Chapter V · MODERN CHIPS OF THE OLD BLOCKS. (continued 3)

Doubtless the worship of the goddess Neith was the origin of the reverence paid to all wells and fountains, and of the custom of leaving offerings of more or less value, to propitiate the spirit of the well. Both Edgar and Canute issued prohibitory statutes touching this matter; and Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, shows that woods, waters, birds, and beasts, were still commonly worshipped. Pope Gregory III. in 740, prohibited the Germans from offering sacrifices and consulting auguries beside the fountains in sacred groves. And so late as A.D. 1102, St. Anselm issued commands in London, forbidding well-worship. In Ireland the difficulty was solved by dedicating the wells to saints, whose votaries still deposit a rag or a pin, to represent the more precious offerings of olden days. But it is strange indeed to find the very same custom still lingering 259in this land of sturdy common sense, and to find that divers wells and lochs are still supposed to have miraculous powers of healing. For instance there is a loch in Strath Naver in Sutherland, to which people constantly resort for all manner of cures. They must walk backwards into the water, take their dip, and leave a small coin as an offering. Then without looking round they must walk straight back to the land, and so, right away from the loch.

On the island of Inch-Maree, in Loch Maree in Ross-shire, there is a well where the people still hang “clouts,” and leave small coins, and which till very recently, had the property of curing madness, at such times as the waters were full. Should they be low, it was a sign that the spirit of the well was unpropitious, and the waters had no such power. Close by the well, and surrounded by a low copse of oak and birch wood, there is a very old burial-place surrounded by a circular wall, which Pennant believed to have been originally a Druid temple. The stump of a very old tree was pointed out to him, as the place of the altar, and here lunatics were made to kneel, and make their offerings; thence passing to the well, they drank its sacred waters, and made a second offering, after which they bathed, thrice in the lake. This ceremony was repeated daily for several weeks, by which time, the feverish madness was often pretty well cured; and so firmly did the people believe in the power of St. Maree (Malruba), that his name was the most solemn oath by which they swore. All went well, till one evil day, when alas! a mad dog was thrown into the well. The dog was cured, but the angry spirit of the well departed for ever. The man whose presumption wrought this mischief himself went mad; but he tested the waters in vain; their virtue had gone from them, never to return, nor have they ever again risen to their former level. Whether this miracle had any connection with certain deep drainage cuttings made at that time, I leave sceptics to determine.

In like manner in a churchyard on Loch Torridon is a well where for centuries three stones have been perpetually whirling round and round. All manner of illnesses have been cured by carrying one of these stones in a bucket of water to the patient, who touched the stone, after which it was carried back to its usual place, and began whirling as usual. But one day, a 260foolish woman carried home one of them in her bucket to heal a sick goat, and when it was put back, it would no longer whirl, but sank to the bottom of the well, where it has lain quietly ever since.

All these well-stories seem to prove the spirits terribly prone to take offence. One of the springs held in especial reverence was the Tonbir Knabir in Islay, literally the locomotive well, so called because it was originally in Isle Colonsay; but one day a rash woman was guilty of washing her hands in it, whereupon it instantly dried up, and transported its waters to Islay, where it was henceforth honoured with Deisul processions, and small offerings were made to its tutelary spirit. St. Catherine’s well and chapel in the Isle of Eigg were also treated with much reverence. So was that at Sleat in the Isle of Skye. At Broadford there is a well in the churchyard, near to which used to hang a bell, that rang supernaturally about once a week. No human bell-ringer had any hand in producing the wild chimes that rang out so loud and clear that they could be heard for miles, giving warning to all the sick folk to come to the healing waters and be made whole. But a new power at last interfered (minister or steward) and the bell was removed, since which time the virtue of the well is gone, and the people are left to the tender mercies of a human leech. One loch in Ross-shire is still said to cure deafness, and the neighbours told me of one man who had undoubtedly recovered his hearing by judicious adherence to the letter of the law; thrice he had walked backwards into the water and thrice returned to land without looking round. Their admiration of the cure was somewhat damped by the fact of the man’s death within a year. The well at Craig-Howe in Ross-shire also cures deafness, and receives large stores of clouts, pins, and coins.

