except one. Again they held this finger to the fire, but still
it would not burn, at which they appeared much surprised, and
one said, 'There must surely be some one in the house who is
not yet asleep.' They then hung the hand with its four
burning fingers by the chimney, and went out to call their
associates. But the maid followed them instantly and made the
door fast, then ran up stairs, where the landlord slept, that
she might wake him, but was unable, notwithstanding all her
shaking and calling. In the mean time the thieves had returned
and were endeavouring to enter the house by a window, but the
maid cast them down from the ladder. They then took a
different course, and would have forced an entrance, had it
not occurred to the maid that the burning fingers might
probably be the cause of her master's profound sleep.
Impressed with this idea she ran to the kitchen and blew them
out, when the master and his men-servants instantly awoke, and
soon drove away the robbers." The same event is said to have
occurred at Stainmore in England; and Torquermada relates of
Mexican thieves that they carry with them the left hand of a
woman who has died in her first childbed, before which
talisman all bolts yield and all opposition is benumbed. In
1831 "some Irish thieves attempted to commit a robbery on the
estate of Mr. Naper, of Loughcrew, county Meath. They entered
the house armed with a dead man's hand with a lighted candle
in it, believing in the superstitious notion that a candle
placed in a dead man's hand will not be seen by any but those
by whom it is used; and also that if a candle in a dead hand
be introduced into a house, it will prevent those who may be
asleep from awaking. The inmates, however, were alarmed, and
the robbers fled, leaving the hand behind them."[31]