Black Cats and Evil Eyes (18 page)

By
AD
77, when Pliny the Elder wrote his
Natural History
ravens were seen as ‘the very worst sort of omen when they swallow their voice, as if they were
being choked.’ And their reputation as a minstrel of death was cemented by Shakespeare’s famous reference to the bird in
Macbeth
: ‘The raven himselfe is hoarse / That
croaks the fatall entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements.’

One possible reason for the proliferation of the belief in rural England was the raven’s cry, which was thought to sound like a cry of ‘Corpse! Corpse!’ Its behaviour may have
contributed to its reputation too because it eats carrion and it was thought to be able to smell death. Farmers reported that if a sheep or cow was wounded ravens would often wait ominously nearby
until they could settle down to feast on the carcass.

The belief that it is bad luck to see a single magpie is as prevalent today as it was in the nineteenth century, when the number of magpies seen together
was used as a way to predict the future. It comes from the saying ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be
told.’ Although no specific bird is mentioned by name in the verse, it is widely understood to refer to the magpie, though in areas where magpies are rarely seen it is also applied to crows
and other corvids. Passed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next, there are many regional variations of the rhyme; in America and Ireland it is more commonly recited as ‘One
for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a funeral, four for a birth, five for heaven, six for hell, seven’s the Devil his own self.’ While in Manchester there are additional lines:
‘eight for a wish, nine for a
kiss, ten for a surprise you should be careful not to miss, eleven for health, twelve for wealth, thirteen beware it’s the Devil
himself.’

These references to the Devil give a clue about the superstition’s origin: according to Christian folklore, the magpie was the only bird not to raise its voice in song to comfort Jesus at
his crucifixion, and Scottish legend has it that the magpie holds a drop of the Devil’s blood beneath its tongue. The bird’s sinister reputation may also have been linked to country
people’s observations of its habits, which include stealing anything shiny and killing other birds’ chicks to feed its own. Certainly it was seen as a very bad omen to see one on its
own and usually signified great sorrow ahead.

Various methods exist to counteract the evil influence of a lone magpie: doffing your hat, spitting over your shoulder three times or saluting it are all well documented techniques, as is
greeting it with the line ‘Good morning, Mr Magpie. How’s your wife?’, in the hope that the mention of a second bird will bring you joy instead of sorrow.

The circle is found as a symbol of completeness and eternity in many cultures and is still used symbolically in the secular world today in the familiar
form of the wedding ring. The belief that the circle offers protection from evil has its roots in the ancient magic practised by the Babylonians, Assyrians and early Kabbalists, who used circles as
a place of safety during incantations. They believed that the circle used could be physically realized by drawing it in salt, chalk or dust; once drawn, the circle was thought to become a
metaphysical sphere, protecting its creator from all angles. The ceremonial magicians of the Middle Ages regarded the magic circle as crucial in protecting them from the influence of evil spirits
who would be summoned, alongside good spirits, by their spells.

Though the Church actively discouraged the practice of magic during the medieval period, it remained an important aspect of folk religion and in many cases belief in its role was strengthened by
the intense fear of the Devil so encouraged by the Church. Spells were often sought to counteract the various misfortunes that people put down to the interference of demons, or the work of the
Devil,
which made the protection of the magic circle even more critical. Sometimes, magicians in this era would attempt to gain heavenly protection by inscribing the names of
archangels in the circle.

The modern superstition that there is safety inside a circle comes to us via the revival of magic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Magical orders like the Golden Dawn
encouraged spiritual development and ritualistic practices and had an enormous impact on the development of Occultism in the West. Some branches of contemporary paganism, particularly Wicca, still
use the magic circle to harness good energy and form a protective barrier during magical rites.