In the parish of Avock, in the Black Isles (facing Inverness), is a well called Craigie Well, probably from the dark crag rising behind it. On the first Sunday in May (old style) all the people from far and near gather here at daybreak—a regular hearty Highland gathering—as merry as a fair, all exchanging kindly greetings and good wishes for the health of the coming year, in good broad Scotch, in Gaelic, or in such pure English as we rarely hear from the poor in any part of Britain, save here, where it is an acquired tongue. The health, of course, is to be secured by a draught of the lucky well. But they must get their drink 261before the sun rises. Once he climbs the horizon the spell is broken, so as the last moments draw near the eager pressing forward for a taste amounts to a downright scramble.

A stranger, whose curiosity induced him to go forth betimes and witness this curious scene, tells how “some drank out of dishes, some stooped on their knees to drink, the latter being occasionally plunged over head and ears by their companions.” As the first rays of the sun appeared a man was seen coming down the brae in great haste. He was recognised as “Jock Forsyth,” a very honest and pious, but eccentric individual. Scores of voices shouted, “You are too late, Jock. The sun is rising. Surely you have slept in this morning.” The new-comer, a middle-aged man, perspiring profusely, and out of breath, nevertheless pressed through the crowd and never stopped till he reached the well. Then, muttering a few inaudible words, he stooped on his knees and took a large draught. Then he rose and said, “O Lord, Thou knowest that weel would it be for me this day, an’ I had stoopit my knees and my heart before Thee in spirit and in truth, as often as I have stoopit them afore this well. But we maun keep the customs of our fathers.” So he stepped aside among the rest and dedicated his offering to the briar bush, which by this time could hardly be seen through the number of shreds which covered it. For part of the ceremony is that each comer must hang a shred of cloth on a large briar bush, which grows close by the well, as an offering to the healing and luck-conferring waters, forcibly reminding the beholder of those holy wells and bushes in the Emerald Isle, where many-coloured rags flutter in the breeze; poor Paddy’s votive offerings to the blessed St. Somebody on behalf of sick parent or child. Reminding us also of the tombs of the Mohammedan saints, near Constantinople, where every pilgrim ties to the window bars a shred torn from his or her own raiment. The same custom is religiously observed by the Mohammedan pilgrims visiting the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem; beneath the great dome of which lies that huge rock whence Mohammed ascended to heaven, supposed to be the identical rock whereon Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac. This rock is surrounded by a great iron railing, adorned with thousands of rags, tied up by the pilgrims as reminders to the Prophet. Indeed, strips of old cloth seem to be a recognised medium of communication with 262the spirit-world in all corners of the globe, for in our eastern wanderings we found many a gaily decorated shrub in the lonely Himalayan glens and passes, which, in the distance, seemed to be loaded with blossoms, but which on closer approach proved to be laden with bright morsels of rag, the simple offerings of the Hill-men to the spirit of some tree or well. In Ceylon also, where we spent a lovely moonlight night on the summit of Adam’s Peak, the “Holy Mount” of Buddhists, Sivaites, and Mohammedans, we noted the multitude of rags tied to the iron chains which prevent the roof of the temple covering the holy footprint from being blown away. The poor pilgrims believe that a shred of their raiment, thus offered, will surely prevent Buddha from forgetting them and their vows. On these superstitious customs in far-away lands we look with calm indifference. But to find the very same practice still lingering among our sturdy Ross-shire Highlanders is certainly somewhat startling.

Similar customs are still kept up at St Mary’s Well, in the birch wood above the house of Culloden, two miles from Inverness, where on this same morning (first Sunday in May, old style), several hundred people assemble from far and near, to wish for their heart’s desire, drink solemnly, and hang up a rag on the bushes before sunrise as being a most efficacious hour, though they continue coming as long as the dew lies on the grass, which it often does all day. Formerly a chapel stood close by, but its ruins have now disappeared.

There were certain wells from which water was carried to the sick. It was necessary that it should be drawn before sunrise, that the bearer should not speak on his way to or from the well, neither open his lips till the sick man had drank the life-giving potion. Nor might the water-vessel be allowed to touch the ground. There were also peculiar virtues belonging to water drawn from under a bridge “over which the living walked and the dead were carried.” Especial virtue was attached to south-running water.

One condition of success in all these charms was that there should be no looking backward, and the same idea is clearly traceable in various Hindu customs. Thus in Bengal, a man intending to travel will first consult an astrologer, and having ascertained the lucky moment to start, he takes a green leaf 263from out a brass lota (vessel) filled with water from the sacred Ganges, and then walks straight out of his house and right away, without once looking back.

