Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/313

 Children and Wells. 277

'wise' being consulted at his birth, foretold the child would on a certain day be drowned. The mother in every- way endeavoured to stave off the catastrophe, and, as the time for the fatal event neared, she fled with the boy to the top of Osnaberg, or Roseberry Topping, as it is now called, safe, as she surmised, from any watery depths. Here she awaited the passing away of the fatal day. Having fallen asleep through fatigue, the young prince wandered away from her, and came across a small well. Seeing his face reflected in the water, he endeavoured to grasp it, fell in, and was drowned." ^

Other tales are told about several wells in England, in which the idea of sacrifice is clearly preserved.

In addition to these, Grimm details a few folk-sayings and legends with the same substratum.

The nixy, we are told, used to demand a cruel and compulsory sacrifice, of which the memory is still extant in popular tradition. To this day the rivers are supposed by the people to claim their yearly victim, just as we say :

" River of Dart ! River of Dart ! Every year thou claimest a heart."

This yearly victim was usually an innocent child.^

In Austria the villagers elect a Whitsun king, dress

him up in green boughs, blacken his face, and pitch him

into the brook.^

The following custom may be ascribed to the influence

simply of sympathetic magic, but it nevertheless presents

features highly suggestive of an attenuated sacrificial

rite.

In Germany rain is obtained by the practice about to

be described. " A little girl is completely undressed and

led outside the town, where she is made to dig up

^ Hope, /.c, 184. "Grimm, /.c, vol. ii., p. 494.


 * Grimm, I.e., vol. ii., p. 595.