Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/235

 Water and Well-Wo7'ship in Man. ^ 227

walking round the well, repeating the same prayer as at CJiibber LansJi, leaving a rag, and either dropping a coin in the well, or leaving three white pebbles close to it,^ the pebbles being the offerings of those who were too poor to put in a coin.- The Rev. E. B. Savage, who visited this well three years ago, found no rags, but there were a number of halfpence in the well, and a large pile of white pebbles close by it. He sent some of the coins and pebbles to the Pitt- Rivers Museum at Oxford, retaining some for the proposed Manx Museum. The water of this well was most efficacious when the parson of Marown was in church on Sunday. It was on such an occasion that I visited this well in February last, and bathed a defective eye with its water, but I regret to say that the eye has not improved since then. Perhaps the failure of a cure in my case has resulted from my not having gone through the whole ritual, or, worse still, from want of faith in the efficacy of the water. That the latter was probably the true cause will appear from an analysis^ of this water, kindly taken by Mr. J. F. Terry, Public Analyst to the Manx Government, which has been sub- mitted to Dr. Lauder Brunton, who says : " The water is a most ordinary one, and does not contain anything likely to help, even slightly, any disease of the eyes." To this he adds, somewhat wickedly : " It might, of course, be useful for a patient to go for a nice country walk and there bathe his eyes in this water." As the well is situated in one of the most beautiful and healthy districts in the island, some four miles from Douglas, and as the walk to it entails the climbing of several steep hills, there is some probability in the learned Doctor's suggestion that the patients would improve in general health, and so, perhaps,

1 W. J. C, Braddan.

2 Mr. Savage thinks that the three pebbles indicate some survival of Phallicism ; but, as they prayed in the name of the Three Persons, it is more likely to be Trinitarian.

' For analysis, see Appendix A.

Q2