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great deal has been done towards eradicating these "dregs of Popery," which so long resisted the efforts of the Reformation. Many of the wonderful stories, and monsters, and superstitions, which he gravely records as indubitable truths, would now be treated with derision. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that many of the absurd beliefs enumerated above still retain a strong hold on the popular mind. The power of abstracting profits and of causing afflictions by an evil eye or tongue is not yet discredited. There are people who believe in the healing virtues of scurvygrass, and imagine that shell-snails gathered from the walls of old Popish chapels, when dried and pulverised, and mixed in their drink, will cure in three or four days persons labouring under jaundice. The credulous fisherman would not perhaps venture down to the bottom of the sea as the avaricious Spiel Trosk, the goldfinder, is said to have done when he entered the Nickur Hoe, trying to recover some of the three millions of guilders from the wreck of the Carmilhan of Amsterdam, which struck on the skerries of Whalsey in 1664; but he is still, like his ancestors, convinced of the existence of mermen and mermaids, krakens and seasnakes; they believe that "sea-trows, great rolling creatures tumbling in the waters, when they come among their nets, break them, and sometimes carry them away with them."

Sometimes these green-haired denizens of the ocean incur great danger in their visits to the upper world. Brand mentions one of these damsels who got entangled in the meshes and was caught by a ling-hook, which "entered her chin and came out at her upper lip." When pulled to the side of the boat, one of the crew, fearing that her appearance denoted mischief, took out his knife and stabbed her to the heart. The luckless mermaiden fell backwards, uttered a mournful cry, and vanished for ever. The murderer never afterwards prospered in his affairs, but was constantly haunted by an old merman, upbraiding him with the crime he had committed.

But their greatest danger was when they assumed the shape of seals and came to sport and bask on the rocks; for on these occasions they were sur

prised and attacked by the fishermen, who stripped off their skins to get at the fat. The loss of this upper garment deprived them of the power of diving into their native element, and hence they were either killed outright, or obliged to become inhabitants of the earth. A story is told of an inhabitant of Unst who saw a number of these beings dancing by moonlight on the sandy margin of a voe, and several seal-skins strewed beside them on the ground. At his approach they immediately fled to secure their garbs, and changing themselves again into seals, they plunged into the ocean. Perceiving that one skin was left, the Shetlander snatched it up, bore it off, and placed it in concealment. On returning to the shore, he met the fairest damsel he had ever gazed upon lamenting the robbery, by which she must become an exile from her submarine friends and a tenant of the upper world. Vainly she implored the restitution of her property; the man had drunk deeply of love and was inexorable; but he offered her protection beneath his roof as his betrothed wife. The merlady accepted the offer, and this strange connubial attachment subsisted for many years. Several children were born, and with no other mark of their origin than in the resemblance which a bend in their hands and a sort of web between their fingers have to the forefeet of a seal, and tradition says this peculiarity remains with the descendants of the family to the present day! But though the Shetlander's love was unbounded, his merwife returned his affection coldly. She would often steal alone to the shore, and on a signal being given a large seal would make his appearance, with whom, in an unknown tongue, she would hold anxious conference. Years glided on until it happened that one of the children, when at play, found a sealskin hidden beneath a stack of corn, and, delighted with the prize, ran with it to his mother.

Her eyes

glistened with rapture; she gazed upon it as her own-as the means that would conduct her through the ocean to her native home. She burst into an ecstasy of joy, which was only moderated by the thought of leaving her children; and, having hastily embraced them, she fled with

all speed towards the sea-side. The afflicted husband, on discovering his loss, ran to overtake his wife; but he only arrived in time to witness her transformation into a seal, and in that form bound from the ledge of a rock into the sea. Her marine husband, with whom she used to hold secret converse, soon appeared, evidently congratulating her in the most tender manner on her escape. Before diving to the unknown depths she cast a parting glance at the wretched Shetlander, bidding him adieu : "And may all good attend you. I loved you very well when I resided on earth; but I always loved my first husband much better." This extravagant legend will still find believers, notwithstanding the denunciations of Christianity against these beings as fallen angels compelled to take refuge in the sea.

