[10] Mr. Moore is not familiar with this term, but I heard it at Surby, in the south; and I find buidseach and buidseachd given as Highland Gaelic words for a witch and witchcraft respectively. [↑]
[11] See Stokes’ Goidelica, p. 151. [↑]
[12] This chapter was written in 1891, except the portions of it which refer to later dates indicated. [↑]
[13] See the Stokes-O’Donovan edition of Cormac (Calcutta, 1868), pp. 19, 23. [↑]
[14] Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, xi. 620; Pennant’s Tour in Scotland in 1769 (3rd edition, Warrington, 1774), i. 97, 186, 291; Thomas Stephens’ Gododin, pp. 124–6; and Dr. Murray in the New English Dictionary, s. v. Beltane. [↑]
[15] In my Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, pp. 517–21. [↑]
[16] As to the Thargelia and Delia, see Preller’s Griechische Mythologie, i. 260–2, and A. Mommsen’s Heortologie, pp. 414–25. [↑]
[17] See section H of the Report of the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association in 1896, pp. 626–56. [↑]
[18] It is my impression that it is crowned with a small tumulus, and that it forms the highest ground in Jurby, which was once an island by itself. The one between Ramsey and Bride is also probably the highest point of the range. But these are questions which I should like to see further examined, say by Mr. Arthur Moore or Mr. Kermode. [↑]
[19] Cronk yn Irree Laa, despite the gender, is the name as pronounced by all Manxmen who have not been misled by antiquarians. To convey the other meaning, referring to the day watch, the name would have to be Cronk ny Harrey Laa; in fact, a part of the Howe in the south of the island is called Cronk ny Harrey, ‘the Hill of the Watch.’ Mr. Moore tells me that the Jurby cronk was one of the eminences for ‘Watch and Ward’; but he is now of opinion that the high mountain of Cronk yn Irree Laa in the south was not. As to the duty of the inhabitants to keep ‘Watch and Ward’ over the island, see the passage concerning it extracted from the Manx Statutes (vol. i. p. 65) by Mr. Moore in his Manx Surnames, pp. 183–3; also my preface to the same work, pp. v–viii. [↑]