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Anonymous
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I was reading the Hellboy strip "Box Full of Evil" and came across this folklore reference I'd never heard before.
For more info, read on.... if you dare....
More tales here.
For more info, read on.... if you dare....
This was a right hand of a murderer that was severed while the corpse was still hanging from the gallows. It was then used as a charm or in black magic practices after being magically perserved. It is also believed robbers often used the hand when breaking into buildings and homes.
Preferably the hand was cut off during the eclipse of the moon. Afterwards it was wrapped in a shroud, squeezed of blood and pickled for two weeks in an earthenware jar with salt, long peppers and saltpeter. Then it was either dried in an oven with vervain, an herb believed to be able to ward off demands, or laid out to dry in the sun, desirably in the hot dog days of August.
When the hand was ready, candles were fitted on it between the fingers. These were called the "dead man's candles" were made from another murderer's fat, with the wick being made from his hair.
Another method of curing the severed and dried hand was dip it in wax. After this process the fingers themselves could be lit.
The hand with burning candles or fingers was shocking when coming at people. It froze them in their tracks and rendered them speechless. Burglars lit the hand before entering homes. A warning sign was that if the thumb would not light it meant there was someone in the house who could not be charmed or made afraid. It was believed once the hand was lit nothing but milk could extinguish it.
Homeowners attempted to fight back. To combat the hand of glory all sorts of ointments were smeared on the thresholds. The compositions of these various ointments consisted of everything from the blood of screech owls, the fat of white hens, or the bowl of black cats. Perhaps these concoctions worked if they were slimy enough to trip up the burglars.
The hand of glory was linked to witches during the witch-hunt period. There are two noted incidences. One, in 1588, of two German women, Nichel and Bessers, that were accused of witchcraft and exhuming corpses. They admitted poisoning helpless people after lighting the hands of glory to immobilize them. John Fian, after being severely tortured during his witch trial in Scotland in 1590, confessed to using a hand of glory to break into a church where he performed a ceremony to the devil.
The term the "hand of glory" is believed to be derived from the French "main de glorie" or "mandrogore" and be related to the legends of the mandrake. The mandrake plant was believed to grow under the gallows of the hanged man.
Belief in the efficacy of the Hand of Glory persisted as late as 1831 in Ireland. It is described or mentioned in the chapter of "The Folk-lore of the Hand" in "The Hand of Destiny" by C. J. S. Thompson, London, 1932. The belief in the Hand of Glory was the subject of "The Nurses’ Story" one of the "Ingoldsby Legends" of Thomas Ingoldsby (Rev. Richard Braham, 1837).
The Hand of Glory
England
Narrative 1
One evening, between the years 1790 and 1800, a traveler, dressed in woman's clothes, arrived at the Old Spital Inn, the place where the mail coach changed horses, in High Spital, on Bowes Moor. The traveler begged to stay all night, but had to go away so early in the morning that if a mouthful of food were set ready for breakfast there was no need the family should be disturbed by her departure. The people of the house, however, arranged that a servant maid should sit up till the stranger was out of the premises, and then went to bed themselves.
The girl lay down for a nap on the longsettle by the fire, but before she shut her eyes she took a good look at the traveler, who was sitting on the opposite side of the hearth, and espied a pair of man's trousers peeping out from under the gown.
All inclination for sleep was now gone; however, with great self-command, she feigned it, closed her eyes, and even began to snore. On this the traveler got up, pulled out of his pocket a dead man's hand, fitted a candle to it, lighted the candle, and passed hand and candle several times before the servant girl's face, saying as he did so: "Let all those who are asleep be asleep, and let those who are awake be awake." This done, he placed the light on the table, opened the outer door, went down two or three of the steps which led from the house to the road, and began to whistle for his companions.
The girl (who had hitherto had presence of mind enough to remain perfectly quiet) now jumped up, rushed behind the ruffian, and pushed him down the steps. She then shut the door, locked it, and ran upstairs to try and wake the family, but without success: calling, shouting, and shaking were alike in vain. The poor girl was in despair, for she heard the traveler and his comrades outside the house. So she ran down again, and seized a bowl of blue (i.e., skimmed milk), and threw it over the hand and candle; after which she went upstairs again, and awoke the sleepers without any difficulty.
The landlord's son went to the window, and asked the men outside what they wanted. They answered that if the dead man's hand were but given them, they would go away quietly, and do no harm to anyone. This he refused, and fired among them, and the shot must have taken effect, for in the morning stains of blood were traced to a considerable distance.
These circumstances were related to my informant, Mr. Charles Wastell, in the spring of 1861, by an old woman named Bella Parkin, who resided close to High Spital, and was actually the daughter of the courageous servant girl.
Narrative 2
Two magicians, having come to lodge in a public house with a view to robbing it, asked permission to pass the night by the fire, and obtained it. When the house was quiet, the servant girl, suspecting mischief, crept downstairs and looked through the keyhole. She saw the men open a sack, and take out a dry, withered hand. They anointed the fingers with some unguent, and lighted them. Each finger flamed, but the thumb they could not light; that was because one of the household was not asleep.
The girl hastened to her master, but found it impossible to arouse him. She tried every other sleeper, but could not break the charmed sleep. At last, stealing down into the kitchen, while the thieves were busy over her master's strongbox, she secured the hand, blew out the flames, and at once the whole household was aroused.
Narrative 3
One dark night, when all was shut up, there came a tap at the door of a lone inn in the middle of a barren moor. The door was opened, and there stood without, shivering and shaking, a poor beggar, his rags soaked with rain, and his hand white with cold. He asked piteously for a lodging, and it was cheerfully granted him; there was not a spare bed in the house, but he could lie on the mat before the kitchen fire, and welcome.
So this was settled, and everyone in the house went to bed except the cook, who from the back kitchen could see into the large room through a pane of glass let into the door. She watched the beggar, and saw him, as soon as he was left alone, draw himself up from the floor, seat himself at the table, extract from his pocket a brown withered human hand, and set it upright in the candlestick. He then anointed the fingers, and applying a match to them, they began to flame. Filled with horror, the cook rushed up the back stairs, and endeavored to arouse her master and the men of the house. But all was in vain--they slept a charmed sleep; so in despair she hastened down again, and placed herself at her post of observation.
She saw the fingers of the hand flaming, but the thumb remained unlighted, because one inmate of the house was awake. The beggar was busy collecting the valuables around him into a large sack, and having taken all he cared for in the large room, he entered another.
On this the woman ran in, and, seizing the light, tried to extinguish the flames. But this was not so easy. She blew at them, but they burnt on as before. She poured the dregs of a beer jug over them, but they blazed up the brighter. As a last resource, she caught up a jug of milk, and dashed it over the four lambent flames, and they died out at once. Uttering a loud cry, she rushed to the door of the apartment the beggar had entered, and locked it. The whole family was aroused, and the thief easily secured and hanged.
This tale is told in Northumberland.
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