CAIN AND HIS WORSHIPPERS the spell of the mirror—the invocation to cain—the witch-history of cain and abel

“Rusticus in Luna Quem sarcina deprimit una, Monstrat per spinas Nulli prodesse rapinas.”

—Alexander Neckham, a.d. 1157.

This is, for reasons which I will explain anon, one of the most curious traditions which have been preserved by the Tuscan peasantry. I had made inquiry whether any conjuring by the aid of a mirror existed—“only this and nothing more”—when, some time after, I received the following:

La Scongiurazione dello Specchio. When one wishes to enchant a lover.

“Go at midnight when there is a fine full moon, and take a small mirror, which must be kept in a box of a fine red colour, and at each of the four corners of the box put a candle with a pin, or with a pin in its point, and observe that two of the pins must have red heads, and two black, and form a cross, and note that every candle must have two tassels hanging from it, one red and one black.

“And within the box first of all put a good layer of coarse salt, and form on the salt a ring or wreath of incense, and in the middle of this a cross of cummin, and above all put the small mirror. Then take the photograph of your lover, but not the real photograph but the negative, because it must be on a plate of glass (lastra di vetro). Then take some hairs of the lover and join them to the photograph (sono uniti dalla parte del quore), and then take a fine sprig of rue.

“And with all this nicely arranged in the box, take a boat and sail out to sea; and if a woman works the spell she must take three men with her only, and if a man three women and no other person. And they must go forth at an instant when the moon shines brightly (risplende bene) on the mirror. Then hold the left hand over the mirror, and hold up the rue with the right. Then repeat the following: [255]

Incantesimo.

The Invocation.

Before proceeding further, I would explain that the use of a photograph, which must be a negative on glass, instead of being, as was suggested to me, a modern interpolation, is, strangely enough, a proof of the antiquity of the rite. In the old time, a picture or portrait painted in transparent colour on glass was held up to the moon that its rays might pass through it and enchant the subject. And among the Romans, when one had a portrait of any one cut on diaphanous stone, it was used in the same way. I had in my possession once such a portrait-gem, [259b] and a fine needle-hole had been bored through the right eye so as to blind the original of the likeness. And I had a friend who lived in Russia, who discovered that a person who hated him had obtained his photograph, and pricked holes with a very fine needle in the eyes to blind him. The negative of a photograph on glass would very naturally occur as a substitute for a picture. But what is most important is that this mention of the translucent negative proves fully that the whole ceremony, in its minutest detail, has actually been preserved to this day, and that the incantation, long as it is, exists as I have given it, since every line in it corresponds to the rite. And as I know that it was gathered by a witch and fortune-teller among others, and carefully compared and collated, I am sure that it is authentic and traditional.

Fifty pages are devoted by the Rev. T. Harley in his “Moon Lore” to the subject of the Man in the Moon, and since the book appeared in 1885 there have been great additions to the subject. This human being is declared by myths found in India, and especially among the Oriental gypsies, in Ireland, Borneo, Greenland, and South America, to be a man who is punished by imprisonment above for incest with his sister the sun. As he wanders for ever over the heavens, just as gypsies wander on earth, they claim him for their ancestor, and declare that Zin-gan (or gypsy) is derived from two words meaning sun and moon. Kam, the sun, has been varied to kan, and in gypsy the moon is called chone, which is also t-chen, chin, or sin. But the point lies in this, that Cain was condemned to be a “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth,” which gives much apparent strength to the idea that Cain, whether Shemitic or Aryan, was, for a great crime, or as chief of sinners, imprisoned in the moon.

This sufferer, in different legends, has been represented as a Sabbath-breaker, as Judas Iscariot, as Isaac, and many more transgressors, almost always with a bunch or bush of thorns, for which there has been literally no real explanation whatever. This I will now investigate, and, I think, clearly explain.

Dante in two places speaks of the Man in the Moon as Cain, and as if it were a very popular legend (Inferno, xx. 123):

“Ma vienne omai che già tiene ’l confine D’ambedue gli emisperi, e tocca l’onda Sotto Sibilia, Caino e le spine E gia iernotte fu la Luna tonda.”

