her, the hotter

his desire,

till,

making

resolve to seize her,

sprang like a lion into the middle of the

circle 'just

when the

fairies

were most enjoying

the swing of the dance, and carried her off in his

arms to Ystrad.

'

Her companions vanished

a breath in July as they heard the

1

like

shrill voice

Sagas from the Far East, translated by R. H. Busk,

of

p. 157.

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

their sister crying for help.'

reached

home he

strove

power to make the

him

When

art in his

happy, and she served

well in return, being obdurate only in one

'He

thing.

could in nowise prevail on her to

him her name,' and vain were

tell

the youth

by every gentle

fairy

25

to discover

it, till

all his efforts

one evening, as he was driving

two of his cows to the meadow, he came again to

the spot where he had captured the

He

fairy.

hid himself, as before, in the thicket, and when

the troop of the Red-coated appeared, he heard

them saying

to one another that

came thither a mortal had

when they

last

carried off their sister

home

Penelope.-^

Glad-hearted, the youth hurried

and

the fairy by her name, whereupon

called

grief clouded her face.

moved him the more

Her beauty and

to urge that she

distress

who had

been his faithful serving-maid would become his

wife

and although she long refused him, she at

last consented,

but only on his promising that

if

ever he struck her with iron she should be free

leave him.

to
1

'

name
author.

For years he kept

his

word,

cannot satisfactorily account for the introduction of this

into

the

story.'

Letter

from Professor Rhys to the

26

VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT

but, one day, as they went together to catch

a wild horse in the

at him, and

field,

he threw the bridle

by mischance struck

with the iron

bit,

whereupon she straightway

vanished. 1
'

his fairy wife

CymnuxLor,

iv.

189.

Ill

ON THE DIFFUSION OF STORIES

Here we may

interpose a brief example from

the Welsh group, as bearing on the origin of the

alliterative

name Tom Tit

Tot.'

'

farmer's wife at Llaniestin often lent her

gradell and padell (the flat iron on which the

dough

put for baking, and the pan which

is

put over
articles,

it)

is

to a fairy, who, on returning the

always

brought

One day

acknowledgment.

loaf of

bread

in

she begged the loan

of a troell-bach, or spinning-wheel, whereupon

the

woman asked

refused to

her name,

So she was tracked and watched

tell.

at her spinning,

when she was heard singing

the whirr of the wheel

'

which the fairy

Little does she

know

That Trwtyn-Tratyn
Is

my

name.'

to

'

ON THE DIFFUSION

28

In an Irish variant, to which reference occurs

Taylor's

in

translation

of

Grimm's

Rumpel-

stiltsMn, the fairy sings

my lady wot
my name is Trit a Trot.'

Little does

'

That

As Trwtyn-Tratyn
'

'

not Welsh, there remains

is

for the curious the search after the original source

and mode of transmission of the Suffolk

That question

tale.

obviously bound up with the

is

general subject of the origin and migration of

stories,

a question to which no answer

is

likely to

be forthcoming in the absence of documents.

In

some quarters high hopes were indulged that

the ingathering of the variants of one group
of stories, and

the framing of

charts of its

geographical distribution, would enable us to

trace the parent
'

type

to

its

original

home.

Cinderella ' was chosen, and by the application

of great labour, illumined by scholarship. Miss

Roalfe Cox prepared three hundred and forty-five

abstracts of as
tale,

versions of that familiar

adding tables of areas in which they are

found.
*

many

The

result

of

all

the toil and talent

See Note to Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Marchen,

p. 81.

OF STORIES

29

thus employed was to leave the question exactly

where we found

words

'

There

it.

is

In

Mr. Andrew Lang's

not a sign of her birth-country

on Cinderella; not a mark to show that she

came from India, or Babylonia, or Egypt, or any

other old cradle of civilisation.'

That a

large

number of stories have originated

in definite centres, and have been carried from

place to place,

'

was

intercourse

goes without saying.'

already

active

Neolithic age, and East gave to

in

Racial

the

West

later

of

its

intellectual, as well as of its material, products.

'

Folk-tales might well be scattered abroad in the

same manner by merchantmen gossiping over

their

Khan

in the

fires,

by Sidonian mariners chatting

sounding loggia of an Homeric house, by

the slave dragged from

his

home and passed

from owner to owner across Africa or Europe,

by the wife who, according to primitive law,

had to be chosen from an

weight,

also, in

alien clan.'^

There

is

Mr. Hindes Groome's arguments

on behalf of those ubiquitous nomads, the gypsies,

1

by Andrew Lang to Mrs. Margaret Hunt's

Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmarchen, p. xiv.

Introduction

translation of

ON THE DIFFUSION

30

who, especially in past times, had every

for diifusing their stories

On

men.^

among

all

facility

conditions of

the other hand, the fundamental idea

at the core of certain stories

is

explained by the

fact that at corresponding levels of culture the

human mind

accounts for the same things in

much the same way.

dents are local.

Ideas are universal

inci-

For example, the conceptions

of a united heaven and earth forced asunder

by some

defiant hero so that light

may be

given

to the children of men, and of a sky-piercing

tree

whereby heaven can be reached, have given

rise

to myths and folk-tales

'

from China to

Peru.'

All that we can say by way of approach to the

solution of a question whose settlement

would

throw light on intercourse between peoples,

that where

minute

coincidences

detail,

common

in

stories

origin

but that where only a like idea

is

extend to

may be assumed,
is

present as the

chief motif, without correspondences in incidental

details,

'

independent origin

National Review, July 1888.

Link.'

'

is

Strabo

probable.

Gypsy Folk-Tales

a Missing

OF STORIES
says that

'

in the childhood of the world

like children,

had to be taught by

certainly, their invention

one

31

is

race.
J

I. 2, 8.

tales';

men,
and,

the monopoly of no

IV

INCIDENTAL FEATURES OF THE

STORIES
Although the

selection

numerous variants of

'

of only a few of the

Tom

Tit Tot

'

relieves us

from comment on sundry differences in detail

between the whole of them, there are points of
interest

which

call for notice before

Some

the central idea of the story.

moment,

we advance

to

are of little

as where, in the Lorraine variant, the

devil's age, instead of his

name, has to be guessed

to secure quittance from the bargain.

as in the

Others,

example of the helpful bird

in

the

Eastern story, would carry us into the wide

and fascinating subject of barbaric

community between man and

beneath him.

comment

all

Of the remainder,

the superstitions

belief in

living things

three claim

about iron, the inci-

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

33

dents of spinning; and of outwitting the demon or

other maliceful agent.

about Iron

(a) Superstitions

The

reference

examples

to iron

of incidental

one among other

is

features

in

folk-tales

which not only evidence their antiquity, but

throw light on the customs and

in them,

The

which otherwise would remain obscure.

unlettered are conservative, both from fear

and the power of

been

embodied

beliefs

'

the

The

may have

devil

Whig,' which, nowadays, would

first

spell Radical,

tradition.

but whoever, whether

challenged authority to produce

man

or fiend,

its credentials,

Things new or unusual,

has that distinction.

being unknown, are objects of dread in the degree that mystery invests
plains,

among

them

and

this ex-

other matters, the old ideas which

attached to iron, and the retention of stone

instruments for sacred

for example, of

among

rites

and ceremonies,

flint knives, in

the ancient Egyptians; and

Jews in circumcision
sacrificial

knives

as,

mummy-incision,

among

the

of obsidian or other stone

among the Mexicans

c

while in

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

34

Scotland, in

making the

clavie,

a kind of Yule-

hammer was used. Witches

creations of the Stone Age the

tide fire-wheel, a stone

and

fairies are

peasant-folk see in

the delicately shaped

arrow-heads of our Neolithic

'

wherewith the

elf-darts '

men and

And

cattle.

'

flint

forerunners

good people

'

the

maim

the dread with which

these creatures are believed to regard iron explains its widespread

them.

use as a charm

Old Aubrey says that 'a Horse-shoe

nailed on the threshold of the dore

fashion,

is

yet in

and nowhere more than in London.

ought (Mr. Lilly

It

says) to be a Horse-shoe that

one finds by chance on the road.

is

against

The end of

to prevent the power of witches that

it

come into

So in Germany the common people

your house.

doe naile such an Horse-shoe on the threshold of

the doore.

As many

So neere the mainmast

in ships.'

a stable-door and mainmast testify, the

nailing of horse-shoes to 'keep off the pixies,'

and, conversely, to bring luck to farmer and

sailor, thrives

to this day.

The magical power

An astrologer who

Remaincs of Oentilisme and Judaisme,

'

flourished ' in the reign of Charles

p. 27.

i.

OF THE STORIES
of iron

shown

is

35

in the hero-legends wherein, for

example, King Arthur's wonder-working sword

Excalibur plays part, while homelier

illustra-

tions are given in the use of iron tongs or scissors

to protect a new-born babe from being stolen by

the

Among

fairies.

child

is

the Kols of India,

born, the umbilical cord

buried in the room, and over

it

is

evil spirits

infant.

churning

started, the tongs are

is

or a piece of heated iron

and kept there

till

Hindus consider

it

is

some prowling

lest

and then haunt the

piece of iron be taken, the

enslaved

metal

is

unlucky to

visitor

may be

put, as

who may

assail

put

in the fire,

put under the churn,

the work

night,

hair

is

an

In county Donegal, when

mother or

'^

cut and

fire is lit in

earthen pot, into which a bit of iron

a protection against

when a

visit

demon
invalid.

demon

The

finished. ^

the sick at
follow

But

the
if

thinks that his

cut therewith, whereby he becomes

so he keeps clear.

is itself

an

The name

charm.

effective

of the

In Arab belief

the zoba'ah or sand-whirlwind, which sweeps,

1

vol.

Crooke, Tribes
iii.

p. 307,

and

Castes, of the
^

North- Western Provinces,

Folklore, 1897, p. 18.

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

36

pillar-like, across

the land,

due to the

is

a jinnee, and therefore, when

seen, one of the

drive the jinn away.^

is,

name

The

approach

its

charms uttered

unlucky,' because the very

flight of

is

'

Iron,

is

thou

believed to

aborigines of Vic-

thought that dust-storms were due to Koo-

toria

tchee, the Australian evil spirit,

daring

and the more

among them would throw boomerangs

at

these blinding whirlwinds.^

(6)

Woman

Wellnigh

all

Tot' group are

as Spinster and

Farmer

the heroines in the

'

Tom

magic space of time, a large quantity of

as in the Swedish variant, the

still

is

harder task of

therefore given to the wheel

as woman's typical occupation.

now

discredited

school

of

Promi-

and

The

distaff"

old and

interpreters,

repre-

sented in this country chiefly by Professor

Miiller

every

and

Sir

myth and
1

W.

folk-tale,

Max

Cox, which resolved

and occasionally even

Modern Egyptians, ch. x. p. 204.

Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, p. 1088.

Lane,

2 Of.

George

flax, or,

spinning straw into gold, and so forth.

nence

Tit

set the task of spinning, in

OFTHESTORIES
history

37

into solar elements, explains the

itself,^

spinning incident as the dawn-maiden, be she

Penelope or the miller's daughter, weaving

But a more sober school of

robe of clouds.'^
interpretation

human

progress

span,' because

does both.

men

like

That was a

children.'

in

is,

'

wisdom, 'justified of
relatively

Adam

when

among

War

her

'

advanced stage
delved and

barbaric people the

and the chase

its

fill

Eve

woman

the lives of

and the work of handling both spade and

spindle falls to the

agriculturists,

earth they

They were the

women.

first

and over a wide area of the arable

still

'

hold the

field.'

While the man

was fighting or chasing the coveted game, the

woman was grubbing up

seeds or nuts to keep

roots

and pounding

hunger from the hut, round

whose clearing she learned to sow the cereal and

plant the fruit-tree.
soil,

In East Africa she

tills

the

tends the cattle, and does the bartering;^

among the Niam-Niam

the

men devote them-

1
The siege of Troy is but a repetition of the daily siege of the
East by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of their
brightest treasures in the West.' Max Miiller's Science of Lan'

guage, vol.
2
3

ii.

p. 515.

Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ii. p. 165.

Mrs. French Sheldon, Journal Anthropol. Inst., 1892,

p. 362.

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

38

selves to hunting,

the

to the

soil

buttoo, do
harvest.^

all

and leave the cultivation of

women, who, among the Monthe husbandry from hoeing to

Herodotus (Book

iv.

6) says of the

Thracians that 'they accounted idleness as the

most honourable thing, and to be a

tiller

ground the most dishonourable.''

Among

ancient Peruvians, farm-work

of the

the

to the

fell entirely

womenfolk, while the rudest form of agriculture

is

found among the squaws of Central California,

who

use their fingers as hoes, rubbing the earth

In modern

to powder between their hands.^

Palestine, although the

women

the

furrows

follow to

and

in the

men do

the ploughing,

drop the seed into the

Sonneberg

district, in

Ger-

many, and indeed throughout Europe, the pre-

and sowing, the harvesting

paration, planting,

and thrashing, are

is,

therefore,

woman
ever

it

largely

done by women.

an error to speak of fieldwork by

as a sign of her degradation

now

It

exists,

for wher-

although often evidencing

man's laziness or brutality,

it is

a survival of

'

Sohweinfurth, Hea/rt of Africa, vol.

Mason, Womom's Share in Primitive Culture,

ii.

pp. 12, 90.

p. 147.


OFTHESTORIES
primitive conditions

39

when everything domestic

devolved on the female.

Among

the indoor

duties were the keeping of the hearth and weav-

With the long grass as primitive broom,

woman tidied the house, and with the primitive

ing.

spindle-stick she twisted the plant-fibres into yarn.

The

stone

relics

spindle-whorls found

among

other

of early Neolithic deposits witness to the

high antiquity of an art which ultimately became, both in symbol and language, the type of
woman''s work.^

How much

this all bears

on

her long foremost place in social organisation,

lies

beyond our province to deal with.

related to

what

mind that the

follows, it

must be borne

roots of social unity

relationship between

lie

offspring.

unsettled conditions of barbaric

in blood-

life,

For in the

when

between the sexes was irregular

absence or

the care of

fitful

in

mother and offspring rather

than between father and

course

But, as

movements of the

home and

men

children to the

inter-

the

leaving

women,

he was a wise father who knew his own child.

1

In opposition to the male or ' spear-side,' the female branch

was formerly known as the ' spindle-side.'

of the family

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

40

Birth and the early nourishment of offspring

were the great factors, and hence not only arose

the tie of blood-relationship through the mother,

but the tracing of descent along the female

both being grouped under what
'

mother -right.'

essay

line,

known

is

as

Thus, to quote from an able

by Mr. Karl Pearson on a subject which

was originally dealt with some years ago by

Bachofen, MacLennan, and other

students

of

ancient social groups, 'the mother would be at

least the

of

nominal head of the family, the bearer

its traditions, its

knowledge, and

Hence we should expect to

its religion.

find that the deities

of a mother-right group were female, and that

the primitive goddesses were accompanied, not

by husband, but by

The

child or brother.

band and father being

insignificant or entirely

absent, there would thus easily arise

virgin

and

child,

The goddess

and brother and

myths of

sister, deities.

of the group would naturally be

served by a priestess rather than

The woman,

hus-

as depository of family

tribal lore, the wise

woman, the

by a

priest.

custom and

sibyl,

the witch,

would hand down to her daughters the knowledge

OFTHESTORIES

41

of the religious observances, of the power of

the mother-lore in

herbs,

the mother-tongue,

some form of symbol or rune,

possibly also in

such as a priestly caste love to enshroud their

mysteries

The symbols

in.

of these goddesses

would be the symbols of woman's work and

woman's

civilisation,

the

and the broom, not the

hammer.'

Herein

of the larger

spinning

the pitchfork,

spear, the axe,

and the

the key to the femininity

number of corn and vegetable and

deities,

whether

who

mothers

divine

lies

distaff,

one or triune,

travel

whom mankind

houses, from

round

and

'

the

visit

learned the occu-

pations and arts of housekeeping and husbandry,

spinning, weaving, tending the hearth, sowing

and
field

code

an

reaping.'

Ceres,

shakes,' to

of the

offering

'

whom

at whose

nod the wheat-

the corn-thief, by the

Twelve Tables, was hanged

Persephone,

whom Demeter

as

seeks

sorrowing, to find her with the upsprouting corn

Xilomen, the Mexican maize-goddess

1

Nirdu,

Karl Pearson, Chcmces of Death, and other Studies in Evolu-

tion, vol.
2

ii.

p. 8.

Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, p. 250.

Grainger, Worship of the Romans, p.

260.

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

42

among the Teutons,

one

and

all

subordinate

known

to the mighty food-giving Earth -mother,

by many names, Erda, Demeter, Pachamama,

Dharitri, but

giver of

life,

everywhere

worshipped

aboriginal Americans,

the

was no mere figure of

speech, but an article of positive belief.^

among

as

whose motherhood, as among the

Naming

Roman

hearth-goddesses only the

Vesta,

the Greek Hestia, and the Teutonic Hlodyn, our

more immediate

interest in this digression centres

round the spinning

deities

and wise women. The

Greeks put spindle and distaff in the hands of

several of their goddesses, as of Artemis, Leto,

and Athene, the last-named

mind

recalling to

the legend of Arachne's challenge to the goddess

to

compete with her in the art of weaving.

When

Arachne produced the cloth on which the

loves of the gods were depicted, Athene, enraged

at finding no fault in

it,

tore the

work to

pieces,

whereupon the despairing Arachne hanged herself.

it

But Athene loosened the rope and changed

into a cobweb,

With

Arachne becoming a

spider.

the Greek Fates, of whom, according to

1

Payne, History of America,

vol.

i.

p. 464.

OFTHESTORIES

43

Hesiod, Clotho spins the web of man's destiny,

while

Lachesis allots

thread,
fate

and

may be compared

Atropos

the

cuts

the weaving of Helgi's

by the three Norns of Teutonic myth.

Stretching the golden cord across the heaven,

one Norn hid an end of the thread eastward,

another Norn hid an end westward, while a third
fastened

northward, the region between the

it

eastern and western ends falling to Helgi's share.

The hieroglyph

of the great Egyptian goddess

Neith was a shuttle, but she

lies

too remote for

knowledge of the degree in which she was a

spinning deity.

Not

so our western Berchta

and

Holda, round whom, and their degraded forms in

witches,

many

assigned the
spindles

cultivation

of

flax.

industrious girls, and

to

reels full for

spoils the

distaffs

She

gives

spins

their

of lazy maidens.
all

the

'

On

her

distaff's

are well

by

Carnival,

stocked, and left standing for her

be

is

them overnight, but she burns or

coming at Christmas,

when she

To Holda

a legend clusters.

turns homeward, all the spinning must

finished,

and the

otherwise her curse

staffs
is

kept out of her sight,

on the disobedient.

The

44.

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

concealment of the implements shows the sacredness of her holy day as a time of rest
transferred,

like

many

an idea

the Virgin

to

others,

Mary, on whose holy days spinning

is

forbidden.

Berchta spoils whatever spinning she finds unfinished the last

North, from

day of the year, and,

'

in the

Yule day to New Year's day,

neither wheel nor windlass must go round.''

In

Thuringen, songs rose to Frau Holle as the

women

dressed the flax

Walpurg (whence

the

and

Lower Austria,

in

name of the great

witch-

gathering, Walpurgisnacht) goes round the fields

at harvest-time with a spindle to bless them.

In Bavaria, 'flax will not thrive unless

sown by women, and

strange

ceremonies,

over the

field

the maids

ump

the

of the ashes of a

wood consecrated during

over the

Midsummer Night,

scattering

fire

matins.

fires

is

be done with

this has to

including

it

on the

made of

As high

as

hilltops

on

so high will the flax

grow

but we find also that as high as the bride springs

from the table on her marriage night, so high

^
2

Grimm, Teutonic Mythology,

Hid. p. 270.

p. 270.


OF THE STORIES
grow

will the flax

spinning

is

who watches

The

crops.

downward

the

In Sweden no

in that year.^

done on Thursday night, for fear of

offending the spirit

and the

twisting of the thread and

of ' sympathetic magic

With which examples

rice

we may couple

(see p. 59)

'

that given by Mr. Frazer.

Sumatra the

over the cattle

pull of the spindle might affect

the growth of the corn.

'

In the interior of

sown by women who,

is

sowing, let their hair hang loose

back, in order that the rice

antly and have

'

in

their

luxuri-

The day

called St. Distaif's

spinning was resumed,

down

may grow

long stalks.'^

Day was

Twelfth

45

after

Day, when

as in Herrick's lines

Partly work and partly play.

Ye must on

St. Distaffe's

day

If the maids a-spinning go.

Burn the
Give

Then

At
1

flax

and

fire

St. Distaffe all

the tow

the right.

bid Christmas sport good night.''

Pergine in Tyrol, within recent years, the

Karl Pearson,

Evolution, vol.

ii.

Chances of Death, and other Studies

The Golden Bough,

Hesperides,

Day.'

'

in

p. 36.

vol.

i.

St. Distaffe's

p. 10.

Day, or the Morrow after Twelfth

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

46

of the bridegroom

friend

wheel, with flax

carried

wound round the

a spinningthe

distaff, in

wedding procession.
In these illustrations of the prominence given
to spinning in popular belief

and

ritual,

no

line

has been drawp between the part severally played

by goddess and by witch.

Earth supplies the

pattern of heavenly things, and therefore the

gods and goddesses, with the swarm of godlings,

are for the

most part mortals variously magnified,

whose deeds are the

the

of man.

life

reflection of those

As

which

for the witch, she

fill

may be

regarded as the degraded and demon-inspired

representative of

woman, who

still

the

and medicine-

survive in barbaric

Weatherwise, as

ties.

priestess

all folk

communi-

become who, with

anxious outlook on the harvest of both land and

sea,

watch the skies;

skilled in the virtue

of

simples through testing of the qualities of plants

wielder of the pitchfork, the broom, and

distafi^,

tamer of the

turous

life,

cat, as, in his

man was tamer

the

more adven-

of the wolf, making

the devourer of the flock to be the guardian of

the fold,

here are the elements out of which was

OFTHESTORIES

47

shaped the monstrous nightmare that terrorised

mankind and sent thousands

to the gallows or

the stake.

(c)

The

The

Gullible Devil

stories of the gullibility of the devil are

incidents in the history of his decline

Ridicule paved the

mythology,

parative

The

sealed.

way

to a

in

and

fall.

doom which comhim,

explaining

has

ridicule followed his defeat in his

own realm of

and cunning by mortals.

trickery

It was a sincere belief

among Scotch

theologians

of the seventeenth century that his cunning so

increased with age that he became more than a

match

the cleverest.

Abercromby,

in

his

Physick of the Soule, speaks of the devil 'as

now

for

almost of six thousand years, and of great wilyness

and

experience.'

But man

is

a combative

animal, and the feeling that the devil was ever

on the watch to

warmed

trip

him up or outwit him,

rather than chilled his fighting instinct.

In the belief that the

devil's favourite

was the bargaining for both body and

he might win both, the

method

soul, that

spirit of rivalry in the

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

48

game of huckstering was

came a contest of
saying goes.

'

pull devil, pull baker,' as the

As the

also manifest in the

stories,

he

is

aroused, so that it be-

old legends show, and as

'Tom

Tit Tot' group of

the transformed giant or wizard with

the superadded features of the fiend whose aim

is

to induce the

selves to

tage.

is

unwary to agree to

him at the

some

price of

Hence, when he

is

it

sell

them-

fleeting

advan-

checkmated, great

is

the joy at the discomfiture of the 'stupid beast,'

as

Pope Gregory the Great

many

this defeat

saga,

called him.

a legend

tells.

And

of

In northern

King Olaf desired to build a church greater

than any yet seen, but lacked the means to

accomplish
dale he

this.

met a

As he walked
troll,

'twixt hill

and

who, when he heard the

king's wish, offered to build the church for

him

within a given time, stipulating that he was to

have the sun and moon, or Olaf himself, in

payment.

The king

agreed

the church was to

be large enough to allow seven priests to preach

in it at the

same time without disturbing one

another, and ere long the structure was finished,

except the roof and

spire.

Perplexed at the

'

OFTHESTORIES

49

bargain which he had made, Olaf once more

wandered over

hill

and

dale,

when suddenly he

heard a child cry from within a mountain, while

a giantess quieted

it

with these words, 'Hush,

hush, to-morrow comes thy father,

Wind and

Weather, home, bringing both sun and moon, or

saintly Olafs

self.'

Overjoyed at this discovery,

the king turned home, arriving just in time to

He

see the spire being fixed.

and Weather, thou hast

when

instantly the giant

cried out,

'

Wind

set the spire askew,'

fell off

the ridge of the

roof with a fearful crash, and burst into a thou-

sand pieces, which were nothing but

flint stones.^

In Swedish legend a giant promises to build a

church for the White Christ,

As

Laurentius can

name, otherwise he must

find out his

eyes.

if

in

forfeit his

the Olaf story, the giantess

is

overheard hushing her crying child and uttering

the giant's name.^

In the great collection of Welsh manuscripts

published by

Owen Jones

in the beginning of

this century, the story of the battle of

Grimm,
Amason, Icelandic Legends,
on the name of the builder in "Who
2

Achren

Teutonic Mythology, pp. 547, 548.

Cp.

'

p. 49,

built

where the story hinges

Keynir Church ?

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

50

precedes some verses.

It

was fought on accoxint

of a white roebuck and a

puppy which were of

Amathaon, son of Don, had caught them.

Hades.

Therefore he fought with Arawn, King of Hades,

and there was

in the

engagement on the

side of

Hades a man who could not be vanquished

his

name could be

discovered

a woman on the other

name was

unless

while there was

side called

Achren, whose

to be found out before her side could

be vanquished.

Gwydion, son of Don, guessed

sang the two following

the man's name, and

They

englyns.

are the verses alluded to,

and

they embody Gwydion's guess as to the man's

name, which he discovered to be Bran

Bran, which means a

and

as

is

one of the appel-

lations of the terrene god, he

may be supposed

'

crow,'

to have been a principal in the fight, that

say,
self.^

is

to

he was probably the King of Hades him-

Cognate with the foregoing legend of the

discomfiture of the devil

is

that which

tells

how he

agrees to build a house for a peasant at the price

of the man's soul, the contract to be null and

void if the work
1

is

not finished before cockcrow.

Prof. Rhys, Hibiert Lectures, p. 244.

OF THE STORIES

51

Just as day dawns, and as the devil

on the

last tile, the

roosters

putting

is

peasant wakens up

by imitating

their

all

on condition

devil helps to construct a bridge

that he receives in payment the soul of the

thing that crosses

watch to
past

and while he

it,

seize his prize,

In

him.

the

the

Or the

crowing.

first

on the

is

a chamois or dog rushes

well-known

story

the

of

shadowless man, the devil agrees to take the

hindmost in a

race,

and

able to grasp only

is

The

the shadow of the rearmost runner.

is

also befooled

by one man, who

fiend

whistles the

Gospel which he has bound himself not to say,

and by the

refusal of another to carry out his

bargain at the

fall

of the leaf because the foliage

sculptured on the church columns

boughs.

still

on the

In the venerable street play of ' Punch

and Judy

shamming
and

is

the climax

is

reached when, after

defeat by the devil,

strings

him

Punch

to the gallows.

seizes

The

him

story

is

told of some angry lookers-on stoning a show-

man who
by

reversed the

letting the

devil

traditions

of the play

carry off Punch.

examples, of which a store

may be

These
gathered

INCIDENTAL FEATURES

52

from
fall

Grimm, Thorpe, and other

collectors,^

into line with the typical incident of the

befooling and discomfiture of the

shape or sex and another in

'

Tom

demon

in one

Tit Tot ' and

his variants,

along the main track of which group

of folk-tales

we may now advance without further

digression.
1 Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 1018-1024 ; Thorpe, Northern
Mythology, vol. ii. p. 177 ; Dasent, Popular Tales from the
Norse, xcvii ; Crane, Italian Tales, p. 221 ; Clouston, Popular

Tales

and

Fictions, vol.

i.

p. 381.

BARBARIC IDEAS ABOUT NAMES

Befoke the discovery of

iron

tion of the art of spinning

before the inven-

before the formula-

tion of the theory of spirits, against whose wiles

mortals might successfully plot,

men had found

the necessity of inventing signs or symbols where-

Among

with to distinguish one another.

was the choice of personal names, and

this that the justification exists for

name-incident in

'

Tom

Tit Tot

'

believes that his

himself,

is

is

in

assuming the

Barbaric

a vital part of

and therefore that the names of other

men and

of superhuman beings are also vital

parts of themselves.

to

name

these

to be probably

the most archaic element in the story.

man

it

know the name

is

He

further believes that

to put

its

owner, whether

he be deity, ghost, or mortal, in the power of

BARBARIC IDEAS

54

another, involving risk of

He

to the named.

harm

or destruction

therefore takes all kinds of

precautions to conceal his name, often from his

friend,

and always from

his foe.

This

belief,

and

the resulting acts, as will be shown presently,

are a part of that general confusion between

the

and

objective

the

subjective

in

other

words, between names and things or between

symbols and

realities

which

is

a universal feature

of barbaric modes of thought.

This confusion

attributes the qualities of living things to things

not living
idolatry

it lies

of

all

at the root of

all

fetichism and

witchcraft, shamanism, and other

instruments which are as keys to the invisible

kingdom of the dreaded.

prevail, everything

and magic, be
the savage.

It

it
is,

becomes

Where

such ideas

a vehicle of magic,

remembered, rules the

as

life

of

Adolf Bastian aptly remarks,

'the physics of mankind in a state of nature,'

because in the perception, however blurred or

dim, of some relation between things, science

born.

To

look for any consistency in barbaric

to disqualify ourselves for under-

philosophy

is

standing

and the theories of

it,

is

it

which aim at

ABOUT NAMES
symmetry are

own condemnation.

their

that philosophy, within

works not

fines,

own

its

regards

many

which

them

Yet

irregular con-

Ignorant of the

illogically.

by the

properties of things, but ruled

likenesses

55

superficial

exhibit, the barbaric

good or

as vehicles of

mind

evil, chiefly

because things are feared in the degree that

evil,

they are unknown, and because, where

mainly struggle,

man

is

life

is

ever on the watch against

malice-working agencies, wizards, medicine-men,

and

That he should envisage the

all their kin.

intangible

name should be an

that his

an integral part of himself, may the

us

when

it

less surprise

remembered that language, from

is

common

the simple phrases of

to the highest

life

abstract terms, rests on the concrete.

hend
to

To

'

a thing

possess

'

call

term

'

'

is

to

'

a thing

one

man

'

seize

is

to

fig-blabber,' applied

his

supercilious

eyebrows

'

'

'

or

is

'

'

is

'

appre-

'

lay hold

'

by or

sit

To

'

of

beset

it
'

it.

to borrow the

by the Greeks to the

who broke the Attic law

prohibiting the export of

'

"

sycophant

informer against those

man

entity,

figs

to call another

to speak of

while, as

we

all

him

as

'

raising

know, the terms

BARBARIC IDEAS ABOUT NAMES

56
'

disaster

'

and ' lunatic preserve the old belief in

'

human

the influence of the heavenly bodies on

Even the

life.

substantive verb 'to be,' the

'most bodiless and

is

made up of the

colourless of all our words,'

relics

of several verbs which

once had a distinct physical significance.

contained the idea of

and

'

are,'

the idea of

that of ' dwelling ' or

'

'

growing

sitting '
'

abiding.'

'

'

'

am,

was and
'

'Be'

art,
'

is,'

were,'

MAGIC THROUGH TANGIBLE THINGS

The

dread of

being harmed through so

in-

tangible a thing as his name, which haunts the

savage,

is

the extreme and more subtle form of

the same dread which, for a like reason, makes

him adopt precautions against cuttings of

hair, parings of his nails, his saliva, excreta,

the water in which his clothes

are

any

he wears

washed, falling under the control of

the sorcerer.
'

when

his

and

Miss Mary Kingsley says that

the fear of nail and hair clippings getting into

the hands of evilly disposed persons

sent

to the

West

is

ever pre-

The Igalwa and

African.

other tribes will allow no one but a trusted

friend to

do their

hair,

and

bits of nails or hair

are carefully burnt or thrown

away

into a river.

Blood, even that from a small cut on the finger,

67

MAGIC THROUGH

58
or from a

fit

of nose-bleeding,

is

covered up and stamped out if

Blood

the earth.

means a

spirit,

is

the

it

and

life,

most carefully
has fallen on
life

in Africa

hence the liberated blood

and liberated

liberated spirit,

spirits are

is

the

always

whipping into people who don't want them.'^

Crammed with Pagan

who

is

superstitions, the Italian

reluctant to trust a lock of his hair to

another stands on the same plane as the barbarian.

Sometimes, as was the custom among the Incas,

and

as

is

among Turks and

the custom

still

Esthonians, the refuse of hair and nails

served so that the owner

may have them

my

one of

sons tells

pre-

at the

In connection with

resurrection of the body.^

this,

is

me

that his Jamaican

negro housekeeper speaks of the old-time blacks

keeping their hair-cuttings to be put in a pillow

in their coffins,

and preserving the parings of

their nails, because they

next world.

It

ourselves that

is

would need them in the

common

when

superstition

children's teeth

among

come out

they should not be thrown away, lest the child

'

Travels in West Africa,

27ie

Golden Bowjh,

vol.

p. 447.
i.

p. 203.

TANGIBLE THINGS

59

has to seek for the lost tooth after death.

the other hand,

to throw the teeth in the

But the

larger

more appositely,

fire

'

out of harm's way.'

number of

pression to the belief in

pathetic magic '

On

an equally common practice

it is

we

as

practices give ex-

known

what

is

say,

like cures like,' or

'

in barbaric theory,

'

as

'

sym-

kills like.'

Things outwardly resembling one another are

believed to possess the

same

qualities,

effects

man

himself

being thereby brought about in the

by the production of

like effects in things belong-

ing to him, or in images or

Zulu

sorcerers,

effigies

when they have secured a portion

of their victim's dress, will bury

it in

place, so that, as it rots away, his life

In the

New

The

of him.

Hebrides

to hide nail-parings

it

some

seci-et

may

decay.

was the common practice

and cuttings of

hair,

and to

give the remains of food carefully to the pigs.

'

When

the mae snake carried away a fragment

of food into the place sacred to a spirit, the

who had

eaten of the food would

fragment decayed.' ^

Brand

tells

man

sicken as the

that in a witch-

craft trial in the seventeenth century, the accused

1

Codrington, Melcmesiams,

p. 203.

MAGIC THROUGH

60
confessed

Henry

'

having buried a glove of the said Lord

in the ground, so that as the glove did

rot

and waste, the

rot

and

waste''

liver of

and the

the said lord might

New

Britain sorcerer of

to-day will burn a castaway banana skin, so that

man who

the

carelessly left it

a tormenting death.

may

die

A fever-stricken Australian

native girl told the doctor

'

unburied

who attended her that

some moons back, when the Goulburn blacks

were encamped near Melbourne, a young

man

named Gibberook came behind her and cut

a lock of her hair, and that she was sure he
buried

it,

and that

it

off

had

was rotting somewhere.

