Kitabı oku: «The Myths and Fables of To-Day», sayfa 6

It is now the custom for the bride, if she is married at home, or on returning there from church, to throw away her bouquet for the guests to scramble for. The one getting the most flowers will be married first, and so on.

Giving wedding presents was not practised before the present (nineteenth) century.

One old marriage custom, though long since obsolete, may be briefly alluded to here, not only for its singularity, but for its suggestiveness touching a state of mind that would admit of such tomfoolery. This was the so-called Smock-marriage, in which the bride went through the ceremony standing only in her shift, thereby declaring herself to be possessed of no more than she came into the world with. On being duly recorded, the act exempted the husband from liability for his wife’s debts previously contracted. If she went through this ridiculous performance in the presence of witnesses, and in the “King’s Highway,” that is to say, the lawfully laid out public road, she thereby cleared herself from any old indebtedness. As amazing as it may seem, several such cases are recorded in New England, the formalities observed differing somewhat in different localities.

It is considered unlucky to get married before breakfast.

 
“If you marry in Lent,
You will live to repent.”
 

May is considered an unlucky month to be married in.

 
“Marry in May,
And you’ll rue the day.”
 

To remove an engagement or wedding ring from the finger is also a bad omen.¹⁷ To lose either of them, or to have them broken on the finger, also denotes misfortune.

It is extremely unlucky for either the bride or groom to meet a funeral when on their way to be married.

It is an unlucky omen for the church clock to strike during the performance of a marriage ceremony, as it is said to portend the death of one of the contracting parties before the year is out.

IX
OF EVIL OMENS

“A woman’s story at a winter’s fire.” —Macbeth.

We come now to those things considered as distinctly unlucky, and to be avoided accordingly. How common is the peevish exclamation of “That’s just my luck!” Spilling the salt, picking up a pin with the point toward you, crossing a knife and fork, or giving any one a knife or other sharp instrument, are all deemed of sinister import now, as of old.

One must not kill a toad, which, though

 
“ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head,”
 

or a grasshopper, possibly by reason of the veneration in which this voracious little insect was held by the Athenians, whose favorite symbol it was, although it is now outlawed, and a price set upon its head as a pest, to be ruthlessly exterminated, by some of the Western states. So, too, with the warning not to kill a spider, against which, nevertheless, the housemaid’s broom wages relentless war. If, on the contrary, you do not kill the first snake seen in the spring, bad luck will follow you all the year round. Be it ever so badly bruised, however, the belief holds fast in the country that the reptile will not die until sunset, or with the expiring day,

 
“That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.”
 

The peacock’s feathers were supposed to be unlucky, from an old tradition associating its gaudy colors with certain capital sins, which these colors were held to symbolize. Nevertheless, this tall and haughty feather has been much the fashion of late years as an effective mantel ornament, showing how reckless some people can be regarding the prophecy of evil.

Getting married before breakfast is considered unlucky. It would be quite as logical to say this of any other time of the day; hence unlucky to get married at all, though it is not believed all married people will cordially subscribe to this heresy.

May is an unlucky month to be married in. So, also

 
“If you marry in Lent
You will live to repent.”
 

Old Burton says, “Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made in heaven.”

Getting out of bed on the wrong side bodes ill luck for the rest of the day. A common remark to a person showing ill-humor is, “I guess you got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.” It has in fact become a proverb.

To begin dressing yourself by putting the stocking on the left foot first would be trifling with fortune. I know a man who would not do so on any account. It is also unlucky to put a right foot into a left-hand shoe, or vice versa. These are necessary corollaries of the “right-foot-foremost” superstition.

According to that merry gentleman, Samuel Butler: —

 
“Augustus having b’oversight
Put on his left shoe for his right,
Had like to have been slain that day,
By soldiers mutining for their pay.”
 

Cutting the finger nails on the Sabbath is a bad omen. There is a set of rhymed rules for the doing of even this trifling act. Apparently, the Chinese know the omen, as they do not cut the nails at all.

Of the harmless dragon-fly or devil’s darning-needle, country girls say that if one flies in your face it will sew up your eyes.

