i. 11, by Giraldus, as to the archbishop when he was preaching in the

neighbourhood of Haverfordwest. A certain woman had lost her sight, but had so much faith in that holy man that she sent her son to try and procure the least bit of the fringe of his clothing. The youth, unable to make his way through the crowd that surrounded the preacher, waited till it dispersed, and then took home to his mother the sod on which he had stood and on which his feet had left their mark. That earth was applied by her to her face and eyes, with the result that she at once recovered her sight. A similar question of psychology presents itself in a practice intended as a preservative against the evil eye rather than as a cure. I allude to what I have heard about two maiden ladies living in a Manx village which I know very well: they are natives of a neighbouring parish, and I am assured that whenever a stranger enters their house they proceed, as soon as he goes away, to strew a little dust or sand over the spot where he stood. That is understood to prevent any malignant influence resulting from his visit. This tacit identifying of a man with his footprints may be detected in a more precarious and pleasing form in a quaint conceit familiar to me in the lyrics of rustic life in Wales, when, for example, a coy maiden leaves her lovesick swain hotly avowing his perfect readiness to cusanu ol ei thraed, that is, to do on his knees all the stages of her path across the meadow, kissing the ground wherever it has been honoured with the tread of her dainty foot. Let me take another case, in which the cord of association is not so inconceivably slender, namely, when two or more persons standing in a close relation to one another are mistakenly treated a little too much as if mutually independent, the objection is heard that it matters not whether it is A or B, that it is, in fact, all the same, as they belong to the same concern. In Welsh this is sometimes expressed by saying, Yr un yw Huw'r Glyn a'i glocs, that is, 'Hugh of the Glen and his clogs are all one.' Then, when you speak in English of a man 'standing in another's shoes,' I am by no means certain, that you are not employing an expression which meant something more to those who first used it than it does to us. Our modern idioms, with all their straining after the abstract, are but primitive man's mental tools adapted to the requirements of civilized life, and they often retain traces of the form and shape which the neolithic worker's chipping and polishing gave them.

It is difficult to arrange these scraps under any clearly classified headings, and now that I have led the reader into the midst of matters magical, perhaps I may just as well go on to the mention of a few more: I alluded to the boiling of the herbs according to the charmer's orders, with the result, among other things, of bringing the witch to the spot. This is, however, not the only instance of the importance and strange efficacy of fire. For when a beast dies on a farm, of course it dies, according to the old-fashioned view of things as I understand it, from the influence of the evil eye or the interposition of a witch. So if you want to know to whom you are indebted for the loss of the beast, you have simply to burn its carcase in the open air and watch who comes first to the spot or who first passes by: that is the criminal to be charged with the death of the animal, and he cannot help coming there--such is the effect of the fire. A Michael woman, who is now about thirty, related to me how she watched while the carcase of a bewitched colt was burning, how she saw the witch coming, and how she remembers her shrivelled face, with nose and chin in close proximity. According to another native of Michael, a well informed middle-aged man, the animal in question was oftenest a calf, and it was wont to be burnt whole, skin and all. The object, according to him, is invariably to bring the bewitcher on the spot, and he always comes; but I am not clear what happens to him when he appears. My informant added, however, that it was believed that, unless the bewitcher got possession of the heart of the burning beast, he lost all his power of bewitching. He related, also, how his father and three other men were once out fishing on the west coast of the island, when one of the three suddenly expressed his wish to land. As they were fishing successfully some two or three miles from the shore, they would not hear of it. He, however, insisted that they must put him ashore at once, which made his comrades highly indignant; but they soon had to give way, as they found that he was determined to leap overboard unless they complied. When he got on shore they watched him hurrying away towards where a beast was burning in the corner of a field.

