Celtic Mythology: History of Celts, Religion, Archeological Finds, Legends & Myths. T. W. Rolleston

557. Maury, 18. By extension of this belief any divinity might appear by the haunted spring. S. Patrick and his synod of bishops at an Irish well were supposed to be síd or gods (p. 64, supra.) By a fairy well Jeanne d'Arc had her first vision.

558. Greg. Tours, Vita Patr. c. 6.

559. See Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 23, 115; Baudot, Rapport sur les fouilles faits aux sources de la Seine, ii. 120; RC ii. 26.

560. For these tablets see Nicolson, Keltic Studies, 131 f.; Jullian, RC 1898.

561. Sébillot, ii. 195.

562. Prologue to Chrestien's Conte du Graal.

563. Sébillot, ii. 202 f.

564. Ibid. 196-197; Martin, 140-141; Dalyell, 411.

565. Rh^ys, CFL i. 366; Folk-Lore, viii. 281. If the fish appeared when an invalid drank of the well, this was a good omen. For the custom of burying sacred animals, see Herod, ii. 74; Ælian, xiii. 26.

566. Gomme, Ethnol. in Folklore, 92.

567. Trip. Life, 113; Tigernach, Annals, A.D. 1061.

568. Mackinley, 184.

569. Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, 416; Campbell, WHT ii. 145.

570. Old Stat. Account, xii. 465.

571. S. Patrick, when he cleared Ireland of serpents, dealt in this way with the worst specimens. S. Columba quelled a monster which terrified the dwellers by the Ness. Joyce, PN i. 197; Adamnan, Vita Columb. ii. 28; Kennedy, 12, 82, 246; RC iv. 172, 186.

572. RC xii. 347.

573. For the water-horse, see Campbell, WHT iv. 307; Macdongall, 294; Campbell, Superstitions, 203; and for the Manx Glashtyn, a kind of water-horse, see Rh^ys, CFL i. 285. For French cognates, see Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et Survivances, i. 349 f.

574. Reinach, CMR i. 63.

575. Orosius, v. 15. 6.

576. LU 2a. Of Eochaid is told a variant of the Midas story—the discovery of his horse's ears. This is also told of Labraid Lore (RC ii. 98; Kennedy, 256) and of King Marc'h in Brittany and in Wales (Le Braz, ii. 96; Rh^ys, CFL 233). Other variants are found in non-Celtic regions, so the story has no mythological significance on Celtic ground.

577. Ptol. ii. 2. 7.

578. Campbell, WHT iv. 300 f.; Rh^ys, CFL i. 284; Waldron, Isle of Man, 147.

579. Macdougall, 296; Campbell, Superstitions, 195. For the Uruisg as Brownie, see WHT ii. 9; Graham, Scenery of Perthshire, 19.

580. Rh^ys, CFL ii. 431, 469, HL, 592; Book of Taliesin, vii. 135.

581. Sébillot, ii. 340; LL 165; IT i. 699.

582. Sébillot, ii. 409.

583. See Pughe, The Physicians of Myddfai, 1861 (these were descendants of a water-fairy); Rh^ys, Y Cymmrodor, iv. 164; Hartland, Arch. Rev. i. 202. Such water-gods with lovely daughters are known in most mythologies—the Greek Nereus and the Nereids, the Slavonic Water-king, and the Japanese god Ocean-Possessor (Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, 148; Chamberlain, Ko-ji-ki, 120). Manannan had nine daughters (Wood-Martin, i. 135).

584. Sébillot, ii. 338, 344; Rh^ys, CFL i. 243; Henderson, Folk-Lore of the N. Counties, 262. Cf. the rhymes, "L'Arguenon veut chaque année son poisson," the "fish" being a human victim, and

      "Blood-thirsty Dee

       Each year needs three,

       But bonny Don,

       She needs none."

585. Sébillot, ii. 339.

586. Rendes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 315, 457. Other instances of punishment following misuse of a well are given in Sébillot, ii. 192; Rees, 520, 523. An Irish lake no longer healed after a hunter swam his mangy hounds through it (Joyce, PN ii. 90). A similar legend occurs with the Votiaks, one of whose sacred lakes was removed to its present position because a woman washed dirty clothes in it (L'Anthropologie, xv. 107).

587. Rh^ys, CFL i. 392.

588. Girald. Cambr. Itin. Hib. ii. 9; Joyce, OCR 97; Kennedy, 281; O'Grady, i. 233; Skene, ii. 59; Campbell, WHT ii. 147. The waters often submerge a town, now seen below the waves—the town of Is in Armorica (Le Braz, i. p. xxxix), or the towers under Lough Neagh. In some Welsh instances a man is the culprit (Rh^ys, CFL i. 379). In the case of Lough Neagh the keeper of the well was Liban, who lived on in the waters as a mermaid. Later she was caught and received the baptismal name of Muirghenn, "sea-birth." Here the myth of a water-goddess, said to have been baptized, is attached to the legend of the careless guardian of a spring, with whom she is identified (O'Grady, ii. 184, 265).

589. Roberts, Cambrian Pop. Antiq. 246; Hunt, Popular Romances, 291; New Stat. Account, x. 313.

590. Thorpe, Northern Myth. ii. 78.