Chapter I: Gatti DI San Lorenzo (4)

The next paper or tradition on the subject of Cain, which, as every phrase in it indicates, was taken down from an old dame who at first slowly recalled forgotten sentences, will be to many more interesting, and to all much more amusing than the first. It once happened that an old gypsy in England began to tell me the story of the ghostly baker of Stonehenge and the seven loaves, but, suddenly pausing, he said: "What's the use of telling that to _you_ who have _read_ it all in the Bible?" There is, however, this trifling difference, that I am not sure that my Italian witch friends knew that Cain and Abel are in the Bible at all. The Red Indian doctor, whose knowledge of the Old Testament was limited to its being good to cure neuralgia, was far beyond the _contadini_ as regards familiarity with "the efficacy of the Scripture."

This is the witch-tale as written word by word:

ABELE E CHAINO.

"They were two brothers. Abel greatly loved Cain, but Cain did not love so much the brother Abel.

"Cain had no great will to work.

"Abel, however, on the contrary, was greatly disposed (_si ingegnava_) to labour, because he had found it profitable. He was industrious in all, and at last became a grazier (_mercante di manzi_).

"And Cain also, being moved by jealousy (_per astia_), wished to become a grazier, but the wheel did not turn for him as it did for Abel.

"And Cain also was a good man, and set himself contentedly to work, believing that he could become as rich as his brother, but he did not succeed in this, for which reason he became so envious of Abel that it resulted in tremendous hate, and he swore to be revenged.

"Cain often visited his brother, and once said to him, 'Abel, thou art rich and I am poor; give me the half of thy wealth, since thou wishest me so well!'

"Then Abel replied: 'If I give thee a sum which thou thyself couldst gain by industry, thou shouldst still labour as I do, and I will give thee nothing, since, if thou wilt work as I do, thou wilt become as rich.'

"One day there were together Cain, Abel, and a merchant, whose name I forget. And one told that he had seen in a dream seven fat oxen and seven lean. And the merchant, who was an astrologer or wizard, explained that the seven fat oxen meant seven years of abundance, and the seven lean as many years of famine.

"And so it came to pass as he foretold--seven years of plenty and seven of famine.

"And Cain, hearing this, thought: 'During the seven years of plenty Abel will lay by a great store, and then I will slay him, and possess myself of all his goods, and thus I will take care of myself, and my brother will be dead.'

"Now, Cain greatly loved God; he was good towards God, more so than Abel, because Abel, having become rich, never spoke more unto the Lord; and Abel would gladly have become a wizard himself.

"Then Cain began to think how he could slay Abel and become a merchant in his place, and so went forth to cut wood.

"One day he called his brother Abel, and said to him: 'Thou art so rich, while I am poor, and all my work avails me little.' And with that he gave Abel a blow with a knife, and dressed himself in his garments, and took a bundle of thorns on his back, and thus clad he took Abel's place as merchant, believing that no one would recognise him as Cain.

"And while thus buying and selling he met the merchant-wizard who had foretold the seven years of famine and of abundance. And he said, 'Oh, good day, Abel,' to make Cain believe that he was not discovered. But the oxen who were present all began to chant in chorus:

"'Non chiamate questo, Abele!
E Chaino, non lo vedete,
Per la gola della monete
Il fratello ammazato,
E dei suoi panni e vestito.
O Chaino or siei chiamato
Alla presenza del gran Dio,
Che a morte ti 'a condannato
Che di richezza eri assetato.'

"'Do not call that person Abel;
It is Cain, do you not see it?
Cain who, for the greed of money,
Treacherously slew his brother,
And then clad him in his garments.
Now, O Cain! thou wilt be summoned
Speedily unto the presence
Of the Lord, who has condemned thee
Unto death for thy great avarice.'

"Cain came before God.

"'O gran Dio di clemenza
Voi che siete grande, buono,
Velo chiedo a voi perdone,
Per il bene vi ho valuto,
Un instante vi ho dimenticato
Ma ne sono molto pentito,
Di aver ammazato
Abele il fratello mio.'

"'O great God of endless mercy,
Thou who art so good and mighty,
Grant, I pray thee, grant me pardon
For the good I did while living!
Truly once, but for an instant,
I forgot myself, but deeply
I since then have long repented
That I slew my brother Abel.'

