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Martine Dowden and Michael Dowden

Architecting CSS
The Programmer’s Guide to Effective Style Sheets
Martine Dowden
Brownsburg, IN, USA

Michael Dowden
Brownsburg, IN, USA

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​9781484257494 . For more
detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​source-code
.

ISBN 978-1-4842-5749-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-5750-0

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5750-0

© Martine Dowden and Michael Dowden 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business

Media New York, 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004. Phone 1-800-
SPRINGER, fax (201) 348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com,
or visit www.springeronline.com. Apress Media, LLC is a California LLC
and the sole member (owner) is Springer Science + Business Media
Finance Inc (SSBM Finance Inc). SSBM Finance Inc is a Delaware
corporation.
This book is dedicated to all of the CSS professionals who have ever been
told they were “not real programmers.”
Foreword
As an international community, the W3C starts with a mission
statement: Web for All, Web on Everything. This means the Web is a
medium designed to adapt to the needs and preferences of every user,
and the constraints of every device. But that poses a problem for
design. To quote the very first website:
“This implies no device-specific markup, or anything which requires
control over fonts or colors, for example.” 1
In the early days of the Internet, web design seemed impossible.
How could we have planned for every possible combination of user-
needs and device capabilities into the future—from text-only terminals
to smart speakers, watches, HD displays, and accessibility devices?
Nearly 30 years later, CSS is the standard web language of design,
used on nearly every website and application we develop. But that
broad use, and the low barriers to getting started, can lead us to
underestimate this powerful language and the complex problems it is
designed to solve.
As the web continues to grow its more important than ever for
professional developers to understand how and why CSS works, and
how we can get the most out of it.
In this book, Martine and Michael bring their experience and
teaching expertise to the topic – leading us through every layer of the
language: from cascade and inheritance, to progressive enhancement,
web layout, responsive design, and architecture. This book is packed
with guidance to keep your CSS resilient and organized.

Miriam Suzanne

Miriam Suzanneis a project manager, user-experience designer, and

front-end architect. An accomplished writer and novelist, she authored “
Jump Start Sass” and is a staff-writer for CSS Tricks ( https://css-
tricks.com/ ). Suzanne is a member of the Sass core team, and
creator of popular open-source tools including Susy, True, and Herman.
She is an Invited Expert with the W3C CSS Working Group and a teacher
for the Mozilla Developer channel, producing resources for web
professionals including tools, videos, articles, and demos. Suzanne is an
international conference speaker and in 2017 she won the “Best Of”
speaker award at CSS Dev Conference.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is a project of passion and commitment and takes a
tremendous amount of time and support from friends and family,
doubly so when writing multiple books in a single year. We would like
to thank our children, Brook and Xander, for their patience during this
process. And of course their grandparents, Marc and Elisabeth Ebtinger,
for making it possible for us to dedicate time to writing and
conferences.
Without the support of the technology and speaking community, we
would not be where we are today. Lee Brandt and Kevin Miller were
instrumental in getting Martine to start speaking at conferences. Along
with Lee, Jeff Strauss and Jon Mills helped us expand our conference
presence and meet a large number of other generous people. Nate
Taylor prompted Michael to start speaking about CSS. Michael first met
Chris DeMars because of CSS and Chris later nominated us for the GDE,
which was significantly helpful. And of course we must mention Philip
Japikse, fellow speaker and Apress author, who has been tremendously
supportive and without whom this book would not have happened.
Many of those who influenced us on CSS are already mentioned
within the pages of this book, but it’s important to note the early and
long-lasting influence that Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag have had on
our understanding of CSS.
Finally, we must mention those who contributed directly to the
pages you’re about to read. The Apress team of Louise Corrigan, Nancy
Chen, and Phil Nash has been supportive the whole way, from walking
through the proposal process to ensuring the quality of the finished
book. Our last thanks goes to the many people who went above and
beyond to support our research on the history of accessibility and the
people involved, including Sarah Bourne, Fred de Villamil, Jon Baggaley,
Andy Budd, Eric Meyer, Steven Pemberton, Dylan Wilbanks, Chris
Wilson, and Chris Lilley.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Cascading Style Sheets
Classification
Language Features
Structure
Software Architecture
Separation of Concerns
Nontechnical Factors
Best Practices
Web Architecture
HTML
Document Object Model
History of CSS
Creation of CSS
Early Adoption
Early Advocates
CSS Today
Summary
Chapter 2:​Rules and Selectors
Selectors
Basics
Combinators
Pseudo Elements
Pseudo Classes
Declarations
Properties
 Units
Functions
Variables
At-Rules
@import
@supports
@media
Summary
Chapter 3:​Order of Importance
Inheritance
Global Values
Specificity
Precedence
Cascading
Value Processing
Summary
Chapter 4:​Layouts
Box Model
Box Sizing
Display
Inline
Block Elements
Inline-Block
Float
Flexbox
Grid
 Responsive Design
Summary
Chapter 5:​Compatibility and Defaults
Browser Support
Browser Defaults
CSS Reset
Normalize
Browser Compatibility
Vendor Prefixes
Fallbacks
Supports At-Rule
Project Defaults
Summary
Chapter 6:​Interactions and Transitions
User Interaction Response
Transform
Transitions
Keyframe Animations
Timing Functions
Performance Considerations
Summary
Chapter 7:​Preprocessors
Implications for Architecture
Nesting
Color Functions and Variables
Mixins
 Simple Mixin
Parameters
Arguments
@extend
@Import
Summary
Chapter 8:​Frameworks, Libraries, and JavaScript
JavaScript
Manipulating CSS Using JS
Component-Based Architecture
Libraries and Frameworks
Web Components
Styling Applications That Use Web Components
Summary
Chapter 9:​Architectural Patterns
Approach
Goals
Guidelines
Methodologies
OOCSS
BEM
SMACSS
ITCSS
Processes
Decision Making
Linting
 Testing
Code Review
Summary
Index
About the Authors
Martine Dowden
is the CTO of Andromeda, Founder and
Lead Developer at FlexePark, and an
international speaker. She focuses on
web interfaces that are beautiful,
functional, accessible, and usable,
approaching user experience from both
art and science, drawing from her
degrees in psychology and visual
communications. Martine is a 2019
Google Developer Expert in Web
Technologies, a 2019 Microsoft MVP in
Developer Technologies, and the author
ofProgramming Languages ABC++
andApproachable Accessibility: Planning
for Success .

Michael Dowden
is the CEO of Andromeda, Founder and Product Architect at FlexePark,
an international speaker, a 2019 Google Developer Expert in Firebase,
and a 2019 Microsoft MVP in Developer Technologies. For more than 20
years, he has been writing code and geeking out over technology. He is
passionate about keeping things simple and focusing on what provides
real value to the end user. Michael is the author ofProgramming
Languages ABC++ andApproachable Accessibility: Planning for Success .
About the Technical Reviewer
Phil Nash
is a developer evangelist for Twilio and a
Google Developer Expert. He’s been in
the web industry for more than 10 years
building applications and integrating
APIs with JavaScript and Ruby. He’s
British, but currently enjoying life in
Melbourne, Australia. He can be found
hanging out at meetups and conferences,
playing with new technologies, or
writing open source code. Phil tweets at
@philnash, and you can find him
elsewhere online at
https://philna.sh .
Footnotes
1 http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/HTMLConstraints.ht
ml (Retrieved 2020)
© Martine Dowden and Michael Dowden 2020
M. Dowden, M. Dowden, Architecting CSS
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5750-0_1

1. Cascading Style Sheets

Martine Dowden1 and Michael Dowden1
(1) Brownsburg, IN, USA

This book on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) takes a very different

approach from most. It isn’t trying to teach you how to design web
pages and, aside from a cursory overview, isn’t focused on teaching you
how to use CSS. This chapter introduces the focus of this book, which is
how (and why) to treat CSS as a programming language.

Classification
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a web technology that allows layout,
theme, and style to be applied to a document. In most common cases
the document in question is a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) file
and the rendering is performed by a web browser.
Often CSS is seen as a design tool since it allows the author or
designer of a web page to determine the visual look of that page.
Because of its control over the final look of a web page, CSS has a direct
impact on both usability and accessibility. Due to these factors, creating
style sheets and writing CSS are sometimes assumed to be design tasks,
and it may be the designer on a software team who is tasked with
maintaining the style sheets.
It’s interesting to note that before CSS became the dominant styling
language of the Web, there were a number of other competing
proposals. However,
“CSS had one feature that distinguished it from all the others: It took
into account that on the Web, the style of a document couldn’t be
 designed by either the author or the reader on their own, but that
their wishes had to be combined, or cascaded, in some way; and, in
fact, not just the reader’s and the author’s wishes, but also the
capabilities of the display device and the browser.”1
At its core, then, CSS puts control in the hands of both authors and
readers. This makes it somewhat interactive and subjects it to the will
of the reader of a web page, since they are able to influence the final
look of a page based upon their own preferences. Most often when
author intent meets the end-user influence to create a unique hybrid
output, this is known as programming. So this begs the question:
Exactly what is CSS? Should writing style sheets be considered
programming, and should those who write CSS be considered
programmers?
For starters, just like popular programming languages such as
JavaScript and Python, CSS is a language. As shown in the “Structure”
section, CSS has a specific syntax that must be followed and the rules
you write cause actions to be performed. Additionally, the
WorldWideWeb Consortium (W3C) refers to CSS as a language.2
One measure of a programming language is to ask if it is Turing
complete. Skipping the formal definition, the simple explanation of a
Turing complete language is one that can solve any arbitrary
computation. Note that this isn’t a strict requirement and there are
some very useful programming languages that are not Turing complete,
most notably Structured Query Language (SQL) and Regular
Expressions (RegEx). However, if a language can be shown to be Turing
complete, it should remove all doubt about its classification. The
combination of CSS + HTML has received the formal proof necessary to
be classified as Turing complete.3
This means that CSS + HTML meets the requirements for any
general-purpose programming language, and that writing CSS and
HTML counts as programming. This means that you are most definitely
a programmer (or web developer, if you prefer).

Language Features
Despite the classification of CSS as a programming language, we can
probably agree that using CSS + HTML for general programming tasks
wouldn’t be particularly convenient. That is because this really isn’t the
point of CSS (or HTML).
Regardless, there are many interesting features of the language that
are similar to more traditional programming languages, including
Variables
Functions
Calculations
Imports
Scope
Comments
Polymorphism
When utilizing CSS precompilers, you gain access to even more
programming language features, such as
Mixins
Extension
Namespaces
List and map data structures
Mathematical expressions
See Chapter 2 for a more in-depth exploration of the CSS language
features and Chapter 7 for more on CSS precompilers.

Structure
It is important to note that CSS is a declarative language rather than an
imperative one. This means that rather than writing code that tells a
web browser how to apply styles to a page, we instead tell the browser
what styles to apply and where to apply them. These declarations are
called rulesets in the specification, but may be referred to simply as
rules.
Each rule in CSS is comprised of one or more selectors and one or
more declarations, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1 CSS Ruleset
Each declaration is made up of a property-value pair. As of this
writing, the CSS Working Group listed 564 possible properties. Each
property must be supported by the user agent (typically a web
browser) for it to have any effect. Unsupported properties are simply
ignored.
Rulesets may be further grouped and modified by at-rules such as
@media or @supports and are collected into style sheets. A style
sheet is simply a text file with a .css extension that contains any number
of rules which describe the presentation of a document or web page.

Software Architecture
Once we accept that CSS has all the sophistication of a programming
language, we need to accept the implication that we must treat style
sheets like code. This means that we can take advantage of many
principles, best practices, and design patterns of software architecture
and apply them when writing CSS.
 Note You may find the term software architecture used
interchangeably with the term software design. This is common
within the industry and both terms refer to the same high-level
design thinking and process methodology. Since CSS is often used for
visual design, we chose the term architecture throughout this book to
avoid any confusion between these concepts.

Software architecture looks at the structure and components of a

system and weighs the pros and cons of various possible combinations
and approaches. The strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of various
systems and approaches should all be considered. The architect’s
approach is much more of the high-level bird’s-eye view than a
developer’s (although often the same person will do both).
For example, if you wanted to animate an image moving across the
page when a button is clicked, how would you implement that
functionality? Would you use CSS or JavaScript? Would you use an
<img> element, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) , or Canvas? Which will
yield the smoothest visual animation? Which approach will be the
easiest to maintain when requirements change? These are the types of
questions that software architecture attempts to evaluate.
You do not have to start from scratch when making these types of
decisions. There are some well-established principles of software
architecture and best practices that can guide you on your journey to
more strategic decision making with regard to CSS.

Separation of Concerns
The term separation of concerns is credited to Edsger Dijkstra4 and
refers to the idea that it is very helpful for us to focus on one aspect of a
problem at a time. As shown later in the “Web Architecture” section, a
web application separates content, style, and actions and even uses
different technologies for each of these concerns.
Looking at separation of concern as it pertains to CSS, what are
some of the concerns we might find in a ruleset? As shown in Figure 1-
2, we see that layout, theme, typography, and interaction are all aspects
of a web page that can be controlled using CSS. See Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2 CSS Areas of Concern
Now, let’s say you have a style sheet with 20,000 rulesets. This is
clearly unmanageable and these rulesets need to be split into multiple
files. How do you determine how many files you need and which
rulesets go into each file? One approach is to split files based upon
concern (e.g., layout vs. theme), while another approach would be to
group rulesets based upon the specific components to which they apply.
This question is quite fundamental to the discussion of different CSS
architecture models in Chapter 10.
Two of the most widely accepted principles of software
architecture, cohesion and coupling, serve to better define the idea of
separation of concerns. These metrics were first published in
Structured Design5 and have since become standards in software
engineering.

Cohesion
Cohesion can be described as a measure of responsibility. It is a
qualitative measure of the breadth of different tasks or effects a given
unit of code is responsible for and the nature of the relationship
between those tasks or effects. Traditionally there are seven levels of
cohesion ranked from coincidental (worst) to functional (best).
 Another popular principle that is related to cohesion is the single
responsibility principle (SRP) . The idea is that every function and
module should have just one responsibility. There are two important
goals that derive from this:
1. Lack of side effects – If a function does just one thing, then there is
little risk of side effects or unintended consequences from its use.

2. Only one reason to change – Every time code changes, it increases

the risk of introducing errors and bugs. If we reduce the number of
changes, we can diminish risk. Additionally, this helps avoid side
effects from system-wide change.

The goals of both cohesion and single responsibility are to promote

simplicity and reduce risk, which are important goals for all of our
architectural decisions.

