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NOTES ON SOME ASPECTS OF THE FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY OF NIGHT

By ALEXANDER P. CHAMBERLAIN - 1908
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The author has no intention at present of furnishing a monograph on the psychology of night; he has simply put together some notes on certain aspects of the subject which have seemed to him worthy of more extended investigation by the psychologist, aspects which in previous studies have perhaps not received due attention, the ethnologic and folk-lore material relating to night and the reactions to it on the part of the various races of man, civilized and uncivilized, contains much of interest and value to the enquirer into the origin and development of human mental phenomena. Certain large sections of the subject such as night and religion, sleep, dreams, fear, the emotions, etc., some of which have been much discussed by other writers, are here but lightly touched upon or reserved for future consideration.

1. Night and Death. In the minds of many peoples, civilized and uncivilized, night and death are commonly and inseparably connected, night, as the time of the absence or the disappearance of light, being conceived of as a period of death, or, at least, of lethal significance. This correlation of life and light, of night and death, is implied in the word night itself, which, with its cognates in various European tongues (German Nacht, Latin nox, Greek mix, Sanskrit nakta, etc.), seems connected with certain terms for "death" (e. g., Latin nex; Greek nekus, "corpse;" Sanskrit nac, "to perish"), etc. The common saying "the dead of night" belongs also here, with other kindred expressions. In classical mythology, Nox and her brother Erebus are the children of Chaos, and one of her own offspring is represented as "black death," while she is often referred to as "the mother of death," and likewise of sleep (regarded as the brother of death). But night has also been looked upon as "the mother of man," and "the mother of all," out of whose fertile womb came life itself and all existing things in the universe. That the emphasis upon the lethal character of night and its antagonism to life has been exaggerated, appears from both negative and positive evidence.

Suicide, the most anti-individualistic form of death, seems to prefer the day. Of 8,226 cases, e. g., occurring in the United States during the six years 1882-1887, the great majority took place in day-time, only 2,419 being recorded at night. Later statistics do not appear to have altered this relation much, if any.

Geck, who has studied the distribution of 100,000 cases of suicide occurring in Germany during the 20-year period 1876-1895, finds an increase paralleling the length of the day, reaching a maximum in June and a minimum in December. The same relation holds if this period is divided into four sections of five years each. A previous investigation by K. Becker, covering 87,439 cases during the period 1872-1885 in Prussia, Saxony, Wiirteniburg, Baden and Hamburg, confirms Geek's results. Here, too, a division into three shorter periods shows no difference of any significance. Even discounting for the general difference of summer and winter months, and for the increased facilities for self-destruction offered by day-time, there yet remains something in these figures which argues against the theory of the death-influence of night. The same conclusion applies to other forms of death than suicide, similar allowances being made for the industrial, social and other factors more potent during the reign of day.

Statistics of deaths indicate a decided preponderance in daytime. Raseri, whose investigations dealt with 25,474 cases, found the maximum of deaths to occur in the period between two and seven o'clock in the evening, and the minimum during the last hours before midnight.

Night and death have been made much of in literature and art among many peoples, but it was reserved for Joseph Blanco White (d. 1841) in his famous sonnet Night and Death to say the genius-word:

Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet "neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened in man's view.
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to euch countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

The individual bard thus agrees with the folk-poets of many lands in seeing the life that lies in night rather than the death so often inseparably connected with it in human thought. Light and life are thus alike in being born of night.

2. Night as Mother. Night and life. Both in the personification of night in mythology and in the figurative language of poetry the idea of motherhood is prominent. The ancient poets styled her "mother of all things, of gods as well as of men," and in classic mythology she appears as mother of day and light, of the fates and the furies, of the hesperides, of death, sleep and dreams, of discord and strife, of hunger and fear, of nemesis, of satire and fraud, etc. In primitive thought darkness and night, like earth, seem inevitably linked with motherhood. The womb of woman and the womb of night are credited with close and primeval kinship. Milton's figure of " the wide womb of uncreated night" had its savage and barbaric predecessors; so, too, with Whittier's "the night is mother of the day," for, before him, the classic poet had said, " out of night is born day, as a child comes forth from the womb of his mother." Bachofen, the protagonist of the " mother-right" theory in the last century, observed that " motherdom is related to the idea of the day-bearing night, as fatherdom is to light sprung from the union of the sun with mother night." Sometimes the light born of night is so preeminent and predominant as to subdue, expel, or destroy all her other evil brood, and we have the undisputed omnipotence of him who is light, and in whom "is no darkness at all."

The folk-idea of "mother" night receives some support from the incidence of human birth, for vital statistics produce not a little evidence in support of the view of Berlinski that night is distinctly favorable to individual life. Birds are said to break from the egg more commonly during the night or early morning. The same is said to be true of birth with many species of animals, and the tendency among human beings seems also to be born at night, or in the early morning. Dr. V. Goehlert's investigation of the hourly distribution of 86,850 births occurring in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, during the years 1876-1884, shows a maximum between 12 p. M. and 2 A. M. and a minimum between 12 M. and 2 p. M. The percentages for four-hour periods were as follows: from 12 M. to 4 P. M., 14-33%; 4-8 P. M., 15.01%; 8-12 P. M., 16.56%; 12 P. M.- 4 A. M., jo.66%; 4-8 A. M., 18.68%; 8 A. M. to 12 M., 15.76%.

Observations in Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Dorpat, Edinburgh, at varions dates from 1811 to 1884, substantiate the conclusions of Goehlert. In Dorpat (L/ivonian Russia) out of 25,382 births during the period 1850-1881, the maximum (40%) for six-hour periods was between 12 P. M. and 6 A. M., and the minimum ( 12.8%) between 12 M. and 6 P. M. Raseri's examination of the time of birth in 36,515 cases also confirms Goehlert's views, the maximum occurring in the early hours of the morning, the minimum during the first hours of the afternoon. The evolutional defences of life at night are in evidence also, although not much attention has been paid to them by biologists and students of the animal world. Verrill has recently, however, pointed out some of the nocturnal protective colorations of mammals, birds, fishes, insects, etc. Nature, it seems, shows herself here quite as skillful in protecting her creatures by assimilating their colors and markings to the nightly environment, as she is in the devices she has evolved for ensuring their safety by day.

