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“A wandering fire
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads th’ amaz’d night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond and pool.”¹³⁸
 

This appearance has given rise to a most extensive folk-lore, and is embodied in many of the fairy legends and superstitions of this and other countries. Thus, in Germany, Jack-o’-lanterns are said to be the souls of unbaptized children, that have no rest in the grave, and must hover between heaven and earth. In many places they are called land-measurers, and are seen like figures of fire, running to and fro with a red-hot measuring rod. These are said to be persons who have falsely sworn away land, or fraudulently measured it, or removed landmarks.¹³⁹ In the neighborhood of Magdeburg, they are known as “Lüchtemannekens;” and to cause them to appear, it is sufficient to call out “Ninove, Ninove.” In the South Altmark they are termed “Dickepôten;” and if a person only prays as soon as he sees one, he draws it to him; if he curses, it retires. In some parts, too, a popular name is “Huckepôten,” and “Tuckbolde.” The Jack-o’-lanterns of Denmark¹⁴⁰ are the spirits of unrighteous men, who, by a false glimmer, seek to mislead the traveller, and to decoy him into bogs and moors. The best safeguard against them, when they appear, is to turn one’s cap inside out. A similar notion occurs in Devonshire with regard to the Pixies, who delight in leading astray such persons as they find abroad after nightfall; the only remedy to escape them being to turn some part of the dress. In Normandy these fires are called “Feux Follets,” and they are believed to be cruel spirits, whom it is dangerous to encounter. Among the superstitions which prevail in connection with them, two, says Mr. Thoms,¹⁴¹ are deserving of notice: “One is, that the ignis fatuus is the spirit of some unhappy woman, who is destined to run en furolle, to expiate her intrigues with a minister of the church, and it is designated from that circumstance La Fourlore, or La Fourolle.” Another opinion is, that Le Feu Follet is the soul of a priest, who has been condemned thus to expiate his broken vows of perpetual chastity; and it is very probable that it is to some similar belief existing in this country, at the time when he wrote, that Milton alludes in “L’Allegro,” when he says:

 
“She was pinched and pulled, she said,
And he by Friar’s Lanthorn led.”
 

In Brittany the “Porte-brandon” appears in the form of a child bearing a torch, which he turns like a burning wheel; and with this, we are told, he sets fire to the villages, which are suddenly, sometimes in the middle of the night, wrapped in flames.

The appearance of meteors Shakespeare ranks among omens, as in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where Bardolph says: “My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? What think you they portend?” And in “King John” (iii. 4), Pandulph speaks of meteors as “prodigies and signs.” The Welsh captain, in “Richard II.” (ii. 4), says:

 
“’Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven.”
 

Comet. From the earliest times comets have been superstitiously regarded, and ranked among omens. Thus Thucydides tells us that the Peloponnesian war was heralded by an abundance of earthquakes and comets; and Vergil, in speaking of the death of Cæsar, declares that at no other time did comets and other supernatural prodigies appear in greater numbers. It is probably to this latter event that Shakespeare alludes in “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 2), where he represents Calpurnia as saying:

 
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
 

Again, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 1), the play opens with the following words, uttered by the Duke of Bedford:

 
“Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
That have consented unto Henry’s death!”
 

In “Taming of the Shrew” (iii. 2), too, Petruchio, when he makes his appearance on his wedding-day, says:

 
“Gentles, methinks you frown:
And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet, or unusual prodigy?”
 

In “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 2), the king, when telling his son how he had always avoided making himself “common-hackney’d in the eyes of men,” adds:

 
“By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But, like a comet, I was wonder’d at.”
 

Arcite, in the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 1), when addressing the altar of Mars, says:

 
“Whose approach
Comets forewarn.”¹⁴²
 

Dew. Among the many virtues ascribed to dew was its supposed power over the complexion, a source of superstition which still finds many believers, especially on May morning. All dew, however, does not appear to have possessed this quality, some being of a deadly or malignant quality. Thus Ariel, in “The Tempest” (i. 2), speaks of the “deep brook” in the harbor:

 
“where once
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still vex’d Bermoothes.”
 

