folk-lore, all point to such a connection. As among all pagan Teutonic tribes, water-worship existed among the Eastmen, and still survives in these Baltic countries. In Livonia there is a holy rivulet whose source is in a sacred grove, within whose bounds no one dares to cut a tree.[1] Traces of water-worship also survive among the Lechs.[2] The heathen reverence for wells and fountains was one of the most persistent of Anglo-Saxon superstitions. As it could not be abolished, it was modified by the dedication of wells to Christian saints, and the existence of holy wells in all parts of England at the present time is evidence of the ancient reverence for them. The most remarkable custom, however, which the ancient Livonians had in common with the Scandinavians and Germans was a kind of pagan infant baptism, by which water was poured on the head of a new-born child and a name was at the same time given him.[3]
Some other remarkable customs which the Old English had in common with Fins and Esthonians were those connected with midsummer. It is scarcely possible for us to realize the full extent to which customs connected with the summer solstice prevailed among our tribal forefathers. Their vitality caused them to survive in England for more than a thousand years. The midsummer fires were lighted in many parts of our country, as they were in numerous districts in Northern Europe. The customs connected with the solstice must have been most strongly adhered to, if they had not indeed originated, in Northern lands. In the North of Britain, as in Finland, Esthonia, and the greater part of Sweden and Norway, the evening gloam of midsummer passes into the morning dawn and there is no real night.
It is from the Fins and Esthonians that we derive one of the most interesting of midsummer legends:
‘Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and Ammarik, and he gave them a torch which Koit should light every
