Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/90

82 in the qualtagh. I have heard it related in the Isle of Man that women have been known to keep indoors on New Year's Day until the qualtagh comes, which sometimes means their being prisoners for the greater part of the day, in order to avoid the risk of first meeting one who is not of the right sex and complexion. On the other hand, when the qualtagh is of the right description, considerable fuss is made of him; to say the least, he has to accept food and drink, possibly more permanent gifts. Thus a tall, black-haired native of Kirk Michael described to me how he chanced on New Year's Day years ago to turn into a lonely cottage in order to light his pipe, and how he found he was the qualtagh: he had to sit down to have food, and when he went away it was with a present and the blessings of the family. Now New Year's Day is the time for gifts in Wales, as shown by the name for them, calennig, which is derived from calan, the Welsh form of the Latin calendæ, New Year's Day being in Welsh Y Calan, 'the Calends'. The same is the day for gifts in Scotland and in Ireland, except in so far as Christmas-boxes have been making inroads from England; I need not add that the Jour de l'An is the day for gifts also in France. My question then is this: Is there any connection of origin between the institution of New Year's Day gifts and the belief in a qualtagh?

Now that it has been indicated what sort of a qualtagh it is unlucky to have, I may as well proceed to mention the other things which I have heard treated as unlucky in the Island. Some of them scarcely require to be noticed, as there is nothing specially Manx about them, such as the belief that it is unlucky to have the first glimpse of the new moon through glass. That is a superstition which is, I believe, widely spread, and, among other countries, it is quite familiar in Wales. It is also believed in Man, as it used to be in Wales and Ireland, that it is unlucky to disturb antiquities, especially old burial-places and old churches.