Manx stories merge this burning in a very perplexing fashion with what may be termed a sacrifice for luck. The following scraps of information will make it clear what I mean:--A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently died. Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let me give another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw at a farm nearer the centre of the island a live calf being burnt. The owner bears an English name, but his family has long been settled in Man. The farmer's explanation to my informant was that the calf was burnt to secure luck for the rest of the herd, some of which were threatening to die. My informant thought there was absolutely nothing the matter with them, except that they had too little food. Be that as it may, the one calf was sacrificed as a burnt offering to secure luck for the rest of the cattle. Let me here also quote Mr. Moore's note in his Manx Surnames, p. 184, on the place-name Cabbal yn Oural Losht, or the 'Chapel of the Burnt Sacrifice.' 'This name,' he says, 'records a circumstance which took place in the nineteenth century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain, burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.' Particulars, I may say, of time, place, and person, could be easily added to Mr. Moore's statement, excepting, perhaps, as to the deity in question: on that point I have never been informed, but Mr. Moore was probably right in the use of the capital d, as the sacrificer was, according to all accounts, a devout Christian. I have to thank Sir Frederick Pollock for calling my attention to a parallel this side of the sea: he refers me to Worth's History of Devonshire (London, 1886), p. 339, where one reads the following singular passage:--'Living animals have been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory to avert the loss of other stock. The burial of three puppies "brandise-wise" in a field is supposed to rid it of weeds.' The second statement is very curious, and the first seems to mean that preventive sacrifices have been performed in Devonshire within the memory of men living in the author's time.

One more Manx instance: an octogenarian woman, born in the parish of Bride, and now living at Kirk Andreas, saw, when she was a 'lump of a girl' of ten or fifteen years of age, a live sheep being burnt in a field in the parish of Andreas, on May-day, whereby she meant the first of May reckoned according to the Old Style. She asserts [125] very decidedly that it was son oural, 'for a sacrifice,' as she put it, and 'for an object to the public': those were her words when she expressed herself in English. Further, she made the statement that it was a custom to burn a sheep on Old May-day for a sacrifice. I was fully alive to the interest of this evidence, and cross-examined her so far as her age allows of it, and I find that she adheres to her statement with all firmness, but I distinguish two or three points in her evidence: 1. I have no doubt that she saw, as she was passing by a certain field on the borders of Andreas parish, a live sheep being burnt on Old May-day. 2. But her statement that it was son oural, or as a sacrifice, was probably only an inference drawn by her, possibly years afterwards, on hearing things of the kind discussed. 3. Lastly, I am convinced that she did hear the May-day sacrifice discussed, both in Manx and in English: her words, 'for an object to the public,' are her imperfect recollection of a phrase used in her hearing by somebody more ambitious of employing English abstract terms than she is; and the formal nature of her statement in Manx, that it was customary on May-day to burn as a sacrifice one head of sheep (Laa Boaldyn va cliaghtey dy lostey son oural un baagh keyrragh), produces the same impression on my mind, that she is only repeating somebody else's words. I mention this more especially as I have failed to find anybody else in Andreas or Bride, or indeed in the whole island, who will now confess to having ever heard of the sheep sacrifice on Old May-day.

The time assigned to the sheep sacrifice, namely May-day, leads me to make some remarks on the importance of that day among the Celts. The day meant is, as I have already said, Old May-day, in Manx Shenn Laa Boaldyn, the belltaine of Cormac's Glossary, Scotch Gaelic bealtuinn. This was a day when systematic efforts were made to protect man and beast against elves and witches; for it was then that people carried crosses of rowan in their hats and placed May flowers over the tops of their doors and elsewhere as preservatives against all malignant influences. With the same object in view crosses of rowan were likewise fastened to the tails of the cattle, small crosses which had to be made without the help of a knife: I exhibited a tiny specimen at one of the meetings of the Folk-Lore Society. Early on May morning one went out to gather the dew as a thing of great virtue, as in other countries. At Kirk Michael one woman, who had been out on this errand years ago, told me that she washed her face with the dew in order to secure luck, a good complexion, and safety against witches. The break of this day is also the signal for setting the ling or the gorse on fire, which is done in order to burn out the witches wont to take the form of the hare; and guns, I am told, were freely used to shoot any game met with on that morning. With the proper charge some of the witches were now and then hit and wounded, whereupon they resumed the human form and remained cripples for the rest of their lives. Fire, however, appears to have been the chief agency relied on to clear away the witches and other malignant beings; and I have heard of this use of fire having been carried so far that a practice was sometimes observed--as, for example, in Lezayre--of burning gorse, however little, in the hedge of each field on a farm in order to drive away the witches and secure luck.

