The power of curing scrofula—touching for the "King's Evil"—possessed by monarchs of other days, was thought to be hereditary, and seems to have been practised by them at a tender age. In England this "cure" was in vogue from the time of Edward the Confessor until 1719, when, according to Brewer, the "office" disappeared from the Prayer-book. The French custom dated back to Anne of Clovis (A.D. 481). In the year of his coronation (1654 A.D.), when Louis XV. was but eleven years old, he is said to have touched over two thousand sufferers (191. 308).

Blood of Children.

In the dark ages the blood of little children had a wide-spread reputation for its medicinal virtue. The idea that diseased and withered humanity, having failed to discover the fountain of eternal youth, might find a new well-spring of life in bathing in, or being sprinkled with, the pure blood of a child or a virgin, had long a firm hold upon the minds of the people. Hartmann von Aue's story, Der arme Heinrich, and a score of similar tales testify of the folk-faith in the regeneration born of this horrible baptism—a survival or recrudescence of the crassest form of the doctrine that the life dwells in the blood. Strack, in his valuable treatise on "Human Blood, in Superstition and Ceremonial," devotes a brief section to the belief in the cure of leprosy by means of human blood (361. 20-24). The Targumic gloss on Exodus ii. 23—the paraphrase known as the Pseudo-Jonathan—explains "that the king of Egypt, suffering from leprosy, ordered the first-born of the children of Israel to be slain that he might bathe in their blood," and the Midrasch Schemoth Rabba accounts for the lamentation of the people of Israel at this time, from the fact that the Egyptian magicians had told the king that there was no cure for this loathsome disease, unless every evening and every morning one hundred and fifty Jewish children were slain and the monarch bathed twice daily in their blood. Pliny tells us that the Egyptians warmed with human blood the seats in their baths as a remedy against the dreaded leprosy.

According to the early chroniclers, Constantine the Great, on account of his persecution of the Christians, was afflicted with leprosy, which would yield neither to the skill of native nor to that of foreign physicians. Finally, the priests of Jupiter Capitolinus recommended a bath in the blood of children. The children were gathered together, but "the lamentations of their mothers so affected the Emperor, that he declared his intention of suffering the foul disease, rather than be the cause of so much woe and misery." Afterwards he was directed in a dream to Pope Sylvester, was converted, baptized into the Church, and restored to health (361. 22).

Other instances of this fearful custom are mentioned in the stories of Percival (in the history of the Holy Grail), of Giglan de Galles et Geoffrey de Mayence, and the wide-spread tale of Amicus and Amelius and its variants, Louis and Alexander, Engelhard and Engeltrut, Oliver and Arthur, etc., in all of which one of the friends is afflicted with leprosy, but is cured through the devotion of the other, who sacrifices his own children in order to obtain the blood by which alone his friend can be restored to health. Usually, we are told, God rewards his fidelity and the children are restored to life.

The physicians of King Richard I. of England are said, in one of the fictions which grew up about his distinguished personality, to have utterly failed to give relief to the monarch, who was suffering from, leprosy. At last a celebrated Jew, after exhausting his skill without curing the monarch, told him that his one chance of recovery lay in bathing in the fresh blood of a newborn child, and eating its heart just as it was taken out of the body. That the king adopted this horrible remedy we are left to doubt, but of Louis XI of France, several chroniclers affirm that he went even farther than the others, and, in order to become rejuvenated, drank large quantities of the blood of young children. In all these cases the character of the child as fetich seems to be present, and the virtues ascribed to the blood drawn from children (not always killed) belong not alone to medicine, but also to primitive religion (361. 23).

Even the dead body of a child or some one of its members plays a role in folk-medicine in many parts of the globe. Grimm cites from a document of 1408 A.D., a passage recording the cure of a leper, who had been stroked with the hand of a still-born (and, therefore, sinless) child, which had been rubbed with salve (361. 34). In Steiermark, so Dr. Strack informs us, "a favourite cure for birth-marks is to touch them with the hand of a dead person, especially of a child" (361. 35). Among the charges made by the Chinese against the foreigners, who are so anxious to enter their dominions, is one of "kidnapping and buying children in order to make charms and medicines out of their eyes, hearts, and other portions of their bodies." This belief induced the riot of June, 1870, an account of which has been given by Baron Hubner, and similar incidents occurred in 1891 and 1892. Somewhat the same charges have been made (in 1891, for example) by the natives of Madagascar against the French and other foreigners (361. 37).

Medicine-Men.

Among many primitive peoples, as is the case with the Zulus, Bechuana, Japanese (formerly), Nez Perces, Cayuse, Walla-Wallas, Wascos, etc., the office of "doctor" is hereditary, and is often exercised at a comparatively early age (397. 275). Dr. Pitre has recently discussed some interesting cases in this connection in modern Italy (322).

Among certain Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountain region of the northwestern United States, although he cannot properly practise his art until he reaches manhood, the "medicine-man" (here, doctor) begins his candidacy in his eighth or tenth year. Of the "wizards," or "doctors" of the Patagonians, Falkner says, that they "are selected in youth for supposed qualifications, especially if epileptic" (406. 456). While among the Dieyerie of South Australia, the "doctor" is not allowed to practise before having been circumcised, or to enter upon the duties of his office before completing his tenth year, those young people become "doctors," who, as children, "have seen the devil," i.e. have seen in a troubled dream the demon Kutchie, or have had the nightmare. The belief is, that in this way, the power to heal has been imparted to the child (397. 75). Among the Yuki Indians of California, "the 'poison-doctor' is the most important member of the profession. The office is hereditary; a little child is prepared for holding it by being poisoned and then cured, which, in their opinion, renders him invulnerable ever afterward" (519. 131). Among the Tunguses, of Siberian llussia, a child afflicted with cramps or with bleeding at the nose and mouth, is declared by an old shaman ("medicine-man," or "medicine-woman") to be called to the profession, and is then termed hudildon. After the child has completed its second year, it is taken care of by an old shaman, who consecrates it with various ceremonies; from this time forth it is called jukejeren, and is instructed by the old man in the mysteries of his art (482. III. 105). With these people also the female shamans have the assistance of boys and girls to carry their implements and perform other like services (397. 66). An excellent account of shamanism in Siberia and European Eussia has been given by Professor Mikhailovskii (504), of Moscow, who gives among other details a notice of the kamlanie, or spirit-ceremonial of a young shaman belonging to one of the Turkish tribes of the Altai Mountains (504. 71). Among the Samoyeds and Ostiaks of Siberia, "the shamans succeed to the post by inheritance from father to son" (504. 86). On the death of a shaman, "his son, who desires to have power over the spirits, makes of wood an image of the dead man's hand, and by means of this symbol succeeds to his father's power. Those destined to be shamans spend their youth in practices which irritate the nervous system and excite the imagination."

Among the Buryats of southern Siberia, it is thought that "the dead ancestors who were shamans choose from their living kinsfolk a boy who is to inherit their power. This child is marked by signs; he is often thoughtful, fond of solitude, a seer of prophetic visions, subject, occasionally, to fits, during which he is unconscious. The Buryats believe that at such a time the boy's soul is with the spirits, who are teaching him; if he is to be a white shaman, with the western spirits; if he is to be a black shaman, among the eastern spirits." Usually, the youth does not enter upon his duties until he has reached his twentieth year (504.87).

The tribes of the Altai believe that "the ability to shamanize is inborn; instruction only gives a knowledge of the chants, prayers, and external rites." There is in early life an innate tendency to sickness and frenzy, against which, we are told, the elect struggle in vain (504.90): "Those who have the shamanist sickness endure physical torments; they have cramps in the arms and legs, until they are sent to a kam [shaman] to be educated. The tendency is hereditary; a kam often has children predisposed to attacks of illness. If, in a family where there is no shaman, a boy or a girl is subject to fits, the Altaians are persuaded that one of its ancestors was a shaman. A kam told Potanin that the shamanist passion was hereditary, like noble birth. If the kam's own son does not feel any inclination, some one of the nephews is sure to have the vocation. There are cases of men becoming shamans at their own wish, but these kams are much less powerful than those born to the profession." Thus the whole training of the kam from childhood up to exercise of his official duties is such as "to augment his innate tendencies, and make him an abnormal man, unlike his fellows." When fully qualified, he functions as "priest, physician, wizard, diviner."

Moses.

Of the childhood of Moses Oriental legend has much to say. One story tells how the daughter of Pharaoh, a leper, was healed as she stretched out her hand to the infant whom she rescued from the waters of Nile. Well thus resumes the tale (547.122):—

"The eldest of the seven princesses first discovered the little ark and carried it to the bank to open it. On her removing the lid, there beamed a light upon her, which her eyes were not able to endure. She cast a veil over Moses, but at that instant her own face, which hitherto had been covered with scars and sores of all the most hideous colours imaginable, shone like the moon in its brightness and purity, and her sisters exclaimed in amazement, 'By what means hast thou been so suddenly freed from leprosy?' 'By the miraculous power of this child,' replied the eldest. The glance which beamed upon me when I beheld it unveiled, has chased away the impurity of my body, as the rising sun scatters the gloom of night.' The six sisters, one after the other, now lifted the veil from Moses' face, and they, too, became fair as if they had been formed of the finest silver. The eldest then took the ark upon her head, and carried it to her mother, Asia, relating to her in how miraculous a manner both she and her sisters had been healed."

We also learn that when Moses was six years old, being teased by Pharaoh until he was angry, he kicked the throne over so that the king fell and injured himself so that he bled at the mouth and nose. The intercession of Asia and the seven princesses seemed vain, and the king was about to thrust Moses through with his sword, when "there flew a white cock toward the king, and cried: 'Pharaoh, if thou spill the blood of this child, thy daughters shall be more leprous than before.' Pharaoh cast a glance upon the princesses; and, as if from dread and fright, their faces were already suffused with a ghastly yellow, he desisted again from his bloody design" (547. 127).

Child-Saints.

To other heroes, kings, saints, the power to heal which characterized their years of discretion is often ascribed to them in childhood, especially where and when it happens that the same individual is prophet, priest, and king. In the unnumbered miracles of the Church children have often figured. Lupellus, in his life of St. Frodibert (seventh century A.D.), says: "When Frodibert was a mere child he cured his mother's blindness, as, in the fulness of love and pity, he kissed her darkened eyes, and signed them with the sign of the cross. Not only was her sight restored, but it was keener than ever" (191. 45). Of St. Patrick (373-464 A.D.) it is told: "On the day of his baptism he gave sight to a man born blind; the blind man took hold of the babe's hand, and with it made on the ground a sign of the cross." Another account makes the miracle a triple one: "A blind man, taking hold of St. Patrick's right hand, guided it into making on the ground a cross, when instantly three miracles ensued: (1) A spring of water bubbled from the dry ground; (2) the blind man, bathing his eyes with this water, received his sight; and (3) the man, who before could neither write nor read, was instantly inspired with both these gifts" (191. 237).

Brewer relates other instances of the miraculous power of the child-saint from the lives of St. Genevieve (423-512, A.D.), St. Vitus, who at the age of twelve caused the arms and legs of the Emperor Aurelian to wither, but on the Emperor owning the greatness of God, the "child-magician," as the monarch had termed him, made Aurelian whole again; St. Sampson (565 A.D.), who cured a fellow schoolboy of a deadly serpent's bite; Marianne de Quito (1618-1645 A.D.), who cured herself of a gangrened finger (191. 442).

In his interesting chapters on Fairy Births and Human Midwives, Mr. Hartland informs us that young girls have sometimes been called upon to go to fairy-land and usher into the world of elves some little sprite about to be born. Instances of this folk-belief are cited from Pomerania, Swabia, Silesia. Rewards and presents are given the maiden on her return, and often her whole family is blest, if she has acted well (258. 37-92).

Close, indeed, are often the ties between the saint and the physician; the healer of the soul and the healer of the body are frequently the same. Other links bind the doctor to the hero and to the god. Of AEsculapius, the great son of Apollo, exposed in childhood by his mother, but nurtured by the goat of the shepherd Aresthanas, and guarded by his dog, when he grew up to manhood, became so skilled in the uses of herbs and other medicines that he received divine honours after his death and came to be looked upon as the inventor of medicine as well as god of the healing art.

Origin of the Healing Art

With some primitive peoples even the child is their. AEsculapius, at once human and divine, hero and god. An Iroquois legend recorded by Mrs. Smith attributes to a boy the discovery of witch-charms: "A certain boy while out hunting came across a beautiful snake. Taking a great fancy to it, he caught it and cared for it, feeding it on birds, etc., and made a bark bowl in which he kept it. He put fibres, down, and small feathers into the water with the snake, and soon found that these things had become living beings. From this fact he naturally conjectured that the snake was endowed with supernatural powers." So he went on experimenting, and discovered many of the virtues of the snake water: rubbing it on his eyes would make him see in the dark and see hidden things; pointing his finger, after having dipped it in the bowl, at any one would bewitch that person; by using it in certain other ways he could become like a snake, travel very fast, even become invisible; deadly indeed were arrows dipped in this liquid, and pointing a feather so dipped at any game-animal would cause it to start for the creature and kill it. In this fashion the boy learned the secret art of witchcraft. Afterwards, by experimenting, he discovered, among the various roots and herbs, the proper antidotes and counteracting agents (534, 69, 70).

In his detailed account of the medicine-society of the Ojibwa, Dr. Hoffman tells how the mysteries of the "Grand Medicine" were taught to the Indians by the Sun-spirit, who at the request of the great Manido, came down to earth and dwelt among men in the form of a little boy, raising to life again his dead play-mate, the child of the people who adopted him. After his mission was fulfilled, he "returned to his kindred spirits, for the Indians would have no need to fear sickness, as they now possessed the Grand Medicine which would enable them to live. He also said that his spirit could bring a body to life but once, and he would now return to the sun, from which they would feel his influence." So the institution of "medicine" among the Ojibwa is called Kwi-wi-sens' we-di'-shi-tshi ge-wi-nip, "Little-boy-his-work" (473. 172,173).



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CHILD AS SHAMAN AND PRIEST.

Nearer the gates of Paradise than we Our children breathe its air, its angels see; And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer, Yea, even sheathes his sword, in judgment bare.

—R. H. Stoddard.

The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is nature's priest.—Wordsworth.

Priestly Training.

Instruction in the priestly art in Africa begins sometimes almost at birth. Bastian informs us (529. 58):—

"Women who have been long barren, or who have lost their children, are wont to dedicate to the service of the fetich the unborn fruit of the womb, and to present to the village priest the new-born babe. He exercises it, at an early age, in those wild dances with deafening drum-accompaniment, by means of which he is accustomed to gain the requisite degree of spiritual exaltation; and in later years he instructs his pupil in the art of understanding, while his frame is wracked with convulsions, the inspirations of the demon and of giving fitting responses to questions proposed."

Of the one sex we read (529. 56):—

"Every year the priests assemble the boys who are entering the state of puberty, and take them into the forest. There they settle and form an independent commonwealth, under very strict regulations, however; and every offence against the rules is sternly punished. The wound given in circumcision commonly heals in one week, yet they remain in the woods for a period of six months, cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, and in the meanwhile each receives separate instruction how to prepare his medicine-bag. Forever after, each one is mystically united with the fetich who presides over his life. Even their nearest relatives are not allowed to visit the boys in this retreat; and women are threatened with the severest punishment if they be only found in the neighbourhood of a forest containing such a boy-colony. When the priest declares the season of probation at an end, the boys return home and are welcomed back with great rejoicings."

Concerning the other, Bosman, as reported by Schultze, says that among the negroes of Whida, where snake-worship prevails (529. 80)—

"Every year the priestesses, armed with clubs, go about the country, picking out and carrying away girls of from eight to twelve years of age, for the service of the god. These children are kindly treated and instructed in songs and dances in majorem gloriam of his snakeship. In due time they are consecrated by tattooing on their bodies certain figures, especially those of serpents. The negroes suppose it is the snake himself that marks his elect thus. Having received their training and consecration, which are paid for by the parents according to their means, the children return home; and when they attain their majority are espoused to the Serpent."

In Ashanti, according to Ellis, the children of a priest or of a priestess "are not ordinarily educated for the priestly profession, one generation being usually passed over [a curious primitive recognition of the idea in our common saying, "genius skips a generation"], and the grand-children selected" (438. 121). At the village of Suru several children (male and female) and youths are handed over to the priests and priestesses to be instructed in the service of the gods, when the goddess was thought to be offended, and in the ceremonials when the new members are tested, youths and children take part, smeared all over with white (438. 130).

Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, as Mr. Man informs us, sometimes even "a young boy is looked upon as a coming oko-paiad." The word signifies literally "dreamer," and such individuals are "credited with the possession of supernatural powers, such as second sight" (498. 28).

Captain Bourke, in his detailed account of the "medicine-men" of the Apaches, speaking of the Pueblos Indians, says: "While I was at Tusayan, in 1881, I heard of a young boy, quite a child, who was looked up to by the other Indians, and on special occasions made his appearance decked out in much native finery of beads and gewgaws, but the exact nature of his duties and supposed responsibilities could not be ascertained." He seems to have been a young "medicine-man" (406. 456).

Into the "medicine-society" of the Delaware Indians "the boys were usually initiated at the age of twelve or fourteen years, with very trying ceremonies, fasting, want of sleep, and other tests of their physical and mental stamina." Of these same aborigines the missionary Brainerd states: "Some of their diviners (or priests) are endowed with the spirit in infancy; others in adult age. It seems not to depend upon their own will, nor to be acquired by any endeavours of the person who is the subject of it, although it is supposed to be given to children sometimes in consequence of some means which the parents use with them for that purpose" (516. 81).

Among the Chippeway (Ojibwa), also, children are permitted to belong to the "Midewewin or 'Grand Medicine Society,'" of which Dr. W. J. Hoffman has given so detailed a description—Sikassige, a Chippeway of Mille Lacs, having taken his "first degree" at ten years of age (473.172).

The Angakok.

Among the Eskimo the angakok, or shaman, trains his child from infancy in the art of sorcery, taking him upon his knee during his incantations and conjurations. In one of the tales in the collection of Rink we read (525. 276): "A great angakok at his conjurations always used to talk of his having been to Akilinek [a fabulous land beyond the ocean], and his auditors fully believed him. Once he forced his little son to attend his conjurations, sitting upon his knee. The boy, who was horribly frightened, said: 'Lo! what is it I see? The stars are dropping down in the old grave on yonder hill.' The father said: 'When the old grave is shining to thee, it will enlighten thy understanding.' When the boy had been lying in his lap for a while, he again burst out: 'What is it I now see? The bones in the old grave are beginning to join together.' The father only repeating his last words, the son grew obstinate and wanted to run away, but the father still kept hold of him. Lastly, the ghost from the grave came out, and being called upon by the angakok, he entered the house to fetch the boy, who only perceived a strong smell of maggots, and then fainted away. On recovering his senses, he found himself in the grave quite naked, and when he arose and looked about, his nature was totally altered—he found himself able at a sight to survey the whole country to the farthest north, and nothing was concealed from him. All the dwelling-places of man appeared to be close together, side by side; and on looking at the sea, he saw his father's tracks stretching across to Akilinek. When going down to the house, he observed his clothes flying through the air, and had only to put forth his hands and feet to make them cover his body again. But on entering the house he looked exceedingly pale, because of the great angakok wisdom he had acquired down in the old grave. After he had become an angakok himself, he once went on a flight to Akilinek."

