He

to wiglian by the moon. Canute renewed the prohibitions. enjoined them not to worship the sun or the moon, fire or floods, wells or stones, or any sort of tree; not to love wiccecræft, or frame death-spells, either by lot or by torch; nor to effect any thing by phantoms. From the Pœnitentiale of Theodore we also learn, that the power of letting loose tempests was also pretended to.k

Another name for their magical arts was unlybban wyrce, literally, destructive of life. The penitence is prescribed for a woman who kills a man by unlybban. One instance of their philtres is detailed to us. A woman resolving on the death of her step-son, or to alienate from him his father's affection, sought a witch, who knew how to change minds by art and enchantments. Addressing such a one with promises and rewards, she inquired how the mind of the father might be turned from the child, and be fixed on herself. The magical medicament was immediately made, and mixed with the husband's meat and drink. The catastrophe of the whole was the murder of the child; and the discovery of the crime by the assistant, to revenge the stepmother's ill-treatment.'

The charms used by the Anglo-Saxons were innumerable. They trusted in their magical incantations for the cure of disease, for the success of their tillage," for the discovery of lost property, for uncharming cattle, and for the prevention of casualties. Specimens of their charms for these purposes still remain to us. Bede tells us, that "many, in times of disease (neglecting the sacraments) went to the erring medicaments of idolatry, as if to restrain God's chastisements by incantations, phylacteries, or any other secret of the demoniacal arts."

Their prognostics, from the sun and moon, from thunder, and from dreams, were so numerous, as to display and to perpetuate a most lamentable debility of mind. Every day of every month was catalogued as a propitious or unpropitious season for certain transactions. We have Anglo-Saxon treatises which contain rules for discovering the future fortune and disposition of a child, from the day of his nativity. One day was useful for all things; another, though good to tame animals, was baleful to

1 MS. Tib. A. 3.

j Wilkins, p. 134.

* Spelm. Concil. 155. They dreaded spectres; and one of their medical recipes is, "If a man suffer from a scinlac, or spectre, let him eat lion's flesh, and he will never suffer from any scinlac again." Cott. MSS. vitell. C. 3.

13 Gale's Script. p. 439.

For incantations to cure various diseases, see Wanley's Catalogue of Saxon

MSS. p. 44, 115, 231, 232, 234, 305.

For charms to make fields fertile, see Wanley, p. 98, 225.

• For charms to find lost cattle, or any thing stolen, see Wanley, p. 114, 186.

P For amulets against poison, disease, and battle, see also Wanley.

sow seeds. One day was favourable to the commencement of business; another to let blood; and others wore a forbidding aspect to these and other things. On this day they were to buy, on a second to sell, on a third to hunt, on a fourth to do nothing. If a child was born on such a day, it would live; if on another its life would be sickly; if on another it would perish early. In a word, the most alarming fears, and the most extravagant hopes, were perpetually raised by these foolish superstitions, which tended to keep the mind in the dreary bondage of ignorance and absurdity, which prevented the growth of knowledge, by the incessant war of prejudice, and the slavish effects of the most imbecile apprehensions."

The same anticipations of futurity were made by noticing on what day of the week or month it first thundered, or the new moon appeared, or the new-year's day occurred. Dreams likewise had regular interpretations and applications; and thus life, instead of being governed by the councils of wisdom, or the precepts of virtue, was directed by those solemn lessons of gross superstition, which the most ignorant peasant of our days would be ashamed to avow. How lamentable is it that mankind should have such an inveterate propensity to resort to the meanest agencies, and most capricious accidents of nature, for aid or comfort in their anxieties and difficulties, rather than to confide in its Author, solicit his kindness, or resign themselves to his will; rather than calmly await his benevolent dispensations, and trust to his discernment for the fittest season of their occurrence and duration.'

See especially MS. Tiberius, A. 3, and Bede's works on these subjects. A few specimens may amuse: "On the first night of the moon, go to the king and ask what you like. Whatever you see at the first appearance of the new moon will be a blessing to you. In the beginning of the moon it is useful to do any thing. If a man be born on a Sunday he will live without trouble all his life. If it thunder in the evening, some great person is born. If new-ycar's day be on a Monday, it will be a grim and confounding winter. When you see a bce fast in the briar, wish what you please and it will not fail you."

Some of their fancies: "If a man dream that he hath a burning candle in his hand, it is a sign of good. If he dream that he sees an eagle over his head, it implies dignity to him, and the greater, the higher the bird flies. Whatever we dream on the first night of the old moon will become joyful to us."

Even while this page is penning, one gipsy is offering her prognostications, surprised at being refused; and another is employed in a neighbouring garden, by three intellectual beings, to delude them by her random predictions, which she afterwards ridicules them for believing!

CHAPTER XIV.

Their Funerals.

THE northern nations, at one period, burnt their dead. But the custom of interring the body had become established among the Anglo-Saxons, at the era when their history began to be recorded by their Christian clergy, and was never discontinued.

Their common coffins were wood; the more costly were stone. Thus a nun who had been buried in a wooden coffin was afterwards placed in one of stone. Their kings were interred in stone coffins; they were buried in linen, and the clergy in their vestments. In two instances mentioned by Bede, the coffin was provided before death. We also read of the place of burial being chosen before death, and sometimes of its being ordered by will.

