In an advertisement in the London Daily Post, of January 23rd, 1738, we read that there is “To be Seen, next door to the Crown Tavern in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange, at One Shilling each, the Surprising Fish or Maremaid, taken by eight Fishermen on Friday the 9th of September last, at Topsham Bar, near Exeter, and has been shewn to several Gentlemen, and those of the Faculty, in the Cities of Exeter, Bath, and Bristol, who declare never to have seen the like, so remarkable is this Curiosity amongst the Wonders of Creation. This uncommon Species of Nature represents from the Collarbone down the Body what the Antients called a Maremaid, has a Wing to each Shoulder like those of a Cherubim mentioned in History, with regular Ribs, Breasts, Thighs, and Feet, the Joints thereto having their proper Motions, and to each Thigh a Fin; the Tail resembles a Dolphin’s, which turns up to the Shoulders, the forepart of the Body very smooth, but the skin of the Back rough; the back part of the Head like a Lyon, has a large Mouth, sharp Teeth, two Eyes, Spout holes, Nostrils, and a thick Neck.” This we may not uncharitably assume was less a mermaid than a swindle. While the advertisement tells us that the creature in question has been seen by several of the faculty, it does not tell us what the faculty said when they saw it! This is a very serious omission. This “Maremaid” does not altogether conform to the accepted type, feet, spout-holes, and cherubic wings being all abnormal developments.

There are, of course, at all times plenty of skilful knaves and unprincipled adventurers ready in divers ways to take advantage of the credulity of the public, and a belief in many absurdities has been maintained by the apparent evidence which the conniving of such persons has from time to time furnished. To say nothing of the impostures constantly practised at fairs and by travelling show-people, it was announced in the earlier days of the century that a party had arrived from abroad with a mermaid, and that it was to be exhibited in one of the leading streets in the West End of London. A good round fee was demanded for admission, and the dupes were shown a strange-looking object in a glass case, which was unblushingly declared to be a mermaid. But the imposture was too gross to last long; it was ascertained to be the dried skin of the head and shoulders of a monkey attached to the skin of a fish of the salmon kind, with the head cut off, the whole being stuffed and highly varnished. This grotesque object was taken by a Dutch vessel from on board a native Malacca boat, and from the reverence shown it by the sailors it was probably an idol or fetish, the incarnation of some river-god of their mythology. Repulsive as the creature was, we have an illustration of it before us in a newspaper of the year 1836. It achieved a great popularity, and the profits that accrued from the exhibition were, for some time, considerable, but the owners presently quarrelled amongst themselves, and the unpoetic ending of this monkey mermaiden was that she became the subject of a suit in Chancery. When one remembers the success that Barnum achieved amongst the credulous in very much more recent times with a stuffed mermaid, we can only feel that Carlyle was right in his liberal percentage of fools, and though in this case it was the cute Yankee and not the unsuspecting Britisher that succumbed, the truth of Southey’s assertion that “man is a dupeable animal” holds equally good, and is of far-reaching application.

The “Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received Tenents and commonly Presumed Truths, by Thomas Browne, Doctor of Physick,” is a book far in advance of its time, and very interesting in showing what extraordinary beliefs were held at the time it was written. The copy open before us is the second edition, and is dated 1650. Some of the ideas combatted are “that Crystall is nothing else but Ice strongly congealed; the legend of the Wandering Jew; that a diamond is made soft by the blood of a goat; that an elephant hath no joynts; that a salamander lives in the fire; that storks will only live in republics.” To these fancies many others might be added, and some few of them that deal with the animal kingdom we shall have occasion to touch upon in the course of our book.

