Читать книгу The Spirit Land - Samuel B. Emmons - Страница 11

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Fairies, says a certain author, are a sort of intermediate beings, between men and women, having bodies, yet with the power of rendering them invisible, and of passing through all sorts of enclosures. They are remarkably small of stature, with fair complexions, whence they derive their name, fairies. Both male and female are generally clothed in green, and frequent mountains, the sunny side of hills, groves, and green meadows, where they amuse themselves with dancing, hand in hand, in a circle, by moonlight. The traces of their feet are said to be visible, next morning, on the grass, and are commonly called fairy rings, or circles.

Fairies have all the passions and wants of men, and are great lovers of cleanliness and propriety; for the observance of which, they frequently reward servants, by dropping money in their shoes. They likewise punish sluts and slovens by pinching them black and blue. They often change their weak and starveling elves, or children, for the more robust offspring of men. But this can only be done before baptism; for which reason it is still the custom, in the Highlands, to watch by the cradle of infants till they are christened. The word changeling, now applied to one almost an idiot, attests the current belief of these superstitious mutations.

Some fairies dwell in mines, and in Wales nothing is more common than these subterranean spirits, called knockers, who very good naturedly point out where there is a rich vein of lead or silver. In Scotland there was a sort of domestic fairies, from their sun-burnt complexions, called brownies. These were extremely useful, performing all sorts of domestic drudgery.

In the Life of Dr. Adam Clarke, we have the following account of a circumstance that took place in the town of Freshford, county of Kilkenny, Ireland, showing the superstition prevailing in that country concerning the influence of these fairy beings: "A farmer built himself a house of three apartments, the kitchen in the middle, and a room for sleeping, &c., on either end. Some time after it was finished, a cow of his died—then a horse; to these succeeded other smaller animals, and last of all his wife died. Full of alarm and distress, supposing himself to be an object of fairy indignation, he went to the fairy man, that is, one who pretends to know fairy customs, haunts, pathways, antipathies, caprices, benevolences, &c., and he asked his advice and counsel on the subject of his losses. The wise man, after having considered all things, and cast his eye upon the house, said, 'The fairies, in their night walks from Knockshegowny Hill, in county Tipperary, to the county of Kilkenny, were accustomed to pass over the very spot where one of your rooms is now built; you have blocked up their way, and they were very angry with you, and have slain your cattle, and killed your wife, and, if not appeased, may yet do worse harm to you.' The poor fellow, sadly alarmed, went, and with his own hands, deliberately pulled down the timbers, demolished the walls, and left not one stone upon another, but razed the very foundation, and left the path of these capricious gentry as open and as clear as it was before. How strong must have been this man's belief in the existence of these demi-natural and semi-supernatural beings, to have induced him thus to destroy the work of his own hands!"

In Spenser's epic poem, called the Fairy Queen, the imagination of the reader is entertained with the characters of fairies, witches, magicians, demons, and departed spirits. A kind of pleasing horror is raised in the mind, and one is amused with the strangeness and novelty of the persons who are represented in it; but to be affected by such poetry requires an odd turn of thought, a peculiar cast of fancy, with an imagination naturally fruitful and superstitious.

The Gypsies are a class of strolling beggars, cheats, and fortune tellers. They have been quite numerous in all the older countries, and are so still in some of them; but in the United States there are but few, some one or two tribes in the west, and a small party of them in New York state. They are probably called Gypsies from the ancient Egyptians, who had the character of great cheats, whence the name might afterwards pass proverbially into other languages, as it did into the Greek and Latin; or else the ancient Egyptians being much versed in astronomy, or rather astrology, the name was afterwards assumed by these modern fortune tellers. In Latin they are called Egyptii; the Italians called them Cinari, or Cingani; the Russians, Zigani; the Turks and Persians, Zingarri; the Germans, Ziguenor; the Spaniards, Gitános; the French, Bohemians, from the circumstance that Bohemia was the first civilized country where they made their appearance.

In most countries they live in the woods and forests; but in England, where every inch of land is cultivated, the covered cart and little tent are their houses, and they seldom remain more than three days in the same place.

Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female Gypsy. She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philters, by means of which love can be awakened in any individual towards any particular object; and such is the credulity of the human race, even in the most enlightened countries, that the profits arising from these practices are great. The following is a case in point: Two females, neighbors and friends, were tried, some years since, for the murder of their husbands. It appeared that they were in love for the same individual, and had conjointly, at various times, paid sums of money to a Gypsy woman to work charms to captivate his affections. Whatever little effect the charms might produce, they were successful in their principal object, for the person in question carried on for some time a criminal intercourse with both. The matter came to the knowledge of the husbands, who, taking means to break off this connection, were both poisoned by their wives. Till the moment of conviction, these wretched females betrayed neither emotion nor fear; but at this juncture their consternation was indescribable. They afterwards confessed that the Gypsy, who had visited them in prison, had promised to shield them from conviction by means of her art. It is therefore not surprising that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when a belief in sorcery was supported by the laws of all Europe, these people were regarded as practisers of sorcery, and punished as such, when, even in the nineteenth, they still find people weak enough to place confidence in their claims to supernatural power.

In telling fortunes, the first demand of the Gypsy, in England, is invariably a sixpence, in order that she may cross her hands with silver; and here the same promises are made, and as easily believed, as in other countries, leading to the conclusion that mental illumination, amongst the generality of mankind, has made no progress whatever; as we observe in the nineteenth century the same gross credulity manifested as in the seventeenth, and the inhabitants of one of the countries most celebrated for the arts of civilization imposed upon by the same stale tricks which served to deceive, two centuries before, in Spain, a country whose name has long and justly been considered as synonymous with every species of ignorance and barbarity.

In telling fortunes, promises are the only capital requisite, and the whole art consists in properly adapting these promises to the age and condition of the parties who seek for information. The Gitános are clever enough in the accomplishment of this, and generally give perfect satisfaction. Their practice lies chiefly amongst females, the portion of the human race most given to curiosity and credulity. To the young maidens they promise lovers, handsome invariably, and oftentimes rich; to wives, children, and perhaps another husband; for their eyes are so penetrating, that occasionally they will develop your most secret thoughts and wishes; to the old, riches, and nothing but riches—for they have sufficient knowledge of the human heart to be aware that avarice is the last passion that becomes extinct within it. These riches are to proceed either from the discovery of hidden treasure, or from across the water. The Gitános, in the exercise of this practice, find dupes almost as readily amongst the superior classes, as the veriest dregs of the population.

They are also expert in chiromancy, which is the determining, from certain lines upon the hand, the quality of the physical and intellectual powers of the possessor, to which lines they give particular and appropriate names, the principal of which is called the "line of life." An ancient writer, in speaking of this art, says, "Such chiromancy is not only reprobated by theologians, but by men of law and physic, as a foolish, vain, scandalous, futile, superstitious practice, smelling much of divinery and a pact with the devil."

The Gitános in the olden time appear to have not unfrequently been subjected to punishment as sorceresses, and with great justice, as the abominable trade which they have always driven in philters and decoctions certainly entitled them to that appellation, and to the pains and penalties reserved for those who practised what is generally termed "witchcraft."

Amongst the crimes laid to their charge, connected with the exercise of occult powers, there is one of a purely imaginary character, which if they were ever punished for, they had assuredly but little right to complain, as the chastisement they met with was fully merited by practices equally malefic as the one imputed to them, provided that were possible. It was the casting the evil eye.

In the Gitáno language, casting the evil eye is called zuerelar nasula, which simply means making sick, and which, according to the common superstition, is accomplished by casting an evil look at people, especially children, who, from the tenderness of their constitution, are supposed to be more easily blighted than those of a more mature age. After receiving the evil glance, they fall sick, and die in a few hours.

In Andalusia, a belief in the evil eye is very prevalent among the lower orders. A stag's horn is considered a good safeguard, and on that account, a small horn, tipped with silver, is frequently attached to the children's necks, by means of a cord braided from the hair of a black mare's tail. Should the evil glance be cast, it is imagined that the horn receives it, and instantly snaps asunder. Such horns may be purchased at the silversmiths' shops at Seville.

