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of Corsica and Sardinia, June 9, we saw a Sea Monster, which (or others of the same kind) appeared several times the same day, spouting water from its nose to a great height.

It is called Caldelia, and is said to appear frequently before a storm. A storm came on next morning, which continued four days."

SPIDERS, SNAKES, EMMETS, BEES, LAMBKINS, AND WEATHER'S-BELL.

Ir is vulgarly thought unlucky to kill SPIDERS. It would be ridiculous to suppose that this has been invented to support the Scottish proverb, that "Dirt bodes luck;" it is however certain that this notion serves, in many instances, among the vulgar, as an apology for the laziness of housewives in not destroying their cobwebs. It has rather been transmitted from the magicians of ancient Rome, by whom, according to Pliny's "Natural History," presages and prognostications were made from their manner of weaving their webs. (1)

Bishop Hall, in his "Characters of Vertues and Vices," speaking of a superstitious man, says, "If he see A SNAKE unkilled, he fears a mischief." (2)

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NOTES TO SPIDERS, SNAKES, EMMETS, BEES, LAMBKINS,
AND WEATHER'S-BELL.

(1) In Bartholomæus, "De Proprietatibus Rerum," (printed by Th. Berthelet, 27th Hen. VIII.) lib. xviii. fol. 314, speaking of Pliny, we read, "Also he saythe, Spynners (Spiders) ben tokens of divynation and of knowing what wether shalfal, for oft by weders that shalfal, some spin and weve higher or lower. Also he saythe, that multytute of Spynners is token of moche reyne."'

Willsford, in his "Nature's Secrets," p. 131, tells us, "Spiders creep out of their holes and narrow receptacles against wind or rain; Minerva having made them sensible of an approaching storm." He adds, "The commonwealth of Emmets, when busied with their eggs, and in ordering their state affairs

at home, it presages a storm at hand, or some foul weather; but when nature seems to stupifie their little bodies, and disposes them to rest, causing them to withdraw into their caverns, least their industry should engage them by the inconveniency of the season, expect then some foul and winterly weather."

Mr. Park has the following Note in his copy of Bourne and Brand's "Popular Antiquities," p. 93: "Small Spiders, termed Money Spinners, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed."

In the "Secret Memoirs of Mr. Duncan Campbell," p. 60, in the Chapter of Omens,

we read that "Others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little Spider fell upon their cloaths."

White, in his "Natural History of Selborne," p. 191, tells us, "The remark that I shall make on the cobweb-like appearances called Gossamer, is, that strange and superstitious as the notions about them were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that they are the real production of small Spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from their tails, so as to render themselves buoyant, and lighter than air.”

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(*) Cicero, in his second Book on Divination, 28, observes: "Quidam et Interpres portentorum non inscité respondisse dicitur ei, qui cum ad eum retulisset quasi ostentum, quod Anguis domi vectem circumjectus fuisset. Tum esset, inquit, ostentum, si Anguem vectis circumplicavisset. Hoc ille responso satis aperté declaravit, nihil habendum esse portentum quod fieri posset.' He adds, § 29: C. Gracchus ad M. Pomponium scripsit, duobus Anguibus domi comprehensis, haruspices a patre convocatos. Qui magis Anguibus, quam Lacertis, quam Muribus? Quia sunt hæc quotidiana, Angues non item. Quasi vero referat, quod fieri potest quam id sæpe fiat? Ego tamen miror, si emissio feminæ Anguis mortem adferebat Ti. Graccho, emissio autem maris Anguis erat mortifera Corneliæ, cur alteram utram emiserit: nihil enim scribit respondisse haruspices, si neuter Anguis emissus esset, quid esset futurum. At mors insecuta Gracchum est. Causa quidem, credo, aliqua morbi gravioris, non emissione Serpentis: neque enim tanta est infelicitas haruspicum, ut ne casu quidem umquam fiat, quod futurum illi esse dixerint."

Alexander Ross, in his Appendix to the "Arcana Microcosmi," p. 219, tells us, “I

have heard of skirmishes between Water and Land Serpents premonstrating future calamities among men."

The same author, ibid., tells us that "the cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians, and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians, in which about thirty thousand men were slain, were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of Emmets."

(3) In Tusser's "Five Hundred Points of Husbandry," under the month of May, are these lines:

"Take heed to thy Bees, that are ready to

swarme,

The losse thereof now is a crown's worth of harme;"

on which is the following observation in "Tusser Redivivus," 8vo. Lond. 1744, p. 62: "The tinkling after them with a warming pan, frying-pan, kettle, is of good use to let the neighbours know you have a swarm in the air, which you claim wherever it lights; but I believe of very little purpose to the reclaiming the Bees, who are thought to delight in no noise but their own.

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Borlase, in his " Antiquities of Cornwall," p. 168, tells us "the Cornish to this day invoke the spirit Browny, when their Bees swarm; and think that their crying Browny, Browny, will prevent their returning into their former hive, and make them pitch and form a new colony."

Willsford, in his "Nature's Secrets," p. 134, says, "Bees, in fair weather, not wandering far from their hives, presages the approach of some stormy weather." "Wasps, Hornets, and Gnats, biting more eagerly than they use to do, is a sign of rainy weather."

See more of Bee Superstitions in pp. 183, 184 of the present volume.

DEATH-WATCH.

WALLIS, in his "History of Northumberland," vol. i. p. 367, gives the following account of the insect so called, whose ticking has been thought, by ancient superstition, to

forebode death in a family: "The small Scarab called the Death-Watch (Scarabæus galeatus pulsator) is frequent among dust and in decayed rotten wood, lonely and re

tired. It is one of the smallest of the Vagipennia, of a dark brown, with irregular lightbrown spots, the belly plicated, and the wings under the cases pellucid; like other beetles, the helmet turned up, as is supposed for bearing; the upper lip hard and shining. By its regular pulsations, like the ticking of a watch, it sometimes surprises those that are strangers to its nature and properties, who fancy its beating portends a family change, and the shortening of the thread of life. Put into a box, it may be heard and seen in the act of pulsation, with a small proboscis against the side of it, for food more probably than for hymeneal pleasure as some have fancied."(1) The above formal account will not be ill contrasted with the following fanciful and witty one of Dean Swift, in his invective against wood. It furnishes us, too, with a charm to avert the omen: "A Wood Worm That lies in old wood, like a hare in her form,

With teeth or with claws it will bite, or will scratch,

And chambermaids christen this Worm a Death-Watch:

Because, like a watch, it always cries click: Then woe be to those in the house who are sick;

For as sure as a gun they will give up the ghost,

If the Maggot cries click, when it scratches the post.

But a kettle of scalding hot water injected,
Infallibly cures the timber affected;
The Omen is broken, the danger is over,
The Maggot will die, and the sick will re-
cover."(a)

Grose tells us that "the clicking of a DeathWatch is an omen of the death of some one in the house wherein it is heard."

(a) See the "Athenian Oracle,” vol. i. p. 231.

NOTE TO DEATH-WATCH.

(1) Baxter, in his "World of Spirits,” p. 203, most sensibly observes that "There are many things that ignorance causeth multitudes to take for prodigies. I have had many discreet friends that have been affrighted with the noise called a Death-Watch, whereas I have since, near three years ago, oft found by trial, that it is a noise made upon paper, by a little, nimble, running Worm, just like a louse, but whiter, and quicker; and it is most usually behind a paper pasted to a wall, especially to wainscot; and it is rarely if ever heard but in the heat of summer."

Our author, however, relapses immediately into his honest credulity, adding: "But he who can deny it to be a prodigy, which is recorded by Melchior Adamus, of a great and good man, who had a clock-watch that had layen in a chest many years unused; and when he lay dying, at eleven a clock, of itself, in that chest, it struck eleven in the hearing of many."

In the "British Apollo," fol. Lond. 1710, vol. ii. No. 86, is the following query: “Why Death-Watches, Crickets, and Weasels do come more common against death than at any other time?—A. We look upon all such things as idle superstitions, for were any thing in them, bakers, brewers, inhabitants of old houses, &c., were in a melancholy condition."

To an inquiry, ibid. vol. ii. No. 70, "concerning a Death-Watch, whether you suppose it to be a living creature," answer is given, "It is nothing but a little Worm in the wood."

"How many people have I seen in the most terrible palpitations, for months together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, only by a little Worm, which breeds in old wainscot, and, endeavouring to eat its way out, makes a noise like the movement of a watch!" Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell, Svo. Lond. 1732, p. 61.

DEATH OMENS PECULIAR TO FAMILIES.

GROSE tells us that besides general notices of death, many families have particular warnings or notices; some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman, dressed all in white, who goes shrieking about the house. This apparition is common in Ireland, where it is called Benshea, and the Shrieking Woman.

Pennant says, that many of the great families in Scotland had their demon or genius, who gave them monitions of future events. Thus the family of Rothmurchas had the Bodac au Dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; Kinchardines the Spectre of the Bloody Hand. Gartinbeg House was haunted by Bodach Gartin, and Tulloch Gorms by Maug Monlach, or the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand. The Synod gave frequent orders that inquiry should be made into the truth of this apparition; and one or two declared that they had seen one that answered the description.(1)

Pennant, in describing the customs of the Highlanders, tells us that in certain places the death of people is supposed to be foretold by the cries and shrieks of Benshi, or the Fairies' Wife, uttered along the very path where the funeral is to pass; and what in Wales are called Corpse Candles are often imagined to appear and foretell mortality. In the county of Carmarthen there is hardly any one that dies, but some one or other sees his Light, or Candle.

There is a similar superstition among the vulgar in Northumberland. They call it seeing the Waff of the person whose death it foretells.(2)

King James, in his "Dæmonology," p. 136, says: "In a secret murther, if the dead carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for revenge of the murtherer."(3)

Reginald Scot, too, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," p. 170, says: "I have heard, by credible report, that the wound of a man murthered, renewing bleeding at the presence of a dear friend, or of a mortal enemy. Divers

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""Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.

The Bay Trees in our country are all wither'd."

Upon which Steevens observes that "some of these prodigies are found in Holinshed: In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of England, old Bai Trees withered,' &c. This was esteemed a bad Omen; for as I learn from Thomas Lupton's Syxt Book of 'Notable Thinges,' 4to. b. l.: ' Neyther falling sicknes, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a Bay Tree is. The Romaynes calle it the Plant of the Good Angell,' ""&c. See Reed's edit. of Shaksp.

1803, vol. xi. p. 83.(4)

A writer in the "Athenian Chronicle," vol. i. p. 232, asserts that he "knew a family never without one Cricket before some one dyed out of it; another, that an unknown voice always called the person that was to die; another, that had something like a Wand struck upon the walls; and another, where some Bough always falls off a particular tree a little before death." He adds, inconsistently enough, "But ordinarily such talk is nonsense, and depends more upon fancy than any thing else." In the same work, vol. iii. p. 552, we read of "its being a common thing that, before a king, or some great man, dies, or is beheaded, &c., his Picture or Image suffers some considerable damage; as falling from the place where it hung, the string breaking by some strange invisible touch. In Dr. Heylin's "Life of Archbishop Laud," it is

stated, that "the bishop going into his study, which nobody could get into but himself, found his own Picture lying all along on its face, which extremely perplexed him, he looking upon it as ominous."

In the Glossary to the "Complaynt of Scotland," 8vo. Edinb. 1801, we find the following observations on the word "Deitht-thraw" (p. 188): "The Contortions of Death.-These are regarded by the peasants with a species of superstitious horror. To die with a Thraw is reckoned an obvious indication of a bad conscience. When a person was secretly murdered, it was formerly believed that if the corpse were watched with certain mysterious ceremonies, the Death-thraws would be reversed on its visage, and it would denounce the perpetrators and circumstances of the murder. The following verse occurs in a ballad, of which I have heard some fragments. A lady is murdered by her lover: her seven brothers watch the corpse: it proceeds,

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Heron, in his "Journey through Part of Scotland," 8vo. 1799, vol. ii. p. 227, says: "Tales of Ghosts, Brownies, Fairies, Witches, are the frequent entertainment of a winter's evening among the native peasantry of Kirkcudbrightshire. It is common among them to fancy that they see the Wraiths of persons dying, which will be visible to one and not to others present with him.(5) Sometimes the good and the bad Angel of the person are seen contending in the shape of a white and a black Dog. Only the Ghosts of wicked persons are supposed to return to visit and disturb their old acquaintance. Within these last twenty years, it was hardly possible to meet with any person who had not seen many Wraiths and Ghosts in the course of his experience."

NOTES TO DEATH OMENS PECULIAR TO FAMILIES.

(1) In the "Living Library," &c., fol. Lond. 1621, p. 284, we read:" There bee some princes of Germanie that have particular and apparent presages and tokens, full of noise, before or about the day of their death, as extraordinarie Roaring of Lions and Barking of Dogs, fearful Noises and Bustlings by Night in Castles, Striking of Clocks, and Tolling of Bels at undue times and howres, and other warnings, whereof none could give any reason."

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Delrio, in his "Disquisitiones Magicæ," p. 592, has the following: "In Bohemia spectrum fœmineum vestitu lugubri apparere solet in arce quadam illustris familiæ, antequam una ex conjugibus dominorum illorum e vita decedat."

(2) I conjecture this northern vulgar word to be a corruption of Whiff, a sudden and vehement blast, which Davies thinks is derived from the Welsh chwyth, halitus, anhelitus, flatus. See Lye's "Junius's Etymolog." in verbo. The spirit is supposed to glide swiftly by. Thus, in the Glossary of Lancashire words and phrases, "wrapt by" is explained

"went swiftly by." See "A View of the Lancashire Dialect," 8vo. March 1763.

The Glossary to Burns's "Scottish Poems" describes "Wraith" to be a Spirit, a Ghost, an Apparition, exactly like a living person, whose appearance is said to forebode the person's approaching death. King James, in his “Dæmonology," says, that "Wraithes appeare in the shadow of a person newly dead, or to die, to his friends," p. 125.

Wrack, in the Glossary to Gawin Douglas's "Virgil," signifies a Spirit or Ghost. Wafian, too, Anglo-Saxon, is rendered horrere, stupere, fluctuare. In the Glossary to Allan Ramsay's Poems, 4to. 1721, Edinb. the word Waff is explained "wand'ring by itself."

"These are," says Grose," the exact figures and resemblances of persons then living, often seen, not only by their friends at a distance, but many times by themselves; of which there are several instances in Aubrey's 'Miscellanies.' These Apparitions are called Fetches, and in Cumberland Swarths; they most commonly appear to distant friends and

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