We naturally turn to Browne’s remarks upon mermaids, but we scarcely gather from them any definite idea as to his belief in the matter. Before quoting his remarks we must premise that his style of composition is somewhat stilted and pedantic. “Few eyes,” saith he, “have escaped the Picture of Mermaids; that is, according to Horace, his monster, with woman’s head above and fishing extremity below; and this is conceived to answer the shape of the ancient Syrens that attempted upon Ulysses. Which notwithstanding were of another description, containing no fishy composure, but made up of Man and Bird; the human mediety being variously placed not only above but also below. These pieces so common among us doe rather derive their originall, and are indeed the very description of Dagon; which was made with humane figure above and fishy shape below, of the shape of Atergates or Derceto with the Phœnicians, in whose fishy and feminine mixture as some conceive, were implied the Moon and the Sun, or the Deity of the waters, from whence were probably occasioned the pictures of Nereides and Tritons among the Grecians.”⁠[26]

Browne had the wisdom at a period when immense faith was attached to tradition to investigate matters for himself whenever it was possible, and the courage to declare the result whether it fell in with the statements of previous authorities or not. Thus he tells us that “the Antipathy between a Toad and a Spider—and that they poisonously destroy each other—is very famous, and Solemne Stories have been written of their combats, wherin most commonly the Victory is given unto the Spider.” This definite statement of antipathy would appear to be an assertion very capable of proof or disproof, but it never seems to have occurred to the philosophers to bring the matter to test, it being so much simpler to copy throughout the centuries from each other.⁠[27] “But what we have observed herein,” quoth Browne, “we cannot in reason conceale; who having in a glasse included a Toad with severall Spiders, we beheld the Spiders without resistance to sit upon his head and passe over all his body, which at last upon advantage he swallowed down, and that in a few houres unto the number of seven.” Thus in ten minutes of practical observation collapsed a legend that had held its ground for over a thousand years.

Such results gave him full right to speak out, and he analyses the works of the ancients very freely, yet withal very justly and temperately. Thus he terms Dioscorides “an Author of good Antiquity, preferred by Galen before all that attempted the like before him: yet all he delivered therin is not to be conceived oraculous.” Concerning Ælianus he tells us that he was “an elegant Author, he hath left two books which are in the hands of every one—his ‘History of Animals’ and his ‘Varia Historia,’ wherein are contained many things suspicious, not a few false, some impossible.” Of Pliny himself, the great holdfast and sheet-anchor of all previous writers on natural history, he writes: “A man of great elegance and industry indefatigable, as may appear by his writings, which are never like to perish, not even with learning itself. Now what is very strange, there is scarce a popular error passant in our daies which is not either directly expressed or diductively contained in his ‘Natural History,’ which being in the hands of most men, hath proved a powerful occasion of their propagation.” The labours of Browne should ever be held in great esteem, as he had the true scientific spirit, and, regardless of all minor considerations, sought eagerly for the truth.

In fig. 7 we have a representation of the Oannes of the Chaldeans, the Philistine Dagon,⁠[28] the fish On, as shown on one of the slabs from the Palace of Khorsabad. While one may readily admit that the mediæval mermaid is a direct descendant from the tritons and sea-nymphs of classic mythology and fancy, and that these in turn may have descended from the yet older civilizations and creeds of Egypt and Assyria, we can hardly ascribe any close association between the Chaldean Oannes and the popular notion as to mermaids. The former is divine, and is necessarily but one, while the latter claim no divinity and no individuality, but are both numerous and nameless. The work of Oannes was moreover wholly beneficent; he taught men the arts of life—to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws. He was a solar deity equivalent to Osiris and Apollo, bringing light and life to all. He was fabled to visit earth each morning, and at evening to plunge into the sea; a poetic description of the rising and setting of the sun. Hence his semi-piscine form was an expression of the belief that half his time was spent on earth and half below the waves. Hence, too, the moon-goddess, Derceto, that Browne refers to as at times manifesting herself to the eyes of men, at times plunged beneath the waves, was represented as half-woman, half-fish, and may be thus still seen on the coins of Ascalon. The kindly influence of solar and lunar deities—in other words, the beneficent influence of Nature and of the times and seasons—on the works of men is an altogether nobler idea than belief in classic syren or mediæval Lorelei, who charm but to destroy.

