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On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse that should justify formality of registration. |
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In a London journal, dated January 9, 1909, I find the following narrative which, on enquiry, proved to be a serious contribution from an English traveller. The evil eye is said to have a dread terror for the more ignorant Erse
[Irish] population, but the story here told is, as will be seen, on true witchcraft lines. "Some months ago I was on a visit to some friends in the south of Ireland, and one morning when seated at breakfast a servant rushed into the room, screaming hysterically that the dairymaid has just found
pishogue upon the dairy floor. Pishogue is a white, yellowish fungus made at the dead of night, after a solemn incantation of the devil, according to a secret rite which has been handed down from generation to generation. My host, a 'big' landlord, sprang to his feet and, followed by his wife and myself, ran hastily out of the house into the trim, cool dairy where, upon the posts of the door, I saw the daubs of pishogue. My host knocked it off quickly with a stick, and then, turning angrily to the weeping dairy maid told her it was nothing at all. But the next minute he informed me under his breath that he might expect bad luck with his dairy, as it was indeed the cursed pishogue. That very evening when his twenty splendid milch cows were driven into their stalls to be milked, a cry of consternation went up from the lips of the milkers; they were absolutely dry; and for months they remained so, while a tenant who lived close to the demesne, an absolutely drunken, impecunious, rascal, was noticed to give up his weekly attendance at Mass, in spite of which irreligious conduct his miserable dairy stock suddenly took the appearance of healthy, well-fed cattle, and every one knew he was the man who had put pishogue upon his master and robbed him of his good. It is a well-known fact that a dairy woman will go to churn as usual, when, to her terror, she will find pishogue daubed upon it. Let her churn for hours, she will make no butter, The usual remedy resorted to by terrified people is to get Mass said in their homes, and the places, cattle, or crops blessed on which the curse has fallen. But that often fails to bring back the good."
T Sharper Knowlson,
The
Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs,
T Werner Laurie, Ltd, London, 1930, Section III
Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,
Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
He layde his hand on mine and sayd:
"Be gone!" Ye ill no longer stayd.
But O ye wofull plyght in wh.
I'm now y-pight: I have ye itche!
Scottish text on the King's Evil. On
January 9, 1683, Britain's
King Charles II issued orders for the future regulations of the ceremony
of touching 'the King's Evil', or
scrofula.
Source:
Ambrose
Bierce,
The Devil's Dictionary.
Arise Evans had a fungous Nose and said, it was revealed to him, that the King's hand would cure him. At the first coming of Charles II into St James's Park he kissed the King's hand and rubbed his Nose with it: which disturbed the King, but cured him.
John Aubrey (March
12, 1626
- June,
1697), English antiquary
and writer; Miscellanies, 1695
There is nothing in the world more
stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but
you cannot convince it.
Alexander
Herzen, Russian anarchist who died on January 9, 1870; remarking on tradition
I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using gases against uncivilised tribes.
Great Britain's then Foreign Secretary, Winston S
Churchill, referring to the Kurds of Iraq and neighbouring countries. Churchill's American mother was born on January 9, 1854.
I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia by the fact that a stronger race has come in and taken their place.
Winston S Churchill
Woman, like
man, is her body, but her body is something other than herself.
Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist
author, born on January 9, 1908
Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
US President Richard M Nixon, born January 9, 1913; in his White House farewell
President Nixon's motto was, if two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
Norman Cousins, British journalist, on Richard Nixon
Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
Abbie Hoffman,
Yippie
founder and activist
Supposing one day trucks travelled through the city
announcing, "The war in Vietnam is over! The war is over! Turn on your radio for
further information." Within two minutes everybody would be calling their
mothers, "Hey Mom! The war's over!" Nixon would have to go on TV to reassure the
American people that the war was still on.
Jerry Rubin,
Yippie founder and activist
Homeless, homeless are we,
just as homeless as homeless can be,
We don't get nothin for our labor,
So homeless, homeless are we.
John Handcox, 'Hungry, Hungry Are We'; on January 9, 1939, 1,700 sharecropper families sat down by the Missouri Highway, USA
The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.