Besides this interesting account of an angakok seance, the same authority, in the story of the angakok Tugtutsiak, records the following (525. 324): "Tugtutsiak and his sister were a couple of orphans, and lived in a great house. It once happened that all the grown-up people went away berry-gathering, leaving all children at home. Tugtutsiak, who happened to be the eldest of them, said: 'Let us try to conjure up spirits'; and some of them proceeded to make up the necessary preparations, while he himself undressed, and covered the door with his jacket, and closed the opening at the sleeves with a string. He now commenced the invocation, while the other children got mortally frightened, and were about to take flight. But the slabs of the floor were lifted high in the air, and rushed after them. Tugtutsiak would have followed them, but felt himself sticking fast to the floor, and could not get loose until he had made the children come back, and ordered them to uncover the door, and open the window, on which it again became light in the room, and he was enabled to get up."

Girls, too, among the Eskimo, could become angakoks or shamans. Rink tells of one who visited the under-world, where she received presents, but these, while she was carrying them home, "were wafted out of her hands, and flew back to their first owners."

Of the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell informs us that the legend of their wanderings tells of a boy in whose possession was the sacred "medicine-bundle" of the tribe, and who was regarded as the oracle-interpreter (480 (1893). 125).

Witches.

As Dr. Mackay has remarked, in all the woeful annals of the witch-persecutions, there is nothing so astounding and revolting as the burning and putting to death of mere children for practising the arts of the devil. Against innocents of both sexes counting no more than ten or twelve years, there appear on the records the simple but significant words convicta et combusta—convicted and burned. Here the degradation of intellect and morals reaches its lowest level; it was Satan and not Jesus who bade the children come unto him; their portion was the kingdom of hell, not that of heaven. In Wurzburg, between 1627 and 1629, no fewer than 157 persons suffered death for witchcraft (guilty and innocent), and among these were included "the prettiest girl in the town"; two mere boys; a wandering boy of twelve; a maiden of nine and her sister, younger in years; two boys of twelve; a girl of fifteen; a boy of ten and a boy of twelve; three boys of from ten to fifteen years of age. At Lille, in 1639, a whole school of girls—fifty in number—barely escaped burning as witches (496 a. II. 266-287). Everywhere the maddened, deluded people made sacrifice of their dearest and holiest, tainted, they thought, with the touch of the evil one (496 a. II. 285). It is a sad comment upon civilization that the last execution for witchcraft in England, which took place in 1716, was that of "Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, a child nine years of age, who were hung at Huntingdon, for 'selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm, by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap'" (191. 344).

In the London Times for Dec. 8, 1845, appeared the following extract from the Courier, of Inverness, Scotland: "Our Wick contemporary gives the following recent instance of gross ignorance and credulity: 'Not far from Louisburg there lives a girl who, until a few days ago, was suspected of being a witch. In order to cure her of the witchcraft, a neighbour actually put her into a creed half-filled with wood and shavings, and hung her above a fire, setting the shavings in a blaze. Fortunately for the child and himself, she was not injured, and it is said that the gift of sorcery has been taken away from her. At all events, the intelligent neighbours aver that she is not half so witch-like in appearance since she was singed" (408. III. 14).

Concerning the sect of the Nagualists or "Magicians" of Mexico and Central America Dr. Brinton tells us much in his interesting little book (413). These sorcerers recruited their ranks from both sexes, and "those who are selected to become the masters of these arts are taught from, early childhood how to draw and paint these characters and are obliged to learn by heart the formulas, and the names of the ancient Nagualists, and whatever else is included in these written documents" (413. 17).

We learn that "in the sacraments of Nagualism, woman was the primate and hierophant," the admission of the female sex to the most exalted positions and the most esoteric degrees being a remarkable feature of this great secret society (413. 33). Indeed, Aztec tradition, like that of Honduras, speaks of an ancient sorceress, mother of the occult sciences, and some of the legends of the Nagualists trace much of their art to a mighty enchantress of old (413. 34).

In 1713, the Tzendals of Chiapas rose in insurrection under the American Joan of Arc, an Indian girl about twenty years of age, whose Spanish name was Maria Candelaria. She was evidently a leader of the Nagualists, and after the failure of the attempt at revolution disappeared in the forest and was no more heard of (413. 35). Dr. Brinton calls attention to the fact that Mr. E. G. Squier reports having heard, during his travels in Central America, of a "sukia woman, as she was called by the coast Indians, one who lived alone amid the ruins of an old Maya temple, a sorceress of twenty years, loved and feared, holding death and life in her hands" (413. 36). There are many other instances of a like nature showing the important position assigned to girls and young women in the esoteric rites, secret societies, magic, sorcery, and witch- craft of primitive peoples.

"Boy-Bishop."

A curious custom attached itself to the day of St. Nicholas, of Patara in Lycia (died 343 A.D.), the patron saint of boys, after whom the American boys' magazine St. Nicholas is aptly named. Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, has the following paragraph concerning the "Boy-Bishop," as he is termed: "The custom of choosing a boy from the cathedral choir, etc., on St. Nicholas day (6th December), as a mock bishop is very ancient. The boy possessed episcopal honour for three weeks, and the rest of the choir were his prebends. If he died during the time of his prelacy, he was buried in pontificalibus. Probably the reference is to Jesus Christ sitting in the Temple among the doctors while he was a boy. The custom was abolished in the reign of Henry Eighth" (p. 110). Brand gives many details of the election and conduct of the "Boy-Bishops," and the custom seems to have been in vogue in almost every parish and collegiate church (408. I. 415-431). Bishop Hall thus expresses himself on the subject: "What merry work it was here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not whether, in some places it may not be so still), that upon St. Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and Holy Innocents' Day, children were wont to be arrayed in chimers, rochets, surplices, to counterfeit bishops and priests, and to be led with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people, who stood grinning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction. Yea, that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses, and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple auditory. And this was so really done, that in the cathedral church of Salisbury (unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy-Bishops (who died in the time of his young pontificality), accoutred in his episcopal robes, still to be seen. A fashion that lasted until the later times of King Henry the Eighth, who, in 1541, by his solemn Proclamation, printed by Thomas Bertlet, the king's printer, cum privilegio, straitly forbad the practice."

When King Edward First was on his way to Scotland, in 1299, we are told, "he permitted one of these Boy-Bishops to say vespers before him in his Chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a considerable present to the said bishop, and certain other boys that came and sang with him on the occasion, on the 7th of December, the day after St. Nicholas's Day" (408. I. 422).

The records of the churches contain many particulars of the election, duties, and regalia of these boy-bishops, whence it would appear that expense and ceremony were not spared on these occasions.

Another boy-bishop was paid "thirteen shillings and sixpence for singing before King Edward the Third, in his chamber, on the day of the Holy Innocents" (408. I. 428).

The Boy-Bishop of Salisbury, whose service set to music is printed in the Processionale et usum insignis et preclare Ecclesie Sarum, 1566, is actually said "to have had the power of disposing of such prebends there as happened to fall vacant during the days of his episcopacy" (408. I. 424). With the return of Catholicism under Mary, as Brand remarks, the Boy-Bishop was revived, for we find an edict of the Bishop of London, issued Nov. 13, 1554, to all the clergy of his diocese, to the effect that "they should have a Boy-Bishop in procession," and Warton notes that "one of the child-bishop's songs, as it was sung before the Queen's Majesty, in her privy chamber; at her manor of St. James in the Field's on St. Nicholas's Day, and Innocents' Day, 1555, by the child-bishop of St. Paul's, with his company, was printed that year in London, containing a fulsome panegyric on the queen's devotions, comparing her to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary" (408. I. 429-430). The places at which the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop have been particularly noted are: Canterbury, Eton, St. Paul's, London, Colchester, Winchester, Salisbury, Westminster, Lambeth, York, Beverly, Rotherham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, etc. The Boy-Bishop was known also in Spain and in France; in the latter country he was called Pape-Colas. In Germany, at the Council of Salzburg, in 1274, on account of the scandals they gave rise to, the ludi noxii quos vulgaris eloquentia Episcopatus Puerorum appellat, were placed under the ban (408. I. 426).

It would appear from the mention of "children strangely decked and apparelled to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women," that on these occasions "divine service was not only performed by boys, but by little girls," and "there is an injunction given to the Benedictine Nunnery of Godstowe in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on Innocents' Day the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery per parvulas, i.e. little girls" (408. I. 428).

Though with the Protestantism of Elizabeth the Boy-Bishop and his revels were put down by the authorities, they continued to survive, in some places at least, the end of her reign. Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie (1589), observes: "On St. Nicholas's night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches" (408. 427). Brand recognizes in the iter ad montem of the scholars at Eton the remnants of the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop and his associates (408. 432); and indeed a passage which he cites from the Status Schola Etonensis (1560) shows that "in the Papal times the Eton scholars (to avoid interfering, as it should seem, with the boy-bishop of the college there on St. Nicholas's Day) elected their boy-bishop on St. Hugh's Day, in the month of November." In the statutes (1518) of St. Paul's School, we meet with the following: "All these children shall every Childermas Day come to Pauli's Church, and hear the Child-bishop sermon; and after he be at the high mass, and each of them offer a 1d. to the Child-bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school." Brand quotes Strype, the author of the Ecclesiastical Memorials, as observing: "I shall only remark, that there might be this at least said in favour of this old custom, that it gave a spirit to the children; and the hopes that they might one time or other attain to the real mitre made them mind their books."

