Two Thousand Infants Sold to Russia for Human Sacrifice May 30, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Prehistoric
***Dedicated to Wade who sent the relevant passage in***
The custom of burying infant children in the foundations of new buildings was well established in prehistoric, ancient and even (gulp) medieval times. The bigger and more important a building the more likely it was to a have a tot dropped in the cement. It is pretty ghastly but there you are… Humans are pretty ghastly: no news there.
The custom while not universal seems to have been used through much of Euro-Asia-Africa and large parts of the Americas. Presumably the dried cats in walls that Beach has publicised with a certain abandon in the past are an updated version of this? A sacrifice to ‘ground’ the building and assuage the gods of earthquakes, floods and other misfortunes.
Beach has come across infant burial reports from all over the world and from many different time periods. However, yesterday he ran across this extraordinary piece about the nineteenth-century China to Russia railway.
As the Siberian Railway approached the northern boundaries of the Chinese Empire and surveys were made for its extension through Manchuria to the sea, great excitement was produced in Pekin (sic) by the rumor that the Russian minister had applied to the Empress of China for two thousand children to be buried in the roadbed under the rails in order to strengthen it. Some years ago, in rebuilding a large bridge, which had been swept away several times by inundations in the Yarkand, eight children, purchased from poor people at a high price, were immured alive in the foundations. As the new bridge was firmly reconstructed out of excellent materials, it has hitherto withstood the force of the strongest floods, a result which the Chinese attribute, not to the solid masonry, but to the propitiation of the river god by an offering of infants.
The ‘rumor’ can probably be brushed gently to one side, though it says a lot about nineteenth-century China that such a rumour could grow to maturity: or is this just Russians barbarizing the Chinese with tall tales?
More difficult to deal with is the whole question of the bridge in Yarkand. Beach would bet a substantial amount of money that eight children were not bought from their parents and that they were not built into the bridge. But tradition, depravity and superstition – a particularly hellish threesome - are such that he would not bet his house (which has he hopes not skeletal remains in the foundations).
Can anyone add anything to the tradition of the children in the Yarkand bridge? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
(Apologies for all those unanswered emails but Little Miss B been very ill the last four days and this has coincided with a period of manic work chez Mrs B.)
The Wandering Jew in Burnley May 27, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
Today it is the turn of the Wandering Jew.
For those who have never met him WJ refused to help Christ (as he was carrying his cross) or made fun of Jesus as he hung between the thieves. This proved a bad idea. WJ now meanders cursed around the globe and will do so until the end of time in penance for his oversight. The WJ legend in some senses institutionalises European anti-Semitism: it was a medieval, perhaps a thirteenth-century creation. But it is difficult not to feel sympathy for this extraordinary individual doomed to ‘walk the earth’ like Caine. And so an anti-semitic rant actually becomes a bridge to understanding and shared humanity.
Most modern studies claim that by the nineteenth-century belief in the Wandering Jew had become purely symbolic. What then to make of this news report from that very century.
We are informed that a new race of religionists have lately risen in this locality (Burnley), who pretend to have more extensive acquaintance with the ‘mysteries of the kingdom’ that any of their predecessors. They assert with much gravity that in the darkest shades of night they are permitted to hold converse with departed spirits, and for this purpose it is their custom to meet together, and hear a sweet response from heaven. The latest intelligence they have received from the invisible world is to the effect that the Wandering Jew is in some part of Lancashire, and that he will shortly pass through Burnley, when he will make a call at a certain house and communicate such important information relative to a subject that is as yet entirely ‘unknown to mortal mind’, as will ‘astonish the natives’. Really we may inquire, what will come next?
Beach doesn’t want to set up today’s post as a Borges short story, but he found this clipping at the bottom of a pile of newspapers while preparing his tax documentation. A note says that it came from the Blackburn Times but neglects to give the date: woops… If anyone can dictate the words to any blanks here then Beach would love to fill them in. drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
In the meantime Beachcombing might note that Blackburn is something of a rival to Burnley. Was this a bit of garden green slander then or some honest to God non-conformism gone very very wrong. For what it is worth Beach’s money is on the second. As a Yorkshireman Beach, in fact, can share the intelligence that folk across the border in Lancs (Blackburn, Burnley etc) are a LITTLE strange.
Cellini and the Salamander May 26, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Michael F who sent this in***
We last saw Benvenuto Cellini (obit 1571) imprinted on a French/Spanish/Scottish canon. Fourteen months on, here is a little doodle from Cellini’s infancy, judging by his autobiography the happiest years of his chaotic life.
When I was about five years old [c. 1505] my father happened to be in a basement-chamber of our house [in Florence], where they had been working, and where a good fire of oak-logs was still burning; he had an instrument in his hand and was playing and singing alone before the fire. The weather was very cold. Happening to look into the fire he spied in the middle of those most burning flames a little creature like a lizard, that was sporting in the core of intensest coals. Becoming instantly aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me called, and pointing it out to us children, gave me a great box on the ears which caused me to howl and weep with all my might. Then he pacified me good-humouredly and spoke as follows. ‘My dear little boy, I am not striking you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that that lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen by anyone of whom we have credible information.’ So saying he kissed me and gave me some pieces of money.
Innella età di cinque anni in circa, essendo mio padre in una nostra celletta, innella quale si era fatto bucato ed era rimasto un buon fuoco di querciuoli, Giovanni con una viola in braccio sonava e cantava soletto intorno a quel fuoco. Era molto freddo: guardando innel fuoco, accaso vidde in mezzo a quelle piú ardente fiamme uno animaletto come una lucertola, il quale si gioiva in quelle piú vigorose fiamme. Subito avedutosi di quel che gli era, fece chiamare la mia sorella e me, e mostratolo a noi bambini, a me diede una gran ceffata, per la quali io molto dirottamente mi missi a piagnere. Lui piacevolmente rachetatomi, mi disse cosí: – Figliolin mio caro, io non ti do per male che tu abbia fatto, ma solo perché tu ti ricordi che quella lucertola che tu vedi innel fuoco, si è una salamandra, quali non s’è veduta mai piú per altri, di chi ci sia notizia vera – e cosí mi baciò e mi dette certi quattrini.
