[From A Manx Scrapbook]

CHAPTER IV

THE PARISH OF SANTON.

Santon has no mountains, a pretty coast-line, and more trees and fewer summer visitors than many of her sisters. A sea-glen and an inland glen, a choked port and a winding gorge, are among her beauties. Her people live by the soil, and " the richest land and the finest horses " are proverbially credited to her. Being the smallest parish but one, and the most thoroughly tamed of any South of the Northern Plain, she offers comparatively little in the way of folk-lore; yet here, as elsewhere, there must still remain some to be collected.

Glen Grenaugh (O.S. map), now locally called " the Grenya," was Grenwyk (treen) in 1510, and the full Norse name Graenvikdal, " Green-inlet-valley," appears in a modified form in the later name of the same treen, Creniele.

The Court lies near the old school-house at Port Greenaugh. The same name occurs in Rushen (twice), Malew and German, without any conclusive evidence of its fitness. (See page 184.)

Cass ny Hawin (O.S. map), " hoot of the Stream," is more commonly known among the country people as " Jackdaw Harbour," from the numerous birds of that clan which build in its ivy-covered cliffs. In them also is the " Jackdaw Cave." The little inlet has the further alias of Purt y Kinnish, from the name ofa former resident in this now deserted spot.

Cashtal Rhunt, " Round Castle," is the Manx name for the earthen " fort " on the Southern headland of Jackdaw Harbour. It is haunted by the diminutive figure of a man.

Dub ny Carraghyn, " Pool of the Pocks," is the picturesque site of the abandoned remnant of a small mill on the Santon river between Arragon Veg and Ballawoods, well away from any road. The little house, burnt down about six years ago in tragic circumstances, is marked " Tuck Mill " on the Ordnance map. According to the Name Books it was at one time a corn-mill. It appears to be the " Wood's Tuck Miln " of the Composition Book, 1703, and the " Mool ny Canicka " of George Borrow's Manx diary in 1855. One of the most striking features of Borrow's walking-tour was his flair for out-of-the-way spots worth knowing. The " Carragher Road " runs down in that direction, and this, with Borrow's mis-heard or mis-transcribed " Canicka," suggests that Carrickey may be the correct form of the word.

Cronk Lheemen (so pronounced), and Cronk Aashen with its rnenhir, lie to the North of Kirk Santon. The former name is the modern version of the treen-name Knokslemyn (1510), later Knockshemegg. With the last name may be compared Cronk Sumark (Knockshemerick) in Lezayre-" Clover Hill." Slemyn, notwithstanding its lengthened first vowel, would appear to be related to the Gaelic root which has produced sleamhain, sleimhne, sliomaim, etc., all containing the radical idea of smoothness, slipperiness. Cronk Aashen is " Gorse Hill."

Cronk Glass, " Green. Hill," is, or rather was, the old name of Mount Murray.

Croga or Crogga Well. To the remarks on thi; well at page 30 may be added the following. Train's Isle of Man, 184?, page 31, gives its name as "the Gout Well." The reason for this appears in a footnote in Elizabeth Cookson's Poems from Manxland, 1868, page 34. " A favourite resort of the fairies. Scone 40 years since the trees about Crogga Well were gay with offerings left for the little people. Money also was often left for them. The latter quickly disappeared. Symson says :- 'A piper once stole the offering of money left at the well, and spent it in ale ; but, as he was quaffing the last drop, he was seized with the gout, which never left him till he refunded the cash to the Spirit of the Well.' " The quatrain to which this note relates runs as follows :

" Then we 'll away to Portel baye
And praye the fairve-elves
To sound the bell at Crogga well,
And take him to themselves."

" Him " was, by the context, Sir Thomas Stanley ; Portel baye is Chapel Bay, Port St. Mary. The allusion to a bell, the connexion between Port St. Mary and Crogga, and the other circumstances of the ballad, may be intelligible to some of its readers, but not to me. At all events, the Stanley was changed into a fairy, and gave instructions for his reclamation in terms which are reminiscent of the well-known story of the enchanted horses in Ballaleece barn, which I had occasion to summarize under the heading of Lhergy Veg, Lonan.

Jenkinson, though a guide-writer, is sometimes worth quoting for his thoroughness and carefulness. On page 75 he says of Crogga Well, " to this spot the natives used to resort to drink the water, and it was the custom to leave a small piece of silver, or such articles as pins and buttons, as a payment to the fairies. There are people still living [1874] who remember the observance of this custom."

Current opinion agrees that it was rather a wishing or divining well than a cure well.