[26] On being asked, after reading this paper to the Folk-Lore Society, who was supposed to make the footmarks in the ashes, I had to confess that I had been careless enough never to have asked the question. I have referred it to Mr. Moore, who informs me that nobody, as I expected, will venture on any explanation by whom the footmarks are made. [↑]
[27] This seems to imply the application of the same adjective, some time or other, to clean water and a handsome man, just as we speak in North Cardiganshire of dwr glân, ‘clean water,’ and bachgen glân, ‘a handsome boy.’ [↑]
[28] In Phillips’ Book of Common Prayer this is called Lá nolick y biggy, ‘Little Nativity Day,’ and Lá ghian blieny, ‘The Day of the Year’s End,’ meaning, of course, the former end of the year, not the latter: see pp. 55, 62, 66. [↑]
[29] See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 514–5, and the Brython, ii. 20, 120: an instance in point occurs in the next chapter. [↑]
[30] This has been touched upon in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 676; but to the reasons there briefly mentioned should be added a reference to the position allotted to intercalary months in the Norse calendar, namely, at the end of the summer half, that is, as I think, at the end of the ancient Norse year. [↑]
CHAPTER V
The Fenodyree and his Friends
Ἐμοὶ δὲ αἱ σαὶ μεγάλαι εὐτυχίαι οὐκ ἀρέσκουσι, τὸ θεῖον ἐπισταμένῳ ὡς ἔστι φθονερόν..—Herodotus.
The last chapter is hardly such as to call for a recapitulation of its principal contents, and I venture to submit instead of any such repetition an abstract of some very pertinent notes on it by Miss M. G. W. Peacock, who compares with the folklore of the Isle of Man the old beliefs which survive in Lincolnshire among the descendants of Norse ancestors[1]. She was attracted by the striking affinity which she noticed between them, and she is doubtless right in regarding that affinity as due in no small degree to the Scandinavian element present in the population alike of Man and the East of England. She is, however, not lavish of theory, but gives us interesting items of information from an intimate acquaintance with the folklore of the district of which she undertakes to speak, somewhat in the following order:—