A little girl was on one occasion pursued by a bull. While she was running, the pest took hold of her, and she fell dead, so quickly did it kill.
The practice of saying "God help you," to one who sneezes, is by some referred to this time; sneezing was a sign of having caught the pest.
The year before it, a vapour was seen to rise out of the ground, and spread itself over the whole country. In this pestilence all the people in Oster-Logum parish died out, with the exception of three ploughmen, who shut themselves up above an archway in the farm now owned by Nis Hansen in Havelund.
They took with them provisions for six months, but every eighth day they went out and hoisted a piece of fresh beef on the end of a long pole. This hung for the next eight days, and was then taken down. For a long time the meat was always spoiled and black when they took it down, and this was a sign that the plague was still in the air. This went on until the meat was still fresh when they took it down, and they judged that there was no longer any danger.
Then they said to each other, "Now we shall go and see our neighbours."
But they went from house to house and found only the dead, both human beings and animals. In this way they went from village to village over the whole parish. The people lay dead on the fields beside their ploughs, and there was no living thing except eagles and beasts of prey. Houses and farms stood empty for twenty-five or thirty years after that time.
A priest was brought out to the church from Aaben-raa, and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving for the cessation of the pestilence.
Some of the others objected to this, and said it would be more fitting for them to get the hay in, but the farmer insisted, and they all went to the house.
During the day there came in sight two tiny tufts of cloud, which came nearer and increased in size till at last they appeared as a man and a woman riding on grey horses.
They rode along above the farm, and the woman was heard to say, "Shall we visit here?"
"No," said the man, "that was not commanded us."
So the Black Death passed over without coming to the farm, and all the people there survived.
Before six weeks had expired every inmate of that house had died of the plague.
And were this very fundamental only duly considered by the people on any future occasion of this, or the like nature, I am persuaded it would put them upon quite different measures for managing the people from those that they took in 1665, or than any that have been taken abroad, that I have heard of; in a word, they would consider of separating the people into smaller bodies, and removing them in time farther from one another, and not let such a contagion as this, which is indeed chiefly dangerous to collected bodies of people, find a million of people in a body together, as was very near the case before, and would certainly be the case if it should ever appear again.
The plague, like a great fire, if a few houses only are contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few houses; or if it begins in a single, or as we call it, a lone house, can only burn that lone house where it begins. But if it begins in a close built town or city, and gets ahead, there its fury increases, it rages over the whole place, and consumes all it can reach.
In "Natural and Artificial Conclusions," by Thomas Hill, 12mo. Lond. 1650, we have: "The vertue of a rare cole, that is to be found but one houre in the day, and one day in the yeare. "Diverse authors," he adds, "affirm concerning the verity and vertue of this cole; viz. that it is onely to be found upon Midsummer Eve, just at noon, under every root of plantine and of mugwort; the effects whereof are wonderful; for whosoever weareth or beareth the same about with them, shall be freed from the plague, fever, ague, and sundry other diseases. And one author especially writeth, and constantly averreth, that he never knew any that used to carry of this marvellous cole about them, who ever were, to his knowledge, sick of the plague, or (indeed) complained of any other maladie."
In "Natural and Artificial Conclusions," by Thomas Hill, 12mo. Lond. 1650, we have: "The vertue of a rare cole, that is to be found but one houre in the day, and one day in the yeare. "Diverse authors," he adds, "affirm concerning the verity and vertue of this cole; viz. that it is onely to be found upon Midsummer Eve, just at noon, under every root of plantine and of mugwort; the effects whereof are wonderful; for whosoever weareth or beareth the same about with them, shall be freed from the plague, fever, ague, and sundry other diseases. And one author especially writeth, and constantly averreth, that he never knew any that used to carry of this marvellous cole about them, who ever were, to his knowledge, sick of the plague, or (indeed) complained of any other maladie."
I am sorry to say, from letters received from town this morning, that this horrible plague continues its ravages on the city. Of Dr. Davies's eight patients, four died the same day with my poor boy, and the others since; and I learn that twelve are now lying dead in the immediate neighbourhood of St. Paul's Churchyard.
