Mooney.] 4J-" [May 3, 



sprinkle the blood according to ancient usage. Afterwards the whole 

 family dine upon the sacrificed victim. In some places it was the custom 

 for the master of the house to draw a cross on the arm of each member of 

 the family, and mark it out in blood."* 



Another legend makes it his own son whom Saint Martin, like Abraham 

 of old, was about to sacrifice out of love to God, because in his great pov- 

 erty he liad nothing else to offer him. Altho he loved the boy more than 

 life, he kild him late one night, and then lay down, intending to complete 

 the sacrifice at daybreak. On opening his eyes in the morning, he was 

 surprised to see a sheep hanging up in front of him, all skind and drest. 

 Full of wonder he went over to his son's bed, and there he found the boy 

 sleeping quietly and in perfect health, with not even a mark to show 

 wliere liis father had driven the knife. The saint gratefully offerd up the 

 sheep as a sacrifice to God in the place of his son, and thus the custom 

 originated in remembrance of the miracle. 



Saint Martin is stated to hav been a miller, and his festival is said to 

 commemorate tlie day on which he was "drawn on the wheel," an ex- 

 pression which seems to liint at martyrdom and the rack, altho there is 

 no authority for believing that he was either a miller or a martyr. In ac- 

 cordance with this tradition, it is lield that no wheel should turn, or any- 

 thing go round, on this day ; no yarn may be spun, no mil may grind 

 and no cart may be driven on the highway. Even a stocking should not 

 be knitted, because in so doing it is necessary to turn it round upon the 

 hand, and tlie boatman wil not put out from shore on tliis day, because in 

 starting it is customary to turn the boat round on tlie water. So strong is 

 this feeling that even in the city of Limerick the large factories sometimes 

 find it difficult to procure a working force on the eleventh of November. 



Saint Stephen's Day, December 26. 



Christmas and New Year may properly be treated together, but Saint 

 Stephen's day, the day after Christmas, deservs a separate notice, as it is 

 one of the greatest of the Irish holidays, being always an occasion of mirth 

 and merriment, in spite of bad crops and political agitation. The peculiar 

 custom of carrying the wren (universally pronounced wran) on this or the 

 preceding day seems to hav been common to the whole Keltic race, being 

 found in Ireland, Man, Wales and France, altho, strangely enough, it is 

 unknown in the extreme north of Ireland. In ancient Rhodes, the swal- 

 low was carried about by bands of children in early spring time, with 

 singing of verses and demands for small gifts, very much in accordance 

 with the modern Irish practice. Various stories ar current in Ireland to 

 account for the cruelty shown the wren on this occasion, the reason com- 

 monly assignd being that the wren once gave the alarm to an army of 

 invaders — according to one account, the followers of William of Orange, 

 but by others said to hav been the Danes — by perching upon a drum head 



* Lady Wilde, ii, 131-2. 



