SUPERSTITIONS LINGER

Evening Star, Issue 20049, 14 December 1928, Page 9

SUPERSTITIONS LINGER

DA6-BAG OF OLD IDEAS MAGIC OF IRON Wo aro the heirs of all the ages, recalls Oswald Barron, English authority on folk-lore, introducing a .series of articles on superstition in modern life in th# London ‘ Daily Mail.’ What we. learned yesterday, he says, is tho truth as far as we understand what tho new science’ has been telling. But it goes into our pack with odd things wo picked up ages ago, before we could read and write or trim our nails. He goes on: “What a rag-bag we carry! Hero /we arc, not quite sure of everything that the professors say, not wholly disbelieving what we were told by the witch doctors at the beginning of the Stone Age. “ They say that our new-born babies will cling to a finger or to an umbrella handle aud hang from it as the young ape will hang to the bough. < This is so, for I have seen a baby do it._ A professor of higher mathematics, who looked like tho modernest of professors, told mo that if you wore an iron ring hidden in your "golden ring it would keep off tho_ rheumatism. Homo forefather of las must have learned as much so soon as wo came to work in iron and make magical toys out of that wonderful metal. “ Iron is still magical. One must bo careful in handling it, careful-to make no gifts of knives. When a penknife changes hands wo take a threepenny bit for it, cloaking the gift as though it were a sale. _ > “ Your door, it is charmed with the holy iron against death, against malice of witchcraft? My front door is safe; so soon as wo moved into our house I nailed up the old horseshoe which an omnibus 'horse had cast at my feet. Even so have householders nailed up the shoe ever since they had tho holy iron; it kept them safe from the charms of the wild folk in the caves on the other side of the hill, who had no iron, who were still chipping flint. A powerful thing i.» the horseshoe of iron, the shoe of the horse, which is a sacred beast. . “ Gold, also, that is a mighty thing. It was but last week, when I had a stye on the eyelid, a young woman of the newest fashion besought me to strike the stye with a golden wedding ring. I thanked her, but I had done that the first thing in the morning. Now the stye is gone; how handily this old magic comes in! THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HEAD. “ Doubtless wo believe the words written in wise books by the.professors; we must believe them, aud reverently. But that is with one side of our heads: tho other side goes on recalling what our ancestors said in the . old time ns they sat with their feet to the fire. As I write this, I shudder to think of that man who, at dinner in my own house, tried again and again to send the decanter round from left to right, widdershins, the way that is against the sun. A man like that would have brought down a curse on. the house. “So wo live, half by the new rules of wise men aud half by ancient loro that comes down to ns out of the darkness of the darkest age. We are yet playing with charms, -considering dreams and signs, and toying with scraps of old magic. “If you doubt this, think of what happened at Weymouth on the day when, as a foolish prophet had told Weymouth, it should bo whelmed by a wave of the sea. There were many. .who heeded the prophet; nobody, I

think, put questions to men of science. At . Weymouth men waited with their eyes upon the clock for the terrible moment; they giggled, but ■ they watched the clock.” But of all the superstitious people who see omens, portents and strange warning signs none is quite so rationalistic in his folly as the gambler, writes Edgar Wallace, English novelist and playwright, who contributes another number to this series. He is thinking, he says, more particularly of professional gamblers, and not of the dilettani who invest their louis on the black or red. Ho goes on: FIRST HORSE YOU SEE. “ It is the amateur, the veriest dabbler in chance, who carries rabbits’ feet, eschews green, and regards the passing of a funeral on his way to a racecourse as a very bad sign if he passes it coming toward him, and a very good sign if he passes it from behind. “There is one superstition which persists, and that is to back the first racehorse you see or the horse of the first owner-you meet on your way to a racecourse. It is an inexplicable hut nevertheless a peculiar fact that this tip very often comes off. “ The left hand plays an important part in the superstitions of the gambler. I know men who swear they can never win at cards if the dealer is lefthanded. There are players who, to change their luck, will get out and walk three times round the chair in which they have been sitting, but it k always right-handed—that is to say, clockwise. . “ Monte Carlo in the season is a welter of superstition. There is a Frenchman who goes there every year to play a system. Across his ample waistcoat is a large gold chain, from every link of which depends a charm; tigers’ claws, kewpies, and heaven knows what other' mysterious gadgets

repose in every pocket, and every finger of his hands is covered with charm rings. Nor is he unique. _ If you stroll round the tables yon will see at every one people who have before them potent magic to charm luck their way. “ I know two or three men who bet very largely who would not dream of gambling in the accepted sense _if they had started the day badly with an unpleasant letter by the morning s post or some unpleasant happening in their domestic circle. They know that they have been thrown off their balance and that reason is unseated, and, since the mind is a very delicately adjusted piece of mechanism, and the mind in-* eludes such imponderable qualities as telepathy—which plays a greater part in professional gambling than most people realise—they play light. “ And yet the non-superstitious pros have their own peculiar superstitions. I was on my way to Doncaster once with a man who bets in thousands. We were hardly out of King’s Cross before he put his hand in his waistcoat pocket and took out a golden sovereign—this was after the war—and threw it through the open window. “ ‘ What’s the idea? ’ I asked. “ ‘ My brother gave me this for luck. A new mascot always, brings bad luck.’. “ Perhaps there are no non-supersti-tious gamblers after all."