It is a cute story and one with perhaps special significance for our author. Cellini, after all, would become famous through fire, he was first and foremost a goldsmith: was this creature even his totem? As to the identity of the salamander, the renaissance saw growing belief in elementals and salamandre were the spirits of flame. Almost as curious is the strange parental technique of causing pain to induce pleasant memories.
Any other historical pre-theosophy reports of salamanders: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Marco Polo and Pasta May 21, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Zach Nowak and Beach’s good friends over at FoodinItaly***
The lunatic idea that Marco Polo brought back spaghetti from China to grateful Italians is a modern food myth. There is no proof for this in MP’s writing: though there is an interpolated passage that might have started the confusion. In fact, the idea of MP hauling kilos of Barilla can be disproved by external sources that show pasta was already around in Italy before MP’s birth. When did this myth begin? We don’t know, but it was certainly running up steam in 1926 when it became the subject of an American advertising campaign. Enjoy this.
Accordingly [Marco Polo] steered his ship as close to the shore as safety would permit, and sent several of his men off in a small boat in quest of fresh water. One of the sailors in the party was a Venetian named Spaghetti, and it is around this man that the legend centers. When the small boat reached the beach the 3 or 4 sailors comprising the party separated, each striking out in a different direction. They knew there would be fresh water close by, but of course did not know its exact location. Spaghetti in his search, soon came to a little patch of huts. He realised that water must be close but before advancing into the village his attention was drawn to a native man and woman working over a crude mixing bowl. The woman appeared to be mixing a dough of some kind, particles of which had overflowed the mixing bowl and extended to the ground. The warm, dry air characteristic of the country, had in a short time hardened these slender strings of dough, and had made them extremely brittle. Spaghetti observed the ingredients used, the simple method of mixing, and it immediately occurred to him that a dry food of this kind would be a welcome addition to their ship’s menu. His curiosity prompted him to approach the couple and make known his wants as best he could. Through signs and gestures he managed to obtain a quantity of the grains used in making this strange dough, also a batch of the ready mixed dough and several strings which had dried. After relating his experience, upon returning to the ship, Spaghetti ‘worked’ the entire quantity of dough into long slender ribbons. As they dried he broke them into shorter and more convenient lengths. The problem of preparing the food had not been given much thought and it was one which would have to be experimented upon. The sticks were not palatable if eaten dry, and when cooked in fresh water were not much better. Thereupon Spaghetti conceived the idea of boiling strips in sea water, which, as every one knows, is intensely salt [sic]. This method seemed to produce the best result, and to bring out the flavour of the food. Before returning to Venice Spaghetti learned much of this new and appetising food. He discovered its energy providing qualities, its ability to remain fresh [? copy not clear] and wholesome for long periods to time and noted the acclaim with which it was received by his shipmates and other Europeans to whom he introduced it. Upon Spaghetti’s arrival home the popularity of this new delicacy spread among the villagers and before long a similar food made of home grown wheat was to be found on every table.
John Dickie in his history of Italian food claims that this campaign marks the origin of Marco Polo pasta-myth: note, incidentally, the way that the advertisers don’t entirely give the credit to the Chinese. It was from there, then, that we surmise that the myth was picked up by the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo, in which there is a memorable scene showing some Chinese Christians eating spaghetti with MP and his imbecile sidekick. Beach can’t find the videoclip on line, sorry… It is well worth seeing.
However, as an extract that we, long ago, passed on to FoodinItaly has shown the legend dates back to at least 1900 when this appeared in an English language cookbook.
And why, so far, no word of pasta, that ever present, ubiquitous Italian dish? For the reason that Pasta, whatever it may be to-day, is said not originally to have been a native of the country, but is alleged to be one of the many wonders brought home by the 13th century explorer, Marco Polo, from his travels in China. Nevertheless, although Pasta, in its many shapes and forms, may not have started off as a true native of Italy, to-day it seems as much a part of the country as an operatic tenor, and anyone wanting to present a truly Italian meal must perforce learn a few of the ways of preparing and cooking Pasta…
The myth seems to have already been around when this was written. So where does the myth come from and when does it begin? Can anyone help Beach and FoodinItaly track the myth down? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
***
23 May 2012 John G writes in with this link that contains the Marco Polo link at about twelve minutes. Beach does not have a media player on this computer so he has not been able to check the exact seconds. Thanks John!
The Ash Wednesday Supper May 12, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
Giordano Bruno (pictured badly) was a sixteenth-century philosopher with a thing about infinity. Giordano also had an infinite capacity to create irritation. Indeed, his travels around Europe have a fascinating pattern of greeting, slighting and sprinting. Typically, GB is obliged to leave his last home in a hurry because of offence caused to the church or/and secular authorities. Giordano then turns up in his new home, is greeted as a major European thinker. Then six months later the pattern reasserts itself and Giordano is running for his life once more.
Among GB’s very many unfortunate habits were those of throwing out images of saints and that of telling anyone who cared to listen that God had created endless inhabited worlds, making Giordano a kind of patron secular saint of the UFO community. This pattern, in any case, finally went up the chimney when 17 February, 1600, Bruno was burnt as a heretic in a Roman piazza. His ashes were then scattered in the Tiber and Giordano Bruno became his ideas: all that survived of him.
Now on the subject of ashes… In 1584 Bruno had one of those legendary dinners – the Ash Wednesday Supper – that, on previous occasions, Beach has referred to as Immortal Meals. Moments when the Olympians of the human race meet over bread and wine. We know about this meal because GB wrote a pseudo-Platonic dialogue based around it that he published in the same year under the title Cena de le Ceneri. It was by any standards, perhaps particularly though by the standards of a razor-sharp Italian bon vivant, a catastrophic repast.
