[From A Manx Scrapbook]

CHAPTER IV

THE PARISH OF JURBY.

Jurby has given greatly to the sea, and her coast, with that of Ballaugh, is pared to a regularity stricter even than that of their landward boundaries. On the green swell of her slight and only eminence, once an islet, bulks her ponderous church, chief landmark of the flat North but no longer a nucleus of population. Hill, church, and well now obliterated, all bear the name of St. Patrick.

Keeill Coonlagh, or Cuthlan as occasionally pronounced (referred to in a note on Chibber y Varkish, page 70), is "said to have been at one time the Parish Church of Jurby." — (O.S. Name Books.) This at least shows that it was traditionally believed to have been of more importance than the other keeills in the parish, a belief which may have arisen from its having been in use as a place of worship down to a later period.

Old Dad, " a large boulder of conglomerate sandstone, situated between high and low water marks near Jurby Head. About eight feet high, its shape somewhat resembles the figure of a man." — (O.S. Name Books.)

Ballasalla, " Foul Farm " in some sense which is not now quite plain, but probably" muddy." The Ordnance Survey Books say that the name was applied to five small farms in Jurby.

Lag ny Vakillya (thus pronounced) is the name given to a long ridge of submerged rock running out Westward from the Jurby coast. It is purely a fishermen's and seafarers' name, and probably signifies " Hollow of the Church-field " — Lag ny Vagher-killey, from a landmark giving the situation of the reef. Did this ridge give birth to the tradition that the mysterious island which was seen from time to time off the Jurby coast was connected with the land by a raised causeway or gangway which appeared and disappeared with the island Whether or not, the vanishing island must be associated with the departure of Manannan Beg by rolling in the shape of Three Legs into the sea at Jurby Point, a legend which belongs also to Spanish Head in the South-West.

Cronk y Scoltey, " Hill of the Cleft " (Cronk y Scottey on Ordnance map) on Ballagharraghan, is now nearly undermined by the action of the sea, a fate which awaits the remainder of the tumuli surviving along the edge of the North-West coast.