Strange Survivals

Although the bee-hive hut may have originated with the dark-haired Ivernian metal-worker, it by no means follows that it was not in use long after, to a comparatively recent period. As we have seen, Tristan and Ysonde took refuge in one. The bee-hive hut is still in employ in the Hebrides. I will quote a most interesting account of one by Dr. A. Mitchell. “I turn now to a more remarkable form of dwelling which is still tenanted, but is just passing into complete disuse. Nearly all the specimens of it remaining in Scotland are to be found in the Lewis and Harris, or other islands of the outer Hebrides. There are probably only from twenty to thirty now in occupation, and although some old ones may yet be repaired, it is not likely that a new one will ever again be built. The newest we know of is not yet a century old. It was still occupied in 1866, and was built by the grandfather of a gentleman who died a few years ago in Liverpool.

“My first visit to one of these houses was paid in 1866, in the company of Captain Thomas. They are commonly spoken of as bee-hive houses, but their Gaelic name is bo’h or bothay. They are now only used as temporary residences or shealings by those who herd the cattle at their summer pasturage; but at a time not very remote they are believed to have been the permanent dwellings of the people.

“We had good guides, and were not long in reaching Larach Tigh Dhubhstail. As we had been led to expect, we found one of these bee-hive houses actually tenanted, and the family happened to be at home. It consisted of three young women. It was Sunday, and they had made their toilette with care at the burn, and had put on their printed calico gowns. None of them could speak English; but they were not illiterate, for one of them was reading a Gaelic Bible. They showed no alarm at our coming, but invited us into the bo’h, and hospitably treated us to milk. They were courteously dignified, neither feeling nor affecting to feel embarrassment. There was no evidence of any understanding on their part that we should experience surprise at their surroundings. I confess, however, to having shown, as well as felt, the effects of the wine of astonishment. I do not think I ever came upon a scene which more surprised me, and scarcely know where and how to begin my description of it.

“By the side of a burn which flowed through a little grassy glen, we saw two small round hive-like hillocks, not much higher than a man, joined together, and covered with grass and weeds. Out of the top of one of them a column of smoke slowly rose, and at its base there was a hole about three feet high and two feet wide, which seemed to lead into the interior of the hillock – its hollowness, and the possibility of its having a human creature within it being thus suggested. There was no one, however, actually in the bo’h, the three girls, when we came in sight, being seated on a knoll by the burnside, but it was really in the inside of these two green hillocks that they slept, and cooked their food, and carried on their work, and – dwelt, in short.

“The dwelling consisted of two apartments opening into each other. Though externally the two blocks looked round in their outline, and were in fact nearly so, internally the one apartment might be described as irregularly round, and the other as irregularly square. The rounder of the two was the larger and was the dwelling-room. The squarish and smaller one was the store-room for the milk and food. The floor space of this last was about six feet in its shorter and nine feet in its longer diameter. The greatest height of the living room – in its centre, that is – was scarcely six feet. In no part of the dairy was it possible to stand erect. The door of communication between the two rooms was so small that we could get through it only by creeping. The great thickness of the walls, six to eight feet, gave this door, or passage of communication, the look of a tunnel, and made the creeping through it very real. The creeping was only a little less real in getting through the equally tunnel-like, though somewhat wider and loftier passage which led from the open air into the first, or dwelling-room.

“At the right hand side on entering there was the fireplace. The smoke escaped at a small opening at the apex of the dome. The floor was divided into two spaces by a row of curb-stones eight or nine inches high. These served as seats, the only seats in the house; but they at the same time cut off the part of the floor on which the inmates slept, the bed, in short – the whole space behind the row of stones being covered with hay and rushes. In the part of the wall bounding the bed there were three niches or presses, in which, among other things, we observed a hair-comb and some newly-made cheeses. The walls of these bee-hive huts are built of rough, undressed stones gathered from the moor, which are of fair size, but not larger than one or two men could easily lift and put into position. The dome shape, or bee-hive form, is given by making the successive courses of stone overlap each other, till at length they approach so closely all round as to leave nothing but a small hole, which can be either closed by a large sod, or left open for the escape of smoke or the admission of light. I need scarcely say that no cement is used. The principle of the arch is ignored, and the mode of construction is that of the oldest known masonry. Though the stone walls are very thick, they are soon covered on the outside with turf, which soon becomes grassy like the land round about, and thus secures perfect wind and water tightness.”[17 - “The Past and the Present,” by A. Mitchell, M.D., 1880.]