All lads and lasses who, on Hallow-e’en, peer into the looking-glass for visions of the future, know well that they must not dare to glance backward lest they should see more than they ought. One curious legend of our own dear old home tells how Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, who was well known to have dealings with the powers of darkness, chose one morning to drive his coach and four across Loch Spynie after a single night’s frost. He bade his servant to sit steady, and on no account look back. The man obeyed till just as they reached the further side, he could not resist “a glower ower his left shoulder,” and as he turned he beheld a large black raven fly from the back of the carriage, which at the same instant sank into the mud, so near the edge, however, that the good steeds managed to extricate it without further aid from the spirit-world.

So strongly is this point insisted on in all dealings with the wizards of all lands, that I almost fancy some such notion may have crept in among the old Jews (who were constantly tainted by the superstitions of their heathen neighbours), and may have been the cause why, when the ten lepers were cleansed, the nine went straight away, and the stranger alone returned to give thanks for his cure. They were always sufficiently ready to attribute the miracles of our Lord to witchcraft and the agency of Beelzebub, prince of the devils, and may have done so in this case also.

These sacred wells seem to have been reverenced all over the country, and every now and then the records of the kirk sessions tell of some luckless wight having been subjected to discipline for heathenish practices as an example to all other offenders, without, however, producing the desired effect. Among the various efforts made to check the well-worship in the seventeenth century was an order from the Privy Council, appointing Commissioners “to wait at Christ’s well in Menteith on the first of May, and to seize all who might assemble at the spring, and imprison them in Doune Castle.”

Great efforts were then made to extinguish heathenism of all sorts, necromancies, and spells with trees and with stones, as also to put down the custom of bringing men sick of divers diseases to 264be touched by “the seventh son of a woman; never a girl or wench being born between.” But at the same time, the law still sanctions all cases of scrofula being brought to the King, as “daily experience doth witness that Kings and Queens do possess this speciall gift of God, to heall with only touching.” Therefore, not only did the kirk authorise the continuance of this practice, but the Church of England sanctioned a special liturgy to be used on these occasions. This custom was first introduced by Edward the Confessor in 1058, and was continued by his successors. So we hear that Charles I. did on St. John’s Day 1633 visit Holyrood Chapel, and there “heallit 100 persons, young and old, of the Cruelles, or King’s Evil.”

In the days of his captivity, when a rude soldiery would not suffer the poor cripples to come near the royal person, the King prayed aloud that God would grant their petition, and that prayer, says the historian, was granted, although the touch was thus prevented. Charles II. actually touched ninety-two thousand one hundred and seven such patients, being an average of twelve per diem for twenty years. Verily he had “a doctor’s trouble, but without the fees!”

In fact, he paid the fees, as he restored the custom of giving to each sick person a broad gold piece, instead of the “beggarly silver coin” which his predecessors had substituted for the original “fair rose-noble.” According to Wiseman, the King’s Physician, scarcely one instance occurred in which the Royal touch failed to accomplish a cure. Indeed, not he alone, but a host of learned divines and surgeons wrote treatises on the subject, declaring their perfect faith in this miraculous power. Even in the days of good Queen Bess, an eminent surgeon, in a professional work on the treatment of this disease, declares his confident belief that when all the other methods of cure have failed, people may expect sure relief from the touch of Her Majesty.

Nevertheless, when vain men and women dared to practise soothing mesmeric passes and “stroking,” the cures which they sometimes performed were invariably attributed to witchcraft, just as magic was suspected, when the Egyptian priests of old proved that “by touching with the hands,” or “stroking with gentle hands,” they could immediately restore to health those to whom medicines had proved of no avail; a miraculous power which descended to one, at least, of the Egyptian saints of the 265desert, of whom it is recorded that he found that by his touch he could heal all manner of diseases.