And Caliban (i. 2), when venting his rage on Prospero and Miranda, can find no stronger curse than the following:

 
“As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d,
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both!”
 

It has been suggested that in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 12) Shakespeare may refer to an old notion whereby the sea was considered the source of dews as well as rain. Euphronius is represented as saying:

 
“Such as I am, I come from Antony:
I was of late as petty to his ends
As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf
To his grand sea.”
 

According to an erroneous notion formerly current, it was supposed that the air, and not the earth, drizzled dew – a notion referred to in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5):

 
“When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew.”
 

And in “King John” (ii. 1):

 
“Before the dew of evening fall.”
 

Then there is the celebrated honey-dew, a substance which has furnished the poet with a touching simile, which he has put into the mouth of “Titus Andronicus” (iii. 1):

 
“When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather’d lily almost wither’d.”
 

According to Pliny, “honey-dew” is the saliva of the stars, or a liquid produced by the purgation of the air. It is, however, a secretion deposited by a small insect, which is distinguished by the generic name of aphis.¹⁴³

Rainbow. Secondary rainbows, the watery appearance in the sky accompanying the rainbow, are in many places termed “water-galls” – a term we find in the “Rape of Lucrece” (1586-89):

 
“And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream’d, like rainbows in the sky:
These water-galls in her dim element
Foretell new storms to those already spent.”
 

Horace Walpole several times makes use of the word: “False good news are always produced by true good, like the water-gall by the rainbow;” and again, “Thank heaven it is complete, and did not remain imperfect, like a water-gall.”¹⁴⁴ In “The Dialect of Craven” we find “Water-gall, a secondary or broken rainbow. Germ. Wasser-galle.”

Thunder. According to an erroneous fancy the destruction occasioned by lightning was effected by some solid body known as the thunder-stone or thunder-bolt. Thus, in the beautiful dirge in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2):

 
“Guid. Fear no more the lightning flash,
 
 
Arv. Or the all-dreaded thunder-stone.”
 

Othello asks (v. 2):

 
“Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?”
 

And in “Julius Cæsar” (i. 3), Cassius says:

 
“And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone.”
 

The thunder-stone is the imaginary product of the thunder, which the ancients called Brontia, mentioned by Pliny (“Nat. Hist.” xxxvii. 10) as a species of gem, and as that which, falling with the lightning, does the mischief. It is the fossil commonly called the Belemnite, or finger-stone, and now known to be a shell.

A superstitious notion prevailed among the ancients that those who were stricken with lightning were honored by Jupiter, and therefore to be accounted holy. It is probably to this idea that Shakespeare alludes in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 5):

 
“Some innocents ’scape not the thunderbolt.”¹⁴⁵
 

The bodies of such were supposed not to putrefy; and, after having been exhibited for a certain time to the people, were not buried in the usual manner, but interred on the spot where the lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. Thus Persius (sat. ii. l. 27) says:

 
“Triste jaces lucis evitandumque bidental.”
 

The ground, too, that had been smitten by a thunder-bolt was accounted sacred, and afterwards enclosed; nor did any one even presume to walk on it. Such spots were, therefore, consecrated to the gods, and could not in future become the property of any one.

Among the many other items of folk-lore associated with thunder is a curious one referred to in “Pericles” (iv. 3): “Thunder shall not so awake the bed of eels.” The notion formerly being that thunder had the effect of rousing eels from their mud, and so rendered them more easy to be taken in stormy weather. Marston alludes to this superstition in his satires (“Scourge of Villainie,” sat. vii.):

 
“They are nought but eeles, that never will appeare
Till that tempestuous winds or thunder teare
Their slimy beds.”
 

The silence that often precedes a thunder-storm is thus graphically described in “Hamlet” (ii. 2):

 
“‘we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region.’”
 

