Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-Lore: Chiefly Lancashire and the North of England, Their Affinity to Others in Widely-Distributed Localities, Their Eastern Origin and Mythical Significance

335 Pages·2010·1.86 MB·English

by  Charles Hardwick

T R A D I T I O N S ,
S U P E R S T I T I O N S ,
AND FOLK-LORE,
(CHIEFLY LANCASHIRE AND THE NORTH OF ENGLAND:)
Their affinity to others in widely-distributed
l o c a l i t i e s :
THEIR EASTERN ORIGIN AND MYTHICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
B Y
CHARLES HARDWICH,
Author of "History of Preston and Its Environs,"
"Manual for Patrons and Members of Friendly Societies,"
E T C .
MANCHESTER:
A. IRELAND & CO., PALL MALL.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
1872
Page 1
PREFACE.
OUR nursery legends and popular superstitions are fast
becoming matters of history, except in the more remote and
secluded portions of the country. The age of the steam engine,
and the electric battery, and the many other practical
adaptations of the triumphs of physical science, is apparently
not the one in which such "waifs and strays" from the mythical
lore of the dim and distant Past are very likely to be much
sought after or honoured. But now that the light of modern
investigation, and especially that ray furnished by recent
discoveries in philological science, has been directed towards
their deeper and more hidden mysteries, profound philosophical
historians have begun to discover that from this apparently
desolate literary region much reliable knowledge may be
extracted, leading to conclusions of the most interesting and
important kind, with reference to the early history of our
race. The labours of the brothers Grimm, Dr. Adalbert Kuhn,
Professor Max Muller, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, have
recently received considerable attention from philosophic
enquirers into the origin and early development of the people
from whom nearly all of the European, and some of the Asiatic,
modern nationalities have sprung.
It is found that many of these imperfect, and sometimes
grotesque, traditions, legends, and superstitions are, in
reality, not the "despicable rubbish" which the "learned" have
been in the habit of regarding them, but rather the crude ore,
which, when skilfully smelted down, yields, abundantly, pure
metal well worthy of the literary hammer of the most profound
student in general history, ethnology, or the phenomena
attendant upon psychological development. Professor Henry
Morley, in the chapter on Ethnology, in his "English Writers,"
after noticing "how immediately and easily particular words,
common in their application, would become available for common
use," and "how often images of the seen would become symbols of
the unseen," truly says, "The world about us is not simply
mirrored, but informed with a true soul, by all the tongues
that syllable man's knowledge and his wants. The subtlest
harmonies of life and nature may lie hidden in the very letters
of the alphabet."
The subject has been but recently introduced, in a
thoroughly popular form, to the English reader. Dasent's
"Popular Tales from the Norse," and occasional papers by local
Page 2
writers, intensified and extended the interest taken in this
species of research. The publication, in 1863, by Mr. Walter K.
Kelly, of his "Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-
Lore," however, may be said to have given a still greater
impetus to popular investigation in this direction. This is
largely to be attributed to the fact that he has summarised in
a very pleasing manner much of the abstruse learning of the
German philologists and mythologists to whom reference has
already been made.
Whilst contemplating the publication of some "Supplementary
Notes to the History of Preston and its Environs," the early
chapters of which, of course, would necessarily deal with what
is termed the "pre-historic period," Mr. Kelly's work came into
my hands. I was induced to considerably enlarge my plan, in
consequence of the value I immediately placed upon its contents,
and of the suggestion in the following paragraph, which appears
in its preface:
"In not a few instances I have been able to illustrate Dr.
Kuhn's principles by examples of the folk-lore of Great Britain
and Ireland, and would gladly have done so more copiously had
matter for the purpose been more accessible. My efforts in that
direction have made me painfully aware how much we are behind
the Germans, not only as to our insight into the meaning of
such relics of the past, but also as to our industry in
collecting them. The latter defect is indeed a natural
consequence of the former, and it is to be hoped that our local
arcineologists will no longer be content to labour under either
of them when once they have found what far-reaching knowledge
may be extracted out of old wives' tales and notions. Only four
years ago the editor of "Notes and Queries" spoke hypothetically
(in the preface to "Choice Notes") of a time to come when the
study of folk-lore (he was I believe the inventor of that very
expressive and sterling word) should have risen from a pleasant
pastime to the rank of a science. Already his anticipation has
been realised, and henceforth every careful collector of a novel
scrap of folk-lore, or of even a well-marked variety of an old
type, may entertain a reasonable hope that he has in some
degree subserved the purposes of the ethnologist and the
philosophical historian."