"But God replied: {265}

"A punishment thou shalt have because thou didst slay thy brother from a desire to become rich. Likewise thou didst meddle with witchcraft and sorceries, as did thy brother. And Abel made much money and was very rich, because he did not love God, but sorcerers. Albeit, ever good he never did evil things, and many good, wherefore God pardoned him. But thou shalt not be pardoned because thou didst imbrue thy lands in human blood, and, what is worse, in thy own brother's blood.

"The punishment which I inflict is this:

"The thorns {266} which thou didst put upon thy brother are now for thee.

"Thou shalt be imprisoned in the moon, and from that place shalt behold the good and the evil of all mankind.

"And the bundle of thorns shall never leave thee, and every time when any one shall conjure thee, the thorns shall sting thee cruelly; they shall draw thy blood.

"And thus shalt thou be compelled to do that which shall be required of thee by the sorcerers or by conjuring, and if they ask of thee that which thou wilt not give, then the thorns shall goad thee until the sorceries shall cease."

* * * * *

This is clearly enough no common popular nursery tale, such as make up collections of Tuscan tales or popular legends, gathered from pious or picturesque peasants. Through it all runs a deep current of dark heresy, the deliberate contravention of accepted Scripture, and chiefly the spell of sorcery and deadly witchcraft. It is a perfect and curious specimen of a kind of forbidden literature which was common during the Middle Ages, and which is now extremely rare. This literature or lore was the predecessor of Protestantism, and was the rock on which it was based.

There have always been in the world since time began certain good people whose taste or fate it was to be invariably on the wrong side, or in the opposition; like the Irishman just landed from a ship in America, who, being asked how he would vote, replied, "Against the Government, of course, whatever it is," they are always at war with the powers that be. With Jupiter they would have opposed the Titans; with Prometheus, Jupiter; as early Christians they would have rebelled against the Pagans, and as heretics, Orientalised Templars, Vaudois, illuminati, sorcerers, and witches, they would have undermined the Church, never perceiving that its system or doctrine was, _au fond_, fetish, like their own. Among these rebels it was long the rule to regard those gods or men who were specially reviled by their foes or oppressors as calumniated. Even Satan was to them "the puir deil;" according to the Taborites, an oppressed elder brother of Christ, or a kind of Man in an Iron Mask kept out of his rights by Jehovah the XIV. These discontented ones deified all who had been devilled, found out that Jezebel had been a _femme incomprise_, and the Scarlet Woman only an interesting highly-coloured variant of the ancient hoary myth of Mademoiselle or Miss Salina the Innocent. When Judas was mentioned, they solemnly remarked that there was a great deal to be said on both sides of _that_ question; while others believed that Ananias and Sapphira had been badly sat upon, and deserved to be worshipped as saints of appropriation--a cult, by the way, the secret observance of which has by no means died out at the present day--several great men being regarded in Paris as its last great high priests.

The Cainites, as known by that name to the Church, were a Gnostic sect of the second century, and are first mentioned by Irenaeus, who connects them with the Valentinians, of whom I thought but yesterday when I saw in a church a sarcophagus warranted to contain the corpse of St. Valentine. They believed that Cain derived his existence from the supreme power, but Abel from the inferior, and that in this respect he was the first of a line which included Esau, Korah, the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah, the worshippers of Ashtoreth-Mylitta, or the boundless sensualists, the sorcerers, and witches.

Considering what human nature is, and its instincts to opposition, we can see that there must have been naturally a sect who regarded Cain as a misjudged martyr. Abel appeared to them as the prosperous well-to-do bourgeois, high in favour with the Lord, a man with flocks, while Cain was a tiller of the ground, a poor peasant out of favour. It must be admitted that in the Book of Genesis, in the history of the first murder, we are much reminded of the high priest Chalcas in _La Belle Helene_, where he exclaims, "_Trop de fleurs_!" and expresses a preference for cattle. It is the old story of the socialists and anarchists, which is ever new.

The witches and sorcerers of early times were a widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and traditions of heathenism with all its license and romance and charm of the forbidden. At their head were the Promethean Templars, at their tail all the ignorance and superstition of the time, and in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured either by the nobility or the Church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty, in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged themselves by secret orgies and fancied devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they fancied were such. I can seriously conceive--what no writer seems to have considered--that there must have been an immense satisfaction in selling or giving one's self to the devil, or to any power which was at war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or "later on" to Satan, and danced and rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have _all_ our accounts of sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount of ancient witchcraft still surviving in Italy there is not much anti-Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism. Diana, not Satan, is still the real head of the witches. The Italian witch, as the priest Grillandus said, stole oil to make a love-charm. {269} But she did not, and does not say, as he declared, in doing so, "I renounce Christ." There the priest plainly lied. The whole history of the witch mania is an ecclesiastical falsehood, in which such lies were subtly grafted on the truth. But in due time the Church, and the Protestants with them, created a Satanic witchcraft of their own, and it is this after-growth which is now regarded as witchcraft in truth.

