f Man, is the subject of the following
legend. A farmer returning homeward to the parish of Malew from Peel was
benighted and lost his way among the mountains. In the course of his
wanderings he was drawn by the sound of sweet music into a large hall
where a number of little people were banqueting. Among them were some
faces he thought he had formerly seen; but he forbore to take any notice
of them. Nor did they take any notice of him until he was offered drink,
when one of them, whose features seemed not unknown to him, plucked him
by the coat and forbade him, whatever he did, to taste anything he saw
before him; "for if you do," he added, "you will be as I am, and return
no more to your family." Accordingly, when a large silver beaker was put
into his hand, filled with liquor, he found an opportunity to throw its
contents on the ground. The music forthwith ceased, and the company
disappeared, leaving the cup in his hand. On finding his way home, he
told the minister of the parish what had occurred; and the latter, with
the instincts of his profession, advised him to devote the cup to the
service of the Church. We are indebted to Waldron's well-known
"Description of the Isle of Man," originally published in 1731, for this
story. A later writer, annotating Waldron's work rather more than a
quarter of a century ago, refers to the vessel in question as a paten;
he states that it was still preserved in the church, and that it bore
engraved the legend: "Sancte Lupe ora pro nobis."[120] There are no
fewer than eleven saints named Lupus in the calendar. Whichever of them
was invoked here, the inscription points to a continental origin for the
vessel, whether cup or paten, and is not inconsistent with its being of
some antiquity.

Mr. Train, who quotes the tradition in his account of the Isle of Man,
states that several similar tales had been placed at his disposal by
friends in the island; but it was naturally beneath the dignity of an
historian to do more than give a single specimen of this "shade of
superstition," as he calls it. He does, however, mention (though
apparently without being conscious of any close relationship with the
cup of Kirk Malew) an antique crystal goblet in the possession, when he
wrote, of Colonel Wilks, the proprietor of the Estate of Ballafletcher,
four or five miles from Douglas. It is described as larger than a common
bell-shaped tumbler, uncommonly light and chaste in appearance, and
ornamented w