The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 25

_The Pyed Piper._

Verstegan, in his "Rest.i.tution of Decayed Intelligence," 1634, relates the following strange story: "Hulberstadt, in Germany, was extremely infested with rats, which a certain musician, called, from his habit, the Pyed Piper, agreed for a large sum of money to destroy. He tuned his pipes, and the rats immediately followed him to the next river, where they were all drowned. But when the piper demanded his pay he was refused with scorn and contempt, upon which he began another tune, and was followed by all the children of the town to a neighboring hill called Hamelen, which opened and swallowed them up, then closed again.

One boy, being lame, came after the rest, but seeing what had happened, he returned and related the strange circ.u.mstance. The story was believed, for the parents never after heard of their lost children. This incident is stated to have happened on the 22d of July, in the year 1376, and since that time the people of Hulberstadt permit not any drum, pipe or other instrument to be sounded in that street which leads to the gate through which the children pa.s.sed. They also established a decree that in all writings of contract or bargain, after the date of our Saviour's nativity, the date also of the year of the children's going forth should be added, in perpetual remembrance of this surprising event."

_Thomas, the Rhymer._

This character was one of the earliest poets of Scotland. His life and writings are involved in much obscurity, though he is supposed to have been Thomas Learmount, of Ercildonne. The time of his birth is unknown, but he appears to have reached the height of his reputation in 1283, when he is said to have predicted the death of Alexander III., king of Scotland. One day the Rhymer, when visiting at the Castle of Dunbar, was interrogated by the Earl of March in a jocular manner as to what the morrow would bring forth. "Alas for to-morrow! a day of calamity and misery!" replied the Rhymer. "Before the twelfth hour shall be heard a blast so vehement that it shall exceed all those which have yet been heard in Scotland-a blast which shall strike the nations with amazement; shall confound those who hear it; shall humble what is lofty, and what is unbending shall level with the ground." On the following day the earl, who had been unable to discover any unusual appearance in the weather, when seating himself at table, observed the hand of the dial to point to the hour of noon, while, at the same moment, a messenger appeared, bringing the mournful tidings of the accidental death of the king. The legend says that the Rhymer was carried off at an early age to Fairyland, where he acquired all the knowledge which made him so famous.

After seven years' residence there, he was permitted to return to the earth to enlighten and astonish his countrymen by his prophetic powers, but bound to return to the Fairy Queen, his royal mistress, whenever she should intimate her pleasure. Accordingly, while the Rhymer was making merry with his friends at his tower at Ercildonne, a person came running in and told, with marks of alarm and astonishment, that a hart and hind had left the neighboring forest, and were slowly and composedly parading the street of the village. The Rhymer instantly rose, left his habitation, and followed the animals to the forest, whence he was never seen to return.

_Pontius Pilate at Vienne._

There is a tradition at Vienne, in Provence, that in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was exiled to that city, where he died not long after of grief and despair for not having prevented the crucifixion of the Saviour, and his body was thrown into the Rhone.

There it remained, neither carried away by the force of the current nor consumed by decay, for five hundred years, until the town, being afflicted with the plague, it was revealed to the then archbishop, in a vision, that the calamity was occasioned by Pilate's body, which, unknown to the good people of Vienne, was lying at the foot of a certain tower. The place was accordingly searched, and the body drawn up entire, but nothing could equal its intolerable odor. It was carried to a marsh two leagues from the town and there interred, but for many years after strange noises were reported to issue continually from the place. The sounds were believed to be the groans of Pontius Pilate, and the cries of the devils tormenting him. It was imagined that it was the presence of his body which caused the violent thunder-storms which are so frequent at Vienne; and as the tower where the body was found has been several times struck by lightning, it is called the tower of _Mauconseil_.

_The Sea-woman of Haarlem._

In the "History of the Netherlands" there is the following strange account of the Sea-woman of Haarlem:-

"At that time there was a great tempest at sea, with exceeding high tides, the which did drowne many villages in Friseland and Holland; by which tempest there came a sea-woman swimming in the Zuyderzee betwixt the towns of Campen and Edam, the which pa.s.sing by the Purmerie, entered into the straight of a broken d.y.k.e in the Purmermer, where she remained a long time, and could not find the hole by which she entered, for that the breach had been stopped after that the tempest had ceased. Some country women and their servants who did dayly pa.s.s the Pourmery to milk their kine in the next pastures, did often see this woman swimming on the water, whereof at first they were much afraid; but in the end, being accustomed to see it very often, they viewed it neerer, and at last they resolved to take it if they could. Having discovered it, they rowed towards it, and drew it out of the water by force, carrying it into the town of Edam.

"When she had been well washed and cleansed from the sea-moss which was grown about her, she was like unto another woman. She was appareled, and began to accustome herself to ordinary meats like unto any other, yet she sought still means to escape and to get into the water, but she was straightly guarded. They came from farre to see her. Those of Haarlem made great sute to them of Edam to have this woman, by reason of the strangenesse thereof. In the end they obtained her, where she did learn to spin, and lived many years (some say fifteen), and for the reverance which she bore unto the signe of the crosse whereunto she had been accustomed, she was buried in the church-yarde. Many persons worthy of credit have justified in their writings that they had seene her in the said towne of Haarlem."

_Legends of Judas Iscariot._

It was believed in Pier della Valle's time that the descendants of Judas Iscariot still existed at Corfu, though the persons who suffered under the imputation stoutly denied it.

When the ceremony of was.h.i.+ng the feet is performed in the Greek Church at Smyrna, the bishop represents Christ, and the twelve apostles are acted by as many priests. He who personates Judas must be paid for it, and such is the feeling of the people, that whoever accepts this odious part commonly retains the name of Judas for life.-_Ha.s.selquiet_, p. 43.

Judas serves in Brazil for a Guy Faux to be carried about by the boys.

The Spanish sailors hang him at the yard-arm. The Armenians, who believe h.e.l.l and limbo to be the same place, say that Judas, after having betrayed the Lord, resolved to hang himself, because he knew Christ was to go to limbo and deliver all the souls which he found there, and therefore he thought to get there in time. But the devil was more cunning than he, and knowing his intention, held him over limbo till the Lord had pa.s.sed through, and then let him fall plum into h.e.l.l.-_Thevenot._

_Blue Beard._

Perrault, the author of "Blue Beard," founded the story, popular belief a.s.sures us, on the history of a real person. The original was Giles de Retz, Lord of Laval, who was made Marshal of France in 1429. He was born in 1406, and fought under the command of Joan of Arc. He lived like a king in his castle, with two hundred hors.e.m.e.n for his guard of honor, besides fifty choristers, chaplains and musicians. He was wild and profligate, lavish with his own money and of other people's, and lived at the costliest rate.

When he had squandered his property, he took to the study of sorcery and magic, having an especial fancy for murdering young children. From the villages within a circuit of twenty miles, little boys and girls were seduced into his castle and there immolated according to some wild Pagan rites. Among his papers, history says, was found a list of two hundred children whom he had thus sacrificed.

On the 26th of October, 1440, then being thirty-four years old, he was burned in the city of Nantes, having been previously strangled in view of a vast mult.i.tude. The records of his trial, which lasted a whole month, are preserved among the ma.n.u.scripts of the public library in Paris. In one of his castles the bones of forty-six, and in another of eighty children, were discovered. Marshal de Retz was certainly the type of Perrault's story. It appears that in his lifetime he was known by the _sobriquet_ of Barbe Bleu.

_African Rain-Doctors._

How a belief in _imaginary_ virtues of things may grow out of the evidence of their _real_ virtues, is indicated by Dr. Livingstone, when speaking of the belief in rain-making among the tribes in the heart of South Africa. The African priest and the medicine-man is one and the same, and his chief function is to make the clouds to give out rain. The preparations for this purpose are various: charcoal made of burned bats; lion's hearts, and hairy calculi from the bowels of old cows; serpent skins and vertebrae, and every kind of tuber, bulb, root and plant to be found in the country.

"Although you disbelieve their efficacy in charming the clouds to pour out their refres.h.i.+ng treasures, yet, conscious that civility is useful everywhere, you kindly state that you think they are mistaken as to their power. The rain-doctor selects a particular bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion of it to a sheep, which in five minutes afterwards expires in convulsions. Part of the same bulb is converted into smoke and ascends towards the sky: rain follows in a day or two. The inference is obvious."

_Whittington and his Cat._

This fable of the cat is borrowed from the East. Sir William Gore Ousely, speaking of the origin of the name of an island in the Persian Gulf, says that in the tenth century, one Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf, embarked for India with his sole property, a cat. "He fortunately arrived there at a time when the palace was so infested by mice or rats that they invaded the king's food, and persons were employed to drive them away from the royal banquet. Keis produced his cat; the noxious animals disappeared; Keis was magnificently rewarded, sent for his mother and brother, and settled on the island, which was subsequently called after him."

