Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/88

80 The Society may have published information on this subject, but I am at present utterly ignorant what importance the qualtagh may have enjoyed in other parts of the British Isles. As to Wales, I can only recall, that, when I was a very small boy, I used to be sent very early on New Year's morning to call on an old uncle of mine, because, as I was told, I should be certain to receive a calennig or a calendary gift from him, but on no account would my sister be allowed to go, as he would only see a boy on such an occasion as that. I do not recollect anything being said as to the colour of one's hair or the shape of one's foot; but that sort of negative evidence is of very little value, as the qualtagh was fast passing out of consideration.

The preference here given to a boy over a girl looks like one of the widely-spread superstitions which rule against the fair sex; but, as to the colour of the hair, I should be predisposed to think that it possibly rests on racial antipathy, long ago forgotten; for it may perhaps be regarded as going back to a time when the dark-haired race reckoned the Aryan of fair complexion as his natural enemy, the very sight of whom brought with it thoughts calculated to make him unhappy and despondent. If this idea prove to be approximately correct, one might suggest that the racial distinction in question referred to the struggles between the inhabitants of Man and their Scandinavian conquerors; but to my thinking it is just as likely that it goes far further back.

Lastly, what is one to say with regard to the spaagagh or splay-footed person, now more usually defined as flat-footed or having no instep? I have heard it said in the south of the Island that it is unlucky to meet a spaagagh in the morning at any time of the year, and not on New Year's Day alone; but this does not help us in the attempt to find the genesis of this belief If it were said that it was unlucky to meet a deformed person, it would look somewhat more natural; but why fix on the flat-footed