Now, this extremely interesting account shows us two things. First, that we can not safely conclude from the structure of a bee-hive hut that it belongs to a pre-historic date. We are only justified in so asserting when we find it in connection with megalithic monuments, or when the spade in exploring it reveals implements of bronze or stone. Secondly, we see how man clings to tradition, how that actually at the present day men will occupy habitations on precisely the model of those erected by the population of Great Britain ages before the Roman set foot on our land.

It may be said, and with some justice, that there is no certainty that the bee-hive hut was not a mode of construction adopted by many different races. This is true. The huts in the vineyards on the river Lot in France are of precisely the same construction. In the south of Africa the Kaffir, at the sources of the Nile the Niams, build themselves circular huts of clay and wattles. Nevertheless, when we find this sort of hut identical in structure to the smallest particular, as far apart as the Desert of Beersheba, and the dunes of Brittany, the Hebrides, the Cornish peninsula, and the Pyrenees,[18 - The author found and planned some hut circles very similar to those found in Cornwall and Down, on a height above Laruns. There was a dolmen at Buzy at the opening of the valley.] and very generally associated with megalithic monuments, we may safely conclude that they are the remains of one primitive people, and if in later ages similar habitations have been raised, it is because that with the blood, the traditions of that race have been continued.

How striking is this passage from Dr. Geikie’s “Holy Land and the Bible.” He says, “In the Wilderness of Beersheba are bee-hive huts of stone, conjectured to be ancient native houses of the Amalekites. They are from seven to eight ft. in diameter, with a small door of two uprights and a lintel, about two ft. square. In one dwelling a flint arrowhead and some shells were found. Close by are some circles of upright stones. The whole country was at one time inhabited. Nearly every hill has ancient dwellings on the top and stone circles, also great cairns. The extraordinary resemblance, the identity in every point so struck Professor Palmer, who discovered this settlement, that in his ‘Desert of Exodus’ he engraved a Cornish bee-hive hut to show how it was a counterpart to the huts of Beersheba.”

But these bee-hive huts are themselves a reproduction in stone of the tents with which the primeval race wandered on the steppes of the Altai before ever they reached Palestine on the one hand and Europe on the other. The Nomad made his tent of skins stretched on poles. It was circular, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the top. When he ceased to ramble, he constructed his habitation on the same principle exactly as his tent, circular and domed. On the Siberian tundras and in Lapland there are still in use two sorts of huts; one, the smoke-hut, is precisely like a bee-hive habitation. It is, however, too small to allow of a fire being kept burning in the centre, and it is heated in this way – a fire is kindled and then allowed to go out. When extinct, the chimney hole at the top is closed, and the owner retires into his hut, which retains the heat for a great many hours. Sometimes, however, like the bo’h in the Hebrides, the fire is at the side, but owing to the smallness of the hovel, must be kept low. Castrén, in his travels among the Samojeds and Ostjaks, was sometimes obliged to spend months in one of these huts. At first he was obliged to go outside in all weathers, climb up the side of the hut and plug his chimney to keep in the warmth; but after a while he rigged up a bundle of old cloth attached to a pulley, and he was able by this means to block the opening from within, by pulling a string.