Fig. 8 is a curious variant from the accepted notion of a mermaid. We have extracted it from one of the maps in Munster’s Cosmography. It is placed where in more modern charts Australia would be found, south of the islands of “Iaua” and “Porne,” names which the discrimination of our readers, who are at all accustomed to the transposition and substitution of letters in these old records, will no doubt readily resolve into Java and Borneo. One can easily imagine that the double tail, like the twin screws of an ironclad or ocean liner, might be of great assistance in steering, though some few millions of the lowlier inhabitants of the deep have nevertheless for ages got along very fairly without this special development.⁠[29]

We are told in mediæval story that a young man wandering along the rocky beach suddenly encountered a mermaid and seized her before she was able to reach the water. Her personal charms so worked upon his ardent temperament that he then and there proposed matrimony, and his suit was successful. Would that we could conclude in true story-book style, and declare that they lived happy ever after! After years of wedded bliss, a great longing came over her to see her own people once more, and, on the distinct understanding that the parting was to be a very short one, she embraced her husband and children and plunged into the sea and never reappeared, it being charitably assumed by those responsible for the story that the waters, like those of Lethe, washed away all remembrance of the past, and buried in oblivion the years she had spent so happily on earth.

The power that this story and the next one we propose to tell presupposes—the power of being able to change one’s nature—is responsible for some of the most terrible beliefs, notably those where men and women were changed into animals, such as dragons or the wehr-wolf. In the following story, though the outcome was lamentable, the weird horror of so many of these tales is absent. Like the previous story, it deals with the tender passion, and the ardent lover and the charming damsel reappear on our page. The lady, before acceding to the wishes of her suitor, stipulated that she should have, without question, the whole of every Saturday to herself, and the request was acceded to and honourably observed for some years. At last one day, stung by the remarks of some mischief-makers, he intruded upon his wife’s privacy, and found her in mermaid form disporting herself in her bath. She gave one piercing shriek, and then vanished for ever. In fig. 9 we see in the foreground the astonished husband, and to the left of the picture the meddlesome neighbour riding off, while, with the quaint naïveté of Gothic art, all that intervenes between us and the chamber of mystery is removed, and there is unmistakable evidence that the fatal and final Saturday, after years of wedded bliss, has dawned. The tempting peep-hole that facilitated the tragedy will be seen by the side of the man’s head, and it speaks well for the honourable feeling of the promise-giver that so easy a means of clearing up the weekly mystery was for years unused. It is difficult now to realize that such a story could ever be seriously believed, and that the possibility of some such incident might befall oneself, or occur, quite as a matter of course, in the circle of one’s friends.

The terrible belief in lycanthropy, the transmutation of men into wolves, was one of the most widely spread of the weird fancies of the Middle Ages. The idea of the changing of men into various animals is a very ancient one. Herodotus tells us that the Scythians affirm that the whole nation of the Neuri change themselves once a year into wolves, and our readers will readily recall the transformation of the companions of Ulysses into swine, of Actæon into a stag, and divers other gruesome stories of like nature. Ovid, for example, in the “Metamorphoses” tells how Zeus visited Lykaon, the King of Arcadia, and how the king placed a dish of roasted human flesh before his guest to test his omniscience. The daring experiment was promptly detected, and the monarch as a punishment was changed into a wolf by the offended deity in order that henceforth he should himself feed on the flesh he had so impiously offered.

Euanthes, an early Greek writer, tells a very circumstantial story indeed of a certain tribe where one of its members must each year be chosen by lot to become a wolf. Why this should be at all necessary he does not stop to explain. The conditions are very precise. The day and the man having been selected he is taken to the border of a large lake, and his clothes removed, and hung upon an oak tree. He then swims across the lake and disappears into the gloomy woods that come down on the further side to the water’s edge, and then and there changes into a wolf. Should he forbear for nine years to eat the flesh of man he may return to the lake and recross it, changing back, as he lands, into his manhood again, and only differing from his former self in the fact that he will look nine years older. Should he, on the general principle of doing at Rome as the Romans do, share with his vulpine companions in any feast of human flesh, a wolf he must remain to the end of his days. As very probably, however, he would find amongst his comrades some few who, like himself, were human beings undergoing this temporary metamorphosis, he would be encouraged to persevere in this restriction of his diet by their example and encouragement, and also escape the painful singularity that his genuinely wolf associates would very possibly resent.

One Fabius, having an inquiring mind and fired with curiosity as to why the man should carefully suspend his clothes in an oak tree, is able to add as the result of his inquiries, that those are the clothes that the man resumes when he emerges from the lake. Whether they had been miraculously preserved or whether they had undergone such deterioration as would otherwise arise from their suspension in a tree exposed to all weathers for nine years he does not inform us. The point is a distinctly interesting one, and especially to the man reclaiming his wardrobe.

One great feature of terror in the belief in lycanthropy and such like metamorphosis is that the man still retains his human reason, memory, and knowledge of himself and his surroundings, and is, in addition, imbued with the fierce animal instincts of the ravenous brute into which he has been transformed.

The wolf is the prominent animal in the history of this belief in Europe, since in this part of the world it was the creature that caused the greatest devastation, but in India the transformation is to the tiger or the serpent, in South America to the jaguar, in Africa to the lion, the leopard, or the hyæna. In some cases this change would appear to be a terrible punishment for wrong done, in others a transformation at pleasure by wicked men seeking in the new guise to inflict terror, loss, and death. Amongst some peoples it was believed that brave and noble men became lions and eagles, while mean and treacherous ones changed to snakes, jackals, or hyænas. The belief in one form or another reappears in endless fables in circulation amongst the natives of almost every country the wide world over.

Insanity, monomania, bodily disease, hydrophobia, are doubtless responsible for much in this matter. In many cases, we can scarcely doubt, the people charged with being wehr-wolves were entirely innocent of offence, the charge, like that of witchcraft, being brought against them by those who either in blind terror and superstition or some motive of craft or greed were desirous to get them removed out of the way. In some cases fierce lunatics, not as now confined in asylums, but roaming the country at large, in homicidal mania destroyed human life and became invested in the eyes of men with strange and terrible powers. Often, too, the reputed wehr-wolves under pressure of torture would in their agony confess to anything their tormentors suggested, simply as a means of obtaining some temporary respite for their sufferings, or in the ravings of delirium utter things that superstition could readily distort into admission and confession. We must remember, too, that many of the most horrible stories are narrated by writers whose veracity is by no means on a par with their credulity, and while their statements, outrageous as they are, were no doubt in most cases honestly intended, the reader must by no means suspend the right of private judgment.

It is historic fact that in the year 1600 multitudes of men were seized with the hallucination that they were changed into wolves, and retreating into caves and dark recesses of the forests, issued thence howling and foaming in mad lust of blood.⁠[31] Many helpless men, women, and children were destroyed by them during this frightful epidemic, and many hundreds of those possessed were executed on their own confession or on the testimony of the panic-stricken.

Some commentators have held that Nebuchadnezzar, when driven from the presence of man, was suffering from a like form of madness, and fancying himself to be a beast.

It was a common belief in ancient times that the wehr-wolf simply effected the change from man to beast by turning his skin inside out, hence he was sometimes called Versipellis, a term equivalent to skin-turner. In mediæval days it was thought that the wolf’s skin was beneath the human, and any unfortunate individual who was suspected of lycanthropy was very likely to find himself being hacked at by seekers after truth in search of this inner hairy covering.

