Chapter IV (4)

[Footnote 5: The second of them said; 'Haile, Makbeth, thane of Cawder.']

[Footnote 6: But the third said; 'All haile, Makbeth, that heereafter shalt be king of Scotland.']

95. The next objection is, that the sisters exercise powers that witches did not possess. They can "look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow, and which will not." In other words, they foretell future events, which witches could not do. But this is not the fact. The recorded witch trials teem with charges of having prophesied what things were about to happen; no charge is more common. The following, quoted by Charles Knight in his biography of Shakspere, might almost have suggested the simile in the last-mentioned lines. Johnnet Wischert is "indicted for passing to the green growing corn in May, twenty-two years since or thereby, sitting thereupon tymous in the morning before the sun-rising, and being there found and demanded what she was doing, thou[1] answered, I shall tell thee; I have been peeling the blades of the corn. I find it will be a dear year, the blade of the corn grows withersones [contrary to the course of the sun], and when it grows sonegatis about [with the course of the sun] it will be good cheap year."[2] The following is another apt illustration of the power, which has been translated from the unwieldy Lowland Scotch account of the trial of Bessie Roy in 1590. The Dittay charged her thus: "You are indicted and accused that whereas, when you were dwelling with William King in Barra, about twelve years ago, or thereabouts, and having gone into the field to pluck lint with other women, in their presence made a compass in the earth, and a hole in the midst thereof; and afterwards, by thy conjurations thou causedst a great worm to come up first out of the said hole, and creep over the compass; and next a little worm came forth, which crept over also; and last [thou] causedst a great worm to come forth, which could not pass over the compass, but fell down and died. Which enchantment and witchcraft thou interpretedst in this form: that the first great worm that crept over the compass was the goodman William King, who should live; and the little worm was a child in the goodwife's womb, who was unknown to any one to be with child, and that the child should live; and, thirdly, the last great worm thou interpretedst to be the goodwife, who should die: _which came to pass after thy speaking_."[3] Surely there could hardly be plainer instances of looking "into the seeds of time, and saying which grain will grow, and which will not," than these.

[Footnote 1: Sic.]

[Footnote 2: p. 438.]

[Footnote 3: Pitcairn, I. ii. 207. Cf. also Ibid. pp. 212, 213, and 231, where the crime is described as "foreknowledge."]

96. Perhaps this is the most convenient place for pointing out the full meaning of the first scene of "Macbeth," and its necessary connection with the rest of the play. It is, in fact, the fag-end of a witches' sabbath, which, if fully represented, would bear a strong resemblance to the scene at the commencement of the fourth act. But a long scene on such a subject would be tedious and unmeaning at the commencement of the play. The audience is therefore left to assume that the witches have met, performed their conjurations, obtained from the evil spirits the information concerning Macbeth's career that they desired to obtain, and perhaps have been commanded by the fiends to perform the mission they subsequently carry through. All that is needed for the dramatic effect is a slight hint of probable diabolical interference, and that Macbeth is to be the special object of it; and this is done in as artistic a manner as is perhaps imaginable. In the first scene they obtain their information; in the second they utter their prediction. Every minute detail of these scenes is based upon the broad, recognized facts of witchcraft.

97. It is also suggested that the power of vanishing from the sight possessed by the sisters--the power to make themselves air--was not characteristic of witches. But this is another assertion that would not have been made, had the authorities upon the subject been investigated with only slight attention. No feature of the crime of witchcraft is better attested than this; and the modern witch of story-books is still represented as riding on a broomstick--a relic of the enchanted rod with which the devil used to provide his worshippers, upon which to come to his sabbaths.[1] One of the charges in the indictment against the notorious Dr. Fian ran thus: "Fylit for suffering himself to be careit to North Berwik kirk, as if he had bene souchand athoirt [whizzing above] the eird."[2] Most effectual ointments were prepared for effecting this method of locomotion, which have been recorded, and are given below[3] as an illustration of the wild kind of recipes which Shakspere rendered more grim in his caldron scene. The efficacy of these ointments is well illustrated by a story narrated by Reginald Scot, which unfortunately, on account of certain incidents, cannot be given in his own terse words. The hero of it happened to be staying temporarily with a friend, and on one occasion found her rubbing her limbs with a certain preparation, and mumbling the while. After a time she vanished out of his sight; and he, being curious to investigate the affair, rubbed himself with the remaining ointment, and almost immediately he found himself transported a long distance through the air, and deposited right in the very midst of a witches' sabbath. Naturally alarmed, he cried out, "'In the name of God, what make I heere?' and upon those words the whole assemblie vanished awaie."[4]

[Footnote 1: Scot, book iii. ch. iii. p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, I. ii. 210. Cf. also Ibid. p. 211. Scot, book iii. ch. vii. p. 51.]

[Footnote 3: "Sundrie receipts and ointments made and used for the transportation of witches, and other miraculous effects.

"Rx. The fat of yoong children, & seeth it with water in a brazen vessell, reseruing the thickest of that which remaineth boiled in the bottome, which they laie up & keep untill occasion serveth to use it. They put hereinto Eleoselinum, Aconitum, frondes populeas, & Soote." This is given almost verbatim in Middleton's Witch.