In 1865-6 I published a series of the "Supplementary Notes"
referred to, in the Preston Guardian newspaper. The general
favour with which they were received, and the increasing
Page 3
interest I felt in the subject, induced me to continue my
researches, with the view to the ultimate publication of the
present volume. The original papers, as well as other essays
afterwards published elsewhere, have not only been carefully
revised, and, in some instances, rearranged, but the quantity of
new matter added in each chapter is such as to render the work
in every respect much more complete, and more worthy of being
regarded as having, in some small degree, "subserved the
purposes of the ethnologist and the philosophical historian." I
would gladly persuade myself that I have, at least, rendered
what many regard as frivolous, and others as very abstruse and
very "dry reading," interesting, attractive, and instructive to
the general reader. If I succeed in this respect, my chief
object will have been accomplished.
The various authorities relied upon or quoted are
sufficiently indicated in the body of the work to render a
catalogue of them here unnecessary. I may add, however, that
the principal portions of the papers contributed by my friend,
Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., to the "Transactions of the
Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society," have since been
incorporated with a portion of the collection of the late Mr.
Jno. Harland, F.S.A., and published in a volume by F. Warne and
Co., entitled "Lancashire Folk Lore."
74, HALSTON STREET, HULME,
Manchester, April, 1872.
Page 4
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1.
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING
COUNTIES, AND REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.
Etymology. Philology. The Aryan theory of the common origin of
most of the European races of men. Sanscrit. The Rig Vedas.
Probable element of truth at the base of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
mythical History of the Britons. The Brigantes. The Phoenicians.
The Hyperboreans. Stonehenge. Bel or Baal, the sun god. The
Persian Ormusd. Temple of Mithras in Northumberland. The "Bronze
age." The Cushites or Hamites of Ancient Arabia. Palaeoliths, or
ancient stone weapons. The Belisama (Ribble). Altars dedicated
to Belatucadrus in the North of England. The Brigantes of the
East, Spain, Ireland, and the North of England. The Aryan Fire-
god Agni, and his retainers, the Brighus, etc. Altars in the
North of England dedicated to Vitires, Vetiris, or Veteres.
Vithris (Odin). Vritra of the Hindoo Vedas. Altars dedicated to
Coccideus. The Styx, Acheron, and Cocytus of the Greeks. The
Coccium of Antoninus, at Walton, near Preston. Ancient local
nomenclature. The Belisama. The Irish god Samhan. The Aryan god
Soma. The "heavenly soma." The amrita or nectar, the "drink of
the gods." Madhu. Mead. Brewing and lightening. Bel, the
luminous deity of the Britons. Deification of rivers. The Warf,
the Lune, etc. The Solway and Eden (Ituna of Ptolemy). Idunn,
the goddess of youth and beauty. Swan maidens. Eagle shirts.
Frost giants, etc. The "Luck of Eden Hall." Phallic symbols.
The Dee (the Seteia of Ptolemy). Devas, deities, evil spirits,
devils. The Severn, Sabrina, Varuna. War between the devas and
the asuras. The Vedic serpent, Sesha. The chark. Churning the
sea, or brewing soma. The lake of Amara, or of the gods, and
the Sitanti mountains, at the head of the Nile. The 'second
Avatars, of Vishn'u. The Setantii, ancient inhabitants of
Lancashire. The Humber (the Abus of Ptolemy). The Vedic Arbhus.
The Elbe. Elemental strife. The Wash (the Metaris of Ptolemy).
The Vidic Mithra, the friend of Varuna, the god of daylight.
Figurative interpretation. The origin of language . . . . Page
1.
CHAPTER II.
FIRE OR SUN WORSHIP AND ITS ATTENDANT SUPERSTITIONS.
Fire worship denounced by the earlier ecclesiastics. Remnant in
modern times. Allhalloween. Beltain fires. Derbyshire tindles
and Lancashire teanlas. African notions of the Sun and Moon.
Bonfires. The gunpowder plot. Midsummer fires. The elder Aryan
Page 5
fire gods Agni and Rhudra, and their attendants. Prometheus, the
fire-bringer, the inventor of the chark, or earliest fire-
kindling instrument. Original or "need-fire." Cattle disease.
