Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/120

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them into rocks, and they are there to this day, and form a reef where formerly was a secure landing-place.

Another phenomenon happened on this occasion, evidence of which still remains in the shape of a large glacial boulder resting on an outcrop of the local rocks on the shore. This erratic, evidently foreign to the neighbourhood, had been swimming patiently after the ship all the way from Italy; but "a stern chase" is well known to be a "long chase," and so it never overtook the saint, but followed in his wake to Ardmore and lodged itself safely on a ridge near the ship, crying out "The Clerk forgot the Bell" ("Dearmhad an chéirigh ar an chlog"), and sure enough they found upon it his bell and his vestments that had been left behind at Rome! This holy stone, as it is called, works miracles of healing ; both to those that rub their backs against it, but more especially to those that creep under it in the hollow between the two supporting ribs of rock. But if anyone attempts this cure wearing a stolen garment or having unabsolved sins on their conscience, the stone presses down and prevents their passage through.

The practice of creeping beneath stones is exemplified in an old churchyard beside L. Gill, near Col. Wood Martin's place. Here is a tombstone under which childless women creep who wish to become mothers.

Colloquial Phrases.

If you enter a dairy or any place where an industry is going on it is not right to praise the results without first saying "God bless the work" or "God bless you." (In the south of Ireland.)

And among the upper classes, I was told in Co. Waterford, it was the habit if you praised anything to touch wood of any sort at once, or commence the remark by saying "o' good time be it spoken," etc.

This superstition seems on all fours with the expression of "tempting Providence" in its underlying apprehension of an evil result from a malign power.