HAUNTED HOUSES.—?A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A GHOST.—?KIRBY, THE ACTOR.—?COLT’S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.—?THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

A great many persons believe more or less in haunted houses. In almost every community there is some building that has had a mysterious history. This is true in all countries, and among all races and nations. Indeed it is to this very fact that the ingenious author of the “Twenty-seventh-street Ghost” may attribute his success in creating such an excitement. In fact, I will say, “under the rose,” he predicted his hopes of success entirely upon this weakness in human nature. Even in “this day and age of the world” there are hundreds of deserted buildings which are looked upon with awe, or terror, or superstitious interest. They have frightened their former inhabitants away, and left the buildings in the almost undisputed possession of real moles, bats, and owls, and imaginary goblins and sprites.

In the course of my travels in both hemispheres I have been amazed at the great number of such cases that have come under my personal observation.

But for the present, I will give a brief account of a haunted house in Yorkshire, England, in which some twenty years ago, Kirby, the actor, who formerly played at the Chatham Theatre, passed a pretty strange night. I met Mr. Kirby in London in 1844, and I will give, in nearly his own language, a history of his lone night in this haunted house, as he gave it to me within a week after its occurrence. I will add, that I saw no reason to doubt Mr. Kirby’s veracity, and he assured me upon his honor that the statement was literally true to the letter. Having myself been through several similar places in the daytime, I felt a peculiar interest in the subject, and hence I have a vivid recollection of nearly the exact words in which he related his singular nocturnal adventure. One thing is certain: Kirby was not the man to be afraid of trying such an experiment.

“I had heard wonderful stories about this house,” said Mr. Kirby to me, “and I was very glad to get a chance to enter it, although, I confess, the next morning I was about as glad to get out of it.”

“It was an old country-seat—a solid stone mansion which had long borne the reputation of a haunted house. It was watched only by one man. He was the old gardener,—an ancient servant of the family that once lived there, and a person in whom the family reposed implicit confidence.

“Having had some inkling of this wonderful place, and having a few days to spare before going to London to fulfil an engagement at the Surry Theatre, I thought I would probe this haunted-house story to the bottom. I therefore called on the old gardener who had charge of the place, and introduced myself as an American traveller desirous of spending a night with his ghosts. The old man seemed to be about seventy-five or eighty years of age. I met him at the gate of the estate, where he kept guard. He told me, when I applied, that it was a dangerous spot to enter, but I could pass it if I pleased. I should, however, have to return by the same door, if I ever came back again.

“Wishing to make sure of the job, I gave him a sovereign, and asked him to give me all the privileges of the establishment; and if his bill amounted to more, I would settle it when I returned. He looked at me with an expression of doubt and apprehension, as much as to say that he neither understood what I was going to do nor what was likely to happen. He merely remarked:

“‘You can go in.’

“‘Will you go with me, and show me the road?’

“‘I will.’

“‘Go ahead.’

“We entered. The gate closed. I suddenly turned on my man, the old gardener and custodian of the place, and said to him:

“‘Now, my patriarchal friend, I am going to sift this humbug to the bottom, even if I stay here forty nights in succession; and I am prepared to lay all “spirits” that present themselves; but if you will save me all trouble in the matter and frankly explain to me the whole affair, I will never mention it to your injury, and I will present you with ten golden sovereigns.’

“The old fellow looked astonished; but he smirked, and whimpered, and trembled, and said:“‘I am afraid to do that; but I will warn you against going too far.’

“When we had crossed a courtyard, he rang a bell, and several strange noises were distinctly heard. I was introduced to the establishment through a well-constructed archway, which led to a large stairway, from which we proceeded to a great door, which opened into a very large room. It was a library. The old custodian had carried a torch (and I was prepared with a box of matches.) He was acting evidently ‘on the square,’ and I sat myself down in the library, where he told me that I should soon see positive evidence that this was a haunted house.

“Not being a very firm believer in the doctrine of houses really haunted, I proposed to keep a pretty good hold of my match-box, and lest there should be any doubt about it, I had also provided myself with two sperm candles, which I kept in my pocket, so I should not be left too suddenly and too long in the dark.“‘Now Sir,’ said he, ‘I wish you to hold all your nerves steady and keep your courage up, because I intend to stand by you as well as I can, but I never come into this house alone.’

“‘Well, what is the matter with the house?’

“‘Oh! everything, Sir!’

“‘What?’

“‘Well, when I was much younger than I am now, the master of this estate got frightened here by some mysterious appearances, noises, sounds, etc., and he preferred to leave the place.’

“‘Why?’

“‘He had a tradition from his grandfather, and pretty well kept alive in the family, that it was a haunted house; and he let out the estate to the smaller farmers of the neighborhood, and quit the premises, and never returned again, except one night, and after that one night he left. We suppose he is dead. Now, Sir, if you wish to spend the night here as you have requested, what may happen to you I don’t know; but I tell you it is a haunted house, and I would not sleep here to-night for all the wealth of the Bank of England!’