Cain-worshippers and witches seem to have been all in the same boat. I think it very likely that in these two traditions which I have given we have a remnant of the actual literature of the Cainites, that Gnostic-revived and mystical sect of the Middle Ages. But I doubt not that its true origin is far older than Christianity, and lost in earliest time.

One last remark. We are told in the tale that Abel, having become rich, "cut" the Lord, or would speak to him no longer. I suppose that he dropped the synagogue and _Yom kippur_, and became a _Reformirter_, and his children in due time _Goyim_. Also that he wanted to become a wizard, which may be a hint that he was "no conjuror." But it is seriously a proof of the naivete, and consequent probable antiquity of the tale, that these details are not "wrote sarcastic," nor intended for humour. And it is also interesting to observe how impartially the narrator declares that Cain was "a good man," and how he, in pleading his own cause before the Lord, insists that in killing Abel he only inadvertently forgot himself for an instant. One almost expects to hear him promise that he will not do it again.

It is a striking proof of the antiquity of this tradition of Cain, as I have given it, that the witch or wizard sympathy for the first murderer is in it unmistakable. The sending Cain to the moon, instead of hell, is understood to be a mitigation of his sentence. In his work on magicians and witches, A.D. 1707, Goldschmidt devotes many pages to set forth what was believed by all the learned of his time, that Cain was the father of all the wizards, and his children, the Cainites, the creators of the _Gaber_, fire-idolators, Cabiri, magic soothsaying, and so forth. So the tradition lived on, utterly forgotten by all good people, and yet it is to me so quaint as to be almost touching to find it still existing, a fragment of an old creed outworn here among poor witches in Florence.

"Sacher Masoch," a Galician novelist, informs us in a romance, "The Legacy of Cain," that the Cainites still exist in Russia, and that their religion is represented by the following charming creed:

"Satan is the master of the world; therefore it is a sin to belong to
Church or State, and marriage is also a capital sin. Six things
constitute the legacy of Cain: Love, Property, Government, War, and
Death. Such was the legacy of Cain, who was condemned to be a
wanderer and a fugitive on earth."

I have another apparently very ancient conjuration of a mirror, in two parts. It is of the blackest witchcraft, of the most secret kind, and is only intended to injure an enemy.

From an article in _La Rivista delle Tradizione Popolare_ of July 1894, by F. Montuori, I learn that in a little work by San Prato on "Cain and the Thorns according to Dante and Popular Tradition," Ancona, 1881, which I have not seen, the history of Cain is given much as told by Maddalena. What is _chiefly_ interesting in the version of Maddalena is, however, wanting in all the folklore on the subject collected by others; it is the manifest trace of Cainism, of sympathy with the first murder, and in its heresy. This opens for us a far wider field of research and valuable historical information than the rather trivial fact that Cain is simply the Man in the Moon.

Merk in _Die Sitten und Gebrauche der Deutschen_, gives (p. 644), from Wolf, a strange legend which is nearly allied to Moon worship by witches, and the mirror:

"There was a man in Kortryk who was called Klare Mone (bright moon),
and he got his name from this. One night when sleeping on his
balcony he heard many women's voices sweetly singing. They held
goblets [there is some confusion here with _glaserne Pfannen_ or
glass panes in the roof from which the man looked; I infer that the
witches drank from "glass pans," _i.e._, metallic mirrors], and as
they drank they sang:

"'We are drinking the sweetest of earthly wine,
For we drink of the clear and bright moonshine.'

"But as the man approached them, 'with a club to beat or kill them,
all vanished.'"

"Which fable teaches," as the wise Flaxius notes, "what indeed this whole book tends to show--that few people know or heed what witches ever really were. Now, that this boor wished to slay the sorceresses with a club, for drinking moonshine, is only what the whole world is doing to all who have _different ideas from ours_ as to what constitutes enjoyment. So in all history, under all creeds, even unto this day, people have been clubbed, hung, tortured, and baked alive, or sent to Coventry for the crime of drinking _moonshine_!"