Her marm-bu-la (kidney

fat)

was wasting away,

and when the stolen hair had completely rotted

she would die.'

She added that her name had

been lately cut on a tree by some wild black, and

that was another sign of death.

Murran, which means 'a

leaf,'

Her name was

and the doctor

afterwards found that the figure of leaves had

been carved on a gum-tree as described by the

girl.

The

sorceress

said

that the spirit of a

black fellow had cut the figure on the tree.^

1

Brough Smyth, Aborigines of

Victoria, vol.

i.

p. 468.

TANGIBLE THINGS
The putting of sharp
of an
is

enemy

is

stones in the foot-tracks

maim him,

believed to

wood

is

man

heart of a

soften the

bargain

being driven.

world through,

is

full

'

seals

'

or

'

is

with

thought

whom

Folk -medicine, the wide

of prescriptions based on

sympathetic or antipathetic magic.

of

as a nail

driven into a horse's footprint to lame him,i

while the chewing of a piece of

to

61

signatures

'

is

Its doctrine

expressed in the

use of yellow flowers for jaundice, and of eye-

bright for ophthalmia, while

working roots there

human

is

among

the wonder-

the familiar mandrake of

shape, credited, in virtue of that resem-

blance, with

magic power.

In Umbria, where

the peasants seek to nourish the consumptive on

rosebuds and dew, the mothers take their children,

wasted by sickness, to some boundary stone, perchance once sacred to Hermes, and pray to

God

to stay the illness or end the sufferer's

The

life.

Cheroki make a decoction of the cone-flower for

weak eyes because of the fancied resemblance of

that plant to the strong-sighted eye of the deer

and they

also drink
1

an infusion of the tenacious

Grimm, Teutonic Mythology,

p.

1093.

'

MAGIC THROUGH

62

burrs of the

common

species of the genus

To

the memory.

beggars'

lice,

an American

Desmodium, to strengthen

ensure a fine voice, they boil

liquor.

In Suifolk and

other parts of these islands, a

common remedy

and drink the

crickets,

for warts

is

to secretly pierce a snail or

'

dodman

with a gooseberry-bush thorn, rub the snail on

the wart, and then bury

may

the wart

so that, as it decays,

it,

wither away.

Chinese doctors administer the head, middle,

or roots of plants, as the case

may

be, to cure

the complaints of their patients in the head,

body, or

legs.

And

with the practice of the

Zulu medicine-man, who takes the bones of the

oldest bull or

dog of the

tribe, giving scrapings

of these to the sick, so that their lives

may be

may compare

that of

prolonged to old age,^ we

doctors in the seventeenth century,

logic,

less

but perchance unconscious humour, gave

their patients pulverised

years.^

who with

'

Mummie,'

mummy to

says Sir

prolong their

Thomas Browne,

'

is

Bishop Callaway, Zulu Nursery Tales, p. 175.

Lang's Myth, Bitual, and Religion, vol. i. p. 96. The inclusion of mummy in the old pharmacopceias was perhaps due to
certain virtues in the aromatics used in embalming.
1

TANGIBLE THINGS
become merchandise.

and Pharaoh

Mizraim cures wounds,

sold for balsams.'

is

In Plutarch's

63

Roman

Questions,

which

Dr.

Jevons, in his valuable preface to the reprint

Philemon

of

'may

Holland's

be said to be the

fairly

written

treatise

reference

is

translation,^

made

on the
to the

earliest

subject

Roman

remarks
formal

of folk-lore,'

customs of not

completely clearing the table of food, and

'

never

putting foorth the light of a lampe, but suffering

it

to goe out of the owne accord.'

These obviously

come under the head of sympathetic magic, being

'

safeguards against starvation and darkness.'

Melanesia,

if

man wounds

In

another with an

arrow, he will drink hot juices and chew irritat-

ing leaves to bring about agony to the wounded,

and he

will

keep his bow taut, pulling

intervals to cause nerve-tension

and tetanus in

his

we may compare the same philosophy of

things at work.

by

at

Here, though wide seas between them

victim.
roll,

it

Sir

The sympathetic powder

Kenelm Digby
1
2

'

'

used

in the seventeenth century

Urn-Burial, iii. p. 46 (collected works).

BiUiothique de Carabas, vol. vii. (Nutt, 1892).

MAGIC THROUGH

64

was believed to cure a wound

sword that

if

applied to the

and, to-day, the Suffolk

inflicted it;

farmer keeps the sickle with which he has cut

himself free from rust, so that the

not

fester.

Here, too,

lies

the answer to the

question that puzzled Plutarch.

reason that of

all

wound may

'

What

is

the

those things which be dedicated

and consecrated to the gods, the custome

Rome, that onely the

is

at

spoiles of enemies con-

quered in the warres are neglected and

run to decay in processe of time

sufifered

neither

is

to

there

any reverence done unto them, nor repaired be

they at any time when they wax olde
course the custom

is

?''

Of

the outcome of the belief

that the enemy's power waned as his armour

rusted away.

Equally puzzling to Plutarch was the custom

among Roman women

'

of the most noble and

auncient houses' to 'carry

their shoes.'

little

moones upon

These were of the nature of amulets,

designed to deceive the lunacy-bringing moonspirit, so

that

it

might enter the crescent charm

instead of the wearer.

'

The Chaldeans

the spirit of disease from the sick

diverted

man by

pro-

TANGIBLE THINGS

65

viding an image in the likeness of the spirit to

attract the plague.'
his likeness
it

(i.e.

'

Make

to the living flesh of his

man),

him

may

of

an image in

it

of Namtar, the plague); apply

the malevolent

pass into the image.'

body

(i.e.

of the sick

Namtar who
But the

was more frequently the aim.

possesses

reverse effect

Chaldean tablet

records the complaint of some victim, that

who enchants images has charmed away my

'

he

life

by image' and Ibn Khaldun, an Arabian writer of

;

the fourteenth century, describes

how

the Naba-

thean sorcerers of the Lower Euphrates made an

image of the person

whom they plotted to destroy.

They transcribed

his

name on

his effigy, uttered

magic curses over

it,

and then,

after divers other

ceremonies, left the evil spirits to complete the

fell

work.^

In ancient Egyptian belief the ka of

a living person could be transferred to a wax

image by the repetition of formulae and there

;

is

no break in the long centuries between Accadian

magic, which so profoundly influenced the West,

and the practice of injuring a man through

Eomane

Jevons, Plutarch's

Lenormant, Chaldecm Magic,

3 lb. p. 63.

Questions, p. 79.
p. 51.

his

'

MAGIC THROUGH

66

The Ojibways

image, which flourishes to-day.

believe that

by drawing the

'

in sand or clay, or

figure of

any person

by considering any object

the figure of a person, and then pricking

sha,rp

stick or other

as

with

it

weapon, or doing any-

thing that would be done to the living body to

cause pain or death, the person thus represented
will

suffer

Dcemonology, Book
teaching

King James

likewise.'^

how

to

ii.

ch. v., speaks of

make

pictures of

i.,

'

in

his

the devil

wax or

clay,

that by roasting thereof the persons that they

bear the name of

dried away by

may be

sickness,''

continually melted or

and, as showing the con-

tinuity of the idea, there are exhibited in the Pitt

Rivers

Museum

at Oxford, besides similar objects

from the Straits Settlements, a

or

'

'

Corp Creidh

body from the Highlands, and a

clay

'

pig's

heart from Devonshire, with pins stuck in them.

The assumed correspondence between

phenomena and human

actions

in Dr. Johnson's observation,

visit

is

physical

further shown

when describing

his

to the Hebrides, that the peasants expect

better crops
1

by sowing

Dorman, Primitive

their seed at the

Svperstitions, p. 139.

new

TANGIBLE THINGS
moon

and he

recalls

from memory a precept

annually given in the almanack, ' to

moon

the

is

kill

waxing, that the bacon

With

the better in boiling.'

67

hogs when

may

the ancient

prove

Roman

custom of throwing images of the corn-spirit

(doubtless substitutes of actual

into

the

so

river,

of the modern

round
her to

and

crops

may compare

offerings)

might be

the practice

who

Servians and Thessalians,

strip a little girl naked,

in leaves

the

that

drenched with rain, we

human

flowers,

but wrap her completely

and then dance and sing

her, while bowls of water are

make the

rain come.

The

poured over
life

man

of

pulsates with the great heart of nature in

many

a touching superstition, as in the belief in the

dependence of the earth's

fertility

on the vigour of

the tree-spirit incarnated in the priest-king

in

the group which connects the waning of the days

with the decline of

human

years

and, pathetic-

ally enough, in the widespread notion, of which

Dickens makes use in David Copperfield, that

life

goes out with the ebb-tide.

'

was on the point of asking him

1

See infra^

p. 150,

if

he knew me,

MAGIC THROUGH

68

when he
me,

and

tried to stretch out his arm,

distinctly,

said to

with a pleasant smile, "Barkis

is

willin'."
'

And,

it

being low water, he went out with the

tide.'

The

general idea has only to be decked in

another garb to
reserves

fit

the frame of mind which

some pet sphere of nature

tion of the special

and the

still

for the opera-

arbitrary.

'The

narrower the range of man's knowledge of phythe wider

sical causes,

to

fill

is

the

field

which he has

up with hypothetical causes of a meta-

physical or supernatural character.' ^

We must not pass from these examples of belief

in sympathetic connection,

drawn from home

as

well as foreign sources, without reference to its

significance in connection with food outside the

prohibitions which are usually explained by the

totem, that

is,

abstinence from the plant

animal which

is

regarded as the tribal ancestor.

or

Captain Wells, who was killed near Chicago in

1812, and

among

who was

celebrated

the Indians, was cut up into

which were distributed among the

1

for his

many

valour
parts,

allied tribes, so

Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Beligion, vol.

1.

p. 88.

TANGIBLE THINGS
that

all

might have the opportunity of getting a

taste of the courageous soldier.

mon

among

belief

the flesh of a brave

For

it is

a com-

barbaric folk that by eating

man a

portion of his courage

The Botecudos sucked

absorbed.

is

69

the blood

of living victims that they might imbibe

tual force,
first

and among the Brazilian natives the

food given to a child, when weaning

the flesh of an enemy.^

of which

is

spiri-

it,

was

Cannibalism, the origin

probably due to a scarcity of animal

food, therefore acquires this superadded motive,

which

in
of,

also lies the explanation of the eating

or abstaining from, the flesh of certain animals.

The

lion's

flesh gives courage,

causes timidity

same
oil

and

idea, barbaric

the

lest

game

in

more

the deer's flesh

subtle form of the

hunters will abstain from

through their

slip

Contrariwise, the Hessian lad thinks

may
girl's

fingers.

that he

escape the conscription by carrying a baby-

cap in his pocket

a symbolic way of repu-

diating manhood.^

Most

suggestive of all

is

the extension of the

'

Dorman, Primitive

Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol.

Superstitions, p. 149.
i.

p. 107.

MAGIC THROUGH

70

idea to the eating of the slain god, whereby his

imbibed, and communion with the unseen

spirit is

secured.

that

'

To quote Mr.

Frazer, the savage believes

by eating the body of the god he shares

the god's attributes and powers

god

is

a corn-god, the corn

when he

is

his blood;

is

and when the

his proper

body

a vine-god, the juice of the grape

and

so,

in

is

by eating the bread and drink-

ing the wine, the worshipper partakes of the real

body and blood of

his god.

Thus the drinking

of wine in the rite of a vine-god, like Dionysus,

is

not an act of revelry

it is

a solemn sacrament.'

Experience shows that people possessing

gence above the ordinary often

fail

intelli-

to see the

bearing of one set of facts upon another

especially

if

the application can be

set,

made

to

their traditional beliefs, whether these are only

mechanically held, or ardently defended.

It

is,

therefore, not wholly needless to point out that

Mr. Frazer's explanation

rites

is

to be extended to the

attaching to Christianity, transubstantiation

being, laterally

or lineally, the descendant of the

Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 89.

See, on this matter. Professor Percy Gardner's tract on the
Origin of the Lord's Supper, pp. 18-20 (Maomillan and Co.).
1
^

TANGIBLE THINGS

71

barbaric idea of eating the god, whereby the

communicant becomes a partaker of the divine

'

In connection with this we

nature.'

may cite

Pro-

Robertson Smith's remark, that a notable

fessor

application of the idea of eating the flesh or drink-

man

ing the blood of another being, so that a

absorbs

its

nature or

life

into his own,

the rite

is

of blood-brotherhood, the simplest form of which

in

is

two men opening

their veins

Thenceforth their

one another's blood.

'

not two, but one.'

Among

ceremony

is

other's legs

and sucking
lives are

the Unyamuezi the

performed by cutting incisions in each

and letting the blood

trickle together.^

Fuller reference to this widely diffused rite will,

however,

when

more

have

fitting

place

names which,

as will

be seen, often goes with

Belief in virtue inhering in the dead man's

involves belief in virtue in

which

is

his

body

the key to the belief in the efficacy of

of supernatural power.

the continuity

clearly traceable.

it.

belongings, in

relics as vehicles

on,

later

treating of the custom of the exchange of

is

There

Religion of the Semites, p. 296.

Speke, Journal of Discovery of the Source of the Nile,

Here
is

no

p. 96.

MAGIC THROUGH

72

fundamental difference between the savage who

carries

about with him the skull-bones of his

ancestor as a charm or seat of oracle, and the

Buddhist who places the

relics

of holy

men

be-

neath the tope, or the Catholic who deposits the

fragments of saints or martyrs within the altar

which their presence

sanctifies

while the mother,

treasuring her dead child's lock of hair, witnesses

drawn from perennial

to the vitality of feelings

springs in

human

Well-nigh every

nature.

relic

which the Church safeguards beneath her shrines,

or exhibits, at stated seasons, for the adoration
of the crowd,
cule thrown

is

spurious,^ yet

no amount of

ridi-

on these has impaired the credulity

whose strength

in the

lies

dominance of the wish

to believe over the desire to know.^

In

'

Whuppity

Stoorie

'

the widow and the

witch ' watted thooms ' over their bargain.

1

On

the manufacture of and

Erasmus,
Ages, vol.

p.
ii.

traffic in

128; Gregorovius, Hist,

pp. 73-77

iii.

of

Man's

see Fioude,
in the Middle

relics,

Rome

pp. 72-75.

In John Heywood's Bntcrlvde of the Four P's (a Palmer, a

Pardoner, a 'Poticary, and a Pedlar), the author, a sixteenthcentury writer of Morality Plays, did not allow his staunch
Catholicism to hinder his flinging some coarse satire at the relicmongers. He represents the Pardoner as exhibiting, among other
curios, the jaw-bone of All Saints, a buttock-bone of the Holy
Ghost, and the great toe of the Trinity.
2

TANGIBLE THINGS

73

but by no means inactive,

saliva plays a smaller,

part in his superstitions.

goodly-sized book

might be written on the history and ethnic

tribution

of

Employed

customs

the

connected

as vehicle of blessing

by peoples

injury or cure,

dis-

with

it.

or cursing, of

intellectually as far

apart as the Jews, the South Sea Islanders, the

mediaeval Christians, and the Central Africans of
to-day, the potencies of this normally harmless

have

secretion

Among

been

ourselves it

is

most

credited. ^

widely

a vehicle of one of the

coarsest forms of assault, or the degenerate repre-

sentative of the old luck-charm in the spitting

on money by the cabman or the costermonger.

Among

certain barbaric races, however, the act

expresses the kindliest feeling and the highest

compliment.

Sudanese
it,

Consul

chief, after

and then did the

Petherick

says

that

grasping his hand, spat on

like to his face, a

form of

salute which the consul returned with interest, to

Among

the delight of the recipient.

the same custom

is

universal

the Masai

and while

it is

bad

1 Art. on
Saliva Superstitions,' by Fanny D. Bergen, American
Folk-Lore Soc. Journal, vol. iii. p. 52.
'

MAGIC THROUGH

74

form to

a lady,

kiss

The

her.i

it is

authority

comme

who

il

Jaut to

spit

reports this adds

on

an

account of certain generative virtues with which

saliva, especially if
is

accredited.^

in the

administered by a white man,

But

it is

form of fasting

against sorcery and

spittle,

and

in

and

as a protection

forms of black magic, that

all

we meet with frequent

writers,

as a prophylactic, notably

references to it in ancient

modern books of travel.

says Brand, 'was esteemed a

'

Spittle,'

charm against

all

kinds of fascination,''^ notably against the evil

eye, the

remedy

the Italians,

is

for which, still in

to

breast, as did the

spit

three times upon the

urban maiden in Theocritus

when she refused her

in the course of

vogue among

rustic wooer.

a murder

trial

It

came out

at Philippopolis,

that the Bulgarians believe that spitting gives

immunity from the consequences of perjury.*

example of
the

its

Abomel of Alzpirn spat on

his clergy
its

Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Lwnd,

Ibid. p. 165.

Popular Antiquities,

when

use in benediction occurs, as

but more familiar are the cases of

and

An

laity;

application
p. 166.

iii. p. 228 (Hazlitt's edition).

Westminster Gazette, 28th July 1897.

;;

TANGIBLE THINGS
baptism and name-giving.

in
'

75

Seward says that

the custom of nurses lustrating the children by

was one of the ceremonies used on the

spittle

named

Dies Nominalis, the day the child was

no doubt of the Papists

so that there can be

deriving this custom from the heathen nurses and

They have indeed

grandmothers.
as it were,

sions
filthy

by

christened

some Scriptural expres-

flinging in

but then they have carried

extravagance by daubing

of adults as well as of

spat in his

it

children.''

that when Hasan was

Mohammed,

it,

to a more

it

on the

nostrils

Ockley

'^

tells

born, his grandfather,

mouth

named him

as he

and Mungo Park thus describes the name-giving

ceremony among the Mandingo people.
child

is

named when

it is

The ceremony commences by shaving

The priest

'A

seven or eight days old.

the head.

offers a prayer, in which he solicits the

God upon

blessing of

the child and

all

the com-

pany, and then whispering a few sentences in the

child's

ear, spits three times in his face, after

which, pronouncing his

the child to
1

its

name

aloud, he returns

mother.'

Conformity ietween Popery and Paganism,

p. 229.

p.

14 ; Brand,

iii.

MAGIC THROUGH

76

All which, of course, has vital connection with

the belief in inherent virtue in saliva, and therefore with the widespread

group of customs which

have for their object the prevention of

within the power of the sorcerer.

its falling

Suabian folk-

medicine prescribes that the saliva should at once

be trodden into the ground

lest

some evil-disposed

As

the result of ex-

tensive acquaintance with the

North American

person use

it

for sorcery.

Indians, Captain

Bourke says that

all

them

of

are careful to spit into their cloaks or blankets

and Kane

adds his testimony that the natives of

Columbia River are never seen to

spit without

carefully stamping out the saliva.

This they do

lest

an enemy should find

through

Congo

it.

The

it,

and work injury

chief officer of the

'

king ' of

receives the royal saliva in a rag,

he doubles up and

kisses

which

while in Hawaii the

guardianship of the monarch's expectorations was

intrusted

only to a chief of high rank,

held the dignified

king,

and who,

office

who

of spittoon-bearer to the

like his fellow-holders of the

same

trust under other Polynesian rulers, buried the

saliva

beyond the reach of malicious medicine-

TANGIBLE THINGS
men.

Finally, as bearing

delimiting

He

on the absence of any

between a man's belongings,

lines

may be

there

77

cited Brand's reference to Debrio.

portrays the manners and ideas of the con-

'

tinent,

and mentions that upon those

come out of the head

before they throw

The
traits

hairs

combing they

in

them away.'

which

spit thrice

reluctance of savages to have their por-

taken

explicable

is

when brought

into

relation with the group of confused ideas under

review.

Naturally, the

man

thinks that virtue

has gone out of him, that some part of his vulnerable self

when he

is

put at the mercy of

sees his

'

his fellows,

counterfeit presentment ' on a

sheet of paper, or peering from out magic glass.

The

reluctance of unlettered people

selves to

have their likenesses taken

among
is

our-

not un-

From Scotland

to Somerset^ there

comes evidence about the

ill-health or ill-luck

common.

which followed the camera, of folks who 'took

bad and died'

facts will

after

being 'a-tookt.'

remove any surprise at

Pop. Antiq. iii. p. 231.

Napier, Folklore of West Scotland,
Eye, p. 86.

These

Catlin's well-

p.

142; Elworthy, Evil

78

MAGIC THROUGH TANGIBLE THINGS

known

story of the accusation brought against

him by the Yukons that he had made

scarce

buffaloes

by putting so many pictures of them in

his book.i
^

Dorman,

p. 140.

VII

MAGIC THROUGH INTANGIBLE

THINGS
The

examples of belief in a man's tangible

.

belongings as vehicles of black magic will have

paved the way for examples of

like belief

about

intangible things, as shadows, reflections, and

names.

The savage knows nothing

of the action of

the laws of interference of light or sound.

The

echoes of voices which the hillside flings back

the reflections which water casts

and the shadows

which follow or precede, and which lengthen or

shorten, a man's figure

the theory of another

the river-bank,

In

all

lest, as his

water, a crocodile

owner.

self.

may

Wetar

unite in supporting

The Basuto
shadow

seize it,

Island,

near

falls

avoids

on the

and harm the

Celebes, the
79

MAGIC THROUGH

80

make a man

magicians profess to

or stabbing his shadow

if

the Arabs believe that

a hyaena treads on a shadow,

man

by spearing

ill

it

deprives the

of the power of speech; and in modern

Roumania the ancient custom of burying a

victim as sacrifice to the earth-spirit under any

new

structure, has survival in the builder en-

ticing

some passer-by to draw near,

shadow

is

so that his

thrown on the foundation-stone, the

belief being that he will die within the year.

New England
shadow, and

tribes call the soul

speech indicates community

civilised

of idea in the

sleia

chemung or

of the Greeks, the manes or

umbra of the Romans, and the shade of our own

language.

But any due enlargement of

department of the subject would

volume, since

it

of

no small

involves the story of the origin

and development of
life

fill

this

man from

spiritual

the

ideas ruling the

dawn of thought; and,

moreover, those ideas find sufficing illustration

in savage notions

about names.

Starting at the bottom of the scale, we have

Mr. Brough Smyth's testimony that the Victoria

black-fellows are

very unwilling to

tell

INTANGIBLE THINGS
their

81

names, and that this reluctance

real

is

due to the fear of putting themselves at the

mercy of

sorcerers.^

Backhouse says that the

Tasmanians showed great

dislike to their

names

being mentioned.

Among
Africa,

'

the Tshi-speaking

a man's name

all

but his nearest

he

is

always

in

nection between a

West

and to other persons

known by an assumed

believe

'

of

always concealed from

relatives,

name, as we should
peoples

is

tribes

name,' a nick-

The Ewe-speaking

say.^

a real and material con-

man and

his

name, and that,

by means of the name, injury may be done to

the man.'

Mr. Im Thurn says

that, although

the Indians of British Guiana have an intricate

system of names,

it is

'

of

little

use in that the

owners have a very strong objection to telling

or using them, apparently on the ground that

the

name

knows

it

part of the man, and that he

has part of the owner of that

his power.
1

is

To

in

avoid any danger of spreading

Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i. p. 469.

Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast,

p. 109.
3

who

name

The Ewe-speaking

Peoples, p. 98.

MAGIC THROUGH

82

knowledge of their names, one Indian, therefore,

usually addresses another only according to the
relationship of the caller

an Indian

name

is

and the

But

called.

just as unwilling to tell his proper

man

to a white

as to

an Indian

of course, between those two there

is

no

and

as,

relation-

ship the term for which can serve as a proper

name, the Indian asks the European to give him

a name, which

is

usually written on a piece of

paper by the donor, and shown by the Indian to

any white who asks

name/ ^

pervade
;

all

and the prej udice appears to

tribes alike' dislike telling their

thus you never get a man's right

names without
this,

of

'

from himself, but they

with

The Indians

Columbia

British

names

his

will

hesitation.^

tell

name

each other's

In correspondence

the Abipones of South America would

nudge their neighbour to answer

any one among them was asked

them when

for
his

name

and

the natives of the Fiji Islands would get any third

party who might be present to answer as to their

Among

'

Farrer, Primitive

the Indians of Guiana, p.

Mayne, British Columbia, p. 278.

220.

Manners and Customs,

p. 119.

INTANGIBLE THINGS
wish to

know

steal it;

their

his

name

arose from a dsire to

and the Araucanians would not allow

names to be told to strangers

should be used in sorcery.

and wives

husbands

names, and

lest these

the Ojibways,

told

each other's

were warned

they

that

own

if they repeated their

Of the Abipones

hoffer reports that they

at night, and,

Among

never

children

would stop growing

names.

83

just named, Dobriz-

would knock at

when asked who was

door

his

there,

would

not answer for fear of letting their names be

known to any

evilly-disposed listener.

like

motive probably explains the reluctance of which

Gregor speaks in

Folk-Lore qf the North-

his

East qf Scotland, when folk calling at a house

of the better class on business with the master
'

or mistress had a very strong

their

tell

these sheets are passing through the press,

friend

Mr.

W.

haunted old woman living

tormentors,

me a

B. Yeats hands

from an Irish correspondent, who

Her

to

names to the servant who admitted them.' ^

While

my

dislike

whom
1

in

tells

of a fairy-

King's County.

she calls the

P. 30.

letter

'

Fairy

Band

MAGIC THROUGH

84

of Shinrone,'' come from Tipperary.

They

pelt

her with invisible missiles, hurl abuse at her,

and

against her family, both the dead and

rail

the living, until she

And

driven well-nigh mad.

is

this spite is manifested because

all

cannot find out her name, for

that, she

would be

sarcasm or chaff
is

they

they could learn

if

in their power.

Sometimes

employed, and a nickname

is

given her to entrap her into telling her real

name,

with

fits

which she freely talks about, often

all

But the

of laughter.

fairies

trouble

her most at night, coming in through the wall

over her bed-head, which

is

no laughing matter

and then, being a good Protestant, she

the Bible to charm

chapters and verses from

them away.

And

plagued

for

years,

against

the

'band

in

terms

general

although she has been thus

she

of

on

holds

still

Shinrone.'
this

her

an

American

never to

be divulged

without due
warrior of

Indian

is

name-concealment

by the

consideration.

own

Speaking

custom, Captain Bourke says that 'the

of

recites

sacred

name
thing,

owner himself

One may ask a

any tribe to give

his

name, and

INTANGIBLE THINGS

85

the question will be met with either a point-

blank refusal, or the more diplomatic evasion

that he cannot understand what

The moment a

him.
warrior

first

will

the friend can

is

wanted of

friend approaches, the

whisper what

is

wanted, and

the name, receiving a re-

tell

ciprocation of the courtesy from the inquirer.'^

Grinnell says that

names every
counts a
is

new coup

entitled to a

among

'

Blackfeet change their

Whenever a Blackfoot

{i.e.

some deed of bravery), he

new name,'

in the

same way that

ourselves a successful general or admiral

sinks his

name when

Blackfoot will never

it,

many

season.

raised to the peerage.

tell his

name

if

all his

he can avoid

in the belief that if he should reveal

would be unlucky in

'

undertakings.'^

it,

he

The

warriors of the Plains Tribes 'used to assume

agnomens or battle-names, and

some of them who had enjoyed
five

as

have known

many

as four or

but the Apache name, once conferred, seems

to remain through

life,

medicine-men, who,

except in the case of the

have

always

suspected,

1 John G. Bourke, The Medicine-Men of the Apache, p. 461

= Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 194.
(Washington, 1892).

MAGIC THROUGH

86

change their names on assuming their profession,

much

to do,'

and,

may be

it

dignitaries of the church,

orders,

The

China

as a professor of learning in

and

so forth.

said

is

among high

added, as

members of ecclesiastical

But of

more

this

presently.

foregoing reference to names of warriors

permits the inclusion of a story told by Fraser

in his

Tour

despatches

to

Himalayas.^

the

intercepted

In one of the

during

our

war

with

Nepaul, Gooree Sah had sent orders to 'find

out the name of the commander of the British

army

write

and some

rice

it

upon a

piece of paper

and turmeric

tation three times

take

it

say the great incan-

having said

it,

send for some

plum-tree wood, and therewith burn

it.'

There

is

a story in the annals of British conquest in India

to the effect that General

Lake took a

surprisingly little resistance, because

signified in the native

there

language

was an oracle that

captured by that
explains

the

reptile.

honours

paid

Bourke,

p. 462.

name

Crocodile,'

and

the city would be

Phonetic confusion
to

Gubbins by the natives of Oude

1

'

city with
his

Commissioner

Govinda being
P. 530.

INTANGIBLE THINGS
the

name

favourite

of

Krishna, the

87

popular

incarnation of Vishnu.^

Mr.

J.

H.

Collens, in his Guide to Trinidad,

published in 1887,

tells

the following story

A doctor in a remote district had one day

assembled a number of negro children for vaccination.
In the course of his duties he came to a
little girl, when the following conversation ensued
with the mother
Doctor. Are you the child's mother ?
:

sir
is me darter.
And what is your name
W. Is me name ?

Woman. Yes,
D.

.''

D.

what
W.

(rather
is

Sal

asked

you

(hesitatingly).

D. Well

Yes

impatiently).

your name

Dey does

what

caal

me

Sal.

.?

W.
at a

(assuringly, but with a suspicious side-glance

neighbour who is intently taking all in). Dey

does alius caal

me

Sal.

D. (getting desperate). Oh, botheration

will
you tell me your proper name or not
W. (with much reluctance approaching the
doctor, whispers in the lowest possible tone of
voice). Delphine Segard.
D. (with intense disgust). Then why couldn't
!

.''

you say so ?

Mr. Collens remarks that

1

W.

his

'medical friend

For these two illustrations I am indebted to my friend Mr.

R. MorfiU, Reader in Russian, University of Oxford.


MAGIC THROUGH

88

now

bears

these

little

passages

more

with

equanimity, for he has gained experience, and

knows that the reason why the woman was so

reluctant to utter her

believed she had

name aloud was

that she

an enemy in the room who

would take advantage of the circumstance

if

she got hold of her true name, and would work

her

manner of harm.

all

It

a fact that these

is

people (the negro population of Trinidad) sometimes actually forget the names of their near
relations

With

from hearing and using them so

this

little.'

group of examples chosen from

and with

the

ever-

continuity of

old

ideas

widely sundered sources,

growing evidence

of

lurking in the veriest

trifles,

far-fetched as at

sight

first

may not be

it

seems, to detect

it

traces of the avoidance-superstition in the

rhyme familiar to our childhood

'

What is your name ?

Pudding and tame.
If you ask me again I '11

Ellis says,

name

only,

'

tell

so

game-

you the same.'

It appears strange that the birth-

and not an

alias,

should be believed

capable of carrying some of the personality of

INTANGIBLE THINGS

89

the bearer elsewhere, since the latter preserves

the subjective connection just as well as the real

But the native view seems to be that

name.

the alias does not really belong to the man.'

This view, which

universal through every stage

is

of culture, takes practical effect from the time

that the child

is

bom

and made the subject of

name-giving ceremonies.
ties,

the

name

'

baptismal

In

name

is

registered in heaven,'

integral part

civilised

communi-

the real name, the

and

this belief is

an

of the general body of customs

which have for their object the protection of

the infant from maleficent agents at the critical
period of birth.
'

had a

'The

ancients,'

says Aubrey,

solemne time of giving

names,

the

Barbaric, Pagan,

equivalent to our christening.'

and Christian folk-lore

of examples of the

is full

importance of naming and other birth-ceremonies,

in the belief that the child's life

is

at the mercy

of evil spirits watching the chance of casting

spells

upon

and of

it,

of

eager to steal

fairies

'changeling' in
1

Bemames

demons covetous to

its

place.

of Gentilisme

it,

possess

it,

and leave a

This

and Judaisme,

last-named
p. 40.

MAGIC THROUGH

90

born by the

superstition as to theft of the newly

'little folk

'

is

availed of as subject of

humorous

incident

by the writer of the old mystery play

of the

Shepherds

'

Towneley

(Secunda Pastorum), in the

'

While

Collection.^

the

all

hinds

except Male have fallen asleep, he steals

home

with a sheep, which he pops into the cradle,

telling

his

wife

to

lying-in.

Then he

shamming

sleep, says

feign

returns to his mates, and,

that they have roused

him from a dream that

his wife has given birth to a

'

makes excuse to hasten to

gone, the sheep
herds
'

follow

is

Mak

yong

lad,"

and

so

he

is

When

her.

missed, whereupon the shep-

home, and

speke soft ' because of the

'

are

bidden to

They

seke woman.'

are thus put off guard, but on leaving, one of

them remembers that no

gift

had been made to

the child, so they return for that kindly

office.

Despite Mak's entreaties not to disturb the sleep

of the
clowtt,'

'

lyttle

day

starne,'

and discover strange

the babe and the 'shepe.'

'

they

Surtees Society, 1836.

Society, 1898.)

(Be-issued

'

lyft

likeness

Both

Mak

up the
between

and

his

by the English Dialect

INTANGIBLE THINGS
wife

declare

maliceful

metamorphosis

this

work of

fairies,

to

woman

the

91

be

the

saying that

the boy
'

Was
I

takyn with an
saw it myself

elfe.

When the clok stroke twelf

Was he forshapyn (transformed).
'

'

The hour

of midnight,' says Brand,

'

was looked

on by our forefathers as the season when

species of sorcery

this

was generally performed.'

In Ireland the belief in changelings

as it was in pre-Christian times
in Scotland the child

the rite of baptism

is

is

is

as strong

both there and

carefully

watched

till

performed, fishermen's nets

being sometimes spread over the curtain openings to

prevent the infant being carried off;

while in

West

Sussex

divulge a child's

it is

considered unlucky to

intended name

before baptism.^

This reminds us of the incident in the Moray'

story, Nicht

Nought Nothing,

would not christen the bairn

back,

saying,

'We

Nought Nothing

will

in which the queen

till

just

the king came

call

until his father

him Nicht

comes home.' ^

1 Henderson, Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp.

Gregor, Folk-Lore of North-East Sootland, p. 11.
2 Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 89.

15,

66

MAGIC THROUGH

92

Brand says that among Danish women precaution

against evil spirits took the form

some

garlick, bread, salt, or

steel

of putting

instrument as

amulets about the house before laying the new-

born babe in the cradle.^

in Scotland
lie

'

the

Henderson ^ says that

little one's

safeguard

is

held to

of some article of clothing

in the placing

belonging to the father near the cradle,' while in

South China a pair of the

father's trousers are

put near the bedstead, and a word-charm pinned

to them, so that all evil influences

them

instead of

Britain a charm

is

is

believed that if a wizard

baptismal

in Abyssinia

sort of

Parkyns says that

is

'

to conceal the real

baptized, and to call

nickname which

leaving the church.

In Ruthenia

his

it is

the custom

name by which
him only by a

mother gives him on

The baptismal names

Vol.

Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 14.

Dennys, Folk-Lore of China, p. 13.
Journal, Anthrop. Institute, 1889, p. 293.

New

knows a man's

2
5

in

name he can transform him by a mere

effort of will.

a person

pass into

always hung in the house to

secure the child from like peril.*

it

may

harming the babe,^ and

ii.

p. 143.

in

INTANGIBLE THINGS

93

Abyssinia are those of saints, such as Son of

St.