In early days these royal physicians signed their patients with the cross; but this was discontinued when the wrath of Rome was fulminated against Protestant kings, to whom, nevertheless, Catholics, as well as patients of other creeds, continued to come for relief. In fact, as if to prove how powerless was the anathema of the Pope to check this gift of Heaven, we find Henry VIII. not content with miraculously curing all scrofula-stricken patients who came to him, but also such as were afflicted with cruel cramps. The former he cured by the usual royal process of stroking; while on the latter he bestowed magical rings, known as cramp rings. So strictly orthodox, however, were these miracles, that Church and State alike clung jealously to them, as to a most precious item of regal prerogative, and so late as 1684 (while presumptuous subjects who dared to work similar cures, were condemned as wizards and witches), we are told how one Thomas Russell was tried for high treason, because he had spoken with contempt of the King’s touch.

The practice of bestowing on every patient a gold coin, suspended from the neck by a white ribbon, was first introduced by Henry VII. in the gladness of finding that he indeed possessed the regal gift of healing, just as truly as that poor Richard whose Divine right to the throne he failed to acknowledge. Charles II., as we have seen, dealt out his ninety-two thousand cures and golden coins with liberal hand, but in later days a trifling silver coin was substituted. Such an one was bestowed, by Queen Anne on the infant Dr. Samuel Johnson, and is still preserved as a relic by the Duke of Devonshire. It is strange indeed, to think of the great embodiment of heavy learning having been subjected to this quaint remedy for his infantile pains. He speaks of his earliest recollections of Queen Anne, as a lady dressed in a black hood, and glittering with diamonds, into whose awful presence he had been ushered in his infancy, that by her royal touch she might cure him of his sore disease!

The office appointed by the Church to be said on these occasions was actually retained in the English liturgy till 1719, when it was quietly omitted by command of George I., who altogether discouraged the superstition. Yet the practice was only finally 266relinquished by George III. As to the Jacobite party, they retained their faith in the Stuart touch to the very last. Thus when Charles Edward was at Avignon, certain sufferers were taken to him there; others were brought to him at Holyrood.

The same strange power has always been claimed by the Kings of France, as part of their Divine right. So early as A.D. 481 it was practised by Clovis. And we are told that on Easter Day 1686 Lewis XIV. touched sixteen hundred people, saying to each, “Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse!”

When royalty refused any longer to practise this healing art, a substitute was found, noways flattering to the royal touch. It was discovered that rubbing the body of a patient with the dead hand of a criminal who had been executed, was a certain and instant cure for the King’s Evil. Such a hand had other good qualities as well, and even in the beginning of the present century, it would sell for a considerable sum, the executioner at Newgate deriving large monies from this little perquisite.

As concerns the royal touch, it was small marvel that while such superstitions were encouraged in high places, the law could do little to check the practices of the people, so that little effect was produced till after 1745, when, with the fall of the Jacobites, everything that was supposed to savour of Popery, was doubly discountenanced.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, the old superstition still lingers in certain districts. At Glass, in Banffshire, the Wallack Well and the Corsmall Well still receive pins, buttons, rags, and coins from sick folk, who hope thereby to be cured of their diseases. So does St. Mungo’s Well in Huntly, where the people assemble on the first of May, and carry away bottles of its water as a charm against the fairies, who are supposed to hold their revels at the Elfin Croft hard by. I thought of this custom while watching the pilgrims near the source of the Ganges sealing up bottles of the precious water, which they carry with them to their far-distant homes, therewith to anoint their most cherished idols. Another favourite well has always been that of St. Cecilia, near Netherdale in Aberdeenshire: some strong enforcements of the law of trespass have, however, recently checked the meetings here. The same law did its best to check the gatherings at the old well at Hopeman, near Burghead; but the sturdy fishers there do not understand such interference with their old 267customs, so they are now left undisturbed.... St. Fergon’s Well, near Inverlochy, is another which is said to possess divers virtues, and continues to be a favourite place of resort—the general offering to its spirit being a crooked pin, or, on rare occasions, “a bawbee.”

The well at Metherclunie, near Dufftown, is a great gathering-point on May morning, when the usual offerings of pins, &c., are made. The well of Montblairie, also in Banffshire, is equally sacred; so is St. Colman’s Well, in the parish of Kiltearn, in Ross-shire. But perhaps the most popular of all is the Greuze Well, near Dunkeld, which is still frequented by people from all parts of the country, who bring their sick children, that having tasted the mystic waters they may be healed. The offerings here are of a very superior sort, as silver coin is occasionally thrown in instead of the more frequent pins and pence; and rags and scraps of the sick folks’ clothes are left hanging on the heathery tufts, as a reminder to the spirit of the Greuze.

