64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



Down to the Revolution there stood at Brest a chapel 

 of Saint Guignolet containing a priapian statue of the 

 holy man. Women who were or feared to be sterile 

 used to go and scrape a little of the prominent 

 member which they put into a glass of water from the 

 well and drank. The same practice was followed at the 

 chapel of Saint Pierre-d-broquettes in Brabant until 

 1837, when the archaeologist Schayes called attention to 

 it, and thereupon the ecclesiastical authorities removed 

 the object of scandal. Women have however still con- 

 tinued to make votive offerings of pins down almost, 

 if not quite, to the present day. At Antwerp stood 

 at the gateway to the church of Saint Walburga in the 

 Rue des Pecheurs a statue, the sexual organ of which 

 had been entirely scraped away by women for the same 

 purpose. 1 



The drinking of water under certain conditions has 

 been held to be productive of children. In the first 

 instance I am about to mention however reliance is not 

 placed wholly on the draught. Beside the Groesbeeck 

 spring at Spa in the Ardennes is a foot-print of Saint 

 Remacle. Barren women pay a nine days' devotional 

 visit to the shrine of the saint at Spa and drink every 

 morning a glass of the Groesbeeck water. While 

 drinking, one foot must be placed in the holy foot-print. 2 

 Maidens 1n more than one of the tales of supernatural 

 birth have proved the efficacy of divine foot-prints. In 

 other cases it is unmistakably the draught which has the 

 virtue. A glass of water from the well of Saint Roger 



1 Sebillot, Amer. Anthrop. iv. 92 ; Id. F. L. France iv. 172; 

 Dulaure, 204 sqq., where further details are given ; Berenger- 

 Feraud, Supers/, ii. 191, 193 ; Ploss, Weib, i. 444 quoting an author 

 r.ot named; d'Alviella, Rev. Hist. Rel. liii. 73. 



2 Wolf, Niederl. Sag. 227 ; Bull, de F. L. ii. 82. 



