Chapter 13

Braz, ii. 96; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ 233). Other variants are found in non-Celtic regions, so the story has no mythological significance on Celtic ground.

[629] Ptol. ii. 2. 7.

[630] Campbell, _WHT_ iv. 300 f.; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 284; Waldron, _Isle of Man_, 147.

[631] Macdougall, 296; Campbell, _Superstitions_, 195. For the Uruisg as Brownie, see _WHT_ ii. 9; Graham, _Scenery of Perthshire_, 19.

[632] Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ ii. 431, 469, _HL_, 592; _Book of Taliesin_, vii. 135.

[633] Sébillot, ii. 340; _LL_ 165; _IT_ i. 699.

[634] Sébillot, ii. 409.

[635] See Pughe, _The Physicians of Myddfai_, 1861 (these were descendants of a water-fairy); Rh[^y]s, _Y Cymmrodor_, iv. 164; Hartland, _Arch. Rev._ i. 202. Such water-gods with lovely daughters are known in most mythologies--the Greek Nereus and the Nereids, the Slavonic Water-king, and the Japanese god Ocean-Possessor (Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, 148; Chamberlain, _Ko-ji-ki_, 120). Manannan had nine daughters (Wood-Martin, i. 135).

[636] Sébillot, ii. 338, 344; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 243; Henderson, _Folk-Lore of the N. Counties_, 262. Cf. the rhymes, "L'Arguenon veut chaque année son poisson," the "fish" being a human victim, and

"Blood-thirsty Dee Each year needs three, But bonny Don, She needs none."

[637] Sébillot, ii. 339.

[638] _Rendes Dindsenchas_, _RC_ xv. 315, 457. Other instances of punishment following misuse of a well are given in Sébillot, ii. 192; Rees, 520, 523. An Irish lake no longer healed after a hunter swam his mangy hounds through it (Joyce, _PN_ ii. 90). A similar legend occurs with the Votiaks, one of whose sacred lakes was removed to its present position because a woman washed dirty clothes in it (_L'Anthropologie_, xv. 107).

[639] Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 392.

[640] Girald. Cambr. _Itin. Hib._ ii. 9; Joyce, _OCR_ 97; Kennedy, 281; O'Grady, i. 233; Skene, ii. 59; Campbell, _WHT_ ii. 147. The waters often submerge a town, now seen below the waves--the town of Is in Armorica (Le Braz, i. p. xxxix), or the towers under Lough Neagh. In some Welsh instances a man is the culprit (Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 379). In the case of Lough Neagh the keeper of the well was Liban, who lived on in the waters as a mermaid. Later she was caught and received the baptismal name of Muirghenn, "sea-birth." Here the myth of a water-goddess, said to have been baptized, is attached to the legend of the careless guardian of a spring, with whom she is identified (O'Grady, ii. 184, 265).

[641] Roberts, _Cambrian Pop. Antiq._ 246; Hunt, _Popular Romances_, 291; _New Stat. Account_, x. 313.

[642] Thorpe, _Northern Myth._ ii. 78.

[643] Joyce, _PN_ ii. 84. _Slán_ occurs in many names of wells. Well-worship is denounced in the canons of the Fourth Council of Arles.

[644] Cartailhac, _L'Age de Pierre_, 74; Bulliot et Thiollier, _Mission de S. Martin_, 60.

[645] Sébillot, ii. 284.

[646] Dalyell, 79-80; Sébillot, ii. 282, 374; see p. 266, _infra_.

[647] I have compiled this account of the ritual from notices of the modern usages in various works. See, e.g., Moore, _Folk-Lore_, v. 212; Mackinley, _passim_; Hope, _Holy Wells_; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_; Sébillot, 175 f.; Dixon, _Gairloch_, 150 f.

[648] Brand, ii. 68; Greg. _In Glor. Conf._ c. 2.

[649] Sébillot, ii. 293, 296; _Folk-Lore_, iv. 55.

[650] Mackinley, 194; Sébillot, ii. 296.

[651] _Folk-Lore_, iii. 67; _Athenæum_, 1893, 415; Pliny, _Ep._ viii. 8; Strabo, iv. 287; Diod. Sic. v. 9.

[652] Walker, _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._ vol. v.; Sébillot, ii. 232. In some early Irish instances a worm swallowed with the waters by a woman causes pregnancy. See p. 352, _infra_.

[653] Sébillot, ii. 235-236.

[654] See Le Braz, i. 61; _Folk-Lore_, v. 214; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 364; Dalyell, 506-507; Scott, _Minstrelsy_, Introd. xliii; Martin, 7; Sébillot, ii. 242 f.; _RC_ ii. 486.

[655] Jullian, _Ep. to Maximin_, 16. The practice may have been connected with that noted by Aristotle, of plunging the newly-born into a river, to strengthen it, as he says (_Pol._ vii. 15. 2), but more probably as a baptismal or purificatory rite. See p. 309, _infra_.

[656] Lefevre, _Les Gaulois_, 109; Michelet, _Origines du droit français_, 268.

[657] See examples of its use in Post, _Grundriss der Ethnol. Jurisprudenz_, ii. 459 f.

[658] Roberts, _Cambrian Popular Antiquities_, 246.