“This did not deter me in the least, and having the means of self-protection around me, and plenty of lucifer matches, etc., I thought I would explore this mystery and see whether a humbug which had terrified the proprietors of that magnificent house in the midst of a magnificent estate, for upward of sixty years, could not be explored and exploded. That it was a humbug, I had no doubt; that I would find it out, I was not so certain.

“I sat down in the library, fully determined to spend the night in the establishment. A door was opened into an adjoining room where there was a dust-covered lounge, and every thing promised as much comfort as could be expected under the circumstances.“However, before the old keeper of the house left, I asked him to show me over the building, and let me explore for myself the different rooms and apartments. To all this he readily consented; and as he had some prospect before him of making a good job out of it, he displayed a great deal of alacrity, and moved along very quick and smart for a man apparently eighty years of age.

“I went from room to room and story to story. Everything seemed to be well arranged, but somewhat dusty and time-worn. I kept a pretty sharp lookout, but I could see no sort of machinery for producing a grand effect.

“We finally descended to the library, when I closed the door, and bolting and locking it, took the key and put it in my pocket.

“‘Now, Sir,’ I said to the keeper, ‘where is the humbug?’

“‘There is no humbug here,’ he answered.

“‘Well, why don’t you show me some evidence of the haunted house?’

“‘You wait,’ said he, ‘till twelve o’clock to-night, and you will see “haunting” enough for you. I will not stay till then.’

“He left; I staid. Everything was quiet for some time. Not a mouse was heard, not a rat was visible, and I thought I would go to sleep.

“I lay down for this purpose, but I soon heard certain extraordinary sounds that disturbed my repose. Chains were clanked, noises were made, and shrieks and groans were heard from various parts of the mansion. All of these I had expected. They did not frighten me much. A little while after, just as I was going to sleep again, a curious string of light burned around the room. It ran along on the walls in a zigzag line, about six feet high, entirely through the apartment. I did not smell anything bituminous or like sulphur. It flashed quicker than powder, and it did not smell like it. Thinks I: ‘This looks pretty well, we will have some amusement now.’ Then the jangling of bells, and clanking of chains, and flashes of light; then thumpings and knockings of all sorts came along, interspersed with shrieks and groans. I sat very quiet. I had two of Colt’s best pistols in my pocket, and I thought I could shoot anything spiritual or material with these machines made in Connecticut. I took them out and laid them on the table. One of them suddenly disappeared! I did not like that, still my nerves were firm, for I knew it was all gammon. I took the other pistol in my hand and surveyed the room. Nobody was there; and, finally half suspicious that I had gone to sleep and had a dream, I woke up with a grasp on my hand which was holding the other pistol. This soon made me fully awake.

“I tried to recover my balance, and at this moment the candle went out. I lit it with one of my lucifers. No person was visible, but the noises began again, and they were infernal. I then took one of my sperm candles out, and went to unlock the door. I attempted to take the key out of my pocket. It was not there! Suddenly the door opened, I saw a man or a somebody about the size of a man, standing straight in front of me. I pointed one of Colt’s revolvers at his head, for I thought I saw something human about him; and I told him that whether he was ghost or spirit, goblin or robber, he had better stand steady, or I would blow his brains out, if he had any. And to make sure that he should not escape I got hold of his arm, and told him that if he was a ghost he would have a tolerably hard time of it, and that if he was a humbug I would let him off if he would tell me the whole story about the trick.

“He saw that he was caught, and he earnestly begged me not to fire that American pistol at him. I did not; but I did not let go of him. I brought him into the library, and with pistol in hand I put him through a pretty close examination. He was clad in mailed armor, with breastplate and helmet, and a great sword, in the style of the Crusaders. He promised, on condition of saving his life, to give me an honest account of the facts.

“In substance they were, that he, an old family-servant, and ultimately a gardener in charge of the place, had been employed by an enemy of the gentleman who owned the property, to render it so uncomfortable that the estate should be sold for much less than its value; and that he had got an ingenious machinist and chemist to assist him in arranging such contrivances as would make the house so intolerable that they could not live there. A galvanic battery with wires were provided, and every device of chemistry and mechanism was resorted to in order to effect this purpose.

“One by one, the family left; and they had remained away for nearly two generations under the terror of such forms, and appearances, and sights and sounds, as frightened them almost to death. And furthermore, the old gardener added, that he expected his own grand-daughter would become the lady of that house, when the property should have been neglected so long and the place became so fearful that no one in the neighborhood would undertake to purchase it, or to even pass one moment after dark in exploring its horrible mysteries.

“He begged on his knees that I would spare him with his gray hairs, since he had so short a time to live. He declared that he had been actuated by no other motive than pride and ambition for his child.

“I told the poor old fellow that his secret should be safe with me, and should not be made public so long as he lived. The old man grasped my hand eagerly and expressed his gratitude in the strongest terms. Thus, Mr. Barnum, I have given you the pure and honest facts in regard to my adventure in a so called haunted house. Don’t make it public until you are convinced that the old gardener has shuffled off this mortal coil.”

So much for Kirby’s story of the haunted house. No doubt, the old gardener has before this become in reality a disembodied spirit, but that his grand-daughter became legally possessed of the estate is not at all probable. Real estate does not change hands so easily in England. So powerful, however is the superstitious belief in haunted houses, that it is doubtful whether that property will for many years sustain half so great a cash value in the market as it would have done had it not been considered a “haunted house.”

