Strange Pages from Family Papers

DEAD

n,

ead man'

, and bar

e, nor

uscle, o

of the dead

sby Le

es are told of its marvellous properties as a charm, and on the Continent many a wonderful cure is said to have been wrought by its agency. Southey, it may be remembered, in his "Thalaba, the Destroyer," has placed i

he

wallet drew

d and dry

ing, as

r in h

rderer on the

lture from his

did the murd

trings to cl

the sun

, nine wee

he German adventurer, Dousterswivel, describe it to the assembled party among the ruins at St. Ruth's thus jocosely: "De Hand of Glory is very well known in de countries where your worthy progenitors did live; and it is a hand cut off from a dead man as he has been hanged for murder, and dried very nice in de smoke of juniper wood; then you do take something

the house armed with a dead man's hand, with a lighted candle in it, believing in the superstitious notion that a candle placed in a dead man's hand will not be seen by any but by those by whom it is used, and also that if a candle in a dead hand be introduced into a house, it will prevent those who may be asleep from awaking. The inmates, however, were alarmed, and the robbers fled, leaving the hand behind them." Another story communicated by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, tells how two th

ould not break the charmed sleep. At last stealing down into the kitchen, while the thieves were busy over

s said to have been put to death for his religion in the time of William III. It is recorded that when about to suffer he desired his spiritual attendant to cut off his right hand, which should ever after have power to work miraculous cures on those who had faith to believe in its efficacy. This relic, which forms the subject of one of Roby's "Traditions of Lancashire," was preserve

be of his own faith." According to another version of the story, Edmund Arrowsmith was a native of Haydock, in the parish of Winwick. He entered the Roman Catholic College of Douay, where he was educated, afterwards being ordained priest. But in the year 1628 he was apprehended and brought to Lancaster on the charge of being a priest contrary to the laws of the realm, and was executed on 26th August, 1628, his last words being "Bone Jesu."[33] As recently as the year 1736, a boy of twelve years, the son of Caryl Hawarden, of Appleton-within-Widnes, county of Lancaster, is stated to have been cured of what appeared to be a fatal malady by the application of Father Arrowsmith's hand, which was effected in the following manner: The boy had been ill fifteen months, and was at length deprived of the use of his limbs, with loss of his memory and impaired sight. In this condition, which the physicians had declared hopeless, it was suggested to his parents that, as wonderful cures had been effected by the hand of "the martyred saint," it was advisable to try its effects upon their afflicted child. The "holy hand

ve been preserved in many a country house, and used as a talisman, to wh

n,

ead man'

and bar,

e, nor

uscle, o

of the dead

o sleep! Wake

d for the dea

ither lock, bolt, nor bar avails, neither "stout oak panel, thick studded with nails"; but,

ens wide as

re they

ondrou

ight of the

by two!

d hand, which has long had the reputation of being that presented by Henry I. to Reading Abbey, and reverenced there as the hand of James the Apostle. It answer

TNO

., 638; Harland and Wilkinson's