In some localities I have heard it said that if two persons walking together should be parted by a post, a tree, or a person, in their path, something unlucky will surely result —

 
“Unless they straightway mutter,
‘Bread and butter, bread and butter.’”
 

Low, the pirate, would not let his crew work on the Sabbath, not so much, we suppose, from conscientious scruples, as for fear it would bring him bad luck. The rest of the Decalogue did not seem to bother him in the least.

After having once started on an errand or a journey, it is unlucky to go back, even if you have forgotten something of importance. All persons afflicted with frequent lapses of memory should govern themselves accordingly. This belief seems clearly grounded upon the dreadful fate of Lot’s wife.

It was always held unlucky to break a piece of crockery, as a second and a third piece shortly will be broken also. This is closely associated with the belief respecting the number three, elsewhere referred to. In New England it is commonly said that if you should break something on Monday, bad luck will follow you all the rest of the week.

To stumble in going upstairs is also unlucky; perhaps to stumble at any other time. Friar Lawrence says, in “Romeo and Juliet,” —

 
“They stumble that run fast.”
 

Two persons washing their hands in the same basin or in the same water will quarrel unless the sign of the cross be made in the water.

It is considered unlucky to take off a ring that was the gift of a deceased person, an engagement, or a marriage ring.

The term “hoodoo,” almost unknown in the Northern United States a few years ago, has gradually worked its way into the vernacular, until it is in almost everybody’s mouth. It is, perhaps, most lavishly employed during the base-ball season, as everyone knows who reads the newspapers, to describe something that has cast a spell upon the players, so bringing about defeat. The term is then “hoodooing.” The hoodoo may be anything particularly ugly or repulsive seen on the way to the game – a deformed old woman, a one-legged man, a lame horse, or a blind beggar, for instance. Most players are said to give full credit to the power of the hoodoo to bewitch them. Indeed, the term has been quite widely taken up as the synonym for bad luck, or, rather, the cause of it, even by the business world. If this is not, to all intents, a belief in witchcraft, it certainly comes very close to what passed for witchcraft two hundred years ago.

This vagrant and ill-favored word “hoodoo” is, again, a corruption of the voudoo of the ignorant blacks of the South, with whom, in fact, it stands, as some say, for witchcraft, pure and simple, or, perhaps, the Black Art, as practised in Africa; while others pronounce it to be a religious rite only. More than this, the voudoo also is a mystic order, into whose unholy mysteries the neophyte is inducted with much barbaric ceremony. In the case of a white woman so initiated in Louisiana, this consisted in the elect chanting a weird incantation, while the novitiate, clad only in her shift, danced within a charmed circle formed of beef bones and skeletons, toads’ feet and spiders, with camphor and kerosene oil sprinkled about it. All those present join in the dance to the accompaniment of tom-toms and other rude instruments, until physical exhaustion compels the dancers to stop.

In its main features we find a certain resemblance between the voudoo dance of the ignorant blacks and the ghost dance practised by some of the wild Indians of the West, and by means of which they are wrought up to the highest pitch of frenzy, so preparing the way for an outbreak, such as occurred a few years ago with most lamentable results.

While the sporting fraternity is notoriously addicted to the hoodoo superstition, yet it is by no means confined to them alone. Not long ago a statement went the rounds of the newspapers to the effect that the superstitious wife of a certain well-known millionnaire had refused to go on board of their palatial yacht because one of the crew had been fatally injured by falling down a hatchway. In plain English, the accident had hoodooed the ship.

But the power of the hoodoo would seem not to be limited to human beings, according to this statement, taken from the columns of a reputable newspaper: “A meadow at Biddeford, Maine, is known as the hoodoo lawn, for the reason that rain follows every time it is mowed, before the grass can be cured. It is said that this has occurred for twenty-five consecutive years.”

To break the spell of the hoodoo, it is as essential to have a mascot, over which the malign influence can have no power, as to have an antidote against poisons. Therefore most ball-players carry a mascot with them. Sometimes it is a goat, or a dog, or again a black sheep, that is gravely led thrice around the field before the play begins.

