Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/66

 58 cases to which I have called your attention, not only to tie rags to the well-tree, but also to throw pins or other small objects into the well; but I cannot help adhering to my view that the distinction was probably an ancient one between two orders of things. In other words, I am still inclined to believe that the rag was regarded as the vehicle of the disease of which the ailing visitor to the well wished to be rid, and that the bead, button, or coin deposited by him in the well, or in a receptacle near the well, alone formed the offering. When I suggested this in connection with certain wells in the Isle of Man, the President of the Folk-lore Society remarked as follows (, iii, 89):—"There is some evidence against that, from the fact that in the case of some wells, especially in Scotland at one time, the whole garment was put down as an offering. Gradually these offerings of clothes became 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." As to the monoliths and dolmens, I am too little conversant with the facts to feel sure that I understand the President's reference; so perhaps he would not mind amplifying this remark at some opportune moment. But as to his suggestion that the rag originally meant the whole garment, that will suit my hypothesis admirably; in other words, the whole garment was, as I take it, the vehicle of the disease: the whole garment was accursed, and not merely a part of it. The President has returned to the question in his excellent address; and I must at once admit that he has succeeded in proving that a certain amount of confusion is made between things which I regard as belonging originally to distinct categories: witness the inimitable Irish instance which he quoted: — "To St. Columbkill I offer up this button, a bit o' the waistband o' my own breeches, an' a taste o' my wife's petticoat, in remimbrance of us havin' made this holy station; an' may they rise up in glory to prove it for us in the last day." Here not only the button is treated as an offering,