Note on the “hand of glory”

Note: this text is extracted from Book VI, chapter 34.

For the candle of human fat see Benfey, Orient und Occident, vol. i, p. 383, and Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, vol. ii, pp. 333 and 335. Cf. also Birlinger, Aus Schwaben, pp. 251, 262-270. It appears from Henderson’s Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties that in Europe a candle of human fat is used with the “Hand of Glory” by robbers for the purpose of preventing the inmates of a house from awaking. He gives several instances of its use. The following will serve as a specimen:—“On the night of the 3rd of January 1831 some Irish thieves attempted to commit a robbery on the estate of Mr Napier of Louglicrew, Co. Meath. They entered the house armed with a dead man’s hand with a lighted candle in it, believing in the superstitious notion that a candle placed in a dead man’s hand will not be seen by any but those by whom it is used, and also that if a candle in a dead hand be introduced into a house, it will prevent those who may be asleep from awaking. The inmates, however, were alarmed, and the robbers fled, leaving the hand behind them.” The composition of the candle is evident from the following extract from the Dictionnaire Infernal of Colin de Planey:—

“The ‘Hand of Glory’ is the hand of a man who has been hanged, and is prepared in the following manner. Wrap the hand in a piece of winding-sheet, drawing it tight to squeeze out the little blood which may remain; then place it in an earthenware vessel with saltpetre, salt and long pepper all carefully and thoroughly powdered. Let it remain a fortnight in this pickle, till it is well dried, then expose it to the sun in the dog-days till it is completely parched, or if the sun be not powerful enough, dry it in an oven heated with vervain and fern. Next make a candle with the fat of a hanged man, virgin wax, and Lapland sesame. The ‘Hand of Glory’ is used to hold this candle when it is lighted. Wherever one goes with this contrivance, those it approaches are rendered as incapable of motion as though they were dead.”

Southey in Book V of his Thalaba the Destroyer represents a hand and taper of this kind as used to lull to sleep Zohak, the giant keeper of the caves of Babylon (see the extracts from Grose and Torquemada in the notes to Southey’s poem). Dousterswivel in Sir Walter Scott’s Antiquary tells us that the monks used the “Hand of Glory” to conceal their treasures (Henderson’s Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, p. 200 et seq.).

——The extracts from Grose and Torquemada mentioned in Tawney’s note above need further comment. Francis Grose’s work referred to is his Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions, London, 1811. Here we are told of the magical powers of the dried and pickled hand of a dead man, especially that of a criminal, and how everyone in the house continued sleeping, but, it is added, if anyone was awake in the house, it would at once be discovered by the fact that it would be impossible to light the thumb. Thus we see that in this case the fingers themselves were lit and not a candle held in the hand.

F. Juan de Torquemada, in his Monarquia Indiana, mentions a similar superstition in Mexico regarding the left hand and arm of a woman who had died in her first child-bed.

The subject is interesting, and warrants more attention than appears to have been given to it hitherto.

There seem to be two distinct ideas connected with the use of the dead man’s hand and the candle of human fat. The first, and much older, idea is that of homoeopathic magic of the dead, as practised in so many parts of the world; and the second is the outcome of the various magical properties attributed to the mandrake, beginning in the Mediterranean region and gradually percolating through to the British Isles.

Let us look at the homoeopathic magic of the dead first. We have already seen (Vol. I, p. 130) that the “external soul” motif is derived from the doctrine of sympathetic magic, according to which any portion of a living being, though severed, remains in mystic union with the bulk, and is affected by whatever affects the bulk.