A very similar hut is still in use among the Finns, but no longer as a habitation. It is employed for bathing purposes. A fire is lighted in it, and stones are heated in the fire red hot, then plunged in a vessel of water. This generates steam, and the bather enters the bee-hive hut, shuts the door, and is parboiled in the steam. Now, the inconvenience of these bee-hive huts was obvious. Intense heat could be generated in them, but owing to their smallness, a whole family could not live in one. In the Fostbraethra Saga, an Icelandic account of transactions in the eleventh century, that comes to us in a twelfth century form, is an account of how one Thormod went to Greenland. Having committed a murder there, he took refuge with an old woman in her hut. When his foes came to seek him, she lit a fire on the hearth, and filled the hut with smoke, so that they could not see who was in it. But one man climbed on the roof and pulled the plug out of the chimney hole, whereupon the atmosphere within cleared. In time the long house with four corners to it was discovered or adopted. This was an immense advance in comfort. But, at the same time, the peculiar advantage of the bee-hive hut was not lost sight of. If human beings had been baked and boiled therein – why not their bread and their meat? They saw that a bee-hive hut was a hot-air chamber retaining the heat for an extraordinary length of time. So the next step in civilisation was to build the bee-hive hut on a smaller scale for the sake of boiling and stewing. In the year 1891 I exhumed on the edge of Trewortha Marsh, on the Cornish moors, an ancient settlement. The houses were all oblong. The principal house consisted of two great halls. The upper hall was divided by stone screens into stalls, and in front of each stall had been formerly a hearth. In each stall a family had lived, each family had enjoyed its own fire, burning on the ground. But such an open fire would not bake. The inmates had knowledge of corn, for we found a hand quern for grinding it. In order to bake, they had erected independent huts, with bee-hive ovens in the walls, identical in structure with the old bee-hive huts, and the reddened stones showed that fires had been lighted in these for baking purposes. But that was not all, we found heaps of burnt pebbles about the size of a goose-egg. These had been employed for throwing into vessels of water either to boil them, or to generate steam for baking purposes.

A common English word has completely lost its primitive signification. That word is stove. The stove is the Norse word stofa, and the German stube. It does not mean a heating apparatus, but a warm chamber.

There is a curious old book, “The Gardener’s Dictionary,” by Philip Miller, the fourth edition of which was published in 1754. He gives an account of greenhouses and conservatories as places usually unheated. “I suppose,” says he, “many people will be surprised to see me direct the making of flues under a greenhouse; but though perhaps it may happen that there will be no necessity to make any fires in them for two or three years together, yet in very hard winters they will prove extremely useful.” But when the author comes to hothouses, he describes them under the name of “stoves.”

The stove is a hot chamber, heated maybe by an oven, but we have turned the name about, and we apply it mistakenly to the heating apparatus.

In Germany the room that is heated is the stube, but the heater is the ofen. The ofen is, however, itself a reproduction in small of the hot chamber. The oven is employed to radiate outwards in heating a room; it radiates inwards when employed for baking.

The German ofen, or, as we would term it, stove, is an earthenware vessel in a room. A fire is lighted in it, till it is thoroughly heated. Then the fire is allowed to expire, and the damper is turned, effectually closing the flue. Thenceforth all the heat within and in the earthenware walls radiates into the apartment, and keeps it warm for eight or nine hours. In the ancient oven, as in the bee-hive huts at Trewortha, every precaution was adopted to retain the heat. The outside was banked up with peat, and the heat gathered within baked bread or meat.

The bee-hive oven of courses of stone was not all that could be desired. The fire acted on the granite or limestone or slate, and split or crumbled it, and when one or two stones gave way, the whole dome collapsed.

After a while a further advance was made. The bee-hive hut was constructed of earthenware, of clay baked hard, so as to resist fire for an indefinite number of years. Now in the West of England in every cottage may be seen one of these “cloam” ovens. It is in structure a bee-hive hut precisely. The old tradition hangs on, is followed from century to century and year to year, and he who looks at these ovens may think of the story they tell – of the ages unnumbered that have passed since the type was fixed by the tent of the wanderer on the Siberian steppes, of the changes that type has gone through, of the stone bee-hive hut supplanting the tent of skins, of the bee-hive hut abandoned for the house with four corners, and the old hut converted into a baking oven, and then finally of the adoption of the oven of “cloam.” In another ten or fifteen years that also will have passed away, to be replaced by the iron square oven, and then one of the links that attach us to that remote past, to that mysterious race that Mme. Ragotzin says “lies at the roots of all history,” a race which has marked its course by gigantic structures, but has left behind it no history – then, I say, one of the last links will be broken.

