Among the ancient Romans the bull was sacred to Neptune, the sea god, and was sacrificed in his honour. In our own country we find a suggestion of the same rite, though in a modified form, in the custom prevailing at one time of leading animals into the sea on certain festivals. In the parish of Clonmany in Ireland it was formerly customary on St. Columba's Day, the ninth of June, to drive cattle to the beach and swim them in the sea near to where the water from the Saint's well flowed in. In Scotland horses seem at one time to have undergone a similar treatment at Lammas-tide. Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions of Scotland," mentions that "in July, 1647, the kirk-session of St. Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh, resolved on intimating publicly 'that non goe to Leith on Lambmes-day, nor tak their horses to be washed that day in the sea.'" A belief at one time existed that it was unlucky to rescue a drowning man from the grasp of the sea. This superstition is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in "The Pirate," in the scene where Bryce the pedlar warns Mordaunt against saving a shipwrecked sailor. "Are you mad," said the pedlar, "you that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?" We discover the key to this strange superstition in the idea entertained by savages that the person falling into the water becomes the prey of the monster or demon inhabiting that element; and, as Dr. Tylor aptly remarks, "to save a sinking man is to snatch a victim from the very clutches of the water-spirit--a rash defiance of deity which would hardly pass unavenged." Folklore thus brings us face to face with beliefs which owe their origin to the primitive worship of the sea. It also allows us to catch a glimpse of rivers, lakes, and springs as these were regarded by our distant ancestors. When we remember that, according to a barbaric notion, the current of a stream flows down along one bank and up along the other, we need not be surprised that very crude fancies concerning water at one time flourished in our land.