^ MODERN,^ 
 ^iGIENCEj 
 
 SERIES 
 
 V SI K JOHN LUBBOCK, 
 
 
 
 
 .JETHNOLOGY IN 
 
 Folklore 
 
 ¥M 
 
 iii- 
 
 GEORGE LAURE
 
 fiDobern Science Series 
 
 EDITED BY SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P. 
 
 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE
 
 MODERN SCIENCE SERIES, 
 
 Edited by Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart, M. P. 
 
 I. The Oaiise of an Ice Age. 
 
 By Sir Robert Ball, LL. D., F. R. S., 
 
 Royal Astronomer of Ireland. 
 
 II. The Horse: 
 
 A Study in Natural History. 
 By William Henry Flower, C. B., 
 Director of the British Natural 
 History Museum. 
 
 m. The Oak: 
 
 A Popular Introduction to Forest 
 Botany. 
 By 11. Marshall Ward, F. R. S. 
 
 IV. Ethnology in Folklore. 
 
 By George Lawrence Gomme, F. R. S., 
 President of the Folklore Society, 
 etc. 
 {Others in preparation.) 
 
 New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, & 5 Bond St.
 
 ^ETHNOLOGY IN 
 FOLKLORE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LAUEEXCE GOMME, F. S. A. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1892
 
 COPTEIGHT, 1892, 
 
 bt d. appleton and company. 
 All rights resei-ved. 
 
 Electkottped and Printed 
 AT THE Appleton Pebss, U. S. A.
 
 > ' \ 
 
 5-5- 
 
 PEEFACE 
 
 I HAVE sought in this book to ascertain and set 
 forth the principles upon which folklore may be classi- 
 fied, in order to arrive at some of the results which 
 should follow from its study. That it contains ethno- 
 logical elements might be expected by all who have 
 paid any attention to recent research, but no attempt 
 has hitherto been made to set these elements do-mi cate- 
 gorically and to examine the conclusions which are to 
 be drawn from them. 
 
 It is due to the large and increasing band of folklore 
 devotees that the uses of folklore should be brought for- 
 ward. The scoffer at these studies is apt to have it all 
 his own way so long as the bulk of the books published 
 on folklore contain nothing but collected examples of 
 tales, customs, and superstitions, arranged for no pur- 
 pose but that of putting the facts pleasantly before 
 readers. But, more than this, recent research tends 
 to show the increasing importance of bringing into 
 proper order, within reasonable time, all the evidence 
 that is available from different sources upon any given 
 subject of inquiry. Looked at in this light, ethnology
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 lias great claims upon the student. The science of 
 culture has almost refused to deal with it, and has been 
 content with noting only a few landmarks which occur 
 here and there along the lines of development traceable 
 in the elements of human culture. But the science of 
 history has of late been busy with many problems of 
 ethnological importance, and has for this purpose 
 turned sometimes to craniology, sometimes to archae- 
 ology, sometimes to philology, but rarely to folklore. 
 If folklore, then, does contain ethnological facts, it 
 is time that they should be disclosed, and that the 
 method of discovering them should be placed before 
 scholars. 
 
 Of course, my attempt in this direction must not be 
 looked upon in any sense as an exhaustive treatment of 
 the subject, and I am not vain enough to expect that 
 all my conclusions will be accepted. I believe that the 
 time has come when every item of folklore should be 
 docketed and put into its proper place, and I hope I 
 have done something toward this end in the following 
 pages. When complete classification is attempted some 
 of the items of folklore will be found useless enough. 
 But most of them will help us to understand more of 
 the development of thought than any other subject ; 
 and many of them will, if my reading of the evidence 
 is correct, take us back, not only to stages in the history 
 of human thought, but to the people who have yielded 
 up the struggle of their minds to the modern student of 
 man and his strivings.
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 At the risk of crowding the pages with footnotes, I 
 have been careful to give references to all my authorities 
 for items of folklore, because so much depends upon the 
 value of the authority used in these studies. I believe 
 they are all quoted accurately, but shall always be glad 
 to know of any corrections or additions. 
 
 Professor Rhys has kindly read through my proofs, 
 and I am very grateful for the considerable service he 
 has thereby rendered me. 
 
 Barnes Common, S. W., March, 1892.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CELiPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — Survival axd Development 1 
 
 II. — Ethxic Elements in Custom axd Ritual . . 21 
 
 III. — The Mythic Ixfluexces of a Coxquered Race . 41 
 
 IV. — The Localization of Primitive Belief . . .67 
 
 V. — The Ethnic Genealogy of Folklore . . . 110 
 
 VI. — The Coxtixuation of Races 175 
 
 Ixdex 197
 
 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMEIST. 
 
 There has grown up of late years a subject of in- 
 quiry — first antiquarian merely, and now scientific — into 
 the peasant and local elements in modem culture, and 
 this subject has not inaptly been termed " folklore." Al- 
 most always at the commencement of a new study much 
 is done by eager votaries which has to be undone as soon 
 as settled work is undertaken, and it happens, I think, 
 that because the elements of folklore are so humble and 
 unpretentious, because they have to be sought for in the 
 peasant's cottage or fields, in the children's nursery, or 
 from the lips of old gaffers and gammers, that unusual 
 difficulties have beset the student of folklore. Not only 
 has he to undo any futile work that stands in the way 
 of his special inquiry, but he has to attempt the re- 
 building of his edifice in face of contrasts frequently 
 drawn between the elements which make up his subject 
 and those supposed more dignified elements with which 
 the historian, the archaeologist, and the philologist have 
 to deal.
 
 2 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKI-ORE. 
 
 The csscutiul characteristic of folklore is that it 
 consists of beliefs, customs, and traditions which are far 
 behind civilization in their intrinsic value to man, 
 though they exist under tlie cover of a civilized 
 nationality. This estimate of the position of folklore 
 with reference to civilization suggests that its con- 
 stituent elements are survivals of a condition of human 
 thought more backward, and therefore more ancient, 
 than that in which they are discovered. 
 
 Except to the students of anthropology, the fact of 
 the existence of survivals of older culture in our midst 
 is not readily grasped or understood. Historians have 
 been so engrossed with the political and commercial 
 progress of nations that it is not easy to determine 
 what room they would make in the world for the non- 
 progressive portion of the population. And yet the 
 history of every country must begin with the races who 
 have occupied it. Almost everywhere in Europe there 
 are traces, in some form or other, of a powerful race of 
 people, unknown in modern history, who have left 
 material remains of their culture to later ages. The 
 Celts have written their history on the map of Europe 
 in a scarcely less marked manner than the Teutons, 
 and we still talk of Celtic countries and Teutonic 
 countries. On the other hand, Greek and Roman 
 civilizations have in some countries and some districts 
 an almost unbroken record, in spite of much modifi- 
 cation and development. With such an amalgam in 
 the background, historians have scarcely ever failed to
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 3 
 
 draw the picture of European civilization in deep col- 
 ors, tinted according to their bias in favor of a Celtic, or 
 Teutonic, or classical origin. But the picture of un- 
 civilization within the same area has not been drawn. 
 The story always is of the advanced part of nations,* 
 though even here it occurs to me that very frequently 
 the terminology is still more in advance of the facts, so 
 that while every one has heard a great deal of the con- 
 ditions of civilization, very few people have any adequate 
 idea of the unadvanced lines of European life. 
 
 It will be seen that I accentuate the contrast between 
 civilization and uncivilization within the same area, and 
 the purpose of this accentuation will be seen when the 
 significant difference in origin is pointed out. 
 
 Dr. Tylor states that the elevation of some branches 
 of a race over the rest more often happens as the result 
 of foreign than of native action. " Civilization is a 
 plant much oftener propagated than developed," he 
 says.f How true this remark is will be recognized by 
 any one familiar with the main outlines of the history of 
 civilization, ancient or modern. An axiom formulated 
 by Sir Arthur Mitchell that " no man in isolation 
 can become civilized," may be extended to societies. 
 Whether in the case of Eoman, Greek, Assyrian, Egyp- 
 tian, or even Chinese civilization, a point has always 
 
 * Some confirmation of this from classical history was pointed 
 out by Dr. Beddoe in his address to the Anthrop. Inst, (see Journal, 
 XX, 355). 
 
 f Primitive Cidiure, i, 48.
 
 4 ETDNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 been reached iit wliicli scholars have had to turn their 
 attention from the land where these civilizations were 
 consummated to some other land or people, whose in- 
 fluence in building them up is detected in considerable 
 force. And so it is in the Western world. 1'here are 
 few scholars now who advocate the theory of an ad- 
 vanced Celtic or Teutonic civilization. Koman law, 
 Greek philosophy and art, and Christian religion and 
 ethics have combined in producing a civilization which is 
 essentially foreign to the soil whereon it now flourishes. 
 But with uncivilizatiou the case is very different. 
 Arrested by forces which we can not but identify with 
 the civilizations which have at various times swept over 
 it, it seems imbedded in the soil where it was first trans- 
 planted, and has no power or chance of fresh propaga- 
 tion. There is absolutely no evidence, in spite of alle- 
 gations to the contrary, of the introduction of uncivil- 
 ized culture into countries already in possession of a 
 higher culture. And yet it is found everywhere and is 
 kept alive by the sanction of tradition — the traditional 
 observance of what has always been observed, simply be- 
 cause it has always been observed. Thus, after the law 
 of the land has been complied with and the marriage 
 knot has been effectually tied, traditional custom im- 
 poses certain rites wdiich may without exaggeration 
 be styled irrational, rude, and barbarous. After the 
 Church has conducted to its last resting-place the corpse 
 of the departed, traditional belief necessitates the per- 
 formance of some magic rite which may with propriety
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 5 
 
 be considered not only rude, but savage. Underneath 
 the law and the Church, therefore, the emblems of the 
 foreign civilization, lie the traditional custom and be- 
 lief, the attributes of the native uncivilization. And 
 the native answer to any inquiry as to why these irra- 
 tional elements exist is invariably the same — " They are 
 obliged to do it for antiquity or custom's sake " ; * they 
 do it because they believe in it, " as things that had been 
 and were real, and not as creations of the fancy or old- 
 wives' tales and babble." Even after real belief has 
 passed away the habit continues ; there is " a sort of use 
 and wont in it which, though in a certain sense honored 
 in its observance, it is felt, in some sort of indirect, un- 
 meditated, unvolitional sort of way, would not be dis- 
 honored in the breach." f 
 
 The significant answer of the peasant, when ques- 
 tioned as to the cause of his observing rude and irra- 
 tional customs, of entertaining strange and uncouth be- 
 liefs, marks a very important characteristic of what has 
 been so conveniently termed folklore. All that the 
 peasantry practice, believe, and relate on the strength 
 of immemorial custom sanctioned by unbroken sueces- 
 
 * Buchan's Si. Kilda, p. 35. Mr. Atkinson gives much the 
 same testimony of Yorkshire. Inquiring as to a usage practiced 
 on a farm, the answer was : " Ay, there's many as dis it yet. My 
 au'd father did it. But it's sae many years syne it must be about 
 wore out by now, and I shall have to dee it again." — Forty Years 
 in a 3Ioorland Parish, p. 62. Miss Gordon Cumming's example 
 of the force of custom in her book on the JJtlridcs is very amus- 
 ing (p. 209). 
 
 f Atkinson, op. cit., pp. 63, 72.
 
 Q EinXOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 sion from one generation to anotlier, has a value of 
 peculiar significance so soon as it is perceived that the 
 genealogy of each custom, belief, or legend in nearly all 
 cases goes back for its commencing point to some fact 
 in the history of the people which has escaped the no- 
 tice of the historian. No act of legislation, no known 
 factor in the records of history, can be pointed to as the 
 origin of the practices, beliefs, and traditions of the 
 peasantry, which exist in such great abundance. They 
 are dateless and parentless when reckoned by the facts 
 of civilization. They are treasured and reverenced, kept 
 secret from Church, law, and legislation, handed down 
 by tradition, when reckoned by the facts of peasant life. 
 That these dateless elements in the national culture are 
 also very frequently rude, irrational, and senseless only 
 adds to the significance of their existence and to the 
 necessity of some adequate explanation of that existence 
 being supplied. 
 
 Xo one would pretend that modern civilization con- 
 sciously admits within its bounds practices and beliefs 
 like those enshrined in folklore, and few will argue that 
 modern civilization is an evolution in direct line from 
 such rude originals. The theory that best meets the 
 case is that they are to be identified with the rude cult- 
 ure of ancient Europe, which has been swept over by 
 waves of higher culture from foreign sources, that 
 nearly everywhere the rude culture has succumbed to 
 the force of these waves, but has nevertheless here and 
 there stood firm.
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 7 
 
 Isow, these being the conditions under which the 
 survivals of ancient customs and beliefs exist, we have 
 to note that they can not by any possibility develop. 
 Having been arrested in their progress by some outside 
 force, their development ceases. They continue, gener- 
 ation after generation, either in a state of absolute crys- 
 tallization, or they decay and split up into fragments ; 
 they become degraded into mere symbolism or whittled 
 down into mere superstition ; they drop back from a 
 position of general use or observance by a whole com- 
 munity into the personal observance of some few indi- 
 viduals, or of a class ; they cease to affect the general 
 conduct of the people, and become isolated and secret. 
 Thus in folklore there is no development from one stage 
 of culture to a higher one. 
 
 These considerations serve to show how distinctly 
 folklore is marked off from the political and social sur- 
 roundings in which it is imbedded, and all questions as 
 to its origin must therefore be a specific inquiry dealing 
 with all the facts. The answer of the peasant already 
 given shows the road which must be taken for such a 
 purpose. We must travel back from generation to gen- 
 eration of peasant life until a stage is reached where 
 isolated beliefs and customs of the peasantry of to-day 
 are found to occupy a foremost place in tribal or na- 
 tional custom. To do this, the aid of comparative cus- 
 tom and belief must be invoked. As Mr. Lang has so 
 well expressed it : " When an apparently irrational and 
 anomalous custom is found in any country, the method
 
 8 ETHNOLOGY IN TOLKLORE. 
 
 is to look for a country where a similar practice is no 
 longer irrational or anomalous, but in harmony with 
 the manners and ideas of the people amoug whom it 
 prevails." * Here, then, will be found the true meaning 
 of customs and beliefs which exist uselessly in the midst 
 of civilization. Their relationship to other customs and 
 beliefs at a similar level of culture will also be ascer- 
 tained. When we subtract any particular custom of an 
 uncivilized people from the general body of its asso- 
 ciated customs, in order to compare it with a similar 
 custom existing in isolated form in civilization, we are 
 careful to note what other customs exist side by side 
 with it in corelationship. These are its natural adhe- 
 sions, so to speak, and by following them out we may 
 also discover natural adhesions in folklore. But this is 
 not all. The work of comparison having been accom- 
 plished with reference to the group of customs and be- 
 liefs in natural adhesion to each other, there will be 
 found in folklore a large residuum of manifest incon- 
 sistencies. I am inclined to lay considerable stress upon 
 these inconsistencies in folklore. They have been noted 
 frequently enough, but have not been adequately ex- 
 plained. They have been set down to the curious twist- 
 ings of the human mind when indulging in mythic 
 thought. But I shall have another explanation to give, 
 which will rest upon the facts of ethnology. 
 
 Is it true, then, that the process of comparison be- 
 
 * Custom and Myth, p. 21.
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 9 
 
 tween the elements of folklore and the customs and 
 beliefs of uncivilized or savage people can be carried 
 out to any considerable extent, or is it limited to a few 
 isolated and exceptional examples ? It is obvious that 
 this question is a vital one. It will be partly answered 
 in the following pages ; but in the mean time it may be 
 pointed out that although anthropologists have very sel- 
 dom penetrated far into the realms of folklore, they 
 have frequently noted that the beliefs and customs of 
 savages find a close parallel among peasant beliefs and 
 practices in Europe. More than once in the pages of 
 Dr. Tylor, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. McLennan, and 
 others, it is to be observed that the author turns aside 
 from the consideration of the savage phenomena he is 
 dealing with to draw attention to the close resemblance 
 which they bear to some fragments of folklore — "the 
 series ends as usual in the folklore of the civilized 
 world " are Dr. Tylor's expressive words.* 
 
 I do not want to lay too much stress upon words 
 which may, perhaps, be considered by some to have 
 been only a happy literary expression for interpreting 
 an isolated group of facts immediately under the notice 
 of the author. But that they are not to be so consid- 
 ered, and that they convey a real condition of things in 
 the science of culture, may be tested by an examination 
 of Dr. Tylor's work, and I set them forth in order to fix 
 upon them as one of the most important axioms in folk- 
 
 * Primitive Culture, i, 407.
 
 10 ETUNOLOGY IS FOLKLORE. 
 
 lore research. This axiom must, indeed, be constantly 
 borne in mind as we wend our way through the various 
 items of folklore in the following pages, and it will help 
 to illustrate how much need there is to establish once 
 and for all what place the several groups of folklore oc- 
 cupy in the culture series. 
 
 This way of expressing the relationship between sav- 
 age culture and folklore suggests many important con- 
 siderations when applied to a particular area. If peasant 
 culture and savage culture are now at many points in 
 close contact, how far may we go back to find the begin- 
 ning of that contact ? Must we not dig down beneath 
 each stratum of overlying higher culture and remove all 
 the superincumbent mass before we can arrive at the 
 original layer ? There seems to be no other course open. 
 The forces that keep certain beliefs and ideas of man in 
 civilized countries within the recognizable limits of sav- 
 age culture, and continue them in this state generation 
 after generation, can not be derived from the nature of 
 individual men or women, or the results would be less 
 systematic and evenly distributed, and would be liable 
 to disappear and reappear according to circumstances. 
 They must, therefore, act collectively, and must form 
 an essential part of the beliefs and ideas which they 
 govern. 
 
 I do not know whether my use of the terms of geol- 
 ogy in the attempt to state the position of folklore in 
 relationship to the higher cultures is unduly suggestive, 
 but it undoubtedly puts before the inquirer into the
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. H 
 
 origins of folklore the suggestion that the unnamed 
 forces which are so obviously present must to a very 
 great extent be identical with race. It can not be that 
 the fragments of rude and irrational practices in civil- 
 ized countries arise from the poor and peasant class hav- 
 ing been in the habit of constantly borrowing the prac- 
 tices and ideas of savages, because, among other reasons 
 against such a theory, this borrowed culture must to a 
 corresponding degree have displaced the practices and 
 ideas of civilization. All the evidence goes to prove 
 that the peasantry have inherited rude and irrational 
 practices and ideas from savage predecessors — practices 
 and ideas which have never been displaced by civiliza- 
 tion. To deal adequately with these survivals is the ac- 
 cepted province of the science of folklore, and it must 
 therefore account for their existence, must point out the 
 causes for their arrested development and the causes for 
 their long continuance in a state of crystallization or 
 degradation after the stoppage has been effected. And 
 I put it that these requirements can only be met by an 
 hypothesis which directly appeals to the racial elements 
 in the population. There is first the arresting force, 
 identified with the higher culture sweeping over the 
 lower ; there is then the continuing force, identified 
 with the lower culture. 
 
 Let us see how this works out. The most important 
 fact to note in the examination of each fragment of 
 folklore is the point of arrested development. Has the 
 custom or belief, surviving bv the side of much higher
 
 12 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 culture, been arrested in its development while it was 
 simply a savage custom or belief ; when it was a barbaric 
 custom or belief at a higher level than savagery ; when 
 it was a national custom or belief discarded by the gov- 
 erning class and obtaining locally ? 
 
 Translating these factors in the characteristics of 
 each item of folklore into terms of ethnology, it appears 
 that we have at all events sufficient data for considering 
 custom or belief which survives in the savage form as of 
 different ethnic origin from custom or belief which sur- 
 vives in higher forms. 
 
 But if the incoming civilizations flowing over lower 
 levels of culture in any given area have been many, 
 there will be as many stages of arrestment in the folk- 
 lore of that area, and in so far as each incoming civili- 
 zation represents an ethnic distinction, the different 
 stages of survival in folklore would also represent an 
 ethnic distinction. 
 
 The incoming civilizations in modern Europe are 
 not all ethnic, as the most impressive has been Chris- 
 tianity. It is impossible for the most casual reader 
 to have left unnoticed the frequent evidence which is 
 afforded of folklore being older than Christianity — hav- 
 ing, in fact, been arrested in its development by Chris- 
 tianity. But at the back of Christianity the incoming 
 civilizations have been true ethnic distinctions, Scandi- 
 navian, Teutonic, Roman, Celtic, overflowing each other, 
 and all of them superimposed upon the original unciv- 
 ilization of the prehistoric races of non- Aryan stock.
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 13 
 
 It appears to me that the clash of these races is still 
 represented in folklore. It is not possible at the com- 
 mencement of studies like the present to unravel all the 
 various elements, and particularly is it impossible with 
 our present knowledge to discriminate to any great ex- 
 tent between the several branches of the Aryan race.* 
 The biography of each item of Arj-an custom and be- 
 lief has not been examined into like the biography of 
 each word of the Aryan tongue. This will have to be 
 done before the work of the comparative sciences has 
 been comjDleted. But even with our limited knowledge 
 of Aryan culture, it does seem possible to mark in folk- 
 lore traces of an arrested development at the point of 
 savagery, side by side with a further development which 
 has not been arrested until well within the area of 
 Aryan culture. 
 
 This dual element in folklore, represented by a series 
 of well-marked inconsistencies in peasant custom and 
 belief, proves that the stages of development at which 
 the several items of folklore have been arrested are not 
 at the same level ; and they could not therefore have 
 been produced by one arresting power. Thus the con- 
 flict between paganism and Christianity is so obviously 
 
 * Miss Burne lias, I think, successfully distinguished between 
 Welsh and English origins in the folklore of Shropshire (see her 
 Shropshire Folklore, p. 462, and the map). And Lord Teign- 
 mouth suggested that the prejudice against swine held by the 
 Western Highlanders and Hebrideans indicates a difference of 
 race from the Orcadians, who have no such prejudice. — Islands of 
 Scotland, i, 376.
 
 14:' ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 a source to wliicli the phenomenon of pagan survivals 
 might be traced, that almost exclusive attention has 
 been paid to it. It would account for one line of arrest- 
 ment. It would have stopped the further progress of 
 Aryan beliefs and customs represented in the Teutonic, 
 Celtic, and Scandinavian culture, and it would corre- 
 spondingly account for survivals at this point of arrest- 
 ment. Survivals at a point of arrestment further back 
 in the development of culture than the Aryan stage 
 must have already existed under the pressure of Aryan 
 culture. They must have been produced by a stoppage 
 antecedent to Christianity, and must be identified, 
 therefore, with the arrival of the Aryan race into a 
 country occupied by non-Ayrans. 
 
 If, then, I can show that there are, primarily, two 
 lines of arrested development to be traced in folklore, 
 these two lines must be represented the one by savage 
 culture, which is not Aryan, the other by Aryan culture. 
 
 It must, however, be pointed out that the relation- 
 ship between what may be termed savagery and Arj-an 
 culture has not been formally set forth, though it seems 
 certain that there is a considerable gap between the 
 two, caused by a definite advance in culture by the 
 Aryan race before its dispersal from the primitive home. 
 This advance is the result of development, and where 
 development takes place the originals from which it has 
 proceeded disappear in the new forms thus produced. 
 To adopt the terms of the manufactory, the original 
 forms would have been all used up in the process of
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 15 
 
 production. Hence, none of the savage culture from 
 which may be traced the beginnings of Aryan culture 
 can have survived among Aryan people. If items of it 
 are found to exist side by side with Aryan culture in 
 any country, such a phenomenon must be due to causes 
 which have brought Aryan and savage races into close 
 dwelling with each other, and can in no sense be in- 
 terpreted as original forms existing side by side with 
 those which have developed from them. I put this im- 
 portant proposition forward without hesitation as a 
 sound conclusion to be derived from the study of human 
 culture. It is not possible in these pages to give the 
 tests which I have applied to prove it, because they 
 belong to the statistical side of our study, but I adduce 
 Dr. Tylor's notable attempt to work out the method of 
 studying institutions as sufficient evidence for my im- 
 mediate purpose.* 
 
 These somewhat dry technicalities are necessary in 
 order to explain the basis of our present inquiry. Some 
 years ago Sir John Lubbock said : " It can not be 
 doubted that the careful study of manners and customs, 
 traditions and superstitions, will eventually solve many 
 difficult problems of ethnology. This mode of research, 
 however, requires to be used with great caution, and has, 
 in fact, led to many erroneous conclusions. . . . Much 
 careful study will therefore be required before this class 
 of evidence can be used with safety, though I doubt not 
 
 * See Journ. Anthrop. Inst.
 
 IG ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 tluit eventually it will be found most instructive." * It is 
 singular what little progress has been made in this 
 branch of work since this paragrajih was written, and, 
 indeed, how very generally the subject has been neg- 
 lected, although now and again a jiassage in some of 
 our best authorities suggests the necessity for some re- 
 search being undertaken into the question of race dis- 
 tinctions in custom and myth. Mr. Lang, for instance, 
 when asking how the pure religion of Artemis had de- 
 veloped from the cult of a ravening she-bear, puts the 
 case forcibly thus : " Here is a moment in mythical and 
 religious evolution which almost escapes inquiry. . . . 
 How did the complex theory of the nature of Artemis 
 arise ? What was its growth ? At what precise hour 
 did it emancipate itself on the whole from the lower 
 savage creeds ? Or how was it developed out of their 
 unpromising materials ? The science of mythology 
 may perhaps never find a key to these obscure prob- 
 lems." f But I think the science of folklore may go far 
 toward the desired end. Its course would be to take 
 note of the points of arrested development, and to 
 claissify what has survived in the savage stage and what 
 
 * Origin of Civilization, p. 4. Dal yell, in some of his acute 
 observations on superstition, says that he thought " it might be 
 possible to connect the modern inhabitants of Scotland with the 
 ancient tribes of other countries, and to trace their descent 
 through the medium of superstitions." — DarJier Superstitions of 
 Scotland, p. 236. In 1835, when this book was published, this 
 way of putting the relationship of one people with another had 
 not been abolished by the work accomplished by anthropology. 
 
 f Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii, 215.
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMENT. 17 
 
 is represented in the higher stages as being of two dis- 
 tinct ethnic origins, and its conclusion would be that 
 Artemis " succeeded to and threw her protection over 
 an ancient worship of the animal," and that therefore 
 the cult of Artemis and the local cults connected with 
 it are as to race of different origin, and may both be 
 called Greek in reference only to their final state of 
 amalgamation in the land which the Aryan Greeks con- 
 quered and named. 
 
 One of the principal features of the Artemis cult is 
 the extremely savage form of some of the local rituals, 
 and it will frequently be found that localities preserve 
 relics of a people much older than those who now in- 
 habit them. Thus the daubing of the bridegroom's 
 feet with soot in Scotland,* the painting with black 
 substance of one of the characters in the Godiva ride at 
 Southam in "Warwickshire,! the daubing of the naked 
 body in the Dionysiac mysteries of the Greeks, are ex- 
 plained by none of the requirements of civilization, but 
 by practices to be found in Africa and elsewhere. The 
 ancestry of the Scottish, Warwickshire, and Greek cus- 
 toms, therefore, may be traced back to a people on the 
 level of culture with African savages. 
 
 But when we come to ask who were the people who 
 introduced this savage custom, we are for the first time 
 conscious of the important question of race. Are we 
 
 * Gregor, Folklore of Northeast Scotland, p. 90 ; Rogers, 
 Social Life in Scotland, i, 110. 
 
 \ Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 85.
 
 18 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 compelled to call them Scotchmen, Englishmen, or 
 Greek ? Mr. Lang and Mr. Frazer would, I believe, 
 answer " Yes " ; * and they are followed, consciously or 
 unconsciously, by all other folklorists. I shall attempt 
 a somewhat different answer, the construction and 
 proof of which will occupy the following pages. But as 
 a preliminary justification for such a course I quote Dr. 
 Tylor's warning : " The evidence of locality may be 
 misleading as to race. A traveler in Greenland coming 
 on the ruined stone buildings at Kakortok would not 
 argue justly that the Esquimaux are degenerate de- 
 scendants of ancestors capable of such architecture, for, 
 in fact, these are the remains of a church and baptistry 
 built by the ancient Scandinavian settlers." f Exactly. 
 The long-chambered barrows, hill earthworks and culti- 
 vation sites, cave dwellings and palaeolithic implements, 
 are not attributable to Celt or Teuton. Can we, then, 
 without substantial reason and without special inquiry, 
 say that a custom or belief, however rude and savage, is 
 Celtic, or Teutonic, or Greek, simply because it is extant 
 in a country occupied in historic times by people speak- 
 ing the language of any of these peoples ? 
 
 A negative answer must clearly be returned to this 
 question. The subject, no doubt, is a difficult one when 
 thought of in connection with European countries. But 
 in India, less leveled by civilization than the Western 
 world, the ethnographer, with very little effort, can de- 
 
 * Consult Mr. Lang's Custom and Myth, p. 26. 
 f Primifiue Culture, i, 51.
 
 SURVIVAL AND DEVELOPMEXT. 19 
 
 tect ethnic distinctions in custom and belief. Stone 
 worship in India, for instance, is classed by Dr. Tylor 
 as " a survival of a rite belonging originally to a low 
 civilization, probably a rite of the rude indigenes of the 
 land." * But are not survivals of stone worship in 
 Europe similarly to be classed as belonging to the rude 
 indigenes of the land ? The log that stood for Artemis 
 in Euboea, the stake that represented Pallas Athene, 
 the unwrought stone at Hyettos which represented 
 Herakles, the thirty stones which the Pharseans wor- 
 shiped for the gods, and the stone representing the 
 Thespian Eros, may, with equal propriety, be classed as 
 survivals of the non-Ar3'an indigenes of Greece. What 
 may be rejected as belonging to the Aryans of India 
 because there is distinct evidence of its belonging to the 
 non- Aryans, can not be accepted without even an in- 
 quiry as belonging to the Aryans of Greece. No doubt 
 the difficulty of tracing direct evidence of the early non- 
 Aryan races of Europe is very great, but it is no way 
 out of the difficulty to ignore the fact that there exist 
 survivals of savage culture which would readily be classi- 
 fied as non-Aryan if it so happened that there now ex- 
 isted certain tribes of non-Aryan peoj)le to whom they 
 might be allotted. On the contrary, the existence of 
 survivals of savage culture is prima facie eYidence of the 
 existence of races to whom this culture belonged and 
 from whom it has descended. I do not mean to suggest 
 
 * Primitive Culture, ii, 150.
 
 20 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 that in all places where items of non-Aryan culture have 
 survived people of non-Aryan race have survived. Old 
 races disappear while old customs last— carried on by 
 successors, but not necessarily by descendants. The gen- 
 ealogy of folklore carries us back to the race of people 
 from whom it derives its parentage, but it does not neces- 
 sarily carry back the genealogy of modern peasantry to 
 the same race. This latter part of the question is a 
 matter for ethnologists to deal with, and it may be that 
 some unlooked-for results are yet to be derived from a 
 close study of ethnic types in our local populations in 
 relation to the folklore jDreserved by them.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ETHXIC ELEMENTS IN" CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 
 
 It is necessary now to test by the evidence of actual 
 example the hypothesis that race distinction is the true 
 explanation of the strange inconsistency which is met 
 with in folklore. There should be evidence somewhere, 
 if such a hypothesis is tenable, that the almost un- 
 checked conclusions of scholars are not correct when 
 they argue that because a custom or belief, however sav- 
 age and rude, obtained in Eome or in Greece, in Ger- 
 man or Celtic countries of modern Europe, it is Roman, 
 Greek, German, or Celtic throughout all its variations. 
 
 For this purpose an example must be found which 
 will comply with certain conditions. It must obtain in 
 a country overlorded by an Aryan people, and still occu- 
 pied by non- Aryan indigenes. It must consist of dis- 
 tinct divisions, showing the part taken by Aryans and 
 the part taken by non- Aryans. And as such an ex- 
 ample can scarcely be found in Europe, it must at 
 least be paralleled in the folklore of Europe, if not in 
 all its constituent parts, at all events in all the essential 
 details. 
 
 Such an example is to be found in India. I shall
 
 22 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 first of all sot forth the principal points Avhich are neces- 
 sary to note in this example in the words, as nearly as 
 possible, of the authority I quote, so that the comments 
 which it will be necessary to make upon it may not in- 
 terfere with the evidence as it stands originally recorded. 
 
 The festival of the village goddess is honored 
 throughout all southern India and in other parts, from 
 Berar to the extreme east of Bustar and in Mysore. She 
 is generally adored in the form of an unshapely stone 
 covered with vermilion. A small altar is erected behind 
 the temple of the village goddess to a rural god named 
 Potraj. All the members of the village community 
 take part in the festival, with the hereditary district 
 officers, many of them Brahmans. 
 
 An examination of the ritual belonging to this vil- 
 lage festival enables us not only to detect the presence 
 of race distinctions and of practices which belong to 
 them, but compels us to conclude that the whole cere- 
 mony originated in race distinctions. 
 
 The festival is under the guidance and management 
 of the Parias, who act as officiating priests. With them 
 are included the Mangs or workers in leather, the Asadis 
 or Dasaris, Paria dancing-girls devoted to the service of 
 the temple, the musician in attendance on them, who 
 acts as a sort of jester or buffoon, and a functionary 
 called Potraj, who officiates aspujari to the god of the 
 same name. The shepherds or Dhangars of the neigh- 
 boring villages are also invited. Of these the Parias are 
 an outcast peoi:>le, degraded in the extreme, and always
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 23 
 
 excluded from the village and from contact with the in- 
 habitants. They are identified with the Paraya, a south- 
 ern aboriginal tribe nearly allied to the Gonds. The 
 shepherd caste is found throughout the greater part of 
 the Dekkan in detached communities, called Kurum- 
 bars, Kurubars, and Dhangars, in different parts of In- 
 dia. These are the non- Aryan races who take part in 
 this Aryan village festival ; they occupy the foremost 
 place during the festival, and at its termination they 
 retire to their hamlets outside the town and resume 
 their humble servile character. From these facts Sir 
 W. Elliot has deduced as probable conclusions that the 
 earliest known inhabitants of southern India were an 
 aboriginal race, who worshiped local divinities, the tute- 
 lary gods of earth, hill, grove, and boundaries, etc., and 
 that this worship has been blended in practice with that 
 of the Aryan overlords. 
 
 The principal parts of the ritual which it is useful 
 for us to note are as follows : The Potraj priest was 
 armed with a long whip, to which at various parts of 
 the ceremony divine honors were paid. The sacred 
 buffalo was turned loose when a calf, and allowed to 
 feed and roam about the village. On the second day 
 this animal was thrown down before the goddess, its 
 head struck off by a single blow, and placed in front 
 of the shrine with one foreleg thrust into its mouth. 
 Around were placed vessels containing the different 
 cereals, and hard by a heap of mixed grains with a drill- 
 ploAV in the center. The carcass was then cut up into
 
 24 ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 small pieces, and each cultivator received a portion to 
 bury in his field. The blood and offal were collected 
 into a large basket over which some pots of cooked food 
 had previously been broken, and Potraj, taking a live 
 kid, hewed it to pieces over the whole. The mess was 
 then mixed together, and the basket being placed on 
 the head of a naked Mang, he ran off with it, flinging 
 the contents into the air and scattering them right and 
 left as an offering to the evil spirits, and followed by the 
 other Parias. The whole party made the circuit of the 
 village. 
 
 The third and fourth days were devoted to private 
 offerings. On the former, all the inhabitants of caste 
 who had vowed animals to the goddess during the pre- 
 ceding three years for the welfare of their families or 
 the fertility of their fields brought the buffaloes or 
 sheep to the Paria piijdri, who struck off their heads. 
 The fourth day is appropriated exclusively to the offer- 
 ings of the Parias. In this way some fifty or sixty 
 buffaloes and several hundred sheep were slain, and the 
 heads piled up in two great heaps. Many women on 
 these days walked naked to the temple in fulfillment of 
 vows, but they were covered with leaves and boughs of 
 trees, and surrounded by their female relations and 
 friends. 
 
 On the fifth and last day the whole community 
 marched in procession with music to the temple, and 
 offered a concluding sacrifice at the Potraj altar. A 
 lamb Avas concealed close by. The Potraj having found
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 25 
 
 it after a pretended search, struck it simply Avith his 
 whip, which he then placed upon it, and making several 
 passes with his hands rendered it insensible. His hands 
 were then tied behind his back by the pujdri, and the 
 whole party began to dance round him with noisy 
 shouts. Potraj joined in the excitement, and he soon 
 came fully under the influence of the deity. He was 
 led up, still bound, to the place where the lamb lay mo- 
 tionless. He rushed at it, seized it with his teeth, tore 
 through the skin, and ate into its throat. When it was 
 quite dead he was lifted up, a dishful of the meat-offer- 
 ing was presented to him ; he thrust his bloody face into 
 it, and it was then with the remains of the lamb buried 
 beside the altar. Meantime his hands were untied, and 
 he fled the place. 
 
 The rest of the party now adjourned to the front of 
 the temple, where the heap of grain deposited the first 
 day was divided among all the cultivators, to be buried 
 by each one in his field with the bit of flesh. After this 
 a distribution of the piled-up heads was made by the 
 hands of the musician or Raniga. About forty sheep's 
 heads were given to certain privileged persons, among 
 which two were allotted to the sircar. For the rest a 
 general scramble took place — paiks, shepherds, Parias, 
 and many boys and men of good caste were soon rolling 
 in the mass of putrid gore. The scramble for the buffa- 
 lo-heads was confined to the Parias. Whoever was for- 
 tunate enough to secure one of either kind carried it off 
 and buried it iu his field.
 
 26 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 Tlic proceedings terminated by a procession round 
 the boundaries of the village lands, preceded by the 
 goddess and the head of the sacred buffalo carried on 
 the head of one of the Mangs. All order and propriety 
 now ceased. Eaniga began to abuse the goddess in the 
 foulest language ; he then turned his fury against the 
 Government, the head man of the \illage, and every 
 one who fell in his way. The Parias and Asadis at- 
 tacked the most respectable and gravest citizens, and 
 laid hold of Brahmans, Lingayats, and zamindars with- 
 out scruple. The dancing - women jumped on their 
 shoulders, the shepherds beat the big drum, and uni- 
 versal license prevailed. 
 
 On reaching a little temple sacred to the goddess of 
 boundaries, they halted to make some offerings and to 
 bury the sacred head. As soon as it was covered the up- 
 roar began again. Eaniga became more foul-mouthed 
 than ever, and the head men, the Government officers, 
 and others tried to pacify him by giving him small cop- 
 per coins. This went on till, the circuit being com- 
 pleted, all dispersed.* 
 
 It has been worth while transcribing here this elabo- 
 rate description of a veritable folk drama because it is 
 necessary to have before us the actual details of the 
 ritual observed and the beliefs expressed before we can 
 properly attempt a comparison. 
 
 "We must now ascertain how far European folklore 
 
 * Sir W. Elliot, in Joiim. Ethnological Soc, N. S. i, 97-100.
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 27 
 
 tallies with tlie ceremonies observed in this Indian vil- 
 lage festival. If there is a strong line of parallel be- 
 tween the Indian ceremonies and some ceremonies still 
 observed in Europe as survivals of a forgotten and un- 
 recognized cult, I shall argue that ceremonies which are 
 demonstrably non-Aryan in India, even in the presence 
 of Aryan people, must in origin have been non-Aryan 
 in Europe, though the race from whom they have de- 
 scended is not at present identified by ethnologists. 
 
 I shall not at this juncture dwell upon the unshapen 
 stone which represented the goddess. Its parallels exist 
 throughout the whole range of early religions, and, as 
 we have already seen, aj^pear in the folklore of Europe. 
 As the Kafirs of India say of the stones they use, " This 
 stands for God, but we know not his shape." * All the 
 more need for it to be unshapen by men's hands, and 
 the history of the sacred use of monoliths commences at 
 this point f and ends with the sculptured glories of 
 Greece. I Later on some special forms of stone deities 
 will be noticed ; it is the use of a stone as a sort of altar 
 of the goddess, who is not identical with it, and the 
 recognition of stone worship as a part of the aboriginal 
 cult, and not Aryan,* which interests us now. 
 