Again, in discussing the “overhearing” motif (Vol. II, pp. 7n¹, 8n), I pointed out that the origin of acquiring the power of a victim could possibly be traced to a similar source. The eating of a portion of the animal or man would convey the required quality of the dead to the eater. Thus warriors of the Theddora and Ṅgarigo tribes in South-Eastern Australia used to eat the hands and feet of their slain enemies, believing that in this way they acquired some of the qualities and courage of the dead (A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 573, quoted by Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. viii, p. 151, who gives several other examples). Working upon this idea, it is considered possible to use a portion of a dead person for nefarious ends. Frazer (op. cit., vol. i, pp. 147-14.9) explains this clearly: just as the dead can neither see nor hear nor speak, so you may on homoeopathic principles render people blind, deaf and dumb by the use of dead men’s bones or anything else that is tainted by the infection of death.

Among the examples quoted I would mention one from Java where a burglar takes earth from a grave and sprinkles it round the house which he intends to rob; this throws the inmates into a deep sleep (J. Knebel, “Amulettes javanaises,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-Land en Volkeṅkunde, xl, 1898, p. 506).

Similarly, in Northern India, Crooke (op. cit., vol. i, p. 26 l) states that it is believed when thieves enter a house that they throw over the inmates some Masān, or ashes, from a pyre, and make them unconscious while the robbery is going on.

In Europe we find numerous similar beliefs (see Frazer, op. cit., p. 148 et seq.). In a certain Ruthenian custom we get rather nearer our candle of human fat. Ruthenian burglars remove the marrow from a human shin-bone, pour tallow into it, and having kindled the tallow, march thrice round the house, with this candle burning, which causes the inmates to sleep a deathlike sleep. Sometimes they will make a flute out of a human legbone and play upon it, whereupon all persons within hearing are overcome with drowsiness (R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Rutenen,” Globus, lxi, 1892, p. 282).

All kinds of powers are attributed to fat or juices from the human body. In India a most potent charm, known as Momiāī, can be obtained as follows: a boy, as fat and black as possible, is caught, a small hole is bored in the top of his head, and he is hung up by the heels over a slow fire. The juice or essence of his body is in this way distilled into seven drops of what is then called Momiāī. This substance possesses healing properties of a supernatural kind. Sword-cuts, spear-thrusts, wounds from arrows and other weapons of warfare are instantly cured by its use, and he who possesses it is practically invulnerable. In Kumaun this substance is known as Nārāyan Tel, or Ram Tel, the “oil of Viṣṇu or Rāma” (Crooke, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 177).

For numerous customs connected with the hand in homoeopathic magic see J. A. Macculloch, in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., article “Hand,” vol. vi, p. 496.

In Europe there were many strange uses to which the hands, fingers, finger-joints, etc., of the dead could be put, to the benefit of the possessors. In the north of England it was believed that the only thing which could put out the “Hand of Glory” was milk. Thus, in the first of a collection of Yorkṣire stories (collected by R. Blakeborough, and edited by J. Fairfax-Blakeborough, in 1924, entitled The Hand of Glory), we read of the servant girl’s efforts to pour milk on the candle:

“She straightway poured the whole of the contents of her jug over the hand and candle, the flame turned scarlet, the fingers twitched, then released their hold, and the taper fell with the light out.”

A somewhat similar legend is told, says the editor, of the Spital Inn, Stainmoor, a posting-house on the York-Carlisle Road. In this case the highwayman’s incantation was overheard:

“Let those who rest more deeply sleep;
Let those awake their vigils keep.
O Hand of Glory, shed thy light,
Direct us to our spoil to-night.
Flash out thy light, O skeleton hand,
And guide the feet of our trusty band.”

It is also stated that the “Hand of Glory” would cease to take effect, and thieves could not make use of it, if the threshold of the door of the house, and other places by which they might enter, were anointed with an unguent composed of the gall of a black cat, the fat of a white hen and the blood of a screech-owl; which mixture must necessarily be prepared during the dog-days (quoted by Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 1893, vol. iii, p. 279). See also Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 405-409; Waldau, B'öhmische Märchen, p. 360; and Kuhn, Westjalische Märchen, vol. i, p. 146.