3. Night and the dead. That the spirits of the departed visit at night their former home, gather about the hearth and enjoy themselves in their own way is a folk-belief widespread among the peasantry of Europe, a belief that has led to many curious and significant customs. Often (as, e.g., in Brittany) the fire must never be allowed to go completely out so that the returning spirits may warm themselves, or sometimes it is the Bouffon Noz (farceur de nuit), or the Virgin herself who comes. And, when the fire has been used to cook the pap for a newborn child, it must be kept up all night so the Virgin may come and get ready the food of the little Jesus. In Brittany the fire is kept up at night by a log called kef an anaon ("the log of the dead"). In certain parts of the Vosges country, during the week of All Saints, the windows are opened and the covers of the beds turned down so that the dead may for a brief space sleep in their old place. The philosophy of the " house spirits," and "ancestor worship," looms large here. As day belongs to the living, night belongs to the dead; the bright, crackling fire to men and women of this world, the smouldering embers at least to those who "revisit the glimpses of the moon." This innocuous, friendly and sympathetic side of spirit-visitancy is but one of the attempts made by man to humanize the world beyond the grave and to attach it to himself as part of himself, to make the immortals mortals again.

After being built, houses are subject to certain ceremonies not alone among savage and barbarous peoples, but also among civilized and Christian nations, with the object of preserving them from the inroads of spirits, especially during the hours of darkness. Similar precautions were and still are taken, in certain parts of the globe against the inroads of the devil and his imps, who preferred the night for their interference with the happiness of men and women. Here belong the harriers of the air, the wind spirits, "wild huntsmen," "night-goers" ( with innumerable names), and death,himself, who "rides by night." And against "the pestilence that walketh in darkness," man has continually to guatd himself and what is his.

Beautiful, indeed, and thoroughly worthy of the human heart, are some of the household beliefs and practices connected with the "feeding of the dead" and the entertainment in most hospitable fashion of the nightly visitants, who seek so eagerly the scenes of their former existence. Sacred are the thirst and the hunger of the dead; and blessings innumerable flow from their happy spiritual touch. Their gifts are often not to be feared in the least, and their comings and goings are the fortune of their descendants. In what happy touch the living are with the "good dead," one can learn in some region of peasant Europe, a corner of Brittany, for example. The dark side of the picture may be sought in some part of Malaysia, where every soul alive is in endless fear of the roving spirits of the departed.

Against the malevolent spirits of the dead who fill the air of night manifold precautions have to be taken and the ingenuity of man is wearied in efforts to lay these terrors of his environment, who are bold enough sometimes to harrass him even in the broad light of day. For many peoples (not savages and barbarians of the lowest type alone) "

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."

Not merely this, but in the fearsome night they are seen and terrify the heart and mind and soul of man, till fear itself creates unfear and brings release. But not before innumerable petty and many genial devices have been adopted.

4. Night as the "evil time". According to the Andaman Islanders, a very primitive people of Negrito stock, Puluga, the uncreated and immortal creator of all things, who lives in the sky, "is omniscient only while it is day, when he can see." In the darkness of night this faculty leaves him. Where the deities of day and night are not especially arrayed in opposing orders or classes, it often happens that the overruling powers lose wholly or in part their strength during the hours of darkness. This idea finds expression in the saying that "God loses to the devil at night." And in this riot of evil man is often easily involved. The individual and the general thought is well expressed in Hamlet's famous words: " "

"Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on."

And, earlier in the play, the ghost of Hamlet's father, to whom his son had said:

"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee,"

tells him:

"I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain time to walle the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away."

And the unpublished volumes of the folk-lore of innumerable tribes of man are filled with the record of the words and deeds of the "perturbed" spirits who cannot "rest." And this same literature reveals the existence in times past and in times present of hundreds of "night taboos," prohibitions of acts that, when performed after sunset, or during the hours of darkness, alarm and irritate the spirits of the dead and bring upon the doer their enmity in innumerable ways, stir up to activity the demons of the air, etc., and particularly the prince of darkness, whose "name is legion."

The following, cited by van Gennep, will serve as typical night-taboos (they are from the aborigines of Madagascar):

1. The house must not be swept at night, that would bring poverty.
3. One must not call out, whistle, or carry mutton at night, el«e the spirits will pursue him.
2. One must not comb the hair, wash the face, or cut the fingernails at night.
4. One must not go to bed without having a light in the room, otherwise he would resemble the dead in the tomb.
5. Ashes or dirty water must not be thrown away at night, that displeases the spirits much.

It will be seen that the night-lore of these peoples often resembles, or is even identical with, that of our own race. In various parts of France folk-belief forbids sweeping house after sundown, lest some one of the family should die. In the Breton region of the Cotes-du-Nord the reasons assigned are that the souls of the dead who come to visit their old homes during the night are in danger of being swept out with the dust, or the Virgin Mary, who is seeking houses in which to lodge her favorite souls, may be driven away. In some places it is only on the eve of the feast of the dead that this taboo holds, for fear of driving off the souls of those in purgatory.

Leaving a light burning is not always due, however, to fear of the devil or regard for the spirits, but may sometimes be accounted for from simple economic or social reasons.

Civilized peoples, outside of individual idiosyncrasies, take their sleep in darkness, not leaving lights burning in their bedrooms. This is not, however, the case with all primitive peoples. The Eskimo, notably, as Nansen has remarked, "do not sleep in the dark like other people," the lamps being kept qurning all the time in the iglú or snow-hut. This custom, Hough thinks, may be due in part to their high appreciation of "the feeling of companionship, security or sociability, given by light," and partly also to "the inconvenience of rubbing out fire with the fire-drill to relight the lamps." The long winter-darkness and the added obscurity of the low iglus make necessary, profitable and pleasurable the turning of night into day.

Among French folk beliefs as to the night-comings of the devil are these:

1. If a chair or a stool is left upside down the devil will come.
2. If any one goes to bed without moving the chair on which he sat when taking off his shoes, he will be visited by the devil.
3. If a woman looks at herself in a mirror after sun-down, the devil will appear.
4. If dances at farms and in inns do not stop at midnight, the devil will come and take part.
5. The devil will appear to those who talk too much about him after sundown.
6. Whistling or singing outside the house at night attracts the devil.
7. If on hearing a noise at night one turns his head, the devil seizes the occasion to injure him.
8. To make the sign of the cross after sunset will bring on the devil.
10. If a woman with child goes out after twilight, the devil will take possession of her offspring. 9. To work in the fields at dark of night will cause the devil to appear and carry off the laborer if he persists in his toil.
11. Women just after child-birth and children before baptism mast not be out at night because the devil roams about from one Angelus to the other.
12. After sunset, no woman must go abroad carrying in her arms a child of less than a year or one not yet weaned, else the devil will twist its neck, flatten its head, or carry it off altogether.
13. When women give birth to children at night, the chorus of devils sings above the houses.

Many of these things apply as well to evil spirits other than the devil, to the spirits of the dead, to goblins and monsters of all sorts, to witches, sorcerers and other malevolent beings, who are most active and most dangerous to mankind during the hours from dark to dawn. Curiously enough, the Chinese, whose ideas are so often quite the reverse of ours, believe that " the gods walk abroad by night," and with them night, as the poet Young has termed it, is, "the felt presence of the Deity." But, even with us, the power of evil is sometimes shorn of its nocturnal strength.

In the play of Hamlet (Act. i, Se. ii), after the exit of the Ghost, the following conversation occurs:

Ber. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and at his warning
Whether in sea or fire, or earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that reason comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.

Night, in the old heathen days, was the time for the deeds of "extravagant and erring spirits," of sea, fire, earth and air, of fairies "take" and witches' "charm," and it is an evidence of the impression made upon the folk-heart of Europe by the story of Bethlehem that at the "hallowed and gracious" time of the birth of Jesus all these evil powers had their activities temporarily annulled. The advent of dawn had rendered them powerless before, but now the coming of the infant Saviour stemmed the tide of their life at its most approved epoch. Surely the "Holy Night" was well thought of among men. The folk-lore of the "cock-crow" and of the "Holy Night" deserves special treatment and are too voluminous to be considered here. A whole book might perhaps be written on the single topic of the Child Jesus and the night.

5. Night as Bogy. In Upper Brittany night appears as a bogy to scare children with: "Go home! Night will run ofl with you! Night's coming after you." At Matignon (Côtes- du-Nord) night appears as a great black woman, who lives in the west, between earth and sky, and frightens children who do not get home at the proper time. In Morbihan, when children do not want to go to bed, they are told that "Madame la Nuit" will come to take them. She is represented as a big black woman; and, when children will not let themselves be cleaned up, they are told that their face will be as black as that of Night. At Saint Brieuc there was a "cave of Madame la Nuit," into which little boys furtively threw stones and then ran away. But, usually, mankind has relied upon darkness in general, in thought personifying it, as the "bug" with which to "fear boys." Sometimes, however, the night-bogy is a witch in animal shape (owl, vampire, dragon, wolf, etc.), or some horrible ogre or misshapen being of human kind. Night, as bogy, however, is not always conceived of as a woman. In Scottish folk-lore we find "Auld Daddy Darkness," who is " black as a blackamoor, blin' as a mole."

6. Night and Marriage. The consummation of marriage in the hours of darkness is a practically universal custom among the races of man, though there are still some exceptions and there have been, doubtless, more in times past. In spite of the proverb "happy is the bride on whom the sun shines," and the efforts of ecclesiastical authorities at various periods to confine the marriage ceremony to morning, high noon, etc. (in the sixteenth century we find unscrupulous priests rebuked for uniting couples in "the night season," or "by the light of the moon"), a large proportion of weddings take place in the evening, the hospitality of that portion of the twenty-four hours adding naturally to the festivities and rounding out the ceremonies in various ways. The Church of England law (4 Geo. IV, c. 76) required that all marriages must be celebrated between the hours of eight and twelve in the morning," but this was latterly changed (49 and 50 Viet., c. 14) to between the hours of eight in the forenoon and three in the afternoon. The fashion of "wedding-journeys" also favored day-marriages, until the appearance of sleeping-cars and steamboats with " staterooms" tended to turn the tide somewhat the other way.

Among many more or less primitive peoples (Santhals, Maoris, Babar Islanders, etc.), and some partly civilized, the marriage ceremony takes place in the evening or at night. With the ancient Romans the bridegroom had to go to his bride in the dark, and in Sparta he had to leave her before daybreak, so that "sometimes children were born before the pair had ever seen each other's faces by day." This surreptitious exercise of conjugal duties by the bridegroom at night is found here and there all over the globe, where darkness is thought to be the proper veil for these events, and where men seek to avoid the dangers lurking in the ' 'contagion of sight. ' ' Sometimes both bride and groom are secluded for days, e. g., among the Minahassas of Celebes, they are shut up in a dark room for three days and nights, and elsewhere often for a much longer period. The taboo against seeing the fairy bride "by candle-light" appears in certain folk-tales.

Crawley, who has paid much attention to the study of human taboos, prohibitions and devices for the avoidance of danger, particularly in the congress of the sexes, remarks: "Weddings very commonly take place in the evening, or at night, a custom natural enough for its convenience and its obviation of dangers, such as that of the evil eye and those connected with human, and especially with female, shyness and timidity." To this he adds significantly: "Taken in connection with the last custom [ greeting of the rising sun by the young pair], we may, without excess of fancifulness, note the coincidence with nature's method of shrouding her processes of production in mystery and darkness, and of revealing their results in the light. ' ' Behind the bridal veil and other means of concealing the woman in part or altogether from her husband, etc., lies a wealth of folk-lore. Hiding the bride, or keeping her in a dark corner, figures in many wedding ceremonies, and when real darkness is not present, fictitious night is called into play.