IV.

Beds

I had let my house. Two days after, I received the following letter: —

    “Friday.

“My Dear Sir,

“In the best bedroom is a four-post bed. Mrs. C. assures me that it will be quite impossible for her to invite any friend to stay with her unless the four-poster be removed, and its place occupied by a brass or iron double-tester. Four-posters are entirely exploded articles. I will trouble you to see to this at your earliest convenience this week.

    “Yours faithfully,
    “C. C.”

Of course I complied. Two years ago I went to a sale. As I was not very well I did not remain, but left word with my agent to buy certain articles for me. Next day a waggon arrived with my purchases, and among them – a mahogany four-post bed. “Why, good gracious! I do not want that.” “It was going so cheap, and is of solid mahogany,” answered my agent, “so I thought you ought to have it.” That four-poster has never been put together. It lies now in an outhouse with a chaff-cutter, empty cement barrels, and much rubbish. It probably never will be used, except by boring woodworms.

I saw some little while ago in one of the illustrated papers a recommendation how to make use of old carved four-post beds – that is to say, of the carved four posts. Let them be sawn through, and converted into massive picture frames or ornamental chimney-pieces.

I am sorry that the four-poster is doomed to extinction, for it has a history, and it attaches us to our Scandinavian ancestry.

The Greeks and Romans had nothing of the sort. Their beds were not closed in on all sides; it is a little doubtful whether these beds were very comfortable. In great houses they were richly ornamented, the legs enriched with ivory, and were sometimes even of precious metal. They were covered with silk and tissues of interwoven gold; but somehow in classic literature we do not come upon much that speaks of the luxurious comfort of a bed. In the charming passage on Sleep in the first Ode of the Second Book, Horace makes no allusion to the bed as having any relation to sleep, does not hang upon it tenderly as something to be fond of. The bedroom of a Roman house was a mere closet. The Roman flung himself on a bed because he was obliged to take some rest, not because he loved to sink among feathers, and enjoy repose.

The modern Italian bed is descended by direct filiation from the classic lectus, and what an uncomfortable article it is! There are plenty of representations of ancient beds on tombstones and on vases; they are not attractive; they look very hard, unpleasantly deficient in soft mattresses.

The Roman noble had his lectica– a litter enclosed within curtains – in which he was carried about. One of bronze, inlaid with silver, is preserved in the Palace of the Conservators at Rome. Now and then mosquito curtains were used round a bed, and Horace represents the rout of the forces of Antony at Actium as due to the disgust entertained by the Roman legionaries at seeing their general employ mosquito curtains to his bed at night. The couches on which guests and host reclined at dinner were, in fact, beds, and they had curtains or a sort of a canopy over them. Great fun is made by Fundanius in his account to Horace of a banquet in the house of a nouveau-riche, of the fall of the canopy on the table during dinner, covering all the meats and dishes, and filling the goblets with a cloud of black dust.[19 - Hor. Sat. ii. 8.]

But the true four-poster derives from the north. The Briton had it not when invaded by the Romans, and the Roman did not teach the Briton to construct it.

The Saxon did not bring his four-poster with him, nor did the Jute or the Angle, for the four-poster was unknown to these Teutonic peoples. It came to us with the “hardy Norseman.”

