Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/231

 Water and JJ^c/l- Worshif^ in Man.

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the following curious account of another well in the church- yard of that parish : — " In the cemetery of St. Maughold's Church there was a sarcophagus of hollow stone, whereout a spring continually exuded in the twelfth century. This was sweet to the draught, wholesome to the taste, and it healed divers infirmities. It is added, whosoever drinketh thereof, either rcceiveth instant health, or instantly he dieth. And in that stone are the bones of St. Machaldus said to rest^ ; yet therein is nothing found save only clear water. Though many oftentimes endeavoured to remove the stone, and especially the King of the Norici (Norwegians), who subdued the island, that he might at all times have sweet water ; yet have they all failed in their attempt, for the deeper they have delved to raise up the stone, so much the more deeply was it found fixed in the earth."- There remains no tradition of the existence of such a spring in the churchyard ; but I am nevertheless able, through the kindness of the Rev. S. N. Harrison, who has caused numerous excavations to be made in the churchyard, of which he has an unrivalled knowledge, to show that Colgan's information as regards the position of this spring is probably correct.

About 1830, when a grave was being dug, a sarcophagus or hollow stone, measuring 4 ft. long by 3 ft. 2 in. broad, and 10 in. deep, was discovered four yards from the north- eastern gable of the present church, but there was no spring in connexion with it. This may possibly be the sarco- phagus spoken of by Colgan, and the absence of water is capable of a satisfactory explanation. For the whole churchyard before i860 is known to have been full of water ; but about that year a mine level was driven across it, which had the effect of draining it. And, as to the

^ They are said to have been preserved till the Reformation. {Z^s Petits Bollandistes ; Vies des Saints, tome V, xxv Avril, No. i, p. 15.)

^ Trias Tkainnaiurga, Sexta Vita S. Patricii, cap. cliii, pp. 98, 99, and 116.