 This stone is the place of sacrifice to the harvest 
 
 * Latham, Descriptive Ethnology, ii, 240. 
 
 f Cf. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 18G-195 ; 
 Ellis, Ewe-speaking People, p. 28. 
 
 X See an able article in the Archa'ological Review, ii, 1G7-184, 
 by Mr. Farnell. 
 
 * Arch. Survey of India, xvi, 141.
 
 28 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 goddess, and the ceremonial observed at the Indian fes- 
 tival directs us at once to the local observances con- 
 nected with the cult of Dionysus. The Cretans in rep- 
 resenting the sufferings and death of Dionysus tore a 
 bull to pieces with their teeth ; indeed, says Mr. Frazer, 
 quoting the authority of Euripides, the rending and de- 
 vouring of live bulls and calves appears to have been a 
 regular feature of the Dionysiac rites, and his worship- 
 ers also rent in pieces a live goat and devoured it raw. 
 At Tenedos the new-born calf sacrificed to the god was 
 shod in buskins, and the mother cow was tended like a 
 woman in childbed — sure proof of the symbolization of 
 human sacrifice, which indeed actually took place at 
 Chios and at Orchomenus.* These are virtually the 
 same practices as those now going on in India, and the 
 identification is confirmed by the facts (1) that Dionysus 
 is sometimes represented to his worshipers by his head 
 only — a counterpart of the sacred character of the head 
 in the Indian rites ; (2) that the sacrificer of the calf at 
 Tenedos was, after the accomplishment of the rite, driv- 
 en out from the place and stoned — a counterpart of the 
 Potraj fleeing the place after the sacrifice of the lamb in 
 the Indian ceremony ; and (3) that the female worship- 
 ers of Dionysus attended in a nude state, crowned with 
 garlands, and their bodies daubed over with clay and 
 dirt — a counterpart of the female votaries who attended 
 
 * Mr. Frazer has collected all the references to these facts in 
 his Golden Bough, i, 336-329 ; see also Lang, Custom and Myth, 
 ii, 331-234.
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 29 
 
 naked aud surrounded with branches of trees at the 
 Indian festival. 
 
 I have selected this cult of the Greeks for the pur- 
 pose of comj)aring it with the non- Aryan ceremonial of 
 India, because it has recently been examined with all 
 the wealth of illustration and comparison by two such 
 great authorities as Mr. Lang and Mr. Frazer. They 
 have stripped it of most of the fanciful surroundings 
 with which German and English mythologists have re- 
 cently loaded it, and once more restored the local rituals 
 and the central myth as the true sources from which to 
 obtain information as to its origin. At almost every 
 point the details of the local rituals are comparable, not 
 to Greek conceptions of Dionysus, "a youth with clus- 
 ters of golden hair and in his dark eyes the grace of 
 Aphrodite," but to the ferocious and barbaric practices 
 of savages. Then where is the evidence of the Greek 
 origin of these local observances? Greek religious 
 thought was far in advance of them. It stooped to 
 admit them within the rites of the god Dionysus, 
 but in this act there was a conscious borrowing by 
 Greeks of something lower in the stage of culture than 
 Greek culture, and that something has been character- 
 ized by a recent commentator as appertaining to " the 
 divinities of the common people." * This is very near 
 
 * Dyer's Gods of Greece, p. 133. Mr. Dyer says : " The most 
 painstaking security, the minutest examination of such evidence 
 as may be had, will never disentangle completely, never make 
 perfectly plain, just what elements constituted the Dionysus first
 
 30 ETIIXOLOGV IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 to the race distinction I nm in .search of. The common 
 people of Crete, Tenedos, Chios, and Orchomenus were 
 not necessarily Aryan Greeks, and, judged by their 
 savage customs, they most likely stood in the same re- 
 lationship to the Aryans of Greece as the Parias of the 
 Indian villages stand to their Aryan overlords. 
 
 I pass from Greek folklore to English. It would be 
 easy to extend research right across Europe, especially 
 with Mr. Frazer's aid, but it is scarcely necessary. A 
 Whitsuntide custom in the parish of King's Teignton, 
 Devonshire, is thus described : A lamb is drawn about 
 the parish on "Whitsun Monday in a cart covered with 
 garlands of lilac, laburnum, and other flowers, when 
 persons are requested to give something toward the ani- 
 mal and attendant expenses ; on Tuesday it is then 
 killed and roasted whole in the middle of the village. 
 The lamb is then sold in slices to the poor at a clieap 
 rate. The origin of the custom is forgotten, but a tra- 
 dition, supposed to trace back to heathen days, is to this 
 effect : The village suffered from a dearth of water, 
 
 worshiped in early Greece. ITis character was composite from 
 the moment Greeks worshiped him ; for in Boeotia (Ilesvchius) 
 as in Attica (Pausanias, xxxi. 4) and in Naxos (Athena?us, iii, 78), 
 some part of him was native to the soil, and he was nowhere 
 wholly Thracian." — Gods of Greece, p. 82. Mr. Dyer had prob- 
 ably not studied Mr. Frazer's book when this passage was written, 
 but it shows the opinions of specialists who have not called in the 
 aid of ethnology. That part of Dionysus which was '' native to 
 the soil " was not Greek ; the Greeks were immigrants to the land 
 they adorned as their home, and the Dionysus "native to the 
 soil" was shaped by them into the Athenian Dionysus.
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IX CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 31 
 
 wlien the inhabitants were advised by their priests to 
 pray to the gods for water ; whereupon the water sprang 
 up spontaneously in a meadow about a third of a mile 
 above the river, in an estate now called Eydon, amply 
 suflQcient to supply the wants of the place, and at pres- 
 ent adequate, even in a dry summer, to work three 
 mills. A lamb, it is said, has ever since that time been 
 sacrificed as a votive thank-offering at Whitsuntide in 
 the manner before mentioned. The said water appears 
 like a large pond, from which in rainy weather may be 
 seen jets springing up some inches above the surface in 
 many parts. It has ever had the name of " Fair Wa- 
 ter."* It is noticeable that, while the custom here 
 described does not present any very extraordinary feat- 
 ures, the iDOj)ular legend concerning its origin introduces 
 two very important elements — namely, its reference to 
 " heathen days " and the title of " sacrifice " ascribed to 
 the killing of the lamb. The genealogy of this custom, 
 then, promises to take us back to the era of heathen 
 sacrifice of animals. 
 
 The first necessity in tracing the genealogy is to 
 analyze the custom as it obtains in nineteenth-century 
 Devonshire. The analysis gives the following results : 
 
 1. The decoration of the victim lamb with garlands. 
 
 2. The killing and roasting of the victim by villagers. 
 
 3. The place of the ceremony in the middle of the 
 village. 
 
 * Notes and Queries, vii, 353.
 
 32 ETUN0L()(;Y in rOLKLORE. 
 
 4. The selling,' of the rousted flesh to tlic poor. 
 
 :/•. Tlie tnulitioiiiil ori;L,nii of tlie custom as a sacrifice 
 for vvjiti'r. 
 
 It fioenis clear that hetween the fourth step of the 
 analysis and the traditional origin there are some consid- 
 erable lacunae to be filled up which prevent us at present 
 from numbering the last item. The more primitive 
 elements of this custom have been worn down to van- 
 ishing point, the practice probably being considered but 
 an old-fashioned and cumbrous method of relieving 
 distressed parishioners before the poor law had otherwise 
 provided for them. Another example from Devonshire 
 fortunately overlaps this one, and permits the restora- 
 tion of the lost elements, and the consequent carrying 
 back of the genealogy. 
 
 At the village of Holne, situated on one of the spurs 
 of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property 
 of the parish, and called the Ploy Field. In the center 
 of this field stands a granite pillar (Menhir) six or seven 
 feet high. On May morning, before daybreak, the 
 young men of the village used to assemble there, and 
 then proceed to the moor, where they selected a ram 
 lamb, and, after running it down, brought it in triumjih 
 to the Ploy Field, fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat, 
 and then roasted it whole, skin, wool, etc. At midday 
 a struggle took place, at the risk of cut hands, for a 
 slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing 
 year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of gallantry 
 the young men sometimes fought their way through the
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 33 
 
 crowd to get a slice for the chosen among the young 
 women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attended the 
 Earn Feast, as it was called. Dancing, wrestling, and 
 other games, assisted by copious libations of cider during 
 the afternoon, prolonged the festivity till midnight.* 
 
 Analyzing this example, and keeping to the notation 
 of the first analysis, we have the following results : — 
 
 2. The killing and roasting of the victim ram by 
 villagers. 
 
 3. The place of the ceremony, at a stone pillar in a 
 field which is common property. 
 
 4. The struggle for pieces of raw flesh " at the risk 
 of cut hands." 
 
 5. The time of the ceremony, before daybreak. 
 
 6. The luck conferred by the possession of a slice of 
 the flesh. 
 
 7. The festivities attending the ceremony. 
 
 Thus, of the five elements in the King's Teignton 
 custom, three are retained in the Holne custom, and 
 three additional ones of importance are added. 
 
 I think we may conclude, first, that the Holne cus- 
 tom is a more primitive form of a common original from 
 which both have descended ; secondly, that we may 
 strike out the " roasting " as an entirely civilized ele- 
 
 * Notes and Queries, 1st ser., vii, 353. Compare Robertson 
 Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 320, and Owen, Notes on the 
 Naga Tribes, pp. 15-16, for some remarkable parallels to this 
 Devonshire custom. I would also refer to Miss Burne's sugges- 
 tive description of the bull sacrifice in her Shropshire Folklore, p. 
 475.
 
 34 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLOUE. 
 
 iiicnl (liu! to modern influences. The final form of tlie 
 unulysis miglit then be restored from the two fragment- 
 ary ones as follows : 
 
 1. The decoration of the victim with garlands. 
 
 2. The killing of the victim by the community. 
 
 3. The place of the ceremony, on lands belonging to 
 the community, and at a stone pillar. 
 
 4. The struggle for pieces of flesh by members of 
 the community. 
 
 5. The time of the ceremony, before daybreak. 
 G. The sacred power of the piece of flesh. 
 
 7. The festivities attending the ceremony. 
 
 8. The origin of the ceremony, as a sacrifice to the 
 god of waters. 
 
 The obvious analogy this bears to the Indian type 
 "we are examining scarcely needs to be insisted on, and I 
 shall leave it to take its place among the group of Euro- 
 pean parallels. 
 
 The special sanctity of the head of the sacrificed ^'ic- 
 tim, so apparent in the Indian festival, appears in Euro- 
 pean paganism and folklore in several places.* The 
 Longobards adorned a divinely honored goat's head.f 
 A well-known passage in Tacitus, describing the sacred 
 groves of the Germans, states that the heads of the ani- 
 mals hung on boughs of trees, or, as it is noted in an- 
 other passage, " immolati diis equi abscissum caput." 
 
 * Compare Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 359, 
 3G2. 
 
 t Grimm, Teutonic Myth. p. 31.
 
 ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 35 
 
 Heathendom, says Grimm, seems to have practiced all 
 sorts of magic by cutting off horses' heads and sticking 
 them up,* and he quotes examples from Scandinavia, 
 Germany, and Holland. Passing on to folklore, we find 
 that the witches of Germany in the thirteenth century 
 were accused of adoring a beast's head.f A fox's head 
 was nailed to the stable door in some parts of Scotland to 
 bar the entrance of witches. J Camden has noted a cu- 
 rious ceremony obtaining at St. Paul's Cathedral. "I have 
 heard," he says, " that the stag which the family of Le 
 Baud in Essex was bound to pay for certain lands used 
 to be received at the steps of the church by the priests 
 in their sacerdotal robes and with garlands of flowers on 
 their heads " ; and as a boy he saw a stag's head fixed 
 on a spear and conveyed about within the church with 
 great solemnity and sounds of horns.* At Horuchurch, 
 in Essex, a singular ceremony is recorded. The lessee 
 of the tithes supplies a boar's head, dressed, and gar- 
 nished with bay- leaves. In the afternoon of Christmas 
 Day it is carried in procession into the field adjoining 
 the churchyard, where it is wrestled for.|| 
 
 These customs are also confirmed by the records of 
 archaeology. In the belfry of Elsdon Church, Northum- 
 
 * Grimm, Teutonic Myth. p. 659. f Ihid, p. 1065. 
 X Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 148. 
 
 * Britannia, Holland's translation, p. 426. 
 
 II Notes and Queries, 1st Ser., v, 106 ; Gentleman's Magazine 
 Library — 3Ianners and Customs, p. 221. It is also curious to 
 noto that leaden horns are fastened over the east part of the 
 church.
 
 36 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 l)orl!iii(l, were discovered in 1877 the skeletons of three 
 horses' heads. They were in u small chamber, evidently 
 formed to receive them, and the spot was the highest 
 part of the cluirch ; they were piled one against the 
 other in a triangular form, the jaws being uppermost* 
 
 I will iKit do move, tlian say that these items of folk- 
 lore, following those which relate to the sacrifice of the 
 animal, confirm the parallel which is being sought for 
 between the living ceremonial of Indian festivals and 
 the surviving peasant custom in European folklore, and 
 I pass on from the victims of the sacrifice to the actors 
 in the scene. All the latent savagery exhibited in the 
 action of tearing the victim to pieces has been noted 
 both in the Indian type and in its folklore parallels. 
 One might be tempted, perhaps, to draw attention to 
 the curious parallel Avliich the use of the whip by the 
 Potraj of the Indian village bears to the gad- whip serv- 
 ice at Caistor, in Lincolnshire, especially as the whip 
 here used is bound round with jiieces of that magic 
 plant the rowan-tree, and by tradition is connected with 
 the death of a human being, f But this analogy may 
 be one of the accidents of comparative studies, inas- 
 much as it is not supported by cumulative or other 
 confirmatory evidence. No such reason need detain us 
 from considering the fact of women offering their vows 
 at the festival in a nude condition, covered only with 
 the leaves and boughs of trees, because it is easy to turn 
 
 * Berinckshire Naturalists' Field Club, ix, 510. 
 t Arch, Journ., vi, 239.
 
 ETEXIC ELEMENTS IN CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 37 
 
 to the folklore parallels to tliis custom, in Mr. Hart- 
 land's admirable study of the Godiva legend. 
 
 Every one knows this legend, which, together with 
 all details as to date and earliest literary forms, is ex- 
 plained by Mr. Hartland.* I shall therefore turn to the 
 essential points. The ride of the Lady Godiva naked 
 through the streets of Coventry is the legend told to ac- 
 count for an annual procession among the municipal 
 pageants of that town. The converse view, that the 
 pageant arose out of the legend, is disproved by the 
 facts. To meet this theory the legend would have to 
 be founded upon a definite historical fact concerning 
 only the place to which it relates, namely, Coventry. 
 For this, as Mr. Hartland shows, there is absolutely no 
 proof ; and parallels exist in two other places, one in 
 the shape of an annual procession, the other in the 
 shape of a legend only. I pass over the many interest- 
 ing traces of the legend in folktales which Mr. Hartland 
 has so learnedly collected and commented upon, and 
 proceed to notice the other examples in England. 
 
 The first occurs at Southam, a village not far from 
 Coventry. " Very little is known about it now, save 
 one singular fact — namely, that there were two Godivas 
 in the cavalcade, and one of them was black." f The 
 
 * Science of Fairy Tales, p. 71 et seq. 
 
 f Hartland, op. cit., p. 85. This important discovery of Mr. 
 Hartland's may fairly be compared with the " dirty practice of the 
 Greeks" in the Dionysian mysteries noted above, a counterpart of 
 which Mr. Lang some years ago could not find in modern folklore. 
 — Folklore Record, ii, introd., p. ii.
 
 38 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 second occurs at St. Briavcls, in Gloucestershire. Here 
 the privilege of cutting and taking the wood in Ilud- 
 noUs, and the custom of distributing yearly upon Whit- 
 sunday pieces of bread and cheese to the congregation 
 at church, are connected by tradition with a right ob- 
 tained of some Earl of Hereford, then lord of the forest 
 of Dean, at the instance of his lady, " upon the same 
 hard terms that Lady Godiva obtained the privilege for 
 the citizens of Coventry." * 
 
 Thus, then, we have as the basis for considering 
 these singular survivals : 
 
 («) The Coventry legend and ceremony, kept up as 
 municipal custom, and recorded as early as the thir- 
 teenth century by Eoger of Wendovcr. 
 
 {h) The Southam ceremony, kept up as local custom, 
 unaccompanied by any legend as to origin. 
 
 ((■■) The St. Briavels legend, not recorded until toward 
 the end of the eighteenth century, and accomj)anied by 
 a totally different custom. 
 
 This variation in the local methods of keeping up 
 this remarkable survival is one of some significance in 
 the consideration of its origin,f and I now go on to 
 compare it with an early ceremony in Britain, as noted 
 by Pliny : " Both matrons and girls," says this authority, 
 " among the people of Britain are in the habit of stain- 
 
 * Rudder, History of Gloucestershire, 1779, p. 307 ; Gomme, 
 GenfJemaii's 3fagazine Library — Manners and Customs, p. 230; 
 llarlliiiul, op. cit., p. 78. 
 
 f Folklore, i, 13.
 
 ETUNIC ELEMENTS IX CUSTOM AND RITUAL. 39 
 
 ing their body all over with woad when taking part in 
 the performance of certain sacred rites ; rivaling thereby 
 the swarthy hue of the Ethiopians, they go in a state of 
 nature." * Between the customs and legends of modern 
 folklore and the ancient 2)ractice of the Britons there is 
 intimate connection, and the parallel thus afforded to 
 the Indian festival seems complete. The attendance of 
 votaries at a religious festival in a state of nudity has 
 also been kept up in another form. At Stirling, on one 
 of the early days of May, boys of ten and twelve years 
 old divest themselves of clothing, and in a state of 
 nudity run round certain natural or artificial circles. 
 Formerly the rounded summit of Demyat, an eminence 
 in the Ocliil range, was a favorite scene of this strange 
 pastime, but for many j^ears it has been performed at 
 the King's Knot in Stirling, an octagonal mound in the 
 Eoyal gardens. The performances are not infrequently 
 repeated at Midsummer and Lammas. f The fact that 
 in this instance the practice is continued only by " boys 
 of ten and twelve years old " shows that we have here 
 one of the last stages of an old rite before its final abo- 
 lition. It would have been difficult, perhaps, to attach 
 much importance to this example as a survival of a rude 
 prehistoric cult unless we had previously discussed the 
 Godiva forms of it. But any one acquainted with the 
 
 * Naf. Jlisf., lib. xxii, cap. 1. I think the passage in the poem 
 of Dionvsius Periegeta about the rites of the Amnites may be 
 compared, the women being " decked in the dark-leaved ivy's 
 clustering buds." See 3Ian. Hist. Brit., p. xvii. 
 
 f Rogers, Social Life iti Scotland, iii, 240. 
 4
 
 40 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 frequent change of personnel in the execution of cere- 
 monies sanctioned only by the force of local tradition will 
 have little difficulty in conceding that the Scottish cus- 
 tom has a place in the series of folklore items which 
 connects the Godiva ceremony with the religious rites of 
 the ancient Britons as recorded by Pliny, thus cement- 
 ing the close parallel which the whole bears to the In- 
 dian village festival. 
 
 I think it will be admitted that these parallels are 
 sufficiently obvious to suggest that they tell the same 
 story both in India and Europe. They do not, by actual 
 proof, belong to the Aryans of India ; they do not, there- 
 fore, by legitimate conclusion, belong to the Aryans of 
 Europe. 
 
 But it may be argued that customs which in India 
 are parts of one whole can not be compared with cus- 
 toms in Europe which are often isolated and sometimes 
 associated with other customs. The argument will not 
 hold good if the conditions of survivals in folklore al- 
 ready set forth are duly considered. But it can be met 
 by the test of evidence. Some of the customs which in 
 south India form a part of the festival of the village 
 goddess are in other parts of India and in other coun- 
 tries independent customs, or associated with other sur- 
 roundings altogether, thus substantiating my suggestion 
 that this village festival of India has been welded to- 
 gether by the influence of races antagonistic to each 
 other, which have been compelled to live together side 
 by side for a long period.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUE>'CE OF A COXQUEKED EACE. 
 
 It appears, then, that the influence of a conquered 
 race does not die out so soon as the conquerors are es- 
 tablished. Their religious customs and ritual are still 
 observed under the new regime, and in some cases, as in 
 India, very little, if any attempt is made to disguise 
 their indigenous origin. Another influence exerted by 
 the conquered over the conquerors is more subtle. It 
 is not the adoption or extension of existing customs 
 and beliefs, or the evolution of a new stage in custom 
 and belief in consequence of the amalgamation. It is 
 the creation of an entirely new influence, based on the 
 fear which the conquered have succeeded in creating in 
 the minds of the conquerors. 
 
 Has any one attempted to realize the effects of a per- 
 manent residence of a civilized people amidst a lower 
 civilization, the members of which are cruel, crafty, and 
 unscrupulous? In some regions of fiction, such as 
 Kingsley's " Hereward " and Lytton's " Harold," a sort 
 of picture has been drawn — a picture drawn and col- 
 ored, however, in times far separated from those AS'hich 
 witnessed the events. Fenimore Cooper has attempted
 
 42 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 tlic tusk witli bettor materials in liis stories of tlie white 
 man and his relations to the red Indians. But by far 
 the truest accounts are to be found in the dry records 
 of official history. One such record has been transferred 
 to the archives of the Anthropological Institute,* and it 
 would be described by any ordinary reader as a record 
 of the doings of demons. 
 
 Of course this phraseology is figurative. But figures 
 of speech very often survive from the figures of the 
 ancient mythic conceptions of actual events, and though 
 we should simply style the doings of the Tasmanians 
 fighting against tlic whites demoniacal as an appropri- 
 ate figure of speech, people of a lower culture, and our 
 own peasantry a few years back, would believe them to 
 be demoniacal in the literal sense of that term. Xo 
 one will doubt that there is much in savage warfare to 
 suggest these ideas, and Avhen it is remembered that 
 savage warfare is waged by one tribe against another 
 simply because they are strangers to each other — that 
 not to be a member of a tribe is to be an enemy — it will 
 not be surprising that the condition of hostility has pro- 
 duced its share of superstition. 
 
 It is the hostility between races, not the hostility 
 between tribes of the same race, that has produced the 
 most marked form of superstition ; and it may be put 
 down as one of the axioms of our science that the hos- 
 tility of races wherever they dwell long together in close 
 
 * Joum. Anthrop. Inst., iii., 9 ; cf. Nilsson's Primitive Inhabit- 
 ants of Scandinavia, p. 176.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 43 
 
 contact has always produced superstition. Unfortu- 
 nately no examples of this have been noted by travelers 
 as a general rule, but there is ample evidence in sup- 
 port of the statement, and I shall adduce some. 
 
 The inland tribes of New Guinea are distinct from 
 those of the coast,* but the spirit beliefs of the coast 
 tribes which are described as being unusually prevalent 
 are chiefly derived from their fear of the aboriginal 
 tribes. They believe, says Mr. Lawes, when the natives 
 are in the neighborhood that the whole plain is full of 
 spirits who come with them ; all calamities are attrib- 
 uted to the power and malice of these evil spirits ; 
 drought, famine, storm and flood, disease and death, are 
 all supposed to be brought by Vata and his hosts, f In 
 this case the aborigines are represented as accompanied 
 by their own spiritual guardians, who wage war upon 
 the new-comers. In other cases aboriginal people are 
 credited with the power of exercising demon functions 
 or assuming demon forms. Thus every tribe in West- 
 ern Australia holds those to the north of it in especial 
 dread, imputing to them an immense power of enchant- 
 ment; and this, says Mr. Oldfield, seems to justify the 
 inference that the peopling of New Holland has taken 
 place from various points toward the north. J The 
 Hova tribes of Madagascar deified the Vazimba aborig- 
 ines, and still consider their tombs as the most sacred 
 
 * Rornilly, From my Veranda, p. 249. 
 
 ■f Trans. Geog. Soc, N. S., ii, 615. 
 
 t Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., iii, 216, 235, 236.
 
 44 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 objects in the country. 1'hesc spirits are supposed to 
 be of two kinds — the kindly disposed and the fierce and 
 cruel. Some are said to inhabit the water, while others 
 are terrestrial in their habits, and they are believed to 
 appear to those who seek their aid in dreams, warning 
 them and directing them.* In the case of the Ainos, 
 the supposed aborigines of Japan, the subject and object 
 of the superstition seem to be reversed, for it is the 
 Ainos who are superstitiously afraid of the Japanese ; f 
 but it is to be observed that the ethnology of the Ainos, 
 and their place in the country prior to the present con- 
 dition of things, have not-been sufficiently examined. 
 Certainly their position in this group of superstitions 
 will need consideration. Two examples may be men- 
 tioned of the attitude of Malays to their conquered foes. 
 To a Malay an aboriginal Jakun is a supernatural being 
 endowed with a supernatural power and with an un- 
 limited knowledge of the secrets of nature ; he must be 
 skilled in divination, sorcery, and fascination, and able 
 to do either evil or good according to his pleasure ; his 
 blessing will be followed by the most fortunate success, 
 and his curse by the most dreadful consequences. When 
 he hates some person he turns himself toward the 
 house, strikes two sticks one upon the other, and, what- 
 ever may be the distance, his enemy will fall sick and 
 
 * Anthrop. Inst., v, 190 ; Sibree, Madagascar, p. 135 ; Ellis, 
 Madagascar, i, 123, 423. 
 
 f I'ratis. Ethnoh Soc, X. S., vii, 24. Mr. Rickmore in this 
 paper makes some very pertinent suggestions as to the probable 
 ethnic origin of the Ainos.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 45 
 
 even die if he perseveres in that exercise for a few days. 
 Besides, to a Malay the Jakun is a man who by his na- 
 ture must necessarily know all the properties of every 
 plant, and consequently must be a clever physician, and 
 the Malay when sick will obtain his assistance, or at 
 least get some medicinal plants from him. The Jakun 
 is also gifted with the power of charming the wild 
 beasts, even the most ferocious.* The second example 
 includes the Chinese. The Malays and Chinese of Ma- 
 lacca have implicit faith in the supernatural power of 
 the Poyangs, and believe that many others among the 
 aborigines are imbued with it. Hence they are careful 
 to avoid offending them in any way, because it is be- 
 lieved they take offense deeply to heart, and will sooner 
 or later, by occult means, revenge themselves. The 
 Malays resort to them for the cure of diseases. Re- 
 venge also not infrequently sends them to the Poyangs, 
 whose power they invoke to cause disease and other mis- 
 fortune, or even death, to those who have injured them.f 
 The Burmese and Siamese hold the hill tribes, the 
 Lawas, in great dread, believing them to be man-bears. J 
 The Budas of Abyssinia are looked upon as sorcerers 
 and werewolves.** 
 
 These examples will serve to show the influences at 
 work for the production of superstitious beliefs arising 
 
 * Journ. Ind. Arch., ii. 273-274. f Jbtd., i, 328. 
 
 X Colquhoun's Amongst the Shans, p. 52 ; Bas^tian, (Estl. Asien., 
 i, 119. 
 
 » Hall's Life of Nathaniel Pearce, i, 286.
 
 46 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 out of the hostility of races. My next point is to illus- 
 trate this principle in connection with the Aryan race. 
 i)o they, like the inferior races, endow with superhuman 
 faculties the non-Aryan aborigines against whom they 
 have fought in every land where they have become 
 masters ? 
 
 Again, we must turn to India for an answer to our 
 question. The mountain ranges and great jungle tracts 
 of southern India, says Mr. Walhouse, are inhabited by 
 semi-savage tribes, avIio, there is good reason to believe, 
 once held the fertile open plains, and were the builders 
 of those megalithic sepulchres which abound over the 
 cultivated country.* All these races are regarded by 
 their Hindu masters with boundless contempt, and held 
 unspeakably unclean. Yet there are many curious rights 
 and privileges which the despised castes possess and te- 
 naciously retain. Some of these in connection with the 
 village festival, which has been examined at length, we 
 already know. On certain days they may enter temples 
 which at other times they must not approach ; there 
 are several important ceremonial and social observances 
 which they are always called upon to inaugurate or 
 take some share in, and which, indeed, says Mr. "Wal- 
 house, would be held incomplete and unlucky without 
 them. But, what is more important for our immediate 
 purpose, Mr. "Walhouse also says that " the contempt and 
 loathing in which they are ordinarily held are curiously 
 
 * Jonrn. Anthrop. Inst., iv. 371.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 47 
 
 tinctured with superstitious fear, for they are believed 
 to possess secret powers of magic and witchcraft and in- 
 fluence with the old malignant deities of the soil who 
 can direct good or evil fortune."* I lay stress upon 
 this passage because in it is contained virtually the 
 v/hole of the evidence I am seeking for. It is supported 
 by abundant testimony, brought together with clearness 
 and precision by Mr. Walhouse, and it is confirmed by 
 many other authorities, whom it would be tedious to 
 quote at length. To this day, says Colonel Dalton, the 
 Aryans settled in Chota Nagpore and Singbhoom firmly 
 believe that the Moondalis have powers as wizards and 
 witches, and can transform themselves into tigers and 
 other beasts of jjrey with a view to devouring their ene- 
 mies, and that they can witch away the lives of man and 
 beast. f The Hindus, Latham tells us, regard the Katodi 
 with awe, believing that they can transform themselves 
 into tigers. J I will finally quote the evidence from Cey- 
 lon. " The wild ignorant savages " w ho inhabited this 
 island when the Hindus conquered it are termed by the 
 chroniclers demons,* and demonism in Ceylon, origi- 
 nating with this non-Aryan aboriginal people, has grown 
 into a cult. 
 
 * Journ. Anthrop. Inst., iv, 371-372. 
 
 \ Trans. EthiioJ. Soc, N. S., vi. 6 ; Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 
 1866, part ii, 158. How these beliefs react on the non-Aryan races 
 among themselves may be ascertained by referring to the Toda 
 beliefs noted in Trans. Ethnol. Soc, N. S., vii, 247, 277, 287. 
 
 X Descriptive Ethnology, ii, 457. 
 
 * Journ, As. Soc. Ceylon, 1865-'66, p. 3 ; Tennent's Ceylon, i,
 
 48 ETENOLOGY IN' FOLKLORE. 
 
 It bears on the question of the relationship between 
 conquerors and conquered which has been illustrated by 
 this evidence to observe that Professor Eobertson Smith, 
 from evidence apart from that I have used, has rele- 
 gated demonism to the position of a cult hostile to and 
 separate from the tribal beliefs of early people.* 
 
 I feel quite sure that the examples I have drawn 
 from the history of savagery, and from the history of 
 the conflict between Chinese and Hindu civilization 
 and savagery, have already enabled the reader to detect 
 many points of contact between these and the history 
 of demonism and witchcraft in the "Western world. I 
 shall examine some of those points of contact, and then 
 I shall turn to some more debatable matter. 
 
 The demonism of savagery is parallel to the Avitch- 
 craft of civilization in the power which votaries of the 
 two cults profess, and are allowed by their believers to 
 possess, over the elements, over wild beasts, and in 
 changing their own human form into some animal 
 form, and it will be well to give some examples of these 
 powers from the folklore of the British Isles. 
 
 (a) In Pembrokeshire there was a person, commonly 
 known as " the cunning man of Pentregethen," who 
 sold winds to the sailors, and who was reverenced in the 
 
 331. As to the remnants of these races, see Lassen, Indische Alter- 
 ihumskunde, i, 199, 362. 
 
 * Religion of the Semites, pp. 55, 115, 129, 145, 246. Mr. Wal- 
 house, in Journ. Anthrop. Inst., v, 413, draws attention to the wide- 
 spread and parallel beliefs in demons — beliefs which in India 
 until lately, and in ancient Germany and Gaul altogether, were
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 49 
 
 neighborhood in which he dwelt much more than the 
 divines ; he could ascertain the state of absent friends, 
 and performed all the wonderful actions ascribed to 
 conjurers.* At Stromness, in the Orkneys, so late as 
 1814 there lived an old beldame who sold favorable 
 winds to mariners. She boiled her kettle, muttered her 
 incantations, and so raised the wind.f In the Isle of 
 Man, Higden says, the women " selle to shipmen wynde, 
 as it were closed under three knotes of threde, so that 
 the more wynde he wold have, the more knotes he must 
 vndo." I x\t Kempoch Point, in the Firth of Clyde, is a 
 columnar rock called the Kempoch Stane, from whence 
 a saint was wont to dispense favorable winds to those 
 who paid for them and unfavorable to those who did 
 not put confidence in his powers ; a tradition which 
 seems to have been carried on by the Innerkip witches, 
 who were tried in 1G62, and some portions of which still 
 linger among the sailors of Greenock.* These practices 
 may be compared with the performances of the priest- 
 esses of Sena, who, as described by Pomponius Mela, 
 were capable of rousing up the seas and winds by incan- 
 tations. II 
 
 entirely ignored by inquirers, and he says they " belong to the 
 Turanian races, and are antagonistic to the Arj-an genius and 
 feelings," p. 411. Cf. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 102. 
 
 * Howells's Cambrian Superstitions, 1831, p. 86. 
 f Gorrie, Summers and Winters in Orkney, p. 47. 
 
 I Pohjchronicon by Trevisa, i, cap. 44. 
 
 * Cuthbert Bede, Glencreggan, i, 9, 44 ; c/. Sinclair's Stat. Ace. 
 of Scot., viii, 52. 
 
 II Pomj)onius Mela, iii, 8. It is curious to note that a district
 
 60 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 (h) Tlic power of witches over animals, and their 
 capacity to transform themselves into animal shapes, is 
 well known, though, as civilization has gradually eradi- 
 cated the wilder sorts of animals, we do not now hear 
 of these in connection with witchcraft. The most usual 
 transformations are into cats and hares, and less fre- 
 quently into red deer, and these have taken the place of 
 wolves. Thus, cat transformations are found in York- 
 shire ; * hare transformations in Devonshire, Yorkshire, 
 Wales, and Scotland ; f deer transformations in Cumber- 
 land ; I raven transformations in Scotland ; * cattle 
 transformations in Ireland. |1 Indeed the connection 
 between witches and the lower animals is a very close 
 one, and hardly anyw'here in Europe does it occur that 
 this connection is relegated to a subordinate place. 
 Story after story, custom after custom, is recorded as ap- 
 pertaining to witchcraft, and animal transformation 
 appears always. 
 
 From this it may be admitted that the general char- 
 acteristics of the superstitions brought about by the 
 contact between the Aryan conquerors of India and the 
 non-Aryan aborigines are also represented in the cult of 
 European witchcraft. When W'e pass from these gen- 
 eral characteristics to some of the details, the identity 
 
 of Douglas in the Isle of Man is known as Sena. — Trans. Manx 
 Soc, V, 65 : Rev. Celt, x, 353. 
 
 * Henderson's Folklore, pp. 206, 207, 209. 
 
 t Henderson, pp. 201, 202, 208; Dalyell, Darker Supersiiiwns 
 of Scotland, p. 5G0; Folklore, ii, 291. 
 
 X Henderson, p. 204. * Dalyell, p. 559. | Ibid., p. 561.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED KACE. 51 
 
 of the Indian with the European superstitions is more 
 emphatically marked. Thus, in Orissa it is believed that 
 witches have the power of leaving their bodies and go- 
 ing about invisibly, but if the flower of the pan or betil- 
 leaf can be obtained and placed in the right ear, it will 
 enable the onlooker to see the witches and talk to them 
 with impunity.* This is represented in folklore by the 
 magic ointment, which enables people to see otherwise 
 invisible fairies, and by the supposed property of the 
 fern-seed, which makes people invisible, f Such a par- 
 allel as this could only have been produced by going 
 back to origins. Again, in the charms resorted to by 
 the demon-priests of Ceylon we find a close parallel, 
 which belongs to the same category. A small image, 
 made of wax or wood, or a figure drawn upon a leaf or 
 something else, supposed to represent the person to be 
 injured, is submitted to the sorcerer, together with a 
 few hairs from the head of the victim, some clippings 
 of his finger-nails, and a thread or two from a cloth 
 worn by him. Xails made of a composition of five dif- 
 ferent kinds of metals, generally gold, silver, copper, tin, 
 and lead are then driven into the image at all those points 
 which represent the joints, the heart, the head, and other 
 important parts of the body. The name of the intended 
 victim being marked on the image, it is buried in the 
 ground in some suitable place where the victim is likely 
 
 * Handbook of Folklore, p. 40. 
 
 f Ilartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 59 et seq. ; Braud, i, 315 ; 
 cf. Griram, Teid. Myth., iii, 1210.
 
 52 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 to pass over it. * This method of destruction by images 
 is one of the most generally known among the practices 
 of witchcraft in Europe. Plato alludes to it as obtain- 
 ing among the Greeks of his period, f Boethius says 
 a waxen image was fabricated for the destruction of one 
 of the Scottish kings of the tenth century, and if this 
 author is not to be taken too seriously for so early a 
 period, his narrative is too circumstantial not to be 
 readily accepted as a current belief at least of his own 
 time. J The later Scottish practices contain all the ele- 
 ments of the Ceylon practices. The image was fabri- 
 cated of any available materials, it was baptized by the 
 name of the victim, or characterized by certain defini- 
 tions identifying the resemblance, the various parts were 
 pierced with pins or needles, or the whole was wasted 
 by heat, and pieces of the victim's hair were associated 
 with it.* These close parallels can not be accidental, 
 and I am tempted to add that when we come upon other 
 parallels which almost suggest the element of accident 
 for their production, they may, after all, be due to par- 
 allel developments from the same originals. || 
 
 * Journ. As. Soc. Ceylon, 1865-'66, p. 71 ; cf. Ward, Hist, of 
 the Hindoos, ii, 100. 
 
 f Plato, Latvs, lib. xi. 
 
 J Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, pp. 332, 333. 
 
 « Dalyell, op. cit., pp. 334-851. 
 
 I Such, for instance, as the revenge perpetrated upon the 
 young wife in stopping the birth of her first child when her mar- 
 riage was resented by a former financee of her husband : for which 
 compare really remarkable parallels in Ceylon As. Soc. 1865-'6(5, 
 p. 70, and Folklore Record, ii, 11(>-117. It is important to note
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 53 
 
 It seems to me to be as impossible to ignore the evi- 
 dence produced by these close parallels as to acceiDt 
 it at less than its full value. If the demonism of India 
 is non-Aryan in origin and produced by the contact 
 between Aryans and aborigines, the witchcraft of Europe 
 must be equally non- Aryan in origin, and produced by 
 the contact between Aryans and aborigines, even al- 
 though during the ages of civilization the people who 
 have carried on the cult have not kept up their race dis- 
 tinction side by side with their race superstition.* 
 
 Fortunately there is one singular fact preserved 
 among the ceremonies of witchcraft in Scotland, which 
 helps us to carry this argument a step forward toward 
 absolute proof. In order to injure the waxen image of 
 the intended victim, the implements used in some cases 
 by the witches were stone arrowheads, or elf-shots, as 
 they were called, f and their use was accompanied by an 
 incantation. J Here we have, in the undoubted form of 
 a prehistoric implement, the oldest untouched detail of 
 early life which has been preserved by witchcraft, and 
 it is such untouched oldest fragments, not their modern 
 substitutions or additions, which must be accentuated 
 
 that Grimm rejects the idea of plagiarism to account for the simi- 
 larity in witch-doings. — Teut. Myth., iii, 1044. 
 
 * This observation even may have to be modified by further re- 
 search, for in the Anglo-Saxon laws witchcraft is generally men- 
 tioned jis a crime peculiar to serfs. 
 
 f Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, i, 192: Dalycll, Darlier Supersti- 
 tions of Scotland, pp. 352, 353 ; cf. Nilsson's Primitire Inhabitants 
 of Scandinavia, p. 199. 
 