In the meantime Government are using all their influence with the Press to make as light as possible of the business, in order to prevent the necessity of declaring London a foul port.
The yellow fever plague, which raged in Wales during some five years in the sixth century, is the monster referred to in this legend.
Adjoining the main entrances into the churchyard, on the right hand, is the stately old tomb of the Lindsays of Wormiston, the first of whom purchased the estate 247 years ago.
To the east of this tomb a small enclosed plot, where tradition asserts that, on more than one occasion, the "plague" was buried. This was done by our superstitious forefathers in the following approved fashion:
It was an universal belief with them that the dreadful pestilences which were wont to decimate Scotland, had their seat in the air, and for the purpose of intercepting the deadly visitor, large wheaten loaves were raised high up on poles, which, after being so exposed for a length of time, were carefully buried where they should not be disturbed; for the wise people of those days firmly believed that the discoloration of the loaves showed the veritable presence of the pest, which, save for this antidote, would have spread death and ruin amongst the inhabitants.
Well, the Galar Mor broke out at the old castle [Ceann-Drochaide, or Bridgend]. A company of artillery was ordered from Blair Castle. They came up through Athole. The road cut to allow the cannons to pass is yet pointed out by the old people in Glenfernat. On they came over the Cairnwal, and their way is again visible from cuttings above the Coldrach -- on over to Corriemulzie. Then they turned down Cornam-muc, and the cannons were put into position at Dalvreckachy.
The queen stood in the castle door, combing her hair. The first round brought the walls down about her. None of those within escaped, and the noble towers were levelled to the ground.
Many long years -- ay, ages after -- when the red-coats were stationed here, one of the soldiers was prevailed on, for a large sum of money, to explore the vaults. There was a hole open like a flue -- the mouth is yet to be seen-- into which, when a stone was thrown, it could be heard descending a flight of steps a long, long time.
Down this hole he was lowered by a rope to the first steps, whence he proceeded, torch in hand, on his adventure. Pale and trembling, he was brought to the upper world again, and he vowed he had seen queer things, dreadful things, and that nothing should induce him to go back again. In one room or vault he had come on a ghastly company. They all sat round about as if living, with glittering ivory faces, dressed in strange garb, and silent, motionless, breathless, and dead.
Years again afterwards, the Watsons -- a wealthy family, then living in Castletown -- began to clear out the ruins, and found numbers of old coins, broken vessels, iron doors, smashed grating, immense quantities of deers' horns, and bones of various animals. But a little old man, with a red cap, appeared to them and bade them desist if they valued their own welfare.
Tradition reports that there are very many entire vaults below as yet; especially the stables, and a subterranean passage from them, by which the horses of the Castle could be watered at the Cluny without coming outside. From amongst the ruins, and around them, grew up a few trees to shelter the fallen greatness of Ceann-Drochaide Castle.
The narrator of this legend, an old worthy of Braemar, concluded:
I feel honoured by the attention given to my wandering narrative. My memory is failing me now, and I seem to recall the old tales of the country dimly -- as it were a glimpse through the mists of time. But no wonder. Like the old Castle, my best days are over, and my broken words are as the sounds issuing from the inner vaults, where many things unwot of may lie hid under the ruins of age.
One evening a priest was crossing the hill reading his office. He was coming from Ardpatrick going westwards and as he came near a stream that is flowing through the glen on the western side of the hill he saw on the opposite bank a girl dressed in yellow.
She spoke to him and asked him to help her across. He did so and then the girl said, "Do you know to whom you have rendered such service?"
The priest said he did not, and she said "I am the queen of the yellow plague." He begged her to go back again and she did.
When the people on the other side heard this they came to the eastern side to live. There are tracks of plots and ditches on the hill and it is supposed that that is where the people lived when they came to the eastern side of the hill.
I got this tale from my father who lives in the townland of Bohernagore Ardpatrick.
Maureen Clery, Bohernagore Ardpatrick.
In the Polish tale of the plague the pestilence appears personified also as a tall woman in white garments, with her hair floating about her, and is hunted by dogs.
