2

This legend does not agree with history.' I am not aware of their having been a Magnus, prince of Man, before Magnus Barefoot, and he did not arrive in Man for a century after the date of the cup. Magnus had four sons, and as many grandsons; but the name of John, or of Ufo, does not appear in the list. It is thus evident that he is not the Magnus referred to on the cup; and Magnus II did not ascend the throne of Man till 1252. I am more inclined to believe that the history of the Isles is defective, than that the cup is not what the legend imports it to be. But as this is merely a matter of opinion, I must leave it to some future antiquary to decide upon a more certain basis.

I found another puzzle in a document of considerable antiquity, descriptive of the historical transactions of the ancient inhabitants of Man-a metrical account of the Island, written in Manks, from the earliest period to the landing of Thomas, Earl of Derby in the Island, which the author appears to have witnessed.3 This was in striving to ascertain the true meaning of the words "Quinney and Quayle," which occur in the first line of the twenty-fifth verse of that document. According to

This very curious piece of antiquity is nine inches inside depth, and ten and a half inches outside, the extreme measure over the lips being four inches and a half. It is made of wood, most curiously wrought and embossed with silver work which projects from the vessel. The family tradition bears that it was the property of Neil Ghlune-dhu or Blacknee. But who this Neil was no one pretends to say.-Sir Walter Scott's Lord of the Isles, note to canto ii. It is rather singular that neither Sir Walter Scott nor the possessor of the ancient cup, Mac. Leod, of Mac. Leod, the chief of an ancient and powerful clan, should not have been aware that Neil Ghlunedbh was king of Ireland, and was slain near Dublin fighting against the Danes. See Ware's Antiquities of Ireland, Dublin, edition 1705, p. 61; and O'Donovan's Translation of the Annals of the Four Masters.

* Anderson's Royal Genealogies, London, 1736, folio, table 590.

1 Literal Translation of the Metrical History of the Isle of Man-see appendix to chapter ii, note i, p. 50.

the Rev. J. E. Harrison, vicar of Jurby, one of the best Manks scholars of the age, but whose opinion I have only learnt since this article was in type, these words have not been translated by Mr. Curphey; otherwise, that line should have been rendered :

"Then came the House of Keys and then came courts."

Quinney being an old Manks name for the House of Keys, and Quayle for courts.

This little work remained upwards of three centuries in manuscript; and it was not until after it fell into my possession that it was translated into English on my account, by Mr. Thomas Curphey, of Kirk Braddan. It contains information, so far as I am aware, not to be found elsewhere.

I caused, also, about three hundred proverbs to be translated from the Manks language into English, expecting to discover some specimens of ancient aphoristic wisdom relating either to historical incident, local customs, or sententious maxims; but the Islanders seem to have no indigenous aphorisms or apothegms that are not also the common property of other countries.

In imitation of the practice of the Druids, the laws of the Island were locked up in the breasts of the Deemsters, until, by command of Sir John Stanley, they were promulgated on the Tynwald Hill in 1417, after which they continued to be committed to writing. About the end of the seventeenth century, the statute laws and ancient ordinances of the Island were transcribed from the liber placitorum, liber scaccarii, liber cancellarius, book of customary law, and other original records preserved in the Castle of Rushen, and from the episcopal registers of the diocese, in the possession of the archbishop of York, by

John Parr, one of the deemsters of the Island, from 1695 to 1712, alphabetically arranged for his private convenience as a judge. This manuscript volume in folio, was presented in the year 1745, by a Mr. William Curphey to Matthias Christian, Esq., member of the House of Keys, and subsequently became the property of Mr. Alexander M'Clure, who was comptroller at Peel, from 1811 to 1814. Mr. M'Clure was a native of Galloway, and after his death the Parr manuscript fell into the hands of David Niven, Esq., one of the magistrates of the burgh of Kirkcudbright, from whom I received this invaluable record in the year 1830.

That the manners and customs of the people of the Isle of Man were different from all others in Europe, is manifested in the peculiarities of their ancient laws,' is abundantly evident from this singular volume.

