(yXU^ ^/ THE FOLK-LORE OF THE ISLE OF MAN. BEING AN ACCOUNT OF ITS MYTHS, LEGENDS, SUPERSTITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND PROVERBS, A. W. MOORE, M.A., Author of "MANX NAMES;' etc. FOLK-LORE. — THE FOLK-LOKE OF THE ISLE OF MAN, BEING AN ACCOUNT OF ITS MYTHS, LEGEXDS, SUPEHSTITIOXS, CUSTOMS, & PEOTERBS, Collected from many sources ; with a General Introduction; and with EXPLANATORY NOTES to each Chapter ; BV A. W. MOOI\E, Ai.A.: AUTHOR OF "MA AW XAMESr &o. " I would not for any quantity of gold, part with the wonderful talei which I have retained from my earliest childhood, or ha\c met w ith in my progress through life." Mat-tin Luilicr, ISLE OF MAN: BROWN & SOX, •'Timei" Buildings, Athol Street, Douglas. LONDOX: D. NUTT, 270. Strand. "THE ISLE OF MAN TIMES," PublisheJ every Wednesday at id., and Saturday at 2d., is the Leading Journal of the Isle of Man. Copies by post, J<d. e.xtra. Pubhshing Offices, "Times" Buildings, Douglas. BEOWJ^'S POPULAR GUIDE To the Isle of Maa is the best published. Price, is. ; by Post, is. 3d. Brown and Son, "Times" Buildings, Douglas. fa 4" \ 19 5 8, INTRODUCTION. (^n HE Isle of Man has been unfortunate in not having had competent (|R|^S collectors of its Legendary Lore. But few have taken the slightest "(^r^ interest in it, and those who have did not understand the language ^n) in which they could have learned it at first hand. The earliest of these J^ collectors, and the one to whom we owe most of the tales which are given in the following pages, was George Waldron, an Englishman, who was in the Isle of Man, where he seems to have been acting as Commissioner from the British Government, to watch and report on the import and export trade of the country, between 1720 and 1730. He seems to have had but little knowledge of the Manx people and their ways, and the marvellous tales which he tells are given in his own language, and, probably, with many additions suggested by his fancy. After an interval of a century came Train, who had also the disadvantage of being a stranger, and who was, therefore, obliged to gather the greater number of the few additional tales he gives at second hand. The next collector of Manx Folk-Lore who began his work about i86o, was William Harrison, a Lancashire man. who lived for some time on the Island, being a member of the House of Keys, and devoted considerable attention to Manx antiquities. He has done good service m the cause of Folk-Lore by collecting the ballads, proverbs, &c., which are printed m volumes xvi. and xxi. of the Manx Society's publications, and in editing Waldron's History. And, lastly, Jenkinson inserted some scraps of Folk-Lore in his " Guide to the Isle of Man," pub- lished m 1874. Campbell, the editor of the " Popular Tales of the West Highlands," who visited the Island in i860, was a singularly competent observer, and mighthave done much for Manx Folk-Lore, even at such a late period, and in spite of his also being 1. stranger, if he had thought it worth his while. His visit was, however, only a very brief one, and, being discouraged at his Gaelic not being understood, and at the difficulty of extracting any in- formation from the Manx peasantry, did not persevere. He describes his difficulties in getting into the confidence of the Manx peasants as follows:— "I found them willing to talk, eagerto question, kindly, homely folk, with whom it was easy to begin an acquaintance. I heard everywhere that it used to be common to hear old men telling stories about thefire in Manx; but any attempt to extract a story, or search out a queer old custom, or a half-forgotten belief, seemed to act as a pinch of snuff does en a snail. The Manxman would not 11. INTRODUCnON. trast the foreigner with his secrets ; his eyes twinkled suspiciously, and his hand seemed unconsciously to grasp his mouth, as if to keep all fast." It is remarkable that no native Manxmen have, till recently, troubled them- selves about collecting what, we suppose, they considered idle, if not mis- chievous, tales.