Myths and Myth-Makers [102]
from his mouth at death like a little white cloud."[165] It is kept up, too, in Lancashire, where a well-known witch died a few years since; "but before she could 'shuffle off this mortal coil' she must needs TRANSFER HER FAMILIAR SPIRIT to some trusty successor. An intimate acquaintance from a neighbouring township was consequently sent for in all haste, and on her arrival was immediately closeted with her dying friend. What passed between them has never fully transpired, but it is confidently affirmed that at the close of the interview this associate RECEIVED THE WITCH'S LAST BREATH INTO HER MOUTH AND WITH IT HER FAMILIAR SPIRIT. The dreaded woman thus ceased to exist, but her powers for good or evil were transferred to her companion; and on passing along the road from Burnley to Blackburn we can point out a farmhouse at no great distance with whose thrifty matron no neighbouring farmer will yet dare to quarrel."[166]
[165] Tylor, op. cit. I. 391.
[166] Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, 1867, p. 210.
Of the theory of embodiment there will be occasion to speak further on. At present let us not pass over the fact that the other self is not only conceived as shadow or breath, which can at times quit the body during life, but is also supposed to become temporarily embodied in the visible form of some bird or beast. In discussing elsewhere the myth of Bishop Hatto, we saw that the soul is sometimes represented in the form of a rat or mouse; and in treating of werewolves we noticed the belief that the spirits of dead ancestors, borne along in the night-wind, have taken on the semblance of howling dogs or wolves. "Consistent with these quaint ideas are ceremonies in vogue in China of bringing home in a cock (live or artificial) the spirit of a man deceased in a distant place, and of enticing into a sick man's coat the departing spirit which has already left his body and so conveying it back."[167] In Castren's great work on Finnish mythology, we find the story of the giant who could not be killed because he kept his soul hidden in a twelve-headed snake which he carried in a bag as he rode on horseback; only when the secret was discovered and the snake carefully killed, did the giant yield up his life. In this Finnish legend we have one of the thousand phases of the story of the "Giant who had no Heart in his Body," but whose heart was concealed, for safe keeping, in a duck's egg, or in a pigeon, carefully disposed in some belfry at the world's end a million miles away, or encased in a wellnigh infinite series of Chinese boxes.[168] Since, in spite of all these precautions, the poor giant's heart invariably came to grief, we need not wonder at the Karen superstition that the soul is in danger when it quits the body on its excursions, as exemplified in countless Indo-European stories of the accidental killing of the weird mouse or pigeon which embodies the wandering spirit. Conversely it is held that the detachment of the other self is fraught with danger to the self which remains. In the philosophy of "wraiths" and "fetches," the appearance of a double, like that which troubled Mistress Affery in her waking dreams of Mr. Flintwinch, has been from time out of mind a signal of alarm. "In New Zealand it is ominous to see the figure of an absent person, for if it be shadowy and the face not visible, his death may erelong be expected, but if the face be seen he is dead already. A party of Maoris (one of whom told the story) were seated round a fire in the open air, when there appeared, seen only by two of them, the figure of a relative, left ill at home; they exclaimed, the figure vanished, and on the return of the party it appeared that the sick man had died about the time of the vision."[169] The belief in wraiths has survived into modern times, and now and then appears in the records of that remnant of primeval philosophy known as "spiritualism," as, for example, in the case of the lady who "thought she saw her own father look in at the church-window at the moment he was dying in his own house."
[167] Tylor,
[165] Tylor, op. cit. I. 391.
[166] Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, 1867, p. 210.
Of the theory of embodiment there will be occasion to speak further on. At present let us not pass over the fact that the other self is not only conceived as shadow or breath, which can at times quit the body during life, but is also supposed to become temporarily embodied in the visible form of some bird or beast. In discussing elsewhere the myth of Bishop Hatto, we saw that the soul is sometimes represented in the form of a rat or mouse; and in treating of werewolves we noticed the belief that the spirits of dead ancestors, borne along in the night-wind, have taken on the semblance of howling dogs or wolves. "Consistent with these quaint ideas are ceremonies in vogue in China of bringing home in a cock (live or artificial) the spirit of a man deceased in a distant place, and of enticing into a sick man's coat the departing spirit which has already left his body and so conveying it back."[167] In Castren's great work on Finnish mythology, we find the story of the giant who could not be killed because he kept his soul hidden in a twelve-headed snake which he carried in a bag as he rode on horseback; only when the secret was discovered and the snake carefully killed, did the giant yield up his life. In this Finnish legend we have one of the thousand phases of the story of the "Giant who had no Heart in his Body," but whose heart was concealed, for safe keeping, in a duck's egg, or in a pigeon, carefully disposed in some belfry at the world's end a million miles away, or encased in a wellnigh infinite series of Chinese boxes.[168] Since, in spite of all these precautions, the poor giant's heart invariably came to grief, we need not wonder at the Karen superstition that the soul is in danger when it quits the body on its excursions, as exemplified in countless Indo-European stories of the accidental killing of the weird mouse or pigeon which embodies the wandering spirit. Conversely it is held that the detachment of the other self is fraught with danger to the self which remains. In the philosophy of "wraiths" and "fetches," the appearance of a double, like that which troubled Mistress Affery in her waking dreams of Mr. Flintwinch, has been from time out of mind a signal of alarm. "In New Zealand it is ominous to see the figure of an absent person, for if it be shadowy and the face not visible, his death may erelong be expected, but if the face be seen he is dead already. A party of Maoris (one of whom told the story) were seated round a fire in the open air, when there appeared, seen only by two of them, the figure of a relative, left ill at home; they exclaimed, the figure vanished, and on the return of the party it appeared that the sick man had died about the time of the vision."[169] The belief in wraiths has survived into modern times, and now and then appears in the records of that remnant of primeval philosophy known as "spiritualism," as, for example, in the case of the lady who "thought she saw her own father look in at the church-window at the moment he was dying in his own house."
[167] Tylor,