Earthquakes, around which so many curious myths and superstitions have clustered,¹⁴⁶ are scarcely noticed by Shakespeare. They are mentioned among the ominous signs of that terrible night on which Duncan is so treacherously slain (“Macbeth,” ii. 3):

 
“the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.”
 

And in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1) Hotspur assigns as a reason for the earthquakes the following theory:

 
“Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down
Steeples, and moss-grown towers.”
 

Equinox. The storms that prevail in spring at the vernal equinox are aptly alluded to in “Macbeth” (i. 2):

 
“As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring, whence comfort seem’d to come,
Discomfort swells.”
 

– the meaning being: the beginning of the reflection of the sun is the epoch of his passing from the severe to the milder season, opening, however, with storms.

Wind. An immense deal of curious weather-lore¹⁴⁷ has been associated with the wind from the earliest period; and in our own and foreign countries innumerable proverbs are found describing the future state of the weather from the position of the wind, for, according to an old saying, “every wind has its weather.” Shakespeare has introduced some of these, showing how keen an observer he was of those every-day sayings which have always been much in use, especially among the lower classes. Thus the proverbial wet which accompanies the wind when in the south is mentioned in “As You Like It” (iii. 5):

 
“Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain.”
 

And again, in “1 Henry IV.” (v. 1):

 
“The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his [i. e., the sun’s] purposes;
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day.”
 

A popular saying to the same effect, still in use, tells us that:

 
“When the wind is in the south,
It is in the rain’s mouth.”
 

Again, in days gone by, the southerly winds were generally supposed to be bearers of noxious fogs and vapors, frequent allusions to which are given by Shakespeare. Thus, in “The Tempest” (i. 2), Caliban says:

 
“a south-west blow on ye
And blister you all o’er.”
 

A book,¹⁴⁸ too, with which, as already noticed, Shakespeare appears to have been familiar, tells us, “This southern wind is hot and moist. Southern winds corrupt and destroy; they heat, and make men fall into the sickness.” Hence, in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 1), Thersites speaks of “the rotten diseases of the south;” and in “Coriolanus” (i. 4), Marcius exclaims:

 
“All the contagion of the south light on you.”
 

Once more, in “Cymbeline” (ii. 3), Cloten speaks in the same strain: “The south fog rot him.”

Flaws. These are sudden gusts of wind. It was the opinion, says Warburton, “of some philosophers that the vapors being congealed in the air by cold (which is the most intense in the morning), and being afterwards rarefied and let loose by the warmth of the sun, occasion those sudden and impetuous gusts of wind which were called ‘flaws.’” Thus he comments on the following passage in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 4):

 
“As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.”
 

In “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1) these outbursts of wind are further alluded to:

 
“And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage
Until the golden circuit on my head,
Like to the glorious sun’s transparent beams,
Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.”
 

Again, in “Venus and Adonis” (425), there is an additional reference:

 
“Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.”
 

In the Cornish dialect a flaw signifies primitively a cut.¹⁴⁹ But it is also there used in a secondary sense for those sudden or cutting gusts of wind.¹⁵⁰

Squalls. There is a common notion that “the sudden storm lasts not three hours,” an idea referred to by John of Gaunt in “Richard II.” (ii. 1):

 
“Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.”
 

Thus, in Norfolk, the peasantry say that “the faster the rain, the quicker the hold up,” which is only a difference in words from the popular adage, “after a storm comes a calm.”

Clouds. In days gone by, clouds floating before the wind, like a reek or vapor, were termed racking clouds. Hence in “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1), Richard speaks of:

 
“Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds.”
 

This verb, though now obsolete, was formerly in common use; and in “King Edward III.,” 1596, we read:

 
“Like inconstant clouds,
That, rack’d upon the carriage of the winds,
Increase,” etc.
 

At the present day one may often hear the phrase, the rack of the weather, in our agricultural districts; many, too, of the items of weather-lore noticed by Shakespeare being still firmly credited by our peasantry.

