Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/239

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These are the chief printed sources from which I have derived the proverbs and sayings dealt with, but I know there are others formerly in use amongst the Manx people with which I hope hereafter to extend the accompanying list.

Joseph Train, F.S.A., author of An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man, writing in 1846, informs us that he "caused about 300 proverbs to be translated from the Manx language into English, expecting to discover some specimens of ancient aphoristic wisdom relating either to historical incident, local customs, or sententious maxims", but he states he found none which appeared indigenous, or that were not the common property of other nations.

Upon this point, although not agreeing with Train's conclusion, I cannot do better than quote the Rev. T. E. Brown, who says that "getting an English or Scotch equivalent for a Manx proverb does not prove that the Manx proverb is devoid of originality, for the thoughts and ideas of mankind are very similar in all nations, and the expressions of these thoughts must naturally partake of the same similarity."

Miss E. Cookson, author of Poems from Manxland, aptly says that "what fossils are to the geologist, customs and creeds are to the historian". In a similar sense, proverbs are now regarded by the folk-lorist as part of the great unwritten testimony of prehistoric ages. Therefore, instead of the similarity of the majority of the Manx proverbs to those of other nations rendering them unworthy of the student's notice, the reverse, I submit, is the case, inasmuch as it is part of his doctrine to prove the natural affinity of all nations to one another, and to trace the gradual evolution of civilisation from a state of savagery once common to all. Proverbs may also be the means of preserving and handing down words or customs which would otherwise have become extinct.

I have selected the following proverbs and sayings