It is not learned whether or not the different kinds of mascot have ever been pitted against each other. Perhaps the effect would be not unlike that described by Cicero in his treatise on divination. He says there that Cato one day met a friend who seemed in a very troubled frame of mind. On being asked what was the matter, the friend replied: “Oh! my friend, I fear everything. This morning when I awoke, I saw, shall I say it? a mouse gnawing my shoe.” “Well,” said Cato, reassuringly, “calm yourself. The prodigy really would become frightful if the shoe had been gnawing the mouse.”

Naval ships often carry a goat, or some other animal, as a mascot, in deference to Jack’s well-known belief in its peculiar efficacy; and in naval parades the goat usually gravely marches in the procession, and comes in for his share of the applause. Simple-minded Jack christens his favorite gun after some favorite prize-fighter. And why not? since the great Nelson, himself, carried a horseshoe nailed to his mast-head, and since even some of our college foot-ball teams bring their mascots upon the field just like other folk.

The war with Spain could hardly fail of bringing to light some notable examples of the superstitions of sailors concerning mascots. The destruction of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, off Santiago de Cuba, by the American fleet, under command of Admiral Sampson, is freshly remembered. One of the destroyed Spanish ships was named the Colon. Twenty-six days after the battle, the tug-boat Right Arm of the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company visited the Colon, for the purpose of raising the Spanish cruiser. The only living thing aboard was a black and white cat. For nearly a month it had been the sole crew and commander of the wrecked battle-ship.

The crew of the Right Arm took possession of the cat, adopted it as a mascot and named it Tomas Cervera. But Cervera brought ill luck. When Lieutenant Hobson raised the Maria Teresa the rescued cat was placed aboard her, to be brought to America.

The Maria Teresa never reached these shores, and when the vessel grounded off the Bahamas the cat fell into the hands of the natives. He was rescued the second time, and at last reached America, a passenger on the United States repair ship Vulcan.

It will be admitted that this cat did not belie that article of the popular belief, which ascribes nine lives to his tribe. But poor Tomas Cervera did not long survive the various hardships and perils to which he had been subjected. He gave up the ghost shortly after all these were happily ended.

Speaking of ships and sailors, it is well known to all seafaring folk that the reputation of a ship for being lucky, or unlucky, is all important. And this reputation may begin at the very moment when she leaves the stocks. Should she, unfortunately, stick on the ways, in launching, a bad name is pretty sure to follow her during the remainder of her career, and to be an important factor in her ability to ship a crew. Even the practice of christening a ship with a bottle of wine is neither more nor less than a survival of pagan superstition by which the favor of the gods was invoked.

The superstition regarding thirteen persons at the table also boasts a remarkable vitality. Just when or how it originated is uncertain. It has been surmised, however, that the Paschal Supper was the beginning of this notion, for there were thirteen persons present then, and what followed is not likely to be forgotten. It has, perhaps, been the subject of greater ridicule than any other popular delusion, probably from the fact of its touching convivial man in his most tender part, – to wit, the stomach. In London some of the literary and other lights even went to the trouble of forming a Thirteen Club for the avowed purpose of breaking down the senseless notion that if thirteen persons were to sit down to dinner together, one of them would die within a twelvemonth. The motto of this club should have been, “All men must die, therefore all men should dine.” If the club’s proceedings showed no lack of invention and mother wit, we still should very much doubt their efficacy toward achieving the avowed end and aim of the club’s existence, for surely such extravagances could have no other effect than to raise a laugh. We reproduce an account of the affair for the reader’s amusement: —

“At the dinner of the club, above mentioned, there were thirteen tables, a similar number of guests being seated at each table. The serving of the meal was announced by the “shivering” of a mirror placed on an easel, a ceremony performed by two cross-eyed waiters! Having put on green neckties and placed a miniature skeleton in their button-holes, the guests passed under a ladder into the dining room. The tables were lighted with small lamps placed on plaster skulls; skeletons were suspended from the candles, which were thirteen in number on each table; the knives were crossed; the salt-stands were in the shape of coffins, with headstones bearing the inscription, ‘In memory of many senseless superstitions, killed by the London Thirteen Club, 1894.’ The salt-spoons were shaped like a grave-digger’s spade.