First GB had been invited to the house of the poet Fulke Greville, an over serious Elizabethan sonnet writer who served both Elizabeth I and James I and who was a great friend of Philip Sydney. GB had been called in to debate philosophy with some Aristotelians down from Oxford for the evening. Bruno, it goes without saying, was a Platonist.
GB probably saw this as an opportunity to educate the ‘mad barbarians’ as he called the English. But the evening turned into a sorry comedy of errors. Bruno misunderstood the time of the meal and this caused confusion with his hosts who came to pick him up but found him out. Then, when they finally met up, he and his hosts crossed the Thames on a boat and ended up lost on the wrong side of the river (don’t do this in London). We cannot be certain how much of this account is ‘allegorical’ (those damn Platonists) and even basic details may have been invented: it is argued that the meal took place, for example, in a house other than Greville’s.
However, we can probably trust the account in terms of its intellectual content. The Oxford scholars made a terrible impression on the Italian. Bruno tried to defend the Copernican system, but he did so against men who, according to his account, barely knew how to argue (sounds like an Oxonian) and who were still trapped in medieval scholasticism.
This was all compounded by the fact that GB (an unquestionably brilliant scholar) had not troubled to learn English and by the fact that the English Professors did not know Italian. The argument (for such it quickly became) raged then in Latin. This must have been a sixteenth-century equivalent of empiricist American professors of fifty years ago, say, being confronted over table by Foucault in a furious conversation in poor Spanish.
Naturally, Bruno came off best and is praised by his host: but then Bruno wrote the account and Bruno always comes out best in those circumstances. A year later, England had chewed him up and spat him out. Then sixteen years later a fire was lit under Giordano’s toes. We’ll end with a detail that has always haunted Beachcombing: before GB was burnt his mouth was taped shut so that he could not spout dangerous sentences to the gathering crowds, something that the professors at that long ago meal would doubtless have approved of.
Beach is always looking out for remarkable meals: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Badgers, Pigs and Asses: Celtic in English May 10, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval
***Dedicated to Stan and the Cowpath***
‘While I was on the ass, going to feed my dun hog, carrying only a matlock and some bannock, I saw a brock coming down from the tor that’s shaped like a bin’. It is not exactly poetry. But this sentence might stand as a memory aid for students of English. The interest lies not in the meaning of the sentence, contrived as it is. But rather in the strange collection of words that go to make it up: ass, dun (black or dark), hog, matlock (an agricultural tool), bannock (pictured: bread in Scotland and parts of Northern England), brock (badger in several English dialects), tor (a hill) and bin. These eight words have one simple thing in common. Not one is English in origin. Instead, all were borrowed into the language from the British Celts about fifteen hundred years ago and they tell us a good deal about a difficult period of British history.
Before squeezing what information we can from these Celtic relics, it is important to remember what Britain was like when ass, dun and their companions entered the English language. In about the year 400 AD, most of Britain was inhabited by the British Celts, a people whose descendants include the Cornish and Welsh, and who spoke a language (or languages) that we can call ‘British Celtic’. However, very shortly after 400 AD a massive invasion took place and several different Germanic peoples attacked the island and settled most of it. Over a matter of generations these different Germanic tribes grew together and became the English, or the Anglo-Saxons as the early English are sometimes called. Their language was Old English and sometime, early on in the history of this language, the English borrowed the eight British-Celtic words listed above. Several documents record the English invasions of the early fifth century. But almost no texts record its aftermath. We know that the English conquered most of Britain because of the end result, England. But we have few clues about what the conquest was like or what happened to the original inhabitants, the British Celts.
This is where the language archaeologists come in: their task to find out anything they can about this period of history known, because of its obscurity, as the Dark Ages. First they trawl the language, both modern English, dialects, and what records we have from earlier history and create a list: the eight words that appear in the first paragraph – a handful of other words have also been suggested, but these are more controversial. With this list to hand they then set about making deductions, some tedious, some probably wrong, but others of crucial importance for understanding early Celtic history.
A key point that arises from their studies is that the English adopted words from the British Celts that are concerned largely with the countryside and with rural life. This is surprising because we usually borrow from other languages what we do not have in our own. For example, Amerindian words that have entered English tend to be ones that describe things that early pioneers had never seen – tepee, moccasin, pocosin… But this kind of explanation does not work in the case of Britain, for the Germanic invaders that arrived there were themselves from rural backgrounds and had grown up in landscapes not unlike those found in the island. The one obvious explanation is that the British Celts who lived with the English in the early years of the conquest had a strictly servile role. And their new masters adopted only those words from British Celtic that were absolutely necessary for communication with the enslaved native population: ‘Get an ass!’ ‘Kill the hogs!’ ‘Go to the flour bin!’… Much as many ranch owners in the southern United States have a limited but effective Spanish vocabulary.
A second key point depends on the words that were not borrowed. The British Celts were an advanced people with a high standard of life and had many things that the English, coming from one of the most barbaric parts of ancient Europe, would never have seen before: cities, books, churches, theatres, factories, bureaucracy… But the early English were not interested in learning these words. They seemed to have felt no admiration for a civilisation that was more sophisticated than their own. Indeed, they (on the basis of later sources) actively despised the British Celts. Certainly you would be hard pressed to find another example from European history were an invading culture took a measly eight words from a people that it displaced. Irish and Japanese have contributed far more to English.
The work of language archaeologists is obviously not precise. They are forced to talk in generalities not specifics. But in the case of the English invasions several other disciplines back their findings up. Archaeology points to the disappearance of British-Celtic culture in what is today England in the early fifth century. The study of place-names show that remarkably few British-Celtic place-names survived the English invasions – it is difficult to find another European example where the turn over of names was so quick and thorough. Admittedly, in the last generation several linguists (the always provoking and entertaining Andrew Breeze chief among them) have tried to turn this around and to show that there is a greater survival of British Celtic words than we have previously understood. There have even been attempts to show that British Celtic influenced Anglo-Saxon cases, Anglo-Saxon word order, Anglo-Saxon tenses, and the Anglo-Saxon use of the auxillary ‘do’. Personally, Beach finds these arguments either unconvincing or too slight to alter the bleak landscape painted by dun and its seven brothers. Contrary opinions welcomed! Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Then there is history. Few documents survive. But those that do suggest that the invasions were not a gentlemanly affair. Two examples are worth quoting here. One is a short poem that was written by a British Celt at the height of the wars for Britain:
‘The barbarians [the English and other enemies] push us back to the sea,
the sea pushes us back to the barbarians,
Between these two deaths we are either drowned or slaughtered’.