Coupling
Coupling describes the interdependence between two or more units of
code. Loose coupling is associated with good cohesion and generally
describes a module with good reusability that may be updated
independently of other modules with minimal impact on the overall
system. This is an important attribute of robust and flexible systems.
Tight coupling is associated with poor cohesion and describes
modules that are hard to test or modify independently. Such modules
generally cannot be reused freely and may require larger testing efforts
when changed. Favor looser coupling whenever possible.
When building web applications, we will find a lot of value in
decreasing the coupling between content and design. Ideally we should
be able to create style sheets that work for a wide range of content
without adjustment. When we achieve this, we may say we have
orthogonality.

Orthogonality
While an important and common term when discussing system design,
the word orthogonality has accumulated some disfavor in recent years.
This is likely due to a combination of misuse and poor definitions
leading to it sometimes being described as “technobabble.”6 However,
orthogonality is an important concept that is directly related7 to
cohesion and coupling, and it will factor into many decisions we discuss
later in this book.
Orthogonality describes a relationship that is cooperative without
being codependent, where two things work together toward a common
goal while maintaining a level of independence.
In mathematics the simplest form of orthogonality of two vectors is
when they are perpendicular to each other, meaning they form a right
angle and intersect only once. Orthogonality can also be described as
statistical independence, meaning two (or more) factors that vary
without being influenced by one another
Taken into computer software, we use orthogonality to describe a
relationship between two modules or components that are able to
change independently of one another. For example, an HTML page may
be considered orthogonal to its CSS if we’re able to edit an HTML file to
change the content and/or structure of the page with no corresponding
change to the CSS, but the visual design of the page remains unaffected
after the change.
In fact, this separation of concerns between document layout and
structure is one of the original design considerations behind CSS.

Nontechnical Factors
In order to exercise separation of concerns, we must first practice the
art of breaking down complex and challenging problems into simpler
pieces. Often we find that seemingly impossible tasks are simply large
accumulations of a great many simple tasks. In learning to see the
individual pieces, we now have the building blocks that we need to
create solutions.
Beyond the technical aspects of software architecture, there are
practical considerations that must weigh into our decisions.

Cost of Maintenance
It’s easy to buy into the idea that the cheapest thing to build today is the
best financial decision; however, the true cost of ownership of a
software product must include the ongoing cost of maintenance in the
calculation. Often the thing that is the cheapest to build may be the
most expensive to maintain. Perhaps we can purchase an existing third-
party library or template and pull in updates from them instead of
building and maintaining ourselves?

Development Time
We’re often working on tight deadlines in an ongoing effort to deliver
value to our customers and produce revenue for our company. The total
time and effort of an architectural decision is an important decision
point as it may affect both cost and timeline. Sometimes it’s worth
taking a big hit initially to ramp up on a new approach that will be
faster over time. Other times we need to acknowledge that going with
things we’re already familiar with is the best choice. But do consider
that development time is very expensive, so sometimes a decision that
seems trivial (shaving 10 seconds off page reload time during
development) may pay dividends later (10 seconds x 100 times a day x
260 work days x 5 developers = 15 days a year in savings).

Developer Satisfaction
While the technical and financial impact of our decisions are relatively
straightforward, the impact decisions can have on morale are just as
important and easy to overlook. So when deciding between CSS, Sass,
and Less or selecting your next CSS framework, the attitude and buy-in
from your team is an important consideration. Sometimes the friction
can be the usual resistance to change or the pace of change; sometimes
it’s a legitimate concern that the decision is not the best fit for the
product or team. Yet other times it’s because the developers don’t feel
the decisions are helping them build useful skills. Take these concerns
seriously because morale affects performance, quality of life, and
turnover.