If warlocks and witches have vanished with trows, brownies, and fairies, such is not the case with the charmers, who still exercise their profession, find out stolen goods, and cure diseases. There is one superstitious cure which has acquired considerable celebrity, and is yet practised under some modification. It is called "casting the heart," and is minutely described by Miss Campbell, of Lerwick, in her novel of Harley Reddington. It has long been believed that when a person is emaciated with sickness, his heart is worn away or abstracted by some evil genii. In these cases a person skilled in "casting the heart" is sent for, who, with many mystic ceremonies, melts lead, pours it through the bowl of a key or pair of scissors held over a sieve, the latter being also placed over a basin of cold water. The lead is melted and poured again and again, till it assumes something like the appearance of a human heart-at least, the operator strives to convince the patient and his friends that such is the fact. The sick man, according to Miss Campbell's account, is directed to sit upon the bottom of a large cooking-pot turned upon its mouth; a pewter-dish is placed or held upon his head; upon the dish a bowl is set nearly full of cold water, and with this water the charmer pours melted lead through the teeth of a common dressing-comb. A large key is also employed in this part of the opera

tion, which is conducted with many strange incantations and gesticulations. If the lead falls in a shapeless lump it is a sign that the heart and lungs of the patient are completely wasted away, and that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bring them back to their natural and healthy state. The lead is again melted after the same manner and run through the comb into the water, when it will probably as sume a different shape, the bewitchment being rendered, of course, every time weaker and weaker. The operation is repeated three times, some days intervening between each, until when the last cast of the lead is over, the charmer shews it round the company, and points out how exactly every part of the heart and lungs are restored to their natural and proper shape. If the patient dies (no uncommon case) it is ascribed to some oversight in the performance, for it must be done with the moon at a certain age, at a particular hour of the night, and turning of the tide. The curer must not touch money, but he will take any thing they please to give, should it be the half of all their goods and chattels. He appoints, however, a particular spot where a Danish coin, worth fivepence, current in Shetland, is to be laid (as many as they like, the more the better); and this money is for the fairies, who come and take it away, as is alleged but the honest operator must not, and will not finger it, otherwise his trouble would come to nought, and the spell that bound the patient would be firmer than ever. When the charm is successful, the molten lead is often suspended from the neck next to the skin, that the cure may be complete.

One of the latest specimens of Shetland superstition that I shall mention occurred in 1815 at Lerwick, and is denounced in terms of becoming rebuke by the worthy minister of Sandsting in the statistical account of his parish. It was perpetrated by a masons' lodge there for the recovery of "a woollen web, shirts, and other things of value, also many suits of mutches, stolen from a green during the present month of August." The threatening placard, which was stuck on the church-doors, ran as follows:—

"Notice is hereby given, that cruelty forms no part of masonry, yet justice to the injured party must be done, and that if these things so stolen are not returned back before the next meeting of masons upon that business, or, at furthest, in fifteen days from this date, a calamity of a severe nature may fall on all that parish, in which the present crop may be blasted by storm, and the person or persons guilty shall be publicly led through the parishes in the neighbourhood in daylight, and that by evil spirits, not seen by others. This paper to be intimated at the kirk door, that none may plead ignorance. Given under our hands at Lerwick, by authority of Morton Lodge."

It may look strange that conjurations like this should be attempted in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century; but the object of the lodge, doubtless, was to work upon the fears of the ignorant inhabitants in order to extort confession.

It may safely be asserted, however, that no such occurrence could take place now in any part of Shetland. Education, the true antidote against witchcraft and sorcery, has made rapid strides since 1815. The government has erected churches, the General Assembly Assembly has planted schools, and private individuals (amongst whom the name of the late Principal Baird, of the University of Edinburgh, should never be forgotten), have generously aided these benevolent efforts to increase the means both of secular and religious instruction among us. Every parish has now a school, most of them have three or four, so that a child unable to read or write is now a phenomenon as rare as a brownie or a shoopiltee. Sandsting has nine schools,-one parochial, one of the General Assembly, two of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, and five supported by individual subscriptions; Lerwick has four, conducted by male and female teachers; Bressay has three regular, and generally four private schools; Walls has four; Fetlar and North Yell as many; Unst, two; Nesting, three; Tingwall, six; Northmaving, five. If to these be added Sabbath-schools and libra

ries, it will be admitted, I think, that our machinery for juvenile education is tolerably efficient.

In one or two parishes there is yet room for improvement-such as South Yell, for example, and the consequence is that certain exploded superstitions still linger there. Rheumatism and scrofula are the prevailing diseases, and for the cure of this latter disorder, nothing, even at the present day, is deemed so effectual as the royal touch! And as a substitute for the actual living finger of majesty, a few crowns and halfcrowns of the first Charles, carefully handed down from father to son, have been effectual, both here and in other parishes in Shetland, towards removing the disease. Indeed there are, perhaps, few localities in our islands where a living evidence is not to be found of one said to have been "cured by the coin," and who could instantly be pointed out as a sufficient voucher to warrant confidence in its efficacy, should the fact happen to be called in question! But in putting faith in these imaginary charms, I venture to think we are not worse than some of our neighbours, who enjoy far greater means of enlightenment both from learning and observation.