 X Dalyell, op. cit., p. 357.
 
 54 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 by the student of folklore ; they clearly must be the 
 starting-point of any explanation which may be sought 
 for of the usages and superstitions of which they form 
 a part. Grimm has stripped witchcraft of the accretions 
 due to the action of the Church against heretics, and 
 perceives " in the whole witch business a clear connec- 
 tion with the sacrifices and spirit world of the ancient 
 Germans," * and it seems that this definition must be 
 enlarged to include all branches of the Aryan race. 
 
 It is interesting to turn from these stone implements 
 used in witchcraft to the beliefs about them in peasant 
 thought. Irish peasants wear flint arrowheads about 
 their necks set in silver as an amulet against elf-shoot- 
 ing, f In the west of Ireland, but especially in the 
 Arran Isles, Gal way Bay, they are looked on with great 
 superstition. They are supposed to be fairy darts or 
 arrows, which have been thrown by fairies, either in 
 fights among themselves or at a mortal man or beast. 
 The finder of one should carefully put it in a hole in a 
 wall or ditch. It should not be brought into a house or 
 given to any one ; but the islanders of Arran are very 
 fond of making votive offerings of them at the holy 
 wells on the main-land. They carry them to the differ- 
 ent patrons and leave them there, but they do not seem 
 to leave them at the holy wells on the island. J 
 
 * Tent. 3Iyfh., iii, 1045. 
 
 f Henderson, Folklore of Northern Countries, p. 185. 
 X Folklore Record, iv, 112; c/. Vallancey, Collectanea, xiii; 
 Nenia Britaimica, p. 154.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 55 
 
 If a quotation from the Brontes' eminently local 
 novels is to be admitted as evidence, the belief that 
 stone arrowheads were elf-shots was prevalent in York- 
 shire.* 
 
 In Scotland, Edward Lhwyd noted in 1713 that 
 " the most curious as well as the vulgar throughout this 
 country are satisfied they often drop out of the air, be- 
 ing shot by fairies," and that " they have not been used 
 as amulets above thirty or forty years." f At Lauder 
 and in Banffshire the peasantry called them elf -arrow- 
 heads. J At AVick, in Caithness, the peasantry asserted 
 that they were fairies' arrows, and that the fairies shot 
 them at cattle, which instantly fell down dead, though 
 the hide of the animal remained quite entire.** That 
 this was a Lowland Scotch belief is also attested by 
 Keightley's collection of facts. || 
 
 Thus, then, in witchcraft and in peasant thought 
 there is a common belief as to prehistoric arrowheads 
 having belonged to beings known as elves. It proves, 
 as Nilsson observes, that it was not the Celts themselves, 
 but a people considered by them to be versed in magic, 
 who fabricated and used these stone arrows.-*- These 
 people, whoever they may prove to be, were therefore 
 powerful enough to introduce mythic conceptions con- 
 
 * Folklore Journal, i, 300. 
 
 f Folklore Record, iv, 1G9; cf. Gi-egor's Folklore of Northeast 
 of Scotland, p. 59. 
 
 t Sinclair's Stat. Ace. Scot, i, 73 ; iii, 5G, 
 « Ibid., X, 15 ; xxi, 148. \\ Fairy 3Iythology. pp. 351, 352. 
 
 •^ Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, p. 200. 
 5
 
 56 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 cerning themselves into the minds of their conquerors, 
 and some authorities of eminence have not hesitated to 
 urge that they have even left traditions of their exist- 
 ence in a more historical shape.* " Who," asks Mr. 
 Campbell, " were these powers of evil who can not resist 
 iron — these fairies who shoot stone arrows, and are of 
 the foes to the human race ? Is all this but a dim, hazy 
 recollection of war between a people who had iron 
 weapons and a race who had not — a race whose remains 
 are found all over Europe ? " f 
 
 We are here met by two opposing theories — one 
 whose upholders look back upon the fairy traditions as 
 evidence of so much actual history, the other as evi- 
 dence only of the spirit beliefs of past ages. 
 
 But if the close inter-relationship between fairy-be- 
 liefs and witch-beliefs be steadily kept in mind, these 
 opposing theories may, I think, be brought into some- 
 thing like unison. Mr. Hartland has proved this close 
 inter-relationship by a lengthy investigation, t and it 
 
 * Skene, in the first volume of his Celtic Scotland, and Elton, 
 in his Origins of English History, cap. vii, are the most available 
 authorities on this subject, 
 
 t Tales of the West Highlands, p. Ixxvi; Nilsson. in Primitive 
 Inhabitants of Scandinavia (p. 247 et seq.), and MacRitchie, in his 
 Testimony of Tradition, have followed this line of argument. 
 
 X Science of Fairy Tales, passim. Grimm's observation that 
 the witches' devils have proper names so strikingly similar in 
 formation to those of elves and kobolds that one can scarcely 
 think otherwise than that nearly all devils' names of that cla^sare 
 dcscentled from other folk-names for those sprites— Tew;'. Myth., 
 iii, 1063— strikingly confirms the explanation I have ventured 
 upon as to the connection between witchcraft and fairycraft.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 57 
 
 must henceforth be the basis of research into these de- 
 partments of folklore. 
 
 We commence the task of certifying to the unison 
 of these two theories with the fact of the personal ele- 
 ment in witchcraft — the attribution of magical powers, 
 derived from the spirit of evil, to certain definite classes 
 of people, the acceptance of this attribution by the peo- 
 ple concerned, and their claim to have become acquainted 
 with their supposed powers by initiation. I am inclined 
 to lay great stress upon the act of initiation. It empha- 
 sizes the idea of a caste distinct from the general pop- 
 ulace, and it postulates the existence of this caste anterior 
 to the time when those who practice their supposed 
 powers first come into notice. Carrying back this act 
 of initiation age after age, as the dismal records of 
 witchcraft enable us to do for some centuries, it is clear 
 that the people from time to time thus introduced into 
 the witch caste carried on the practices and assumed the 
 functions of the caste even though they came to it as 
 novices and strangers. We thus arrive at an artificial 
 means of descent of a particular group of superstitions, 
 and it might be termed initiatory descent. 
 
 But descent by initiation was not invented without 
 some good and sufficient cause, and this cause will be 
 found, I think, in the failure of blood-descent. In the 
 primitive Aryan family failure of blood-descent led to 
 the legal fiction of adoption, and the history of caste al- 
 most everywhere shows the same phenomenon. I do 
 not wish to ask too much from this argument before it
 
 58 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 is substantiated by evidence, but that we may take it as 
 a sound working hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that 
 it supjilies the missing link in a most important series 
 of developments clearly marked in the history of witch- 
 craft and its connection with fairycraft. 
 
 The only people occupying the lands of modern 
 Euroj^ean civilization who have not succeeded in mark- 
 ing their descendants with the stamp of their race 
 origin are the non- Aryans. Celt, Teuton, Scandinavian, 
 and Slav are still to be found in centers definable on 
 the map of Europe, but except in the Basque Pyrenees 
 the forerunners of the Aryan peoples have become ab- 
 sorbed by their conquerors. Blood-descent was of no 
 avail to them for the keeping alive of their old faiths 
 and beliefs. That they resorted to initiation as a remedy 
 is the suggestion I wish to make, and that in witchcraft 
 there has been preserved some of the non- Aryan faiths 
 and beliefs is the conclusion I wish to draw — a conclu- 
 sion which is met more than half-way by the close 
 parallel which, as we have already partly seen, exists be- 
 tween the beliefs and practices of witches and non- 
 Aryan beliefs. 
 
 I think it is more than probable that the ancient 
 cult of Druidism will prove to be a factor in the race 
 history of witchcraft. At the time when all traces of 
 Druidism, as such, had completely died out in Britain, 
 some of the practices attributed to witches were exact 
 reproductions of the practices attributed to Druids by 
 the earlier writers. One of the most significant, as it is
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 59 
 
 one of the most painful, of these practices has for its 
 basis the belief that the life of one man could only be 
 redeemed by that of another. The evidence for the 
 Druidical side of this parallel is given by Ceesar and 
 other authorities. The evidence for it in witchcraft is 
 given in some of the seventeenth-century trials, where 
 all the details of the horrid rites are related with mi- 
 nute accuracy.* I shall have occasion to refer to these 
 details at some length later on, but I note here that 
 they supply us not only with evidence of the continuity 
 in witchcraft of a particular Druid ic belief, but also of 
 the continuity of the methods of adapting this belief 
 to practice — namely, through the interposition of a 
 trained adept, in fact the jiriestess of a cult ; for in 
 this instance, at all events, the Scottish witch is the 
 successor of the Druid priestess. She is so in other 
 characteristics already noted — in her capacity for trans- 
 formation into animal form, in her power over winds 
 and waves, both being common to witch and Druidess 
 alike. 
 
 It is no answer to the argument that Druidism was 
 continued by witchcraft to point to the apparent chrono- 
 logical gap between the decline of one and the earliest 
 historical mention of the other. f That Druidism con- 
 
 * Cf. Forbes Leslie, Early Faces of Scotland, i, 83 ; Dalyell, 
 Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 176. 
 
 f Grimm says that the earlier middle ages had known of 
 magicians and witches only in the milder senses, as legendary elv- 
 ish beings peopling the domain of ^Tilgar belief, or even as demo- 
 niacs. — Teut. Myth., iii, 1067.
 
 60 ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 tinued to exist long after it was officially dead, can be 
 proved. The character of much of the paganism of 
 the early Scots and Picts has been accepted as Druidic 
 by Mr. Skene. The histories of the labors of St. Pat- 
 rick and St. Columba abound in references to the 
 Druids. " The Druids of Laogaire," says an ancient 
 poem, "concealed not from him the coming of Pat- 
 rick." * Columba competes with the Druids in his 
 supernatural powers on behalf of Christianity, f Druid- 
 ism thus came into contact with Christianity. Mr. 
 Skene and Mr. O'Curry, however, are inclined to think 
 that at this time it was not the Druidism of Caesar 
 and Pliny — " it was," says the former writer, " a sort of 
 fetichism, which peopled all the objects of nature with 
 malignant beings to whose agency its phenomena were 
 attributed." J Mr. O'Curry gives some of the vast num- 
 ber of allusions to the Druids in Irish MSS., which 
 contain instances of contests in Druidical spells, of 
 clouds raised by incantations of Druidesses, of the in- 
 terpretation of dreams, of the raising of tempests, of 
 the use of a yew wand instead of oak or mistletoe, of 
 auguries drawn from birds, and other peculiar rites and 
 beliefs ; but he distinctly repudiates the idea that Irish 
 Druidism, as made known by the MSS., was like the 
 classical Druidism in its adoption of human sacrifice, 
 
 * Stokes's Gaedelica, p. 131. 
 
 \ Skene. Celtic Scotland, ii, 115-117, gives the principal evi- 
 dence under this head. Cf. Elton, Origins of English History, pp. 
 273-274 
 
 I Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii, 118.
 
 THE MYTHIC IXFLUEXCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 61 
 
 or in its priests being servants of any sjsecial positive 
 worship.* 
 
 It is difficult to contest opinions like these, but they 
 do not appear to be borne out by the facts. For in- 
 stance, on the question of human sacrifice the Book of 
 BaUymote tells us how one of the kings brought fifty 
 hostages from Munster, and, dying before he reached his 
 palace, the hostages were buried alive around the grave.f 
 The evidence of Scottish witchcraft, already quoted, is 
 clear as to the sacrifice of one human being for an- 
 other in case of sickness ; and Mr. Elton says that the 
 Welsh and Irish traditions contain many traces of the 
 custom of human sacrifice. " Some of the penalties of 
 the, ancient laws," he says, "seemed to have originated 
 in an age when the criminal was offered to the gods ; 
 the thief and the seducer of women were burned on a 
 pile of logs or cast into a fiery furnace ; the maiden 
 who forgot her duty was burned, or drowned, or sent 
 adrift to sea." J To these examples must be added the 
 well-known story of Vortigern, who, on the recommenda- 
 tion of the British Druids, sought for a victim to sacri- 
 
 * O'Curry, Manners and Cnstoms of the Irish, ii, 222-228, 
 f O'Curry, p. eccxx ; cf. Elton, Origins of English History, 
 p. 272. 
 
 X Origins of English History, p. 271. Rhys, Celtic Heathen- 
 dom, p. 224, says : " Irish Druidisrn absorbed a certain amount of 
 Christianity, and it would be a problem of considerable difficulty 
 to fix on the point where it ceased to be Druidisrn, and from which 
 onward it could be said to be Christianity in any restricted sense 
 of that term."
 
 62 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 fice at the foundation of his castle ; * the parallel sacri- 
 fice of St. Oran in lona by Columba ; f and the sacrifice 
 of the first-born of children and flocks, in order to 
 secure power and peace in all their tribes and to obtain 
 milk and corn for the support of their families.J 
 
 These facts are perhaps sufficient to show that the 
 evidence for the continuity of Druidism, whatever 
 Druidism may have been, meets the other evidence as 
 to the presence in witchcraft of Druid beliefs and prac- 
 tices sufficiently nearly in point of time for it to be a 
 reasonable argument to affirm that witchcraft is the 
 lineal successor of Druidism. The one point necessary, 
 then, to complete the argument I have advanced is, that 
 Druidism must be identified as a non-Aryan cult. I 
 am aware that this point still awaits much investigation 
 by Celtic philologists and historians, but in the mean 
 time I am content to claim that considerable weight 
 must be given to Professor Ehys's twice-repeated affir- 
 mation that his researches go to prove Druidism to be of 
 non- Aryan origin,* especially as his researches lie in 
 quite a different direction to my own. 
 
 * Irish Nennius, cap. 40. O'Curry mentions this as evidence 
 for the differentiation of Irish and British Druidism. — Manners 
 and Customs, ii, 222. 
 
 f Stokes's Three Middle Irish Homilies, p. 119; Rev. Celt., ii, 
 200 ; Stat. Ace. of Scotland, vii, 321 ; Pennant's Tour, \i, 298. 
 
 X Boole of Leinster, quoted by Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 201. 
 
 *Rhys, Celtic Britain, pp. 67-75 ; Lectures on Welsh Philology, 
 p. 32 ; compare Celtic Ueathendom, p. 216 et seq. ; I have dealt 
 •with the institutional side of Druidism in its non- Aryan origin in 
 my Village Community, p. 104 et seq.
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUEKED RACE. 63 
 
 Whether, therefore, we rest our argument ui)on the 
 parallels to be found between witch practices and beliefs 
 and non- Aryan practices and beliefs, or upon the hy- 
 pothesis that the initiation necessary to the performance 
 of witchcraft is in reality the method of continuing 
 Druidic beliefs and practices when the possibilities of 
 continuing them by race descent had died out, there is 
 proof enough that in witchcraft is contained the survival 
 of non-Aryan practices and beliefs — practices and be- 
 liefs, that is, which the non- Aryan peoples possessed con- 
 cerning themselves and their own powers. 
 
 We next have to meet the question as to the race 
 origin of fairy beliefs, in so far as they are parallel to 
 witch beliefs. If witchcraft represents ancient aborigi- 
 nal belief in direct descent by the channels just ex- 
 amined, what part of the same aboriginal belief does 
 fairycraft represent, and how is its separation from 
 witchcraft to be accounted for ? 
 
 The theory that fairies are the traditional represent- 
 atives of an ancient pygmy race has met with consider- 
 able support from folklorists. It is needless to repeat 
 all the arguments in support of this theory which have 
 been advanced during the past twenty years, because 
 they are contained in works easily accessible and well 
 knowTi. But it is important to note that these beliefs 
 must have originated not with the aboriginal pygmy race 
 themselves, but with the conquering race who over- 
 powered them and drove them to the hills and out-parts 
 of the land. The influence of the despised, out-driven
 
 64 ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 aborigines did not cease after th<i conflict was over. It 
 produced upon the minds of their conquerors mythic 
 conceptions, which have during the lapse of time be- 
 come stereotyped into certain well-defined lines of fairy 
 lore. 
 
 At this point we may discuss how the parallel be- 
 tween witchcraft and fairycraft is explained by the 
 ethnological characteristics which have been advanced. 
 Witchcraft has been explained as the survival of ab- 
 original beliefs from aboriginal sources. Fairycraft has 
 been explained as the survival of beliefs about the ab- 
 origines from Aryan sources. The aborigines, as is 
 proved from Indian and other evidence, not only be- 
 lieved in their own demoniacal powers, but sought in 
 every way to spread this belief among their conquerors. 
 Thus, then, the belief of the aborigines about themselves, 
 and of the conquering race about the aborigines, would 
 be on all material points identical ; and by interpreting 
 the essentials of witchcraft and of fairycraft as the sur- 
 vivals in folklore of the mythic influence of a con- 
 quered race upon their conquerors, we are supported by 
 the facts which meet us everywhere in folklore, and by 
 an explanation which alone is adequate to account for all 
 the phenomena. It has been held, indeed, by Grimm 
 and others, that witchcraft is a direct offshoot from 
 fairy beliefs, consequent upon the action of the Christian 
 Church in stamping fairydom with a connection with 
 the devil. But if this argument is worth anything, it 
 would account for the fact that fairydom, after throwing
 
 THE MYTHIC INFLUENCE OF A CONQUERED RACE. 65 
 
 oil such a powerful offshoot as witchcraft, should have 
 itself continued in undiminished force with all the old 
 beliefs attached to it. But it does not account for this 
 difficulty. On the other hand, the explanation I have 
 attempted is not involved with such a difficulty. The 
 various phenomena fit into their places with remarkable 
 precision ; there is no twisting of any of the details, and 
 not only analogies but differences are accounted for. 
 
 I am tempted to put this argument into genea- 
 logical form, to show more clearly the lines along 
 which we have traveled It would be set forth as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Aboriginal beliefs. 
 
 Beliefs by 
 
 aborigines as to 
 
 their own demoniacal 
 
 powers, 
 
 I 
 
 Druidism. 
 
 Aryan beliefs 
 about the demoniacal 
 powers of aborigines. 
 
 Blood descent of 
 aborigines ceases. 
 
 Initiatory descent 
 
 takes the place of 
 
 blood descent. 
 
 Witchcraft. = Fairycraft. 
 
 i 
 Survival of aboriginal beliefs. 
 
 I do not suggest that this table sliould be hardened 
 into an absolute rule. All that it is intended for, and 
 all that folklore can attempt at present, is to indicate 
 some of the results which may be attained by a close 
 and systematic study of its details. These details in 
 some departments will allow of something like precision
 
 C6 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 in their arrangement; in others we must still grope 
 about for some time to come yet. But if we attempt 
 precision in arrangement, we must be careful not to 
 allow it to become the means of detaching any items 
 of folklore from their proper place amid all the other 
 items. Their relationship to each other is, indeed, the 
 only means by which we may trace out their origins. 
 The neglect of this principle in connection with the 
 numerous accounts of the higher divinities both of 
 classical and modern times, has helped to bring about 
 the idea that in Europe both higher and lower divinities 
 belong to the same people.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 
 
 It would seem that we may distinguish in the pre- 
 historic ages of man certain data which point to a pre- 
 tribal society. The argument as it stands at present is 
 not one to insist upon with too much precision, either 
 with reference to its iUustration of earliest man, or with 
 reference to its influence on later man. Eather, it must 
 be continually borne in mind that the evolution of so- 
 ciety does in some measure point back to an early phase 
 of extreme localization, and that biological evidence 
 strongly supports such a view. So far as the survey of 
 primitive belief has proceeded with reference to the 
 origin of certain of its classes, there seems to be some 
 proof of the same course of evolution. Thus Dormer 
 says: "If monotheism had been an original doctrine, 
 traces of such a belief would have remained among all 
 peoples ; if the cure of disease by medication had been 
 the original method, such a useful art would never have 
 been so utterly lost that sorcery should wholly usurp its 
 place; in savage animism we find no survivals which 
 show inconsistencies with it." * But savage animism is 
 
 * Dormer, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, pp. 386, 387.
 
 Qg ETIIiNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 founded upon, and essentially bound up with, locality. 
 One word only is required in proof of this, and for this 
 purpose we naturally turn to Dr. Tylor. Studying his 
 careful analysis of animism, and the evidence brought 
 forward to support it, it appears clear enough that the 
 emphasis of animism lies in its localization — " the local 
 spirits which belong to mountain and rock and valley, 
 to well and stream and lake — in brief, to those natural 
 objects which in early ages aroused the savage mind to 
 mythological ideas." * 
 
 I take it to be a distinct advance in culture when 
 mankind began to separate himself from local worship. 
 In the study of Semitic religions which Professor 
 Eobertson Smith has given us, he has touched upon 
 this j)oint in a chapter which contains many valuable 
 suggestions, but he does not appear to me to mark suffi- 
 cient distinction between the tribal gods which are, ac- 
 cording to his evidence, tending to become local, and 
 the primitive local gods of the land w^hich had never be- 
 come tribal. f The distinction is an important one, and 
 has a definite bearing upon the ethnology of Semitic 
 ritual. It must, however, be approached from the savage 
 side. No one has paid closer attention to this than 
 Major Ellis in his studies of African beliefs, and it 
 seems clear from these that the transition is from local 
 to tribal, and not vice versa. " The deified powers in 
 nature," says Major Ellis, " the rivers and lagoons, being 
 
 * Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 187. 
 f Religion of the Semites, cap. iii.
 
 TEE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. fJQ 
 
 necessarily local, would in course of time, from at first 
 being merely regarded as the gods of the district, come 
 to be regarded as the gods of the people living in the 
 district ; in this way would probably arise the idea of 
 national or tribal gods; so that eventually the gods, 
 instead of being regarded as being interested in the 
 whole of mankind, would come to be regarded as be- 
 ing interested in separate tribes or nations alone."* 
 With some slight amendments, this passage fairly inter- 
 prets the evidence from all parts of the savage world, 
 and I have been gradually forced to the conviction that 
 the greatest triumjih of the Aryan race was its emanci- 
 pation from the principle of local worship, and the rise 
 of the conception of gods who could and did accompany 
 the tribes wheresoever they traveled. 'No doubt tribal 
 gods incline to become local once more — to have a fixed 
 habitat, a sanctuary, a home made holy by the presence 
 of the god. This is particularly the case with the 
 Semitic gods, and its close approximation to the form 
 of belief in purely local deities has prevented Professor 
 Eobertson Smith from entering upon a most interesting 
 phase of Semitic ritual. But the gods of the Aryans 
 have never been quite so local in their nature, even after 
 long residence with their worshipers in much-loved 
 homes. All the local haunts of the Greek gods do not 
 make Greek gods local — they are still tribal gods, with 
 a special local home for the time being. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, worth while pursuing this subject 
 
 * Ellis, Tshi-fspmkinff Peoples, p. 114.
 
 70 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 further on the general evidence. It would occupy much 
 space for the point to be proved in detail, but there is 
 already sufficient illustration of it in the text-books of 
 anthropology to allow me to pass on to the special evi- 
 dence I am in search of. Thus we find that Professor 
 Rhys draws a line of distinction between the greater 
 divinities of the Celtic pantheon, who lent themselves to 
 localization, and the crowd of minor divinities who were 
 never anything else than genii locorvm. Among the 
 latter he includes "the spirits of particular forests, 
 mountain tops, rocks, lakes, rivers, river sources, and all 
 springs of water which have in later times been treated 
 as holy wells."* To these must be added all those 
 agricultural deities, the ritual of whom has been exam- 
 ined so thoroughly by Mr. Frazer. Earth deities, claim- 
 ing their sacrifice of human blood ; tree deities, claim- 
 ing the life of their priest ; corn deities, whose death 
 forms part of their own cult ; rain deities, claiming vic- 
 tims for their service, form no part of any recognizable 
 tribal cult, but are essentially the fixed heritage of the 
 places where they originated and fructified. 
 
 This classification of the local deities leads up to an 
 important point in the ethnology of folklore. Turning 
 back to Professor Rhys's group, we find him saying of 
 them that " it has been supposed, and not without rea- 
 son, that these landscape divinities reacted powerfully 
 on the popular imagination in which they had their ex- 
 istence by imparting to the physical surroundings of the 
 
 * Celtic Heathendom, p. 105.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITH'E BELIEF. 71 
 
 Celt the charm of a weird and unformulated poetrv. 
 But what race was it that gave the Celtic landscape of 
 antiquity its i^opulation of spirits ? The Celtic invaders 
 of Aryan stock brought their gods with them to the 
 lands they conquered ; but as to the innumerable divin- 
 ities attached, so to say, to the soil, the great majority 
 of them were very possibly the creations of the people 
 here before the Celts." * I would interpret in the same 
 way the agricultural deities which are not included in 
 Professor Rhys's dictum. Without some such inter- 
 pretation it is difficult to account for the savagery of 
 the ritual practiced in their worship, or for its extensive 
 and thoroughly settled forms. Reckoning from the 
 Aryan occupation of eastern and northern Europe, there 
 is no time for such a cult to have developed from the 
 primitive pastoral worship of the Aryans, even if it is 
 possible to assume, as it would be necessary to do, that 
 pastoral life is an antecedent to agricultural life. 
 Against such an assumption, though it has been urged 
 by some distinguished scholars, I would enter the 
 strongest protest. There is no proof of it in anthro- 
 pological evidence. There is proof of pastoral tribes 
 settling down, as the Aryans have done, as the over- 
 lords of aboriginal agriculturists; of the gradual ex- 
 tinction of pastoral life in the development of settled 
 tribal life ; of the final extinction of tribal life altogether 
 in the rise of the village community. But all this is 
 distinctly antagonistic to the idea that pastoral life is 
 
 * Rhys, loc. cit.
 
 72 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 older and more primitive than agricultural. Connected 
 with agricultural life we get the rudest tribes of savages, 
 the rudest forms of culture. As Mr. Keary has said : 
 " If the remains of fetichism could be so vital, fetichism 
 itself must have had a lengthened sway ; but the people 
 could never have become the Aryan nation had their 
 notions of unity been confined to the local fetich and 
 the village commune." * Let us once clearly under- 
 stand that the local fetichism to be found in Aryan 
 countries simjily represents the undying faiths of the 
 older race, which the Aryans at last incorporated into 
 their own higher beliefs, and the difficulties lying in the 
 way of accounting for Aryan progress, which have been 
 recognized but not met, seem to vanish. 
 
 The localization of primitive belief, then, is, as it 
 seems to me, an important factor in the consideration of 
 survivals. Given the natural object which originated, 
 in the rude mind of early man, a set of beliefs, and the 
 continued existence of the natural object would greatly 
 assist the continued existence of the beliefs. Eiver 
 worship is a case in point. It is found almost every- 
 where among people of a rude or savage culture, and 
 its origin is not far to seek. Thus among some African 
 tribes " there are many deities bearing the name of 
 Prah, all of whom are spirits of the river Prah, called 
 by the natives Bohsum-Prah. At each town or con- 
 siderable village upon its banks sacrifice is held on a 
 day about the middle of October to Prah ; and from the 
 
 * Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 110.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 73 
 
 fact of the one day being common to all the peoples 
 dwelling on the river, and that the sacrificial ceremonies 
 are the same throughout, it seems evident that originally 
 this worship was established for one great deity of the 
 river, although now the inhabitants of each villa^re 
 believe in the separate spirit of the Prah, who resides 
 in some part of the river near their hamlet. Everywhere 
 along the river the priests of these gods officiate in 
 groups of three, two male and one female, an arrange- 
 ment which is peculiar to Prah. . . . The usual sacrifice 
 was two human adults, one male and one female. . . . 
 Crocodiles are sacred to Prah."* 
 
 This is not far removed from the Esthonian belief. 
 In Esthonia there is a particular stream which has long 
 been the object of reverence — the Wohhanda. In the 
 olden time no Esthonian would fell any tree that grew 
 on its banks or break one of the reeds that fringed its 
 watercourse. If he did he would die within the year. 
 The brook, along with the sj^ring that gave it birth, was 
 purified periodically, and it was believed that if dirt was 
 thrown into either, bad W'Cather w'ould be the result. 
 Tradition speaks of offerings — sometimes of little chil- 
 dren — having been made to Wohhanda ; the river god 
 being a little man in blue and yellow stockings, some- 
 times visible to mortal eye, resident in tlie stream and 
 in the habit of occasionally rising out of it.f 
 
 People with beliefs like these do not readily give 
 
 * Ellis, Tshi-spealcing Peoples, p. 64 ; cf. pp. 32, 33. 
 f Latham, Descn'jjdve Ethnology, i, 418.
 
 74: ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORK. 
 
 them up, because the power of the river to work liarm 
 does not die out as race succeeds race among the in- 
 habitants of river districts. When in the Solomon 
 Islands a man accidentally falls into the river and a 
 shark attacks him, he is not allowed to escape. If he 
 succeeds in eluding the shark, his fellow-tribesmen will 
 throw him back to his doom, believing him to be 
 marked out for sacrifice to the god of the river.* But 
 this explanation exactly fits the superstition against res- 
 cuing a drowning person which is made so familiar to 
 us by Scott's story Tlie Pirate. \ The form of the 
 peasant belief may be thus given : " Among the seamen 
 of Orkney and Shetland it was deemed unlucky to 
 rescue persons from drowning, since it was held as a 
 matter of religious faith that the sea is entitled to cer- 
 tain victims, and if deprived would avenge itself on 
 those who interfere." | 
 
 I will now turn to some examples of river worship in 
 Great Britain. The existence of water spirits is a well- 
 known belief,* but I am desirous of noting rather the 
 deities of special rivers. It is curious that in Scotland 
 persons who bore the name of the river Tweed were sup- 
 posed to have as an ancestor the genie of the river of 
 that name. || The river Auld Gramdt, or Ugly Burn, in 
 the county of Ross, springing from Loch Glaish, Avas 
 
 * Codrington, The Melaiiesians, p. 179. 
 
 f Folklore Journal, vii, 44; ibid., iii, 185. 
 I Tudor's Orkney and Shetland, p. 176, 
 
 * Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 543. 
 [ Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii, 336.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 75 
 
 resfardecl with awe as the abode of the water-horse and 
 other spiritual beings.* The river Spey is spoken of as 
 " she," and it is a common belief that at least one victim 
 is necessary every year.f 
 
 One of the princiiJal English river divinities has been 
 figured on a Eoman pavement. This pavement is the 
 well-known one at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, on the 
 western bank of the Severn, in the territory of the ancient 
 Silures. Three inscriptions are preserved, as follows : 
 
 (1) DEYO XODENTI. 
 
 (2) D. M. XODOXTI. 
 
 (3) DEO XUDEXTE it. 
 
 and Professor Rhys has discussed their philological im- 
 portance. J 
 
 The remains of the temple at Lydney, for such it is 
 generally considered, connects this god with the sea, or 
 rather with the worship of water, and in this case with 
 the river Severn in the following particulars. The mo- 
 saic floor disjilays representations of sea-serpents or the 
 K^rea accompanying Glaucus in the Greek mythology, 
 and fishes supposed to stand for the salmon of the Sev- 
 ern ; an ugly band of red surrounds the mouth of a 
 funnel leading into the ground beneath, which hole is 
 supposed to have been used for libations to the god. A 
 small plaque of bronze found on the spot gives us prob- 
 ably a representation of the god himself. The principal 
 
 * Dalyell, op. cit., p. 544. f Folklore, iii, 72. 
 
 X Celtic Heathendom, p. 126.
 
 76 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 figure is a youthful deity crowned with rays like Phoebus 
 and standing in a chariot drawn by four horses. On 
 cither side the winds are tyj)ified by a winged genius 
 iloiiting along, and the rest of the space is left to two 
 tritons, while a detached piece, probably of the same 
 bronze, represents another triton and a fisherman who 
 has just succeeded in hooking a salmon.* 
 
 Of course this work is Roman, and must therefore 
 bear the stamp of the Roman interpretation of the local 
 god. It would be conventionalized to the Roman stand- 
 ard of tlie water god, Xeptune. I do not at all consider 
 that we have here the British embodiment of the god, 
 but simply the Roman interpretation of the British be- 
 lief — the description of the British cult in monumental 
 records instead of in literary records. 
 
 We pass, however, from archaeology to folklore. 
 Professor Rhys identifies the epigraphical form of the 
 Severn god's name, ISTodens, with the Welsh Lludd and 
 with the Irish N'uada. The first name brings us to the 
 legendary King Lud, who is said to have built London, 
 and whose name preserved in our Ludgate Hill is suffi- 
 cient to attest the veracity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 
 record that one of the "Welsh names for London was 
 Caer Ludd, or Lud's Fort. " The probability," says 
 Professor Rhys, " that as a temple on a hill near the 
 Severn associated him with that river in the west, so a 
 
 * I take this summary from Professor Rhys, loc. cit. ; the whole 
 find has been described in a separate volume, and profusely illus- 
 trated bv the Rev. W, H. Bathurst and C. W. Kinjr.
 
 THE LOCALIZATIOX OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. ^7 
 
 still more ambitious temj^le on a hill connected him with 
 the Thames in the east " — a probability which is con- 
 firmed by the tradition, so often quoted, that St. Paul's 
 Cathedral has taken the place of a heathen temple. 
 
 The second name, the Irish Xuada, takes ns to the 
 Boyne, which was known as Eigh Mna Xuadhat — that 
 is, the wrist or forearm of Nuadhat's wife.* The iden- 
 tification of Nuada as a river god is clearly shown by the 
 legend connected with the well of the Blessed Trinity at 
 which the Boyne rises. One of the miraculous virtues 
 of this well was that any one who api^roached it except 
 the monarch and his three cup-bearers was instantly de- 
 prived of sight. Boan, the queen of Nuada, determined 
 to test the mystical powers, and not only approached the 
 well and defied its powers, but passed three times round 
 it to the left, as was customary in incantations. Upon 
 completion of the third round the waters rose, mutilated 
 the daring queen, and as she fled to the sea, followed her 
 until she reached the present mouth of the river, f 
 
 The river Dee, near Chester, was supposed to pos- 
 sess characteristics in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis 
 which marks its godlike attributes. " The inhabitants 
 
 * O'CuriT, Manners and Customs of the Irish, iii, 156. 
 
 f Wilde's Beauties of the Boyne, p. 24, from the Book of 
 Lecan and the Boole of Ballymote. Near the bridge at Stack- 
 allan a patron used to be held, and it was customary for the peo- 
 ple to swim their cattle across the river at this spot as a charm 
 against fairies and certain diseases. — Wilde, loc. cit., p. 171. A 
 similar legend is told of the Shannon. — O'Curry, Manners and 
 Customs, ii, 143, 144 ; cf. Rev. Celtique, vi, 244,
 
 78 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 of those parts assert that tlie waters of this river change 
 their fords every month, and as it inclines more toward 
 England or Wales they can with certainty prognosticate 
 which nation will be successful or unfortunate during 
 the year." * Professor Rhys drav/s attention to the name 
 of another river — the Bclisama — which marks it out as 
 one that was formerly considered divine, the name oc- 
 curring in inscriptions found in Gaul as that of the god- 
 dess equated with the Minerva of Italy. f If this river 
 is to be identified with the Kibble, as Professor Rhys 
 suggests, folklore has preserved something of the old 
 cult. This river has a spirit called Peg o' Nell, and a 
 spring in the grounds of AVaddow bears her name and 
 is graced by a stone image, now headless, which is said 
 to represent her. A tradition connects this Peg o' Xell 
 with an ill-used servant at Waddow Hall, who, in re- 
 venge for her mistress's successful malediction in caus- 
 ing her death, was inexorable in demanding every seven 
 years a life to be quenched in the waters of the Ribble. 
 " Peg's night " was the closing night of the septenniate, 
 and when it came round, unless a bird, a cat, or a dog 
 was drowned in the stream, some human being was cer- 
 tain to fall a victim there. J The river Tees has also a 
 sprite, which is called Peg Powler, a sort of Lorelei, says 
 
 * Giraldus, Itinerary through WaJes, ii, cap. xi ; cf. Rev. Cet- 
 tique, ii, 2-5, for the distribution of "Dee" as a river name and 
 its mythological meaning. 
 
 t Celtic Britain, 2d edit., p. 68. 
 
 X Henderson, Folklore of jVort/iern Counties, p. 2G5 ; Ilarland 
 and Wilkinson's Lancashire Folklore, p. 89.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 79 
 
 Henderson, with green tresses and an insatiable desire 
 for human life. The foam or froth which is often seen 
 floating on the higher portion of the Tees in large 
 masses is called " Peg Fowler's suds," and the finer, 
 less sponge-like froth is called " Peg Powler's cream."* 
 Childien were still warned in Mr. Denham's days from 
 playing on the banks of the river by threats that Peg 
 Powler would drag them into the water, f The Yore, 
 near Middleham, is said to be much infested with a hor- 
 rid kelpie or water-horse, who rises from the stream at 
 evening and ramps along the meadows searching for 
 prey, and it is imagined that the kelpie claims at least 
 one human victim annually. J 
 
 These and the hill deities are essentially inimical to 
 man, but the local deities resident in wells are friendly. 
 Professor Eobertson Smith has drawn from the Semitic 
 facts sufficient general evidence of the rise of well or 
 spring worship,* identifying it with the agricultural life 
 of aborigines who had not yet developed the idea of a 
 heavenly god. It will be for us to examine the evidence 
 in a European country, and sufficient examples are to be 
 found in the British Isles for the purpose. 
 
 It is not true of many forms of popular superstition, 
 though it is frequently stated to be true, that they pre- 
 vail universally through the country. But in the case 
 of well worship it may be asserted with some confidence 
 
 * Henderson, p. 265. \ Denham Tracts. 
 
 X Longstaffe, Richmondshire, p. 96 ; Barker's Wensleydale, 
 p. 286. * Religion of the Semites, cap. iii ; cf. p. 99.
 
 80 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 that it prevails in every country of the three kingdoms, 
 and this fact necessitates a very careful inquiry as to its 
 origin. A purely local cult, like that connected with 
 river worship, can be accounted for by appealing to its 
 special character as a belief that crops up only here and 
 there in isolation. The case is altogether different when 
 dealing with a general cult everywhere prevalent. It 
 might have originated with the incoming of any of the 
 dominating forces of culture— with Christianity, with 
 the Aryan conquest by Teuton and Celt. In fact, what 
 we have first to reckon with in examining into its origin 
 is its general prevalence. The question, forms itself iu 
 the following way : Did such a worship originate from 
 above and spread downward among the people until it 
 became universal, or did it begin from the people and 
 penetrate upward ? Of course the question put in these 
 terms does not indicate how important it is to endeavor 
 to obtain au answer to it. But this is the first step, and 
 we may presently translate it into more definite terms. 
 
 Of the antiquity of the custom we are assured by 
 the well-known prohibitions of it by the Saxon clergy 
 and by Canute, and this also certifies to its general 
 prevalence, while its incorporation into the Eoman 
 Catholic ritual of Ireland * indicates that its influence 
 
 * No religious place in Ireland could be without a holy well. 
 Otway, Sketches in Erris, p. 213 ; cf. Pi-oc. Roy. Hist, and Arch. 
 Soc. Ireland, 4th Ser., ii, 268, where the evidence on the subject is 
 summarized very well, St. Columbkille is said to have " sained 
 three hundred well-sprinofs that were swift.*' — Whitley Stokes, 
 Three Middle Irish Homilies,
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIillTIVE BELIEF. 81 
 
 has the capacity, at all events, to penetrate upward, A 
 worshiji that Avas formally and officially prohibited in 
 the tenth and eleventh centuries and has been formally 
 accepted in modern times could not, under any circum- 
 stances, have been brought over by, and become preva- 
 lent through the medium of, the Christian Church. 
 
 Any further consideration of its origin from Chris- 
 tian influences seems to me quite unnecessary, though 
 there are other arguments which might be put. We 
 come, then, to the influence of Aryan culture, which, 
 spreading itself, as its sj^eech indicates, all over the 
 land, is a vera causa for such a general cult as well 
 worship. But the evidence, when treated geographically, 
 reveals a state of things which in the end will compel 
 us to conclude that Aryan culture received, rather than 
 generated, well worship in Britain. 
 