"Rx. Sium, Acarum Vulgare, Pentaphyllon, the bloud of a Flittermouse, Solanum Somniferum, & oleum."

It would seem that fern seed had the same virtue.--I Hen. IV. II. i.]

[Footnote 4: Scot, book iii. ch. vi. p. 46.]

98. The only vestige of a difficulty, therefore, that remains is the use of the term "weird sisters" in describing the witches. It is perfectly clear that Holinshed used these words as a sort of synonym for the "goddesses of Destinie;" but with such a mass of evidence as has been produced to show that Shakspere elected to introduce witches in the place of the Norns, it surely would not be unwarrantable to suppose that he might retain this term as a poetical and not unsuitable description of the characters to whom it was applied. And this is the less improbable as it can be shown that both words were at times applied to witches. As the quotation given subsequently[1] proves, the Scotch witches were in the habit of speaking of the frequenters of a particular sabbath as "the sisters;" and in Heywood's "Witches of Lancashire," one of the characters says about a certain act of supposed witchcraft, "I remember that some three months since I crossed a wayward woman; one that I now suspect."[2]

[Footnote 1: § 107, p. 114.]

[Footnote 2: Act V. sc. iii.]

99. Here, then, in the very stronghold of the supposed proof of the Norn-theory, it is possible to extract convincing evidence that the sisters are intended to be merely witches. It is not surprising that other portions of the play in which the sisters are mentioned should confirm this view. Banquo, upon hearing the fulfilment of the prophecy of the second witch, clearly expresses his opinion of the origin of the "foreknowledge" he has received, in the exclamation, "What, can the devil speak true?" For the devil most emphatically spoke through the witches; but how could he in any sense be said to speak through Norns? Again, Macbeth informs his wife that on his arrival at Forres, he made inquiry into the amount of reliance that could be placed in the utterances of the witches, "and learned by the perfectest report that they had more in them than mortal knowledge."[1] This would be possible enough if witches were the subjects of the investigation, for their chief title to authority would rest upon the general opinion current in the neighbourhood in which they dwelt; but how could such an inquiry be carried out successfully in the case of Norns? It is noticeable, too, that Macbeth knows exactly where to find the sisters when he wants them; and when he says--

"More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst,"[2]

he makes another clear allusion to the traffic of the witches with the devil. After the events recorded in Act IV. sc. i., Macbeth speaks of the prophecies upon which he relies as "the equivocation of the fiend,"[3] and the prophets as "these juggling fiends;"[4] and with reason--for he has seen and heard the very devils themselves, the masters of the witches and sources of all their evil power. Every point in the play that bears upon the subject at all tends to show that Shakspere intentionally replaced the "goddesses of Destinie" by witches; and that the supposed Norn origin of these characters is the result of a somewhat too great eagerness to unfold a novel and startling theory.

[Footnote 1: Act I. sc. v. l. 2.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Fleay avoids the difficulty created by this passage, which alludes to the witches as "the weird sisters," by supposing that these lines were interpolated by Middleton--a method of criticism that hardly needs comment. Act III. sc. iv. l. 134.]

[Footnote 3: Act V. sc. v. l. 43.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. sc. viii. l. 19.]

100. Assuming, therefore, that the witch-nature of the sisters is conclusively proved, it now becomes necessary to support the assertion previously made, that good reason can be shown why Shakspere should have elected to represent witches rather than Norns.

It is impossible to read "Macbeth" without noticing the prominence given to the belief that witches had the power of creating storms and other atmospheric disturbances, and that they delighted in so doing. The sisters elect to meet in thunder, lightning, or rain. To them "fair is foul, and foul is fair," as they "hover through the fog and filthy air." The whole of the earlier part of the third scene of the first act is one blast of tempest with its attendant devastation. They can loose and bind the winds,[1] cause vessels to be tempest-tossed at sea, and mutilate wrecked bodies.[2] They describe themselves as "posters of the sea and land;"[3] the heath they meet upon is blasted;[4] and they vanish "as breath into the wind."[5] Macbeth conjures them to answer his questions thus:--

"Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken."[6]

[Footnote 1: I. iii. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 2: Act I. sc. iii. l. 28.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. l. 32.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. l. 77.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid. ll. 81, 82.]

[Footnote 6: Act IV. sc. i. ll. 52-60.]

101. Now, this command over the elements does not form at all a prominent feature in the English records of witchcraft. A few isolated charges of the kind may be found. In 1565, for instance, a witch was burnt who confessed that she had caused all the tempests that had taken place in that year. Scot, too, has a few short sentences upon this subject, but does not give it the slightest prominence.[1] Nor in the earlier Scotch trials recorded by Pitcairn does this charge appear amongst the accusations against the witches. It is exceedingly curious to notice the utter harmless nature of the charges brought against the earlier culprits; and how, as time went on and the panic increased, they gradually deepened in colour, until no act was too gross, too repulsive, or too ridiculously impossible to be excluded from the indictment. The following quotations from one of the earliest reported trials are given because they illustrate most forcibly the condition of the poor women who were supposed to be witches, and the real basis of fact upon which the belief in the crime subsequently built itself.

