XIV. THE WANDERING JEW IN FOLK-LORE.

In the East and South, beneath climes that suggest an ideal paradise of repose or idle felicity, the undying saints were represented as dwelling in enchanted islands far from the toiling world, or slumbering in secret grottoes, while those whose immortality was a doom were compelled to roam restlessly over the earth. But when these myths had migrated into the active regions of Europe they were steadily transformed. It was felt to be hardly a satisfactory distribution of parts for the saintly immortals to be sleeping or enjoying themselves with fairies while the evil ones were so busy careering through earth and air. So, gradually the saintly sleepers awake. The Seven Sleepers sally forth as the Seven Champions of Christendom. Joseph of Arimathea cannot lie down in his sacred sepulchre which he had given for the body of Jesus, and becomes a holy wanderer. St. James emerges from the rock which had closed around his body like soft wax, and leads Spain against the Moors. St. John does not rest in his grotto at Ephesus, but makes pilgrimages, on one of which he asks alms of Edward the Confessor, near Westminster Abbey, who gives to the mendicant a gold ring, afterwards sent him from the East, with the saint’s benediction. St. Peter goes abroad also. When the first Abbot of Westminster is about to be ordained in the Abbey, St. Peter appears in the night, crosses the Thames in a boat, himself ordains the Abbot, and leaves a wondrous fish to convince the Archbishop next day that the consecration has been performed, rendering the future Deans of Westminster responsible to Peter alone, and able to preach what heresies they like, without episcopal interference. Popular superstition is sometimes good-hearted, and liberated even the sorcerer Merlin from his prison of air, as appears in the lines of Southey:

But while Merlin thus finds freedom again ending in repose, Arthur comes forth from his subterranean palace to lead the hunt, or from his Avalon to wing his way in form of a raven.

Thus the doomed Wandering Jew, under whatever name, finally found himself wandering in good company. This opens the way for human compassion to proffer those little mitigations of divine remorselessness which, as they gradually appear in folk-lore, are such severe, because unconscious, satires upon the deity of theology. The sentence of the deity, or of the sadly deified Jesus, once uttered cannot be revoked; but the human heart is no such victim of its own egotism or passionate impulse. Thus, Kuhn (2, 32) mentions the belief in Westphalia that the Jew may obtain a night’s repose if there be left in a field two harrows with the teeth downward. If one wishes to do the god-like thing he must leave the teeth of his harrow upward; then the Jew must wander on. In some other regions of Germany (Wüttke, 759) the Jew can find rest at any place where two oaks grow together in such a way as to form a cross. In Oldenburg it is said he can rest from the middle of May to the end of July, which is also the time when the Wild Huntsman may find repose. An old Metz picture shows the Jew with Wodan’s flying hair and mantle, but with a kindly countenance. It is only in a recent instance that anything diabolical has been associated with him pictorially, this being in a Lorraine engraving of 1842, where he has the hat and feather of Fra Diavolo.

There is a tone of pity in the old verses which spread abroad the fable in Flanders, and has thence gone through many lands as The Wandering Jew’s Complaint, though with many variations. I find them quoted in Mr. Hoffman’s book, referred to elsewhere. The burgesses of Brabant address the Wanderer:

I may here mention an extremely important work, Histoire de l’Imagerie Populaire, par Champfleury (Paris: Dentu, 1869), which contains a number of pictures taken from the old ballads and folk-books concerning the Wandering Jew. The early pictures represent the Jew as a man of noble form, and generally of a handsome and melancholy countenance. The only picture in the volume which betrays anti-Jewish feeling is a modern one from Sweden (where the Wandering Jew is still believed in), which represents him in semi-caricature, carrying top-boots at his back. In most of the pictures the boots worn constitute a prominent feature. This work of Champfleury is of value beyond its pictorial representations, on account of the curiosities which the author has discovered concerning the adventures of the legend among rustic populations. The author does not give us his authority for saying that the Wandering Jew appeared in some of the mediæval miracle-plays, but he shows that he was introduced into a French ballet, Mariage de Pierre de Provence et de la belle Maguelonne, dancé par son Altesse Royale dans la Ville de Tours, le 21, en son Hostel, and at Paris in 1638. There may also be found in this work the Breton ballad of the Wandering Jew, consisting of 180 verses, sung at country fairs, to the popular air Güerz, Santez Anna. This ballad is very ancient, and much more interesting than that in Percy’s Reliques. The Wanderer calls himself Boudedeo, and tells of the many countries he has visited. He has always five sous in his pocket, and is never disturbed by sickness or hunger. The ballad ends,

Champfleury describes a Wissembourg picture which shows a beggar raising his hat to the Wanderer and the latter drops his five sous into the beggar’s cap. This incident tells much of the popular sympathy felt for persons believed to be the doomed man, and is remembered by Béranger in his poem:

Champfleury remarks that, in popular belief, it was always for inhumanity that Ahasuerus was punished; and the meaning of this Wissembourg picture is that as he was punished for lack of charity, he is saved by his charity. The picture shows a citizen giving the Wanderer a glass of beer. It is all a lesson of humanity, but is pictured on a background of such inhumanity on the part of Christ, that Ahasuerus, giving away his sous, seems to have taken the place in human sympathy of the Jew who cursed him.