George, Slave of the Virgin, Daughter of

Moses,

Those given by the mother are

etc.

generally expressive of maternal vanity regarding

the appearance or anticipated

The

child.

of

the

reason for the concealment of the

name

Christian

merits

is

that the

Bouda cannot harm

a person whose real name he does not know.'

Should he, however, have learned the true name

of his victim, he adopts a method of which

have been given in the references

illustrations

to sympathetic magic.

'

He

takes a particular

kind of straw, and muttering something over

bends

The

it

person thus

moment
it

into a circle,

and places

doomed

is

it

taken

it

under a stone
ill

at the very

of the bending of the straw, and should

by accident snap under the operation, the

result of the attack will be the death of the

patient.'

Parkyns adds that in Abyssinia

blacksmiths

Boudas.

are

Among

the devil appears

looked
the
is

upon

many

that of

as

wizards

all

or

characters in which

Way land

the Smith,

the northern Vulcan, but perhaps the repute

^

Life in Abyssinia^ vol.

ii.

p. 145.

MAGIC THROUGH

94

attaching to the Boudas has no connection with

that conception, and

may

be an example of the

barbaric beHef in the magic power of iron to

They are

which allusion has been made.

credited

with the faculty of being able to turn themselves

and other wild

into hyaenas

beasts, so that few

people will venture to molest or offend a blacksmith.

In

'

all

church services in Abyssinia, par-

ticularly in prayers for the dead, the baptismal

name must be

used.

did not learn

it I

to the priest.'

How
possibly

they manage to hide

by confiding

a custom in the Cyclades to

is

or

it

only

Mr. Theodore Bent says that

call

it

a child Iron

Dragon or some other such name before

christening takes

place,

away the

frighten

evil spirits.

wards, we find the

child

is

the

Hindu

born an invisible

being to

object

Travelling east-

when a

belief that

spirit is

born with

and unless the mother keeps one breast

for forty days, while she feeds the child

other (in

which case the

spirit dies

tied

it,

up

with the

of hunger)

the child grows up with the endowment of the

1

'William Simpson,

Words, 1868,

p. 607.

'An

Artist's Jottings in Abyssinia,'

Good

INTANGIBLE THINGS
Two names

evil eye.^

secret

and used only

are given at birth, one

for ceremonial purposes,

The

the other for ordinary use.

to

charms

evil

arises the use of

and perversions of the

tractions

many

Hence

it.

and

witch, if she

work her

learns the real name, can

through

95

real

many

con-

name, and

of the nicknames which are generally given

Among

children.^

children are usually

Algonquin

the

named by the

old

tribes

woman

of

the family, often with reference to some dream

but

this real

name

is

kept mysteriously

what commonly passes

such as

'

Little

Fox

craft says that the

Pocahontas,
saved the

'

life

La

'

for it

or

'

is

secret,

a mere nickname,

Red Head.' ^

true

and

School-

name of the famous

Belle Sauvage,' whose pleadings

of the heroic Virginian leader, John

Smith, was Matokes.

'

This was concealed from

the English in a superstitious fear of hurt by

them
It

if

her

name was known.'

well

is

countries

known that

in

Roman

Catholic

the name-day wholly supersedes the

birthday in importance

and, as the foregoing

W.

Ibid. vol.

'

Tylor, Ewrly History of Mankind, p. 142.

Crooke, Folk-Lore of North- West India, vol.

ii.

p. 5.

ii.

p. 2.

MAGIC THROUGH

96

examples

name

testify,

the significance attached to the

brings into play a

number of

causes operat-

ing in the selection, causes grouped round belief

and

in omens,

meanings to be attached to

in

certain events, of which astrology

is

a world-wide

interpreter.

Among

the

to children

is

Red

Indians

'

the giving of names

a solemn matter, and one in which

the medicine-man should always be consulted.

The

named

Plains Tribes

moment

their children at the

of piercing their ears,

occur at the

first

which

sun-dance after their birth,

rather, as near their first year as possible.'

the birth of every Singhalese baby

is

cast

by an astrologer; and

document esteemed, that even

death more reliance

is

its

mouth.

He

selects

or,

At

is

the

the hour of

in
it

than on the

Again, the astrologer

called in to preside at the baby's

when some grains of

horoscope

so highly

placed upon

symptoms of the patient

is

should

'

rice-feast,'

rice are first placed in its

for the little

one a name

which is compounded from the name of the ruling

planet of that moment.
1

This name he

Bourke, p. 461.

tells

only

INTANGIBLE THINGS
to the father,
ear

no one

Chinese

'

who

whispers

else

must know

infantile

name,'

97

low in the baby's

it

and, like the

it,

this

rice-name '

'

never used lest sorcerers should hear

it

is

and be

able to work malignant spells.^

In every department of

human thought

evi-

dence of the non-persistence of primitive ideas

the exception rather than the rule.

epiderm of the

civilised

more people who

are

Stellar um

rare

man, and the barbarian

believe in

The

in the kitchen.

has

there

many

may

lie

Vox

and

households where the Book

Dreams and Fortune-Teller

ties

Zadkiel's

than in the Nautical Almanac

the

are

"Scratch the

In proof of which, there

found in the derm.

is

is

of

are not to be found

Singhalese caster of nativi-

representatives in the West,

and

the reminder of

the

profit

in

shallow depth to which knowledge of the orderly

sequence of things has yet penetrated in the

many.

Societies

and

serials

for the

tion of astrology exist and flourish

promulga-

among

us

Zadkiel boasts his circulation of a hundred thou1

Miss Gordon Cumming,

pp. 278, 279.

Two Happy Years in

Ceylon, vol.

i.

MAGIC THROUGH

98

sand, and vaunts the fulfilment of his Delphic

prophecies

while the late Astronomer-Royal, Sir

George Airy, was pestered,

bably

is,

as his successor pro-

with requests to work the

accompanied by

wherewith to cross his

silver

There

expert palm.

planets,

before

lies

me

a book,

entitled Kabalistic Astrology/, in which, darkened

by pages of pseudo-philosophic jargon, a theory

is

on

formulated

Numbers,'

and

'

'

power of Names and

the

names being

all

vice versh.

'

A name

is

vocation, a spell, a charm.

from the fact that,

in

essentially numbers,'

a mantram, an in-

It gains its efficacy

pronunciation,

certain

vibrations, corresponding to the mass-chord of the

name, are

set up;

also in the

not only in the atmosphere, but

more ethereal substance,

referred to

by a modern philosopher as " mind-stuff," whose

modifications

thought.

form

This

is

the

of

changes

of

evident to us in the fact that

names import to our minds

more or

basis

less definite

certain characteristics,

according to the acuteness

of our psychometric sense.

How

different,

for

example, are the impressions conveyed to us in

the names " Percy," " Horatio," " Ralph," Eva,"

INTANGIBLE THINGS
and "Ruth."
will

99

Seeing then this difference,

it

not seem wholly improbable that a difference

of fortune and destiny should go along with

them.''

The

evidence of astrological logic which

this last sentence affords

throughout

follows

on a par with what

is

the fatuous

names are numbers, and each

has

its

volume.

letter in the

All

name

numerical and astral value by which can be

known what

planets were in the ascendant at the

time of birth of the person whose horoscope

being

cast.

Such

is

the stuff that

The

captive silly' folk.

old astrology

certain quality of nobleness about

has justly said,

it

still

it.

is

'leads

had a

As Comte

was an attempt to frame a

philosophy of history by reducing the seemingly

capricious character of

domain of

law.

human

actions within the

It strove to establish a connec-

tion between these actions

and the motions of

the heavenly bodies which were deified by the

ancients and credited with personal will directing

the destiny of man.

But the new astrologyis

the vulgarest travesty of the old.

1

Kdbalistic Astrology, or Yov/r Fortune in

Sepharial.

Your Na/me.

By

(The Astrological Publishing Association, London.)

MAGIC THROUGH

100

While among the Mordvins of the Caucasus

and other peoples accident or whim determines the
child's

West

name, among the Tshi-speaking tribes of

Africa this

is

given at the

moment

of birth

and derived from the day of the week when that

After being washed, charms are

event happens.

bound round the child to avert

Throughout

evil.^

Australia the custom of deriving the

name from

some

'Like

circumstance prevails.

slight

the

nomadic Arabs and the Kaffirs, a sign is looked

for,

and the appearance of a kangaroo or an emu at

the time of birth, or the occurrence of that event

near some particular spot, or under the shelter

This name

of a tree, decides the infant's name.

is

not the one by which a

after

life.

Another

will

be known in

given him on his initiation

is

to rank in the tribe

man

and,

be marked by any striking event, he

receive a fitting designation,
will

be perhaps forgotten.

Or,

ferred on him, on arriving at

similar to that of

by

his tribe.'

1 Ellis, p. 332.

any one who

With

this
2

should

if his career

and
if

then

will

his old

name

he has had con-

manhood, a name
dies, it is

changed

may be compared

Brough Smyth,

vol.

i.

p. xxi.

the

INTANGIBLE THINGS

101

Aino abstention from giving the name of

either

parent to the child, because, when they are dead,

they are not to be 'mentioned without

also the feeling in the

death has snatched away

name of Marcus

We
the

may

name when

its first bearer.^

Rome

evil consequences,'

The

avoided giving the

and

to be

bound up with

this notwithstanding the

legend that the name-avoidance was

of the city

'

this that the possession of

name was once thought

Marius Manlius

and

to any son born in the clan.

from

infer

North of England against

perpetuating a favourite baptismal

clan of the Manlii at

tears,'

due

to

who proved himself the saviour

when the clamouring of

geese aroused

the garrison of the Capitol to a scaling attack

by the Gauls

being afterwards put to death

for

plotting to found a monarchy.^

The custom

of name-giving from some event

has frequent reference in the Old Testament,

for example, in

as,

Genesis xxx. 11, where Leah's

maid gives birth to a son; 'And she

said,

Folk-Lore Journal,

Denham

Grainger, Worship of the Romans, p. 249.

vol. vi. p. 49.

Tracts, vol.

ii.

p. 49.

A troop

MAGIC THROUGH

102

Cometh, and she called his

name

So

Gad.'

Rachel, dying in childbed, calls the babe Ben-oni,

son of sorrow,' but the father changes his

'

to Ben-jamin,

'

name

The

son of the right hand.'

Nez Perces obtain

their

names

in several ways,

one of the more curious being the sending of a

child in his tenth or twelfth year to the

where he

tains,

to appear to

On

name.

fasts

him

in

and watches for something

a dream and give him a

the success or failure of the vision

which the empty stomach

is

designed to secure,

his fortunes are believed to depend.

tions

him on

as sacred,

his return, the

name

out his

one ques-

matter being regarded

to trusted friends.

life

No

and only years hence, when he may

have done something to be proud

his

moun-

he

is

known

by some nickname.^

Of

of, will

he reveal

course, through-

to his fellow-tribesmen

The Maoris had an

in-

teresting baptismal or lustration ceremony, dur-

ing which the priest repeated a long

ancestral names.

When

priest, as

AmericoM

of

the child sneezed, the

name which was then being uttered was

and the

list

he pronounced

it,

chosen,

sprinkled the

Society Folk-Lore Journal, vol.

iv. p.

329.

INTANGIBLE THINGS
child with a small branch

'

of the

was stuck upright in the water.'

East

In

Central

which

ask

if

rites are

Wayao

it

is

is

performed,

must never be mentioned.

it

Duff-Macdonald says that

of teasing a

karamu which

Africa the birth-name

changed when the initiatory

after

103

Mr.

a terrible way

to point to a little boy and

he remembers what was his name when he

was about the

size

of that boy.^

Miss Mary

Kingsley confirms these reports of the silence

and secrecy on the part of the

initiated

and

in

an unpublished manuscript on the customs in

Loango, which came into

my

makes the interesting and

hands, Mr. Dennett

significant statement

that on the initiation of a youth into the tribal

mysteries

down

when he

reaches

manhood, he

in his forest retreat as if dead,

rising takes a

new name.

Here we seem

a step removed from the ritual of the

Catholic Church,

and a

and
1

pall flung over the

effaces her

Taylor, Te Ika

p. 185.

when the Miserere

is

lies

and on
scarcely

Roman
chanted,

nun who takes the

veil

old self under another name.

a Maori, or New Zealand and

^

Africana,

vol.

its
i.

Inhabitamts,

p. 128.

MAGIC THROUGH

104

In

these correspondences bring us face to

fact,

face with the large question of the origin of the

rites

and ceremonies of

show no

essential

barbaric races

and ceremonies gathering round the chief

as birth, maturity, marriage,

who

which

faiths

from

difference in character

among

those in practice

civilised

and death.

rites

events,

Those

contend, for example, that the ordinance of

baptism in the Christian Church

is

of divine

authority, thus possessing warrant which makes

wholly a thing apart from the lustrations

it

and naming-customs which are

feature

of barbaric

life,

will

so

prominent a

not be at pains

to compare the one with the other.

If they

do, it will be rather to assume that the lower

is

a travesty of the higher, in the

the

Roman

ing

the

the

apparatus

and

relics,

deceiver,

dress

Catholic missionaries,

tonsured
of

monks

Buddhist
rosaries,

bells,

believed that the

had

tempted

these

spirit

who on

of

see-

with

all

holy water,

devil,

as

arch-

ecclesiastics

to

themselves in the clothes of Christians,

and mock their solemn

Christendom

still

rites.

The majority

of

attaches enormous importance

INTANGIBLE THINGS
to

infant

an

baptism,^

importance which

shared, for less precise reasons,

believe that
christened,'

'

105

by

rustics,

children never thrive

and that the night

till

air

is

who

they Ve

thrills

to

the cry of the homeless souls of the unbaptized.

That

superstitions of this order should be ram-

pant among the unlettered, evidences their pagan

origin rather than the infiltration of sacerdotal
theories of baptismal

doom

regeneration and of the

of the unchristened.

believers in these theories,

But between the

and those who

see in

the ritual of the higher religions the persistence

of barbaric ideas, there will be agreement

the poles meet the equator.

The

which the evolutionist has to give

with what

is

the arrest of

when

explanation

falls

into line

known and demonstrated about

human development by

the innate

conservatism aroused when doubt disturbs the

settled order of things.

pensers,

may change

Rites, like their dis-

their name, but not their

How

can youi boy sing acceptable hymns to God in His

he has not been baptized 1 recently asked the vicar of
a parish in Suffolk when the boy's mother expressed a wish that
he should join the choir.
2 Henderson, p. 14.
1

'

Church

if

'

MAGIC THROUGH

106

nature, and

we

religious

society

survivals

more or

was constant

The

and

and

no inventions, only

find

elaborated.

less

civil

The low

environment of man's barbaric past

intellectual

years,

ceremonies of

the

in

in

history for thousands

his

his adaptation thereto

intrusion

of

was complete.

of the scientific method in

its

application to man's whole nature disturbed that

equilibrium.

But

yet, only within the

this, as

narrow area of the highest culture.

lower

life-forms

that

Like the

the teeming

constitute

majority of organisms, and that have undergone

little,

if

any, change during millions of years,

the vaster number of mankind have remained

but
of

development,
physically

'

The keynote

slightly, if at all, modified.

evolution

is

and

adaptation,
this

is

not

continuous

illustrated,

and mentally, by man.

Therefore,

There appears to be no ground for assuming a survival of the

avoidance-superstition in the threat of the Speaker of the

of

both

Commons

to

'name' a recalcitrant member.

Pollock says, in a letter to me

etiquette of not usually calling

House

Sir Frederick

cannot be older than the

their proper names
in debate, and I suspect that is not very old.
There was a great
deal of innovating and recasting in forms and ceremonies in the
last quarter of the seventeenth century or so, and I should not
wonder if it began then ; but this is a mere guess.'
:

'

It

members by

INTANGIBLE THINGS
the superstitions that
even

in

so-called

still

107

dominate human

civilised

centres

and

'

life,

high

no stumbling-blocks to the student

places,' are

He

of history.

accounts for their persistence,

and the road of inquiry

is

cleared.

Man

being

a unit, not a duality, thought and feeling are,

in the last resort, in

harmony, as are the

ele-

ments that make up the universe which includes

him.

But the

exercise of feeling has been active

from the beginning of his

history, while thought,

speaking comparatively, has but recently had

free play.

So far as

its

influence on the

modern

world goes, and this with long periods of arrest

between, we

may

the domain of

say that

scientific

it

began, at least in

naturalism, with the

Ionian philosophers, twenty-four centuries ago.

And

these are but as a day in the passage of

prehistoric ages.

In other words,

man wondered

long chiliads before he reasoned, because feeling

travels along the line of least resistance, while

thought, or the challenge by inquiry, with

assumption that there

may be two

sides to

its

question, must pursue a path obstructed by the

dominance of taboo and custom, by the force of

108

MAGIC THROUGH

imitation,

and by the strength of prejudice,

and

passion,

'It

fear.

not

is

Turgot

error,'

wrote, in a saying that every champion of a

new

idea should have ever in letters of flame

before his eyes, 'which opposes the progress of

truth

it

indolence, obstinacy, the spirit of

is

routine, everything that favours inaction.'

In these causes

lies

the explanation of the

persistence of the primitive

general conservatism of
'

Born

into

the causes of the

human

life,

nature,

in vain,

Opinions, those or these,

Unalter'd to retain.

The

obstinate

mind

decrees,'

as in the striking illustration cited in Heine's

Travel-Pictures.

'

A few years

up an ancient stone

idol in

day he found that

it

ago Bullock dug

Mexico, and the next

had been crowned during

the night with flowers.

And

yet the Spaniard

had exterminated the old Mexican

fire

and sword, and

religion with

for three centuries

had been

engaged in ploughing and harrowing their minds

and implanting the seed of

^

2
3

Christianity.'

John Morley, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 77.

Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna.
Bng. trans, by F. Storr, p. 106.

INTANGIBLE THINGS
The

causes of error

109

and delusion, and of the

spiritual nightmares of olden time, being

there

clear,

made

begotten a generous sympathy

is

with that which empirical notions of

human

nature attributed to wilfulness or to man''s

from a high
are the

estate.

outcome of ignorance can only awaken

pity.

Where

absent,

we

And

fall

For superstitions which

the corrective of knowledge

see that it could not

thereby

we

learn that the art of

life

consists in that control of the emotions,

diversion

of them

is

be otherwise.
largely

and that

into wholesome channels, which

the intellect, braced with the latest knowledge

and with freedom

alone

in the application of

it,

can

effect.

These remarks have direct bearing on the

inferences

to

be

drawn

gathered from barbaric

For those examples

fail

from

and

the

civilised

examples
sources.

in their intent if they

do not indicate the working of the law of continuity in the spiritual as in the material sphere.

Barbaric birth and baptism customs, and the

importance attached to the name with accom-

panying invocation and other ceremonies, ex-

MAGIC THROUGH

110

plain without need of import of other reasons,

the existence of similar practices, impelled by

similar ideas, in civilised society.

christens the child

Son, and

'

in the

Holy Ghost'

is

The

Name

priest

who

of the Father,

the lineal descendant,

the true apostolic successor, of the medicine-man.

He may

deny the spiritual father who begat him,

and vaunt

his descent

St. Peter.

Bishop of Rome, granting that

first

apostle,

hill

But the

title to

the

was himself a parvenu compared to the

barbaric priest

the

from

who

uttered his incantations on

now crowned by

The

the Vatican.

story

of the beginnings of his order in a prehistoric

past

is

a sealed book to the priest.

and West

alike, his

studies

For, in East

have run between

the narrow historical lines enclosing only such

material as

is

interpreted to support the prepos-

terous claims to the divine origin of his office

which the multitude have neither the courage to

challenge nor the knowledge to refute.

Did

those studies run on the broad lines laid

down

by anthropology, the sacerdotal upholders of

those claims would be compelled to abandon
their pretensions

and thus sign the death-warrant

INTANGIBLE THINGS
The modern

of their caste.

Ul

sacerdotalist repre-

ceremony of baptism the barbaric

sents in the

belief in the virtue of water as

in

some way

equally difficult to both medicine-man and priest

to

define

vehicle

of

supernatural

efficacy.

In the oldest fragment of Hebrew song the stream

addressed as a living being,^ and the high

is

authority of the late Professor Robertson Smith

may be

cited for the statement that the Semitic

peoples, to

whom

water, especially flowing water,

was the deepest object of reverence and worship,

regarded
spirits,

it

not merely as the dwelling-place of

but as

itself

a living organism.

been the barbaric idea about

little
life

wonder.

;^

and

waving branch

it sees

haunt of

but

1
it.

Then

everywhere

and

For the primitive mind associates

with motion

spirit,

it

That has

if in rolling

stone and

not merely the home and

spirit itself,

Israel sang this song

Spring up,

how much more

O

well, sing

ye unto

Numbers xxi. 17.

The Indian does not see any sharp line of distinction, such as
see, between man and other animals, between one kind of
animal and another, or between animals man included and
2

we

inanimate objects. On the contrary, to the Indian all objects,

animate and inanimate, seem exactly of the same nature, except
that they differ in the accident of bodily form. Every object in
the whole world is a being, consisting of a body and spirit, and

MAGIC THROUGH

112
so in

tumbling cataract, swirling rapid, and toss-

ing sea, swallowing or rejecting alike the victim

and the
ever

Birthplace of

oiFering.

necessity;

life''s

life itself,

and

mysterious fluid endowed

with cleansing and healing qualities, the feeling

that invests

it

of that

'

'

were

'

rivers

mothers

water-demon lurked

genii

sympathy

paid to wells and streams

food-bringing

queens

cannot

it

therefore think with

divine honour ' which Gildas tells us our

forefathers

faith,

can only be refined,

And we

perish.

of the

of wells.

which, in the
' ;

of the

old

Celtic

'

of the eddy in which the

of the lakes ruled by lonely

nymphs who were the

presiding

Happily, the Church treated

this old phase of nature-worship tenderly, adapt-

ing what

name

of

it

could not abolish, substituting the

Madonna

or saint for the pagan pre-

siding deity of the

therefore,

lustrations

is

spring.

Most

reasonable,

the contention that the barbaric

re-appear in the

rite

at

Christian

differs from every other object in no respect except that of bodily

form, and in the greater or less degree of brute power and brute
cunning consequent on the difference of bodily form and bodily

Our next step, therefore, is to note that animals, other

than men, and even inanimate objects, have spirits which differ
not at all in kind from those of men. Everard Im Thurn,
Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 350.

habits.

INTANGIBLE THINGS
fonts;

that

sprinkles
still

the

brush

sprinkles

pagan temple

of the

the faithful with

holy water, as

it

with benediction the horses in

the Polio or prize races at Siena

the leprous

113

Naaman

;^

and that

repairing to the Jordan,

together with the sick waiting their turn on

the margin of Bethesda, have their correspondences in the children dipped

in

wells

to be

cured of rickets, in the dragging of lunatics

through deep water to restore their reason, and

in the cripples

who

travel

by railway to bathe

their limbs in the well of St. Winifred in Flint-

The

shire.

influence

had on Christian
illustration in

art

which pagan symbolism

and doctrine has interesting

a mosaic of the sixth century at

Ravenna, representing the

The water

flows

baptism of Jesus.

from an inverted urn, held by

a venerable figure typifying the river-god of the

Jordan, with reeds growing beside his head, and
snakes coiling round
'

W. W.

of the

day

it.

Story gives a graphic account of these races, as also

annual blessing and sprinkling of animals on the

of St. Antonio, their protecting saint, in

454 #.

feast-

Boba di Roma,

pp.

TABOO
Taboo

is

Among

civilised peoples,

dread

the

toms whose force

is

larger degree than

tyrant

of

savage

life.

under the guise of cus-

stronger than law,

it rules

in

most persons care to admit.

But among barbaric communities

it

puts a ring

fence round the simplest acts, regulates all inter-

course by the minutest codes, and secures obedience

to

its

manifold prohibitions by threats of punish-

ment to be inflicted by magic and other apparatus

of the invisible.

It

is

the Inquisition of the

lower culture, only more terrible and effective than

the infamous 'Holy
does

it

exert

Office.'

Nowhere, perhaps,

more constant sway than

in the series

of customs which prohibit (a) persons related in

certain degrees

dressing one

by blood or marriage from ad-

another by name, or from even

looking at one another, and which further pro-

TABOO

115

of the names of indi-

hibit (b) the utterance

viduals of high rank, as priests

also (c) of the dead,

and

and kings,

(d) of gods

and

as

spiritual

beings generally.

Taboo between Relatives

(a)

Among

the Central Australians a

man may

He

not marry or speak to his mother-in-law.

may

speak to his mother at

his sister

if

may

father

all times,

but not to

she be younger than himself.

not speak to his daughter after she

becomes a woman.^

The name

of his father-in-

taboo to the Dyak of Borneo, and among

law

is

the

Omahas

of North America the father- and

mother-in-law do not speak to their son-in-law

The names

or mention his name.^

in-law are never uttered

by the Apache, and

would be very improper to ask

name.^

of mothers-

for

In the Bougainville Straits the

would only utter the names of their wives

low tone, as though
1

it

it

them by

men
in

was not the proper thing

Horn's Expedition to Central Australia.

Beport on Anthro-

pology, p. 166.
^

Long, Expedition, vol.

i.

p. 253.

Bourke,

p. 461.

TABOO

116
to speak of
Africa,

the

women by name

among

name

In East

to others.^

the Barea, the wife never utters

of her husband, or eats in his presence

and even among the Beni Amer, where the women

have extensive privileges and great social power,
the wife

still

is

not allowed to eat in the hus-

name only

band's presence, and mentions his

before

In the Banks Islands

strangers.^

rules as to avoidance are very minute.

who

sits

and talks with

who, further,

and the

Among

the

account

his

name her

the Melanesian

all

islands.

Sioux or Dacotas the father- or

mother-in-law must not

name, and

name of

But these prohibitions

daughter's husband.'^
are not found in

the

not

like applies to the wife,

no

on

will

less

the

A man

his wife''s father will

mention his name, much

mother-in-law

'

vice versa

the Rockies regard

it

call their sons-in-law

by

while the Indians east of

as

indecent for either

fathers- or mothers-in-law to look at, or speak to,

their sons- or daughters-in-law.

It

was considered

a gross breach of propriety among the Blackfoot

'

2
^

Guppy, The Solomon Islands, p. 47.

Tylor, Early History of Mwnkind, p. 143.
Codrington, The Melanesians cmd their Anthropology, p. 44.

TABOO
tribe for a

man to meet

his mother-in-law

by any mischance he did

if

117

and

if

what was worse,

so, or,

he spoke to her, she demanded a heavy pay-

ment which he was compelled

New

Britain a

to

man must under no

speak to his mother-in-law

make.^

In

circumstances

he must go miles

out of his way not to meet her, and the penalty

for breaking

hands with

an oath

to be forced to shake

is

In some parts of Australia

her.^

the mother-in-law does not allow the son-in-law

to see her, but hides herself at his approach, or
covers herself with her clothes if she has to pass

him.

Even Pund-jel, the Australian Creator of

all things,

has a wife whose face he has never seen.^

Sometimes circumlocutory phrases are used,

al-

though, as will be seen presently, these are more

usually applied

to

supernatural

beings.

woman must

example, among the Amazulu the

not call her husband by name

speaking of him, she will say,

so,'

meaning one of her

wife

is

'

therefore,

For

when

Father of So-and-

children.

As

the

Hindu

never, under any circumstances, to men-

GrinneU, p. 195.
Eomilly, Western Pacific and,

Brough Smyth,

vol.

i.

p. 423.

New

Guinea.

TABOO

118

him 'He,'

tion her husband's name, she calls

'The

An

Master,' 'Swamy,' etc.

Midland

wife

cottager's

rarely

husband by name, the pronoun

by

'

my man,'

or

'

master,'

of her

speaks

'he,'

supplemented

sufficient distinc-

is

Gregor says that 'in Buckie there are

tion.

certain

family names

pronounce,' the

speaking of
such a

'

folk

that fishermen will not

in

spitting

When

chiff,'
is

and the man

called a 'chif-

him

occasion to speak of

diz so in so,' or

such a place.'

'

name

a circumlocutory phrase
'

As

The

is

If

in their hearing, they

the vernacular,

bears the dreaded

feroot.'

CouU

the village of

out the bad name.'

name be mentioned

spit, or, in

who

my

old-fashioned

used, as

laad

'

how

barbaric

ideas persist in the heart of civilisation, there

an

it

at such and

it lives

further showing

arises,

The man

overwhelming feeling against

is

men

hiring

bearing the reprobated names as hands for the

boats in the herring fishing season

and when

they have been hired before their names were

known, their wages have been refused

season has been a failure.
fishin' this

year

is

'

Ye

ye hid the

if

hinna hid

last,' said

the

sic

woman

TABOO

119

to the daughter of a famous

We

faht

wye cud we ?

'oose,

we cudnae hae a

'

fisher.

Na, na

wiz in a chifferoofs

fushin'.'

In some of the

on the east coast of Aberdeenshire

villages

it

was accounted unlucky to meet any one of the

name
be

of

Whyte when going

the catch of

lost, or

would be

fish

Story of Tangalimbibo

the

'

of

things

done

'

'

Theal remarks,

poor.'^

In

the heroine speaks

knowingly by people whose

names may not be mentioned

'

Lives would

to sea.

'

upon which Mr.

no Kafiir woman may pronounce

the names of any of her husband's male relatives

in the ascending line; she

may not

even pro-

nounce any word in which the principal

of his

name

occurs.'

Some

syllable

further examples of

this extension of the general superstition to parts

of the

name

will

be given further on when dealing

with higher principalities and powers.

Mean-

while, the curious set of avoidance-customs just

illustrated naturally
origin.

Upon
The

thrown.
1

prompt inquiry

this little,

if

as to their

any, light can be

relation of these customs to the

Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotlcmd, pp. 200, 201.

fir

Folk-Lore, p. 58.

'

Ibid. p. 202.

TABOO

120

of taboo

general system

motive prompted

and

particular,

this

what

obvious, but

is

to

us

whimsical, code of etiquette, remains a problem

not the

less difficult

of solution in the face of the

Long

wide distribution of the custom.

any systematic inquiry into

afoot,

social usages

before

was

set

and before any importance was attached

to the folk-tale as holding primitive ideas in

the

solution,
stories of

which

more popular

was

taboo-incident

'

'

in

Cupid and Psyche,' and the

Beauty and the Beast,' are types.

The man and woman must not

call

familiar

each other by name

see each other, or

or, as in

the Welsh and

other forms of the story (see p. 25), the bride

must not be touched with

bition

is

broken

onwards, against

iron.

But the

curiosity, in revolt,

restraint,

from Eden

disobeys,

and

unlucky wax drops on the cheek of the

who thenceforth

disappears.

prohi-

the

fair one,

From Timbuctoo

and North America, from Australia and Polynesia,

and from places much nearer home than

these, travellers

have collected evidence of the

existence of the custom

many a wedded

pair in

on which the
fact

and

fate of

fiction

has

TABOO
hinged.

121

Herodotus gives us a gossipy story on

which

this matter,

He

of some value.

is

says

that some of the old Ionian colonists brought no

women with them, but took

wives of the

women

of the Carians, whose fathers they had slain.

Therefore the

women made a law

and handed

down

it

should never

sit

to themselves,

to their daughters, that they

at meat with their husbands,

that none should

call

and

her husband by name.^

Disregarding the explanation of the formulating

of social codes by

and

lovers,

an isolated

women

bereaved of husbands

which Herodotus, assuming

case,

this to

be

appears to suggest, we find in the

reference to the abducting of the Carians an illus-

tration of the ancient practice of obtaining wives

by

forcible capture,

and the consequent involun-

tary mingling of people of alien race and speech.

That, however, carries us but a

little, if

any,

way

towards explaining the avoidance-customs, the

origin of which remains a perplexing problem.

In an important paper on the

'

Development of

Institutions applied to Marriage

1

I.

Journal of Anthrop.

and Descent,'

146.
Institute, vol. xviii. pp. 245-269.

TABOO

122

Professor Tylor formulated an ingenious method,

the pursuit of which

tion.

from

He

may

help us toward a solu-

shows that the custom cannot arise

local idiosyncrasies, because in cataloguing

some three hundred and

fifty

peoples he finds

in vogue among sixty-six peoples widely

buted over the globe

that

is,

it

distri-

he finds forty-five

examples of avoidance between the husband and

his wife's relations

thirteen examples between

the wife and her husband's relations

examples of mutual avoidance.

also

show a

customs and
residence

after

hundred and
live

relation
'

and eight

The

schedules

between the avoidance-

the customs of the world as to

marriage.'

fifty

Among

the

three

peoples the husband goes to

with his wife's family in sixty-five instances,

while there are one hundred and forty-one cases

in

which the wife takes up her abode with her

husband's family.

Thus

there

is

a well-marked

preponderance indicating that ceremonial avoidance by the husband

is

in

some way connected

with his living with his wife's family, and

vice

versa as to the wife and the husband's family.

The

reason of this connection 'readily presents

TABOO
itself,

to

123

inasmuch as the ceremony of not speaking

and pretending not to

person close by,

is

in the social rite

which we

some well-known

see

familiar

enough to ourselves

call

" cutting."

This

indeed with us implies aversion, and the implica-

more strongly

tion comes out even

in objection

to utter the

name ("we never mention

the song has

it).'

It

is

diiFerent,

however, in the

barbaric custom, for here the husband

less

on friendly terms with

they

As

may

her," as

is

none the

his wife's people because

not take any notice of one another.

the husband has intruded himself

family which

is

among a

not his own, and into a house

where he has no right,

it

seems not

difficult

to

understand their marking the difference between

him and themselves by treating him formally

a stranger.

as

John Tanner, the adopted Ojibwa,

describes his being taken

into his lodge,

by a friendly Assineboin

and seeing how at

his companion's

entry the old father- and mother-in-law covered

up

their heads in their blankets

till

their son-in-

law got into the compartment reserved for him,

where his wife brought him his food.

the working of the

human mind

So

like is

in all stages of

TABOO

124
civilisation that

our own language conveys in

a familiar idiom the train of thought which

governed the behaviour of the parents of the

We

Assineboin's wife.

have only to say that

they do not recognise their son-in-law, and we

shall

have condensed the whole proceeding into a

A seemingly

single word.

allied

custom

is

that

of naming the father after the child, this being

found among peoples practising avoidance-customs, where a status

is

only on the birth of the

of

him

as father of

'

given to the husband

first child.

So-and-so

'

is

The naming
a recognition

of paternity, and also a recognition of

him by

the wife's kinsfolk.

To

refer

customs

is

to these

to bring

perchance we

may never

a seeming vagary of
tions, like

strange and

home the

man

unexplained

salutary fact that

get at the back of

social

life.

Human

many

institu-

himself, are of vast antiquity,

and

to project ourselves into the conditions under

which some of them arose

at least
'

is

not possible.

But

we can avoid darkening the obscure by

multiplying words without knowledge.'

