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Standing by the side of Peg's Well in the grounds of Waddow 

 Hall is a headless stone figure supposed to represent Peg. It is 

 said this figure was formerly in Waddow Hall, but tliat the 

 servants at last refused to have it any longer in the house, so it 

 was placed at the wall side where some mischievous person 

 knocked off its head. The writer sometime since examined it, 

 and came to the conclusion that it had probably at one time 

 occupied a niche either in Sawley or Whalley Abbey. This 

 seems to explain why the figure got associated with the legend. 

 At the time of the Reformation, while the people of the towns 

 mostly favoured the reformed religion, a great majority of country 

 people, especially in the North of England, clung to the old faith. 

 When therefore great abbeys like Sawley and Whalley were 

 secularized, the statues of saints and martyrs destroyed or put 

 to profane uses, many of those who lived in the locality, and who 

 were still Cathohc in their hearts, looked upon it as sacrilege. 

 They would thus be likely to associate any mischief, that hap- 

 pened in a neighbourhood to which one of these images had been 

 removed, with the idea of retribution for the indignities which it 

 had suffered. The root idea of the legend — that rivers and fords 

 are haunted by beings, who drown travellers and are to be 

 appeased by sacrifice — is of great antiquity, and pervades the 

 Teutonic and Scandinavian legends. 



A Devonshire rhyme tells us that 



" The river Dart, the river Dart, 

 Every year demands a heart," 



and in heathen times it was a common practice to make an 

 annual saciifice to rivers. 



Grimm says " although Christianity forbade these sacrifices 

 and represented the old water spirits as demons, the people 

 retained a certain respect and regard for them, and have not by 

 any means yet given up their old faith in them and their power. 

 To-day when any one is drowned they say " The river spirit 

 expects his annual victim but prefers an innocent child." 



In Norway every torrent has its Strom-grimm, and every 

 waterfall its fosse-grimm. Lancashire children are still often 

 warned not to venture too near water for fear of Jenny Green- 

 teeth dragging them in. 



In early times man did not understand Nature as we do to-day. 

 He realized that his own acts were the result of a conscious will, 

 and reasoning from this he attributed all natural phenomena to 

 a similar origin. Thus the different aspects and forces of nature 

 became personified, so that when anyone was drowned in cross- 

 ing a stream, instead of saying it was an accident, primitive man 

 tenanted the ford with a kelpie or a grimm who took a pleasure 

 in drowning people. As this being was feared, the natural result 

 was that sacrifices were offered to it to ward off its ill will. 



