medium often of inanimate objects, could at any time bring down a supply of rain. Such supernatural powers were, both in the East and in the West, believed to be inherent, and also hereditary, in families and fraternities. I shall limit my examples of this superstition to one from Ceylon in the extreme south of India; one in the extreme west of Europe, in Brittany; and one in the Western Isles of Scotland.

On the summit of Namina Koole, a mountain which rises to a height of nearly seven thousand feet in the island of Ceylon, there are several small ponds which in the driest seasons are never entirely without water. After long-continued droughts, when springs and streams are insufficient to nourish the rice-crops in the plains below, the priests of the Temple of Katragam at Badoola are occasionally prevailed on to ascend the mountain and perform the ceremonies necessary to insure a fall of rain. Having reached the summit, the priests sprinkle water from the ponds in every direction, and on all the persons who have accompanied them. So efficacious are these rites, or so well chosen is the time for their performance, that the rain never fails to set in before the weather-wise impostors and their dupes have reached the bottom of the mountain. The same belief prevailed in Brittany, and the same ceremonies were practised at the fountain of Balanton, which is still supposed to possess its former miraculous properties if there were individuals of sufficient powers who knew how to turn them to account. Formerly, in times of excessive drought, it was customary for the Lords of Montfort to sprinkle water from the fountain of Balanton

FOUNTAIN OF BALANTON.

167

This rite was

on Merlin's-stone, which is close to the water.' followed by an abundant fall of rain over all Brittany, which set in so immediately after the ceremony that the Lord of Montfort had not time to reach his castle of Comper before suffering from the storm which he had evoked. The fountain

2

of Balanton, or Baranton, is situated in the forest of Broceliande, in that valley where, beneath the shade of the white hawthorn copse, the enchanter Merlin is still supposed to be detained by the spell of his pupil Viviane.3

I do not presume to give an opinion on the rival claims of Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica, to the "domicile" of King Arthur and his Paladins, and Merlin with his magical powers. Whether the enchanter remains unseen, imprisoned in the county of Caermarthen or in the country of the Morbihanwhether King Arthur held his court at Kerduel, and was buried in the neighbouring islet of Agalon on the coast of Brittany, or was interred and re-interred at Glastonbury in Somersetshire-whether the spot pointed out near the banks of the Elorn in Finistere be the true site of the castle of Lancelot de Lac, or whether "Her Majesty's fortress of Berwick-upon-Tweed" now occupies its place; one thing must be admitted-viz., that the memory of all these worthies is far more vividly retained in Brittany than in Great Britain.

1

Hippolyte Violeau, Pelerinages de Bretagne, p. 289.

Souvestre's La Bretagne et les Bretons, vol. i. pp. 112, 113.

2 Commune de Concoret, arrondissement de Ploermel, department de Morbihan.

St. Fillan's Well, at Strowan in

Perthshire, when properly solicited, and its saint's image washed in the waters, was capable of giving a miraculous fall of rain as well as the fountain of Balanton.

Which, to suit the tradition, is declared to have been an island.

Martin gives an account of a stone about five feet in length, in the form of a cross, which was called the "Water Cross," and supposed by the inhabitants of the Western Isles of Scotland to have the power, when properly treated, of bringing down rain. When this was required the stone was placed erect, and so retained until sufficient rain had fallen; then the "Water Cross" was laid prostrate until its influence was again to be put in force. Another way of procuring rain by the Celts on the west of Scotland was to bring forth a cloth, a relic of St. Columba, which being flaunted in the air brought down a copious supply of water from the heavens.2

The water of a well at Struthill, and of a pool in Strathfillan, it was believed, if used with certain rites, would cure insanity. At Struthill the patient, after being bathed, was bound to a stone near the well, and left all night; and if the cure was to be effected the patient was miraculously unloosed. In 1688 evidence was given before the presbytery of Stirling of a woman having been so bound and unloosed on two successive nights at Struthill well, and of her having been cured of her madness. The ceremonies at Strathfillan were of the same kind; only the patient was bound in a small neighbouring chapel, the ruins of which still exist. In the eighteenth century it is affirmed that about two hundred insane persons were annually brought to be subjected to this treatment at Strathfillan.3

1 Martin's Western Isles, p. 59. 2 Life of St. Columba, by Adamnan; the same thing is mentioned in the saint's life by Cominius.

3 Sir J. Graham Dalyell's Darker Superstitions of Scotland, quoting Sibbald's MS. collections, pp. 82, 83; Pennant's Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 15.

At Loch Siant, or Shiant, which the Reverend Dr. Martin calls also "the sacred lake," the water, the fish which it contained, and the adjoining copse, were all considered sacred "to the divinity of the place," in whose rites the Diasuil (sunwise) procession was used, and to whom offerings were left of scraps of clothing, coloured threads, small coins and pieces of metal, down to pins. "Dowloch is a small lake on the top of a hill in the parish of Penpont, Dumfriesshire, and famous in the days of superstition for curing all manner of diseases. Those who resorted to it for relief left some part of their dress to the guardian genii of the lake."2

1

In Strathaven some of the mystical practices used on New Year's Day have reference to the worship of rivers, which Gildas accuses our countrymen of adhering to. Part of these rites are evidently borrowed from the ceremonies commonly practised on Beltane and Midsummer's Day, and are derived from a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity. For the protection of the family during the ensuing year a person is despatched to draw water from a ford in the river, where both dead and living had crossed; and having filled the pitcher, to return to the house, having all the time carefully preserved silence. Neither must the pitcher have been allowed to touch the ground, or the virtue of the water would

1 Martin's Western Isles, p. 140. Rev. D. Martin's "Parish of Kilmuir, Isle of Skye, 1793," Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ii. P. 556.

2 Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. i. p. 206—“Parish of Penpont, in the county of Dumfries," by the Rev. William Keyden.

be withdrawn. Fire was then lighted, and the inmates were sprinkled with this mystical water. They were also fumigated with the incense of burnt juniper branches. All the horses, cattle, and sheep had also the benefit of sprinkling and fumigation, which was intended to prevent any malign influence that might have otherwise assailed them through the year of which this ceremony was the commencement.1

The Worship of Trees.

"Hee that hath seene a great oake dry and dead,
Yet clad with reliques of some Trophees old,
Lifting to heaven her aged hoarie head,

Whose foote on ground hath left but feeble hold;
But half disbowel'd lies aboue the ground,
Showing her wreathed rootes, and naked armes,
And on her trunke all rotten and unsound,
Only supports herselfe for meat for wormes;
And though she owe her fall to the first wind,
Yet of the devout people is adored."

Ruins of Rome, Edmund Spencer.

Trees have not only been regarded with veneration as emblems of religion, but in many countries were acknowledged as objects of worship.2 In Britain the worship of forest trees, particularly the oak, was a portion of the heathenism of our ancestors, and was condemned by enactments of the civil and

From Lectures on the Mountains, or Highlands and Highlanders in 1860, it would appear that these rites are still observed.

A ceremony nearly resembling this was practised annually on a magnificent scale at the Candian capital in Ceylon, and is referred to in the chapter on "Customs common

to the Inhabitants of Asia and the Celts."

2 In the Assyrian sculptures in the British Museum there are many representations of the worship of trees.

The tree raised on a platform also appears in the emblematic delineations of Mexico. See Aglio's splendid work on Mexico, published at London in 1830.