TABOO

125

Euphemisms and Name-Changes

Persons and things cannot remain nameless,

and avoidance of one

set

names compels

of

Hence ingenuity comes

the use of others.

into

play to devise substitutes, roundabout phrases,

euphemisms, and the

work

Many

like.

in the selection,

motives are at

Both dead and

(i)

living

things are often given complimentary names in

'

good omen words,'

as the Cantonese call them, in

place of names that

believed will grate or

it is

annoy, such mode of flattery being employed to

ward

off possible mischief,

and

also

through fear

of arousing jealousy or spite in maleficent

(ii)

Names

spirits,

are also changed with the object of

confusing or deceiving the agents of disease, and

even death

itself,

(iii)

Certain

rites,

notably

that of blood-brotherhood, are accompanied by

exchange of names or adoption of new names

while in near connection with this

is

the sub-

new names

for birth-names at the

initiation ceremonies to

which reference has been

stitution of

made.
(i)

The

flattering

and

cajoling

words

in

TABOO

126

which barbaric man addresses the animals he

desires to propitiate, or designs to kill, are

to belief in their kinship with him,

and

due

in the

transmigration of souls which makes the beast

a possible embodiment of some ancestor or of

Hence the homage paid to

it

stands ready to spear or shoot

it.

another animal.
while the

man

Throughout the northern part of Eurasia, the

bear has been a chief object of worship, and
apologetic and propitiatory ceremonies accom-

pany the slaying of him

The Ainos

for food.

Yezo and the Gilyaks of Eastern

of

Siberia beg his

pardon and worship his dead body, hanging up

his skull

on a

tree as a

charm against

evil spirits.

Swedes, Lapps, Finns, and Esthonians apply the

The

tenderest and most coaxing terms to him.

Swedes and Lapps avert his wrath by calling him

the

'

old

man and
'

'grandfather '

the Esthonians

speak of him as the ' broad-footed,' but

it is

among

the Finns that we find the most euphemistic

names applied to him.

The

the Kalevala has for

theme the capture and

killing of the

as the

'

'

its

sacred Otso,'

honey-eater,' the

'

forty-sixth rune of

who

is

also addressed

fur-robed,' the

'

forest

TABOO
apple,"

who

land.'

When

127

gives his life 'a sacrifice to North-

he

is

slain,

Wainamoinen, the old

magician-hero of the story, sings the birth and

and

fate of Otso,

artfully strives to

make the

dead grizzly believe that no cruel hand killed

him, but that he

'From the
Tore

fell
fir-tree

his breast

Freely gave his

Thorpe

where he slumbered,

upon the branches.

life to others.'

says that in Swedish

popular belief

there are certain animals which should not at

any time be spoken of by

but always with kind

their proper names,

allusions.

'

If

any one

speaks slightingly to a cat, or beats her, her

name must not be

uttered, for she belongs to

the hellish crew, and

troll in

is

intimate with the Berg-

the mountains, where she often goes.

In

speaking of the cuckoo, the owl, and the magpie,

great caution

is

necessary, lest

one should be

ensnared, as they are birds of sorcery.

birds, also snakes,

one ought not to

cause, lest their death be avenged

1

Northern Mythology,

Adventures,

vol.

i.

vol.

p. 475.

ii.

pp. 83, 84

kill

Such

without

and, in like

Lloyd, Scandinavian

TABOO

28

manner,

Mohammedan women

snake by

its

name

The fox is

enchanted princess.
or

is

'

grey-coat

' ;

may be an

it

called

he that goes in the forest

Esthonians he

The Swedes

lest it bite them.'

on a toad, because

fear to tread

'

dare not call a

' ;

and

'

blue-foot,'

among

the

in Mecklen-

burg, for twelve days after Christmas, he goes by

name

the
'

'

long- tail.'

In Sweden the seal

'

is

brother Lars,' and throughout Scandinavia the

about wolves are numerous.

superstitions

some

districts

In

during a portion of the spring

the peasants dare not call that animal by his

usual name, Varg, lest he carry off the cattle,
so they substitute the

names Ulf, Grahans, or

'gold-foot,' because in olden days,

creatures spoke, the wolf said

'

If

thou

But

if

callest

me

thou callest

The Claddagh
out to

fish if

Varg, I will be wroth with thee.

me

of gold,

folk of

I will

be kind to thee.'

Galway would not go

they saw a fox,^ and the

as unlucky as the thing.

men (and

when dumb

name

Hence Livonian

the same superstition

is

is

fisher-

prevalent from

Ireland to Italy) fear to endanger the success of

1

Folk-Lore Record, vol.

iv. p. 98.

TABOO

129

their nets

by

pig, dog,

and so forth, by their common names

calling certain animals, as the hare,

while the Esthonians fear to mention the hare

lest their crops of flax

the tiger

is

should

fail.

In

Annam
and

called 'grandfather' or 'lord';

both in Northern Asia and Sumatra the same

device of using some bamboozling name
'

Among

is

adopted.

the Jews the taboo had great force, for

they were forbidden to have leaven in their

houses during the Passover, and they abstained

Being forbidden

from even using the word.

swine's flesh, they avoid the

and

word pig altogether,

that animal dabchar acheer, " the other

call

In Canton the porpoise or river-pig

thing."

is

looked upon as a creature of ill-omen, and on

that account

The
lie,'

as

its

name

is

tabooed.'

desire not to offend, to

we

Siva, their

say, explains

why

'

let sleeping

the Hindus call

god of destruction, the gracious

and why a

'

like

Eumenides.

call

one,'

euphemism was used by the

Greeks when speaking of the Furies

peasants

dogs

Similarly,

as

the

both Greek and Galway

the fairies 'the others,' while the

Eev. Hilderic Friend, Folk-Lore Record,

I

vol. iv. p. 77.

TABOO

130

natives of the Gilbert

Louis Becke
'

they,'

'

Islands,

me, speak of the

tells

those,' or

and Marshall

'

'

quality,' the

Irish speak of the tribes of the goddess

the gentry '

gentry
the
'

'

'

in

in Sligo

Glamorganshire the

It

is

'

'

fairies are called

good dames,' and

if

one speaks of the

names

witch-crew, and

or

as

royal

the sport of the good company.'

a Swedish belief that

troll-pack

'

If the fays are the

people,' the witches are

their gatherings

Danu

we hear of the

mother's blessing.'

good

as

spirits

With sly humour,

the thing.'

not unmixed with respect for the

'

Mr.

fire

and

water, or the church to which one goes (this last

condition

can

probably post-Christian), no harm

is

'Even inanimate

arise.^

adds,

'

are not at

usual names

' ;

all

fire,

things,'

Thorpe

times to be called by their

for example,

sions not to be called eld or

ell,

is

on some occa-

but hetta (heat)

water used for brewing, not vatu, but lag or

lou,

otherwise the beer would not be so good.

The dread
call

that praises or soft phrases

may

the attention of the ever-watchful maleficent

spirits to

the person thus favoured, causing the

'

Thorpe,

vol.

ii.

p. 84.

TABOO
evil

eye to cast

to do

131

its baleful spell,

work, has given

its fell

or black magic

rise

to manifold

In modern Greece any allusion to

precautions.

the beauty or strength of the child

and

such words

if

slip

avoided

is

out, they are

at once

atoned for by one of the traditional expiatory

^jjg world-wide belief in the invisible

formulas.!

powers

as, in

the main, keen to pounce on mortals,

explains the Chinese custom of giving their boys

girl's

name

to

gods

deceive the

sometimes

tabooing names altogether, and calling the child

'little

when

In India, especially

pig' or 'little dog.'

several

male children have died in the

family, boys are dressed as girls to avert further

misfortune

sometimes a nose-ring

further device.

Pausanias

tells

young Achilles wearing female

among

is

added

as

the story of the

attire

and living

maidens,^ and to this day the peasants

of Achill Island (on

the north-west coast of

Ireland) dress their boys as

girls

till

they are

about fourteen years old to deceive the boyseeking devil.

In

the west of Ireland some

Eennell Rodd, Customs and Lore of Modern Greece,

I.

22, 6.

p. 111.

TABOO

132

phrase invocative of blessing should be used on

entering a cottage,

or meeting a peasant,

or

saluting a child, because this shows that one has

no connection with the

bad

luck.

'

expressions,

Any

and

will

not bring

one who did not give the usual

Mamdeud, " God

as

Slaimter, "your

fairies,

save

you

"

good health"; and Boluary, "God

bless the work,"

was looked on with suspicion.' ^

A well-mannered Turk will not pay a compliment

without uttering

'

Mashallah

' ;

an Italian

will

not receive one without saying the protective

'

Grazia a

Deo

' ;

and the English peasant- woman

has her 'Lord be wi' us' ready

words are said about her babe.

good power

is

when

flattering

In each case the

invoked as protector against the

dangers of fascination and other forms of the

black

art.^

A survival of this feeling

exists in the

housewife's notion, that if she

modern

comments on the

luck attaching to some household god, 'pride

goes before a

fall.'

She may have exulted over

the years in which a favourite china service has

1

Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv. p. H2.

Elworthy, The Evil Eye, p. 32.

TABOO

133

remained intact, and the next day, as she reaches

down some of the

pieces,

the

memory

of her

vaunting causes the hand to tremble, and the

precious ware

smashed to atoms on the

is

It has been often

remarked that

attend a ship on her

first

any mishaps

if

voyage, they follow her

The probable explanation

ever after.

floor.

is

that the

knowledge of the accident befalling her induces

an anxious feeling on the part of those responher safety, which often unnerves them in

sible for

and brings about the very calamity which

crisis,

they fear, and which under ordinary conditions

could be averted.

Among

the Hindus, when a parent has lost

a child by disease, which, as

is

usually the case,

other de-

can be attributed to fascination or

moniacal influence,
call

it

is

common

practice to

the next baby by some opprobrious name,

with the intention of so depreciating

may be

is

evil

it

'

'

Thus a male

eye of the envious.

called Kuriya, or

or Ghasita,

ground

that

regarded as worthless, and so protected

from the
child

it

He

'

dunghill '

Khadheran

that has been dragged along the

Dukhi or Dukhita, The

'

afiiicted

one

'

;;;

TABOO

134

Phatingua, 'grasshopper'; Jhingura, 'cricket';

Bhikra or Bhikhu,

and

So a

so on.

'

beggar

for three or six cowry shells

Machhiya,

fly,'

and

'

'

Dhuriya,

poor '

'

blind

'

is

'

dusty

'

connected

'fore-speaking,'

call

'

She that was sold

All this

so on.

with what the Scots

praise

Andhri,

girl is called

Tinkouriya or Chhahkauriya,

'

Gharib,

' ;

when

beyond measure, praise accompanied with

amazement or envy,

sort of

considered likely

is

to be followed by disease or accident.^

ing with this

is

In keep-

the story of the pessimist invalid

who, admitting himself better to-day, added that

he would not be so well to-morrow
(ii)

are

In barbaric belief both disease and death

due to maleficent

any theory of

agents,

natural causes being foreign to the savage

hence euphemisms to avert the

evil.

mind

The Dyaks

of Borneo call the smallpox 'chief or 'jungle

leaves,'

or say,

'Has he

Cantonese speak of this

diseases

'

as

and deify

'

it

left,
'

you.?'^ while the

Attila of the host of

heavenly flower or good intention,'

'

as a goddess.

Crooke, vol.

Tylor, Early History of

ii.

'

The Greeks

p. 4.

Mankind,

p. 145.

call it

TABOO
'she

135

must be named with

that

FivXoyia,

or

respect.'

'Similarly, the Chinese

be produced by a ghost or
of offending

him they

will

remarked on the avoidance of

De

Quincey has

all

mention of

of examples.

called

'

In the Boole of Rites

it is

and when a man

dies,

the great sickness,'

said to

is

for fear

common euphemism and of this China

is full

he

and

not speak of that

disease under its proper name.'

death as a

deem ague to

spirit,

have

'

entered the measure,' certain

terms being also applied in the case of certain

For example, the Emperor's death

persons.

pang,

called

scholar

dies

emolument.'

term
'

'

'

the mountain has fallen

he

is

pat luk,

'Coffins' are

longevity boards.'

boards of old age,' and

here,' are

city

common

without salary or

tabooed under the

clothes of old age sold

shop-signs in every Chinese

death and burial being always,

is

when a

Mr. Giles says that

^
'

'

' ;

if possible,

spoken of euphemistically in some such terms as

these.^

The

belief that

spirits

know

by

folks

Folk-LoTC Meoord, vol.

Ibid. p. 80.

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,

their

iv. p. 78.

vol.

i.

p. 102.

TABOO

136

names further

explains

of a sick child
deceive the

change a

In Borneo the name

changed. so as to confuse or

is

of the disease

spirit

baptismal name

child's

and rebaptize

thought to bamboozle the

from

Indian

illness,

is

supposed

as

by

spirit

When

alias.^

the Lapps

if it falls

at every illness,

it

stratagem of an

Kwapa

barbaric attitude

the

towards disease and death.

to be in

goes to the chief and buys a

which

is

given to the patient.

ment of the old

ness

is

thrown

name

danger

rid of his

believed that the sick-

On

the reception of the

Kwapa who purchased

but

it

is

new name,

With the abandon-

new name the patient becomes

change or abandon

tribe,

it is
'

off.

of a

life

name, and sends to another member of the

who

they

if

this simple

the

he at once seeks to get

ill,

related to the

Any Kwapa

it.

his personal

name

can

four times,

considered bad luck to attempt such

a thing for the

fifth time.'

mended the giving

means of new

life,

The Rabbis recom-

secretly of a

to

him who

Farrer, p. 120.

American Folk-Lorc Journal,

new name,
is

as a

in danger of

vol. viii. p. 133.

TABOO
The Rev.

dying.^

137

Hilderic Friend vouches for

the genuineness of the following story, the bearing of which on the continuity of barbaric and
quasi-civilised ideas

of S

is

significant

'

In the village

near Hastings, there lived a couple

had named

their first-born girl Helen.

The child

when another daughter

sickened and died, and

was born, she was named after her dead

But she

also died,

who

sister.

and on the birth of a third

daughter the cherished name was repeated.

This

third Helen died, " and no wonder," the neigh-

bours said
the

"

it

was because the parents had used

child's

first

name

for the others."

About

the same time a neighbour had a daughter,

who

was named Marian because of her likeness to a

dead

She showed signs of weakness soon

sister.

after birth,

and

all said

that she would die as

name

the three Helens had died, because the

Marian ought not to have been

therefore tabooed,

and the

girl

used.

It

was called Maude.

She grew to womanhood, and was married

so completely

was

but

had her baptismal name of Marian

been shunned, that she was married under the

1

Trumbull, I%e Blood Covencmt,

p. 337.

TABOO

138

name of Maude, and by

to this day.'

it

The Chinooks changed

relative died, in the

their

names when a near

behef that the

be attracted back to earth

The Lenguas

names.

if

that

if

for they believed

all

whom

the dead came back they could not find

Although the

belief,

that

their ghosts will appear,

crude form only

among

difference

the dead be

found in this

barbaric folk, there

between savage

Wherever there

if

is

this attitude towards the unseen,

and

i.e.

conception of

phrase,

there

necessarily

ideas
as

Matthew

follows

assumption that the relations between

the

God and

are, essentially, like in character to those

subsisting between
'

in

man.

Him

'non-natural, magnified man,' to use

Arnold's

is,

no qualitative
civilised

prevail anthropomorphic

about the Deity,

man

they

hence they changed their names, hoping

them.^

named

their

behind, and might return to look for

left
:

would

they heard familiar

that the dead knew the names of

them

spirits

of Brazil changed

names on the death of any one,

had

known

continues to be

human

Folk-Lore Becord, vol.

The majority

beings.

iv. p. 79.

Dorman,

p. 154.

TABOO
of civilised

mankind have no doubt that God

knows each one of them and

by name,

as

He

by

their names,

Take

these.

them

name any more be

belongings

known men

direct or through

and sometimes altering

example

for

all their

recorded to have

is

of olden time, addressing

angels

139

called

'

Neither shall thy

Abram, but thy name

shall

be Abraham, for a father of many nations

have

said.

Thy name

but

made

xxxii.

I will

'

(Genesis xvii.

shall be called

Israel, for as

God and

for

thee

'

And

with men, and hast prevailed'

28).

he

no more Jacob,

a prince hast thou power with

'And

the Lord

{ibid.

said unto Moses,

do this thing also that thou hast spoken

thou hast found grace in

know

5).

thee by name' (Exodus

My

sight,

and

xxxiii. 17).

Miscellaneous as are the contents of the Old

and New Testaments, the

several

parts

of which

relations between the

have arisen, in

many

through the arbitrary decisions of suc-

instances,

cessive framers of the canon, the belief in

efficacy of

the

names, and in their integral connection

with things, runs through the Bible, because that

belief

is

involved in the unscientific theories of

TABOO

140

phenomena which
literatures.

present

are

Man may

but he has to

soar

in

into the abstract,

When

the concrete.

live in

ancient

all

he

descends from hazy altitudes to confront the

forms in which he envisages his ideas, he finds

what

conceptions.
is

made upon

slight advance he has

The God

primitive

of the current theology

no nameless Being, and one of the prominent

members of the
ing Angel

spiritual hierarchy

who

writes the

Book of

Life.

vagueness which attaches

itself

mortals in the

another world, there

is

is

that Record-

names of redeemed

Amidst

all

the

to conceptions of

the feeling that the

names

of the departed are essential to their identification

when they enter the unseen, and to

nition

by those who

will follow

their recog-

them.

Civilised

and savage are here on the same intellectual

plane.

To name

the invisible

is

to invoke

its

sence or the manifestation of its power.

pre-

The

Norse witches tied up wind and foul matter in

a bag, and then, undoing the knot, shouted
'

Wind,

in the devil's name,'

swept over land and

sea;

when the hurricane

the witch's

dance

TABOO

141

could be stopped, and the

dancers dispersed,

by uttering the name of God

or Christ

like idea is expressed in the phrase,

devil,

(hi)

and you '11

'

and the

Talk of the

see his horns.'

In Grimm''s story of the 'Goose

when the old queen's daughter

kingdom of her betrothed, her mother

costly trinkets, cups

Girl,'

the

starts for

gives her

and jewels of gold, and,

taking a handkerchief, cuts her own finger

till it

bleeds, letting three drops of blood fall on the

This she gives to the princess,

handkerchief.

bidding her preserve

had ridden some

her,

it,

because she will need

it

After she and her waiting-maid

on the way.

miles, a great thirst fell

and she bade the

dismount to

girl

upon

fill

the

golden cup with water from a stream hard by.

But the

girl

refused,

whereupon the princess

alighted to slake her thirst, using only her hands,

because the girl would not

As

let

her have the cup.

she drank she sighed, and the three drops of

blood

said,

'

would break.'

If thy

The

mother knew
princess

this,

her heart

mounted her

horse,

but had not gone far before her thirst returned

'TABOO

142

again the maid refused to serve her, and again

But

she alighted to drink.

this time, as she

stooped to the stream, her handkerchief

out

fell

of her bosom, and was carried away by the

Thenceforth her strength

current.

left her,

made the

princess exchange clothes

and then, when

and
She

the maid had her wholly in her power.

and horses,

the palace was reached, forbade

her entrance, while she, pretending to be the

expected bride, went

Of

the prince.

came right

and was embraced by

in,

usual in fiction, all

course, as

in the

end

but we are not further

concerned with the fortunes of the persons, the

story,

one of a group of kindred folk-tales, being

cited only to

show how the main incident revolves

on the barbaric belief in the

efficacy of blood.

In the early stages of society, blood-relationship

the sole tie that unites

is

munities.

men

into tribal com-

As Sir Henry Maine has observed,

'there

was no brotherhood recognised by our savage

fore-

fathers except actual consanguinity regarded as

fact.

If a

man was

not of kin to another, there

was nothing between them.

be

He

slain or spoiled or hated, as

was an enemy to

much

as the wild

TABOO
upon which the

beasts

tribes

143

made

war, as belong-

ing indeed to the craftiest and the cruelest order

of white animals.

It

would scarcely be too strong

an assertion that the dogs which followed the

camp had more

in

tribesmen of an

And

common with

it

than the

and unrelated

alien

tribe.'

although enlarged knowledge, in unison with

growing recognition of mutual rights and obligations, has

extended the feeling of community, an

outlook on

unprejudiced

the world

does not

warrant the hope that the old tribal feeling has

passed the limits of race.

what

it is,

Human

nature being

charged with the manifold forces of

self-assertion

and aggression bequeathed by a

stormy and struggling past, the various nationalities,

basing their claims and their unity on the

theory of blood-relationship, do their best to

dispel the

As

dream of the unity of

already

observed,

the

all

mankind.

importance

and

sanctity attached to blood explain the existence

of a large number of rites connected with cove-

nants between

man and

man and

his gods
1

his fellows,

and between

covenants sealed by the drink-

Early History of Institutions,

p. 65,

TABOO

144

Any

ing, or interfusing, or offering of blood.

account of these

full

is

rites,

notably on their sacri-

would need a volume, but here reference

ficial side,

again made to them in connection with the

exchange of names, or with the bestowal of new

names, which sometimes accompanies them.

Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks, that by absorb'

ing each other's blood,

establish actual
is

men

are supposed to

community of nature

a widely diffused belief that the

connected with

its

owner,

'

' ;

name

and
is

to exchange

as

it

vitally

names

is

to establish some participation in one another's

being.'

Hence the blending

complete when exchange of

is

regarded as more

name

goes with the

mingling of blood, making even more obligatory

the rendering of services between those

no longer

aliens to each other.

Shastikan

chief,

made a

M'Kee, an American
cessions,

to

treaty

officer, as

who

are

When

Tolo, a

with

Colonel

to certain con-

he desired some ceremony of brotherhood

make the covenant binding, and,

after

some

parleying, proposed an exchange of names, which

was agreed
1

to.

Thenceforth he became M'Kee,

Principles of Sociology, part

ii.

p. 21.

TABOO
and M'Kee became Tolo.

145

But

after a while the

Indian found that the American was shuffling

over the bargain, whereupon
off that

M'Kee

angrily cast

name, and refused to resume that of Tolo.''

He would
his

'

not answer to either, and to the day of

death insisted that his name, and, therefore,

his identity,

was

There

lost.'-

no small pathos

is

in this revolt of the rude moral sense of the

Indian against the white man's trickery, and in

the utter muddle of his mind as to

who and what

he had become.

The custom
West

of name-exchanging existed in the

Indies at the time of

Columbus and
;

in the

South Seas, Captain Cook and a native, named

Oree,

made the exchange, whereby Cook became

Oree and the native became Cookee.

'

wallader Colden's account of his new

admirable evidence of what there

the mind of the savage.

among

the

Mohawks

had

"

The

this

is

in

first

But Cad-

name

is

a name to
time I was

compliment from

one of their old Sachems, which he did by giving

me
1

his

own name, Cayenderongue.

He had

been

Quoted by Dr. Trumbull from Powers' Tribes of California,

North American EthrMlogy, vol. iii. p. 247.

in Contributions to

'

TABOO

146

a notable warrior, and he told

a right to assume

from

hill

now

that

had

the acts of valour he had

all

performed, and that

me

now my name would echo

to hill over all the Five

Nations.''''

When

Golden went back into the same part ten or

twelve years later, he found that he was

still

known by the name he had thus

and

received,
^

that the old chief had taken another.'

In the manhood-initiation rites of the native

Australians a long series of ceremonies

is

followed

by the conferring of a new name on the youth,

'

and the sponsor, who may be

among

to a godfather
his

own arm, and the

blood.

Wales

ritual

said to correspond

ourselves, opens a vein in

lad then drinks the

curious addition to the

warm

New South

consists in the giving of a white

stone or quartz crystal, called mundie, to the

novitiate in

name.

and

is

'

manhood when he

This stone

is

held peculiarly sacred.

trying,

by

new

counted a gift from deity,

young man's moral stamina

men

receives his

all sorts

is

test of the

made by the

old

of persuasion, to induce

1
Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 128, quoting from
Colden's History of the Five India/n Nations of Canada, part i.
p. 10 (1747).

TABOO
him to surrender
received
is

this possession

when

up

in the hair, tied

bidden to look at

it

in

he has

a packet,

who

never shown to the women,

is

first

This accompaniment of a new name

it.

worn concealed

and

147

are for-

under pain of death.' ^

Taboo on Names of Kings and Priests

(b)

Avoidance and veneration superstitions gather

The

force with the ascending rank of individuals.

divinity that

which two

man,

'

doth hedge' both king and

offices

priest,

were originally blended in one

increases the

power of the taboo.

Until

Golden Bough, the

sig-

nificance of this taboo, as applied to royal

and

Mr. Frazer published

his

sacerdotal persons, was

somewhat

obscure.

But

the large, indeed overcrowding, array of examples

which

his industry has collected

interpreted,

make

was regarded

it clear

his ingenuity

that the priest-king

as the incarnation of supernatural

powers on whose unhindered and

men depended.

the welfare of
belief,

and

effective

working

That being the

obviously the utmost care was used to pro1

Trumbull, pp. 336, 337.

TABOO

148

tect in every possible

way the

individual in

those powers were incarnated.

whom

As the Golden

Bough does not come under the head

of popular

books in the sense of being widely read, although,

within a limited circle, often quoted,

it

may be

well to explain this barbaric theory of the spirit

indwelling in

man by

citing the typical

example

which Mr. Frazer has chosen, and which gives

title

its

to his book.

Three miles from Aricia, an old town on the

Alban

Hills,

a few miles from Rome, there was a

famous grove and temple dedicated to Diana.

The temple was on

under the

Nemi

cliffs

stands.

the northern shore of the lake

on which the modern

The

priest of that temple,

village of

which was

held in high repute throughout Italy, was called

Rex Nemorensis,

or

'

in later times,

least
slave.

The

King of the Grove,' and, at

he was always a runaway

strangest feature of the business was

that he must be a murderer, because he could

obtain the priestly

who
it,

held

it,

office

only by killing the

and, therefore,

when he had secured

he had to be always on the

attacked.

man

Lord Macaulay,

alert against being

in his

poem

of the

TABOO
'

149

Battle of Lake Regillus ' {Lays ofAncient Rome),

refers to this curious

From the

'

custom

still,

glassy lake that sleeps

Beneath Aricia's trees

Those trees in whose dim shadow

The ghostly priest doth reign.

The priest who slew the slayer.

And

shall himself be slain.'

This priest-king kept special guard over a

and

sacred tree,

if

any runaway slave could

breaking- off a branch from

succeed in

it,

the

priest

was compelled to fight him in single com-

bat.

The

existence of this custom within his-

torical times

the

is

proved by the circumstance that

Emperor Caligula gave

orders that the

Rex

Nemorensis, who during his reign had long been

left

unassailed, should

But

its

origin

gotten, and

be attacked and killed.

and reason had then become

for-

only in our time that

con-

it is

its

nection with the groups of rites and ceremonies

gathering round certain phases of nature-worship,

notably tree-worship, has been established.

In

the general application of the barbaric conception of

life

indwelling in

active where

all

things,

and

especially

motion was apparent, and where

TABOO

150

growth, maturity, and decline marked the object,

the tree was believed to be the abode of a

spirit,

while the priest was regarded as an incarnation

of the tree-spirit on which the fruitfulness of the

soil

We

depended.

have seen how universal

is

the barbaric belief in real and vital connection

one

between

living

and

thing

another,

and

also

between one non-living thing and another

and

it

is

therein that the key

belief that if the

live

is

found to the

Rex Nemorensis was

suffered to

on until he became decrepit by age, then

the earth would become old and feeble also,

the trees yielding no fruit and the

harvest.

fields

no

Therefore, to prevent this, the priest-

king, as an incarnated god, was not allowed to

reach old age

and when

his

waning strength was

proved by his inability to hold his own against

the aggressor, he was killed, and the divine

with

its

and vigour

power

unimpaired, was

believed to pass into his slayer and

The

sacred tree,

runaway

may be

successor.

added, from which the

slave sought to break off the

the
suggests was

Bough'

it

parasitic

spirit,

mistletoe,

probably an

oak,

Mr.
the

'

Golden
Frazer

worship

TABOO
among

of which was general

peoples of Europe.

151

the Aryan-speaking

Tradition averred that the

branch which ^neas

fateful

plucked

at

the

bidding, before he essayed the perilous

sibyl's

journey to

the

underworld,

the Golden

was

Bough.

common enough

Incarnate gods are

society, the incarnation

porary, and

sometimes permanent.

tonese apply the expressive term

priests in

whom

'

The Can-

god boxes

'

to

the gods are believed to dwell

from time to time; but

ences to the

in rude

being sometimes tem-

in seeking for correspond-

Rex Nemorensis, we

find

corro-

borative examples in old-world traditions, and

among

savage races

former,

we have those

of

to-day.

Among

relating to the

the

Mikado,

who, although now somewhat shorn of his ancient

glory,

and stripped of the mystery that invested

him,

was regarded as an incarnation of the

sun, all the gods repairing once every year to

spend a month at his court.

He

was required

to take rigorous care of his person, and

such things

as,

'

to do

examined according to the custom

of other nations, would be thought ridiculous

152

TABOO

and impertinent.'

Like the high pontiff of the

Zapotecs in South Mexico, his feet must never

touch the ground

the sun must never shine on

he was required to

his

naked head

all

the day so that tranquillity might be assured

to his empire
all

and such holiness was ascribed to

the parts of his body, that

off neither his hair,

'

he dare not cut

nor his beard, nor his

But ' that he might not grow too

washed

motionless

sit

dirty,

nails.'

he was

in his sleep, because a theft at such time

did not prejudice his holiness or dignity.'

The

pots in which his food was cooked and served

were destroyed

hands

touched them

they should

lest

clothes

his

were

taboo

for

fatal
is

fall

to

into lay

those

who

extended from the

tabooed person to the things he wears, or

tastes,

or handles, even to the objects on which he looks,

as illustrated

by the Samoan high priest and

prophet Tupai.

'

His very glance was poison.

If he looked at a coco-nut tree

he glanced at a bread-fruit tree

away.'

In Tahiti,
1
2

if

it

died,

it also

and

if

withered

a chief's foot touches the

Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 110.

Rev. G. Turner, Samoa, p. 23.

TABOO

153

earth, the spot which it touches becomes taboo

thenceforth,

and none may approach

are therefore carried in Tahiti

If he

enters a house

it

it

chiefs

when they go

becomes taboo

out.

and

ancient Greece the priest and priestess

in

of

Artemis Hymnia amongst the Orchomenians,^

and the Rechabites among the Jews, might not

enter a private house, 'for the same reason as

the Polynesian
suggests.^

chief,'

As with

as

Dr.

Jevons correctly

the Caesars, the Pharaohs

were deified in their lifetime, and their daily

routine was regulated after the fashion of the

Mikado, while they too were held blamable

the crops

if

failed.

Returning to Rome, we find the Flamen Dialis,

who was

consecrated to the service of Jupiter,

and who, therefore, was probably the incarnated

sky-spirit, tied

and bound by

minutest details of his

life.

rules governing the

He

might not

or even touch a horse, nor see an

ride

army under

arms, nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor

Neither their washings nor their ways of life in general are
common folk, nor do they enter the house of a
private man/ Pausanias, viii. 13; cf. Jeremiah, xxxv. 9.
^ Introduction to History of Religion, p. 62.
^

'

like those of

;;

TABOO

154

no

fire

might be taken out of

his

have a knot in any part of his garments

except a sacred

house

fire

he might not touch wheaten flour or

leavened bread

name a

he might not touch or even

goat, a dog, raw meat, beans,

he might not walk under a vine

and ivy

the feet of his

bed had to be daubed with mud, and iron was

put at
spirits

the;

head of

his hair could

and with a bronze

when

cut,

a charm against

evil

be cut only by a free

man

it as

knife,

and

his hair

and

had to be buried under a lucky

nails,

tree

he might not touch a dead body, nor enter a

place where one was burned

work being done on holy days

uncovered ' or annoint himselfe
if

had

man

in

he might not see

;

""

he might not be
^

in the

bonds were taken into

his

open

air

house he

to be unbound, and the cords had to be drawn

up through a hole
into the street.

in the roof,

His

and

so let

down

the Flaminica, had

wife,

to observe nearly the same rules, and others of

her

own

besides,^

and when she died the Flamen

'

or Priest of Jupiter had to give up his Priesthood

Romane

Plutarch,

Golden Bough,

Que$ti(ms, 40.

vol.

i.

p. 117.

TABOO
or Sacerdotall dignitie.'

155

Plutarch was greatly

puzzled in his search after a rational explanation

of these and kindred matters, and he has

fanciful

many

comment upon them, erroneous

him that

as fanciful, because it did not occur to

the explanation must

be

as well

sought in the per-

sistence of the barbaric ideas of

remote ancestors.

This perception of continuity, illuminated by

numerous

examples

home and

at

abroad,

is

wholly modern, and therefore, after tracking the

vitality of

a belief or custom among the

in civilised communities,

search of parallels

we

cross the

among barbaric

Guinea, the priest-king,

illiterate

folk.

seas

in

In Lower

who was a wind-god, was

not allowed to quit his chair to

sleep, because if

he lay down no wind could arise

it

was held that

if

the incarnated priest-king died

a natural death, the world would perish.

for, like

the

Congo

while in

Rex Nemorensis, he had

There-

to be kept

worshipped as a

in vigour at the risk of his

life,

god one day, and

a criminal the next.'

As

killed as

'

these wind and weather gods are held re-

sponsible for droughts

^

Romane

and bad

harvests, it

Questions^ 50.

is

not

TABOO

156

surprising that there

no rush of candidates

is

for

vacant thrones with their miserable restraints

and

isolation,

and that the

tactics of the press-

gang have sometimes to be resorted to

in order

may not be

that the succession of the incarnated

broken.

In this group of customs hedging in the royal

person and his belongings there

the materials

lie

out of which has been evolved the well-nigh

obsolete

and long mischievous theory of the

right divine of kings, with its resulting belief

in their possession of powers bordering

supernatural, as in the curing of

their

touch.

When

land in 1633, he

is

Charles

olde,' in

by

scrofula

Scot-

visited

said to have

hundred persons of the

young and

i.

on the

cruelles or

'

heallit

Kings

one

eivell,

Holyrood Chapel on

St.

John's day;^ and, although William in. had the

good sense to pooh-pooh

reign of George

The

i.

it, it

was not until the

that the custom was abolished.

intangible, even

more than the

would be the subject of taboo,

as

tangible,

coming near

the confines of that spiritual realm where

>

Dalyell,

Darker Superstitions of Scotland,

p.

man

62 (1834).

TABOO
had no

control.

the royal

name

Hence the

157

secrecy which

hedged

a feature which Mr. Frazer

omits from his otherwise comprehensive survey.

In China the ming or proper
reigning

Emperor

when he appears

of

(sight
in

name

whom

guards

his

line

when the

sacred,

and must

having to turn their back to the

Son of Heaven approaches ^)

tabooed

is

pubhc, even

of the

is

be spelt differently during his lifetime.

Although

given in the prayer offered at the imperial worship of ancestors,

it is

not permitted to be written

or pronounced by any subject.

of the Chinese year

word ching
in the first

is

'

called

The

first

month

Ching-id.