CHAPTER VI
BIRDS

In the present chapter we have not only a striking proof of Shakespeare’s minute acquaintance with natural history, but of his remarkable versatility as a writer. While displaying a most extensive knowledge of ornithology, he has further illustrated his subject by alluding to those numerous legends, popular sayings, and superstitions which have, in this and other countries, clustered round the feathered race. Indeed, the following pages are alone sufficient to show, if it were necessary, how fully he appreciated every branch of antiquarian lore; and what a diligent student he must have been in the pursuit of that wide range of information, the possession of which has made him one of the most many-sided writers that the world has ever seen. The numerous incidental allusions, too, by Shakespeare, to the folk-lore of bygone days, while showing how deeply he must have read and gathered knowledge from every available source, serve as an additional proof of his retentive memory, and marvellous power of embellishing his ideas by the most apposite illustrations. Unfortunately, however, these have, hitherto, been frequently lost sight of through the reader’s unacquaintance with that extensive field of folk-lore which was so well known to the poet. For the sake of easy reference, the birds with which the present chapter deals are arranged alphabetically.

Barnacle-Goose. There was a curious notion, very prevalent in former times, that this bird (Anser bernicla) was generated from the barnacle (Lepas anatifera), a shell-fish, growing on a flexible stem, and adhering to loose timber, bottoms of ships, etc., a metamorphosis to which Shakespeare alludes in “The Tempest” (iv. 1), where he makes Caliban say:

 
“we shall lose our time,
And all be turn’d to barnacles.”
 

This vulgar error, no doubt, originated in mistaking the fleshy peduncle of the shell-fish for the neck of a goose, the shell for its head, and the tentacula for a tuft of feathers. These shell-fish, therefore, bearing, as seen out of the water, a resemblance to the goose’s neck, were ignorantly, and without investigation, confounded with geese themselves. In France, the barnacle-goose may be eaten on fast days, by virtue of this old belief in its fishy origin.¹⁵¹ Like other fictions this one had its variations,¹⁵² for sometime the barnacles were supposed to grow on trees, and thence to drop into the sea, and become geese, as in Drayton’s account of Furness (“Polyolb.” 1622, song 27, l. 1190). As early as the 12th century this idea¹⁵³ was promulgated by Giraldus Cambrensis in his “Topographia Hiberniæ.” Gerarde, who in the year 1597 published his “Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes,” narrates the following: “There are found in the north parts of Scotland, and the isles adjacent called Orcades, certain trees, whereon do grow certain shell-fishes, of a white color, tending to russet, wherein are contained little living creatures; which shells in time of maturity do open, and out of them grow those little living things which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnacles, in the north of England brant geese, and in Lancashire tree geese; but the others that do fall upon the land perish, and do come to nothing. Thus much of the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth. But what our eyes have seen and hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwreck, and also the trunks or bodies, with the branches, of old rotten trees, cast up there likewise, whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth into certain shells, in shape like those of the mussel, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish color: wherein is contained a thing in form like a lace of silk, one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and mussels are. The other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass or lump, which in time cometh to the shape and form of a bird; when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it cometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose; having black legs and bill, or beak, and feathers black and white, spotted in such a manner as is our magpie, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree goose.” An interesting cut of these birds so growing is given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps from a manuscript of the 14th century, who is of opinion that the barnacle mentioned by Caliban was the tree-goose. It is not to be supposed, however, that there were none who doubted this marvellous story, or who took steps to refute it. Belon, so long ago as 1551, says Mr. Harting,¹⁵⁴ and others after him, treated it with ridicule, and a refutation may be found in Willughby’s “Ornithology,” which was edited by Ray in 1678.¹⁵⁵ This vulgar error is mentioned by many of the old writers. Thus Bishop Hall, in his “Virgidemiarum” (lib. iv. sat. 2), says:

 
“The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose.”
 

Butler, too, in his “Hudibras” (III. ii. l. 655), speaks of it; and Marston, in his “Malecontent” (1604), has the following: “Like your Scotch barnacle, now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great goose.”

Blackbird. This favorite is called, in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1) an ousel (old French, oisel), a term still used in the neighborhood of Leeds:

 
“The ousel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill.”
 