Dr. Coremans, in his Bulletin de la Commission royale d’histoire de Belgique (X., No. 1) says that most of the Belgian villages have their legend of the passage of the Wandering Jew through them, and that there is a general notion that he rejuvenates old women.

The Man in the Moon with his thornbush—if, as some think, he represents the doom of a Jew, who picked up fire-wood on the Sabbath, doomed to go on picking up sticks forever, and be bayed at by Gabriel’s hounds—might typify the shrivelling up in English folk-lore of the great myths of earthly immortals, including Ahasuerus.

Mr. William Henderson gives the following example from the North-country: “An old woman of the North Riding once asked a friend of mine whether it was wrong to wash on Good Friday. ‘I used to do so,’ she said, ‘and thought no harm of it, till once, when I was hanging out my clothes, a young woman passed by (a dressmaker she was, and a Methodist); and she reproved me, and told me this story. While our Lord Jesus was being led to Calvary, they took him past a woman who was washing, and the woman “blirted” the thing she was washing in his face; on which he said, “Cursed be everyone who hereafter shall wash on this day!” And never again,’ added the old woman, ‘have I washed on Good Friday.’ Now it is said in Cleveland that clothes washed and hung out to dry on Good Friday will become spotted with blood; but the Methodist girl’s wild legend reminds me more of one which a relation of mine elicited from a poor Devonshire shoemaker. She was remonstrating with him for his indolence and want of spirit, when he astonished her by replying, ‘Don’t ’ee be hard on me. We shoemakers are a poor slobbering race, and so have been ever since the curse that Jesus Christ laid on us.’ ‘And what was that?’ she asked. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘when they were carrying him to the cross, they passed a shoemaker’s bench, and the man looked up and spat at him; and the Lord turned and said, “A poor slobbering fellow shalt thou be, and all shoemakers after thee, for what thou hast done to me.”’”⁠[38]

Such, by the blessing of Protestantism, is the outcome of the great legends of Veronica and Ahasuerus! Tithonus, outliving his time, is changed to a grasshopper. Another instance of the chirpings to which great myths are reduced may be heard from our above-mentioned “Seven Whistlers,” of which ingenious use is made by the authoress of “That Lass o’ Lowrie.” Mr. James Pearson contributed to “Notes and Queries” (September 30, 1871) the following: “One evening, a few years ago, when crossing one of our Lancashire moors, in company with an intelligent old man, we were suddenly startled by the whistling overhead of a covey of plovers. My companion remarked that when a boy the old people considered such a circumstance a bad omen, ‘as the person who heard the Wandering Jews’—as he called the plovers—‘was sure to be overtaken with some ill luck.’ On questioning my friend on the name given to the birds, he said, ‘There is a tradition that they contain the souls of those Jews who assisted at the crucifixion, and in consequence were doomed to float in the air forever.’ When we arrived at the foot of the moor, a coach, by which I had hoped to complete my journey, had already left its station thereby causing me to finish the distance on foot. The old man reminded me of the omen.”

This superstition is connected with the Gabriel-hounds, believed in Yorkshire to be human-headed dogs, or sky-yelpers, as Wordsworth calls them. That poet tells of an aged peasant—

