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The Origins of Superstitions and Customs

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The Origins of Superstitions and Customs THE ORIGINS OF SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS BY T. SHARPER KNOWLSON AUTHOR OF “THE ART OF THINKING,” ETC. LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE LTD. COBHAM HOUSE, 24 & 26 WATER LANE, E.C.4 1910 Page 1 PREFACE THE following pages are based on Brand’s Popular Antiquities, the edition published in 1841, supplemented by the results of later investigation. My aim has been to deal only with those superstitions and customs which are operative at the present time; and, as far as is possible, to trace these to their original sources. In some cases the task is fairly easy, in others very difficult; whilst in a few instances the “prime origin,” to use the words of Brand, is absolutely unattainable. Still, in these days of pageantry, when the British people show some signs of periodically reviewing the picturesque life of bygone times, it will be a source of satisfaction if in this book I succeed in tracing, though it be for a century or two, the thoughts and habits which were born in a remote past. Page 2 CONTENTS SECTION I. Superstitions and Customs Relating to Days and Seasons 1. Candlemas Day 2. St. Valentine’s Day 3. Simnel Sunday 4. Maunday Thursday 5. Shrove Tuesday 6. Good Friday 7. Good Friday Loaves 8. Picking up Sixpences at Smithfield 9. Easter Holidays 10. Biddenden Cakes 11. Easter Eggs 12. Knutsford: May Queen and Morris Dances 13. Furry Dance—Helston 14. Baal Fire—St. John’s Eve 15. Hock Tide 16. Garland Day at Abbotsbury 17. Ascension Day, “Beating the Bounds” 18. Ascension Day—other superstitions. 19. All Fool’s Day 20. Lichfield Greenhill Bower 21. Lammas Day 22. Harvest Home: the Kern Baby 23. Halloween 24. The Fifth of November 25. Wroth Money 26. Christmas 27. Christmas Boxes 28. Yule Logs 29. Lucky and Unlucky Days SECTION II. Marriage Superstitions and Customs 1. The Engagement Ring 2. Kissing the Bride 3. Wedding Rings and Bride Cake 4. Bridesmaids and Best Man 5. May Marriages 6. Throwing the Shoe 7. The Dunmow Flitch of Bacon 8. Selling Wives 9. Christening Customs Page 3 SECTION III. Divination and Omens 1. Dreams 2. Witchcraft 3. Divination by Books 4. The Divining (Dowsing) Rod 5. Palmistry 6. Astrology 7. Crystal-gazing 8. Colour Superstitions 9. Numbers 10. Amulets, Gems, Charms, and Talismans 11. Omens—Introductory 12. Looking-glass Omens 13. Stumbling and Falling 14. Spilling the Salt 15. Thirteen at Table 16. The Owl 17. Howling of Dogs 18. Ear Tingling 19. Sneezing 20. Spitting 21. Knife Superstitions 22. Sharks following Ships 23. Black Cats 24. The Cuckoo 25. Comets SECTION IV. Miscellaneous Superstitions and Customs 1. Holy Wells 2. The Horn Dance: Abbot’s Bromley 3. “Telling the Bees” 4. The Death Bell 5. Vampires 6. Robin Redbreast 7. Drinking Customs 8. Yew Trees in Churchyards 9. Theatre Superstitions 10. Christening Ships 11. Horse Shoe Tributes at Oakham Castle 12. The Duty of Not Saving a Drowning Man 13. Playing Card Superstitions Page 4 The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs INTRODUCTION. THE true origin of superstition is to be found in early man’s effort to explain Nature and his own existence; in the desire to propitiate Fate and invite Fortune; in the wish to avoid evils he could not understand and in the unavoidable attempt to pry into the future. From these sources alone must have sprung that system of crude notions and practices still obtaining among savage nations; and although in more advanced nations the crude system gave place to attractive mythology, the moving power was still the same; man’s interpretation of the world was equal to his ability to understand its mysteries no more, no less. For this reason the superstitions which, to use a Darwinian word, persist, are of special interest, as showing a psychological habit of some importance. Of this, more anon. The first note in all superstitions is that of ignorance. Take three representative and widely dif- ferent cases. The first is a Chinaman living about one thousand years before Christ. He has before him the “Book of Changes,” and is about to divine the future by geometrical figures; the second is a Roman lady, bent on the same object, but using the shapes of molten wax dropped into water; the third is a Stock Exchange speculator seated before a modern clair- voyant in Bond Street, earnestly seeking light on the future of his big deal in Brighton A. The operating cause here is a desire to know the future, and, so long as man is man, so long will he either rely on the divinations of the past, or invent new ones more in keeping with mental science. But ignorance exists