The man who told me this, on being asked whether he had ever heard of cattle being driven through fire or between two fires on May-day, replied that it was not known to him as a Manx custom, but that it was an Irish one. A cattle-dealer whom he named used on May-day to drive his cattle through fire so as to singe them a little, as he believed that would preserve them from harm. He was an Irishman, who came to the island for many years, and whose children are settled in the island now. On my asking him if he knew whence the dealer came, he answered, 'From the mountains over there,' pointing to the Mourne Mountains looming faintly in the mists on the western horizon. The Irish custom known to my Manx informant is interesting both as throwing light on the Manx custom, and as being the continuation of a very ancient rite mentioned by Cormac. That writer, or somebody in his name, says that belltaine, May-day, was so called from the 'lucky fire,' or the 'two fires,' which the druids of Erin used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds, used to be brought to those fires, or to be driven between them, as a safeguard against the diseases of the year. Cormac [126] says nothing, it will be noticed, as to one of the cattle or the sheep being sacrificed for the sake of prosperity to the rest. However, Scottish [127] May-day customs point to a sacrifice having been once usual, and that possibly of human beings, and not of sheep as in the Isle of Man. I have elsewhere [128] tried to equate these Celtic May-day practices with the Thargelia [129] of the Athenians of antiquity. The Thargelia were characterized by peculiar rites, and among other things then done, two adult persons were led about, as it were scapegoats, and at the end they were sacrificed and burnt, so that their ashes might be dispersed. Here we seem to be on the track of a very ancient Aryan practice, although the Celtic season does not quite coincide with the Greek one. Several items of importance for comparison here will be found passed under careful review in a most suggestive paper by Mr. Lawrence Gomme, 'On the Method of determining the Value of Folklore as Ethnological Data,' in the Fourth Report of the Ethnographical Survey Committee [130].

It is probably in some ancient May-day custom that we are to look for the key to a remarkable place-name occurring several times in the island: I allude to that of Cronk yn Irree Laa, which probably means the Hill of the Rise of Day. This is the name of one of the mountains in the south of the island, but it is also borne by one of the knolls near the eastern end of the range of low hills ending abruptly on the coast between Ramsey and Bride parish, and quite a small knoll bears the name, near the church of Jurby [131]. I have heard of a fourth instance, which, as I learn from Mr. Philip Kermode, editor of the Lioar Manninagh, is on Clay Head, near Laxey. It has been attempted to explain it as meaning the Hill of the Watch by Day, in reference to the old institution of Watch and Ward on conspicuous places in the island; but that explanation is inadmissible as doing violence to the phonetics of the words in question [132]. I am rather inclined to think that the name everywhere refers to an eminence to which the surrounding inhabitants resorted for a religious purpose on a particular day in the year. I should suggest that it was to do homage to the rising sun on May morning, but this conjecture is offered only to await a better explanation.

The next great day in the pagan calendar of the Celts is called in Manx Laa Lhunys, in Irish Lugnassad, the assembly or fair, which was associated with the name of the god Lug. This should correspond to Lammas, but, reckoned as it is according to the Old Style, it falls on the twelfth of August, which used to be a great day for business fairs in the Isle of Man as in Wales. But for holiday making the twelfth only suited when it happened to be a Sunday: when that was not the case, the first Sunday after the twelfth was fixed upon. It is known, accordingly, as the first Sunday of Harvest, and it used to be celebrated by crowds of people visiting the tops of the mountains. The kind of interference to which I have alluded with regard to an ancient holiday, is one of the regular results of the transition from Roman Catholicism to a Protestant system with only one fixed holiday, namely, Sunday. The same shifting has partly happened in Wales, where Lammas is Gwyl Awst, or the festival of Augustus, since the birthday of Augustus, auspiciously for him and the celebrity of his day, fell in with the great day of the god Lug in the Celtic world. Now the day for going up the Fan Fach mountain in Carmarthenshire was Lammas, but under a Protestant Church it became the first Sunday in August; and even modified in that way it could not long survive under a vigorous sabbatarian régime either in Wales or Man. As to the latter in particular, I have heard it related by persons who were present, how the crowds on the top of South Barrule on the first Sunday of Harvest were denounced as pagans by a preacher called William Gick, some seventy years ago; and how another man called Paric Beg, or Little Patrick, preaching to the crowds on Snaefell in milder terms, used to wind up the service with a collection, which appears to have proved a speedier method of reducing the dimensions of these meetings on the mountain tops. Be that as it may, they seem to have dwindled since then to comparative insignificance.