The Gypsies sell remedies for the evil eye, which consist of any drugs which they happen to possess, or are acquainted with. They have been known to offer to cure the glanders in a horse, (an incurable disorder,) with the very same powders which they offer as a specific for the evil eye.

The same superstition is current among all Oriental people, whether Turks, Arabs, or Hindoos; but perhaps there is no nation in the world with whom the belief is so firmly rooted as the Jews; it being a subject treated of in all the old rabbinical writings, which induces the conclusion that the superstition of the evil eye is of an antiquity almost as remote as the origin of the Hebrew race.

The evil eye is mentioned in Scripture, but not in the false and superstitious sense we have spoken of. Evil in the eye, which occurs in Prov. xxiii. 5, 6, merely denotes niggardness and illiberality. The Hebrew words are ain ra, and stand in contradistinction to ain toub, or the benignant in eye, which denotes an inclination to bounty and liberality.

The rabbins have said, "For one person who dies of sickness, there are ten who die by the evil eye." And as the Jews, especially those of the East, and of Barbary, place implicit confidence in all that the rabbins have written, we can scarcely wonder if, at the present day, they dread this visitation more than the cholera or the plague. "The leech," they say, "can cure those disorders; but who is capable of curing the evil eye?"

It is imagined that this blight is most easily inflicted when a person is enjoying himself, with little or no care for the future, when he is reclining in the sun before his door, or when he is full of health and spirits, but principally when he is eating and drinking, on which account the Jews and Moors are jealous of strangers when they are taking their meals.

"I was acquainted," says a late writer, "with a very handsome Jewess, of Fez; she had but one eye, but that one was particularly brilliant. On asking her how she lost its fellow, she informed me that she was once standing in the street, at nightfall, when she was a little girl; a Moor, that was passing by, suddenly stopped, and said, 'Towac Ullah, (blessed be God,) how beautiful are your eyes, my child!' Whereupon she went into the house, but was presently seized with a dreadful pain in the left eye, which continued during the night, and the next day the pupil came out of the socket. She added, that she did not believe the Moor had any intention of hurting her, as he gazed on her so kindly; but that it was very thoughtless in him to utter words which are sure to convey evil luck." It is said to be particularly dangerous to eat in the presence of a woman; for the evil eye, if cast by a woman, is far more fatal and difficult to cure than if cast by a man.

When any one falls sick of the evil eye, he must instantly call to his assistance the man cunning in such cases. The man, on coming, takes either a girdle or a handkerchief from off his own person, and ties a knot at either end; then he measures three spans with his left hand, and at the end of these three he fastens a knot, and folds it three times round his head, pronouncing this beraka, or blessing: "Ben porat Josef, ben porat ali ain," (Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well;) he then recommences measuring the girdle or handkerchief, and if he finds three spans and a half, instead of the three which he formerly measured, he is enabled to tell the name of the person who cast the evil eye, whether male or female.

The above very much resembles the charm of the Bible and key, by which many persons in England still pretend to be able to discover the thief, when an article is missed. A key is placed in a Bible, in the part called Solomon's Song; the Bible and key are then fastened strongly together, by means of a ribbon, which is wound round the Bible, and passed several times through the handle of the key, which projects from the top of the book. The diviner then causes the person robbed to name the name of any person or persons whom he may suspect. The two parties, the robbed and the diviner, then standing up, support the book between them, the ends of the handle of the key resting on the tips of the fore fingers of the right hand. The diviner then inquires of the Bible, whether such a one committed the theft, and commences repeating the sixth and seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song; and if the Bible and key turn round in the mean time, the person named is considered guilty. This charm has been, and still is, the source of infinite mischief, innocent individuals having irretrievably lost their character among their neighbors from recourse being had to the Bible and key. The slightest motion of the finger, or rather of the nail, will cause the key to revolve, so that the people named are quite at the mercy of the diviner, who is generally a cheat, or professed conjurer, and not unfrequently a Gypsy. In like manner, the Barbary cunning man, by a slight contraction of his hand, measures three and a half spans, where he first measured three, and then pretends to know the person who has cast the evil eye, having, of course, first ascertained the names of those with whom his patient has lately been in company.