Gothic Tales (61 page)

26
.
the Evil One in desert places:
See Matthew 4:1: ‘Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.'

27
.
a good day's journey to Salem:
Upham confirms that in the 1690s, travel from Boston to Salem ‘was then the fatiguing, adventurous and doubtful work of an entire day'
(Lectures on Witchcraft
, p. 12).

28
.
meeting-house:
Place of worship (as opposed to established churches).

29
.
folio:
A very large bound volume.

30
.
house-place:
‘Common living-room in a farm-house or cottage'
(OED).

31
.
Wellcome:
In
All the Year Round
(p. 569), the name is ‘Wellbeloved'.

32
.
took the oaths to Charles Stuart, and stuck by his living:
Those ministers who refused to recant their faith and swear allegiance instead to the order of service prescribed by the established church under Charles II lost their livings. Referring to the king as ‘Charles Stuart' is deliberately contemptuous, denying his legitimacy.

33
.
settle:
See note 24 to ‘The Doom of the Griffiths'.

34
.
Manasseh:
Popular given name among Puritans. Manasseh in the Bible was the first-born son of Joseph, and the name means ‘one who causes to forget' (Genesis 41:51). Interestingly, Manasseh was also the wicked king of Judah: see 2 Kings 21:1–18.

35
.
a girl of twelve years old:
There is some suggestion that Prudence Hickson may be patterned after Pearl, Hester Prynne's daughter in Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter
(1850), who is frequently described as ‘impish', ‘naughty' and ‘perverse'. See Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The Scarlet Letter
, ed. Nina Baym (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1987), pp. 134, 183, 195. See also
Uglow,
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories
, p. 310, for a discussion of the ways in which Hawthorne and Gaskell ‘shadowed' each other in their social and literary lives.

36
.
Cotton Mather:
(1663–1728), MA, Presbyterian minister of the Second Church of Boston, son of the Rector of Harvard and political emissary, Increase Mather (1639–1723). Religiously conservative, Mather was also philosophically and scientifically radical, and helped champion the fight for inoculation against smallpox. He is often blamed for the Salem witch trials, although he never actually attended one; however, he did not actively speak out against them, and published
The Wonders of the Invisible World, an Account of the Tryals if Several Witches, Lately Executed in New-England
(1693), though
Magnalia Christi Americana (A History of the Wondeful Works of Christian America)
(1702), which comments on the witch trials, is usually considered his best work.

37
.
in Zion
…
Aaron's beard:
Cf. Psalm 133:1–3: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even [the High Priest] Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments: As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.'

38
.
he saw a vision, or dreamed dreams:
Acts 2:17: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.'

39
.
Popish rubric: The Book of Common Prayer
, first issued in 1549, and reissued in 1662, was the official liturgy of the Church of England. It was seen by the Puritans as Roman Catholic ‘popery'.

40
.
irreligious king:
Charles II.

41
.
a very personal supplication for each:
Puritans stressed simplicity of worship and extempore prayer that drew on everyday experience as well as Scriptural justification for inspiration, and which was freed from the ‘popish' rituals.

42
.
Mr Tappau:
Based on Revd Samuel Parris of Salem; his two daughters were said to be bewitched, on account of the fits they threw and the contortions of their faces and bodies. Parris's Native American servant was the first to be accused as a witch, and the hysteria which followed eventually led to Parris resigning from his situation and moving away. See Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, pp. 16–17, 20–22.

43
.
Mr Nolan:
As Gaskell herself says later on, ‘Nolan' is a disguised name. He is most probably based on Revd George Burroughs, who was accused of
witchcraft, Upham suspects, because of his rivalry with Revd Parris (see note 42 above) (Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, pp. 55–6, 101–4).

44
.
Whom thou hatest I will hate:
Reworking of Ruth 1:16, where Ruth vows to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, and accompany her on her return to her home in Judah: ‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'

45
.
Hallow-e'en:
Also known as Nutcracker Night in some parts of England, according to Henry Green, where ‘Nuts are thrown into the fire by sweethearts and their swains, to learn something of the course of true love by the way the nuts burn or burst' (
Knutsford, Its Traditions and History
(Manchester: E.J. Norton, 1969), pp. 82–3). Hallowe'en, renamed by the Christians as Eve of All Hallows, or All Saints, derives from a Celtic belief that on 31 October, witches and warlocks go abroad.

46
.
the Lord who taketh away can restore tenfold:
See Job 1:21: ‘Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'

47
.
even as Samuel did:
See 1 Samuel 3:8: ‘And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I: for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child.'

