Part 3 (1/2)

Numerous saints were invoked against diseases: _e.g._, St. Clara against sore eyes; St. Genow, gout; St. Marus, palsies and convulsions; St.

Sigismund, fevers, &c.

”There be many miracles a.s.signed to saints,” writes Barnaby Rich, in 1619, ”that they say are good for all diseases: they can give sight to the blind, make the deafe to hear; they can restore limbs that be crippled, and make the lame go upright; they be good for horse, swine, and many other beasts. And women, also, have shee-saints.... They have saints to pray to when they be grieved with a third-day ague, when they be pained with toothache, or when they would be revenged on their angry husbands.

”They have saints that be good amongst poultry when they have the pip, for geese when they do sit, to have a happy success in goslings; and, to be short, there is no disease, no sickness, no griefe, either amongst men or beasts, that hath not his physician among the saints.”[28]

The Romish church also adopted the pagan belief in apparitions, and as the latter had supported the argument in favour of the existence of the G.o.ds by the fiction of their occasional manifestations in a visible form, so the former endeavoured to sustain its dogmas by fables of the apparition, from time to time, of its saints.

It is needless to dwell upon the manner in which this church pandered to the credulity of the people in this respect, for an example is before the world even at the present time in the apparition of the Blessed Virgin near La Salette, a village about four miles from Corps, a small town situated on the road between Gren.o.ble and Gap.

The story is as follows:--On the 19th September, 1846, the Blessed Virgin appeared to two children, the one a boy aged 11, and the other a girl aged 14 years, who were watching cows near a fountain, in the hollow of a ravine in the mountains, about four miles from the church of La Salette. When first seen, she was in a sitting position, the head resting upon the hands, and she ”had on white shoes, with roses about her shoes. The roses were of all colours. Her socks were yellow, her ap.r.o.n yellow, and her gown white, with pearls all over it. She had a white neckerchief, with roses round it; a high cap, a little bent in front; a crown round her cap with roses. She had a very small chain, to which was attached a crucifix; on the right were some pincers, on the left a hammer; at the extremities of the cross was another huge chain, which fell, like the roses, round her handkerchief. Her face was white and long.”

Addressing the children, tears coursing down her cheeks, she spoke to them on the wickedness of the peasantry, particularly their neglect of the Sabbath and of the duties of Lent, when they ”go like dogs to the butchers' stalls.” Then she foretold that if the men would not be converted, there should be no potatoes at Christmas, all the corn should be eaten up by animals, or if any did grow up, it should fall to dust when thrashed. There should be a great famine, preceding which ”children below seven years of age should have convulsions, and die in the arms of those who held them; and the rest should do penance by hunger. Nuts and grapes also should perish. But if men were converted, then the rocks and stones shall be changed into heaps of corn, and potatoes shall be sown all over the land.” ”The lady,” in addition, confided to each of the children a secret which was not to be told to the other, but which they confided to the Pope in 1851. Then, after a little gossiping conversation, ”the lady” vanished.

Soon after this apparition had been noised abroad, it was discovered that the waters of the fountain were possessed of marvellous healing properties, and many miraculous cures were effected by its use. Pilgrims flocked to the scene of the vision, and it is affirmed that in one day 60,000 of the faithful ascended the mountain.

Among others, the present Bishop of Orleans made a pilgrimage to the ”holy mountain,” and he was so impressed by the solemn feelings excited by treading on such holy ground, that he often e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”It cannot be but that the finger of G.o.d is here.” Other ecclesiastics of rank also visited the spot, and the whole affair was officially sanctioned.

Nor did the matter rest here, for churches are being built, and dedicated to ”Our Lady of Salette,” in different countries; and a society has been established in England bearing her name.

We have already alluded to the sacred fountains of heathen nations, and in the holy fountain of Salette we witness the modern development of a similar superst.i.tion. So also in the apparition of the Virgin the same credulity is traced which prompted the ancients to believe in the occasional appearance of their deities.

It is related that Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter, by Leda the wife of Tyndarus, were seen fighting at the battle of Regillus; and that, subsequently, mounted on white horses, they appeared to P.

Vatienus, as he journeyed by night to Rome, from his government of Reate, and told him that King Perses had that day been taken prisoner.

On these legends Cicero remarks; ”Do you believe that the Tyndaridae, as you called them, that is, men sprung from men, and buried in Lacedemon, as we learn from Homer, who lived in the next age,--do you believe, I say, that they appeared to Vatienus on the road, mounted on white horses, without any servant to attend them, to tell the victory of the Romans to a country fellow rather than to M. Cato, who was that time the chief person of the senate? Do you take that print of a horse's hoof, which is now to be seen on a stone at Regillus, to be made by Castor's horse? Should you not believe, what is probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as the Tyndaridae, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies, which had been reduced to ashes, should mount on horses and fight in an army? If you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and not amuse us with fabulous stories.”

”Do you take these for fabulous stories?” says Balbus. ”Is not the temple built by Posthumius in honour of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still subsisting?... Ought not such authorities to move you?”

”You oppose me,” replies Cotta, ”with stories, but I ask reasons of you.”[29]

It would seem then that the parallelism is perfect, even to the building of temples, and the official recognition of the truth of the event.

Of the individual personages of ancient mythology very few traces remain in England, and these princ.i.p.ally belong to the fairy belief. This superst.i.tion, of which the a.n.a.logue is found in the Nymphs, Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, Lemoniads, and Nerieds, of ancient Greece and Rome, is still prevalent in certain districts of this country; and the extinction of the general belief, among the lower orders, of one of the most noted of the personages which are met with in fairy lore, the _hobgoblin_, is comparatively of recent date. The name is, however, still familiar, and in use for certain vague manifestations of the supernatural, although the actual signification of the term is, to a great extent, lost sight of.

The hobgoblin is worthy of notice not only for its intrinsic interest, but also for the ill.u.s.tration which it affords of the intimate relations.h.i.+p which is often found to exist between the superst.i.tions of different and even far distant nations.

This spirit, in his palmy days, was that fairy which attached itself to houses, and the neighbourhood of dwellings and churches (for even sacred edifices were not exempted from its influence). In disposition it was mischievous and sportive, although it often deigned, during the night, to perform many menial offices, and whatsoever building it attached itself to prospered. It was apt to take offence, particularly if, as a reward, money or clothes were placed for it in that part of the house it most frequented; but it was partial to cream, or some delicately prepared eatable, and any housewife who was careful to conciliate the spirit by administering to this taste, was certain to be well rewarded.

As might be antic.i.p.ated, it was a favourite character with poets, and descriptions of its propensities and actions abound. Thus, in the ”Midsummer Night's Dream” (Act II, Sc. 1), one of the Fairies is represented as addressing this spirit, and saying:--

”Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skims milk, and labours in the quern, And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn; And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm; Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, You do their work and they shall have good luck, Are not you he?

_Puck._ Thou speakest aright, I am that merry wanderer of the night.

I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal; And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks against her lips I bob, And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.

The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her b.u.m, down topples she, And _tailor_ cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and reeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.”

Milton, in the ”L'Allegro,” writes of him in a different office, and--