The

in this particular case

is

pronounced

tone or " upper monotone," though

it really

belongs to the third or " upper falling

tone."

A Chinese work

'

explains this as follows

There lived in the third century

Emperor who assumed the

Ti.

He

title

b.c.

of She

a noted

Hwang-

succeeded to the throne of China (T'sin)

at the age of thirteen, and, following up the

career of conquest initiated by his tutor, he was

able to found a
1

new empire on the

ruins of the

"William Simpson, Meeting the Sun, p. 153.

TABOO

158

Chinese feudal system, and in the twenty-sixth

year of his reign declared himself sole master of
the Chinese Empire.

He

was superstitious, and

shows

his desire, to be considered great

itself in

the manner in which he destroyed the classics of

his land, that his

posterity as the

name might be handed down

Emperor of China.

first

name was Ching, and, that

sacred, he

might be ever held

commanded that the

Hence the change

tabooed.

referred to.'^

name.

it

When

No Korean

syllable ching

his

in pronunciation

royal

is

given another

personality

kept clear in the mass of names that

But

his real

be

dare utter his king's

the king dies he

name, by which

to

His

fill

may be
history.

name, the name he bears in

life, is

never spoken save in the secrecy of the palace

harem.

And

even there

it is

spoken only by the

spoiled children.^

most

Polack says that from a

New

Zealand chief being called

'

water,' a

chief

new name had

was called
1
=

and

his

privileged lips of his favourite wife

'

'

Wai,' which means

to be given to water.

Maripi,'

Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv.

Times, 30tli August 1894.

or

'

p. 73.

knife,'

and

TABOO

159

knives were therefore called

by another name,

'

nekra.'

rank,

In Tahiti, when a chief took highest

words

any

changed

even to

'

resembling

name were

his

"
a horse or dog " prince

call

or " princess " was disgusting to the native mind.'

The custom

known

is

case of a king whose

which that

to

star,

name was Tu,

observes that

to

words in

changed

own

or

tui,

that ruler,

of

which took place between

his

of Captain Cook, no

than forty or

less

for

Vancouver

tiai.

the accession

at

all

becoming Jetm;

changed

being

strike,

as te pi, and, in the

syllable occurred were

example, Jetu,

visit

and that
fifty

of

the names most in daily use had been entirely

As

changed.
remarks,

'

It

Professor

either

Victoria,

Max

Miiller ingeniously

as if with the accession of

is

the

word

Victory

tabooed altogether, or only part of

as to

make

during her
the

name

it

it,

Queen

had been
as tori, so

high treason to speak of Tories

reign.'

On

his accession to royalty,

of the king of the Society Islands was

changed, and any one uttering the old name was

1
^

Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 147.

Captain Cook, Third, Voyage, vol. ii. p. 170.

160

TABOO

put to death with

all his relatives.

Dahomey

in his presence

kept secret

lest

his

name

the knowledge of

any enemy to harm him

Death was

name of the king

the penalty for uttering the

it

of

was, indeed,

should enable

hence the names by

which the different kings have been known to

Europeans are
names.'

aliases

in

native term,

The London newspapers

'

strong

of June 1890

reprinted extracts from a letter in the Vossische

Zeitung relating the adventures of Dr. Bayol,

Governor of Kotenon, who had been imprisoned

The king was too

by the King of Dahomey.

suspicious to sign the letter written in his

name

to the President of the French Republic, pro-

bably

through

fear

bewitch him through

M.

that
it.^

An

ment on the foregoing examples

Cai-not

might

interesting comis

painting on the temple of Rameses

supplied by a
ii.

at Gurnah,

whereon Tum, Safekht, and Thoth are depicted

as inscribing that monarch's
tree of Heliopolis,

with eternal

name on the

sacred

by which act he was endowed

life.^

Ewe-Speaking Peoples,

Ellis,

E. S. Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 310.

Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 156.

p. 98.

TABOO
The
offices,

l6l

the priestly and

separation of

kingly

which followed the gradual subdivision of

functions in society, tended to increase the power

of the priest in the degree that he represented

the kingdom of the invisible and the dreaded,

and held the keys of admission

king,

who

term

The

therein.

reigned by the grace of God, as the

goes in civilised communities, was con-

secrated to his office

by the minister of God, and,

hence, there could not

fail

to arise the conflicts

between the temporal and the spiritual dignities

of which history

tells,

a modern example of these

being the relations between the Quirinal and the

Vatican.

The

prerogatives

which the Church

claimed could only be granted by the State consenting to accept a position of vassalage
trated

by the submission of Henry

courtyard of Gregory

vii.

supreme importance of

its

illus-

in the

Whatever

at Canossa.

appertained to the sacerdotal

iv.

office reflected

functions

the

the priest,

as incarnation of the god, transferred into his

own person

that which had secured sanctity and

supremacy to the priest-king, and the king was

so

much the

poorer.

The

supernatural power

TABOO

162

which the priest claimed tended to

more and more from

in the highest caste,

and opposition to

isolate

whose resulting conservatism

challenge of

all

its

claims have

been among the chief arresting forces in

progress.

him

and place him

his fellows,

human

For to admit that these claims were open

to question would have been fatal to the existence

of the priestly order.

regulating the

life

increase in rigidity

shrine

feeling

The taboos guarding and

of the priest-king therefore

when applied

and how persistent they are

to priest
is

and

seen in the

amongst the highest races that the mal-

treating or killing of a priest

a greater crime

is

than the maltreating or killing of a layman, and

that the robbery of a church

is

a greater

oflfence

than the devouring of widows' houses.

These remarks are designed to show that the

examples of royal and sacerdotal taboos cited

above have increased

force

when applied

priests in their ascending degrees

men

to popes

to

from medicine-

and perhaps one of the most

striking illustrations of this

is

supplied by the

record of customs attaching to the holy and

hidden name of the priests of Eleusis.

A brief

TABOO
may

account of this

163

close the references to

name-

avoidance and name-substitution so far as the

living are concerned.

Some

years ago a statue of one of these hiero-

phants was found in that ancient seat of 'the

Venerable Mysteries of Demeter, the most solemn

Pagan

rites of the

base ran thus

its

'

The

world.'

Ask not my name, the mystic

rule (or packet) has carried it

But when

sea.

inscription on

away

into the blue

I reach the fated day,

the abode of the blest, then

When

will

pronounce

his

sons added some

it.'

all

who

and go to

care for

me

the priest was dead,

words, of which only a

few are decipherable, the rest being mutilated.

'Now
the

name

we, his children, reveal the

best of fathers, which,

depths of the

ApoUonius.

when

sea.

alive,

This

is

of the

he hid in
the famous

.'^
.

The name which the

priest thus desired should

be kept secret until his death was the holy name

usually

that of some god

on taking

his sacred office.

W.

R.

Pa ton,

'

The Holy Names

which

of the Bleusinian Priests,'

International Folk-Lore Congress, 1891, Papers

pp. 202

ff.

he adopted

Directly he assumed
and Transactions,

TABOO

164

that name,

it

was probably written on a tablet,

might be

so that, as symbol of its secrecy, it

buried in the depths of the sea; but

went 'to the abode of the

nounced,''

known
arise

Some

interesting questions

out of the ceremonies attaching to the

Among

these, the chief

the committal to the sea, which

connected with lustration

further evidenced
fresh water.

rites

by the choice of

The custom

and demons out to sea

is

was 'pro-

and became the name by which he was

to posterity.

name-concealment.
is

blest,' it

when he

is

a connection
salt instead

evils

modes of

would lead us too

of

of sending diseases

in canoes or in toy-ships,

not unknown in Malaysia and other parts

discussion on

one

probably

transfer

but

and expulsion of

far afield,

and

it suffices

to say that, in this custom of the Greek priest-

hood, there was a survival of the barbaric taboo

which conceals an individual's name for the same

reason

that

it

burns or

buries

his

material

belongings.

(c)

Taboo on Names of the Dead

Passing from the

liviiig to

the dead, and to

TABOO
we

spiritual beings generally,

165

taboo increased in the degree that

haviour

and

The

more mysterious.

things

invests

it

conflicting

be-

mind towards ghosts

of the barbaric

all their

power of

find the

kin should be a warning to the

framers of cut-and-dried theories of the origin

of religion, since no one key

wards

of

the complex

the lock opening the door

Sometimes the

unseen.

fits

tempted by

dead are

spirits of the

offerings at the graves

of the

holes

are

cut in the rude stone tombs to let them out, or

to pass-in food to

them

at other times,

all sorts

of devices are adopted to prevent them from

finding their

way back

one object being to

memory

of

them

'

to their old haunts, the

lay

While

the ghost.'

abides, a large

number

a vague sort of worship in which fear

is

receive

the chief

element, only a few securing such renown as

obtains their promotion to the rank of godlings,
and,

by another step

are for

or two, of gods.

whom no hope

of deification removes the

terrors of the underworld

in their choice of evils,

Hades

so that they

Others there

while the remainder,

would accept the

cheerless

might not wander as un-

TABOO

166

All which

buried shades.

and

fatal to

is

bewildering enough

any uniformity of principle ruling

conceptions of another

life,

but not

less

bewilder-

ing than the result of any attempt to extract

from intelligent people who believe

state

some coherent idea of what happens to the

and the day of judgment.

soul between death

Vague and contradictory

civilised notions

both savage and

as

on these matters may

that prompts to awe and

'

Named

softly as the

'

feeling

hushed tone when

To quote from Mrs.

speaking of the dead.

Barrett Browning's

be, there

common

nevertheless, at the base a

is,

a future

in

Cowper's Grave,' he

household name of one

is

whom God

hath taken.'

Among

a large number of barbaric races he

never named, because to do so

or to

summon him, and

desired.

When

that

is
is

is

him

to disturb

the last thing

any member of a tribe

died, the

Tasmanians abstained ever after from mentioning

his

name, believing that to do so would bring

dire calamities

upon them.

In referring to such

an one, they would use great circumlocution

for

example, 'if William and Mary, husband and

TABOO
wife,

167

were both dead, and Lucy, the deceased

sister of

William, had been married to Isaac, also

Jemmy

dead, whose son

survived,

still

and they

wished to speak of Mary,' they would say,

wife

of the brother of Jemmy's father's

So great was their

the

'

wife.'

fear of offending the shade of

the dead by naming him, that they took every

precaution to avoid being drawn into talk about

him with white men.

And

that reluctance was

extended to the absent. Backhouse recording that

women threw

one of the

sticks at J.

Thornton on

who was

at school at

his mentioning her son,

The Tasmanian

Newtown.-"^

circumlocution

is

equalled by that of the Australian native from

whom

Dr.

Lang

slain relative.

was,

who was

'

tried to learn the

He

told

his brother,

he walked, how he held

hand instead of

the lad's father

what he was

his

his right,

panions; but the dreaded

lips,

me who

name of a

tomahawk

like,

how

in his left

and who were

his

com-

name never escaped

his

and, I believe, no promises or threats could

have induced him to utter

it.' ^

H. Ling Roth, The Tasmanians,

Queensland, p. 367.
Among Cannibals, p. 278.

Lumholtz
p. 74.

TABOO

168

remarks that none of the Australian aborigines

'

utter the

names of the dead,

lest their spirits

should hear the voices of the living, and thus

discover their whereabouts

'

and

George

Sir

Grey says that the only modification of the taboo

which he found among them was a lessened
reluctance to utter the

name

been dead for some time.^

who had

of any one

In this they

differ

from some folk nearer home, for the Shetland

Island

widow cannot be got to mention the name

of her husband, although she will talk of

the hour.
'

No dead
Dorman

of this

person must be mentioned,

come to him who speaks

for his ghost will

name.'

his

gives a touching illustration

superstition

Yellow Sky.

him by

in

the Shawnee

myth

She was a daughter of the

of

tribe,

and had dreams which told her that she was

created for an unheard-of mission.

There was a

mystery about her being, and none could com-

prehend the meaning of her evening songs.

The

paths leading to her father's lodge were more

On

beaten than those to any other.

W.

Travels in N.

Tylor, Early History of

Australia, vol.

ii.

Mankind,

one con-

p. 232.
p. 144.

TABOO

169

dition alone at last she consented to

become a

namely, that he who wedded her should

wife,

never mention her name.

warned

If he did, she

him, a sad calamity would befall him, and he

would for ever thereafter regret

After a time Yellow Sky sickened and

ness.

died,

his thoughtless-

and her

last

words were that her husband

might never breathe her name.

For

five

summers

he lived in solitude, but one day, as he was by

the grave of his dead wife, an Indian asked him

whose

it

was, and in forgetfulness he uttered

He

the forbidden name.

fell

to the earth in

great pain, and as darkness settled round about

him a change came over him.

Next morning,

near the grave of Yellow Sky, a large buck was

quietly feeding.

It

was the unhappy husband.^

Conversely, in Swedish folk-lore, the story

is

told

of a bridegroom and his friends who were riding

through a wood, when they were

into wolves by evil spirits.
years, the forlorn bride

all

transformed

After the lapse of

was walking one day in

the same forest, and in anguish of heart, as she

thought of her

lost lover, she shrieked

1

P. 155.

out his

TABOO

170

name.

Immediately he appeared in

and rushed into her arms.

human form

The sound of

his

Christian name had dissolved the devilish spell that

Among

bound him.

and the Lenguas of

both the Chinook Indians

Brazil, the near relatives of

the deceased changed their names,

lest

the spirit

should be drawn back to earth by hearing the

name used

old

while in another tribe,

'

if

one

the dead by name, he must answer to the

calls

dead man's

own

relatives.

He must

surrender his

blood, or pay blood-money in restitution

of the

life

of the dead taken by him.'^

The

Abipones invented new words for anything whose

name

recalled the

to utter his

dead person's memory, while

name was a

nefarious proceeding

and among certain northern

tribes,

when a death

occurred, if a relative of the deceased was absent,

his friends

would hang along the road by which

he would return to apprise him of the

fact, so

that he might not mention the dreaded

on
if

his arrival.

Among

name

the Connecticut tribes,

the offence of naming the dead was twice

repeated, death was not regarded as a punish'

First

Americom Report of Bureau of Uthnology,

p. 204.

TABOO
ment too

severe.

171

In 1655, Philip, having heard

that another Indian had spoken the

name of

his

deceased relative, came to the island of Nantucket

to kill him, and the English had to interfere to

among

the Californian tribes

name of the dead was

accidentally mentioned,

prevent
the

If

it.^

a shudder passed over those present.

An

aged

Indian of Lake Michigan explained why tales of

the spirits were told only in winter, by saying
that when the deep snow
voices of those

who repeat

but that in summer the

must be avoided,
their

their

it will

mention of them

the clear air they hear

Among

are offended. ^

Fuegians, when a child asks for

mother,

names are muffled,

slightest

lest in

own names and

on the ground the

is

its

the

dead father or

be reproved and told not to speak

'

bad words'; and the Abipones, to whom reference

has just been made, will use some periphrasis for
the dead, as

My

'

the

friend Louis

man who
Becke

does not

me

tells

olden days in the Ellice Islands,

to always speak of a dead
1

Dorman,

Schoolcraft, part

it

now

that 'in the

was customary

man by some

p. 154.
iii.

exist.'

p. 314.

other

TABOO

172

name than that which he had borne when

For instance,

Kino,

if

who

in life

alive.

was a builder

of canoes, died, he would perhaps be spoken of as

" teaura moli,"

i.e.

" perfectly

fitting outrigger,'"

to denote that he had been especially skilled in

building and fitting an outrigger to a canoe.

He

would never be spoken of as Kino, though

grandson might bear his name heredi-

his son or
tarily.'

As bearing on

the Iroquois, the

this last remark,

among

name of a dead man could not be

used again in the lifetime of his oldest surviving

son without the consent of the

To
like

this

list

latter.^

might be added examples of

name-avoidance of the dead among Ostiaks,

Ainos, Samoyeds, Papuans, Masai, and numerous

corresponding low levels of

other peoples at

culture, but that addition

would only lend super-

fluous strength to world-wide evidence of a practice

whose motive

us chiefly

of the

is

lies in its

clear,

and whose

interest for

witness to the like attitude

human mind

before the mystery of the

hereafter.
1

L.

H. Morgan, Ancient

Society, p. 79.

TABOO
(d)

Taboo on the Names of Gods

As with names
spirits,

173

the lesser

of

hierarchy of

name of a god

so with the

but with

To

the added significance which deity imports.

know

it, is

Moreover,
close

to enable the utterer to invoke him.

it

power over the god

of the god to

tell his

feeling that the

god

Hence the

On

the other hand, the

jealous of his name,

of threatenings against those

vain, gives rise to the

the worshipper, there

who take

it in

may be
is

the attitude of

belief in the

power of

the name, and in virtues inhering therein.

gods

made

whom man
in his

The

worships with bloody rites are

own image, and

them which he dreads

coinage.

and

employment of some other

But, whatever

name.

refusal

name, and of the devices

it.

is

to enter into

divine, even to obtain

himself.

employed to discover

full

human

enables the

communion with the

But the

the names given

to pronounce are his

lapse

own

of time, ever invest-

ing with mystery that which

is

withdrawn or

receding, and the stupendous force of tradition,

which transmutes the ordinary into the excep-

TABOO

174

And any

survey

of the confusion between persons and

things

tional, explain the paradox.

supplies such illustration of the vagaries of the

human mind

at the barbaric stage that

to look for logical sequence in

Even where we might

its

we

cease

behaviour.

warranted in expect-

feel

ing a certain consistency, or a certain perception

of fundamental

human

we

see

find

the

Here, too, tradition asserts

insight lacking.

power

we

differences,

how

its

superficial are the changes in

nature as a whole, and in what small

degree the

'

old

Adam

'

has been cast out.

striking illustration of the belief in the

over the god which mortals

ledge of his

name

is

may

secure

power

by know-

supplied by the conceal-

ment of the name of the tutelary deity of Rome.

Plutarch asks,
is

'

How commeth

expressly forbidden at

or to

god,

demaund ought

who hath

in

and patronage the

the citie

to passe, that

it

Rome,

either to

it

name

as touching the Tutelar

particular
safetie

recommendation

and preservation of

nor so much as to enquire whether

the said deitie be male or female

this prohibition proceedeth

And

verely

from a superstitious

TABOO
feare

175

that they have, for that they say, that

Valerius Soranus died an

ill

death because he

presumed to utter and publish so much.'

answer shows more approach to the true

tarch's

explanation than

is

interrogative strain
taine

reason that

alledge
tions

Plu-

He

his wont.
'

Is it in

some

continues the

regard of a cer-

Latin

historians

do

namely, that there be certaine evoca-

and enchantings of the gods by

spels

and

charmes, through the power whereof they are of

opinion that they might be able to

and draw away the Tutelar gods of

call forth

their enemies,

and to cause them to come and dwell with them;

and therefore the Romans be

may do

as

much

for

them ?

afraid lest they

For, like as in times

past the Tyrians, as we find upon record,

their citie

when

was besieged, enchained the images of

their gods to their shrines,^ for feare they would

abandon their

citie

and be gone, and as others

demanded pledges and

come againe to

them
1
'

sureties that they should

their place, whensoever they sent

to any bath to be washed, or let

EoTnane Questions, 61.

On the cnstom of binding of gods, see paper by

Folk-Lore, 1897, pp. 325-355.

them go

Wm.

Crooke,

TABOO

176

to any expiation to be cleansed

Romans thought, that

even so the

to be altogether

unknowen

and not once named, was the best meanes, and

surest

way to keepe with

their

Tutelar god.'

Pliny says that Verrius Flaccus quotes authors,

whom

he thinks trustworthy, to the

when the Romans

laid siege to

and to

place,

offer

a town, the

first

the guardian

him the same

Roman

greater place in the

that

summon

step was for the priests to

god of the

effect

pantheon.

or a

This

practice, Pliny adds, still remains in the pontifical

discipline,
it

and

it is

certainly for this reason that

has been kept secret under the protection of

what god Rome

should use like

The

itself

has been, lest

tactics.^

greater gods of the

of foreign origin

Roman pantheon

the religion of the

was wholly designed for use

the gods
detail

who

enemies

its

ruled

Romans

in practical life,

human

affairs

were

and

in minutest

from the hour of birth to that of death

and burial were shapeless abstractions.

was the guardian

spirit of

the spirit of suckling.

1

the cradle

Cunina

Rumina,

Educa and Potina, the

Tylor, Early History of

Mankind,

p. 127.

TABOO

and drinking, watched over the

spirits of eating

child at

home

Abeona and

177

Iterduca, the spirits

of departing and travelling, attended him on his

journey

Adeona and Domiduca, the

and

approaching
again.

The

each had

arrival,

threshold, the door,

attendant

its

and Cardea

culus,

spirit,

spirits of

him home

brought

and the hinges

Limertinus, For-

while Janus presided over

door-openings, guarding the household from evil

spirits.

Agriculture being the main occupation,

there were spirits of harrowing, ploughing, sowing, harvesting,

and threshing

while Pecunia,

the spirit of money, attended the trader, and

Portunus, the harbour-spirit, guided the mer-

These vague numina

chant vessel safe to port.

are

known

as

'

Di

Indigetes,'

and

it

was part of

the duty of the pontiffs to keep a complete

register of

Our

how

them on

lists

called indigitamenta.

interest here lies in the fact that they

little, if

at

all,

the

Roman was

savage, because he believed that

it

utter the

names of any one of the

to secure

its

was
'

show

above the

sufficient to

Di Indigetes

presence and protection.

''

Hence the

importance of omitting the name of no

spirit

'

'

TABOO

178

from the
tial

Among

pontifical lists.^

the Peniten-

Psalms of the Babylonian scriptures, which,

of Professor Sayce, date from

opinion

in the

Accadian times, and which, in their depth of

feeling

and dignity, bear comparison with the

Psalms of the Hebrews, we find the worshipper

pleading
'

long, O god, whom I know, and know not, shall

the fierceness of thy heart continue ?

How
How

long,

goddess,

whom

know, and know

not,

shall thy heart in its hostility be (not) appeased

Mankind

is

made

knoweth
Mankind, as many

to wander,

as

and there

is

none that

pronounce a name, what do they

know ?

Upon which Professor Sayce

in the mysterious

upon him.

power of names

In fear

lest

named

should not be

i-emarks
is

'

The

still

belief

strong

the deity he has offended

at

all,

or else be

incorrectly, he does not venture to

gods, but classes

named

enumerate the

them under the comprehensive

of the divinities with whose names he

is

acquainted, and of those of whose names he

is

titles

ignorant.

It

is

the same when he refers to the

Ihne, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 120 ; Mommsen, History of

vol. i. pp. 34, 111 ; Jevous, Introd. RoTiume Questions,

Rome,

p. Ivii

Grainger, Worship of the Romans,

p. 134.

TABOO
human

179

Here, again, the ancient supersti-

race.

If he

tion about words shows itself plainly.

alludes to mankind, it

is

as pronounce a name," as

to "

mankind

many, that

names which may be pronounced.'

The
ancient

modern

worshipper

Roman and

is,

as have

nearer

is

many

as

the

to

Chaldean, and to the bar-

barian of past and present time, than he suspects.

who,

Every
like the

religious assembly

Quakers, eschew

for even sects

all

the silence of their gatherings when the

moveth''

invokes

civilisation

And

line
is

'

spirit

the Deity in the feeling that

thereby His nearer presence

So that the

break

ritual,

is

the more assured.

between the lower and the higher

hard to draw in

although undue

stress

this

might be

matter.
laid

on

certain passages in the Bible which convey the

idea of the integral relation between the Deity

and His name,

it is

not to be questioned that

the efficacy of certain

rites,

notably that of

baptism and of exorcism, or the casting-out of

demons, would be doubted

if

the

name of the

Deity was omitted.

1

Hibbert Lectures, 1887, pp. 350, 353.

'

TABOO

180

That the gods of the higher

tell their

What
to

Manoah
is

pass

in keeping with barbaric

is

In the Book of Judges^ we read

conceptions.

that

reluctant to

as

names, and as yielding only through

strategy or cunning,

'

religions, or their

described

are

representatives,

said unto the angel of the Lord,

thy name, that when thy sayings come

we may do thee honour

angel of the Lord said unto him.

thou thus after

my

name, seeing

(or wonderful, as in the

Version).

And

Why

the

askest

it is secret ?

margin of the Authorised

Turin papyrus, dating from the

twentieth dynasty, preserves a remarkable legend

of the great Ra, oldest of the gods, and one who,

ruling over

men

as the first king of Egypt,

depicted as in familiar converse with them.

is

The

dignity of the story, Englished by Dr. Wallis

Budge, demands that

be given with only the

it

slightest abridgement.

Now Isis was a woman who possessed words of

power her heart was wearied with the millions of
men, and she chose the millions of the gods, but she
esteemed more highly the millions of the kkus.
And she meditated in her heart, saying, Cannot I
;

'

Chap.

xiii. 17, 18.

TABOO

181

by means of the sacred name of God make myself

become a goddess hke
unto Rft in heaven and upon earth ?
Now, behold,
each day Rfi entered at the head of his holy
mariners and established himself upon the throne
of the two horizons.
The holy one had grown old,
he dribbled at the mouth, his spittle fell upon the
earth, and his slobbering dropped upon the ground.
And Isis kneaded it with earth in her hand, and
formed thereof a sacred serpent in the form of a
mistress of the earth and

'

spear; she set

it

not upright before her face, but

upon the ground in the path whereby the

great god went forth, according to his heart's desire,
into his double kingdom.
Now the holy god arose,
and the gods who followed him as though he were
Pharaoh went with him and he came forth according to his daily wont and the sacred serpent bit
him. The flame of life departed from him, and
he who dwelt among the Cedars (?) was overcome.
The holy god opened his mouth, and the cry of his
majesty reached unto heaven.
His company of
gods said, What hath happened
and his gods
But Ra could not answer,
exclaimed, ' What is it ?
for his jaws trembled and all his members quaked
let it lie

.'

'

'

'

the poison spread swiftly through his flesh just as

all his land. When the great god
had stablished his heart, he cried unto those who
were in his train, saying, Come unto me, O ye who
have come into being from my body, ye gods who
have come forth from me, make ye known unto Khepera that a dire calamity hath fallen upon me. My
heart perceiveth it, but my eyes see it not my hand

the Nile invadeth

'

TABOO

182

hath not caused it, nor do

this unto me. Never have

know who hath done

I felt

can sickness cause more woe than

such pain, neither

this.

am a prince,

the son of a prince, a sacred essence which hath

proceeded from God.

a great one, and

my

am

a great one, the son of

father planned

my name

have multitudes of names and multitudes of forms,

and my existence is in every god. I have been
proclaimed by the heralds Imu and Horus, and my
father and my mother uttered my name ; but it
hath been hidden within me by him that begat
me, who would not that the words of power of
any seer should have dominion over me. I came
forth to look upon that which I had made, I was
passing through the world which I had created,
when lo something stung me, but what I know
Is it water?
My heart is on fire,
not.
Is it fire?
my flesh quaketh, and trembling hath seized all my
limbs.
Let there be brought unto me the children
of the gods with healing words and with lips that
know, and with power which reacheth unto heaven.'
The children of every god came unto him in
tears, Isis came with her healing words, and her
mouth full of the breath of life, with her enchantments which destroy sickness, and with her words
of power which make the dead to live.
And she
spake, saying, 'What hath come to pass, O holy
father ? What hath happened ? A serpent hath
bitten thee, and a thing which thou hast created hath
!

head against thee.

Verily it shall be
healing words of power, and I will
away from before the sight of thy sunbeams.'

up

his

cast forth

by

lifted

drive

it

my

TABOO
The holy god opened
passing along

my

the two regions of

his

mouth and

path, and

my

183

said, I was
was going through
'

lands according to

my

heart's

had created, when lo I

was bitten by a serpent which I saw not. Is it
fire ?
Is it water ?
I am colder than water, I am
hotter than fire.
All my flesh sweateth, I quake,
my eye hath no strength, I cannot see the sky, and
the sweat rusheth to my face even as in the time of
summer.'
Then said Isis unto Ra, O tell me
thy name, holy father, for whosoever shall be
delivered by thy name shall live.'
[And B.t said],
' I have made the
heavens and the earth, I have
ordered the mountains, I have created all that is
above them, I have made the water, I have made to
come into being the great and wide sea, I have made
the " Bull of his mother," from whom spring the
I have made the heavens, I have
delights of love.
stretched out the two horizons like a curtain, and I
have placed the soul of the gods within them. I
am he who, if he openeth his eyes, doth make the
light, and, if he closeth them, darkness cometh
At his command the Nile riseth, and
into being.
I have made the
the gods know not his name.
hours, I have created the days, I bring forward the
desire, to see that

which

'

festivals of the year,

make the

fire

of

life,

create the Nile-flood.

and

provide food in the

I am Khepera in the morning, I am R4

and I am Imu at even.' Meanwhile the
poison was not taken away from his body, but it
pierced deeper, and the great god could no longer

houses.

at noon,

walk.

TABOO

184

Then

said Isis unto Rk,

not thy name.

tell it

' What thou hast said is

unto me, and the poison

depart ; for he shall live whose name shall be

Now the poison burned like fire, and it
was fiercer than the flame and the furnace, and the
shall

revealed.'

majesty of the god

said,

'

search into me, and that

me

into her.'

Then

consent that

my name

Isis shall

shall pass

from

the god hid himself from the

gods, and his place in the boat of millions of years

was empty. And when the time arrived

of

Ra

to

saying,

'

for the heart

come forth, Isis spake unto her son Hovus,

The god hath bound himself by an oath to

up his two eyes' (i.e. the sun and moon).

Thus was the name of the great god taken from
him, and Isis, the lady of enchantments, said,
deliver

Depart poison, go forth from Ra.

O eye of
Horus, go forth from the god, and shine outside
It is I who work, it is I who make to
his mouth.
fall down upon the earth the vanquished poison
for the name of the great god hath been taken
away from him. May Rfi live, and may the poison
These
die, may the poison die, and may Ra live
are the words of Isis, the great goddess, the queen
of the gods, who knew Ra by his own name.
'

'

he was healed, the strong rule of the

its vigour, and even mankind
became hostile against him they became angry
and began a rebellion.

But

after

old sun-god had lost

Budge, The Book of the Dead

British

Museum,

pp. Ixxxix-xoi.

the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 54-56.

The papj'rus of Aui in the

Wiedemann, Beligion of

Cf.

TABOO
The power
many another

of the divine

185

Name

shown

is

in

Eifective as were

old tradition.

the qualities ascribed to magic knots, amulets,

and the great body of mystic

drugs,

rites

con-

nected Avith their use, as also to conjuring by

numbers, incantations, and so

great

home

to the

forth,

in

that

of magic, Chaldea, all these yielded

power of the god's name.

Before that

everything in heaven, earth, and the imderworld

bowed, while

it

enthralled the gods themselves.

In the legend of the descent of Ishtar to the

underworld, when

the

infernal

takes her captive, the gods

deliver her,

and

in

goddess Allat

make vain

their despair

break the spell that holds her

effort to

beg Hea to

Then Hea

fast.

forms the figure of a man, who presents himself

at the

door of Hades, and awing Allat with

the names of the mighty gods,

great

name

Lane

still

keeping the

secret, Ishtar is delivered.^

says that it

is

Moslem

belief that the

whom alone is committed

Most Great Name of God

prophets and apostles to

the secret of the

(El-Izm-el-Aazam) can by pronouncing

1

Lenormant, ChaMecm Magic,

p. 42.

it

trans-

TABOO

186

port themselves (as on Solomon's magic carpet,

spun for him by the jinn) from place to place

at will, can kill the living, raise the dead,

work other

By

miracles.^

which was engraved on his

virtue of this
seal-ring,

and

name,

Solomon, or

Suleyman, subjected the birds and the winds,

and, with one exception,

all

the jinn,

whom

compelled to help in the building of the

he

Temple

By pronouncing it, his minister

Asaf was transported in a moment to the royal
presence.^
Sakhr was the genie who remained
at Jerusalem.

unsubdued, and one day when the Wise King,

taking a bath, intrusted the wonderful ring to

one

of

paramours,

his

the

demon assumed

Solomon's form, and, securing possession of the

magic jewel, usurped the throne, while the king,

whose appearance was forthwith changed to that

became a wanderer

of a beggar,

in

his

own

After long years the ring was found in

realm.

the stomach of a

away on

own

to his

Sakhr having thrown

fish,

his detection,

again.'

Modern Egyptians,

Arabian

Clouston,

it

and so Solomon 'came

In the Toldoih Jeshu,, a

vol.

Society in the

i.

p. 361.

Middle Ages,

pp. 40, 81.

Group of Eastern Romances,

p. 163.

TABOO

187

pseudo-life of Jesus of Jewish compilation, there

are

two legends

Name.

One

concerning the Unutterable

relates that this

name was engraved

on the corner-stone of the Temple.

For when

'

King David dug the foundations he found there

Name

of

and placed

it

a stone on which the

and he took
Holies.

it

But

as the wise

men

God was

graven,

in the

Holy of

feared lest some

name and be

ignorant youth should learn the

able to destroy the world

which God

they made by magic two brazen

avert

lions,

which

they set before the entrance of the Holy of

Holies, one on the right, the other on the

Now,

if

left.

any one were to go within and learn the

holy Name, then the lions would begin to roar

as he

came

out, so that from alarm

ment he would
forget the

lose his presence of

mind and

Name.

'Now Jeshu
secretly

and bewilder-

to

left

Upper

Galilee

and came

Jerusalem, and he went into the

Temple, and learned there the holy writing

and

after he

had written the incommunicable

Name on parchment
that he might

feel

he uttered

it,

with intent

no pain, and then he cut

TABOO

188
into his flesh

and hid the parchment with

Then he

inscription thereon.

up again.

so that his flesh healed

And when

he went out at the door

roared,

lions

its

Name

made

once more, and

the

uttered the

and he forgot the Name.

Therefore he hasted outside the town, cut into

his flesh,

took the writing out, and when he had

studied the signs he retained the

memory.'

The second
conflict

Name

in his

legend, which tells of an aerial

between Jeshu and Judas before Queen

Helena (!), says that 'when Jeshu had spoken

the incommunicable

and

raised

Name, there came a wind

him between heaven and

earth.

Thereupon Judas spake the same Name, and the

wind raised him also between heaven and' earth.

And

they

flew,

both of them, around in the

regions of the air, and all

who saw

it

marvelled.

Judas then spake again the Name, and seized

Jeshu and sought to cast him to the earth.

But Jeshu
cast Judas
other.'
'

S.

also spake the

Name, and sought to

down, and they strove one with the

Ultimately Judas prevails, and casts

Baring-Gould, The Lost wnd Hostile Gospels, pp. 77, 78.

TABOO

189

Jeshu to the ground, and the elders

his

power leaves him

and he

with the

subjected to the

he hastened to the Jordan

he had washed therein

Name

him

Being rescued by his

tauntings of his captors.

disciples,

is

seize

and when

power returned, and

his

he again wrought his former

miracles.^

As has been remarked

already, belief in the

power of the Name would lead to hesitation

the use of
it,

it,

and, since some term would be necessary,

to coinage of substitutionary names.

