Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/363

 Rh more information about it, and so have I. This is a very curious instance of a pagan practice profoundly modified to procure a new lease of life; but it is needless for me to say that I do not quite understand how Jephthah's Daughter came to be introduced, and that I should be glad to have light shed on the question.

I notice, with regard to most of the mountains climbed on the first Sunday of Harvest, that they seem to have near their summits wells of some celebrity; and these wells appear 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 Snæfell and 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 on the first Sunday of Harvest, and that only during the hour the books were open at church, which, shifted back to Roman Catholic times, means doubtless the hour when the priest is engaged saying Mass. This restriction, however, is not peculiar to St. Maughold's Well, as I have heard of it in connection 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