7; 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[^y]s, _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).

[641] Roberts, _Cambrian Pop. Antiq._ 246; Hunt, _Popular Romances_,
291; _New Stat. Account_, x. 313.

[642] Thorpe, _Northern Myth._ ii. 78.

[643] Joyce, _PN_ ii. 84. _Slan_ occurs in many names of wells.
Well-worship is denounced in the canons of the Fourth Council of Arles.

[644] Cartailhac, _L'Age de Pierre_, 74; Bulliot et Thiollier, _Mission
de S. Martin_, 60.

[645] Sebillot, ii. 284.

[646] Dalyell, 79-80; Sebillot, ii. 282, 374; see p. 266, _infra_.

[647] I have compiled this account of the ritual from notices of the
modern usages in various works. See, e.g., Moore, _Folk-Lore_, v. 212;
Mackinley, _passim_; Hope, _Holy Wells_; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_; Sebillot, 175
f.; Dixon, _Gairloch_, 150 f.

[648] Brand, ii. 68; Greg. _In Glor. Conf._ c. 2.

[649] Sebillot, ii. 293, 296; _Folk-Lore_, iv. 55.

[650] Mackinley, 194; Sebillot, ii. 296.

[651] _Folk-Lore_, iii. 67; _Athenaeum_, 1893, 415; Pliny, _Ep._ viii. 8;
Strabo, iv. 287; Diod. Sic. v. 9.

[652] Walker, _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._ vol. v.; Sebillot, ii. 232. In
some early Irish instances a worm swallowed with the waters by a woman
causes pregnancy. See p. 352, _infra_.

[653] Sebillot, ii. 235-236.

[654] See Le Braz, i. 61; _Folk-Lore_, v. 214; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 364;
Dalyell, 506-507; Scott, _Minstrelsy_, Introd. xliii; Martin, 7;
Sebillot, ii. 242 f.; _RC_ ii. 486.

[655] Jullian, _Ep. to Maximin_, 16. The practice may have been
connected with that noted by Aristotle, of plunging the newly-born into
a river, to strengthen it, as he says (_Pol._ vii. 15. 2), but more
probably as a baptismal or purificatory rite. See p. 309, _infra_.

[656] Lefevre, _Les Gaulois_, 109; Michelet, _Origines du droit
francais_, 268.

[657] See examples of its use in Post, _Grundriss der Ethnol.
Jurisprudenz_, ii. 459 f.

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