“After the dinner was fairly started, the chairman asked the company to spill salt with him, and later on he invited them to break looking-glasses with him, all of which having been done, he presented the chairmen of the different tables with a knife each, on condition that nothing was given for them in return. An undertaker, clothed in a variety costume, which would have done credit to a first-class music hall, was then introduced ‘to take orders,’ but he was quickly shuffled out of the room.”

These unbelieving jesters, who so audaciously defied the fatal omen, did not seem to realize that a popular superstition is not to be laughed out of existence in so summary a manner. Equally futile was the attempt to put it to a scientific test, as, if tried by that means, it appears that, of any group of thirteen persons, the chances are about equal that one will die within the year. Therefore, the attempt to break the spell by inviting a greater number of persons could have the effect only of increasing, rather than diminishing, the probability of the event so much dreaded.¹⁸

It has been stated in the newspapers, from which I take it, that there are many hotels in New York which contain no room numbered thirteen. There are other hotels and office buildings wherein the rooms that are so numbered cannot be leased except once in a great while. In large hotels one custom is to letter the first thirteen rooms and call them parlors. Another custom is simply to skip the unpopular number, and call the thirteenth room “No. 14.” A man who had just rented an office which bears the objectionable number, in a down-town building, asserts that though he has no superstitious dread of the number, he finds that others will not transact business with him in that office. I also find it stated as a fact that the new monster passenger steamship Oceanic has no cabin or seat at the table numbered thirteen.

It was again instanced as a deathblow to a certain candidate’s hopes of a reëlection to the United States Senate, that repeated ballotings showed him to be just thirteen votes short of the required number. From the same state, Pennsylvania, comes this highly significant announcement in regard to a base-ball team: “Because the team left here on a very rainy day, and on a train that pulled out from track No. 13, the superstitious local fans (sic) are in a sad state of mind to-night, regarding the coincidence as an evil omen.” Again the small number of six, in the graduating class of a certain high school, was gravely referred to as owing to there having originally been thirteen in that class.

At the same time there are exceptions which, however, the superstitious may claim only go to prove the rule. For instance the Thirteen Colonies did not prove so very unlucky a venture.

As regards the superstitions of actors and actresses, the following anecdote, though not new, probably as truly reflects the state of mind existing among the profession to-day as it did when the incident happened to which it refers. When the celebrated Madame Rachel returned from Egypt in 1857, she asked Arsène Houssaye, within a year thereafter, the question: “Do you recollect the dinner we had at the house of Victor Hugo? There were thirteen of us, – Hugo and his wife, you and your wife, Rebecca and I, Girardin and his wife, Gerard de Nerval, Pradier, Alfred de Musset, Perrèe, of the Siècle, and the Count d’Orsay, thirteen in all. Well, where are they to-day? Victor Hugo and his wife are in Jersey, your wife is dead, Madame de Girardin is dead, my sister Rebecca is dead, De Nerval, Pradier, Alfred de Musset, and d’Orsay are dead. I say no more. There remain but Girardin and you. Adieu, my friends. Never laugh at thirteen at a table.”

The world, however, especially that part of it represented by diners out, goes on believing in the evil augury just the same. A dinner party is recalled at which two of the invited guests were given seats at a side table on account of that terrible bugbear “thirteen at table.” When mentioning the circumstance to a friend, he was reminded of an occasion where an additional guest had been summoned in haste to break the direful spell.

Unquestionably, the newspapers might do much toward suppressing the spread of superstition by refusing to print such accounts as this, taken from a Boston daily paper, as probably nothing is read by a certain class with greater avidity. It says “that engine No. 13 of the Boston, Hoosac Tunnel & Western Railroad has, within three weeks, killed no less than three men. The railway hands fear the locomotive, and say that its number is unlucky.” It is true, we understand, that the standard number of a wrecked locomotive, that has been in a fatal accident, is not unfrequently changed in deference to this feeling on the part of the engine-men.

It is held to be unlucky to pass underneath a ladder, an act which indeed might be dangerous to life or limb should the ladder fall. But it is even harder to understand the philosophy of the dictum that to meet a squinting woman denotes ill luck.