It is to be hoped that, as schools multiply and education increases, the follies and superstitions which underlie a belief in ghosts and hobgoblins will pass away.

CHAPTER XXXV.

HAUNTED HOUSES.—?GHOSTS.—?GHOULS.—?PHANTOMS.—?VAMPIRES.—?CONJURORS.—? DIVINING.—?GOBLINS.—?FORTUNE-TELLING.—?MAGIC.—?WITCHES.—?SORCERY.—? OBI.—?DREAMS.—?SIGNS.—?SPIRITUAL MEDIUMS.—?FALSE PROPHETS.—? DEMONOLOGY.—?DEVILTRY GENERALLY.

Whether superstition is the father of humbug, or humbug the mother of superstition (as well as its nurse,) I do not pretend to say; for the biggest fools and the greatest philosophers can be numbered among the believers in and victims of the worst humbugs that ever prevailed on the earth.

As we grow up from childhood and begin to think we are free from all superstitions, absurdities, follies, a belief in dreams, signs, omens, and other similar stuff, we afterward learn that experience does not cure the complaint. Doubtless much depends upon our “bringing up.” If children are permitted to feast their ears night after night (as I was) with stories of ghosts, hobgoblins, ghouls, witches, apparitions, bugaboos, it is more difficult in after-life for them to rid their minds of impressions thus made.

But whatever may have been our early education, I am convinced that there is an inherent love of the marvelous in every breast, and that everybody is more or less superstitious; and every superstition I denominate a humbug, for it lays the human mind open to any amount of belief, in any amount of deception that may be practised.

One object of these chapters consists in showing how open everybody is to deception, that nearly everybody “hankers” after it, that solid and solemn realities are frequently set aside for silly impositions and delusions, and that people, as a too general thing, like to be led into the region of mystery. As Hudibras has it:

“Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat;
As lookers-on feel most delight
That least perceive a juggler’s sleight;
And still the less they understand,
The more they admire his sleight of hand.”

The amount or strength of man’s brains have little to do with the amount of their superstitions. The most learned and the greatest men have been the deepest believers in ingeniously-contrived machines for running human reason off the track. If any expositions I can make on this subject will serve to put people on their guard against impositions of all sorts, as well as foolish superstitions, I shall feel a pleasure in reflecting that I have not written in vain. The heading of this chapter enumerates the principal kinds of supernatural humbugs. These, it must be remembered, are quite different from religious impostures.

It is astonishing to reflect how ancient is the date of this class of superstitions (as well as of most others, in fact,) and how universally they have prevailed. Nearly thirty-six hundred years ago, it was thought a matter of course that Joseph, the Hebrew Prime Minister of Pharaoh, should have a silver cup that he commonly used to do his divining with: so that the practice must already have been an established one.

In Homer’s time, about twenty-eight hundred years ago, ghosts were believed to appear. The Witch of Endor pretended to raise the ghost of Samuel, at about the same time.

To-day, here in the City of New York, dream books are sold by the edition; a dozen fortune-tellers regularly advertise in the papers; a haunted house can gather excited crowds for weeks; abundance of people are uneasy if they spill salt, dislike to see the new moon over the wrong shoulder, and are delighted if they can find an old horse-shoe to nail to their door-post.

I have already told about one or two haunted houses, but must devote part of this chapter to that division of the subject. There are hundreds of such—that is, of those reputed to be such; and have been for hundreds of years. In almost every city, and in many towns and country places, they are to be found. I know of one, for instance, in New Jersey, one or two in New York, and have heard of several in Connecticut. There are great numbers in Europe; for as white men have lived there so much longer than in America, ghosts naturally accumulated. In this country there are houses and places haunted by ghosts of Hessians, and Yankee ghosts, not to mention the headless Dutch phantom of Tarrytown, that turned out to be Brom Bones; but who ever heard of the ghost of an Indian? And as for the ghost of a black man, evidently it would have to appear by daylight. You couldn’t see it in the dark!

I have no room to even enumerate the cases of haunted houses. One in Aix-la-Chapelle, a fine large house, stood empty five years on account of the knockings in it, until it was sold for almost nothing, and the new owner (lucky man!) discovered that the ghost was a draft through a broken window that banged a loose door. An English gentleman once died, and his heir, in a day or two, heard of mysterious knockings which the frightened servants attributed to the defunct. He, however, investigated a little, and found that a rat in an old store room, was trying to get out of an old-fashioned box trap, and being able to lift the door only partly, it dropped again, constituting the ghost. Better pleased to find the rat than his father, the young man exterminated rat and phantom together.

A very ancient and impressive specimen of a haunted house was the palace of Vauvert, belonging to King Louis IX, of France, who was so pious that he was called Saint Louis. This fine building was so situated as to become very desirable, in the year 1259, to some monks. So there was forthwith horrid shriekings at night-times, red and green lights shone through the windows, and, finally, a large green ghost, with a white beard and a serpent’s tail, came every midnight to a front window, and shook his fist, and howled at those who passed by. Everybody was frightened—King Louis, good simple soul! as well as the rest. Then the bold monks appearing at the nick of time, intimated that if the King would give them the palace, they would do up the ghost in short order. He did it, and was very thankful to them besides. They moved in, and sure enough, the ghost appeared no more. Why should he?

