E. Sidney Hartland

“ It must account not merely for the pins in wells and the rags on trees, but also for the nails in trees, the pins in images, the earth or bricks hung on the sacred tree in India, the stones or cairns, the pellets which constellate Japanese idols, the strips of cloth and other articles which decorate Japanese temples, the pilgrims' names written on the walls of the temple of Kapila, on the banks of the Hugli, the nails fixed by the consuls in the Cella Jovis at Rome, and those driven into the galleries or floors of Protestant churches in Eastern France. ”

“ There is no reason to suppose that the practices I have described originated later than the carving of sacred images, and were at first a peculiarity of their worship. There is every reason to suppose exactly the reverse. ”

“ We find widely spread in Europe the practice of throwing pins into sacred wells, or sticking pins or nails into sacred images or trees, or into the wall of a temple, or floor of a church, and—sometimes accompanying this, more usually alone—a practice of tying rags or leaving portions of clothing upon a sacred tree or bush, or a tree or bush overhanging, or adjacent to, a sacred well, or of depositing them in or about the well. ”

“ The pilgrims who crowd thither at the festival commonly write their names on the walls, with a short prayer to Kapila, or suspend a piece of earth or brick to a bough of the tree, offering at the same time a prayer and a promise, if the prayer be granted, to make a gift to some divinity. [17] Elsewhere in India, as well as in Arabia and Persia, strips of cloth are suspended from shrubs and trees, which, for some reason or other, are venerated; and, in Persia at all events, not only are rags, amulets, and other votive offerings found upon the trees, but the trees are also covered with nails. ”

“ A French traveller in the region of the Congo relates with astonishment concerning the n'doké—which he portrays as "fetishes important enough to occupy a special hut, and confided to the care of a sort of priests, who alone are reputed to have the means of making them speak"—that when it is desired to invoke the fetish, one or more pieces of native cloth, and the like, are offered to the fetish, or to the fetish priest; and the worshipper is then admitted to plant a nail in the statue, the priest meanwhile, or the worshipper himself, formulating his prayer or his desires. ”

“ In Asia we have the corresponding customs of writing the name on the walls of a temple, suspending some apparently trivial article upon the boughs of a sacred tree, flinging pellets of chewed paper or stones at sacred images and cairns, and attaching rags, writings, and other things to the temples. On the Congo the practice is that of driving a nail into an idol, in the Breton manner. ”

“ The idol is a god who always appears somewhat stupid; it moves not, it speaks not, and, peradventure, it does not hear very well. It must be made to understand by a sign, and a sign which will be at the same time a memento. In touching the idol, especially in touching the member corresponding to that which suffers, its attention is directed to the prayer. ”

“ The well in question, it is noted, had once been in great repute as "a well to which people resorted for the kindly purpose of bewitching those whom they hated". The Ffynnon Cefn Lleithfan, or Well of the Lleithfan Ridge, on the eastern slope of Mynydd y Rhiw, in the parish of Bryncroes, in the west of Carnarvonshire, is a resort for the cure of warts. The sacred character of the well may be inferred from the silence in which it is necessary to go and come, and from the prohibition to turn or look back. The wart is to be bathed at the well with a rag or clout, which has grease on it. ”

“ It may be worth while to ask whether the offerings of the worshippers' own blood, as practised by the peoples of Central America, had not for their object not so much the gratification of the gods as the union of the worshippers with the deity. ”

“ It was a very ancient custom to bury in the pines, and even in the cross, pins or nails, in order to obtain the cure of persons attacked by fevers of various kinds. The pins and nails thus employed must have been previously in contact with the patient or his clothes. If anyone took out one of these pins or nails from the pines or the cross, and carried it home, it was believed that the disease would certainly have been communicated to some member of his family. ”

“ Wherefore men everywhere burn, or hide, the combings or the cuttings of their hair, the shavings of their nails, the teeth extracted from their heads. Failing these things, however, the earth from their footprints, the remnants of their food, any articles of clothing they have once worn, or indeed any other portions of their property, are obnoxious to the same danger. ”

“ Equality of reasoning applies to the name, which is looked upon as a part of its owner, and, being conferred on an effigy, identifies the effigy with the real owner of the name I will not waste time in illustrating either the practices or the hypothesis. ”

“ The rag is not put in the water at all, but is only put on the tree for luck. It is a stunted but very old tree, and is simply covered with rags." In another case, that of Ffynnon Eilian (Elian's Well) , near Abergele in Denbighshire, of which Professor Rhys was informed by Mrs. Evans, the late wife of Canon Silvan Evans, some bushes near the well had once been covered with bits of rag left by those who frequented it. The rags used to be tied to the bushes by means of wool—not woollen yarn, but wool in its natural state. Corks with pins stuck in them were floating in the well when Mrs. ”

“ I take them from Professor Rhys' paper, read before a joint meeting of the Cymmrodorion and Folk-lore Societies, on the 11th January 1893. He quotes a correspondent as saying of Ffynnon Cae Moch, about halfway between Coychurch and Bridgend in Glamorganshire: "People suffering from rheumatism go there. They bathe the part affected with water, and afterwards tie a piece of rag to the tree which overhangs the well. ”