 Commencing with the Teutonic centers of England, 
 the maddle and southeastern counties almost fix the 
 boundary of one form of well worship — a form which 
 has lost all local color, all distinct ritual, and remains 
 only in the dedication of the well or spring to a saint of 
 the Christian Church, in the tradition of its name as a 
 " holy well," or else in the memory of some sort of rev- 
 erence formerly paid to the waters, which in many cases 
 are nameless. From the coast of Sussex, Kent, Essex, 
 Suffolk, and Norfolk, westward through the land occu- 
 pied by the South Saxons and Middle English until the 
 territory of west Wales, Wales, and the northern folk is 
 reached, examples are met of wells dedicated to some
 
 82 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 form of ancient reverence not sufficiently distinct to 
 stamp the nature of the cult. 
 
 That Teutonic England should be thus marked off, 
 as we shall presently see by examples, from the rest of 
 Britain and Ireland is a significant fact in favor of the 
 argument that the Teutons did not bring well worship 
 with them, for in the very centers of their settlements 
 and homes its survivals are found in almost the last 
 stages of decay. At one place on the coast, however, an 
 example is found where some details of local ritual are 
 still preserved. This is at Bonchurch, in the Isle of 
 "Wight, where, on St. Boniface's Day, the well is deco- 
 rated with flowers.* AVe meet with nothing of this 
 kind, however, until we arrive nearer Wales — namely, 
 in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Shrop- 
 shire. Here is the region of garland-dressing, and the 
 practice has been frequently described. In Worcester- 
 shire and Staffordshire the custom is simple. In Der- 
 byshire and Shropshire other practices occur in connec- 
 tion with the well-dressing. For instance, at the holy 
 well at Dale Abbey, in the former county, the devotee 
 goes on Good Friday, between twelve and three o'clock, 
 drinks the water three times, and wishes. f This may 
 be only a survival of monastic practice, but in Shrop- 
 shire the differentiation is more marked. Garland-dress- 
 
 * Tompkins, Hist, of Isle of Wight, ii, 121. I can make nothing 
 of the Walsingham wishing-wells except a derivation from monas- 
 tic ceremonies. See the custom in Brand, ii, 370. 
 
 f Anfiqunry. xxi, 97.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. S3 
 
 ing, though found in the eastern parts of the county, is 
 almost entirely absent from the western, where wishing 
 and healing wells are found.* At Eorrington, a town- 
 ship in the parish of Chirbury, was a holy well at which 
 a wake was celebrated on Ascension Day. The well was 
 adorned with a bower of green boughs, rushes, and flow- 
 ers, and a May-pole was set up. The people walked 
 round the well, dancing and frolicking as they went. 
 They threw pins into the well to bring good luck and 
 to preserve them from being bewitched, and they also 
 drank some of the water. Cakes were also eaten ; they 
 were round flat buns from three to four inches across, 
 sweetened, spiced, and marked with a cross, and they 
 were supposed to bring good luck if kept.f 
 
 In this instance garland-dressing is associated with 
 other significant ceremonies, and associated so closely 
 as to suggest that all parts of the ritual are equally an- 
 cient. Now, in Shropshire Welsh influence is distinctly 
 felt, and little patches of Welsh population, locally 
 known as Welsheries, exist to this day. I shall leave 
 this part of our examination of Shropshire well worship 
 with the observation that the evidence links on the more 
 elaborate customs there found with the simple customs 
 found in middle and southeastern England, and I shall 
 return to Shropshire later on. 
 
 "Where the waters of the wells in the district just 
 examined are used for healing powers it is almost in- 
 variably the case that the disease to be cured is sore 
 
 * Burne, Shropshire Folklore, p. 414. f Burne, oj). cif., p. 434.
 
 84 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 eyes ; and Miss Burne, who noticed this peculiarity in 
 the Shropshire wells, has made the acute suggestion that 
 a legend in the prose Edda which tells how Odin gave 
 his eye in return for a draught of water from tlie wis- 
 dom-giving well of Mimir, might perhaps account for 
 it.* I think it does ; and we have in this parallel be- 
 tween English custom and Scandinavian myth the evi- 
 dence I am in search of, showing that Teutonic influ- 
 ences on well worship did in fact exist, though they 
 were not powerful enough to keep well worship up as a 
 cult in that part of the country where Teutonic people 
 were most thickly settled. 
 
 ^'e next turn to northern England, where the popu- 
 lation, Teutonic and Celtic of Aryan folk and the non- 
 Aryan aborigines, were more mixed. The connection 
 between the customs of well worship there and those of 
 the district just examined is established by the existence 
 of garland-dressing in North Lancashire, "Westm ore- 
 land, f and on the borders. J Next we must examine the 
 new features which are significant. At Sefton in Lan- 
 cashire, it was customary for passers-by to drop into St. 
 Helen's Well a new pin for good luck or to secure the 
 favorable issue of an expressed wish, and by the turning 
 of the pin-point to the north or to any other point of 
 the compass conclusions were drawn as to the fidelity of 
 lovers, date of marriage, and other love matters.* At 
 Brindle is a well dedicated to St. Ellin, where on the 
 
 * Shropshire Folklore, p. 422. f ^^'''^- P- 414. 
 
 I Henderson, Folklore, p. 3. * Anfiq., xsi, 197.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. $5 
 
 patron day pins are thrown into the water.* Pin-wells, 
 as they may be called, after the popular name given to 
 them in some places, also existed at Jarrow and Wooler 
 in Northumberland, at Brayton, Minchmore, Kayino-- 
 ham, and Mount Grace in Yorkshire, f 
 
 Henderson informs us that " the country girls imag- 
 ine that the well is in charge of a fairy or spirit who 
 must be propitiated by some offering, and the pin pre- 
 sents itself as the most ready or convenient, besides 
 having a special suitableness as being made of metal." J 
 This clearly indicates that the offering in the mind of 
 the peasantry was to be a part of their clothes. At 
 Great Cotes and Winterton in Lincolnshire, Newcastle 
 and Benton in Northumberland, Newton Kyme, Thorp 
 Arch, and Gargrave in Yorkshire, pieces of rag, cloth, 
 or ribbon take the place of the pins, and are tied to 
 bushes adjoining the wells,* while near Newton, at the 
 foot of Eoseberry Topping, the shirt or shift of the dev- 
 otee was thrown into the well, and according to whether 
 it floated or sank so would the sickness leave or be fatal, 
 while as an offering to the saint, a rag of the shirt is 
 torn off and left hanging on the briers thereabouts. || 
 
 It is clear that while there is something in common 
 between the customs attending well worship all over 
 
 * Antiq., xxi, 197. 
 
 t Antiq., xxii, 66, 67 ; xxiii, 77, 112, 113 ; xxiv, 27 ; Ilcnclerson, 
 Folklore, p. 231. 
 
 J Henderson, Folklore, p. 230. 
 
 * Antiq., xxi, 265 ; xxii, 30; xxiii, 23, 77 ; xxiv, 27. 
 
 I Oe7it. 3Iag. Lib., Superstitions, pp. 143, 147 ; Brand, ii, 380.
 
 86 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 England, a line of distinction has to be drawn as we 
 proceed farther north. That rag-wells are the ancestors 
 in custom of pin- wells scarcely needs suggestion, but I 
 think we may go on to suggest that the bushes growing 
 around the sacred wells in the north are the ancestors 
 in custom of the bushes brought to decorate the wells in 
 the south, and this is confirmed by the fact that where 
 there are bushes adjoining the wells dressing with gar- 
 lands does not take place. In the north, too, it must be 
 noted that some wells were under the j)rotection of the 
 fairies or some specially named sprite, as at Brayton, 
 Harpham, Holderness, and Atwick in Yorkshire, and 
 Wooler in Northumberland. The course of well wor- 
 ship in Teutonic England, then, may be traced from 
 the examples of simple reverence in the south and 
 east to examples of garland-dressing and pin-offerings 
 towards the Welsh borders, and to examples, first of gar- 
 land-dressing and pin-offerings, and finally to the parent 
 form of rag-bush wells toward the northern border. 
 Xow rag-bushes have a distinct place in anthropolog- 
 ical evidence which must be examined presently. In 
 the mean time we carry on our investigations of well 
 worship in Britain by turning to the forms of the cult 
 in the Celtic-speaking districts. 
 
 For this purpose we once more take up the Shrop- 
 shire evidence, in order to pursue it from its English to 
 its Welsh side. St. Oswald's "Well, at Oswestry, is used 
 for wishing and divination. One rite, says Miss Bume, 
 is to go to the well at midnight, take some water up in
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PHIillTlVE BELIEF. §7 
 
 the hand and drink part of it, at the same time forming 
 a wish in tlie mind, throw the rest of the water upon a 
 particular stone at the back of the well, and if the vo- 
 tary can succeed in throwing all the water left in his 
 hand upon this stone without touching any other spot, 
 his wish will be fulfilled. Other forms of the ceremony 
 to be adopted for the purpose of gaining the desired end 
 are described,* but they are less distinctive than the one 
 quoted, the point of which is the sprinkling of a special 
 stone with the water from the well. Another element is 
 introduced in the case of the well on the Devil's Ca^^se- 
 way between Ruckley and Acton. Here, according to 
 popular belief, the devil and his imps appear in the 
 form of frogs ; three frogs are always seen together, and 
 these are the imps, the largest frog, representing the 
 devil, appearing but seldom, f Here for the first time 
 we find the presiding spirit of the well represented in 
 animal form. 
 
 Pin-wells in Wales are met witli at Rhosgoch in 
 Montgomer3'shire, J St. C^mhafars Well in Denbigh- 
 shire, St. Barruc's Well on Barry Island, near Cardiff, 
 Ffynon Gwynwy spring in Carnarvonshire, and a well 
 near Penrhos.* A new departure in the ritual of well 
 worship, however, occurs in connection with St. Tegla's 
 
 * Burne, Shropshire Folklore, p. 428 ; other Shropshire exam- 
 ples are given in Aniiq., xxii.. 253. 
 
 f Bunie, op. cit., p. 416 ; cf. the Oxfordshire frog-prince story, 
 Aniiq., xxii, 68. 
 
 X Anfiq., xxii, 253. 
 
 * Wirt Sikes. British Goblins, pp. 351, 353, 356.
 
 88 ETHNOLOGY IN hOLKLOllE. 
 
 Well, about half-way between Wrexham and Ptuthiu. 
 This well is resorted to for the cure of epilepsy. The 
 custom is for the patient to repair to the well after sun- 
 set and wash himself in its waters; then, having made 
 an offering by throwing fourpence into the water, to 
 walk round the well three times and thrice repeat the 
 Lord's Prayer. He then offers a cock or, when the 
 patient is a woman, a hen. The bird is carried in a 
 basket first round the well, then round the church. 
 After this the patient enters the church, creeps under 
 the altar, and, making the Bible his pillow and the com- 
 munion cloth his coverlet, remains there till break of 
 day. In the morning, having made a further offering 
 of sixpence, he leaves the cock and departs. Should the 
 bird die it is supposed that the disease has been trans- 
 ferred to it, and the man or woman conseql^ently cured.* 
 Another and still more remarkable ceremony appertains 
 to the well of St. ^Elian, not far from Bettws Abergeley, 
 in Denbighshire. Near the well resided a woman who 
 officiated as a kind of priestess. Any one who wished to 
 inflict a curse upon an enemy resorted to this priestess, 
 and for a trifling sum she registered in a book kept for 
 the purpose the name of the person on whom the curse 
 was wished to fall. A pin was then dropped into the well 
 in the name of the victim, and the curse was complete. f 
 
 *Arch. Camb., 1st Ser., i, 184; Wirt Sikes, British Goblim, 
 p. 329. 
 
 f Roberts, Camhrian Pop. Anfiq., p. 246 ; Wirt Sikes, op. cit., 
 p. 355 ; Arch. Camb., 1st Ser., i, 46.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. §9 
 
 It is obvious that while the ritual of well worship in 
 Wales is connected by some of its details, notably the 
 offering of pins, with the ritual of English well worship, 
 it contains perfectly distinctive elements, all of which 
 tend toward the interpretation of the cult as of a rude 
 and primitive t}^e. The presiding spirit of the well in 
 animal form in one example equates with the offering 
 to the presiding spirit of a bird in another example, 
 while the curse obtained through the agency of a 
 priestess acting upon the name only of the intended 
 victim presents a new feature. Animal gods and ani- 
 mal offerings to gods mark clear and well-recognized 
 features of primitive ritual, and the efficacy of the name 
 as a tangible part of the person to whom it belongs, be- 
 sides being represented among general primitive ideas,* 
 is specially connected with the practice of working in- 
 jury upon an enemy. Thus Ellis mentions an example 
 among the Tshi-speaking people of Africa very nearly 
 allied to the Welsh example. The formula is to take 
 three short sticks, call aloud three times the name of 
 the person to be killed, and while so doing to bind the 
 sticks together and then lay them upon the snhman or 
 tutelary deity, f 
 
 Now Wales, as Professor Khys has taught us, forms 
 with Cornwall or West Wales the country of the Bry- 
 thonic Celts, the second of the two bands of Ar3-an Celt3 
 
 * Cf. Mr. Clodd's admirable summary of this subject in Folk- 
 lore Journal, vii. 135-161. 
 
 f Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 107.
 
 90 ETUXOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 who invaded and settled down in Britain. We must, 
 then, turn now to examples of well worship in West 
 Wales. Pin-wells and rag-wells are both represented in 
 Cornwall — as, for instance, at Pelynt, St. Austel, and 
 St. Roche, where pins are offered, and at Madron 
 Well, where both pins and rags are offered.* The two 
 fish sacred to St. Neot, and which never decreased or 
 increased in size or number, must be considered as the 
 sacred fish of the well, parallel to the sacred animals we 
 have already seen in Wales ; and the idea of the well 
 being under the care of a priestess, which occurred in 
 Denbighshire, appears in the case of Gulval Well, in 
 Fosses Moor. There an old woman was "a sort of 
 guardian to the well," and instructed the devotees in 
 their ceremonial observances. They had to kneel down 
 and lean over the well so as to see their faces in the 
 water, and repeat after their instructor a rhyming in- 
 cantation, after which, by the bubbling of the water or 
 by its quiescence, the reply of the spirit of the well was 
 interpreted.! At Altarnum Well there is something 
 approaching to human sacrifice. Its special function 
 was the cure of madness, and the afflicted person stood 
 with his back to the pool, and from thence, by a sudden 
 blow in the breast, was tumbled headlong into the 
 water, where a strong fellow took him and tossed him 
 up and down. X At Chapel Uny rickety children are 
 
 * Anfiq., xxi, 27, 28, 30; Hunt, Popular Romances, -p. 295; 
 Folklore Journal, ii., 349. 
 
 t Hunt, op. cit.. p. 291. % Ibid., p. 296.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 91 
 
 dipped three times in the well against the sun, and 
 dragged three times round the well in the same direc- 
 tion.* 
 
 As a rough summary of the Welsh evidence it may 
 be stated that well worship in the district occupied by 
 the later of the two Celtic invaders of Britain is far 
 ruder and more primitive than in the district occupied 
 by the Teutonic invaders of Britain. Either, then, 
 modern culture has acted more powerfully upon Teu- 
 tonic England than upon Wales, routing up the pagan 
 rites that existed there, or else Teutonic culture itself 
 acted against the cult of well worship, and so helped 
 to whittle it down to its present insignificance. With 
 regard to the first alternative, there are few scholars 
 acquainted with the long catalogue of significant sur- 
 vivals of Teutonic heathendom in Europe who would 
 be prepared to assert that the Teutons, as a branch of 
 the Aryan race, have been more susceptible to civiliza- 
 tion than the Celts. On the second alternative, it may 
 be remarked that so far as Teutonic culture may be 
 considered as Aryan, it would be in all essential matters 
 shared by the Celts, and that hence we should expect 
 Celtic culture to have acted against well worship. But 
 if it be remembered that the Celts were displaced from 
 southeastern Britain by the Teutons and driven into 
 the western lands of Wales and southw^est Britain 
 among the otherwise untouched aborigines, the sugges- 
 tion is at once supplied that the Brythonic Celts were 
 
 *Hunt, Popular Romances, p. 800.
 
 92 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 absorbing in their lust home some of the local worships 
 of the conquered aborigines. In South Wales the physi- 
 cal characteristics of this non-Aryan race survive,* and 
 why not, therefore, the remnants of their beliefs, espe- 
 cially those attached to definite local objects ? It does 
 not seem possible at this stage to do more than state the 
 hypothesis which the evidence thus suggests, and it re- 
 mains for us to examine well worship in the districts 
 occupied by the first Aryan invaders, named Goidelic 
 Celts by Professor Rhys, and containing in their lan- 
 guage proofs of their ancient incoming into a land of 
 non-Aryans. These districts are situated i)i Scotland 
 and Ireland. 
 
 In Ireland well worship is nearly universal, and the 
 offering of pieces of rag is the invariable accompani- 
 ment. Among examples of rag- wells, which show the 
 common basis which the cult has in all parts of the 
 British Isles, may be mentioned Ardclinis, County An- 
 trim ; Errigall-Keroge, County Tyrone ; Dungiven ; St. 
 Bartholomew's Well at Pilltown, County Waterford; 
 and St. Brigid's Well at Cliffony, County Sligo. f At 
 Ilathlogan, in Kilkenny, we meet with the cure of sore 
 eyes already noted in Britain, and examples of this are 
 said to be elsewhere frequently met with. J 
 
 The locality of the Irish wells forms a very inter- 
 
 * Beddoe, Races of Bi itain, p. 26. 
 
 \ Mason. Stat. Ace. of Ireland, i. 328; iii, 27, 161 ; Proc. Roy. 
 Hist, and Arch. Soc. of Ireland, 4th Ser., v. 370, 382. 
 
 X Proc. Roy. Hist, and Arch. Assoc, of Irelatid, 4th Ser., il, 280.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 93 
 
 esting aspect of their history. " Along the old ways 
 and not unfrequently hidden in the fields we discover 
 interesting localities, with traces of ancient boundaries 
 and primitive plantations, their verdant swards and 
 leafy sweetness at once indicating their venerable old 
 age ; and where the progress of modern reclamation has 
 not obliterated the landmarks of previous generations 
 the peculiar configuration of those places at once points 
 them out as the scenes of former life and importance, 
 often retaining in the midst of rural silence the name of 
 the " street," the " green," the " common," the " cross," 
 or some other title of equal significance. Here we usu- 
 ally find an insignificant inclosure yet revered as holy 
 ground, here on the appointed day the patron was held, 
 . . . here, too, we find a holy well retaining the name 
 of the ancient patron saint of the locality." * I quote 
 this passage because it proclaims the archaic conditions 
 surrounding the worship of wells — conditions which 
 must be appreciated and understood, if we are to read 
 aright the ethnological evidence to be derived from this 
 section of our subject. 
 
 The cult is so general in Ireland that it has not re- 
 ceived the attention of Irish antiquaries as it deserves. 
 The presence of animals or fisli as guardians or tutelary 
 deities of the wells is a marked feature. The fount of 
 Tober Kieran, near Kells, County Meath, rises in a 
 diminutive rough-sided basin of limestone of natural 
 
 * Proc. Roy. Hist, and Arch. Assoc, of Ireland, 4th Sen, 
 ii, 266.
 
 94 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 formation, and evidently untouched by a tool. In the 
 water are a brace of miraculous trout " which, according 
 to tradition, have occupied their narrow prisoii from time 
 immeniorial. They are said never in the memory of 
 man to have altered in size, and it is said of them that 
 their appearance is ever the same." "Within about a 
 mile of Cong, County Galway, is a deep depression in 
 the limestone called " Pigeon llole," and the sacred rivu- 
 let running at the base of the chasm " is believed to 
 contain a iiaiv of enchanted trout," one of which is said 
 to have been captured some time ago by a trooper and 
 cooked, but upon the approach of cold steel " the creat- 
 ure at once changed into a beautiful young woman," and 
 was returned to the stream. The well at Tullaghan, 
 County Sligo, is known both in history and tradition. 
 It is described as one of the wonders of Ireland by Xen- 
 nius, Giraldus Cambrensis, and OTlaherty, and it is the 
 subject of a curious legend in the book of " Diunsen- 
 chas " ; and a brace of miraculous trout, not always visi- 
 ble to ordinary eyes, are said to have inhabited this pool. 
 At Ballymorereigh, in Dingle, County Kerry, is a sacred 
 ■well called Tober Monachan, where a salmon and eel 
 appear to devotees who are to be favored by the guard- 
 ian spirits of this well.* 
 
 Thus far the ceremonies of well worship in Ireland 
 present practically the same features, though in a far 
 more intensified form, as those in Wales. The proces- 
 
 * Proc. Roy. Hist, and Arch. Soc. of Ireland, 4th Ser., v, 36G, 
 367, 370 ; vii, 656.
 
 TUE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 95 
 
 sions round the well sunwise are an important and 
 nearly universal part of the ceremony which the Irish 
 evidence introduces into the subject, and the apparently 
 unimportant detail occurring in a Shropshire example 
 noted above, of pouring water over a particular stone, 
 receives significant light from the examples in Ireland. 
 Thus at Dungiven, after hanging their offerings of rags 
 on the bush adjoining the well, the devotees proceed to 
 a large stone in the river Roe immediately below the 
 old church, and, having performed an ablution, they 
 walk round the stone, bowing to it and repeating 
 prayers, and then, after performing a similar ceremony 
 in the church, they finish the rite by a procession and 
 prayer round the upright stone.* But besides restoring 
 the unimportant details of Welsh ritual to an important 
 place in well worship, Irish evidence introduces a 
 Avholly new feature. Thus at Tobernacoragh, a sacred 
 well on the island of Inuismurray, off the coast of 
 Sligo, during tempestuous weather " it was the custom 
 for the natives to drain the waters of this well into the 
 ocean, as they believed by so doing, and by the offering 
 up of certain prayers, the elemental war might cease 
 and a holy calm follow." f In this case the connection 
 between well worship and the worship of a rain-god is 
 certain, for it may be surmised that if the emptying of 
 the well allayed a storm, some complementary action 
 was practiced at one time or other in order to produce 
 
 * Mason, Stat. Ace. of Ireland, i, 328. 
 
 f Proc. Roij. Hist, and Arch. Soc. of Ireland, 4tli Ser., vii, 300.
 
 96 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 rain, and in districts more subject to a want of rain 
 than this Atlantic island that ceremony would be accent- 
 uated at the expense of the storm-allaying ceremony at 
 lunismurray. 
 
 Finally we pass into Scotland, where also the Goi- 
 delic Celts settled. I will first briefly enumerate some in- 
 stances to show the identity of customs connected with 
 well worship in Scotland with those in the districts we 
 have already examined. This will confirm the evidence, 
 which seems to be pretty well established, that the 
 foundation of well worship in all parts of the British 
 Isles is the same — the rites and ceremonies are sub- 
 stantially part and parcel of a common cult ; they differ 
 in the degree in which they have survived in various 
 places, but the forms of the survival do not differ in 
 kind, because they are derived from a common origin. 
 
 About fifty years after the Reformation it was noted 
 that the wells of Scotland " were all tapestried about 
 with old rags." * The best examples lasting to within 
 modern times are to be found in the islands round the 
 coast, and in the northern shires, particularly in Banff, 
 Aberdeen, Perth, Eoss, and Caithness. At Kilmuir, in 
 the Isle of Skye, at Loch Shiant, or Slant, there was " a 
 shelf made in the wall of a contiguous inclosure " for 
 placing thereon " the offerings of small rags, pins, and 
 colored threads to the divinity of the place." f At St. 
 
 * The Book of Bon Accord, p. 268. 
 
 f Sinclair's Stat. Ace. of Scotland, ii, 557 ; New Stat. Ace. xiv, 
 245 ; Martin, Western Isles, p. 140.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIYE BELIEy. 97 
 
 Mourie's Well, ou Mulruba Isle, a rag was left on the 
 bushes, nails stuck into an oak tree, or sometimes a 
 copper coin driven in.* At Toubirmore TVell, in Gigha 
 Isle, devotees were accustomed to leave " a piece of 
 money, a needle, pin, or one of the prettiest variegated 
 stones they could find," and at Toubir Well, in Jura, 
 they left " an offering of some small token, such as a 
 pin, needle, farthing, or the like." f In Banffshire, at 
 Montblairie, " many still alive remember to have seen 
 the impending boughs adorned with rags of linen and 
 woolen garments, and the well enriched with farthings 
 and bodies, the offerings of those who came from afar 
 to the fountain." J At Keith the well is near a stone 
 circle, and some offering was always left by the devo- 
 tees.* In Aberdeenshire, at Fraserburgh, "the super- 
 stitious practice of leaving some small trifle " existed. || 
 In Perthshire, at St. Fillan's Well, Comrie, the patients 
 leave behind " some rags of linen or woolen cloth." ^ 
 In Caithness, at Dunnet, they throw a piece of money 
 in the water, and at Wick they leave a piece of bread 
 and cheese and a silver coin, which they alleged disap- 
 peared in some mysterious way. ^ In Eoss and Cro- 
 marty, at Alness, " pieces of colored cloth were left as 
 offerings"; at Cragnick an offering of a rag was sus- 
 
 * Gordon Cumming, Li the Hebrides, pp. 190, 191. 
 
 t Martin's Tour, pp. 230, 242. 
 
 I Robertson, Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banff, ii, 310. 
 
 « Sinclair's Stat. Ace of Scot., v, 430. 
 
 1 Ibid., vi, 9. ^ Ibid., xi, 181. 
 
 i) New Stat. Ace, xv, 38, 161.
 
 93 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 pended from a bramble bush overhanging the well ; at 
 Fodderty the devotees " always* left on a neighboring 
 bush or tree a bit of colored cloth or thread as a relic ; 
 and at Kiltearn shreds of clothing were hung on the 
 surrounding trees.* In Sutherlandshire, at Farr and at 
 Loth, a coin was thrown into the well.f In Dumfries- 
 shire, at Pen2)ont, a part of the dress was left as an offer- 
 ing, and many pieces have been seen " floating on the lake 
 or scattered round the banks." J In Kirkcud-bright- 
 shire, at Buittle, " either money or clothes " was left,* 
 and in Kenfrewshire, at Houston, " pieces of cloth were 
 left as a present or offering to the saint on the bushes." || 
 
 These examples give a fair idea of what may be 
 found on this subject by searching among the older 
 topographical accounts. It is scarcely necessary to pur- 
 sue these details with greater minuteness, and it may 
 be stated as a general rule that " at all these fountains 
 the invalid used the same ceremonies, approaching them 
 sunwise," ^ or " deisil," as it was called. Nowhere is 
 this particular so prominent as in Scotland, and it should 
 be borne in mind in connection with the other ceremonies 
 performed at the wells. 
 
 There are now some more special details to note. 
 The cure of madness by severe physical measures, such 
 as Ave have noted in Ireland, is represented in Scotland 
 
 * JSTeiv Stat Ace, xiv, 246, 344, 383 ; Sinclair, i, 284. 
 t New Stat. Ace, xv, 72, 191. t ^bid., iv, 506. 
 
 « Ibid., iv, 203. || Sinclair's Stat. Ace, i, 316. 
 
 ^ Forbes Leslie, Farhj Races of Scotland, i, p. 156.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 99 
 
 m Loclimaree Island, Avhere, after drinking from the 
 well, the patients were towed round, the island ; * at 
 Strathfillan, near Logierait, where the patient bathed 
 after sunset and before sunrise the next morning, and 
 was then laid on his back bound to a stone in the ruined 
 chapel of St. Fillau, and if next morning he was 
 found loose the cure was deemed perfect, f An impor- 
 tant feature of this ceremony is the time — during the 
 absence of the sun. At Farr, in Sutherlandshire, tlie 
 patient, after undergoing his plunge, drinking of the 
 water, and making his offering, " must be away from the 
 banks so as to be fairly out of sight of the water before the 
 sun rises, else no cure is effected.'' J On the other hand, 
 to bathe in the well of St. Medan, at Kirkmaiden in Wig- 
 tonshire, as the sun rose on the first Sunday in May was 
 considered an infallible cure for almost any disease.* 
 At Cragnick Well, at Avoch, in Eoss, bathing took place 
 under the same conditions as to time and date, but it 
 was also necessary to spill a portion of the water upon 
 the ground three times. \\ At Muthill, in Pertlishire, 
 the time for drinking the waters was before the sun 
 rises or immediately after it sets, coupled with the con- 
 -dition that it was to be drunk out of a " quick cow's 
 horn " (a horn taken from a live cow) ; " which indis- 
 pensable horn was in the keeping of an old woman who 
 lived near the well.""^ 
 
 * New Stat, Ace. of Scot, xiv, 92. f Neio Stat.- Ace, x, 1088. 
 
 X Ibid., XV, 72. » Ibid., iv, 208. \ Ibid., xiv, :382. 
 
 ^ Jbid., X, 313.
 
 100 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 This latter custom reintroduces the idea of a priestess 
 of the well, which we have seen first appears in Wales. 
 Perhaps the leaving of a piece of silver or gold in the 
 water " for the officiating priest " at Loth, in Sutherland- 
 shire,* may be a survival of the same idea, but I think 
 the survival is undoubted in those cases where the 
 patient does not attend at the well himself, but employs 
 a substitute. It is noticeable that this substitute has 
 to go through a most careful ceremonial. Thus at 
 Penpont, in Dumfriesshire, the emissary of the patient, 
 when he reached the well, "had to draw water in a 
 vessel which was on no account to touch the ground, 
 to turn himself round with the sun, to throw his offer- 
 ing to the spirit over his left shoulder and to carry the 
 water without ever looking back to the sick person. All 
 this was to be done in absolute silence, and he was to 
 salute no one by the way." f The elements of magic 
 ritual preserved here are very obvious, and it is to be re- 
 marked that silence is a condition imposed upon the 
 devotees at many wells in Ireland and also in England. 
 
 In the Isle of Lewis occurs a remarkable variant. 
 " St. Andrew's "Well, in the village Shadar,'' says Martin, 
 " is by the vulgar natives made a test to know if a 
 sick person will die of the distemper he labors under. 
 They send one with a wooden dish to bring some of the 
 water to the patient, and if the dish, which is then 
 laid softly upon the surface of the water, turn round 
 sunways they conclude that the patient will recover of 
 
 * New Staf. Ace, xv, 191. f Sfat. Ace. of Scof.. iv, 506.
 
 THE LOCALIZATIOX OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. IQl 
 
 that distemper, but if otherwise, that he will die."* 
 I am inclined to connect this with the vessel or caldron 
 so frequently occurring in Celtic tradition, and which 
 Mr. Nutt has marked as "a part of the gear of the 
 oldest Celtic divinities," f jierhaps of divinities older 
 than the Celts. 
 
 The connection between well worship and the cult 
 of the rain-god appeared in the example at Innismurray 
 Island, off the coast of Sligo. It also is a feature of the 
 Scottish evidence. The well of Tarbat, in the island of 
 Gigha, " is famous for having the command of the wind. 
 Six feet above where the Avater gushes out there is a 
 heap of stones, which forms a cover to the sacred fount. 
 AVhen a person wished for a fair wind this part was 
 opened with great solemnity, the stones carefully re- 
 moved, and the well cleaned with a wooden dish or 
 clam-shell. This being done, the water was several 
 times thrown in the direction from which the wished- 
 for wind was to blow, and this action was accompanied 
 by a certain form of words, Avhich the person repeated 
 every time he threw the water. AVhen the ceremony 
 was over the well was again carefully shut up to pre- 
 vent fatal consequences, it being firmly believed that 
 were the place left open it would occasion a storm 
 which would overwhelm the whole island." J AVhen to 
 
 * Martin, Western Islands, p. 7. 
 
 f Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 18o, and com- 
 pare the magic cup in the Karen River legend. — Journ. As. Soc. 
 Bmgnl, xxxiv, (2) 219. 
 
 X Sinclair's Stat., Ace, viii, 52 ; Martin, Western Islands, p. 230.
 
 102 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 these striking details of magical ritual is added the 
 fact that there were two old woman " who are said to 
 have the secret," and through whom the ceremonial 
 is to be accomplished, one can not but recognize the 
 parallel to those priestesses of Sena and their rites 
 with which classical authorities have acquainted us. 
 One little detail is recorded by Martin which is not 
 given in the otherwise fuller account just quoted — name- 
 ly, that the well must always be " opened by a diroch, 
 i. e., an inmate, else they think it would not exert its 
 virtues," and this emphasis on the necessity of action 
 being taken by a native as ojiposed to a foreigner or 
 stranger is again recorded of a well rite in the isl- 
 and of Egg, where, " if a stranger lie at this well in 
 the night-time it will procure a deformity in some 
 part of his body, but has no such effect on a native."* 
 
 Finally, as to the guardian spirit of the Scottish 
 wells. At Kilbride, in Skye, was a well with " one trout 
 only in it ; the natives are very tender of it, and though 
 they often chance to catch it in their wooden pails, they 
 are very careful to preserve it from being destroyed." f 
 In the well at Kilmore, in Lorn, were two fish, black in 
 color, never augmenting in size or number nor exhibit- 
 ing any alteration of color, and the inhabitants of 
 the place " doe call the saide fishes Easg Slant, that is 
 to say, holie fishes." J This supplies an exact counter- 
 part of the Irish beliefs. Other examples of a still 
 
 * Martin, op cif., p. 277. f J^^if^- P- l-ll- 
 
 I Dalyell, Darlcer S>ipfirsfiiio7i'^. p. 412.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 103 
 
 more interesting nature occur in Scotland, however. 
 If, says Dalyell, a certain worm in a medicinal spring 
 on the top of the hill in the parish of Strathdon were 
 found alive it augured the recovery of a patient, and in a 
 well of Ardnacloich, in Appin, the patient " if he bee to 
 dye shall find a dead worme therein, or a quick one, if 
 health bee to follow."* These, there can be little 
 doubt, are the former deities of the spring thus reduced 
 in status. But the most remarkable example occurs at 
 a well near the church of Kirkmichael, in Banffshire. 
 The guardian of the well assumed the semblance of a 
 fly, who was always present, and whose every movement 
 was regarded by the votaries at the shrine with silent 
 awe, and as he appeared cheerful or dejected the 
 anxious votaries drew their jiresages. This guardian 
 fly of the well of St. Michael was believed to be exempt 
 from the laws of mortality. " To the eye of ignorance," 
 says the local account, "he might sometimes appear 
 dead, but it was only a transmigration into a similiar 
 form, which made little alteration to the real identity." f 
 It seems impossible to mistake this as an almost perfect 
 example where the guardian deity of the sacred spring 
 is represented in animal form. More perfect than any 
 other example to be met with in Britain and its isles 
 is this singular description of the traditional peasant 
 belief ; it lifts the whole evidence as to the identification 
 of wells in Britain as the shrine of ancient local deities 
 
 * Dalyell, op. ciL. 506, 507. 
 f Sinclair's Staf. Ace. of Scot., xii, 405. 
 8
 
 104: ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 into close j)arallel with savage ideas and thought. The 
 divine life of the waters, as Professor Eobertson Smith 
 says, resides in the sacred fish that inhabits them, 
 and he gives numerous examples analogous to the 
 Scottish and Irish. But whether represented by fish, 
 or frog, or worm, or fly, " in all their various forms, 
 the point of the legends is that the sacred source is 
 either inhabited by a demoniac being or imbued with 
 demoniac life." * 
 
 This is the highest point to be reached in the survey 
 of well worship in Britain. The animal god is clearly 
 an element of the primitive life of the worshipers at 
 these wells, and it . is here that research into origins 
 must commence. From the small beginnings, where 
 the survival of some ancient cult is represented by the 
 simple idea of reverence for certain wells mostly dedi- 
 cated to a Christian saint, through stages where a cere- 
 monial is faintly traced in the well-dressing with gar- 
 lands decked, with flowers and ribbons; where shrubs 
 and trees growing near the well are the recipients of 
 offerings by devotees to the spirit of the well ; where 
 disease and sickness of all kinds are ministered to ; where 
 aid is sought against enemies ; where the gift of rain is 
 obtained; where the spirit appears in general forms as 
 fairies and in specific form as animal or fish, and finally, 
 it may be, in anthropomorphic form as Christian saint ; 
 where priestesses attended the well to preside over the 
 ceremonies ; with the several variants overlapping at 
 
 * Religion of the Semites, p. 161.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 105 
 
 every stage, and thus keeping the whole group of super- 
 stition and custom in touch one section with another ; 
 with the curious local details cropping up to illumine 
 the atmosphere of pagan worship which is so evidently 
 the basis of reverence for wells — there is every reason 
 to identify this cult as the most widespread and the 
 most lasting in connection with local natural objects. 
 The deification of rivers, of mountain tops, of crags and 
 weird places obtains here and tliere only ; the deifica- 
 tion of the waters of the well occurs all over the laud. 
 And we are met with a very important fact of classifica- 
 tion — that it is in the Celtic-speaking districts of our 
 land where the rudest and most uncivilized ceremonial 
 is extant, and, further, that it is in the country of the 
 Goidelic, or earliest branch of the Celts, where this finds 
 its most pronounced types. 
 
 To show how this may be translated into terms of 
 ethnology it will be best to reduce it into something 
 like a formula. It must be remembered that we are 
 dealing with survivals of an ancient cult, and the point 
 is to ascertain where the survivals are the most per- 
 fect — less touched, that is, by the incoming civiliza- 
 tions which have swept over them. This formula 
 might perhaps be arranged as shown by the table on 
 the next page. 
 
 From this it is clear that we may take the acts of 
 simple reverence, garland-dressing, and dedication to a 
 Christian saint as the late expression in popular tradi- 
 tion of the earlier and more primitive acts tabulated
 
 106 
 
 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 above. Taking the more primitive elements as our 
 basis, the lowest point is obtained from English ground, 
 which only rises into the primitive stage in the north- 
 ern counties, where rag-bushes are found. On Welsh 
 ground the highest point of primitive culture is the 
 tradition of an animal guardian spirit. On Irish 
 ground the highest point is the identification of the 
 well deity with the rain-god, while on Scottish ground 
 the highest points recognizable elsewhere are acentu- 
 ated in degree. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM OF WORSHIP. 
 
 OFFERINGS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ° 
 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 1 B. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 i i 
 
 1.1 
 
 Rnln- 
 producinp 
 Sun-worsh 
 influences 
 
 
 
 K J 
 
 a 
 
 & 
 
 < Si 
 
 England : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eastern and South- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 Isle of Wight 
 
 
 Western (middle). . . 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 
 j- 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 Northern(a) 
 
 
 (6) 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 Wales 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 + 
 
 4 
 + 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 Ireland 
 
 
 Scotland 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 Now, I have proved above that the three forms in 
 •which offerings to the well deities are made are but 
 variants of one primitive form — namely, the offerings 
 of rags or parts of clothing upon bushes sacred to the 
 well. This species of offering has been investigated 
 with regard to its geographical distribution by Mr. 
 M. J. "Walhouse, and it is certain that it occupies a 
 much wider area than that inhabited by Aryan peo-
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEf. 1C7 
 
 pies.* Thus, to quote a summary given by General Pitt- 
 Eivers : " Burton says it extends throughout northern 
 Africa from west to east ; Mungo Park mentions it in 
 western Africa ; Sir Samuel Baker speaks of it on the 
 confines of Abyssinia, and says that the people who 
 practiced it were unable to assign a reason for doing so ; 
 Burton also found the same custom in Arabia during 
 his pilgrimage to Mecca ; in Persia Sir William Ouseley 
 saw a tree close to a large monolith covered with these 
 rags, and he describes it as a practice appertaining to a 
 religion long since proscribed in that country ; in the 
 Dekkan and Ceylon Colonel Leslie says that the trees 
 in the neighborhood of wells may be seen covered 
 with similar scraps of cotton ; Dr. A. Campbell speaks 
 of it as being practiced by the Limboos near Darjeeling 
 in the Himalaya, where it is associated, as in Ireland, 
 with large heaps of stones ; and Hue in his travels men- 
 tions it among the Tartars." f Here not only do we get 
 evidence of the cult in an Aryan country like Persia 
 being proscribed, but, as General Pitt-Eivers observes, 
 " it is impossible to believe that so singular a custom 
 as this, invariably associated with cairns, megalithic 
 monuments, holy wells, or some such early pagan insti- 
 tutions, could have arisen independently in all these 
 countries." That the area over which it is found is co- 
 terminous with the area of the megalithic monuments, 
 that these monuments take us back to pre- Aryan people 
 
 * Journ. Anthrop. Inst., ix, 97-106. 
 