Best Practices
It is important to acknowledge that the study of architecture revolves
around defining solution patterns for common problems, but also that
there is no absolute answer. No single approach is always right and no
single decision will work in all cases. Practicing architecture is all about
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 Divination 127 Divination of Brazil have a contrivance
known to them as the paxiuba, which consists of a tree-stem about
the height of a man, on which the branches and leaves have been
left. Holes are bored in the trunk beneath the foliage, and by
speaking through these the leaves are made to tremble, and the
sound so caused is interpreted as a message from Jurupari one of
their principal deities. But all over the American continent from the
Eskimos to the Patagonians, the methods of oracular divination are
practically identical. The shaman or medicine-man raises a tent or
hut which he enters carefully closing the aperture after him. He then
proceeds to make his incantations, and in a little while the entire
lodge trembles and rocks, the poles bend to breaking point, as if a
dozen strong men were straining at them, and the most violent
noise comes from within, seemingly now emanating from the depths
of the earth, now from the air above, and now from the vicinity of
the hut itself. The reason for this disturbance has never been
properly accounted for ; and medicine-men who have been
converted to Christianity have assured scientific workers amongst
Indian tribes that they have not the least idea of what occurred
during the time they occupied these enchanted lodges, for the
simple reason that they were plunged in a deep sleep. After the
supernatural sounds have to some extent faded away, the medicine-
man proceeds to question the spirit he has evoked, — the answers
of whom for sheer ambiguity are equal to those of the Pythonesses
of ancient Greece. There is little doubt that the shamans who
practise this method of oracular utterance are the victims of
hallucination, and many cases are on record in which they have
excited themselves into a condition of permanent lunacy. America is
the touchstone of the science of anthropology, and since we have
adopted it as the continent from which to draw the majority of our
illustrations, it will be as well if we conclude the article on American
lines for the sake of comparison. We find then that divination by
hypnosis is well-known in the western continent. Jonathan Carver,
who travelled among the Sioux about the latter end of the
eighteenth century, mentions it as in use amongst them. The " Ghost
Dance " religion of the Indians of Nevada had for one of its tenets
the belief in hypnotic communion with the dead. Divination by
means of dreams and visions is extremely common in both sub-
continents of the western hemisphere, as is exemplified by the
derivation of the word " priest " in the native languages': by the
Algonquians they are called " dreamers of the gods," by the Maya "
listeners," and so forth. The ability to see visions was usually
quickened by the use of drugs or the swallowing or inhalation of
cerebral intoxicants, such as tob?cco, maguey, coca, the snake-plant,
and so forth. Indeed many Indian tribes, such as the Creeks,
possessed numerous plants which they cultivated for this purpose. A
large number of instances are on record in which Indian medicine-
men are said to have divined the future in a most striking manner,
and perhaps the following will serve to illustrate this : In his
autobiography, Black Hawk, a celebrated Sac chief, relates that his
grandfather had a strong belief that in four years' time ' he should
see a white man, who would be to him as a father.' Supernaturally
directed, as he said, he travelled eastward to a certain spot, and
there, as he had been informed in dreams, met with a Frenchman
who concluded an alliance on behalf of his country with the Sac
nation. Coincidence is certainly possible here, but it can hardly exist
in the circumstances of Jonathan Carver. While he was dwelling with
the Killistenoes, they were threatened with a famine, and on the
arrival of certain traders, who brought them food in exchange for
skins and other goods, their very existence depended. The diviners
of the tribe were consequently consulted by the chief, and
announced that the next day, at high noon exactly, a canoe would
make its appearance with news of the anxiously looked-for
expedition. The entire population came down to the beach in order
to witness its arrival, accompanied by the incredulous trader, and, to
his intense surprise, at the very moment forecasted by the shamans,
a canoe rounded a distant headland, and, paddling speedily
shorewards, brought the patient Killistenoes news of the expedition
they expected. John Mason Brown has put on record an equally
singular instance of the prophetic gift on the part of an American
medicine-man. (See Atlantic Monthly, July, 1866.) He was engaged
several years previously in searching for a band of Indians in the
neighbourhood of the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers ; but the
difficulties of the search induced the majority of his band to return,
until out of ten men who originally set out only three remained.
They had all but concluded to abandon their search when they
stumbled upon a party of braves of the very tribe of which they were
in search. These men had been sent out by their medicine-men to
find three whites, of whose horses, accoutrements, and general
appearance the shaman had given them an exhaustive account ere
they set out, and this the warriors related to Brown before they saw
his companions. Brown very naturally inquired closely of the
medicine-man how he had been able to foretell their coming. But the
latter, who appeared to be ' a frank and simple-minded man,' could
only explain that ' he saw them coming, and heard them talk on
their journey.' Crystal-gazing is in common use amongst many
Indian tribes. The Aztecs of Mexico were wont to gaze into small
polished pieces of sandstone, and a case is on record where a
Cherokee Indian kept a divining crystal wrapped up in buckskin in a
cave, occasionally " feeding " it by rubbing over it the blood of a
deer. At a village in Guatemala, Stephens saw a remarkable stone
which had been placed on the altar of the church there, but which
had previously been used as a divining-stone by the Indians of the
district. Divination by arrow was also commonly resorted to.
According to Fuentes, the chronicler of Guatemala the reigning king
of Kiche, Kicah Tanub, when informed by the ambassador of
Montezuma II. that a race of irresistible white men had conquered
Mexico and were proceeding to Guatemala, sent for four diviners,
whqm he commanded to tell him what would be the result of this
invasion. They asked for time to discover the future fate of his
kingdom, and taking their bows discharged some arrows against a
rock. They returned to inform their master that, as no impression
had been made upon the rock by the arrowheads, they must
prognosticate the worst and predicted the ultimate triumph of the
white man — a circumstance which shows that the class to which
they belonged stood in no fear of royalty. Kicah Tanub, dissatisfied,
sent for the ' priests,' obviously a different class from the diviners,
and requested their opinions. From the ominous circumstance of an
ancient stone — which had been brought from afar by their
forefathers — having been broken, they also augured the fall of the
Kiche empire. Many objects such as small clay birds, boats or
boatshaped vessels, etc., have been discovered in sepulchral
mounds, in North America, and it is conjectured that these may have
been used for purposes of divination. As any object might become a
fetish, it is probable that any object might become a means of
augury. The method employed appears to have been so to treat the
object that the probable chances for or against the happening of a
certain event would be discovered — much, indeed, as some
persons will toss coins to " find out " whether an expected event will
come to pass or not. Portents, too, were implicitly believed in by the
American races, and this branch of augury
 Divine 128 Divining Rod was, we find, one of the
accomplishments of Nezahualpilli, king of Tezcuco, near Mexico,
whom Montezuma consulted concerning the terrible prodigies which
startled his people prior to the advance of the Spaniards upon his
kingdom, and which were supposed to predict the return of
Quetzacloatl, the legendary culture-hero of Anahuac, to his own
again. These included earthquakes, tempests, floods, the
appearances of comets and strange lights, whilst mysterious voices
were heard in the air — such prodigies, indeed, as tradition usually
insists upon as the precursors of the downfall of a mighty empire.
The various methods of divination have each been accorded a
separate article : thus the reader is referred to Axinomancy,
Belomancy, Capnomaney, and so forth ; and in the articles dealing
with the various countries a goodly number of instances of divinatory
practice will be discovered. Divine Name, The : In Jewish mysticism
great stress is laid upon the importance of the Divine Name. It
consists of forty-two letters ; not, as Moses Maimonides points out,
comprised in one word, but in a phrase of several words, which
conveyed an exact notion of the essence of God. With the priestly
decadence in the last days of the Temple, a name of twelve letters
was substituted for the Divine Name, and as time went on even this
secondary name was not divulged to every priest, but only to a few.
The longer name was sometimes said to contain forty-five or
seventy-two letters. The ten Sefiroth are also supposed, in a mystical