In another Polish variant of the same myth, the plague fixes on the back of a poor peasant whom she compels to carry her like the old man in Sinbad the Sailor, and forces the wretched fellow to carry her about from place to place. He bears with many a sight of misery which she works. At last he beholds his native village. He will not carry the plague there, but drowns himself in the Pruth.
This evidently is a myth of the carrying of the seeds of infection. Many may carry the infection to others even without catching the disease themselves.
It was already after midnight when a mighty noise awoke him. He rose to his feet, listened, and heard a kind of songs in the distance, and accompanying the songs a sound of tambourines and fifes. He listened, in no small astonishment, that, when death was raging around, people were rejoicing there so merrily. The noise that he heard kept continually approaching, and the terrified Podolian [a Ruthenian by nationality, a Podolian by locality] espied a swarming multitude advancing along a wide road. It was a troop of strange looking spectres that circled round a carriage; the carriage was black and elevated, and in it sat the Plague.
At every step the frightful company kept increasing; for on the road almost everything was transformed into a spectre. Feebly burned his little fire; a tolerably large firebrand was still smoking a little. Scarcely had the plague-swarm drawn near when the firebrand stood upon feet, extended two arms -- the burning part began to glitter with two glaring eyes -- it began to sing in concert with the others.
The villager was stupefied; in speechless terror he seized his axe and was on the point of striking the nearest spectre, but the axe flew out of his hands, transformed itself into a tall woman with raven-black tresses, and, singing, vanished before his eyes.
The plague-swarm proceeded onwards; and the Podolian saw how the trees, the bushes, the owls, the screech-owls, assuming tall shapes, increased the multitude, the terrible harbinger of a frightful death. He fell down powerless, and when in the morning the warmth of the sun awoke him, the vessels that he had brought with him were smashed and broken, the clothes torn to rags, the provisions spoilt.
He perceived that no one but the plague-swarm had done him all this mischief, and, thanking God that he had at any rate escaped with life, proceeded further to seek shelter and food.
A lad was asleep atop a tall haystack, and next to him stood a ladder. The moon shone brightly that night, and all was still. Suddenly a mighty roar was heard from the distance, as though carried by the wind. At the same time one recognized the angry growling and howling of the dogs. The lad stood up, and to his fear he saw a tall, white figure, dressed in white and with flowing hair, rushing toward him. A long, high fence was in the way, but the tall female figure jumped over it with one leap, then climbed up the ladder.
Now safe from the dogs, she pointed a foot at them, and teasing the angry pack she called out again and again: "Look out, look out, the foot! Look out, look out, the foot!"
The lad recognized the terrible maiden at once. He carefully approached the top rung, and with all his might pushed against the ladder. The tall female figure fell down, and the dogs attacked her. She threatened revenge and then disappeared.
The lad did not die. However, for the rest of his life he would stick one foot out and repeat the maiden's words: "Look out, look out, the foot! Look out, look out, the foot!"
The old Polish legends tell of a plague maiden who drives about on a two-wheeled cart. Five years ago when cholera laid waste to large stretches of the countryside, I heard from Russian mountain people on the other side of the Prut River that a woman was carrying this sickness into the cities and villages.
Mickiewiez relates the following about this woman:
Ordinary people in Lithuania perceive the plague in the form of a maiden. Here I shall relate the content of a ballad that I once heard in Lithuania:
The plague maiden appeared in a village and brought death to all the houses by putting her hand in through a door or a window and waving a red cloth. The villagers locked themselves inside their huts, but hunger and other needs soon forced them to abandon these safeguards. Everyone expected to die. In these fearful circumstances, a nobleman, who himself had the greatest store of provisions and was thus able hold out the longest, decided to sacrifice himself for his fellow humans. He picked up a sable on which the names of Jesu and Mary were engraved and then opened a window in his house. With one blow the nobleman struck off the hand of the terrible ghost and captured the red cloth. To be sure, he himself died with his entire family, but from that time onward they never again heard of the plague maiden in that village.