Fire superstitions. Burning wheels, etc. Sacrifices to the god
Bel, and to the sun god Fo or Fricco, in the North of England,
etc. The feast of St. John the Baptist. Bonefires. Dragons and
serpents. Agni and the Midsummer demons. Ahi and Kuyava the
destroyers of vegetation. The great Vedic serpent Sesha. St.
George and other dragon slayers. Dragons, fiery serpents, and
huge worms of the North of England, "blasters of the harvest."
The Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf. The monster Grendel, of
Hartlepool. Dragons and imprisoned maidens, and treasure hid in
caves. Merlin's prophecy. Red and white dragons. Dragon poison
converted into medical balm. Figurative interpretation. The
thunderstorm reduces the heat, waters the parched earth, and
promotes vegetable growth. A modern hypothesis as to the origin
of dragon superstitions . . Page 28.
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTMAS AND YULE-TIDE SUPERSTITIONS AND OBSERVANCES.
Christmas amusements. Date of the nativity. Remnants of pagan
superstition denounced by the Church. Etymology of the word
Yule. Commencement of the year at the vernal equinox. Old and
new styles. Old style yet in use in Lancashire. Clerical
Denunciation of New Year's gifts. Curious gifts on New Year's
Day in Elizabeth's reign. The wassail bowl. The Saxon "wacht
heil" and "drinc heil." Singular New Year's day superstitions.
Meat, drink, money, and candles interred with the dead. No
firelight or business credit given on New Year's day. Recent
instances in Lancashire. Divination at Christmas. Red and dark-
haired visitors on New Year's morn. Antagonism of the Celtic
and Teutonic races. Forecasting the weather. Twelve days sleep
of the Vedic Ribhus in the house of the sun god Savitar. The
mistletoe and other plants sprung from the lightning. The oak
an the ash. The heavenly asvattha, the ficus religiosa, of the
Aryan mythology, the prototype of the yggdrasil or cloud-tree of
the Scandinavians. Merlin's tree that covers Great Britain and
Ireland. Jack and the bean-stalk. Thorns blossoming on old
Christmas eve. German Christmas trees. The boar's head. The boar
an Aryan type of the wind His tusks the lightning. Popular
belief that pigs can see the wind . . Page 53.
CHAPTER IV.
EASTER SUPERSTITIONS AND CEREMONIES.
Sun dancing on Easter morn. Etymology of the word Easter.
Page 6
Original or needfire. Easter eggs. The red or golden egg an
Aryan sun-type. Easter eggs protection against fire. Hand ball
playing by the clergy. Easter mysteries, moralities, or miracle
plays. Paschal or "pace" eggs. Lancashire "pace-egging." Lifting
of women on Easter Monday, and of men on the following day, a
custom still practised in Lancashire. Cross buns at Easter.
Thor's hammer. Ancient marriage oaks. Midlent or "mothering"
Sunday. Simnel cakes. Curious customs in Lancashire and
Shropshire. Etymology of the word "simnel." Braggat Sunday and
Braggat ales. Lenten fare. Beans and peas. Curious ancient and
modern superstitious connected therewith. Touching for the
king's evil. Divine right of kings. . . Page 70.
CHAPTER V.
MAY DAY CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS.
Mock battle between summer and winter. The vernal equinox. Joy
on the return of Spring. Bell-ringing and horn blowing. Midnight
gathering of wild flowers and green branches of trees. May day
garlands and decorations. Rush-bearing in Lancashire. Well
dressing in Derbyshire. The Roman Floralia. Maypoles denounced
by the Puritans. King James I. at Hoghton Tower, Lancashire.
Speech about "libertie to pipeing and honest recreation."
Whitsunales and Morris dances. Washington Irving's first sight
of a Maypole at Chester. Modern May-day ceremonies in Cheshire.
Gathering hawthorn blossom. The Mimosa catechu, or sacred thorn
of India, sprung from the lightning. The Glastonbury thorn.
Singular superstition respecting it. Children's love of wild
flowers. May-day dew good for ladies' complexions. May day dew,
the milk of the Aryan heavenly cows (clouds), believed to
increase the milk of their earthly prototypes . . Page 83.
CHAPTER VI.
WITCHCRAFT.