St. Mary’s Well at Orton, on Speyside, still continues to attract crowds on certain days, chiefly of young folk, who here hold their tryst—lads and lasses who count on a day’s sweethearting and merrymaking; but for more serious purposes, such as quest of health, it seems to have somewhat lost favour lately, though it is not long since we noticed a girl hiding the cap of a sick baby under a stone, as though shrinking from observation. In Badenoch, however, there is no such shame. There are wells for heart ache and wells for toothache, and one well that is bottomless, for when careless hands drop their pails therein they can never be recovered. At Culbokie, in Ross-shire, there is another lucky well, which, like all these others, is duly honoured by contributions of votive offerings, chiefly in the form of “clouts.” St. Fillan’s Well, in Perthshire, has been held sacred from time immemorial, though the name it bears dates only from the days of that sainted abbot of Strath-Fillan, to whose pious intervention Bruce was said to owe the victory of Bannockburn. The King’s chaplain had been commanded (so says Boethius) to bring to the field of battle the sacred arm of the saint; but the wily priest, fearing the loss of the relic, brought only its silver shrine. Yet when the King invoked the holy saint, the shrine opened of its own accord, revealing the precious limb laid safely therein; and the soldiers beholding 268this token of the favour of heaven fought as those already assured of victory. St. Fillan’s Well was long believed to cure insanity, and the luckless sufferers received very rough handling to effect this, being thrown from a high rock down into the well, and then locked up for the night in the ruined chapel. On “the witch-elm that shades St. Fillan’s spring” were hung the gay rags and scraps of ribbon wherein the saint was supposed to find delight. An average of two hundred patients were annually brought to this well. Precisely similar was the belief of the Welsh in the waters of Llandegla for the cure of the same mysterious affliction. They, in like manner, cast the unhappy patient into the well, and then left him bound for the night in the church, beneath the communion table. An offering of poultry was deemed essential; so if the patient were a woman, a hen was imprisoned with her; in the case of a man, the victim was a cock, into whom doubtless the demon of insanity passed.

A very important feature in the ceremonial at St. Fillan’s, Struthill, and other wells where lunatics were cured is, that after their bath in the holy fountain and their sunwise procession, they were tied to a pillar, supposed to be far more ancient than the Christian church wherein it stood. Colonel Forbes-Leslie mentions just such a pillar in the ruined city of Anarajapoora, in Ceylon. It is said to be possessed of precisely similar virtues, and though the natives call it an old Buddhist monument, it is probably a relic of a much earlier superstition.

He also alludes to the legend which tells how Gautama Buddha first realized his having attained perfection by finding that a dish which he placed on the water would float miraculously against the current of the stream. This is much the same notion as we find connected with various holy wells; such as the Well of Shadar, in Isle Bernera, whereon a wooden bowl was set floating as a means of discovering whether a sick person would or would not rally. Should the dish turn sunwise all would be well.

St. Andrew’s Well, in the Isle of Lewis, was also consulted as an oracle when any one was dangerously ill. A wooden tub full of this water was brought to the sick man’s room, and a small dish was set floating on the surface of the water; if it turned sunwise it was supposed that the patient would recover, otherwise he was doomed.

269One such far-famed fountain lies at the foot of the great rock-mountain of Quiraing, in the Isle of Skye, where, sheltered by the greenest of grassy hills, are the clear crystalline springs of Loch Shiant, whose bright waters gleam over a bed of pure sand, and are still considered a specific for all manner of diseases. Pilgrimages are still sometimes made here, and the usual turn sunwise must be made thrice before drinking, after which some small offering is laid down for the guardian spirit of the well. Formerly, though the rivulet and the loch were alike full of fish, no one would presume to touch them; they were, in fact, esteemed as sacred as those holy fishes which fatten in the tanks of Himalayan temples, and which rise mockingly to stare at hungry travellers. Close by the Loch there still remains some low brushwood, marking where formerly a copse of larger bushes flourished, which, even a hundred years ago, were held in such reverence that no one might venture to break a twig from their branches. This probably was the latest trace of the tree-worship once commonly practised in these isles.