Mohammedans, Allah
of

the

is

To

to whose wonder-

three great gods of the limitless

Brahma, Vishnu, and

the mystic

Cm

or

the

but an epithet in place

Most Great Name

working power reference has been made.

is

in

on him who uttered

lest evil fall

Hindu pantheon,

Siva, have as their

Aum, the

The

symbol

repetition of which

believed to be all-efficacious in giving know-

ledge of the Supreme.

Leviticus xxiv. 16,

'

He

that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall

surely be put to death, and all the congregation
shall certainly stone
1

S.

him

as well the stranger,

Baring-Gould, The Lost and

ffostile Gospels, p. 83.

TABOO

190

he

as

that

is

bom

in

the

blasphemeth the name of the Lord,

to death,'

shall

be put

sometimes cited as the warrant

is

avoidance of the

for the

when he

land,

name Yahweh,

'

or Jehovah

holy and reverend

''

but perhaps the

'

influence of Oriental metaphysics on the Jews,

coupled with the persistence of barbaric ideas

about names,

may have

led to

a substitution

which appears to have been post-exilian.

and

Elohim are sometimes used

'

'

Yahweh, but more

'

the

often the god

Adonai'

in the place of
is

anonymous,

A doubt-

name being the phrase adopted.

'

ful tradition says that

'

'Jehovah' was uttered

but once a year by the high priest on the Day

of Atonement when he entered the Holy of
Holies, and, according to Maimonides,

spoken for the

The

real

name

last

of Confucius

is

missioner Yeh,

in

Wingrove Cooke,

was

so sacred that it

a statutable offence to pronounce

is

it

time by Simon the Just.

a
said,

it.

with

conversation

ComMr.

'Tien means properly

Cf the third commandment in the Ten Words, Thou shalt

name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord
will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.'
1

'

not take the

Exod. XX.

7.

TABOO

191

only the "material heaven," but

Shang-te, " supreme ruler," "

it

God "

means

also
;

for

as

it

not lawful to use His name lightly, we name

is

Him by

His dwelling-place, which

is

in Tien.'^

In his references to Osiris, Herodotus remarks

in one place,

of the sacred

where he speaks of the exposure

cow, 'At the season when the

Egyptians beat themselves in honour of one of

their gods

whose name

am

unwilling to men-

tion in connection with such a matter';^ and in

another,

'

On

this lake it

is

that the Egyptians

represent by night his sufferings whose

refrain

from mentioning.''

The Father

name

of History here gives expression to

a feeling dominant throughout every stage of

culture.

He

differs

no whit from that typical

savage, the Australian black-fellow, into whose

ear,

on his

initiation,

the

elders of the

whisper the secret name of the sky-god

mulun, or Daramulun,

tribe

Thara-

a name which he dare not

utter lest the wrath of the deity descend

upon

him.*
J

Folk-Lore Record,

11. 132.

vol. iv. p. 76.

5

'II. 171.

A. "W. Howitt, 'Some Australian Beliefs,' ./oMTOoZ^miSferopological Institute, xiii. p. 192 (1883).
*

IX

WORDS OF POWER
There

is

no

essential difference

of Power and
cation

Words

of Power, and the justifi-

of any division

venience.

between Names

lies

wholly in

its

con-

For although the implication may be

that the one

is

associated with persons,

and the

other with things, we have sufficing evidence of

the hopeless entanglement of the two in the

barbaric mind.

weal

for

or

Both are regarded

woe

through

as effective

magic

the

power

assumed to inhere in the names, and through

the control obtained over them through knowledge of those names.
it

may be

said

In examining this attitude,

well to bear in

already concerning

form of science

bad

mind what has been

magic as a primitive

science,

possessing the saving grace of

it

is

true,

yet

some perception

WORDS OF POWER

19s

of possible relations between phenomena.

For

prayer,

sacri-

here the apparatus of the priest

and so forth

fice,

is

superseded, or, at least,

suspended, in favour of the apparatus of the

sorcerer with his

incantations,

'

whole bag of tricks

passwords,

curses,

'

spells,

and

charms,

other machinery of white or black magic.

In

his invaluable Asiatic Studies, Sir Alfred Lyall

remarks that among the lower religions

there

'

seem always to have been some faint sparks

of doubt as to the efficacy of prayer and
ings,

and thus

deities can

the limits

as to

or will interpose in

within

offer-

which

human

affairs,

combined with embryonic conceptions of the

possible capacity of

man

to

control or guide

Nature by knowledge and use of her ways, or

with some primaeval touch of that feeling which

now

rejects

supernatural

interference

in

order and sequence of physical processes.

by

side

the
Side

with that universal conviction which

ascribed to divine volition

all

effects

that could

not be accounted for by the simplest experience,

and which

called

them

miracles, omens, or signs

of the gods, there has always been a remote

WORDS OF POWER

194

manifestation of that

fluencing

toward

himself the power of in-

and

things,

submissive spirit which

which

vaguely

works

man on

the dependence of

for regulating his material

faculties
ings.'

man

within

locates

less

his

own

surround-

Words

more or

divided, with

ping, into (a) Creative

their kin

may be

of Power, broadly classified,

(c)

less

Words

Passwords

up the

for conjuring

unavoidable overlap-

(6)

Mantrams and

(d) Spells or Invocations

spirit of

the dead, or for

exorcising demons, or for removing spells on the

living;

and

(e)

Cure-Charms in formulas or magic

Of each of

words.

a few examples

will suffice.

(a)

The

these five intermingled classes

Creative

Words

confusion of person and thing meets us

at starting, and the deification of speech itself

warrants

its

inclusion in this section.

Probably

the most striking example of such deification

the

Hindu goddess Vac, who

Rig Veda^
1

is

is

spoken of in the

as 'the greatest of all deities; the

p. 77.

X.

p. 125.

WORDS OF POWER
Queen, the

and

of

first

in one of the

those worthy of worship,'

all

Brahmanas, or sacerdotal com-

mentaries on the Vedas, as the

all

she was

'

mother

of those

first

sent forth, all that was hidden,

that was best and highest, became disclosed

through

By

love.2

Speech was thought

sacrifice

out and found, and he who

'

'

Another hymn to her declares that

sacred books.

when

195

sacrifices

to her

becomes strong by speech, and speech turns

unto him, and he makes speech subject unto

'

Whom

When

himself.'
I

love I

Vac declares

make migMy,

a Seer^ and Wise.

make him

Brahman,

have revealed the heavens to its inmost depths, I dwell

in the waters and in sea.
Over all I stand, reaching by my mystic power to the
I

height beyond.
breathe out like the wind,

I also

I first of all living

things.

Beyond the heavens and

great power,'

this earth I have

echoes of the sublime claims of

Book
1

come

to this

Wisdom

in the

of Proverbs haunt the ear.

Satapatha Brahmana,

iii.

8; Muir, Sanskrit Texts,

p. 342.

W.

Frazer, Literary History of India, p. 60.

E.

Ibid. p. 74.

Eig Veda,

x. 123.

vol. v.

'

WORDS OF POWER

196

'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way^

before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was.

When

there were no depths, I was brought forth

when

there were no fountains abounding with water.

Then

was by him, as one brought up with him

was daily his delight.

Wisdom

In the
'

Chockmah

Deity,
'

or

'

stituted

'

or

'

'

of Solomon, the high place of

Wisdom,

as co-worker with the

more prominent

is still

Memra

and

Word

'

by the Jews

is

in the

Targums,

one of the phrases sub-

for the great

Name

while

the several speculations concerning the nature

and functions of Wisdom

books

apocryphal

took

Logos, the Incarnate

in the canonical

and

orderly shape in the

Word

of God, of Saint

John's Gospel.

In Buddhism, Manjusri

personification of

Wisdom,^ although

is

the

in this con-

nection we have to remark that this religion has

no theory of the origin of things, and that

for the

Hinduism

(as to

nearest approach to the Vac of

the possible influence of which on the wisdom of

the Book of Proverbs, and through

1

Prov.

Rhys Davids, Buddhism,

viii.

22-24, 30.
p. 201.

it

on the

WORDS OF POWER

197

Logos, nothing can be said here) we must cross

into ancient Persia, in whose sacred books

we

read of Honovar or Ahuna-variya, the 'Creating

Word

or the

'

'

Word

When Zara-

Creator.'

thushtra (Zoroaster) asks Ahuramazda, the

God

Good

of the Parsi religion, which was the word

that he spoke 'before the heavens, the water,

the earth, and so forth,' Ahuramazda answers by

dwelling on the sacred

Honovar, the mispro-

nunciation of which subjects a

while

penalties,

'

whoever

in

man

this

to

my

dire

world

supplied with creatures takes off in muttering a

part of the Ahuna-variya, either a half, or a

third, or a fourth, or a fifth of

who am Ahuramazda,

it,

his soul will I,

separate from paradise to

such a distance in width and breadth as the

earth

is.' ^

In his translation of Salaman and

Ahsdl, wherein these lines occur,

'

last

uew

Planted in Paradise

And

The Sage began,

vintage of the vine of

;

life

Master-stroke,

all-concluding iiourish of the Pen^

Kun-fa-Yakun,'
1 Haug's trans, of Yasna, xix.
Writings of the Parsis, p. 186.

p. 7.

Sacred Languages and

WORDS OF POWER

198

Edward FitzGerald appends

Yakiin,

'

Be, and

it

the

famous word of

Genesis

by the Kuran.'

is

Creation stolen from

In that book we read,

'

The Originator

heavens and the earth when

He

doth but say unto

declaration which the

doubtless

a transcript

it,

light,

He

of the

decrees a matter

" Be," and

it is,'

Genesis creation-legend,
^

of Accadian originals,

anticipates in the statement,

Let there be

on Kun-fa-

as note

'

And Elohim

and there was

light.'

said,

In this

connection the three shouts of the Welsh, which

created all things, should be noted.

(b)

Mantrams

Dr. Wallis Budge remarks that

among the

magic formulae of which the ancient Egyptians

made
side

use for the purpose of effecting results out-

man's normal power, was repetition of the

names of gods and supernatural beings, certain

ceremonies accompanying the same.
believed that
1

The Qur'an,

For they

every word spoken under given

trans. Palmer,

Sacred Books of the East,

vol. vi.

p. 15.
2

Probably modified by a priestly hand in Babylonia after the

Exile.

WORDS OF POWER

199

circumstances must be followed by some effect

The same

good or bad.

idea prompts the belief

of the Irish peasant that a curse once uttered

must alight on something

seven years, and

party

it

it will float in

may descend any moment on

was aimed

at.^

Allied to this

old Scandinavian belief that a curse

unless it can be turned back,
its

utterer, for

origin of the

the air

when

harm some one

it

Egyptian superstition

is

is

the

the

powerful

it will

harm

must.^

The

further

lies

back than Dr. Budge suggests, although he

probably correct in assuming that

ment

its

is

develop-

received impetus from the belief that the

world and

all

things therein came into being

immediately after Thoth, the god of writing,

especially of sacred
in

words the

creation,

literature,

will of the

had interpreted

Deity in respect of the

and that creation was the

result of the

god's command.^
Belief in the virtue of mystic phrases, faith
in

1
^

whose

efficacy

would seem to be increased

Grimm, T. M., 1227.

Saxo Gfrcmwmticus, Introduction by Professor York Powell,

p. Isxx.
'

Introd. to trans, of the

Book of the Dead,

p. cxlviii.

WORDS OF POWER

200

in the degree that the utterers

meaning,

The

world-wide.

is

do not know their

who found

old lady

spiritual comfort in 'that blessed word,

Meso-

potamia,' has her representatives in both hemi-

Red Indian

spheres, in the matamcmiJc of the

New

and the karakias of the

Roman

the

Zealander,^ while

number of

Catholic can double the

beads on his rosary by exchanging strings with

the Tibetan.
'

The

praying-wheels,'

we know,

latter, as

more

fills

his

correctly, praising-wheels,

with charms or texts from his sacred books, the

words of wonder-working power frequently placed

therein, or

emblazoned on

silk flags,

Mani padme hum,' 'Ah, the jewel

i.e.

'

the self-creative force

But most

is

being

'

Cm

in the lotus,'

in the kosmos.'

typical of all are the sacred formulas

of the Hindus, the mantrams which are believed

'to enchain the power of the gods themselves.'

They
there

At

are charged with

is

nothing

both bane and

that can

their bidding the

resist

demons

their

will enter

bliss
effect.

man

or be cast out of him, and the only test of their

efficacy is supplied
1

by themselves, since a stronger

Taylor, Te Ika a Maori, pp. 197

ff.

WORDSOFPOWER
mantram can

neutralise a weaker.

famous and the most

taking away

sins,

'

The most

mantram

efficacious

whose power

201

for

so great that

is

that which

the very gods tremble at

it,

called the gayatri.

so ancient that the

It

is

is

Vedas themselves were born from

Brahmin has the

right to recite

it,

is

Only a

it.

and he must

prepare himself by the most profound meditaIt

tion.

a prayer in honour of the sun.

is

There are several other mantrams which

called gayatri, but this
used.'

Next

AuM, to which

or

all

the one most often

in importance to the gayatri, the

most powerful mantram,

But,

is

are

is

the monosyllable

reference

has been

the world over, that which

Om

made.

may have

been the outcome of genuine aims has become

the tool of necromancers, soothsayers, and their
kin.

These

recite the

mystic charms for the

ostensible purpose of fortune-telling, of discover-

and

ing stolen property, hidden treasure,

miracle-mongering generally.

of

Certain mantrams

are credited with special power in the hands of

those
1

who have the key

to the true pronuncia-

Abbe Dubois, Hindu Manners and Customs,

vol.

i.

pp. 140

ff.

WORDSOF POWER

202
tion,

reminding us of the

race

test

in

the

To

pronunciation of the old word Shibboleth?the rishis or sorcerers

who know how

to use and

apply these bya-ahsharas, as such mantrams are

nothing

called,

impossible.

is

Dubois quotes

the following story in proof of this from the

Hindu poem, Brahmottara-Kcmda, composed

honour of Siva

'

in

Dasarha, King of Madura,

having married Kalavali, daughter of the King

of Benares, was warned by the princess on their

wedding-day that he must not exercise

as a husband, because the
letters

his rights

mantram of

the Jive

which she had learned had so purified her

that no

man

his

life,

unless he

all

defilement by the same word-charm.

could touch her save at the risk of

had been himself cleansed from

princess, being his wife, could not teach

The

him the

mantram, because by so doing she would become

his

guru, and, consequently, his superior.

So

the next day both husband and wife went in

quest of the great Rishi, or penitent Garga, who,

learning the object of their

visit,

bade them

fast

one day and bathe the following day in the holy

^

Judges

xii. 6.

WORDS OF POWER

This being done, they returned to the

Ganges.
Rishi,

203

who made

the husband

down on the

sit

ground facing the East, and, having seated himself

by

his side,

but with face to the West,

whispered these two words in his ear, "

Sivaya."

Scarcely

had

Dasarha

Namah

heard

these

marvellous words before a flight of crows was

seen issuing from different parts of his body,
these birds being the sins which he had committed.'

That the mantrams do not now work the

ling effects of which tradition tells,

is

start-

explained

by the Brahmins as due to mankind now living in

the Kali-Yuga, or Fourth
veritable age of Iron
is still

Age

of the World, a

but they maintain that

it

not uncommon for miracles to be wrought

akin to that just narrated, and to this which

follows.

Siva had taught a

little

bastard boy

the mysteries of the hya-akshara or mantram of

the

five

The boy was

letters.

Brahmin widow, and the

stain

the son of a

on

his birth

had

caused his exclusion from a wedding-feast to

which others of

his caste
1

had been

Dubois, vol.

i.

invited.

He

WORDS OF POWER

204

took revenge by pronouncing two or three of the

mystic letters through a crack in the door of the

room where the guests were assembled.

Immedi-

ately all the dishes that were prepared for the

feast

spread

were turned

among the

into frogs.

Consternation

guests, all being sure that the

mischief was due to the

little

bastard, so, fearing

that worse might happen, they rushed with one

accord to invite him to come

in.

As he

entered,

they asked his pardon for the slight, whereupon

he pronounced the same words backwards,^ and

the cakes and other refreshments appeared, while
the frogs vanished.

Abbe,

'

'

I will leave

it,'

remarks the

to some one else to find, if he can, any-

thing amongst the numberless obscurations

the

human mind

of

that can equal the extravagance

of this story, which a

believe implicitly.'

Hindu would

Were

nevertheless

that veracious recorder

of Oriental belief and custom alive, he would be

supplied from the narratives of proceedings at
^

An

(German wider Schein), or

the witches went thrice round anything

illustration of withershins

against the sun, as

when

in that direction, or repeated the Lord's prayer

backwards as an

oath of allegiance to the devil. The idea has well-known outcome in the jocose objection to not passing the bottle sunwise, and
other customs whose signiiicance has vanished.

WORDS OF POWER
with

stances

spiritualist

examples

205
of

modern

credulity as strong as those which he collected

in the land

on which the Mahatmas look down

from their inaccessible peaks.

(c)

Passwords

The famous Word

of Power,

'

Open, Sesame,'

pales before the passwords given in the

the

Dead,

or,

more

literature,

The Chapters of

correctly.

Coming Forth by Day.

Book of

This oldest of sacred

venerable four thousand

years

b.c,

contains the hymns, prayers, and magic phrases

to be used by Osiris (the

common name

the immortal counterpart of the

given to

mummy i)

in his

journey to Amenti, the underworld that led to

the Fields of the Blessed.

To

secure unhindered

passage thither, the deceased must

secret

know the

and mystical names of the Gods of the

Northern and Southern Heaven, of the Horizons,

and of the Empyreal Gate.

made
1

The

his

soul

future

As

the Egyptian

world a counterpart of the

was conceived to have such affinity with the god

by his name. Wiedemann, Religion of

Osiris as to be called
the

'

Ancient Egyptians,

p. 244.


WORDS OF POWER

206

Egypt which he knew and

heavenly counterparts of

it

thereof, he

and gave to

loved,
all

the sacred cities

must have conceived the existence of

a waterway like the Nile, whereon he might

and perform

his desired voyage.'

sail

Strangest evi-

dence of the Egyptian extension of belief in

Words

of Power

is

furnished in the requirement

made of the deceased that he

shall tell the

names

of every portion of the boat in which he desires

to cross the great river flowing to the under-

Although there

world.

is

a stately impressive-

ness throughout the whole chapter, the citation

of one or two sentences must

suffice.

of the boat challenges the Osiris

'

Tell

Hapiu
'

me my

is

Tell

name^' saith the Rudder.

thy name.'

me my name/

saith the Rope.

which Anubis finisheth the work of

ment, is thy name.'
'

Every part

'

And

so

is

Hair, with

'

Pillars

your name.'

on; hold, mast,

bows, keel, and

Leg of

my embalm-

Tell us our names,' say the Oar-rests.

of the underworld

'

hull

sail,

blocks, paddles,

each putting the

question, the sailor, the wind, the river,

same

and the

river-banks chiming in, and the Rubric ending

WORDS OF POWER

207

with the assurance to the deceased that

chapter be

known by

him,''

he shall

'

if

'

this

come forth

and bread, wine, and cakes

into Sekhet-Aarru,
shall

be given him at the altar of the great god,

and

fields,

shall

be like unto the bodies of the gods.'

But the

and an estate

and

his

body

of the journey are not

difficulties

ended, because ere he can enter the Hall of the

Two

Truths, that

is,

of

Truth and

Justice,

where the god Osiris and the forty-two judges of

the dead are seated, and where the declaration of

the deceased, that he has committed none of the

forty-two

sins,^ is tested

by weighing

his heart in

the scales against the symbol of truth, Anubis

requires

him to

tell

the names of every part of

the doors, the bolts,

threshold,

him

and posts

to tread on

it

lintels, sockets,
;

while

until it

the

woodwork,

floor forbids

knows the names of

the two feet wherewith he would walk upon

it.

These correctly given, the doorkeeper challenges

him, and, that guardian

satisfied, Osiris bids

the

deceased approach and partake of ' the sepulchral

1

Ch. xcix. (Budge, pp. 157-160).

'
The oldest known code of private and public
Ibid. p. 197.
morality.' Le Page Kenouf, Bibbert Lectures, p. 196.

'

WORDS OF POWER

208

Then

meal.''

after

more name-tests are applied,

those of the watchers and heralds of the seven

mansions, and of the twenty-one pylons

arits or

of the domains of Osiris, the deceased

among

those

who

be

shall

'

The

follow Osiris triumphant.

gates of the underworld shall be opened unto

him, and a homestead shall be given unto him,

and the followers of Horus who reap therein

proclaim his name as one of the gods

shall

who

are

therein.'

(d) Spells

and Amulets

In the famous scene in Macbeth, when the

witches
in their

make the
'

'

hellbroth boil and bubble

caldron,' Shakespeare

folk-lore of his time.

to London, Reginald

Two

Lecky's words,

came

Scot had published

Discoverie of' Witchcraft, a

'

drew upon the

years before he

work which,

in

his

Mr.

unmasked the imposture and

delusion of the system with a boldness that no

previous writer had approached, and an ability

which few subsequent writers have equalled.'

that book

may be found

the record of

many

In
a

strange prescription, of which other dramatists

WORDS OF POWER
Shakespeare's

of

Heywood, and
thaumaturgic
the

'

of conjurers'

number of
of

made

machinery.

impietie of inchanters
is

Middleton,

notably

period,

Shadwell,

use

in

their

exposure

Scot's
'

2O9

and the

'

of

knaverie

accompanied by examples of a

spells for raising the various

grades

from the ghost of a suicide to the

spirits,

innumerable company of demons.

In each case

the effectiveness of the spell depends on the

utterance of names which are a jumble of strange

or manufactured tongues.

by

'

by

strong and mighty

his

and by
all

Sadat,

his
his

'

example, the
are

conjured

Name, Jehovah,'

holy Name, Tetragrammaton,' and

Names and

'wonderful

Ollon,

Then the
calls

'Airy Region'

the

of

spirits

For

Emillat,

Attributes,

Athanatos, Paracletus.'

exorcist, turning to the four quarters,

the names,

'

Gerson, Anek, Nephrion, Bas-

annah, Gabon,' whereupon the summoned

spirits,

casting off their phantasms, will stand before

in

human form

him

to do his bidding, to bestow the

gift of invisibility, foreknowledge of the weather,

knowledge of the raising and allaying of storms,

and of the language of

birds.

Then the

exorcist

WORDS OF POWER

210

them to

dismisses

Name

their

of the Father, Son, and

The witch

of

home, in 'the

aerial

Holy

Ghost.'

Endor secured the appearance of

Samuel by the mere invocation of

far simpler process

his

name, a

than availed the mediteval

necromancer, for he had to go to the grave at

midnight with candle,

crystal,

and hazel wand

on which the Name of God was written, and then,

repeating the words,

'

Tetragrammaton, Adonai,

Agla, Crabon,' to strike on the ground three

times with his wand, thereby conjuring the spirit
into the crystal.

The importance which the

attached to dreams

is

ancient Egyptians
It was the

well known.

universal belief that they were sent

by the gods

and as matters of moment hinged

on them,

magic was brought into play to secure the desired

dream.

Among

the formulae used for this pur-

pose which survive

cat,

black

all

over,

pare a tablet, and

is

the following

which has been

write

solution of myrrh, also the

Take

killed

these words

dream

which

Scot, pp. 481, 482 (1886 reprint of the 1584 edition).

xxviii. 11, 12.

pre-

with a

desired,

Samuel

WORDS OF POWER
put in the mouth of the cat

am the
Mommon,

'

211

Keimi, Keimi,

Great One, in whose mouth

rests

Thoth, Nanumbre, Karikha,

the sacred laniee ien aeo eieeieiei

on in a string of meaningless

aoeeo,''

and

so

which

syllables

were supposed to convey the hidden name of the

make him

god, and thereby

Then,

magician.

as the^ conclusion,

for I shall speak the great

name answers

'

to

the

Hear me,

Name, Thoth.

Thy

to the seven vowels.''

The Babylonian

libraries

number of incantations
sorcery,

subject

and human

have yielded a large

for use against evil spirits,

generally, the force of

ills

the magic conjurations being increased in

degree that they are unintelligible.

For

the
it

is

needful to preserve the old form of the name,

because,

although the

meaning

another name, or a variation of

possess the

same

may be
it,

lost,

would not

virtue.

Although
'

The
The

lion

and the

courts where

lizard

keep

Jamshyd

gloried and drank deep,'

these references to the superstitions that domi-

nated the ancient civilisations of the East, and

WORDS OF POWER

212

through them,

in their

elaborated magical forms,

of the West, are of service to-day.

persisted so long

no matter of wonder, when

is

we remember how

That they

late in

human

history

ception of the orderly sequence of

and that persistence

also explains

per-

is

phenomena

why

like con-

fusion prevails in communities where the scientific

stage has not been reached.

In this matter, even

in these post-Darwinian days,

'

there are few that

be saved ' from the feeling that, in some vaguely

defined way,

man

can influence the unseen by

the power of spoken words.

The

terrible curses

which accompanied the once-dreaded excommunication have their pale echoes in our
Service (which to

suggests the

'

Commination

most persons nowadays only

Jackdaw of Rheims '), and both

are

the outcome of the barbaric belief that the utter-

ance of the word has a direct effect on the

against

whom

it is

spoken.

The

man

belief in that

power was extended to the written word.

Regi-

nald Scot gives the following charm 'against

theeves,'

which

about one '

'

'

must never be
doo go, and

said,
I

but carried

doo come unto

you with the love of God, with the humility of

WORDS OF POWER
hoUnes of our blessed

Christ, with the

213
ladie,

with

the faith of Abraham, with the justice of Isaac,

with the vertue of David, with the might of

Peter, with the constancie of Paule, with

the

word of God, with the authoritie of Gregorie,

with the praier of Clement, with the floud of

pppcgegaqqestpti hah glk9,

g b am g 242 q pxcgJcqqaqqpo

Jordan,

a X

Oh

qqr.

and Jesus

them

went

Father

onelie

onUe lord

oh

passing through the middest of

In the

Name

and of the Sonne

of the Father

and of the Holie-

ghost +.'1

To

this class belong Gnostic amulets with their

cabalistic inscriptions;

the Jewish phylacteries

or frontlets, whose virtue was supposed to rest

in the texts shut

up

in the leathern case

with the secret name of

worn by those very

God

barbaric

amulets

chased on them,
Christians,

the

Abyssinians, to avert the evil eye and ward off

demons

passages from the Koran enclosed in

bags and hung on Turkish and Arab horses to

protect

them from
1

like maleficence
(Reprint), p. 188.

and prayers

WORDS OF POWER

214

Madonna

to the

slipped into charm-cases

worn by the Neapolitans.

of the lunar cusps, are a

and

Horns, as symbolic

common form

against the evil eye, whether

of amulet

overlooking

'

'

man

or beast, and the superstitious Italians believe

that, in default of a
object, the

coma
tells

is

horn or some horn-shaped

mere utterance of the word corno or

an

Mr. Elworthy

effective talisman.

of a fright which he unwittingly gave a

secondhand bookseller in Venice when

asking

about a copy of Valletto's Cicalata sul Fascmo.

On hearing the last two words of

man actually turned and bolted
room, leaving the customer in
the entire stock.'

the

title,

'

the

into his inner

full possession of

In modern Greece garlic

is

the popular antidote to the evil eye, so the term

cTKopSov

or

is

used to undo the

says unberi{fen

('

unspoken

'

or

'

called

raps three times under the table

'

tempting Providence

many

'

of any hasty

The German peasant

words.

inauspicious

eifect

back '), and

if

any word

has fallen from his lips

a fragment of cabalistic writing

is

and concealed about their persons by the

1

The Evil Eye,

p. 18.

cherished
rustics

WORDS OF POWER

215

of Western Europe as safeguards against black

magic

and not a few

still resort,

in times of

perplexity, to the venerable form of divining fate

by opening the Bible

random, hoping to

some devotional book at

or

see in the passage that first

catches the eye direction as to action, or some

monition of the future.

For

this purpose the

ancients consulted the Iliad or the

^neid

but,

changing only the instrument while retaining

the

belief, Sortes

Homericce and Sortes Virgiliance

have been superseded by Sortes

As

Biblicce.^

the spells which guard the departed, the

for

Book of

the

Dead supplied any number.

Its

chapters were inscribed on basalt scarabs to protect the Osiris in his passage to

Amenti

on

heart-shaped amulets, so that the heart of the

man might
on others

not be stolen from his tomb

his

sun.

At

There

is

name brought with

it

nothing new under the

the burial of the late Czar a prayer

was chanted, and also printed on a

Brand's Pop. Antiq.,

(oh. xxxviii.).

while

name was engraved, because the

blotting-out of a man's
his extinction.

rol.

iii.

p.

scroll

290; Gibbon, vol.

iv. p.

of
358

WORDS OF POWER

216

paper, and then placed by the priest in the

hands of the corpse as a document enabling him,

when wandering about the

the

first

spirit-world during

few days after death, to pass on his way

unmolested by

evil spirits.^

(e)

As gods

Cure-Charms
Mscu-

of healing, both Apollo and

lapius were surnamed Paean, after the physician

to the

Olympian

deities,

and the songs which

celebrate the healing power of Apollo were also

by that name.

called

Ever

in

song have the

deeper emotions found relief and highest expression,

the

while

words themselves

have

been

credited with magic healing power.

The

fragment in the Book of Genesis

the song in

which Lamech chants the

his

wounding

'

is

slaying of a

earliest

man

to

and as the word charm (Lat.

carmen, a song) itself indicates, the old incantations were cast in metrical form.
salve of wounds.

by the

When

Songs are the

Odysseus was maimed

boar's tusk, his kinsfolk sang a song of

1

Daily Telegraph, Nov.

20, 1894.

WORDS OF POWER
healing

217

when Wainamoinen, the hero-

and

minstrel of the Kalevala, cut his knee in hewing

the wood for the magic boat, he could heal the

wound only by

learning the mystic words that

chant the secret of the birth of iron, while he

could finish the stern and forecastle only by

descending to Tuoni (the Finnish underworld)

to learn the

The same
song

'

three lost words of the master.'

when challenged

old hero,

to trial of

by the boastful youngster Joukahainen,

plunges him deep in morass by the power of his

enchantment, and releases him only on his promising to give him his

sister

Aino

in marriage.^

In his Art qfPoesie, written three centuries ago,

Puttenham quaintly
ancient than the

by

Latines, coming

by the savage and

all

science

certificate of

and

says

that poetry

instinct of nature,
uncivill,

civiltie.

'is

more

of the Greeks and

artificiall

and used

who were

This

is

before

proved by

merchants and travellers

....

afiirming that the American, the Perusine, and

the very canniball, do sing, and also say, their

Rune

Kalevala,

Hid. Rune

viii.

xvii.


WORDS OF POWER

218

riming

highest and holiest matters in certain

versicles.'

Hence the part which

'

dropping

into poetry' plays in saga, jataka, and folk-tale,

little

snatches of

rhyme lending

phasis to incident,

and

effect

also aid to

and em-

memory,

as in

our title-story
'

Nimmy nimmy not.

name 's Tom Tit Tot.'

My

in

Italian folk-medicine,

which perhaps more than

any other country

Europe has preserved

in

its

empirical remedies, whose efficacy largely depends

on magic formulae being uttered over them, has

its

inconsequential jingle-charms.

use of these occur

while

Grimm

among

refers to

Traces of the

the polished

Romans

a song-charm for sprains

which was current for a thousand years over

How

the

transferred

by

Germany, Scandinavia, and Scotland. ^

pre-Christian

cure-charms

are

change of proper names to the Christian, like

the conversion of Pagan deities into Christian
saints,

is

seen in these original

Quoted

in Lang's

and Christianised

Custom and Myth,

Teutonic Mythology, p. 1233.

p. 157.

WORDS OF POWER
'

Phol and Woden

went to the wood ;
then was of Balder's
his foot wrenched

'

Jesus rode to the heath.

There he rode the leg
of his colt in two,
Jesus dismounted and heald

colt

then Sinthgunt charm'd it,

and Sunna her sister
then Frua charm'd it,
and Volla her sister ;
then Woden charm'd it,

it;

Jesus laid marrow to marrow.

as

219

Bone

to bone, flesh to flesh

Jesus laid thereon a

he well could,

That

as well the bone-wrench,

leaf.

might remain
same place.'

it

in the

as the blood-wrench,
as the joint-wrench

bone to bone,
blood to blood,
joint to joint,
as if they were glued to-

gether.

'

Probably a

many

like substitution of

barbaric

word-spells

mained longer

names

for

disguises

medicine

in the empirical stage

re-

than any

other science, while the repute of the miracles of

healing wrought by Jesus largely explains the
invocation
patient.

of

The

his

name over both drug and

persistence of the superstition

among

seen in a story told,

is

others of the like

character, in Miss Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore}

blacksmith's

wife,
1

who had
P. 181.

suffered

from

WORDS OF POWER

220

toothache, was given a charm by a young man,

who

As soon

told her to wear it in her stays.

she had done so the pain left her, and

as

It was

never troubled her again.

'

it

words from

Scripture that cured her,' she said, adding that

she had relieved

'

many with

trouble she consented to

talisman.

It

After some

it.'

make a copy of the

proved to be an imperfect version

of an old ague charm given in Brand, and this

the form in which the

Name

woman had

'

is

In the

when Juses saw the Cross on

of God,

wich he was to be crucfied

to shiver.

it

all is

bones began

Peter standing by said, Jesus Christ

cure all Deseces, Jesue Christ cure thy tooth ake.'

The

following

is

a copy of a charm also against

toothache, stitched

inside

their

worn by the Lancashire peasants

clothing
:

'

and

Ass Sant

Fetter sat at the geats of Jerusalm our Blessed

Lord and
Sead,

Sevour Jesus Crist Pased

What

Eleth thee

Hee

teeth ecketh.

and thy teeth

Fiat + Fiat
1

Hee

sead. Arise

shall

Fiat.'

my

and follow mee,

never Eake

Among

by and

sead. Lord,

Eney mour.

cures for the same

Harland and WilMnson, Lancashire Folk-Lore,

p. 77.


WORDS OF POWER

221

complaint in Jewish folk-medicine one prescribes

the driving of a nail into the wall, the formula,
'

Adar Gar Vedar Gar

'

being uttered, and then

followed by these words

firm in the wall and

'

not

is

Even

as this nail

felt, so let

is

the teeth

of So-and-so, son of So-and-so, be firm in his

mouth, and give him no

pain.'

In North-German

charm-cures the three maidens (perchance echoes

of the Norns)

who

dwell in green or hollow ways

gathering herbs and flowers to drive away diseases

may

re-appear in the disguise to which we are

accustomed in the angels of many a familiar

incantation, as in this for scalds or
'

bums

There were three angels came from East and West

One brought fire and another brought frosty
And the third it was the Holy Ghost,

Out

fire,

in frost, in the

Name

of the Father, Sou,

and Holy Ghost.'

Brand

gives a long

are invoked

against

list

of saints whose names

special

diseases,

efficacy believed to attach to the

and Mary

is

and the

names of Joseph

shown by sending children

suf-

fering from whooping-cough to a house where

the master and mistress are so named.

child

must

ask, or rather

'The

demand, bread and


WORDS OF POWER

222
butter.