The Lancashire witches--Dame Demdike, etc. Witch superstitions
of Aryan origin. Dethroned retainers of the elder gods. The
Fates or Destinies. Waxen and clay images. The doom of
Meleagor. Reginald Scot on witchcraft in 1584. Opinions of
Wierus, a German physician, in 1563. Singular confessions of
presumed witches. Numbers put to death. The belief in witchcraft
countenanced by the church, the legislature, and the learned.
Sir Keneim Digby's opinion. Singular medical superstitions. King
James I. and Agnes Simpson, the Scotch witch. The Lancashire
witches and Charles I. Witchcraft in Hertfordshire in 1761.
Ralph Gardiner's Malicious Invective. A Scotch witch-finder.
Matthew Hopkins. Laws relating to witchcraft in the sixteenth
Page 7
and seventeenth centuries. The Draci, cloud gods, or water-
spirits, with hands perforated like colanders. Singular
tradition of the dun cow at Grimsargh, near Preston. Witches'
influence on the butter and milk of cows. Durham, Yorkshire,
and Warwick dun cow traditions. Red cow milk. Ushas, the Vedio
dawn-goddess. Red heifers set apart for sacrifice. Guy of
Warwick and his porridge pot. Black, white, and grey witches.
The Teutonic deer metres, or mother godesses. The three Fates.
The weird sisters of Shakspeare. The "theatrical properties" of
witches of Aryan origin. The sieve, the caldron, and the broom
or besom. Witches spirits of the air. Hecate the Pandemonium
Diana. Personifications of elemental strife. The brewing of
storms. Aryan root of these superstitions. Hares disguised
witches. Boadicea's hare. The goddess Freyja and her attendant
hares. Singular hare superstition in Cornwall. "Mad as a March
hare." Cats weather-wise animals. Sailors say a frisky cat has
got "a gale of wind in her tail." Sailors' prejudice against
commencing a voyage on a Friday. Singular charge against the
Knights Templars. The broom or besom represents the implement
with which the Aryan demi-gods swept the sky. A type of the
winds. Curious Lancashire custom: hanging out a besom when the
lady of the house is absent, to announce to bachelor friends
that bachelor habits may be indulged in. The broom the oldest
wine-bush. Dutch broom-girls. Eight classes of witches. Gipsies:
their Eastern origin. Modern fortune tellers. The witch's
familiar. Singular Somerset, Middlesex, and Lancashire
superstitions at the present day. Witchcraft amongst the
Maories, and in Equatorial Africa. Deathbed of a Burnley witch,
and transference of her familiar spirit with her last breath .
. Page 96.
CHAPTER VII.
FAIRIES AND BOGGARTS.
Puck or Robin Goodfellow. Peris, Pixies, and Ginna. Queen Mab.
Lancashire boggarts and fairies. The bargaist. The fairy of
Mellon Moor, Lancashire. Lumb Farm boggart, near Blackburn.
"Boggart Ho' dough," near Manchester. George Cheetham's boggart.
The devil made a monk. The headless dog or woman at Preston.
Raising the devil. "Raw-head and bloody-bones." Edwin Waugh's
account of the Griselhurst boggart. The laying of boggarts.
Driving a stake through the body of a cock buried with the
boggart. Sacred or lightning birds. Superstitions about cocks
and hens. Killing a Lancashire wizard. Cruel sacrifice of
chanticleer. Divining by means of a cock. Boggarts scared by a
cock-crowing. The cock an emblem of AEsculapius. The black cock
Page 8
crows in the Niflheim, or "land of gloom." The lion afraid of a
white cock. Father Morella's account of the revivification of a
dead cock. The cockatrice. A cruelly slaughtered cock and red
cow's milk a sovereign remedy for consumption. The Scandinavian
golden coloured cock's crowing the signal for the dawn of the
Ragnavock, "the great day of arousing." The Hindoos "cast out
devils" by the aid of a cock slaughtered as a sacrifice. Modern
Jewish custom. Game cock feathers in the bed cause a dying
person to linger in pain. Hothersall Hall boggart, Lancashire,
laid beneath a laurel tree, watered with milk. Rowan, ash, and
red thread potential against boggarts, witches, and devils.
Scandinavian and German boggarts. The Hindoo pitris or fathers.
Zwergs, dwarfs, "ancients" or ancestors. Good fairies, elves,
etc. Lord Duffin transported by fairies from Scotland to Paris.
Classical ghost story. Singular superstition, of Eastern
character, at Darwen, Lancashire. A somewhat similar one in
Australia Fairy rings, their imaginary and real origin . . Page
124
CHAPTER VIII.