He had a hole cut into a large linden tree growing in the Lutheran churchyard and made ready with a chock that fit exactly into the hole. He then led a solemn procession into the churchyard, banned the plague into the tree, then quickly drove the chock into the hole, locking the plague inside the tree. He warned the people against removing the chock, lest the plague should escape.
From then onward the plague has not shown itself in Prussia. To the present day the tree with the chock is still standing.
He wandered about the whole day; towards evening he made a hut of branches, lit a fire, and being tired soon fell asleep. It was already past midnight when he was awakened by a great noise. He jumped up and listened. He could hear, at a distance, merry songs, accompanied by the music of drums and pipes. He was greatly surprised at these rejoicings, especially when he remembered that the Plague was depopulating the country.
The music approached, and the terror-stricken peasant saw Homen (so written in the original Polish) advancing through a wide road. "Homen" consisted of a number of spectres of the most extraordinary shapes and kinds. In the midst of them was a high, black waggon, on the top of which sat the Plague. The ghastly company increased at every step; for almost everything they met on the road changed into a spectre and followed the rest.
The peasant's fire was nearly out -- there remained only a good sized, half-burnt stem. As soon as Homen approached, the fire-brand stood up, spread out two arms from its sides, and the red embers changed into two shining eyes. It joined at once the train of the Plague, and began also to sing.
The peasant was thunderstruck. Almost beside himself with terror, he seized his axe and tried to strike the nearest spectre; but the axe fell from his hands, and was immediately changed into the shape of a tall woman. She shook her dark hair before his eyes, joined the throng, and began also to sing.
Homen passed on; the astonished peasant saw how trees, bushes, even owls, and other night birds, assumed various forms, and swelled the horrible company -- the dreadful harbinger of wide-spread death. He fell senseless on the ground.
In the morning, when the warm sun awakened him, he found that all he had brought with him was broken to pieces: his goods spoiled, his clothes torn. He knew at once that it was nothing else than Homen who had done him so much injury; and thanking Heaven that at least his life was spared, he went further on in search of food and shelter.
They threw him into the water, but he quickly reappeared and took his place in the boat. And that is how the plague came to the village of Kärdla.
If the plague entered a house and the inhabitants called out the greeting, "God bless you!" then it had no power over them. However, if the plague greeted first, or if the inhabitants delayed their greeting, then they all would die.
Thus the plage entered a house where everyone was asleep except for an old servant woman who was lying on the stove. The woman saw how the plague struck each person, one after the other, with a staff. A black-and-blue spot emerged from the spot where each one was struck. From this spot the sickness spread across the entire body, which killed the person in a short time.
When the plague was about to leave, the servant woman called out, "Touch me with your staff as well."
But the plague replied, "Your name is not recorded with the others."
Thus she was the only person in the entire household to remain alive.
"Do you know the Plague?" said she. "I am it. Take me on your shoulders and carry me through all Russia. Miss no village or town, for I must go everywhere. For yourself fear nothing. You shall live in the midst of death."
She wrapt her long arms round the neck of the fearful peasant. The man went on, and was astonished to find that he felt no weight. He turned his head, and saw that the Plague was on his back.
He first took her to a town, and when they came there there was joy in all the streets, dancing, music, and jollity. The peasant went on and stood in the market-place, and the woman shook her cloak. Soon the dance, joy, and merriment ceased.
Wherever the man looked he saw terror. People carried coffins, the bells tolled, the burial-ground was full; there was at length no room for more to be buried in it.
Then the people brought the dead to the market-place and left them there, having no place in which to bury them.
The wretched man went on. Whenever he came to a village the houses were left deserted, and the peasants fled with white faces, and trembling with fear. On the roads, in the woods, and out in the fields, could be heard the groans of the dying.
Upon a high hill stood the man's own village, the place in which he was born, and to this place the Plague began to direct his steps. There were the man's wife, his children, and his old parents.
The man's heart was bleeding! When he came near his own village, he laid hold of the Plague so that she should not escape him, and held her with all his might.
He looked before him and saw the blue Pruth flowing past, and beyond it were the green hills, and afar off the dark mountains with snow-capped tops.
He ran quickly to the stream and leaped under its waters, wishing to destroy himself and his burden together, and so free his land from sorrow and the Plague.
He himself was drowned, but the Plague, being as light as a feather, slipped off his shoulders, and so escaped. She was, however, so alarmed by this brave deed that she fled away and hid herself in the mountain forests.
So the man saved his village, his parents, his wife, and his little children, and all that part of fair Russia through which the Plague had not passed.
Many years ago the plague was ravaging Pusarnitz, taking countless victims. The region was in danger of losing its entire population. Then one day a voice was heard in the air declaring that the pestilence would immediately be defeated if a human were buried alive. The people who heard this did not know where to turn. Not one of them wanted to die such a horrible death. Finally they decided that on the following Sunday the first person to leave the church after the mass would be the sacrifice.
Two men stood watch in front of the church door when a young woman, a waitress at the Bogner Tavern, stepped out of the church. She had walked scarcely a few steps when the men took hold of her and dragged her to the grave that had been dug for this purpose. Wringing her hands, she begged the men to spare her. She said that she had the keys to the cellar with her, and that she had to hurry home. Nevertheless, before the others left the church she was lying in the grave, covered over with stones and earth.
Thus she had to sacrifice her young life for the good of the remaining population. The plague's ravages ceased at once.
As a sign that the sacrifice to the plague was buried there, an elderberry bush was planted on the grave mound. As the bush grew larger the people carefully trimmed it to keep it from sticking out over edge of the adjoining peddler's cottage. For, according to the legend, if it did so the plague would return.
One year ago the bush was cut down.
The legend further declares that the mound grew ever larger for some years following the death of the unfortunate young woman.
A similar legend is told about Weitensfeld, a town in the Gurk Valley. There is a simple wood-framed fountain at the lower end of the town's marketplace. Above the fountain stands a column on which there is a large wooden statue of female figure wearing a broad-brimmed pointed hat. It is said that she represents a virgin who was buried alive in the marketplace in the middle ages. The townspeople believed that this was the best way to halt the pestilence that was then ravaging the countryside. And in this they were indeed successful. Later a statue of the virgin was erected above the market fountain as a monument to her love and to her sacrifice.
The plague was raging in the countryside, but the peasants of the village had protected themselves with the circle that they had drawn around the village. One day the miller drove from this village to his mill outside of the village. On his way back he saw a woman dressed in white lying by the side of the road. She urgently begged him to take her along on his cart, for she too wanted to go to the village. The miller accepted the woman's request. On the way she asked about all the members of his household. The miller mentioned all of their names, except for one, which he happened to forget.
When they came to the ring that had been drawn around the village, the woman fell from the cart. The man helped her back onto the cart, but she fell off again.
The miller wanted to leave the woman lying there, but she begged and wailed until he took her hand and dragged her behind his cart, which the horses had pulled a few steps further along. He then helped the woman back onto the cart and arrived home with her without further difficulties. When he stopped in his yard, he noticed that the woman was gone.
At first the miller had no further problems from these events. He sat down at table with his family. Suddenly he heard the door open, and the woman dressed in white stepped into the room. She took a wooden ladle from under her apron and with it hit on the head the one whose name the miller had forgotten to mention. This victim suddenly began to complain of a headache, the first sign of the plague.
The miller then realized what a disaster he had caused by bringing the white-clad woman into the village. The plague was now in the village and almost all of the inhabitants died soon thereafter.
Branitz.
One day a girl heard a bird calling out "Valerian, valerian."
She told this to other people. Thus it was decided to look for the plant. After finding it, they boiled the plant. They gave the resulting brew to the sick people. Everyone who drank it was cured.
Leuthen [Lutynia].
Sometime later the house burned down. The trench caved in, but the stone and ball remained in place.
A serious epidemic never again broke out in the village, but the after-effects of the ball still can be felt: Peasants who spread manure on a Saturday find that their cattle are struck with a disease. Because of this no one in the village dares to do such work on a Saturday.
Geierswalde.
Ströbitz,
The king said to his wife: "I would be happy if we had a child, whatever it was like."