Let us see what was the construction of a Scandinavian house. The house consisted of one great hall that served most purposes (skali). In it men and women ate and drank, the dinner was cooked, work was done when the weather was bad, and there also were the beds. In addition to the hall, there was in the greatest houses a ladies’ bower (badstòfa), but with that we need not concern ourselves. The hall consisted of a nave and side aisles. The walls of the aisles were of stone, banked up with turf, but the roof was of timber throughout. Down the centre of the hall ran a trough, paved with stone, in which fires burnt, and parallel with this long hearth were benches. It was not always that fires were maintained through the whole length of the hall; one alone was in general use in the centre, and here was the principal seat – that occupied by the master of the house, and opposite him, beyond the fire, was the second seat of honour. The roof was sustained by a row of beams, or pillars, and the space of the aisles was occupied by beds. At an entertainment, curtains were hung along the sides from post to post, concealing the beds, but some of the bed compartments were boxed in, both at back, foot, and front, between the pillars, and had in front doors by which admission was obtained to them, and a man who retired to rest in one of these lokrekkjur, or lokhvilur, as they were called, fastened himself in. The object of these press beds was protection. When, as among the Norsemen, every man revenged himself with his own hand for a wrong done, it was necessary for each man who was sensible that he had enemies, to provide that he was not fallen upon in his sleep. In the Icelandic Saga of Gisli Sursson, relating to incidents in the tenth century, is a story that illustrates this. As this saga is exceedingly curious, I venture here to give the substance: —

In Hawkdale in Iceland lived two brothers, Thorkel and Gisli. “Sons of Whey,” they were called, because, when their father’s house had been set on fire, they and he had extinguished the flames with vats of curds and whey. Thorkel had to wife a woman named Asgerda, and Gisli was married to Auda, sister of his intimate friend Vestein. Their sister Thordisa was married to a certain Thorgrim. The brothers and brothers-in-law were great merchants, and went trafficking to Norway and Denmark. Gisli and Vestein were partners in one vessel, and went one way; Thorkel and Thorgrim were in partnership, and went their way. But the brothers were very good friends; they and their wives lived together in one house, and managed the farm in common. Thorkel, however, was a proud man, and would not put his hand to farm work, whereas Gisli was always ready to do what was needed by night or by day. Things prospered, and it occurred to Gisli that if they took an oath of close brotherhood, they would each stand by the other, and would be too strong to meet with opposition in their quarter of the island. Accordingly the four men proceeded to a headland, cut a piece of turf so that it remained attached to the soil at both ends, raised it on a spear, and passing under it, opened their veins and dropped their mingled blood into the mould from which the strip of turf had been cut. Then they were to join hands, and swear eternal fellowship. But at this moment Thorgrim drew back his hand – he was ready to be brother to Thorkel and Gisli, but not to Gisli’s brother-in-law, Vestein. Thereat Gisli withdrew his hand, and declared that he would not pledge eternal brotherhood with a man who would not be friends with Vestein.

One day Gisli went to his forge and broke a coin there with the hammer in two parts, and gave one half to Vestein, and bade him preserve it. At any time, when one desired to communicate with the other in a matter of supreme importance, he was to send to the other the broken token.

On one of his voyages, Gisli was a winter at Viborg, in Denmark, and he there picked up just so much Christianity that he resolved never again to sacrifice to Thor and Freya.

He returned to Iceland in the same week as did his brother Thorkel; and as it was hay weather, at once turned up his sleeves, and went forth with all his house churls, haymaking. Thorkel, on the other hand, flung himself on a bench in the hall, and went to sleep. When he awoke, he heard voices, and dreamily listened to the gossip of his wife and sister-in-law, who were cutting out garments in the ladies’ bower. “I wish,” said Asgerda, “that you would cut me out a shirt for my husband Thorkel.” “I am no better hand at cutting out than you are,” answered Auda. “I am sure of one thing, if it were anything that was wanted doing for my brother, Vestein, you would not ask for my help or for anyone else to assist you.” “Maybe,” said Asgerda, “I always did admire Vestein, and I have heard it said that Thorgrim was sweet on you before Gisli snapped you away.” “This is idle talk,” said Auda.

Then up stood Thorkel, and striding in at the door, said, “This is dangerous talk, and it is talk that will draw blood.”

The women stood aghast.

Soon after this Thorkel told his brother that he wished to divide the inheritance with him. Gisli regretted this, and endeavoured to dissuade him, but in vain. They cast lots, and the movable goods fell to Thorkel, the farm to Gisli. Thereupon Thorkel departed to Thorgrim, his brother-in-law.