“But now he comes who doth the borders hold Of the two hemispheres, and drive the waves Under the sibyl, Cain, with many thorns. And yesternight the moon was round and full; Take care that it may never do thee harm At any time when in the gloomy wood.”

This twentieth canto is devoted to the sorcerers in hell, and ends with allusion to the full moon, the sibyl, and Cain, as allied to witchcraft, prediction, and sin. When the moon is full it is also “high tides” with the witches, now as of yore:

“Full moon, high sea, Great man shalt thou be: Red dawning, cloudy sky, Bloody death shalt thou die.”

Dante again mentions Cain in the moon, in the Paradiso, ii. 50:

“Ma ditemi, che con li segni lui Dio questo corpo, che laggiuso in terra Fan di Cain favoleggiare altrui?”

“But tell me now what are the gloomy marks Upon this body, which down there on earth Make people tell so many tales of Cain?”

To which Beatrice replies by a mysterious physical explanation of the phenomenon, advising him to take three mirrors and observe how the moon is reflected from one to the other, and that in this manner the formal principio, or first creative power, passes from light to darkness. The reader will here remember that with the witches the mirror is specially devoted to conjuring Cain.

It is worth noting that a spechietto, or small looking-glass, was specially (Barretti) “a little mirror placed at the bottom of a jewel casket.”

I would now note that the thorns which Cain carries signify, not only in modern Italian, but in old Roman sorcery, the sting of hatred and of jealousy. It is a most apparent and natural simile, and is found from the crown of thorns on Christ to the Voodoo sorcery in Western America. Miss Mary Owen knew a black girl in Missouri who, as a proof of being Christianised, threw away the thorn which she kept as a fetish to injure an enemy. But in early times the thorn was universally known as symbolical of sin, just as Cain was regarded as the first real sinner. Therefore the two were united. Menzel tells us in his Christliche Symbolik (Part I. p. 206) that it is a legend that “there were no thorns before the Fall; they first grew with sin, therefore thorns are a symbol of the sorrow or pain which came from sin.” Of all of which there is a mass of old German myths and legends, which I spare the reader, for I have endeavoured in this comment to avoid useless myth-mongering in order to clearly set forth the connection between Cain, his thorns, and the moon.

That the conjuring the moon with a mirror is very ancient indeed appears from the legend drawn from classic sources, which is thus set forth in “A Pleasant Comedie called Summer’s Last Will and Testament. Written by Thomas Nash. London, 1600”:

“In laying thus the blame upon the Moone Thou imitat’st subtill Pythagoras, Who what he would the People should beleeve, The same he wrote with blood upon a Glasse, And turned it opposite ’gainst the New Moone, Whose Beames, reflecting on it with full force, Shew’d all those lines to them that stood behinde, Most pleynly writ in circle of the Moone, And then he said: ‘Not I, but the newe Moone Fair Cynthia persuades you this and that.’”

In the “Clouds” of Aristophanes the same idea is made into a jest, in which Strepsiades thus addresses Socrates:

“Strepsiades. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and then draw down the moon by night, and then shut her up in a round helmet-case like a mirror, and then keep watching her—

Socrates. What good would that do you, then?

Strepsiades. What! If the moon were not to rise any more anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

Socrates. Because what?

Strepsiades. Because the money is lent on interest.” [262]

These instances could be multiplied. What I have given are enough to show the antiquity of the conjuration; and I also venture to declare that any Italian scholar who is familiar with these formulas of sorcery will admit that, making all due allowance for transmission among peasants, the language, or words, or turns of expression in this incantation denote great antiquity.