 \ Journ. Efhnol. Soc, N. S., i, 04.
 
 108 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 and suggest the spread of this people over the area 
 covered by their remains, are arguments in favor of a 
 megalithic date for well worship and rag offerings. 
 
 That I am concerned only with the element of eth- 
 nology in this cult compels me to pass over the very 
 important conclusions which an analysis of the rites of 
 well worship suggests in connection with the primitive 
 agricultural life of the pre-Aryan people of these islands, 
 and I conclude what there is to say about well worship 
 by a reference to a chronological fact of some interest 
 and importance. 
 
 Its highest form of rude savagery within the area 
 which we have examined so minutely is found in the 
 country of the old Picts of Scotland, who are identi- 
 fied as non- Aryans by Professor Rhys. And this was 
 the country where St. Columba found a " fountain 
 famous among this heathen people [and] worshiped as 
 a god," and where in its waters he vanquished and con- 
 founded " the Druids " and " then blessed the fountain, 
 and from that day the demons separated from the 
 water." * In this non- Aryan country, as in ancient and 
 perhaps pre-Semitic Arabia, " the fountain is treated as 
 a living thing, those properties of its waters which we 
 call natural are regarded as manifestations of a divine 
 life, and the source itself is honored as a divine being, I 
 had almost said a divine animal." f This pregnant 
 
 * Reeve's edition of Adamnaii's Life of St. Columba, lib. ii, 
 cap. xi. 
 
 f Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 168.
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF. 109 
 
 summary of well worship in Arabia may without the 
 alteration of a single word be adopted as the summary 
 of well worship in Britain and its isles, and it confirms 
 the conclusion that it is a non- Aryan cult attached to 
 the most important of natural objects, which existed 
 before Celt or Teuton spread over the land, and which 
 retained, as in Pictland we have definite evidence, all 
 the old faiths, whatsoever people might come and settle 
 down around them. 
 
 The power of localization in primitive belief is 
 shown by these examples to have been a very significant 
 and lasting power. Research could be extended into 
 other branches of the subject — to mountain worship, 
 tree worship, rock worship ; but extension would do no 
 more than confirm what I hope is now clear — that 
 some of the great objects of nature common to all 
 localities, conspicuous to all people living in the locali- 
 ties, generated certain beliefs which remain perma- 
 nently fixed upon the object, and thus afford lasting 
 evidence of the continuity of early faiths Avhich do 
 not cease when newer faiths come into contact with 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE, 
 
 The analogies which exist between savage custom 
 and European folklore suggested the first stage of the 
 argument for the existence of ethnic elements in folk- 
 lore. What is this folklore, which can be traced to 
 nothing, outside of folklore, in the habitual beliefs and 
 customs of civilized countries, and which is parallel only 
 to the habitual beliefs and customs of savages ? A key 
 to the answer was supplied when it was pointed out that 
 there is an equation which consists, on the one side, of In- 
 dian religious rites, in which Aryan and non-Aryan races 
 take their respective parts, and, on the other side, of cus- 
 tom in survival among European peasantry. From this 
 it was argued that the appearance of the factor of race 
 on one side of the equation made it necessary that it 
 should also be inserted on the other side, and it was there- 
 fore urged that the items of folklore thus ear-marked 
 should be separated off into groups of non-Aryan and 
 Aryan origins. 
 
 It follows from this, then, that relics of different races 
 are to be found in the folklore of countries whose chief 
 characteristics have up to the present been identified by
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. m 
 
 scholars as belonging to one race. So important a con- 
 clusion necessitates some further inquiry into those items 
 of folklore on the European side of the equation which 
 are thus allocated to different race origins, and it may 
 be urged that they should contain some quality which 
 of itself, now that w^e have the key, will help to identify 
 them as of non- Aryan or Aryan origin. We must not, 
 in short, rely upon the comparative method for every- 
 thing. Aryan belief and custom, though doubtless not 
 easily distinguishable in some cases from non-Aryan 
 belief and custom, is in other cases definitely and dis- 
 tinctly marked off from it both in theory and practice. 
 In folklore, therefore, this difference would also appear 
 if the hypothesis as to origin is true. There must at 
 least exist some beliefs and some usages which are in- 
 consistent with the corresponding Aryan beliefs and 
 usages — an inconsistency which in the last stages of 
 survival does not perhaps present a very important 
 consideration to the peasantry among whom the folk- 
 lore obtains, but which, if traced back to the originals, 
 may be shown to have been an important factor in the 
 development of primitive Aryan thought and custom. 
 
 Hence, in attempting to trace out the originals of 
 modern folklore, it is clear that its inconsistencies must 
 be carefully observed. For the pui-pose of the problem 
 now under discussion we must note these inconsisten- 
 cies, in order to see if they may be identified with two 
 distinct lines of primitive custom and belief. On the 
 one hand there would be the line of parallel to modem
 
 112 ETHNOLOGY IN' FOLKLORE. 
 
 savagery, where the folklore, that is, is at the same level 
 of development in human culture as the savage custom 
 or belief ; on the other hand, there would be the line 
 of parallel to a much higher culture than savagery. If 
 these two inconsistent lines of development are both 
 represented in folklore, though in spirit antagonistic to 
 each other, the point is gained that in folklore is discov- 
 erable at least two separate lines of descent. They must 
 have been produced by the presence within the country 
 where they now survive of different races living together 
 in the relationship of conquered and conquerors ; they 
 must have been subsequently handed on by generation 
 after generation of the same races ; they must finally 
 have been preserved by the peasantry long after dis- 
 tinction of race in Europe had ceased to exist, as mere 
 observance of custom, because, as such, they were part 
 and parcel of their stock of life- action, not pushed out 
 of existence by anything higher in religion or culture, 
 but retaining their old place year after year, decade after 
 decade, simply because their dislodgment, without ade- 
 quate replacement from other sources, w^ould have 
 created a vacuum as foreign to nature in man as to 
 nature in the world surrounding man. 
 
 We have thus two distinct lines of parallel to trace 
 out — a parallel with savagery and a parallel with a 
 higher culture. The work before us is not one that can 
 be accomplished off-hand. Folklore has a genealogy, so 
 to speak, where the links are represented by the various 
 changes which the condition of survival inevitably
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. II3 
 
 brings about. I have said that there is no development 
 in folklore. All chances of development had been 
 crushed out when the original elements of what is now 
 classed as folklore were pushed back from the condition 
 of tribal or national custom and belief to that of toler- 
 ated peasant superstition. But this does not mean that 
 no change of any sort has taken place. The changes of 
 decay, degradation, and misapplication have taken the 
 place of change by development. 
 
 The marked features of these changes are capable of 
 some classification, and I shall term them symbolism, 
 substitution, and amalgamation. A practice originally 
 in one particular form assumes another form, but still 
 symbolical of the original ; or it is transferred to another 
 object or set of objects ; or it becomes joined on to other 
 practices and beliefs, and produces in this way a new 
 amalgamation. All these processes indicate the change 
 of decay incidental to survivals, not the change of de- 
 velopment, and in tracing out the genealogy of folklore 
 it is the changes of decay which mark the steps of the de- 
 scent. When children are made to jump through the 
 midsummer fires for luck, human sacrifice has in folk- 
 lore become symbolized ; when the blood of the cock is 
 sprinkled, as in France, over the stones of a new build- 
 ing, the animal object of the sacrifice has been substi- 
 tuted for the human object ; when the wise man of the 
 Yorkshire villages has assumed the character of part 
 wizard or witch, part sorcerer, magician, or enchanter, 
 and part conjurer, there has been an amalgamation of
 
 114 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 the characters and credentials of three or four entities 
 in pagan priesthood. And so through all these changes 
 we must endeavor to carefully work back step by step 
 to the original form. That form as restored will repre- 
 sent the true sui'vival enshrined in folklore, and accord- 
 ing to its equation with savage, or with an ascertained 
 development from savage originals, will it be possible to 
 decide to what early race it is to be attributed — the 
 highly organized Aryan, capable of a culture equal to 
 his language, or the ruder and more savage predecessors 
 of the Aryan people. 
 
 I will now give some examples of the ethnic geneal- 
 ogy of folklore on the lines just traced out. They are 
 examples chosen not for the special object of endeavor- 
 ing to prove a point, but as evidence of what a careful 
 examination of folklore in detail and in relation to its 
 several component elements might produce if it were 
 systematically and carefully pursued in this manner. 
 The study is laborious, but the results are correspond- 
 ingly valuable, particularly when it ajopears that from no 
 other branch of knowledge can we hope to obtain infor- 
 mation as to what our ancestors thought and believed. 
 
 1. As an act of sorcery the mold from the church- 
 yard, known as the " meels," was in northeastern Scot- 
 land used for throwing into the mill-race in order to 
 stop the mill-wheel.* That the mold is not used be- 
 cause it is a consecrated element of the churchyard is 
 suggested by the harmful result expected, and its con- 
 
 * Gregor, Folklore, p. 21G.
 
 THE ETDNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. II5 
 
 nection Avitli the dead is the only alternative cause for 
 its use; so that our examination of this superstitious 
 practice points to some as yet unexplained use of prod- 
 ucts closely connected with the dead. The importance 
 of this conclusion is shown by an Irish usage — people 
 taking the clay or mold from the graves of priests and 
 boiling it with milk as a decoction for the cure of 
 disease.* Again, in Shetland, a stitch in the side was 
 cured by applying to the part some mold dug from a 
 grave and heated, it being an essential of the ceremony 
 that it must be taken from and returned to the grave 
 before sunset, f In these cases the grave mold is used 
 as food, and it is this circumstance more than the sup- 
 posed cures effected by it which must be taken as the 
 lowest point in the genealogy of this item of folklore. 
 
 The next link in the genealogy shows that the use 
 of grave-mold is only a substitution for the use of the 
 corpse itself. The Irish have a superstition that to dip 
 the left hand of a corpse in the milk-pail has the effect 
 of making the milk produce considerably more cream 
 and of a richer and better kind. J A new element pre- 
 sented by the analysis of this form of the custom is that 
 the result is not connected with the cure of disease but 
 
 * Wilde's Beauties of the Boyne, p. 45 ; Croker, Researches in 
 the South of Ireland, p. 170 ; cf Rev. Celt., v, 358. The dew col- 
 lected from the grave of the last man buried in the churchyard as 
 an application for the cure of goitre may perhaps be a remnant 
 of this class of belief. It occurs at Launceston.— Dyer, Eiujlish 
 Folklore, p. 150. 
 
 f Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii, 22C. 
 
 X Croker, op. cit., p. 234.
 
 IIG ETHNOLOGY IN TOLKLORE. 
 
 with the increase of dairy produce. The limitation to 
 a particular part of the dead body, tlie left hand, disap- 
 pears in a custom once obtaining at Oran, in Roscom- 
 mon. There a child was disinterred and its arms cut 
 off, to be employed in the performance of certain mys- 
 tic rites, the nature of which, unfortunately, are not 
 stated by my authority.* Scottish witches are credited 
 with opening graves for the purpose of taking out joints 
 of the fingers and toes of dead bodies, with some of the 
 winding sheet, in order to prepare a powder for their 
 magical purposes. f In Lincolnshire a small portion of 
 the human skull was taken from the graveyard and 
 grated, to be used in a mixture and eaten for the cure 
 of fits. J For the cure of epilepsy, near Kirkwall, a 
 similar practice was resorted to, while in Caithness and 
 the western isles the patient was made to drink from a 
 suicide's skull.* 
 
 Fresh light is thrown wpon the nature of the magi- 
 cal practices alluded to in these examples by the evi- 
 dence afforded by Scottish trials for witchcraft. From 
 the trial of John Brugh, November 24, 1643, it appears 
 that he went to the churchyard of Glendovan on three 
 several occasions, and each time took up a corpse. 
 " The flesch of the quliilk corps was put aboue the byre 
 and stable-dure headis " of certain individuals to de- 
 
 * Wilde, Irish Popular Superstitions, p. 28. 
 f Brand, Pop. Antiq., iii, 10. 
 
 X Dyer, English Folklore, p. 147. 
 
 * Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii, 225.
 
 THE ETUNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. II7 
 
 stroy their cattle.* This practice, when subjected to 
 analysis, becomes divided into two heads : 
 
 1. The distribution of human flesh among owners of 
 cattle. 
 
 2. The object of such distribution to do harm to 
 these cattle-owners. 
 
 We have thus arrived, step by step, at tlie bodies of 
 the dead being used for some undetermined purjioses. 
 Another group of such practices surviving in folklore 
 represents by symbolization a still further step in the 
 genealogy. A note by Bishop White Kennet speaks 
 of a " custom which lately obtained at Amersden, in the 
 county of Oxfoi'd, where at the burial of every corps 
 one cake and one flaggon of ale just after the interment 
 were brought to the minister in the church porch." f 
 This, in the opinion of the writer, seems " a remainder " 
 of the custom of sin-eating, and it is probable he is 
 right. The sin-eating custom is thus given by Aubrey : 
 " In the county of Hereford Avas an old custome at fu- 
 neralls to have poor people who were to take upon them 
 all the sinnes of the party deceased. The manner Avas, 
 that when the corps was brought out of the house and 
 layd on the biere, a loafe of bread was brought out and 
 delivered to the sinne-eater over the corps, as also a 
 mazar bowle of maple (gossips bowle) full of beer, 
 which he was to drinke up, and sixpence in nKuu-y, in 
 consideration whereof he tooke upon him (ipso facto) 
 
 * Diilyell, Darker Supersiition-t of Sco/hind, [). iJTD. 
 f Aubrey's Itemaines of Geyifilisme, p. 24.
 
 118 EinNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 all the sinnes of the defunct, and freed him or her from 
 walking after they were dead."* Aubrey specifically 
 mentions Hereford, Ross, Dynder (" volens nolens the 
 parson of ye Parish"), and "in other places in this 
 countie," as also in Breconshire, at Llangors, " where 
 Mr. Gwin, the minister, about 1640, could no hinder ye 
 performing of this ancient custome," and in North 
 Wales, where, instead of a " bowle of beere they have a 
 bowle of milke." 
 
 This account is circumstantial enough. Bagford, in 
 his well-known letter to Hearne (1715), mentions the 
 same custom as obtaining in Shropshire, " in those 
 villages adjoyning to Wales." His account is : " When 
 a person dyed there was notice given to an old sire (for 
 so they called him), who presently reiaaired to the place 
 where the deceased lay and stood before the door of 
 the house, when some of the family came out and fur- 
 nished him with a cricket, on which he sat down facing 
 the door. Then they gave him a groat which he put in 
 his pocket ; a crust of bread which he ate ; and a full 
 bowle off ale which he drank off at a draught. After 
 this he got up from the cricket and pronounced with a 
 composed gesture the ease and rest of the soul departed, 
 for which he would pawn his own soul." f There seems 
 some evidence of this custom being in vogue at 
 Llandebie, near Swansea, until about 1850,J where the 
 
 * Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme, pp. 35, 36. 
 
 f Leland's Collectanea, i, Ixxvi. 
 
 X Archceologia Camhrensis, iii, 330 ; Joia-n. Anthrop., Inst., v,
 
 THE ETHNIC GEXEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. HQ 
 
 ceremony was not unlike that described as having been 
 practiced in the west of Scotland. " There were per- 
 sons," says Mr. Xapier, " calling themselves sin-eaters, 
 who when a person died were sent for to come and eat 
 the sins of the deceased. When they came their modus 
 operandi was to place a plate of salt and a plate of bread 
 on the breast of the corpse and repeat a series of in- 
 cantations, after which they ate the contents of the 
 plates and so relieved the dead person of such sins as 
 would have kept him hovering around his relations, 
 haunting them with his imperfectly purified spirit, to 
 their great annoyance and without satisfaction to him- 
 self." * The "Welsh custom, as described bv Mr. Mog- 
 gridge, adds one important detail not noted with refer- 
 ence to the other customs — namely, that after the cere- 
 
 423 ; Wirt Sikes, British Goblins, pp. 326, 327. Tlie Welsh prac- 
 tice of the relatives of the deceased distributincj bread and cheese 
 to the poor over the coffin seems to ine to confirm the evidence for 
 the Welsh sin-eater. One of Elfric's canons says, infer alia, "Do 
 not eat and drink over the body in the heathenish manner." — 
 Wilkins, Concilia, i, 255. 
 
 * Napier, Folklore of the West of Scotland, p. GO. I am not 
 quite satisfied with this example. Mr. Napier evidently is not 
 minutely describing an actual observance, and in his book he fre- 
 quently refers to customs elsewhere. In this instance he does not 
 appear to be alluding to any other than Scottish customs, and it 
 is to be noted that his details differ from Aubrey's and Bagford's, 
 nor can I trace any authority for his details excojil his own obser- 
 vation, unless it be from Mr. Moggridge's account in Arch. Cam- 
 hrensis, which, howevei-, it does not follow exactly. He is so reli- 
 able in respect of all his own notes that I should not doubt this 
 if it were not for the certain amount of vagueness about this 
 passage.
 
 120 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 mony the sin-eater " vanished as quickly as jiossible 
 from the general gaze." 
 
 The chief points in these remarkable customs are : 
 
 (1) The action of passing the food over the corpse, as 
 if thereby to signify some connection with the corpse. 
 
 (2) The immediate disappearance of the sin-eater; 
 and 
 
 (3) The object of the ceremony to prevent the spirit 
 of the deceased from annoying the living. 
 
 In these customs clearly something is symbolized 
 by the supposed eating up of the sins of the deceased.* 
 As Mr. Frazer has observed in reference to these prac- 
 tices, " the idea of sin is not primitive." f I do not think 
 with Mr. Frazer that the older idea was that death 
 was carried away from the survivors. Something much 
 less subtle than this must have originated all these prac- 
 tices, or they could not have been kept up in so material- 
 istic a form. Folklore tends to become less material as 
 it decays ; it goes off into almost shadowy conceptions, 
 not into practices which of themselves are horrid and re- 
 volting. These practices, then, must be the indicator 
 which will help us to translate the symbolism of folk- 
 lore into the usage of primitive life. The various forms 
 
 * 1 must acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Hartland for 
 the use I make of the custom of sin-eating. He was good enough 
 to draw my attention to a study of the subject he was preparing, 
 and which since the above passage was written he has read before 
 the Folklore Society, 
 
 f Frazer, Golden Bough, ii, 152, note ; Miss Burne also seems 
 to suggest this idea (Shropshire Folklore, p. 202).
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 121 
 
 of the survival seem to indicate that we have here a group 
 of customs and beliefs relating to some unknown cult of 
 the dead — a cult which, when it was relegated to the po- 
 sition of a survival by some foreign force which arrested 
 development and only brought decay and change, showed 
 no tendency toward any high conception of future bliss 
 for the deceased in spirit-land ; a cult which was savage in 
 conception, savage in the methods of carrying out the 
 central idea which promoted it, savage, too, in the results 
 which must have flowed from it and affected the niiiuls 
 and associations of its actors. 
 
 What is the savage idea connected Avith the dead 
 which underlies these gloomy and disgusting practices 
 preserved in folklore ? Let me recall a i)assage in Strabo 
 relating to the practices of early British savages. 1'he 
 inhabitants of Ireland were cannibals, but they also 
 " deemed it honorable to eat the bodies of their deceased 
 parents."* Now, the eating of dead kindred is a rite 
 practiced by savages in many parts of the world, and it 
 is founded primarily on the fear which savage man had 
 for the spirits of the dead. 
 
 The conception of fear in connection with the dend 
 is still retained in folklore. Miss Burne, with great 
 reason, attributes the popular objection to carrying a 
 corpse along a private road to the dread lest the dead 
 should come back by the road the corpse traveled. f In 
 Scotland the same dread is expressed by the curious 
 
 * Strabo, lib. iv, cap. v, sect. 4. 
 f Shropshire Folhlore, p. 303.
 
 ][22 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 practice of turning upside down all the chairs in the 
 room from which the corpse has just been taken ; * in Eng- 
 land by the practice of unhinging the gate and placing 
 it across the entrance, and of carrying the corpse to the 
 grave by a roundabout way.f There is also the practice 
 in Scotland of keeping up a dance all night after a 
 funeral, J which by the analogous practice among the 
 Nagas of India must be attributed to the desire to get 
 rid of the spirit of the deceased.* The Caithness Scots, 
 too, share with some South African tribes a deep-rooted 
 reluctance to speak of a man as dead.|| The point of 
 these practices is that the returning ghosts are not 
 friendly to their earthly kindred, do not represent the 
 idea of friendly ancestral spirits who, in their newly- 
 assumed character of spirits, will help their kindred on 
 earth to get through the troubles of life. The mere 
 fear of ghosts, which is the outcome of modern super- 
 stition, does not account for these practices, because it 
 does not cover the wide area occupied by them in savage 
 life which Mr. Frazer has so skillfully traveled over. In 
 this connection, too, I would mention that, associated 
 with the outcast and the criminal, the same idea of fear 
 
 * FolMore. Record, ii, 214. 
 
 f Frazer, in Jonrn. Anthrop. lufit., xv, 72. 
 X Napier, Folklore of West of Scotland, p. 66 ; Fofklore Journal, 
 iii, 281; Pococke's Tour through Scotland, 1760, p. 88. 
 
 * Owen's Notes on the Naga Tribes, p. 23. 
 
 II Journ. Anthrop. Just., xx, 121 ; Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, p. 
 471; it is also an Australian belief. — Trans. Ethnol. Soc, i, 299, 
 iii, 40.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 123 
 
 for the ghosts of the dead is perfectly obvious, whicli 
 introduces the further suggestion that in this case we 
 have evidence of a certain degraded class of the modern 
 population becoming identified in the peasant mind — in 
 the minds of those, that is, who have kept alive the oldest 
 instincts of prehistoric times — with the ideas and prac- 
 tices wdiich once belonged to a fallen and degraded race 
 existing in their midst. For m}^ present purpose I will 
 quote from Mr. Atkinson the following passage : " There 
 is no doubt that the self-murderer or the doer of some 
 atrocious deed of violence, murder, or lust was buried 
 by some lonely roadside, in a road-crossing, or by the wild 
 woodside, and that the oak, or oftener thorn stake, was 
 driven through his breast. These characters could not 
 rest in their graves. They had to wander about the 
 scenes of their crimes or the places where their un- 
 hallowed carcasses were deposited, unless they were pre- 
 vented, and as they wanted the semblance, the sini- 
 ulacrum, the shadow substance of their bodies, for that 
 purpose, the body was made secure by pinning it to the 
 bottom of the grave by aid of the driven stake. And 
 there were other means adopted with the same end in 
 view. The head was severed from the body and laid be- 
 tween the legs or placed under the arm — between the 
 side and the arm, that is— or the feet and legs were bound 
 together with a strong rope ; or the corpse might be 
 cut up into some hollow vessel capable of containing 
 the pieces, and carried away quite beyond the pre- 
 cincts of the village and deposited in some bog or mo-
 
 12i ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 rass."* These ghastly ceremouies throw much light on 
 the old folk-belief as to the dead. What is now con- 
 fined to the suicide or criminal in parts of England is 
 identical w^th ceremonies jierformed by savage tribes for 
 all their dead, and it is impossible to put on one side the 
 suggestion that we have in this partial survival relics of 
 a conception of the dead which once belonged to an 
 ethnic division of the people, and not to a caste created 
 by the laws of crime. 
 
 I am anxious in this first attempt at definitely trac- 
 ing out the genealogy of a particular element in folklore 
 to show clearly that the process is a justifiable one. It 
 will not be possible in all instances to do this, partly on 
 account of space and partly on account of the singular 
 diversity of the evidence. But in this iiistance the 
 attempt may perhaps be made, and I will first proceed to 
 set down, in the usual manner of a genealogy, the various 
 stages already noted in this case, and I will then set down 
 the parallel genealogy supplied from savagery. 
 
 * Atkinson, Forty Years in a Ifoorland Parish, pp. 217, 218. 
 The modern reason for these doings is the idea of " ignominy, ab- 
 horrence, execration, or what not." 
 
 f Ancient Peruvians (Dormer, Origi7i of Primitive Supersti- 
 tions, p. 151 ; Hakluyt, Rites of the Incas, p. 94) ; Battahs of Su- 
 matra (Featherman, Soc. Hist., 2d div., 336 ; Joum. Ind. Arch., ii, 
 241 ; Marsden, Sumatra, p. 390) ; Philippine Islanders (Feather- 
 man, op. cif., p. 496) ; Gonds and Kookies of India (Rowney, Wild 
 Tribes of India, p. 7; Joum. As. Soe. Bengal, xvi, 14); Queens- 
 land (Jouryi. Anthrop. Inst., ii, 179 ; viii, 254; J. D. Lang's Queens- 
 land, pp. 333, 355-357) ; Victoria (Smythe's Aborigines of Victoria, 
 i, pp. xxix, 120); Maoris (Taylor's jS^ew Zealand, p. 221). All 
 these examples are not, it should be stated, attributed to fear of
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 125 
 
 Eating of dead kindred. 
 
 British savagery. 
 
 Inhabitants 
 of Ireland. 
 
 Modern savagery. 
 
 Survival in folklore. 
 
 I 
 Relics of the dead 
 [Practice treated in revolt- 
 arrested.] ing manner. 
 
 Dead body : 
 
 food taken from 
 
 to eat the sin 
 of the deceased. 
 
 Dead body = cut up and placed 
 I over cattle byres. 
 
 Corpse hand = dipped in milk 
 I for increase of 
 supply. 
 
 Corpse fingers =: magic rites 
 
 Development 
 or change. 
 
 Dead body = food eaten 
 I out of the 
 haud.t 
 
 Dead bod}- — distributed 
 I among 
 comniuuity.** 
 
 Pounded = eaten by 
 bones or i kinsmen.] 
 ashes 
 
 Water in - 
 which body 
 is placed 
 
 drank by 
 kinsmen.A 
 
 and toes 
 
 of wi^jhes, 
 harmful (?). 
 
 Practice 
 
 still 
 
 continued 
 
 by many 
 
 races.t 
 
 Corpse arms — magic rites 
 and legs | unknown. 
 
 Grave mold — cure of disease. 
 [of priestj I 
 
 Grave mold = harm to mill. 
 
 dead kindred ; but the whole point as to the origin of the practice 
 is one for argument and more evidence. These examples do not 
 exhaust the list ; they are the most typical. 
 
 t The Kangras of India,.— Pinijab JV. £ Q., i, 86. 
 
 * The Koniagas (Spencer, Principles of Sociology, p. 262. It is 
 remarkable that this custom is the alternative to immersing the 
 dead body and drinking the water); Australians (Smythe's .-lio- 
 rigines of Victoria, i, 131 ; Featherman, op. cit., pp. 157, 161). 
 
 (I Tarianas and Tucanos. — Spencer, op. cit., 202. 
 
 ^ Koniagas (see note * . )
 
 126 ETUXOLOtiY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 This genealogy seems to me clear and definite, and 
 its construction is singularly free from any process of 
 forced restoration. Looked at from the point of view 
 of geographical distribution, it has to be pointed out 
 that this group of folklore is found in isolation in the 
 outer parts of the country. The significance of its dis- 
 tribution in certain localities must be taken into ac- 
 count, and it is imj^ortant to draw attention to the 
 isolation of the several examples. It clearly does not 
 represent a cult of the dead generally present in the 
 minds of the peasantry. A totally different set of be- 
 liefs has to be examined for this, and to these beliefs I 
 now turn for evidence of that inconsistency in folklore 
 which I have urged shows distinct ethnic origins. The 
 facts will then stand as follows : On the one hand there 
 is a definite representation of a cult of the dead based 
 on the fear of dead kindred and found in isolated 
 patches of the country ; on the other hand there is a 
 definite representation of a cult of the dead based on 
 the love of dead kindred and found generally prevalent 
 over the country. 
 
 The survivals of this cult in folklore are numerous. 
 As soon as death has taken place doors and windows 
 are opened to allow the spirit to join the home of de- 
 parted ancestors ; * the domestic animals are removed 
 from the house ; f the bees are given some of the funeral 
 
 * Brand, ii, 231; Henderson, Folklore of Northern Counties, 
 pp. 53, 56 ; Dyer, English Folklore, p. 230. 
 f Napier, p. 60.
 
 THE ETHXIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. i-;; 
 
 food and are solemnly told of the master's death by the 
 nearest of kin ; * the fire at the domestic hearth is put 
 out;f careful watch is made of the corpse until its 
 burial ; J soul-mass cakes are prepared and eaten. * 
 
 A singular unanimity prevails as to the reasons for 
 these customs, Avhich may be summed up as indicating 
 the one desire to procure a safe and speedy passage of 
 the soul to spirit-land, or, as it is put in modern folk- 
 lore, " lest the devil should gain power over tiie dead 
 person." || 
 
 In the removal of the domestic animals we can trace 
 the old rite of funeral sacrifice. Originally, says Na- 
 pier, the reason for the exclusion of dogs and cats arose 
 from the belief that if either of these animals should 
 chance to leap over the corpse and be permitted to live 
 the devil would gain power over the dead person. In 
 Northumberland this negative way of putting the case 
 is replaced by a positive record of the sacrifice of the ani- 
 mals that leaped over the coffin. ^ But probably human 
 sacrifice, that pitiable kindness to the dead, is symbol- 
 ized in the Highland custom at funerals, where friends 
 of the^ deceased person fought until blood was drawn — 
 
 * The examples of this custom are very numerous. I have sum- 
 marized the principal of them in Folklore, iii, 12. 
 
 f Pennant, Tour in Scotland, i, 44. 
 
 X Xapier, Folklore of ^'est Scolla/i^. p. 62. 
 
 * Brand, i, 392 ; ii, 289. || Xapier, pp. CO. G2. 
 
 ■'■Henderson, p. 59. Cats are locked up while the corpse re- 
 mains in the house in Orkney (Goujjh's Sepith-hral Monunienls, 
 vol. i, p. Ixxv); and in Devonshire (Dyer's English Folklore, 1^. 
 109).
 
 12S ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 tlie drawing of blood being held essential.* The real 
 nature of the soul-mass cakes as the last vestiges of the 
 old rite of funeral sacrifice to the manes of the deceased 
 has been proved by Dr. Tylor.f The striking custom 
 of putting out the fire is to be interpreted as a desire 
 not to detain the soul at the altar of the domestic god, 
 where the spirits of deified ancestors were worshiped. 
 And the message to the bees is clearly best explained, I 
 think, as being given to these winged messengers of the 
 gods I so that they may carry the news to spirit-land of 
 the speedy arrival of a new-comer. 
 
 All these solemnities betoken very plainly that Ave 
 are dealing with the survivals in folklore of the Aryan 
 Avorship of deceased ancestors, one of the most generally 
 accepted conclusions of comparatiA^e culture.* I need 
 scarcely point out Iioav far removed it is, as a matter of 
 dcA^elopment in culture, from the more primitiA^e fear of 
 dead kindred. Manes worship, based uj)on the fear of 
 the dead, is found in many parts of the primitiA'e 
 
 * Folklore Journal, iii, 281. f Primitive Culture, ii 38. 
 
 X The bees supplied the sacred mead and were therefore in 
 direct contact with the gods. Cf. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiqui- 
 ties of the Aryans, p. 321. 
 
 ^ ll^am, Aryan Household, p. 54; Maine, Ancient Law, p. 
 101 ; Spencer, Principals of Sociology, pp. 314-316 ; De Coulanges, 
 Cite Antique, pp. 33, 71 ; Kelly, Indo-European Folklore, p. 45 ; 
 Revue Celtique, ii, 486 ; Cox, Introd. to Myth, and Folklore, p. 
 168 ; Elton, Origins of Engl. Hist., p. 211, are the most accessible 
 authorities, to which I may perhaps add my Folklore Relics of 
 Early Village Life, pp. 90-123. Rogers in his Social Life in 
 Scotland, iii, 340, 341, has a curious note on the lares famil tares 
 or wraiths of the Highlanders, connecting them with the ghosts
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 129 
 
 world ; * the worship of a domestic god, based upon 
 his helpfulness, is found also.f But, except among the 
 Aryan peoples, these two cults do not seem to have 
 coalesced into a family religion. In this family religion, 
 centered round the domestic hearth where the ancestral 
 god resided, the fear of dead kindred has given way 
 before the conception of the dead ancestor who had 
 " passed into a deity [and] simply goes on protecting 
 his own family and receiving suit and service from them 
 as of old ; the dead chief [who] still watches over his 
 own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends 
 and harming enemies, still rewards the right and sharply 
 punishes the wrong." J And, in the meantime, the 
 horrid practices and theories of savagery which we have 
 previously examined are contrasted, in Aryan culture, 
 with the funeral ceremony whereby the kinsmen of the 
 deceased perform the last rites, and with the theory that 
 these rites are fiecessary to insure that the ghosts of the 
 dead take their place in the bright home of deified an- 
 cestors,* both practice and theory being represented in 
 
 of departed ancestors, I note Schrader's objection in Prehistoric 
 Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 425, that the unsatisfactory 
 state of the Greek evidence prevents him from accepting the gen- 
 eral view, but I think the weight of evidence on tlie other side 
 tells against this objection. 
 
 * Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 103-109 ; Si)cncer, Principles of 
 Sociology, pp. 304-313. 
 
 f Cf. ray Folklore Relics, pp. 85-90. 
 X Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 103. 
 
 * This is a common Greek and Hindu conception.— Oc/y.t.*.. xi, 
 54 ; Iliad, xxiii, 72 ; Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, \)\\ 200, 255.
 
 130 EinXOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 folklore by the absolute veto uj^on disturbing the graves 
 of the dead.* 
 
 These facts of Aryan life, indeed, bring us to that 
 sharp contrast which it presents to savage life in its 
 conception of the family. If ancestors are revered and 
 this reverence finds expression in the nature of the 
 funeral customs, so are children brought into the pale 
 of the family by customs indicative of some sacred cere- 
 mony connecting the new house inmates Avith the gods 
 of the race. I agree with Kelly in his interpretation 
 of the stories of the feeding the infant Zeus with the 
 honey from the sacred ash and from bees. "Among 
 the ancient Germans," says Kelly, " that sacred food 
 was the first that was put to the lips of the new-born 
 babe. So it was among the Hindus, as appears from a 
 passage in one of their sacred books. The father puts 
 his mouth to the right ear of the new-born babe, and 
 murmurs three times, ' Speech ! Speech I ' Then he 
 gives it a name. Then he mixes clotted milk, honey, 
 and butter, and feeds the babe with it out of pure gold. 
 It is found in a surprising shape among one Celtic peo- 
 ple. Lightfoot says that in the Highlands of Scotland, 
 at the birth of an infant, the nurse takes a green stick 
 of ash, one end of which she puts into the fire, and 
 while it is burning receives in a spoon the sap that oozes 
 from the other, which she administers to the child as 
 its first food. Some thousands of years ago the ances- 
 tors of this Highland nurse had knoAvn the fraxinus 
 
 * " Choice Xotes," Folklore, p. 8.
 
 THE ETHNIC GEXP:aLOGY OF FOLKLORE. 131 
 
 ornus iu Arya, and now their descendant, imitating their 
 practice in the cold Xorth, but totally ignorant of its 
 true meaning, puts the nauseous sap of her native a,sh 
 into the mouth of her hapless charge." * 1 have quoted 
 this long passage because it shows, as Kelly expresses it, 
 " the amazing toughness of popular tradition," and be- 
 cause it brings into contrast the savage practice of the 
 Irish mothers who dedicated their children to tiie sword. 
 Solinus tells us that the mother put the first food of her 
 new-born son on the sword of her husband, and, lightly 
 introducing it into his mouth, expressed a wish that he 
 might never meet death otherwise than in war and amid 
 arms. Even after the introduction of Christianity 
 the terrible rites of war were kept up at the ceremonials 
 of infancy. Train says that a custom identical with 
 that just quoted from Solinus was kept up, prior to the 
 Union, in Annandale and other places along the Scot- 
 tish border, f and Camden records tliat the right arm of 
 children was kept unchristened so that it might deal a 
 more deadly blow. \ The same usage obtained in the 
 borderland of England and Scotland, * and it is no 
 doubt the parent of the more general custom in the 
 north of England not to wash the right arm of the 
 new-born infant, so that it could the better obtain 
 riches. || 
 
 * Kelly, Indo-Eiiropean Folklore, pp. 14.5, 14G. 
 f Ilistonj of Isle of Man, ii. 84, noti' 1. 
 
 X Bn'fmmia. s. v., "Ireland." 
 
 * Guthrie, Old Scofli^h ('Ksfoinx, p. 144. 
 
 I Henderson, Folklore of Northern Counlus, p. 10.
 
 132 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 Not only are these savage rites in direct contrast to 
 the food rites of the early Aryan birth ceremony, but 
 they also stand out against the relics of Aryan house- 
 birth preserved in folklore, and which are centered 
 round the domestic hearth.* The child, put on a cloth 
 spread over a basket containing provisions, "was con- 
 veyed thrice round the crook of the chimney, or was 
 handed across the fire in those places where the hearth 
 was still in the center of the room.f In Shropshire the 
 first food is a spoonful of butter and sugar. J 
 
 But, again, there is another contrast to be drawn. 
 It is the father who, according to Pennant, prepares the 
 basket of food and places it across the fire, and it is the 
 father, in more primitive Aryan custom, who mixes the 
 sacred food and first feeds the child. In the Irish rites 
 just noticed it is the mother who acts the part of do- 
 mestic priest. This contrast is a very significant one. 
 The principle of matriarchy is more primitive than that 
 of patriarchy, and it may point to a distinction of race. 
 The position of the mother in Irish birth rites is not an 
 accidental one. It is of permanent moment as an ele- 
 ment in folklore. Mothers in many places retain to 
 this day their maiden names,* and this in former days, 
 
 * Hearn, Aryan Household, p. 73. 
 
 f Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, p. 101 ; Dalyell. DarTcer 
 SnpersHtions of Scotland, p. 176; Pennant, Tour in the High- 
 lands, Hi, 46. 
 
 X Burne, Shropshire Folklore, p. 284. 
 
 * Athlone (Mason's Stat. Ace, of Ireland, iii. 72) ; Knockando, 
 Elginshire {New Stat, Ace, of Scotland, xiii, 73).
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 133 
 
 if not at present, suggests that children followed their 
 mother's rather than their father's name and kindred. 
 The importance of these considerations in connection 
 with birth ceremonies is clearly shown by the fact of 
 the survival of the singular custom of the " couvade," 
 where the husband takes to his bed at the birth of a 
 child and goes through the pretense of being ill. " The 
 strange custom of the couvade," says Professor Rhys, 
 " was known in Ireland, at least in Ulster, and when 
 the great invasion of that province took place under the 
 leadership of Ailill and ^^ledb, with their Firbolg and 
 other forces, they found that all the adult males of the 
 kingdom of Conchobar Mac Nessa were laid up, so tliat 
 none of them could stir hand or foot to defend his 
 country against invasion excepting Cucliulainn and his 
 father alone."* Xo doubt this legend takes us into the 
 realms of mytholog}^, to the battles and doings of gods 
 rather than of men ; but Professor Rhys has sliown 
 good cause for believing that the mythological reason for 
 the death or inactivity of the Ultonian heroes had 
 ceased to be intelligible at an early date, " long, prob- 
 ably, before any Aryan wanderer had landed in these 
 islands," and so the persistence of the myth of the 
 Ultonian inactivity naturally came to be interpreted 
 sooner or later in the light of the only custom tliat 
 seemed to make it intelligible — namely, that of the 
 couvade. "Without concerning ourselves about the 
 
 * Celtic neathendom, p. 627; rf pp. 140, 3G3, 471. 482, 027. 
 646 ; Rev. Celt., vii, 227.
 
