CHAPTER XI NOTES
[176.1] Transactions of the Liverpool Welsh National Society, 8th session (1892-3), 93.
[177.1] iv. Folklore, 55. Sikes, 351 et seqq., mentions several other Welsh examples; but they present no special features.
[178.1] See a number of examples referred to in Gomme, Ethn., 83 et seqq. Also the case of Saint Oswald’s Well, referred to, antè, [p. 22].
[178.2] Athenæum, 1st April 1893, 415.
[178.3] Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. (1892), 818.
[179.1] W. Gray, in iv. Proc. Belfast Nat. Field Club, 2d ser., 94.
[179.2] Gomme, Ethn., 91 et seqq. See also vi. N. and Q., 8th ser., 113.
[179.3] iv. N. and Q., 8th ser., 246.
[179.4] Prof. Rhys, in iii. Folklore, 75. Mr. Moore is quoted as giving a slightly different version of the ritual. I think his version probably describes a more recent and degraded form of the ceremony. In any case, the rag had to be wetted with water from the well. Other Manx wells are discussed by Mr. Moore in an article on “Water and Well-worship in Man,” v. Folklore, 212. See particularly pp. [217], [219], [222], [224], [226].
[180.1] x. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., 606.
[180.2] iii. Folklore, 69.
[181.1] ii. Brand, 269 note, 268 note, 270 note, quoting xviii. Statistical Account of Scotland, 630, Macaulay, Hist. St. Kilda, 95, and Martin, Western Islands, 140. A similar account is given of a well in the island of Islay.
[181.2] xxvi. Antiquary, 30.
[181.3] iii. Folklore, 67.
[182.1] Miss Godden, in iv. Folklore, 399; Sir Arthur Mitchell, in vi. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., 253.
[183.1] Bartsch, ii. Sagen, 104.
[184.1] Wallonia, No. 3, 1893.
[184.2] E. Monseur, in i. Bull. de F.L., 250, citing Van Bastelaer.
[184.3] Sébillot, Coutumes, 96. According to M. Certeux, the pins are to be thrown through a hole in the window into the chapel. ix. Rev. Trad. Pop., 288.
[185.1] Sébillot, Coutumes, 97, quoting Fouquet, Légendes du Morbihan. As to St. Guirec’s shrine, see also ii. Arch. Camb., 5th ser., 175.
[185.2] E. Monseur, in i. Bull. de F.L., 250, citing Van Bastelaer.
[186.1] G. Le Calvez, in vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 92.
[186.2] Gaidoz, in vi. Rev. de l’Hist. des Rel., 10, 12. See also iv. N. and Q., 8th ser., 186.
[187.1] Volkov, in viii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 448.
[187.2] Gaidoz, Vieux Rite, 29, quoting Clos, Mémoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires de France. The same is done at the well of Saint Gobrien at Camors. ix. Rev. Trad. Pop., 490.
[187.3] Gaidoz, Vieux Rite, 41, quoting Mémoires de la Soc. Archéologique de Bordeaux.
[187.4] i. Bartsch, 418.
[188.1] Liebrecht, Gerv. Tilb., 244, quoting Thiers, Traité des Superstitions. See also Scot, 165, quoting Martin of Arles.
[188.2] G. Amalfi, in i. Rivista, 294.
[188.3] Finamore, Trad. Pop. Abr., 147.
[188.4] Preller, i. Röm. Myth., 258.
[189.1] Gaidoz, in vii. Rev. de l’Hist. des Rel., 9.
[189.2] Grabowsky, in Globus lxvii. No. 1. I am indebted to M. Schmeltz for this reference.
[189.3] Rodd, 165, 176.
[190.1] i. Bull. F.L., 228, citing the Ἐφημερὶς ἀρχαιολογική.
[190.2] Aristophanes, Plut., 840, 937. Initiates at the Mysteries, explains the scholiast on the former passage, consecrated at some shrine the garments they had worn during the ceremony. And see Anrich, 211.
[190.3] Lucan, Phars., i. 135; Vergil, Æn., xii. 766. Bötticher, 62, et seqq., mentions other instances, and in his illustrations gives several figures showing the custom.
[191.1] Georgeakis, 348, 349.
[191.2] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 29.