The ghosts of Woodstock are well known. How they tormented the Puritan Commissioners who came thither in 1649, to break up the place, and dispose of it for the benefit of the Commonwealth! The poor Puritans had a horrid time. A disembodied dog growled under their bed, and bit the bed-clothes; something invisible walked all about; the chairs and tables danced; something threw the dishes about (like the Davenport “spirits;”) put logs for the pillows; flung brickbats up and down, without regard to heads; smashed the windows; threw pebbles in at the frightened commissioners; stuck a lot of pewter platters into their beds; ran away with their breeches; threw dirty water over them in bed; banged them over the head—until, after several weeks, the poor fellows gave it up, and ran away back to London. Many years afterward, it came out that all this was done by their clerk, who was secretly a royalist, though they thought him a furious Puritan, and who knew all the numerous secret passages and contrivances in the old palace. Most people have read Sir Walter Scott’s capital novel of “Woodstock,” founded on this very story.

The well known “Demon of Tedworth,” that drummed, and scratched, and pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson’s house turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates.

The still more famous “Ghost in Cock Lane,” in London in 1762, consisted of a Mrs. Parsons and her daughter, a little girl, trained by Mr. Parsons to knock and scratch very much after the fashion of the alphabet talking of the “spirits” of to-day. Parsons got up the whole affair, to revenge himself on a Mr. Kent. The ghost pretended to be that of a deceased sister-in-law of Kent, and to have been poisoned by him. But Parsons and his assistants were found out, and had to smart for their fun, being heavily fined, imprisoned, etc.

A very able ghost indeed, a Methodist ghost—the spectral property, consequently, of my good friends the Methodists—used to rattle, and clatter, and bang, and communicate, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wesley, the father of John Wesley, at Epworth, in England. This ghost was very troublesome, and utterly useless. In fact, none of the ghosts that haunt houses are of the least possible use. They plague people, but do no good. They act like the spirits of departed monkeys.

I must add two or three short anecdotes about ghosts, got up in the devil-manner. They are not new, but illustrate very handsomely the state of mind in which a ghost should be met. One is, that somebody undertook to scare Cuvier, the great naturalist, with a ghost having an ox’s head. Cuvier woke, and found the fearful thing glaring and grinning at his bedside.

“What do you want?”

“To devour you!” growled the ghost.

“Devour me?” quoth the great Frenchman—“Hoofs, horns, graminivorous! You can’t do it—clear out!”

And he did clear out.A pious maiden lady, in one of our New-England villages, was known to possess three peculiarities. First, she was a very religious, honest, matter-of-fact woman. Second, she supposed everybody else was equally honest; hence she was very credulous, always believing everything she heard. And third, having “a conscience void of offense,” she saw no reason to be afraid of anything; consequently, she feared nothing.

On a dark night, some boys, knowing that she would be returning home alone from prayer-meeting, through an unfrequented street, determined to test two of her peculiarities, viz., her credulity and her courage. One of the boys was sewed up in a huge shaggy bear-skin, and as the old lady’s feet were heard pattering down the street, he threw himself directly in her path and commenced making a terrible noise.

“Mercy!” exclaimed the old lady. “Who are you?”

“I am the devil!” was the reply.

“Well, you are a poor creature!” responded the antiquated virgin, as she stepped aside and passed by the strange animal, probably not for a moment doubting it was his Satanic Majesty, but certainly not dreaming of being afraid of him.

It is said that a Yankee tin peddler, who had frequently cheated most of the people in the vicinity of a New England village through which he was passing, was induced by some of the acute ones to join them in a drinking bout. He finally became stone drunk; and in that condition these wags carried him to a dark rocky cave near the village, then, dressing themselves in raw-head-and-bloody-bones’ style, awaited his return to consciousness.

As he began rousing himself, they lighted some huge torches, and also set fire to some bundles of straw, and three or four rolls of brimstone, which they had placed in different parts of the cavern. The peddler rubbed his eyes, and seeing and smelling all these evidences of pandemonium, concluded he had died, and was now partaking of his final doom. But he took it very philosophically, for he complacently remarked to himself.

“In hell—just as I expected!”

A story is told of a cool old sea captain, with a virago of a wife, who met one of these artificial devils in a lonely place. As the ghost obstructed his path, the old fellow remarked:

“If you are not the devil, get out! If you are, come along with me and get supper. I married your sister!”

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MAGICAL HUMBUGS.—?VIRGIL.—?A PICKLED SORCERER.—?CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.—?HIS STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.—?DOCTOR FAUSTUS.—?HUMBUGGING HORSE-JOCKEYS.—?ZIITO AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.—?SALAMANCA.—?DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST.

Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, necromancy, conjuring, incantation, soothsaying, divining, the black art, are all one and the same humbug. They show how prone men are to believe in some supernatural power, in some beings wiser and stronger than themselves, but at the same time how they stop short, and find satisfaction in some debasing humbug, instead of looking above and beyond it all to God, the only being that it is really worth while for man to look up to or beseech.

Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind, and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the history of the race.

In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.

It is a curious fact that throughout the middle ages, the Roman poet Virgil was commonly believed to have been a great magician. Traditions were recorded by monastic chroniclers about him, that he made a brass fly and mounted it over one of the gates of Naples, having instilled into this metallic insect such potent magical qualities that as long as it kept guard over the gate, no musquitos, or flies, or cockroach, or other troublesome insects could exist in the city. What would have become of the celebrated Bug Powder man in those days? The story is told about Virgil as well as about Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and other magicians, that he made a brazen head which could prophesy. He also made some statues of the gods of the various nations subject to Rome, so enchanted that if one of those nations was preparing to rebel, the statue of its god rung a bell and pointed a finger toward the nation. The same set of stories tells how poor Virgil came to an untimely end in consequence of trying to live forever. He had become an old man, it appears, and wishing to be young again, he used some appropriate incantations, and prepared a secret cavern. In this he caused a confidential disciple to cut him up like a hog and pack him away in a barrel of pickle, out of which he was to emerge in his new magic youth after a certain time. But by that special bad luck which seems to attend such cases, some malapropos traveller somehow made his way into the cavern, where he found the magic pork-barrel standing silently all alone in the middle of the place, and an ever-burning lamp illuminating the room, and slowly distilling a magic oil upon the salted sorcerer who was cooking below. The traveller rudely jarred the barrel, the light went out, as the torches flared upon it; and suddenly there appeared to the eyes of the astounded man, close at one side of the barrel, a little naked child, which ran thrice around the barrel, uttering deep curses upon him who had thus destroyed the charm, and vanished. The frightened traveller made off as fast as he could, and poor old Virgil, for what I know, is in pickle yet.

Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most celebrated magicians of the middle ages. He lived from the year 1486 (six years before the discovery of America) until 1534, and was a native of Cologne, Agrippa is said to have had a magic glass in which he showed to his customers such dead or absent persons as they might wish to see. Thus he would call up the beautiful Helen of Troy, or Cicero in the midst of an oration; or to a pining lover, the figure of his absent lady, as she was employed at the moment—a dangerous exhibition! For who knows, whether the consolation sought by the fair one, will always be such as her lover will approve? Agrippa, they say, had an attendant devil in the form of a huge black dog, whom on his death-bed the magician dismissed with curses. The dog ran away, plunged into the river Saone and was seen no more. We are of course to suppose that his Satanic Majesty got possession of the conjuror’s soul however, as per agreement. There is a story about Agrippa, which shows conclusively how “a little learning” may be “a dangerous thing.” When Agrippa was absent on a short journey, his student in magic slipped into the study and began to read spells out of a great book. After a little there was a knock at the door, but the young man paid no attention to it. In another moment there was another louder one, which startled him, but still he read on. In a moment the door opened, and in came a fine large devil who angrily asked, “What do you call me for?” The frightened youth answered very much like those naughty boys who say “I didn’t do nothing!” But it will not do to fool with devils. The angry demon caught him by the throat and strangled him. Shortly, when Agrippa returned, lo and behold, a strong squad of evil spirits were kicking up their heels and playing tag all over the house, and crowding his study particularly full. Like a schoolmaster among mischievous boys, the great enchanter sent all the little fellows home, catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected the fact, and Agrippa had to abscond very suddenly.

Another student of Agrippa’s came very near an equally bad end. The magician was in the habit of enchanting a broomstick into a servant to do his housework, and when it was done, turning it back to a broomstick again and putting it behind the door. This young student had overheard the charm which made the servant, and one day in his master’s absence, wanting a pail of water he said over the incantation and told the servant “Bring some water.” The evil spirit promptly obeyed; flew to the river, brought a pailful and emptied it, instantly brought a second, instantly a third; and the student, startled, cried out, “that’s enough!” But this was not the “return charm,” and the ill tempered demon, rejoicing in doing mischief within the letter of his obligation, now flew backward and forward like lightning, so that he even began to flood the room about the rash student’s feet. Desperate, he seized an axe and hewed this diabolical serving-man in two. Two serving-men jumped up, with two water-pails, grinning in devilish glee, and both went to work harder than ever. The poor student gave himself up for lost, when luckily the master came home, dismissed the over-officious water carrier with a word, and saved the student’s life.

How thoroughly false all these absurd fictions are, and yet how ingeniously based on some fact, appears by the case of Agrippa’s black dog. Wierus, a writer of good authority, and a personal friend of Agrippa’s, reports that he knew very well all about the dog; that it was not a superhuman dog at all, but (if the term be admissible) a mere human dog—an animal which he, Wierus, had often led about by a string, and only a domestic pet of Agrippa.