The next paper or tradition on the subject of Cain, which, as every phrase in it indicates, was taken down from an old dame who at first slowly recalled forgotten sentences, will be to many more interesting, and to all much more amusing than the first. It once happened that an old gypsy in England began to tell me the story of the ghostly baker of Stonehenge and the seven loaves, but, suddenly pausing, he said: “What’s the use of telling that to you who have read it all in the Bible?” There is, however, this trifling difference, that I am not sure that my Italian witch friends knew that Cain and Abel are in the Bible at all. The Red Indian doctor, whose knowledge of the Old Testament was limited to its being good to cure neuralgia, was far beyond the contadini as regards familiarity with “the efficacy of the Scripture.”

This is the witch-tale as written word by word:

Abele e Chaino.

“They were two brothers. Abel greatly loved Cain, but Cain did not love so much the brother Abel.

“Cain had no great will to work.

“Abel, however, on the contrary, was greatly disposed (si ingegnava) to labour, because he had found it profitable. He was industrious in all, and at last became a grazier (mercante di manzi).

“And Cain also, being moved by jealousy (per astia), wished to become a grazier, but the wheel did not turn for him as it did for Abel.

“And Cain also was a good man, and set himself contentedly to work, believing that he could become as rich as his brother, but he did not succeed in this, for which reason he became so envious of Abel that it resulted in tremendous hate, and he swore to be revenged.

“Cain often visited his brother, and once said to him, ‘Abel, thou art rich and I am poor; give me the half of thy wealth, since thou wishest me so well!’

“Then Abel replied: ‘If I give thee a sum which thou thyself couldst gain by industry, thou shouldst still labour as I do, and I will give thee nothing, since, if thou wilt work as I do, thou wilt become as rich.’

“One day there were together Cain, Abel, and a merchant, whose name I forget. And one told that he had seen in a dream seven fat oxen and seven lean. And the merchant, who was an astrologer or wizard, explained that the seven fat oxen meant seven years of abundance, and the seven lean as many years of famine.

“And so it came to pass as he foretold—seven years of plenty and seven of famine.

“And Cain, hearing this, thought: ‘During the seven years of plenty Abel will lay by a great store, and then I will slay him, and possess myself of all his goods, and thus I will take care of myself, and my brother will be dead.’

“Now, Cain greatly loved God; he was good towards God, more so than Abel, because Abel, having become rich, never spoke more unto the Lord; and Abel would gladly have become a wizard himself.

“Then Cain began to think how he could slay Abel and become a merchant in his place, and so went forth to cut wood.

“One day he called his brother Abel, and said to him: ‘Thou art so rich, while I am poor, and all my work avails me little.’ And with that he gave Abel a blow with a knife, and dressed himself in his garments, and took a bundle of thorns on his back, and thus clad he took Abel’s place as merchant, believing that no one would recognise him as Cain.

“And while thus buying and selling he met the merchant-wizard who had foretold the seven years of famine and of abundance. And he said, ‘Oh, good day, Abel,’ to make Cain believe that he was not discovered. But the oxen who were present all began to chant in chorus:

“Cain came before God.

“But God replied: [265]

“A punishment thou shalt have because thou didst slay thy brother from a desire to become rich. Likewise thou didst meddle with witchcraft and sorceries, as did thy brother. And Abel made much money and was very rich, because he did not love God, but sorcerers. Albeit, ever good he never did evil things, and many good, wherefore God pardoned him. But thou shalt not be pardoned because thou didst imbrue thy lands in human blood, and, what is worse, in thy own brother’s blood.

“The punishment which I inflict is this:

“The thorns [266] which thou didst put upon thy brother are now for thee.

“Thou shalt be imprisoned in the moon, and from that place shalt behold the good and the evil of all mankind.

“And the bundle of thorns shall never leave thee, and every time when any one shall conjure thee, the thorns shall sting thee cruelly; they shall draw thy blood.

“And thus shalt thou be compelled to do that which shall be required of thee by the sorcerers or by conjuring, and if they ask of thee that which thou wilt not give, then the thorns shall goad thee until the sorceries shall cease.”