The bird was formerly accounted an unlucky symbol, perhaps from the fact that good fortune, like riches, is apt to take to itself wings. The hooting of an owl, the croaking of a raven, the cry of a whip-poor-will, and even the sight of a solitary magpie were always associated with malignant influences or evil presages. Poe’s raven furnishes the theme for one of his best-known poems. And the swan was long believed to sing her own death-song. Be that as it may, the fact is well remembered that a ring, bearing the device of a bird upon it, or any other object having the image of the feathered kind, was not considered a suitable gift to a woman. That article of superstition, like some others that could be mentioned, has vanished before the resistless command of fashion, so completely indeed, that birds of every known clime and plumage have since been considered the really proper adornment for woman’s headgear.

There is, however, an odd superstition connected with the magpie, an instance of which is found related by Lord Roberts, in “Forty-one Years in India.” We could not do better than give it in his own words: “On the 15th July Major Cavagnari, who had been selected as the envoy and plenipotentiary to the Amir of Kabul, arrived in Kuram. I, with some fifty officers who were anxious to do honor to the envoy and see the country beyond Kuram, marched with Cavagnari to within five miles of the crest of Shutargardan pass, where we encamped, and my staff and I dined that evening with the mission. After dinner I was asked to propose the health of Cavagnari and those with him, but somehow I did not feel equal to the task: I was so thoroughly depressed, and my mind filled with such gloomy forebodings as to the fate of these fine fellows, that I could not utter a word.

“Early next morning the Sirdar, who had been deputed by the Amir to receive the mission, came into camp, and soon we all started for the top of the pass… As we ascended, curiously enough, we came across a solitary magpie, which I should not have noticed had not Cavagnari pointed it out and begged me not to mention the fact of his having seen it to his wife, as she would be sure to consider it an unlucky omen.

“On descending to the (Afghan) camp, we were invited to partake of dinner, served in the Oriental fashion on a carpet spread on the ground. Everything was done most lavishly and gracefully. Nevertheless, I could not feel happy as to the prospects of the mission, and my heart sank as I wished Cavagnari good-by. When we had proceeded a few yards in our different directions, we both turned round, retraced our steps, shook hands once more, and parted forever.”

The sequel is told in the succeeding chapter. “Between one and two o’clock on the morning of the 5th of September, I was awakened by my wife telling me that a telegraph man had been wandering around the house and calling for some time, but that no one had answered him. The telegram told me that my worst fears had been only too fully realized.” Cavagnari and his party had been massacred by the Afghans.

Again, there are certain things which may not be given to a male friend (young, unmarried ministers excepted), such, for example, as a pair of slippers, because the recipient will be sure, metaphorically speaking, to walk away from the giver in them.

There is also current in some parts of New England a belief that it is unlucky to get one’s life insured, or to make one’s will, under the delusion that doing either of these things will tend to shorten one’s life. This feeling comes of nothing less than a ridiculous fear of facing even the remote probability involved in the act; and is of a piece with the studied avoidance of the subject of death, or willing allusion in any way, shape, or form to the dead, even of one’s own kith and kin, quite like that singular belief held by the Indians which forbade any allusion to the dead whatsoever.

Spilling the salt, as an omen of coming misfortune, is one of the most widespread, as well as one of the most deeply rooted, of popular delusions. It is said to be universal all over Asia, is found in some parts of Africa, and is quite prevalent in Europe and America to-day. Vain to deny it, the unhappy delinquent who is so awkward as to spill salt at the table instantly finds all eyes turned upon him. Worse still, the antidote once practised of flinging three pinches of salt over the left shoulder is no longer admissible in good society. Instantly every one present mentally recalls the omen. His host may politely try to laugh it off, but all the same, a visible impression of something unpleasant remains.

Something was said in another place about the potency of the number “three” to effect a charm either for good or for evil. Firemen and railroad men are more or less given to the belief that if one fire or one accident occurs, it will inevitably be followed by two more fires or accidents. A headline in a Boston newspaper, now before me, reads, “The same old three fires in succession,” and then hypocritically exclaims, “How the superstitious point to the recurrence!”

