Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/171

Rh attribute the reverse opinion so deeply rooted in the public mind, to the untruthfulness of the London and many other newspapers.' The performers were bound fast and shut by themselves in a dark cabinet, with musical instruments, whence not only musical sounds proceeded, but the coats of the mediums were taken off and replaced; yet on inspection their bodies were discovered still bound. The spirits would also release the bound mediums from their cords, however carefully tied about them. Now the idea of supernatural unbinding is very ancient, vouched for as it is by no less a personage than the crafty Odysseus himself, in his adventure on board the ship of the Thesprotians:

'Me on the well-benched vessel, strongly bound, They leave, and snatch their meal upon the beach. But to my help the gods themselves unwound My cords with ease, though firmly twisted round.'

In early English chronicle, we find it in a story told by the Venerable Bede. A certain Imma was found all but dead on the field of battle, and taken prisoner, but when he began to recover and was put in bonds to prevent his escaping, no sooner did his binders leave him but he was loose again. The earl who owned him enquired whether he had about him such 'loosening letters' (literas solutorias) as tales were told of; the man replied that he knew naught of such arts; yet when his owner sold him to another master, there was still no binding him. The received explanation of this strange power was emphatically a spiritual one. His brother had sought for his dead body, and finding another like him, buried it and proceeded to say masses for his brother's soul, by the celebration whereof it came to pass that no one could fasten him, for he was out of bonds again directly. So they sent him home to Kent, whence he duly returned his ransom, and his story, it is related, stimulated many to devotion, who understood by it how salutary are masses to