In his poem, The Boy and the Angel, Robert Browning tells how Theocrite, the boy-craftsman, sweetly praised God amid his weary toil. On Easter Day he wished he might praise God as Pope, and the angel Gabriel took the boy's place in the workshop, while the latter became Pope in Rome. But the new. Pope sickened of the change, and God himself missed the welcome praise of the happy boy. So back went the Pope to the workshop and boyhood, and praise rose up to God as of old. Somewhat different from the poet's story is the tale of the lama of Tibet, a real boy-pope. The Grand Lama, or Pope, is looked upon as an incarnation of Buddha and as immortal, never suffering death, but merely transmigration (100. 499).

Among various peoples, the child has occupied all sacerdotal positions from acolyte to pope—priest he has been, not in barbarism alone, but in the midst of culture and civilization, where often the jest begun has ended in sober earnest. In the ecclesiastical, as well as in the secular, kingdom, the child has often come to his throne when "young in years, but in sage counsel old."



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHILD AS HERO, ADVENTURER, ETC.

O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!—Shakespeare.

Who can foretell for what high cause This Darling of the Gods was born?—Marvell.

The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the keys of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds.

Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all.—Whittier.

Carlyle has said: "The History of the World is the Biography of Great Men." He might have added, that in primitive times much of the History of the World is the Biography of Great Children. Andrew Lang, in his edition of Perrault's Tales, speaking of Le Petit Poucet (Hop o' My Thumb), says: "While these main incidents of Hop o' My Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other Poucet, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in myth. In Marchen, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of 'infant prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances" (p. ex.).

This world-homage to childhood finds apt expression in the verses of Mrs. Darmesteter:—

"Laying at the children's feet Each his kingly crown, Each, the conquering power to greet, Laying humbly down. Sword and sceptre as is meet."

All over the globe we find wonder-tales of childhood, stories of the great deeds of children, whose venturesomeness has saved whole communities from destruction, whose heroism has rid the world of giants and monsters of every sort, whose daring travels and excursions into lands or skies unknown have resulted in the great increase of human knowledge and the advancement of culture and civilization. In almost all departments of life the child-hero has left his mark, and there is much to tell of his wonderful achievements.

Finnish Child-Heroes.

In Finnish story we meet with Pikku mies, the dwarf-god, and in Altaic legend the child Kan Pudai, who was fed upon two hundred hares, who tames wild animals, makes himself a bow and bow-string, and becomes a mighty hero. In Esthonian folk-lore we have the tale of the seven-year-old wise girl, the persecution to which she was subjected at the hands of her stepmother, and the great deeds she accomplished (422. II. 144, 147, 154). But, outside of the wonderful infancy of Wainamoinen, the culture-hero of the Finns, whom the Kalevala has immortalized, we find some striking tributes to the child-spirit. In the closing canto of this great epic, which, according to Andrew Lang, tells, in savage fashion, the story of the introduction of Christianity, we learn how the maiden Marjatta, "as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without stain," was feeding her flocks and listening to the singing of the golden cuckoo, when a berry fell into her bosom, and she conceived and bore a son, whereupon the people despised and rejected her. Moreover, no one would baptize the infant: "The god of the wilderness refused, and Wainamoinen would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient demi-god, who fled in anger to the sea." As Wainamoinen was borne away in his magic barque by the tide, he lifted up his voice and sang how when men should have need of him they would look for his return, "bringing back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is vanished from the world." Thus did the rebuke of the babe close the reign of the demi-gods of old (484. 171-177).

Italian.

On the other hand, it is owing to a child, says a sweet Italian legend, that "the gates of heaven are forever ajar." A little girl-angel, up in heaven, sat grief-stricken beside the gate, and begged the celestial warder to set the gates ajar:—

"I can hear my mother weeping; She is lonely; she cannot see A glimmer of light in the darkness, Where the gates shut after me. Oh! turn the key, sweet angel, The splendour will shine so far!"

But the angel at the gate dared not, and the childish appeal seemed vain until the mother of Jesus touched his hand, when, lo! "in the little child-angel's fingers stood the beautiful gates ajar." And they have been so ever since, for Mary gave to Christ the keys, which he has kept safe hidden in his bosom, that every sorrowing mother may catch a glimpse of the glory afar (379. 28-30).

Persian Deed-Maiden.

I fatti sono maschi, le parole femmine,—deeds are masculine, words feminine,—says the Italian proverb. The same thought is found in several of our own writers. George Herbert said bluntly: "Words are women, deeds are men"; Dr. Madden: "Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things"; Dr. Johnson, in the preface to his great dictionary, embodies the saying of the Hindus: "Words are the daughters of earth, things are the sons of heaven."

In compensation for so ungracious a distinction, perhaps, the religion of Zoroaster, the ancient faith of Persia, teaches that, on the other side of death, the soul is received by its good deeds in the form of a beautiful maiden who conducts it through the three heavens to Ahura (the deity of good), and it is refreshed with celestial food (470. II. 421). That children should be brought into close relationship with the stars and other celestial bodies is to be expected from the milieu of folk-life, and the feeling of kinship with all the phenomena of nature.

Moon-Children.

In his exhaustive essay on Moon Lore, Rev. Mr. Harley tells us that in the Scandinavian mythology, Mani, the moon, "once took up two children from the earth, Bill and Hiuki, as they were going from the well of Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the bucket Soeg, and the pole Simul," and placed them in the moon, "where they could be seen from the earth." The modern Swedish folk-lore represents the spots on the moon as two children carrying water in a bucket, and it is this version of the old legend which Miss Humphrey has translated (468. 24-26). Mr. Harley cites, with approval, Rev. S. Baring-Gould's identification of Hiuki and Bill, the two moon-children, with the Jack and Jill of the familiar nursery rhyme:—

"Jack and Jill went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after."

According to Mr. Duncan, the well-known missionary to certain of the native tribes of British Columbia, these Indians of the far west have a version of this legend: "One night a child of the chief class awoke and cried for water. Its cries were very affecting—'Mother, give me to drink!' but the mother heeded not. The moon was affected and came down, entered the house, and approached the child, saying, 'Here is water from heaven: drink.' The child anxiously laid hold of the pot and drank the draught, and was enticed to go away with the moon, its benefactor. They took an underground passage till they got quite clear of the village, and then ascended to heaven" (468. 35, 36). The story goes on to say that "the figure we now see in the moon is that very child; and also the little round basket which it had in its hand when it went to sleep appears there."

The Rev. George Turner reports a Polynesian myth from the Samoan Islands, in which the moon is represented as coming down one evening and picking up a woman, and her child, who was beating out bark in order to make some of the native cloth. There was a famine in the land; and "the moon was just rising, and it reminded her of a great bread-fruit. Looking up to it, she said, 'Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?' The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all." To this day the Samoans, looking at the moon, exclaim: "Yonder is Sina and her child, and her mallet and board." Related myths are found in the Tonga Islands and the Hervey Archipelago (468. 59).

The Eskimo of Greenland believed that the sun and the moon were originally human beings, brother and sister. The story is that "they were playing with others at children's games in the dark, when Malina, being teased in a shameful manner by her brother Anninga, smeared her hands with the soot of the lamp, and rubbed them over the face and hands of her persecutor, that she might recognize him by daylight. Hence arise the spots in the moon. Malina rushed to save herself by flight, but her brother followed at her heels. At length she flew upwards, and became the sun. Anninga, followed her, and became the moon; but being unable to mount so high he runs continually round the sun in hopes of some time surprising her" (468. 34).

There are many variants of this legend in North and in Central America.

In her little poem The Children in the Moon, Miss Humphrey has versified an old folk-belief that the "tiny cloudlets flying across the moon's shield of silver" are a little lad and lass with a pole across their shoulders, at the end of which is swinging a water-bucket. These children, it is said, used to wander by moonlight to a well in the northward on summer nights to get a pail of water, until the moon snatched them up and "set them forever in the middle of his light," so that—

"Children, ay, and children's children, Should behold my babes on high; And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky!"

Thus it is that—

"Never is the bucket empty, Never are the children old, Ever when the moon is shining We the children may behold" (224. 23-25).

In Whittier's Child Life, this poem is given as "from the Scandinavian," with the following additional stanzas:—

"Ever young and ever little, Ever sweet and ever fair! When thou art a man, my darling, Still the children will be there.

"Ever young and ever little, They will smile when thou art old; When thy locks are thin and silver, Theirs will still be shining gold.

"They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom; Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb" (379. 115-117).

The Andaman Islanders say that the sun is the wife of the moon, and the stars are their children—boys and girls—who go to sleep during the day, and are therefore not seen of men (498. 92). The sun is termed cha'n'a bo'do, "Mother Sun"; the moon, mai'a 'o-gar, "Mr. Moon" (498. 59). In many other mythologies the stars, either as a whole, or in part, figure as children. In the figurative language of ancient records the patriarchs are promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and in the Tshi language of Western Africa, the stars are termed woh-rabbah, from woh, "to breed, multiply, be fruitful," and abbah, "children." The South Australian natives thought the stars were groups of children, and even in the classic legends of Greece and Rome more than one child left earth to shine in heaven as a star.

