RELIGION, SUPERSTITION, ETC. 63 



" [Dee's divinity was Druidical. From the same super- 

 stition, some rivers in Wales are still held to have the 

 gift or virtue of prophecy. Giraldus Cambrensis, who 

 wrote in 1188, is the first who mentions Dee's sanctity 

 from the popular traditions. In Spenser, this river is the 

 haunt of magicians : 



c Dee, which Britons long ygone 

 Did call DIVINE.' 



And Browne, in his Britannia's Pastorals, book ii, sec. 5, 



* Never more let HOLT Dee, 

 Ore other rivers brave,' &c. 



Much superstition was founded on the circumstance of its 

 being the ancient boundary between England and Wales ; 

 and Drayton, in his tenth song, having recited this part 

 of its history, adds, that by changing its fords it foretold 

 good or evil, war or peace, dearth or plenty, to either 

 country. He then introduces the Dee, over which King 

 Edgar had been rowed by eight kings, relating to the 

 story of Brutus. See more on this subject in Warton's 

 note to line 55, in Milton's Lycidas : 



'Now yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.']" 



In the great tempest that destroyed the dykes in 

 Holland, in the year 1430, there was taken at Edam, in 

 West Friezeland, a large fish, supposed of the salmon 

 species, which, not only lived many years on land, but 