If you ask the reason for this custom now, for it is not yet quite extinct, you are told, first, that it is merely to gather ling berries; but now and then a quasi-religious reason is given, namely, that it is the day on which Jephthah's daughter went forth to bewail her virginity 'upon the mountains': somehow some Manx people make believe that they are doing likewise. That is not all, for people who have never themselves thought of going up the mountains on the first Sunday of harvest or any other, will be found devoutly reading at home about Jephthah's daughter on that day. I was told this first in the south by a clergyman's wife, who, finding a woman in the parish reading the chapter in question on that day, asked the reason for her fixing on that particular portion of the Bible. She then had the Manx view of the matter fully explained to her, and she has since found more information about it, and so have I. It is needless for me to say that I do not quite understand how Jephthah's daughter came to be introduced: perhaps it is vain to look for any deeper reason than that the mention, of the mountains may have served as a sort of catch-word, and that as the Manx people began to cease from visiting the tops of the mountains annually, it struck the women as the next best thing for them to read at home of one who did 'go up and down upon the mountains': they are great readers of the Bible generally. In any case we have here a very curious instance of a practice, originally pagan, modifying itself profoundly to secure a new lease of life.

Between May-day and November eve, there was a day of considerable importance in the island; but the fixing on it was probably due to influence other than Celtic: I mean Midsummer Eve, or St. John's. However, some practices connected with it would seem to have been of Celtic origin, such as 'the bearing of rushes to certain places called Warrefield and Mame on Midsummer Even.' Warrefield was made in Manx into Barrule, but Mame, 'the jugum, or ridge,' has not been identified. The Barrule here in question was South Barrule, and it is to the top of that mountain the green rushes were carried, according to Manx tradition, as the only rent or tax which the inhabitants paid, namely, to Manannán mac Lir (called in Welsh Manawydan ab Llyr), whom the same tradition treats as father and founder, as king and chief wizard of the Isle of Man, the same Manannán who is quaintly referred to in the illiterate passage at the head of this chapter [133]. As already stated, the payment of the annual rent of rushes is associated with Midsummer Eve; but it did not prevent the top of South Barrule from being visited likewise later in the year. Perhaps it may also be worth while mentioning, with regard to most of the mountains climbed on the first Sunday of Harvest, that they seem to have near the summit of each a well of some celebrity, which appears to be the goal of the visitors' peregrinations. This is the case with South Barrule, the spring near the top of which cannot, it is said, be found when sought a second time; also with Snaefell and with Maughold Head, which boasts one of the most famous springs in the island. When I visited it last summer in company with Mr. Kermode, we found it to contain a considerable number of pins, some of which were bent, and many buttons. Some of the pins were not of a kind usually carried by men, and most of the buttons decidedly belonged to the dress of the other sex. Several people who had resorted many years ago to St. Maughold's Well, told me that the water is good for sore eyes, and that after using it on the spot, or filling a bottle with it to take home, one was wont to drop a pin or bead or button into the well. But it had its full virtue only when visited the first Sunday of Harvest, and that only during the hour when the books were open at church, which, shifted back to Roman Catholic times, means doubtless the hour when the priest was engaged in saying Mass. Compare the passage in the Mabinogi of Math, where it is said that the spear required for the slaying of Llew Llawgyffes had to be a whole year in the making: the work was to be pursued only so long as one was engaged at the sacrifice on Sunday (ar yr aberth duw sul): see the Oxford Mabinogion, p. 76. To return to Man, the restriction, as might be expected, is not peculiar to St. Maughold's Well: I have heard of it in connexion with other wells, such as Chibbyr Lansh in Lezayre parish, and with a well on Slieau Maggyl, in which some Kirk Michael people have a great belief. But even sea water was believed to have considerable virtues if you washed in it while the books were open at church, as I was told by a woman who had many years ago repeatedly taken her own sister to divers wells and to the sea during the service on Sunday, in order to have her eyes cured of a chronic weakness.