Olaus Magnus,⁠[32] in the early part of the sixteenth century, tells us a story of a nobleman and his retinue who lost their way in journeying through a wild forest and presently found themselves hopelessly foodless and shelterless. In the urgency of their need, one of his servants disclosed to him in confidence that he had the power of turning himself at will into a wolf, and doubted not but that, if his master would kindly excuse him awhile, he would be able to find the party some provision. Permission being given, the man disappeared into the forest under semblance of a wolf, and very quickly returned with a lamb in his mouth, and then, having fulfilled his mission, resumed his human shape. The forest would provide unlimited fuel, while their knives would supply the cutlery. Some member of the party, it is to be hoped, had a tinder-box, or the repast after all would have to consist of cold raw lamb. As hunger is proverbially said to be the best sauce, the absence of mint would be of little moment at this vulpine banquet.

The belief in man’s power thus to change his form and nature is obviously derived from the widely-spread doctrine of metempsychosis, the passing of the soul after the human life is ended into an animal, or a series of animals. This change is ordinarily in harmony with the character of the deceased, the timid nervous folk reappearing on earth as hares and such-like creatures, the gluttonous as swine or vultures and other foul-feeders. Thus the soul, the eternal principle, in the words of the poet:

John of Nuremberg relates, in his book “De Miraculis,” how a man, lost at night in a strange country, directed his steps towards a fire that he saw before him. On reaching it he found a wolf sitting enjoying its warmth, and was informed by him that he was really as human as himself, but that he was compelled for a certain number of years, like all his countrymen, to assume the shape of a wolf. A strange country, indeed, where wolves when the evenings grow chilly light a fire, and in the comfort of its ruddy glow are found quite ready to entertain the passing traveller with their conversation.

In the year 1573 one Garnier, a native of Lyons, who had led a very secluded life, excited the suspicions of his neighbours, and was dragged before the tribunals on the charge of being a loup-garou, the French equivalent term for wehr-wolf. It was affirmed that he prowled about at night and in vulpine form devoured infants. He was arrested, and put to the torture, confessed everything that was charged against him, and was burnt at the stake. It was no joke in mediæval days to be a little retiring in disposition: the worst construction was put upon it, and one’s neighbours, at short notice, were able to report having seen a black cat about the place, or some equally convincing proof of evil possession, and from thence it was a short passage to the river or the fire.

Within a few years afterwards a man named Roulet was tried at Angers on the charge of having slain and partially devoured a boy. Evidence was given that he was seen in wolf form tearing the body, and on being pursued, he took refuge in a thicket. Here he was surrounded and captured, but when caught he had resumed the human form. He was condemned to death, but the sentence was afterwards changed to life-long confinement.

In Auvergne in 1588, a nobleman, in returning from the chase, was stopped by a stranger, who told him that he had been furiously attacked by a savage wolf, but had been fortunate enough to save himself by slashing off one of its fore-paws. This he produced as a trophy, when, to the astonishment of both, it was found to have become the delicate hand of a lady. The noble felt so sure that he recognized a ring upon it, that he hurried to the castle, and there found his wife sitting with her arm tied up, and on removing the wrappers the hand was missing. She had to stand her trial as a loup-garou, and being convicted, perished at the stake. Stories of the type of those given might readily be multiplied indefinitely.