[191.3] vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 56, citing Boijdowsky, Kievskaïa Starina.
[192.1] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 22, 70.
[192.2] H. H. Wilson, ii. Works, 169.
[193.1] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 50, 61; Burton, Sindh, 177; i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 39, 88, 174; Dalpatrám Dayá, 19, 20; i. Hanway, 260; Yule, i. Marco Polo, 128; i. Ouseley, 313, 369, et seqq., ii. 83; iii. 532. The Turks tear off strips of their robes and tie them to the railing surrounding a saint’s tomb. Featherman, Turanians, 398.
[193.2] Robertson Smith, Rel. Sem., 170; Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 60, 34.
[193.3] Rodd, 167, quoting Kamporoglou, Hist. Ath.
[194.1] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 52.
[194.2] Cooper, 275.
[195.1] i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 76, quoting Moorcroft and Trebeck, Trav. in the Himalayas.
[195.2] Lewin, 232.
[195.3] Georgi, 25, 156.
[195.4] ii. Erman, 409.
[196.1] vii. Mélusine, 135.
[196.2] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 61.
[196.3] i. Schuyler, 138; ii. 113.
[196.4] A. H. Savage Landor, in Fortnightly Rev., Aug. 1894, 186.
[196.5] H. S. Sanderson, in xxiv. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 311.
[197.1] Campbell, i. Circular Notes, 350.
[197.2] vi. Mélusine, 154, 155, quoting the Temps. I have referred to these performances by women in an earlier chapter, and compared them with a similar practice in Glamorganshire. Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to the case of St. Oswald’s Well at Oswestry, where the wish is to be obtained by flinging on a certain stone the remainder of the water in one’s hand after drinking. It must be done at midnight. Burne, 428. The Japanese practice is also referred to by Chamberlain, xxii. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 357. Compare with the rite at Penvenan, suprà, [p. 186].
[197.3] xxii. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 359. See also 356. “In some of the Louisiade group there are certain very large well-known trees under which” the natives “have their feasts. These trees appear to be credited with possessing souls, as a portion of the feast is set aside for them, and bones, both pigs’ and human, are everywhere deeply imbedded in their branches.” Report of Special Commission for 1887 on British New Guinea, quoted in iii. Arch. Rev., 416. This custom, though not precisely the one now under discussion, is closely related.
[198.1] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 61, 60; vii. Internat. Archiv., 145. Crooke, 105, describing several rag-shrines in India, notes that they are generally called “Our Lady of Tatters.” One in Berár is called “The Lord of Tatters.”
[198.2] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 60.
[199.1] Mungo Park, 38.
[199.2] Gaidoz, in vii. Rev. de l’hist. des Rel., 7, quoting Charles de Rouvre, Bull. de la Soc. de Géog., Oct. 1880. M. Schmeltz has figured in vii. Internat. Archiv, 144, two specimens of the n’doké from the Congo and the Cameroon now in the National Museum of Ethnography at Leiden. They are stuck with pins and pieces of iron. Another from West Africa covered with nails may be seen in the British Museum. See also Herbert Ward, in xxiv. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 288.
[200.1] i. Binger, 212. See also Mungo Park, 250.
[200.2] Darwin, Journ., 68.
[203.1] ii. Brand, 268 note, quoting Statistical Account.
[204.1] xxvii. Antiquary, 169. Heron (Journey through the Western Counties of Scotland, 282) gives a less complete account of the practices at Strathfillan. In his time (1792) the offerings consisted of clothes, or a small bunch of heath. He asserts, I know not on what authority, that “more precious offerings used once to be brought. But these being never left long in the unmolested possession of the saint, it has become customary to make him presents which may afford no temptation to theft.”
[204.2] At a sacred cave in Kumaon is a pool where the worshipper must bathe with his clothes on, and then leave them for the priest. iii. N. Ind. N. and Q., 147. An instance is recorded of a spring in Italy where it was believed that a child bathed before its seventh year would be healed of all diseases. The parents left the child’s clothes to be distributed among the poor. A bishop, however, positively put an end to the superstition; and the spring has since been called “Acqua Scommunicata.” Ramage, 274. This bishop was perhaps eccentric. The bishop of Girgenti does not seem to have prohibited the practice, at the church of San Calogero in that city, of bringing children, stripping them naked in pursuance of a vow, and leaving their best clothes hung on a stick before the altar. i. Rivista, 790.
