has escaped both my memory and note-book. It has been attempted to explain the name as meaning the Hill of the Watch by Day, in reference to the old institution of Watch and Ward on conspicuous places in the island; but that explanation is inadmissible as doing violence to the phonetics of the words in question.[1] I am rather inclined to think that the name everywhere refers to an eminence to which the surrounding inhabitants resorted for a religious purpose on a particular day in the year. I should suggest that it was to do homage to the Sun on May morning, but this conjecture is offered only to await a better explanation.
The next great day in the pagan calendar of the Celts is called in Manx Laa Lhunys, in Irish Lugnassad, which was associated with the name of the god Lug. This should correspond to Lammas, but, reckoned as it is, according to the Old Style, it falls on the twelfth of August, which used to be a great day for business fairs in the Isle of Man as in Wales. But for holiday-making the twelfth only suited when it happened to be a Sunday; when that was not the case, the first Sunday after the twelfth was fixed upon. It is known, accordingly, as the First Sunday of Harvest, and it used to be celebrated by crowds of people visiting the tops of the mountains. The kind of interference to which I have alluded with regard to an ancient holiday, is one of the regular results of the transition from Roman Catholicism to a Protestant system
- ↑ Cronk yn Irree Laa is the name as it is used by all Manxmen whose pronunciation has not been tampered with by antiquarians. To convey the other meaning, referring to the day watch, the name would have to be Cronk ny Harrey Laa; in fact, a part of the Howe in the south of the Island is called Cronk ny Harrey, "the Hill of the Watch". Mr. Moore tells me that the Jurby Cronk was one of the eminences for "Watch and Ward"; but he is now of opinion that the high mountain of Cronk yn Irree Laa in the South was not. As to the duty of the inhabitants to keep "Watch and Ward" over the island, see the passage concerning it extracted from the Manx Statutes (vol. i, p. 65), by Mr. Moore in his Manx Surnames, pp. 182-83; also my preface to the same work, pp. v-viii.
