Some of the ancient faiths regarded the beard as an appendage not to be touched with the razor, and a modern instance bearing on the old belief will be read with interest. Mr Edward Vizetelly, in his entertaining volume "From Cyprus to Zanzibar" (London, 1901), tells some good stories about the priests in Cyprus. Mr Vizetelly went to the island as soon as it passed into the hands of the British Government, and remained there a few years. "On one occasion," he says, "when I happened to be in the bazaar at Larnaca in the early afternoon, I was amazed to witness all the shopkeepers, apart from the Maltese, suddenly putting up their shutters, as if panic-stricken, but without any apparent cause. Inquiring the reason, it was only vouchsafed to me that someone had shaved off a priest's beard." The priest had been imprisoned for felling a tree in his own garden, which was against the laws of the land then in force. When in gaol the recalcitrant priest had his unclean hair and beard shorn off, in accordance with the prison regulations. The authorities were not aware that the hirsute adornments of the Orthodox Catholic faith were sacred. The act roused the Cyprist ire, and the High Commissioner had to issue orders that if any priest was locked up in future his hair and beard were to be left alone.
Respecting the beard are some popular sayings, and we deal with a few as follows.
A familiar example is "To pull the devil by the beard." When Archbishop Laud was advised to escape from this country he said, "If I should get into Holland, I should expose myself to the insults of those sectaries there, to whom my character is odious, and have every Anabaptist come to pull me by the beard." This insulting saying is by no means confined to England. To demand a person's beard was regarded as a still greater insult. King Ryons, when he sent a messenger to King Arthur to demand his beard, received the following answer:--
"Wel, sayd Arthur, thou hast said thy message, ye whiche is ye most vylaynous and lewdest message that ever man herd sent unto a kynge. Also thou mayst see, my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl of hit. But telle thou thy kynge this, I owe hym none homage, ne none of myn elders, but, or it be longe to, he shall do me homage on bothe his kneys, or else he shall lese his hede by ye feith of my body, for this is ye most shamefullest message that ever I herd speke of. I have aspyed, thy kyng met never yet with worshipful men; but tell hym, I wyll have his hede without he doo me homage. Thenne ye messager departed." ("The Byrth, Lyf and Actes of Kyng Arthur," edit, by Caxton, 1485, reprinted 1817.)