[Footnote 1: Book iii. ch. 13, p. 60.]

102. Bessie Dunlop was tried for witchcraft in 1576. One of the principal accusations against her was that she held intercourse with a devil who appeared to her in the shape of a neighbour of hers, one Thom Reed, who had recently died. Being asked how and where she met Thom Reed, she said, "As she was gangand betwixt her own house and the yard of Monkcastell, dryvand her ky to the pasture, and makand heavy sair dule with herself, gretand[1] very fast for her cow that was dead, her husband and child that wer lyand sick in the land ill, and she new risen out of gissane,[2] the aforesaid Thom met her by the way, healsit[3] her, and said, 'Gude day, Bessie,' and she said, 'God speed you, guidman.' 'Sancta Marie,' said he, 'Bessie, why makes thow sa great dule and sair greting for ony wardlie thing?' She answered 'Alas! have I not great cause to make great dule, for our gear is trakit,[4] and my husband is on the point of deid, and one babie of my own will not live, and myself at ane weak point; have I not gude cause then to have ane sair hart?' But Thom said, 'Bessie, thou hast crabit[5] God, and askit some thing you suld not have done; and tharefore I counsell thee to mend to Him, for I tell thee thy barne sall die and the seik cow, or you come hame; and thy twa sheep shall die too; but thy husband shall mend, and shall be as hale and fair as ever he was.' And then I was something blyther, for he tauld me that my guidman would mend. Then Thom Reed went away fra me in through the yard of Monkcastell, and I thought that he gait in at ane narrower hole of the dyke nor anie erdlie man culd have gone throw, and swa I was something fleit."[6]

[Footnote 1: Weeping. I have only half translated this passage, for I feared to spoil the sad simplicity of it.]

[Footnote 2: Child-bed.]

[Footnote 3: Saluted.]

[Footnote 4: Dwindled away.]

[Footnote 5: Displeased.]

[Footnote 6: Frightened.]

This was the first time that Thom appeared to her. On the third occasion he asked her "if she would not trow[1] in him." She said "she would trow in ony bodye did her gude." Then Thom promised her much wealth if she would deny her christendom. She answered that "if she should be riven at horsis taillis, she suld never do that, but promised to be leal and trew to him in ony thing she could do," whereat he was angry.

[Footnote 1: Trust.]

On the fourth occasion, the poor woman fell further into sin, and accompanied Thom to a fairy meeting. Thom asked her to join the party; but she said "she saw na proffeit to gang thai kind of gaittis, unless she kend wherefor." Thom offered the old inducement, wealth; but she replied that "she dwelt with her awin husband and bairnis," and could not leave them. And so Thom began to be very crabit with her, and said, "if so she thought, she would get lytill gude of him."

She was then demanded if she had ever asked any favour of Thom for herself or any other person. She answered that "when sundrie persons came to her to seek help for their beast, their cow, or ewe, or for any barne that was tane away with ane evill blast of wind, or elf grippit, she gait and speirit[1] at Thom what myght help them; and Thom would pull ane herb and gif her out of his awin hand, and bade her scheir[2] the same with ony other kind of herbis, and oppin the beistes mouth, and put thame in, and the beist wald mend."[3]

[Footnote 1: Inquired.]

[Footnote 2: Chop.]

[Footnote 3: Pitcairn, I. ii. 51, et seq.]

It seems hardly possible to believe that a story like this, which is half marred by the attempt to partially modernize its simple pathetic language, and which would probably bring a tear to the eye, if not a shilling from the pocket, of the most unsympathetic being of the present day, should be considered sufficient three hundred years ago, to convict the narrator of a crime worthy of death; yet so it was. This sad picture of the breakdown of a poor woman's intellect in the unequal struggle against poverty and sickness is only made visible to us by the light of the flames that, mercifully to her perhaps, took poor Bessie Dunlop away for ever from the sick husband, and weakly children, and the "ky," and the humble hovel where they all dwelt together, and from the daily, heart-rending, almost hopeless struggle to obtain enough food to keep life in the bodies of this miserable family. The historian--who makes it his chief anxiety to record, to the minutest and most irrelevant details, the deeds, noble or ignoble, of those who have managed to stamp their names upon the muster-roll of Fame--turns carelessly or scornfully the page which contains such insignificant matter as this; but those who believe

"That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain,"

will hardly feel that poor Bessie's life and death were entirely without their meaning.

