Читать книгу The Ghost World - Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton - Страница 7

One of the forms which the soul is said occasionally to assume at death is that of a bird – a pretty belief which, under one form or another, exists all over the world. An early legend tells how, when St. Polycarp was burnt alive, there arose from his ashes a white dove which flew towards heaven; and a similar story is told of Joan of Arc. The Russian peasantry affirm that the souls of the departed haunt their old homes in the shape of birds for six weeks, and watch the grief of the bereft, after which time they fly away to the other world. In certain districts bread-crumbs are placed on a piece of white linen at a window during those six weeks, when the soul is believed to come and feed upon them in the form of a bird. It is generally into pigeons or crows that the dead are transformed. Thus, when the Deacon Theodore and his three schismatic brethren were burnt in the year 1682, writes Mr. Ralston,92 ‘the souls of the martyrs appeared in the air as pigeons.’ In Volhynia dead children are believed to come back in the spring to their native village under the semblance of swallows and other small birds, endeavouring, by soft twittering or song, to console their sorrowing parents. The Bulgarians say that after death the soul assumes the form of a bird; and according to an old Bohemian fancy the soul flies out of the dying in a similar shape. In the ‘Chronicles of the Beatified Anthony’93 we find described fetid and black pools ‘in regione Puteolorum in Apulia,’ whence the souls arise in the form of monstrous birds in the evening hours of the Sabbath, which neither eat nor let themselves be caught, but wander till in the morning an enormous lion compels them to submerge themselves in the water.

It is a German belief that the soul of one who has died on shipboard passes into a bird, and when seen at any time it is supposed to announce the death of another person. The ghost of the murdered mother comes swimming in the form of a duck, or the soul sits in the likeness of a bird on the grave. This piece of folk-lore has been introduced into many of the popular folk-tales, as in the well-known story of the juniper tree. A little boy is killed by his step-mother, who serves him up as a dish of meat to his father. The father eats in ignorance, and throws away the bones, which are gathered up by the half-sister, who puts them into a silk handkerchief and buries them under a juniper tree. But presently a bird of gay plumage perches on the tree, and whistles as it flits from branch to branch:

– a rhyme which Goethe puts into the mouth of Gretchen in prison.94 In Grimm’s story of ‘The White and the Black Bride,’ the mother and sister push the true bride into the stream. At the same moment a snow-white swan is discovered swimming down the stream.

Swedish folk-lore tells us that the ravens which scream by night in forest swamps and wild moors are the ghosts of murdered men whose bodies have been hidden by their undetected murderers, and not had Christian burial. In Denmark the night-raven is considered an exorcised spirit, and there is said to be a hole in its left wing caused by the stake driven into the earth. Where a spirit has been exorcised, it is only through the most frightful swamps and morasses that it ascends, first beginning under the earth with the cry of ‘Rok! rok!’ then ‘Rok op! rok op!’ and when it has thus come forth, it flies away screaming ‘Hei! hei! he! – i!’ When it has flown up it describes a cross, but one must take care, it is said, not to look up when the bird is flying overhead, for he who sees through the hole in its wing will become a night-raven himself, and the night-raven will be released. This ominous bird is ever flying towards the east, in the hope of reaching the Holy Sepulchre, for when it arrives there it will find rest.95 Then there is the romantic Breton ballad of ‘Lord Nann and the Korrigan,’ wherein it is related how —

In Mexico it is a popular belief that after death the souls of nobles animate beautiful singing birds, and certain North American Indian tribes maintain that the souls of their chiefs take the form of small woodbirds.96 Among the Abipones of Paraguay we are told of a peculiar kind of little ducks which fly in flocks at night-time, uttering a mournful tone, and which the popular imagination associates with the souls of those who have died. Darwin mentions a South American Indian who would not eat land-birds because they were dead men; and the Californian tribes abstain from large game, believing that the souls of past generations have passed into their bodies. The Içannas of Brazil thought the souls of brave warriors passed into lovely birds that fed on pleasant fruits; and the Tapuyas think the souls of the good and the brave enter birds, while the cowardly become reptiles. Indeed, the primitive psychology of such rude tribes reminds us how the spirit freed at death —

It was also a belief of the Aztecs that all good people, as a reward of merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous bowers of Paradise; while certain African tribes think that the souls of wicked men become jackals. The Brazilians imagined that the souls of the bad animated those birds that inhabited the cavern of Guacharo and made a mournful cry, which birds were religiously feared.

