Note 8 — V.—CHARMS, SPELLS, AMULETS AND DIVINATIONS.

One of the commonest diagrams to be met with throughout China is the mystic swastika or “Thor’s Hammer” 卐 (pronounced wan in Chinese and given as the archaic form of 萬). It is all-pervading, meeting the eye in all sorts of places, on the wrappers of medicines and sweetmeats, the stomachs or chests of idols, and the flanks of animals, upon dead walls, coins, etc. Dr. Eitel gives a most interesting account of this symbol in the 3rd volume of Notes and Queries on China and Japan.8 It is ordinarily accepted as “the accumulation of lucky signs possessing ten thousand virtues, being one of the 65 mystic figures9 which are believed to be traceable in every one of the famous foot-prints of Buddha. This of course stamps its Buddhistic origin so far as the Chinese are concerned. Apropos of this symbol, known by us as the fylfot, a recent review of Mr. Waring’s Ceramic Art in Remote Ages says:—“Another form of the cross which Mr. Waring has collected very completely is the fylfot. By some this is thought to be only a sort of Greek fret or meander pattern; but the evidence of its having been a symbol in past times of mystic significance is too strong to allow of its being reduced to a mere ornament. It has been identified with the Hammer of Thor, the Zeus or Thunderer of the Scandinavians. With the Buddhists this cross had the very opposite signification from that of the tau of the Egyptians or the cross of the Christians. General Cunningham is quoted, who says:—‘The atheistical Swastikas received their name from their peculiar symbol, the Swastika, or Mystic Cross, which was typical of their belief in Swasti. This term is a compound of ‘su,’ well, ‘asti,’ it is, meaning ‘it is well;’ or, as Wilson expresses it, ‘so be it,’ and implying complete resignation under all circumstances.’… To Mr. Waring’s collection of facts regarding the Swastika, or fylfot, it may be added that a Hindoo woman, when she cleans out her simple cottage, and washes over the earthen floor with a thin coating of mud and cow-dung—the latter having, as coming from the cow, which is sacred, a highly purifying virtue—she usually forms the figure of a Swastika on the door-step. In the woman’s mind it is supposed to be an efficacious charm to keep away evil from the house. Along with the fylfot we have the very similar figure of the three legs which we associate with the Isle of Man. Mr. Waring’s book gives us many examples of this symbol. In some cases they are legs, but oftener they are merely three obtuse angles, or curves. This is also found in many parts of the world, as well as some examples which are given with five or six limbs. In such cases it is suggestive of a wheel; and there are a number of Buddhist symbols not unlike to these, which are understood to represent the ‘Wheel of the Law,’ or the Wheel of Buddha. It may be stated that a three-limbed figure of this kind is much used in the Punjaub, and other parts of India, by the Mohajin log—the banking or moneyed class—as a charm; they place it in their houses, and generally over the door.” But Dr. Eitel makes a yet more interesting contribution to the subject in pointing out that Scandinavians, Danes, Germans and Englishmen still attach superstitious importance to this magic charm of their heathen forefathers, and of the Chinese Buddhists of to-day. To the present time the hammer of Thor is used amongst the German peasantry, and in Ireland, as a magical sign to dispel thunder.10 The same symbol was frequently cast on bells during the Middle Ages, and many of them still bear this mark. Dr. E. mentions those of Appleby and Scotherne, Waldingham, Bishop’s Norton and West Barkwith in Lincolnshire, Hathersage in Derbyshire, Maxborough in Yorkshire, and many more. That this symbol should thus be common to Buddhistic and Scandinavian mythology argues a common fount in ages long gone by; before the Aryan races had commenced their Westward wanderings or the Shang dynasty had ceased to reign in China—coeval in fact with Cadmus, the reputed father of Western letters.