A friend of Mr.
Martin, the author of a work on "Second Sight," used to recite several
stanzas belonging to such a prophetic song, which he had heard himself
on a sad November day, as it came to him through the drooping clouds and
sweeping mists from the summit of a lonely mountain. At funerals also,
wonderful voices were heard high in the air, as they accompanied the
chanting of the people below, with a music not born upon earth, and
filling the heart with strange but sweet sadness. Nearly the same
visions are seen and the same songs are heard in Sweden and Norway,
proving conclusively that like climatic influences produce also a
similar magic life, in individuals not only, but in whole nations. For
even if we are disposed to look upon these phenomena as merely strange
appearances of clouds and mists, accompanied by the howling and
whistling of the wind and the tumbling down of rocks and gravel, there
remains the uniformity with which thousands of every generation
interpret these sights and sounds into weird visions and solemn
chantings.
It is, however, not quite so evident why the peculiar class of visions
which is often erroneously called second sight--the beholding of a
"double"--should be almost entirely confined to these same northern
regions. It is, of course, not unknown to other lands also, and even
Holy Writ seems to justify the presumption that the idea of a "double"
was familiar to the people of Palestine. For the poor damsel Rhoda, who
"for gladness" did not open the door at which Peter knocked, after he
had been miraculously liberated, but ran to announce his presence to the
friends who were assembled at the house of Mark's brother, was first
called mad, and then told: "It is his angel" (Acts xii. 13). They
evidently meant, not that it was the spirit of their deceased friend,
since they would have been made aware of his death, but a phantom
representing his living body. But the number of authentic cases of
persons who have seen their own form, is vastly greater at the North
than anywhere else. The Celtic superstition of the "fetch," as the
appearance of a person's "double" is there called, is too well known to
require explanation. But the vision itself is one of the most
interesting in the study of magic, since it exhibits most strikingly the
great power which the human soul may, under peculiar circumstances,
gain and exercise over its own self, leading to complete self-delusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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