Another eminent magician of those days was Doctor Faustus, about whom Goethe wrote “Faust,” Bailey wrote “Festus,” and whose story, mingled of human love and of the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles, is known so very widely. The truth about Faust seems to be, that he was simply a successful juggler of the sixteenth century. Yet the wonderful stories about him were very implicitly and extensively believed. It was the time of the Protestant Reformation, and even Melanchthon and Luther seem to have entirely believed that Faustus could make the forms of the dead appear, could carry people invisibly through the air, and play all the legendary tricks of the enchanters. So strong a hold does humbug often obtain even upon the noblest and clearest and wisest minds!

Faustus, according to the traditions, had a pretty keen eye for a joke. He once sold a splendid horse to a horse-jockey at a fair. The fellow shortly rode his fine horse to water. When he got into the water, lo and behold, the horse vanished, and the humbugged jockey found himself sitting up to his neck in the river on a straw saddle. There is something quite satisfactory in the idea of playing such a trick on one of that sharp generation, and Faust felt so comfortable over it that he entered his hotel and went quietly to sleep—or pretended to. Shortly in came the angry jockey; he shouted and bawled, but could not awaken the doctor, and in his anger he seized his foot and gave it a good pull. Foot and leg came off in his hand. Faustus screamed out as if in horrible agony, and the terrified jockey ran away as fast as he could, and never troubled his very loose-jointed customer for the money.

A magician named Ziito, resident at the court of Wenceslaus of Bohemia (A. D. 1368 to 1419,) appears to great advantage in the annals of these humbugs. He was a homely, crooked creature, with an immense mouth. He had a collision once in public on a question of skill with a brother conjuror, and becoming a little excited, opened his big mouth and swallowed the other magician, all to his shoes, which as he observed were dirty. Then he stepped into a closet, got his rival out of him somehow, and calmly led him back to the company. A story is told about Ziito and some hogs, just like that about Faust and the horse.

In all these stories about magicians, their power is derived from the devil. It was long believed that the ancient university of Salamanca in Spain, founded A. D. 1240, was the chief school of magic, and had regular professors and classes in it. The devil was supposed to be the special patron of this department, and he had a curious fee for his trouble, which he collected every commencement day. The last exercise of the graduating class on that day was, to run across a certain cavern under the University. The devil was always on hand at this time, and had the privilege of grabbing at the last man of the crowd. If he caught him, as he commonly did, the soul of the unhappy student became the property of his captor. Hence arose the phrase “Devil take the hindmost.” Sometime it happened that some very brisk fellow was left last by some accident. If he were brisk enough to dodge the devil’s grab, that personage only caught his shadow. In this case it was well understood that this particular enchanter never had any shadow afterwards, and he always became very eminent in his art.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WITCHCRAFT.—?NEW YORK WITCHES.—?THE WITCH MANIA.—?HOW FAST THEY BURNED THEM.—?THE MODE OF TRIAL.—?WITCHES TO DAY IN EUROPE.

Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of all the humbugs. And it is not a dead humbug either; it is alive, busily exercised by knaves and believed by fools all over the world. Witches and wizards operate and prosper among the Hottentots and negroes and barbarous Indians, among the Siberians and Kirgishes and Lapps, of course. Everybody knows that—they are poor ignorant creatures! Yes: but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. I take up one of the New York City dailies of this very morning, and find in it the advertisements of seven Witches. In 1858, there were in full blast in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the black art.

Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good while after Christ. During the last century or so, again, while witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar. Sometimes a dollar. Their divination is worked by cutting and dealing cards or studying the palm of your hand. And the things which they tell you are the most silly and shallow babble in the world; a mess of phrases worn out over and over again. Here is a specimen, as gabbled to the customer over a pack of cards laid out on the table; anybody can do the like: “You face a misfortune. I think it will come upon you within three weeks, but it may not. A dark complexioned man faces your life-card. He is plotting against you, and you must beware of him. Your marriage-card faces two young women, one fair and the other dark. One you will have, and the other you will not. I think you will have the fair one. She favors the dark complexioned man, which means trouble. You face money, but you must earn it. There is a good deal, but you may not get much of it” etc., etc. These words are exactly the sort of stuff that is sold by the witches of to-day. But the greatest witch humbug of all the witchcraft of history, is that of Christendom for about three hundred years, beginning about the time of the discovery of America. To that period belonged the Salem witchcraft of New England, the witch-finding of Matthew Hopkins in Old England, the Scotch witch trials, and the Swedish and German and French witch mania.

The peculiar traits of the witchcraft of this period are among the most mysterious of all humbugs. The most usual points in a case of witchcraft were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose part of their property. This was almost always the whole story, except the mere details of the witch baptism and witch sabbath, parodies on the ceremonies of the Christian religion. And the mystery is, how anybody could believe that to accomplish such very small results, seldom equal even to the death of an enemy, one would agree to accept eternal damnation in the next world, almost certain poverty, misery, persecution and torment in this, besides having for an amusement performances more dirty, obscene and vulgar than I can even hint at.

