Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/98

90 less and less till they came down to rags. Also in other parts, the geographical distribution of rag-offerings coincides with the existence of monoliths and dolmens. Though the Manx evidence goes against the more general conclusion, it is important to emphasise it. The absence of the tree in connection with well- worship is a very interesting subject. Where we find in England no tree, the rag-well gives way to the pin-well, and as the trees are worn away the pin, as another part of dress, is substituted.

As to the first-foot on New Year's Day, Prof. Rhys seemed to distinguish between the three different objects which were unlucky—a woman, red-haired, and splay-footed people. Red hair and splay-foot might be matters of race. Why not go a little bit further, and say the case of the woman is also a matter of race? Mr. Stuart-Glennie's matriarchy theory is based on the fact of many tribes marrying women of different races. Two elements of the first-foot superstition may be put down as racial, why not the third?

As to lighting of fire from one central fire, there is the belief that if no fire were found some great misfortune would happen. Fire-worship, Canon Taylor asserts, is not Aryan at all, but Iberian. As to fires being lighted from a common centre, I should like to see the Society take up the subject as one to investigate. It is found in all parts where Celtic holding has been most lasting. Fires of the household are lighted from that beltan fire on a particular day. There is a superstition against not lighting from that particular fire. It is evident that Prof. Rhys has observed with very great attention. I should like to put this question before him.


 * As to the qualtagh, I have been thrown into an ocean of perplexity, first by Prof. Rhys and secondly by Mr. Gomme. It would seem from Prof. Rhys that the unlucky person is a remnant of the conquering race; a woman is the unlucky person according to Mr. Gomme; but if red-haired and splay-footed people, the qualtaghs were not likely to be women of the aboriginal race, i.e., assuming this race to have been a dark, small, high-instepped one. Assuming there is anything at all in the historical and ethnological explanation, why should unluckiness attach itself both to the conquering race and to the woman,