 13i ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 mytholog}' connected with tliis particular episode, here 
 is the custom itself standing out clearly and distinctly, 
 and its duration of " four days and five nights " may be 
 the period allotted to the primitive formula. It is to be 
 traced also in Scotland. A man Avho had incurred the 
 resentment of Margaret Hutchesone " that same night 
 took sickncs: and had panes as a woman in chyld- 
 birth."* On the borders of Scotland, as lately as the 
 year 1772, there was j^ointed out to Mr. Pennant the 
 offspring of a woman whose 23ains had been transferred 
 to her husband by the midwife. The legends of the 
 saints relate that Merinus, a future bishop, having been 
 refused access to the castle of some Irish potentate 
 whose spouse was then in labor, and treated with con- 
 tempt, prayed for the transference of her sufferings to 
 him, which ensued immediately. f In Yorkshire, too, a 
 custom exists, or existed, which seems without doubt to 
 be a survival of this peculiar custom. " When an ille- 
 gitimate child is born it is a point of honor with the 
 girl not to reveal the father, but the mother of the girl 
 goes out to look for him, and the first man she finds 
 keej)ing his bed is he." J These are the last remnants 
 in custom, as well as in tradition, of a singularly sym- 
 bolical practice, which had to do with some aspect of 
 society when motherhood, not fatherhood, was the ini- 
 
 * Qaoted in Dalyell's Darker Superstitions, p. 133. 
 f Pennant, Tour 1772, p. 79. 
 
 X Academy, xxv, p. 112. Unfortunately tlie exact place in 
 Yorks-hire where this custom obtains is not stated.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 135 
 
 tial point of birthright, and which, in the opinion of 
 most writers who have investigated the subject, is to be 
 classed as non-Aryan in origin — an opinion which is 
 fortified by its prevalence among the Basque people of 
 to-day, while elsewhere in Europe it is found only by 
 digging among the mass of folklore, and then only in 
 such isolation as to suggest that it does not belong to 
 the main current of traditional peasant life. 
 
 Alike, then, in customs relating to the dead and in 
 customs relating to birth there arc two streams of 
 thought, not one. The one is savage, the otlicr is 
 Aryan. That both are represented in folklore indicates 
 that they were arrested in their development by some 
 forces hostile to them, and pushed back to exist as sur- 
 vivals if they were to exist at all. At the moment of 
 this arrest the one must have been practiced by savages, 
 and we may postulate that the arresting force was the 
 incoming Aryan culture ; the other must have been 
 practiced by Aryans, and we may postulate that the 
 arresting force was Christianity. Thus the presence of 
 savage culture and Aryan culture, represented by 
 savages and Aryans, is proved by the evidence of folk- 
 lore.* 
 
 2. It is possible to compare the cult of the dead, 
 which has just been traced out in its dual line of gcn- 
 
 * Mr. Elton declares for the pre-Celtic origin of the sin-cat injj. 
 among other customs. They "can hardly be referred to any other 
 origin than the persistence of ancient liahits among 'the descend- 
 ants of the Silurian tribes."— Origins of English History, p. 179. 
 10
 
 136 EinXOLOGY IN FOLKLOIIE. 
 
 ealogy, with a practice wliich relates to the treatment 
 of the living. Human life among savages is not valued 
 except for what it is worth to the tribe. Female chil- 
 dren and the aged and infirm are alike sacrificed to the 
 primitive law of economics, and no sacred ties of kinship 
 step across to thwart the stern necessities of savage life. 
 Within the memory of credible witnesses, says Miss 
 Burne, affectionate relatives have been known to hasten 
 the moment of death, and she quotes a singular case 
 of strangulation in support of her general statement.* 
 Aubrey has preserved an old English " countrie story " 
 of " the holy mawle, which (they fancy) hung behind 
 the church dore, which, when the father was seaventie, 
 the Sonne might fetch to knock his father on the head 
 as effete and of no more use." f In a fifteenth-century 
 MS. of prose romances, Sir Percival, in his adventures 
 in quest of the Holy Grail, being at one time ill at ease, 
 congratulates himself that he is not like those men of 
 "Wales, where sons jnill their fathers out of bed and kill 
 them to save the disgrace of their dying in bed. J Here 
 are three distinct references to the custom of killing the 
 aged, and it seems impossible to get away from the dis- 
 agreeable conclusion that the actual practice has not so 
 long since died out from among us.* Its opposition to 
 
 * Shropshire Folklore, p. 297. 
 
 f Remaines of Oentilisme and Jiidaisme, p. 19. 
 I Nutt, Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 44. 
 
 * The practice is recorded in Prussia and Sweden. See Kevs- 
 ler, quoted by Elton, Origins of Eng. Hist., p. 91, and Geiger, 
 Hist. Sweden, pp. 31, 32.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 137 
 
 the Aryan conception of the sacred ties of kindred does 
 not need proof, and I have attempted to trace out the 
 origin of some Scottish and English tales as due to the 
 first Aryan observation of this strange practice of their 
 non-Aryan opponents.* 
 
 3. I want to point out that these customs, illustrat- 
 ing the position of enmity and fear between man and 
 man, and opposed, therefore, to the theory of tribal kin- 
 ship, where men of one kin are knit together by ties 
 which, if not to be properly characterized by the term 
 " love," at all events allay the feelings of enmity, become 
 of singular importance as a test of the culture of a 
 people when the evidence becomes cumulative. If when 
 kindred are dead they are feared as enemies, if when 
 they cease to be of use to the community they are 
 promptly dispatched to the land of spirits, it would be 
 a part of the same attitude of man toward man that 
 sickness would be caused by the devilish practices of 
 men, and might be alleviated by the sacrifice of one 
 human being for another. There is, in the presence of 
 such practices, no saci'ed tribal life to preserve and 
 cherish such as there Avas in Aryan society, and it seems 
 certain that this group of custom and belief belongs to 
 a level of culture lower than Aryan. I proceed, then, to 
 examine the evidence for the sacrifice of a human being 
 as a cure for disease. 
 
 We start off with a practice performed upon ani- 
 mals, one animal in a herd being sacrificed for the lierd. 
 
 * See Folklore, i, 206.
 
 138 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 That this custom does not obtain among modern pas- 
 toral tribes of savages shows that it is the first stage in 
 our examination, because it suggests that the folk usage 
 is not in its original form, and that probably from tlie 
 fact of animals being represented tlierein something is 
 symbolized by them which, if explained, would give us 
 the original form.* Mr. Forbes Leslie, f and other 
 authorities have collected some evidence together, and I 
 rearrange it, with further illustrations, in the following 
 order. Within twenty miles of the metropolis of Scot- 
 land a relative of Professor Simjoson offered up a live 
 cow as a sacrifice to the spirit of the murrain. J Sir 
 Arthur Mitchell records another example in the county 
 of Moray.* Grimm cites a remarkable case occurring 
 in 1767 in the Island of Mull. In consequence of a dis- 
 ease among the black cattle the people agreed to per- 
 form an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked 
 thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel 
 and nine spindles of oak-wood. They extinguished 
 every fire in every house within sight of the hill ; the 
 wheel was then turned from east to west over the nine 
 spindles long enough to produce fire by friction. If 
 the fire was not produced before noon the incantation 
 
 * The great cattle-rearing tribes, Kaffirs, Todas, and others, 
 though they perform various significant ceremonies in connection 
 with their hei'ds, do not, so far as I have been able to discover, 
 sacrifice one of the herd for the benefit of the remainder. 
 
 f Early Races of Scotland, i, 84 et seq, 
 X Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., iv, 33. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 260; Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, p. 194.
 
 THE ETHNIC GIJfEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. ]39 
 
 lost its effect. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting 
 iu pieces, and burning while yet alive, the diseased 
 part. They then lighted their own hearths from the 
 pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. "Words of 
 incantation were repeated by an old man from Morvcn, 
 who continued speaking all the time the fire was being 
 raised.* Keating speaks of the custom as a general 
 one in Ireland, the chief object of the ceremony being 
 to preserve the animals from contagious disorders for 
 the year.f Dalyell notes from the Scottish Trials that 
 a woman endeavored to repress the progress of the 
 distemper among her cattle by taking a live ox, a cat, 
 and a quantity of salt, and burying all together iu 
 a deep hole in the ground "as ane sacrifice to the 
 devill." I 
 
 In Wales, when a violent disease broke out among 
 the horned cattle, the farmers of the district where it 
 raged joined to give up a bullock for a victim, which 
 was carried to the top of a precipice from whence it was 
 thrown down. This was called " casting a captive to the 
 devil." * In Scotland, and also Yorkshire, the sacrificed 
 cow was buried beneath the threshold of the cattle- 
 house. || In Northamptonshire the animal was burned 
 for " good luck." ^ In Cornwall a calf was burned in 
 
 * Grimm, Tent. Myth., p. 608. 
 f Forbes Leslie, Early Faces of Scotland, i, 115. 
 X Dalyell, Darker Superstitions, p. 186. 
 » Beauties of England and Wales, 1812, xvii, i, UG. 
 II Atkinson, Forty Yearsin a Moorland Parish, p. 62 ; Guthnc, 
 Old Srottish Customs, p. 97. -^ Grimm, Teut. Myth, p. 610.
 
 140 ETIIXOLOGY I\ FOLKLOIIE. 
 
 1800 to arrest the murrain.* Dalyell alludes to " a 
 recent expedient in the neighboring kingdom," prob- 
 ably, therefore, the north of England, where a person 
 having lost many of his herd, burned a living calf to 
 preserve the remainder, f 
 
 We pick out from these customs two details, namely, 
 the death by fire and the casting down from the preci- 
 pice, and note that they are forms of sacrifice specially 
 applicable to human beings. The next link in the gene- 
 alogy of these customs is supplied by the earlier exam- 
 ples from Scotland. In 1G43 John Brughe and Xeane 
 Kikclerith conjoined their mutual skill to save the herd 
 from sickness, and they buried one alive " and maid all 
 the rest of the cattell theireftir to go over that place " ; J 
 and in 1629 the proprietor of some sheep in the Isle of 
 Birsay was advised " to take ane beast at Alhallow evin 
 and sprinkill tlirie dropps of the bluid of it ben by the 
 fyre." « 
 
 In this last example the sacrifice is connected un- 
 mistakably with the house — the domestic hearth. Ac- 
 cordingly the next stage back seems to me to be the 
 sacrifice of an animal, not for animal sickness, but for 
 human sickness. This stage is actually represented in 
 Scottish usage. The records of Dingwall on August G, 
 
 * Hone, Everyday Book, i, 431 ; Henderson, Folklore, p. 149 ; 
 Hunt's Popular Romances of West of England, pp. 212-214. 
 
 f Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 184. Professor 
 Rhys tells me this also occurs in the Isle of Man. 
 
 X Ibid. p. 185. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 184.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 141 
 
 1C78, note the proceedings taken against four of the 
 Mackenzies " for sacrificing a bull in ane heathenish 
 manner in the Island of St. RufPus, commonly called 
 Elian Moury, in Lochew, for the recovery of the health 
 of Cirstane Mackenzie." * Reference to the same cere- 
 mony is contained in the trial of Ilelene Isbuster in 
 1635, where it is stated that Adam Lennard recovered 
 from his sickness as the cows and oxen of anotlier re- 
 covered, f In an Irish example the interposition of a 
 saint-deity does not hide the primitive practice. An 
 image of wood about two feet high, carved and painted 
 like a woman, was kept by one of the family of O'llcr- 
 lebys in Ballyvorney, County Cork, and when any one 
 was sick of the small-pox they sent for it, sacrificed a 
 sheep to it, and wrapped the skin about the sick person, 
 and the family ate the sheep. J 
 
 The stage of " animal for animal " is therefore pre- 
 ceded by the stage of " animal for human being." Tlie 
 earliest stage of all, where human being is sacrificed for 
 human being, is, if I mistake not, represented in the 
 hideous practice, attested by Sir Arthur Mitchell, of 
 epileptic patients tasting the blood of a murderer to be 
 cured of their disease.* Here once more the murderer 
 and the outcast are the objects of particularly revolting 
 practices, which appear to have been transferred to 
 
 * Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., iv, 258. 
 f Dalyell, Darker Superslilions, p. 182. 
 
 X Richardson, TJie Great FoUy Superstition, and Idotntry of 
 Pilgrimages. " Past in the Present, p. 154,
 
 142 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 tliem during the development of more humane notions 
 concerning one's fellow-creatures. But the final stage 
 of the genealogy is more clearly represented than even 
 this. Among the dismal records of witchcraft in 
 Scotland toward the end of the sixteenth century there 
 is unmistakable evidence of the sacrifice of one human 
 being for another in cases of sickness. On July 22, 
 1590, Hector Monro, seventeenth Baron of Fowlis, was 
 tried " for sorcery, incantation, witchcraft, and slaugh- 
 ter." It appears that in 1588, being sick, he sent for a 
 notorious witch, who informed the Baron that he could 
 not recover unless " the principal man of his bluid 
 should die for him." George Monro, the Baron's half- 
 brother, was selected as the victim. The witch and her 
 accomplices one hour after midnight repaired to a spot 
 near high-water mark where there was a boundary be- 
 tween lands belonging to the king and the bishop. 
 There, having first carefully removed the turf, they dug 
 a grave long enough to contain the sick man, Hector 
 Monro. Having placed him in the grave, they then 
 covered him with the green turf, which they fastened 
 with wands. The foster-mother of the Baron then ran 
 the breadth of nine ridges, and on returning to the grave 
 asked the witch " which was her choice." She answered 
 that " Hector should live and his brother George die 
 for him." This part of the ceremony being three times 
 repeated, and from the commencement to the end of 
 these rites no other words having been spoken, Hector 
 was removed from the grave and conveyed back to his
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. I43 
 
 bed. He recovered from his illness and his brother 
 died.* 
 
 There can be no doubt about such an examjile as 
 this. " The alleged act of transferring disease or paiu 
 from one person to another," says ^Mr. Forbes Leslie, 
 " and thus relieving the original sufferer, is one of tlie 
 most common articles of accusation in the trials of 
 witches. . . . That the transfer of maladies was only a 
 modification of the tenet of sacrifice of one life being 
 efficient for the saving of another appears from the 
 explanation of Catherine Bigland, who was tried in 1G15 
 for having transferred a disease from herself to a man. 
 Having heard the accusation, she exclaimed : " If ^\ ill- 
 iam Bigland lived, she would die ; therefore God forbid 
 he live." f 
 
 The genealogy does not end here, for the practices 
 of the Scottish witches exactly carry out the tenets of 
 the Druids, who believed that the life of one man could 
 only be redeemed by that of another. The Scottish 
 witch did not get her creed and rites from the writings 
 of Csesar and Pliny ; she got them by descent from 
 Druid practices which Civsar and Pliny witnessed or 
 might have witnessed. 
 
 In any society where human sacrifice was practiced 
 for the cure of disease it nuiy be surmised that not 
 always could the rite be accomplished, and especially in 
 
 * Forbes Leslie, Earhj Races of Scotland, i, 79-82 ; Pitcairn'a 
 
 Criminal Trials, i, 191-204. 
 \ Forbes Leslie, op. cit., i, 83.
 
 144: ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 cases wliere the i)atient was not rich and powerful. 
 Probably only in cases of great cliiefs was the rite 
 regularly practiced. In other cases disease would be 
 transferred from the patient to a human victim in a less 
 ostentatious manner, and this side of the case is also rep- 
 resented in folklore. 
 
 The Orkney islanders wash a sick person and then 
 throw the water down at a gateway, in the charitable 
 belief that the sickness will leave the patient and be 
 transferred to the first person who jiasses through the 
 gate.* Direct transfer, by the aid of warlocks or 
 witches, was practiced in the Highlands, in which an 
 enchanted yarn was placed over the door where the vic- 
 tim was to pass.f At Inverkip, near Paisley, in 1G94, 
 nail-parings and hairs from the eye-lashes and crown of 
 the head of the patient, also a small coin, were sevred up 
 in a piece of cloth and so placed that the package might 
 be picked up by some one, who would forthwith have 
 the malady transferred to him. J 
 
 The transfer of disease to animals seems to be the 
 folklore substitution for the last group of examples. 
 In the Highlands a cat was washed in the water which 
 had served for the ablution of the invalid, and was then 
 set free.* 
 
 * Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii, 226 ; cf. Dalyell, Darker 
 Superstitions, p. 104. 
 
 t Dalyell, op. cit., pp. 106. 107. 
 
 X Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii, 317. 
 
 * Dalyell, Darker Superstitions, pp. 104, 105, 108.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLOIIE. 145 
 
 Finally the transference of disease from one auimul 
 to another also appears in this group. In Caithness 
 Dalyell records a case of transporting a portion of tlie 
 diseased animal from the owner's house to the dwelling 
 of another, whose cattle sickened and died, while those 
 of the former recovered.* 
 
 Thus the sacrifice of a human being for the cure of 
 disease has been traced down through all stages of its 
 survival. It is a good example of what I have termed 
 " substitution " in folklore, and is remarkable because it 
 is not only the victim for whom a substitute is found, 
 but the complete rite, originally under the Druidic cult 
 appertaining to man, and, so far as we know or are war- 
 ranted in conjecturing, only to man, is found in folklore 
 appertaining to animals. Other remedies having been 
 discovered for the cure of disease among men, or an in- 
 trusive race of people having introduced other remedies, 
 the older cult is perpetuated by another medium. It is 
 oftener the case than is generally supposed that rites 
 once incidental to human society are transferred under 
 new influences to cattle instead of being entirely abol- 
 ished, and if this characteristic of folklore be constantly 
 kept in mind while examining animal folklore better 
 results will be arrived at than by interpreting it by all 
 sorts of mythic fancy out of keeping with the standards 
 of primitive culture. 
 
 4. Henderson says that the moss-troopers of tlie 
 
 * Dalyell, op. cit., pp. 108, 109.
 
 146 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 borders made the saining torch for a funeral from the 
 fat of a slaughtered enemy, or at least of a murdered 
 man.* 
 
 I take it that tliis diabolical practice indicates an 
 attitude toward one's enemies which at once suggests 
 that the region of savagery can alone explain it. In the 
 mean time it is to be observed that but for this record 
 the transitional stage from " enemy " to a " murdered 
 man " would hardly have been perceived, and I note 
 this as another instance where the attitude of the peas- 
 antry to the murdered and their slayers often repre- 
 sents a much older feeling existing among members of a 
 clan or tribe for strangers that are enemies. Before 
 trying to interpret what this feeling may be, I will see 
 what there is in tradition and custom in extension of 
 the fact recorded by Henderson. The isolated note, clear 
 as it is as the record of a practice that is not civilized, 
 does not tell much of its history, which may, how- 
 ever, be recovered by noting other facts connected with 
 the treatment of enemies. If from the mere atrocities 
 of warfare there may be traced the theory of savage 
 life which underlies certain specific acts, we may, by 
 means of this theory, trace out the connection between 
 the border custom and the practices of savages. 
 
 Modern times supply evidence of savage practice 
 toward an enemy which help to explain the place in 
 folklore of the moss-troopers' saining torch. In the 
 
 * Folklore of Northern Counties, p. 54 ; cf. p. 239 of the same
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 147 
 
 reign of James VI of Scotland the MacDonalds killed 
 the chief of the clan Drummond of Drummondernoch 
 and cut off his head ; and the king's proclamation de- 
 scribes how they carried the head to " the Laird of 
 McGregor, who, and his haill surname of McGregors 
 purposely conveined at the kirk of Buchquhidder, qr 
 they caused ye said umqll John's head to be pnted to 
 them, and yr avowing ye sd murder, laid yr hands upon 
 the pow and in Ethnic and barbarous manner swear to 
 defend ye authors of ye sd murder." * That this swear- 
 ing upon the skull was not the single barbarous act of a 
 particular clan without the sanction of custom is, I 
 think, shown by the superstition, said to l)e very com- 
 mon in Mayo, Ireland, of swearing upon a skull, in order 
 to get which persons have dug up a corpse recently 
 buried and cut off its head.f 
 
 Many barbarities are related in the legendary his- 
 tories of Irish warriors. There seems to be evidence 
 of an habitual savagery in the following details which 
 goes far to explain the short but explicit account of 
 Border war customs. The Irish warrior when he killed 
 his enemy broke his skull, extracted his brains, mixed 
 up the mass well, and working the compound into a ball 
 he carefully dried it in the sun, and afterward produced 
 it as a trophy of former valor and a presage of futui-c 
 victory. " Take out its brain therefrom," was ConalTs 
 speech to the gillie who declared ho could not carry 
 Mesgegra's head, " and ply a sword upon it, and bear tiie
 
 148 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 brain with thee, and mix lime therewith and make a 
 ball thereof." These trophies are described as being the 
 object of pride and contention among the chiefs, and 
 Mesgegra's brain, being captured by Get from Conall, 
 was hurled at Conchobar and caused his death.* 
 
 Then we have the practice recorded of cutting off 
 the point of the tongue of every man they slew, and 
 bringing it in their pouch, f Carrying the heads of the 
 slain at their girdle, first noted both by Strabo and 
 Diodorus Siculus, is clearly implied in the saga, which 
 ]\Ir. "Whitley Stokes has translated from a twelfth-cent- 
 ury copy, called the " Siege of Howth." J An episode 
 incorporated in the story of Kulhwch in the " Mabino- 
 gion " discloses, says Professor Ehys, " a vista of ancient 
 savagery," from which I may quote the passage which 
 describes how Gwyn " killed Xwython, took out his 
 heart, and forced Kyledr to eat his father's heart; it 
 was therefore Kyledr became wild and left the abodes 
 
 * Otway, Sketches in Em's mid Tyrawhj, p. 17 ; O'Curry, 3IS. 
 Materials for Irish Hist., pp. 270, 273, 640 ; Manners and Customs 
 of Anc. Irish, ii, 107, 290 ; Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. 136 ; Rev. 
 Celt., viii, 63. Mr. Whitley Stokes says the heroes of this story 
 "are said to have lived in the first century of the Christian era, 
 and the possible incidents of the saga are such as may well have 
 taken place at that period of heroic barbarism." 
 
 t Whitley Stokes, in Revue Celtique, i, 261 ; v, 232. Cf. Will- 
 iam of Newbury for the story of a Galloway chieftain who took 
 captive a cousin of Henry II, plucked out his eyes " et testiculos 
 et linguara abseiderunt." — G. Nuhrigensis, p. 281. 
 
 X Strabo, iv, 302 ; Diod. Sic, v, 29 ; Rev. Celt., viii, 59. Another 
 story cited by Rhys {Celtic Heathendom, p. 513) affords the same 
 evidence. It is possible that the curious instances of magic skulls
 
 TUE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 149 
 
 of men." * Giraldus Cambrensis mentions that in 
 Fitzsteplien's time the Irish foot-soldiers collected about 
 two hundred of the enemies' heads and laid them at 
 the feet of Dermitius, Prince of Leiustcr. "Among 
 them was the head of one he mortally hated above all 
 the rest, and taking it up by the ears and hair he tore 
 the nostrils and lips with his teeth in a most savage 
 and inhuman manner." f 
 
 Even among the moss-troopers themselves, whoso 
 customs we are trying to elucidate, there are instances 
 both in history and tradition of their having eaten the 
 flesh and drank the blood of their enemies, antl a cer- 
 tain Lord Soulis was boiled alive, the perpetrators of 
 the murder afterward drinking the water. J 
 
 There is at least one passage in early 318. liis- 
 tories which attributes to the Irish goddess of battles 
 the dedication of human heads. A gloss in the ' Lcbor 
 Buidhe Lecain," says Professor "Whitley Stokes, explains 
 MachcB thus — "the scald crow; or she is the tliinl 
 Morrigau (great queen) ; ^^lacha's fruit crop — i. e., the 
 heads of men that have been slaughtered." * Taking 
 
 preserved in some ancient houses in England may be derived from 
 these savage practices. 
 
 * Rhys, Celtic Ileafhendom, p. 5G1. 
 f Conquest of Ireland, lib. i, cap. iv, 
 
 j Denham Tracts (Folklore Society), i, L').'). 
 
 * Rev. Celt., i, 36; Stokes, Three Irish Glusmrict, p. xxxv. In 
 the story of Echtra Nerai is the following confirmatory allusion : 
 "The dun was burned before him, and he belicUl a heap of heads 
 of their people cut off by the warriors from the dun." lin: Cell., 
 X, 217.
 
 150 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 this in connection with tlie early practices of the Irish 
 as recorded by classical authorities, and the practices so 
 frequently ascribed to Irish heroes in legends and tradi- 
 tions and in early MS. accounts,* the meaning and sig- 
 nificance seems clear enough, although I have not been 
 able to discover that Irish scholars have so interpreted 
 it. The story of Bran's head being cut off by the seven 
 survivors of his army and taken with them to their own 
 country, where they preserved it and feasted wdth it, is 
 still more to the point in illustration of savage custom 
 rather than of mythic thought,! while the story of 
 Lomna's head struck off and stuck upon a pike while 
 his slayers cooked their food goes still further in the 
 same direction, because of the implied custom con- 
 nected with the plot of the story of placing some food 
 in the mouth of the dead man's head. J 
 
 If, then, the heads of the slain were dedicated to the 
 goddess of battle they would be placed in her temple. 
 "With this preliminary evidence before us I want to 
 pass on to an archaeological fact of some significance. 
 When ]\Ialcolm II of Scotland defeated the Danes, he, 
 in fulfillment of a vow, built the church of St. Mort- 
 lach or Moloch at Keith, and built into the walls of 
 
 f Thus Cuculain's head was taken by Ere MacCairpre in re- 
 taliation for his father's head (Rev. Celt., i, p. 51 ; iii, 182). Conall 
 the Victorious cut off Lugaid's head (Rev. Celt., iii, 184). Cormac's 
 death and decapitation are given in Whitley Stokes's Three Irish 
 Glossaries, p. xi. 
 
 f Rhys, o}}. r.it., p. 96. 
 
 j Rhys. op. cit., p. 99; Stokes, Three Irish Glossaries, p. xlvii.
 
 THE ETDNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 15 [ 
 
 the sacred edifice the heads of those slain in the bat- 
 tle.* In the Isle of Egg, Martin discovered a burial-place 
 filled with human bones ; but no heads were found, 
 and the natives supposed that their heads were cut 
 off " and taken away by the enemy." f So in the 
 interments of the Long Barrow period headless trunks 
 are frequently met with, as are also heads buried 
 separately. J 
 
 Simeon of Durham relates that Avlien Duncan, King 
 of Scots, besieged Durham and was defeated, the be- 
 sieged killed all his foot-soldiers and cut olT their 
 heads, piling them up in the market-place. * 
 
 Fortunately some of the practices which mark the 
 savagery of early Britain are distinctive and clear. 
 Beyond the general features which perhaps it might be 
 difficult to exactly classify in the develoiimcnt of cult- 
 ure are certain special features which may be classified 
 with some degree of certainty. People who ate their 
 deceased relatives, collected the heads and drank the 
 blood of their enemies, tattooed themselves with repre- 
 sentations of animals, sacrificed human beings, and 
 indulged in orgiastic rites at the altars of fetichistic 
 gods, are within the pale of ethnographic research. At 
 once we seek for the causes of these wild doiu'^s. Tiie 
 people who acted in this way did so in obedience to 
 some theory of life which made all their hideous i)rac- 
 tices good, or at all events necessary, in their eyes and 
 
 * Antiquary^ vi, 77. f Martin, Western Islands, p. 27H. 
 X Journ. Anthrop. I>u<t., v, 14G, 147. " Caj). 33. 
 
 n
 
 152 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 in the eyes of their fellows ; and if we would know more 
 about the people who have yielded up their scraps of 
 savage custom to the modern inquirer we must ascertain 
 what their theory of life was. This will not be found in 
 the pages of Strabo and Csesar and Pliny, or the other 
 authorities who have been adduced in evidence ; but it 
 must be sought for in the history of modern savagedom, 
 where practices which startled and horrified the early 
 observers still exist, and in the hands of the scientific 
 analyst yield up truths concerning human life which 
 overshadow feelings of horror. Even the practices per- 
 formed during the maddening events of war and re- 
 venge are the result to some degree of a primitive the- 
 ory of life which necessitates their performance, and I 
 shall therefore endeavor to trace out from modern sav- 
 agery Avhat it was that taught early man to revel in the 
 acts which have just been described from the evidence 
 of folklore. 
 
 The savage treatment of enemies, represented by the 
 practices of head-hunting and of drinking their blood 
 and besmearing with it their own faces, belong to that 
 widespread primitive idea that, by eating the flesh, or 
 some particular portion of the body which is recognized 
 as the seat of power, or by drinking the blood of another 
 human being, a man absorbs the nature or the life of 
 the deceased into his own. 
 
 After the Italians of the island of Lu9on have killed 
 an enemy, they drink his blood and devour the lungs 
 and back part of tlie brain, etc., believing that this hor-
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 153 
 
 rible mess gives them spirit and courage in war. * The 
 Nukahivahs cut off the heads of their slain enemies 
 and drank the blood and ate a part of the brain on the 
 spot.f Many of the Maoris quaffed the blood of the 
 slain as the essence of life and the source of human 
 activity, and they generally severed the head from the 
 body and preserved it as a trophy. J Gallego mentions, 
 in 1566, that a body of five white men and five negroes, 
 having landed on one of the islands of the Solomon 
 group, were set upon by the native Indians and mas- 
 sacred, except one negro. " All the rest they hewed to 
 pieces, cutting off their heads, arms, and legs, tearing 
 out their tongues and supping up their brains with great 
 ferocity. * Among the Lhoosai of India it is customary 
 for a young warrior to eat a piece of the liver of the first 
 man he kills, which it is said strengthens the heart and 
 gives courage. I Among the natives of Victoria there is 
 a strong belief in the virtues communicated by rubbing 
 the body with the fat of a dead man, it being thought 
 that his strength and courage will be acquired by those 
 who perform the ceremonies. ^ 
 
 The New Ireland cannibals of the present day are 
 fond of a composition of sago, cocoa-nut, and human 
 
 * Featherman's Social History, 2d div., 501. 
 ^ Ibid., Oceano-Melanesians, p. Ul. 
 
 X Ihid., 204, 205. 
 
 * Guppy's Solomon Islands, p. 225. 
 
 I Lewin's Wild Races of S.-E. India, p. 269. 
 ^ Smythe, Aborigines of Victoria, i, xxix ; for cutting off the 
 head of their enemies. Fee ibid., i. IGl. 165.
 
 154 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 brains.* The blood revenge of the Garos of India is 
 marked by a practice very little in advance of this. 
 Upon a quarrel ensuing, " both parties immediately plant 
 a tree bearing a sour fruit, and make a solemn vow that 
 they will avail themselves of the earliest opportunity 
 that offers to eat its fruit with the juice of their antago- 
 nist's head. The party who eventually succeeds in 
 revenging himself upon his antagonist cuts off his head, 
 summons his friends, with whom he boils the head along 
 with the fruit of the tree, and portions out the mixed 
 juice to them, and drinks of it himself. The tree is 
 then cut down and the feud is at an end."t 
 
 Among the Ashantees, one of the Tshi-speaking 
 peoples of Africa, several of the hearts of the enemy are 
 cut out by the fetichmen who follow the army, and the 
 blood and small pieces being mixed (with much cere- 
 mony and incantation) with various consecrated herbs, 
 all those who have never killed an enemy before eat a por- 
 tion, for it is believed thatif they did not their vigor and 
 courage would be secretly wasted by the haunting spirit 
 of the deceased. It is said that the King and all the 
 dignitaries partook of the heart of any celebrated enemy, 
 and they w'ore the smaller joints, bones, and teeth of the 
 slain monarchs. Beecham says the heart was eaten by 
 the chiefs, and the flesh " having been dried, was divided, 
 together with his bones, among the men of consequence 
 in the army, who kept their respective shares about 
 
 * Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 58. 
 f Joiirn, Anthrop. Inst., ii, 396.
 
 TUE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. I55 
 
 their persons as charms to inspire them with cour- 
 age." * 
 
 The preservation of the heads of fallen enemies as 
 house trophies is found among many of the tribes already 
 mentioned for other evidence. The Battahs of Sumatra 
 use the roof sjDace of the village house for preserving 
 the sacred relics of the community, and there are to 
 be found the skulls of enemies slain in battle, f The 
 Montescos and Italones keep the skulls of enemies in 
 their houses as trophies ; J so did the Maories. * The 
 Solomon islanders set up a pair of the skulls of their 
 enemies upon a post when they launch their canoe, and 
 the canoe-houses are adorned with rows of them. | Some 
 of the aboriginal tribes of India follow this practice. 
 Thus the Lhoosai, or Kookies, carry away the heads of 
 the slain in leather sacks, and are careful, if possible, to 
 keep their hands unwashed and bloody, and as soon as 
 the conquerors reach their village they assemble before 
 the chief's house and make a pyramid of the heads they 
 have taken ; the principal men of the tribe fix their 
 enemies heads on bamboo poles, which they place on 
 
 *Bowditch, Mission to Askant efi, p. 800; Ellis, Tshi-spealcing 
 Peoples, p. 266; Beecham's Ashantee, p. 76. "The hearts [of the 
 messengers] were reported to have been devoured by the Braffoes 
 while yet palpitatinir." — Ibid., p. 11. 
 
 f Featherman, JJaJai/o-J/elanesians, pp. 318, 3^5. 
 
 Xlbid., p. 503 ; jNlorga, Philippine Islands, \Qth cent. Ilukliiyt, 
 p. 2T3. 
 
 * Featherman, Oceano-3Ielanesia?is, p. 204. 
 
 I Woodford, Naturalist among the Head Huntera, pp. 02, 153; 
 Guppy, Solomon Islands, p. 16.
 
 156 ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 the tombs of their ancestors.* What strikes the stranger 
 most, says an eyewitness, on entering a chief's residence 
 among the Naga hill-tribes is the collection of skulls, both 
 human and of the field, slung round the walls inside; 
 here repose heads of chieftains slain in battle, or per- 
 haps treacherously killed for some wrong, real or imag- 
 inary, done to their successful enemy, f The Sanioans 
 " were ambitious to signalize themselves by the number 
 of heads they could lay before the chiefs." These heads 
 were piled up in a heap in the malffi or iDublic assembly, 
 the head of the most important chief being jout at the 
 top. I The Tshi-speaking tribes of Africa collect the 
 jawbones of their slain enemies, and j)reserve them by 
 being dried and smoked, the heads of any hostile chiefs 
 who may have fallen being preserved entire, and carried 
 separately as trophies of victory.* 
 
 From this view of savage practices toward enemies 
 it is clear that something more than mere cruelty is 
 contained in them, and perhaps we may now venture 
 
 *Lewin's Wild Races of S.-E. India, pp. 206, 279; Asiaiic Re- 
 searches, vii, 188; Woodthorpe, Lushai Expedition, p. 1.36 : " The 
 Lushai have a superstition that if the head of a man slain in battle 
 falls into the hands of his enemy, the man becomes the slave of the 
 victor in the next world." — Journ. Ind. Arch., ii. 233. 
 
 t Owen's Naqa Tribes (Calcutta, 1844), p. 13; Hunter, Stat. 
 Account of Assam, ii, 384 ; Joxirn. Anthrop. Inst., iii, 477; Journ. 
 Ind. Arch., ii, 233. 
 
 ^: Turner's Samoa, p. 193; Wilkes, United States Explor. 
 Exped., ii, 130. 
 
 * Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, pp. 266, 267; Beecham, ^«Aa»- 
 iee, pp. 81, 211.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 15 7 
 
 upon an explanation of the saining torch, made from the 
 fat of a slaughtered enemy, with a description of which 
 this section began. Among savages the fat of an 
 enemy is of value to the living. A very slight exten- 
 sion of this idea shows that it may be of service to the 
 dead. It appears that the saining candle must be kept 
 burning throughout the night, and it seems that the 
 reason for this may well be in order to aid the soul of 
 the dead by means of a light to its last resting-place in 
 ghost land. In the candle which is thus used, made of 
 the fat of a slaughtered enemy who has already had to 
 travel the same course, may be traced that curious idea 
 embodied in the Australian belief that the strength of 
 a slain enemy enters into his slayer when he rubs him- 
 self with the fat. In the English border custom the 
 strength of the dead enemy is used to light the depart- 
 ing soul of the slayer to its rest, and the light from an 
 enemy's strength already in ghost land Avould be a 
 surer guide than any other light. Such is the ex^jlana- 
 tion which the savage evidence seems to me to yield 
 concerning the folklore evidence, and the genealogy of 
 this item of folklore is very short, there being but 
 one link between it and savagery. The question is— Is 
 it Aryan or non-Arj^an ? 
 
 We can only answer this by endeavoring to find 
 out whether the primitive Aryan possessed that hideous 
 belief which taught the warrior to consume or keep 
 as trophies portions of his enemy's dead body because 
 they would make him possessed of his enemy's good
 
 158 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 qualities, or because they effectually secured him from 
 injury by the spirit of his dead enemy. The science 
 of language is silent on the point, though the refined 
 custom of guest-friendship revealed to us by language * 
 points to some higher conceptions. Comparative cus- 
 tom, too, seems to suggest that the trophy of the 
 savage, afraid of his dead enemy's spirit, had become 
 in the higher development of culture the trophy of 
 the gallent warrior who exhibited it simply as proof 
 of his own valor,f and comparative belief yields the 
 singularly expressive example recorded by Grimm 
 that "a dying man's heart could pass into a liv- 
 inor man, who would then show twice as much 
 pluck." I 
 
 With these preliminary suggestions in hand let us 
 turn to folklore. The traditions of the Indian Aryans 
 preserve a recollection of a hostile class of beings, who 
 go about open-mouthed and sniffing after human flesh, 
 and who carry off their human prey and tear open the 
 living bodies, and with their faces plunged among the 
 entrails suck up the warm blood as it gushes from the 
 heart.** The traditions of the Celtic Arvans are much 
 
 * Sehrader, op cif., p. 351. 
 
 f Spencer, Ceremonial Insfifufions. pp. 36-49; the shields em- 
 bellished with emblematic designs expressive of the exploits of 
 their owners adorned the walls of the Scandinavian houses. — Mal- 
 let, Nortliern Anfiq., i, 241. 
 
 X Grimm. Teiif. JJi/fh., iv, 1548. 
 
 * Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, pp. 312-313 ; Temple's 
 Wide-aicake Stories, p. 395.
 
 THE ETHNIC GEXEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. I59 
 
 the same. A hostile race of giauts, having their sense 
 of smell for human flesh peculiarly sharp, ate their 
 captives and reveled in their blood. The " Fee-fo-f um " 
 of Cornwall is " Fiaw-fiavv-foaghrich " in Argyll, and 
 these sounds, says Mr. Cauij)bell, may possibl}^ be cor- 
 ruptions of the language of real big burly savages now 
 magnified into giants.* 
 
 Unfortunately the mythologists have appropriated 
 the parallel tradition of India. They interpret it as 
 a storm-myth of the primitive Aryans, Bat mytholo- 
 gists have to deal with the analysis of the giant world 
 by Mr. J. F. Campbell, to take count of the facts that 
 the giants were not so big but that their conquerors 
 wore their clothes, not so strong that men could not beat 
 them even by Avrestling, and that their magic arts were 
 always in the end beaten by men ; and to contest the 
 sound conclusion from these facts, that the " giants are 
 simply the nearest savage race at war with the race 
 who tell the tales." f The nearest savage races in India 
 are those hill-tribes who, like the Lhoosai, teach their 
 young warriors to eat a piece of the liver of the first 
 man he kills in order to strengthen his heart, and to 
 carry away the heads of the slain, being careful to keep 
 their hands unwashed and bloody ; the Nugas, who 
 adorn their houses with the heads of their enemies; 
 or the Garos, who plant a tree and avail themselves of 
 the earliest opportunity that offers to eat its fruit with 
 
 * Highland Tales, i, xcviii. 
 
 f Campbell's Tales of West Ilighlands, i, xcix.
 
 IGO ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 the juice of their antagonist's head.* The nearest 
 savage races in Celtic Britain would have been those 
 tribes of Ireland who, as Solinus informs us, drank the 
 blood of their fallen enemies and then smeared their 
 faces therewith, and those tribes of Britain who, on tlie 
 authority of Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, took their 
 enemies' heads, and slinging them at their saddle-bow, 
 carried them home and nailed them to the porch of their 
 houses f — non- Aryans, in point of fact, as they are in 
 India, who have left a remnant of their jJractices among 
 the Borderers of England and Scotland. 
 
 5. In Yorkshire the country people call the night- 
 flying white moths " souls." J If we ask whether this is 
 merely a pretty poetical fancy, the further question 
 must be put whether such poetry is not founded ujoon 
 undying traditional beliefs, which have a genealogy 
 of ethnical value. Grimm, at all events, supports such 
 a view from an examination of kindred Teutonic 
 beliefs,** and when put to the test I think the root 
 of the concej)tion in English folklore may be traced 
 back to its home. 
 
 Between the butterfly and the moth there is, per- 
 hajos, not much to distinguish from the point of view of 
 poetical fancy. In the parish of Ballyraoyer in Ireland 
 
 * It is not uninteresting to note that the planting of a tree 
 when the hero starts on his fighting expeditions, is an incident iu 
 follv tales which bears very curiously on the Garo custom. 
 
 f Straho, iv, 303 ; Diod. Sic, v, 29. 
 
 X Choice Notes, Folklore, p. 61. 
 
 « Teut. Myth., ii, 826.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. IGl 
 
 butterflies " are said to be the souls of your gmud- 
 father." * But poetical fancy dies away as we find out 
 that the same conception is found in different places at- 
 tached to birds and to animals. An example occurs in 
 London, in which a sparrow was believed to be the soul 
 of a deceased person, f In County Mayo it is believed that 
 the souls of virgins remarkable for the purity of their 
 lives were after death enshrined in the form of swans. J 
 In Devonshire there is the well-known case of the Oxen- 
 ham family, whose souls at death are supposed to enter 
 into a bird;* while in Cornwall it is believed that 
 King Arthur is still living in the form of a raven. || In 
 Kidderdale the country people say that the souls of un- 
 baptized infants are embodied in the nightjar.'^ 
 
 The most conspicuous example of souls taking the 
 form of animals is that of the Cornish fisherfolk, who 
 believe that they can sometimes see their drowning 
 comrades take that shape. ^ In the Hebrides, when a 
 man is slowly lingering away in consumption, the 
 fairies are said to be on the watch to steal his soul that 
 
 * Mason's, Stat. Ace. of Ireland, ii, 83 ; nail's Ireland, i, 394 ; 
 iV. <& Q., 5th ser., vii, 284. 
 
 f Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Folldore, pp. 104, 105. 
 
 X Swainson, Folldore of Birds, p. 153. In Irish mythic belief 
 the souls of the righteous were supposed to appear as doves. — Rev. 
 Celt., ii, 200. 
 
 * Howell's Familiar Fpistles. July 3, 1632 ; Chambers, Book 
 of Days, ii, 731 ; Gent. Mag., 1862. i, 481-483. 
 
 I Notes and Queries, 1st ser., viii, 618. 
 ^ Swainson, op. cit., p. 98. 
 ^ Folklore Journal, v, 189.
 
 162 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 they may therewith give life to some other body.* In 
 Lancashire some one received into his mouth the last 
 breath of a dying person, fancying that the soul passed 
 out with it into his own body.f 
 
 These examj^les, I believe, represent the last link in 
 the genealogy of the doctrine of metempsychosis, as it 
 has survived in folklore. Poetry may have kept alive 
 the idea of a butterfly or moth embodying the soul, but 
 it did not create the idea, because it is shown to extend 
 to other creatures not so adaptable to poetic fancy. 
 "When we come upon the Lincolnshire belief that " the 
 soul of a sleeping comrade had temporarily taken up 
 his abode in a bee," J we are too near the doctrine of 
 savages for there to be any doubt as to where the first 
 links of the genealogy start from. There is scarcely 
 any need to draw attention to its non-Christian char- 
 acter, except that folklore has preserved in the Nidder- 
 dale example evidence of the arresting hand which 
 Christianity put upon these beliefs. There is, however, 
 something older than Christianity as an arresting 
 power, and I go back to the Hebridean example to 
 prove that it was at the instance of inimical fairies that 
 the souls were made to transmigrate into other bodies. 
 Miss Gordon Cumming, who records this belief, describes 
 a significant ceremony for preventing the fairies from 
 accomplishing their theft. The old wives, she says, 
 
 * Gordon Cumming, Hebrides, p. 267. 
 
 f Harland and Wilkinson, Lane. Folklore, p. 8. 
 
 X N. & Q., ii, 506 ; iii, 206.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 153 
 
 " cut the nails of the sufferer that they may tie up the 
 parings in a bit of rag, and wave this precious charm 
 thrice round his head deisul." Here we have an un- 
 doubted offering of a part of the body in place of the 
 whole which is so frequently met with in primitive wor- 
 ship,* and if my interpretation of fairy beliefs is correct, 
 it is an offering to non- Aryan spirits. In this connec- 
 tion it is important to bear in mind that the transmi- 
 gration of the soul into another body is held by the 
 Hebrideans to be the work of hostile powers, and in 
 this as in other branches of the fairy cult I believe we 
 have in folklore the lingering traditions of the in- 
 fluence of non-Aryan people uj^on their Aryan con- 
 querors. 
 
 These conclusions, drawn from the facts as they stand 
 in the genealogy of this group of folklore, are confirmed 
 by the conclusions arrived at by the science of culture 
 with reference to metempsychosis. This is held to be- 
 long to that " lower psychology " which draws no defi- 
 nite line between souls of men and of beasts, and which 
 is illustrated only by examples obtained from savage 
 races.f In its crude state it was, according to Dr. 
 Tylor, " seemingly not received by the early Aryans." J 
 It is no part of the creed of the European Aryans, and 
 
 * Cf. Robertson Smith, ReJirjion of the Semites, lect. ix ; 
 Frazer, Golden Botigh, i, 198 et seq. 
 
 t Dr. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, G, 7, has collected these 
 together. 
 
 I Tylor, 7oc. c(7. ; and see Monicr Williams, Indian Wisdim, 
 p. C8.
 
 1G4 ETUNOLOGY IS FOLKLORE. 
 
 when it is found in the higher levels of culture the 
 theory of re-embodiment of the soul " appears in strong 
 and varied development." All later research by Gruppe 
 and other authorities does not appear to shake this 
 opinion by denying to tbe Aryans a belief in the future 
 existence of the soul. It confirms the hypothesis that I 
 advance — namely, that in the evidence of metem]3sy- 
 chosis derived from its survivals in folklore there is no 
 development beyond savagery ; there is no mark of it 
 ever having been adopted and adapted by a people higher 
 than savages ; and that therefore its state of arrested de- 
 velopment must have been produced by the incoming 
 Aryans. 
 
 6. The examples of folklore whose ethnic genealogy 
 I have hitherto attempted to trace all bear upon the 
 relationship of man to man, and it is worth stating that 
 a full consideration of the whole group and its allied 
 items would throw much additional light upon the 
 question of their non-Aryan origin. It is important, 
 however, that I should now give some examples of folk- 
 lore illustrative of the relationship of man to other 
 objects. In the selection of specimens it is difficult 
 altogether to escape classifying them into the sections 
 which are supplied from a study of the ways and methods 
 of thought of primitive man, but this can not properly be 
 accomplished until the biography of each item of folk- 
 lore is worked out, just as the biography of words is 
 being worked out. Then, and not till then, can we 
 count up not only M-hat elements of primitive fancy and
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 1^5 
 
 thought are represented in modern folklore, but what 
 elements are not represented. And then only nan we 
 attempt to account for the lacunae, and see whether the 
 stream of Aryan civilization has filled them up. 
 
 In Ireland, " on the last night of the year a cake is 
 thrown against the outside door of each house by the 
 head of the family for the purpose of keeping out 
 hunger during the ensuing year."* The significant 
 points to note about this custom are the position of the 
 head of the family as the priest for the occasion, and the 
 outside door of the house as the place of the ceremony. 
 The other two elements — namely, the use of a cake and 
 the purpose of the ceremony to keep out hunger — are 
 the substitutions for some older elements which have 
 arisen by decay. The next link in the genealogy is also 
 supplied from Irish folklore. At St. Peter's, Athlone, 
 every family of a village on St. Martin's Day kills an 
 animal of some kind or other ; those who are rich kill a 
 cow or sheep, others a goose or turkey, while those who 
 are poor kill a hen or cock ; with the blood of the ani- 
 mal they sprinkle the threshold and also the four cor- 
 ners of the house, and "this performance is done to 
 exclude every kind of evil spirit from the dwelling 
 where the sacrifice is made till the return of the same 
 day the following year.f 
 
 * Croker's Researches in South of Ireland, p. 233. 
 
 f Mason's Staiistical Account of Ireland, iii, 75. "Some ani- 
 mal must be killed on St. Martin's day because blood must be 
 shed," is the general formula of Irish folklore.— i^w/^/oz-e Record, 
 iv, 107; Da! yell, Darker Superstitions, p. 191.
 
 166 ETHNOLOGY IX FOLKLORE. 
 
 Undoubtedly we are here taken back by the aid of 
 but two links to that primitive ceremonial for the 
 expulsion of evils which forms a part of Mr. Frazer's 
 examination into early ritual. Almost all the examples 
 — all the really perfect examples — he adduces are of 
 savage origin, and " the frame of mind which prompts 
 such wholesale clearance of evils " is also only capable 
 of illustration from savagery. Mr. Im Thurn supplies 
 from Guiana the needful evidence.* But the closest 
 parallel to the Irish example is to be found among the 
 ancient Peruvians. There is no need to describe the 
 curious ceremonies at any length. For my jiurpose the 
 most significant part of the ceremony is the prepara- 
 tion of a coarse paste of maize and the use to which it 
 was put. Some of the paste was kneaded with the blood 
 of children between five and ten years of age, the blood 
 being obtained from between the eyebrows. Each 
 family assembled at the house of the eldest brother 
 to celebrate the feast. After rubbing their head, face, 
 breast, shoulders, arms and legs with a little of the 
 blood-kneaded paste, the head of the family anointed 
 the threshold with the same paste, and left it there as 
 a token that the inmates of the house had performed 
 their ablutions, f 
 
 It is not possible to connect this kind of ritual with 
 any known Aryan custom, and its dependence upon the 
 
 * Quoted by Frazer, Golden Bough, ii, 157 et seq. 
 f Ilakhiyt, Rights and Laws of the Tneas, p. 24; Frazer, 
 Golden Bough, ii, 167, 1G8.
 
 TUE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 1G7 
 
 primitive doctrine of the swarmiug of the whole world 
 with spiritual beings hurtful to man, and the resulting 
 doctrine of fear as the guide of religious life, absolutely 
 forbids such a connection. 
 
 7, It has already been pointed out that sacred stones 
 have a definite place in the non- Aryan religions of the 
 world, but very little has been done to classify the sacred 
 stones of European peoples according to the beliefs still 
 surviving as folklore.* I shall now attempt to trace out 
 the genealogy of this important group of folklore in 
 Britain. We must consider, first, those cases where 
 stones are supposed to be possessed of some magic 
 powers, the exercise of which is not accompanied by 
 any special ceremony ; secondly, those cases where the 
 ritual observed to put these powers into operation is of 
 such a character as to indicate the nature of the wor- 
 ship paid to these stone divinities. 
 
 On the altar of the church called Kil-chattan, on 
 the Isle of Gigha, is a "font of stone which is very 
 large and hath a small hole in the middle which goes 
 quite through it." f A black stone was formerly pre- 
 Gerved in the cathedral of lona, and it was held in such 
 reverence that on it solemn oaths M'ere sworn and agree- 
 ments ratified. A similar stone in the Hebrides was 
 
 * Miss Gordon Gumming suggests very forcibly that tlie 360 
 stone crosses of lona are proliably the descendants of prehistoric 
 monoliths similar to those in use by the non-Aryans of India. 
 — In the Hebrides, pp. 65-67. 
 
 ■f Martin, p. 228.
 
 168 ETUNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 supposed to be oracular and to answer whatever questions 
 might be asked. It lay on the sea-shore, and the people 
 never approached it without certain solemnities. On 
 the altar of St. Fladda's Chapel, in the island of Flad- 
 dahnan, lies a round bluish stone which was always 
 moist ; should fishermen be detained here by contrary 
 winds they first walk sunwise round the chapel, then 
 poured water on this stone, and a favorable breeze would 
 certainly spring up ; the stone likewise cured diseases 
 and the people swore solemn oaths by it. A similar 
 stone was in the Isle of Arran, of a green color, and 
 the size of a goose's egg ; it was known as the stone of 
 St. Molingus and was kept in the custody of the Clan 
 Chattan ; the popular belief was that it not only cured 
 disease, but that if it were thrown at an advancing foe 
 they would be terror-stricken and retreat, and it was also 
 a solemn thing to swear by. It was in the custody of a 
 woman, and was preserved " wrapped up in fair linen 
 cloth, and about that there is a piece of woolen cloth." * 
 In the island of North Ronaldsay there is a large 
 stone about nine or ten feet high and four broad, placed 
 upright in a plain, but no tradition is preserved con- 
 cerning it. On New Year's Day the inhabitants assem- 
 bled there and danced by the moonlight with no other 
 music than their own singing, f In Benbecula, " the 
 vulgar retain the custom of making a religious tour 
 
 * Gordon Gumming, op. cit., pp. 70, 167; ^fartin'sTTes/ern Isl- 
 ands, pp. 166, 236. 
 
 t Sinclair's Stat. Ace. of Scotland, vii, 489.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. 109 
 
 round '' several big kairnes of stones on the east side of 
 the island on Sundays and holidays.* The same is 
 recorded of the islands of Kismnl, Skye, Jura, and 
 Egg-t 
 
 Several important facts need to be tabulated at this 
 stage of the genealogy. They are — 
 
 (1) The pouring of water on the stone to produce a 
 favorable breeze ; 
 
 (2) The wrapping up of the stone in cloth ; 
 
 (3) The custody of the stone by a special clan ; 
 
 all of which indicate features of a special cult, over and 
 above that which may be gathered from the acts of rev- 
 erence and processions, which occur more generally. 
 In the case of well worship, it will be remembered that 
 the obtaining of favorable winds was one of the inter- 
 mediary forms between the more general acts of rev- 
 erence and worship and the identification of the well as 
 the dM^elling-place of the rain-god. In like manner 
 with stones the same links in the genealogy are dis- 
 coverable. 
 
 Thus in Scotland, in the seventeenth century, a 
 tempest was raised by dipping a rag in water and 
 then beating it on a stone thrice in the name of Satan. 
 
 I knok this rag wpone this stane 
 
 To raise the wind in the divellis name 
 
 It sail not lye till I please againe. 
 
 Drying the rag, along with another conjuration, ap- 
 
 *Martin, Western Islandi^, p. 85. 
 
 t Martin, op. cif., pp. 97, 152, 241, 277.
 
 170 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 peased the storm.* In the isle of Uist the inhabitants 
 erected the " water-cross," a stone in the form of a cross, 
 opposite to St. Mary's church, for procuring rain, and 
 when enough had fallen they replaced it flat on the 
 ground, f 
 
 These examples carry on the identification of stones 
 as representatives of the rain-god, and the rag cere- 
 monial mentioned by Dalyell may without much diffi- 
 culty be considered as the representative of the wrappage 
 in the Arran example. But by far the most significant 
 of these beliefs is to be found in an island off the coast 
 of Ireland, and I shall describe this in full, as it has been 
 put on record by an eyewitness, though perhaps not a 
 too favorable one. 
 
 About seven miles distant from Bingham Castle, in 
 the Atlantic, is the island of Inniskea, containing about 
 300 inhabitants. They have very little intercourse with 
 the mainland. A stone carefully wrapped up in flannel 
 is brought out at certain periods to be adored by the 
 inhabitants. When a storm arises this god is suppli- 
 cated to send a wreck upon their coast. The stone is in 
 the south island, in the house of a man named Monigan, 
 
 * Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 248. 
 
 f Martin's Western Islands, p. 59. I am tempted to suggest 
 that the odd custom, recorded by Roberts in Old English Customs 
 and Charities, p. 100, of washing a stone figure known as " Molly 
 Grime " in Glentham church with water from Newell well, be- 
 longs to this group of customs, especially as it has its parallel in 
 the washing of the wooden figure of St. Fumac with water from 
 the sacred well at Botriphnie near Keith, — Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 
 xvii, 191.
 
 THE ETUNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. I7I 
 
 and is called in the Irish Neevougi. In appearance it 
 resembles a thick roll of homespun flannel, which arises 
 from the custom of dedicating a dress of that material 
 to it whenever its aid is sought. This is sewed on by an 
 old woman, its priestess, whose peculiar care it is. Its 
 power is believed to be immense. They j^ray to it in 
 time of sickness, it is invoked when a storm is desired 
 to dash some hapless ship upon their coast, and again 
 the exercise of its power is solicited in calming the 
 angry waves to admit of fishing or visiting the main- 
 land. 
 
 The inhabitants all speak the Irish language, and 
 among them is a trace of that government by chiefs 
 which in former times existed in Ireland. The present 
 chief or king of Inniskea is an intelligent peasant 
 named Cain. His authority is universally acknowl- 
 edged, and the settlement of all disputes is referred to 
 his decision. Though nominally Eoman Catholics, 
 these islanders know nothing of the tenets of that 
 Church, and their worship consists of occasional meet- 
 ings at their chief's house, with visits to a holy well, 
 called in their native tongue Derivla.* 
 
 All these customs take us back to the primitive idea 
 of rain-making by sympathetic magic wliicli is found so 
 distinctly in savage practice. Many examples might be 
 quoted supplying very close parallels to those we have 
 just examined. In the Ta-tu-thi tribe of New South 
 
 * Lord Roden's Progress of the Reformation in Ireland, 1851, 
 pp. 51-54,
 
 172 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 Wales tlic rain-maker breaks olf a piece of quartz 
 crystal and spits it toward the sky ; the rest of the 
 crystal being wrapped up in emu feathers soaked in 
 water and hidden.* A closer i)arallel is found in the 
 Lampong country of Sumatra. A long stone standing 
 on a flat one is supposed by the people to possess 
 extraordinary power or virtue. It is reported to have 
 been once thrown down into the water and to have 
 raised itself again to its original position, agitating 
 the elements at the same time with a prodigious storm. 
 To approach it without respect is believed to be the 
 source of misfortune to the offender, f In Samoa, too, a 
 remarkably close parallel is found to the Inniskea cult. 
 When there was over-much rain, the stone represent- 
 ing the rain-making god was laid by the fire and kept 
 heated till fine weather set in; while in a time of 
 drought the priest and his followers dressed up in fine 
 mats and went in procession to the stream, dipped the 
 stone, and prayed for rain. J 
 
 These examples of the ethnological genealogy of 
 folklore are limited to subjects where two distinctly 
 opposite phases of primitive thought are represented in 
 
 * Labat, Relation hist, de VEthiopie occidentale, ii, 180 ; 
 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii, 14. On the altar of the church in the 
 island of I-colm-kill was a stone from which " the common 
 people break pieces off, which they affect to use as medicine 
 for man or beast in most disorders, and especially the flux." — 
 Poeocke's Tour through Scotland, 1760 (Scottish Hist. Soc), 
 p. 82. 
 
 f Marsden's Sumatra, p. 301. % Turner's Samoa, p. 45.
 
 THE ETHNIC GENEALOGY OF FOLKLORE. I73 
 
 folklore, which are identified as savage or as Aryan 
 culture respectively by the test of what scholars have to 
 some extent agreed to define as Aryan. Unfortunately, 
 the area covered by this agreement is not very wide, and 
 opinions are not very settled. Still there does seem to 
 be some sort of level below which it is admitted that 
 Aryan culture can not be shown to penetrate, and this 
 level is reached in the examples we have examined. 
 No doubt Aryan culture was derived from pre-existing 
 phases of savage culture, but when in that stage the 
 Aryan people had not begun to migrate or spread over 
 the earth's surface. 
 
 It might be possible to extend inquiry on the present 
 lines into subjects where the test of Aryan research is 
 less certain in its results, and thus bring in the aid of 
 folklore to bear upon some of the unsettled problems of 
 Aryan history. Human sacrifice, for instance, is stated 
 by Schrader to have taken a prominent place among 
 the offerings the Aryans made to heaven ; * the con- 
 tinuation of life after death, which in the lower culture 
 is simply a repetition of earthly events in the unknown 
 home, expands into the Aryan doctrine of a moral ret- 
 ribution, according to Dr Tylor,f which, hoAvever, 
 Schrader would not accept, if his version of Aryan 
 
 * PreMstonc Antiquities of Aryan Peoples, p. 420. 
 
 f Primitive Culture, ii, 86, 88. In a sixteenth century sermon, 
 by Dr. Pemble (Oxford ed, 1639), a dying man is recorded to have 
 said, " of his soule that it was a great bone in his body, and what 
 should become of his soule after he was dead, that if he had done 
 well he should be put into a pleasant green meadow."
 
 174 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 pessimistic thought is taken into account; Professor 
 Khys frequently points out where Celtic heathendom 
 seems to diverge from Aryan culture toward the ruder 
 culture of non-Aryan peoples ; special customs, like the 
 barbarous rite of election to the kingship recorded by 
 Giraldus as obtaining in Ireland, and others, are con- 
 sidered by Mr. Elton to belong to the non-Aryans ; * 
 while Miss Buckland, on good grounds as it seems to 
 me, denies that rod-divination belongs to the Aryans, f 
 I am aware that if we are ultimately obliged to fol- 
 low Dr. Gruppe, much more of what is now considered 
 to be Aryan custom and belief will have to be thrown 
 overboard, and, so far as my own researches go, I am 
 prepared for such a lightening of the ship. But it 
 will be seen from these indications of recent research, 
 that the scope of inquiry suggested by these pages is 
 likely to increase rather than diminish. 
 
 * Origins of English History, p. 176 et seq. 
 f Journ. Anthrop. Inst,
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. 
 
 The conclusions arrived at in the foregoing pages 
 are, that survivals of non-Aryan faiths and usages are 
 to be found in folklore, and that the conditions under 
 which these survivals are found show that they date 
 from a time prior to the arrival of the Celts in this 
 country — from prehistoric times, in fact. Xo doubt 
 such conclusions may seem a little hard to digest by 
 those whose studies have not allowed them to dwell 
 upon the " amazing toughness of tradition," and by 
 those who have never wandered out of the paths laid 
 down by the methods of chronological history. But they 
 may also be questioned by students of comparative cult- 
 ure on the ground that traditional faiths and usages 
 found in an Aryan country can not be accepted as derived 
 from a non-Aryan people, unless it can be proved that 
 they have descended through the agency of the same 
 people to whom they originally belonged. 
 
 If for the purposes of the present inquiry it does not 
 seem necessary to discuss objections which are founded 
 on diametrically opposite methods of research, it must 
 be admitted that an objection founded on the same
 
 176 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 method of research can not be overlooked or set aside as 
 nought, especially as two inquiries have recently been 
 put before the public by Mr. F. B. Jevons and Dr. 
 Winteruitz, which discuss some of the Aryan survivals 
 in folklore on the principles laid down by comparative 
 philology. These inquiries proceed upon the plan of 
 ascertaining the common factors among the Aryan 
 peoples, and then discussing their presence among non- 
 Aryan peoples on the theory that the latter must have 
 borrowed. It will be seen that the method I have 
 adopted is opposed to this, in that it does not necessarily 
 admit that even a custom or belief common to all Aryan- 
 speaking countries is Aryan. It might conceivably be 
 a common non-Aryan custom borrowed or allowed 
 by the Aryans. Take stone worship, for instance. It is 
 found in all Aryan-speaking countries ; in India alone 
 it is found as the special feature of non-Aryan tribes 
 which exist to this day, and with this evidence from 
 ethnography, coupled with the conclusions of compara- 
 tive culture, we are able to suggest that stone worship is 
 opposed to the general basis of Aryan culture. I should 
 be inclined to argue on the same lines against Schrader's 
 acceptance of human sacrifice as Aryan. It follows, 
 therefore, that the question of the continuation of races 
 after they have become nominally extinct is a matter of 
 some importance to my theory. If the parentage of a 
 given set of customs and beliefs can be reasonably es- 
 tablished as non-Aryan, how is the descent to be traced 
 except by means of non-Aryan people, who continued
 
 THE CONTIJJCATICX OF RACES. 177 
 
 the blood of their race, together with the usages and 
 beliefs of their race ? Clearly, if intrusted to the keep- 
 ing only of Aryan converts, these non-Aryan usages and 
 beliefs would have become so altered as not to be 
 recognizable — the arrest of their development by the 
 overspread of Aryan culture would have meant their 
 extinction. 
 
 I will, then, direct attention to the recent researches 
 which go to prove the late, nay present, existence of 
 descendants of prehistoric non- Aryan peoples in Britain. 
 Naturally we turn, first of all, to the most difficult of all 
 subjects, the evidence of philology. Xo one who has 
 followed Professor Ehys in his researches into the Celtic 
 languages can do otherwise than admit that he has made 
 out a strong case for non-Aryan influences of a distinct 
 and definite nature upon the Celtic tongues of Britain, 
 and it seems now to be certain that the Picts of Scot- 
 land and the Scots of Ireland were non-Aryan people. 
 " While the Brython," he says, " might go on speaking 
 of the non-Aryan native of Ireland who paid unwel- 
 come visits to this country as a Scot, that Scot by and 
 by learned a Celtic langiiage and insisted on l^eing 
 treated as a Celt, as a Goidel, in fact, that is, I take 
 it, how Scottus became the word used to translate 
 Goidel." * 
 
 This introduces a considerable parent stock of non- 
 Aryan peoples almost at the dawn of history, and that 
 they have never been exterminated as a race may be 
 
 * Bhind Lectures, p. 53.
 
 178 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 proved by the researches of Dr. Bcddoe and others, who 
 point out that the features of the dark non- Aryan Silures 
 of ancient AVales are still to be traced in the population 
 of Glamorgan, Brecknock, Monmouth, Eadnor, and 
 Hereford, while in some parts of Pembroke, Lanca- 
 shire, Yorkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, 
 "Wilts, and Somerset, the same racial characteristics 
 present themselves.* 
 
 Thus, then, while philology takes us back to pre- 
 historic non- Aryans, physiology takes us to their modern 
 descendants. May we not then carry on the inquiry a 
 little further, and endeavor to ascertain whether the 
 condition of these modern descendants may not help us 
 to grasp the fact that non- Aryan races are in Britain, as 
 in India, a living factor to be reckoned with in discus- 
 sing the problem of origins ? 
 
 The senseless and imbecile destruction of ancient 
 monuments has often been commented upon, but the 
 preservation of these monuments has been the subject of 
 but little remark. Who are the ]3reservers — to whom 
 are we students of the nineteenth century chiefly in- 
 debted for the preservation of prehistoric graves and 
 tumuli, of stone circles and earthworks — of Stonehenge 
 and the Maeshow ? How is it that London stone still 
 stands an object of interest to Londoners, and the coro- 
 nation stone an object of interest to the nation? The 
 
 *See Beddoe's Races of Britain, p. 28, and consult Mr. Elton's 
 admirable summary of the whole evidence in his Origins of Eng- 
 lish History, cap. iv.
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. 179 
 
 answer is, that throughout the rough and turhulent 
 times of the past, while abbeys and churches, and 
 castles and halls, have been destroyed and desecrated, 
 these prehistoric monuments have remained sacred in 
 the eyes of the peasantry, have been guarded by un- 
 known but revered beings of the spirit world, have been 
 sanctified by the traditions of ages. Legends where 
 stones have been removed and miraculously restored ; 
 beliefs which point to the barrows and tumuli as the 
 residence of fairies and ghosts ; facts which show the 
 resentment of people at the disturbance of these un- 
 known memorials of the past, are too well known to need 
 illustration in these pages. But I want to point out 
 that the objects of all this reverence are relics, princi- 
 pally, of the non-Aryan population, and to suggest that 
 the continuance of the monumental remains by means 
 of the traditional beliefs points back unmistakably to 
 the living and continued influence of the people who 
 constructed the monuments. The subject is a tempt- 
 ing one to linger over, and, when properly set forth, 
 shows exactly how the material and immaterial remains 
 of past ages serve as complementary agencies to estab- 
 lish the influence of the old races of people. 
 
 There is a less pleasing picture, however, than this 
 to discuss. Non-Aryan races have brought down sur- 
 vivals of savage culture in our folklore, and this has not 
 been accomplished without other marks of their sav- 
 agery. Mr. Elton has drawn attention to the facts which 
 tell in favor of a story of Giraldus Cambrensis being
 
 180 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 accepted as true of some parts of Ireland — little patches 
 of savagery, it may be, in the midst of the more fertile 
 fields of civilization. Giraldus states that he heard some 
 sailors relate how they were driven by a storm to the 
 northern islands, and while taking shelter there they 
 saw a small boat rowing toward them. It Avas narrow 
 and oblong, and made of wattled boughs, covered and 
 sewed with the hides of beasts. In it were two men 
 naked, except that they wore broad belts of the skins of 
 some animal round their loins. They had yellow hair 
 like the Irish, falling below their shoulders and covering 
 the greater part of their bodies. The sailors found that 
 these men came from some part of Connaught and spoke 
 the Irish language. They were astonished at the ships 
 they saw, and explained that in their own country they 
 knew nothing of these things.* 
 
 A traveler among people thus described is exactly 
 on a par with the modern traveler among native races 
 of uncivilized lands. The latter might very frequently 
 see in the native villages or hut-dwellings " young maids 
 stark naked grinding of corn with certain stones to 
 make cakes thereof," the absence of clothing, the use of 
 two stones for crushing the corn, both being indicative 
 of the savage state of culture. And yet the above fact 
 is related of the maidens of Cork in 1603 by the 
 traveler Fynes Moryson, who alleges in support of 
 his statement, that " I have seen [them] with these 
 
 * Topography of Ireland, lib. iii, cap. xxvi.
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF KACES. Jg^ 
 
 eyes*. " An Italian priest traveling in Armagh is report- 
 ed to have made a Latin distich upon the nakedness of 
 the women. f But an even more startling picture is re- 
 lated by the same author of a Bohemian nobleman who, 
 traveling in Ulster, was regaled by the chief, O'Kane, 
 " He was met at the door with sixteen women all naked 
 except their loose mantles ; whereof eight or ten were 
 very fair and two seemed very nymphes; with which 
 strange sight his eyes being dazzled they led him into 
 the house, and there sitting down by the fire, with 
 crossed legs like tailors, and so low as could not but 
 offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. 
 Soon after O'Kane, the lord of the country, came in all 
 naked, excepting a loose mantle and shoes which he 
 put off as soon as he came in, and entertaining the 
 baron in his best manner in the Latin tongue, desired 
 him to put off his apparel which he thought to be a 
 burden to him." J 
 
 Spenser describes, about the same time as Moryson, 
 the loose mantles which serve " for their house, their 
 bed, and their garment."'* They must have borne a 
 most unmistakable resemblance to those of the Toda 
 women of the Nilgiri Hills in India. These people are 
 described as wearing but a simple robe thrown over both 
 shoulders, and clasped in front by the hand, and which 
 
 * Moryson, Hist, of Ireland, ii, 372 ; cf. B. Rich's Description 
 of Ireland, 1610, p. 40. 
 
 t Moryson, op. cit., ii, 377. X Moryson, Travels, p. ISl. 
 
 * Vieiv of the State of Ireland, p. 47.
 
 182 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 are often thrown open to the full extent of both arms 
 for the purpose of readjusting on the shoulders.* 
 
 When William Lithgow was in Ireland in 1619, he 
 records that he " saw women traveling or toiling at 
 home, carrying their infants about their necks, and, 
 laying their dugs over their shoulders, would give suck 
 to their babes behind their backs, without taking them 
 in their arms. Such kind of breasts . . . [were] more 
 than half a yard long." f Such a sight has been fre- 
 quently witnessed by modern travelers among savage 
 races. Thus the Beiara women of New Britain carry 
 their children " on their back in a bag of network which 
 is suspended from their forehead by a band ; their 
 breasts are so excessively elongated that they can sling 
 them across their shoulders to enable the babe to take 
 hold of the nipple Avitliout changing its position." The 
 Tasmanian women carried " their children wrapped in 
 a kangaroo skin which hung behind their back, and 
 to suckle them it was only necessary to throw their 
 breasts, which were excessively elongated, over their 
 shoulders." J 
 
 It is surely a matter of some significance, taking 
 into account the facts we have already dealt with, that 
 at Broughton, in the hundred of Maelor Saesneg, in 
 Flintshire, the common of Threapwood from time im- 
 memorial was a place of refuge for the frail fair, who 
 
 * King, Aboriginal Tribes of Xilgiri Hills, p. 9. 
 
 f Lithgow's Travels, p. 40. 
 
 X Featherman's Races of Ma7\kind, ii. 51, 105.
 
 TUB CONTINUATION OF RACES. 1S3 
 
 made here a transient abode clandestinely to be freed 
 from the consequences of illicit lore. "Xumbers of 
 houses," says Pennant, " are scattered over the common 
 for their reception. This tract till of late years had 
 the ill-fortune to be extra-parochial. The inhabitants, 
 therefore, considered themselves as beyond the reach of 
 law, resisted all government, and even opposed the ex- 
 cise laws, till the}^ were forced to submit, but not with- 
 out bloodshed on the occasion. Threapwood is derived 
 from the Anglo-Saxon Threapiau, to threap, a word 
 still in use, signifying to persist in a fact or argument 
 be it right or wrong. It is situated between the parishes 
 of Malpas, Hanmer, and Worthenbury, but belonged to 
 none till it was by the late Militia Acts decreed to be in 
 the last for the purposes of the militia only ; but by the 
 Mutiny Acts it is annexed to the parish of Malpas. 
 Still doubts arise about the execution of several laws 
 within this precinct." * The accidents of local history, 
 however varied and impressive, are hardly sufficient to 
 account for such a state of things. The persistence of 
 old custom, driven from the towns and everywhere 
 where the Church and State had penetrated, would 
 account for Threapwood and its peculiar immunity, and 
 it would supply us with an example of the forces which 
 were at work during the long battle between savagery 
 and civilization. When Pennant described ThreapAvood 
 the battle was nearly over. The dregs of the unruly 
 populace he might have seen would probably not present 
 
 * Pennant's Tours in Wales, i, 290. 
 IS
 
 184: ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 US witli an extended or pleasing picture of ancient life. 
 But at least we have here an example where law and 
 morality, where the civilization of Britain under the 
 Guelphs, were not represented at all. The only question 
 is, may we extend such evidence ? 
 
 It is not possible to extend it far on the present 
 occasion, but it is a subject which needs attention at 
 the hands of those who are investigating the records of 
 the past. We of this age are so accustomed to the lan- 
 guage and the results of civilization that it becomes in- 
 creasingly difficult to understand the ruder conditions 
 of only a century since. I shall, therefore, devote a 
 page or two to this subject, selecting such evidence as 
 will serve for example of what would be forthcoming 
 by further research. 
 
 In Ireland, at the conquest under Henry II, the 
 natives were driven into the woods and mountains, and, 
 as Boate said in 1G53, these were " called the wild Irish, 
 because that in all manner of wildness they may be 
 compared with most barbarous nations of the earth." * 
 But, wild as they were, they gradually recovered much of 
 their territory, and the English remaining there " joined 
 themselves with the Irish and took upon them their 
 wild fashions and their language." Then we have 
 Spenser telling us that " there be many wide countries 
 in Ireland which the lawes of England were never estab- 
 lished in . . . by reason, dwelling as they doe whole 
 nations and septs of the Irish together without any 
 
 * Ireland's Natural History, Sect. 5.
 
 THE COXTIXUATION OF RACES. 185 
 
 Englishmen amongst them, they may doe wliat they 
 list." They live for " the most part of the yeare in 
 boolies, pasturing upon the mountaine and waste wilde 
 places, and removing still to fi'esh land as they have de- 
 pastured the former ; " and he goes on to say that " by 
 this custome of boolying there grow in the mean time 
 many great enormityes; for, first, if there be any out- 
 lawes or loose people they are evermore succoured and 
 finde reliefe only in these boolies . . . moreover, the 
 people that live in these boolies growe thereby the 
 more barbarous and live more licentiously than they 
 could in townes."* 
 
 This is the picture of uncivilization in Ireland. It 
 is not the story of a poor, degraded population falling 
 into bad habits from a previous state of conformity to 
 the general law. It is the picture of a people who had 
 never yet advanced from the stage of uncivilization. 
 This may, perhaps, be better illustrated by the follow- 
 ing account of a definite example of " boolying " exist- 
 ing in modern days. 
 
 There are several villages in Achill, particularly 
 those of Keeme and Keele, where the huts of the in- 
 habitants are all circular or oval, and built for the most 
 part of round water-washed stones collected from the 
 beach and arranged without lime or any other cement. 
 During the spring the entire population of the villages 
 in Achill close their winter dwellings, tie their infant 
 
 * " View of the State of Ireland, " Tracts and Treatises, vol. i, 
 421.
 
 186 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 children on tlieir backs, carry with them their loys and 
 some corn and potatoes, with a few pots and cooking 
 utensils, drive their cattle before them and migrate into 
 the hills, where they find fresh pasture for their flocks. 
 There they build rude huts or summer-houses of sods 
 and wattles, called booleys, and then cultivate and sow 
 with corn a few fertile spots in the neighboring valleys. 
 They thus remain for about two months of the spring 
 and early summer till the corn is sowed ; their stock of 
 provisions being exhausted and the pasture consumed 
 by their cattle they return to the shore to fish. No 
 further care is taken of the crops, to which they return 
 in autumn in a manner similar to the spring migra- 
 tion.* 
 
 Certainly the borderland between Scotland and Eng- 
 land can not be said to have become civilized until late 
 down in history. Eedesdale, says Dr. Robertson, was, 
 until quite recently, a very secluded valley surrounded 
 by moors and morasses, and occupied to a great extent 
 by shaggy woods. Until all-conquering Rome planted 
 her standard in its center, Redesdale must have been 
 singularly inaccessible to the outer world. After the 
 Roman domination came to an end the district seems to 
 have remained undisturbed by Saxon from the east or 
 Northman from the west. In their S3-lvan fortresses the 
 inhabitants held their own, nay, for many generations 
 did much more, harrying and robbing their more peace- 
 ful neighbors. Redesdale being a regality, with a resi- 
 
 * Wilde's Beauties of the Boyne, p. 89.
 