When the "daughters of the gods" have to do with the sons of men," or these with the former, it is often only by night that they can meet each other. It was thus in the Maori legend of the hero Tawhaki and the celestial maiden Tango-tango, who fell in love with him, and nightly came to him, stealing home with the advent of dawn. There are many variants of this tale among the Maoris and elsewhere in the world of savagery and barbarism, not to speak of more civilized peoples. The "heavenly bride," "the ghost wife," "the fairy mistress" are all often but nocturnal visitants, compelled to return to their superhuman dwellings at the first peep of day or at the stroke of midnight. Often, too, the child of "the walker by moonlight1 ' has to be suckled or saved from some great danger by its "uncanny" mother, whose power to aid it lies wholly within the hours of darkness, or is even confined to midnight alone, at which time only, e.g., "the lady of the lake," in response to the child's cry and the nurse's appeal ( as in a Kaffir tale) rises out of the water and puts it to her breast.

7. "Fair by night and foul by day."; One of the most noteworthy motives in popular legend and fairy-tale is that of the wife or husband who is "fair by night and foul by day," a beautiful human being during the hours of darkness, but a serpent, a dragon, or some other ugly or loathsome creature, if not a hideous man or woman, after dawn. The typical case in literature is "the foul old wife," who figures in Chaucer's " The Wife of Bath's Tale." This famous story and its numerous analogues in other languages than English have recently been studied by Prof. G. H. Maynadier. In Chaucer the knight, who has married the old wife ("a fouler wight there may no man devise"), is told: "Choose, now, to have me foul and old and a humble wife till I die, or young and fair, and take your chances of my lovers." When he told her to please herself, the old hag became ' 'as true a wife as ever was, and fair as any lady or queen in the whole land," and they lived happily ever afterwards. In the ballad of The Marriage of Sir Gawaine (ante Charles I), "the lady gives Gawaine his choice to have her fair by night and foul by day, or vice versa." The knight leaves the matter to her and she then declares that she will be fair always, she had really been bewitched by her stepmother. In the Saga of Hrólf Kraki (i4th century) it is told of King Helgi that one night "a wretched female shape" sought entrance to his hut and bed. The king admitted her, but lay all night with face averted from her ugliness. But, " when at daybreak he looked round, a creature of surpassing beauty lay by him, who at once began to fill him with love." This boon of a prince's bed was the ending of her enchantment, for she, too, had been bewitched by a cruel step-parent. In many tales and legends in which the "fair-foul" motif is employed the maiden or youth is awakened from an enchanted sleep or restored to a fair human from a foul bestial shape by the kiss of a lover hero or heroine. Often the "loathly lady" was a good fairy, as Maynadier suggests, who was not under spells at all, but was merely wishing to test her favorite hero. To such a motif various clumsy additions may from time to time have been made. Among the changes of form from night to day cited by Maynadier from the folk-literature of all lands are the following :

1. A prince by night, gray bear by day (Celtic).
2. Gray wolf by day, gentleman by night.
3. Maiden by day, serpent by night, recovers for good her human form after a third kiss (Rhaeto-Romanian).
4. Prince by night (t. e. after sunset), frog by day (Breton).
5. Boy by day, werwolf by night (Breton).
6. Man by day, bear by night (Scandinavian).
7. Man by night, white bear by day (Scandinavian).
8. Prince by night, lion by day (German).
9. Prince by night, crab by day. Also alternately man and eagle ( Greek).
10. Young man by night, pumpkin by day (Wallachian)
11. Prince crane by day, man by night (Scandinavian).
12. Man by day, worm by night (Scandinavian).
13. Man by night, and hoodie by day, or vice versa (Scotch Highland).
14. Man by night and white dog by day, or vice versa (Irish).
15. Man by day, seal by night (Irish).
16. Man by night, ram, salmon, eagle by day (Irish).
17. Princess by night, swan by day (Irish).
18. Man by night, raven by day (Gascon).
19. Prince with monkey's head by day, handsome youth at night (Norman).
20. Princes swans except for a quarter of an hour every evening ( German).
21. Women by night, stags by day (German).
22. Handsome youth by night, lizard by day.
23. Tree by day, beantifnl youth by night (S. Amer. Ind.).
24. Princess a raven except for one hour each night (Armenian).
25. Man by night, snake by day (Servian).
26. Man by night, bird by day (Scotch).
27. Man by night, ring by day (German and Servian).

A story of the rattlesnake (by day) youth (by night) kind has recently been reported from the Tunika Indians by Swanton, and the myth is "of a common American type."

Sometimes, it will be readily seen, the human being appears in proper form by day, sometimes by night. How much of this motif of the alternation of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the human and the infra-human (or ultra- human), is due to the contemplation of the natural alternation of day and night is difficult to determine. Doubtless, the metamorphosis of day and night had not a little to do with suggesting the changes of man into beast and vice versa.

8. "Nightmare."; The "nightmare has been a very fertile source of mythology and folk-lore. The "mare" in this word has, of course, nothing to do with mare (or horse), but is by folk-etymology so interpreted, in Icelandic, e. g., the cognate mará means an ogress. The Latin term for nightmare, incubus, from incubare, "to lie down upon," connotes the oppressive feeling about the chest, which is the starting point for the nightmare psychosis. With the modern peoples of Europe alone, leaving out of count altogether the uncivilized races of the globe, the lore of the "nightmare" and the "incubus" is very extensive. It was Laistner who first emphasized the rôle of the nightmare and the incubus, with dreams, in the production of mythologie phenomena and he was followed in this direction by Mogk, Meyer, Golther, etc.

