OMENS AND FREITS

Evening Star, Issue 18239, 2 April 1923, Page 9

OMENS AND FREITS

SUPERSTITIONS IN MODERN TIMES. It ia aai interesting and curious inquiry whether in these days, when the schoolmaster is abroad in the land, we have advanced much beyond the superstitious beliefs of less favored ages. The times change, and we change with them, but to-day wo «ro still the slaves of thoughts and fears which wore bom in far past centuries. It !s hardly matter for wonder, that peoples whose homes were in the darkness of glen ami forest, and who lived ever in the silence of the great bills, should look upon the face of Nature with ignorant fear and see in this or the other ordinary incident a presage of weal or woe to .themselves. V.’e cannot plead their ignorance, yet arc we not far removed from their iears. Many o: our own peculiar superstitions are but old enemies with new faces. NOVELISTS' REFERENCES.

Sir. Walter Scott, in the Waverley novels, ba ; enshrined many ancient superstitions, ud some of the novels are rich in reference t,’ omens, i’ou remember in ‘The Pirate,’ for example, that Mr Yellowby, tearful of n witch, is advised u to say an oraamus to 8(. Ronald and fling a sixpence ower your le:t. shoulder.’’ and there ;s a mrlher reteren ■" lo stepping over the tongs ns an omen ot di-aster. And, indeed, has not the noyc for its burden the folly of saving a shipwrecked sailor from drowning. “ Are you n..ul,* v said the pedlar, “you that have livefi sac king in Zetland, lo risk the saving of a drowning man?'’ . Tlrs superstition, world-wide and ancient, exp -SSI s the belief that the rescued man wi.l be certain to do his rescuer some capita, injury. Fate, it is thought, cannot be cheated out of a life, and the rescuer will b- iiie substitute. fvott'sh literature is rich in reference tc omens and freits. John Galt, by no meant a second Sir Walter, as some assert, records a number of these. In his ‘Annals of the Parish.' that simple, garrulous old soul Mr Ihilw’nidder, narrates that in the year 17(17 there -was a “ great sough of old prophecies” chiefly on account of tho propose!. Fuah and (.Hyde Canal, and that “tho Adam am! Eve pear tree in our garden budded up in an awful manner, which was thought an uncommon tiling.” , . Again, in tho same work the minister gravely reports that in the year 1778 then had been a greater christening of ‘‘lad bairns ’’ than'had ever been in any year during his incumbency, and says Unit it had long been held “as a sure prognostication of war when the births of innlo children outnumbered those of females." THE DAMAGE!) EAGLE.

To come nearer to our own day, however, we have a curious incident but a few .real;old. The Imperator, a great liner, put into New York Harbor in June of 1914 before war was thought of. She had oncountered such stormy weather that uk liu-’o figure of an eagle clasping the world, which was fixed to the forecastle, was bad y 3 (imaged. Fart of the globe which the eagle embraced hud been broken away, and the talons of the bird injured. Attention was directed to the circumstance, and a bystander remarked that she regarded this as in omen of what would happen to Germany —namely, that, in trying to seize the world much of it would fall from her grasp. And an even more curious incident happened in 1919, when, the war being ovei and the Imperator transferred to our Hag she finished her first voyage under her new masters. No sooner was the first gangway lived in position than a black cat- walked down from the ship, jumped ou the quay, and disappeared into the Custom sled. This was hailed as a good omen. U may be noted that this superstition is a curious tm. rival from unknown, times. Thus looked at, there seems but iiitic d’tf-.rence between ourscivci and our forefathers many generations removed. Hu; superstitious of the eleventh cciituiy saw an evil omen in the fall of Duke William of Noimamly on his landing on English soil bet were immediately willing to agree that aft-r ai! it might well be an augury of cool when he rose to h:s tcct, showed Ins nan'is full of earth, and said that thus he ha ! (akrn possession of England; aim the M-e-i stitious ot the twentieth century pin their faith to black cats. Two yean mo, when the last Shamrock was about i' trv conclusions for the America tup. w< were told (hat. its owner was deluged with drums, one especially, a genuine four-leafed shamrock, picked at Howlh by a hunchback, who wa< the seventh son of a seventh son, ’being regarded as- of potent powers. And the credence in such a mascot is not at all shaken by its failure to bring success. BREAKING THE LOOKING- GLASS. Many of the trivial accidents of dailylife are regarded as omens foreboding ill or pood to the person concerned. For instance, t V re arc these who believe it to bp 'unlucky to break a looking glass. Then the na.i!::,- of the ill-luck varies, depending on vi o the unfortunate person is; if a maiden, she will never marry; if a wile, her hits land will die. This superstition is clearly traceable- to ancient times _ when mirrors v.-cre the instruments of divination, and if th" mirror broke the anxious inquirer had to leave unsatisfied. Tin n, again, we have the omen, already referred to, in regard to stumbling and falling. Tins, recalls the classic story of Sir Walter Scott and Mungo Park, t!:: Air.can traveller. Park had called on Scott- to lei' him of his intended departure for Africa, which the latter advised against. He accompanied the traveller part of the way back. They had reached the high ridge overlook ing ' Yarrow, over which the autumnal mist floated heavily. This presented to Scott a striking emblem of the troubled and uncertain prospect which Park's undertaking afforded. At length they separated, and in go;tiL r over a small ditch Parks horse nearly stumbled. “I am afraid, Mungo," said- the slierilf. “that is a bad omen.’' To which the traveller replied “Frcits follow those who look to them.” With this expression Park spurred on his horse, and Scote never saw him again. SPILLING THE SALT. We know that as late as the end of the eighteenth century in Scotland the life of the people was permeated with -a belief in omens, and that there was scarcely an incident from birth to death but, supplied an augury of some kind. We smile nowadays at many of these superstitions, hardly realising our own faults in the same -direction. Who, for instance, smiles at a guest’s misfortune at table in spilling the salt? Is it not immediately hailed as an omen of evil? W r o are still in the bonds of the * Some writers trace the origin of this belief to the famous picture of the Lord’s Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, wherein Judas Iscariot is depicted as having accidentally mocked over the salt cellar. However that nav be, it is certain that the Romans held the''spilling of salt to be’an unlucky omen, which was only to be counteracted by immediately throwing the sal; over the left shoulder. * And the remembrance of an even more curious and widespread superstition con nected with the festive board should cause in to pause in praising our own progress in enlightenment. Which of us desires to be the thirteenth guest at table? And what hostess is there who, having by ir-is-chancy assembled only thirteen, does not forthwith go out into the highways and byways and compel a fourteenth to _ come in? We well remember the obvious distress of a hostess so placed, and she saw to it that an additional guest was secured before wo were allowed to partake. The curious thing about this superstition is that it is world-wide and very ancient. To Christians, confirmation, of this belief is sc-n in the thirteen sitting down at the Last Supper. THE I DOG’S HOWL. And what shall we say of those who still a r that dogs howl at death? They have at least antiquity to support their opinion, for an old writer tells us that it is “plainc by histone and experience ” that dogs by their howling portend death. And a later writer, seeking to get at the reason of things, thinks that those animals scent death even before it seizes a person. Not long ago we met a lady who to;d he a most circumstantial story of a dog howling almost immediately before its mistress died; she believed in the omen, because, jho said, the case had come under her own observation. Cattle arc sensitive to the coming storm, and one inquirer ventures the opinion that thcrejnay be similar influences in the atmosphere which act upon clegs. At any rate, it is not a- remarkable phenomenon that somebody should die after the continued howling of a dog. To choosa one more superstition out of the multiplicity that offer, let us take that •ormcoted with the word “white.” You remember that in ‘The Antiquary,’ as Mr Dldbuck is discoursing of tho rare treasures >f his library, he tells Level of the days when ho acquired each volume, and says; “These are the white moments of life that repay all toil,- and pains." This reference goes back to (he time of the Romans, who lised to mark in their calendars unlucky days with black chalk and lucky ones with white chalk. In Edinburgh wo have noticed tho street children, on tho approach of a gentleman wearing 5 white bat, exclaim “first luck for a man’s white hat!” And more curious still, perhaps, is the belief that ‘hose suffering iron: a cough who west a n,aa riding

a white horse and who adopt, •whatever remedy he suggests for thoir ailment, will be speedily cured.—Jambs FlsuEii, in the ‘ Vfeekly Scotsman.’