It is somewhat singular that this phase of idolatry should have died out so wholly in all Christianized countries, while water, fire, and stones retained so strong a hold on the reverence of the people. Vainly did the Council at Arles, in A.D. 452, decree that “if in any diocese any infidel either lighted torches or worshipped trees, fountains, or stones, he should be found guilty of sacrilege.” Vainly did divers other Councils again and again repeat the same warning, especially forbidding the lighting of torches and offering candles and other gifts to these three sacred powers. Vainly, too, did King Edgar and Canute the Great forbid the barbarous adoration of the sun and moon, fire and fountains, stones, and all kinds of trees and wood; still the people clung with tenacity to all their varied forms of paganism except the worship of trees, which seems gradually to have been forgotten, or only remembered in Germany, whence we have borrowed the Yule custom of illuminating a fir-tree with offerings of candles. The people of Vienna still preserve one curious relic of this worship in the heart of their great city, namely the Stock am Eisen, the battered trunk of an old tree, into which every apprentice must drive a nail for luck ere starting to seek his fortune in life. This old tree is the last relic of that sacred grove beneath the shade of which the people were 270wont to worship, and round which the Christian city has grown up.

Another holy well of some note is that at Tullie Beltane, near to which are two Druidic circles. Here the people met (at all events till lately) and having drunk of the water they solemnly walked nine times sunwise round the lesser temple and nine times round the well. But it is not only in Scotland that these traces of the old well-worship are to be found. Shropshire has divers sacred wells, which are reputed to cure lameness. In Yorkshire many wells are decked with flowers on Ascension morn in lieu of the old spring festival; while in Derbyshire the original day claims the same honour, and women and children carry their flowers on May morning to deck the wells.

Passing southward to the wild coast of Cornwall, we find the same lingering reverence for many a gushing fountain; for

“Springs, that with their thousand crystal bubbles,

Burst from the bosom of some desert rock,

In secret solitude.”

Just as in the days of Cæsar, the old Druids foretold the future by watching the bubbles that rose in these clear waters as they dropped pebbles therein; so to this day the Cornish peasant casts in pebbles or bent pins, and watches their course to learn what may be in store for him and his. Especially at St. Madron’s Well, a great number of people still assemble at sunrise on the first Sunday in May, bringing sickly children to bathe in its healing waters, and tying scraps of rag on the bushes near as votive offerings. Near this well stands an ancient cromlech, which a neighbouring farmer in an evil hour determined to pull down for his own building purposes. He succeeded in pulling the stones out of their place, but not all his horses and not all his men could do more. The stones remain; but from that hour all went wrong with the covetous farmer. His crops failed, his cattle died, and the people’s reverence for the old stones and the old well grew stronger than ever. A very similar story is told of another foolish farmer who tried to steal the granite basin from St. Nunn’s Well, in Pelynt, as being a desirable pig’s trough. The heavy stone broke its chain, and rolled back to its place; the oxen which drew it, died; the owner became lame and speechless. Would that the same 271condign punishment had overtaken some of our Northern Goths!

The efficacy of these wells does not seem to be limited to the first Sunday in May. There are certain Cornish wells to which the people resort on the first three Wednesdays in May; as, for instance, St. Euny’s Well—a clear spring at the foot of a hill called Carn Brea. Nor is it only in cases of sickness that they are visited. Dr. O’Connor mentions having asked a very old man what possible advantage he expected from frequenting such wells as were situated close to old blasted oaks, or to some upright, unhewn stone; and what was the meaning of sticking rags on the branches of such trees, and spitting on them. His answer, and that of other old men, was that their ancestors always did it; that it was a preservative against Gaesa-Draoidact—i.e., the sorceries of the Druids; that their cattle were thereby preserved from infectious diseases, and that the fairies were likewise pleased by this attention.

Some of these Cornish wells are as efficacious for the cure of insanity as those in our own Highlands. Thus at St. Nunn’s, in the parish of Alternum, any unhappy maniac was tossed headlong into the deep pool, and thrown to and fro in the water, backwards and forwards, till he was quite exhausted—a process which was called boussening or bathing. After this the patient was carried to church, and masses were sung over him. This process was repeated again and again, till his feverish lunacy was chilled, either by death or recovery!

Of the fishing-wells, some have high repute in deciding questions of supremacy between man and wife. St. Keynan has bequeathed to a well in Cornwall, and also to one in South Wales, the power of conferring the mastery on whichever of a young couple first drinks of it after their marriage. One aggrieved husband confesses his wife’s superior wit in these lines:—

“After the wedding I hurried away,

And left my wife in the porch:

But in faith, she had been wiser than I,

For she took a bottle to church!”