But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details, and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is astonishing. A magistrate named Remigius, published a book in which he told how much he thought of himself for having condemned and burned nine hundred witches in sixteen years, in Lorraine. And the one thing that he blamed himself for was this: that out of regard for the wishes of a colleague, he had only caused certain children to be whipped naked three times round the market place where their parents had been burned, instead of burning them. At Bamberg, six hundred persons were burned in five years, at Wurzburg nine hundred in two years. Sprenger, a German inquisitor-general, and author of a celebrated book on detecting and punishing witchcraft, called Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Mallet of Malefactors,” burned more than five hundred in one year. In Geneva, five hundred persons were burned during 1515 and 1516. In the district of Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years afterwards. Seventeen thousand persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. Forty thousand were executed in England from 1600 to 1680. Bodinus, another of the witch killing judges, gravely announced that there were undoubtedly not less than three hundred thousand witches in France.

The way in which the witch murderers reasoned, and their modes of conducting trials and procuring confessions, were truly infernal. The chief rule was that witchcraft being an “exceptional crime,” no regard need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland “the boot” was used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees, and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack, were too common to need details. Sometimes the prisoner was hung up by the thumbs, and whipped by one person, while another held lighted candles to the feet and other parts of the body. At Arras, while the prisoners were being torn on the rack, the executioner stood by, sword in hand, promising to cut off at once the heads of those who did not confess. At Offenburg, when the prisoners had been tortured until beyond the power of speaking aloud, they silently assented to abominable confessions read to them out of a book. Many were cheated into confession by the promise of pardon and release, and then burned. A poor woman in Germany was tricked by the hangman, who dressed himself up as a devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest way to death, and an escape out of their misery. All who dared to argue against the current of popular and judicial delusion were instantly refuted very effectively by being attacked for witchcraft themselves; and once accused, there was little hope of escape. The Jesuit Delrio, in a book published in 1599, states the witch killers’ side of the discussion very neatly indeed; for in one and the same chapter he defies any opponents to disprove the existence of witchcraft, and then shows that a denial of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies, and must be punished with death. Quite a number of excellent and sensible people were actually burnt on just this principle.

I do not undertake to give details of any witch trials; this sketch of the way in which they operated is all I can make room for, and sufficiently delineates this cruel and bloody humbug.I have already referred to the fact that we have right here among us in this city a very fair supply of a vulgar, dowdy kind of witchcraft. Other countries are favored in like manner. I have not just now the most recent information, but in the year 1857 and 1858, for instance, mobbing and prosecutions growing out of a popular belief in witchcraft were quite plentiful enough in various parts of Europe. No less than eight cases of the kind in England alone were reported during those two years. Among them was the actual murder of a woman as a witch by a mob in Shropshire; and an attack by another mob in Essex, upon a perfectly inoffensive person, on suspicion of having “bewitched” a scolding ill-conditioned girl, from which attack the mob was diverted with much difficulty, and thinking itself very unjustly treated. Some others of those cases show a singular quantity of credulity among people of respectability.

While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.—?HOW CATO CURED SPRAINS.—?THE SECRET NAME OF GOD.—?SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.—?ABRACADABRA.—?CURES FOR CRAMP.—?MR. WRIGHT’S SIGIL.—?WHISKERIFUSTICUS.—?WITCHES’ HORSES.—?THEIR CURSES.—?HOW TO RAISE THE DEVIL.

It is worth while to print in plain English for my readers a good selection of the very words which have been believed, or are still believed, to possess magic power. Then any who choose, may operate by themselves or may put some bold friend up in a corner, and blaze away at him or her until they are wholly satisfied about the power of magic.

The Roman Cato, so famous for his grumness and virtue, believed that if he were ill, it would much help him, and that it would cure sprains in others, to say over these words: “Daries, dardaries, astaris, ista, pista, sista,” or, as another account has it, “motas, daries, dardaries, astaries;” or, as still another account says, “Huat, huat, huat; ista, pista, sista; domiabo, damnaustra.” And sure enough, nothing is truer, as any physician will tell you, that if the old censor only believed hard enough, it would almost certainly help him; not by the force of the words, but by the force of his own ancient Roman imagination. Here are some Greek words of no less virtue: “Aski, Kataski, Tetrax.” When the Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the awful and powerful words, “Konx, ompax.” If you want to know what the usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see, instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of God, usually thought to be inexpressible, and only to be represented by a mystic figure kept in the Temple, and that if any one could learn it, and repeat it, he could rule the intelligent and unintelligent creation at his will. It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word “Yahveh” is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon’s signet, as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews believed that if you pronounced the word “Satan” any evil spirit that happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he wished, and possess you, as the devils in the New Testament possessed people.

Some ancient cities had a secret name, and it was believed that if their enemies could find this out, they could conjure with it so as to destroy such cities. Thus, the secret name of Rome was Valentia, and the word was very carefully kept, with the intention that none should know it except one or two of the chief pontiffs. Mr. Borrow, in one of his books, tells about a charm which a gipsy woman knew, and which she used to repeat to herself as a means of obtaining supernatural aid when she happened to want it. This was, “Saboca enrecar maria ereria.” He induced her after much effort to repeat the words to him, but she always wished she had not, with an evident conviction that some harm would result. He explained to her that they consisted of a very simple phrase, but it made no difference.

An ancient physician named Serenus Sammonicus, used to be quite sure of curing fevers, by means of what he called Abracadabra, which was a sort of inscription to be written on something and worn on the patient’s person. It was as follows:

ABRACADABRA
BRACADABR
RACADAB
ACADA
CAD
A.

Another gentleman of the same school used to cure sore eyes by hanging round the patient’s neck an inscription made up of only two letters, A and Z; but how he mixed them we unfortunately do not know.

By the way, many of the German peasantry in the more ignorant districts still believe that to write Abracadabra on a slip of paper and keep it with you, will protect you from wounds, and that if your house is on fire, to throw this strip into it will put the fire out.

Many charms or incantations call on God, Christ or some saints, just as the heathen ones call on a spirit. Here is one for epilepsy that seems to appeal to both religions, as if with a queer proviso against any possible mistake about either. Taking the epileptic by the hand, you whisper in his ear “I adjure thee by the sun and the moon and the gospel of to-day, that thou arise and no more fall to the ground; in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

A charm for the cramp found in vogue in some rustic regions is this:

“The devil is tying a knot in my leg,
Mark, Luke and John, unloose it, I beg,
Crosses three we make to ease us—
Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus.”

Here is another, often used in Ireland, which in the same spirit of superstition and ignorant irreverence uses the name of the Savior for a slight human occasion. It is to cure the toothache, and requires the repeating of the following string of words:

“St. Peter sitting on a marble stone, our Savior passing by, asked him what was the matter. ‘Oh Lord, a toothache!’ Stand up, Peter, and follow me; and whoever keeps these words in memory of me, shall never be troubled with a toothache, Amen.”

The English astrologer Lilly, after the death of his wife, formerly a Mrs. Wright, found in a scarlet bag which she wore under her arm a pure gold “sigil” or round plate worth about ten dollars in gold, which the former husband of the defunct had used to exorcise a spirit that plagued him. In case any of my readers can afford bullion enough, and would like to drive away any such visitor, let them get such a plate and have engraved round the edge of one side, “Vicit Leo de tribus Judae tetragrammaton +.” Inside this engrave a “holy lamb.” Round the edge of the other side engrave “Annaphel” and three crosses, thus: +++; and in the middle, “Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega.”

The witches have always had incantations, which they have used to make a broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc. Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called “The Girl’s Own Book,” and which, as I can depose, has often power to tickle children. It is this:

“Bandy-legged Borachio Mustachio Whiskerifusticus, the bald and brave Bombardino of Bagdad, helped Abomilique Bluebeard Bashaw of Babelmandel beat down an abominable bumblebee at Balsora.”

But to the other witches. Their charms were repeated sometimes in their own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted to fly away to their “Witches’ Sabbath,” they straddled a broom-handle, a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out “Horse and hattock, in the Devil’s name!” and immediately away they flew, “forty times as high as the moon,” if they wished. Some English witches in Somersetshire used instead to say, “Thout, tout, throughout and about;” and when they wished to return from their meeting they said “Rentum, tormentum!” If this form of the charm does not manufacture a horse, not even a saw-horse, then I recommend another version of it, thus:

“Horse and pattock, horse and go!
Horse and pellats, ho, ho, ho!”German witches said (in High Dutch:)

“Up and away!
Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!”

Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following rhyme:

“We put this untill this hame
In our Lord the Devil’s name;
The first hands that handle thee.
Burned and scalded may they be!
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt (i. e. cattle) into the fauld;
And little shall come to the fore (i. e. remain,)
Of all the rest of the little store.”

Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a fire, saying:

“We put this water among this meal
For long pining and ill heal,
We put it into the fire
To burn them up stock and stour (i. e. stack and band.)
That they be burned with our will,
Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln.”

In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to woman. It was by repeating:

“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now;
But I shall be woman even now—
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them “Turius und Shurius Inturius.” I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found useful it might then be tried on a pig.

Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg, having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as “What a strong man!” “what a beautiful woman!” “what a sweet child!” It is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried where it does not include a falsehood.

Here are two charms which the German witches used to repeat to raise the devil with in the form of a he goat:

“Lalle, Bachea, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,
Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator
Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton
Agra Jod Loi. Konig! Konig!”

The two last words to be screamed out quickly. This second one, it must be remembered, is to be read backward except the two last words. It was supposed to be the strongest of all, and was used if the first one failed:

“Anion, Lalle, Sabolos, Sado, Poter, Aziel,
Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jod,
Baphra! Komm! Komm!”

In case the devil staid too long, he could be made to take himself off by addressing to him the following statement, repeated backward:

“Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha
Plisos sother osech unicus Beelzebub
Dax! Komm! Komm!”

Which would evidently make almost anybody go away.

A German charm to improve one’s finances was perhaps no worse than gambling in gold. It ran thus:

“As God be welcomed, gentle moon—
Make thou my money more and soon!”

To get rid of a fever in the German manner, go and tie up a bough of a tree, saying, “Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!” To give your ague to a willow tree, tie three knots in a branch of it early in the morning, and say, “Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good morning, old one!” and turn and run away as fast as you can without looking back.

Enough of this nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record; for just such formulas are believed in now by many people. Even in this city there are “witches” who humbug the more foolish part of the community out of their money by means just as foolish as these.