Note 19.3 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

This convenient way of obtaining news of absent friends is said to be still in use. The Eskimo of Greenland, when a man has not returned in due time from an expedition in his kayak, hold the head of his nearest relation over a tub of water, and judge from the reflection beneath whether the absent person has been upset, or is still sitting in the boat, rowing.19.3 In the island of Tahiti, if one, looking at the water of certain springs, chance to see it tinged with blood, it is a sign that one of the beholder’s friends is about to die.19.4 Nor is it different in our own country. Gulval Well, in Cornwall, answers inquiries put with the proper formula. If the person asked after be alive and well, the quiet water will instantly boil and bubble clear and pure; if he be sick, the water becomes foul and puddled; if he be dead, it remains calm and lifeless.19.5 The legends accounting for these phenomena in Tahiti and Cornwall are unrecorded. In the parish of Kirkmichael, in the county of Banff, there is a fountain dedicated to St. Michael, and famous for its healing virtues. The guardian of the well appears in the shape of a fly which, it is believed, never dies. “To the eye of ignorance,” we are told, “he might sometimes appear dead; but agreeably to the Druidic system, it was only a Transmigration into a similar form, which made little alteration on the real identity.” He was, in former days at all events, constantly on duty. “If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s ailment, or the love-sick Nymph that of her languishing Swain, they visited the Well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic Fly was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the anxious votaries drew their presages; their breasts vibrated with correspondent emotions.”20.1 Brand and Ellis quote from an old writer a passage concerning fountains which prognosticate plenty or famine. The writer concludes by saying: “Myselfe know some Gentlemen that confesse, if a certaine Fountaine (being otherwise very cleane and cleare) be suddenly troubled by meanes of a Worme unknowne, that the same is a personall Summons for some of them to depart out of the world.”20.2 These superstitions frequently degenerated into mere divination. Dalyell records that auguries as to the fate of any one were drawn from the finding of a dead or a living worm in a well in the parish of Strathdon, and also in the well at Ardnacloich in Appin, Argyllshire.21.1 Sir John Lubbock quotes a striking instance from Dr. Anderson’s account of the expedition to Western Yunnan. Three men having gone to the Kakhyen hills, a report reached their families that one of them had died. To ascertain which of them it was, the old women were divining by means of needles and cotton-wool. Each needle representing one of the absent men, threaded with a piece of cotton-wool to act as a float, was let down gently into the water. As the floats got thoroughly wetted, the needles would sink one after another; and the man whose needle sank first would be the dead one.21.2 The water there was probably contained in a vessel; but the principle, as we see from several instances already cited, is the same. Before the temple of Demeter at Patras there was a spring that was consulted on the issue of any disease. The method (and here, perhaps, we touch the object of Lucian’s satire) was to let down a mirror suspended by a cord so as just to allow the water lightly to touch its edges, but not its face. After praying and clearing the air with incense, the performers (probably priests) looked down into the mirror, and thence perceived whether the patient would live or die.21.3 On the isle of Andros it is still the practice for Greek maidens to hold a mirror over a well and to look in it for the face of their future husbands reflected from the well below.21.4 In Brittany there are certain wells wherein children’s shirts are dipped. If a shirt sink to the bottom, it is a sign of the child’s death within a year. Contrariwise, if the shirt swim, the child will live; and to ensure its living and to preserve it from every kind of evil the wet garment is immediately put on.22.1 After that, nobody would deny the child’s continued health to be a miracle. The superstition was not by any means confined to Brittany; but it will suffice to give one more example of it here. “Between the towns of Alten and Newton,” says one of the Cottonian Manuscripts, “near the foot of Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a Well dedicated to St. Oswald. The neighbours have an opinion that a Shirt or Shift taken off a sick person and thrown into that Well, will show whether the person will recover or die: for, if it floated, it denoted the recovery of the party; if it sank, there remained no hope of their life; and to reward the Saint for his intelligence, they tear off a Rag of the Shirt, and leave it hanging on the Briars thereabout; where I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre Rheme in a Paper Myll.”22.2