* If they had done so, and had recorded them in the original. Manx, they would have conferred a boon upon those who are interested in such researches. Now it is, unfortunately, too late. The Manx language is moribund, and Manx superstitions, except in the more remote districts, are in a similar condition. Since even so recent a date as i860, the change in the condition of the natives is simply marvellous. The constant and rapid intercourse with England, Scotland, and Ireland, the large emigration of the Manx, and immigration of strangers, the shoals of visitors who come over in the summer, and the consequent increase of wealth and prosperit)-, have produced their natural results. There are, however, remote parts of the Island, away from the towns and the main highways, where beliefs in " Fairies, Goblins, Demons, and Ghosts still remain ; where the Evil Eye" is still a power; where there is still a vague distrust of solitary old crones; and where the " Charmer" has a larger practice than the ordinary medical practitioner. But these things are not spoken of either to the stranger or to the educated Manxman, especially if a clergyman, and, even among them- selves, they are mentioned with some sense of shame, and with a wish to keep them as secret as possible, so that the most diligent and craftily-put enquiries have extracted but little that has not been hitherto known.f On the whole, the present state of the Isle of Man is so antagonistic to such superstitions that, to place the reader in a position w hich will enable him to understand the sort of people and the state of society in which they originated, it is necessary to draw a veil over the present, and to uncover the past as far as possible. This we are able to do only to a very limited extent, as the old historians, or rather annalists, were not at all concerned with the people whose history they were supposed to write, but merely with the movements of their rulers. dynastic and episcopal changes, battles and ecclesiastical squabbles. W'e append such meagre accounts as exist. The first writer \\ ho mentions the people in any way was Merick, \\ ho was Governor and Bishop in 1577, and who confines himself to the astounding statement that the women, when they went abroad, girded themselves with the winding sheet that they proposed to be buried in, "to show themselves mindful of their mortality." Speed, writing in 1627, copies this, and adds on his own account the fiction that "such of them (the inhabitants) as are at any time condemned to dy are sowed within a sack, and flung irom a rocke mto the sea." Blundell, writing 30 years later, corrects the error about the winding sheets, which, he shows, were— merely blankets or plaids, and mentions their houses, &c. , as follows : "These men's habitations are mere hovels, compacted of stones and clay for the walls, thatched with broom, most commonly containing one room only. Very few have two rooms, have no upper rooms—such as in their town they call lofts—nor any ceiling but the thatch itself, with the rafters, •The Isle of Man Natural History niul Antiquarian Society has appointed a Committee INTRODUCTION. iil. yet in this smoking hut . doth the man, his wife, and children cohabit, and in many places with ye geese and ducks under ye bed, the cocks and hens over his head, the cow and calf at the bed's foot . : . their constant diet is only salt butter, herrings, and oat cakes, here made almost as thin as a paper leaf . their drink is either simple water, or water mixt with milk, or at best buttermilk." Beer, he says, is only drunk when they meet at market.* Chaloner, who was Governor of the Island at this time, says that the Manx are "very civil . laborious, contented with simple diet and lodgings; their drink, water; their meat, fish; their bedding, hay or straw, generally; much addicted to the musick of the violyne . bearing a great esteem and reverence for the publique service of God."f Bishop Gibson's account, in the edition of Camden's Britannia published in 1695, adds nothing new. Waldron (1720-30) says that the houses of the peasantry "are no more than cabins built of sods, and covered with the same, e.xcept a few belonging to the better sort of farmers, which are thatched with straw ... the greater part of them (the peasants) of both sexes go barefoot, except on Sunday or when they are at work in the field, and have then only small pieces of cow's or horse's hide at the bottom of their feet, tyed on with packthread, which they call rarranes. Their food is commonly herrings and potatoes, or bread ma(ie of potatoes.":!: Thomas Quayle, a Manxman, who wrote in 1812 about the agriculture of the Island, also mentions the cottages of the peasantry as follows : "The walls are about seven feet high, constructed of sods of earth ; at each side the door appears a square hole containing a leaded window. Chimney there is none, but a perforation of the roof, a little elevated at one end, emits a great part of the smoke from tne hie underneath. The timber forming the roof is slender, coarse, and crooked.