The superstition about railroad accidents is by no means confined to the trainmen, or other employees, but to some extent, at least, is shared even by the higher officials, who point to their past experiences in the management of these iron highways as fully establishing, to their minds, certain conditions. One of these gentlemen once said to me, after a bad accident on his road, “It is not so much this one particular accident that we dread, as what is coming after it.” I also knew of a conductor who asked for a leave of absence immediately after the occurrence of a shocking wreck on the line.

Although periodically confronted with a long series of most momentous events in the world’s history that have happened on that day of the week, the superstition in regard to Friday, as being an unlucky day, has so far withstood every assault. It will not down. Whether it exists to so great an extent as formerly may be questioned, but that it does exist in full force, more especially among sailors, is certain. We have it on good authority that this self-tormenting delusion grew out of the fact that the Saviour was crucified on Friday, ever after stigmatized as “hangman’s day,” and, therefore, set apart for the execution of criminals, now as before time.

It is not wholly improbable that some share of the odium resting upon Friday may arise from the fact of its being so regularly observed as a day of fasting, or at least maigre, by some religionists.

In some old diaries are found entries like the following: “A vessel lost going out of Portland against the advice of all; all on board, twenty-seven, drowned.” It is easy to understand how such an event would leave an indelible impression upon the minds of a whole generation.

Notwithstanding the belief is openly scouted from the pulpit, and is even boldly defied by a few unbelieving sea-captains, the fact remains that there are very many sober-minded persons who could not be induced on any account to begin a journey on Friday. There are others who will not embark in any new enterprise, or begin a new piece of work on that day; and still others who even go so far as to say that you must not cut your nails on Friday. A man could be named who could not be tempted to close a bargain on any other day of the week than Thursday. It is a further fact, which all connected with operating railroads will readily confirm, that Friday is always the day of least travel on their lines. This circumstance alone seems conclusive as to the state of popular feeling. Apparently a brand has been set upon the sixth day of the week for all time.

Numerous instances might be given to show that men of the strongest intellect are as fallible in this respect as men of the lowest; but one such will suffice. Lord Byron once refused to be introduced to a lady because it was Friday; and on this same ill-starred day he would never pay a visit.

 
“See the moon through the glass,
You’ll have trouble while it lasts.”
 

This warning couplet is still a household word in many parts of New England. It has been observed that even those sceptical persons who profess to put no faith in it whatever, generally take good care to keep on the right side of the window-glass. As bearing upon this branch of the general subject an incident is related by a reputable authority, as having occurred at a party given, not many years ago, by a gentleman holding a considerable station in life. It is therefore repeated here word for word.

“In the midst of a social chat, at the close of the day, a footman rather briskly entered the drawing-room, and walked up to the back of the chair of the hostess and whispered something in her ear; she immediately closed her eyes and gave her hand to the man, and was forthwith led by him from the room. The guests were rather astonished, but after the lapse of a few moments the lady returned and resumed her seat.

“Her sudden departure having occasioned a rather uneasy pause in the conversation, she felt it necessary to state the cause of her singular conduct. She then told us that the New Harvest Moon had just made its appearance, and it was her custom to give a crown to any of her servants that first brought the information to her when that event occurred; and that the reason why she closed her eyes, and was led by the footman out of the room to the open air, was that she might avoid the evil consequences that were sure to happen to her if she obtained her first glimpse of the Harvest Moon through a pane of glass. This lady was highly accomplished, and possessed remarkable sagacity upon most subjects, but was nevertheless a slave to a groundless fear of evil befalling her if she saw this particular New Moon in any other way than in the open air.”

It is passing strange, however, that the gentle and beautiful Queen of the Night should have been mostly associated with a malignant influence. Juliet pleads with Romeo not to swear by the “inconstant moon.” The traditional witch gathers her simples only by the light of the moon, as at no other time do they possess the same virtues to work miraculous cures or potent spells. It is also an old belief that if a person goes to sleep with the moonbeams shining full upon his uncovered face, he will be moonstruck, or become an idiot. I well remember to have seen the officer of the watch awaken a number of sleepers, who had taken refuge on the deck of a vessel from the stifling heat below. Milton speaks of