Tracing similar beliefs in our own country, may be compared the Lancashire dread of the so-called ‘Seven Whistlers,’ which are occasionally heard at night, and are supposed to contain the souls of those Jews who assisted at the Crucifixion, and in consequence of their wickedness were doomed to float for ever in the air. Numerous stories have been told, from time to time, of the appearance of these ‘Seven Whistlers,’ and of their being heard before some terrible catastrophe, such as a colliery explosion. A correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ relates how during a thunderstorm which passed over Kettering, in Yorkshire, on the evening of September 6, 1871, ‘on which occasion the lightning was very vivid, an unusual spectacle was witnessed. Immense flocks of birds were flying about, uttering doleful affrighted cries as they passed over the locality, and for hours they kept up a continual whistling like that made by sea-birds. There must have been great numbers of them, as they were also observed at the same time in the counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln. The next day, as my servant was driving me to a neighbouring village, this phenomenon of the flight of birds became the subject of conversation, and on asking him what birds he thought they were, he told me they were what were called the “Seven Whistlers,” and that whenever they were heard it was considered a sign of some great calamity, and that the last time he heard them was the night before the great Hartley Colliery explosion. He had also been told by soldiers, that if they heard them they always expected a great slaughter would take place soon. Curiously enough, on taking up the newspaper the following morning, I saw headed in large letters, “Terrible Colliery Explosion at Wigan,” &c.’ Wordsworth speaks of the ‘Seven Whistlers’ in connection with the spectral hounds of the wild huntsman:

A similar tradition prevails on the Bosphorus with reference to certain flocks of birds, about the size of a thrush, which fly up and down the Channel, and are never seen to rest on the land or water. These are supposed to be the souls of the damned, and condemned to perpetual motion. Among further instances of the same belief may be mentioned one current among the Manx herring fishermen, who, from time immemorial, have been afraid of going to sea without a dead wren, for fear of disasters and storms. The story goes that once upon a time ‘a sea spirit hunted the herring track, always attended by storms, but at last assumed the form of a wren, and flew away.’ Accordingly they believe that so long as they have a dead wren with them all is snug and safe. Similarly, in the English Channel a rustling, rushing sound is occasionally heard on the dark still nights of winter, and is called the herring spear, or herring piece, by the fishermen of Dover and Folkestone. But this strange sound is really caused by the flight of the little redwings as they cross the Channel on their way to warmer regions.

Stories of disembodied souls appearing as birds are very numerous. An old well-known Cornish legend tells how, in days of old, King Arthur was transformed into a chough, ‘its talons and beak all red with blood,’ denoting the violent end to which the celebrated chieftain came. In the same way a curious legend in Poland affirms that every member of the Herburt family assumes the form of an eagle after death, and that the eldest daughters of the Pileck line take the shape of doves if they die unmarried, of owls if they die married, and that they give previous notice of their death to every member of their race by pecking a finger of each. A wild song sung by the boatmen of the Molo, Venice, declares that the spirit of Daniel Manin, the patriot, is flying about the lagunes to this day in the shape of a beautiful white dove.97 There is the ancient Irish tradition that the first father and mother of mankind exist as eagles in the island of Innis Bofin, at the mouth of Killery Bay, in Galway; indeed, survivals of this old belief occur under all manner of forms. There is the popular legend of the owl and the baker’s daughter which Shakespeare has immortalised in ‘Hamlet’ (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims, ‘They say the owl was a baker’s daughter; Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.’98 Gervase of Tilbury tells how the stork was formerly regarded as both bird and man, on account of which superstition it is carefully protected in Prussia from any kind of injury. The stork, too, is still held in superstitious dread by the Chinese, who, on the twenty-first day of the period of mourning for the dead, place three large paper birds resembling storks on high poles in front of the house of mourning. The birds are supposed to carry the soul of the deceased person to Elysium, and during the next three days the Buddhist prays to the ten kings of the Buddhist Hades, calling on them to hasten the flight of the departed soul to the Western Paradise.99 The Virginian Indians had great reverence for a small bird called Pawcorance, that flies in the woods, and in its note continually sounds that name. This bird flies alone, and is heard only in twilight. It is said to be the son of one of their priests, and on this account they would not hurt it; but there was once a profane Indian who was hired to shoot one of them, but report says he paid dearly for his act of presumption, for a few days afterwards he disappeared, and was never heard of again.100 The Indians dwelling about the Falls of St. Anthony supposed that the spirits of their dead warriors animated the eagles which frequented the place, and these eagles were objects of their worship. In the ‘Sæmund Edda’ it is said that in the nether world souls as singed birds fly about like swarms of flies —