_Head of James IV. of Scotland._

The king was slain in the battle at Flodden Field. At the close of the b.l.o.o.d.y arbitrament his body was found among a heap of the fallen. The discoverers made a prize of the corpse, wrapped it up in lead, and transmitted it as a thanksgiving offering to the monastery of Sheen, in Surrey. It was well taken care of by the honest people there as long as the monastery stood; but when the dissolution of those religious establishments took place, and the edifice was converted into a mansion for the Duke of Suffolk, the king's body was put into a fresh wrapping of lead and carried into an upper lumber-room. Some workmen engaged in the house cut off the head out of sheer wantonness. Their master, a glazier from Cheapside, carried the head with him to the city. There, on his sideboard, the dried remnant of a crowned king, with its red hair and beard, was long the admiration of the glazier's evening parties and a subject of conversation for his guests. John Stow saw it there, expostulated, purchased the anointed skull, and gave it quiet and decent burial within the old church of St. Michael's.

_Discovery of the Body of Canute the Great._

In June, 1776, some workmen who were repairing Winchester Cathedral discovered a monument which contained the body of King Canute. It was remarkably fresh, had a wreath round the head and several ornaments of gold and silver bands. On his finger was a ring, in which was set a large and remarkably fine stone, and in one of his hands a silver coin.

The coin found in the hand is a singular instance of a continuance of the Pagan custom of always providing the dead with money to pay Charon.

_Martyrdom of Isaiah._

There is a tradition that the prophet Isaiah suffered martyrdom by a saw. The ancient book ent.i.tled, "The Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet,"

accords with the tradition. It says: "Then they seized Isaiah the son of Amos and sawed him with a wooden saw. And Mana.s.seh, Melakira, the false prophets, the princess and the people, all stood looking on. But he said to the prophets who were with him before he was sawn, 'Go ye to the country of Tyre and Sidon, for the Lord hath mixed the cup for me alone.' Neither while they were sawing him did he cry out nor weep, but he continued addressing himself to the Holy Spirit until he was sawn asunder."

_Courts.h.i.+p of William the Conqueror._

The following extract from the life of the wife of the Conqueror is exceedingly curious as characteristic of the manners of a semi-civilized age and nation:-

"After some years of delay, William appears to have become desperate, and, if we may trust to the evidence of the 'Chronicle of Ingerbe,' he waylaid Matilda in the streets of Bruges as she was returning from ma.s.s, seized her, rolled her in the dirt, spoiled her rich array; and, not content with these outrages, struck her repeatedly, then rode off at full speed. This Teutonic method of courts.h.i.+p, according to our author, brought the affair to a crisis: for Matilda, either convinced of the strength of William's pa.s.sion by the violence of his behaviour, or afraid of encountering a second beating, consented to become his wife.

How he ever presumed to enter her presence again after such enormities the chronicler sayeth not, and we are at a loss to imagine."

_Court Fools._

From very ancient times there existed a cla.s.s of persons whose business it was to amuse the rich and n.o.ble, particularly at table, by jests and witty sayings. It was, however, during the Middle Ages that this singular vocation became fully developed. The symbols of the court fool were: the shaven crown, the fool's cap of gay colors with a.s.ses' ears and c.o.c.k's comb and bells, the fool's sceptre, and a wide collar. Some of these professional fools obtained an historical reputation, as Triboulet, jester to Francis I. of France; Klaus Narr, at the Court of the Elector Frederic, the Wise of Prussia, and Scogan, court fool to Edward IV. of England. Besides the regular fools, dressed and recognized as such, there was a higher cla.s.s called merry counsellors, generally men of talent, who availed themselves of the privilege of free speech to ridicule in the most merciless manner the follies and vices of their contemporaries. At a later period, imbecile or weak-minded persons were kept for the entertainment of company. Even ordinary n.o.blemen considered such an attendant indispensable, and thus the system reached its last stage, and toward the end of the seventeenth century it was abolished.

It survived longest in Russia, where Peter the Great had so many fools that he divided them into distinct cla.s.ses.

_A Cunning Astrologer._

An astrologer in the reign of Louis XI. of France, having foretold something disagreeable to the king, his majesty, in revenge, resolved to have him killed. The next day he sent for the astrologer and ordered the people about him, at a given signal, to throw him out of the window. The king said to him: "You pretend to be such a wise man, and know so perfectly the fate of others, inform me a little what will be your own, and how long you have to live." The astrologer, who now began to apprehend some danger, promptly answered, with great presence of mind, "I know my destiny, and am sure I shall die three days before your majesty." The king, on this, was so far from having him thrown out of the window, that, on the contrary, he took particular care not to have him want for anything, and did all that was possible to r.e.t.a.r.d the death of one whom he was likely soon to follow.

_Stone Barometer._

A Finland newspaper mentions a stone in the northern part of Finland which serves the inhabitants instead of a barometer. This stone, which they call Tlmakiur, turns black, or blackish gray, when it is going to rain; but on the approach of fine weather it is covered with white spots. Probably it is a fossil mixed with clay, and containing rock-salt, nitre or ammonia, which, according to the degree of dampness in the atmosphere, attracts it, or otherwise. In the latter case the salt appears, forming the white spots.