The Scotch form of Margaret is Maisie, and from the word _muggy_, meaning a warm, light mist, it would seem that Maisie or Maggy was the divinity of mists and moisture. It was widely supposed that the mists of Mother Earth, commingling with the beams of the Father Sun, were together the source of all juvenescence and life. According to Owen Morgan, "Ked's influence from below was supposed to be exercised by exhalations, the breathings as it were of the Great Mother,"[223] and it is still a British belief that--
Mist in spring is the source of wine, Mist in summer is the source of heat, Mist in autumn is the source of rain, Mist in winter is the source of snow.
Maggie or Maisie being thus probably the Maid of the Mist, or Mistress of the Moisture, and there being no known etymology for _fog_, the unpopular Maggie Figgie who sat in her chair charming the spirits of the ocean, was perhaps the ill-omened Maggie _Foggy_.
It is a world-wide characteristic of the Earth Mother to appear anon as a baleful hag, anon as a lovely maid, and in all probability to "Maid Margaret that was so meeke and milde," may be attributed the adjective _meek_. In London an ass, in Cockney parlance, is a _moke_; Christ was said to ride upon an ass as symbolic of his meekness, and as already noted Christ by the Gnostics was represented as ass-headed. The worship of the Golden Ass persisted in Europe until a comparatively late period; a _jenny_ is a female moke, a jackass is the masculine of Jenny.
At St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall is a Jack the Giant-Killer's Well. The French name Michelet means "little Michael," and that Great Michael was Cain the Wandering One is implied by the tradition that St. Kayne visited St. Michael's Mount, and conferred certain powers upon the stone seat or Kader Mighel situated so dizzily amid the crags. The orthodoxy of this St. Kayne--who appears again at Keynsham--was evidently more than suspect, and according to Norden "this Kayne is said to be a woman-saynte, but it better resembleth _kayne_, the devil who had the shape of a man". At Keynsham St. Kayne is popularly supposed to have turned serpents into stone, and there is no doubt that his or her name was intimately associated with the serpent. The Celtic names Kean and Kenny are translated to mean _vast_, but in Cornish _ken_ meant pity, and _ken_, _cunning_, and _canny_ all imply knowledge and deep wisdom. In Welsh, _cain_ means _sun_ and also _fair_; _candere_, to glow, is, of course, connected with _candescent_, _candid_, and _candour_.