sense, to be the names of the Deity. The Divine Name Jahveh is
greater than " I am that I am, since the latter signifies God as He
was before the creation, the Absolute, the Unknowable, the Hidden
One ; but the former denotes the Supreme Manifestation, the
immanence of God in the Cosmos. Divine World : Formerly known as
the Adi Plane — is in the theosophic scheme of things, the first or
highest world, (in Theosophy) the world first formed by the divine
impulse in the creative process. It is unattainable by man in his
present state. {See Theosophy and Solar System.) Divining Rod : A
forked rod, or branch of tree, which in the hands of certain people is
said to indicate, by means of spasmodic movements of varying
intensity, the presence of water and minerals underground. Traces of
the rod used for purposes of divination are to be found in the
records of Ancient Egypt. Cicero and Tacitus both wrote of the rod "
virgula divina."' This ancient divining rod was a form of
rhabdomancy (q.v.) or divination by means of little pieces of stick. In
Germany it was known as the " wishing-rod " and was used just as
fortune-tellers use cards, coffee or tea-grounds at the present day.
Agricola's De Re Metallica published at Basle, at the beginning of the
sixteenth centur}', makes reference to another rod which he calls
the virgula furcata," the forked, rod to distinguish it from the "
virgula divina." This rod, he said, was used by miners to discover
mineral lodes ; rhabdomancy having nothing to do with this use of
the divining rod. Melancthon mentions this use of the rod and
ascribed the behaviour of the " instrument " in the discovery of
metallic ores to the law of sympathy, according to the belief then
obtaining that metals, trees and other natural objects had certain
subtle relationships with each other ; and believers in this theory
pointed to the fact that trees which grew above mineral lodes droop
as though attracted downwards ; the modern scientific explanation
of this natural phenomenon being that it is due to the poverty of the
soil. In Sebastian Minister's Cosmography, also of the sixteenth
century, may be found engravings of these " mineral diviners " at
work. The priests of that time persecuted them as demons in
disguise ; they were also included in the witchcraft persecutions,
suffering tortures and burning to death. Among miners on the
Continent the use of the " virgula furcata " became universal,
especially in the Harz Mountains and throughout Saxony. In
Germany it was called the Schlag-Ruthe, " striking-rod " from the
fact of its appearing to strike when held over mineral ores. Robert
Boyle, the " father of chemistry " is the first to make mention of the
divining rod in England. In an essay of his published in 1663 may be
found the following " A forked hazel twig is held by its horns, one in
each hand, the holder walking with it over places where mineral
lodes may be suspected, and it is said that the fork by dipping down
will discover the place where the ore is to be found. Many eminent
authors, amongst others our distinguished countryman Gabriel Plat,
ascribe much to this detecting wand, and others, far from credulous
or ignorant, have as eye-witnesses spoken of its value. When visiting
the lead-mines of Somersetshire I saw its use, and one gentleman
who employed it declared that it moved without his will, and I saw it
bend so strongly as to break in his hand. It will only succeed in some
men's hands, and those who have seen it may much more readily
believe than those who have not." Some authorities on the subject
state that it was first brought into England in the time of Queen
Elizabeth. In the State papers of that reign may be found recorded
the fact that commissioners were sent to Germany to study the best
methods of mining and brought back with them German miners from
the Harz Mountains ; and that these '' foreigners " introduced the
diuining rod into England seems highly probable. It was first used for
water finding, however, in Southern France, and not until a century
later was it used in England for this purpose. It became the "
dowsing rod " in England and Somersetshire might be called the
home of the " dowser." Locke the philosopher, a Somersetshire man
referred in 1691 to the " dowsing rod " and De Quincey, also
belonging to the county, tells of singular cases of " jousers " as he
calls them. Down to the present day this means of finding water is
used, farmers and owners of large estates sending for a " dowser "
when they wish to find a spring of water. These men are not
geologists, who might have a scientific knowledge of the locality,
they are often merely labourers. The rods are mostly cut from the
hazel, but all kinds of nut and fruit trees have been used, white and
black thorn and privet also being favourites. Pieces of watch-spring
and copper-wire are also used ; and in some cases the forked rod is
dispensed with, the peculiar sensation felt in the arms, hands and
body being sufficient to indicate the water. These dowsers wander
over the ground with the ends of the fork grasped in the palms of
the hands and the rod downwards and when this moves, turning
suddenly in his hand, upwards, it is said for water, downwards for
minerals, at that spot will be found the desired object, absolute
correctness frequently being achieved. In later years attempts have
been made to scientifically investigate the question and amongst
amateur " dowsers " we find the names of Lord Farrer and the late
Mr. Andrew Lang. As to the theory for these movements the
electrical or magnetic theory was exploded by Father Kircher in 1654
who balanced the rod on a frictionless support like a delicate pair of
scales and found that in this position nothing would induce it to
move over hidden water or metal. It must be held by some human
being before the movements take place. Chevreul, the French
savant, in 1854 put forward the theory of involuntary muscular
action. A modern scientist gives his opinion that very possibly it is
due to a faculty in the " dowser " akin to that possessed by a
medium : " some transcendental perceptive power unconsciously
possessed by certain persons, a faculty analogous to what is called
clairvoyance. Not exactly to be described as ' clear-seeing ' but
rather, a 
 Divs 129 D'Ourches dim, obscure impression not reaching
the brain through the organ of vision, seldom ever rising to the level
of a conscious impression, but one able to start the nervous reflex
action which caused the muscles to twitch and the rod or other '
autoscope ' to move. Doubtless, changes of blood pressure and
pulse rate also occur in the dowser ; and if this be so, quite possibly
modern instrumental appliances for recording these will ultimately
supersede the primitive forked twig." He goes on to say that : " The '
dowser ' in fact, 'feels for ' and subconsciously discerns the hidden
object, whether it be water, hidden treasure or even a malefactor
concealing himself from justice, who was pursued and discovered by
the agency of the famous dowser Jacques Aymar, using his
supernormal powers in 1692." See Sir W. F. Barrett F.R.S. Lecture on
The Dowsing Rod. A. E. Waite, The Occult Sciences. Divs : The div of
ancient Persia, pronounced deo, deu, or dive, is supposed to be the
same as the European devil of the middle ages. In the romances of
Persia they are represented as male and female, but the male divs
are considered the more dangerous, and it is from their character,
personified in a supposed chief, that the devil is painted with his
well-known attributes. The male divs, according to the legends of
Persia, were entrusted with the government of the world for seven
thousand years anterior to the creation of Adam, and they were
succeeded by the female divs or peris, who under their chief, Gian
ben Gian, ruled other two thousand years. The dominion of the peris
was terminated by Eblis (the devil of the Koran) who had been
created from the elements of fire, and whose abode was previously
with the angels. Eblis or Haris, as he is also called, became the
leader of the rebellious angels when they were commanded to do
homage to the first created man, and being joined by the whole race
of genii, the male and female divs, whom he had formerly
subjugated, he was like them deprived of grace. Eblis and his
immediate followers were condemned to suffer for a long peried in
the infernal regions, but the remainder were allowed to wander over
the earth, a constant source of misery to themselves and to the
human race, whose obedience is put to the test by their devices, and
secured by the example of their degradation and sufferings. They
are supposed to assume various forms, especially that of the
serpent, and in the drawings annexed to the Persian romances they
are represented much as our own devils, ogres, and giants, in the
tales of the middle ages. The writers of the later ages, both Arabian
and Persian, have localised the abode of these evil genii in the
mountain Kaf ; their capital is Aherman-abad, the abode of Aherman
their chief, who is identified with the Ahremanes of the Manicheans,
that remarkable sect being said to have borrowed their doctrines
from Zoroaster. The distinction of sex is a remarkable characteristic
of the divs, and its evil results in a system of diabolic superstition
may be read in the stories of the Ephialtae and Hyphialtae, or
nightmare. Evidently the same in origin as the Persian divs, are the
daivers of the Hindoos, who inhabit a world which is called, after
them, Daiver-Logum. We may borrow a brief account of them from
Kindersley's Specimens of Hindoo Literature. " The daivers," he says,
" perpetually recur in- their romances, and other literary works, and
are represented as possessing not only material bodies, but as being
subject to human frailties. Those saints and heroes who may not as
yet be considered worthy of the paradises of Shivven or of
Veeshnoo, are represented as inhabiting the Daiver-Logum (or
Sorgum). These daivers are in number no less than three hundred
and thirty millions. The principal are — I. ' Daivuntren ' or ' Indiren '
their king ; to whom report is made of all that happens among them.
His court r»f audience is so capacious as to contain not only the
numerous daivers, but also the prophets, attendants, etc. They are
represented in the mythological romances of the Hindoos, as having
been engaged in bloody wars, and with various success against the
giants (Assoores). The family of Daivuntren consists of his wife '
Inderaunee,' and his son ' Seedera-budderen ' (born from a cow),
who records the actions of men, by which they are finally to be
judged. II. The attendants or companions of these daivers are — 1.
The 'Kinnarer,' who sing and play on musical instruments. 2. '
Dumbarim Nardir,' who also perform on a species of drum. 3. "
Kimprusher,' who wait on' the daivers and are represented with the
wings and fair countenances of angels. 4. ' Kunda-gaindoorer,'
similar winged beings who execute the mandates of Veeshnoo. 5. '
Paunner ' a species of jugglers, who amuse the daivers with snake
dancing, etc. 6. ' Viddiaser,' their bards, who are acquainted with all
arts and sciences, and entertain them with their histories and
discourses. 7. ' Tsettee,' who attend them in their aerial journeys. 8.
' Kanuanader,' or ' Dovdanks,' messengers, who conduct the votaries
of Veeshnoo and Shivven to their respective paradises, and the
wicked to hell (Narekah), of which ' Eemen ' is sovereign. III. The
third class of daivergoel, daivers, or genii, are the eight keepers of
the eight sides of the world, literally signified by their general name
of ' Aushtatikcu-Pauligaur ; they are — 1. ' Indiren,' who is no other
than Daivuntren, named above. 2. ' Augne-Baugauven,' the god of
fire. 3. 'Eemen' king of death and the infernal regions. 4. ' Nerudee,'
the element of earth represented under the figure of a giant. 5. '
Vaivoo,' god of air and winds. 6. ' Varoonen,' god of clouds and rain.
7. ' Gooberen,' god of riches. 8. 'Essaunien,' or Shivven himself, in
one of his 1,008 appearances on earth." To these principal daivers,
Kindersley adds without sufficient reason the ' Reeshees ' of the
Hindoos, and their tutelary god of virtue, " Derma-Daive." For the
true oriental doctrine of these evil genii the Zend-Avesta may be
consulted, which associates the idea of evil more especially with the
peris or female divs, contrary to the later romances of Islamism. This
anomaly reappears in our own fairy tales, the same characters,
which at times, are invested with the most malignant attributes,
being often described under forms of sylph-like grace and beauty.
Djemscheed, The Cup of : A divination cup, which has been the
subject of many of the poems and myths of ancient Persia. It was
believed to have been found while digging the foundations of
Persepolis, filled with the elixir of immortality. In this magical cup wis
mirrored the whole world, and everything, good and evil, was
revealed therein. The Persians had great faith in these revelations ;
and attributed the prosperity of their empire to the possession of
this famous cup. Doctrine of Correspondence : {See Swedenborg.)
Donn : Son of Midir the Proud ; an Irish hero of medieval legend. In
the Colloquy of the Ancients we are told how Finn and Kelta and five
other champions were out hunting one day, and followed a beautiful
faun until it vanished under ground. Seeking shelter in a noble
mansion, they were entertained by Donn mac Midir and his brother ;
and their aid was asked against the rest of the Danaan folk. It seems
that thrice in the year they had to fight their fairy foes, and all their
followers had been killed excepting the eight-and-twenty warriors
themselves. The faun which they had followed had been an
enchanted maiden sent to entice them. After a year of successful
fighting, the Danaans were obliged to make peace. Double Triangle :
{See Magic.) D'Ourches, Comte : French magnetist and
necromancer, associated about 1850 with Baron de Guldenstubbe in
the
 Dovantes 130 Dreams attempt — successful only after six
months of endeavour — to establish in Francs spiritualistic circles
such as were being form 3d at the time in America. After a time they
were successful in obtaining such manifestations as raps, the
vibration of piano-chords, and direct writing. Dovantes : (See
Daivers and Daivergoal.) Dowie, The Prophet : [See America, U.S.
of.) Dowsers : (See Divining Rod.) Dowsing, George : {See England)
Draconites : otherwise dentrites, draconius, or obsianus, is described
by Albertus Magnus as a shining black stone of pyramidal figure. It is
not very easy to obtain, as it must be taken out of the head of a
dragon, cut off while the beast is still panting. It subdues all sorts of
poison, and endows its possessor with invincible courage. The kings
of the East esteemed it a great treasure. Dragon : A purely fabulous
monster of enormous size, common to almost all countries.
Descriptions of its appearance vary ; but it appears to have been of
a reptilian nature, often of a red or green colour, sometimes with
several heads which vomited forth fire and vapours, and a large and
clumsy tail. It was of enormous strength ; but the ancients believed
that it could be charmed by music, and the dragon which guarded
the golden fleece was soothed by the voice of Medea. In India at the
time of Alexander the Great, a dragon was worshipped as a god ;
and in occult history it is the manifestation of hell. The dragon,
however, is best known in legendary history as the terrible monster,
whose duty it was to provide the hero with opportunities of valour,
and in this capacity it has figured in many a tale. The legend of St.
George and the Dragon is familiar to everyone, and also the dragon
that was slain by Sir Lancelot, one of the knights of King Arthur's
Round Table. In Revelation the dragon, a representation of the Evil
One, is overcome by the Archangel Michael. On one side of the coin
given to those who were cured of possession, about the time of
Henry VII., there was portrayed an angel standing with both feet on
a dragon. The idea of the dragon is perhaps evolved from the
conception of the earth, as a living being, a notion which would gain
currency from Earthquake and related phenomena. Dragon '3 Head :
(See Astrology.) Dragon's Tail : (See Astrology.) Dreams : The occult
significance of dreams was a matter of speculation among the wise
at an early period in the history of civilisation. In the articles upon
Babylonia and Egypt we have to some extent outlined the methods
by which the wise men of those countries divined the future from
visions seen in sleep, and to these we must refer the reader, as well
as to the articles dealing with other countries, savage and civilised,
where he will discover a good deal of data relating to dreams and
dream-lore. In this place we can only indicate some of the more
outstanding theories of antiquity regarding the nature and causes of
dreams and the manner in which the ancient diviners generally
interpreted them. Dreams were regarded as of two kinds — false
and true, in either case emanating from a supernatural intelligence,
evil or good. By the ancients sleep was regarded as a second life, in
which the soul was freed from the body and therefore much more
active than during the waking state. The acts it observed and the
scenes through which it passed were thought to have a bearing on
the future life of the dreamer, but it is possible that the dream-life
was regarded as supernatural and " inverted," and that the events
which the bodiless spirit beheld were the opposites of those which
would later occur on the earth-plane. The idea thus originated that "
dreams go by contraries," as both popular belief r.nd the many
treatises upon the subject of nightly visions assure us is the case.
However the belief in the divinatory character of dreams arose, there
is every proof that their causes and nature exercised some of the
greatest minds of antiquity. Aristotle believed them to arise solely
from natural causes. Posidonius the Stoic was of tne opinion that
they were of three kinds, the first automatic, and coming from the
clear sight of the soul, the second from spirits and the third from
God. Cratippus, Democritus, and Pythagoras held doctrines almost
identical or differing only in detail. Later, Macrobius divided dreams
into five kinds : the dream, the vision, the ocular dream, the
insomnium and the phantasm. The first is a figurative and
mysterious representation which requires an interpretation ; the
second was an exact representation of a future event in sleep ; the
third was a dream representing some priest or divinity, who declared
to the sleeper things to come ; the fourth was an ordinary dream not
deserving of attention, and the fifth was a disturbed half-awake
dream, a species of nightmare. Other writers divide dreams into
accidental dreams and those which were induced for the purposes of
divination. We are told by Herodotus that in the temple of Bel in
Babylon a priestess lay on a bed ready to dream visions of the
second class, and that the beds of such soothsayers were often
made of the skin of a ram is well known. The ancient Hebrews
obtained such dreams by sleeping among tombs, and this especial
gateway to the supernatural world seems to have been, and still is
known to the majority of nations, barbarous and the reverse, as
intimately as hypnotic and other methods of reaching its planes and
hearing its pronouncements. Sleep was, of course, often induced by
drugs, whether the soma of the Hindoos, the peyollotl of the ancient