in several varieties, and one of them has to do not with the future, but with the well-established present; in other words, an accepted doctrine may be based on a misinterpretation of the facts. As Trenchard remarks in his Natural History of Superstition, “Man’s curiosity is in excess of his capacity to interpret Nature and life.” Thus early man attributed a living spirit to everything—to his fellows, to the lower animals, to the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. Probably these conclusions were as good as his intelli- gence would allow, but they became the mental stock-in-trade of all races, and were handed down from one generation to another, constituting a barrier to be broken down before newer and truer ideas of life could prevail. And the same contention applies equally to the supersti- tion of the moment. The woman who will not pay a call unless she wears a particular amulet, or the man who starts up from a table of thirteen, his face blanched and his blood cold, are just as truly, though not in the same degree, the victims of ignorance as the animist who tried to propitiate the anger of the spirit of the stream. Ignorance is the atmosphere in which alone such superstitions can live. Allied with ignorance is fear, which is the second element calling for notice. Fear, too, has its varieties, some of them both natural and justifiable. If I visit an electrical power-house and know nothing of its machinery and appointments, I am very chary what I touch and prefer to keep my hands to myself lest I make a mistake. Rational fear, however, is the offspring of a reasoned knowledge of danger. It is irrational fear which forms the bogey of superstition. The misfortune of early man was to have experiences more numerous and subtle than he could understand; to his power of analysis they were altogether unyielding; and yet his unrestrained imagination demanded a working theory of some kind, and he got one, grounded in ignorance and fear. An earthquake is a phenomenon calculated to strike terror into the heart of all but the strongest man; no wonder then that the primitive mind invented all sorts of ideas about spirits of the under world, and ascribed to gloomy caverns the possession of dragons and other fearsome enemies of the race. The thunder, the lightning and the tempest; the blight which spoiled the sources of food; the sudden attack of mysterious sickness, and a hundred Page 5 other fatalities were to him more than merely natural forces busily employed in working out their natural destiny; they were Powers to be propitiated. That is the third note of the supersti- tious mind; its effort to propitiate intelligent and semi-intelligent forces by suitable beliefs, rites, ceremonies, and penances. Where ignorance and fear beget a sense of danger, knowl- edge, even defective knowledge, is always equal to the task of inventing a way of escape. But if these be the prime origins of superstition, what are the secondary origins? If “the belief in the existence and proximity of a world of spirits, and a fear of such spirits, is the only solu- tion of all the curious religions, customs, ceremonies, and superstitions of pagan life,” what are the other causes which modified these primitive guesses at the riddle of existence? The answer is twofold : (1) The old causes have never ceased to be operative, though the manner of expression has changed; and (2) The new causes were the advent of world religions, of social transformations, and of political separation. As an illustration of the old causes in a new application, I will take ignorance once more. Lord Mahon, in his History of England, tells us: “It chanced that six children in one family died in quick succession of a sudden and mysterious illness—their feet having mortified and dropped off. Professor Henslow, who resides at no great distance from Wattisham, has given much attention to the records of this case, and has made it clear in his excellent essay on the Diseases of Wheat, that in all probability their death was owing to the improvident use of deleterious food—the ergot of rye. But he adds that in the neighbourhood the popular belief was firm that these poor children had been the victims of sorcery and witchcraft.” This was lit- tle over forty years ago in “Christian England.” Four hundred years ago, or twice or thrice that number, it was just the same—the domination of ignorance. But the causes called secondary offer a new field of enquiry. Take the advent of Christianity with its point of view diametrically opposed to the religions of the period. What was the effect on paganism? It was seen in the Christianising of many of the old superstitions and customs, and in the creation of a group of new ones.
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