Among the "swan-maiden" myths Hartland notes a "nightmare type." In the belief of many people in peasant Europe (Germany and the Slavonic countries), "the nightmare is a human being, frequently one whose love has been slighted, and who, in this shape, is enabled to approach the beloved object. It slips through the keyhole, or any other hole in a building, and presses its victim sometimes to death. But it can be caught by quickly stopping the hole through which it has entered." In folk-tales a man stops up the means of egress and suddenly finds in the room "a young, lovely maiden," whom he marries and by whom he has children. If questioned about her nightmare origin, or for other reasons, she sometimes vanishes after years of happy wedded life. Sometimes the nightmare, when caught in this way, turns out to be a beautiful child, who marries and, in like manner, disappears when the question of her origin is discussed. Often the nightmare slips out and in again if an opening is accidentally left. There are many curious folk-beliefs concerning these "nightmares." In North Germany, e.g., "when seven boys, or seven girls, are born in succession, one of them is a nightmare." From the distressful incubus to the elusive beauty is a long step, but the folk-mind easily makes it.

9. Night and work. In a certain sense, night was the first schola or leisure of man, and long continued to be such. It was only with the advent of fire that night was permanently and successfully "tamed," industrialized and estheticized. The discovery of fire really genialized night for man, making possible many of the social arts, including letters, song, and music, to a large extent, at least. Even-songs, "night- thoughts," and "musings, while the fire burned," have added much to the stock of human knowledge.

Says Groos, with some exaggeration, perhaps: "Of children and young animals it is true that, except when they are eating, they play all day, till at night, tired out with play, they sink to sleep." This is before the school interferes with the natural activities of childhood, or social necessity makes them all too soon feel the burdens of labor. For the child, day-time is play-time, and night-time is rest, and both are, or should be, equally genial. Civilization, however, has long ruthlessly disturbed both by the evils of child-labor in the factory and the mine, from which, even now, children of both sexes still suffer much. The night-labor of children has not yet completely disappeared from the Old World or even the New. Those to whom night belongs of right have not all received it.

Woman is perhaps more night-minded than man. In another place the present writer has observed: "Traces of the night- inspiration, of the influence of the primitive fire group, abound in woman. Indeed, it may be said (the life of southern Europe and of American society to-day illustrates the point abundantly) that she is, in a sense, a 'night-being,' for the activity, physical and mental, of modern women (revealed e.g., in the dance and the nocturnal intellectualities of society) in this direction is remarkable. Perhaps we may style a good deal of her ordinary day labor 'rest,' or the commonplaces and banalities of her existence, her evening and night life being the true genius- side of her activities." And "in acting and dancing [and we may perhaps add singing], two professions especially of the night, woman shows marked genius, exceeding even that of man." Recent years, however, have seen an extensive utilization of the afternoon for the meetings of woman's clubs, which now compete or coalesce with pink teas and like post-meridian functions.

The Masai of eastern Africa believe that the night is a man, whose wife is the day. They explain this by say ing that "men, who are strong, go and fight theeuemy at night, whilst women, who are weak, can only work by day." The amount of work done by women among many primitive, and even civilized, peoples, is so great that not a few writers would agree with the exaggerated statement of Gen. Dodge, cited by Prof. O. T. Mason, that ' 'it is a god-send that the Indian woman did not know how to make a light sufficient to work by at night." Then, surely, woman's work would never be "done."

But, although mankind have accomplished so much work at night, and the praise of the pioneer student who picked up his education by the uncertain light of the camp or cabin fire, is repeated on behalf of him who "burns the midnight oil," or keeps the electric lights going till long past that fateful hour, there is some evidence that the conquest of night achieved by civilization has not been equally powerful everywhere. The familiar gospel hymn with its refrain,

"Work, for the night is coming,
When man's work is o'er,"

goes back to the saying in the New Testament (John i x, 4), attributed to Jesus: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh when no mancan work." But, if no man can work in the night, the folk-lore of all lands represents Satan as losing no hour of darkness in his nefarious labors. Still the poets have emphasized the restful night, as e. g., Montgomery, who begins his poem on night thus:

Night is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labors close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose.

Before him, however, Watts had warned that "Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do."

In certain parts of France the folk-belief obtains that working in the fields after nightfall is dangerous. If one does so, he risks coming into contact with headless men, sprites and demons of all sorts. In upper Brittany, if a man works in the fields at dark of night, the devil comes beside him and performs the same actions as he, and, if the laborer does not cease his work, carries him off. Sometimes, the spirits warn men who trespass upon the hours of night that are properly theirs. A legend from Ille-et-Vilaine states that a peasant, who was cutting grain at night, heard a voice call out to him twice: " You must leave the night to those to whom it belongs!" Another from the Ardennes reports that a giant said to those whom he found working at night in the forest: "The day is for you, the night is for me."

Recent studies of work and fatigue by the physiologists and psychologists have revealed the presence of at least two types of " workers" among scholars and men of various occupations and professions, the "night type" and the "day type," perhaps also a "morning type," and an "afternoon type." There are also not a few cases of individuals who get up at night to work, sometimes being at their best at two or three o'clock in the morning.

10. Night and meals. Even among civilized peoples, mealtimes are by no means confined to the hours of daylight. Dinner, the chief meal, may take place at the noon hour or shortly after, at about six o'clock, or often much later in the evening. For social functions and kindred affairs eight o'clock is a common hour for dining. Supper, in England and France in the Middle Ages, and for three centuries after, was generally at about four or five in the afternoon. With regard to the Parisians, Mallery notes: "A substantive change even with them is the hour of the later meal (i. e. dinner), which is late in the evening, or in the night, instead of early in the afternoon, as it was a few generations ago." Here, as elsewhere, a shift from day to night has taken place. In our northern climate "lunch" at noon and "dinner" so late that artificial light has to be resorted to are quite fashionable, the night dinner in winter time being more characteristic by reason of the earlier oncoming of darkness. Add to this social affairs, church and theatre suppers, the "night lunch," etc., and it will be seen at once how large an amount of food civilized man is in the habit of consuming after daylight has practically disappeared. To the lamp have now succeeded gas and the electric light, making night activity in the matter of eating sociable and pleasurable to a degree. With primitive peoples the principal meal occurred very often (e. g. the Hupa Indians of California) in the evening, sometimes towards noon-day. But there were often other minor meals.