A belief in enchantment introduced a new complication. Things we are taught are not always what they seem, and certainly in the writings of the Middle Ages we find many illustrations of the truth of this adage, since the pages of those authors abound with examples of the transformation of men and women into various uncanny creatures by mystic spells. The story of Beauty and the Beast is a survival of these. Sir John Maundevile, to give but one illustration, tells us, in his very wonderful travels, of a dragon that was to be seen in the island of Cos, a creature which the people of the island called the Lady of the Land, being in fact “the Doughtre of Ypocras in forme and lykenesse of a gret Dragoun, that is an hundred Fadme of lengthe. Sche lyethe in an old Castelle, in a Cave, and schewethe twyse or thryes in the yeer. Sche was thus chaunged and transformed from a fayre Damysele in to lykenesse of a Dragoun be a Goddesse that was clept Deane.” This Deane our readers may perhaps scarcely recognize as Diana. How it was that Damysele and Deane had between them brought about such a state of things the history does not tell us. Centuries after Deane was an exploded myth we find this evidence of a by-gone feud still in existence, testifying to the virulence of the goddess’s temper and the power of enchantment. “Men seyn that sche schalle so endure in that forme of a Dragoun unto the tyme that a Knyghte come that is so hardy that dare come to hir and kisse hir on the mouthe, and then schalle sche turne agen to hire owne Kynde and ben a Woman agen. It is not long sith then that a Knyghte of Rodes that was hardy and doughtie in Armes seyde that he wolde kyssen hire, and whan he entred into the Cave the Dragoun lifte up hire Had agenst him, and whan the Knyghte saw hire in that Forme so hidous and so horrible he fleyghe awey.” The dragon-maiden naturally resented this slight upon her charms, and pursued and killed him. Presently, a young man who knew nothing of all this, for “he wente out of a Schippe” and was a stranger in those parts, came to the cave, and there found a charming “Damysele that Kembed hire Hede and lokede in a Myrour.” She asked him if he were a knight, and when he answered her that he was but a poor mariner, she told him to go and get knighted, and come again on the morrow, “and kysse hir on the Mouthe and have no Drede, for I schalle do the no maner harm, alle beit that thou see me in Lykenesse of a Dragoun.” She went on to assure him that she was the victim of enchantment, and that if he would free her from this he should be her lord, and have in addition much treasure. How his “Felowes in the Schippe” were able to dub him knight does not appear; but he, at all events, presented himself on the morrow “for to kysse this Damysele.” But his nerve failed him at the critical moment, for “whan he saughe hir comen out of the Cave so hidouse and so horrible, he hadde so gret dred that he flyhte agen to the Schippe.” For anything we learn to the contrary, the charm was never broken, for all that Maundevile can tell us more is that “whan a Knyghte comethe that is so hardy as to kysse hir he schalle not dye, but he schalle turne the Damysele in to hir righte Forme and Kyndely Schapp, and he schal be Lord of alle the Contreye and Isles.” In our illustration, fig. 10, we see the newly-made knight making his way back again to his vessel with all convenient speed, his courage having entirely failed him at the critical moment.

A belief in witches, fairies, and divers other uncanny folk was a strong article of faith with our ancestors, but to go at any just length into these points would lead us further afield than our title would perhaps justify. As we have already referred to the suspicion that attached itself to anyone who led a life somewhat outside the ordinary groove, we append an excellent illustrative passage from Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” as it admirably conveys the popular idea. There in a gloomy hollow glen she found:—

Those who care to look the subject up may turn to Reginald Scot’s “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” “wherein the lewde dealing of Witches and Witchmongers is notablie detected, the knauerie of coniurors, the Curiositie of figure-casters, and many other things are opened which have long lien hidden;”⁠[33] or perhaps, better still, to the book entitled “Saducismus Triumphatus, or full and plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions, proving partly by Holy Scripture, partly by a choice Collection of modern Relations, the Real Existence of Apparitions, Spirits and Witches, by Jos. Glanvil, late Chaplain to His Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal Society.” The copy before us is dated 1658, and is full of tales of familiar spirits in the forms of toads, rabbits, hares, dogs, &c., diver incantations to provoke evil or to shield from it, and the like, all gravely narrated. The author, in fact, holds it rank atheism to doubt such tales, since witches are moved by evil spirits, and if people do not believe in one they do not in the other, and therefore not in spirits at all, and therefore not in God!

In the days of our forefathers the ideas held were of a very primitive and unscientific character, and what knowledge there was was largely mixed up with mysticism, gross superstition, rank credulity, sheer guesswork. The common people saw in everything outside their common experience some grave portent, some prophecy of coming evil, and filled the forest glades, the wild moorland, the dark recesses of the mine, the air, the waters, with strange forms of life, sometimes in sympathy with mankind, but more frequently hostile. We may, on the whole, be very thankful that our lot was not cast in the “good old times.”