The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left hand. Old European beliefs attribute great powers to a Hand of Glory combined with a candle made from fat from the corpse of the same malefactor who died on the gallows. The candle so made, lighted, and placed (as if in a candlestick) in the Hand of Glory, would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented.
Bellairs Corpus[]
It is said that Prospero and Roger Bacon knew what a hand of glory was (The Face in the Frost, vii).