In “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2) when Justice Shallow inquires of Justice Silence, “And how doth my cousin?” he is answered: “Alas, a black ousel,¹⁵⁶ cousin Shallow,” a phrase which, no doubt, corresponded to our modern one, “a black sheep.” In Spenser’s “Epithalamium” (l. 82), the word occurs:

 
“The ousel shrills, the ruddock warbles soft.”
 

Buzzard. Mr. Staunton suggests that in the following passage of the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1) a play is intended upon the words, and that in the second line “buzzard” means a beetle, from its peculiar buzzing noise:

 
“Pet. O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
 
 
Kath. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.”
 

The beetle was formerly called a buzzard; and in Staffordshire, a cockchafer is termed a hum-buz. In Northamptonshire we find a proverb, “I’m between a hawk and a buzzard,” which means, “I don’t know what to do, or how to act.”¹⁵⁷

Chaffinch. Some think that this bird is alluded to in the song in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1), where the expression “finch” is used; the chaffinch having always been a favorite cage-bird with the lower classes.¹⁵⁸ In “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 1) Thersites calls Patroclus a “finch-egg,” which was evidently meant as a term of reproach. Others, again, consider the phrase as equivalent to coxcomb.

Chough. In using this word Shakespeare probably, in most cases, meant the jackdaw;¹⁵⁹ for in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2) he says:

 
“russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report;”
 

the term russet-pated being applicable to the jackdaw, but not to the real chough. In “1 Henry IV.” (v. 1). Prince Henry calls Falstaff chewet– “Peace, chewet, peace” – in allusion, no doubt, to the chough or jackdaw, for common birds have always had a variety of names.¹⁶⁰ Such an appellation would be a proper reproach to Falstaff, for his meddling and impertinent talk. Steevens and Malone, however, finding that chewets were little round pies made of minced meat, thought that the Prince compared Falstaff, for his unseasonable chattering, to a minced pie. Cotgrave¹⁶¹ describes the French chouette as an owlet; also, a “chough,” which many consider to be the simple and satisfactory explanation of chewet. Belon, in his “History of Birds” (Paris, 1855), speaks of the chouette as the smallest kind of chough or crow. Again, in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 2), in the amusing scene where Falstaff, with the Prince and Poins, meet to rob the travellers at Gadshill, Falstaff calls the victims “fat chuffs,” probably, says Mr. Harting, who connects the word with chough, from their strutting about with much noise. Nares,¹⁶² too, in his explanation of chuff, says, that some suppose it to be from chough, which is similarly pronounced, and means a kind of sea-bird, generally esteemed a stupid one. Various other meanings are given. Thus, Mr. Gifford¹⁶³ affirms that chuff is always used in a bad sense, and means “a coarse, unmannered clown, at once sordid and wealthy;” and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps explains it as spoken in contempt for a fat person.¹⁶⁴ In Northamptonshire,¹⁶⁵ we find the word chuff used to denote a person in good condition, as in Clare’s “Village Minstrel:”

 
“His chuff cheeks dimpling in a fondling smile.”
 

Shakespeare alludes to the practice of teaching choughs to talk, although from the following passages he does not appear to have esteemed their talking powers as of much value; for in “All’s Well That Ends Well” (iv. 1), he says: “Choughs’ language, gabble enough, and good enough.” And in “The Tempest” (ii. 1), he represents Antonio as saying:

 
“There be that can rule Naples
As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat.”
 

Shakespeare always refers to the jackdaw as the “daw.”¹⁶⁶ The chough or jackdaw was one of the birds considered ominous by our forefathers, an allusion to which occurs in “Macbeth” (iii. 4):

 
“Augurs and understood relations have,
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.”
 

At the present day this bird is not without its folk-lore, and there is a Norwich rhyme to the following effect:¹⁶⁷

 
“When three daws are seen on St. Peter’s vane together,
Then we’re sure to have bad weather.”
 