In the Middle Ages it appears that the most potent form of candle was that of a newly born child, which, anointed with grease and ignited, would make the thief invisible, and cause everyone in the house to fall fast asleep. In the seventeenth century it is recorded that, in order to get the most efficient candle possible, thieves were known to have murdered pregnant women in order to extract the unborn child’s finger (see A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1900, p. 134; and references in Frazer, op. cit., vol. i, p. 149n³).

It seems very probable that all these modern survivals are partly the outcome of primitive ideas of homoeopathic magic, but there is also the second point to be considered—the connection of the custom with the mandrake. That it has a very close connection is obvious on etymological grounds. The expression “Hand of Glory” is merely the translation of the French “Main de Gloire,” which is a corruption of the old French Mandegloire—i.e. mandragore, mandragora, the mandrake.

A glance at the curious customs connected with this plant will show how closely they are allied to those of the “Hand of Glory” in North Britain.

The plant itself is a native of the Levant, and is found in the Greek Islands of the Mediterranean. In a most interesting and important paper on “The Origin of the Cult of Aphrodite,” Bull. John Hylands Library, October to December 1916 (and reprinted in his Ascent of Olympus), Dr J. Rendel Harris shows Aphrodite to be a personification of the mandrake or love-apple. It was, however, the root, and not the fruit, of the herb which entered so largely into European superstition and witchcraft.

The most familiar mention of the mandrake is probably that in Genesis xxx, 14, where Rachel, having obtained Reuben’s mandrakes, conceived and bore a son, Joseph. This is according to the original Hebrew tradition, and similar superstitions still linger in the Holy Land to-day.

In Folk-Lore of the Old Testament, vol. ii, chap. vii, p. 372 et seq., Frazer has collected much useful material on mandrakes, so that there is no necessity to cover the ground again. It will suffice merely to say that owing to the peculiar shape of the root of the mandrake, in that it resembled the lower portion of the human body, all kinds of human attributes became attached to it. It gave forth terrible groans and yells when pulled up, usually causing death to the would-be possessor; hence it was considered best to tie the tail of a dog to the root and entice the animal towards you—the dog would be killed, but the herb would be yours. It was closely connected with death, and usually with that of a criminal, and originated in the juices from the hanged man’s body. Hence it was always to be found under a gallows. This curious connection seems to have originated in mediæval magical beliefs which saw in the strangely shaped root a diminutive replica of a human body—the seed which germinated it being dropped on the ground from the hanged man. The powers attributed to the herb were many and varied. Some were particularly efficient in curing barrenness in women, and acted as love-charms; others made the wearer invulnerable or inviolable, and most were capable of revealing the hidden treasures of the earth.

It is very interesting to find the human-fat candle mentioned in Somadeva’s tales, especially as it is connected with thieving; but, as Bloomfield has shown (“Art of Stealing in Hindu Fiction,” Amer. Journ. Phil., vol. xliv, 1923, pp. 118, 119), magical precautions enter largely into thieving practices of the East.

Apart from the mandrake references given by Frazer, the following from Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. iii, 24th June 1893, p. 498, will be found useful: Gerarde’s Herbal, 1597; A. Dyce, Glossary to Shakespeare’s Works; T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, Folk-Lore of Plants; A. S. Palmer, Folk Etymology; M. D. Conway, Mystic Trees and Flowers; Frazers Magazine, 1870, vol. ii, p. 705; All the Year Round, 2nd series, vol. x, p. 520; vol. xxxvi, pp. 371, 413; Dr Harris, Dictionary of the Natural History of the Bible; Nares’s Glossary, and Josephus’s Wars of the Jews, cap. xxv, under Baaras-root.”

There is a good collection of mandrakes at the Wellcome Historical and Medical Museum, Wigmore Street, W. The exhibit includes dried mandrakes, a specimen preserved in spirit, and numerous reproductions from old MSS. representing the male” and female” mandrakes, and showing the plant being uprooted by a dog as described above.—n.m.p.