If we cross the Channel, we find similar wells in Brittany; as, for instance, that of St. Anne of Auray, where the worshippers, after making their confession in due form within 272the church, come forth and walk thrice, sunwise, round the well, and then return to their devotions in the church. From the time of Charlemagne, successive edicts have striven to put down well-worship in France; and with as little success as in our own land.

Strange hints of the old faith also reveal themselves dimly through the traditions which relate to the principal churches of St. Michael, just as on some old palimpsest the curious scholar discerns faint traces of the characters first inscribed thereon, and but partially erased by the later scribe. Both at Mont S. Michel and at Monte Galgano, in Southern Italy, the mystic waters, and still more mystic bull, are strangely interwoven with the legend of the archangel. Thus, on the Monte Galgano, a herdsman is said to have pursued a refractory bull into a cavern on the very summit of the mountain, and, drawing a bow, would have slain him; but lo! the arrow returning, pierced the archer to the heart. Then the owner of the herd appealed to St. Michael, who, appearing in visible majesty, revealed the cause of the herdsman’s death—namely, that by seeking to slay the bull, he had profaned a cave, especially sacred to St. Michael himself; who further revealed that within the cave there flowed a hidden stream of limpid waters for the healing of all diseases, while beyond, there stood three mystic altars, decked by angelic hands. But the bull was no more seen. On this spot Galgano erected the first church dedicated to St. Michael.

Again, we hear how the archangel revealed to the Bishop of Avranches that on the very highest point of the detached crag, now known as the Mont S. Michel, there was concealed a living bull, and also a well-spring of pure water, and that where the bull had trampled the earth, a church was to be erected. The Bishop repaired to the crag, found the bull and the fountain, and built a small church, which in after years was replaced by that magnificent abbey whose massive towers and pinnacles, cresting the rocky, wave-beaten peak, have already “braved the tempests of a thousand years.”

As we listen to these Christian legends, we are carried dreamily back to the still older days, when healing waters and light and fire were adored; when the sun’s daily victory over the dark serpent of night was a matter of religious rejoicing, and the mighty bull was his recognised symbol of strength and power. 273From these to the triumphant archangel, and the crushed dragon, with the shadowy mysterious bull, and the hidden fountain of crystal waters in the background, the sequence seems so natural, that we need not wonder to find that all along the coast of Brittany and Cornwall the adoration of St. Michael was the branch of Christianity which found readiest acceptance among the people—a fact which accounts for the multitude of churches along these shores which bear his name.

Comparatively few traces now remain in those isles of the worship of the moon-goddess, Ashtaroth, or

“Astoreth, whom the Phœnicians called

Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;

To whose bright image nightly by the moon

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs,

In Sion also, not unsung....”

Some lingering notion of her influence doubtless inspired the extreme reverence with which the Highlanders and Islanders have always noted all changes of the moon. So late as the year 1700, the latter invariably selected the time of the moon’s increase for cutting their peat and rushes, building their earthen dykes and felling timber (hence we assume they had some trees then!) asserting that all manner of evils would attend their labour, should these things be done at the time of her decrease. As to the timber, they certainly have left little for their descendants! A birth or a marriage at the time of the full moon was accounted lucky; whereas to marry, or to kill a beast for food while the moon was waning, would have been the height of folly. In fact, no important business was commenced at the wane.

It is but a few years since the people of Morayshire used to gather long sprays of woodbine and ivy during the increase of the moon in March. These they twisted into wreaths, and kept them till the following March. Sick children were (as we have noticed) passed thrice through the wreaths, and likewise cattle, and their cure was considered almost certain. Shaw mentions having often seen this done. Even in England there are still some remote corners, such as Dartmoor, where it is considered very dangerous to cut children’s hair in March, at certain phases of the moon.

In Orkney the moon worship seems to have lingered longer 274than in most of the isles. Even in the present century the people used to assemble on New Year’s night and dance by moonlight round an upright Druid stone. Precisely the same custom is said to be still observed at the village of Croisic in France. In Orkney it was formerly de rigueur for all young couples to repair by moonlight to the semi-circle of great stones at Stennis, known as the Temple of Odin (the Scandinavian sun-god), whom the woman, kneeling on the ground, must invoke. Then the lovers plighted their troth by clasping hands through the perforated stone of Odin. This pledge was recognized as legal, and so late as the year 1760 we hear how the elders of the kirk punished a girl’s false love, because he had broken the promise of Odin.

