human beings suffered and hoped. The establishment of the Roman Church in England did not cause the old Anglo-Saxons to abandon their ancient rites and ceremonies. The inhabitants still clung to the mysterious lore of the Druids, and were only able to attach themselves fully to the new belief by retaining quite a number of the heathen superstitions. Long after the coming of the Catholic missionaries to the British Isles, there throve in merrie England hundreds of magicians who were feared even more than the holy fathers. The ignorant person ever loves to compromise. He is never certain which god is the true god, and in order not to take chances, he sacrifices to more than one divinity, lest he be left in the lurch. Palmists, fortune tellers, necromancers, magicians, clairvoyants are always secure of a very comfortable livelihood, if they do but settle in those centers where ignorance abounds. For, indeed, they seem all omnipotent to the credulous mind. They can predict the future; they can prescribe for the patient when the learned physician has given up hope; they can sell love-philters; they can cast evil spells upon our enemies; they can give us an amulet which we can wear and be forever protected against fearful maladies; they can grant good luck, and tell us how to avoid dangers and pitfalls.
Above all, let us repeat, they can give us an amulet, or charm, to wear which will make us fearless of disease.
The selling of amulets by magicians is a very lucrative business even in the present day. Sometimes it is not the necromancer, but the church, which sells charms to its adherents. The word amulet has quite a variety of derivations from the Roman and Arabian tongues. Amulets were so called by the Latins because of their supposed efficacy in allaying evil; "amiletum quod malum amolitur." Some think that the word is derived from the Latin amula, which is a small vessel of lustral water carried about by the Romans. In the Arabian language, hamalet means that which is suspended."[1] Certain charms are supposed to be valid against all evils or ailments, others are efficacious only in certain specific instances.
People are afraid more often of an imaginary, possible misfortune than they are of the present state of infelicity. Joseph Addison says:
As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail or a crooked pin shoot up into prodigies.
- ↑ William Jones, "Credulities Past and Present," London, 1898.
