Mythology

103 The usher seating the first patron of the evening fondly imagines that he will be lucky until the end of the performance, but if the first coupon he handles calls for one of the many thirteen seats, he is quite sure that it will bring him bad luck for the rest of the night. To the usher, a tip from a woman for a programme also spells misfortune, and few of the old- timers will accept it. A woman fainting in the theatre is sure to bring bad luck to the usher in whose section she is seated. Not to hear the first lines of the play is to invite misfortune, so he believes. An usher feels sure that if he makes a mistake in seating the first person in his section, it is sure to be quickly followed by two more. The first tip of the season is always briskly rubbed on the trousers-leg, and kept in the pocket for the rest of the season as a coaxer. To receive a smile over the footlights from one of the company also brings luck. It would be a futile task to try to discover the origin of all these separate superstitions. Fortunately it is not necessary, for there is an easier and more natural solution. The omens and mascots of stage life have their source in the artistic temperament. We do not find these superstitions in the life of the music hall artist, at least not in the same degree; and whilst the actor-manager of a theatre might have some scruples for the superstitions of the profession, the manager of a music hall would have none at all, because he faces business on a purely business basis. Now, that is the difference between the actor-man and the commercial-man; the former has to deal with a crowd of uncortainties the fickleness of the public, the machinery of the stage, the health of the troupe, lapses of memory, and a score of other items equally trying. Add to this the constant endeavour to act a picture in his own mind, or to interpret a part in a classic drama, and you have a psychology full of weird possibilities in its conclusions. Viewed from this standpoint, the actor s superstitions are to some extent natural; were he not of the artistic temperament he would be lacking in the sympathy his art requires. But still, he would not be the worse for shedding a few of these intellectual oddities; for, after all, most of them are based in fear and a lack of self-confidence. (10) CHRISTENING SHIPS. When the wife of some Admiralty official touches a button to release a new cruiser from the stays, and breaks a bottle of wine over her bows, the spectators accept these actions as the right thing, because they have been performed for centuries. But the spectators do not usually enquire into the origin of the custom, to discover which we have to go back to the ancient libations practised on the launching of a new vessel. A priest with a lighted torch, and possessed also of an egg and some brimstone, was in attendance; and amid shouts of acclamation it was devoted to the god whose image it carried. Greek and Roman vessels generally carried in the prow a carved image of some deity, to whose name the launching service was dedicated. The image remained as a feature of ship-building until quite recent years, and we retain a semblance of the old ceremony. (11) HORSESHOE TRIBUTES IN OAKHAM CASTLE. Evelyn, on August 14, 1654, tells us that he took a journey in the Northern parts, and in passing through Oakham he saw some of the celebrated shoes on the Castle gates. Mr Michael M Donagh says: Perhaps the most singular mediaeval tribute now exacted is the horseshoe required from every peer who passes through Oakham. Originally the shoe had to

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