Joseph must cut the bread, Mary must

spread the butter and give the

then a cure
it is

to the child,

In Cheshire

will certainly follow.

unlucky to take plain currant-cake from a

woman who

slice

has married a

man

of her

own name

superstition allied to the belief in

resulting

ill-luck

from marriage between people whose

surnames begin with the same letter

'

If

you change the name and not the letter.

for the worse and not for the better.'

You change

In the preparation of a drink for the frenzied,

the Saxon leech recommended, besides recitations

of litanies and the paternoster, that over the

herbs twelve masses should be sung in honour of

the twelve apostles,^ while the

name of

the sick

should be spoken when certain simples are pulled

up

for his use.

So,

among

the Amazulu, the

sorcerer Ufaku called Uncapayi by name that the

medicine might take due

effect

on him.^

mediaeval remedy for removing grit from the eye

was to chant the psalm

'

Qui habitat three times

'

over water, with which the eye was then to be

1 Cockayne's Saxon Leechdoms, vol.
Folk-Medicine, p. 91.

ii.

quoted in Black's
Callaway, p. 432.

p. 139,
^

WORDS OF POWER

223

douched, while modern Welsh folk-lore

tells

of

the farmer who, having a cow sick on a Sunday,

gave her physic, and then, fearing that she was

dying, ran into the house to fetch a Bible and

An

read a chapter to her.^

for fever

is

Abyssinian remedy

to drench the patient daily with cold

water for a week, and to read the Gospel of

Saint John to him; and in the Chinese tale of the

Talking Pupils, Fang

man

is

cured of blindness by a

reading the Kuang-ming sutra to him.^

Among

the Hindus, doctors would be regarded as

very ignorant, and would inspire no confidence,

if

they were unable to recite the special mantram

that suits each complaint, because the cure
attributed quite as

treatment.

much to

the

It is because the

mantram as

is

to the

European doctors

neither mantrams nor prayers that the

recite

native

puts

little

faith

in

their

medicines.

Midwives are called Mantradaris because the

repeating of mantrams by them
great

moment

the new-born babe and

1

Ellas

Giles,

is

held to be of

at the birth of the child.

its

'

Both

mother are regarded

Owen, Welsh Folk-Lore, p. 244.

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,

vol.

i.

p. 6.

WORDS OF POWER

224

as specially liable to the influence of the evil eye,

the inauspicious combination of unlucky planets

or unlucky days, and a thousand other baleful

And

elements.

a good

midwife, well primed

with efiicacious mantrams, foresees

gers,

and averts them by

all

reciting

words at the proper moment.'

these dan-

the proper

Obviously,

it is

but a step from listening to the charm-working

words of sacred texts to swallowing them

hence

the Chinese practice of burning papers on which

charms are written and mixing the ashes with

tea; and the
verse of the

Moslem

practice of washing off a

Koran and drinking the

water.

The

amulet written on virgin parchment, and sus-

pended towards the sun on threads spun by a

virgin

known
fevers

named Mary, equates

cabalistic

itself

Abracadabra

with the well-

charm

and agues, which was worn

and then thrown backwards before

against

for nine days,

sunrise into a

stream running eastward.

It has

been remarked already that among

all

barbaric peoples disease and death are believed

to be the

work of
1

evil spirits, either of their

Dubois, vol.

i.

p. 143.

own

WORDS OF POWER

225

direct malice prepense or through the agency of

sorcerers.

way, but
is

'

it

Man

after

man

dies

one constant and explicable cause to account

Instead of that, he regards each

for all cases.

successive death as

an event wholly by

apparently unexpected

itself

and only to be explained

by some supernatural agency.'

if

the same

in

never occurs to the savage that there

In

West Africa,

a person dies without shedding blood

looked
tells

on as uncanny.

factory beach at Corisco Bay.

could not

make

it

out at

tated about her conduct.

;

own

The

natives

They were

" She no sick

The post-mortem showed

The

witch herself,'

her

all.

'

irri-

she no

she no nothing, and then she go die

one time."'
aneurism.

is

woman who dropped down dead on a

of a

complain

it

Miss Mary Kingsley

native verdict was,

i.e.

familiar.^

'

a burst

She done

she was a witch eaten by

That

verdict

was logical

enough, as logical as that delivered by English

juries

two centuries ago under which women

were hanged as witches.

1
''

In trying two widows

Lionel Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 512.

Travels in West Africa, p. 468.

WORDS OF POWER

226

for witchcraft at

Bury

Edmunds

St.

Matthew Hale, a humane and

it

down

in

in 1664, Sir

able judge, laid

charge 'that there are such

his

creatures as witches I

the Scripture affirms

make no doubt

at

all

and the wisdom of

it,

all

nations has provided laws against such persons.'

Given a belief in

the evidence of their

spirits,

direct or indirect activity appears in

is

unusual, or which has sufficing explanation in

the theory of demoniacal activity.

belief,

aught that

man

In barbaric

the soul or intelligent principle in which

lives,

moves, and has his being plays

normal

sorts of pranks in his

body at

sleep

or

in

life,

all

quitting the

swoons, thereby giving

employment to an army of witch-doctors

in

setting traps to capture it for a ruinous fee.

Consequently,

all

the

abnormal

things

happen are attributed to the wilfulness of

spirits that enter

the

man and do

The phenomena attending

support to the theory.

that
alien

the mischief.

diseases lend further

When

any one

is

seen

twisting and writhing in agony which wrings

piercing shrieks from him, or

and shakes with ague, or

is

when he

shivers

flung to the ground

WORDS OF POWER

227

amok with

incoherent

in convulsive
ravings,

fit,

or runs

and with wild

'

'

light flashing

the logical explanation

from

Man

has entered and 'possessed' him.

same everywhere at bottom

varieties, there is

tion

is

his eyes,

that a disease-demon

is

but one

if

many

there are

His

species.

the

is

civilisa-

the rare topmost shoot of the tree whose

roots are in the earth,

larger branches

are in

and whose trunk and

Hence,

savagery.

though the study of anatomy and physiology

other words, of structure and function

al-

in

paved the

way, no real advance in pathology was possible

and interdependence

until the fundamental unity

of mind and body were

made

clear,

the recency of

which demonstration explains the persistency of

barbaric theories of disease in civilised societies.

The Dacotah medicine-man

the patient and singing,

reciting
'

charms over

He-la-li-ah

'

to the

music of beads rattling inside a gourd,

is

the

precursor of the Chaldean with his incantations

to drive away the

'

body, or the wind

fever,'

and to cure

wicked demon who

spirit
'

seizes the

whose hot breath brings

the disease of the forehead

which proceeds from the infernal

regions.'

The

:;

WORDS OF POWER

228

drinking of holy water and herb decoctions out

of a church-bell, to the saying of masses, so that

demon might be

the

exorcised from the possessed,

has warrant in the legends which

casting-out of

'

devils

the invocation of his

tell

of the

by Jesus and, through

'

Name, by the

apostles

while the continuity of barbaric ideas in their

grosser form has illustration in the practice of a

modern brotherhood

in the

the Society of St. Osmund-

not

that

only unclean

Church of England

based on the theory

swine,

but the sweet

flowers themselves, are the habitat of evil spirits.

In the Services o/ Holy Week from the

Missed the

'

Clerks

are directed to

'

Cross, with feet unshod,'

'

Sarum

venerate the

and to perform other

ceremonies which are preceded by the driving of

the devil out of flowers through the following
'

power of the word

'

exorcise thee, creature of flowers or branches

in the
in

'

the

Name of God + the Father Almighty, and

Name of Jesus Christ+His son, our

Lord, and in the power of the

henceforth let

all

+ Holy

Ghost; and

strength of the adversary,

all

the

host of the devil, every power of the enemy, every

assault of fiends,

be expelled and utterly driven

WORDS OF POWER
away from this creature of
Here the flowers and leaves
Holy Water, and censed (pp.
I

The

229

flowers or branches.'
shall be sprinkled with
3-5).

antiquity of the demon-theory of disease

has curious illustration in the prehistoric and longsurviving practice of trepanning skulls so that

the disease-bringing spirit might escape.

less

Doubt-

the disorders arising from brain-pressure,

diseased bone, convulsions,

and

so forth, led to the

application of a remedy which, in the improved

form of a cylindrical saw, and other mechanism

composing the trephine, modern surgery has not

disdained to use where removal of a portion of

the skull or brain

relief.

is

found necessary to afford

Prehistoric trepanning,

as evidenced

by

the skulls found in dolmens, caves, and other

burying-places

all

the world over, from the Isle

of Bute to Peru, was effected by

flint scrapers,

and fragments of the

dead who had

skulls of the

been thus operated upon were cut off to be used

as amulets

by the

skulls themselves as

further vexed.^
1

living, or

placed inside the

charms against the dead being

The trepannings

in Michigan,

Munro, Prehistoric Problems, pp. 191-238.

WORDS OF POWER

230

about which we have more complete

always

made

after

of the male sex.^

death,

and only on adults

They were probably obtained

by means of a polished stone

turned

were

details,

drill,

which was

Whether, or in what

round rapidly.

degree, the Neolithic surgeon supplemented his

rude scalpel by the noisy incantations which are

part of the universal stock-in-trade of the savage

medicine-man, we shall

never

know; but the

practice of his representatives warrants the inference which connects

the charm-singers, and

reciters,

to this day

most

him with the mantram-

believe that the

essential ingredient in the

1

all

others

Word of Power

is

who
the

remedy applied.

Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 510.

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

At

the close of this survey of evidence that, in

barbaric psychology, the

name

is

believed to be

an integral part of a man, the question which

suggests itself

is,

What part ?

The importance

by

attached

the

ancient

Egyptians to the name in connection with

its

owner's personality has been already referred to.

They had no doubt whatever that

if

was blotted out, the man ceased to

their

composite and

the

name

exist.

In

conglomerate theories of

the individual we have refinements of distinction which surpass anything

barbaric ideas.

that every

known

The Hidatsa

human being

has four souls which at

death depart one after the other.

simplicity itself

in cognate

Indians believe

But

this is

compared to Egyptian ontology.

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

232

In this we find (1) the sahn, or spiritual body

then (2) the ka, or double (other-self), which,

although

its

normal

tomb, could wander at

its

will,

if

and other ethereal

itself

the

and even take up

abode in the statue of a man.

and drink, and,

was

dwelling-place

It could eat

the sweet savour of incense

offerings failed, could content

with feeding on the viands painted on the

Then

walls of the tomb.

there was (3) the ha,

or soul, about which the texts reveal opposing

views, but

with

which

is

usually depicted as a bird

human heads and

hands.

To

this follow

(4) the ah, or heart, held to be the source

of

life

and of good and

evil in the life,

both

and, as

the seat of vital power, without which there

could be no resurrection of the body, jealously

guarded against abstraction by the placing of

heart-shaped amulets on the
in order

is

mummy.^

(5) the hhaihit or shadow

Next

then (6)

the khu or shining covering of the spiritual body

which dwelt

in

heaven with the gods

and

(7)

the sekhem or personified power of the man.

See ante,

p. 215.

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

Last, but not least, was (8) the ren or

that

'

233

name;

part of the immortal Ego, without which

no being could

exist.'

Extraordinary precautions

were taken to prevent the extinction of the ren,

and

in the

pyramid texts we

making supplication that

'

find the deceased

it

may

or

flourish

germinate ' along with the names of the gods.^

The

basal connection between this practice and

that of the importance attached to the record of

the

name

in the

'

Lamb's Book of Life

ing admission to heaven,^ which

popular modern

Among

belief, is

is

as ensur-

too obvious for comment.

the Pacific races, Bancroft

name assumes a

'

a canon of

personality, it

is

tells us,

'

the

the shadow or

spirit or other-self of the flesh-and-blood person.'

Civilised

and savage are at one

in their identifi-

cation of the soul with something intangible, as

breath, shadow, reflection, flame, and so forth.

But

it

is

the cessation of breathing which, in

the long-run, came to be noted as the neverfailing

accompaniment of death

and where the

condensation of the exhaled breath

^

is

visible,

Cf Budge, pp. Ixxxvi-xc ; Wiedemann, pp. 240-243, 294.

Revelation iii. 5 ; xiii. 8 ; xx. 15 ; xxi. 27.
.

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

234

there would be support lent to the theory of

souls as gaseous or ethereal.

In every language,

from that of the barbaric Aino to

and modern English, the word for

for 'breath'
stantial

'

the same.

is

name

falls

'

classic
'

Greek

spirit

and

'

Hence, the unsub-

into line with the general

nebulous conception of

and, were bar-

spirit,

baric languages less mutable,

it

might be possible

to find some help to an equation between 'name'

and

'

soul

in

'

them.

But

as

even seemingly

numerals and personal pro-

stable things like

nouns undergo rapid change among the lower

races,

'

two or three generations

the whole aspect of their dialects

and unintelligent
Siam,' the search
ever,

is

sufficing to alter

among

the wild

and

tribes of Siberia, Africa,

is

hopeless.

Some

light,

how-

thrown upon the matter by languages in

which favourable circumstances have preserved

and of mutations.

traces of family likeness

In

asking the question, whether there be any evi-

dence from philology to show what part of a

his

name

been

first

answer.

is

man

supposed to be, Professor Rhys has

in the field to supply materials for

He

says that

'

as regards the

an

Aryan

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

nations,^

we seem to have a

235

clue in an interest-

ing group of words from which I select the

following

Irish ainm, "

a name," plural anmcmn

Old Welsh anu, now enw,

Old

Bulgarian

ime\

accusative

evman, and

meaning " a name."

would add, and

word name

To

the

emnes,

Armenian

rightly, I

itself,

ndman, and the

Russian

a name; Old

also

these

emmens,

anwan

all

some scholars

think, the English

Latin

nomen, Sanskrit

Greek ovofia

but,

as

some

others find a difficulty in thus grouping these

last-mentioned words, I abstain from laying any

stress

be

on them.

satisfied

In

fact, I

have every reason to

with the wide extent of the Aryan

world covered by the other instances which I

have enumerated as Celtic, Prussian, Bulgarian,

and Armenian.

Now, such

is

the

similarity

between Welsh enw, " name," and enaid, " soul,"

that I cannot help referring the two words to

one and the same origin, especially when I see

the same or rather greater similarity illustrated

by the

Irish

words ainm, "name," and anim, "soul."

1 As the old theory of a homogeneous 'Aryan' race is abandoned, the term connotes peoples speaking allied languages.

NAME AND THE SOUL

TJJE

236

This similarity between the Irish words so pervades the declension of them, that a beginner
frequently

them

into the error of confounding

falls

as mediaeval

Take, for instance,

texts.

may mean

the genitive singular anma, which

either "

ammee

" or "

nominis "

plural anmanna, which

or "

nomina "

"
either " animae

may be

and anmann,

the nominative

animarum "

either "

may like-

or "nominum,'" as the dative anmcmnaib

wise be either " animabus " or " nominibus."

fact,

one

is

In

tempted to suppose that the partial

differentiation of the Irish forms

was only brought

about under the influence of Latin with

forms of anima and nomen.

Be that as

direct teaching of the Celtic vocables

are all to be referred to the

Aryan word

its distinct

may, the

it

is

that they

same origin

for breath or breathing,

which

represented by such words as Latin anima,

anadl, " breath,"

in the

Welsh

and Gothic anan, " blow

"breathe," whence the

compound

is

" or

preterite uz-on,

twice used in the fifteenth chapter of St. Mark's

Gospel to render
ghost."

i^e-rrvevae,

" gave

up

the

Lastly, the lesson which the words in

question contain for the student of

man

is

that

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

the Celts, and

certain

237

other widely separated

Aryans, unless we should rather say the whole

Aryan
the

family, believed at one time not only that

name was a part

that part of

breath of

of the man, but that

him which

life,

is

or whatever you

define it as being.'

all

may

it

was

soul, the

choose to

The important bearing

language on

termed the

of this evidence from

that has preceded

need enlarged comment.

is

too clear to

It adds another item

to the teeming mass of facts witnessing to the

psychical as well as the physical unity of man.

It has

become a truism that at the same

lectual level,

however wide the zones that sepa-

rate him, he explains the same

much the same way

in

intel-

any

phenomena

set of facts

in

gathered

one quarter being complementary to any set

of facts gathered in another quarter.

One by one the theories armed with assumption

of the presence of caprice and elements of disorder in the universe have been defeated until

they reached their last stand in the citadel of

1

Nineteenth Century,

566, 567.

October

1891,

'Welsh

Fairies,'

pp.

238

THE NAME AND THE SOUL

Mansoul.

From

that final retreat they are being

ousted, because man's extension of the methods

of inquiry into his surroundings to his inner

nature makes

clear

that he

is

no exception

amongst animated beings, but has

the universal order.

his place in

APPENDIX
VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT
Austria, Lower.
(Reichenau.) ' Kruzimugeli.' Inthe Land ofMarvels,

Theodor Vernaleken (1884).

In his
and gives abstracts
of, variants from Gablitz, Gopfritz in der Wild,
Loschiitz, Modhng, and Neulenbuch, all in

p.

26.

notes, the author refers to,

Lower

Austria.

' The
Wild Jager and the Baroness.'
Household Stories from the Land ofHofer, p. 110.

(Tyrol.)

R.
'

H. Busk (1871).
Tirolo Kinder- und Hausmarchen,

Purzinigele.'

No. 36.

Zingerle, Innsbruck (1852),

and

cf.

Schneller, No. 55.

Basque Provinces.
Basque Legends,

'

The

p. 56.

Pretty but Idle Girl.'

Wentworth Webster.

British Isles.

(Annandale.) 'Whuppity Stoorie.' Popular Rhi/mes

of Scotland,
(Cornwall.)

Ed. Chambers (1841).

Popular
Duffy and the Devil.'
of the West of England, p. 239.
p. 76.
'

Romances
Robert Hunt (1881).

239

APPENDIX

240
(Ireland.)

'

The

Idle Girl

Patrick

side Stories.

and her Aunts.'

Kennedy

Fire-

(1879).

(TheBorder.) 'Habetrot.' Folk-Lore of the Northern

Counties, p. 258.

(Wales.)

'

W. Henderson

The Heir

vol. iv. pp.

of

(1879).

Cymmodor,

Ystrad.'

Professor Rhys.

189-194.

France.
(Lorraine.)

'

Ropiquet.'

Lorraine, vol.

i.

M. Cosquin

(1887).
variants

Conies

Populaires

de

Emmanuel Cosquin

268.

p.

refers to the following

In Basse-Normandie, Fleury,

p. 190
Haute-BretagnCj Sebillot, i. No. 48 ; Nordouest de la France, Melusine, 150 (1877);
Benjamin
Picardie, Romania, viii. p. 222.
Thorpe, Yule-Tide Stories, p. xi, refers to the
French ' Ricdin-Ricdon,' in Tour ienebreuse et
les

Contes Anglais

jours lumineux.

nomme

tires

d'une

comprise par Richard sur-

Chronique

ancienne

Cceur de Lion.

Amsterdam

(1708).

Germany.
(Hesse.)

'

Rumpelstiltskin'

('

Rumpelstilzchen.')

Grimm's Household Tales, vol. i. No. 55. Translated by Mrs. Alfred W. Hunt. Grimm's notes
(p. 412) give various forms of the name, and
refer to the incident of name-guessing in a

Danish saga. Thiele, i. 45.

(Lower Saxony.) Thorpe refers to Harry's Sagen,
Marchen, und Legenden Niedersachsens, No.
pp. 16-19.

1,

Celle (1840).

(South Germany.)

'

Kugerl.'

Kinder- und Haus-

APPENDIX
am

m'drchen

241

Sud-devischland,

278-280.

pp.

Zingerle.

Kuhn^ Sagen,

(Westphalia.)

i.

also refers to Proehle 11, No.

and

pp. 306-309,
Orientale).

Hungary.

p.

298.

Cosquin

20; Mullenhoff,

to Toeppen, p. 138 (Prusse

Winterkolble.' In the Land of Marvels,

Vernaleken (see above).
The Lazy Spinning-Girl who became a Queen.'
Magyar Folk-Tales, p. 46. Kropf and Jones
'

p. 22.

'

(*886).
'

Panczimanczi.'

'

The Golden

Arang's Erediti Nepmesek,

Spinster.'

p. 277.

Sixty Folk-Tales, p. 82.

A. H. Wratislaw (1889).
' Gilitrutt.'
Pen and Pencil Sketches of
Faroe and Iceland, p. 240. Symington.

Iceland.

Italy.

Gonzenbach, No. 84 (see ante, p. 28 w.).

refers to an Italian variant entitled
Rosania,' translated into Danish. Copenhagen

(Sicily.)

Thorpe
'

(1708).

The Use of Magic Language.' Sagas

from the Far East, p. 157. R. H. Busk (1873).
Another Oriental variant, more akin in detail
than that from Mongolia, is referred to by

Mongolia.

'

Grimm
in the

in his Notes (vol. i. p. 112) as occurring

Thousand and Otic Days under the title

of ' Turandot.'
Russia.
des

'

Kinkach Martinko.'

Patres Slaves,

pp.

Contes de

341-347.

Paysans

et

Alexandre

APPENDIX

242

Chodzko. Paris (1864). Cosquin refers to a

Lithuanian variant in Schleicher, p. 56.
Spain.

'

What Ana saw

p. 181.

R.

in the Sunbeam.'
H. Busk (1870).

Patranas,

Sweden.
(Upland.)

The Girl who could Spin Gold from

Long Straw.' Yule-Tide Stories, p. l68.
'

Clay and

Benjamin Thorpe (1888).

Grimm

Both Cosquin and

refer to CavalliuSj No. 10.

INDEX
Aubrey,

AuM,
Abipone name-superstition,

82,

34, 89.

189, 201.

name

Australians,

83.

giving

among, 100.
name-avoidance

of

the

name-superstition,

dead, 171.

81,

167.

Abracadabra, 224.
Abyssinian baptism - customs,

sorcerers

among

the, 60.

taboo-customs, 117.

92.

Aohren, battle of, 50.

Adonai, 190.
Africa, name-giving in, 100.

name-superstition in, 81.

woman as farmer in, 37.

Aino name-customs, 101.

Amenti, 205, 215.
American Indians, name-avoidance among, 170, 171.
name-giving,

95,

Babylonian psalms, 178.

Banks

Island

taboo-customs,

116.

Baptism, pagan origin

of,

110-

112.

with spittle, 75.

Baptismal name, importance

of,

89, 91.

96.

name-superstition,
82, 84.

taboo

customs,

names,

flesb of,

qualities, 69.

Arachne,

42.

Astrology, 97.
42.

eaten to acquire

53.

Basque variant of

116.

Amulets, 64, 208, 213.

Animals, cajolery of, 126, 129.

Athene,

Barbaric ideas about blood, 58

death and disease, 134, 224

Tom

Tit Tot,

21.

Bear, flattery

of, 126.

Beauty and the Beast,

2,

120.

Becke, Louis, 130, 171.

Berchta, 43, 44.
Bible, name-giving in the, 101,
139.
243

INDEX

244
Blood -brotherhood,

143,

71,

146.

Columbia, British, name-superstition in, 82.

charms, 141.

Comte,

relationship, 142.

Confucius, 190.

through mother,

39.

Boat, sacred, of Osiris, 206.

Book of the Dead,

Bouda, 92.
Bourke, Captain,

Boys dressed as
Brand,

184, 205.

85, 115.

girls, 131.

59, 75, 77, 91, 92, 215,

220.

Bride not to be struck with

New,

Cook, Captain, 145.

Corn-goddesses, 41.
Corp Creidh, 66.
Cox, Miss Roalfe, 28.
Sir G. W., 36.
Cradle safeguards, 92, 223.
Creative words, 194-198.
Crooke, "W., 35, 95, 175.
Cure-charms, 216-227.
Curses, 199, 212.

iron, 25.

Britain,

99.

sorcerers, 60.

Breath as soul, 233.

Browne, Sir T., 62.
Budge, Dr. "WaUis, 180, 198,

Customs, naming-, 100-103.

saliva-, 75, 76.

Cyclades naming-customs, 94.

Czar,
prayer
buried
with,
215.

207, 233.
Building-sacrifice, 80.

Burne, Miss, 219.

Dahomey, hidden name

of king

of, 160.

Cabalistic writing, 213, 214.

David

Callaway, Bishop, 62, 222.

Cannibalism, 69.
Chaldean magic, 65, 185, 227.
Changelings, 90.

Dead, spells for raising

taboo on names

Charms

against thieves, 212.

Death, barbaric theory

164-

of, 134,

to

avert,

125, 135, 138.

Deity and names of mortals,

image, 65.

moon-shaped,

64.

saliva, 72-77.

names of, 158.

China, hidden names of EmChiefs, hidden

138, 179.

Demeter,

62.

Cinderella variants, 28.

Oodrington, Mr., 59, 116.

41, 42, 163.

Devil, gullibility of, 47-52.

Digby, Sir Kenelm, 63.

Di

of, 157.

Chinese doctors,

of,

224.

euphemisms

horse-shoe, 34.

the, 210.

172.

for rain, 67.

peror

Copperfield, 67.

Indigetes, 177.

Dionysus, 70.
Disease, barbaric theory of, 134,
224.

INDEX
euphemisms

Disease,

to avert,

Funeral games,

4.

Furies, the, 129.

125, 134.

Donegal, superstition in

Dorman,

245

35.

66, 69, 78, 168.

Dreams, 210.
Dubois, Ahhi,

G
Games, antiquity

201, 203.

Dust-storms, superstition about,

of, 3.

Genesis Creation-legend, 198.

Giant with no heart in his body,

36.

2, 5.

E
Earth-mother, 42.
Eastern variant of

Tom Tit Tot,

23.

Gnostic amulets, 213.

God, eating the, 70.
Goddesses, corn, 41.
earth, 42.

hearth, 42.

name

Effigy,

on, 65.

spinning, 42.

Elworthy, F. T., 77, 132, 214.

Endor, Witch of, 210.

Euphemisms, 125.
Evil Eye, charms

Gods, incarnate, 151.

avoidance of names

of, 173,

177.

against,

74,

131, 133, 213, 214.

of healing, 216.

wind and weather,

Excalibur, 35.

155.

writing, 199.

Exorcists, modern, 228.

Golden Bough,

45, 58, 70, 147,

150.

Goose

Girl, 141.

Gregor, Dr. W., 83, 91.

Fairies,

Farmer,

euphemism

woman

for, 129.

as, 37, 38.

Grimm,

29, 41, 44, 49, 52, 199,

218.

Fates, the, 42, 43.

Groome, F. Hindes,

Fathers-in-law, taboo between,

Guiana, Indians

and

sons-in-law, 115-117, 123.

8, 29.

of, 81,

111 (m. ).

Gullible Devil, 47-52.

Fitz-Gerald, Edward, 198.

Flamen

Dialis, 153.

Flaminica, 154.
Flax-goddesses, 43, 44.
Flowers, exorcising demon from,
229.

Folk-medicine, 61, 62, 218-224.

Fox, flattery

of, 128.

Frazer, J. G., 45, 58, 70, 147,

150.

Friend, Rev. ffilderic, 137.

Hair - cuttings,

precautions

about, 57, 59.

Hale, Sir Matthew, 226.

Hall of the Two Truths, 207.
Healing, gods of, 216.
Heart-shaped amulets, 215.

Hearth goddesses,

42.

Herodotus, 38, 191.

INDEX

246
Herrick, 45.

Hidden names

of

chiefs

and

Joseph, name
charm, 221.

of,

cure-

as

Joukahainen, 217.

kings, 157-160.
of priests, 163.

Hindus, 35, 86, 133.

Holda, 43.
Honovar, 197.
Horse-shoes as charms, 34.
House, taboo on chief or priest
entering, 153.

K
Ka, the Egyptian,

65, 232.

Kaffir taboo-custom, 119.

KaZevala, 126, 217.

Karakia, 200.
King's evil, 157.

Kings, hidden names

of,

157-

160.

Kingsley, Miss Mary, 57, 103,

Idylls of the King, 1.
Images, charm through, 65.

225.

Kols of India,

35.

Incantations, 211, 221, 227.

Incarnate gods, 151.

Incarnation of priest- king, 147.
Indigitamenta, 177.

about,

superstitions

25,

and

B.&,

in, 55.

Logos, 196.

Lustration with

33-36, 94.

spittle, 75.

Lyall, Sir Alfred, 193.

Ishtar, 185.
Isis

62, 68, 91,

Language, concrete terms

Irish name-superstition, 83.

Iron,

Lang, Andrew, 29,

218.

Initiation rites, 103, 146.

180-184.

M
Macbeth, 208.

Jehovah, 190.
Jesus, legends of, and secret
names of God, 187, 188.

57-78.

as healer, 219.
of,

as

79-113.

through tangible things,

as exorcist, 228.

name

Magic, 54, 185.

sympathetic, 45, 59-68, 93.
through intangible things,

cure-charm,

devil,

bargains be-

tween, 47, 50.

Jevons, Dr., 63, 153, 178.

Jews, name-taboo among

Maine, Sir Henry, 142.

Man and

221.

the,

Manlii, 101.

Jinn, 36, 186.

Mantrams, 198, 200-204.

Maori naming-custom, 74.

Johnson, Dr., 66.

Marriage-taboo, 122, 123.

129.

INDEX
Mary, name

of,

as cure-charm,

221, 224.

'

Masai saliva-custom, 74.

'Mawther,' derivation of,

Mexican pontiff, 152.

Midwives and mantrams,
Mikado, 151.
Moon-charms, 64.
Moslem, secret name of

205.

Origin and diffusion of stories,

28-31.
Osiris' (the god), 191, 207.

(the

mummy),

205, 215

223.

deity,

185, 189.

Palestine,

woman

as farmer

sons-in-law, 115-117, 123.

Miiller, Professor

Max,

Mummy as medicine,

36.

62.

incisions in, 33.

Mystery plays,

Paton, W. R., 163.

Pausanias, 131, 153.
Pearson, Karl, 40, 45.
Penelope, 25, 37.
Phylacteries, 213.

Plutarch, 63, 64, 155, 174.

Pollock, Su- Frederick, 106 (.).
Portraits, superstitions about,

1, 90.

N
Nail-parings, precautions about,

77.

PoweU, Professor York,

57.

Name

in,

28.

Mothers-in-law, taboo between,

equated with

soul, 231-

199.

Praise of children deprecated,

131.

237.

Name-giving with

spittle, 75.

Names, avoidance

of, 117.

baptismal, 89, 91.

barbaric ideas about, 57.

change of, 103, 125.

on effigy, 65.
on mummy, 215.
unlucky, 118.
Naming-customs, 100-10.3.
Naming a Member of Parliament, 106 (m.).
'

189, 201.

Om Mani padme hum,' 200.

'Open Sesame,'
9.

Medicine, folk-, 61, 62, 222, 228.

Melanesians, 63.

and

Om,

247

Praying-wheels, 200.
Priesthood, origin of the, 110.
Priest-king, incarnated, 147.

Problem of marriage-taboo, 122124.

of origin

and

diffusion of

stories, 28-31.

Proverbs, Book of, 195.

Punch and Judy, 51.

'

Neith, the goddess, 43.

Norns, 43.

Ra and

Isis,

180-184.

Rain-charm, 67.
Relations, taboo between, 113Odysseus, 216.
Olaf, king, 48.

119.

Relics as charms, 72.

INDEX

248

Ren (or name), Egyptian theory

of, 233.

Spencer, Herbert,

6, 144.

Spindle-whorls, 39.

Rex Nemorensis, 148.

Rhys, Professor, 25,

Spinning-goddesses, 42.
235-

50,

237.

Spinster,
Spirits,

Rome, tutelary deity

of, 174.

woman

as, 36, 41.

spells for

summoning,

209.

Rumpelstiltskin, 28.

Sprinkling of horses at Siena,

Sacrifice to earth-spirit, 80.

Stephen, Leslie, 1.
Stone implements, survival of
use of, 33.

Saliva-superstitions, 72-77.

Stories,

113.

Salutations, luck in, 132.

Samoan high

problem of origin and

diffusion of, 28-31.

priest, 152.

Superstitions,

Sayce, Professor, 178.

Soot, Reginald, 208, 212.

persistence

of,

107-109.

Sympathetic magic,

Scotch belief in unlucky names,

119.

45,

59-68,

93.

powder, 63.

variant of

Tom

Tit Tot,

18.

Seals or signatures, doctrine

of,

61.

Shadow, magic through,

79, 80.

Shropshire Folk-Lore, 219.

Simpson, William, 94, 157.
Singhalese name-giving, 96.
Smith, Professor Robertson, 71,

Taboo, 114-191.

between relatives, 115.

on name of gods, 173.
kings and priests, 147.
the dead, 164.

Tasmanian name-customs,

81,

169.

Teeth, precautions about, 58.

111.

Social groups, early, 40.

Theocritus, 74.

Solomon, seal-ring of, 186.

Songs of healing, 216.

Thief,

Sortes BiUioce, 215.

Homericoe, 215.
Virgilicmce, 215.

Soul, barbaric theories of,

and

charm

against, 212.

Thorpe, Benjamin, 52, 127.

Thoth, 199.
Thracians, ,38.
Toldofh Jeshu, 186.
6.

civilised theories

of, 233.

equated with name, 231-

Tom Tit

Tot, story of, 9-16.

variants of, 17-26.

Tootliache cure-charms, 220.

Towneley Plays, 90.

Speech as divine, 194-196.

Transubstantiation, 70.
Tree-spirit, incarnation

Spells, 208.

Trepanning

237.

skull, 229.

of, 150.

INDEX

249

Trinidad name-auperatition, 87.

Wind and

Trit-a-Trot, 28.

Winifred's well. Saint, 113.

Trwtyn-Tratyn,

Wisdom,

27.

Turgot, 108.
Tylor, Professor, 69, 122-124.
Tyrolese variant of Tom Tit
Tot, 20.

Witch,

Witchcraft, Discoverie

of,

208,

212.

Withershins, 204{.).

Woman

as healer, 219.
as farmer

and

spinster,

36-41.

Vac, 194, 196.

Vedas, 195, 201.

Wood-chewing

to soften heart,

61.
97.

Words

of power, 192-230.
Writing, god of, 199.

W
Wainamoinen, 127,
Walpurg, 44.
Warts, remedy for,

217.

Yahweh,

62.

Yeats,

"VVater-worship, 111.

Welsh variants

195.

46, 225.

Woden

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3

INDEX
PAGE
Aitken, G- A.
Archer, W.

Knapp, A. M.
Kurth,G. .

Armour, Margaret
Ashton, John

Landor, Walter Savage

Langlois, Ch. V.
Lawrence, C. Mabel
Leach, A. F.

Barclay, Theresa
Barry, J. A.

Bateman,
Belloc,

May

Beam, E. M.

Lyttelton,

Madame

Berry, G. G.
Bevan, Stuart
Brieux

W. B. .
Maeterlinck, Maurice
Malet, Lucas

Macdougall,

.
.

Matthews,

Broglie, Prince E. de
Brooke, L. Leslie

Browning, Robert

Ostrovsky

Mrs W. K.
Edward

Coleridge, S. T.