The second is from a British-Celtic writer of the sixth century Gildas who describes the coming of the English. ‘All the major towns were laid low…; cut down the inhabitants… as the swords glittered all around and the flames crackled. …There was no burial to be had except in the ruins of houses or the bellies of beasts and birds… A number of the wretched survivors were caught in the mountains and butchered wholesale. Others, their spirit broken by hunger went to surrender to the enemy. They were destined to be slaves forever, if, indeed, they were not killed straight away, the highest boon.’
So next time you drop something in the bin, call someone a silly ass, or put the potato peelings together to feed the hogs spare a thought for those poor British Celts who once lived in what is today England.
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14 May 2012: Tony writes: ‘I think you probably meant ” mattock ” rather than ” Matlock “… perhaps you were thinking of Derbyshire, or even ( yum yum ) subconciously imagining Bakewell tarts…..something I do all the time. The replacement of Celtic language by Anglo-Saxon is a great mystery , especially in the light of the most modern thinking about the whole A/S invasion. Might I recommend Oppenheimer’s ” The Origins of the British ” , which explains that genetically , the A/S left a very small trace indeed , suggesting a very small invasion ; and Francis Pryor’s ” Britain AD ” , which concurs that archaeologically the “invasion ” is almost undetectable. They also both incline to the idea that there was already a Germanic element settled in SE England well before the Romans leave. They both conclude that Gildas , on whom the whole A/S Fire and Slaughter invasion hypothesis is based , is unreliable as history , and far too much has been made of his remarks, if only because they are the only remarks we have. But that makes the almost total evaporation of the British language even more startling….’ Then Stephen D: ‘The first, at least, does rather alter your landsacpe. Welsh tad, father: English dad. Pwsig, a cat: puss Neither of these are Germanic at all Also: Cors, a marsh: causeway, Trwll, a spinningwheel: trolling, spinning for fish Corwgl: coracle Craig: crag Gwylan: gull Cwm: coombe Glyder: clitter, tumbled rocks Pen gwyn, white head: penguin (possibly at first a name for the great auk) Scadan, a herring: shad (a sort of herring that spawns in fresh water) There may be others: I have my doubts about punt (the boat) and quagmire.’ [Beach replies] Dad seems to appear at the end of the Middle Ages in English and others here would appear to be late borrowings too. At that point their appearance in English is a little like the appearance of, say, Irish words. Others are more difficult to dismiss though in this way. Thanks! Stephen and Tony!
Aggressive Ghost in Fourteenth-Century Germany May 8, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
Beach is taking a long trip today on a plane with his three-year-old daughter: a first visit to the patria with Little Miss B who is thrilled because she is going to see otters AND eat fish and chips. In this time of holiday and reduced writing he has lined up several reserve posts taken from his reading the last weeks: sorry if emails are not answered quickly. The first of said reserve posts is a very peculiar poltergeist case from the writing of Johannes Aventinus (obit 1534). This is an eighteenth-century English translation for Beach has not had the time to track the Latin down. ***Scroll down for a serious change to the chronology of this piece***
In Germany, not far from the Town Bing [Bingen] where the River Navas mixes itself with the Rhine, there is a Village, commonly call’d Cament (quasi Caput Montium) a Name given it by the Romans, when they possessed that Country, because there begin the Mountains which run along with the Rhine towards the North. There, in these our Days [no date given], a revolted and roving Spirit has done many strange things, playing prestigiating Tricks, and infesting the inhabitants. First, this cursed Spirit, seen by no Man, began to throw Stones at Persons, and to knock at Doors.
So far it is life in a modern inner city neighborhood. But then things start to get a little strange. This poltergeist (?) becomes human.
Soon after, this pestilent and wicked Genius taking a Human Shape, gave Answers, discover’d Thefts, accused many of Crimes, and set a Mark of Infamy on them, stirr’d up Discords and ill-will among Persons:
Then comes the victim.
By degrees, he set fire to, and burnt down Barns and Cottages, but was more troublesome to one Man than the rest, always keeping with him wherever he went, and burnt his House and, to stir up the whole Neighbourhood to destroy this innocent Man, the wicked Impostor openly declared, that for this Man’s Crimes the Place lay under a Curse, and would be unfortunate so that the Man was forced to lie without doors, all Persons denying him entrance into their Houses, they looking on him as one followed by evil Spirits.
The ‘victim’ next took an ordeal: though it is not clear why.
He, to satisfy his Neighbours, carry’d a burning-hot Iron in his Hand, with which, not being hurt, he prov’d his Innocence: nevertheless the wicked Spirit burned his Stacks of Corn in the Fields, and as he was daily more and more troublesome, the Country People were forced to acquaint the Archbishop of Mentz [Mainz], with it, who sent Priests to expiate and lustrate the Fields and Villages; which they did with solemn Prayers and consecrated Water and Salt. The wicked and disturbed Spirit at first strove against them, and wounded some with Stones: but being overpowered by divine Exorcisms, and adjured by efficacious Prayers, he at length ceased, nor did he anywhere appear. When the Priests were gone, this pestilent Spirit returned again, and said, ‘while those bald-pated Priefts mutter’d I know not what, I lay hid under the Amiculum [vestment!] of one of them (whom he named) who, by my persuasion, lay the last Night with his Host’s Daughter’. And having said this, the wicked Ghost went off with a mighty roaring Noise [a laugh?], and left the Country quiet.