The remaining great day in the Celtic year is called Sauin or Laa Houney: in Irish, Samhain, genitive Samhna. The Manx call it in English Hollantide, a word derived from the English All hallowen tide, 'the Season of All Saints [134].' This day is also reckoned in Man according to the Old Style, so that it is our twelfth of November. That is the day when the tenure of land terminates, and when servant men go to their places. In other words, it is the beginning of a new year; and Kelly, in his Manx-English Dictionary, has, under the word blein, 'year,' the following note:--'Vallancey says the Celts began their year with January; yet in the Isle of Man the first of November is called New Year's day by the Mummers, who, on the eve, begin their petition in these words: To-night is New Year's night, Hog-unnaa [135], &c.' It is a pity that Kelly, whilst he was on this subject, did not give the rhyme in Manx, and all the more so, as the mummers of the present day, if he is right, must have changed their words into Noght oie Houney, that is to say, To-night is Sauin Night or Halloween. So I had despaired of finding anybody who could corroborate Kelly in his statement, when I happened last summer to find a man at Kirk Michael who was quite familiar with this way of treating the year. I asked him if he could explain Kelly's absurd statement--I put my question designedly in that form. He said he could, but that there was nothing absurd in it. He then told me how he had heard some old people talk of it: he is himself now about sixty-seven. He had been a farm servant from the age of sixteen till he was twenty-six to the same man, near Regaby, in the parish of Andreas, and he remembers his master and a near neighbour of his discussing the term New Year's Day as applied to the first of November, and explaining to the younger men that it had always been so in old times. In fact, it seemed to him natural enough, as all tenure of land ends at that time, and as all servant men begin their service then. I cross-examined him, without succeeding in any way in shaking his evidence. I should have been glad a few years ago to have come across this piece of information, or even Kelly's note, when I was discussing the Celtic year and trying to prove [136] that it began at the beginning of winter, with May-day as the beginning of its second half.

One of the characteristics of the beginning of the Celtic year with the commencement of winter was the belief that indications can be obtained on the eve of that day regarding the events of the year; but with the calendar year gaining ground it would be natural to expect that the Calends of January would have some of the associations of the Calends of Winter transferred to them, and vice versa. In fact, this can, as it were, be watched now going on in the Isle of Man. First, I may mention that the Manx mummers used to go about singing, in Manx, a sort of Hogmanay song [137], reminding one of that usual in Yorkshire and other parts of Great Britain, and now known to be of Romance origin [138]. The time for it in this country was New Year's Eve, according to the ordinary calendar, but in the Isle of Man it has always been Hollantide Eve, according to the Old Style, and this is the night when boys now go about continuing the custom of the old mummers. There is no hesitation in this case between Hollantide Eve and New Year's Eve. But with the prognostications for the year it is different, and the following practices have been usual. I may, however, premise that as a rule I have abstained from inquiring too closely whether they still go on, but here and there I have had the information volunteered that they do.

1. I may mention first a salt prognostication, which was described to me by a farmer in the north, whose wife practises it once a year regularly. She carefully fills a thimble with salt in the evening and upsets it in a neat little heap on a plate: she does that for every member of the family, and every guest, too, if there happen to be any. The plate is then left undisturbed till the morning, when she examines the heaps of salt to see if any of them have fallen; for whoever is found represented by a fallen heap will die during the year. She does not herself, I am assured, believe in it, but she likes to continue a custom which she has learned from her mother.

2. Next may be mentioned the ashes being carefully swept to the open hearth, and nicely flattened down by the women just before going to bed. In the morning they look for footmarks on the hearth, and if they find such footmarks directed towards the door, it means, in the course of the year, a death in the family, and if the reverse, they expect an addition to it by marriage [139].