103. As the trials for witchcraft increase, however, the details grow more and more revolting; and in the year 1590 we find a most extraordinary batch of cases--extraordinary for the monstrosity of the charges contained in them, and also for the fact that this feature, so insisted upon in Macbeth, the raising of winds and storms, stands out in extremely bold relief. The explanation of this is as follows. In the year 1589, King James VI. brought his bride, Anne of Denmark, home to Scotland. During the voyage an unusually violent storm raged, which scattered the vessels composing the royal escort, and, it would appear, caused the destruction of one of them. By a marvellous chance, the king's ship was driven by a wind which blew directly contrary to that which filled the sails of the other vessels;[1] and the king and queen were both placed in extreme jeopardy. James, who seems to have been as perfectly convinced of the reality of witchcraft as he was of his own infallibility, at once came to the conclusion that the storm had been raised by the aid of evil spirits, for the express purpose of getting rid of so powerful an enemy of the Prince of Darkness as the righteous king. The result was that a rigorous investigation was made into the whole affair; a great number of persons were tried for attempting the king's life by witchcraft; and that prince, undeterred by the apparent impropriety of being judge in what was, in reality, his own cause, presided at many of the trials, condescended to superintend the tortures applied to the accused in order to extort a confession, and even went so far in one case as to write a letter to the judges commanding a condemnation.

[Footnote 1: Pitcairn, I. ii. 218.]

104. Under these circumstances, considering who the prosecutor was, and who the judge, and the effectual methods at the service of the court for extorting confessions,[1] it is not surprising that the king's surmises were fully justified by the statements of the accused. It is impossible to read these without having parts of the witch-scenes in "Macbeth" ringing in the ears like an echo. John Fian, a young schoolmaster, and leader of the gang, or "coven" as it was called, was charged with having caused the leak in the king's ship, and with having raised the wind and created a mist for the purpose of hindering his voyage.[2] On another occasion he and several other witches entered into a ship, and caused it to perish.[3] He was also able by witchcraft to open locks.[4] He visited churchyards at night, and dismembered bodies for his charms; the bodies of unbaptized infants being preferred.[5]

[Footnote 1: The account of the tortures inflicted upon Fian are too horrible for quotation.]

[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, I. ii. 211.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. 212. He confessed that Satan commanded him to chase cats "purposlie to be cassin into the sea to raise windis for destructioune of schippis." Macbeth, I. iii. 15-25.]

[Footnote 4: "Fylit for opening of ane loke be his sorcerie in David Seytounis moderis, be blawing in ane woman's hand, himself sittand att the fyresyde."--See also the case of Bessie Roy, I. ii. 208. The English method of opening locks was more complicated than the Scotch, as will appear from the following quotation from Scot, book xii. ch. xiv. p. 246:--

"A charme to open locks. Take a peece of wax crossed in baptisme, and doo but print certeine floures therein, and tie them in the hinder skirt of your shirt; and when you would undoo the locke, blow thrice therein, saieing, 'Arato hoc partico hoc maratarykin; I open this doore in thy name that I am forced to breake, as thou brakest hell gates. In nomine patris etc. Amen.'" Macbeth, IV. i. 46.]

[Footnote 5:

"Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-delivered by a drab."

Macbeth, IV. i. 30.]

Agnes Sampsoune confessed to the king that to compass his death she took a black toad and hung it by the hind legs for three days, and collected the venom that fell from it. She said that if she could have obtained a piece of linen that the king had worn, she could have destroyed his life with this venom; "causing him such extraordinarie paines as if he had beene lying upon sharpe thornes or endis of needles."[1] She went out to sea to a vessel called _The Grace of God_, and when she came away the devil raised a wind, and the vessel was wrecked.[2] She delivered a letter from Fian to another witch, which was to this effect: "Ye sall warne the rest of the sisteris to raise the winde this day at ellewin houris to stay the queenis cuming in Scotland."[3]

[Footnote 1: Pitcairn, I. ii. 218.

"Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got."

Macbeth, IV. i. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid. 235.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. 236.]

This is her confession as to the methods adopted for raising the storm. "At the time when his Majestie was in Denmarke, shee being accompanied by the parties before speciallie named, took a cat and christened it, and afterwards bounde to each part of that cat the cheefest parts of a dead man, and the severall joyntes of his bodie; and that in the night following the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches, sayling in their riddles or cives,[1] as is afore said, and so left the said cat right before the town of Leith in Scotland. This done, there did arise such a tempest in the sea as a greater hath not been seene, which tempest was the cause of the perishing of a vessell coming over from the town of Brunt Ilande to the town of Leith.... Againe, it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause that the kinges Majesties shippe at his coming forth of Denmarke had a contrarie wind to the rest of his shippes...."[2]

[Footnote 1: Macbeth, I. iii. 8.]

[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, Reprint of Newes from Scotland, I. ii. 218. See also Trial of Ewsame McCalgane, I. ii. 254.]

105. It is worth a note that this art of going to sea in sieves, which Shakspere has referred to in his drama, seems to have been peculiar to this set of witches. English witches had the reputation of being able to go upon the water in egg-shells and cockle-shells, but seem never to have detected any peculiar advantages in the sieve. Not so these Scotch witches. Agnes told the king that she, "with a great many other witches, to the number of two hundreth, all together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went into the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine, making merrie, and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives, to the kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they landed they tooke hands on the lande and daunced a reill or short daunce." They then opened the graves and took the fingers, toes, and knees of the bodies to make charms.[1]

[Footnote 1: Pitcairn, I. ii. 217.]