But binding as was this ceremony, there was, nevertheless, provision made for the untying of such matrimonial bonds as proved unbearable, and that, by a simpler process than the Divorce Court; for the unhappy couple had only to adjourn to the circle, or in later years to the kirk at Stennis, and thence go forth, one by the north, the other by the south door, a ceremony which was held to be a legal divorce, each being free straightway to make a new selection. A simple and more poetic form of betrothal was for the lad and lass to stand on either side of a narrow brook, and to clasp hands across the stream, calling on the moon to witness their pledge. Sometimes the young couple each took a handful of meal, and kneeling down, with a bowl between them, emptied their hands therein, and mixed the meal; at the same time taking an oath on the Bible never to sever till death should them part. A case was tried in Dalkeith in 1872, where this simple marriage ceremony was proved by Scotch law to be legally binding. But the commonest, and certainly the most curious custom of betrothal was that of thumb-licking, when lovers licked their thumbs and pressed them together, vowing constancy. This was held binding as an oath, and to break a vow so made was equivalent to perjury. This custom is still quite common in Ross-shire, on concluding all manner of bargains, such as sales of cattle or grain. Hence the saying, “I’ll gie ye my thumb on it,” or, “I’ll lay my thoomb on that,” expressing that the statement last made is satisfactory. There are men still in the prime of life who remember when the custom of thumb-licking was the recognised conclusion of business transactions, even so far south 275as the Clyde, and not unknown in Glasgow itself! Whatever may have been the origin of this quaint ceremony, it is curious to remember that the ancient Indian custom on sealing a bargain or conferring a gift was to pour water into the hand of the recipient, as is shown on many sculptures. Probably the thumb-licking was a convenient substitute for the original symbol.

Certainly it is curious to trace back some of these simple customs to their origin. How little we think, as we kiss our hands to the young moon, that more than three thousand years ago, Job, the grand old Arabian patriarch, spoke of this very action as of a sin to be punished: a denial of the Creator!^[47] There seems always to have been some difficulty in determining under what sex to adore the host of Heaven. The feminine Sun, and Moon masculine of the Germans certainly sound incongruous in our ears. In Northern India, also, as with the old Scandinavians, the moon is worshipped as a male divinity, under the name of Chandra (silvery), at whose great festivals all devout Hindus appear in white raiment, with silver ornaments. They sit on white cloths, and make offerings of milk and white sugar—gifts which surely must be more acceptable to the heavenly bodies than such libations of swine’s blood, as we are told the priestesses of the Philippine Isles, pour out to the stars (whom they adore as the children of the Sun and the Moon), and wherewith they mark the worshippers on the forehead.

The moon seems always to have found more favour with the women than the men, and while we hear of the old Highlanders taking off their bonnet to the rising sun, the women reserved their homage for the new moon. Any lassie who desired to invoke her protection, and crave her good influence in her sweethearting, had to go out at night and watch for the first new moon of the new year. Then kneeling on a “yerd-fast stane” (that is, one fixed immovably in the earth like the Druid altars) she was to lean her back against a tree, and thus wait for the moment when she might hail the pale crescent as it rose above the horizon. Bitterly cold work this must have been, on a chilly night in January, but with such an object in view, what mattered the freezing blast? Le jeu valait bien la chandelle!

How often we have laughed at the story of the lassie who 276thus went out to invoke the lady-moon, and pray that she would speedily send her a faithful swain. Now in the ivy behind her sat a great white owl, whose eyes winked and blinked and twinkled as he said “Who-o-oooo?” “Oh!” cried the lassie, “I dinna mind who. Just anybody!” Thereupon she returned home in all faith, and having found a suitable love, sent all her friends and companions forth on a similar errand.

All these legends of old Pagan times have tempted me to wander very far away from the green shores of Skye, along which we were sailing; but, knowing that such old lore is as dear to you as to myself, I make no apology for having spun such a yarn. However, it really is high time to return to the little yacht, and glide onward on our pleasant way, congratulating ourselves that our barque is no frail curragh of wickerwork and raw hides, nor our merry blue-jackets grey barbarians tattooed with woad!

277