Hand of Glory
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or else, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that "did the deed". By tradition the hand should be severed from the corpse whilst still hanging on the gallows. It was then preserved, with the fingers forming candles. The uses to which it was said to be put included the ubiquitous 'black magic', but it was mainly held as being of use to robbers; it (the hand) being said to have the power to render motionless all persons to whom it was presented and to open all locks it came across.
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The History Of The Hand Of Glory
The legend is traceable to about 1440, but the name only dates from 1707. It was originally a name for the mandrake root (via French "mandragore" and thus "maindegloire" - "hand of glory") that became conflated with the earlier legend. The confusion may have occurred because mandrakes are said to grow beneath the bodies of criminals hanged upon the gallows.
The Making Of The Hand Of Glory
The old European beliefs hold that the hand should be cut from the hanged man during the eclipse of the moon. Afterwards it was wrapped in a shroud, squeezed of blood and pickled for two weeks in an earthenware jar with salt, long peppers and saltpeter. Then it was either dried in an oven with vervain, a herb believed to have warding virtue, or laid out to dry in the sun, desirably in the hot days of August.
When the hand was ready, candles were fitted on it between the fingers. These were called the "dead man's candles" were made from the murderer's fat combined with virgin wax & Lapland sesame oil, with the wick being made from his hair. It was held that this candle was only able to be put out with milk.
Another method of curing the severed & dried hand was to dip it in wax, after which the fingers themselves could be lit.
The Use Of The Hand Of Glory
The hand with burning candles or fingers was shocking when coming at people. It froze them in their tracks and rendered them speechless. Burglars lit the hand before entering homes. A warning sign was that if the thumb would not light it meant there was someone in the house who could not be charmed or made afraid. It was believed once the hand was lit nothing but milk or blood could extinguish it. When a thief broke into a house, he would light the candle and recite a small rhyme:
"Hand of Glory shining bright, lead us to our spoils tonight!"
or as Thomas Ingoldsby(1788-1845) wrote the following verse in his The Ingoldsby Legends which was considered be chanted over the hand of glory:
Wherever that terrible light shall burn, Vainly the sleeper may toss and turn; His leaden eyes shall he ne'r unclose So long as that magical taper glows, Life and treasure shall he command Who knoweth the charm of the glorious Hand.
Homeowners attempted to fight back. To combat the hand of glory all sorts of ointments were smeared on the thresholds. The compositions of these various ointments consisted of everything from the blood of screech owls, the fat of white hens, or the bowel of black cats.
The hand of glory was also said to open locks, and its usage is described in a spell from the Ingoldsby legends (excerpt taken from the book, "Strange pages from family papers" - T.F Thiselton Dyer - 1895)
"Open, lock, To the dead mans knock! Fly bolt, and bar, and band; Nor move, nor swerve, Joint, muscle, or nerve, At the spell of the dead man's hand. Sleep all who sleep, wake all who wake! But be as dead for the dead man's sake"
The story goes on to tell how, influenced by the mysterious spell of the enchanted hand, neither lock, bolt, not bar avails, neither "stout oak panel, thick studded with nails"; but, heavy and harsh, the hinges creak, though they had been oiled in the course of the week, and
"The door opens wide as wide may be, And there they stand, That wonderous band, Lit by the light of the glorious hand, By one! by two! by three!"
It's use as a cure is also described in an excerpt from the same book:
"Thus the case is related of a woman who, attacked with the small-pox, had this dead hand in the bed with her every night for six weeks, and of a poor lad living near Manchester who was touched with it for the cure of scrofulous sores".
The Hand Of Glory And Witchcraft
The hand of glory was linked to witches during the witch-hunt period. There are two noted incidences. One, in 1588, of two German women, Nichel and Bessers, that were accused of witchcraft and exhuming corpses. They admitted poisoning helpless people after lighting the hands of glory to immobilize them. John Fian, after being severely tortured during his witch trial in Scotland in 1590, confessed to using a hand of glory to break into a church where he performed a ceremony to the devil.
In The Museum of Witchcraft (Boscastle) is a display of a mouldering hand, which Cecil Williamson said belonged to a whole line of witches, all of whom claimed that with its aid they could work all kinds of magic; although it was said to have a will of its own, and on becoming increasingly temperamental the last in the line of owners handed it over to the museum.
The Hand Of Glory And The Printed Word
An excerpt concerning the Hand of Glory from a book entitled, "The Golden Book of the Mysterious":
"A fearsome talisman called the Hand of Glory was prepared by some sorcerers for robbers to use as they went about their work. Its preparation started with cutting off the hand of a hanged criminal. This had to be wrapped in cloth, placed in a pot with various herbs and minerals and left for two weeks, after which it was to be dried in the sun."
DeGivry and Waite provide a description of the process in "Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique du Petit Albert" (Cologne, 1722):
"Take the right or left hand of a felon who is hanging from a gibbet beside a highway; wrap it in part of a funeral pall and so wrapped squeeze it well [to get out all the blood]. Then put it into an earthenware vessel with zimat, nitre, salt, and long peppers, the whole well powdered. Leave it in this vessel for a fortnight, then take it out and expose it to full sunlight during the dog-days until it becomes quite dry. If the sun is not strong enough put it in an oven heated with fern and vervain. Next make it a kind of candle with the fat of a gibbeted felon, virgin wax, sesame, and ponie, and use the Hand of Glory as a candlestick to hold this candle when lighted."
Wherever that terrible light shall burn, Vainly the sleeper may toss and turn; His leaden eyes shall he ne'r unclose So long as that magical taper glows, Life and treasure shall he command. Who knoweth the charm of the glorious Hand. Thomas Ingoldsby (1788-1845)
The following is an excerpt from "Strange pages from family papers" by TF Thiselton Dyer 1895:
One of the most curious and widespread instances of deception and credulity is the magic potency which has long been supposed to reside in the so-called "Hand of Glory" - the withered hand of a dead man. Numerous stories are told of its marvellus 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 it in the hand of the enchanter, King Morareb, when he would lull to sleep Zohak, the giant keeper of the caves of Babylon. And the history of this wonder-working talisman, as used by Mohareb, is thus graphically told:
"Thus he said, And from his wallet drew a human hand, Shrivelled and dry and black. And fitting, as he spake, A taper in his hold, Persued: "A murderer on the stake had died. I drove the vulture from his limbs and lopt The hand that did the murder, and drew up The tendon strings to close its grasp, And in the sun and wind Parched it, nine weeks exposed"
From the many accounts given of this "Dead Hand", we gather that it has generally been considered necessary that the hand should be taken from a man who has been put to death for some crime. Then, when dried and prepared with certain weird unguents, it is ready for use.
Another exerpt from the book quotes Sir Walter Scott, in the "Antiquary":
"De hand of Glory is very well known in de countries where your worthy progenitors did live; and it is a hand cut 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 of de fatsh (fat) of de bear, and of de badger, and of de little suckling child as has not been christened (for dat is essential), and you do make a candle, and put into de Hand of Glory at de proper hour and minute, with the proper ceremonials; and he who seeketh for treasures shall never find none at all".
Hand Of Glory On Display
There is one Hand of Glory which is stored at the Whitby Museum in North Yorkshire. It was found in an attic in a house in Eskdale. The hand was a greyish color. This color was the result of a preservation technique which involved the draining of the blood of the hand of a hanged criminal which had been cut off, and afterward using saltpeter and Lapland sesame to preserve it. The blood and fat the of the hanged man was then utilized to make a candle which would then be placed between the fingers of the Hand of Glory.