In the belief of the natives of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, the double star and Scorpii is a brother and sister, twins, who, fleeing from a scolding mother, leapt up into the sky. The bright stars [Greek: m] and [Greek: l] Scorpii are their angry parents who follow in pursuit, but never succeed in overtaking their runaway children, who, clinging close together,—for they were very fond of each other,—flee on and on through the blue sky. The girl, who is the elder, is called Inseparable, and Mr. Gill tells us that a native preacher, alluding to this favourite story, declared, with a happy turn of speech, that "Christ and the Christian should be like these twin stars, ever linked together, come life, come death." He could scarcely have chosen a more appropriate figure. The older faith that was dying lent the moral of its story to point the eloquence of the new (458. 40-43).

Hindu Child-Heroes.

In the Rig-Veda we have the story of the three brothers, the youngest of whom, Tritas, is quite a child, but accomplishes wonderful things and evinces more than human knowledge; also the tale of Vikramadityas, the wise child (422. II. 136).

In the interesting collection of Bengalese folk-tales by Rev. Lal Behari Day we find much that touches upon childhood: The story of the "Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled," and his wonderful deeds in the country of the Rakshasis (cannibals)—how he obtained the bird with whose life was bound up that of the wicked queen, and so brought about her death; the tale of the "Boy with the Moon on his Forehead"—how he rescued the beautiful Lady Pushpavati from the power of the Rakshasis over-sea! We have also the wonder-tales of Buddha.

In a tale of the Panjab, noted by Temple (542. II. xvi.), "a couple of gods, as children, eat up at a sitting a meal meant for 250,000 people"; and in a Little Russian story "a mother had a baby of extraordinary habits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby, but a bearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the store, and then lay down again a screeching babe." He was finally exorcised (258. 119). A huge appetite is a frequent characteristic of changelings in fairy-stories (258.108).

Japanese Child-Heroes.

The hero of Japanese boys is Kintaro, the "Wild Baby," the "Golden Darling." Companionless he played with the animals, put his arm around their necks, and rode upon their backs. Of him we are told: "He was prince of the forest; the rabbits, wild boars, squirrels and pheasants and hawks, were his servants and messengers." He is the apotheosis of the child in Japan, "the land of the holy gods," as its natives proudly termed it (245.121).

Another boy-hero is Urashima, who visited Elysium in a fishing-boat. A third phenomenal child of Japanese story is "Peach Darling," who, while yet a baby, lifted the wash-tub and balanced the kettle on his head (245. 62). We must remember, however, that the Japanese call their beautiful country "the land of the holy gods," and the whole nation makes claim to a divine ancestry. Visits to the other world, the elfin-land, etc., are found all over the world.

German.

In Germany and Austria we have the stories of (258. 140-160): The girl who stole the serpent-king's crown; the Pomeranian farmer's boy who, after quenching his thirst with the brown beer of the fairies, tried to run off with the can of pure silver in which it was contained (in a Cornish legend, however, the farmer's boy pockets one of the rich silver goblets which stood on the tables in the palace of the king of the piskies, or fairies, and proves the truth of the story he has afterwards to tell by producing the goblet, "which remained in the boy's family for generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming for the satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical." A like origin has been suggested for the celebrated "Luck of Edenhall," and the "Horn of Oldenburg," and other like relics); the Carinthian girl, who, climbing a mountain during the noon-hour, entered through a door in the rock, and remained away a whole year, though it seemed but a little while; the baker's boy who visited the lost Emperor in the mountain—the Barbarossa-Otto legend; the baker's daughter of Ruffach, who made her father rich by selling bread to the soldiers in a great subterranean camp; the girl of Silesia, who is admitted into a cavern, where abides a buried army; and many more of a similar nature, to be read in Grimm and the other chroniclers of fairy-land (258. 216. 217).

Among the Danish legends of kindred type we find the tales of: The boy who ran off with the horn out of which an elf-maiden offered him a drink, and would not return it until she had promised to bestow upon him the strength of twelve men, with which, unluckily, went also the appetite of twelve men (258. 144).

Celtic.

Among the Welsh tales of the child as hero and adventurer are: The visit of Elidorus (afterwards a priest), when twelve years old, to the underground country, where he stole a golden ball, which, however, the pigmies soon recovered; the youths who were drawn into the fairies' ring and kept dancing for a year and a day until reduced to a mere skeleton; the little farmer's son, who was away among the fairies for two years, though he thought he had been absent but a day; corresponding is the Breton tale of the girl who acts as godmother to a fairy child, and remains away for ten long years, though for only two days in her own mind (258. 135, 136, 168, 170).

Very interesting is the Breton legend of the youth who undertook to take a letter to God,—Monsieur le Bon Dieu,—in Paradise. When he reaches Paradise, he gives the letter to St. Peter, who proceeds to deliver it. While he is away, the youth, noticing the spectacles on the table, tries them on, and is astonished at the wonders he sees, and still more at the information given him by St. Peter on his return, that he has been gazing through them five hundred years. Another hundred years he passes in looking at the seat kept for him in Paradise, and then receives the answer to the letter, which he is to take to the parish priest. After distributing in alms the hundred crowns he is paid for his services, he dies and goes to Paradise to occupy the seat he has seen. As Mr. Hartland remarks, "the variants of this traditional Pilgrim's Progress are known from Brittany to Transylvania, and from Iceland to Sicily" (258. 192).

Basque.

A remarkable child-hero tale is the Basque legend of the orphans, Izar (seven years old) and Lanoa (nine years old), and their adventures with Satan and the witches,—how Izar cured the Princess and killed the great toad which was the cause of her complaint, and how Lanoa defied Satan to his face, meeting death by his action, but gaining heaven (505. 19-41).

American Indian Child-Heroes.

In a legend of the Tlingit Indians concerning the visit of Ky'itlac', a man who had killed himself, to the upper country ruled by Tahit, whither go such as die a violent death, we read that—

"When he looked down upon the earth, he saw the tops of the trees looking like so many pins. But he wished to return to the earth. He pulled his blanket over his head and flung himself down. He arrived at the earth unhurt, and found himself at the foot of some trees. Soon he discovered a small house, the door of which was covered with mats. He peeped into it, and heard a child crying that had just been born. He himself was that child, and when he came to be grown up he told the people of Tahit. They had heard about him before, but only then they learnt everything about the upper world" (403. 48, 49).

In a legend of the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, a chief killed by a rival goes to the other world, but returns to earth in his grandson: "It was Ank-oa'lagyilis who was thus born again. The boy, when a few years old, cried and wanted to have a small boat made, and, when he had got it, asked for a bow and arrows. His father scolded him for having so many wishes. Then the boy said, 'I was at one time your father, and have returned from heaven.' His father did not believe him, but then the boy said, 'You know that Ank-oa'lagyilis had gone to bury his property, and nobody knows where it is. I will show it to you.' He took his father right to the place where it lay hidden, and bade him distribute it. There were two canoe-loads of blankets. Now the people knew that Ank'oa'lagyilis had returned. He said, 'I was with ata [the deity], but he sent me back.' They asked him to tell about heaven, but he refused to do so." The boy afterwards became a chief, and it is said he refused to take revenge upon his murderer (404. 59).

In the mythology of the Siouan tribes we meet with the "Young Rabbit," born of a piece of the clotted blood of the Buffalo killed by Grizzly Bear, which the Rabbit had stolen. According to legend the Rabbit "addressed the blood, calling it his son, and ordering it to become a little child, and when he had ordered it to advance from infancy, through boyhood to youth, and from youth to manhood, his commands were obeyed." The "Young Rabbit" kills the Grizzly and delivers his own father (480 (1892). 293-304).

The legend of the "Blood-clot Boy" is also recorded from the narration of the Blackfeet Indians by Bev. John MacLean and Mr. Grinnell. The tale of his origin is as follows: "There lived, a long time ago, an old man and his wife, who had three daughters and one son-in-law. One day, as the mother was cooking some meat, she threw a clot of blood into the pot containing the meat. The pot began to boil, and then there issued from it a peculiar hissing noise. The old woman looked into the pot, and was surprised to see that the blood-clot had become transformed into a little boy. Quickly he grew, and, in a few moments, he sprang from the pot, a full-grown young man." Kutoyis, as the youth was named, became an expert hunter, and kept the family in food. He also killed his lazy and quarrelsome brother-in-law, and brought peace to the family. Of Kutoyis it is said he "sought to drive out all the evil in the world, and to unite the people and make them happy" (480(1893).167).

Concerning the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, Mr. Band informs us (521.xlii.):—

"Children exposed or lost by their parents are miraculously preserved. They grow up suddenly to manhood, and are endowed with superhuman powers; they become the avengers of the guilty and the protectors of the good. They drive up the moose and the caribou to their camps, and slaughter them at their leisure. The elements are under their control; they can raise the wind, conjure up storms or disperse them, make it hot or cold, wet or dry, as they please. They can multiply the smallest amount of food indefinitely, evade the subtlety and rage of their enemies, kill them miraculously, and raise their slaughtered friends to life."

A characteristic legend of this nature is the story of Noojekesigunodasit and the "magic dancing-doll." Noojekesigunodasit,—"the sock wringer and dryer," so-called because, being the youngest of the seven sons of an Indian couple, he had to wring and dry the moccasin-rags of his elders,—was so persecuted by the eldest of his brothers, that he determined to run away, and "requests his mother to make him a small bow and arrow and thirty pairs of moccasins." He starts out and "shoots the arrow ahead, and runs after it. In a short time he is able to outrun the arrow and reach the spot where it is to fall before it strikes the ground. He then takes it up and shoots again, and flies on swifter than the arrow. Thus he travels straight ahead, and by night he has gone a long distance from home." His brother starts in pursuit, but, after a hundred days, returns home discouraged. Meanwhile, the boy travels on and meets a very old man, who tells him that the place from whence he came is a long way off, for "I was a small boy when I started, and since that day I have never halted, and you see that now I am very old." The boy says, however, that he will try to reach the place, and, after receiving from the old man a little box in return for a pair of moccasins,—for those of the traveller were quite worn out,—he goes his way. By and by the boy's curiosity leads him to open the box, and

"As soon as he has removed the cover, he starts with an exclamation of surprise, for he sees a small image, in the form of a man, dancing away with all his might, and reeking with perspiration from the long-continued exertion. As soon as the light is let in upon him, he stops dancing, looks up suddenly, and exclaims, 'Well, what is it? What is wanted?' The truth now flashes over the boy. This is a supernatural agent, a manitoo, a god, from the spirit world, which can do anything that he is requested to do." The boy wished "to be transported to the place from whence the old man came," and, closing the box, "suddenly his head swims, the darkness comes over him, and he faints. When he recovers he finds himself near a large Indian village." By the aid of his doll—weedapcheejul, "little comrade," he calls it—he works wonders, and obtains one of the daughters of the chief as his wife, and ultimately slays his father-in-law, who is a great "medicine-man." This story, Mr. Rand says he "wrote down from the mouth of a Micmac Indian in his own language"; it will bear comparison with some European folk-tales (521. 7-13).

Another story of boy wonder-working, with some European trappings, however, is that of "The Boy who was transformed into a Horse." Of this wonderful infant it is related that "at the age of eighteen months the child was able to talk, and immediately made inquiries about his elder brother [whom his father had 'sold to the devil']." The child then declares his intention of finding his lost brother, and, aided by an "angel,"—this tale is strangely hybrid,—discovers him in the form of a horse, restores him to his natural shape, and brings him safely home; but changes the wicked father into a horse, upon whose back an evil spirit leaps and runs off with him (521. 31).

Other tales of boy adventure in Dr. Rand's collection are: "The History of Kitpooseagunow" [i.e. "taken from the side of his mother," as a calf of a moose or a caribou is after the mother has fallen] (521. 62-80); "The Infant Magician"; "The Invisible Boy," who could change himself into a moose, and also become invisible (521. 101-109); "The Badger and his Little Brother" (521. 263-269), in which the latter helps the former decoy the water-fowl to destruction, but, repenting at the wanton slaughter, gives the alarm, and many birds escape; "The Little Boy who caught a Whale" (521. 280-281). The story of "The Small Baby and the Big Bird" contains many naive touches of Indian life. The hero of the tale is a foundling, discovered in the forest by an old woman, "so small that she easily hides it in her mitten." Having no milk for the babe, which she undertakes to care for, the woman "makes a sort of gruel from the scrapings of the inside of raw-hide, and thus supports and nourishes it, so that it thrives and does well." By and by he becomes a mighty hunter, and finally kills the old culloo (giant bird) chief, tames the young culloo, and discovers his parents (521. 81-93).

In the mythologic tales of the Iroquois, the child appears frequently as a hero and an adventurer. Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, in treating of The Myths of the Iroquois (534), relates the stories of the infant nursed by bears; the boy whom his grandmother told never to go west, but who at last started off in that direction, and finally killed the great frog (into which form the man who had been tormenting them turned himself); the boy who, after interfering with his uncle's magic wand and kettle, and thereby depriving the people of corn, set out and managed to return home with plenty of corn, which he had pilfered from the witches who guarded it,—all interesting child exploits.

Among the myths of the Cherokees,—a people related in speech to the Iroquois,—as reported by Mr. James Mooney, we find a story somewhat similar to the last mentioned,—"Kanati and Selu: the Origin of Corn and Game" (506. 98-105), the heroes of which are Inage Utasuhi, "He who grew up Wild," a wonderful child, born of the blood of the game washed in the river; and the little son of Kanati ("the lucky hunter") and Selu ("Corn," his wife), his playmate, who captures him. The "Wild Boy" is endowed with magic powers, and leads his "brother" into all sorts of mischief. They set out to discover where the father gets all the game he brings home, and, finding that he lifted a rock on the side of a mountain, allowing the animal he wished to come forth, they imitated him some days afterwards, and the result was that the deer escaped from the cave, and "then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges." From their childish glee and tricksiness the animals appear to have suffered somewhat, for we are told (506. 100): "In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but, as a buck was running past, the 'wild boy' struck its tail with his arrow, so that it stood straight out behind. This pleased the boys, and when the next one ran by, the other brother struck his tail so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this was good sport, and when the next one ran past, the 'wild boy' struck his tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer's tail was curled over his back. The boys thought this was very pretty, and ever since the deer has carried his tail over his back." When Kanati discovered what had occurred (506. 100), was furious, but, without saying a word, he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. "After they had been tortured enough, Kanati sent them home, telling them that, through their folly," whenever they wanted a deer to eat they would have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then may be not find one. "When the boys got home, discovering that Selu was a witch, they killed her and dragged her body about a large piece of ground in front of the house, and wherever the blood fell Indian corn sprang up. Kanati then tried to get the wolves to kill the two boys, but they trapped them in a huge pound, and burned almost all of them to death. Their father not returning from his visit to the wolves, the boys set out in search of him, and, after some days, found him. After killing a fierce panther in a swamp, and exterminating a tribe of cannibals, who sought to boil the "wild boy" in a pot, they kept on and soon lost sight of their father." At "the end of the world, where the sun comes out," they waited "until the sky went up again" [in Cherokee cosmogony "the earth is a flat surface, and the sky is an arch of solid rock suspended above it. This arch rises and falls continually, so that the space at the point of juncture is constantly opening and closing, like a pair of scissors"], and then "they went through and climbed up on the other side." Here they met Kanati and Selu, but, after staying with them seven days, had to "go toward the sunset land, where they are still living."

Dr. G. M. Dawson records, from the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the story of an old woman,—husbandless, childless, companionless,—who, "for the sake of companionship, procured some pitch and shaped from it the figure of a girl, which became her daughter," whom many adventures befell (425. 33).

There is a very interesting Tahitian myth telling of the descent of little Tavai to the invisible world. Tavai was his mother's pet, and one day, for some slight fault, was beaten by the relatives of his father. This made Ouri, his mother, so angry, that Oema, her husband, out of shame, went down to Hawaii, the under-world, whither Tavai, accompanied by his elder brother, journeyed, and, after many adventures, succeeded in bringing to their mother the bones of Oema, who had long been dead when they found him (458. 250).

Legion in number and world-wide in their affiliations are the stories of the visits of children and youths, boys and girls, to heaven, to the nether-world, to the country of the fairies, and to other strange and far-off lands, inhabited by elves, dwarfs, pigmies, giants, "black spirits and white." Countless are the variants of the familiar tale of "Jack and the Bean Stalk," "Jack, the Giant-Killer," and many another favourite of the nursery and the schoolroom. Tylor, Lang, Clouston, and Hartland have collated and interpreted many of these, and the books of fairy-tales and kindred lore are now numbered by the hundred, as may be seen from the list given by Mr. Hartland in the appendix to his work on fairy-tales. Grimm, Andersen, and the Arabian Nights have become household names.

For children to speak before they are born is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the lives of saints and the myths of savage peoples, especially when the child about to come into the world is an incarnation of some deity. Of Gluskap, the Micmac culture-hero, and Malumsis, the Wolf, his bad brother, we read (488. 15,16):—

"Before they were born, the babes consulted to consider how they had best enter the world. And Glooskap said: 'I will be born as others are.' But the evil Malumsis thought himself too great to be brought forth in such a manner, and declared that he would burst through his mother's side. And, as they planned it, so it came to pass. Glooskap as first came quietly to light, while Malumsis kept his word, killing his mother." Another version of the same story runs: "In the old time, far before men knew themselves in the light before the sun, Glooskap and his brother were as yet unborn. They waited for the day to appear. Then they talked together, and the youngest said: 'Why should I wait? I will go into the world and begin my life at once;' when the elder said: 'Not so, for this were a great evil.' But the younger gave no heed to any wisdom; in his wickedness he broke through his mother's side, he rent the wall; his beginning of life was his mother's death" (488. 106). Very similar is the Iroquois myth of the "Good Mind" and the "Bad Mind," and variants of this American hero-myth may be read in the exhaustive treatise of Dr. Brinton.

Very interesting is the Maya story of the twins Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque, sons of the virgin Xquiq, who, fleeing from her father, escaped to the upper world, where the birth took place. Of these children we are told "they grew in strength, and performed various deeds of prowess, which are related at length in the Popul Vuh [the folk-chronicle of the Quiches of Guatemala], and were at last invited by the lords of the underworld to visit them." The chiefs of the underworld intended to slay the youths, as they had previously slain their father and uncle, but through their oracular and magic power the two brothers pretended to be burned, and, when their ashes were thrown into the river, they rose from its waters and slew the lords of the nether world. At this the inhabitants of Hades fled in terror and the twins "released the prisoners and restored to life those who had been slain. The latter rose to the sky to become the countless stars, while Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hun-Ahpu [father and uncle of the twins] ascended to dwell, the one in the sun, the other in the moon" (411. 124).