10

Cooper, Edward H.
Corbet, S. and K.
Crawford, Virginia M.
Cust, Lionel
.

Erichsen,

Fal

N.

18

22
7
II

16-17

W.
.

Percival, John .
.
Philips, F. C.
Pollockj Sir Frederick

18

CliflFord,

J.

Ostlere, Edith

Burne-Jones, Sir Philip

Burton, Isabel, Lady
Burrow, C. K.

Clodd,

Hon. Mrs Neville

Hon. R. H.

Powell, York
Rossetti,
Rossetti,

Rouse,

D. G.

W. M.
W. H. D.

Seignobos, Ch. .
Sienkiewicz, H.
Sinjohn, John .
Stephen, H. L. .
Stephen, Leslie
Stepniak, Sergius
Street, Lilian

Gamett, Constance

Gautier, Th^ophile

Strindberg, August
Sutro, Alfred
.

Symons, Arthur

Hapgood, Norman
Hatzfeld,A.

Tennant, Mrs H. J.
Texte, Joseph
Thierry, C. de
Tyrrell, Rev. G.

Hay, Helen

Henley, W. E.
Hennessy, Philip

Housman, Clemence
Humanitarian, The
Hutchinson, T.

Verhaeren, Emile
de L'lsle Adam
Voynich, E. L.
Villiers

Ibsen, Henrik

Ward, Mrs Humphry

Day don
James, Henry
Jennings, Edith
Johnson, R. Brimley
Joly, Henri
Joubert
Jackson, B.

Wheeler, Stephen
Wicksteed, Philip H.
Wilkins, W. H.
Wilson, Mona
Witte, Karl

Wordsworth,

.
.

W.

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STEPHEN, LESLIE,

STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER,

by Leslie Stephen.

Two vols, large crown 8vo. Buckram, gilt top, 12 s.

Times. "No living man
more at home than he in the literature of the eighteenth
is

any, have a better right to speak about the literary performances

and influences of the nineteenth."
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cannot do better than study his Studies.' He is one of the soundest of our critics. His
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'

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Arthur Symons

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in the

who

Saturday Review.

is

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VOL.

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THE EVOLUTION OF EDITORS.
JOHN BYROM.
JOHNSONIANA.
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ARTHUR YOUNG.
WORDSWORTH'S YOUTH.

II.

THE STORY OF SCOTT's RUIN.

THE IMPORTATION OF GERMAN.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.
JOWETT'S LIFE.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
LIFE OF TENNYSON.
PASCAL.

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The
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:

WHEELER, STEPHEN.

WAR AND
DER,

POLICY ON

THE INDIAN

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Abdur Rahman."

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the ethnology of the people

with the history of the border tribes previous to the

Punjab and Scinde, and with the political problems arising

out of the recent disturbances. An endeavour is made to trace the origin and development of the Forward policy, and to form an impartial estimate of the work achieved
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British annexation of the

New

Books

BURTON, ISABEL,
SIR RICHARD

THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN

BURTON,
Burton.

K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S., by

F.

his wife, Isabel

Second (and cheaper) edition. Edited with a

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CLODD, EDWARD.

TOM TIT TOT.

Tale, by

An

Essay on Savage Philosophy in Folk-

Edward Clodd, sometime President of

the Folk-

Lore Society, Author of "The Childhood of the World,"

"

The

etc.

Story of Creation," " Pioneers of Evolution,"

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Dealing with a venerable Suffolk version of Grimm's well-known " Rumpelstiltskin,"

Clodd endeavours to show that the main incident in the story contains a worldwide and much-varied superstition, which, confusing persons and things, has given rise
to a set of curious beliefs and customs.

Mr

TEXTE, JOSEPH.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE:

A

Study of the Literary Relations between France and

England in the i8th Century. By Joseph Texte, Docteur
Translated into English by J. W. Matthews.
bs lettres.

demy

7s. 6d.
8vo.
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This work, which has recently been "crowned" by the French Academy, will be
the first of a small collection of standard French criticisms upon matters concerning
English Literature.

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DR KARL.
WITTERS ESSAYS ON DANTE.
WITTE,

Mabel

C.

Lawrence,

Wicksteed, M.A.

Edited

B.A.

Large crown 8vo.

Translated

by

by

H.

7s.

Philip

6d.

During the whole of the central portion of this century Dr Karl Witte was actively
engaged in Dante studies, and his translations, editions, and essays constitute a more
important contribution to the revived and deepened study of Dante than any other
single scholar can boast to have made.
He is the acknowledged master of Scartazzini,
Giuliani, and others and in especial, his conception of Dante's Trilogy (that is to say,
mutual
relations
of
the
Vita Nuova, the Convito, and the Comedy)
his idea as to the
underlies all subsequent work on the inner meaning and articulation of Dante's writings.
Dr Witte collected the essays in which this and many subsidiary points are
elaborated in two volumes. They are published at the high price of ^i, 8s., which
makes them out of the reach of many even of those Dante students to whom the
languages in which they are written (German for the most part, but occasionally
Italian) ofifer no difficulties. Some of them are of little interest to the general circle
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German works on Dante but the remaining essays constitute an invaluable body of
;

investigations, of great variety of interest, ranging from a general survey of Dante's

mental development or a presentation of his conception of the Universe, to the discussion of biographical details or the identification of the authors and relative antiquities
of ancient commentaries. The proposed translation will include all of Dr Witte's essays
that have any general interest.
In an introduction, and in special notes in the several essays, the Editor will give the
student the means of checking Dr Witte's results in doubtful or speculative matters by
reference to the original sources, or to essays written from another point of view, but he
will carefully abstain

from fretting the reader by a running commentary of

criticism,

interrupting the essays themselves.

DE THIERR V,
IMPERIALISM,
tion by

W.

HENLE V,

C, and

by C.

E. Henley.

De

IV.

E,

Thierry; with an Introduc-

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New

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M.

ESSAYS ON FRENCH WRITERS,

by Virginia M.

Crawford.

LYTTELTON, THE HON. MRS NEVILLE,

WARD, MRS HUMPHRY.

and

SELECTIONS FROM THE PENSEES DE

JOUBERT. Translated by Katharine Lyttelton, with
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a preface by Mrs

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THE SHADOW OF
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LANGLOIS, CH.

F.,

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SEIGNOBOS, CH,

INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL STUDIES,

by Ch. V. Langlois and Ch. Seignobos, of the Sorbonne,
Paris.

buckram
Of

with

Authorised Translation by G. G. Berry;

a Preface by Prof. York Powell.

cloth,

ys.

Large crown 8vo,

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the French edition Literature (Feb. lath, 1898) spoke thus: "No effort so
and determine the difficulties of historical studies

seriously methodical to fix the nature

has ever been made in France. Nor is there anything of the sort in English or German
.
MM. Langlois
at once so precise, so admirably concise, and so logically complete
and Seignobos, with that clearness which seems inalienable from French thought, but
with none of that superficiality, that wilful defect of vision which usually in French
books is the condition of French clearness does not Renan himself, in the preface to
VAvenirde la Science.^ note this ordinary disability and this incomparable privilege of
the French tongue? not only have been the first to systematize concisely and clearly
the scattered results of reflections upon, and experience of, historical studies, but have
also themselves formulated the principles of historical research with a critical precision
and competence which make these remarkably compact and suggestive pages as useful
an essay in definition of a right historical method, as Renan's famous early book just
cited was, and still is, for the cultivation of what he called historic psychology.'
This book of M. Seignobos and M, Langlois is, as it were, a solid monument of masonry
raised on the high plateau to which French scholars have been ascending now for thirty
years, and elevated there as a memorial of the victory of the critical method.
The
rigorous scientific treatment of historical studies has not been more general and systehowever,
England
than
in
France,
and
an
Introduction
matic,
in
to Historical Studies
that is adequate is bound to be as warmly welcomed by students in Great Britain or
the United States as by students in France."
.

'

'

ASHTON, JOHN.

THE HISTORY OF GAMBLING IN ENGLAND,

by John Ashton, Author of " History of the Lottery
England,"

etc., etc.

Small

demy

8vo.

7s.

in

6d.

Synopsis of Contents : Origin of Playing Cards Royal Card Playing

Gaming Houses in the 17th and i8th Centuries Legislation on Cards

and Gambling Beau Nash Horace Walpole Gambling Clubs,
White's, Cocoa Tree, Almack's Stories of High Play Crockford's
ClubWagers and BettingWhite's Betting Book Horse Racing
Bookmaking Turf Frauds Lotteries South Sea Bubble Spectdation,
Stock Exchange The Railway Mania Insurance.

New
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DAYDON.

A GLOSSARY OF BOTANIC TERMS,

Daydon Jackson, Secretary
Crown 8vo. 5s, net.

of

by

B.

Linnean Society.

the

This volume is intended to supplement existing text-books, by offering in one work a

comprehensive vocabulary of the terms in use from the time of Nehemiah Grew to
the present day. The copious additions to botanic language made during the last
twenty years have not hitherto been published in a complete form in this country.
The author has endeavoured to supply this deficiency, aided by the encouragement
and help of many of the most distinguished botanists in many branches of the science.

PERCIVAL, JOHN.

A TEXT-BOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY,

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL, by John
Percivalj M,A., F.L.S., Professor of

Eastern Agricultural

College,

Botany

at the

Crown

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the Agricultural press have from time to time complained that no

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amount

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is

without use or practical

application.

The rapid advance of

technical education, the application of science to industries,

and the growth of colleges and centres

for agricultural

and horticultural teaching have

imperative that the above defect should be remedied, and the present volume
therefore deals with those facts of the science of Botany only which are essential to the
requirements of students at such colleges and schools, and is also suited to the needs of

made

it

the rising generation of practical farmers.

The contents are based on several years' experience in teaching and lecturing to
students, practical farmers, and gardeners, and will embrace chapters dealing with the

and physiology of plants in general ; the elements of classification with more

complete treatment of the Botany of farm plants, cereals, root and forage crops,
temporary lays and permanent pasture, with the grasses concerned in the latter ; seeds
of the farm, their peculiarities in regard to purity and quality of commercial samples,
diseases of farm crops caused by attacks of parasitic fungi, and other matters of similar

structure

importance.

Most of the illustrations have been specially drawn for this work by the author
himself from living specimens, or photographed from the same.
In recognition of the great importance of practical work in teaching, every endeavour has been made to introduce illustrative experiments, to be repeated by the
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;

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Messrs Duckworth

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HUTCHINSON,

CoJs

(5f

T.

LYRICAL BALLADS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND S. T. COLERIDGE, 1798.

Edited with certain poems of 1798 and an Introduction

and Notes by Thomas Hutchinson, of Trinity College,

Dublin, Editor of the Clarendon Press " Wordsworth,"

Fcap. 8vo, art vellum,

etc.

3s. 6d. net.

gilt top.

This edition reproduces the text, spelling, punctuation, etc., of 1798, and gives in an
Appendix Wordsworth's Peter Bell (original text, now reprinted for the first time), and
Coleridge's Lewti, The Three Graves, and The Wanderings of Cain. It also contains
reproductions in photogravure of the portraits of Wordsworth (by Hancock, 1798) and
of Coleridge (by Peter Vandyke, 1795), now in the National Portrait Gallery.
The publishers have in preparation further carefully annotated editions of books in
English literature, to be produced in the same style as their edition of the "Lyrical
Ballads" not too small for the shelf, and not too large to be carried about further
announcements concerning which will be made in due course. It is not intended to
include in this series, as a rule, the oft-reprinted " classics," of which there are already

sufficiently desirable issues.

Athen^um.

(4 col. review).

"Mr

not a mere reprint, for

Hutchinson's centenary edition of the Lyrical

enriched with a preface and notes which make it

a new book. The preface contains much that is suggestive in explaining the history
and elucidating the meaning of this famous little volume. Mr Hutchinson's notes are
Ballads

is

it is

especially deserving of praise."

Si James's Gazette. "'Lyrical Ballads' was published September i, 1798. By a

happy thought this centenary is in anticipation very fitly celebrated without fuss or
futilities by the publication of an admirable reprint of Lyrical Ballads,' with an
adequate apparatus criticus by Mr T. Hutchinson, the well-known Wordsworthian
scholar, whose name makes recommendation superfluous.
This is a book that no
library should be without not the 'gentleman's library' of Charles Lamb's sarcasm,
but any library where literature is respected."
*

'

'

Notes and Queries.

"The

book

is

indeed a precious boon.

his line one of the foremost of scholars,

and

his introduction

is

Mr

Hutchinson

is

in

a commendable piece of

work. No less excellent are his notes, which are both readable and helpful. One cannot do otherwise than rejoice in the possession of the original text, now faithfully
reproduced.
volume which is sure of a place in the library of every lover of

poetry."

" It

delightful to have

them in the charming form given to them in the

Hutchinson has written not only a vefry informing introduction, but also some very luminous and useful notes. The book is one which every
lover and student of poetry must needs add to his collection."
Glohe.

is

present volume, for which

Mr

New

Books

STEPHEN, H. L.
STATE TRIALS: POLITICAL
Selected

and

Edited

by H.

L.

AND

SOCIAL.

Stephen.

vols.

XJniform with "Lyrical Ballads."

ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

A new serie

No series

of books upon the English Public Schools.

Histories exist,

and the publishers believe that many boys, while

of such School

at school

and when

maylike to possess an authentic account of their school issued at a moderate

leaving

it,

price.

The

series will, it is

hoped, appeal also to old scholars, and to

all

interested in

the history of Enrlish education.

(See Special Prospectus. )

CUST, LIONEL.

A HISTORY OF ETON COLLEGE,

by Lionel

Gust, Diree.or of the National Portrait Gallery.

LEACH,

ARTHUR

F.

A HISTORY OF WINCHESTER COLLEGE,

by Arthur

F. Leach,

formerly

Fellow of All

Souls',

Oxford, Assistart Gharity Commissioner.

RQUSE,

IV.

H. D.

A HISTORY OF RUGBY SCHOOL,

Rouse,
College,

of

by W. H. D.

Rugby, and sometime Fellow of

Cambridge.

contemporary

Illustrated

prints, etc.

from

Pott 4to.

(To be fdlowed hy

others})

5s.

Christ's

photographs,
net.

&

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12

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BELLOC, MADAME.

HISTORIC NUNS,
Walled Garden,"
In this book

by B. R. Belloc, Author of "In a

Crown

etc.

8vo.

6s.

Madame

Belloc tells the story of four remarkable women who lived and
worked in the cause of charity and education during the first half of tie present
century. Two of them were subjects of our Queen, a third belonged to a nited family

and the fourth was daughter to Dr Bayley, Physician to the Rc^alist forces
under Lord Howe in America at the time of the Revolution. All the Our achieved
permanent results, and the Institutes they founded are still among tie most vital
products of this wonderful century in England and America.
in France,

THE
A

new

SAINTS.

series of Lives of the Saints, in separate

English Editor: Rev. G. Tyrrell,

volumes.

S./.

{See Special Prospectus).

1.

The Psychology

of the Saints, 5y Henri

Church Review. " hs a study of what

bright, cheerful and invigorating."
Catholic Herald. "One

is

noblest, purest ant" best in

Joly.

humanity

it is

of the most remarkable and valujble contributions to the

been published in recent years"

literature of hagiology that has

2.

S. Augustine, by Prof. Ad. Hatjfeld.

"The whole

book may be unreservedly comnended as an excellent and

compendious account of Augustine's life and introduction to his works, stripped of
controversial matter or needless personal comment."
Outlook.

The Month. " The general result will be the familiarfeing of the ordinary educated
public with the true personality of one who is to so man/ little more than a name."
3.

S.

Vincent de Paul, by

Prince

Emmanuel de

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4.

To

S. Clotilda, by Prof. G. Ka'th.

be followed by others,

Small

crown

volume.

8vo.

which will le announced in due

Art vel'um,

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course.

each

New
The

series

fessor at the

is

Books

13

under the general editorship of M. Henri Joly, formerly Pro-

Sorbonne and

works upon Psychology

de France, author of numerous

at the College

and the English

translations are having,

and

will

continue to have, the advantage of the revision of the Rev. Father Tyrrell
S.J.

who

contributes to each volume a preface and, in

some

cases,

a few

notes addressed especially to English readers.

In order to give a true idea of the nature of the volumes the publishers give

below some passages from the

addressed by the general editor of the

letter

series to his collaborators.

" In a very remarkable

Mgr. Dupanloup did not

letter

upon the true method of writing the

hesitate to say that,

'

lives of the Saints,

there are very few lives of the Saints

Above and beyond everything

a love of the Saint, then a profound study of his life and spirit from original sources
and contemporary documents, then the portraiture of this soul and its struggles, and of
what nature and grace were in it all this traced with simplicity, truthfulness, dignity,
deep penetration and impressive detail, in such a way that the Saint and his times may
be faithfully represented, but nevertheless so that the presentation of the contemporary
facts of history may not blur the picture of the Saint, who should always remain the
most prominent figure in his story ; true and authentic facts, briefly set forth, but
arranged with skill and cleverly disposed, in a scholarly sequence preparing for and
illuminating everything;' the precaution of 'making the Saint himself tell his own
story, without which everything living and individual is apt to disappear, and thus all
Saints are made to resemble one another; ... a style, in short, simple, reverent,
written as they should be,' and he asks for this work,

'

else

touching and penetrative,'

" That all these qualities have been often enough united in works worthy of being
but it has been in the case of quarto books
studied we are very far from denying .
or in works in more than one volume. It has therefore been thought opportune to
present a living portrait of each of the great Saints in a more restrained form, in order
to draw attention to it and perhaps to re-form the ideas of a much larger circle of
.

readers."

The

following passage, taken from an article by the English Editor in The

Month

for

December

1897, entitled

'

'

What

is

Mysticism

? " will

also

be of use

as a further indication of the spirit in which the books are being written

"The

old time-honoured Saint's Life, with its emphasis on the miraculous and
startling features of the portrait, its suppression of what was natural, ordinary, and
therefore presumably uninteresting, and consequently its abandonment of all attempt to
weave the human and divine into one truthful and harmonious whole, showing the

gradual evolution of the perfect from the imperfect, to many minds makes no appeal
more subjective
. All this points to the need of what we might call a
whatever.
treatment of Saints' lives than we have been accustomed to and it is to this that the
*
formerly
to be dazzled
itself.
need
less
than
addresses
We
Saints
Psychologie des
with the wonderful, and more to be drawn to the loveable. We want to be put
en rapport with the Saints, to feel their humanity, to interpret it by our own, and
thereby to realise that no miracle they ever wrought is comparable to the miracle of
.

'

what they were."

"

&

Messrs Duckworth

14

Co.'s

THE TATLER.
Edited with Introduction and Notes by George A. Aitken,
author of "

The

volumes, small

bound

Life of Richard Steele,"

demy

buckram, dull gold top,

in

Four

etc.

8vo, with engraved frontispieces,

6d. per vol., not

7s.

sold separately.
{See Special Prospectus.)

Extract from the Editor's Preface.

'
'

The

1710-11

numbers of The Toiler were

original
;

re-issued in

two forms

in

one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while

the other, in

The

duodecimo, was for the general public.

edition has been

present

printed from a copy of the latter issue, which, as

recorded on the title-page, was "revised and corrected by the Author";

but

have had by

my

side,

in the

form in which they were

constant reference,

for

first

accuracy in the text has been aimed

which were

a complete set

" Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff

of the folio sheets, containing the

presented to the world.

at,

Scrupulous

but the eccentricities of spelling

the printer's, not the author's

have

not been preserved,

and the punctuation has occasionally been corrected.

The

and the most valuable of the annotated editions of The

first

Tatler was published by John Nichols and others in 1786, with notes

by Bishop Percy, Dr John Calder, and Dr Pearce

and though these

notes are often irrelevant and out of date, they contain an

amount of information, and have been

editors.

editions,

letters

to

supplement

published
light

made

have endeavoured to preserve what

and

it,

of

late

is

use of

years

The

immense

by subsequent

of value in the older

as concisely as possible,

information as appeared desirable.

throw

freely

by such

further

eighteenth century diaries and

have in many cases enabled

me

to

on passages which have hitherto been obscure, and some-

times useful illustrations have been found in the contemporary news-

papers and periodicals."

New

Books

15

KNAFF, ARTHUR MA K
AND MODERN JAPAN, by

FEUDAL
Knapp.

2 vols., with

Japanese

life,

24 photogravure

landscape and architecture.

8vo, J-bound, white cloth, blue sides,

The work

of one

who

Arthur

May

illustrations of

Small fcap.
8s. net.

gilt top.

has frequently visited, and for a long time resided in Japan,

thus enjoying peculiar advantages for observation and comment.

The scope of the book includes a study of the history, religion, language, art,

life,

and habits of the Japanese.

Though written in a thoroughly appreciative spirit, it avoids the indiscriminating
praise which has characterised so many works on Japan ; and while covering ground
which has become somewhat familiar, it presents many fresh points of view, and fur-

much

nishes

information heretofore inaccessible to the ordinary reader.

DANTE GABRIEL.
THE BLESSED DAMOZEL, by Dante
ROSSETTI,

Rossetti.
setti,

With an Introduction by

Wm.

Gabriel

Michael Ros-

a reproduction in Photogravure of D. G. Rossetti's

crayon study for the head of the Blessed Damozel, and

designs and

decorative

cover by

Fcap. 4to, ;^-bound, art vellum,

gilt

W.

Macdougall.

B.

top.

s.

net.

{See

Special FrospectMS.
is as it originally appeared in TAe Germ, and consequently the
one hitherto practically inaccessible. Mr W, M. Rossetti's Introduction deals
with the history of its composition and the changes through which it subsequently

The poem given here

version
fully

is

went.
Illustrated

London News.

modern format. The

The Sketch.. "It

"A

fine bit of

decorative art and an excellent sample of

Mr Macdougall's designs are rich."

frontispiece is very beautiful.

really beautifully illustrated.

is

The book

is

a veritable art

treasure."

Speaker.

This artistic and singularly interesting volume."

Every page contains a broad framework of beautiful design,
Binningkatn Gazette.
in which the artist manifests his power in glorious sweeping lines and delicate tracery.
A treasure to be appreciated. The noble poem is nobly decked out in every respect."
Manchester Courier. " The decorative designs are at once original, harmonious and
beautiful. A work which will be welcomed alike for its high literary value, and for the
'*

'

'

high

artistic

standard to which

it

attains."

Messrs Duckworth

&

Co.'s

MODERN

PLAYS.

Edited by R. Brimley Johnson and N. Erichsen.

the aim of this series to represent, as widely as possible, the

It is

modern drama

activity of the

not

confined to stage performance

England and throughout the continent of Europe.

It so

happens

in

that,

though translations seem to be more in demand every day, the greater

number of the Continental dramatists are

Among them

country.

Ibsen or Maeterlinck
the genius of their

as well as others

own

at present little

known

in this

be found predecessors and followers of

will

who

reflect

more independently

country.

Love's Comedy, which marks a transition from the early romantic to

the later social plays,

is

the only important

The name

translated into English.

work of

Ibsen's not yet

of Strindberg, whose position in

Sweden may be compared to that of Ibsen in Norway, will be almost

new to the English public. Villiers' La Rivolte is a striking forecast
of

The

Verhaeren

Doll's House.

is

already

known

here as one of the

foremost of Belgian writers, who, like Maeterlinck, uses the French

tongue

and Brieux

French dramatists.

World,"

is

is

among

the most attractive of the younger native

Ostrovsky's

Tfie

Storm,

painting

"The Dark

generally recognised as the characteristic Russian drama.

The Convert, by Stepniak,

will

be specially interesting as

its

author's

only dramatic attempt.

The work

of translation has been entrusted to English writers specially

conversant with the literatures represented, who,

in

many

cases, are

already associated in the public mind with the authors they are here
interpreting.

Every play

will

be translated in extenso, and,

as nearly as possible in the original metres.

brief introductions, bibliographical

and such annotations

The volumes

will

as

may be

The volumes

if in verse,

will contain

and explanatory rather than

critical,

necessary.

be printed in pott quarto, and they will cost, as a

rule, 2s. 6d. net. or 3s. 6d. net. each.

New

Books

17

EARLY VOLUMES.
HENRIK IBSEN
"Love's Comedy" {Kjcerlighedens Komedie).

MAURICE MAETERLINCK
"

William Archer.

Interieur."

" La Mort de Tintagiles."

^
"Alladine

et

Palomides."

ISLI
VILLIERS DE L'ISLE
" La Revolte
,,

"

Evasion,
L ,
^

\
J

Alfred Sutro.
,

ADAM

-Theresa Barclay,

SERGIUS STEPNIAK
"The

Constance Garnett.

Convert."

EMILE VERHAEREN
"Les Aubes."

Arthur Symons.

AUGUST STRINDBERG
" The Father" {Fadren).'^ Erichsen.
.

OSTROVSKY
"The

Storm."

Constance Garnett.

BRIEUX
" Les Bienfaiteurs."

Lucas Malet.

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
"

On

a Single Card." E. L. Voynich.

Arrangements are also in progress with representative dramatists of

Germany, Spain, Italy, and other countries. Further translations have
been promised by Dr GARNETT, Messrs Walter Leaf, Justin Huntly

MacCarthy, G. A. Greene,

&c.

&

Messrs Duckworth

TENNANT, MRS

H.

J.,

Co.'s

WILSON, MISS

and

MONA.

WORKING WOMEN IN FACTORIES, WORKSHOPS AND LAUNDRIES, AND HOW TO

HELP THEM, by May Tennant and Mona Wilson.
Small

Crown

8vo.

New

Novels.

JAMES, HENRY.

IN

THE

CAGE,

canvas.

by Henry James.

NEW

NOVEL,

RESOLVED TO BE
"Mr

MRS

art

W. K.

by Mrs W. K.

Clifford.

EDWARD

COOPER,

Author of

8vo,

\Ready.

3s. 6d.

CLIFFORD,

Crown

RICH,

H.

by Edward H. Cooper,

Blake of Newmarket," "The Marchioness

against the County," &c.

New

Books

19

STREET, LILIAN:

THE WORLD AND ONORA,

Author of " The

Crown

Actor."

Lilian

Street,

" Nell and the

Woman,"

Little Plain

8vo.

by

6s.

BATEMAN, MAY.

THE ALTAR OF
8vo.

LIFE,

by

May

Crown

Bateman.

6s.

GAUTIER, THEOPHILE.

CAPTAIN FRACASSE,
lated

(first

trated

by Th^ophile Gautier.

Trans-

time in English) by Ellen Murray Beam.

by Victor A.

Searles.

Crown

Illus-

8vo, 530 pp.

ss.

OSTLERE, EDITH.

FROM SEVEN

DIALS,

by Edith Ostlere.

Crown

Svo.

3s. 6d.

HENNESSY, PHILIP.

THE RED

CAT,

by Philip Hennessy.

Crown

Svo.

BARR Y, JOHN ARTHUR.

A SON OF THE SEA,
"

by John Arthur Barry, author of

In the Great Deep," " Steve Brown's Bunyip," etc.

AGAINST THE TIDES OF FATE

Stories,

by John Arthur Barry.

and

other

Messrs Duckworth

20

&

Co's

HOUSMAN, CLEMENCE.

THE UNKNOWN
Housman, Author

SEA.
of

art vellum, gold top.

Romance by Clemence

"The Were

Wolf."

Crown

8vo,

6s.

is

Literature. *' On the conception of Christian the author may be congratulated. He

ideal without sentimentality, and his sacrifice and death have the poignancy of

symbol though he

reality,

Guardian.

is

of the world's greatest idea."

"Decidedly powerful and effective.

Its author has certainly a spell by

which, like the ancient mariner, he can force people to listen to and accept his tale."

Pall Mall Gazette. "The story is a powerful one, stirring the imagination with
vague suggestions of mystery, and compelling interest throughout. For those who can
appreciate fine writing, moreover, the style itself will prove an added attraction, and
will not only sustain the reputation which Miss Housman has already made, but will
also enhance the lustre of the talented family of which she is a member."
St/ames's Gazette.

" The qualities that commend this book

are
studied and generally successful use
appreciation of the beauty of visible things. It achieves an absolute
an effect of a kind extremely rare in English that is not verse. The
and sense not, thank Heaven, common sense
in it, and is quite
common trash of the book market."
sion of the supernatural,

its

its fitting

impres-

of words,

and

its

of beauty,

effect

book has beauty

remote from the

Nottingham Daily Guardian. " 'The Unknown Sea'

is not a popular novel ; there

too much really fine work in it for that, but hardly a page fails to indicate the
methods
robust
author's delicate
and
individuality."

is

SIN/0JIN, JOHN.

JOCELYN.

Monte Carlo Story by John

Author of "From the Four Winds."

canvas.

Crown

Sinjohn,
8vo, art

6s.

Daily Mail." The love, as love, is shown with such intensity that
and the Riviera setting is aglow with colour and life."

it

sets the

reader's heart athrob,

Outlook. "He

has set it against a charmingly painted background of warm

Southern atmosphere and Mediterranean scenery, and he has drawn, in the persons of
Mrs Travis and Nielson the polished cosmopolitan and
professional gambler, with an unsuspected strain of tenderness beneath his impassive
the delightfully commonplace

two of the best comedy characters that we have encountered in recent fiction."
Manchester Courier. '* A powerfully written story. The analysis of character is
good, and the depiction of life in the Riviera is excellent."
exterior

New

Books

BURROW, a

THE FIRE OF

Crown

etc.

K.

Novel by C. K. Burrow,

Way

Madonna," "The

Author of "Asteck's
Wind,"

LIFE.

21

8vo, cloth.

of the

6s.

Si James's Gazette. " A clever story.

The smoothly-written little tale with its rather

amhitious title is a real pleasure to read, because it has a wholesome, manly tone about
it, and the characters do not appear to be bookmade but of real flesh and blood."
Saturday Review.

" A good, careful, full-blooded novel of a kind that

is

not

common

nowadays."

Outlook. " It has a point of view, a delicate sensitiveness, artistic restraint, subtlety

of perception,

and a true

Mr Burrow proves himself an

literary style.

artist

with

many

sides to his perception."

Literary World.

'* Had we passed it by unread ours would have

been the loss, A
charming story based on somewhat conventional lines, but told with such verve and
freshness as render it really welcome.
Mr Burrow has admirably succeeded in writing
a really interesting story, and, which is more uncommon, he has well individualised the
different persons of his drama.
The Fire of Life' should figure in the list of novels to
be read of all those who like a good story, and like that good story well told."
'

Manchester Courier.

" The

whole book

is full

of

'

fire,' full

of

life,"

and

full of

interest."

Express. "The

Nottingham
it would be

diction

author's style

PHILIPS,

MEN,

WOMEN AND

Author of " As

buckram

is

clear

and

crisp,

with a purity of

difficult to surpass."

cloth.

R a

THINGS,

by F. C.

in a Looking-Glass," etc.
3s.

Philips.

Crown

8vo,

6d.

Daily Mail." There is hardly one of them which is not enjoyable. Mr Philips's
manner is suggestive of the manner of Gyp. He is a capital chronicler of the surface
things of

life."

"The author has deservedly secured favour as a writer of

In the present volume of short sketches we have the usual vivid delineation of character, clever dialogue, and at times good use of incident. The volume is
decidedly entertaining."
Manchester Conrier.

smart stories.

Country Life.
Glass'

is

clever.

"Everything
There

is

that

is

written by the author of

'As

ingenuity as well as pathos in these stories,"

in

a Looking-

&

Messrs Duckworth

22

The

New

Co.'s

Christmas Book by the Authors of

"Animal Land."

CORBET, SYBIL
SYBIL'S

KATHARINE.

and

GARDEN OF PLEASANT BEASTS,

by Sybil and Katharine Corbet.

in colour.

Oblong crown

4to.

Reproduced throughout
53.

BROWNING, ROBERT.
PIPPA PASSES. A Drama by Robert Browning.

With

Seven Drawings by L. Leslie Brooke, reproduced in

photogravure.
artist,

FAL

4to, with

Fcap.

blue art vellum,

and SIR

gilt,

cover design by the

gold top.

5s. net.

PHILIP BURNE-JONES,

FABLES BY FAL.
4to,

With Pictures

In Prose and Verse.

and cover design by Philip Burne-Jones.

pink cloth, blue edges.

Bart.

Square medium

3s. 6d.

BE VAN, STUART.
THE EVERLASTING ANIMALS AND OTHER
JENNINGS, EDITH,

STORIES,

and

by Edith Jennings; with seven coloured

drawings and cover design

crown

by Stuart Bevan.

4to, scarlet cloth, yellow edges.

The endeavour has been attempted

to

make

58.

these stories as interesting as possible,

young children may be able

understand them without any translation or alteration on the part of the reader.

whilst using very few long or difficult words, so that very

to

Large

New

Books

23

HAPGOOD, NORMAN,

LITERARY STATESMEN AND

OTHERS.

Essays upon Lord Rosebery, John Morley, A.

Henry James, etc., by Norman Hapgood.

buckram cloth, gilt top. 6s.

J.

Balfour,

Crown

8vo,

Daily News. "Mr Hapgood's essays exhibit a good deal ot penetration and critical
acumen."
Daily Telegraph. *' Careful pieces of work."
Daily Chronicle. " Mr Norman Hapgood is an able writer, by no means to be despised, whether as an aesthetician or a psychologist. The unaffected straightforwardness of his dogmatism is, to us at any rate, by no means unsympathetic- His judgments,
too, though subject to numberless reservations, are almost always acute and worth

considering."

L YTTELTON, THE HON. R. H.

CRICKET, by R. H. Lyttelton. Small crown
Cloth.

IS.

8vo.

6d.

Atkenceum. " All the hints and comments are capital."

Guardian. " We have nothing but praise for this book."
" We heartily commend this interesting little manual of a notable cricketer."
Globe.
Birvzinghant Post. " It is a most admirable budget of experience and philosophy."
Literary World. "Whatever else devotees of the national game may decide to
leave unbought they really would be ill-advised were they to close their pockets
against this capital little book. A volume for which we are grateful, and we hope
hundreds and hundreds of players will be of the same mind as ourselves."

The book

contains chapters on the following subjects

Fielding,

piring

Batting,

Bowling,

Gentlemen and Players, The Australians, Captaincy UmCricket Reform, Giants of the Game, University Cricket

Matches.

THE HUMANITARIAN. A Monthly Magazine.

Volume

(XIII.), July 1898, No. L, price 6d.

by Victoria WoodhuU Martin and Zula

New

Edited

Maud WoodhuU.

a monthly magazine devoted to the study of social and

It is the organ of no sect, clique, or party,
scientific questions from all points of view.
but aims at getting the opinions of the best men and women on all subjects which affect
the welfare of the race, and welcomes as fellow-workers all those who have the true
interests of humanity at heart, without distinction of race or creed.
The Humanitarian has won for itself a recognised position as the frank and fearless
exponent of old truths and new ideas. The object of the magazine is to discuss freely
all matters which concern the spiritual, mental, and physical health of humanity.

The Hufnanitarian

is

'*

^.

J;-

.?{*;

-.*',".:..

'-.'5

rf

4--

fa'"