With the common sympathy of human nature, friends are described as attending, in illness, round the bed of the deceased. On their departure, we read of friends tearing their clothes and hair. One who died, is mentioned to have been buried the next day. As Cuthbert, the eleventh bishop from Augustin, obtained leave to make cemeteries within cities, we may infer that the more healthful custom, of depositing the dead at some distance from the habitations of the living, was the general practice; but afterwards it became the custom of England to bury the dead in the churches. The first restriction to this practice was the injunction that none should be so buried, unless it was known that in his life he had been acceptable to God. It was afterwards ordered, that no corpse should be deposited in a church, unless of an ecclesiastic, or a layman so righteous as to deserve such a distinction. All former tombs in churches were directed to be made level with the pavement, so that none might be seen: and if in any part, from the number of the tombs, this was difficult to be done, then the altar was to be removed to a purer spot, and the occupied place was to become merely a burying-ground

Some of their customs at death may be learnt from the following narrations. It is mentioned in Dunstan's life, that Æthelfleda, when on her deathbed, said to him, "Do thou, early in the morn

ing, cause the baths to be hastened, and the funeral vestments to be prepared, which I am about to wear; and after the washing of my body, I will celebrate the mass, and receive the sacrament; and in that manner I will die."k

The sickness, death, and burial of Archbishop Wilfrid, in the eighth century, is described with these particulars. On the attack of his illness, all the abbots and anchorites near were unwearied in their prayers for his recovery. He survived, with his senses; and power of speech returned, for a year and a half. A short time before his death, he invited two abbots and six faithful brethren to attend him, and desired them to open his treasure-chest with a key. The gold, silver, and precious stones therein were brought out, and divided into four parts, as he directed. One of these he ordered to be sent to the churches at Rome, as a present for his soul; another part was to be divided among the poor of his people; a third he gave to some monasteries, to obtain therewith the friendship of the kings and bishops; and the fourth he destined to those who had shared in his labours, and to whom he had not given lands.

After his death, one of the abbots spread his linen garments on the ground. The brethren laid his body on them, washed it with their hands, and put on his ecclesiastical dress. Afterwards they wrapped it in linen, and singing hymns, they conducted it in a carriage to the monastery. All the monks came out to meet it; none abstained from tears and weeping. They received it with hymns and chantings, and deposited it in the church which he had built.'

One of the nobles who attended the king at his Easter court, having died, it is mentioned that his body was carried to Glastonbury; and the king ordered some of the bishops, earls, and barons, to attend the bier thither with honour.m

When the body of an alderman was taken to the monastery at Ramsay to be buried, a numerous assemblage from the neighbourhood met to accompany his exequies."

The saul-sceat, or the payment of the clergy on death, became a very general practice. No respectable person died or was buried without a handsome present to some branch or other of the ecclesiastical establishment.

Nothing can more strongly express the importance and necessity of this custom, than that several of their gilds seem to have been formed chiefly with a view to provide a fund for this purpose.

* MSS. Cleop. B. 13. This life has been printed in the Acta Sanctorum for May, from a MS. brought from the Vedastine monastery at Rome. This MS. differs from the Cotton MS. in some particulars. It has the preface, which the Cotton MS. wants; but it has not two pages of the conclusion, which are in the Cotton MS. In the body of the Roman MS. there are forty-two hexameters which are not in the Cotton MS.

1 Eddius, p. 89.

m 3 Gale Script. p. 395.

■ Ibid. p. 428.

It appears in all the wills. Thus Wynflæd, for her saul-sceat, gave to every one of the religious, at the places she mentions, a mancus of gold; and to another place, half a pound's worth, for saul-sceat. She adds a direction to her children, that they will illuminate for her soul.

Byrhtric, for his soul and his ancestors, gave two sulings of land by his will, and a similar present, with thirty gold mancys, for his wife's soul and her ancestors. Wulfaru bequeaths to Saint Peter's minster, for his "miserable soul," and for his ancestors, a "bracelet, a patera, two golden crosses, with garments and bed-clothes."P

A dux who flourished in the days of Edgar and Ethelred, not only gave an abbot some valuable lands, in return for his liberal hospitality, but also several others, with thirty marks of gold, and twenty pounds of silver, two golden crosses, two pieces of his cloak, set with gold and gems in valuable workmanship, and other things, that, if he fell in battle, his body might be buried with them.

A dux in Alfred's days directed one hundred swine to be given to a church in Canterbury, for him and for his soul; and the same to Chertsey Abbey. The same dux directed two hundred peninga to be paid annually from some land to Chertsey Abbey, for the soul of Alfred."

So Æthelstan the ætheling gave to St. Peter's church at Westminster, land which he had bought of his father for two hundred mancusan of gold, five pounds of silver by weight, and some land, which he had purchased for two hundred and fifty gold mancus by weight; and the land which his father released to him, for both their souls; he makes other bequests to other religious places.

App. Sax. Dict. If the body was buried out of the "riht scire," or parish, the soul's sceat was to be paid to the minster to which he belonged. Wilk. Leg. 121, 108. It was to be always given at the open grave. Ib. 108.

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