3. Then there is an elaborate process of eavesdropping recommended to young women curious to know their future husbands' names: a girl would go with her mouth full of water and her hands full of salt to the door of the nearest neighbour's house, or rather to that of the nearest neighbour but one--I have been carefully corrected more than once on that point. There she would listen, and the first name she caught would prove to be that of her future husband. Once a girl did so, as I was told by a blind fisherman in the south, and heard two brothers quarrelling inside the house at whose door she was listening. Presently the young men's mother exclaimed that the devil would not let Tom leave John alone. At the mention of that triad the girl burst into the house, laughing and spilling the mouthful of water most incontinently. The end of it was that before the year was out she married Tom, the second person mentioned: the first either did not count or proved an unassailable bachelor.

4. There is also a ritual for enabling a girl to obtain other information respecting her future husband: vessels placed about the room have various things put into them, such as clean water, earth, meal, a piece of a net, or any other article thought appropriate. The candidate for matrimony, with her eyes bandaged, feels her way about the house until she puts her hand in one of the aforesaid vessels. If what she lays her hand on is the clean water, her husband will be a handsome man [140]; if it is the earth, he will be a farmer; if the meal, a miller; if the net, a fisherman; and so on into as many of the walks of life as may be thought worthy of consideration.

5. Lastly, recourse may be had to a ritual of the same nature as that observed by the druid of ancient Erin, when, burdened with a heavy meal of the flesh of a red pig, he laid him down for the night in order to await a prophetic dream as to the manner of man the nobles of Erin assembled at Tara were to elect to be their king. The incident is given in the story of Cúchulainn's Sick-bed; and the reader, doubtless, knows the passage about Brian and the taghairm in the fourth Canto of Scott's Lady of the Lake. But the Manx girl has only to eat a salt herring, bones and all, without drinking or uttering a word, and to retire backwards to bed. When she sleeps and dreams, she will behold her future husband approaching to give her drink.

Probably none of the practices which I have enumerated, or similar ones mentioned to me, are in any sense peculiar to the Isle of Man; but what interests me in them is the divided opinion as to the proper night for them in the year. I am sorry to say that I have very little information as to the blindman's-buff ritual (No. 4); what information I have, to wit, the evidence of two persons in the south, fixes it on Hollantide Eve. But as to the others (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5), they are observed by some on that night, and by others on New Year's Eve, sometimes according to the Old Style [141] and sometimes the New. Further, those who are wont to practise the salt heap ritual, for instance, on Hollantide Eve, would be very indignant to hear that anybody should think New Year's Eve the proper night, and vice versa. So by bringing women bred and born in different parishes to compare notes on this point, I have witnessed arguing hardly less earnest than that which characterized the ancient controversy between British and Italian ecclesiastics as to the proper time for keeping Easter. I have not been able to map the island according to the practices prevalent at Hollantide and the beginning of January, but local folklorists could probably do it without much difficulty. My impression, however, is that January is gradually acquiring the upper hand. In Wales this must have been decidedly helped by the influence of Roman rule and Roman ideas; but even there the adjuncts of the Winter Calends have never been wholly transferred to the Calends of January. Witness, for instance, the women who used to congregate in the parish church to discover who of the parishioners would die during the year [142]. That custom, in the neighbourhoods reported to have practised it, continued to attach itself to the last, so far as I know, to the beginning of November. In the Isle of Man the fact of the ancient Celtic year having so firmly held its own, seems to point to the probability that the year of the Pagan Norsemen pretty nearly coincided with that of the Celts [143]. For there are reasons to think, as I have endeavoured elsewhere to show, that the Norse Yule was originally at the end of summer or the commencement of winter, in other words, the days afterwards known as the Feast of the Winter Nights. This was the favourite date in Iceland for listening to soothsayers prophesying with regard to the winter then beginning. The late Dr. Vigfusson had much to say on this subject, and how the local sibyl, resuming her elevated seat at the opening of each successive winter, gave the author of the Volospá his plan of that remarkable poem, which has been described by the same authority as the highest spiritual effort of the heathen muse of the North.