rs
ago that he witnessed the departure of all the Manx fairies from the Bay
of Douglas. They went away in empty rum puncheons, and scudded before
the wind as far as the eye could reach, in the direction of Jamaica. So
we have done with them, both good and bad.

However, among the witches whom we have left to us in remote corners of
the island is the very harmless one called the Queen of the Mheillia.
Her rural Majesty is a sort of first cousin of the Queen of the May. The
Mheillia is the harvest-home. It is a picturesque ceremonial, observed
differently in different parts. Women and girls follow the reapers
to gather and bind the corn after it has fallen to the swish of the
sickles. A handful of the standing corn of the last of the farmer's
fields is tied about with ribbon. Nobody but the farmer knows where that
handful is, and the girl who comes upon it by chance is made the Queen
of the Mheillia. She takes it to the highest eminence near, and waves
it, and her fellow-reapers and gleaners shout huzzas. Their voices are
heard through the valley, where other farmers and other reapers
and gleaners stop in their work and say, "So-and-so's Mheillia!"
"Ballamona's Mheillia's took!" That night the farmer gives a feast in
his barn to celebrate the getting in of his harvest, and the close of
the work of the women at the harvesting. Sheep's heads for a change on
Manx herrings, English ale for a change on Manx jough; then dancing led
by the mistress, to the tune of a fiddle, played faster and wilder
as the night advances, reel and jig, jig and reel. This pretty rural
festival is still observed, though it has lost much of its quaintness. I
think I can just remember to have heard the shouts of the Mheillia from
the breasts of the mountains.

You will have gathered that in no part of the world could you find
a more reckless and ill-conditioned breeding-ground of suppositions,
legends, traditions, and superstitions than in the Isle of Man. The
custom of hunting the wren is widely spread throughout Ireland; and if
I were to tell you of Manx wedding customs, Manx burial customs, Manx
birth customs, May day, Lammas, Good Friday, New Year, and Christmas
customs, you would recognise in the Manxman the same irresponsible
tendency to appropriate whatever flotsam drifts to his shore. What I
have told you has come mainly of my own observation, but for a complete
picture of Manx manners and customs, beliefs and superstitions, I will
refer yo