In the north of England,¹⁶⁸ too, the flight of jackdaws down the chimney is held to presage death.

Cock. The beautiful notion which represents the cock as crowing all night long on Christmas Eve, and by its vigilance dispelling every kind of malignant spirit¹⁶⁹ and evil influence is graphically mentioned in “Hamlet” (i. 1), where Marcellus, speaking of the ghost, says:

 
“It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”
 

In short, there is a complete prostration of the powers of darkness; and thus, for the time being, mankind is said to be released from the influence of all those evil forces which otherwise exert such sway. The notion that spirits fly at cock-crow is very ancient, and is mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century. There is also a hymn, said to have been composed by St. Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury Service, which so much resembles the following speech of Horatio (i. 1), that one might almost suppose Shakespeare had seen it:¹⁷⁰

 
“The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.”
 

This disappearance of spirits at cock-crow is further alluded to (i. 2):¹⁷¹

 
“the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanished from our sight.”
 

Blair, too, in his “Grave,” has these graphic words:

 
“the tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O’er some new-open’d grave, and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock.”
 

This superstition has not entirely died out in England, and a correspondent of “Notes and Queries”¹⁷² relates an amusing legend current in Devonshire: “Mr. N. was a squire who had been so unfortunate as to sell his soul to the devil, with the condition that after his funeral the fiend should take possession of his skin. He had also persuaded a neighbor to be present on the occasion of the flaying. On the death of Mr. N. this man went, in a state of great alarm, to the parson of the parish, and asked his advice. By him he was told to fulfil his engagement, but he must be sure and carry a cock into the church with him. On the night after the funeral the man proceeded to the church, armed with the cock, and, as an additional security, took up his position in the parson’s pew. At twelve o’clock the devil arrived, opened the grave, took the corpse from the coffin, and flayed it. When the operation was concluded, he held the skin up before him and remarked, ‘Well, ’twas not worth coming for after all, for it is all full of holes!’ As he said this the cock crew, whereupon the fiend, turning round to the man, exclaimed, ‘If it had not been for the bird you have got there under your arm, I would have your skin too!’ But, thanks to the cock, the man got home safe again.” Various origins have been assigned to this superstition, which Hampson¹⁷³ regards as a misunderstood tradition of some Sabæan fable. The cock, he adds, which seems by its early voice to call forth the sun, was esteemed a sacred solar bird; hence it was also sacred to Mercury, one of the personifications of the sun.

A very general amusement, up to the end of the last century, was cock-fighting, a diversion of which mention is occasionally made by Shakespeare, as in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 3):

 
“His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought.”
 

And again Hamlet says (v. 2):

 
“O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit” —
 

meaning, the poison triumphs over him, as a cock over his beaten antagonist. Formerly, cock-fighting entered into the occupations of the old and young.¹⁷⁴ Schools had their cock-fights. Travellers agreed with coachmen that they were to wait a night if there was a cock-fight in any town through which they passed. When country gentlemen had sat long at table, and the conversation had turned upon the relative merits of their several birds, a cock-fight often resulted, as the birds in question were brought for the purpose into the dining-room. Cock-fighting was practised on Shrove Tuesday to a great extent, and in the time of Henry VII. seems to have been practised within the precincts of court. The earliest mention of this pastime in England is by Fitzstephens, in 1191. Happily, nowadays, cock-fighting is, by law, a misdemeanor, and punishable by penalty. One of the popular terms for a cock beaten in a fight was “a craven,” to which we find a reference in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1):

 
“No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.”
 

We may also compare the expression in “Henry V.” (iv. 7): “He is a craven and a villain else.” In the old appeal or wager of battle,¹⁷⁵ in our common law, we are told, on the authority of Lord Coke, that the party who confessed himself wrong, or refused to fight, was to pronounce the word cravent, and judgment was at once given against him. Singer¹⁷⁶ says the term may be satisfactorily traced from crant, creant, the old French word for an act of submission. It is so written in the old metrical romance of “Ywaine and Gawaine” (Ritson, i. 133):