Then a voice rang out from the stone: "A year from now you shall have a child."
The year passed, and the queen gave birth to a daughter as black as ebony. The princess died when she was twelve years old. Her body was carried in an open black coffin into the church and placed before the altar. A soldier stood guard in front of it.
The next morning the princess was in the coffin, but the soldier had disappeared. A soldier had to stand watch the next night as well, but the following morning he too had disappeared. Thus it continued for an entire year. All the guards mysteriously disappeared, but the princess in the coffin remained unchanged. Finally a soldier had to stand guard again. This soldier had said goodbye to his family because he believed that the next morning he too would be gone. Standing alone by the coffin in church, all kinds of thoughts occurred to him. He thought about crawling under the coffin, and that is what he did -- right at the head of the coffin. The clock struck twelve, and the princess sat up, smacking her lips like a pig.
She quickly jumped out of the coffin and wanted to eat the guard, but seeing no one, she said: "Didn't my father send me a sacrifice today?"
Then she began to search. She finally found the soldier. Seeing him beneath the head of the coffin, she said: "You have redeemed me. I don't attack what is behind me. Do you know who I am? I am the plague."
She uttered a great curse on the people, and then she disappeared. The next morning the soldier related everything he had experienced during the night.
Vetschau.
Another peasant came driving by with a load of firewood.
The old man asked again: "Take me with you."
This peasant took pity. He pushed the wood aside and helped the man onto the wagon. Arriving at home, the peasant made a bed for the old man and laid him on it.
Then the old man said: "Out of gratitude that you brought me here, I want to save you from death. I am the forerunner of the plague. If you want to preserve your life and that of your family, leave Missen at once. Move into the open field near the river. Don't return to the village until a white goose approaches you swimming on the river."
A short time later a deadly plague broke out in Missen. The peasant gathered up his things, and he and his family moved into the open field with their cattle and everything that they could carry away. The peasant must have spent many months there, when suddenly the water rose greatly in the river. The next day a white goose approached them, swimming on the river. Then the peasant moved back to Missen with his family.
Meanwhile, three quarters of the Missen residents had died.
The place where the peasant lived in the field is called "the shack" still today.
Missen.
Although the black death did not come to Strasbourg until the summer of 1349, already one year earlier the city council was pressured from various sides to attack the Jews living in the city with fire and sword. Enemies of the Jews felt that these attacks were too lenient. The community's uproar brought about a change in the city government. Under the administration of the new council, on February 14, Saint Valentine's Day, 1349, two thousand Jews were burned to death in their own cemetery near the northern boundary of the city.
The plague broke out in Strasbourg on Saint John's day [June 24] of the same year.
The street in which the Jews were burned to death is still today [1852] named Brandgasse [Fire-Alley].
In Strasbourg 900 Jews were burned to death (of the 1884 who lived there). In Mainz the numerous Jews who lived in the city voluntarily met their deaths when their houses were set afire. Similarly, large numbers of Jews were burned to death in Augsburg, Ulm, Konstanz, Hall, Munich, Salzburg, Erfurt, and Eisenach.
In 1519, just before the plague killed so many people in Hof a large, tall black man was seen in Murder Lane. His wide-spread legs reached both sides of the street, and his head rose far above the housetops.
My great-grandmother, Walburg Widmann, herself, saw how he walked along this street one evening with one foot at the tavern's entrance and the other foot across the street in front of the large house there. She was so frightened that she did know which way to go. In God's name and making the sign of the cross, she advanced in the middle of the street and passed between his legs. Had she not dared to do this the ghost would have followed her. She had barely escaped when the ghost clapped his legs together so hard that all the houses in Murder Lane nearly collapsed.
Soon afterward the plague befell the city, and it was first felt in Murder Lane.
Only a single peasant from the village remained behind, saying mockingly, "I'll not go to the Snow-Festival," then went to his field to plow.
But things did not go well for him. When the others returned from the festival they heard him moaning and crying, "If I only had gone to the festival with you!"
Afterward when his people entered his house they found him lying dead on the floor, black over his entire body. He was the last person in Motzlar to die from the plague.
