“THE HAND OF GLORY.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 October 1924, Page 3

“THE HAND OF GLORY.”

TALE OF HIGHWAYMEN. So called, according to a tale of ■highwaymen, was a grim lantern, which was believed to possess supernatural power in. the house in which it was lit. It was nothing more complicated than a candle clasped in the mummified hand of a dead malefactor. The hand must have been torn from a dead man, and the candle it held was no ordinary tallow dip. As a highwayman about to put one such grisly relic to work is said to have soliloquised:—“That was poor Tom’s hand! I had a lot of bother to get it, but T managed it in the end. ... How they watched that gibbet for some of us going for one of his hands Him and mo agreed that whoever got slung up first, the other was to have his right hand, so as, in a way like, we could still keep each other company in the old business.” One of the ingredients of the candle was fat from a human heart. It was.mixed with other tallows of horrid origin. AYbon it wev lit 'a trance, like death itself, fell upon all those who were already asleep beneath the roof under which its magic. light burned.” Even aid from outside might not free the charmed ■aleeners.' The lighted candle held in til®- hand could not be blown out- A pail of water mi"ht be thrown over it and it would still burn. Only blood or milk could extenguish the ghostly flamo once it had beeu set alight, perhaps with the incantation: Let those who rest more deeplv sleep, bet those awake their vigils keen. Hand of Glory, shed thv light' direct us to our moil to-nieht. Plodi out. thv light, O skeleton hand. *rd guide t.be feet, of mv trusty band