This is clearly enough no common popular nursery tale, such as make up collections of Tuscan tales or popular legends, gathered from pious or picturesque peasants. Through it all runs a deep current of dark heresy, the deliberate contravention of accepted Scripture, and chiefly the spell of sorcery and deadly witchcraft. It is a perfect and curious specimen of a kind of forbidden literature which was common during the Middle Ages, and which is now extremely rare. This literature or lore was the predecessor of Protestantism, and was the rock on which it was based.

There have always been in the world since time began certain good people whose taste or fate it was to be invariably on the wrong side, or in the opposition; like the Irishman just landed from a ship in America, who, being asked how he would vote, replied, “Against the Government, of course, whatever it is,” they are always at war with the powers that be. With Jupiter they would have opposed the Titans; with Prometheus, Jupiter; as early Christians they would have rebelled against the Pagans, and as heretics, Orientalised Templars, Vaudois, illuminati, sorcerers, and witches, they would have undermined the Church, never perceiving that its system or doctrine was, au fond, fetish, like their own. Among these rebels it was long the rule to regard those gods or men who were specially reviled by their foes or oppressors as calumniated. Even Satan was to them “the puir deil;” according to the Taborites, an oppressed elder brother of Christ, or a kind of Man in an Iron Mask kept out of his rights by Jehovah the XIV. These discontented ones deified all who had been devilled, found out that Jezebel had been a femme incomprise, and the Scarlet Woman only an interesting highly-coloured variant of the ancient hoary myth of Mademoiselle or Miss Salina the Innocent. When Judas was mentioned, they solemnly remarked that there was a great deal to be said on both sides of that question; while others believed that Ananias and Sapphira had been badly sat upon, and deserved to be worshipped as saints of appropriation—a cult, by the way, the secret observance of which has by no means died out at the present day—several great men being regarded in Paris as its last great high priests.

The Cainites, as known by that name to the Church, were a Gnostic sect of the second century, and are first mentioned by Irenæus, who connects them with the Valentinians, of whom I thought but yesterday when I saw in a church a sarcophagus warranted to contain the corpse of St. Valentine. They believed that Cain derived his existence from the supreme power, but Abel from the inferior, and that in this respect he was the first of a line which included Esau, Korah, the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah, the worshippers of Ashtoreth-Mylitta, or the boundless sensualists, the sorcerers, and witches.

Considering what human nature is, and its instincts to opposition, we can see that there must have been naturally a sect who regarded Cain as a misjudged martyr. Abel appeared to them as the prosperous well-to-do bourgeois, high in favour with the Lord, a man with flocks, while Cain was a tiller of the ground, a poor peasant out of favour. It must be admitted that in the Book of Genesis, in the history of the first murder, we are much reminded of the high priest Chalcas in La Belle Helene, where he exclaims, “Trop de fleurs!” and expresses a preference for cattle. It is the old story of the socialists and anarchists, which is ever new.

The witches and sorcerers of early times were a widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and traditions of heathenism with all its license and romance and charm of the forbidden. At their head were the Promethean Templars, at their tail all the ignorance and superstition of the time, and in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured either by the nobility or the Church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty, in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged themselves by secret orgies and fancied devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they fancied were such. I can seriously conceive—what no writer seems to have considered—that there must have been an immense satisfaction in selling or giving one’s self to the devil, or to any power which was at war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or “later on” to Satan, and danced and rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have all our accounts of sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount of ancient witchcraft still surviving in Italy there is not much anti-Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism. Diana, not Satan, is still the real head of the witches. The Italian witch, as the priest Grillandus said, stole oil to make a love-charm. [269] But she did not, and does not say, as he declared, in doing so, “I renounce Christ.” There the priest plainly lied. The whole history of the witch mania is an ecclesiastical falsehood, in which such lies were subtly grafted on the truth. But in due time the Church, and the Protestants with them, created a Satanic witchcraft of their own, and it is this after-growth which is now regarded as witchcraft in truth.

