-tellers.

The king had banished from the land all wizards and fortune-tellers, but
his servants brought him word that at Endor there still remained a woman
who could call up the dead. Saul disguised himself, and, accompanied by
two of his retainers, went to find her; he succeeded in overcoming her
fear of punishment, and persuaded her to make the evocation. "Whom
shall I bring up unto thee?"--"Bring up Samuel."--And when the woman saw
Samuel, she cried with a loud voice, saying, "Why hast thou deceived me,
for thou art Saul?" And the king said unto her, "Be not afraid, for what
sawest thou?"--"I saw gods ascending out of the earth."--"What form is
he of?"--"An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle." Saul
immediately recognised Samuel, and prostrated himself with his face to
the ground before him. The prophet, as inflexible after death as in
his lifetime, had no words of comfort for the God-forsaken man who had
troubled his repose. "The Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand,
and given it to thy neighbour, even to David, because thou obeyedst not
the voice of the Lord,... and tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with
me. The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hands of the
Philistines."*

* 1 Sam. xxviii. 5-25. There is no reason why this scene
should not be historical; it was natural that Saul, like
many an ancient general in similar circumstances, should
seek to know the future by means of the occult sciences then
in vogue. Some critics think that certain details of the
evocation--as, for instance, the words attributed to Samuel
--are of a later date.

We learn, also, how David, at Ziklag, on hearing the news of the
disaster, had broken into weeping, and had composed a lament, full
of beauty, known as the "Song of the Bow," which the people of Judah
committed to memory in their childhood. "Thy glory, O Israel, is slain
upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest the daughters of the
Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph!
Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither
fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast
away, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil! From the blood of the
slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back,
the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul