especially of a disastrous kind, by means of a spectral exhibition to their eyes, of the persons whom these events respect, accompanied with such emblems as denote their fate. He says: "Whether this power was communicated to the inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland by the northern nations who so long had possession of the latter, I shall not pretend to determine; but traces of the same wonderful faculty may be found among the Scandinavians. Isl. ramm skygn, denotes one who is endowed with the power of seeing spirits: 'qui tali visu præter naturam præditus est, ut spiritus et dæmones videat, opaca etiam visu penetret.' Verel. Ind. The designation is formed from ramm-ur viribus pollens, and skygn videns; q. powerful in vision." Rowlands, in his Mona Antiqua Restaurata, p. 140, note, tells us: "The magic of the Druids, or one part of it, seems to have remained among the Britons even after their conversion to Christianity, and is called Taish in Scotland; which is a way of predicting by a sort of vision they call second sight; and I take it to be a relic of Druidism, particularly from a noted story related by Vopiscus, of the Emperor Diocletian, who, when a private soldier in Gallia, on his removing thence, reckoning with his hostess, who was a Druid woman, she told him he was too penurious, and did not bear in him the noble soul of a soldier; on his reply that his pay was small, she, looking steadfastly on him, said that he needed not be so sparing of his money, for after he should kill a boar she confidently pronounced he would be emperor of Rome, which he took as a compliment from her; but seeing her serious in her affirmation, the words she spoke stuck upon him, and was after much delighted in hunting and killing of boars, often saying, when he saw many made emperors, and his own fortune not much mending, I kill the boars, but 'tis others that eat the flesh. Yet it happen'd that, many years after, one Arrius Aper, father-in-law of the Emperor Numerianus, grasping for the empire, traitorously slew him, for which fact being apprehended by the soldiers and brought before Diocletian, who being then a prime commander in the army, they left the traytor to his disposal, who asking his name, and being told that he was called Aper, i. e. a boar, without further pause he sheathed his sword in his bowels, saying, et hunc aprum cum cæteris, i. e. Even this boar also to the rest;' which done, the soldiers, commending it as a quick, extraordinary act of justice, without further deliberation, saluted him by the name of emperor. I bring this story here in view, as not improper on this hint, nor unuseful to be observed, because it gives fair evidence of the antiquity of the second sight, and withall shows that it descended from the ancient Druids, as being one part of the diabolical magic they are charg'd with; and upon their dispersion into the territories of Denmark and Swedeland, continued there in the most heathenish parts to this day, as is set forth in the story of the late Duncan Campbell." In the Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, by Collins, I find the following lines on this subject: "How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own vision oft astonish'd droop, Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destin'd glance some fated youth descry, To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, See on this subject some curious particulars in Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 187. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, iii. 380, the minister of Applecross, in the county of Ross, speaking of his parishioners, says: "With them the belief of the second sight is general, and the power of an evil eye is commonly credited; and though the faith in witchcraft be much enfeebled, the virtue of abstracting the substance from one milk, and adding to another, is rarely questioned." May not the following passage from Waldron's Description of the Isle of Man (Works, folio, p. 139) be referred to this second sight? "The natives of the island tell you that, before any person dies, the procession of the funeral is acted by a sort of beings, which for that end render themselves visible. I know several that have offered to make oath that, as they have been passing the road, one of these funerals has come behind them, and even laid the bier on their shoulders, as though to assist the bearers. One person, who assured me he had been served so, told me that the flesh of his shoulder had been very much bruised, and was black for many weeks after. There are few or none of them who pretend not to have seen or heard these imaginary obsequies, (for I must not omit that they sing psalms in the same manner as those do who accompany the corpse of a dead friend,) which so little differ from real ones, that they are not to be known till both coffin and mourners are seen to vanish at the church doors. These they take to be a sort of friendly demons; and their business, they say, is to warn people of what is to befall them; accordingly, they give notice of any stranger's approach by the trampling of horses at the gate of the house where they are to arrive. As difficult as I found it to bring myself to give any faith to this, I have frequently been very much surprised, when, on visiting a friend, I have found the table ready spread, and everything in order to receive me, and been told by the person to whom I went that he had knowledge of my coming, or some other guest by these goodnatured intelligencers. Nay, when obliged to be absent some time from home, my own servants have assured me they were informed by these means of my return, and expected me the very hour I came, though perhaps it was some days before I hoped it myself at my going abroad. That this is fact I am positively convinced by many proofs." SALT FALLING, &c. SALT falling towards a person was considered formerly as a very unlucky omen. Something had either already happened to one of the family, or was shortly to befall the persons spilling it. It denoted also the falling-out of friends. Dr. Nathaniel Home, in his Dæmonologie, p. 58, enumerates among bad omens, "the falling of salt towards them at the table, or the spilling of wine on their clothes;" saying So Pet. Molinæi Vates, p. 154: “Si salinum in mensa evertatur, ominosum est." also, p. 60, ""How common is it for people to account it a signe of ill-luck to have the salt-cellar to be overturned, the salt falling towards them!" The subsequent quotations are from Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, 8vo. Amstel. 1662, p. 215: "Salinum Eversum. "Prodige, subverso casu leviore salino, Si mal venturum conjicis omen: adest." "Deliras insulse; salem sapientia servat: "Idem. "Perde animam temulente, cades; sic auguror omen; Bishop Hall, in his Characters of Vertues and Vices, 1608, speaking of the superstitious man, says: "If the salt fall towards him he looks pale and red, and is not quiet till one of the waiters have poured wine on his lappe." I have been at table where this accident happening, it has been thought to have been averted by throwing a little of the salt that fell over the left shoulder. Horat. lib. iii. Od. 23. Mr. Pennant, in his Journey from Chester to London, p. 31, tells us : "The dread of spilling salt is a known superstition among us and the Germans, being reckoned a presage of some future calamity, and particularly that it foreboded domestic feuds; to avert which it is customary to fling some salt over the shoulder into the fire, in a manner truly classical : "Mollivit aversos Penates, Farre pio, saliente mica." Both Greeks and Romans mixed salt with their sacrificial cakes; in their lustrations also they made use of salt and water, which gave rise in after-times to the superstition of holy water. Stuckius, in his Convivial Antiquities, p. 17, tells us that the Muscovites thought that a prince could not show a greater mark of affection than by sending to him salt from his own table. The same author, in his Tour in Wales, tells us that "a tune called 'Gosteg yr Halen, or the Prelude of the Salt,' was always played whenever the salt-cellar was placed before King Arthur's knights at his Round Table. III. 11 Selden, in his notes on the Polyolbion, Song xi., observes of salt, that it "was used in all sacrifices by expresse command of the true God, the salt of the covenant in Holy Writ, the religion of the salt, set first and last taken away, as a symbole of perpetual friendship, that in Homer Πασσί δ' Αλος Ociolo, he sprinkled it with divine salt, the title of ayverns, the cleanser, given it by Lycophron,—you shall see apparent and apt testimonie of its having had a most respected and divinely honoured name." It has been observed by Bailey, on the falling of salt,' that it proceeds from an ancient opinion that salt was incorruptible; it had therefore been made the symbol of friendship; and if it fell, usually, the persons between whom it happened thought their friendship would not be of long duration. Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Pozed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, reckons among vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, "the spilling of the wine, the overturning of the salt." He afterwards, in p. 320, tells us: "I have read it in an orthodox divine, that he knew a young gentleman who, by chance spilling the salt of the table, some that sate with him said merrily to him that it was an ill omen, and wish't him take heed to himselfe that day of which the young man was so superstitiously credulous, that it would not go out of his mind; and going abroad that day, got a wound, of which he died not long after." In Melton's Astrologaster, p. 45, this occurs in a "Catalogue of many Superstitious Ceremonies," No. 26, "That it is ill-lucke to have the salt-sellar fall towards you.' Gayton, in his Art of Longevity, 4to. 1659, p. 90, says: "I have two friends of either sex, which do They are of patience most invincible, Whom out of temper no mischance at all وو Can put-no, if towards them the salt should fall." Grose says, on this subject: "To scatter salt, by overturning the vessel in which it is contained, is very unlucky, and portends quarrelling with a friend, or fracture of a bone, sprain, or other bodily misfortune. Indeed this may in some measure be averted by throwing a small quantity of it over one's head. It is also unlucky to help another person to salt. To whom the ill luck is to happen does not seem to be settled." |