Mexicans, the haschish of the Arabs, or the opium of the Malays or
Chinese, and these narcotics which have the property of inducing
speedy sleep and of heightening inward vision were and are greatly
prized by professional dreamers all over the world, especially as they
rendered dreaming almost immediately possible. With the nature of
ecstatic vision we have dealt under the heading of Hypnotism and
now that we have outlined the older theories regarding the cause
and nature of dreams (for with the modern and purely physiological
theories on the subject we have no concern in this place), we may
pass on to consider the methods by which dreams were read or
divined. As has been remarked, this was generally undertaken by a
special class of diviners, who in ancient Greece were known as
Oneiocritikoi, or interpreters of dreams. The first treatise on the
subject is that of Artemidorus, who lived in the time of Antoninus
Pius. He differentiates between the dreams of Kings and those of
commoners, as he believes that the visions of royalty must have
reference to the commonwealth and not to the individual. Dreams
which represent something as happening to the individual who
dreams them, show that they have a personal significance, whereas
if the dream relates to another it will concern him alone. He details
the numerous species of dreams throughout five books, and then
adduces numerous examples. Neither for rule nor illustration have
we any space here, and indeed, the literature, popular and
otherwise, which treats of oneiromancy is so extensive and so
readily accessible that no necessity arises for so doing. Suffice it to
say that the rules of Artemidorus are far from clear, and according to
them, any dream might signify any event, and any interpretation of
the same might be considered justifiable. The method of testing
dreams according to Amyraldus is his Discours sur les Songes divins
(Saumur, 1625)* is whether the instructions and advice that they
contain make for good or ill — a test it is impossible to
 Dreams 131 Dress apply until after the result is known. But
Amyraldus surmounts this difficulty by proposing to test dreams by
the evidence they show of divine knowledge — by asking oneself in
short, whether the dream it was desired to examine gave any
evidence of such things as God alone could know. It would seem
from an examination of such dreams as were submitted to the
diviners of antiquity that the symbolism they exhibited was of a
character so profound that it could only be unriddled by an
interpreter who received divine aid, such as was afforded in the case
of Moses or Daniel. It is plain, however, that the most farfetched
interpretations were given to many of the most epoch-making
dreams of antiquity, and indeed, the oneiocritical system is one of
the weakest spots in the armour of occult science, and was the first
of its departments to fall into disrepute and become the prey of the
charlatan. There are not wanting serious students of the occult who
doubt entirely the occult significance of dreams, and it must be
granted that no good reason exists for classing them generally with
the vision, or a condition of second sight or ecstasy. See H.
Hutchinson, Dreams and their Meanings, London, iqoi ; J. C.
Colquohoun, Magic, Witchcraft and Animal Magnetism, London, 1851
; H. Christmas, The Cradle of the Twin Giants, London, 1849, and
many other popular and more advanced handbooks on the subject.
Dreams of Animals : It was believed by many that animals dreamed.
Pliny says : " Evident it is, that horses, dogs, kine, oxen, sheepe and
goats, doe dreame. Whereupon it is credibly also thought that all
creatures that bring forth their young quicke and living, doe the
same. As for those that lay egges, it is not so certian that they
dreame; but resolved it is that they doe sleepe." Dress, Phantom :
The question of the apparel worn by apparitions has of late years
aroused considerable controversy. Says Mr. Podmore : " The
apparition commonly consists simply of a figure, clothed as the
percipient was accustomed to see the agent clothed ; whereas to be
true to life the phantasm would as a rule have to appear in bed. In
cases where the vision gives no information as to the agent's
clothing and surroundings generally- — and, as already said, such
cases form the great majority of the well attested narratives — we
may suppose that what is transmitted is not any part of the
superficial content of the agent's consciousness, but an impression
from the underlying massive and permanent elements which
represent his personal identity. The percipient's imagination is clearly
competent to clothe such an impression with appropriate imagery,
must indeed so clothe it if it is to rise into consciousness at all." "
The ghosts, it will have been observed, always appear clothed. Have
clothes also ethereal counterparts ? Such was and is the belief of
many early races of mankind, who leave clothes, food, and weapons
in the graves of the dead, or burn them on the funeral pile, that
their friends may have all they require in the spirit world. But are we
prepared to accept this view ? And again, these ghosts commonly
appear, not in the clothes which they were wearing at death — for
most deaths take place in bed — but in some others, as will be seen
from an examination of the stories already cited. Are we to suppose
the ethereal body going to its wardrobe to clothe its nakedness
withal ? or that, as in the case of Ensign Cavalcante's appearance to
Frau Reiken, the ghost will actually take off the ethereal clothes it
wore at death and replace them with others ? It is scarcely
necessary to pursue the subject. The difficulties and contradictions
involved in adapting it to explain the clothes must prove fatal to the
ghost theory." Mr. Thistleton Dyer says on the subject : " It is the
familiar dress worn in lifetime that is, in most cases, one of the
distinguishing features of the ghost; and when Sir George Villiers
wanted to give a warning to his son, the Duke of Buckingham, his
spirit appeared to one of the Duke's servants ' in the very clothes he
used to wear.' Mrs. Crowe, in her Night Side of Nature gave an
account of an apparition which appeared at a house in Sarratt,
Hertfordshire. It was that of a well-dressed gentleman, in a blue
coat and bright gilt buttons, but without a head. It seems that this
was reported to be the ghost of a poor man of that neighbourhood
who had been murdered, and whose head had been cut off. He
could, therefore, only be recognised by his ' blue coat and bright gilt
buttons.' Indeed, many ghosts have been nicknamed from the kinds
of dress in which they have been in the habit of appearing. Thus the
ghost at Allanbank was known as ' Pearlin Jean,' from a species of
lace made of thread which she wore ; and the ' White Lady ' at
Ashley Hall — like other ghosts who have borne the same name —
from the white drapery in -which she presented herself. Some lady
ghosts have been styled ' Silky,' from the rustling of their silken
costume, in the wearing of which they have maintained the phantom
grandeur of their earthly life. Theie was the ' Silky ' at Black Heddon
who used to appear in silken attire, oftentimes ' rattling in her silks ';
and the spirit of Denton Hall — also termed ' Silky ' — walks about in
a white silk dress of antique fashion. This last ' Silky ' was thought to
be the ghost of a lady who was mistress to the profligate Duke of
Argyll in the reign of William III., and died suddenly, not without
suspicion of murder, at Chirton, near Shields — one of his
residences. The ' Banshee of Loch Nigdal, too, was arrayed in a silk
dress, green in colour. These traditions date from a period when silk
was not in common use, and therefore attracted notice in country
places. Some years ago a ghost appeared at Hampton Court,
habited in a black satin dress with white kid gloves. The White ' Lady
of Skipsea ' makes her midnight serenades clothed in long, white
drapery. Lady Bothwell, who haunted the mansion of Woodhouselee,
always appeared in white ; and the apparition of the mansion of
Houndwood, in Berwickshire — bearing the name of ' Chappie ' — is
clad in silk attire. " One of the ghosts seen at the celebrated
Willington Mill was that of a female in greyish garments. Sometimes
she was said to be wrapped in a mantle, with her head depressed
and her hands crossed on her' lap. Walton Abbey had its headless
lady who used to haunt a certain wainscotted chamber, dressed in
blood-stained garments, with her infant in her arms ; and, in short,
most of the ghosts that have tenanted our country houses have
been noted for their distinctive dress. " Daniel Defoe, in his Essay on
the History and Reality of Apparitions, has given many minute details
as to the dress of a ghost. He tells a laughable and highly amusing
story of some robbers who broke into a mansion in the country, and,
while ransacking one of the rooms, they saw, in a chair, ' a grave,
ancient man, with a long fullbottomed wig, and a rich, brocaded
gown,' etc. One of the robbers threatened to tear off his ' rich
brocaded gown,' another hit at him with a firelock, and was alarmed
at seeing it pass through the air ; and then the old man ' changed
into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, with eyes like
two fiery daggers fed hot.' The same apparition encountered them in
different rooms, and at last the servants, who were at the top of the
house, throwing some ' hand grenades ' down the chimneys of these
rooms, the thieves were dispersed. Without adding further stories of
this kind, which may be taken for what they are worth, it is a
generally received belief in ghost lore
 Druldie 132 Dupuis that spirits are accustomed to appear in
the dresses which they wore in their lifetime — a notion credited