A small abridgement of the insular laws was for the first time printed in the year 1792, and in 1797 "an attempt was made to publish the statutes at large, but this work was found to be so imperfect and mutilated" that in 1819 what was supposed to be a complete edition of the Lex Scripta of the Island was published at Douglas, by the authority and under the patronage of the Governor, Council, and House of Keys. In collating this, however, with the transcript of the ancient laws, made by Deemster Parr, I find the authorised edition very defective, many of the old statutes being wholly omitted and others given only in a mutilated form. Where I have found such to be the case, I have, in the course of the following sheets, frequently quoted from or referred to the manuscript

Waldron's Description of the Isle of Man, London, 1731, p. 160.

* See the dedication of Mr. Jefferson, the editor and publisher of the Lex Scripta of the Isle of Man, to John, Duke of Atholl, p. 3, Douglas, edition 1819.

volume of Deemster Parr. Without this explanation, it might have been asked why I quoted from a manuscript in preference to a printed copy of the laws, or how I had obtained access to ancient records that have hitherto been out of the reach of every other author? An improved edition of the Manks laws, entitled the Ancient Ordinances and Statute Laws of the Isle of Man, was published by Mr. M. A. Mills, in 1821.

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Under the influence of circumstances arising out of the secluded situation and political relations of the Isle of Man, many peculiar enactments became necessary for the governance of the people, though the ancient fabric of Customary Law" has been modernised considerably since the revestment of the Island in the crown of Great Britain, it yet retains marks of having been originally founded under the strictest influence of feudal principles.' From these ancient laws many extracts may be found in the following pages, generally in the words and orthography of the statute, or if abbreviated, only to omit such redundancies as tended either to retard or cloud the signification. The same occurs generally with quotations from old authors.

The secluded situation of the Isle of Man has also led to the continuance of ancient customs and of superstitious

In the spring of 1842, the fodder jury of the parish of Onchan sold part of a farmer's stock, he having, as they supposed, more cattle than he had means to support. See vol. ii, p. 242.

2 On the 5th June, 1818, the execution of Robert Kewley, for sheep stealing, was to take place at Hango hill, at twelve o'clock, noon; but an hour before that time, the captain of each of the seventeen parishes of the Island, accompanied respectively by four mounted javelin men, well accoutred and dressed in their uniform of blue and red, assembled on the parade at Castletown, and thence rode to the place of execution, where they formed a large circle round the gallows to keep off the crowd. When the prisoner, preceeded by the constituted authorities, and guarded by the military, arrived, the javelin men nearest the town fell back to right and left, and permitted the melancholy procession to enter the circle.-Isle of Man Weekly Gazette of 11th

observances' that have ceased to be attended to in other countries, where similar notions of supernatural agency once prevailed.

It is vain to look for the manners and customs of a people in the halls of the great or in the schools of the learned, the existing state of society is generally to be found most accurately pourtrayed in what is termed the middle walks of life; but he who wishes to witness the olden usages of the natives of Mona, will rarely find them in the towns and villages along the coast. He must look for them in the uplands and there he will not be disappointed. He who is prone to treat with levity all stories in which supernatural agency is employed and to look to real operative causes only for the explanation of events, may justly wonder how rational beings can be actuated by such absurd fancies as he will find collected in the eighteenth chapter of this work. But the customs of a people cannot be studied without acquiring some useful knowledge of mankind; even wisdom may be extracted from the follies and superstitions of our fathers :

"All nations have their omens drear,

Their legends wild of woe and fear." 3

In a work purporting to be a general history of the

June, 1818. A body of mounted javelin men on duty in the nineteenth century, was certainly a novel spectacle. These parochial horsemen formed the body-guard of the sovereign prince and lord of Man, from the earliest times to the last progress of the duke of Atholl to the Tynwald Hill.-See vol. ii of this Work, p. 191. By a communication received in answer to a letter soliciting information on this subject from Mr. Robert Fargher, of Douglas, whose grandfather was captain of the parish of Maughold, it appears that to attend the execution of Kewley was the last time the javelin men were called upon to act in a public capacity. For a singular circumstance attending the execution of Kewley, see vol. ii, p. 216.

'A trial for witchcraft took place in the parish of Marown, in January, 1844.— See vol ii, pp. 168, 169, 170.

Brand's General Preface to Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares, p. ix.

3 Marmion, introduction to canto vi.

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