The stories of the Middle Ages carry very scary and interesting details. Once we casually mentioned the "hand of glory" in "What we probably did not know about the executioners." It turns out that this is a real creep legend about black sorcery in conjunction with thieves and bandits. What people just didn’t think of in the dark ages. And what atrocities they did not commit. Maybe the Inquisition did its "burning" business for a reason. Further in the text, a detailed analysis and information with details 18+.
Fans of the young wizard Harry Potter will surely remember the embalmed hand that grabbed him in the second book and in the film. J. K. Rowling came up with this scene based on real stories.
The hand of glory is an object from medieval European legends, supposedly with magical properties. It represents the dried hand of a person who was hanged. Sometimes referred to as the "evil hand" or "the hand that did the deed."
Like all people who often have to blindly rely on luck, criminals are incredibly superstitious people. But imagine how superstitious thieves and robbers were in the Middle Ages - they were ready to literally give their last shirt for a magic potion or a powerful artifact that would help them become the best in their business. One such item was the Hand of Glory.
This intricate device was used throughout Europe: from Russia to Ireland, from Scandinavia to Italy, so the shape changed in different places. In its simplest form, the Hand of Death was the withered hand of a gallows, in the fist of which a candle was held.
Now we know about this curious thieves' artifact thanks to descriptions in the literature of those years. The two most important sources, characteristically, came from two different poles of the medieval world: the occult grimoire of Petit Albert dedicated to magical rituals and the Compendium Maleficarum of the witch hunter. Moreover, in the latter, the description turns out to be almost more detailed and more useful for criminals.
In addition, there are samples of the Hand of Glory that have survived to this day. The most famous of them was found by local historian Joseph Ford in the town of Castleton. The story is almost in the spirit of Lovecraft: the peasants found a cache with a mummified palm while parsing an old house and, fortunately, thought to turn to an educated person. He recognized the famous Hand of Glory in it and handed it over to the local museum, where it is kept to this day.
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Among the exhibits at the Whitby Museum in England is the "real" medieval Hand of Glory.
In 2014, a mummified human hand (more precisely, only a hand) was discovered in one of the old castle archives in Yorkshire (UK). After the examination, it was established that it was still cut off from a dead person. This calmed the owners of the castle a bit, but also spurred their curiosity.
After a lengthy study of ancient manuscripts, discouraged owners of the dark artifact learned that they now own the so-called "Hand of Glory". Despite the fact that the British, French and other Western European peoples use this very phrase ("The Hand of Glory" English - "The Hand of Glory"), the name "Hand of Fate" is often found in the Russian tradition.
In French, the artifact is called "Main de Gloire" ("Hand of Glory"). Etymologist WalterSkeet suggested that the name might be a distorted version of the word "mandrake." This connection clearly indicates the magical nature of the subject. The details of its manufacture are horrifying. The most interesting thing is that the hand found in 2014 is the only original example of such an amulet that has survived to this day.
What the Hand of Glory was made of
The amulet was created only from real human brushes. The limbs of the hanged criminals served as "material" for the manufacture. This method of killing was widespread in Europe in the X-XVIII centuries. The public place of execution was surrounded not only by grieving relatives and curious with unhealthy inclinations. The end of the "procedure" was also awaited by witches and healers of all stripes.
After the crowd, satisfying the thirst for blood, spread through the city and the square with the gallows was empty, the sorcerer paid the executioner a small bribe and cut off the hand of the hanged man. Many knew about this tradition and even made good money on it. To make the "Hand of Glory" amulet, it was necessary to cut off a brush while the dead man was still swinging in a noose. As soon as the body was taken out and sent to the churchyard, its limbs were useless.
Simply cutting off the hand of a man who had just been hanged was not enough. It was required to “prepare” it correctly so that the amulet would acquire the necessary strength and could be kept for a long time by the new owner. The craftsmen who created such things soaked their brushes in horse urine generously sprinkled with salt for a month. Sometimes the urine of dogs or women was used for the ritual.
Herbs containing tannins and poisons were added to the "infernal brew". At the end of the mummification, the Hand of Fate was hung on an oak tree for 3 days and 3 nights. After drying, the amulet was to be secretly taken to the church and discreetly hung on one of its doors. The mummified brush was supposed to spend one night in the temple.
Then the sorcerer soaked her fingers with wax or fat of the same executed criminal and made something like candles out of them. The latter were to be ignited with a special spell. And only then the Hand of Destiny was considered to have fully gained magical power.
“A special branch of homeopathic magic specializes in the dead: according to the homeopathic principle, you can, with the help of the bones of a dead person, or anything in general, touched by the breath of death, make people blind, deaf and dumb, like a dead person.
