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Thither
the Breton peasants used to resort when they needed rain. They
caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab near
the spring. On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the
Black Lake, lying "in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and
dangerous rocks." A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake,
and if any one steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet the
farthest stone, which is called the Red Altar, "it is but a chance
that you do not get rain before night, even when it is hot weather."
In these cases it appears probable that, as in Samoa, the stone is
regarded as more or less divine. This appears from the custom
sometimes observed of dipping a cross in the Fountain of Barenton to
procure rain, for this is plainly a Christian substitute for the old
pagan way of throwing water on the stone. At various places in
France it is, or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the
image of a saint in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside
the old priory of Commagny, there is a spring of St.


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