It can be easily understood that these trials created an intense excitement in Scotland. The result was that a tract was printed, containing a full account of all the principal incidents; and the fact that this pamphlet was reprinted once, if not twice,[1] in London, shows that interest in the affair spread south of the Border; and this is confirmed by the publisher's prefatorial apology, in which he states that the pamphlet was printed to prevent the public from being imposed upon by unauthorized and extravagant statements of what had taken place.[2] Under ordinary circumstances, events of this nature would form a nine days' wonder, and then die a natural death; but in this particular case the public interest continued for an abnormal time; for eight years subsequent to the date of the trials, James published his "Daemonologie"--a work founded to a great extent upon his experiences at the trials of 1590. This was a sign to both England and Scotland that the subject of witchcraft was still of engrossing interest to him; and as he was then the fully recognized heir-apparent to the English crown, the publication of such a work would not fail to induce a great amount of attention to the subject dealt with. In 1603 he ascended the English throne. His first parliament met on the 19th of March, 1604, and on the 27th of the same month a bill was brought into the House of Lords dealing with the question of witchcraft. It was referred to a committee of which twelve bishops were members; and this committee, after much debating, came to the conclusion that the bill was imperfect. In consequence of this a fresh one was drawn, and by the 9th of June a statute had passed both Houses of Parliament, which enacted, among other things, that "if any person shall practise or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit, or shall consult with, entertain, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit,[3] or take up any dead man, woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave ... or the skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft,[4] ... or shall ... practise ... any witchcraft ... whereby any person shall be killed, wasted, pined, or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof,[5] such offender shall suffer the pains of death as felons, without benefit of clergy or sanctuary." Hutchinson, in his "Essay on Witchcraft," published in 1720, declares that this statute was framed expressly to meet the offences exposed by the trials of 1590-1; but, although this cannot be conclusively proved, yet it is not at all improbable that the hurry with which the statute was passed into law immediately upon the accession of James, would recall to the public mind the interest he had taken in those trials in particular and the subject in general, and that Shakspere producing, as nearly all the critics agree, his tragedy at about this date, should draw upon his memory for the half-forgotten details of those trials, and thus embody in "Macbeth" the allusions to them that have been pointed out--much less accurately than he did in the case of the Babington affair, because the facts had been far less carefully recorded, and the time at which his attention had been called to them far more remote.[6]

[Footnote 1: One copy of this reprint bears the name of W. Wright, another that of Thomas Nelson. The full title is--

"Newes from Scotland,

"Declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenborough in Januarie last, 1591; which Doctor was Register to the Deuill, that sundrie times preached at North Barricke kirke to a number of notorious witches; with the true examinations of the said Doctor and witches as they uttered them in the presence of the Scottish king: Discouering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestie in the sea, comming from Denmarke, with such other wonderfull matters, as the like hath not bin heard at anie time.

"Published according to the Scottish copie.

"Printed for William Wright."]

[Footnote 2: These events are referred to in an existing letter by the notorious Thos. Phelippes to Thos. Barnes, Cal. State Papers (May 21, 1591), 1591-4, p. 38.]

[Footnote 3: Such as Paddock, Graymalkin, and Harpier.]

[Footnote 4: "Liver of blaspheming Jew," etc.--Macbeth, IV. i. 26.]

[Footnote 5:

"I will drain him dry as hay;
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine."

Macbeth, I. iii. 18-23.]

[Footnote 6: The excitement about the details of the witch trials would culminate in 1592. Harsnet's book would be read by Shakspere in 1603.]

106. There is one other mode of temptation which was adopted by the evil spirits, implicated to a great extent with the traditions of witchcraft, but nevertheless more suitably handled as a separate subject, which is of so gross and revolting a nature that it should willingly be passed over in silence, were it not for the fact that the belief in it was, as Scot says, "so stronglie and universallie received" in the times of Elizabeth and James.

From the very earliest period of the Christian era the affection of one sex for the other was considered to be under the special control of the devil. Marriage was to be tolerated; but celibacy was the state most conducive to the near intercourse with heaven that was so dearly sought after. This opinion was doubtless generated by the tendency of the early Christian leaders to hold up the events of the life rather than the teachings of the sacred Founder of the sect as the one rule of conduct to be received by His followers. To have been the recipients of the stigmata was a far greater evidence of holiness and favour with Heaven than the quiet and unnoted daily practice of those virtues upon which Christ pronounced His blessing; and in less improbable matters they did not scruple, in their enthusiasm, to attempt to establish a rule of life in direct contradiction to the laws of that universe of which they professed to believe Him to be the Creator. The futile attempt to imitate His immaculate purity blinded their eyes to the fact that He never taught or encouraged celibacy among His followers, and this gradually led them to the strange conclusion that the passion which, sublimed and brought under control, is the source of man's noblest and holiest feelings, was a prompting proceeding from the author of all evil. Imbued with this idea, religious enthusiasts of both sexes immured themselves in convents; took oaths of perpetual celibacy; and even, in certain isolated cases, sought to compromise with Heaven, and baffle the tempter, by rendering a fall impossible--forgetting that the victory over sin does not consist in immunity from temptation, but, being tempted, not to fall. But no convent walls are so strong as to shut great nature out; and even within these sacred precincts the ascetics found that they were not free from the temptations of their arch-enemy. In consequence of this, a belief sprang up, and spread from its original source into the outer world, in a class of devils called incubi and succubi, who roamed the earth with no other object than to tempt people to abandon their purity of life. The cases of assault by incubi were much more frequent than those by succubi, just as women were much more affected by the dancing manias in the fifteenth century than men;[1]--the reason, perhaps, being that they are much less capable of resisting physical privation;--but, according to the belief of the Middle Ages, there was no generic difference between the incubus and succubus. Here was a belief that, when the witch fury sprang up, attached itself as a matter of course as the phase of the crime; and it was an almost universal charge against the accused that they offended in this manner with their familiars, and hundreds of poor creatures suffered death upon such an indictment. More details will be found in the authorities upon this unpleasant subject.[2]

