eBooks „superstition“
43 eBooks were found for the search term „superstition“.
Sir Walter Scott
Letters On Demonology and Witchcraft
- History
- English
- 107270 Words
- Ages 8 and up
- 276
- 3
The book takes the form of ten letters addressed to Lockhart, the epistolary mode permitting Scott to be both conversational in tone and discursive in method. In these, Scott surveys opinions respecting demonology and witchcraft from the Old Testament period to his own day. As a child of the Enlightenment, he adopts a rigorously rational approach to his subject. Supernatural visions are attributed to 'excited passion', to credulity, or to physical illness. The medieval belief in demons is based on Christian ignorance of other religions, leading to the conviction that the gods of the Muslim or Pagan nations were fiends and their priests conjurers or wizards. In the post-Reformation period, the primitive state of science and predominance of mystical explanations of natural phenomena fed fear of witchcraft. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, witches were hunted with near-hysterical zeal. Examining Scottish criminal trials for witchcraft, Scott notes that the nature of evidence admissible gave free reign to accusers and left the accused no chance of escape. Prisoners were driven to confess through despair and the desire to avoid future persecution. Scott also observes that trials for witchcraft were increasingly connected with political crimes, just as in Catholic countries accusations of witchcraft and heresy went together. Advances in science and the spread of rational philosophy during the eighteenth century eventually undermined the belief in supernatural phenomena, although pockets of superstition remain. Scott's account is amply illustrated with anecdotes and traditional tales and may be read as an anthology of uncanny stories as much as a philosophical treatise. [more]
Keywords: letters on demonology and witchcraft, sir walter scott, history, demonology, witchcraft, demons, witches
$2.99
George Eliot
Silas Marner By
- Literary Criticism
- English
- 70708 Words
- No Age Recommendation
- 170
In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?—and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother? To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not overwise or clever—at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring. In this way it came to pass that those scattered linen-weavers—emigrants from the town into the country—were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belong to a state of loneliness. [more]
Keywords: Silas Marner, George Eliot
$1.99
P. W. Jacob
Hindoo Tales Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes
- Fiction
- English
- 52432 Words
- Ages 18 and up
- 2
The Sanscrit work entitled "Dasakumaracharitam, or the Adventures of Ten Princes," though printed more than twenty-five years ago, has not, as far as I can ascertain, been translated into any European language. Many parts of it are written in such a turgid "Oriental" style, that a close translation would be quite unsuitable to the English reader. Such passages have therefore been much condensed; others, which are hardly decent—or, as in the speech of the parasite in the last story, tedious and uninteresting, have been omitted; but in general the original has been pretty closely adhered to, and nothing has been added to it.
The exact date of the composition of the "Dasakumaracharitam" is not known. It is supposed to have been written about the end of the eleventh century, and was left unfinished by the author; but as the story of the last narrator is almost finished, not much could have been wanting to complete the work, and the reader may easily imagine what the conclusion would have been.
Some of the incidents correspond with those of the "Arabian Nights," but the stories on the whole are quite different from anything found there, and give a lively picture of Hindoo manners and morals. Unscrupulous deception, ready invention, extreme credulity and superstition, and disregard of human life, are strongly illustrated.
The belief in the power of penance, which was supposed to confer on the person practising it not merely personal sanctity, but even great supernatural powers, was very generally entertained among the Hindoos, and is often alluded to here; as is also transmigration, or the birth of the soul after death in a new body, human or brute. Sufferings or misfortunes are attributed to sins committed in a former existence, and in more than one story two persons are supposed to recollect having many years before lived together as husband and wife.
Much use also is made of the agency of supernatural beings; for besides numerous gods, the Hindoos believe, or at least believed, in the existence of innumerable beings, in some degree immortal, but liable to be killed even by men, swarming in the air, generally invisible, but sometimes assuming a human or a more terrible form; occasionally beneficent, but more commonly injurious to human beings.
At the time when the original work was written, India appears to have been divided into a large number of small kingdoms or principalities, the rulers of which are here termed "Râja," a word almost adopted into our language, but which. I have rendered by the equivalent and more familiar term "King."
The numerous uncouth names, which cannot well be shortened or translated, will, it is feared, cause some annoyance to the reader. As many as possible have been omitted, and of those which occur a list is given in the Appendix, together with a few terms which seemed to require explanation. This will save the reader the trouble of, referring, when a name recurs, to the place where it is first mentioned in order [more]
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