For all Beach knows this may be a Fortean classic,but he has never read about it before and found it gripping and unusual. The sequence of events are not clear. The spirit causes problems, then seems to become one of the villagers (or at least is physically present), then picks on the ‘victim’ who presumably takes the ordeal because he has been accused of witchcraft? Any other key of interpretation: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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8 May 2011: Invisible puts this polt in a wider context: What a wonderful poltergeist story! Quite new to me! The “stages” of this particular poltergeist reminded me of the escalating violence of the Bell Witch case, which, in spite of the name, is a famous American poltergeist story. The Bell Witch ordeal began with knockings and scratchings, progressed to human-like noises, then to speech. The entity also threw stones. Like the German manifestation, it focused its worst violence on one man: the father of the Bell family, John Bell, whom, it is claimed, the “witch” murdered, although other persons in the family were scratched and slapped. It also (like Gef, the Talking Mongoose of the Isle of Man) knew gossip and scandalous tittle-tattle from neighboring communities. General Andrew Jackson was said to have been a witness to some of its antics. The one thing missing from the Bell Witch case, which is found in the German story and many other poltergeist tales, is the setting of fires. There seems to be a sub-species of incendiary poltergeists–I’ve got a number of cases in my files like this more recent one. The stone-throwing feature is also reminiscent of this “stone-throwing devil” case: It is curious that the narrator of the German story does not suggest the identity of any perpetrators, other than the targeted man who cleared himself by ordeal. The detail of the German creature taking human shape is very unusual, although in the Bell Witch case, events started with a sighting of a “strange animal” and the entity eventually called itself “Kate”. One wonders if eventually it would have manifested itself as a human figure. Poltergeists usually “wear out” before they can become visible apparitions and mostly confine themselves to making noises and hurling objects about. It is also very common for the clergy to be called in to deal with or exorcise the poltergeist. Inevitably this makes things worse, just as in the German story. Strange to think that poltergeists (or is it the folklore of poltergeists?) follow the same patterns today as they did in 16th-century Germany. Sceptics maintain that poltergeist activity is all faked by mischievous adolescents. The late Dr. William G. Roll, who studied poltergeist phenomena extensively, proposed that people plagued by poltergeists have a unique pattern of brain activity. No matter what the reason for such occurrences, it is striking that poltergeist stories from many different countries and time periods relate similar incidents and follow similar arcs.’ Thanks Invisible!
14 May 2012: Invisible now writes in: ‘The day after your post on the German stone-throwing poltergeist my copy of Poltergeists: A History of Violent Ghostly Phenomena by P G Maxwell-Stuart arrived. [just apported right onto the seance room table!] On page 17-18 is the same German polt account attributed to the Fulda Annals, under the year 858 [Citation: Annales Fuldenses, ed. G. Pertz, Hannover: Hahn 1891 51-53.] It contains all the same details: a house near Bingen, the knockings, stones thrown, the fires, the man accused by his neighbors and undergoing the red-hot iron ordeal, the priests arriving to sort things out, the evil spirit claiming that a particular priest had slept with the daughter of the town proctor. The only detail lacking is the spirit taking human form. Happy to send a scan or transcription if you like. I think you would like this book (can’t recall if you already recommended it). Excellent primary sources although he inexplicably omits Caesarius of Heisterbach and his Dialogue on Miracles and Foissart’s Chronicle, with the wonderful story of “Orton“, a familiar spirit, who, like Gef, the Talking Mongoose, reports the news from all over.’ Something doesn’t add up here. Either Beach’s source misunderstood the origins (most likely) or Invisible’s source has got it wrong. Likely the first. More, we hope, to follow.’ Thanks Invisible! PS same day. It is in the Annals. Here is the Latin: Villa quaedam haud procul ab urbe Pinguia sita est, Caput-montium vocata, eo quod ibi montes per alveum Rheni fluminis tendentes initium habeant, quam vulgus corrupte Capmunti nominare solet; nbi malignns spiritus evidens nequitiae suae ostendit indicium. Nam primum quidem lapides iaciendo et parietes domorum quasi malleo pulsando hominibus loci illius infestus efficitur; deinde vero manifeste loqui et furtim sublata quibusdam prodere, post haec discordias inter habitatores eiusdem loci seminare; denique omnium animos contra unum hominem concitavit, quasi peccatis illius exigentibus ceteri talia paterentur: et ut maius odium adversus eum excitaret, in quamcumque domum idem homo intravit, statim malignus spiritus illam exussit. Igitur ex necessitate coactus cum uxore et filiis foris mansit in agris, omnibus propinquis suis sub tectum suum illum suscipere timentibus. Sed nec ibi tutus fuisse permissus est; nam cum universas fruges suas congregasset et in acervos collegisset, spiritus nequam ex inproviso veniens cunctas incendit. Ut autem animos vicinorum illum interficere cupientium placare potuisset, idem ipse ferro fervente de omnibus, quae ei obiciebantur, criminibus se ostendit immunem. Missi sunt itaque ab urbe Mogontiaca presbyteri atque diacones cum reliquiis et crucibus, qui malignum spiritum ab eo loco expellerent. Sed illis in quadam domo, ubi maxime saeviebat, letanias agentibus et aquam benedictam spargentibus antiquus hostis nonnullos ex eadem villa illuc convenientes iactando lapides cruentavit; tamen modicum temporis a sua infestatione quievit. Postquam vero inde discesserunt, qui missi fuerant, idem hostis multis audientibus lugubres edidit sermones; nam presbyterum quendam nominatim exprimens se sub cappa illius stetisse professus est ea hora, quando aqua benedicta aspergebatur in domo. Quibus se prae timore signantibus idem hostis de eodem presbytero: ‘Meus’, inquit, ‘proprius est servus; a quo enim quis superatur, huius et servus est; quia nuper me suadente cum filia procuratoris istius villae concubuit’. Quod factum nullus mortalium antea sciebat exceptis his, qui hoc crimen perpetraverant. Patet ergo, quia iuxta veritatis sententiam nihil opertum est, quod non reveletur. His et huiusmodi malis apostata spiritus in loco supra dicto per tria annorum curricula infestus non ante cessavit, donec universa pene aedificia ibidem succendendo consumeret.