Other traditions
In a number of witchcraft books of the Middle Ages there are descriptions of other methods of "production" of the Hand of Glory. In the north of England, in France and Spain, the severed hand of the gallows was wrapped in a piece of shroud and hung so that all the blood was drained. The bloodless limb was lowered into a vessel with saltpeter, hot pepper and salt. The amulet was “pickled” in this solution for 2 weeks, and then dried in the sun.
A wick for a candle made from the fat of the deceased was made from his own hair. The Hand of Fate was a kind of candlestick for such a lighting device. The flame had special qualities. Only a person who dared to light a candle could see him. The latter had to be extinguished with milk, otherwise the flame could spread to the skin. If an outsider dared to look at the burning Hand of Glory, he immediately froze in place.
What the Hand of Destiny was used for
Despite such terrifying details of making the amulet, he was needed only for a successful theft. These artifacts were bought by robbers who entered the homes of wealthy citizens in their absence or at night, while all households and servants were asleep. Criminals in medieval Europe believed that the Hand of Destiny would help to become an exceptionally successful thief.
Before going to the "business", the criminal lit candles-fingers on the hand of the gallowsman and pronounced special words over them.
It was believed that such a conspiracy could send a sound sleep to the inhabitants of the desired dwelling and engage in robbery without problems. Whether the amulets and the rituals produced with their help were effective, history is silent. Probably not all Hands of Fate turned out to be so effective.
For this reason, thieves preferred to order amulets only from the limbs of the most inveterate gallows. It was believed that the more serious the crimes they committed, the more power the talisman would have. Over time, mankind forgot about the true purpose of the artifact. The Hand of Destiny began to be perceived as a powerful symbol, almost helping to bring the acquaintance with the Devil himself.
“It was often prescribed to make a thief's candle from the finger of a newborn or, even better, a stillborn child. In other cases, it was considered necessary for the thief to carry one such candle for each inhabitant of the house, because if he had one less candle, someone in the house would surely wake up and grab him. In the 17th century, it happened that robbers attacked pregnant women in order to extract the fruit from their womb with such candles (J. J. Frazer. Golden Bough).
More dire details
The candles were made from unborn babies cut from the womb. For this reason, it often happened that women were sold to bandits for a lot of money.
Once such a story happened at a mill. A pregnant maid worked for the miller. One night her fiance came to her. In front of the miller's house, he saw a wagon covered with sackcloth. Stifled moans came from her. The guy looked through the window of the miller's room and saw several people with the miller. They counted money - a large pile of silver coins on the table. The guy suspected something was wrong and looked into the truck. From under the sackcloth, he pulled his bride. Her mouth was tied with a rag. He carried her to safety and untied her. Meanwhile, the robbers left the house and drove the horses, thinking that they were taking away rich prey.
Burglars in many countries used a special kind of magic. So, among the southern Slavs, a burglar sometimes began a robbery by throwing a dead man's bone over the house, speaking with caustic sarcasm, uttered a special speech after which everyone had to fall asleep in a sound sleep.
On the island of Yama, a burglar takes earth from the grave and scatters it around the house, which he intends to rob, as if plunging its inhabitants into a deep sleep. For the same purpose, an Hindu pours ashes from a funeral pyre at the door of a house, the Peruvian Indians - dust from the crushed bones of a deceased, and a Rusyn burglar removes the marrow from the tibia, pours lard into it and sets it on fire. After the fat catches fire, he walks around the house three times with such a kind of candle that supposedly makes the inhabitants of the house fall asleep in dead sleep. Or the same Rusyn makes a flute from the leg bone of a dead man and plays on it, which makes all listeners seem to be overcome by drowsiness. For the same malicious purpose, the Mexican Indians used the left forearm of a woman who died at the birth of her first child. Before entering the house, which was to be robbed, the Indian banged his bone on the ground. This should have caused the residents of the house to be speechless and unable to move; seeing and hearing, they became completely powerless, like the dead.
Now the image associated with the Hand of Glory has not only not faded away, but also gained popularity in a very unexpected way. This happened thanks to tattoo artists, who clearly borrowed the idea from the criminal environment and replicated it. The once occult artifact has become a relatively common basis for tattoos, T-shirt prints, and even skateboard painting.
As a counter-witchcraft, homeowners made an ointment from the blood of a barn owl, the fat of white chickens, and the bile of black cats, and smeared it on their doorsteps.
"Hands of Glory" attributed to the deeds of witches in those centuries when there was a witch hunt. In 1588, two German women, Nichel and Bessers, who were accused of witchcraft and exhumation of corpses, admitted that they poisoned defenseless people, lighting the "hands of glory" to render them immobile. John Fean, who was brutally tortured at a witch trial in Scotland in 1590, confessed that he used the "hands of glory" to break into the church where he served the devil.