I may quote here part of the interesting account of superstitions concerning the Wandering Jew contributed to “Notes and Queries” (vol. xii. p. 503) by Mr. V. T. Sternberg. “Sometimes, during the cold winter nights, the lonely cottager will be awoke by a plaintive demand for ‘Water, good Christian! water, for the love of God!’ And if he looks out, he will see a venerable old man in antique raiment, with grey flowing beard and a tall staff, who beseeches his charity with the most earnest gesture. Woe to the churl who refuses him water or shelter! My old nurse, who was a Warwickshire woman, and, as Sir Walter Scott said of his grandmother, ‘a most awfu’ leer,’ knew a man who boldly cried out, ‘All very fine, Mr. Ferguson, but you can’t lodge here!’ And it was decidedly the worst thing he ever did in his life, for his best mare fell dead lame, and corn went down I am afraid to say how much per quarter. If, on the contrary, you treat him well, and refrain from indelicate inquiries respecting his age—on which point he is very touchy—his visit is sure to bring good luck. Perhaps, years afterwards, when you are on your death-bed, he may happen to be passing, and if he should, you are safe; for three knocks with his staff will make you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. Many stories are current of his wonderful cures, but there is one to be found in Peck’s History of Stamford which possesses the rare merit of being written by the patient himself. Upon Whitsunday, in the year of our Lord 1658, ‘about six of the clock, just after evensong,’ one, Samuel Wallis, of Stamford, who had been long wasted with a lingering consumption, was sitting by the fire, reading in that delectable book called Abraham’s Suit for Sodom. He heard a knock at the door, and, as his nurse was absent, he crawled to open it himself. What he saw there Samuel shall say in his own style: ‘I beheld a proper, tall, grave old man. Thus he said, “Friend, I pray thee, give an old pilgrim a cup of small beere?” And I said, “Sir, I pray you, come in and welcome.” And he said, “I am no sir, therefore call me not sir; but come in I must, for I cannot pass by thy doore.” After finishing the beere, “Friend,” he said, “thou art not well?” I said, “No, truly, sir, I have not been well this many years.” He said, “What is thy disease?” I said, “A deep consumption, sir; our doctors say, past cure: for truly, I am a very poor man, and not able to follow doctor’s counsel.” “Then,” said he, “I will tell thee what thou shalt do; and, by the help and power of Almighty God above, thou shalt be well. Tomorrow, when thou risest up, go into thy garden, and get there two leaves of red sage and one of bloodworte, and put them into a cup of thy small beere. Drink as often as need require, and when the cup is empty, fill it again, and put in fresh leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see, through our Lord’s great goodness and mercy, before twelve dayes shall be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body altered.”’ After this simple prescription, Wallis pressed him to eat. But he said, ‘No, friend, I will not eat; the Lord Jesus is sufficient for me. Very seldom doe I drinke any beere neither, but that which comes from the rocke. So, friend, the Lord God be with thee.’ So saying, he departed, and was never more heard of; but the patient got well within the given time, and for many a long day there was war hot and fierce among the divines of Stamford, as to whether the stranger was an angel or a devil. His dress had been minutely described by honest Sam. His coat was purple, and buttoned down to the waist; ‘his britches of the same couler, all new to see to;’ his stockings were very white, but whether linen or jersey, deponent knoweth not; his beard and head were white, and he had a white stick in his hand. The day was rainy from morning to night, ‘but he had not one spot of dirt upon his clothes.’ Aubrey gives an almost exactly similar relation, the scene of which he places in the Staffordshire moorlands. He there appears in a purple shag gown, and prescribes balm-leaves.”

Brand mentions having seen one of these ‘impostors’ going about Newcastle-on-Tyne, followed by a crowd, and murmuring to himself “Poor Jack all alone!” Probably Brand did not hear the phrase rightly, since the cry of the Wanderer was “Poor Joe all alone!” There was a crossing-sweeper near St. Paul’s Churchyard, who murmured the same, of whom there is an engraving in the British Museum. A picture of the Newcastle man was made for the Musgraves of Eden Hall, which has beneath it “Poor Joe all alone!” My friend Mr. W. B. Scott, who once resided at Newcastle, writes that he remembers hearing of him. “He seemed to have left an impression of a somewhat respectful kind, but from what cause I never heard; probably he had a history of a melancholy kind, and had been left alone by some calamity.”

This, so far as I can learn, was the last appearance in the world of any man pretending to be the Wandering Jew, if indeed he did so pretend, and the honour was not thrust upon him by the superstitious crowd. There had been advantages enough in earlier times to entice Ahasuerus, or “the famous Joseph,” to make his appearance. He came as a “witness” for Christ; he was generally a pious Christian; a tradition tells of his gambling in Naples, but, as the people there invoke their saints for luck in gambling, the exception is not considerable. Jurisconsult Louvet heard him preaching to street crowds in a French province like a revivalist friar. But in England common sense gradually chilled the Wandering Jew. When it was found that he was not above receiving sixpences to support his imperishable existence the public lost interest in him.

A question addressed by me a few weeks ago to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle elicited the following answer:

“It is quite true that a man who was known as ‘The Wandering Jew’ lived in Newcastle during the latter part of last century. He left a son, who I believe has lived in Hull the greater part of this century, and who is now a very old man indeed, keeping a small public-house named the Cricketers’ Arms. He is very eccentric, is known as ‘Topper, the Newcastle Fossil,’ and attracts a deal of attention on account of his appearance and the condition of his house. He is a very peculiar-looking man, with features of a decided Jewish cast. His clothes appear to be as old as himself. He has never been known to be clean: and old people in Hull do not remember the counter or floor of his house to have been washed. He is supposed to be emulating ‘Dirty Dick’ of London in this respect.

“George Cooper.”

Hull.

This may be regarded as the epitaph upon an ancient dream which branched into a vast and various mythology, and, in its time, bore for millions their hopes of a renovated earth, and their visions of resurrection from the sleep of death!