[Footnote 1: Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages, p. 136.]

[Footnote 2: Hutchinson, p. 52. The Witch of Edmonton, Act V. Scot, Discoverie, book iv.]

107. This intercourse did not, as a rule, result in offspring; but this was not universally the case. All badly deformed or monstrous children were suspected of having had such an undesirable parentage, and there was a great tendency to believe that they ought to be destroyed. Luther was a decided advocate of this course, deeming the destruction of a life far preferable to the chance of having a devil in the family. In Drayton's poem, "The Mooncalf," one of the gossips present at the birth of the calf suggests that it ought to be buried alive as a monster.[1] Caliban is a mooncalf,[2] and his origin is distinctly traced to a source of this description. It is perfectly clear what was the one thing that the foul witch Sycorax did which prevented her life from being taken; and it would appear from this that the inhabitants of Argier were far more merciful in this respect than their European neighbours. Such a charge would have sent any woman to the stake in Scotland, without the slightest hope of mercy, and the usual plea for respite would only have been an additional reason for hastening the execution of the sentence.[3]

[Footnote 1: Ed. 1748, p. 171.]

[Footnote 2: Tempest, II. ii. 111, 115.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. Othello, I. i. 91. Titus Andronicus, IV. ii.]

108. In the preceding pages an endeavour has been made to delineate the most prominent features of a belief which the great Reformation was destined first to foster into unnatural proportions and vitality, and in the end to destroy. Up to the period of the Reformation, the creed of the nation had been practically uniform, and one set of dogmas was unhesitatingly accepted by the people as infallible, and therefore hardly demanding critical consideration. The great upheaval of the sixteenth century rent this quiescent uniformity into shreds; doctrines until then considered as indisputable were brought within the pale of discussion, and hence there was a great diversity of opinion, not only between the supporters of the old and of the new faith, but between the Reformers themselves. This was conspicuously the case with regard to the belief in the devils and their works. The more timid of the Reformers clung in a great measure to the Catholic opinions; a small band, under the influence possibly of that knight-errant of freedom of thought, Giordano Bruno, who exercised some considerable influence during his visit to England by means of his Oxford lectures and disputations, entirely denied the existence of evil spirits; but the great majority gave in their adherence to a creed that was the mean between the doctrines of the old faith and the new scepticism. Their strong common sense compelled them to reject the puerilities advanced as serious evidence by the Catholic Church; but they cast aside with equal vehemence and more horror the doctrines of the Bruno school. "That there are devils," says Bullinger, reduced apparently from argument to invective, "the Sadducees in times past denied, and at this day also some scarce religious, nay, rather Epicures, deny the same; who, unless they repent, shall one day feel, to their exceeding great pain and smart, both that there are devils, and that they are the tormentors and executioners of all wicked men and Epicures."[1]

[Footnote 1: Bullinger, Fourth Decade, 9th Sermon, p. 348, Parker Society.]

109. It must be remembered, too, that the emancipation from medievalism was a very gradual process, not, as we are too prone to think it, a revolution suddenly and completely effected. It was an evolution, not an explosion. There is found, in consequence, a great divergence of opinion, not only between the earliest and the later Reformers, but between the statements of the same man at different periods of his career. Tyndale, for instance, seems to have believed in the actual possession of the human body by devils;[1] and this appears to have been the opinion of the majority at the beginning of the Reformation, for the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. contained the Catholic form of exorcism for driving devils out of children, which was expunged upon revision, the doctrine of obsession having in the mean time triumphed over the older belief. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind whilst considering any attempt to depict the general bearings of a belief such as that in evil spirits; for many irreconcilable statements are to be found among the authorities; and it is the duty of the writer to sift out and describe those views which predominated, and these must not be supposed to be proved inaccurate because a chance quotation can be produced in contradiction.

[Footnote 1: I Tyndale, p. 82. Parker Society.]