Joan Baez, American folksinger, born on January 9, 1941
More Joan Baez quotes
The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.
I'm not from the left (politically).
Source
Action is the antidote to despair.
Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry.
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.
That's all nonviolence is – organized love.
You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.
If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how.
I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it.
When I was older, my father regretted my not going to school, as I was a girl able to learn many things. But he always said:
"Unfortunately, if I put you in school, they'll make you forget your class; they'll turn you into a ladino. I don't want that for you and that's why I don't send you." He might have had the chance to put me in school when I was about fourteen or fifteen but he couldn't do it because he knew what the consequences would be: the ideas that they would give me.
Nobel Prize winner and hoaxer Rigoberta Menchú, born on January 9,
1959, warms up the audience in her fabricated autobiography. Her father, in fact, sent her to two prestigious private boarding schools, operated by Catholic nuns.
January 9 is the 9th
day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 356
days remaining (357 in leap years).
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Feast day of St Fillan (Foelan, Foellan, Foilan, Foillan, Fulan), abbot
(Many sources give January 19 for this saint's day.)
Fillan was
a Scottish saint, famous for his piety and good works. The son of Feriach, grandson of King
Cellach Cualann,
King of Leinster,
Ireland, he received the monastic habit in the abbey
of Saint Fintan Munnu. Then he accompanied his saintly mother, Kentigerna, and
his uncle, St Comgan, to Scotland, where he became a missionary monk. Both
Irish and Scottish martyrologies recorded his sanctity, and the Aberdeen
Breviary tells of some extraordinary miracles performed by him.
At
the monastery he
built in Pittenweem ('place of the cave'), while transcribing the
scriptures, his left hand cast light for him at night. He retired to a
wild and remote valley named after him,
Strathfillan, in
Perthshire, where
he died. There was for a very long time a bell on a grave stone there,
said to be the saint's. It was there until the early 19th Century,
and no one stole it because it was said that it would only return to
Strathfillan, mysteriously. Unfortunately an English traveller once put
the belief to the test, and it seems not to have returned.
St Fillan is known for his sacred
healing well located between Comrie and
Loch Earn, and its healing stones
which are still in use today. These stones resemble the organs they are
said to heal: eyes, kidneys, liver, lungs, heart. Another St Fillan is
commemorated on
June 20.
Healing of the insane at Strathfillan
pool, old Scotland
"At Strathfillan,
there is a deep pool, called the Holy Pool, where, in olden times, they
were wont to dip insane people. The ceremony was performed after sunset
on the first day of the quarter, O. S.,* and before sunrise next
morning. The dipped persons were instructed to take three stones from
the bottom of the pool, and, walking three times round each of three
cairns on the bank, throw a stone into each. They were next conveyed to
the ruins of St Fillan's chapel; and in a corner called St Fillan's bed,
they were laid on their back, and left tied all night. If next morning
they were found loose, the cure was deemed perfect, and thanks returned
to the saint. The pool is still [1843] visited, not by parishioners, for
they have no faith in its virtue, but by people from other and distant
places."
New Statistical Account of Scotland,
parish of Killin, 1843; in Robert
Chambers, (Ed.), The
Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection
with the calendar, etc,
W
& R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869
edition here
with CD-ROM available; See also The
English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)
[*The first days of quarters in Scotland were not the same as in England. They are Candlemas, Feb 2; Whitsunday; Lammas, Aug 1; Martinmas, Nov 11. I haven't been able to ascertain whether this is O S (Old Style), or NS. – PW]
The miracle of St Fillan's arm
From an old account by Hector Boece: The night before the battle of Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce was turning over in his mind his prospects for the next day. He had with him the arm of St Fillan in a silver case. He prayed to God and St Fillan. The case clapped open and shut, to his surprise. He told his chaplain, who declared a miracle, because he had brought the case to the battlefield but not the arm, which he had left behind to preserve it from the dangers of the field. The king spent the rest of the night in joyful prayer and thanksgiving: he ".. past the remanent of the nicht in his prayaris with gud esperance of victorie".