Born of a virgin mother were also Quetzalcoatl, the culture-hero of Mexico, and other similar characters whose lives and deeds may be read in Dr. Brinton's American Hero-Myths.

From the Indians of the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, Dr. A. S. Gatschet has obtained the story of the "Antelope-Boy," who, as the champion of the White Pueblo, defeated the Plawk, the champion of the Yellow Pueblo, in a race around the horizon. The "Antelope-Boy" was a babe who had been left on the prairie by its uncle, and brought up by a female antelope who discovered it. After some trouble, the people succeeded in catching him and restoring him to his mother. Another version of the same tale has it that "the boy-child, left by his uncle and mother upon the prairie, was carried to the antelopes by a coyote, after which a mother-antelope, who had lost her fawn, adopted the tiny stranger as her own. By an ingenious act of the mother-antelope the boy was surrendered again to his real human mother; for when the circle of the hunters grew smaller around the herd, the antelope took the boy to the northeast, where his mother stood in a white robe. At last these two were the only ones left within the circle, and when the antelope broke through the line on the northeast, the boy followed her and fell at the feet of his own human mother, who sprang forward and clasped him in her arms." The Yellow Pueblo people were wizards, and so confident were they of success that they proposed that the losing party, their villages, property, etc., should be burnt. The White Pueblo people agreed, and, having won the victory, proceeded to exterminate the conquered. One of the wizards, however, managed to hide away and escape being burned, and this is why there are wizards living at this very day (239. 213, 217).

In the beginning, says the Zuni account of the coming of men upon earth, they dwelt in the lowermost of four subterranean caverns, called the "Four Wombs of the World," and as they began to increase in numbers they became very unhappy, and the children of the wise men among them besought them to deliver them from such a life of misery. Then, it is said, "The 'Holder of the Paths of Life,' the Sun-Father, created from his own being two children, who fell to earth for the good of all beings. The Sun-Father endowed these children with immortal youth, with power even as his own power, and created for them a bow (the Rainbow) and an arrow (the Lightning). For them he made also a shield like unto his own, of magic power, and a knife of flint.... These children cut the face of the world with their magic knife, and were borne down upon their shield into the caverns in which all men dwelt. There, as the leaders of men, they lived with their children, mankind." They afterwards led men into the second cavern, then into the third, and finally into the fourth, whence they made their way, guided by the two children, to the world of earth, which, having been covered with water, was damp and unstable and filled with huge monsters and beasts of prey. The two children continued to lead men "Eastward, toward the Home of the Sun-Father," and by their magic power, acting under the directions of their creator, the Sun-Father, they caused the surface of the earth to harden and petrified the fierce animals who sought to destroy the children of men (which accounts for the fossils of to-day and the animal-like forms of rocks and boulders) (424. 13). Of this people it could have been said most appropriately, "a little child shall lead them."

Mr. Lummis' volume of folk-tales of the Pueblos Indians of New Mexico contains many stories of the boy as hero and adventurer. The "Antelope-Boy" who defeats the champion of the witches in a foot-race (302. 12-21); Nah-chu-ru-chu (the "Bluish Light of the Dawn"), the parentless hero, "wise in medicine," who married the moon, lost her, but found her again after great trouble (302. 53-70); the boy who cursed the lake (302. 108-121); the boy and the eagle, etc. (302. 122-126). But the great figures in story at the Pueblo of Queres are the "hero-twins," Maw-Sahv and Oo-yah-wee, sons of the Sun, wonderful and astonishing children, of whom it is said that "as soon as they were a minute old, they were big and strong and began playing" (302. 207). Their mother died when they were born, but was restored to life by the Crow-Mother, and returned home with her two children, whose hero-deeds, "at an age when other boys were toddling about the house," were the cause of infinite wonder. They killed the Giant-Woman and the Giant-Baby, and performed unnumbered other acts of heroism while yet in childhood and youth. To the same cycle seems to belong also the story of "The Magic Hide-and-Seek" (302.87-98).

From the Pueblo of Sia, Mrs. Stevenson has recorded the story of the twins Ma'asewe and U'yuuyewe, sons of the Sun-Father by the virgin Ko'chinako; how they visited their father, and the adventures that befell them on their long journey; how they killed the wolf of the lake, the cougar, the bear, the bad eagles, burned the cruel witch, and other great enemies of the people, organized the cult societies, and then "made their home in the Sandia Mountain, where they have since remained." At the entrance to the crater, we are told, "the diminutive footprints of these boys are yet to be seen by the good of heart" (538. 43-57). Among the American Indians it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the child-hero from the divinity whom he so often closely resembles.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE CHILD AS FETICH, DEITY, GOD.

Childhood shall be all divine.—Proctor.

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink, Might tempt, should Heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss.—Swinburne.

Their glance might cast out pain and sin, Their speech make dumb the wise, By mute glad godhead felt within A baby's eyes.—Swinburne.

The Child as Fetich.

It is easy to understand how, among barbarous or semi-civilized peoples, children born deformed or with any strange marking or defect should be looked upon as objects of fear or reverence, fetiches in fact. Post informs us regarding certain African tribes (127. I. 285, 286):—

"The Wanika, Wakikuyu, and Wazegua kill deformed children; throttle them in the woods and bury them. The belief is, that the evil spirit of a dead person has got into them, and such a child would be a great criminal. The Somali let misformed children live, but regard them with superstitious fear. In Angola all children born deformed are considered 'fetich.' In Loango dwarfs and albinos are regarded as the property of the king, and are looked upon as sacred and inviolable."

Here we see at least some of the reasons which have led up to the eulogy and laudation, as well as to the dread suspicion, of the dwarf and the hunchback, appearing in so many folk-tales. We might find also, perhaps, some dim conception of the occasional simultaneity of genius with physical defects or deformities, a fact of which a certain modern school of criminal sociologists has made so much.

Concerning albinos Schultze says (529. 82):—

"In Borneo albinos are objects of fear, as beings gifted with supernatural power; in Senegambia, if they are slaves, they are given their freedom, are exempted from all labour, and are cheerfully supported at others' expense. In Congo the king keeps them in his palace as 'fetiches which give him influence over the Europeans.' They are held in such respect that they may take whatever they will; and he who is deprived of his property by them, esteems himself honoured. In Loango they are esteemed above the Gangas (priests), and their hair is sold at a high price as a holy relic. Thus may a man become a fetich." At Moree, in West Africa, Ellis informs us, "Albinos are sacred to Aynfwa, and, on arriving at puberty, become her priests and priestesses. They are regarded by the people as the mouth-pieces of the goddess." At Coomassie a boy-prisoner was painted white and consecrated as a slave to the tutelary deity of the market (438. 49, 88). Coeval with their revival of primitive language-moulds in their slang, many of our college societies and sporting clubs and associations have revived the beliefs just mentioned in their mascots and luck-bringers—the other side of the shield showing the "Jonahs" and those fetiches of evil import. Even great actors, stock-brokers, and politicians have their mascots. We hear also of mascots of regiments and of ships. A little hunchback, a dwarf, a negro boy, an Italian singing-girl, a child dressed in a certain style or colour, all serve as mascots. Criminals and gamblers, those members of the community most nearly allied in thought and action with barbarous and primitive man, have their mascots, and it is from this source that we derive the word, which Andran, in his opera La Mascotte, has lifted to a somewhat higher plane, and now each family may have a mascot, a fetich, to cause them to prosper and succeed in life (390 (1888). 111, 112).

One of the derivations suggested for this word, viz. from masque = coiffe, in the expression ne coiffe, "born with a caul," would make the mascot to have been originally a child born with the caul on its head, a circumstance which, as the French phrase etre ne coiffe, "to be born lucky," indicates, betokened happiness and good-fortune for the being thus coming into the world. In German the caul is termed "Gluckshaube," "lucky hood," and Ploss gives many illustrations of the widespread belief in the luck that falls to the share of the child born with one. A very curious custom exists in Oldenburg, where a boy, in order to be fortunate in love, carries his caul about with him (326. I. 12-14). Other accidents or incidents of birth have sufficed to make fetiches of children. Twins and triplets are regarded in many parts of the world as smacking of the supernatural and uncanny. The various views of the races of mankind upon this subject are given at length in Ploss (326. II. 267-275), and Post has much to say of the treatment of twins in Africa. In Unyoro twins are looked upon as "luck-bringers, not only for the family, but for the whole village as well. Great feasts are held in their honour, and if they die, the house in which they were born is burned down." Among the Ishogo, from fear that one of the pair may die, twins are practically isolated and taboo until grown up (127. I. 282, 284).

To the Ovaherero, according to Ploss, "the birth of twins is the greatest piece of good-fortune that can fall to the lot of mortals," and such an event makes the parents "holy." Among this Kaffir people, moreover: "Every father of twins has the right to act as substitute for the village-chief in the exercise of his priestly functions. If the chief is not present, he can, for example, exorcise a sick person. Even the twin-child himself has all priestly privileges. For a twin boy there is no forbidden flesh, no forbidden milk, and no one would ever venture to curse him. If any one should kill a twin-child, the murderer's whole village would be destroyed. As a twin-boy, he inherits the priestly dignity at the death of the chief, and even when an older brother succeeds the father as possessor of the village, it is, however, named after the younger twin-brother, who is clothed with the priestly dignity" (326. II. 271-274).

Among the Songish Indians of Vancouver Island, it is believed that "twins, immediately after their birth, possess supernatural powers. They are at once taken to the woods and washed in a pond in order to become ordinary men." The Shushwap Indians believe that twins retain this supernatural power throughout their lives (404. 22, 92).

