Note 59 — Chapter III · THE GODLINGS OF DISEASE.

There have been various explanations of this custom of hanging rags on trees.59 One is that they are offerings to the local deity of the tree. Mr. Gomme quotes an instance of an Irishman who made a similar offering with the following invocation: “To St. Columbkill—I offer up this button, a bit o’ the waistband o’ my own breeches, an’ a taste o’ my wife’s petticoat, in remembrance of us havin’ made this holy station; an’ may they rise up in glory to prove it for us in the last day.”