[205.1] Gen. xxxi. 44.
[206.1] Livingstone, Zambesi, 229.
[206.2] Darwin, Journ., 46.
[206.3] Josh. vii. 25; 2 Sam. xviii. 17.
[207.1] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 46, 47, 49, 50, 55, quoting various writers; De Gubernatis, i. Myth. Plantes, 160 note, citing Mantegazza; Finamore, Trad. Pop. Abr., 100; v. Am Urquell, 235; Georgeakis, 323; i. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 132; xiii. Archivio, 260; Le Braz, 230, 307; Thomas, Prob. Ohio Mounds, 12, citing Smith’s History of Wisconsin; Featherman, Chiapo-Mar., 495.
[207.2] Hahn, Tsuni-ǁgoam, 45, 46, 47, 52, 56, 69, quoting various writers.
[207.3] i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 40; Dalpatrám Dayá, 19, 20.
[209.1] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 46, 49, 55. Cf. with the Dyak custom that of the Esthonians on the island of Oesel. Ibid., 47. As to the Peruvian rite, i. Garcilasso, 131. Compare with it a Malabar custom of taking a shred from the clothes and presenting it to the new moon when first seen. i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 88.
[209.2] Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. (1892), 819.
[209.3] Athenæum, 1st April 1893, 415.
[209.4] Casalis, 287. A parallel practice would seem to be that of putting mud in a niche above the well at the Chapel of the Seven Saints, Plédran, Côtes-du-Nord—not on the child—to cure the mumps. Dr. Aubry, in vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 599.
[210.1] W. A. Craigie, in iv. Folklore, 223, quoting the Landnámabók. Cf. the custom in the Louisiade Islands cited antè, [p. 197], note, and several African customs also cited above.
[211.1] i. Bull. F.L., 250.
[212.1] vi. Mélusine, 155.
[213.1] It is fair to M. Monseur to say that he recognises expressly (loc. cit.) the priority of trees as objects of worship, in point of time, to fetishes of wood; and M. Gaidoz, of course, would admit the same. But I do not think this affects my criticism. Elsewhere the former refers to two cases, which by no means stand alone, as instances of maltreated divinities. The remedy prescribed for toothache at Warnaut and Bioulx, in the province of Namur, is to bite, as noted in the last chapter, one of the crosses placed on the wayside in memory of persons who have died violent deaths in the neighbourhood. And at Herve, a girl who desires to be married goes to pray at Saint Joseph’s Chapel. She must bite the iron trellis-work around the saint’s statue—of course, because she cannot get at the saint himself. ii. Bull. F.L., 7, 56. It seems to me, however, that the object is, in both cases, to bring the sufferer or suppliant into union with the deceased or with the saint. So, to cure the fever, we find among the French superstitions of the seventeenth century the prescription to bind the patient for a while with a cord, or fasten him with wood or straw to a certain tree; and it was the opinion of some that it must be done early in the morning, that the patient must be fasting and must bite the bark of the tree before being released. Liebrecht, in Gerv. Tilb., 238, quoting Thiers. In Transylvania, one who suffers from toothache bites the bell-rope while the church-bells are ringing, saying:—
“The free masses are sung,
The bells have rung,
The Gospel is read,
The worm in my teeth shall be dead.”
Von Wlislocki, Siebenb. Sachs., 106. This is neither Transplantation nor the ill-using of a god.
[216.1] Pausanias, ii. 11. A representation of the dedicated lock was sometimes carved in stone upon a tablet and presented to the shrine. In the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum is a marble slab found in Thessaly, whereon are carved two tresses offered to Poseidon. I am indebted to Mr. W. H. D. Rouse for drawing my attention to this.
[217.1] As to the dedication of hair, see Bötticher, 92 et seqq., to which I am indebted for most of the above illustrations.
[217.2] Wilken, Haaropfer, 39, 40, 56; Robertson Smith, Rel. Sem., 305.
[217.3] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 150.
[217.4] Zingerle, Sagen, 470.