This superstition has its roots in the ancient belief in metempsychosis, otherwise known as the transmigration of a soul into another living being. In the
West, and especially in coastal areas, people believed that when someone died, their soul could inhabit the body of a bird. Fishermen and sailors, who faced greater perils than most while at sea
and were therefore among the most superstitious of people, believed that the birds that came to fly alongside their boats carried the souls of men who had been killed at sea. This alone was enough
to make killing one akin to the murder of a fellow human, but they were sacred for another reason too. The souls of the dead were thought
to have the power to see both the
past and the future, so their presence was seen as a warning that danger lay ahead. Seagulls containing the souls of dead sailors were said to screech before a disaster, while the mere presence of
a storm petrel alongside a boat was enough to convince the living souls on board that they were in danger of drowning.

The albatross was also said to carry the soul of a dead sailor, but its presence was seen as a good omen. Its large wingspan and soaring flight made sailors believe that it brought favourable
winds with it and killing one was the sin that cursed the ‘Ancient Mariner’ in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem of 1798:

In the traditional sailing and fishing communities in Britain’s coastal regions the usefulness of gulls to the community may have fuelled this superstition. The birds are scavengers,
keeping the public safe by eating dead fish and fish offal that might otherwise litter the beaches and provide a breeding ground for disease. The belief in gulls as soul-birds was still alive up to
at least the late nineteenth century and few fishermen would kill a gull even now.

The caul is a membranous part of the amniotic sac that in a small percentage of births still covers the baby’s head and body as it is delivered. The
sac contains the amniotic fluid that has protected and nourished the baby during its gestation, so a baby born in the caul is still surrounded by ‘water’. The belief that the caul
offered protection against drowning seems to have come from the observation that newborns only take a breath once free from the caul, so there is no danger of them drowning in the fluid. We now
know that instinctive reflexes of a newborn allow it to close its windpipe and seal its lungs when submerged in water, but medieval science had no notion of this and people simply believed that the
caul itself was responsible for protecting the baby from drowning.

This made it a precious good-luck charm for the child, and it was usually kept in a glass container or mounted on paper and framed. It also made a prized talisman for sailors, who believed it
would protect them from drowning at sea. Evidence for this can be found as early as 1500 in
a verse ‘conceit’ by ‘Piers of Fulham’ collected by William
Carew Hazlitt in
Remains of Early English Poetry (1866)
, which states the caul ‘Is right a perfyte medicyne,/ Both on freshe water and on see,/ That folke shall not drowned be.’

The value placed on the caul meant that the parents of children lucky enough to be born with one often sold them to the highest bidder. This practice was made famous by Charles Dickens in
David
Copperfield
, the opening chapter of which provides a fascinating insight into the semi-superstitious attitudes of early Victorian England:

Cockerels usually crow to herald the dawn, which means they were traditionally credited with the ability to scare away the spirits of darkness. West
Country wisdom said that the cockerel could see off even the Devil himself, so its call was usually welcomed as a sign that the dangers of the night had passed. When they used their voice at any
other time, however, it was seen as a prophesy of danger or death. Written records of this date back to a translation of Roman author Petronius’s
The Satyricon
in
AD
65: ‘A cock crowed
. . . “It’s not for nothing that yonder trumpeter has given the signal; it means either a house on fire, or else some neighbour giving up the ghost. Save us all!”’

In 1594, ‘The unseasonable crowing of the barnyard cock’ was listed as an ill omen in Thomas Moresin’s collection
Papatus
. By the mid-1800s the crowing was said to be a
specific warning that a member of the family
the cock belonged to would die the next day, possibly on the exact hour that the cock had opened its beak to sing.

In Celtic and Welsh mythology a cockerel crowing three times around midnight was also believed to foretell a death, especially if it stood on the roof of a house to deliver its ominous message,
as it was thought to mean that someone sleeping inside was about to meet their maker. Crowing in the early evening was less disastrous and was taken by country dwellers as a sign that there would
be rain by morning, hence the old rhyme: ‘If a cock goes crowing to bed, he’ll certainly rise with a watery head.’ The crow of a cock directly outside the door was said in rural
areas to signal the arrival of a stranger, while in the Shetland Islands, your fate depended on the temperature of a cockerel’s feet. If one crowed after dark and was found to have warm feet,
it meant that good news was heading your way, if his feet were cold, it meant death.