Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/221

 Water and Well- Worship in Man. ^ 213

good person on a stone in the middle of a lake.^ I would also call attention to the fact that some of the graveyards which surround the ancient kccills are artificially raised, and arc surrounded with a ditch, into which water would naturally fall.- An instance of the superstition that spirits could not cross running water was communicated to Mr. Roedcr in 1883 :— " The ghost of a lady in silk walks in the mountain passes in the evening time. As soon as you go after her, and she comes to the water or running brook, she changes ; she cannot go on, as she cannot pass."

As water was supposed to be capable of stopping the passage of diseases, we need not be surprised at its also being supposed to be capable of curing them ; and perhaps the water of some of the sacred wells in Man has an actual sanative value, though, as will be seen later, that of one of the most famous of them has none. Quite apart, however, from any sanative qualities, there was a belief in the magical power of water generally. " Even sea-water", writes Professor Rhys with reference to the Isle of Man, " was believed to have considerable virtues if you washed in it while the books were open at church {i.e., during service), as I was told by a woman who had many years ago repeatedly taken her own sister to divers wells and to the sea during the service on Sunday, in order to have her eyes cured of their chronic weakness."-^

Among these magical powers of water was that of being a vehicle for divination. Thus, at Hollantide, girls obtained information about their future husbands by filling their mouths with water, holding a pinch of salt in each hand, and then betaking themselves to the next neighbour's house but one. They then listened through the keyhole to the conversation, and the first name mentioned would be that of their future husband. On the same eve also, as

1 Folk- Lore of the Isle of Man, p. 40.

'^ For instance. KceiU Linga7t., in the parish of Marown.

3 FOLK-LORE, vol. ii. pp. 307-8.