Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I. Various
in 1774. Hallowed by such associations, the desk is an interesting relic. Dr. Webb's familiarity with the collections of the society, and his kind attentions, greatly facilitated my search among the six thousand articles for things curious connected with my subject and made my brief visit far more profitable to myself than it would otherwise have been. Among the relics preserved are the chair that belonged to Governor Carver; the sword of Miles Standish; the huge key of Port Royal gate; a samp-pan, that belonged to Metacomet, or King Philip; and the sword reputed to have been used by Captain Church when he cut off that unfortunate sachem's head. The dish is about twelve inches in diameter, wrought out of an elm knot with great skill. The sword is very rude, and was doubtless made by a blacksmith of the colony. The handle is a roughly-wrought piece of ash, and the guard is made of a wrought-iron plate.
FATE DAYS AND OTHER POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS
It is a difficult puzzle to reconcile the existence of certain superstitions that continue to have wide influence with the enlightenment of the nineteenth century. When we have read glowing paragraphs about the wonderful progress accomplished by the present generation; when we have regarded the giant machinery in operation for the culture of the people – moved, in great part, by the collective power of individual charity; when we have examined the stupendous results of human genius and ingenuity which are now laid bare to the lowliest in the realm; we turn back, it must be confessed, with a mournful despondency, to mark the debasing influence of the old superstitions which have survived to the present time.
The superstitions of the ancients formed part of their religion. They consulted oracles as now men pray. The stars were the arbiters of their fortunes. Natural phenomena, as lightning and hurricanes, were, to them, awful expressions of the anger of their particular deities. They had their dies atri and dies albi; the former were marked down in their calendars with a black character to denote ill-luck, and the latter were painted in white characters to signify bright and propitious days. They followed the finger posts of their teachers. Faith gave dignity to the tenets of the star-gazer and fire-worshiper.
The priests of old taught their disciples to regard six particular days in the year as days fraught with unusual danger to mankind. Men were enjoined not to let blood on these black days, nor to imbibe any liquid. It was devoutly believed that he who ate goose on one of those black days would surely die within forty more; and that any little stranger who made his appearance on one of the dies atri would surely die a sinful and violent death. Men were further enjoined to let blood from the right arm on the seventh or fourteenth of March; from the left arm on the eleventh of April; and from either arm on the third or sixth of May, that they might avoid pestilential diseases. These barbaric observances, when brought before people in illustration of the mental darkness of the ancients, are considered at once to be proof positive of their abject condition. We thereupon congratulated ourselves upon living in the nineteenth century; when such foolish superstitions are laughed at; and perhaps our vanity is not a little flattered by the contrast which presents itself, between our own highly cultivated condition, and the wretched state of our ancestors.
Yet Mrs. Flimmins will not undertake a sea-voyage on a Friday; nor would she on any account allow her daughter Mary to be married on that day of the week. She has great pity for the poor Red Indians who will not do certain things while the moon presents a certain appearance, and who attach all kinds of powers to poor dumb brutes; yet if her cat purrs more than usual, she accepts the warning, and abandons the trip she had promised herself on the morrow.
Miss Nippers subscribes largely to the fund for eradicating superstitions from the minds of the wretched inhabitants of Kamschatka; and while she is calculating the advantages to be derived from a mission to the South Sea Islands, to do away with the fearful superstitious reverence in which these poor dear islanders hold their native flea: a coal pops from her fire, and she at once augurs from its shape an abundance of money, that will enable her to set her pious undertaking in operation; but on no account will she commence collecting subscriptions for the anti-drinking-slave-grown-sugar-in-tea society, because she has always remarked that Monday is her unlucky day. On a Monday her poodle died, and on a Monday she caught that severe cold at Brighton, from the effects of which she is afraid she will never recover.
Mrs. Carmine is a very strong-minded woman. Her unlucky day is Wednesday. On a Wednesday she first caught that flush which she has never been able to chase from her cheeks, and on one of these fatal days her Maria took the scarlet fever. Therefore, she will not go to a pic-nic on a Wednesday, because she feels convinced that the day will turn out wet, or that the wheel will come off the carriage. Yet the other morning, when a gipsy was caught telling her eldest daughter her fortune, Mrs. Carmine very properly reproached the first-born for her weakness, in giving any heed to the silly mumblings of the old woman. Mrs. Carmine is considered to be a woman of uncommon acuteness. She attaches no importance whatever to the star under which a child is born – does not think there is a pin to choose between Jupiter and Neptune; and she has a positive contempt for ghosts; but she believes in nothing that is begun, continued, or ended on a Wednesday.
Miss Crumple, on the contrary, has seen many ghosts, in fact, is by this time quite intimate with one or two of the mysterious brotherhood; but at the same time she is at a loss to understand how any woman in her senses, can believe Thursday to be a more fortunate day than Wednesday, or why Monday is to be black-balled from the Mrs. Jones's calendar. She can state on her oath, that the ghost of her old schoolfellow, Eliza Artichoke, appeared at her bedside on a certain night, and she distinctly saw the mole on its left cheek, which poor Eliza, during her brief career, had vainly endeavored to eradicate, with all sorts of poisonous things. The ghost, moreover, lisped – so did Eliza! This was all clear enough to Miss Crumple, and she considered it a personal insult for any body to suggest that her vivid apparitions existed only in her over-wrought imagination. She had an affection for her ghostly visitors, and would not hear a word to their disparagement.
The unearthly warnings which Mrs. Piptoss had received had well-nigh spoiled all her furniture. When a relative dies, the fact is not announced to her in the commonplace form of a letter; no, an invisible sledge-hammer falls upon her Broadwood, an invisible power upsets her loo-table, all the doors of her house unanimously blow open, or a coffin flies out of the fire into her lap.
Mrs. Grumple, who is a very economical housewife, looks forward to the day when the moon re-appears, on which occasion she turns her money, taking care not to look at the pale lady through glass. This observance, she devoutly believes, will bring her good fortune. When Miss Caroline has a knot in her lace, she looks for a present; and when Miss Amelia snuffs the candle out, it is her faith that the act defers her marriage a twelvemonth. Any young lady who dreams the same dream two consecutive Fridays, will tell you that her visions will "come true."
Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the "gross state of superstition" in which many "benighted savages" live, and willingly subscribe their money for its eradication. The superstition so generally connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly, it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and launched on a Friday; that she should be called "Friday," and that she should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the superstition it was meant to abolish. The "Friday" was lost – was never, in fact, heard of from the day she set sail.
Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it, is simply the expression of an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature,