form of the superstition. African sacred trees. Recent instances of this supersti- tion in England, Scotland, and Australia. The pastoral crook, and the lituus, or staff of the ancient augurs, ete. Phallic symbols. Novel use of the Bible. The divining rod but of recent importation into Cornwall. Recent instances of divination or 61 dousing" for water. Finding drowned bodies. Well worship. Medical virtues of water. Symbol of purity. Sacred wells. St. Helen's well, at Brindle, near Preston. Curious examples of local corruption of names. Pin dropping. Pin wells in France, Wales, Scotland, Northumber- land, and the West of England. A form of divination. Protection against hanging. Other curious forms of this superstition. Curing rickets in children and insanity. Reported miraculous cures. Well dressing. Recent death of Margery Grant, a "Scotch witch," who worked cures with holy water. The deification of rivers and streams. Ancient lake dwellings. Healing lake in Scotland. Bottomless pools. Stagnant water. Jenny Green teeth. Nickar, the soulless." Scotch kelpies. Burns's "Address to the Deil." Superstition Antiquity of the superstitions commented upon. The common origin of most of them. Tenacity of superstition and traditionary lore. Some perhaps have resulted from similar conditions, without any necessary connection with each other. Supposed communication of America with Asia in ancient times. Phallic worship in Central America. Singular custom in the Polynesian Islands. Migration of the Miocene flora. The Atlantis of the Ancients. Super- stitions in Abyssinia and the Malay Archipelago. Traditions and supersti- tions frequently glide into each other. Instances. Scotch warriors at Preston. Sunken churches. Secret passages beneath rivers. All ruined castles, abbeys, etc., said to have been battered by Cromwell's cannon. Recent discoveries in Sanscrit. Max Müller's interpretation of Greek myths. Anthropomorphism, or the personification of natural forces. Growth of a myth. Vedic and other examples. Wordsworth's interpretation of Greek myths. Figurative expression, the groundwork of all poetry, at the root of all language. Shakspere's appreciation of the poetic value of popular mythology. Impor- tance of the study of these despised superstitions to philological, ethnological, and psychological science, as well as to the sound philosophical interpretation TRADITIONS, SUPERSTITIONS, AND FOLK-LORE. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF LANCASHIRE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTIES, AND REMAINS OF THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Shakspere. ON several occasions, when discussing obscure questions of early topography or ancient nomenclature, although readily acknowledging the value of all facts in connection with genuine etymological science, I have recommended great caution in the use of this powerful but somewhat capricious archæological ally. I yet retain a strong impression that this caution is still a necessary condition of truly scientific historical or antiquarian research. Consequently, several of the presumed etymologies in the present work are advanced with diffidence, and with a thorough conviction that some of them may prove to be illusive. The suggestion of a probability, however, is a very different thing to dogmatic assertion in such matters, a practice which cannot be too much condemned. It is not very many years since the writer of the article " 'Language," in Knight's Cyclopædia, felt it his duty, in introducing the subject, to use the following strong expressions : "That division of grammar which is called etymology has been disgraced by such peurile trifling, and has been pursued with such an utter disregard to anything like scientific principles, as to create in the minds of many persons a suspicion against everything presented to their notice under the name of etymology. Such persons B have viewed etymology as nothing else than a dexterous play upon words, and have looked upon etymologists as little better than indifferent punsters. That the generality of writers upon this subject scarcely deserve any better appellation will hardly be denied by anyone who has studied etymology on true philological principles; and, if any doubt were entertained upon the point, it would only be necessary to refer to such works as Damm's Homeric Lexicon,' and Lennep's Etymology of the Greek Language,' which are full of such wild conjectures and such extravagant etymologies, that we cannot be surprised that a study which has produced such results should have been considered ridiculous and absurd." The writer afterwards refers to the extent, and explains the nature of the progress which had been made during the twenty or thirty years previous to the date of his own paper. (1839). He justly attributes this progress to the "comparison of many languages with each other;" but he especially insists that "nothing has perhaps contributed to this improvement more than the discovery of Sanscrit (for as it has been justly observed, it may properly be called a discovery), which was found to bear such a striking resemblance both in its more important words and in its grammatical forms to the Latin and Greek, the Teutonic and Sclavonic languages, as to lead to the conclusion that all must have been derived from a common source.' An able writer in the Saturday Review truly describes the science of comparative philology as "the great discovery of modern scholarship, the discovery which more than any other unites distant ages and countries in one tie of brotherhood." Hence its great value to antiquarian students of every class. Further investigation has fully demonstrated the truth of the views thus expressed. Not only is the affinity of the languages now admitted without dispute, but the consanguinity of the peoples and the identity of many of their popular traditions and superstitions have been demonstrated with scientific precision by such writers as the brothers Grimm, Dr. Kuhn, Dr. Roth, Max Müller, Farrer, Dasent, the Rev. G. W. Cox, and others, who have devoted special attention to the subject. This common ancestry is sometimes styled Indo-European; but the phrase being open to objection, as including more than the precise facts justify, the term Aryan, or Arian, is now generally preferred. Some writers regard the Aryans as descendants of Japhet, and the Semitic tribes as the progeny of Shem. In the latter they include the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, the Arabs, and Ethiopians; and their languages are radically distinct from those of the Aryan family. The country about the upper Oxus river, now mainly included in the dominions of the Khan of Bockhara, is generally agreed upon as the locality from whence the various members of the Aryan family originally migrated, some northward and westward over Europe, and others southward and eastward into India. The Kelts, the Teutons, the Greeks, Latins, Letts, and Sclaves are all European branches of this original stock. The Persians and the high caste Hindoos are the principal descendants of the southern and south-eastern migration. The chief elements of the British population at the present time are Keltic, represented by the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic tribes, and the Teutonic, which includes Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and Danish and Norse Scandinavians. The non-Aryan races inhabiting Europe are not relatively very extensive or important. The chief are the Magyars and the Turks. There are besides some Tatars and Ugrians in Russia, a few Basques in the south-west of France and on the neighbouring Spanish frontier, and the Laps and Fins in Northern Europe. The oldest writings extant in the Sanscrit branch of the Aryan tongue are termed the "Vedas." These works include a collection of hymns chanted or sung by the earlier south-eastern emigrants. It is believed this collection was formed about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. According to ancient Hindoo authority, these hymns are coeval with creation. It is asserted that Brahma breathed them from his own mouth, or, in other words, that he milked them out from fire, air, and the sun. Some traditions state that they were scattered abroad or lost; and that a great sage, "Vyasa, the arranger," collected them together about 5,000 years ago. Vyasa, who was assisted in his labours by many other sages, taught the Vedic literature or religion to four distinct pupils. Payla learnt the Rig Veda, Vais'ampayana the Yajur Veda, Jaimini the Sama Veda, and Sumantu the Atharvan'a. The three first-mentioned are named collectively the sacred Trayi, or the Triad. These versions were afterwards much extended and commented upon by after sages. The term Veda is derived from the Sanscrit root vid, which signifies to know. It implies the sum of all knowledge. By another etymology it is held to imply revealed knowledge, or that species of wisdom which contains within itself the evidence of its own truth. Rig is from the root rich, to laud, and implies that the Vedic knowledge is delivered in the form of hymns of praise. Max Müller regards the Vedas as containing the key note of all |