from the days of Pliny the Younger to the present day. " But the fact
of ghosts appearing in earthly raiment has excited the ridicule of
many philosophers, who, even admitting the possibility of a spiritual
manifestation, deny that there can be the ghost of a suit of clothes.
George Cruikshank, too, who was no believer in ghosts, sums up the
matter thus : ' As it is clearly impossible for spirits to wear dresses
made of the materials of earth, we should like to know if there are
spiritual outfitting shops for the clothing of ghosts who pay visits on
earth.' Whatever the objections may be to the appearance of ghosts
in human attire, they have not hitherto overthrown the belief in their
being seen thus clothed, and Byron, describing the ' Black Friar '
who haunted the cloisters and other parts of Newstead Abbey, tells
us that he was always arrayed In cowl, and beads, and dusky garb.
Indeed, as Dr. Tylor remarks, ' It is an habitual feature of the ghost
stories of the civilised, as of the savage world, that the ghost comes
dressed, and even dressed in wellknown clothing worn in life.' And
he adds that the doctrine of object-souls is held by the Algonguin
tribes, the islanders of the Fijian group, and the Karens of Burmah —
it being supposed that not only men and beasts have souls, but
inorganic things. Thus, Mariner, describing the Fijian belief, writes : '
If a stone or any other supstance is broken, immortality is equally its
reward ; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and
hogs, and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away
flies its soul for the service of the gods. The Fijians can further show
you a sort of natural well, or deep hole in the ground, at one of their
islands, across the bottom of which runs a stream of water, in which
you may clearly see the souls of men and women, beasts and plants,
stocks and stones, canoes and horses, and of all the broken utensils
of this frail world, swimming, or rather tumbling along, one over the
other, pell-mell, into the regions of immortality.' As it has been
observed, animistic conceptions of this kind are no more irrational
than the popular idea prevalent in civilised communities as to spirits
appearing in all kinds of garments." Druidic Language : (See Shelta
Thari.) Druids : (See Celts.) Drum, Magic : {See Lapland.) Drummer
of Tedworth : A poltergeist who haunted the house of Mr. John
Mompesson, of Tedworth, Wilts, about the year 1661 and onwards.
In March of that year Mompesson had had a vagrant drummer
brought before a justice of the peace, whereby his drum was
confiscated. The instrument was taken to the house of Mompesson,
during the latter's absence, and immediately a violent poltergeist
disturbance broke out. Apparitions were seen by members of the
household, pieces of furniture were seen to move of themselves,
small objects were flung about by invisible hands, the younger
children were levitated as they lay in their beds, and there was a
continual sound of drumming every night. The drummer, understood
to be the cause of the trouble, was transported, when peace once
more reigned in the afflicted household ; but ere long he managed
to return, when the disturbances broke out with renewed vigour.
There is no first-hand account of this poltergeist, save that of Joseph
Glanvil — Sadducismus Triumphatus, 1668— and though Glanvil is
our authority for the whole story, that part of it which he himself
declares to have witnessed is certainly not the most marvellous, but
describes scratchings and pantings heard in the vicinity of the
childrens' beds. Du Potet : One of the original founders of
spiritualism in France, and one of the first experimentalists in
tableturning, either in that country or elsewhere. (See France). Du-
Sith (Black Elf.) : A little man, believed to be of fairy origin, who
killed Sir Lachlan Mor M'Clean at the battle of Trai-Gruinard, in Islay,
Scotland, in the year 1598. The story runs that this little man offered
his services to Sir James Macdonald, the opponent of Sir Lachlan ;
and that the latter's death was caused by an arrow which struck him
on the head, and was afterwards found to be an Elf-bolt. In reply to
a question of Macdonald's the little man replied : "I am called Du-
sith, and you were better to have me with you than against you."
Duad : (See God.) Dual Personality : In every form of cerebral
dissociation there is a disturbance of consciousness. Sometimes, and
especially in the trance, there occurs what is known as " split
consciousness," and the split may be so pronounced that the subject
seems to have tv/o or more distinct personalities. The secondary
personality may differ from the primary in many ways, and possess
entirely distinct intellectual and moral characteristics. The entranced
subject may allude to his normal consciousness in the third person,
may criticise its opinions and attitude, or even express direct
antagonism towards it. The secondary personality sometimes
alternates with the primary in such a way as to suggest that two
spirits are struggling to possess the same physical organisation.
Another peculiarity of this state is that whereas the normal
consciousness generally knows nothing of the others, the secondary
personalities have full knowledge of each other and of the normal
conciousness. Dual personality is not confined to the trance state,
but may arise spontaneously. R. L. Stevenson makes effective use of
it in his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Duguid, David : A
Glasgow painting medium who achieved considerable success in his
line. He was a cabinet-maker, who in 1866 found himself possessed
of mediumistic faculties. At first an ordinary rapping medium, he
speedily developed the power of painting in trance, even in the dark.
A still higher stage of mediumship was reached when direct
drawings were produced in his presence. These drawings, generally
copies of Dutch masters, purporting to be done by the original
artists, are said not to have been without some merit, apart from the
fact that they were done in complete darkness. The two principal
controls were Ruysdael and Steen. In 1869 control of the medium's
organism was taken by Hafed, prince of Persia at the beginning of
the Christian era, and Archmagus. Hafed related his many
adventures through Duguid's mediumship in a series of sittings
extending over some years. A Persian of princely birth, he had borne
arms in his country's defence. After extensive travels, he was
admitted to the magi, and ultimately became Archmagus. He was of
those who bore rich gifts to Bethlehem at the birth of Christ. Finally
he met his death in the arena at Rome. Hafed, Prince of Pe'rsia, was
afterwards published in book form. (See Spiritualism). Duk-duk, The
: Members of a secret society of New Pomerania, who are also called
Spirits. Dumbarin-Nardar : One of the classes of attendants or
companions of the Hindoo daivers, whose special duty it is to play
upon a kind of drum. Dupuis., Charles Francois : 1 742-1809.
Charles Francois Dupuis was born at Trie le-Chateau, and educated
by his father and afterwards at the College d'Harcourt. At the age of
twenty-four he was made professor of rhetoric at Lisieux ; but his
inclination led him into the field of mathematics. In his work, Origine
de tous les Cultus he attempts to explain not only all the mysteries
of antiquity, but also the origin of all religious beliefs. In his Memoir
e
 Durandal 133 Egbo explicatif 'du Zodiaque chronologique et
mythologique (1806) he maintains a common origin for the
astronomical and religious opinions of the Greeks, Egyptians,
Chinese, Persians, and Arabians. Durandal : A magical sword
belonging to Roland of legendary fame. Duum Vira : (See Sibylline
Books.) E Ea : (See Babylonia.) Earth laid upon a Corpse : It is
related in Pennant's Tour that it was the custom in the Highlands of
Scotland to lay on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter
containing a little earth and a little salt — the former to symbolize
the corruptibility of the body, the latter the incorruptibility of the
soul. Ebennozophim : (See Astrology.) Eber Don : Chief of the
Milesian invaders of Ireland. Many of their ships were lost in a storm
which the Danaans (q.v.) raised by magic. Eblis, or Haris as he is
also called : the " Satan " of the Mohammedans. It is said that he
was an inmate of Azazil, the heaven nearest God ; and when the
angels were commanded to bow down to the first man, Eblis was
the chief of those who rebelled. They were cast out of Azazil, and
Eblis and his followers were sentenced to suffer in hell for a long
time. It is supposed that he was composed of the elements of fire ;
and that he succeeded the peris in the government of the world.
Ech-Uisque : A Gaelic word meaning water-horse. The Ech-uisque
was a goblin of Highland folk-lore, understood to be a favourite form
assumed by the Kelpie, in order to lure souls to his master the Devil.
In the disguise of a fine steed, beautifully accoutred, the Kelpie
grazed innocently by the wayside. The weary traveller, passing by,
and believing this splendid animal to have strayed from his master,
was tempted to make use of him to help him on his way ; and the
deceitful Kelpie, remaining quiet as a lamb until the traveller was
fairly mounted, would then with a fiendish yell of triumph plunge
headlong into an adjacent pool. It was believed that the soul of the
unfortunate man, who had had no time to prepare for death, would
thus be safely secured to the Evil One ; while the Kelpie received the
body in payment for his trouble. Echo D 'Outre Tombe (Journal) :
(See France.) Eckartshausen, K. Von : Author of The Cloud on the
Sanctuary (1800). Eckartshausen, by birth and education an
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