Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/228

214 a spoonful of each dish on a plate, and after supper throw the food into the well, with an appointed formula, somewhat thus: —

'House-father gives thee greeting, Thee by me entreating: Springlet, share our feast of Yule, But give us water to the full; When the land is plagued with drought, Drive it with thy well-spring out.'

It well shows the unchanged survival of savage thought in modern peasants' minds, to find still in Slavonic lands the very same fear of drinking a harmful spirit in the water, that has been noticed among the Esquimaux. It is a sin for a Bulgarian not to throw some water out of every bucket brought from the fountain; some elemental spirit might be floating on the surface, and if not thrown out, might take up his abode in the house, or enter into the body of some one drinking from the vessel. Elsewhere in Europe, the list of still existing water-rites may be extended. The ancient lake-offerings of the South of France seem not yet forgotten in La Lozère, the Bretons venerate as of old their sacred springs, and Scotland and Ireland can show in parish after parish the sites and even the actual survivals of such observance at the holy wells. Perhaps Welshmen no longer offer cocks and hens to St. Tecla at her sacred well and church of Llandegla, but Cornish folk still drop into the old holy- wells offerings of pins, nails, and rags, expecting from their waters cure for disease, and omens from their bubbles as to health and marriage.

The spirits of the tree and grove no less deserve our

1 Grohmann, 'Aberglauben aus Böhmen und Mähren,' p. 43, &c. Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 291, &c. Ralston, 'Songs of Russian People,' p. 139, &c.