Indecent Lifting and Heaving May 6, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
Beach recently came across the custom of ‘lifting’ for the first time courtesy of Invisible and Two Nerdy History Girls (an excellent blog should you get the chance). The girls describe an instance of lifting in Shrewsbury. This is part of the relevant extract: the full extract is to be found chez Nerd following the link above. The letter was sent in 1799.
I was sitting alone last Easter Tuesday… when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm-chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favours of different colours. I asked them what they wanted, their answer was, they came to heave me; it was the custom of the place on that morning, and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair… I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each.
The victim of the lifting was then charged for the service the girls had provided and the letter, which is ‘sexualised’, clearly alludes to kisses. There are naturally analogues from elsewhere in Britain, particularly Wales, the Midlands and the North. In 1784 one writer (Manchester) described the same custom relating it to ‘the northern counties’:
Lifting was originally designed to represent our Saviour’s resurrection. The men lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men on Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg, and one or more of each arm near the body, and lift the person up, in a horizontal position, three times. It is a rude, indecent, and dangerous diversion, practised chiefly by the lower class of people. Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bellman, but it subsists at the end of the town; and the women have of late years converted it into a money job. I believe it is chiefly confined to these Northern counties.
Why indecent? Do hands get everywhere? If this was a Victorian account ‘indecent’ would work? But this is burly Georgian England. This dates to a newspaper for 1787:
‘The custom of rolling down Greenwich-hill at Easter, is a relique of old City manners, but peculiar to the metropolis. Old as the custom has been, the counties of Shropshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire, boast one of equal antiquity, which they call Heaving, and perform with the following ceremonies, on the Monday and Tuesday in the Easter week. On the first day, a party of men go with a chair into every house to which they can get admission, force every female to be seated in their vehicle, and lift them up three times, with loud buzzes. For this they claim the reward of a chaste salute, which those who are too coy to submit to may get exempted from by a fine of one shilling, and receive a written testimony, which secures them from a repetition of the ceremony for that day. On the Tuesday the women claim the same privilege, and pursue their business in the same manner, with this addition – that they guard every avenue to the town, and stop ever passenger, pedestrian, equestrian or vehicular.
Note the chaste salute again. Then this account dates to 1815 and comes from the pen of the Rev Peter Roberts:
‘On Easter Monday and Tuesday a ceremony takes place among the lower orders in North Wales which is scarcely known, I believe, elsewhere. It is called ‘lifting’, as it consists in lifting a person in a chair three times from the ground. On Monday the men lift the women, and on Tuesday the women lift the men. The ceremony ceases, however, at twelve o’clock. The ‘lifters,’ as they are called, go in troops, and with a permitted freedom seize the person whom they intend to ‘lift,’ and having persuaded or obliged him (or her) to sit on the chair, lift whoever it is, three times with cheering, and then require a small compliment. A little resistance, real or pretended, creates no small merriment; much resistance would excite contempt, and perhaps indignation. That this custom owes its origin to the season needs no illustration.
This letter came from Shropshire and one Miss Burne: it contains details that seem to have escaped the other accounts:
An old bookseller told me in 1881, that in his ‘prentice days at Ludlow he and his companions were accustomed to ‘heave’ all the young girls of their acquaintance. Parties of young men went from house to house carrying a chair decorated with evergreens, flowers, and ribbons, a basin of water, and a posy. ‘What were the basin and the posy for?’ I asked, and the old man smiled with amusement at my ignorance. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘it’s quite plain you have never been heaved’; and he proceeded to explain that the posy was dipped in water, and the young woman’s feet sprinkled with it ‘by way of a blessing’, while she was held aloft in the gaily decorated chair….. Others give more details of the ceremony. The chair must be lifted from the ground three times and turned round in the air, …. and the feet then sprinkled with the bunch of flowers dipped in water. The heaving party were rewarded with a kiss, and generally when the men were ‘heaved’, by a gift of money. Those who refused to be ‘heaved’ had to pay forfeit. …. In Durham and Yorkshire ‘heaving’ is disused, but the forfeit for its omission is still exacted. The boys may pull off the shoes from the girls’ unblessed feet on Easter Sunday, and the girls may retaliate on the boys’ caps on Monday.
Then by 1890, when presumably the custom was well on its way to extinction, it is recorded by an American in Wales: its last stronghold?
A ceremony called ‘lifting’ is peculiar to North Wales on Easter Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday bands of men go about with a chair, and meeting a woman in the street compel her to sit, and be lifted three times in the air amidst their cheers : she is then invited to bestow a small compliment on her entertainers. This performance is kept up till twelve o’clock, when it ceases. On Easter Tuesday the women take their turn, and go about in like manner lifting the men. It has been conjectured that in this custom an allusion to the resurrection is intended.
Then there is this last lonely account that was published in 1914, but that could easily date back a generation before. Where would a good ‘olde’ English custom be without the supercilious vicar?
A grave clergyman who happened to be passing through a town in Lancashire on an Easter Tuesday and having to stay an hour or two at an inn, was astonished by three or four lusty women rushing into his room, exclaiming they had come ‘to lift him’. ‘To lift me!’ repeated the astonished divine. ‘What can you mean?’ ‘Why, your reverence, we’re come to lift you, cause it’s Easter Tuesday.’ ‘Lift me because it’s Easter Tuesday? I don’t understand. Is there any such custom here?’ ‘Yes, to be sure; why don’t you know? All of us women was lifted yesterday; and so we lifts the men to-day in turn. An in course it’s our rights and due to lift ‘em.’
‘His reverence’ got off by paying half-a-crown that, thinking about it, sounds more Edwardian than Victorian.
