Page:The Science of Fairy Tales.djvu/264

 either case the sanctity remains. Wells and pools, too, many of them still held sacred, were in various ways the objects of superstition at the Midsummer festival; for which the Church, when she chose to take the practices under her protection, had an ample excuse in St. John's mission to baptize. Now, whatever spots were the haunt of pagan divinities, there it was doubtless that those divinities were expected to appear; and by the same reasoning they would be most likely to appear during the favoured hours of the holy days. This is exactly what we find to be the case with Enchanted Princesses, and, so far as the days are recorded, with Sleeping Heroes. The heroes lie within the hills, which in many legends are only open on certain days. The princesses appear upon the hills, or by the sides of pools, the sites, if we believe the legends, of ancient castles where they dwelt. Once in the year, or once in a cycle of years, on a certain day, usually Midsummer Day or Midsummer Eve, they come to wash, or to fetch water, in their own form, either compelled or permitted by the terms of the curse that has bound them; and then it is that mortals are admitted to an interview and may render them the service of disenchantment. The instances in which the days are specified are so frequent we may perhaps suspect that they were originally mentioned in all, but that time and other circumstances have caused them to be forgotten. However this may be, it is only reasonable to conclude that, in the number of instances remaining, we have a tradition of the honours long ago paid to these degraded divinities on the days appointed for their worship.