Sometime after this came the season of the autumn sacrifice. Gisli would not sacrifice, but he was ready to entertain all his friends, and invited to a great feast. Just before this, he heard that Vestein had arrived in Iceland in his merchant vessel, and had put into a fiord some way off. He immediately sent him the half-token by a servant, who was to ride as hard as he could, and stop him from coming to Hawkdale. The servant rode, but part of his way lay along a lava chasm, and as ill fate would have it, he took the way above the rift at the very time that Vestein was riding in the opposite direction through the bottom. So he missed him, and on reaching the ship, learned that he had done so. He turned at once, and rode in pursuit till his horse fell under him just as he had caught sight of the merchant. He ran after him shouting. Vestein turned and received the message and the token that was to assure him the message that accompanied it was serious.

“I have come more than half way,” said he. “All the streams are running one way – towards my brother-in-law’s vale – and I will follow them.”

“I warn you,” said the servant, “be on your guard.” Vestein had to cross a river. As he was being put across, the boatman said, “Be on your guard. You are running into danger.” As he rode near Thorgrim’s farm, he was seen by a serf who belonged to Thorkel. The serf recognised him, and bade him be on his guard. Just then, out came the serf’s wife, Rannveig, and called to her husband to tell her who that was in a blue cloak, and carrying a spear. The serf went in, and Thorgrim, who was in the hall, inquired who had passed the garth. The woman said it was Vestein, spear in hand, wearing a blue cloak, and seated in a rich saddle. “Pshaw,” said her husband, “the woman can not see aright. It was a fellow named Ogjorl, and he was wearing a borrowed cloak, a borrowed saddle, and carrying a harpoon tipped with horn.”

“One or other of you is telling lies,” said Thorgrim. “Run, Rannveig, to Hol, Gisli’s house, and ascertain the truth.”

When Vestein arrived at his brother-in-law’s, Gisli received him, and again cautioned him. Vestein opened his saddlebags, and produced some beautiful Oriental stuffs interwoven with gold, and some basins, also inlaid with gold – presents for Gisli, for his sister Auda, and for Thorkel. Next day Gisli went to Thorgrim’s house, carrying one of these beautiful bowls, and offered it to his brother as a present from Vestein; but Thorkel refused to receive it. Gisli sighed. “I see how matters tend,” said he.

One night shortly after, a gale driving over the house, tore the thatch off the hall, and the rain poured in through the roof. Everyone woke, and Gisli summoned all to help. The wind had abated, but not the rain; they must go to the stackyard and re-cover the roof as best they might. Vestein volunteered his help, but Gisli refused it. He bade him remain within. Vestein pulled his bed away from the locked compartment where the water leaked in, drew it near the fire in the open hall, and fell asleep on it. Then softly someone entered the hall, stole up to his bedside, and transfixed him to the bed with a spear. Vestein cried out, and was dead. Auda, his sister, woke, and seeing what had taken place, call to a thrall, Witless Thord, to pull out the weapon. Thord was too frightened to do so. He stood quaking with open mouth. Then in came Gisli, and, seeing what had been done, drew out the weapon, and cast it, all bloody, into a chest. Now according to Scandinavian ideas, not only was Gisli solemnly bound to avenge Vestein’s death, as knit to him by oath of brotherhood, but also by the fact of his having withdrawn the weapon from the wound. He at once called his sister to him, and said, “Run to Thorgrim’s house, and bring me word what you see there.” She went, and found the whole house up, and armed.

“What news? what news?” shouted Thorgrim. The woman told him that Vestein had been murdered.

“An honourable man,” said Thorgrim. “Tell Gisli we will attend the funeral, and let the wake be kept as Vestein deserves.”

Gisli prepared for the burying of his brother-in-law according to the custom of the times. The body was placed where a great cairn was to be heaped over it. Then first Thorgrim stepped forward. “The death-shoes must be made fast,” said he, and he shod the feet of the dead man with a pair of shoes, in which he might walk safely the ways of Hela. “There now,” said he, “I have bound the hell-shoes so fast they will never come off.”