of the year. Cormac[1] says nothing, it will be noticed, as to one of the cattle or the sheep being sacrificed for the sake of prosperity to the rest. However, Scotch[2] May-day customs point to a sacrifice having been once usual, and that possibly of human beings, and not of sheep, as in the Isle of Man. I have elsewhere[3] tried to equate these Celtic Mayday practices with the Thargelia[4] of the Athenians of antiquity. The Thargelia were characterised by peculiar rites, and among other things then done, two adult persons were lead about, as it were scapegoats, and at the end they were sacrified and burnt, so that their ashes might be dispersed. Here we seem to be on the track of a very ancient Aryan practice, although the Celtic date does not quite coincide with the Greek one.
It is probably in some ancient May-day custom that we are to look for the key to a remarkable place-name occurring several times in the island: I allude to that of Cronk yn Irree Laa, which literally means the Hill of the Rise of the Day. This is the name of one of the mountains in the south of the island, but it is also borne by one of the knolls near the eastern end of the range of low hills ending abruptly on the coast between Ramsey and Bride Parish, and quite a small knoll bears the name near the church of Jurby.[5] I have heard of a fourth instance, however
- ↑ See the Stokes O'Donovan edition of Cormac (Calcutta, 1868), pp. 19, 23.
- ↑ Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, xi, 620; Pennant's Tour in Scotland in 1769 (3rd edition, Warrington, 1774, i, 97, 186, 291); Thomas Stephens' Gododin, pp. 124-6; and Dr. Murray in the New English Dictionary, s. v. Beltane.
- ↑ In my [[Hibbert Lectures]] on Celtic Heathendom, pp. 517-21.
- ↑ As to the Thargelia and Delia, see Preller's Griechische Mythologie, i, 209-10, and A. Mommsen's Heortologie, pp. 414-25.
- ↑ It is my impression that it is crowned with a small tumulus, and that it forms the highest ground in Jurby, which was once an island by itself. The one between Ramsey and Bride is also probably the highest point of the range. But these are questions which I should like to see further examined, say in the pages of the Manx Journal, edited by Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, the Lioar Manninagh.
