 | Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover |  |
THE ANGEL'S WHISPER.
A superstition of great beauty prevails in Ireland, that when a child smiles in its sleep, it is “talking with angels.”
It's mother was weeping,
For her husband was far on the wild raging sea;
And the tempest was swelling
Round the fisherman's dwelling,
And she cried, “Dermot, darling, oh come back to me!”
The baby still slumbered
And smil'd in her face as she bended her knee;
“O blest be that warning,
My child, thy sleep adorning,
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.
Bright watch o'er thy sleeping,
Oh, pray to them softly, my baby, with me!
And say thou would'st rather
They'd watch o'er thy father!—
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.”
Saw Dermot returning,
And the wife wept with joy her babe's father to see;
And closely caressing
Her child, with a blessing,
Said, “I knew that the angels were whispering with thee.”
The beautiful superstition on which this song has been founded, has an Oriental as well as a Western prevalence; and, in all probability reached the Irish by being borrowed from the Phœnicians. Amongst the Rabinnical traditions which are treasured by the Jews, is the belief, that before the creation of Eve, another companion was assigned to Adam in Paradise, who bore the name of Lilith. But proving arrogant and disposed to contend for superiority, a quarrel ensued; Lilith pronounced the name of Jehovah, which it is forbidden to utter, and fled to conceal herself in the sea. Three angels, Sennoi, Sansennoi, and Sammangeloph, were dispatched by the Lord of the Universe to compel her to return; but on her obstinate refusal, she was transformed into a demon, whose delight is in debilitating and destroying infants. On condition that she was not to be forced to go back to Paradise, she bound herself by an oath to refrain from injuring such children as might be protected by having inscribed on them the name of the mediating angels—hence the practice of the Eastern Jews to write the names of Sennoi, Sansennoi, and Sammangeloph, on slips of paper and bind them on their infants to protect them from Lilith. The story will be found in Buxtorf's Synagoga Judaica, ch. iv. p. 81; and in Ben Sira, as edited by Bartolocci, in the first volume of his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, p. 69.
Emech Hammelech, a Rabbinnical writer, quoted by Stehelin, says, “when a child laughs in its sleep, in the night of the Sabbath or the new moon, that Lilith laughs and toys with it, and that it is proper for the mother, or any one that sees the infant laugh, to tap it on the nose, and say ‘Lilith begone, thy abode is not here.’ This should be said three times, and each repetition accompanied by a gentle tap.”—See Allen's Account of the Traditions, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Jews, ch. x. p. 168–9—ch. xvi. p. 291.
| Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover | |