The Little Manx Nation - 1891

You see what I send you--my lectures at the Royal Institution in the Spring. In making a little book of them I have thought it best to leave them as they were delivered, with all the colloquialisms that are natural to spoken words frankly exposed to cold print. This does not help them to any particular distinction as literature, but perhaps it lends them an ease and familiarity which may partly atone to you and to all good souls for their plentiful lack of dignity. I have said so often that I am not an historian, that I ought to add that whatever history lies hidden here belongs to Train, our only accredited chronicler, and, even at the risk of bowing too low, I must needs protest, in our north-country homespun, that he shall have the pudding if he will also take the pudding-bag. You know what I mean. At some points our history--especially our early history--is still so vague, so dubious, so full of mystery. It is all the fault of little Mannanan, our ancient Manx magician, who enshrouded our island in mist. Or should I say it is to his credit, for has he not left us through all time some shadowy figures to fight about, like "rael, thrue, reg'lar" Manxmen. As for the stories, the "yarns" that lie like flies--like blue-bottles, like bees, I trust not like wasps--in the amber of the history, you will see that they are mainly my own. On second thought it occurs to me that maybe they are mainly yours. Let us say that they are both yours and mine, or perhaps, if the world finds anything good in them, any humour, any pathos, any racy touches of our rugged people, you will permit me to determine their ownership in the way of this paraphrase of Coleridge's doggerel version of the two Latin hexameters--

"They're mine and they are likewise yours, But an if that will not do, Let them be mine, good friend! for I Am the poorer of the two."

Hawthorns, Keswick, June 1891.

CONTENTS

THE STORY OF THE MANX KINGS

Islanders--Our Island--The Name of our Island--Our History--King Orry--The Tynwald--The Lost Saga--The Manx Macbeth--The Manx Glo'ster--Scotch and English Dominion--The Stanley Dynasty--Iliam Dhoan--The Athol Dynasty--Smuggling and Wrecking--The Revestment--Home Rule--Orry's Sons

THE STORY OF THE MANX BISHOPS

The Druids--Conversion to Christianity--The Early Bishops of Man--Bishops of the Welsh Dynasty--Bishops of the Norse Dynasty--Sodor and Man--The Early Bishops of the House of Stanley--Tithes in Kind--The Gambling Bishop--The Deemsters--The Bishopric Vacant--Bishop Wilson--Bishop Wilson's Censures--The Great Corn Famine--The Bishop at Court--Stories of Bishop Wilson--Quarrels of Church and State--Some Old Ordeals--The Herring Fishery--The Fishermen's Service--Some Old Laws--Katherine Kinrade--Bishop Wilson's last Days--The Athol Bishops.

THE STORY OF THE MANX PEOPLE

The Manx Language--Manx Names--Manx imagination--Manx Proverbs--Manx Ballads--Manx Carols--Decay of the Manx Language--Manx Superstitions--Manx Stories--Manx "Characters"--Manx Characteristics--Manx Types--Literary Associations--Manx Progress--Conclusion

THE LITTLE MANX NATION

THE STORY OF THE MANX KINGS