Hand of Glory

The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or else, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that "did the deed."

According to old European beliefs, a candle made of the fat from a malefactor who died on the gallows, virgin wax, and Lapland sesame oil - lighted and placed (as if in a candlestick) in the Hand of Glory, which comes from the same man as the fat in the candle - would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. The candle could only be put out with milk. (In another version the hair of the dead man is used as a wick, also the candle is said to give light only to the holder.) The Hand of Glory also purportedly had the power to unlock any door it came across.[1] The method of making a hand of glory is described in "Petit Albert",[2][3] and in the Compendium Maleficarum.[4]

Etymologist W.W. Skeat reports[5] that, while folklore has long attributed mystical powers to a dead man's hand, the specific phrase "hand of glory" is in fact a folk etymology: it derives from the French "main de gloire", a corruption of mandragore, which is to say mandrake. Skeat writes: "The identification of the hand of glory with the mandrake is clinched by the statement in Cockayne's Leechdoms, i. 245,[6] that the mandrake 'shineth by night altogether like a lamp.'"[5] (Cockayne in turn is quoting Pseudo-Apuleius, in a translation of a Saxon manuscript of his Herbarium.)

Contents

In literature

Severed hands in an occult context occur as early as Herodotus's "Tale of Rhampsinitus" (ii, 121), in which a clever thief leaves a dead hand behind in order to avoid capture, or in early stories of lycanthropy, such as Henry Boguet's Discours exécrable de sorciers in 1590.[7]

The second of the Ingoldsby Legends, "The Hand of Glory, or, The Nurse's Story", describes the making and use of a Hand of Glory.[8]

Théophile Gautier wrote a poem on the hand of the poet thief Lacenaire, severed after his execution for a double murder, presumably for future use as a hand of glory.[9][10]

In the Harry Potter series, the character Draco Malfoy uses the Hand of Glory in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to escape the Room of Requirement.[11]

In the book the house with a clock in its walls, the antagonist uses a hand of glory to execute her plan to destroy the world. [12]

On display

The following organizations possess a Hand of Glory:

In popular culture

References

  1. ^ Baker, Frank (1888). "Anthropologocal Notes on the Human Hand". American Anthropologist 1 (1): 51–76. doi:10.1525/aa.1888.1.1.02a00040. http://www.jstor.org.ezalumni.libraries.psu.edu/stable/info/658459?&Search=yes&term=%22Petit+Albert%22&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2522Petit%2BAlbert%2522%26wc%3Don%26x%3D10%26y%3D9%26resultsServiceName%3DdoBasicResultsFromArticle&item=7&ttl=32&returnArticleService=showArticleInfo. 
  2. ^ "La main de gloire, & ses effets [The Hand of Glory, and its effects.]" (in French). Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique du petit Albert. [The Little Albert]. Albertus Magnus. Lyon: Héritiers de Beringos fratres. 1782. p. 115. OCLC 164442497. http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/petitalb.htm#chap45. 
  3. ^ Davies, Owen (2008-04-04). "Owen Davies's top 10 grimoires". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/08/history. Retrieved 2009-04-08. 
  4. ^ "Of Soporific Spells". Compendium Maleficarum. San Diego: The Book Tree. 2004 [1626]. pp. 83–90. ISBN 1585092460. 
  5. ^ a b W.W. Skeat. Notes on English Etymology, chiefly reprinted from the Transactions of the Philological Society. Clarendon Press (1904). "Glory, Hand of", p. 119.
  6. ^ Thomas Oswald Cockayne. Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green (1864). "Mandrake", p. 245.
  7. ^ Tricomi, Albert H. (2004). "The Severed Hand in Webster's "Duchess of Malfi"". Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 (Rice University) 44 (Spring, Tudor and Stuart Drama): 347–358. doi:10.1353/sel.2004.0023. JSTOR 3844634. 
  8. ^ Ingoldsby's Legends, online at http://www.exclassics.com/ingold/ingintro.htm
  9. ^ "I have made enamels and cameos". Wuthering Expectations. http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-i-have-made-enamels-and-cameos.html. Retrieved 28 April 2010. 
  10. ^ Gautier, Théophil (1887). "Étude De Mains [Studies of Hands]" (in French) (poem). Émaux et Camées [Enamels and Cameos]. Paris. pp. 15–19. http://books.google.com/?id=TxUvAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=gautier+emaux. Retrieved 1 May 2010. "Curiosité Depravée" 
  11. ^ Hand of Glory at http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_of_Glory
  12. ^ the house with the clock in its walls, by john bellairs
  13. ^ Whitby Museum Miscellany
  14. ^ "The Hand of Glory and the White Hart".  http://www.walsall.gov.uk/the_hand_of_glory_and_the_white_hart.pdf
  15. ^ http://www.supernatural-fan-wiki.com/page/Hand+of+Glory

External links