Finally, in Strickland we read (though it would be interesting to see the original source, see the Nerdy post above):
‘There is an old custom, still remembered in Warwickshire, called ‘heaving’. On Easter Monday, the women servants of every household clamorously enter the chamber or sitting-room of the master of the family, or any ‘stranger beneath his roof’, and, seating him in a chair, lift him therein from the ground, and refuse to set him down till he compounds for his liberty by a gratuity. Seven of Queen Eleanora’s (of Castile) ladies, on the Easter Monday of 1290, unceremoniously invaded the chamber of King Edward (the First), and seizing their majestic master, proceeded to ‘heave him’ in his chair till he was glad to pay a fine of fourteen pounds to enjoy ‘his own peace’, and be set at liberty.’
Fourteen pounds?! Bloody hell. In the thirteenth century, you could have bought a Motte and Bailey with solar panels and a swimming pool for fourteen pounds.
Any other instances of heaving/lifting? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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8 May 2012: Southern Man wonders aloud about whether lifting and heaving could have something to do with various wedding customs including chairing. Wade meanwhile ties heaving and lifting to the very similar and old Dorset custom of hocking or hock-tide, ‘neither of which I was familiar with before your post‘. Thanks Wade and SM!!
Lost in Transmission May 4, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern
Words echo through the centuries like coins dropped down an infinite well. And as they are passed on they are smoothed and confused in the mouths of the people. The best examples we have of this are, of course, placenames: in the space of eighty generations Londinium becomes London, Mamucium becomes Manchester and Euboricum becomes York. After a while the words cease to make sense: people no longer realise that when they say York or (Eourwic or one of the in between states) that they are talking about a yew tree.
Now this collapse of knowledge is particularly evident with place-names, but it can also be found elsewhere when words are dumbly repeated. A random example: in the mid-nineteenth century a Devon folklorist comes across the following verse at the end of apple harvest:
‘What zeal! What zeal is in all our town!
The cup is white and the ale is brown’.
Understandably she suspects that ‘zeal’ (pronounced ‘aus-ale’!) is not really zeal at all. Could it be, she suggests, ‘wassail’ (waes hael), the punch-like drink that is made (usually with ceremonies) and that takes place (you’ve guessed it) after apple harvest. She is almost certainly right. Somewhere, let’s surmise, c. 1750 wassail had dropped out of use in this corner of the county and the Devonian rustics were repeatingm empty syllables that they turned into something that they could at least understand. Zeal appears in a couple of south-western placenames, where it has been corrupted from Old English sele, ‘hall’: so the word is not as erudite as it might at first seem.
Another example, this time from Cornwall at the end of the nineteenth century. A doctor is visiting a patient out in the sticks and gives her some news.
My chief piece of intelligence on the day in question was that a relation of my own, whom she had once seen, was about to be married. The old woman was greatly interested and asked the name of the bride. On hearing that it was Margaretta, she at once assured me that was a lucky name, and begged me most earnestly to let the bride-groom known how to reap the full advantage of the luck; he must, it seemed, pluck a daisy on the eve of the marriage, draw it three times through the wedding ring, and repeat each time, very slowly, the words, ‘Saint Margaretta or her nobs’.
And what enough does this formula mean. Beach was slow here though not as slow as the doctor who was almost home when it clicked.
It was not until far on my homeward journey that it flashed suddenly into my mind that the words were a prayer, ‘Sancta Margaretta, ora pro nobis’, a genuine Latin intercession, handed down from Catholic times [almost four hundred years before]. Who knows with what rapture of devotion in days long past Saint Margaret’s prayer had been repeated in that very farmstead by the lips of men and women taught to feel a personal devotion to the Saint; and though now even the holy character of the words is forgotten, yet the fact that they have been kept in memory through so many generations, in never so corrupt a form, proves the strength of the feeling which once sanctified them, showing that in some one’s mind the prayer was stored up not to be forgotten, with a lingering trust that it would bring a blessing yet.
The inhabitants of that house are unlikely to have had any heirlooms that were three hundred and fifty years old: apart of course from ‘Margaret and her nobs’ that will have died with the old lady.
Beach is on the search for other examples of repeated phrases that have no meaning (anymore). It strikes him that a particularly fertile place to look would be where languages collide: after all, misunderstanding is at the root of most of these re-renderings.
Beach spent some time in his teens on a ranch in North America where third-generation Norwegians spoke to their cattle in garbled phrases that clearly came from the tongue of their ancestors who had crossed the great water sixty years before.
‘Hokey pokey’ was (before it became a dance) the word for ice-cream on the streets of London and New York: ‘here come the ‘hokey-pokey men!’ the children would scream. The etymology of this phrase is much debated but it is probably an Englished version of the Italian ‘Ecco un po’!’ [here’s a little], uttered by the ice-cream sellers.
Any other examples? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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5 May 2012: Patty writes: one that gets me here in the states having grown up hearing the full? version: “The proof is in the pudding” from “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. One that I did hear a lot growing up was “Waste not, want not”, which makes perfect sense as is, but my grandmother would add “the old lady said as she piddled in the sea”. I’m sure there were many colourful variants to the first quote!’ Then Wade: In further searching for phrases that have lost their original meeting, I found this blog site. I included a couple of interesting posts. It struck me that it is somewhat similar to Bizarre History, but focused on language. Seems pretty interesting, and I thought you might like to bookmark it.Thanks Wade and Patty!
5 May 2012: Rayg writes: ‘What zeal! What zeal is in all our town! The cup is white and the ale is brown’. To middle-aged folkies, that’s instantly recognisable as what’s generally known as the Gower Wassail (from its 1947 collection by A.L.Lloyd) or the Somerset Wassail (from its 1895 collection by Baring-Gould). It’s kind of hard to believe “wassail” could drop out of use in Devon; it being cider country, there are wassail traditions all over. More likely the folklorist just didn’t “get” the accent: I’ve heard elderly local people here pronounce “s” in exactly a way – “s” as “z”, with a slight glottal stop in front – that could make “wassail” sounds like “what zeal”,. I hesitate to mention a classically-cited example: the one that the Hokey-Cokey is a parody of Catholic mass (“Hoc est corpus”). It’s just too damn pat, and I don’t think the attribution trail is terribly convincing. The ones I always like are Billy Ruffianisms – the rendering of foreign names into Anglicized soundalikes, as classically done by Nelson-era sailors: the Bellerophon becoming the Billy Ruffian, Amphitrite – ‘Am and Tripe, Iphigenia – Niffy Jane, etc.’ Thanks Rayg!
6 May 2012: Word Angel writes in with this quotation from Rustic Speech by Wright. ‘A few Latin phrases have made their way into the dialects, where they have assumed curious forms and meanings. For example : hizy-prizy (Nhb. Yks. Chs. Der. Som. Dev.), a corruption of Nisi prius, a law-term. It is used to signify any kind of chicanery or sharp practice, or, used as an adjective, it means litigious, tricky ; and in the phrase to be at hizy-prizy, it means to be quarrelsome, disagreeable. The plural form momenty-morries (Nhb.), skeletons, stands for memento mori, remember that thou must die, the name given to a small decorative object containing a skeleton or other emblem of death, cp. ‘ I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a Death’s-head or a memento mori,’ 1 Hen. IV, in. iii. 35. The Latin nolens volens appears as nolus-bolus (Wil.), nolum-wolum (Wil. Dev.), hoylens-voylens, oilins-boilins (Cum.). A mother sending off an unwilling child to school will say : Oilins-boilins, but thee shall go. Nominy (Nhb. Dur. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Nhp.) represents the Latin nomine in the formula In Nomine Patris, &c., the invocation used by the preacher before the sermon. It means : (1) a rigmarole, a long rambling tale, a wordy, tiresome speech; (2) a rhyming formula or folk-rhyme. Stan over at Cowpath writes meanwhile: One that comes to mind is Riding, Farthing, Reeve & Sherriff Related to this phenomena is true folk etymology – where a foreign sounding word is changed to familiar sounding words even if they make no sense. I wrote about them August 10. Thanks Word Angel and Stan!!
14 May 2012: John writes in: ‘I think we could find a lot of these words in the way people communicate with farm animals — the ‘sounds’ that we make to soothe/call cattle and horses might have their roots in older languages with the sound form lingering on past the meaning… I remember my mother telling me the proper way to call cattle, and thinking it made no sense at the time. This is from rural Ontario, from a family seven generations from Northern Ireland, but the words still remained. The approved cattle call was: ko boss……. I know that bos is an old Indo-European root of the word cow (hence bovine …). What other forms of addressing farm animals might hold ancient roots?’ Thanks John!
The Babel of History May 2, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Mike Dash***
The past according to a much worn-line is ‘a foreign country, they do things differently there’. Of course, if this were all then history would be a doddle. It would be enough to fill the Cutty Sark with sabres and give the natives music sheets for their acres. But, unfortunately for those who like the easy life, the past is many different countries and, almost as bad, the present is also a vast thalassocracy stretching to the horizon. The success of any historical venture will depend on the proximity of the historian’s land to the one he or she wishes to travel to: and that proximity depends to a large extent on language.
For a start, one language is rarely enough to study the past. There are the tongues that were spoken by the people(s) you want to study multiplied by the languages spoken by the nations that study them today. To deal with the Anglo-Saxons, for example, you would need Anglo-Saxon and Latin and perhaps some rudimentary knowledge of the Celtic languages or Norse. But you would also need English, German, French and (preferably) Spanish and Italian for secondary sources. That is bad enough, but let’s say you had an attitude problem and decided to study Anglo-Saxon missions in Scandinavia: then you would have to add Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Or perhaps you decide to do your doctorate on Anglo-Saxons in the Varangian Guard in eleventh-century Constantinople: Greek, ancient and modern would matter and quite possibly Turkish and a couple of Slavic languages. If you are really serious about the Varangians you could do a lot worse than marry a Bulgarian.
Some areas of the past are neglected not then because they are inherently difficult in source terms, but because there are impossible language combinations. In some senses, this is becoming less common (for secondary sources) as English becomes the language of choice in academic journals. But, in other ways, it is getting worse as ‘minority’ or despised languages start to assert themselves. Take another example: the ancient Mediterranean was ultimately split into a Latin speaking western half and a Greek speaking eastern half. In the good old days scholars needed Greek, Latin and the colonial languages, French and English to study the Roman province of Africa. Today the Mediterranean is split between the Romance and Slavic speaking north: with Albania and Greece tagged on and the Arabic speaking ‘southern shore’. In the twenty-first century it will be a handicap for a Roman historian determined to study that same province not to know at least some Arabic for archaeological reports. Greek and Latin and a smattering of modern European languages will no longer be enough.
Of course, these kinds of examples are not just restricted to the classical world. There is no definitive book on the Voyage of the Damned, the final phase of the war between Japan and Russia in 1904/1905 for the simple reason that no scholar of stature has both Japanese and Russian. Ditto pogroms in the Second World War: who has Hungarian, Romanian, German, Polish and the Baltic languages? The Nazis and their friends killed many of those who could have replied ‘yes’ to that question. More modestly, the present author’s most productive medieval research took place a decade ago with material involving three different Indo-European language families. There was, in scholarly terms, lots of low-hanging unpicked fruit simply because no one who had troubled to look at it, had had this combination of languages before.
Then if this all sounds easy what about this email sent in by Mike Dash on the languages needed to master the story of the Mongols?
Someone – it might have been JJ Saunders – commented that to do a thorough history of the Mongols would require a historian who spoke, at minimum, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Syriac, Latin and Russian (just for the original source materials), plus of course ideally Mongol itself (for the Secret History.) Then to read what historians have written, which has not been translated, you’d need at least German and French as well as English, and ideally Czech and Hungarian. Hence in a discipline in which it is rare for a seminal work to stand unchallenged for more than 20-40 years (the longer period, I think, for the medieval stuff) there is always W. Barthold’s Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, originally a PhD thesis defended at St Petersburg in 1900. It remains the standard work because no one since has mastered all the languages required to supplant it. It would be interesting to know if any still-standard work on any other place or time antedates it.
Beach wonders if anyone could come up with a more challenging selection than Mike’s. It makes messing about with Old English and Greek look positively tame: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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