GHOST WORSHIP AND TREE WORSHIP. 493 



not altogether unknown perhaps even at the present day, of each 

 maiden's pouring from her cumanbleoghain, or milking pail, 

 evening and morning, on the fairy knowe, a little of the new- 

 drawn milk from the cow, by way of propitiating the favor of 

 the good people, and as a tribute the wisest, it was deemed, and 

 most acceptable that could be rendered, and sooner or later sure 

 to be repaid a thousandfold. The consequence was that these 

 fairy knolls were clothed with a richer and more beautiful verd- 

 ure than any other spot, howe or knowe, in the country, and the 

 lacteal riches imbibed by the soil through this custom is even now 

 visible in the vivid emerald green of a shian or fairy knoll when- 

 ever it is pointed out to you. This custom of pouring lacteal 

 libations to the fairies on a particular spot deemed sacred to them, 

 was known and practiced at some of the summer shielings in 

 Lochaber within the memory of the people now living." * 



Fully to appreciate the importance of this evidence we must 

 remember that in almost every case, all over Britain, the " fairy 

 knowe " is a chambered barrow, and that the fairies who emerge 

 from it are the last fading relics in popular memory of the ghosts 

 of stone age chiefs and chieftainesses. This idea, which I long 

 ago put forward in an article in the Cornhill Magazine, entitled 

 Who are the Fairies ? has been proved to demonstration by Mr. 

 Joseph Jacobs in the notes on the story of Childe Roland in his 

 valuable collection of English Fairy Tales. 



There is yet another way, however, in which the idea of spe- 

 cial fertility must become necessarily connected in the savage 

 mind with the graves of his ancestors. For we must remember 

 that early worship almost invariably takes the form of offerings 

 in kind at the tombs of dead chiefs or other revered persons. On 

 this subject the Rev. Duff Macdonald, of Blantyre, in Central 

 Africa (one of the ablest and most unprejudiced of missionary ob- 

 servers), says very significantly : " The ordinary offerings to the 

 gods were just the ordinary food of the people. f The spirit of 

 the deceased man is called Mulungu, and all the prayers and 

 offerings of the living are presented to such spirits of the dead. 

 It is here that we find the great center of native religion. The 

 spirits of the dead are the gods of the living. It is the great tree 

 at the veranda of the dead man's house that is their temple, and 

 if no tree grow here they erect a little shade, and there perform 

 their simple rites. If this spot become too public the offerings 

 may be defiled, and the sanctuary will be removed to some care- 

 fully selected spot under some beautiful tree." In this we get 

 some first hint of the origin of tree worship. 



* Rev. A. Stewart. Nether Lochaber, pp. 20, 21. 

 \ Africana, vol. i, p. 89. 