One evening at the Grevenstein mill a journeyman and an apprentice were busy grinding flour to be taken to Pohnsdorf the next day. After dark the apprentice stuck his head out the door and heard the howling of dogs.
"Listen," he called to the journeyman. "Mother Gauerken is coming with her dogs."
The journeyman ran to the door and saw a raven-black cloud slowly descending over Pohnsdorf, and from the cloud he heard the cry: "Oh, Pohnsdorf, it's coming to you."
The journeyman thought that because the people of Pohnsdorf had him grind their grain he did not want any evil to befall them.
Therefore he called out to the cloud: "Hey! Just make your way toward Rankendorf and Grevenstein."
Then the cloud burst apart, one part descending on Rankendorf and the other on Grevenstein. The next day the plague broke out in both places.
The apprentice told everyone what had happened. The journeyman was captured and was to be burned at the stake. However, Mother Gauerken took pity on him, and the plague suddenly ceased. For joy they spared the journeyman's life.
Near Windisch-Eschenbach a herder boy saw that a wooden chock had been driven into a boundary stone. Courious, he pulled it out, and out came a fly, followed by smoke. From this the plague came into the country. Sometime later the this herder boy noticed that the same fly came back to the boundary stone and flew inside. The boy quickly drove a wedge into the opening, and the plague ceased.
The plague is often captured in this manner. On another occasion, when the plague was in Bärnau, someone saw how a plague-fly crawled into a hole in the ceiling beam. He quickly drove a chock in behind her, and from that time onward the plague did not return to Bärnau.
In Roding someone sick with the plague caught a fly, and just to pass the time he wedged it inside a worm-hole in the wooden wall. He recovered from his sickness. Long afterward he wondered what had become of the captured fly. He had scarcely pulled out the chock when the plague struck him again, and for a second time death overtook the town.
What happened next? They laughed about the burial hymn, but on the third day after the wedding the bride died from the plague. A few days later the bridegroom died as well, as well as two of the bride's brothers, who were students. They went, as it states in the chronical: a thalamo ad tumulum, a luxu ad luctum [from the bridal chamber to the grave, from celebration to sorrow].
Nun lasset uns die Braut begraben,
Und gar keine Zweifel haben,
Daß Morgen sie wird auferstehen,
Und auf zwei Weiberfüssen gehn.Now let us bury the bride,
And we have no doubt at all,
Tomorrow she shall rise again,
But no longer as a maid.
The following account about Stettin is told even today:
One day a man carrying a large chest on his back entered the city through the Berlin Gate. He looked about fearfully in all directions and attempted to pass by the sentinels without being seen. However, he was noticed and taken to the guard-house. They demanded that he open the chest. At first he refused, but finally he had to obey their commands.
In the large chest they found a smaller one, and in this one a still smaller one. Thus it continued for a time, until at last they opened the smallest one. Here they found a tiny, tiny human. He was the Frenchman who wanted to bring cholera into the city.
"That is the plague," said someone who saw it, then went and drove a wedge into the opening.
From that hour onward the pestilence ceased in the village.
Many years later a member of the family enlisted in foreign military duty. When the soldier returned home again his eye fell on the one spot on the wall, and he remembered its history.
"Let's see," he said jokingly, "if the little wisp of smoke is still there."
Although someone begged him not to do so, he quickly pulled out the plug, and the blue smoke jetted out.
The plague, liberated again, struck down the brash soldier as its first victim. Soon afterward everyone in the house died, and many others in the village perished as well.
The medical faculty of Paris declared these conjunctions to be one of the causes of the plague (the Black Death), and they repeat in their report almost the very words of the Toledo letter, without mentioning it by name.
In the year 1184 the world was startled by a letter purporting to come from the sages and astrologers of Toledo. It was sent to Pope Clement III and to other men of weight, informing them of impending doom. The world was to be destroyed in the year 1186 through wind and storms, drought and famine, pestilence and earthquake. (p. 115)
The mermaid-like creature began appearing on social media in Japan in early March and was soon being tagged in upwards of 30,000 posts a day. Manga artists rendered the creature in their own styles, sharing images alongside messages wishing for an end to the virus.
