Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/312

 276 Children and Wells.

folk-tales have been discovered, and will be narrated, which render highly probable the supposition that child- sacrifice to wells was not unknown in ancient Europe. But examination of the records of the folk-customs of modern savage tribes has not resulted in the discovery of many instances of this form of ritual murder. Pro- bably a more careful and painstaking search than I have been able to devote to the investigation may reveal many more ; and if special attention were directed to the subject while making enquiries among uncivilized races, further examples might perhaps come to light.

I have collected the following incidents and tales as bearing on the subject of sacrifice :

The ancient Franks, on crossing a river, sacrificed women and children.^

The Aztecs of Mexico, whose baptismal ceremony we detailed at an earlier stage, on certain religious holidays, in accordance with a strictly observed rite, sacrificed infants at the breast on high mountains, or threw them into the lake which washes the city of Mexico, in honour of the god of rain.-

In India, as everyone knows, the Hindoo women used to sacrifice their children to the Ganges.

In ancient Egypt a virgin was probably thrown annually into the Nile, although Ebers, who discusses the matter, is inclined to doubt it. At all events, to this day, a figure made of Nile mud, and called " the Virgin," is thrown into the river.^

An old English story of a child and a well has already been told. Here is another one. " The village of Osmotherly is seven miles from Northallerton. Tradi- tion has it that Osmund, King of Northumbria, and his wife, had an only son, Oswy, heir to his kingdom. The

^ Hope, I.e., xiii. "^ Prehistoric America, p. 293.

2 Ebers, Egypt, vol. i., p. 199.