Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Artifact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. I'd
Speaker 2: like to take a break from all the recent Monster
Speaker 2: Fact episodes to discuss an artifact, though a monstrous one,
Speaker 2: to be sure, the Hand of Glory. It is, in short,
Speaker 2: a grizzly candle holder made from the mummified, pickled, or
Speaker 2: otherwise preserved hand of an executed criminal, such as one
Speaker 2: left hanging at a crossroads. In Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase
Speaker 2: and Fable, Ivor Evans also describes it as a dead
Speaker 2: man's hand quote, soaked in oil and used as a
Speaker 2: magic torch. When candled depictions vary, sometimes the hand's very
Speaker 2: fingers taper into flaming wicks. This version was more or
Speaker 2: less brought to the screen in nineteen seventy three's The
Speaker 2: wicker Man, while other times a candle is simply inserted
Speaker 2: into the knuckles of the hand's closed fist. The eighteenth
Speaker 2: century French grimoure Petit Albert provides a detailed recipe of
Speaker 2: the hands construction, including how to cure it and how
Speaker 2: to make the candle. But let us turn to the
Speaker 2: alleged power of the Hand of Glory. Once lit. According
Speaker 2: to various nineteenth century stories, it would render those who
Speaker 2: gazed upon it, or all those within a given house,
Speaker 2: completely motionless. In some accounts, it was also said to
Speaker 2: open locks. For the Hand of Glory was the dark
Speaker 2: magical item of choice for thieves, as Richard Blakeburrow discussed
Speaker 2: in the nineteen twenty four book The Hand of Glory
Speaker 2: and further her grandfather's Tales and Legends of Highwaymen and
Speaker 2: others collected by the late R. Blakeburrow. The story often
Speaker 2: concerned a thief disguised as an old woman who attempts
Speaker 2: to light the Hand of Glory in an inn so
Speaker 2: as to rob everyone there, with his fellow thieves, who
Speaker 2: are of course waiting outside. In one version of the story,
Speaker 2: the thief recites the following spell. According to Blake Burrow,
Speaker 2: let those who rest more deeply sleep, Let those awake
Speaker 2: their vigils, keep, oh Hand of Glory, shed thy light,
Speaker 2: direct us to our spoil tonight, flash out thy light,
Speaker 2: oh skeleton hand, and guide the feed of our trusty
Speaker 2: band in Brewers Evan cites historian Robert Graves arguing that
Speaker 2: quote hand of glory is a translation of the french
Speaker 2: Man de gloire, a corruption of mandragore, the plant mandragora
Speaker 2: or mandrake, whose roots had a similar magic value to thieves.
Speaker 2: The mandrakes, often split roots, have long inspired fantastic interpretations,
Speaker 2: as they sometimes resemble human beings. The fact that they
Speaker 2: contained hallucinogenic alkaloids only contributed to their magical reputation. In
Speaker 2: some traditions, to uproot one was to risk death and damnation,
Speaker 2: so it was necessary to have a dog do the
Speaker 2: work for you and suffer death on its master's behalf.
Speaker 2: The mandrake was indeed said to screen when uprooted, and
Speaker 2: in varying dosages and concoctions produced either good or ill effects,
Speaker 2: the key to our consideration of the hand of glory.
Speaker 2: It was also said to stupefy or produce sleep. And finally,
Speaker 2: as Charles Godfrey points out in the eighteen ninety two
Speaker 2: book Etruscan Roman remains in popular tradition, Dutch accounts held
Speaker 2: that mandrake grew from quote the droppings of a thief's
Speaker 2: brain on the gallows. Unquote, he who possessed the root,
Speaker 2: he says, which resembled a demon quote, can enter all houses,
Speaker 2: open all doors, and rob freeley without being detected. The
Speaker 2: Whitby Museum in North Yorkshire has in its collection a
Speaker 2: withered human hand alleged to be a hand of glory,
Speaker 2: gifted to the museum in nineteen thirty five after its
Speaker 2: discovery in a cottage wall. However, the hand apparently features
Speaker 2: no burn marks from a candle or candles, according to
Speaker 2: Wendy Pratt's twenty eighteen Atlas Obscure article on the hand.
Speaker 2: Whitby Museum curator Robert Pickles has suggested that the hand
Speaker 2: in question, the one on display there, might have actually
Speaker 2: been a bad luck charm. As we've discussed on stuff
Speaker 2: to blow your mind in the past see twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two's episode The Archaeology of counter Witchcraft with Brian Hoggard,
Speaker 2: European and Earth. The American colonial history is full of
Speaker 2: protective magic, in which talismans of various make are hidden
Speaker 2: in walls and beneath floorboards. It is not unreasonable at all, then,
Speaker 2: to consider the possibility that such a strange and foul
Speaker 2: hand could have served a similar, if perhaps more diabolical purpose.
Speaker 2: Tune in for additional episodes of The Artifact or The
Speaker 2: Monster Factor Who Knows What each week. As always, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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