11. Night and hospitality. The necessity of asking for "a night's lodging" is one of the turning points in many a folktale and fairy story. That night should be the time for the exercise of hospitality is natural enough, since even now most of the moving about and travelling in the world are done by day. The ancient Hindus believed that "he who entertains guests for one night obtains earthly happiness ; a second night gains the middle air; a third, heavenly bliss; a fourth, the world of unsurpassable bliss; many nights procure endless worlds." The duty and the exercise of hospitality were all the more necessary and serviceable since night was often the time when not alone the spirits of evil, but the souls of the departed and even the gods themselves walked the earth. If hospitality during the hours of daylight were commendable, it was doubly so after nightfall. At night, especially, did men feel the injunction of the primitive Ainu, "Do not treat strangers slightingly, for you never know whom you are entertaining," a thought which, in higher form, has found a place in our Bible, where we read (Hebrews xiii, 2): "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers ; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Night always has been, indeed, the time of ' 'entertaining angels unawares. " It is easier for all creatures to show their real colors by day. This very fact has tended to deepen the feeling of hospitality everywhere among men in all ages of the world's history. To keep any one "over night" is still the common expression of the art of hospitality. And often, since at night the whole family is present, the women in particular, hospitality has not infrequently gone to such extremes among uncivilized peoples in various parts of the globe that the jus hospitis has included the provision of a temporary consort or the assumption of conjugal rights over some female member of the household.

12. Night as soother and counsellor. In the New Testament ( Ephes. iv, 26) we find this admonition: "Be ye angry and sin not : let not the sun go down upon your wrath. ' ' And nowadays people are sometimes told, when in a fit of anger, to ' ' go out into the night and cool off. ' ' In poetic and in prose literature, as well as in folk-lore, the soothing effect of the " calm and silent" "peaceful," "quiet," "still," "tranquil," ' ' solemn' ' night is emphasized. Night is, with sleep, the great cure for human ills; anger, worry, despair flee at her coming. As Ovid greatly phrases it : Curarum maxima nutrix Nox. Night hides defects that in daylight agitate the minds and souls of men. The French proverb has it, "by night all cats are gray," and the Greek, "when every candle is removed, every woman is alike."

In how many ways is not mankind, to use the Vergilian phrase, retouched by Conington, "released from trouble by the touch of night!" The French proverb, "Night brings counsel:" finds echoes in every land and in every age, from the German "counsel overnight is better," to the saying attributed to the Persians, "counsel must be taken twice; once by day, again at night."

Night and sorrow are easily and commonly associated. Said the English poet James Montgomery (1771-1854):

"Night is the time to weep,
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years."

and, both in literature and in folk-lore, we meet with this selection of night as the appropriate period for grief and its expression. The use of fire and its association with religious ceremonies doubtless made funerals and funeral rites during the hours of darkness possible to uncivilized man, and so, much of the ritual of death and of mourning was transferred to the night, when by the light of his own camp-fire, he started off the dead on their long journey to the world beyond, whose lights he saw burning in the skies above him. And it is no wonder that the Australian aborigines, who conceive of the milky way as the path of souls, see in its stars the camp-fires kept going by faithful wives, who have preceded their husbands, to light them on their journey to the spirit-land. Through darkness into light passes the soul of man at death, as at birth he came forth out of darkness into light.

13. Weather-lore of night. In literature and the sayings of the folk are to be found not a few prognostications of the weather of the morrow from the aspect of the night. In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare develops a fine figure of speech from this source:

"Do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath "scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow."

One of the weather sayings of the African Masai is this: If, when the sun rises, the heavens are red, it will rain; if, when the sun sets the sky is the color of blood, some warriers out riding have been successful. It is not a far cry from this to one of the most famous of weather-proverbs, thus stated in the New Testament (Matthew xvi, 2, 3): "When it is evening, ye say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red; and in the morning it will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering."

This has its counterpart in the common English sayings:

Evening red and morning gray
Will set the traveller on his way;
But evening gray and morning red
Will bring down rain upon his head.
If the sun in red should set,
The next day surely will be wet;
If the sun should set in gray,
The next will be a rainy day.
An evening red and a morning gray,
Are sure signs of a fine day.
Evening red and morning gray
Two sure signs of one fine day.
An evening gray and a morning red
Will send the shepherd wet to bed.

Red skies in the evening precede fine to-morrows.

And more to the same effect.

The "rainbow at night" is noted in our English folk-lore:

Rainbow in the morning,
Shepherds take warning;
Rainbow at night,
Shepherd's delight.
A rainbow in the morning
Is the shepherd's warning;
A rainbow in the night
Is the shepherd's delight.
Rainbow at night,
Sailors' delight;
Rainbow in morning,
Sailors' warning.
If there be a rainbow in the eve,
It will rain and leave;
But if there be a rainbow on the morrow,
It will neither lend nor borrow.

The rainbow proverb is also expressed in more scientific language as follows: "Rainbow in morning shows that shower is west of us and that we shall probably get it. Rainbow in the evening shows that shower is east of us and is passing off."

Some proverbs and sayings relating to the actions of animals at night as weather signs are:

1. Bats flying late in the evening indicate fair weather. Bats who
speak flying tell of rain to-morrow.
2. When swallows in evenings fly high and chirp, fair weather
follows; when low, rain follows.
3. If the cock goes crowing to bed,
He '11 certainly rise with a watery head.
4. When grouse drum at night, Indians predict a deep fall of snow.

14. Night as a measurer of time. Among civilized peoples at the present time, as our common proverbs and sayings indicate (e.g. "every dog has his day"), measurement by day is so predominant that we have almost forgotten that our ancestors reckoned by night, that there was ever a time when not "in the days of ," but rather "in the nights of " was the proper phrase; or, again, "Give us our nightly,'' not our "daily bread. ' ' As the moon was the measurer of longer periods of time, so the night was of shorter ones. The emphasis placed upon "night" is revealed by the fact that while, in the terms for "day" significant differences occur among the various Aryan languages, there is practical agreement in the words for night (a common Aryan stem nokt is recognized by philologists). This leads Kluge and others to argue that the primitive Aryans counted by "nights" and not by "days." Relics of such a procedure are to be found in our own English "sennight" and "fortnight," and in the German terms Weihnachten (lit. "holy night") and Fastnacht, etc. In the Rig-Veda occur such passages as this, which Schrader cites: "Let us celebrate the old nights (day) and the harvests (years)," and the Sanskrit nicanicam (literally "night for night") means "daily." Schrader thinks that in the oldest times the moon was the measurer of time and day-reckonings only came into vogue with greater appreciation of the sun and the rise of a solar cult. Then, as the term night formerly included day, so the term day came later to include night.

The use of eve in English, Abend in German, in such ceremonial and holiday terms as New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve, Hallow e'en, St. Agnes Eve, Candelmas Eve, Easter Eve, St. Mark's Eve, etc., Christabend, Sonnabend, etc., to designate the "night before" a holiday or cult-period and sometimes even the day itself is worth noting. Sonnabend means now all Saturday and not merely the part of it which just precedes Sunday; and Weihnachten includes likewise all of Christmas. And with the anniversaries of certain saints the "day" and " eve" are completely fused. In heathen times, before the word was consecrated to Christian uses, Weihnachten meant in German the "day before" the great winter festival celebrated from the 26th of December to the 6th of January, the "Yule" of older English. In reality, the old Germanic reckoning of time counted evening and night with the following day, the diurnal period was from eve to eve, night being thus characteristically emphasized. From sunset to sunset has been a common method of computing the day of 24 hours, particularly for ecclesiastic purposes. The Hebrew Sabbath is of this nature, as was the "day" of the ancient Greeks. And in the story of creation in our Bible we read (Gen. i, 5): "And the evening and the morning were the first day." In older speech, as the German Morgen still indicates morning meant the early morrow. Both night and morning have thus at times signified the whole day, as eve and morrow have also been included in one complex. To count the "day" from sunset to sunset appears to have been a very common practice among the races of man (Hebrews, Greeks, Gauls, Teutons, etc.), and some have sought to bring it into relation with the moon-cult. The limits of " day" and "night" are often rather indefinite and peoples differ not a little as to their distinctions. In the Talmud- Mishna lore of the Hebrews this definition is found : "When the eastern sky becomes pale, it is twilight; when the eastern sky becomes so black that the upper and lower parts of the sky are of the same color, it is night." The "watches of the night," too, vary with different peoples. The Masai idea of night is thus reported by Hollis:

The evening is the time when the cattle return to the kraals just before the sun sets (6 P. M.). Then there is the night, midnight, and the time when the buffaloes go to drink; this latter is the hour before the sun rises, which the Swahili call sava kumi (4 A. M.). There is also the time called nightfall, or the hour for gossip (8 P. M.); this is the hour before people go to bed.

There is also the time called the blood-red period, or when the sun decorates the sky; this is the hour when the first rays of the sun redden the heavens (6 A. M.). Then there is the morning; this is after the sun has risen.

For the devil, who needs no sleep, the twenty-four hours, in folk-belief, often constitute two days, as his dupes in a compact with a time-limit discover to their sorrow. To the devil " nights are days," runs a French popular saying. A Picardy legend represents the devil as saying, when he came to demand the fulfillment of the pact earlier than his victim expected: "For us the day lasts from six in the morning to six in the evening; and from six in the evening to six in the morning is another day."

15. Night vs. Day. The opposition of day and night is a common feature of primitive mythologies. In Polynesia this opposition was highly systematized. On one side are the " dwellers in day," at the head of whom is Tangalea, fair- haired and light-skinned, the beneficent god of daylight, inventor and promoter of the arts and activities of peace; on the other, Kongo, dark-haired and dark-skinned, the god of night and gloom, the stirrer-up and author of strife, bloodshed, war, and every form of discord and dissension. To one or other of these two classes belong all the gods. In several modern religions this same antagonism is reflected in the contest between the "God of Light" and the "Prince of Darkness," Christianity to-day has much of this belief still left in it. In the Middle Ages the idea was strongly entertained that Satan had vast power during the night, "until cock-crow," when God and his good angels regained their complete ascendency.

In many myths, particularly in some from the Indians of the northwest coast of North America, the occurrence of day is made possible by opening the box or other receptacle in which the light is confined, and letting it out. This feat, performed by cunning and stealth, is often one of the great achievements of the tribal heroes and demi-gods, e. %., the raven, who figures prominently in this regard. Like the stealing of fire, the theft of light is a prime motif in every quarter of the globe. Sometimes sun, moon, stars, and light in general are separately or successively obtained for man from witches, demons, deities. And the myth of their origin is often very complicated. In some legends, the oncoming of day has a remarkable effect on the men of the primitive world. Thus, in a legend of the Tlingit Indians we read: "

When it became day and the men on earth saw each other, they all ran away from one another. Some turned into fish, others into bears and wolves, others again into birds. And in this manner arose all the various kinds of animals. ' '

One would have expected such a result from the confusion of night rather than from the light of day. It suggests comparison with the actions of Adam and Eve after their obtaining the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But the ' 'daze' ' of light is a common human experience, not unnoticed by the most primitive tribes of mankind.

Over against the miracle attributed in the Old Testament ( Jos. x, 12-14), when "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day," and " the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies," may be placed the wonders reported at the funeral of St. Patrick, when, "for twelve days there was no night, no twilight, no darkness at all through the whole province; nay, for a whole year the nights were more luminous than usual and the clouds less heavy. ' ' According to a myth of the Wiimbaio tribe of Australian aborigines, the sun never set at all in the beginning and it was light all the time. The people did not like this and so Nurali, a supernatural being, sang a song to this effect:

"Sun, sun, burn your wood, burn your interior substance, and go down!"

And so now the sun, after burning up his fuel during daytime, has to go far below the horizon to get more. Thus we have the alternation of day and night. Another Australian legend states that at night the sun, who is a woman, plunges into the earth, or into the water, to get lizards, roots, or fish, for she is hungry. In yet another, the sun is a traveller, who comes and goes. Other similar legends are found scattered all over the globe, among peoples of human races. 16. Alternation of night and day. The present alternaticn of night and day is not, according to many savage and barbarous peoples, the original state of affairs. This is evident from a glance at numerous creation myths. In our Bible we find the creation story of the Hebrews, wherein it is stated : "

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Here we have the creation of light out of darkness by divine fiat, a procedure met with in ruder form in the creation legends of peoples all over the globe. This process is, however, en tirely different from that appearing in many mythologies, where the question to be settled is often whether there shall be eternal darkness or unending day. Sometimes one set of gods desires the former and another the latter, and a compromise has to be effected, resulting in the present alternation of daylight and dark.

That the alternation of night and day should be connected with gambling is natural enough. In the great gambling myth of the Navaho Indians, the action begins with an original alternation of day and night as we now have it, which was not satisfactory to all creatures dwelling upon earth :

"In the ancient days, there were, as there are now, some animals who saw better, and were altogether happier in the darkness than in the light; and there were others who liked not the darkness and were happy only in the light of day. The animals of the night wished it would remain dark forever, and the animals of the day wished that the sun would shine forever. At last they met in council in the twilight to talk the matter over, and the council resolved that they should play a game of hiding a stone in a moccasin (as in the game now called Kesitce} to settle their differences. If the night animals won, the sun should never rise again; if the day animals succeeded, never more should it set. So, when night fell, they lit a fire and commenced the game. ' '

In this game some of the gods joined with the animals of one side or the other, whispering secrets, giving advice, etc. The night animals were helped by "the great destroyer," Yeitso, the day animals by the wind-gods. The coyote was too cunning to declare absolutely for either side, and so "he usually stood between the contending parties, b 't occasionally went over to one side or the other as the tide of fortune seemed to turn." The game was long and the streaks of dawn appeared on the horizon before it could be finished. The animals broke up the play in confusion, each hastening home as fast as he could. And, the tale concludes: "As the animals never met again to play for the same stakes, the original alternation of day and night has never been changed."

17. Night and literature, art, etc. It is not by accident that the best known collection of stories from the Orient bears the title of the "Arabian Nights." This reminds us of the fact that night (or evening) is the time par excellence for tale-telling all over the globe, the camp-fire and the story still belong together, as they have done from the beginnings of human history. In the cold north the long winter evenings, and in the warm south the beautiful starry skies of night, created and sustained literature. The suggestive power of night has been infinite, darkness, moon and stars, quiet, noise, etc., all have had here their influence. Night is poetic and mythopoeic. The poet has well said:

"Night hath made many bards;
she is so lovely.
For it is beauty maketh poesie,
As from the dancing eye come tears of light.
Night hath made many bards ; she is so lovely.
And they have praised her to her starry face
So long that she has blushed and left them, often. "

But the ugliness of night, no less than its beauty, has been stimulating. This appears from hundreds of myths and legends in every part of the habitable earth that tell of what has been

"Swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night."

But the "lone watcher of the skies" has perhaps given mankind more of good than of evil, more of pleasure than of pain, from his inspirations. And it was to "the shepherds watching their flocks by night" that the angels on high sang the song to whose music the whole world shall some day move. Man, stimulated to song by the aspect of the nightly heavens, attributes to the cosmos his own feelings and emotions, and hears " the music of the spheres," begun when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." It is not surprising, therefore, that among some more or less primitive peoples tale-telling in the daytime should be tabooed, and music and the dance confined almost to night alone. Fire stimulated to an unwonted degree the activities of man at night and "tamed" the hours of darkness for the service of man, a service which the discovery and extended employment of the torch, gas, and electricity have now made practically universal.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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Pop. Sei. Mo., Vol. LX (1902), pp. 413-423. 7. . The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought. N. Y.,
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16. HOWARD, G. E. A History of Matrimonial Institutions. 3 vols. Chicago-London, 1904.
17. Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. IX, N. Y., 1905. See article on "Night."
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21. ----. Customs of Courtesy. Ibid., Vol. Ill (1890)
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26. SÉBILLOT, P. Le Folk-Lore de France. Tome I. Paris, 1904. See pp. 135-178.
27. THOMSON, J. The City of Dreadful Night. London, 1874 and 1880.
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31. WESTERMARCK, E. The History of Human Marriage. London, 1894.
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33. YOUNG, E. The Complaint; or Night Thoughts. London, 1742-1744 _____________________________

This piece which first appeared in the American Journal of Psychology is to the best of my knowledge in the public domain. Google Books not only offers it but also the entire AJP issue where the piece is shown. It was published in 1908, putting it well into the public domain context.

Apparently, the Google scan had a difficult time of it with the fonts used in the original pages so I made some minor spelling and punctuation corrections. Apart from that the piece is presented as originally published.

The image at the top of course was not presented with the original piece. I was looking around for some night images and when I saw this one of modern streetlamps it seemed appropriate as a kind of modern aspect of night. The image came from imageafter.com.

The bibliography below is presented since it was part of the piece but the number correspondences were diffult to find even when I looked at the pdf images of the pages. Being that most of the references are from the turn of the century I don't think many will go looking for them. In case there are some who would be predisposed to do so then at least after having read the piece they have a general idea of material researched for it.

S.