The Hand of Glory
[The name given to the Inn where Bob stays]
This was a right hand of a murderer that was severed
while the corpse was still hanging from the gallows.
It was then used as a charm or in black magic practices after being
magically perserved.
It is also believed robbers often used the hand when breaking into
buildings and homes.
Preferably the hand was cut off 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, an herb believed to
be able to ward off demands, or laid out to dry in the sun, desirably
in the hot dog 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 another
murderer's fat, with the wick being made from his hair.
Another method of curing the severed and dried hand was dip it in wax.
After this process the fingers themselves could be lit.
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 could extinguish
it.
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 bowl of black cats.
Perhaps these concoctions worked if they were slimy enough to trip up the
burglars.
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.
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.
The term the "hand of glory" is believed to be derived from the French
"main de glorie" or "mandrogore" and be related to the legends of the
mandrake. The mandrake plant was believed to grow under the gallows of
the hanged man.
Belief in the efficacy of the Hand of Glory persisted as late as 1831
in Ireland. It is described or mentioned in the chapter of "The Folk-lore
of
the Hand" in "The Hand of Destiny" by C. J. S. Thompson, London, 1932.
The belief in the Hand of Glory was the subject of "The Nurses'
Story" one of the "Ingoldsby Legends" of Thomas Ingoldsby
(Rev. Richard Braham, 1837).
A.G.H.
Source:
"The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft"
by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
New York: Facts On File, 1989 [ISBN 0-8160-2268-2]
Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 3rd ed.
by Leslie A. Shepard (ed)
Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1991.
And then from
http://www.durain.demon.co.uk/muscl.htm#abouthoga
Hand of Glory
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The "Hand of Glory" supposedly comes from an executed criminal
and was cut off the body while the corpse was still hanging from the gibbet.
The recipe for its preparation is simple: squeeze the blood out of the hand;
embalm it in a shroud and steep it in a solution of saltpetre, salt and
pepper for two weeks and then dry in the sun.
The other essential for its use is a candle made from hanged man's fat,
wax and Lapland sesame.
This candle was then fixed between the fingers of the hand and lit when
a burglar broke into a house.
Reputedly it prevented the inhabitants of the house from waking up thus
allowing the burglar to investigate the house at his leisure.
Various forms of this legend abound.
Probably Whitby Museum's most viewed (and popular?) exhibit!
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HAND OF GLORY
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