Thomas Dyer - Folk-lore of Shakespeare

The spirit, likewise, in “2 Henry VI.” (i. 4) utters these words:

Spirits were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence till interrogated by the persons to whom they made their special appearance. 75 75 We may compare the words “unquestionable spirit” in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), which means “a spirit averse to conversation.” Thus Hamlet, alluding to the appearance of the ghost, asks Horatio (i. 2):

Whereupon he replies:

The walking of spirits seems also to have been enjoined by way of penance. The ghost of Hamlet’s father (i. 5) says:

And further on (iii. 2) Hamlet exclaims:

This superstition is referred to by Spenser in his “Fairy Queen” (book i. canto 2):

According to a universal belief prevalent from the earliest times, it was supposed that ghosts had some particular reason for quitting the mansions of the dead, “such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian rites of sepulture, that a murderer might be brought to due punishment,” etc. 76 76 Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 450, 451. On this account Horatio (“Hamlet,” i. 1) invokes the ghost:

And in a later scene (i. 4) Hamlet says:

The Greeks believed that such as had not received funeral rites would be excluded from Elysium; and thus the wandering shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep, and demands the performance of his funeral. The younger Pliny tells a story of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost played all kinds of pranks, owing to his funeral rites having been neglected. A further reference to the superstition occurs in “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1), where Lucius, speaking of the unburied sons of Titus, says:

In olden times, spirits were said to have different allotments of time, suitable to the variety and nature of their agency. Prospero, in the “Tempest” (i. 2), says to Caliban:

According to a popular notion, the presence of unearthly beings was announced by an alteration in the tint of the lights which happened to be burning – a superstition alluded to in “Richard III.” (v. 3), where the tyrant exclaims, as he awakens:

So in “Julius Cæsar” (iv. 3), Brutus, on seeing the ghost of Cæsar, exclaims:

It has been a widespread belief from the most remote period that ghosts cannot bear the light, and so disappear at the dawn of day; their signal being the cock-crow. 78 78 See p. 104. The ghost of Hamlet’s father says (i. 5):

and —

Again, in “King Lear” (iii. 4), Edgar says: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.”

The time of night, as the season wherein spirits wander abroad, is further noticed by Gardiner in “Henry VIII.” (v. 1):

It was a prevalent notion that a person who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen became subject to its malignant influence. In “Hamlet” (i. 1), Horatio says, in reference to the ghost:

Lodge, in his “Illustrations of British History” (iii. 48), tells us that among the reasons for supposing the death of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby (who died young, in 1594), to have been occasioned by witchcraft, was the following: “On Friday there appeared a tall man, who twice crossed him swiftly; and when the earl came to the place where he saw this man, he fell sick.”

Reginald Scot, in his “Discovery of Witchcraft” (1584), enumerates the different kinds of spirits, and particularly notices white, black, gray, and red spirits. So in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), “black spirits” are mentioned – the charm song referred to (like the one in act iv.) being found in Middleton’s “Witch” (v. 2):

A well-known superstition which still prevails in this and foreign countries is that of the “spectre huntsman and his furious host.” As night-time approaches, it is supposed that this invisible personage rides through the air with his yelping hounds; their weird sound being thought to forbode misfortune of some kind. This popular piece of folk-lore exists in the north of England under a variety of forms among our peasantry, who tenaciously cling to the traditions which have been handed down to them. 79 79 See Hardwick’s “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore,” 1872, pp. 153-176. It has been suggested that Shakespeare had some of these superstitions in view when he placed in the mouth of Macbeth (i. 7), while contemplating the murder of Duncan, the following metaphors:

Again, in “The Tempest” (iv. 1), Prospero and Ariel are represented as setting on spirits, in the shape of hounds, to hunt Stephano and Trinculo. This species of diabolical or spectral chase was formerly a popular article of belief. As Drake aptly remarks, 80 80 “Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. i. p. 378. “the hell-hounds of Shakespeare appear to be sufficiently formidable, for, not merely commissioned to hunt their victims, they are ordered, likewise, as goblins,” to —