Our fishermen, as I have said, are now almost the sole depositories of these exploded beliefs, and even they are "wiser than their fathers." Instead of pouring a cup of ale into the sea to forespeak good luck, they merely use significant toasts at their convivial meetings. "Death to da head dat weers nae hair" (the fish); or "Here's first to da glory o' God, an da guid o' our ain puir soulsour wordy land-maister an our loving meat-mither-helt to man, death to fish, and guid growth i' da grund!" These are the only incantations they now use, and when knowledge shall have penetrated more deeply into our social system, as it is doing every day, I do not despair of seeing every fragment and vestige of superstition, be it Pagan or Popish, entirely exorcised and banished from our islands.

HERO AND LEANDER.

I.

DAUGHTER of Sestos, languidly reclining,

Chiding the wild waves beating 'neath thy casement,
Trim well thy taper, let it be a beacon

Unto him coming.

II.

What though the sea-birds shriek along the ocean;
What though the waters heave as though in travail :
Strong-nerved Leander buffets with their fury,
Secking thy chamber.

III.

Set forth the banquet, crown the cup with flowers,
Crown it with roses mingled with the myrtle;
Cypress nor yew-leaf shadow o'er the goblet
Sacred to Venus.

IV.

Heavy and ragged sail the clouds above him,
Heavy and crested swell the waves beneath him,
Scarcely a moon-beam lights the polished shoulder
Of the strong swimmer.

V.

Listen! a shriek comes, cleaving through the darkness— Is it the sea-sprite screaming to its fellows?

Or the shrill cry of one who calls for succour

To the deaf billows?

VI.

Listen! the sound comes 'mid way from the vortex!—

Hark! now 'tis lost, and now again it rises—
Now a long silence, broken by the plashing
Of the vexed waters.

VII.

Shut to thy casement; feed the lamp no longer;
Scatter the roses, let them die and wither:
No more Leander comes to seek thy bower;

Ocean hath claimed him.

H. M.

WHAT IS THOUGHT OF OUR COMMERCIAL POLICY ON THE CONTINENT?

WHATEVER may be the immediate effect of a free-trade system on the state of society at home, there is no denying that the commercial policy of the late and of the present governments has already exercised, and will continue more and more to exercise, a decided influence over the feelings of the great body of the people in the Continental nations, and especially in France. Thinking men on the other side of the water are astonished at the boldness of the step which has been taken on this, and their astonishment partakes to the full as much of admiration as of wonder. The best-conducted and most influential of their journals speak of the measures of Sir Robert Peel with enthusiasm. They cannot enter-it is not to be supposed that they could-into our notions concerning the fealty which political leaders owe to their party. They take, as might be expected, a confined view of the state of our social relations, and of their intimate connexion with the great institutions of the country. Having no endowed Church, dependent for the revenues of its ministers upon corn, or cornrents, or upon land, they do not see the peril to the state of a sudden interference with the price in the market of this the first necessary of life. They trust but little to their clergy for the moral education of the masses, and therefore take no account of the loss of influence which every where awaits upon the impoverishment of that order of men. Being destitute of a chamber of hereditary legislators, they cannot see the wisdom of keeping the peerage above the influence of poverty, and of the temptations which follow in its train. There is no especial and pressing necessity among them, as among us, that the children of peers, and especially the heirs to coronets, should receive the advantages of a liberal and therefore an expensive education. The son of the Duke de Dalmatia will certainly become a duke, as the son of Count de Salvandy will bear his father's title; but it does not therefore follow that either the one or the other shall become a peer of

France, or succeed in obtaining a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Hence, though there may be plenty of the aristocratic spirit diffused through the community, plenty of exclusiveness as regards social intercourse, there is nothing aristocratic in the institutions of any one of the Continental nations, Hungary alone excepted. Look at France. She acknowledges but two powers, the power of the crown and the power of the people; and though to the crown she has conceded the privilege of fencing itself about with a peerage of its own creation, she believes, and we cannot say that in point of fact she deceives herself, that of these two powers that of the people is predominant. No doubt the reigning monarch has his way in most things. But it must not be forgotten that the influence of the King of the French is altogether personal. It is Louis-Philippe who manages the people; it is not the crown of France which controls or governs them. Look at Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Spain. The three former do not possess so much as the semblance of a constitution. Their nobles may be rich, and, in the immediate vicinity of their country-houses, men of considerable importance; but in the management of political affairs they have, by virtue of their station, no voice. And as to the latter, truly it would be a hard matter to say what influence prevails in her,-unless, indeed, it be the capricious will of the soldiery, worked upon by the largesses of a profligate queen-mother, or the fanfaronade of some aspiring chief or comrade. What can the natives of these several countries know about the complicated condition of society as it exists among us, and the multifarious arrangements, many of them in theory most anomalous, which are necessary to keep the machine in motion? Absolutely nothing. And, therefore, it little surprises us to find that, among the whole of them, the_move_which has been recently made in London towards the establishment of free trade, is spoken of by the more speculative, and, let us add, by the well-disposed, as a pro

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