Of children whose upper teeth break out before the lower, some primitive tribes are in fear and dread, hastening to kill them, as do the Basutos, Wakikuyu, Wanika, Wazegua, and Wasawahili. Among the Wazaramo, another African people, such children "are either put to death, given away, or sold to a slave-holder, for the belief is that through them sickness, misfortune, and death would enter the house." The Arabs of Zanzibar, "after reading from the Koran, administer to such a child an oath that it will do no harm, making it nod assent with its head" (127. I. 287).

From what has preceded, we can see how hard it is sometimes to draw the line between the man as fetich and the priest, between the divinity and the medicine-man.

Fetiches of Criminals.

It is a curious fact that St. Nicholas is at once the patron saint of children and of thieves,—the latter even Shakespeare calls "St. Nicholas's clerks." And with robbers and the generality of evil-doers the child, dead or alive, is much of a fetich. Anstey's Burglar Bill is humorously exaggerated, but there is a good deal of superstition about childhood lingering in the mind of the lawbreaker. Strack (361) has discussed at considerable length the child (dead) as fetich among the criminal classes, especially the use made of the blood, the hand, the heart, etc. Among the thieving fraternity in Middle Franconia it is believed that "blood taken up from the genitals of an innocent boy on three pieces of wood, and carried about the person, renders one invisible when stealing" (361. 41). The same power was ascribed to the eating of the hearts (raw) of unborn children cut out of the womb of the mother. Male children only would serve, and from the confession of the band of the robber-chief "King Daniel," who so terrified all Ermeland in the middle of the seventeenth century, it would appear that they had already killed for this purpose no fewer than fourteen women with child (361. 59). As late as 1815, at Heide in Northditmarsch, one Claus Dau was executed for "having killed three children and eaten their hearts with the belief of making himself invisible" (361. 61).

This eating of little children's hearts was thought not alone to confer the gift of invisibility, but "when portions of nine hearts had been eaten by any one, he could not be seized, no matter what theft or crime he committed, and, if by chance he should fall into the power of his enemies, he could make himself invisible and thus escape." The eating of three hearts is credited with the same power in an account of a robber of the Lower Rhine, in 1645. In the middle of the last century, there was executed at Bayreuth a man "who had killed eight women with child, cut them open, and eaten the warm, palpitating hearts of the children, in the belief that he would be able to fly, if he ate the hearts of nine such children" (361. 58).

Only a few years ago (April, 1888), at Oldenburg, a workman named Bliefernicht was tried for having killed two girls, aged six and seven years. The examination of the remains showed that "one of the bodies not only had the neck completely cut through, but the belly cut open, so that the entrails, lungs, and liver were exposed. A large piece of flesh had been cut out of the buttocks and was nowhere to be found, the man having eaten it. His belief was, that whoever ate of the flesh of innocent girls, could do anything in the world without any one being able to make him answer for it" (361. 62).

Strack has much to say of the main-de-gloire and the chandelle magique. Widespread among thieves is the belief in the "magic taper." At Meesow, in the Regenwald district of Pomerania, these tapers are made of the entrails of unborn children, can only be extinguished with milk, and, as long as they burn, no one in the house to be robbed is able to wake. It is of the hands, however, of unbaptized or unborn children that these tapers were most frequently made. At Nurnberg, in 1577 and 1701, there were executed two monsters who killed many women in their pursuit for this fetich; at Vechta, in Oldenburg, the finger of an unborn child "serves with thieves to keep asleep the people of the house they have entered, if it is simply laid on the table"; at Konow, the fat of a woman with child is used to make a similar taper. In the Ukrain district of Poland, it is believed that the hand of the corpse of a five-year-old child opens all locks (361. 42). This belief in the hand-of-glory and the magic candle may be due to the fact that such children, being unbaptized and unborn, were presumed to be under the influence of the Evil One himself. Of the wider belief in the chandelle magique and main-de-gloire (as obtained from criminal adults) in Germany, France, Spain, etc., nothing need be said here.

At Konow, in the Kammin district of Pomerania, "if a thief takes an unborn child, dries it, puts it in a little wooden box, and carries it on his person, he is rendered invisible to everybody, and can steal at will" (361. 41).

The history of the robbers of the Rhine and the Main, of Westphalia, the Mark, and Silesia, with whom the child appears so often as a fetich, evince a bestiality and inhumanity almost beyond the power of belief.

Magic.

But it is not to the criminal classes alone that superstitions of this nature belong. Of the alchemy, magic, black art, sorcery, and "philosophy" of the Dark Ages of Europe, the practice of which lingered in some places well on into the seventeenth century, horrible stories are told, in which children, their bodies, their souls even, appear as fetishes. The baptism of blood is said still to be practised in parts of Russia by parents "to preserve their child from the temptations of the prince of darkness," and in 1874, "a country-school teacher of the Strassburg district, and his wife, upon the advice of a somnambulist, struck their own aunt with the fire-tongs until the blood flowed, with which they sprinkled their child supposed to have been bewitched by her" (361. 73). Here it is the blood of adults that is used, but the practice demands the child's also. According to C. F. A. Hoffmann (1817), there lived in Naples "an old doctor who had children by several women, which he inhumanly killed, with peculiar ceremonies and rites, cutting the breast open, tearing out the heart, and from its blood preparing precious drops which were preservative against all sickness." Well known is the story of Elizabeth Bathori, a Hungarian woman of the early part of the seventeenth century, who, it is said, receiving on her face a drop of blood which spurted from a waiting-girl whose ears she had severely boxed, and noticing afterward, when she wiped it away, that her skin at that spot appeared to be more beautiful, whiter, and finer than before, resolved to bathe her face and her whole body in human blood, in order to increase her charms and her beauty. Before her monstrous actions were discovered, she is thought to have caused the death of some 650 girls with the aid of accomplices (361. 46).

Fetiches of Religion.

The use of human blood in ritual has been treated of in detail by Strack, and in his pages many references to children will be found. He also discusses in detail the charge of the Anti-Semitics that the Jews kill little children of their Christian neighbours for the purpose of using their blood and certain parts of their bodies in religious rites and ceremonies, showing alike the antiquity of this libel as well as its baselessness. Against the early Christians like charges appear to have been made by the heathen, and later on by the Saracens; and indeed, this charge is one which is generally levelled at new-comers or innovators in the early history of Christian religion and civilization. Strack points out also that, during the contest of the Dominicans and Franciscans in Bern, in 1507 A.D., it was charged that the former used the blood of Jewish children, the eyebrows and hair of children, etc., in their secret rites (361. 68, 69).

Brewer, who gives little credit to the stories, cites the account of numerous crucifixions of children alleged to have been carried out by Jews in various parts of Europe, for the purpose of using their flesh and blood in their rituals, or merely out of hatred to the Christian religion. The principal cases are: Andrew of Innspruck; Albert of Swirnazen in Podolia, aged four (1598); St. Hugh of Lincoln, aged eleven (1255); St. Janot of Cologne (1475); St. Michael of Sappendelf in Bavaria, aged four and one-half (1340); St. Richard of Pontoise, aged twelve (1182); St. Simon of Trent, aged twenty-nine months and three days (1475); St. William of Norwich, aged twelve (1137); St. Wernier (Garnier), aged thirteen (1227). The Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists give a long list of nameless children, who are claimed to have suffered a like fate in Spain, France, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Italy, etc. The later charges, such as those made in the celebrated case of the girl Esther Solymasi, whose death was alleged to have been brought about by the Jews of Tisza-Eszlar in Hungary, in 1882, are investigated by Strack, and shown to be utterly without foundation of fact, merely the product of frenzied Anti-Semitism (191. 171-175).

The use of blood and the sacrifice of little children, as well as other fetichistic practices, have been charged against some of the secret religious sects of modern Russia.

Dead Children.

In Annam the natives "surround the beds of their children suffering from small-pox with nets, and never leave them alone, fearing lest a demon, in the form of a strange child, should sneak in and take possession of them" (397. 169, 242). This belief is akin with the widespread superstitions with respect to changelings and other metamorphoses of childhood, to the discussion of which Ploss and Hartland have devoted much space and attention, the latter, indeed, setting apart some forty pages of his book on fairy-tales to the subject.

In Devonshire, England, it was formerly believed lucky to put a stillborn child into an open grave, "as it was considered a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there." In the Border country, on the other hand, it is unlucky to tread on the graves of unbaptized children, and "he who steps on the grave of a stillborn or unbaptized child, or of one who has been overlaid by its nurse, subjects himself to the fatal disease of the grave-merels, or grave-scab." In connection with this belief, Henderson cites the following popular verses, of considerable antiquity:—

"Woe to the babie that ne'er saw the sun, All alane and alane, oh! His bodie shall lie in the kirk 'neath the rain, All alane and alane, oh!

"His grave must be dug at the foot o' the wall, All alane and alane, oh! And the foot that treadeth his body upon Shall have scab that will eat to the bane, oh!

"And it ne'er will be cured by doctor on earth, Tho' every one should tent him, oh! He shall tremble and die like the elf-shot eye, And return from whence he came, oh!" (469. 13).

Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, after a dead child has been buried and the parents have mourned for about three months, the remains are exhumed, cleansed at the seashore by the father, and brought back to the hut, where the bones are broken up to make necklaces, which are distributed to friends and relatives as mementos. Moreover, "the mother, after painting the skull with koi-ob—[a mixture of yellow ochre, oil, etc.] and decorating it with small shells attached to pieces of string, hangs it round her neck with a netted chain, called rab—. After the first few days her husband often relieves her by wearing it himself" (498. 74,75).