Amabie then got official recognition when Japan's health ministry made it the face of its public safety campaign. After that, it started appearing on cookies, face masks, candy, bread rolls, the obligatory Starbucks logo pastiche, and even statues in parks.
According to a woodblock-printed news sheet dated April 1846, the creature made its first and only appearance in the sea off Higo Province, now Kumamoto Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu. As the story goes, a government official went down to the beach to investigate reports of something shining in the water.
When the official arrived, a mermaid-like creature emerged, introduced itself as "Amabie who lives in the sea," and issued two predictions. "For the next six years, there will be a bountiful harvest across Japan, but there will also be an epidemic." Amabie then told the official, "Quickly draw a picture of me and show it to people," and disappeared back into the sea.
Nagano Eishun, librarian of the Fukui Prefectural Archives and an expert on ancient spirits, says Amabie is one of more than a dozen prophecy beasts reported during the Edo period, and it probably derives from an ape-like creature with a similar name.
In 1843, three years before Amabie first appeared, there were reports of a three-legged simian in the same province. The furry beast went by the name Amabiko and its origin story was strikingly similar. A woodblock printed news sheet from the era said a man went down to the sea to investigate reports of glowing lights. Amabiko introduced itself, predicted a rich harvest and an epidemic, then claimed that people would survive and live long, healthy lives if they saw the creature's image.
"The two have so much in common, it's natural to think that Amabiko was Amabie's former self," says Nagano. And he says the monkey was far more famous than the mer-creature in the 19th century. During times of plagues, such as cholera and dysentery, people used a picture of Amabiko as a good luck charm.
Nagano says the creature probably changed form as its story spread across the country through drawings and people took liberties with their interpretations. He adds that commercial interests may have driven both the creativity and the creature's insistence that it had to be seen.
"The woodblock printed news sheet, called kawaraban, was basically a single sheet of paper with a piece of illustrated news or gossip," he says. "The producers always wanted an interesting story to catch people's attention, so they got inventive, like perhaps letting a spirit warn people they'd get sick unless everyone had a copy of that image."
After many decades out of the spotlight, Amabie is finally getting the attention it craves with some help from social media.
It seems human nature hasn't changed much since the 19th century, and the image of this strange creature is still able to provide some kind of solace. But Nagano says there's a fundamental difference between then and now.
"Back in the 19th century, those images were only supposed to save the person who bought the news sheet. But now people are spreading the images to protect everyone. I would say that shows we've made big progress."
The Fox was appointed father confessor upon the occasion; and the Lion with great generosity condescended to be the first in making public confession.
"For my part," said he, "I must own I have been an enormous offender; I have killed many innocent sheep in my time; nay once, but it was a case of necessity, I made a meal of the shepherd."
The Fox, with much gravity, acknowledged that these in any other than the King would have been inexpiable crimes; but that his majesty had certainly a right to a few silly sheep, nay, and to the shepherd too, in a case of necesity.
The judgment of the Fox was applauded by all the superior savages; and the Tyger, the Leopard, the Bear, and the Wolf, made confession of many enormities of the like sanguinary nature: which were all palliated or excused with the same lenity and mercy; and their crimes accounted so venial as scarce to deserve the name of offences.
At last, a poor penitent Ass, with great contrition acknowledged, that once going thro' the parson's meadow, being very hungry, and tempted by the sweetness of the grass, he had cropt a little of it, not more however in quantity than the tip of his tongue: he was very sorry for the misdemeanour, and hoped --
"Hope!" exclaimed the Fox with singular zeal, "What canst thou hope for, after the commission of so heinous a crime? What! Eat the parson's grass! O sacrilege! This, this is the flagrant wickedness, my brethren, which has drawn the wrath of heaven upon our heads; and this the notorious offender, whose death must make atonement for all our transgressions."
So saying, he ordered his entrails for sacrifice, and the rest of the beasts went to dinner upon his carcase.
Return to D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.
Revised February 5, 2023.