110. There is great danger, in the attempt to bring under analysis any phase of religious belief, that the method of treatment may appear unsympathetic if not irreverent. The greatest effort has been made in these pages to avoid this fault as far as possible; for, without doubt, any form of religious dogma, however barbarous, however seemingly ridiculous, if it has once been sincerely believed and trusted by any portion of mankind, is entitled to reverent treatment. No body of great and good men can at any time credit and take comfort from a lie pure and simple; and if an extinct creed appears to lack that foundation of truth which makes creeds tolerable, it is safer to assume that it had a meaning and a truthfulness, to those who held it, that lapse of time has tended to destroy, together with the creed itself, than to condemn men wholesale as knaves and hypocrites. But the particular subject which has here been dealt with will surely be considered to be specially entitled to respect, when it is remembered that it was once an integral portion of the belief of most of our best and bravest ancestors--of men and women who dared to witness to their own sincerity amidst the fires of persecution and in the solitude of exile. It has nearly all disappeared now. The terrific hierarchy of fiends, which was so real, so full of horror three hundred years ago[1], has gradually vanished away before the advent of fuller knowledge and purer faith, and is now hardly thought of, unless as a dead mediaeval myth. But let us deal tenderly with it, remembering that the day may come when the beliefs that are nearest to our hearts may be treated as open to contempt or ridicule, and the dogmas to which we most passionately cling will, "like an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a wrack behind."

[Footnote 1: Perhaps the following prayer, contained in Thomas Becon's "Pomander," shows more clearly than the comments of any critic the reality of the terror:--

"An infinite number of wicked angels there are, O Lord Christ, which without ceasing seek my destruction. Against this exceeding great multitude of evil spirits send Thou me Thy blessed and heavenly angels, which may deliver me from then tyranny. Thou, O Lord, hast devoured hell, and overcome the prince of darkness and all his ministers; yea, and that not for Thyself, but for those that believe in Thee. Suffer me not, therefore, to be overcome of Satan and of his servants, but rather let me triumph over them, that I, through strong faith and help of the blessed angels, having the victory of the hellish army, may with a joyful heart say, Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory?--and so for ever and ever magnify Thy Holy Name. Amen." Parker Society, p. 84.]

* * * * *

111. Little attempt has hitherto been made, in the way of direct proof, to show that fairies are really only a class of devils who exercise their powers in a manner less terrible and revolting than that depicted by theologians; and for this reason chiefly--that the proposition is already more than half established when it has been shown that the attributes and functions possessed by both fairy and devil are similar in kind, although differing in degree. This has already been done to a great extent in the preceding pages, where the various actions of Puck and Ariel have been shown to differ in no essential respect from those of the devils of the time; but before commencing to study this phase of supernaturalism in Shakspere's works as a whole, and as indicative, to a certain extent, of the development of his thought upon the relation of man to the invisible world about and above him, it is necessary that this identity should be admitted without a shadow of a doubt.

112. It has been shown that fairies were probably the descendants of the lesser local deities, as devils were of the more important of the heathen gods that were overturned by the advancing wave of Christianity, although in the course of time this distinction was entirely obliterated and forgotten. It has also been shown, as before mentioned, that many of the powers exercised by fairies were in their essence similar to those exercised by devils, especially that of appearing in divers shapes. These parallels could be carried out to an almost unlimited extent; but a few proofs only need be cited to show this identity. In the mediaeval romance of "King Orfeo" fairyland has been substituted for the classical Hades.[1] King James, in his "Daemonologie," adopts a fourfold classification of devils, one of which he names "Phairie," and co-ordinates with the incubus.[2] The name of the devil supposed to preside at the witches' sabbaths is sometimes given as Hecat, Diana, Sybilla; sometimes Queen of Elfame,[3] or Fairie.[4] Indeed, Shakspere's line in "The Comedy of Errors," had it not been unnecessarily tampered with by the critics--

"A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough,"[5]

would have conclusively proved this identity of character.

[Footnote 1: Fairy Mythology of Shakspere, Hazlitt, p. 83.]

[Footnote 2: Daemonologie, p. 69. An instance of a fairy incubus is given in the "Life of Robin Goodfellow," Hazlitt's Fairy Mythology, p. 176.]

[Footnote 3: Pitcairn, iii. p. 162.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. i. p. 162, and many other places.]

[Footnote 5: Fairy has been altered to "fury," but compare Peele, Battle of Alcazar: "Fiends, fairies, hags that fight in beds of steel."]