Cain-worshippers and witches seem to have been all in the same boat. I think it very likely that in these two traditions which I have given we have a remnant of the actual literature of the Cainites, that Gnostic-revived and mystical sect of the Middle Ages. But I doubt not that its true origin is far older than Christianity, and lost in earliest time.

One last remark. We are told in the tale that Abel, having become rich, “cut” the Lord, or would speak to him no longer. I suppose that he dropped the synagogue and Yom kippur, and became a Reformirter, and his children in due time Goyim. Also that he wanted to become a wizard, which may be a hint that he was “no conjuror.” But it is seriously a proof of the naïveté, and consequent probable antiquity of the tale, that these details are not “wrote sarcastic,” nor intended for humour. And it is also interesting to observe how impartially the narrator declares that Cain was “a good man,” and how he, in pleading his own cause before the Lord, insists that in killing Abel he only inadvertently forgot himself for an instant. One almost expects to hear him promise that he will not do it again.

It is a striking proof of the antiquity of this tradition of Cain, as I have given it, that the witch or wizard sympathy for the first murderer is in it unmistakable. The sending Cain to the moon, instead of hell, is understood to be a mitigation of his sentence. In his work on magicians and witches, a.d. 1707, Goldschmidt devotes many pages to set forth what was believed by all the learned of his time, that Cain was the father of all the wizards, and his children, the Cainites, the creators of the Gaber, fire-idolators, Cabiri, magic soothsaying, and so forth. So the tradition lived on, utterly forgotten by all good people, and yet it is to me so quaint as to be almost touching to find it still existing, a fragment of an old creed outworn here among poor witches in Florence.

“Sacher Masoch,” a Galician novelist, informs us in a romance, “The Legacy of Cain,” that the Cainites still exist in Russia, and that their religion is represented by the following charming creed:

“Satan is the master of the world; therefore it is a sin to belong to Church or State, and marriage is also a capital sin. Six things constitute the legacy of Cain: Love, Property, Government, War, and Death. Such was the legacy of Cain, who was condemned to be a wanderer and a fugitive on earth.”

I have another apparently very ancient conjuration of a mirror, in two parts. It is of the blackest witchcraft, of the most secret kind, and is only intended to injure an enemy.

From an article in La Rivista delle Tradizione Popolare of July 1894, by F. Montuori, I learn that in a little work by San Prato on “Cain and the Thorns according to Dante and Popular Tradition,” Ancona, 1881, which I have not seen, the history of Cain is given much as told by Maddalena. What is chiefly interesting in the version of Maddalena is, however, wanting in all the folklore on the subject collected by others; it is the manifest trace of Cainism, of sympathy with the first murder, and in its heresy. This opens for us a far wider field of research and valuable historical information than the rather trivial fact that Cain is simply the Man in the Moon.

Merk in Die Sitten und Gebräuche der Deutschen, gives (p. 644), from Wolf, a strange legend which is nearly allied to Moon worship by witches, and the mirror:

“There was a man in Kortryk who was called Klare Mone (bright moon), and he got his name from this. One night when sleeping on his balcony he heard many women’s voices sweetly singing. They held goblets [there is some confusion here with gläserne Pfannen or glass panes in the roof from which the man looked; I infer that the witches drank from “glass pans,” i.e., metallic mirrors], and as they drank they sang:

“‘We are drinking the sweetest of earthly wine, For we drink of the clear and bright moonshine.’

“But as the man approached them, ‘with a club to beat or kill them, all vanished.’”

“Which fable teaches,” as the wise Flaxius notes, “what indeed this whole book tends to show—that few people know or heed what witches ever really were. Now, that this boor wished to slay the sorceresses with a club, for drinking moonshine, is only what the whole world is doing to all who have different ideas from ours as to what constitutes enjoyment. So in all history, under all creeds, even unto this day, people have been clubbed, hung, tortured, and baked alive, or sent to Coventry for the crime of drinking moonshine!”

And so this volume ends, oh reader mine!

“So the visions flee, So the dreams depart; And the sad reality, Now must act its part.” Ite, lector benevole, Ite, missa est.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. Edinburgh and London