Now a whole series of superstitions exists connected with men hung; and an executioner till of late years derived a small revenue from the sale of the cord, or other articles connected with the criminal who had been hung, and these relics were preserved, not out of a morbid love of horrors, but out of a real belief that they were beneficial, that they brought with them protection against accidents and ailments. I remember, not ten years ago, being shown by a woman, by no means in the lowest walks of life, a small object in a frame. This she said was a bit of the skin of a certain famous murderer, for which she had given a guinea. “And what on earth makes you preserve it?” I inquired. “Oh!” replied the woman, “the house will never catch fire so long as that is in it.” The mutilation of bodies hung in chains was of frequent occurrence in former times, on account of like beliefs. The hands and feet and hair of the dead were cut off. The former were constantly taken by thieves and burglars, who believed that the hand of the man hung would enable him to open any lock, and enter any house with immunity. The plunder of the gallows was sought in the first days of Christianity in England by those who were still Pagans at heart, and desired to put themselves under the protection of the old gallows god, Woden, but the original meaning of this robbery of the dead soon faded away, and the practice remained without explanation. Our word gallows is compound. The old word is _galz_, and gallows means the _low_ or mound of the gibbet, and we speak of the gallow-tree, or the wood on the gibbet hill. When we remember that the gallows on which Odin hung is called Ogre’s horse, it is interesting to note a popular riddle asked children in Yorkshire. “What is the horse that is ridden that never was foaled, and rid with a bridle that never had bit?” The answer is--The Gallows. A German name for it is the raven’s stone, not only, perhaps, because ravens come to it, but because the raven was the sacred bird of Odin. Now let us turn to the wheel. On the Continent, in Germany and in France, breaking on the wheel was a customary mode of execution. The victim was stretched on the wheel, and with a bar of iron his limbs were broken, and then a blow was dealt him across the breast. After that the wheel was set up on a tall pole, with the dead man on it, and left to become the prey to the ravens. This was a survival of human sacrifices to the sun-god, as hanging is a survival of human sacrifices to the wind-god. [Illustration: _Fig. 40._--THE SUN-GOD, AFTER GAIDOZ.]