 THE CONTINtJATIOX OF RACES. 1S7 
 
 dent lord of the manor supreme for centuries, it was 
 found that the kings writ runneth not in Redesdale. 
 Until the time of Bernard Gilpin, the Cheeves — that is, 
 the men of Eedesdale — were probably hardly Christians, 
 even by profession. Their clergy and instructors are 
 described by Bishop Fox in 1498 as wholly ignorant of 
 letters, the priest of ten years' standing not knowing 
 how to read the ritual. Among this community of 
 men, ignorant, dissolute, accustomed to crime, debarred 
 by laws made specially against them from mixing freely 
 with their neighbors, having only slight connection 
 with the world beyond their own morass-girt vale, and 
 intermarrying among themselves, it may be expected 
 that old customs and superstitions lingered longer than 
 elsewhere.* 
 
 * Berwickshire Naturalises Field Club, ix, 512. "Tradition 
 without being supported by any historical authority, says that the 
 square keep or tower of Crawley was built by a famous ' Rider ' 
 called Crawley ; hence the place got its name. The tower was, at 
 an after period, the residence of the family of Harrowgate, of one 
 of whom many anecdotes are yet extant, and amongst others is 
 the following: Mr. Harrowgate possessed a remarkably fine 
 white horse, for he was not behind his neighbours in making ex- 
 cursions north of the Cheviot, and the then proprietor of the 
 Crawley estate took so great a fancy to this beautiful charger 
 that, after finding he could not tempt Harrowgate to sell him 
 for money, he offered him the whole of this fine estate in ex- 
 change for his horse ; but Mr. H., in the true spirit of a Border 
 rider, made him this bold reply : ' I can find lands when I have 
 use for them ; but there is no sic a beast (i. e., horse) i' yon side 
 o' the Cheviot, nor yet o' this, and I wad na part wi' him if Craw- 
 ley were made o' gold.' How little did the value of landed prop- 
 erty appear in those days of trouble and inquietude, and how,
 
 188 ETHNOLOGY L\ FOLKLORE. 
 
 I will now quote a curious iiccount of a savage 
 people once existing in Wales, from information col- 
 lected from the locality for a writer in the GentlemaJi's 
 Magazine : 
 
 " I learn from a letter which I have received, that 
 ' there is a certain red-haired, athletic race about Cayo 
 and Pencarreg, in Carmarthenshire, called Cochion (the 
 Eed ones). The principal personage in the pedigrees 
 of the district is Meirig Goch, or Meirig the Red, from 
 whom many families trace their descent. The Cochion 
 of Pencarreg were in former days noted for their per- 
 sonal strength and pugnacity at the fairs of the country, 
 where sometimes they were not only a terror to others, 
 but to each other when there w^ere none else left with 
 whom they could contend,' From another letter, written 
 by a person residing in a different part of the country, 
 and who wrote quite independently of the former, I 
 learn that ' the race of people referred to lived about 
 seventy or eighty years ago, in the parishes of Cemaes 
 and Mallwyd, the former in this county, and the latter 
 in Merionethshire. They were called " Y Gwyllied Co- 
 chion." Gwyllied, according to Richards of Coychurch, 
 in his " Thesaurus," are *' spirits, ghosts, hobgoblins," 
 and Gwyll, a hag or fairy. " Eed fairies " would, I sup- 
 pose, be the best translation. They were strong men, 
 
 much less were the comforts of succeeding generations consulted ! 
 The only property of value then to a Borderer was his trusty 
 arms and a fleet and active horse, and these seem to have been 
 the only things appreciated by this old gentleman." — Denham 
 Tract. % 17.
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. 189 
 
 and lived cliiefly on plunder. In some old cottages in 
 Cemaes there are scythes put in the chimneys, to pre- 
 vent the entrance of the depredators, still to be seen.' 
 In a subsequent letter I was informed : ' On further in- 
 quiry, I find that the " Gwyllied Cochion " can be traced 
 back to the year 1554, when they were a strong tribe, 
 having their headquarters near Dinas (city), Mallwyd, 
 Merionethshire. They were most numerous in " Coed y 
 Dugoed Mawr" (literally the "wood of the great 
 dark, or black wood "). They built no houses, and prac- 
 ticed but few of the arts of civilized life. They possessed 
 great powers over the arrow and the stone, and never 
 missed their mark. They had a chief of their own ap- 
 pointment, and kept together in the most tenacious man- 
 ner, having but little intercourse with the surrounding 
 neighborhood, except in the way of plundering, when 
 they were deemed very unwelcome visitors. They would 
 not hesitate to drive away sheep and cattle, in great num- 
 bers, to their dens. A Welsh correspondent writes to 
 me thus : " They would not scruple to tax (trefhu) their 
 neighbors in the face of day, and treat all and every- 
 thing as they saw fit ; till at last John Wynn ap Mere- 
 dydd and Baron Owen were sent for, who came with a 
 strong force on Christmas night, 1534, and destroyed 
 by hanging upward of a hundred of them. There is a 
 tradition that some of the women were pardoned, and a 
 mother begged very hard to have her son spared, but, 
 on being refused, she opened her breast, and said that 
 it had nursed sons who would yet wash their hands in
 
 190 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 Baron Owen's blood! Bent on revenge, they watched 
 the Baron carefully, and on his going to Montgqmery 
 Sessions, they waylaid him, and actually fulfilled the old 
 woman's prediction. This place is called to this day 
 Llidiart y Barwn (the Baron's gate), and the tradition 
 is quite fresh in the neighborhood." He says that the 
 " Dugoed mawr " has disappeared long since, and the 
 county is much less woody than it was centuries ago. 
 But as you, I presume, are more anxious to have 
 some traces of the characteristics of the race than a 
 history of their actions, I have made inquiries on that 
 head, and I find that the Gwyllied were a tall, athletic 
 race, with red hair, something like the Patagonians of 
 America. They spoke the Welsh language. I was 
 fortunate enough to find out some descendants of the 
 Gwyllied on the maternal side, and those in my native 
 parish of Llangurig (on the Avay from Aberystwith to 
 Ehayader). When these Welsh Kaffirs were sent from 
 Mallwyd they wandered here and there, and some of 
 the females were pitied by the farmers and taken into 
 their houses and taught to work, and one of these was 
 married to a person not far from this place, and the 
 descendants now live at Bwlchygarreg, Llangurig. I 
 knew the old man well. There certainly was something 
 peculiar about him — he was about seventy when I was 
 a boy of fifteen ; he had dark, lank hair, a very ruddy 
 skin, with teeth much projecting, and a receding brow. 
 I never heard his honesty questioned, but mentally he 
 was considered very much below the average ; the
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. J[91 
 
 children also are not considered quick in anything. 
 They do not like to be taunted with being of the " Red 
 Blood," I am told. I never knew till lately that they 
 were in any way related to the Gwyllied.' " * 
 
 When we come to England we are not any nearer 
 civilization so long as we consider the evidence which 
 has been kept so much in the background. As Sir 
 Arthur Mitchell has observed, if such facts as are forth- 
 coming of Ireland and Scotland have not been found in 
 England, it is probably because tlicy have not been 
 looked for.f 
 
 History has preserved the fact that at the battle of 
 Hastings the followers of Harold used battle-mauls 
 made of stone, which they hurled against their enemies. 
 But such evidence has been ignored by historians, v'.io 
 speak of the great battle and the opposing forces in the 
 same terms as they apply to the battle of "Waterloo. 
 Stone weapons surviving in use for battle purposes 
 signify that ideas of the Stone Age might survive in 
 use for the every-day purposes of social life. It is not 
 easy to separate the one from the other, and certainly 
 the attribution of a Stone Age culture to some of the 
 peasantry of Britain in Anglo-Saxon times seems to me 
 far less difficult to grasp than the half-poetized descrip- 
 tions which, when made to do duty for the whole people, 
 
 * Oentlemmi's Magazine, 1852, part ii, p. 589. Tlio condition 
 of the Welsh population also receives illustration from un urticlo 
 in Transactions of Cymmr odor ion Sociufy, i, 79. 
 
 t Tlie Past in the Present, p. 279.
 
 1()2 ETHNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 must be wrong, even if they are correct for the govern- 
 ing classes. 
 
 It is not wise to depend upon documents with a 
 political bias, but the picture drawn by Dudley Carleton 
 in 1G06 is a very telling one. It has relation to the dis- 
 cussion in Parliament about the title to be assumed by 
 James I, and it relates that " Sir W. Morrice prest 
 hotly uppon the motion to haue the King's title of 
 Great Britanny confirmed by Act of Parlement ; but he 
 was answeared by one James, who concluded a long de- 
 clamation with this description of the Brettons, that 
 they were first an ydolatrous nation and worshipers of 
 Diuels. In the beginning of Christianity they were 
 thrust out into the mountaines, where they lined long 
 like theefes and robbers, and are to this day the most 
 base pesantly perfidious people of the world." * 
 
 Mrs. Bray had something to say of the Devonshire 
 savage in her letters to Southey. Her picture of the 
 Dartmoor family and hut in her second letter is in 
 strict accord with the account of the inhabitants of a 
 village called the Gubbins, who were termed by Fuller, 
 in his English Worthies, to be " a lawless Scythian sort 
 of people. " In Mrs. Bray's time the term Gubbins was 
 still known in the vicinity of Heathfield, though it was 
 applied to the people and not to the place. They still had 
 the reputation of having been a wild and almost savage 
 race ; and not only this, but another name, that of " cramp 
 eaters," was applied to them by way of reproach. Instead 
 
 * Domestic Papers, James I, 1G06.
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. 193 
 
 of buns, whicli are usually eaten at country revels in the 
 West of England, the inhabitants of Brent Tor district 
 could produce nothing better than cramps, an inferior 
 species of cake, and thus they were called cramp eaters * 
 A not altogether different picture from this is por- 
 trayed by one of the agricultural reformers of the early 
 part of the present century. Speaking of the Cam- 
 bridgeshire fens, we are told that "the laborers are 
 much less industrious and respectable than in many 
 counties. In the fens it is easily accounted for : they 
 never see the inside of a church, or any one on a Sunday 
 but the alehouse society. Upon asking my way (toward 
 the evening) in the fens, I was directed, with this ob- 
 servation from the man who informed me, " Are you 
 not afraid to go past the bankers at work yonder, sir ? " 
 I was told these bankers were little better than savages. f 
 As further evidence of how little influence upon the less 
 frequented parts of the country great political events 
 have exercised, we may cite a most telling example in 
 Sussex. There is much to show that the silence of 
 Domesday upon the district of the Weald is due to the fact 
 that William's agents did not penetrate into these wilds, 
 and a few years ago two distinguished geologists travel- 
 ing there were startled by hearing a Sussex laborer 
 speaking of William the Conqueror as " Duke William," 
 and that, too, within sight of Senlac.J 
 
 * Bray's Tamar and the Tavy, i, 22, 236. 
 f Gooch's Agric. of Camhridgeshire, p. 289. 
 X Jonrn. A?ifhrop. Inat., iii, 53.
 
 194 EXnNOLOGY IN FOLKLORE. 
 
 It will not, I think, be considered that too much 
 attention has been given to this part of the subject, 
 though it is at the end of our inquiry. The question as 
 to how people act, live, eat, and sleep is closely con- 
 nected with the question as to how people think and 
 believe. Of course the examples I have given are not 
 exhaustive ; but I think they are fully representative 
 and will help us to understand how it is that survivals 
 of savage thought and belief can be traced here and 
 there, and can be fixed upon as evidence of a race who 
 have never risen to the level of Celtic or Teutonic or 
 Christian civilization. 
 
 It would appear, then, that cannibal rites were con- 
 tinued in these islands until historic times ; that a 
 naked people continued to live under our sovereigns 
 until the epoch which witnessed the greatness of Shake- 
 speare ; that head-hunting and other indications of 
 savage culture did not cease with the advent of civil- 
 izing influences — that, in fact, the practices which help 
 us to realize that some of the ancient British tribes 
 were pure savages, help us to realize, also, that savagery 
 was not stamped out all at once and in every place, and 
 that, judged by the records of history, there must have 
 remained little patches of savagery beneath the fair 
 surface which the historian presents to us when he tells 
 us of the doings of Alfred, Harold, William, Edward, or 
 Elizabeth. It seems difficult, indeed, to understand that 
 monarchs like these had within their rule groups of 
 people whose status was that of savagery ; it seems
 
 THE CONTINUATION OF RACES. 195 
 
 difficult to believe that Spenser and Euleigh aetiuilly 
 came into contact with specimens of the Irish savage ; it 
 is impossible to read the glowing pages of Kcmble and 
 Green and Freeman without feeling they have told 
 us only of the advanced guard of the nation, not of the 
 nation as it actually was. Yet this is the view which 
 folklore puts before us. Difficult as it maybe to realize, 
 it is undeniably true that the records of uncivilizution 
 are as real as those of civilization, and that both belong 
 to the same geographical area. The difficulty is not to 
 be met by ignoring the least pleasing of the two records 
 and magnifying the more pleasing. It is to be met by 
 careful examination of the phenomena, and the correct 
 interpretation of the various elements and their rela- 
 tionship one to the other. The examples of rude people 
 which have escaped the fatal silence of history show at 
 least that, if there is evidence of savage usages and 
 beliefs in folklore, there is evidence also of savage peo- 
 ple who are capable, so far as their standard of culture 
 shows, of keeping up the usages and beliefs of savage 
 ancestors.
 
 IJSTDEX. 
 
 African beliefs, 68-69, 72, 89, 122. 
 
 See Ashantee, Budas. 
 Aged put to death, 136. 
 Agriculture, place of, iu culture de- 
 velopment, 71-72. 
 Ainos, influence of the Japanese 
 
 on, 44. 
 Amalgamation, principle of, in 
 
 folklore, 113-14. 
 Ancestors, eating of dead, 121, 
 
 125. 
 worship of, 128-29. 
 Animal guardian spirits of wells, 
 
 89, 93-94, 102-5. 
 Animals, power of witches over, 50. 
 removed at death of owner, 126, 
 
 127. 
 sacrifice of, 137-145. 
 transfer of superstitious practices 
 
 to, 145. 
 Animism, 67-68. 
 Arm, right, of children kept un- 
 
 christeued, 131. 
 Arran Isles, beliefs in, 54. 
 Arrested development in folklore, 
 
 11, 
 Arresting powers in folklore, 12, 
 
 13, 14, 135, 162. 
 Arrowheads (stone), 53-56. 
 Artemis, cult of, 16-17, 19. 
 Arthur, King, living as a raven, 
 
 161. 
 Aryan culture, 14, 15, 69. 
 custom and belief iu folklore. 
 
 13, 14, 15, 18, 65, 128-29, 135, 
 157-58. 
 
 Ash sap given to children as first 
 food, 130-31. 
 
 Ashantee, customs of, 154, 156. 
 
 Australians, rain-making by, 171. 
 influence of conquered aborigi- 
 nes among, 48. 
 
 Banff'shire, belief in, 55. 
 
 Baptism, rite of, 131. 
 
 Basques, couvade among, 135. 
 
 Battahs, head-hunting by, 155. 
 
 Belisama, river, 78. 
 
 Berrington well worship, 83. 
 
 Bee, soul entering into a, 162. 
 
 Bees, telling of the death of own- 
 ers to, 126, 128. 
 
 Bird ceremony in well worship, 83. 
 
 Birth ceremonies, 130. 
 
 Blood, drawing of, at funerals, 127- 
 28. 
 
 Boar's head ceremony, 35. 
 
 Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, well 
 worship at, 82. 
 
 Boolying, custom of, 185. 
 
 Border customs, 131, 145, 148. 
 
 Boyne, tradition concerning tlie, 77. 
 
 Brains of enemy extracted by Iri&li 
 warrior, 147. 
 
 Breasts of Irish women, 182. 
 
 Brindle, well worship at, 84. 
 
 Britons, Ancient, customs of, 3^ 
 121, 131, 14.3, 150, IGO.
 
 198 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Brythonic Celts, country of, 89. 
 Budas of Abyssinia, influence of, 
 
 45. 
 Burial customs, 121, 122, 12G, 127. 
 Burmese, intluence of hill tribes 
 
 upon, 45. 
 Burne, Miss, on well worship, 84. 
 Bushes at holy wells, 86. 
 Butterflies considered to be souls, 
 
 IGO. 
 
 Caistor gad-whip ceremony, 30. 
 
 Caithness, beliefs in, 55. 
 
 Cakes eaten at wells, 83. 
 
 Cambridgeshire, condition of la- 
 borers in, 193. 
 
 Campbell, Mr. J. F., on race tradi- 
 tions in folklore, 56. 
 
 Cannibalism in Britain, 121. 
 in Aryan tradition, 158. 
 
 Cat-transformations in witchcraft, 
 50. 
 
 Cattle, transference of superstition 
 to, 145. 
 
 Cattle-transformations in witch- 
 craft, 50. 
 
 Caldron, or dish, in well worship, 
 100-1. 
 
 Celtic districts of Britain, well 
 worship in, 86-106. 
 
 Celts, people conquered by. See 
 Non- Aryans. 
 
 Ceylon, demon beliefs in, 47. 
 witch practices in, 51. 
 
 Changes in folklore not develop- 
 ment but decay, 113. 
 
 Cheeves, or Kedesdale men, 186- 
 87. 
 
 Chinese, influences of conquered 
 aborigines upon, 45. 
 
 Christianity, influence of, on folk- 
 lore, 12, 14. 
 
 Church, horses' heads dedicated to, 
 35 ; stag ceremony in, 35 ;, hu- 
 
 man heads dedicated to, 150; 
 
 wa.shing of images in, 170 n. 
 Civilization, foreign origin of, 3-4; 
 
 European, 17. 
 Clothes, ottering of, at wells, 85. 
 Cock, sacrittce of, 1 13. 
 Connaught, savage race from, 180. 
 Conquered race, mythic influence 
 
 of, 41-66. 
 Cornwall, animal sacrifice in, 139. 
 souls taking form of animals in, 
 
 160. 
 well worship in, 90-91. 
 Corpse used in connection with 
 
 food, 115. 
 Couvade, custom of, 133-34. 
 Cramp eaters, 192. 
 Criminal caste, superstitions con- 
 nected with, 122-23, 141, 146. 
 Cursing at holy wells, 88. 
 Custom, force of, 5. 
 Custom and ritual, ethnic elements 
 
 in, 21^0. 
 
 Dairy produce superstition, 115. 
 Dale Abbey, holy well at, 82. 
 Dancing at funerals, 122. 
 Daubing customs, 17. 
 Dead, cult of, non- Aryan, 121, 126 ; 
 
 Aryan, 126-128. 
 Death by force, 136. 
 Decay, principle of, in folklore, 
 
 113. 
 Dee river, superstition concerning, 
 
 77-78. 
 Deer-transformations, 50. 
 Deisil, 94, 98, 163. 
 Demons, belief in, 48, 53. 
 Development and survival, 1-20. 
 Devil represented by frogs in well, 
 
 87. 
 Devonshire folklore, SO-34, 53, 161, 
 
 192. 
 Dionysiac mysteries, 17, 28-30. 
 
 \
 
 INDEX. 
 
 199 
 
 Dish, or caldron, in well-worship, 
 
 100-1. 
 Doors and windows opened at 
 
 death, 125. 
 Dress, portions of, offered at v/ells, 
 
 84. 
 Drowning person, superstition 
 
 against helping, 74. 
 Dmidism, 58-62. 
 Dual element in folklore, 13, 14, 
 
 172. 
 
 Eel, guardian spirit of well, 94. 
 
 Elliot, Sir W., on race elements in 
 Indian custom, 23. 
 
 Ellis, Major, on local and tribal be- 
 liefs, 68. 
 
 Elsdon church, hoi-ses' heads in, 
 35. 
 
 Enemies, savage treatment of, 151- 
 56. 
 
 Epilepsy, cure of, 116. 
 
 Eros, stone representation of, 19. 
 
 Esquimaux origins, 18. 
 
 Essex folklore, 35. 
 
 Esthonian river beliefs, 73. 
 
 Evil, expulsion of, 165. 
 
 Eyes, cure of sore, by wells, 84, 92. 
 
 Fairies, race origin of, 64-65, 163. 
 stealing the soul by, 162. 
 spirits of the wells, 86. 
 
 Fat of enemy used as saining torch, 
 146, 157. 
 
 Father, performance of birtli cere- 
 monies by, 132. 
 
 Fear of the dead, 121. 
 
 Fetichism, 72. 
 
 Fire put out at death, 127, 128. 
 
 Fire, birth ceremonies at, 132. 
 
 Fish, guardian spirits of wells, 93- 
 94, 102. 
 
 Flintshire, Threapwood common in, 
 182-84. 
 
 14 
 
 Fly, guardian spirit of wells, 103. 
 Folklore, growth of the study, 1. 
 Food ceremonies at birth, contrasts 
 
 in, 130-32. 
 Formula of well worship, 106; of 
 
 superstitions connected with 
 
 the dead, 125 ; of witch and 
 
 fairy beliefs, 66. 
 Fox's head, preventive against 
 
 witchcraft, 35. 
 Frazer, Mr., on agricultural gods, 
 
 70. 
 Frog-prince story, Oxfordshire, 87. 
 Frogs, spirits of the wells, 87 n. 
 
 Gad- whip ceremony at Caistor, 36. 
 Garland dressing at wells, 82, 84, 
 
 86. 
 Garos, customs of, 154, 159. 
 Genealogy of folklore, 110-74. 
 Germans, worship of animals' heads 
 
 by, 34. 
 Ghosts, 122. 
 
 Gloucestershire folklore, 37, 75. 
 Godiva legend, 36-40. 
 Goidelic Celts, 02. 
 Grave-mould, superstition as to, 114, 
 
 115. 
 Graves, disturbance of, 114^115; 
 
 non -disturbance of, 123. 
 Greek cults. Hee Artemis, Dionys- 
 
 iac, Zeus. 
 Gubbins, village of, Devonshire, 
 
 192. 
 Guest-friendship, 158. 
 
 Hare-transformations in witchcraft, 
 50. 
 
 Hartland, Mr., on fairies, 56 ; Godi- 
 va ceremony, 37 ; on sin-eating, 
 120. 
 
 Harvest goddess in India, 27. 
 
 Hastings, battle of, stone a.\es used 
 at, 191.
 
 200 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Head of sacrificed auimal, sanctity 
 
 of, 26, 34. 
 Head- hunting, 148, 149, 150, 154- 
 
 56. 
 Heart of dying transfeiTed to the 
 
 living, 157. 
 Hearth god, 128. 
 Herakles, stone representation of, 
 
 19. 
 Hereford, sin-eating in, 117. 
 Historians' record of civilizations, 
 
 2-3, 194. 
 Holne, custom at, 32-34. 
 Holy mawle, 136. 
 Hornchurch, ceremony at, 35. 
 Horses' heads in Elsdon church, 35. 
 Human sacrifice, 60-61, 73, 74, 79, 
 
 127, 141-42, 143, 173. 
 
 Image, wooden, 141. 
 
 witch, 51. 
 Images, church, washing of, 170 n. 
 Inconsistencies in follvlore, 8, 13, 
 
 111. 
 Indian customs and rites, 19, 22-26. 
 See Garos, Lhoosai, Nagas, 
 Orissa. 
 
 race beliefs, 46^7. 
 Initiation in witchcraft, 57. 
 Innislvea, stone worship in, 170. 
 Ireland, animal sacrifice in, 141. 
 
 beliefs of, 50, 54, 115, 116. 
 
 couvade in, 133. 
 
 expulsion of evil in, 165. 
 
 metempsychosis in, 161. 
 
 stone worship in, 170. 
 
 swearing upon tlie skull, 147. 
 
 war customs, 147-48. 
 
 well worship in, 92-95. 
 Irish, nakedness of, 180-81. 
 Italones, treatment of enemies by, 
 152, 154. 
 
 Kelly, W., on Zeus tradition, 130. 
 
 Kempoch Stane, Firth of Clyde, 49. 
 
 Kindred, eating of, 125. 
 
 King's Teignton, custom at, 30-32. 
 
 Lancashire well worship, 84. 
 
 Land, contempt for property in, 
 187 11. 
 
 Lang, Mr., on comparison in folk- 
 lore, 8 ; on cult of Artemis, 16. 
 
 Langobards, adoration of goat's 
 head by, 34. 
 
 Lauder, stone implements at, 55. 
 
 Lhoosai, customs of, 153, 155, 159. 
 
 Lincolnshire folklore, 36, 116. 
 well worship, 85. 
 
 Lludd, god of the Severn, 76. 
 
 Localization of primitive belief, 67^ 
 109. 
 
 Locality and race, 18. 
 
 Long Barrow interments, 151. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir J., on race elements 
 in manners and customs, 15- 
 16. 
 
 Ludgatc Hill, name of, 76. 
 
 Lydney Park pavement, 75. 
 
 Madagascar, influence of conquered 
 
 aborigines in, 43. 
 Madness, cure of, at wells, 90, 99. 
 Maiden names retained by married 
 
 women, 132. 
 Malays, influence of conquered 
 
 aborigines upon, 44—45. 
 Man, Isle of, sale of wind in, 49. 
 Maoris, treatment of enemies by, 
 
 152, 154. 
 Matei-ialism in folklore, 120. 
 Heels, mold from graveyard, 114. 
 Megalithic monuments, 107. 
 Metempsychosis, 160. 
 Midsummer fires, 113. 
 Milk, Irish superstitious practice 
 
 with, 115. 
 Mold from graveyard, 114-15.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 201 
 
 Monuments, destruction of, 178. 
 Mother, performance of birth cere- 
 monies by, 132. 
 Moths considered to be souls, 160. 
 
 Naga hill tribes, head-hunting by, 
 
 155, 159. 
 Naked votaries at sacred festivals, 
 
 24, 28, 38, 39. 
 Nakedness of Irish, 180-81. 
 Name, efficacy of, in magic ritual, 
 
 89. 
 Natural objects, worship of, 67-109. 
 Neevougi, Irish god, 171. 
 New Guinea, influence of conquered 
 
 aborigines in, 48. 
 Nightjar, souls of uubaptized chil- 
 dren embodied in, 161. 
 Nodens, god of the Severn, 76, 
 Non-Aryan race, traces of, 92, 177, 
 
 178. 
 Non- Aryans, folklore origins traced 
 
 to, 14, 19, 29, 66, 108, 121, 134, 
 
 136, 137, 156, 160, 163, 166, 
 
 167, 
 Northamptonshire cattle sacrifice. 
 
 139. 
 Northumberland, offering of horses' 
 
 heads, 35 ; well woi*ship, 85. 
 Nuada, god of the Severn, 76. 
 Nutt, Mr., on the caldron in Celtic 
 
 myth, 101. 
 
 Odin, legend of, 84. 
 Ointment, magic, 51. 
 Oran, St., sacrifice of, 61. 
 Orissa, witch beliefs in, 50. 
 Orkney, objections to rescue drown- 
 ing persons in, 73. 
 sale of wind in, 49. 
 Oswestry, well worship at, 86. 
 Oxenham family, tradition concern- 
 ing, 161. 
 Oxford, sin- eating in, 117. 
 
 Pallas Athene, stone representation 
 of, 19. 
 
 Pastoral life, place of, in culture 
 development, 71. 
 
 Peg O'Nell, spirit of the Kibble, 78. 
 
 Peg Powler, spirit of the Tees, 78. 
 
 Pembrokeshire, sale of wind in, 48. 
 
 Peru, expulsion of evil in, 106. 
 
 Pharaeans, stones worshiped by, 
 19. 
 
 Philology, evidence of, as to non- 
 Aryans, 177. 
 
 Physical types of non-Aryans, 178. 
 
 Picts, well worship by, 108. 
 
 Pins thrown into wells, 83, 84, 85, 
 87, 90, 
 
 Pitt- Elvers, General, on rag offer- 
 ings, 107. 
 
 Potraj, Indian rural god, 22. 
 
 Priest, or priestess, at well rites, 88, 
 90. 
 
 Principles of folklore, non-develop- 
 ment, 7 ; arrested by hostile 
 forces, 11 ; change by decay, 
 113; non-materialistic, 120. 
 
 Race elements in folklore, 11-12, 19, 
 59. 
 
 Eaces, continuation of, 175-95. 
 
 Eag offerings, geographical area of 
 custom, 106-7. 
 
 Eag wells, 92, 96, 97, 98. 
 
 Kain-god, traces of worship, 95, 101 ; 
 represented by stones, 170. 
 
 Eaven-transformations, 50, 160. 
 
 Eed race of people in Caermarthen- 
 shire, 188-90. 
 
 Eedesdale, savagery of, 186-87. 
 
 Ehys, Professor, on Celtic divini- 
 ties, 70, 71; on Celts, 92; on 
 Picts, 108; Celtic lauguagea, 
 178; on Druidism, 63. 
 
 Eibble river, superstitions conccni- 
 iiig, 78.
 
 202 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kiver worship, 72-79. 
 
 Koad, corpse not carried along a 
 
 private, 121. 
 Eod divination, 173. 
 
 St. Briavels, Godiva ceremony at, 
 
 37. 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, stag ceremony 
 
 in, 35. 
 Salmon, guardian spirit ot well, 94. 
 Samoans, head-hunting by, 156 ; 
 
 rain-making, 172. 
 Savagery, folklore parallels to, 9-10. 
 
 See Uncivilization. 
 Scotland, animal sacrifice in, 138- 
 
 39, 140. 
 beliefs of, 50. 52, 54, 114, 119, 
 
 121, 130. 
 couvade in, 134. 
 sale of wind in, 49. 
 stone worship in, 11)7. 
 well worship in, 95-103, 108. See 
 
 Orkney, Shetland. 
 Sefton, well worship at, 84. 
 Sena, priestesses of, 49, 102. 
 Severn, river, beliefs concerning, 
 
 75. 
 Shetland folklore, 115. 
 Shropshire, sin-eating in, 118. 
 well worship, 82-83, 86-87. 
 Siamese, influence of hill tribes 
 
 upon, 45. 
 Sickness, transfer of, 143-44. 
 Silence, ceremony at wells per- 
 formed in, 100. 
 Sin-eating, 117. 
 Skull superstition, 116, 146. 
 Smith, Prof. Robertson, on Semitic 
 
 religions, 68, 69, 79; ou well 
 
 worship, 104, 108. 
 Solomon islanders, treatment of 
 
 enemies by, 153, 155. 
 Soul, beliefs as to the. 160-62, 173. 
 Soul-mass cakes, 127, 128. 
 
 Soutliam, Godiva ceremony at, 17, 
 37. 
 
 Sparrow considered as the soul, 161. 
 
 Spey, river, yearly victim neces- 
 sary for, 75. 
 
 Sterling, ceremony at, 39. 
 
 Stone arrowheads, 53-55. 
 
 Stone worship, 19, 27, 167-72. 
 
 Storm-raising, 169. 
 
 Substitution in folklore, 113. 
 
 Sumatra, rain-making in, 172. 
 
 Survival and development, 1-20. 
 
 Survivals, arrested development 
 of, 7. 
 
 Sussex tradition of William the 
 Conqueror, 193. 
 
 Swans, virgins' souls pass into, 161. 
 
 Sword, food given on, to children, 
 131. 
 
 Symbolism in folklore, 113. 
 
 Tees, river, sprite of the, 78. 
 
 Teutonic centers of England, well 
 worship in, 81-86. 
 
 Threapwood in Flintshire, 182-83. 
 
 Tongue, tips of, taken by Irish 
 warriors, 147. 
 
 Tribal gods and local gods, 69. 
 
 Trophy, war, 158. 
 
 Trout, miraculous, in sacred wells, 
 93, 94, 102. 
 
 Tweed, people supposed to be de- 
 scendants of, 74. 
 
 Tylor, Dr., on civilization, 3; on 
 folklore and savagery, 9 ; on 
 animism, 68 ; on soul - mass 
 cakes, 128 ; on metempsycho- 
 sis, 163. 
 
 Ugly Burn, river, water spirits of 
 
 '74, 75. 
 Uncivilization, native origin of, 4- 
 
 5 ; examples of, in Britain, 180- 
 
 95.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 Victoria aborigines, fat of dead man 
 used by, 153. 
 
 "Wales, animal sacritice in, 139. 
 
 beliefs of, 50. 
 
 non-Aryan races in, 178. 
 
 savage people in, 188. 
 
 sin-eating in, 118, 119. 
 
 well worship in, 87-88, 91. 
 Walhouse, Mr. M. J., on rag offer- 
 ings, 106. 
 "Warwickshire folklore. <S'e« Godiva. 
 "Well worship, 77, 79-109. 
 "Welsheries, 83. 
 
 William the Conqueror in Sussex 
 tradition, 192. 
 
 Wind, sale of, 48-49. 
 
 Wise man of Yorkshire villages, 
 
 113. 
 Witch beliefs, 35, 48-63, 116, 141- 
 
 42. 
 W'itchcraft, race origin of, 48-66. 
 Worm, guardian spirit of wells, 
 
 103. 
 
 Yore, river, spirits of the, 79. 
 Y'orkshire, animal sacrifice in, 139. 
 
 beliefs, 50, 54, 123. 
 
 couvade in, 134. 
 
 well worship, 85. 
 
 Zeus, feeding of the infant, 130. 
 
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 it contains of particular men and women, most of whom I knew and could, if ncccssarj', 
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 not finish it from the sense that it could not be published while the persons and tfin^s 
 could be reco jnized. That objection to the publication no lunger exists. Ever} body is 
 dead whose likenesses have been drawn, and the incidents stated have long been 
 forgotten.' 
 
 " The ' Excursion (Futib Enough) to Paris ' is the unresrr%'ed daily record 
 of a journey in company with the Brownings, when Carlyle paid a visit to 
 Lord Ashburton. That this record is characteristic, and that it presents a 
 singularly vivid picture of the writer's personality, is self-evident. It is a 
 picture which adds something to our knowledge of Carlyle the man. and is 
 therefore worth preservatian. The world has long since known that even 
 Carlyle's heroic fii^ure may claim the sympathy and pity due a great soul 
 fretting against its material environments." 
 
 New York . D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3. -S: 5 Cond Street.
 
 r 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 'HE LIFE OF AN ARTIST. An Autobiography, 
 by Jules Breton. Translated by Mary J, Serrano. Edi- 
 tion de Luxe, with Portrait, Twenty Plates, and facsimile of 
 Autograph Poem. Gilt top, uncut edges, vellum cover, stamped 
 in gold with specially prepared design. Royal 8vo. $10.00. 
 
 When Jules Breton's charming autobiography "The Lite of an Artist" 
 was first published, the New York Tribu?ie said, "The success of this book 
 is assured from the first." This prediction was amply justified. There were 
 many, however, who felt that there was one omission, due to the modesty of 
 the artist-author, which might well be supplied, and it was suggested that 
 there should be an illustrated edition of the book containing reproductions of 
 the artist's work. The publishers have now met this want in an edition de 
 luxe, containing twenty full-page reproductions of Juks Breton's most distin- 
 guished paintings, a new portrait of the author, and a. fac-siMile of a manu- 
 script poem accompanied by a sketch. Among the paintings which have been 
 reproduced are "The First Communion," " Evening at linistere," "A Par- 
 don, Brittany," " Calling the Gleaners," " The Colza-Gatherers," "The Last 
 Ray," " Going to the Fields," and " St. John's Eve." 
 
 In addition to the pictures which are in the galleries of American amateurs, 
 the publishers have reproduced examples of the artist's work which are in 
 France and England. No such collection of Jules Breton's work m art has 
 been formed within our knowledge, and we do not recall any publication 
 which offers so beautiful a series of pictures of rural life in France. 
 
 " The whole work is written so frankly and with such simplicity of style that the 
 reader is charmed. He seems rather to be listening to Breton's voice telling the story 
 of his life than reading it as written by his pen." — Chicago Times. 
 
 "One understands modem France the better for this autobiography of her highly 
 gifted son." — Boston Pilot. 
 
 "This autobiography is a highly individual performance. . . . The history of the 
 movement of French art since 1848 is eIso incorporated into this poetic narrative. The 
 descriptions of Nature are beautiful." — Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 ADELINE'S ART DICTIONARY. Containing 
 •*^ a Complete Index of all Terms used in Art, Architecture, 
 Heraldry, and Archaeology. Translated from the French and 
 enlarged, with nearly 2,000 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $2.25. 
 
 "Nothing could be more comprehensive in its way." — Neiv York Sun. 
 
 "General utility is its leading characteristic. . . . The book is well printed and 
 handsomely bound." — I'hi/adelfihia Ledger. 
 
 " ' Adeline's Art Dictionary ' might be called a condensed encclopsedia of all terms 
 used in art, architecture, heraldry, and archaeologi,'. . . . Definitions are given of all 
 terms, both ancient and modern, used to express the various forms and different parts 
 of architecture, heraldry, and sculpture. One finds descriptions of ornamental wood?, 
 precious stones, glass, pottery, armors, and militan,' costumes. Everything which 
 forms the component p irt of a picture is given, or what may be included in its descrip- 
 tion, as saints and their symbols, also analysis of colors, and artistic implements. 
 Mention is made of various schools of art and public galleries, etc. As a hand-book 
 for students or any one seeking knowledge o;i the subjects contained, it can not fail to 
 be of great use, and is a good addition to any librarj'," — Chicago Times. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 JOHN BACH MC MASTER. 
 
 TTISTOR Y OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 1 1 OF THE UNITED STA TES, from 
 the Revolution to the Civil War. By 
 John Bach McMaster. To be com- 
 pleted in five volumes. Vols. I, II, 
 and III now ready. 8vo, cloth, gilt 
 top, $2.50 each. 
 
 In the course of this narrative much is written 
 of wars, conspiracies, aijd rebellions; of Presi- 
 dents, of Conjjresses, of embassies, of treaties, 
 of the ambition of political leaders, and of the 
 rise of great parties in the natii^n. Yet the his- 
 tory of the people is the chief theme. At every 
 stage of the splendid progress which separates the 
 America of Washington and Adams from the 
 America in which we live, it has heen the au- 
 thor's purpose to describe the dress, the occupa- 
 tions, the amusements, the literary canons of the times ; to note the changes 
 of manners and morals; to trace tlie growth of that humane spirit which 
 abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and 
 of jails ; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, 
 have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of 
 our race ; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical 
 inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our 
 just pride and boast ; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and 
 peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unpar- 
 alleled in the annals of human affairs. 
 
 "The pledge given by Mr. McMaster, that 'the history of the people shall be the 
 chief theme,' is punctiliously and satisfactorily fulfille<1. He carries out his promise in 
 a complete, vivid, and delightful way. We should add that the liierary execution of 
 the work is worthy of the indefatigable industry and unceasing vigi'aiice with whii h 
 the stores of historical material have been accumulated, weighed, and silted. 1 he 
 cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and eneigy, are everywhere present. 
 Seldom indeed has a book in which matter of substantial value has been so h.ippily 
 united to attractiveness of form been oflTered bj an American author 10 his firllow- 
 citizens." — New i'ork Sun. 
 
 "To recount 'he marvelous progress of the American people, to describe their li"'e, 
 their literature, their occupatii ns, their amusemei t>, is \1r. McMaster's object. His 
 theme is an import.int one, and we congratulate him on his success. It has r.ircly been 
 our province to notice a book with so many excellences and so few defects." — AVjk J ork 
 Herald. 
 
 " Mr. McMaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special 
 capacity as a histoiian of the people. His aim is high, but he hits the mark." — 
 Neiv York yournal cf Lommerce. 
 
 "... The author's pages abound, too, with illustrations of the best kind of histori- 
 cal work, that of unearthing hidden sources of information and employing them, not 
 after the modern style of h'storii al writing, in a mere report, but with ihe true artistic 
 method, in a well-digested narrative. ... If Mr. McMaster finishes his work in the 
 spirit and with the thoroughness and skill with which it has begun, it will take its place 
 among the classics of American literature." — Christian Union. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3. & 5 Bond .Street.
 
 Established by Edward L. Youmans. 
 
 The Popular Science 
 Monthly, 
 
 Edited by ^VILLI^VIM JAY YOXJMliVNS, 
 
 Is well known as a trustworthy medium for the spread of scientiBc truth 
 in popular form, and is filled with articles of interest to everybody, by 
 the ablest writers of the time. Its range of topics, which is widening 
 with the advance of science, includes — 
 
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 T. H. HUXLEY, 
 
 Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, 
 
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 DAVID STARR JORDAV. 
 
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 JOSEPH LE CONTE. 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
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 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 mniiT' 11 
 
 
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 AA 00101 
 
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