HUMAN INVISIBILITY, OR FERN SEED AND ST. JOHN'S WORT
SUPERSTITIONS.
Human invisibility. The helmet of Hades or Pluto, and the
Teutonic "invisible cap." Modern references to this singular
superstition. Ferns luckbringing plants. Said to have sprung
from the lightning. St. John's wort. German story of accidental
invisibility. St. John's eve. Fernseed a love charm. Samuel
Bamford's Lancashire story in "Boggart Ho' Clough," near
Manchester. St. John superseded the Scandinavian Baldr. The
Osmunda regalis. Osmumda, one of the appellations of Thor. The
vervain a plant of spells and enchantments. The Sanscrit parna
and the modern fern. Origin of the name "Boggart Ho' Clough."
Page 143
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPECTRE HUNTSMAN AND THE FURIOUS HOST.
Hunting the white doe in the vale of Todmorden, Lancashire. The
"Gabriel Ratchets." The wish-hounds. The "Gabriel hounds" in
Yorkshire. The classic Orion, "the mighty hunter." The classic
white doe and its medival descendants. The fair maid of Kent. A
fawn attendant on the Greek deities of the morning. Odin, the
wild huntsman, and the furious host. The Yule host of Iceland.
Personification of storm and tempest. Herod, the "Chasse
Maccabei," and the wandering Jew. The "seven whistlers" in
Lancashire and Yorkshire. Restless birds believed to be the
Page 9
souls of the damned condemned to perpetual motion, on the
Bosphorus. The wandering Odin and his two ravens, representing
Thought and Memory. The wandezing Jew's last appearance in the
flesh. Temporary death of the weather gods typical of the
seasons. Odin slain by the wild boar. Tharninuz and the Greek
Adonis. Odin lord of the gallows. Odin's spear. Roland's
"Durandal," the sword of Chrysàaor, of Thesaeus, and of Sigurd.
Arthur's "Excalibur" and others. Their Aryan prototype, Indra's
thunderbolt. Magic cudgels. The lad and the "rascally
innkeeper." Indra and Vritra, and the Panis. Long Aryan winters.
Hackelberg's coit throwing. King Arthur's similar exploit in
Northumberland. The devil's doings at Kirkby Lonsdale, at
Leyland church, and at Winwick. Etymology of the word "Winwick."
Odin buried in the cloud mountain. Heroes slumbering in caves.
Frederick Barbarossa, Henry the Fowler, Charlemagne, and the
renowned Arthur. Arthur's death and translation to Avalun. The
Eildon Hills and the Sewing-shields castle traditions. The
"Helmwind," near Kirkoswald, Cumberland. Sir Tarquin's castle at
Manchester. Arthur's battles on the Douglas. Arthur still alive
as a raven. The Gjallar horn. A Cheshire legend says Arthur
reposes in the "Wizard's Cave," at Alderley Edge. Ancient
reputation of Britain for tempests and pestilential storms. The
departure of the genii. A similar superstition in equatorial
Africa. Irish superstitions. The furious host. Wandering souls
of the unquiet dead. The Aryan Maruts and Ribhus. The approach
of the furious host. The black coach legend. The yelping hound.
The stray hound of Odin. The Lancashire and Dorsetshire black
dog fiends. The "Trash" or "Skriker" of East Lancashire.
Cerberus and the Vedic Sarvari. Hermes and the Vedic Sdrameyas.
The howling dog, an embodiment of the wind and herald of death.
Recent example of the power of this superstition in Lancashire.
Acute sense of smell probably at the root of this
personification. Dogs supposed to be able to see spirits. Dr.
Marigold's dog and the approach of domestic storms. Will-o'-
wisps, or souls of unbaptised children. The Maruts after a
storm assume the form of new-born babes, as Hermes returned to
his cradle after tearing up the forests. Odin sometimes chases
the wild boar, sometimes Holder, or Bertha, his wife. The hell-
hunt. Hell or Hela, the goddess of death. The English hunt.
England the realm of Hela. Niflheim, the world of mists, and
the Greek Hades. Nastrond and the modern Hell. After death
punishment for crimes done in the body. Valhalla and the Gothic
Hell and Devil. Contrast between the Eastern and Northern
notions of Hell, and Shakspere's powerful description thereof.
Wandering spirits of the Greek and Aryan mythologies. Yorkshire
Page 10