Disease.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Conway, Moncure Daniel
In Altmark27 the demons who bewitch cattle are called ‘Bihlweisen,’ and are believed to bury certain diabolical charms under thresholds over which the animals are to pass, causing them to wither away, the milk to cease, etc. The prevention is to wash the cattle with a lotion of sea cabbage boiled with infusion of wine. In the same province it is related that once there appeared in a harvest-field at one time fifteen, at another twelve men (apparently), the latter headless. They all laboured with scythes, but though the rustling could be heard no grain fell. When questioned they said nothing, and when the people tried to seize them they ran away, cutting fruitlessly as they ran. The priests found in this a presage of the coming cattle plague. The Russian superstition of the plough, above mentioned, is found in fragmentary survivals in Altmark. Thus, it is said that to plough around a village and then sit under the plough (placed upright), will enable any one to see the witches; and in some villages, some bit of a plough is hung up over a doorway through which cattle pass, as no devil can then approach them. The demons have a natural horror of honest work, and especially the culture of the earth. Goethe, as we have seen, notes their fear of roses: perhaps he remembered the legend of Aspasia, who, being disfigured by a tumour on the chin, was warned by a dove-maiden to dismiss her physicians and try a rose from the garland of Venus; so she recovered health and beauty.
Source notes
1 2 Chron. xvi. 12; 2 Kings xx.; Mark v. 26; James v. 14; &c., &c. The Catholic Church follows the prescription by St. James of prayer and holy anointing for the sick only after medical aid—of which Asa died when he preferred it to the Lord—has failed; i.e. extreme unction. Castelar remarks that the Conclave which elected Pius IX. sat in the Quirinal rather than the Vatican, ‘because, while it hoped for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in every place, it feared that in the palace par excellence divine inspirations would not sufficiently counteract the effluvias of the fever.’ The legal prosecutions of the ‘Peculiar People’ for obeying the New Testament command in case of sickness supply a notable example of the equal hypocrisy of the protestant age. England has distributed the Bible as a divine revelation in 150 different languages; and in London it punishes a sect for obedience to one of its plainest directions.
2 London ‘Times,’ June 11, 1877.
3 ‘Mankind: their Origin and Destiny’ (Longmans, 1872), p. 91. See also Voltaire’s Dictionary for an account of the sacred dances in the Catholic Churches of Spain.
4 Deut. xxviii. 60.
5 1 Sam. v. 6.
6 1 Sam. xvi. 14. In chap. xviii. 10, this evil spirit is said to have proceeded from Elohim, a difference indicating a further step in that evolution of Jehovah into a moral ruler which is fully traced in our chapter on ‘Elohim and Jehovah.’
7 Boundesch, ii. pp. 158, 188. For an exhaustive treatment of the astrological theories and pictures of the planispheres, see ‘Mankind: their Origin and Destiny’ (Longmans, 1872).
8 ‘Catastrophe Magnatum: or the Fall of Monarchie. A Caveat to Magistrates, deduced from the Eclipse of the Sunne, March 29, 1652. With a probable Conjecture of the Determination of the Effects.’ By Nich. Culpeper, Gent., Stud. in Astrol. and Phys. Dan. ii. 21, 22: He changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth Kings, and setteth up Kings: he giveth wisdome to the Wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: he revealeth the deep and secret things, he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. London: Printed for T. Vere and Nath. Brooke, in the Old Baily, and at the Angel in Cornhil, 1652.’
9 See the Dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth.
10 Heb. ii. 14.
11 1 Cor. v. 5; xi. 30.
12 2 Cor. xii. 7.
13 ‘Records of the Past,’ iii. p. 136. Tr. by Mr. Fox Talbot.
14 Ibid., iii. p. 143. The refrain recalls the lines of Edgar A. Poe:—
They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are ghouls!
15 The Pahlavi Text has been prepared by Destur Jamaspji Asa, and translated by Haug and West. Trübner, 1872.
16 Cf. fig. 9.
17 Larousse’s ‘Dict. Universel.’
18 ‘Records,’ &c., iii. p. 141. Marduk is the Chaldæan Hercules.
19 Micah vii. 19.
20 See the excellent article in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the R.A.S., by Dundris De Silva Gooneratnee Modliar (1865–66). With regard to this sanctity of the number seven it may be remarked that it has spread through the world with Christianity,—seven churches, seven gifts of the Spirit, seven sins and virtues. It is easy therefore to mistake orthodox doctrines for survivals. In the London ‘Times’ of June 24, 1875, there was reported an inquest at Corsham, Wiltshire, on the body of Miriam Woodham, who died under the prescriptions of William Bigwood, herbalist. It was shown that he used pills made of seven herbs. This was only shown to be a ‘pagan survival’ when Bigwood stated that the herbs were ‘governed by the sun.’
21 See p. 44.
22 ‘Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,’ 1865–66.
23 This demoness is not to be connected with the Italian Mania, probably of Etruscan origin, with which nurses frightened children. This Mania, from an old word manus signifying ‘good,’ was, from the relation of her name to Manes, supposed to be mother of the Lares, whose revisitations of the earth were generally of ill omen. According to an oracle which said heads should be offered for the sake of heads, children were sacrificed to this household fiend up to the time of Junius Brutus, who substituted poppy-heads.
24 Phædrus, i. 549. Cf. Ger. selig and silly.
25 ‘Lect. on Language,’ i. 435.
26 Ralston’s ‘Songs of the Russian People,’ p. 230.
27‘Sagen der Altmark.’ Von A. Kuhn. Berlin, 1843.