113. The real distinction between these two classes of spirits depends on the condition of national thought upon the subject of supernaturalism in its largest sense. A belief which has little or no foundation upon indisputable phenomena must be continually passing through varying phases, and these phases will be regulated by the nature of the subjects upon which the attention of the mass of the people is most firmly concentrated. Hence, when a nation has but one religious creed, and one that has for centuries been accepted by them, almost without question or doubt, faith becomes stereotyped, and the mind assumes an attitude of passive receptivity, undisturbed by doubts or questionings. Under such conditions, a belief in evil spirits ever ready and watching to tempt a man into heresy of belief or sinful act, and thus to destroy both body and soul, although it may exist as a theoretic portion of the accepted creed, cannot possibly become a vital doctrine to be believed by the general public. It may exist as a subject for learned dispute to while away the leisure hours of divines, but cannot by any possibility obtain an influence over the thoughts and lives of their charges. Mental disturbance on questions of doctrinal importance being, for these reasons, out of the question, the attention of the people is almost entirely riveted upon questions of material ease and advantage. The little lets and hindrances of every-day life in agricultural and domestic matters are the tribulations that appeal most incessantly to the ineradicable sense of an invisible power adverse to the interests of mankind, and consequently the class of evil spirits believed in at such a time will be fairies rather than devils--malicious little spirits, who blight the growing corn; stop the butter from forming in the churn; pinch the sluttish housemaid black and blue; and whose worst act is the exchange of the baby from its cot for a fairy changeling;--beings of a nature most exasperating to thrifty housewife and hard-handed farmer, but nevertheless not irrevocably prejudiced against humanity, and easily to be pacified and reduced into a state of fawning friendship by such little attentions as could be rendered without difficulty by the poorest cotter. The whole fairy mythology is perfumed with an honest, healthy, careless joy in life, and a freedom from mental doubt. "I love true lovers, honest men, good fellowes, good huswives, good meate, good drinke, and all things that good is, but nothing that is ill," declares Robin Goodfellow;[1] and this jovial materialism only reflects the state of mind of the folk who were not unwilling to believe that this lively little spirit might be seen of nights busying himself in their houses by the dying embers of the deserted fire.

[Footnote 1: Hazlitt, Fairy Mythology, p. 182.]

114. Such seems to have been the condition of England immediately before the period of the great Reformation. But with the progress of that revolution of thought the condition changes. The one true and eternal creed, as it had been deemed, is shattered for ever. Men who have hitherto accepted their religious convictions in much the same way as they had succeeded to their patrimonies are compelled by this tide of opposition to think and study for themselves. Each man finds himself left face to face with the great hereafter, and his relation to it. Terrible doctrines are formulated, and press themselves with remorseless vigour upon his understanding--original sin, justification by faith, eternal damnation for even honest error of belief,--doctrines that throw an atmosphere of solemnity, if not gloom, about national thought, in which no fairy mythology can flourish. It is no longer questions of material ease and gain that are of the chief concern; and consequently the fairies and their doings, from their own triviality, fall far into the background, and their place is occupied by a countless horde of remorseless schemers, who are never ceasing in their efforts to drag both body and soul to perdition.

115. But it is in the towns, the centres of interchange of thought, of learning, and of controversy, that this revolution first gathers power; the sparsely populated country-sides are far more impervious to the new ideas, and the country people cling far longer and more tenaciously to the dying religion and its attendant beliefs. The rural districts were but little affected by the Reformation for years after it had triumphed in the towns, and consequently the beliefs of the inhabitants were hardly touched by the struggle that was going on within so short a distance. We find a Reginald Scot, indeed, complaining, half in joke, half in sarcasm, that Robin Goodfellow has long disappeared from the land;[1] but it is only from the towns that he has fled--towns in which the spirit of the Cartwrights and the Latimers, the Barnhams and the Delabers, is abroad. In the same Cambridge where Scot had been educated, a young student had hanged himself because the shadow of the doctrine of predestination was too terrible for him to live under;[2] and such a place was surely no home for Puck and his merry band. But in the country places, remote from the growl and trembling of this mental earthquake, he still loved to lurk; and even at the very moment when Scot was penning the denial of his existence, he was nestling amongst the woods and flowers of Avonside, and, invisible, whispering in the ear of a certain fair-haired youth there thoughts of no inconsiderable moment. And long time after that--after the youth had become a man, and had coined those thoughts into words that glitter still; after his monument had been erected in the quiet Stratford churchyard--Puck revelled, harmless and undisturbed, along many a country-side; nay, even to the present day, in some old-world nooks, a faint whispering rumour of him may still be heard.

[Footnote 1: Scot, Introduction.]

[Footnote 2: Foxe, iv. p. 694.]

116. Now, perhaps one of the most distinctive marks of literary genius is a certain receptivity of mind; a capability of receiving impressions from all surrounding circumstance--of extracting from all sources, whether from nature or man, consciously or unconsciously, the material upon which it shall work. For this process to be perfectly accomplished, an entire and enthusiastic sympathy with man and the current ideas of the time is absolutely essential, and in proportion as this sympathy is contracted and partial, so will the work produced be stunted and untrue; and, on the other hand, the more universal and entire it is, the more perfect and vital will be the art. Bearing this in mind, and also the facts that Shakspere's early training was effected in a little country village; that upon the verge of manhood, he came to London, where he spent his prime in contact with the bustle and friction of busy town life; and that the later years of his life were passed in the quiet retirement of the home of his boyhood--there would be good ground for an argument, _a priori_, even were there none of a more conclusive nature, that his earlier works would be found impregnated with the country fairy-myths with which his youth would come in contact; that the result of the labours of his middle life would show that these earlier reminiscenses had been gradually obliterated by the gloomier influence of ideas that were the result of the struggle of opposed theories that had not then ceased to rage in the towns, and that the diabolic element and questions relating thereto would predominate; and that, finally, his later works, written under the calmer influence of Stratford life, would show a certain return to the fairy-lore of his earlier years.