48
.
one of the elect:
Like Manasseh's references to the ‘preordained course', ‘the elect' here refers to the Calvinist idea that certain spirits are chosen – ‘elected' – by a merciful but ultimately unknowable God for salvation, and that this election by divine grace determines the course of a person's life. The Puritan investment in the combined forces of spiritual and state government is realized in the civic duties of the elect.

49
.
Hazael
…
great thing:
Hazael is anointed by the prophet Elisha to be king of Syria: ‘And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, the Lord hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria' (2 Kings 8:13).

50
.
Glory to Thee
…
this night:
Bishop Thomas Ken, ‘Evening Hymn', first published in
A Manual of Prayers for the Use of Scolars of Winchester College
(1674).

51
.
pipkin:
Small earthenware cooking pot.

52
.
Gordion knot:
Problem insoluble by usual methods, referring to an ingeniously tied knot faced by Alexander the Great, who simply cut it in half.

53
.
prelatist:
Believer in heresy.

54
.
troth-plight:
Engaged to be married.

55
.
mystery of Free-Will and Fore-Knowledge:
Manasseh's Calvinist belief in election by divine grace later gives him justification to beg for mercy for Lois: if there
is no free will, if God has ultimate control over the fates of mortals, then Lois deserves absolution for her sin of witchcraft.

56
.
general court:
The sovereign body of the Massachusetts colony with some governing powers of the state.

57
.
herd of swine:
See Matthew 8:32: Jesus met two people possessed by devils: ‘And he said unto them [the devils], Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.'

58
.
Master Matthew Hopkinson:
Matthew Hopkins (?–1647) began witch-hunting in Essex in 1644, when he was paid to ride about on horseback looking for witches. Hopkins claimed he had found Satan's book which listed all English witches, and condemned twenty-four people before he was himself condemned and hanged as a witch.

59
.
pray for them that
…
persecute us:
Cf. Matthew 5:44: ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.'

60
.
Newbury Falls:
See Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, pp. 46–7, where he describes the confessions of a ‘diabolical meeting' by these Falls, sworn to by fifty-five people who confessed to being witches.

61
.
cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye:
Cf. Matthew 18:8–9: ‘Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off… And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.'

62
.
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost:
See Matthew 12:31–2: ‘Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.'

63
.
the shepherd David
…
his throne:
1 Samuel 16:14–23: When Saul was troubled by an evil spirit, David played his harp, ‘and the evil spirit departed from him' (16:23). In this way, David is said to have controlled Saul's madness.

64
.
we are not to suffer witches in the land:
See Exodus 22:18: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' See also Deuteronomy 18:10.

65
.
‘and he blessed her unaware':
Cf. Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
The Ancient Mariner
(1798), Il. 284–5: ‘A spring of love gushed from my heart / And I blessed them unaware!'

66
.
How beautiful is the land of Beulah:
See Isaiah 62:4: Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken: neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth
in thee, and thy land shall be married.' Also mentioned in John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress
(1678–84), as the land of heavenly joy.

67
.
Geneva bands:
Clerical collars similar to those worn by Calvin; to a nineteenth-century audience, they would have seemed distinctly low church.

68
.
Antony used
…
Caesar's murder:
Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar
, III.ii.73–4, where Antony turns the plebeians against Brutus with the lines beginning, ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…'

69
.
unbelieving Sadducees:
Jewish group opposed to the Pharisees, seen as theologically conservative and rationalist.

70
.
Mr Goodwin:
What follows is a brief summary of Cotton Mather's description of the ‘bewitching' off our Goodwin children in his
Late Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, Clearly Manifesting, Not only that there are Witches, but that Good Men (as well as others) may possibly have their Lives shortened by such evil Instruments of Satan
(London: Tho. Parkhurst, 1691), pp. 1–53.

71
.
Assembly's Catechism:
Puritan doctrine published in question-and-answer form.

72
.
Dr Martin Luther:
Firm believer in witchcraft, Luther (1483–1546) claimed frequent interviews with the devil in which they disputed points of theology, and at one point threw his ink-pot at the devil in an effort to drive him off.

73
.
He knows not what he is saying:
A version of Jesus' words asking forgiveness for those who crucified him in Luke 23:34: ‘Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'

74
.
Mr Hathorn
: John Hathorne (1641–1717), Salem magistrate cursed by one of his victims, and great-great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose change in name reflects the family's shame.

75
.
to tumble down like swine
…
the words of an eye-witness:
Again, Gaskell neatly copies from Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, p. 74, where he records the words of Jonathan Cary, an eyewitness to the trial, and accusations of those said to be bewitched by his wife. See also note 57 above.