VI. FRIDAY IN MODERN TIMES

Friday is the Sabbath of the Moslems, corresponding to the Sunday of the Christians and the Saturday of the Jews. In Egypt Friday is therefore blessed above all other days, while Saturday is the most unfortunate.

However, although Friday was the day selected by Mahomet for the holding of the Moslem Assembly, it was not wholly devoted to religious worship, and at the conclusion of public prayers business was transacted as on any other week-day. Among Mohammedans Friday is considered the most lucky of days; and it is also the most popular for commencing any enterprise of importance, whether building a house, planting a garden, embarking on a voyage, contracting a marriage, or making a garment.

One reason for Mahomet's choice of Friday as the day for public prayers was probably because this day was consecrated by the people of many nations to Alilat, the celestial Venus or Urania, whom the ancient Arabs worshipped. Mahomet said that whoever bathed on Friday and walked to the public religious service, taking a seat near the Imam or Khalifah (the leader of a Moslem tribe), and listened attentively to the sermon, avoiding meanwhile frivolous conversation, would obtain the reward of a whole year's prayers at night for every step which he took between his home and the place of this assembly.

The Moslems among the peasants inhabiting the frontier region between Afghanistan and Hindostan have a special reverence for Friday; for they believe that on that day God rested, after having created the world. On Friday eve, according to their belief, the spirits of the departed are wont to revisit their former abodes, and hence the custom prevails of sending delicacies to the mosque at such times.

Friday was the most popular day for weddings among the Jews in mediaeval times, and its selection appears to have been due to expediency, because of its nearness to the Jewish Sabbath, and the convenience of associating the marriage ceremony with the services in the synagogue on the latter day. The bridal pair fasted on the morning of the wedding, and ashes were sprinkled over their heads during the ceremony.

According to the teachings of the Talmud, a second soul was believed to enter men's bodies every Friday evening and to remain throughout the following day, its presence being indicated by an increased appetite for food.

On Friday, says an old tradition, is held the Witches' Sabbath or Assembly, and one should be careful not to speak of these creatures on that day, for their hearing is then especially acute, and disrespectful remarks will render one liable to incur their spite.

In the popular belief of the Swabians, Friday is the day when the witches celebrate their joint festival with the Devil on the Heuberg, Dear Rotenburg, and afterward scour the country, intent on working all manner of mischief upon the people and their cattle.

According to a Scotch superstition, however, witches were supposed to hold their weekly meetings on Saturdays, in unfrequented places. The formal proceedings on these occasions included an address by the Devil, and the holding of a court, wherein each witch was expected to give a detailed statement of her doings; and those who had been idle were given a beating with their own broomsticks, the diligent being rewarded by gifts of enchanted bones. A dance followed, the Devil playing on the bag-pipes, and leading the music.

The Irish are careful not to mention fairies by name either on Wednesdays or Fridays, for these invisible creatures are unusually alert on these two days.

On Fridays especially, their power for evil is very strong. On that day, therefore, a careful watch is kept over the children and cattle; a lighted wisp of straw is waved about the baby's head, and a quenched coal is placed under the cradle and churn. And if the horses are more than usually restive in their stalls, it is a sure sign that the fairies are riding them; therefore the people spit three times at the animals, and the fairies thereupon immediately take their departure.

In Ireland Friday is facile princeps among unlucky days, and especial care should be taken not to open the door of one's dwelling to any stranger on that day. Neither butter nor milk should be given away, nor should a cat be taken from one house to another on a Friday. To undo a sorcerer's spell, one should eat barley cakes over which an incantation has been said; but the cakes must be eaten on a Monday or Thursday, and never on Friday.

In Welsh tradition the water-sprites are thought to keep an especially watchful eye over the sea on Fridays, making it rough and tempestuous.

On a Friday morning in the year 1600, says an old legend a ship set sail from a Northern port, having on board a young man and a maiden of rare beauty, whose strange actions and demeanor seemed to betoken that they were supernatural beings. The vessel never reached port, but one stormy night a phantom ship was seen, enveloped in an uncanny light; and on its deck stood the youth and his sweetheart, a weird vision, as the spectral craft moved along over the stormy sea against the wind.

In Hesse Frau Hölle, the modern Freyja, is the special guardian and protectress of newly married people, and so tenacious has been this old belief in the minds of the Hessian peasants that the day of Venus is still in high favor among them as the most propitious for weddings.

In some places it is unlucky to receive any news, whether good or bad, on a Friday; and, according to a Shropshire saying, "if you hear anything new on a Friday, it gives you another wrinkle on your face, and adds another year to your age." Indeed, the term "Friday-faced" was used to denote a gloomy or dejected visage, as in the following quotation:--

Marry, out upon him! what a friday-fac'd slave it is! I think in my conscience his face never keeps holiday.

In Servia children born on Friday are thought to be invulnerable to the assaults of the whole army of hags and sorcerers. In Germany Friday is reckoned the most fateful of all the week-days, whether for good or evil. The beliefs vary in different portions of the empire, but there is a universal prejudice against setting out on a journey, moving into a new house, or changing servants on this day. In eastern Prussia, whoever bakes on a Friday will get but little bread; but Sunday baptisms are thought to offset the unlucky auspices of children born on Friday. The North German farmers consider Friday the best day on which to begin gathering the harvest.

In olden times Friday was the most favorable day for courtship and weddings in Germany, and, unless a bride first entered her new home on that day, domestic strife was likely to ensue.

If she wished to tame a bad-tempered husband, her first care was to prepare for him a soup made with the rain-water of a Friday's shower. The magic charm of words wherewith cattle were freed from the mange was spoken on a Friday morning; and a hare which had been shot on the first Friday in March was of great therapeutic value, especially its eyes, which were dried and carried about as a sovereign remedy for defective vision.

Only on a Friday did the church-bells strike the hour for the release of bewitched spirits, and the delivery of enchanted souls from their spells.

Doctor M. Höfler, in his "Volksmedizin und Aberglauben in Oberbayern" (p. 208), says that Bavarian peasants still cherish many superstitions about the sixth day of the week, the day sacred to Freyja, the old German Goddess of Love. Moreover, wonderful amuletic virtues are attributed to hens' eggs laid during Good Friday night, and whoever eats these eggs is thought to be thereby insured against bodily harm. How long this immunity holds good does not appear; but probably until another Good Friday night egg is eaten. In farmers' households these precious eggs are therefore eagerly sought by the house-mistress, who is wont to give them to her husband and the farm-hands; or else she uses them as an ingredient of the dough figures which ornament the Easter bread.

In some districts of Hungary the following peculiar custom is in vogue:--

Whenever any one's name-day happens on a Friday, that person selects a piece of one of his cast-off garments, rubs thereon a few drops of his own blood and saliva, and then burns the fragment of clothing. By so doing he burns up also all the ill luck which else might have befallen him during the next year. In southeastern Transylvania a rag mystically dealt with as above is hung on a tree before sunrise on the day in question; if it disappear before dawn of the next day, the person who thus superstitiously celebrates the occurrence of his name-day on a Friday may laugh at ill luck for a year.

The Magyars begin no work on a Friday, for it is bound to miscarry; neither do they give any milk out of the house on that day, for by so doing they imagine the usefulness of the cow to be impaired. In Bihar County, Hungary, a loaf of bread baked on Friday and impaled upon a stick is accounted a safeguard against the spread of fire. The natives of this district likewise entertain various curious fancies which are decidedly unique. For example, when a newly born child is knock-kneed, the mother regards it as a changeling. She therefore seats herself on the threshold on a Tuesday or Friday, when witches are abroad, and peremptorily addresses those creatures, demanding the restoration of her own child, whom she believes they have stolen away. "Pfui! Pfui! you scoundrels!" she exclaims, "give it back!"

The Sicilians have a host of superstitions on this subject. The following are among the more interesting items of their folk-lore relating to Friday. On this day the owner of a rented house will not hand over the keys to a new tenant, neither would the latter receive them. In the southern part of the province of Palermo no thief dares steal on a Friday, and the accuracy of this statement is corroborated by the criminal statistics. Indeed, on this day the most timid householder may journey in safety anywhere in the province, a fact which the sagacious traveler in a land notorious for brigandage will not fail to note. This immunity is not attributable to any special veneration for Freyja's day, but rather to a popular belief that thefts and other misdemeanors then committed are sure of speedy detection. Laughter is thought to offend the goddess, and the proverb runs, "He who laughs on Friday weeps on Saturday." In an anonymous manuscript in the municipal library of Palermo appears a statement that whoever cuts out garments on a Tuesday or a Friday runs the risk of making them too short and of losing the cloth. Such clothing has little wear in it, for nothing begun on these days has any durability.

The inhabitants of ancient Gascony are no less credulous, as is apparent from the following bits of Friday lore. Any one rash enough to start on a journey on horseback runs especial risk of falling off his horse, and of being drowned in attempting to ford a stream. It has even happened that newly baked loaves have been found tinged with blood in the oven. However, Friday is a good day for making vinegar, and the casks filled at three o'clock in the afternoon of that day are found to be superior to others. This is because our Lord, while on the cross, was given vinegar to drink, mingled with gall, at three o'clock on the afternoon of Good Friday.

In Normandy, also, Friday is the favorite day for putting water in wine or cider, for the people believe that on any other day the mixture would become sour.

According to a quaint Italian belief, whoever is born on a Friday, will be of sanguine temperament, passionate, light-hearted, and handsome. He will delight in music, both vocal and instrumental, and will have a liking for fine clothes. Moreover, he will be voluble in speech, though of unstable character.

The Tyrolese have a saying, "Whoever is born on a Friday must experience trouble," and they regard it as folly to marry on that day.

The French people share fully the general distrust of the sixth day of the week. This is shown by statistics of the Parisian theatres, where there are produced on an average nearly two hundred new pieces annually, and for many years not one of these has had its first performance on a Friday.

In Alsace Wednesday and Friday are unlucky days, and the former is never chosen for a wedding or baptism. But of the two, Friday is the more undesirable, and no business of importance is done thereon, nor any journey undertaken. It is foremost among witch days, for evil spirits are then abroad, and their activity on a Friday is proverbial. These sentiments prevail in other German districts, and are entertained by people of cultivation and learning. Indeed, it may be affirmed truly that the possession of intellectual force is by no means incompatible with a superstitious belief in the luck or misfortune of particular days. The credulousness of the great Napoleon in this regard is well known. Bismarck is said to have once written to his wife from Letzlingen, a village of Prussian Saxony: "I have not had such good luck in hunting to-day as I had three years ago; but then--it is a Friday." The French statesman, Gambetta, is reported to have arranged his journeyings and business affairs with reference to auspicious hours, as determined by a professional reader of cards; and President Felix Faure, we are told, is similarly credulous. Indeed, so prevalent are notions of this kind in the French capital that tastefully ornamented cards with a list of "hours to be avoided" find a ready sale in the streets.

Among the Slavonians St. Prascovia, the modern successor of Venus and Freyja, is believed to visit the peasants' houses every Friday, and woe to the luckless woman whom she then finds engaged in certain occupations. Local tradition says that sewing, spinning, and weaving on that day are sinful, and are especially distasteful to St. Prascovia, familiarly known as "Mother Friday," because the dust so produced gets into her eyes. She is very apt to take revenge by inflicting upon the offenders divers physical ailments, such as sore eyes, whitlows, or hang-nails. In some districts the peasants retire earlier than usual on Friday evenings, under the impression that Mother Friday will punish those whom she may find awake when she makes her evening visits. These popular beliefs are exemplified in the following tradition:--

There was once a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff full of flax, combing it and whirling it. She spun away until dinner-time, then sleep fell upon her. Suddenly the door opened, and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such a rage! And she went straight up to the woman who had been spinning, and scooped up from the floor a handful of the dust that had fallen out of the flax, and began stuffing and stuffing that woman's eyes full of it! After she had stuffed them full, she went off in a rage,--disappeared without saying a word.

When the woman awoke, she began squalling, at the top of her voice, about her eyes, but could not tell what was the matter with them. The other women, who had been much frightened, began to cry out: "Oh, you wretch, you! you've brought a terrible punishment on yourself from Mother Friday." Then they told her all that had taken place. She listened to it all, and then began imploring: "Mother Friday, forgive me! Pardon me, the guilty one! I'll offer thee a taper, and I'll never let friend or foe dishonor thee, mother!"

"Well, what do you think? During the night, back came Mother Friday, and took the dust out of that woman's eyes, so that she was able to get about again. It's a great sin to dishonor Mother Friday, combing and spinning flax, forsooth!"

Professor Max Müller, in his "Contributions to the Science of Mythology" (New York and Bombay, 1897), cites a tradition of the as yet little known mythology of the Mordvinians, a Finnish race inhabiting the middle Volga provinces of Russia. A woman who had been working all day long on a Friday, baking bread for some orphan children, was taken up in a dream to the still, and when she was nearly exhausted, owing to the effects of the heat, and to the rapidly increasing size of a piece of dough which she had put into her mouth, she was accosted by Chkai, the large-eyed Mordvine sun-god, who told her that she was being punished because she had baked bread for the orphans on a Friday. She was charged, moreover, to tell all the people so. "But who will be such a fool as to believe me?" asked the woman most disrespectfully. Thereupon Chkai placed his mark in scarlet and blue upon her forehead,--an emblem which is thought to bring luck. And after that the Mordvine women were careful to bake no bread, nor to do any other work, on a Friday.

It was a very early custom in England to appoint Friday as the day for the execution of criminals, and until recently the same was true in this country, but through the persistent efforts of the "Thirteen Club," of New York, whose object is the discouragement of certain popular superstitions, the sixth day of the week has been partially relieved of the odium of being "hangman's day" in the United States.

A writer of an inventive turn of mind has suggested that Friday's unpopularity is partly owing to its being late in the week and money runs short to the poor. Saturday being the close of the week, and pay-day as well, there is no time then to be superstitious.

Some modern writers have displayed a misguided zeal in the collection of statistical evidence that Friday has been a most auspicious day in American history, and have cited among other events the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and that of Cornwallis at Yorktown, as occurring on that day. But will such an argument appeal with success to English readers? If by general consent we should teach our children that Friday was the luckiest day of the week, evidence in favor of this theory would no doubt rapidly accumulate, and the new belief would soon be worth just as much as the old one.

SUPERSTITIOUS DEALINGS WITH ANIMALS

I. RATS AND MICE AS AVENGERS

WHEN in ancient times fields were overrun and crops destroyed by swarms of pestiferous animals or insects, these creatures were regarded either as agents of the Devil, or as being themselves veritable demons. We learn, moreover, that rats and mice were formerly especial objects of superstition, and that their actions were carefully noted as auguries of good or evil. A rabbinical myth says that the rat and the hog were created by Noah as scavengers of the Ark; but the rat becoming a nuisance, the patriarch evoked a cat from the lion's nose. In the "Horapollon," the only ancient work now known which attempted to explain Egyptian hieroglyphics, the rat is represented as a symbol of destruction. But the Egyptians also regarded this animal as a type of good judgment, because, when afforded the choice of several pieces of bread, he always selects the best.

According to an early legend, the Teucri, or founders of the Trojan race, on leaving the island of Crete to found a colony elsewhere, were instructed by an oracle to choose as a residence that place where they should first be attacked by the aborigines of the country. On encamping for the night, a swarm of mice appeared and gnawed the leathern thongs of their armor, and accordingly they made that spot their home and erected a temple to Apollo Smintheus, this title being derived from the word meaning "a rat" in the AEolic dialect. In ancient Troas mice were objects of worship; and the Greek writer, Heraclides Ponticus, said that they were held especially sacred at Chrysa, a town famous for its temple of Apollo. At Hamaxitus, too, mice were fed at the public expense. Herodotus relates, on the authority of certain priests, that when in the year B.C. 699 Egypt was invaded by an Assyrian army under Sennacherib, it was revealed in a vision to the Egyptian king, Sethon, that he should receive assistance from the gods. And on the eve of an expected battle the camp of the Assyrians was attacked by a legion of field-mice, who destroyed their quivers and bows, so that, being without serviceable weapons, the invaders fled in dismay on the ensuing morning. And in memory of this fabulous event a stone statue of King Sethon, bearing a mouse in his hand, was erected in the temple of Vulcan at Memphis, with this inscription: "Whoever looks on me, let him revere the Gods."

Cicero, in his treatise on Divination, while commenting on the absurdity of the prevalent belief in prodigies, remarked that, if reliance were to be placed in omens of this kind, he ought naturally to tremble for the safety of the Commonwealth, because mice had recently nibbled a copy of Plato's "Republic" in his library. Pliny wrote that rats foretold the Marsian war, B. C. 89, by destroying silver shields and bucklers at Lavinium, an ancient city near Rome; and that they also prognosticated the death of the Roman general, Carbo, by eating his hose-garters and shoe-strings at Clusium, the modern Chiusi, in Etruria. The same writer, in the eighth book of his "Natural History," devotes a short chapter to an enumeration of instances, fabulous or historical, in which the inhabitants of several cities of the Roman Empire were driven from their homes by noxious animals, reptiles, and insects. He states, on the authority of the Greek moralist, Theophrastus (B.C. 372-287), that the natives of the island of Gyaros, one of the Cyclades, were forced to abandon their homes owing to the ravages of rats and mice, which devoured everything they could find, even including iron substances.

When the Philistines took the ark of the Lord from the camp of the Israelites, as recorded in 1 Samuel iv., a plague of mice was sent to devastate their lands, whereupon the Philistines returned the ark, together with a trespass-offering, which included five golden mice, as an atonement for their sacrilegious act.

In mediaeval legendary lore rats figure not unfrequently as avengers. The Polish king, Popiel II., who ascended the throne in the year 820, rendered himself obnoxious to his subjects by his immorality and tyranny, and, according to tradition, Heaven sent against him a multitude of rats, which pursued him constantly. The king and his family sought refuge in a castle situated on an island in the middle of Lake Goplo, on the Prussian frontier. But the rats finally invaded this stronghold and devoured the king and all belonging to him.

Again, in the year 970, so runs the legend, Hatto II., Archbishop of Mayence, who had made himself hateful to his people on account of his avarice and cruelty during a season of famine, was informed by one of his servants that a vast multitude of rats were advancing along the roads leading to the palace. The bishop betook himself at once to a tower in the middle of the Rhine, near Bingen, still known as the "Mouse Tower," where he sought safety from his pursuers. But the rats swam out to the tower, gnawed through its walls, and devoured him. We read also in "A Chronicle of the Kings of England" that, in the reign of William the Conqueror, a great lord was attacked by mice at a banquet, and "though he were removed from land to sea and from sea to land again," the mice pursued him to his death.

Rats and mice were not, however, the only agents employed as avengers. In the year 350, during a long siege of the Roman stronghold, Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, by the Persian king, Sapor II., the inhabitants besought their bishop, St. James, to utter a malediction against the enemy. Accordingly the prelate, standing on one of the wall towers, prayed God that a host of flies might be sent to attack the Persians, and tradition has it that the prayer was answered at once. A multitude of the insects descended upon the besiegers, their horses, and elephants; and men and animals, thus goaded to frenzy, were compelled to retreat, and so the siege was raised. The Philistines of old worshiped a special deity, Beelzebub, to whom they attributed the power of destroying flies. This same region is still infested with insect plagues; but the modern traveler, who has no faith in Beelzebub, is more likely to employ fly-traps and energetic practical measures.

Such are a few instances of the supernatural employment of vermin and insects as instruments of vengeance; and we need hardly wonder that, conversely, people in olden times should avail themselves of supernatural methods in order to protect themselves or their property from the ravages of these noxious creatures.

In Mexico rats were anciently the objects of superstitious regard, for they were credited with possessing a keen insight into the characters of all members of a household, and were wont publicly to announce flagrant breaches of morality on the part of such members by gnawing various articles of domestic furniture, such as mats and baskets. It does not appear, however, that the rodents were sagacious enough to indicate the individual whose conduct had aroused their displeasure.

The Mexicans had also a superstition that whoever partook of food which had been gnawed by rats would be falsely accused of some wrong-doing.

II. SPIRITS ASSUME THE FORMS OF BLACK ANIMALS

The belief in the demoniacal possession of animals was prevalent in Europe for several centuries, and in order to drive away the evil spirits it was customary to employ various exorcisms and incantations, which were supposed to be infallible after approval by ecclesiastical authority. Reginald Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft, says that, according to the testimony of reliable authors, spirits were wont to take the forms of animals, and especially of horses, dogs, swine, goats, and hares. They also appeared in the guise of crows and owls, but took the most delight in the likenesses of snakes and dragons. Bewitched animals were usually of a black color. A black cat is the traditional companion or familiar of witches the world over, and the black dog is also associated with sorcery in the folk-lore of some lands. Among the Slavs the black demon Cernabog has this form, and the black hen is a common devil symbol in mediaeval witch-lore. The gypsies believe, moreover, that black horses are gifted with a supernatural sight, which enables them to see beings invisible to the eye of man. Black animals figure prominently in many legends of the dark ages. Thus the Devil, in the form of a black horse, disturbed a congregation which had gathered to listen to a sermon delivered by St. Peter of Verona in the thirteenth century, but was put to flight by the sign of the cross. Among birds the crow is considered an ominous creature in some countries, and in northeast Scotland is always associated with the "black airt." The raven, too, is traditionally portentous, and is sometimes called the Devil's bird; its plumage is said to have been changed from white to black on account of its disobedience. In Swedish legend the magpie shares the evil reputation of the raven and crow, and is characterized as "a mystic bird, a downright witches' bird, belonging to the Devil and the other powers of the night."

The Kirghis, a nomadic people of Turkestan, are very superstitious in regard to the magpie, and note with care the direction whence the sound of its cry is heard. If from the north, it portends evil; from the south, a remarkable occurrence; from the east, it denotes the coming of guests; and from the west, a journey.

The Rev. Alexander Stewart, in his "Nether Lochaber," deprecates as unreasonable the universal distrust of the magpie. It seems probably that this is due less to its color than to certain other characteristics; for the magpie is a confirmed mimic and kleptomaniac, and of exceeding slyness withal.

Apropos of crows as foreboders, whether of good or evil, an amusing story is told of a man who wished to test for himself the truth or falsity of a popular belief that seeing a couple of crows in the early morning is a sign of good luck. He therefore directed his servant to awaken him at daybreak whenever two crows were to be seen. Accordingly one morning the servant called him, but in the mean time one of the birds had flown away. Thereupon the master became angry and gave his servant a sound beating, upbraiding him with having delayed until but one crow remained. The servant, however, nothing daunted, replied: "Lo, sir, have you not seen the luck which is come to me from seeing two crows?"

Superstition has been defined as "a belief not in accordance with the facts," but this is manifestly incorrect. An ignorant person, who thinks that black cats are more evil-minded than white ones, thereby cherishes a mistaken idea, but is not necessarily superstitious. If, however, he believes that a black cat or any other animal is endowed with a supernatural faculty of exerting evil influences over human beings, then he is not only ignorant, but also superstitious.

III. EXORCISM AND CONJURATION OF VERMIN

The Grecian husbandmen were accustomed to drive away mice by writing them a message on a piece of paper and sticking it on a stone in the infested field. A specimen of such a message, beginning with an adjuration and concluding with a threat, is to be found in the "Geoponica," a Grecian agricultural treatise.

In the endeavor to justify the employment of radical measures against vermin, some curious questions of casuistry were involved. Rats and mice being God's creatures, one ought not to take their lives. But it was considered entirely proper to drive them off one's own domain, while recommending as preferable the well-stocked cellar of a neighbor. Formulae of exorcism, or sentences containing warnings to depart, were written on scraps of paper, which were then well greased and rolled into little balls, or wrapped about poisoned edibles, and placed in the rat-holes.

Conjurations of vermin were usually in the name of St. Gertrude, the first abbess of Nivelle in Belgium, and also the patron saint of travelers and cats, and protectress against the ravages of the smaller rodents.

The Spanish ecclesiastic, Martin Azpilcueta, surnamed Navarre, stated that when rats were exorcised, it was customary to banish them formally from the territory of Spain; and the creatures would then proceed to the seashore and swim to some remote island, where they made their home.

The public records of Hameln, in the kingdom of Hannover, state that in the year 1284 a stranger, in gay and fantastic attire, visited the town and proclaimed himself a professional rat-catcher, offering for a consideration to rid the place of the vermin which infested it. The townsfolk having agreed to his proposal, the stranger began to play a tune upon his pipe, whereupon the rats emerged in swarms from their hiding-places and followed him to the river Weser, where they were all drowned. The people of Hameln now repented of their bargain and refused to pay the full amount agreed upon, for the alleged reason that the rats had been driven away by the aid of sorcery. In revenge for this, the piper played the same time on the next day, and immediately all the children of the town followed him to a cavern in the side of a neighboring hill, called the Koppenberg. The piper and the children entered the cavern, which closed after them; and in remembrance of this tragic event several memorials are to be seen in Hameln. Indeed, some writers maintain that the legend has an historical foundation, and such appears to have been the opinion of the townspeople, inasmuch as for years afterwards public and legal documents were dated from the mournful occurrence.

An old tradition says that mice originally fell upon the earth from the clouds during a thunder-storm, and hence these animals are emblematic of storms; they are also mystical creatures, and have a relationship with Donar, Wodan, and Frigg. In Bavaria profanity is thought to increase the number of mice in a dwelling, and their appearance in the fields in large numbers indicates war, pestilence, or famine. Bohemian peasants are wont to make a certain provision for these elfish rodents; on Christmas Eve and on the first holiday of the year, whatever food remains from the midday meal is thrown upon the barn floor, and the following sentence is repeated: "O mice, eat these remnants and leave the grain in peace!" On Christmas Eve, also, peas are placed in heaps, shaped like a cross, in the four corners of a mouse-infested room, lest the vermin get the upper hand and the premises be overrun. In eastern Prussia, when the harvest is gathered, the last sheaf of corn is left standing in the field, while the peasants surround it and sing a hymn as an incantation against future devastation of their lands by rats or mice. Or, when the corn is harvested, three inverted sheaves are fixed upon the barn floor for a like purpose.

According to a Bohemian legend, the mouse was originally a creation of the Devil, at the time when Noah entered the Ark, attended by the members of his family and followed by a numerous retinue of animals. The Devil, so runs the tale, hated the patriarch for his piety, and with evil intent created the mouse, whom he sent to gnaw a hole in the side of the Ark, through which the water might enter. But God then created the cat, who pursued and devoured the mouse, thus frustrating the design of the Evil One.

At the siege of Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou, in the year 845, during the reign of King Charles the Bald, the French were much annoyed by swarms of grasshoppers of unusual size. They were duly exorcised according to the custom of the times, and having been put to flight, are reported to have precipitated themselves into a river.

The French writer, St. Foix, in his "Essais historiques sur Paris," has recorded that in the year 1120, the Bishop of Laon, in the Department of Aisne, pronounced an injunction against field-mice, on account of their ravages; and St. Bernard, a contemporary of that prelate, while preaching at Foigny in the same diocese, in order to relieve his congregation of the annoyance caused by a multitude of flies, repeated a formula of excommunication against them, whereat, according to monkish records, the flies fell dead in heaps and were gathered up with shovels.

The early Anglo-Saxons not only made use of amulets of wood or other material, on which were engraven Runic characters, to secure protection from elves and demons, but they carried about with them the herb called periwinkle, of the botanical genus Vinca, as a charm against snakes and wild animals.

IV. CHARMS AGAINST ANIMALS

As illustrative of the superstitious use of charms and exorcisms against animals and reptiles in different epochs and countries, we have examples from many and varied sources.

The Egyptians used, as charms against venomous serpents, various magic formulae inscribed upon strips of papyrus, which were rolled up and worn as talismans. A specimen of such an one is to be seen among the Egyptian manuscripts in the Louvre collection.

The following is a translation of a portion of one of these incantations, which invokes the aid of a god to protect the bearer against wild animals and reptiles:--

Come to me, O Lord of Gods, drive far from me the lions coming from the earth, the crocodiles issuing from the river, the mouth of all biting reptiles coming out of their holes.

Pliny recommended a particular herb as an amulet against serpents and vipers. This herb, to which he gives no less than five Latin names, appears to be identical with the Anchusa officinalis of modern pharmacopceias, the bugloss or ox-tongue of southern Europe, a plant now seldom used in therapeutics.

The Grecians also were doubtless addicted to the superstitious use of charms against animals, although there is good authority for the statement that the citizens of ancient Athens did not hesitate on occasion to accelerate the flight of "ominous creatures, as cats and the like," by throwing stones or other handy missiles at them in the night, a method wholly mundane and natural. And in this connection we may quote the opinion of the Ilev. Father Pierre Le Brun, in his "Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses" (Amsterdam, 1733). The learned writer remarks that, if it were desired to drive a strange dog out of one's room, it would be quite unsuitable to begin with prayer and the use of holy water. One should rather first open the door and take hold of a stick, or throw some food outside; and if these and other practical measures fail, then recourse may be had to supernatural expedients, provided these have ecclesiastical sanction.

In a treatise against superstition by a French savant, Martin of Arles, published in 1650, it was stated that the friars of the monastery of Ardennes were wont to boast that no rats could thrive in their neighborhood, and that this fact was due to the merits of St. Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg some of whose relies were deposited in their church. In this monastery also it had been formerly customary to scatter crumbs of bread which had been blessed, in places infested by vermin, and the monks believed that this procedure either caused the death of the animals or frightened them away.

Thuringian houses are sometimes cleared of rats in the following manner: Before sunrise on Good Friday morning, the master of the house, barefooted and in his shirt-sleeves, goes through every room blowing on a tiny whistle made out of the thigh bone of a rat's hind leg. Another curious method of expelling vermin from a dwelling is in vogue in some portions of the Austrian Empire. Before the dawn of a principal feast day, one must take an old shoe which has not been recently cleaned, and lay it on the ground at a place where two roads cross. No word must meanwhile be spoken aloud, but a Paternoster is to be silently repeated. The direction in which the shoe points indicates the course to be taken by the rats in their flight. In the village of Bechlin, a few miles north of Prague, troublesome mice are thus dealt with: Very early on an Easter Sunday morning, before the bells have rung for the first Mass, the peasant matron collects and fastens together all the house-keys. Then she waits until the first stroke of the bell for High Mass at noon, whereupon she proceeds to the cellar, meanwhile jingIing the keys vigorously so Iong as the church-bells ring; when they cease she retraces her steps, still rattling the keys; and these measures are believed to permanently frighten away the mice.

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century a great army of locusts invaded the fields in the neighborhood of the town of Mixco, in Guatemala. So numerous were they as for a time to obscure the light of the sun, and to break the branches of the trees whereon they clung; and they speedily devoured the corn and other crops. Moreover, they covered the highways and startled the traveling mules by their fluttering movements. By order of the magistrates, the people of the country assembled in the fields with trumpets and other instruments in order to scare away the unwelcome visitors. Idols were brought out, especially pictures of the Virgin and of St. Nicholas Tolentine. From the country regions near and far came the Spanish farmers to the town of Mixco, with propitiatory offerings for the saint, and all brought with them loaves of bread to be blessed. These loaves they carried back to their farms, and either threw into their cornfields or buried beneath their hedges, hoping by this method to protect their crops from the locusts.

The mountain ash, or rowan-tree (the Scotch rountree), is thought to have derived its name from the Latin word runa, an incantation, because of its employment in magical arts. Woe to the witch who is touched by a branch of this tree in the hand of a christened man!

Much has been written concerning the folk-lore of the mountain ash, and it is indeed a powerful rival of the horse-shoe in its talismanic virtues, though not as a luck-bringer.

But for the protection of cattle from the incursions of witches, not even the horse-shoe may assume to usurp the rowan's prestige. Branches of this favorite tree, when hung over the stalls of cows or wreathed about their horns, are potent to avert the evil glances or contact, whether of witches or malicious fairies. And their efficacy is enhanced if the farmer is careful to repeat at regular intervals the following fervent petition:--

From Witches and Wizards, and long-tailed Buzzards, and creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms, good Lord, deliver us!

Jamieson, in his "Scottish Dictionary," remarks that this practice of twining the rowan about the horns of cow's bears a certain resemblance to an ancient custom of the Romans in their Palilia, or feast celebrated at the end of April, whose object was the preservation of the flocks. He says:--

The Shepherd, in order to purify his sheep, was in the dusk of the evening to bedew the ground around them with a wet branch, then to adorn the fold with leaves and green branches and to cover the door with garlands.

In China it is customary for the Taouist priests to perform certain magical rites on the completion of a new pigsty, and before the admission of the animals to their new quarters. An altar is erected in honor of the Chu-Lan-Too-Tee, or genii of pigsties, and the walls of the compartments of the sty are adorned with strips of red paper, upon which are Chinese characters, signifying, "Let the enemies of horses, cows, sheep, fowls, dogs, and pigs be appeased."

V. IMAGES OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS USED AS CHARMS

The belief that cities or towns may be protected from the incursions of noxious animals, birds, or insects, by an image or figure representing one of these creatures, is of great antiquity. This seems to be on the principle of the homoeopathic doctrine, "Like cures like." A homely illustration of the same idea is afforded by the shrewd farmer who hangs up a dead crow in his cornfield to protect the crops. On the other hand, the eccentric French writer, Antoine Mizauld, recommended the following as an effective charm for attracting a large number of crows to one spot: As soon as the constellation of the Virgin rises above the horizon, the figure of a half crow is to be painted on a piece of cloth, while these words are repeated: "Let no crow in all this district move away without coming to this image, in whatever spot it may be buried." The piece of cloth, with its magical figure, is then interred and the charm is complete.

Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, the philosopher and pretended magician of the first century, is said to have freed Antioch from scorpions and flies by means of the brazen image of a scorpion. The French bishop, Gregory of Tours, mentions an ancient popular belief that no serpents or dormice were to be seen in Paris. In his time, however, or toward the close of the sixth century, while workmen were removing the mud which covered one of the arches of the Bridge of Paris, they found imbedded therein two brazen images of a serpent and dormouse, which were taken away; and thenceforth, he says, the city was infested by prodigious numbers of dormice and snakes. In Jean Baptiste Thiers's treatise on Superstitions (Paris, 1679), we find allusion to a serpent of brass at Constantinople, which long served as a talisman to bar the entrance of living serpents. But when the city was captured by Mahomet II. in 1453, that monarch broke the teeth of the image by the force of an arrow-shot; and immediately a legion of serpents attacked the inhabitants, but without doing them any harm, for the teeth of all were broken. In the reign of Charlemagne it was customary in Piedmont to use a formula for blessing holy water with which to drive away noxious animals from the crops, and with such success that not a single mole could be found in the whole town of Aosta, nor within three thousand paces beyond its boundaries.

Mr. Andrew Lang, in his volume entitled "Custom and Myth," says that, in a church of a certain old Saxon town, the verger is wont to exhibit to visitors a silver mouse dedicated to Our Lady; explaining that the town was infested with mice until this now precious relic was presented by some ladies as a propitiatory offering, whereupon the creatures disappeared at once.

According to the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, the therapeutic virtues of plants were indicated by certain peculiarities of their external appearance. Thus Dracontium, or great dragon, a plant which has a fancied resemblance to this mythical monster, was thought to be a preservative against serpents; and the scorpion-grass (Myosotis), whose flower-spike was not unlike a scorpion's tail, was deemed an antidote to the stings of noxious insects.

Indeed, the old herbalists of England claimed by the sole use of herbs, not only to cure all fleshly ills, but to drive away or keep at a distance wolves, leopards, and all venomous wild beasts.

In Tibet, according to L. Austine Waddell, M. B., ferocious mastiffs are permitted to roam at large in the night, a source of terror to wayfarers, who therefore carry about charms consisting of "the picture of a dog muzzled and fettered by a chain, terminated by the mystic and all-powerful thunderbolt sceptre," while along the dog's body are written certain Sanskrit magical sentences.

 VI. WORDS USED AS CHARMS

The English word "charm" is derived from the Latin carmen, a verse; and the magical potency of a sentence used as a charm was believed to rest in the words themselves, and not in the person who uttered them. In the opinion of the cabalistic magicians of the Middle Ages, the power of a charm of words depended upon its being unintelligible.

The Latin poet, Varius, wrote in the first century B.C. that old women, by the sole use of words as charms, were able not only to restrain and subjugate wild animals and serpents, but also to drive away noxious creatures and vermin. Few early writers allude to this practice, which appears, however, to have been much in vogue in different countries towards the close of the mediaeval period. The Swiss theologian, Felix Hammerlein (1389-1457), wrote of a peasant living near Zurich who was able, by repeating a magic formula, to rid infested premises of adders, vipers, lizards, and other reptiles; and in some parts of Normandy it was a custom formerly to place small rolls of bay under the fruit trees. The hay was then set on fire by means of torches carried by young children, who repeated meanwhile: "Mice, caterpillars, and moles, get out of my field; I will burn your beard and your bones; trees and shrubs, give me three bushels of apples." Hampson remarks that this incantation somewhat resembles one employed by the ancient Grecians against beetles, whom they held responsible for the destruction of their corn. These magical lines are thus translated: "Fly, beetles, the ravenous wolf pursues you."

It was currently reported among the ancients that the famous philosopher, Pythagoras, not only possessed the faculty of predicting storms and earthquakes, but that he had by a magical word been enabled to tame a Daunian bear, and had also prevented an ox from eating beans by whispering in his ear.

Antoine Mizauld, the French physician and astrologer, affirmed that, according to Ptolemy, in order to drive away serpents, one should prepare a talisman by engraving the figure of two serpents upon a square piece of copper and pronouncing a charm of words as follows: "With this image I forbid serpents to harm any one, and command them to leave the place where it shall be buried." In like manner, says the same authority, to expel rats and mice, one has only to represent an image of one of these creatures upon a piece of tin or copper, and at the proper time, as determined by astrology, command them to depart.

In order to expel snakes, insects, and vermin from their dwellings, the Bulgarian women of Turkey, on the last day of February, endeavor to frighten the creatures by beating copper vessels all over the house, while shouting, "Out with you, snakes, scorpions, flies, bugs, and fleas!" One of the vessels is then taken into the court-yard, the pests being expected to follow it. And in Serfo, an island of the Grecian archipelago, at the commencement of the vintage a bunch of grapes is thrown into each house to expel the vermin, while this formula is repeated: "The black grape will sicken you; the black grape will poison you! Out with you, rats and fleas!"

In Albania, when locusts or cockchafers devastate the fields, a number of women, having caught some of the insects, form a mock funeral procession, and proceed to drown them in some convenient stream. And while on their way thither they chant in turn the following dirge, which all repeat in chorus:--

O locusts, O cockchafers, parents kind,
Orphaned you have left us all behind.

And this proceeding is thought to be destructive to the whole swarm of insects.

The following charm against foxes was formerly used in France, and was to be repeated thrice a week:--

Foxes, both male and female, I conjure you in the name of the Holy Trinity, that ye neither touch nor carry off any of my fowls, whether roosters, hens or chickens; nor eat their nests, nor stick their blood, nor break their eggs, nor do them any barm whatever.

The Roman Catholic Church formerly sanctioned the use of certain sentences as charms against vipers, and the following may serve as a specimen:--

I conjure thee, O serpent, in this hour, by the five holy wounds of Our Lord, that thou remove not out of this place, as certainly as God was born of a pure Virgine. Otherwise, I conjure thee, serpent, by Our Lady St. Mary, that thou obey me, as wax obeyeth the fire, and as fire obeyeth water, that thou neither hurt me nor any other Christian, as certainly as God was born of an immaculate Virgine, in which respect I take thee up. In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. . . . Otherwise, O vermine, thou must come as God came unto the Jews."

When a Turk chances to encounter a serpent, he is wont to invoke the aid of Chah-Miran, the serpent-king, and in the name of this deity he bids the reptile depart. Now Chah-Miran has long been dead, but the astute Turk reasons that serpents are not aware of this fact, for, if they were, the human race would be helpless against their attacks.

As preservatives from the stings of insects, and to prevent the croaking of frogs, the Moslems use scraps of paper containing magical formulae, or sentences from the Koran engraved on stones or pieces of metal; and a method formerly in vogue in France, to protect pigeons from the incursions of scorpions, consisted in writing the word "Adam" on each of the four walls of the pigeon-house.

The natives of Mirzapur, in cases of scorpion-bite, recite a charm meaning as follows:--"Black scorpion of the limestone, green thy tail and black thy mouth, God orders thee to go home. Come out, scorpion, at the spell. Come out, come out!"

The following charm against insects is in vogue in Lesbos: In the evening a black-handled knife is stuck in some spot where the insects congregate, and certain Greek verses are repeated, of which the following is a translation:--

I got three naughty bairns together,
One a wasp, one caterpillar,
And a swarming ant the other.
Whate'er ye eat, whate'er ye drink,
Hence, hence avaunt,
To the hills and mountains flee,
And unto each fruitless tree.

The knife is to remain in the same spot until the next morning, and is then to be removed. This completes the charm, and the insects are expected to depart at once.

In Great Britain there formerly prevailed a belief that rats could be rhymed to death by anathematizing them in metrical verse, a practice mentioned by Shakespeare and contemporary poets, and which is even to-day not wholly obsolete.

In southern Germany, during the campaigns of Napoleon I., mice with inked feet were placed upon the map of Europe, and their tracks were held to foretell the routes by which the French soldiers would advance.

The Hindus consider the rat to be a sacred animal, and among the lower classes of the natives of western India it is thought unlucky to call a rat by his own name, so they speak of him as the "rat-uncle."

VII. SUPERSTITIOUS DEALINGS WITH WILD ANIMALS

In encountering a wild animal, the ancients deemed it a matter of great importance that a man should see the beast before the latter was aware of a human presence. If a wolf, for example, first perceived the man, the brute was master of the situation, and the man was bereft alike of speech and strength; whereas the wolf, if first seen by the man, became an easy prey. The side from which a wild beast approached was also of moment. Thus the "Geoponica" warned its readers not to allow a hyena to approach from the right side, lest one be rendered motionless by the fascination of its presence; but if it appeared on the left side, the animal might be attacked with confidence.

Various wonderful tales are current among the natives of Senegambia, and other districts of western Africa, regarding the lion. This noble animal, it is said, forbears to attack a man who salutes him with a respectful gesture, and the same gallant instinct restrains the beast from harming a woman. In most lion-haunted regions, however, the natives do not have such implicit confidence in the courtesy and forbearance of wild animals, but trust rather to the efficacy of various amulets. The Kaffirs of southeastern Africa, for example, on encountering a lion or leopard in the forest, proceed at once to nibble a so-called lion-charm, which is merely a small bit of wood or root. And if the animal moves away without molesting him, the Kaffir attributes his security to the magic power of the charm, not realizing that his escape is due to the natural dread of man which is characteristic of animals generally.

So, too, the priests of Mexico were accustomed to rub their bodies with a certain ointment which they believed to be an efficient protection against wild beasts, its pungent odor acting as a charm, so that they were enabled to wander unmolested amid the wildest solitudes. The skilled hunter, however, confident in his own prowess, depends neither upon the alleged gallantry of lions nor the potency of amulets, but rather on his trusty rifle.

The belief in charms against noxious animals is widespread; for not alone in African jungles does this form of superstition prevail: it is found among civilized people as well, and more particularly in southern lands; indeed, wherever venomous creatures abound. In a collection of amulets belonging to Professor Joseph Belucci, of Perugia, Italy, which was exhibited at the Paris Exposition, 1891, were a number of perforated stones and other objects used by Italians as charms to protect the bearer against the bite of serpents and reptiles.

VIII. LEGAL PROSECUTION OF ANIMALS

Legal proceedings were formerly instituted against vermin, who were thus treated as if they were human beings endowed with consciences and responsible for their actions. Prosecutions of animals were common in France and Switzerland, with a view to protect communities from their depredations. Thus rats and mice, and also bulls, oxen, cows, and mares; sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs; moles, leeches, caterpillars, and various reptiles, were liable to punishment by legal process. The Roman Catholic Church claimed full power to anathematize all animate and inanimate things, founding its authority on the Scriptural precedents of the malediction pronounced on the serpent in the garden of Eden, and the cursing of the barren fig-tree by our Lord. The belief in the moral responsibility of animals was also thought to be warranted by the old Mosaic law as declared in Genesis ix. 5:--

And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man.

Also in Exodus xxi. 28:--

If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.

In the Code of the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, and in that of the Athenian legislator, Draco, provision was made for the formal trial of animals for misdemeanors. A vestige of the unreasonable belief that brutes and even inanimate objects were accountable for their actions is to be found in that now obsolete term of English law, deodand, meaning, according to Blackstone, "a personal chattel which was the immediate cause of the death of a rational creature, and for that reason given to God; that is, forfeited to the Crown to be applied to pious uses." The deodand was of Grecian ancestry, as appears from the ceremonies connected with the offering of a sacrifice by the Athenians. When the animal or victim had been dispatched by an axe in the hands of the officiating priest, the latter immediately fled, and to evade arrest he threw away the axe. This instrument was then seized by his pursuers, and an action entered against it. The advocate for the axe pleaded that it was less guilty than the grinder who sharpened it; the grinder laid the blame on the grindstone which he had used; and thus the whole process became a farce and a mockery of justice.

We learn from the writings of the Benedictine monk, Leonard Vair, that in certain districts of Spain, in the fifteenth century, when the inhabitants wished to drive away grasshoppers or noxious vermin, they chose a conjurer as judge and appointed counsel for the defendants, with a prosecuting attorney, who demanded justice in behalf of the aggrieved comniunity. The rnischief-makers were finally declared guilty, and either duly anathematized or formally excommunicated, the technical distinction between the two sentences being doubtless to them a matter of profound indifference. At this period, also, prosecutions of pigs or sows guilty of devouring young infants were not uncommon.

Barthelemy Chassaneux, a famous French advocate of the sixteenth century, first won distinction by the originality of his pleas in defense of some rats in a notable trial at Autun. He represented to the judge that his clients found it extremely difficult to obey the summons issued to them by the court, owing to their being obliged to traverse a region abounding in cats, who were, moreover, especially alert on account of the notoriety of the legal proceedings.

Chassaneux wrote that the people of Autun had long agitated the question how best to rid the province of Burgundy of locusts, and he expressed the belief that a sure method of accomplishing so desirable a result was by the scrupulous payment of all tithes and ecclesiastical dues, and by causing a woman to walk barefoot round the infested fields.

After the seventeenth century, prosecutions of animals and the use of incantations for their expulsion became less common. The Ritual of Séez in 1743 forbade such practices without the special permission of the church, but the same volume contains a formula for driving away grasshoppers, maybugs, and other insects. Mr. C. G. Leland states, in his "Gypsy Sorcery," that exorcism has been vigorously applied in the United States, not only against the Colorado beetle and army worm, but also for the suppression of blizzards and the grape disease. It has not had much success hitherto, probably owing, as he naively remarks, to the uncongenial climate.

THE LUCK OF ODD NUMBERS

"For there's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More.
     --SAMUEL LOVER.

I. EARLY SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBERS

IN the "Cabala," or ancient mystic philosophy of the Jews, much importance is attributed to the combination of certain numbers, letters, and words. According to one tradition, the earliest Cabala was given by the angel Raziel to Adam, and orally transmitted through generations until the time of Solomon, by whom it was first embodied in written form. Another report alleges that the cabalistic secrets of nature were received from God by Moses in the Mount, and afterwards taught to Joshua, who communicated them to the seventy elders, and they have since been treasured by the initiated among the Jews.

According to the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, the unit or monad was regarded as the father of Numbers, while the duad, or two, was its mother; and thus is explained one source of the general predilection for odd numbers, the father being esteemed worthy of greater honor than the mother, and the odd numbers being masculine, while the even numbers were feminine. Moreover, the unit, being the origin of all numbers, represented Divinity, as God was the creator and originator of all things. It was also the symbol of Harmony and Order, whereas the duad signified Confusion and Disorder, and represented the Devil.

Plutarch remarks in his "Roman Questions" that the beginning of number, or unity, is a divine thing; whereas the first of the even numbers, Deuz or Deuce, is directly opposite in character. As for the even number, said this writer, it is defective, imperfect, and indefinite; whereas the uneven or odd number is finite, complete, and absolute.

The belief in the lucky significance of odd numbers is of great antiquity, and reference to it is made by Virgil in the eighth Eclogue, and by Pliny, who comments on its prevalence in his time, but offers no explanation therefor. The Roman king, Numa Pompilius, is said to have added days to certain months in order to make an odd number.

It is related, moreover, that the Emperor Julius Caesar (B. C. 100-44), having once been thrown out of his chariot through some mishap, refused thereafter to set out upon a drive or journey until he had thrice repeated a magic formula; and this practice appears to have been commonly in vogue in those days.

The persistency of a traditional belief is exemplified by the modern association of luck with uneven numbers; and probably the Goddess Fortune herself preferred a three-legged stool. However this may be, it is evident that the legions of her worshipers to-day are firmly convinced of the mystic charm inherent in triplets. The Chinese pagodas, or sacred towers, built by devout persons with the object of improving the luck of a neighborhood, have always an odd number of stories, being from three to thirteen floors high. In Siam, also, this superstition holds universal sway, and its influence in the construction of buildings is especially noticeable; for the Siamese religiously adhere to odd numbers in architecture, and every house must have an uneven number of rooms, windows, and doors; each staircase must have an uneven number of steps.

In the early literature and mythology of the Northern nations much importance was attached to the numbers three and nine, which were held especially sacred and dear to the gods. This fact is shown in their religious ceremonies, and more particularly in their sacrifices, which occurred every ninth month. Each sacrifice, moreover, lasted nine days, and each day nine victims, whether men or animals, were offered up.

II. THE NUMBER THREE

Three, as emblematic of the Trinity, has always been considered a sacred number, and long before the Christian era God was worshiped as a triple Deity. This is true not only of the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, but also of the ancient Scandinavians, the Druids, the inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, as well as the Chinese and Japanese.

So from earliest times the Hindus have worshiped their triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. In Holy Writ we find three sister virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity; and in classic mythology are trios of Graces, Fates, and Furies, the three-forked lightning of Jupiter, the threeheaded dog, Cerberus, and the trident of Neptune. The tripod was anciently a symbol of prophecy and of divine authority, and the triangle was originally the pagan emblem of a holy triad.

The peculiar significance of the number three was due partly to the fact of its being the first uneven number containing an even one; and from the importance formerly attributed to it may have originated the familiar saying, "The third time never fails."

In the several codes of ancient Welsh laws are numerous so-called triads, of which the following are curious examples:--

Three things which a villain is not at liberty to sell without permission of his lord; a horse, swine, and honey. Three things not to be paid for though lost in a lodging-house; a knife, a sword, and trousers. There are three animals whose tails, eyes, and lives are of the same worth; a calf, a filly for common worth, and a cat, excepting the cat that shall watch the king's barn.

Among the ancient Irish, also, considerable importance was attached to the number three. Thus we read that among the household officials of the High King of Erin were three royal jugglers, three jesters, three head charioteers, three equerries, three swineherds, three janitors, and three drink-bearers.

Multiples of the mystic number three were much employed by witches in their incantations, and they are even now favorites with the Chinese, who have a saying that one produced two and two produced three, while three produced all things. This partiality is illustrated in the dimensions of the Temple of Heaven in Pekin, where three and nine constantly recur.

In a book entitled "Varieties," by David Person (London, 1635), being "a surveigh of rare and excellent matters, necessary and delectable for all sorts of persons the author comments at some length on the significance of certain triads. Among others he mentions three things incident to man,-- to fall into sin, which is human; to rise out of it again, which is angelical; and to lie in sin, which is diabolical. Again, three powerful enemies, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, which constantly assail man, should be opposed by three efficient weapons, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Thomas Vaughan in his "Anthroposophia Theomagica," has much to say concerning the virtues of numbers. "Every compound whatsoever," he says, "is three in one and one in three." In speaking of a natural triplicity, however, he does not wish to be understood as referring to "kitchen-stuff, those three pet principles, water, oil, and the earth, but to celestial hidden natures, known only to absolute magicians."

In Northumberland smooth holly leaves, gathered late on a Friday, are collected in a three-cornered handkerchief and carried home. Then nine of the leaves are tied into a handkerchief with nine knots, and placed under the would-be diviner's pillow, and, as a result, interesting revelations from dreamland are confidently anticipated. In another magical ceremony, a maiden before retiring sets three pails of water on the floor of her bedroom, and pins three holly leaves on her left breast. She will then, conformably to the popular belief, be awakened from her first nap by three loud yells, followed by three horse-laughs, whereupon the form of her future husband will be revealed to her.

The supposed efficacy of these rites doubtless depends chiefly upon the use of the magical holly, but the repetition of odd numbers is also characteristic of charms, incantations, and mystic procedures in all ages and throughout the world.

III. THE NUMBER SEVEN

The number seven has ever been regarded as having a peculiar mystic significance, and its manifold virtues have been the theme of elaborate monographs. Alike in Holy Writ and among the earliest historic peoples, in classic antiquity and in the mythologies of many nations, this number has been most prominent, and to this fact may reasonably be attributed a portion of the luck associated with odd numbers in general. A complete enumeration of familiar examples of the use of this favorite number, although germane to our subject, would be beyond the scope of this sketch, but a few instances may be, appropriately given.

The origin of the respect accorded this number by the nations of antiquity was probably astronomical, or more properly astrological, and arose from their observation of the seven great planets and of the lunar phases, changing every seventh day.

Saturn is first, next Jove, Mars third in place;
The Sun in midst, fifth Venus runs her race,
Mercury sixth, Moon lowest and last in band,
The Planets in this rank and manner stand.

It was a saying of Hippocrates that the number seven, by reason of its mystic virtues, tended to the accomplishment of all things, and was the dispenser of life and the fountain of all its changes; for as the moon changes its phases every seven days, so this number influences all sublunary beings. The phrase "to be in the seventh heaven" was derived from the seven planets, which were believed by the Babylonians to be carried around upon as many globes of crystal, the seventh being the highest. In the writings of the Cabalists of old are likewise portrayed seven heavens, one above another, and the seventh or highest was the abode of God and the higher angels. The ultimate source of the sanctity of the number seven has, however, been ascribed to the septentriones, the seven ploughing oxen, stars of the constellation of the Great Bear.

An ingenious but not especially plausible reason alleged for the popularity of this number is the fact of its being composed of three, the number of sides in a triangle, and four, the number of sides in a square, thus representing two of the simplest geometric figures.

Certain Biblical critics of a speculative turn of mind have concluded that its prominence as a symbol is due to the emblematic significance of its component parts, three and four; the former representing Divinity, and the latter Humanity: in other words, "the union between God and man, as affected by the manifestations of the Divinity in creation and revelation."

In some portions of a great work on magic, discovered by Mr. A. H. Layard among fragments of clay tablets in the ruins of a palace in ancient Nineveh, are many incantations, formulae, and conjurations, in which the number seven occurs repeatedly.

As familiar instances of the prominence of this number in former times may be cited the seven wise men of Greece, the seven gates of Thebes, and the legend of the seven sleepers of Ephesus.

Other examples are given in the following "seven heroic verses" sent by a certain Mr. Michelburn to one Mr. Crisp, who owed the former seven shillings:--

Friend Crisp, I send you verses only sev'n,
The number's od, God numbers lovs unev'n;
Sev'n Hills at Rome, sev'n months of Nilus are,
Sev'n sacred Arts, the World's sev'n Wonders rare,
The week sev'n dais, the Heav'ns sev'n Trions show.
But one thing rests, sev'n shillings you me ow,
Which that you'l pay, sev'n Verses I bestow."

In ancient Ireland every well-to-do farmer had seven prime possessions,--a house, a mill or a share in it, a kiln, barn, sheep-pen, calf-house, and pigsty.

The number seven appears more than three hundred times in the Scriptures. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and throughout the Old Testament, as well as in the Apocalypse, the constant recurrence of this sacred number is noteworthy. Thus we read of the seven fat and seven lean kine of Pharaoh's dream, and also, in the account of the Fall of Jericho (Joshua vi. 4): "And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets."

According to a popular mediaeval tradition, Adam and Eve remained but seven hours in Eden.

Seven archangels are mentioned and in the Bible and in Jewish writings,--Michael, who was the special guardian and protector of the Jews, and in whose honor the Festival of Michaelmas is celebrated on the twenty-ninth day of September by the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches; Gabriel, the messenger who appeared to the Virgin Mary and to Zacharias; Raphael, spoken of in the Book of Tobit as the companion and guardian of Tobias, and conqueror of the demon Asmodeus; Uriel, an angel mentioned in the Book of Esdras; Chumuel, who, according to Jewish tradition, wrestled with Jacob; Jophiel, who expelled Adam and Eve from Eden, and who was the guardian of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" and Zadkiel, the angel who is supposed to have stayed the hand of Abraham when the latter was about to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Samson's strength resided in seven locks of his hair, representing the seven rays of Light, the source of Strength. And the shearing of these seven locks by Delilah, a woman of low character, has been described as a triumph of Evil in suppressing Light.

According to Herodotus, the Arabs of the desert had a peculiar method of confirming a vow of friendship. Two men stood on either side of a third, who made incisions with a sharp stone on the palms of their hands, and, having dipped in the blood therefrom some portion of a garment of each, he proceeded to moisten with it seven stones lying on the ground.

The age of the world, in the opinion of learned men of former times, was properly divided into seven great epochs; namely, the first, from the creation of Adam to the Deluge; second, from the latter event to the time of Abraham; third, from Abraham to the Exodus of the children of Israel; fourth, from that time to the building of Solomon's Temple; fifth, from then to the Babylonish Captivity; sixth, the period between that and the coming of our Lord; and seventh, from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the world.

According to astrologers, man's age was divided into seven parts, governed by seven planets. The first part, Infancy, comprised four years, and was ruled by the Moon, a weak, moist, and changeable body. Next came Childhood, a period of ten years governed by Mercury, a planet indifferently good or bad, according to the character of the planets with whom he was associated. Following this came Youthhead, from fourteen to twenty-two, over which Venus presided. Next was Adolescence, lasting twenty years and ruled by the Sun, and in this age man attained his full strength and vigor. The fifth, from forty-two to fifty-six, was called Manhood, and was under the dominion of Mars, a bad star. At this time men began to wax angry, impatient, and avaricious, but were more temperate in their diet, and more discreet. The next period of twelve years was called Old Age, governed by Jupiter, a noble planet, whose influence rendered men religious, chaste, and just. The seventh was Decrepit Old Age, ruled by Saturn, and comprising the years from seventy-eight to ninety-eight.

In the Lambeth Palace Library there is a manuscript of the fifteenth century in which the seven canonical hours are compared with the seven periods of human life, as follows:--

Morning, Infancy.
Midmorrow, Childhood.
Undern, School Age.
Mid-day, the Knightly Age.
Nones, or High Noon, the Kingly Age.
Midovernoon, Elderly Age.
Evenson, Declining Age.

In the "Secrets of Numbers," by William Ingpen, Gent. (London, 1624), the number seven is described as the most excellent of all for several notable and curious reasons, and prominent among these was the alleged fact that the Soul consists of seven parts, namely, Acuminie, Wit, Diligence, Counsel, Reason, Wisdom, and Experience.

IV. ODD NUMBERS IN WITCHCRAFT

Odd numbers are intimately associated with the black art, for witches' incantations are commonly repeated three or nine times. Who ever heard of a witch performing any of her mystic rites exactly four or six times? Apropos of this may be quoted the following story, taken from the advance sheets of a work entitled "Golspie," edited by Edward W. B. Nicholson, M. A., Bodley's Librarian in the University of Oxford, England, and loaned by him to the writer. The book contains much interesting folk-lore of the extreme north of Scotland:--

A woman who lived near Golspie was always telling her neighbors that a woman whom they all believed to be a witch had cast an evil eye upon the cow and herself. "Her milk and butter were spoiled," she said; and she also told them that in a dream she saw the witch in the shape of a hare come into her milk-house and drink the milk. One day when she was in the wood for sticks, her neighbors went into her byre, and seeing a petticoat on a nail, cut a number of crosses on it and put it in the cow's stall. Then they tied nine rusty nails to a cord with nine knots on it. This cord they tied to the chain on the cow's neck, and then went away. Shortly after the woman came home, she went into the byre, and seeing the petticoat, nails, etc., ran out to her neighbors screaming, and calling to them to go and see what the witch had done on her. To make sure that it was the witch's work, she showed them the unequal number of nails and knots. Then she took everything that she thought the witch had handled, and made a fire of them, saying that she could no longer harm any person, because her power was destroyed by fire.

The employment of odd numbers in magical formulae is exemplified in the following recipe for a drink against all temptations of the Devil, used by the Saxons in England:--

Take betony, bishopwort, lupins, githrife, attorlothe, wolfscomb, yarrow; lay them under the altar, sing nine masses over them, scrape the worts into holy water, give the man to drink at night, fasting, a cup-full, and put the holy water into all the meat which the man taketh. Work thus a good salve against the temptations of the fiend.

A Hindu woman, on returning with her young child from a strange village, is careful, before entering her own dwelling, to pass seven small stones seven times around the baby's head, and throw them away in different directions, in order thus to disperse any evil which may have been contracted during her trip.

And as a preliminary to other mystic procedures, in order to avert the Evil Eye, the Hindus wave around the patient's face seven pebbles taken from a spot where three roads meet, seven leaves of the date-palm, and seven bunches of leaves of the bor tree. It may not be surprising that such mysterious rites, whose efficacy depends chiefly on the magical potency of certain odd numbers, should be popular among the natives of India, but it is noteworthy that these numbers are equally influential in Christian lands. A multiplication of examples might serve to emphasize this fact, but would occupy too much space. Charms and formulas are commonly thrice repeated, probably in reference to the Holy Trinity.

Of all the numbers arithmeticall,
The number three is heald for principall,
As well in naturall philosophy,
As supernaturall theologie.

The Bavarian peasant, in passing through a haunted place, considers himself amply fortified against evil if he takes the precaution to carry three things; namely, (1) a new knife which has never cut anything, marked on the blade with three crosses; (2) a loaf of bread baked on Epiphany Eve; (3) a black cat.

V. ODD NUMBERS IN FOLK-MEDICINE

In a volume containing a great variety of ancient charms and magical cures, collected by Marcellus Empiricus, a Latin writer of the fourth century A. D., in which volume various remedial measures are described with great minuteness, the even numbers seldom appear. Thus, for the removal of a foreign substance from the eye, one should rub the affected organ with the five fingers of the hand of the same side, and repeat thrice a charm of words. Again, for the cure of a sty on the eyelid, take nine grains of barley and poke the sty with each one separately, meanwhile repeating a magic formula in Greek. Then throw away the nine and do the same with seven, throw away the seven and do the same with five, and so with three and one.

The early Saxon physicians in England seem also to have had faith in the peculiar virtues of the number nine, as is evident from many of their prescriptions, of which the following prefix to a lengthy Latin charm is a fair specimen:--

For flying venom and every venomous swelling, on a Friday churn butter which has been milked from a neat or hind all of one colour, and let it not be mingled with water. Sing over it nine times a litany and nine times the Paternoster, and nine times this incantation.

In an ancient English manuscript (Harleian Collection, No. 585), frequent examples are given of the employment of odd numbers in therapeutics. Thus, for dropsical affections, a beverage containing alexander betony, and fennel is to be drunk daily for seven days. "To expel venom," centaury is to be taken for fifteen days, and a potion prepared from the seed of cress is extolled for its curative qualities if taken faithfully during three days.

Indeed, the odd numbers are prominent in the annals of folk-medicine throughout Great Britain. The three chief duties of a physician were declared to be as follows: the restoration of health when lost, its amelioration when weak, and its preservation when recovered. So also three qualities were requisite in a surgeon; namely, an eagle's eye, a lion's heart, and a lady's hand, attributes equally essential to the skillful operator of the present day.

The natives of the Hebrides inherit the old Scandinavian and Celtic partiality for certain odd numbers. Thus in Tiree a favorite cure for jaundice consists in wearing a shirt previously dipped in water taken from the tops of nine waves, and in which nine stones have been boiled. These same people formerly employed a peculiar method of treating sick cattle. The veterinary, holding in his hands a cup of cream and an oat-cake, takes his seat upon the animal, and repeats a Celtic charm of words "nine times nine times," taking "a bit and a sip" before each repetition.

In Cornwall, for the cure of inflammatory affections, the invocation of three angels is thrice repeated to each one of nine bramble leaves; and a popular remedy for whooping cough is to pass a child nine times under and over a three-year-old donkey. In the south of England, for intermittent fever, the patient is recommended to eat seven sage leaves on seven successive mornings, fasting meanwhile; and in northern Scotland scrofulous affections are thought to yield to the touch of a seventh son, when accompanied by an invocation of the Trinity.

The belief in the magical curative qualities of the number nine was not limited to the northern nations. Thus the inhabitant of ancient Apulia, when bitten by a scorpion, proceeded to walk nine times around the walls of his native town.

Dr. D. G. Brinton, in his "Nagualism, a Study of Native American Folk-Lore and History," remarks that the number nine recurs very often in the conjurations of Mexican magicians.

The women of Canton, China, attribute magical properties for the cure of cutaneous affections to water drawn after midnight of the seventh day of the seventh month.

When a gypsy child bumps its head, a knife-blade is first pressed upon the swelling, after which an incantation is pronounced three, seven, or nine times, and the knife is stuck into the earth a like number of times. Many charms employed by gypsies could be mentioned in illustration of the avoidance of even numbers in all their mystic rites.

In regard to the luck of odd numbers, the exception, which is commonly supposed to prove the rule, is the much maligned thirteen.

In the Scandinavian mythology Loki, the Principle of Evil and the chief author of human misfortunes, accompanied the twelve AEsir, or Demigods, and was reckoned the thirteenth among them. Moreover, the Valkyrs, or Virgins, who waited upon the heroes in Valhalla, were thirteen in number, and from these sources is believed to have sprung the very common superstition concerning the ill luck and fatality of the number thirteen, especially in connection with a party of guests at table.

The most generally received explanation of the origin of this popular belief refers it to the Last Supper of our Lord, where Judas is sometimes represented as the thirteenth guest. But why Judas rather than John, the beloved disciple? However, this is the generally accepted starting-point of this notable superstition. As with the Jews the thirteenth month, and with the Christians the thirteenth day of the year, which began with Christmas, were accounted ominous, so, with the inhabitants of India, the thirteenth year was considered to be of evil import. It is evident, therefore, that the source of this nearly world-wide belief cannot be attributed wholly either to the mythology of the north or to the Paschal Supper.

When the year was reckoned as thirteen lunar months of twenty-eight days each, the number thirteen, according to one view, was considered auspicious; but when, under the present method of solar time, the number of months was reduced to twelve, thirteen's reputation was changed for the worse.

In early times the Feast of the Epiphany, which is the thirteenth day after Christmas Eve, was feared because at that time the three goddesses, Berchta, Holle, and Befana, with their ghostly companions, were especially active; and, as a guard against their machinations, the initial letters of the names of the three kings, or wise men, were written on many a door.

Of the former trio, Berchta was represented as a shaggy monster, whose name was used as a bugbear with which to frighten children. She was intrusted with the oversight of spinning, and on the eve of Epiphany she visited the homes of the countryfolk, distributing empty reels, which she required to be filled within a specified time; if her demands were not complied with, she retaliated by tangling and befouling the flax.

Holle, or Holda, was a benignant and merciful goddess, of an obliging disposition, who was usually most lenient, except when she noticed disorder in the affairs of a household. Her favorite resorts were the lakes and fountains, but she had also an oversight over domestic concerns, and shared with Berchta the supervision of spinning. Sometimes, however, she appeared as an old hag, with bristling, matted hair and long teeth.

Befana, the third goddess, was of Italian origin, and her name signifies Epiphany. On that day the women and children used to place a rag doll in the window in her honor. In personal appearance she was black and ugly, but her disposition was not unfriendly.

So universal has been the superstition regarding the number thirteen at table, that it has long been a matter of etiquette in France to avoid having exactly that number of guests at dinner-parties. The Parisian pique-assiette, a person whose title corresponds to the English "trencher friend" or "sponger," is also known as a quatorziême, his chief mission being to occupy the fourteenth seat at a banquet.

The ancients, we learn, had ideas of their own regarding the proper size of festive gatherings, their favorite number of convives being between three and nine, the number of the Graces and Muses respectively.

Opinions have differed as to whether misfortune were likely to befall the whole company of thirteen persons rash enough to dine together, or only the one leaving the room first after the repast. All evil, however, was supposed to be averted by the entire company rising to their feet together. It has been wittily remarked that the only occasion when thirteen plates at table should cause disquietude is when the food is only sufficient for twelve persons.

At the thirteenth annual dinner of that unique organization, the Thirteen Club, held in New York city, January 13, 1895, at 7:13 o'clock, P.M., the custodian delivered an address in which were recounted the circumstances of the club's formation. So prevalent was the apprehension of evil likely to result from the assembling together of thirteen persons that, when at length the requisite number were seated at table, it was found desirable to lock the doors of the banquet-room, lest some faint soul should retire abruptly.

Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, in his "Forty-One Years in India" (vol. i. p. 24), mentions a circumstance occurring in his own experience, which affords evidence, were any needed, of the falsity of the superstition in question. On New Year's Day, A. D. 1853, Lord Roberts was one of a party of thirteen who dined together at a staff-officers' mess at Peshawer, on the Afghan frontier. Eleven years later all these officers were alive, the greater number having participated in the suppression of the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, during which several of them were wounded.

In Italy shrewd theatrical managers have found it expedient to change the number of Box 13 to 12A, and in many streets of Rome and Florence one may search in vain for house-numbers between 12-1/2 and 14. A gentleman of the writer's acquaintance, living in Washington, D. C., sent a formal petition to the authorities asking leave to change the number of his house, for the sole reason that it contained the ominous figures.

As an illustration of the popular distrust of the number thirteen among the villagers of the Department of Ille-et-Villaine, France, may be cited the following custom, which is in vogue in that district. Children are there usually taught the art of knitting by devout elderly women. The little ones are first seated in a circle, and, to facilitate the work, on the completion of the first round of knitting they are made to repeat the following words: One, the Father;" at the close of the second round, "Two, the Son;" and so on, as follows: "Three, the Holy Spirit; the four Evangelists; the five wounds of our Lord; the six commandments of the church; seven sacraments; eight beatitudes; nine choirs of angels; ten commandments of God; eleven thousand virgins twelve apostles;" and at the close of the thirteenth round, the children mention the name of Judas.

This remarkable and unreasonable prejudice against an innocent number seems to pervade all classes and communities. The possession of intelligence and culture is no effective barrier against it. Arguments and reasoning are alike vain. Even at this writing, an evening journal records that at a recent meeting of a newly elected board of aldermen in an enlightened city of eastern Massachusetts, one of the members objected to casting lots for seats because he did not relish the idea of drawing number thirteen. However, his scruples having been in a measure overcome, he was much relieved to find that the number eleven, which is both uneven and lucky, had fallen to his share.

Brand quotes as follows from Fuller's "Mixt Contemplations" (1660) in reference to this subject:--

A covetous Courtier complained to King Edward the sixt of Christ Colledge in Cambridge, that it was a superstitious foundation, consisting of a Master and twelve Fellowes, in imitation of Christ and His twelve Apostles. He advised the King also to take away one or two Fellowships, so as to discompose that superstitious number. "Oh, no!" said the King, "I have a better way than that to mar their conceit; I will add a thirteenth Fellowship unto them;" which he did accordingly, and so it remaineth unto this day.

Persians regard the number thirteen as so unlucky that they refrain from naming it. When they wish to allude to this number, instead of mentioning the proper term, they use words meaning "much more" or "nothing."

The Moors, or Arabs, of northern Africa have similar prejudices, whereas the American negro, ordinarily a most credulous being, appears to be quite indifferent to the evil influences of the fateful number; but in Turkey, so great is the popular dislike of it that the word for thirteen is seldom used.

In Scotland this number is known as the "Deil's Dozen," a phrase which has been supposed to have some connection with card-playing, there being thirteen cards in each suit of the "Deil's Books." John Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, avows his inability to trace the superstition to its source, but believes that it includes the idea of the thirteenth being the Devil's lot. The number thirteen is also sometimes known as a "baker's dozen," because it was formerly a common practice to give thirteen loaves for twelve, the extra piece being called the in-bread or to-bread. This custom is supposed to have originated at a time when heavy fines were imposed for short weights, the additional bread being given by bakers as a precautionary measure.

In certain cases, contrary to the general rule, thirteen is accounted a fortunate numeral, or even as one possessing extraordinary virtues.

Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, in "A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics" (p. 25), says that in the old language of the Mayas, an aboriginal tribe of Yucatan, the numbers nine and thirteen were used to denote indefinite greatness and supreme excellence. Thus a very fortunate man was possessed of nine souls, and the phrase, "thirteen generations old," conveyed the idea of perpetuity. The "Demon with thirteen powers" was a prominent figure in the mythology of the Tzentals, a Mayan tribe.

According to a widely prevalent popular impression, a brood is usually odd in number, and therefore it is folly to set an even number of eggs under a hen. In spite of the falsity of this idea, it is still quite customary to set thirteen eggs, an even number in this case being accounted unlucky.

Gerald Massey, in "The Natural Genesis," remarks that "there were thirteen kinds of spices set out in the Jewish religious service, along with the zodiacal number of twelve loaves of shew-bread. There are thirteen articles to the Hebrew faith, and the Cabalists have thirteen rules by which they are enabled to penetrate the mysteries of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thirteen are the dialectical canons of the Talmudical doctors for determining the sense of the law in all civil and ecelesiastieal cases."

In England the day of twenty-four hours was formerly divided into thirteen parts, as follows:

1. After midnight.
2. Cock-crow.
3. Between the first cock-crow and daybreak.
4. The Dawn.
5. Morning.
6. Noon.
7. Afternoon.
8. Sunset.
9. Twilight.
10. Evening.
11. Candle-time.
12. Bed-time.
13. Dead of night.

Recurring now to the prevalent notions regarding the sinister and portentous character of this number, one may well inquire in all seriousness whether the harboring of this and other firmly rooted superstitious fancies is compatible with a deep and abiding Christian faith. The answer is plainly in the negative. Therefore it is doubtless true--and the truth should make us free--that the greater our indifference to the various alleged omens and auguries which so easily beset us, the more readily shall we acquire and retain a firm and enduring dependence on Divine Providence.