[218.1] Knoop, Sagen aus Posen, 182. According to another story, this wonderful hair was the gift of a noble lady as the most beautiful thing she had.
[218.2] Gaidoz, in vii. Mélusine, 84, quoting M. Auricoste de Lazarque, an eye-witness.
[219.1] i. De Nino, 49.
[219.2] Scot, 165 (l. xi., c. 15).
[219.3] Pettigrew, 40.
[219.4] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 22.
[219.5] Garnett, i. Wom., 73.
[220.1] i. Ainsworth, 260.
[220.2] De Gubernatis, i. Myth. Plantes, 160 note.
[220.3] Crooke, 231, quoting Col. Tod’s Annals.
[220.4] Wilken, Haaropfer, 55, citing Sir Monier Williams, Religious Life and Thought in India, 375.
[220.5] Featherman, Turanians, 269.
[220.6] Ellis, Tour, 325.
[221.1] i. Macdonald, 109, 111.
[221.2] Featherman, Nigr., 162.
[221.3] i. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 159.
[221.4] Andree, i. Ethnog. Par., 151, 152; i. Rep. Bur. Ethn., passim.
[222.1] Browning, Artemis Prologizes.
[224.1] Ploss, i. Kind, 15, citing Mörenhout.
[224.2] ii. Bartsch, 45; ii. Witzschel, 249.
[224.3] Scot, 165, quoting, apparently, Martin of Arles. Compare the Bosnian customs, mentioned suprà, vol. i. p. 152.
[224.4] Dr. Paul Aubry, in vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 599.
[224.5] Liebrecht, in Gerv. Tilb., 240, quoting Thiers.
[224.6] v. Journ. Am. F.L., 108, 242; ix. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 572.
[225.1] ii. Zeits. des Vereins, 168. See the monkish MS. of the miracles of Simon de Montfort, printed by the Camden Soc., passim.
[225.2] C. A. White, in vii. N. and Q., 8th ser., 6, quoting a book the authorship and bibliography of which are still to seek.
[225.3] Grimm, Teut. Myth., 1757. A votive offering still not uncommon is a candle of the size or weight of the person who, or on whose behalf, the vow is made. See for example i. Rivista, 790.
[225.4] B. H. Chamberlain, in xxii. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 364.
[226.1] i. Doolittle, 115.
[226.2] Capt. Bourke, in ix. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 556, quoting several authorities.
[226.3] Ibid., 572. Saint Francis’ is not the only image thus made useful. See v. Journ. Am. F.L., 242; vii. 135.
[226.4] Pineau, 508. In Brittany, bread rubbed on the statue of Saint Gildas is given to cattle and horses, and even eaten by human beings as a preventive against the bites of mad dogs. Le Calvez, in vii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 93.
[226.5] Casalis, 267.
[227.1] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Mag., 22.
[227.2] Journal of Thomas Dineley, in i. Journ. Kilk. Arch. Soc., N.S., 180.
[227.3] Miss Godden, in iv. Folklore, 502, quoting Dr. Reeves. In Iceland, a preventive of sea-sickness is a sod from the churchyard worn in the shoe. ii. Powell and Magnússon, 644; ii. Lehmann-Filhés, 252; both from Arnason.
[227.4] v. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 426; ix. 473; ii. Folklore, 442. Compare the Apache use of hoddentin, the pollen of the tule-rush. ix. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 500, et seqq. Compare also the consecration of the Hindu votaries of Devi, by the smearing of their foreheads with a portion of the red powder which has marked an earthenware pitcher containing water and other things infused, by means of mantrás, with the spirit of the goddess. iv, N. Ind. N. and Q., 19.
[228.1] This intention, however, is by no means universal. Some instances to the contrary have already been given. I may add to them that in Belgium, in spite of certain examples like that of Saint Etto’s Cross, it seems to be believed that a nail found, especially in a tree, brings good luck. i. Bull. de F.L., 250. In such a case there can be no transfer of disease.
[229.1] Kolbe, 163.
[230.1] My authority for this statement is a paper read by Professor Kovalevsky at the British Association meeting at Oxford, August 1894, and not yet printed.
[230.2] G. Ferraro, in xiii. Archivio, 3.
[231.1] ii. F.L. Journ., 349.
[231.2] Addy, 115.