The Finns and the Lithuanians speak of the ‘Milky Way’ as the Bird’s Way – the way of souls. According to Kuhn, the notion of the soul assuming the form of a bird is closely allied with the primitive tradition of birds as soul-bringers. Thus, as it has been suggested, ‘the soul and the bird that brought it down to earth may have been supposed to become one, and to enter and quit the body together.’ In the Egyptian hieroglyphics a bird signified the soul of man; and the German name for stork, writes Grimm, is literally child, or soul-bringer. Hence the belief that the advent of infants is presided over by this bird, which obtains so wide a credence in Denmark and Germany.101

The idea of the bird as a ‘soul bringer’ probably gave rise to the popular belief that it is unlucky when a bird hovers near the window of a sick-room, a superstition to which Mrs. Hemans has prettily alluded:

There are various stories told of mysterious birds appearing at such a time in different localities. In Devonshire the appearance of a white breasted bird has long been considered a presage of death, a notion which is said to have originated in a tragic occurrence that happened to one of the Oxenham family. A local ballad tells how on the bridal eve of Margaret, heiress of Sir James Oxenham, a silver-breasted bird flew over the wedding guests just as Sir James stood up to thank them for good wishes. The next day she was slain by a discarded lover, and the ballad records how —

In Yorkshire, Berry Well was supposed to be haunted by a bogie in the form of a white goose, and the Rev. S. Baring-Gould informs us how Lew Trenchard House is haunted by a white lady who goes by the name of Madame Gould, and is supposed to be the spirit of a lady who died there, April 10, 1795. ‘A stone is shown on the “ramps” of Lew Slate Quarry, where seven parsons met to lay the old madame, and some say that the white owl, which nightly flits to and fro in front of Lew House, is the spirit of the lady conjured by the parsons into a bird.’102

Similarly, whenever the white owls are seen perched on the family mansion of the noble family of Arundel of Wardour, it is regarded as a certain indication that one of its members will shortly be summoned out of the world. In Count Montalembert’s ‘Vie de Ste. Elizabeth’ it is related how ‘Duke Louis of Thuringia, the husband of Ste. Elizabeth of Hungary, being on the point of expiring, said to those around him, “Do you see those doves more white than snow?” His attendants supposed him to be a prey to visions; but a little while afterwards he said to them, “I must fly away with those brilliant doves.” Having said this he fell asleep in peace. Then his almoner, Berthold, perceived doves flying away to the east, and followed them along with his eyes.’ We may compare a similar story told of the most beautiful woman of the Knistenaux, named ‘Foot of the Fawn,’ who died in her childbirth, and her babe with her. Soon afterwards two doves appeared, one full grown, and the other a little one. They were the spirits of the mother and child, and the Indians would gather about the tree on which they were perched with reverential love, and worship them as the spirit of the woman and child.103 There is Lord Lyttelton’s well-known ghost story, and the belief of the Duchess of Kendal that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven. Another well-known case was that of the Duchess of St. Albans, who, on her death-bed, remarked to her step-daughter, Lady Guilford, ‘I am so happy to day because your father’s spirit is breathing upon me; he has taken the shape of a little bird singing at my window.’ Kelly relates an anecdote of a credulous individual who believed that the departing soul of his brother-in-law, in the form of a bird, tapped at his window at the time of his death;104 and in FitzPatrick’s ‘Life of Bishop Doyle’ it is related, in allusion to his death, that, ‘considering the season was midsummer, and not winter, the visit of two robin redbreasts to the sick-room may be noticed as interesting. They remained fluttering round, and sometimes perching on the uncurtained bed. The priests, struck by the novelty of the circumstance, made no effort to expel the little visitors, and the robins hung lovingly over the bishop’s head until death released him.’ A singular instance of this belief was the extraordinary whim of a Worcester lady, who, imagining her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing-bird, literally furnished her pew in the Cathedral with cages full of the kind; and we are told in Lord Oxford’s letters that, as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly.