Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
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A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition went hand in hand. Horace's
"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,"
as well as Milton's
"Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæras dire,"
have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," are quenched in silence, or only exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms
"That undefined and mingled hum,Voice of the desert, never dumb."The inductive philosophy was "the bare bodkin" which gave many a pleasant vision "its quietus." "Homo, naturæ minister," saith Lord Bacon, "et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine se vel mente observaverit: nec amplius scit nec potest." —Nov. Organum, Aph. I.
The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognised as the huge snake of the Edda; and figures with ourselves in the stories of the Chevalier St George and the Dragon – of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon of Wantley – in the Dragon of Loriton – in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton Heugh – in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne – the Snake of Wormieston, &c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is of "auld descent," and has held a place in unnatural history from Herodotus (Thalia, 116, and Melpomene, 13, 27) to Milton (Paradise Lost, book v.) —
"As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness,With wingèd course, o'er hill or moory dale,Pursues the Arimaspian," &c.18
Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason, not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favourite seat of the orgies of the "Midnight Hags." When, in the ballad of "The Witch of Fife," the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority, questions his errant spouse regarding her nocturnal absences without leave, she is made ecstatically to answer,
"Whan we came to the Lapland lone,The fairies war all in array;For all the genii of the NorthWar keepyng their holyday.The warlocke man and the weird womyng,And the fays of the woode and the steep,And the phantom hunteris all were there,And the mermaidis of the deep.And they washit us all with the witch-water,Distillit fra the moorland dew,Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose,That wylde in the foreste grew."Queen's Wake, Night 1st.
"Like, but oh how different," are these unearthly goings on to the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust (Act v. Scene 1.) The "phantom-hunters" of the north were not the "Wilde Jäger" of Burger, or "the Erl-king" of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of the Chippewas Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the hallo and chase of their departed friends.
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It is very probable, that the apparitional visit of "Alonzo the Brave" to the bridal of "the Fair Imogene," was suggested to M. G. Lewis, by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen, Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the storm which was to roar
"From Ross's hills to Solway sea,"
was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called "the King's Wood-end."
Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the stanzas of his lyric, entitled Presentiments, – the last of which runs as follows: —
"Ye daunt the proud array of war,Pervade the lonely ocean farAs sail hath been unfurled,For dancers in the festive hallWhat ghostly partners hath your callFetched from the shadowy world."– Poetical Works, 1845, p. 176.
The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited verses, in a little volume – Ballads and Lays from Scottish History – published in 1844; and which, I fear, has not attracted the attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it.
20
Redburn: his First Voyage. By Herman Melville, author of Typee, Omoo, and Mardi. 2 vols. London, 1849.
21
A large gold coin, then worth nearly a hundred French livres.