And so this volume ends, oh reader mine!

"So the visions flee,
So the dreams depart;
And the sad reality,
Now must act its part."
_Ite_, _lector benevole_,
_Ite_, _missa est_.

* * * * *

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
_Edinburgh and London_

Footnotes:

{3a} _Nel miglio salotto di recevimento_. This is all an accurate picture of old Florentine customs.

{3b} _Necessita fa la vecchia trottare_. On which proverb Matteo Villani comments as follows: "And thus he truly verified the saying of Valerius Maximus, that 'the wants caused by human weakness are a common bond of security,' all of which is briefly expressed in the French proverb, 'Need makes the old woman (or old age) bestir herself.'" Valerius Maximus was the prototype of Guicciardini.

{8} "Chiese alla regina di dormir seco." Which was certainly very plain blunt speaking, even for the time.

{14} "Le cattive nove volano, Le male son sempre vere; Prima l'annunzio, poi malanno, Chi me ne da una calda, e chi una fredda."

--_Italian Proverb_.

{15} The_ cappa_ is a cloak with a hood or "capuchin;" a _cotta_ is the stole worn by Catholic priests.

{21} _Folletto_. This, which meant originally an airy tricksy sprite, is now applied not only to fairies and goblins in general, but also to every kind of supernatural apparition. I have a book in which even comets are described as _folletti_.

{23} Redi's _Bacco in Toscana_ is known to the most ignorant in Florence, there being very cheap editions of it constantly sold.

{24} "Can a _horn_ play second fiddle?" inquires Flaxius. "This comes of trying to improve on the simple Italian text."

{27} _Zoccoloni_ or _Zoccolanti_, sandalled friars of the lowest order, who are indeed common beggars.

{31} The partial inscription referred to is still on the column.

{33} This is strikingly like the ceremony for the same purpose used by the ancient Romans, the object in both being to frighten away evil spirits. _Vide_ "Etruscan Roman Remains," by C. G. Leland, p. 305.

{43} Una vecchietta, tutta Gesu e Maria.

{47} I have elsewhere explained that the _fata_ in these traditions is a witch or sorcerer become a spirit.

{48a} It may be conjectured from this context that the child was partly human in form, perhaps like the Pig-faced Lady, or not more swinish than William of Ardennes in face.

{48b} Truly she was, to use a really ancient phrase, "ready to go the whole hog." It is said that Mahomet told his disciples that there was one part of a pig which they must not touch; but as he did not specify what it was, they among them devoured the entire animal.

{50} "Symbola Heroica," Antwerp, 1583.

{63} Raised footway, high curbstone, causeway, bench.

{67} "D'una gran purga bisogna avete, E questa purga davero dovete Farla all' anima, cosi guarirete!"

{71} It appears from this story that La Certosa was "even then as now" visited by strangers as one of the lions of Florence.

{77a} This word is apparently allied to _Marrano_, an infidel Moor, miscreant, traitor, or to _amaro_, bitter or painful.

{77b} A peculiarly Florentine word. _Renajo_, sand-pit, a place so called near the Arno in Florence (Barretti's Dictionary). I can see several of these _renaioli_ with their boats from the window at work before me as I write. _Vide_ "The Spirit of the Arno."

{82} "Echoes of Old Florence," by Temple Leader.

{83} Like Proteus, the evasive slippery nature of water and the light which plays on it accounts for this.

{92} "Well, yes, I think you might; A cart of hay went through this afternoon."

I believe this is by Peter Pindar. The Italian proverb probably suggested it.

{94} _Rizzar l'uovo di Pippo su un piano_. "To do a difficult thing, or achieve it by tact and skill." This hints at the egg of Columbus. But Columbus set the egg upright by breaking its end, which was not a fair game. Any egg can be set on end on a marble table (I have done it), by patient balancing, without breaking.

{96} "Florentine Life during the Renaissance," by Walter B. Scaife. Baltimore, 1893.

{98} The diavolino of Gian di Bologna is of bronze, but popular tradition makes light of accuracy.

{103} This is supposed to be addressed to another, not to the fairy.

{108} _Ucellato_, caught like a bird, or, as they say on the Mississippi, "sniped."

{126} The reader may observe that these popular names of Oratorio and Orto are most likely to have given the prefix _Or'_.

{150} _Ha tanta lingua che spazzarebbe un forno_, _o un cesso_. Said of virulent gossips.

{152} _Mago_, which, like _magus_, implies more dignity than magician or sorcerer.

{153} "The Mugnone, whose course has been shifted to the west, formerly flowed into the Arno, through the heart of the city."--_Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy_.

{155} _L'anguilla si rizzo in piedi_--"The eel rose upon her feet." This will remind the reader of some of the difficulties experienced by Gothic artists in depicting Eve and the Serpent.

{156} There is much confusion here. It appears that the fairy made the fountain now in the Signoria, and that Biancone saw this in a vision.

{158} This refers to the satyrs who are among the bronze figures below Neptune.

{161a} I here omit a long, detailed, and wearisome account of the research, which, however, indicates the accuracy with which the tradition had been preserved, and the full belief in it of the narrator.

{161b} A kind of cruel pillory.

{162} In allusion to seeing it from behind the squares formed by the grates of iron before prison windows.

{164} Landucci, 233, cited by Scaife.

{171} Una medichessa.

{177} Not a fairy here, but a witch of a certain degree.

{180} Si la Messa de Villani era finito.

{181} E appunto hora comincia quella delle puttane, pero caminate, che farete a tempo con l'altre.

{189} Nella guerra d'amor, che fugge vince.

{196} Viene tutte le mattine Colle sue belle manine.

Though very rude, even to illiteracy in _form_, the train of thought is here very gracefully managed in the original.

{201} So called because criminals passed through it on their way to execution.

{202} "Da qualche bacio Vi chascha il _vero_ bacio d'amor."

--_Original_.

{203a} "Altrimenti L'avrebbero levato il collare."--_Original_.

{203b} "In una altra stella Per raggiungere la sua bella."--_Original_.

{205} _Faceva il verso del lupo_, the deep baying which is a subject of superstition in all countries.

{207} Friedrich, "Symbolik der Natur."

{208} A humming-top.

{212} The Philological Society (_Circolo_), has also its rooms in this building.

{213} Perche si rendeva alle persone troppo triviale--A graphic sketch of a character who would be peculiarly offensive in a highly patrician community.

{220} "Col mio pugnale ammazato, Col pugnale e sotterato."

{224} Since writing the foregoing, I have found in _Am Urquelle_, vol. vi. 3, May 1895, a legend credited to a book by A. Bondeson, _Historic Gulbar pa Dal_ (Stockholm, 1886), or a story entitled "The Lover with a Green Beard," which is much the same in incident as this. The editor, H. Feilberg, notices the affinity of this and other tales to the Vampyre and Burger's "Leonora."

{227} _Zufolo_--a rude flageolet, such as is still commonly played by the shepherds all over Italy.

{238} _Il suo spirito lo fa presentare qualunque ombra_, that is, in any or varied shadow; a _haunting_ shade, and not strictly the mere shadow of the one who is haunted.

{239} That which here follows of the invocation was obtained subsequently by my agent, I think, from another source. What precedes is evidently only a fragment.

{251} The concluding portion of this chapter is taken from the Italian original paper read by me at the first meeting of the Italian Folklore Society in the Collegio Romano, Rome, November 20, 1894.

{253} These references to Marietta Pery are in regard to a certain Italian poetess, of whose work I originally intended to give specimens in this book, but which were omitted as want of space did not permit their insertion. I hope to include them in another volume of legends.--C. G. LELAND.

{255} Such incantations are _intoned_ or chanted in a very peculiar style, so that those who can only hear the sound know that it is a magic spell. Therefore they must be expressed very accurately to the letter. It may be observed that there is a contradiction in the original MS., which here speaks of _three_ companions, and subsequently of two. I believe the latter to be correct.

{259a} Here the name of the lover is pronounced by the friends.

{259b} Now in possession of Mrs. January of St. Louis, Missouri.

{262} "Moon Lore," p. 152.

{265} I have no doubt that originally all the spoken parts of this narrative were sung.

{266} Thorns here plainly mean suffering, _Fasio di pruini che ai messo al tuo fratello_.

{269} It is amusing that this stealing oil wherewith to make love-charms, which was denounced so bitterly as damnable sorcery at one time, and frequently punished by death, _i.e._, by burning alive, is now tacitly encouraged by the priests. There are churches about Rome in which the oil is placed where it may be stolen or taken, it being understood that a _soldo_ or two shall be left to pay for it.