No work giving a comprehensive account of Well-worship in Scotland has yet appeared. Mr. R. C. Hope’s recent volume, “ Holy Wells: Their Legends and Traditions ,” discusses the subject in its relation to England. In the following pages an attempt has been made to illustrate the more outstanding facts associated with the cult north of the Tweed. Various holy wells are referred to by name; but the list makes no claim to be exhaustive. J. M. M. 4 Westbourne Gardens, Glasgow , December, 1893 ....

Sailors and fishermen still cherish superstitions of their own. Majesty is not the only feature of the changeful ocean that strikes them. They are keenly alive to its mystery and to the possibilities of life within its depths. Strange creatures have their home there, the mighty sea serpent and the less formidable mermen and mermaidens. Among the Shetland islands mer-folk were recognised denizens of the sea, and were known by the name of Sea-trows. These singular beings dwelt in the caves of ocea

We thus see that the sacredness of springs can be traced back through Christianity to paganism, though there is no doubt that in some instances it took its rise from association with early saints. In deciding the question of origin, however, care must be taken, for, as already indicated, the reverence anciently paid to wells led to their selection by the early missionaries. The holy wells throughout the land keep alive their names. An excellent example of a saint’s influence on a particular dist

“Let me pluck thee, Torranain! With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue. The nine blessings came with the nine parts. By the virtue of the Torranain. The hand of St. Bride with me I am now to pluck thee.” A saint who could give efficacy to a spell was quite the sort of person to be entrusted with the custody of springs. Ninian, popularly called Ringan, devoted his life mainly to missionary work among the Picts of Galloway, although he extended his influence as far north as the Tay. He seems t

Bathan, who flourished in the early seventh century, had to do with Shetland, and with the region about the Whittadder, in Berwickshire. Abbey St. Bathans, in the latter county, is named after him. His well is on one of the haughs beside the river, not far from the ruined nunnery. Its water is believed never to freeze. Boniface belonged to the same century. He is said to have preached Christianity at Gowrie, in Pictavia, and afterwards at Rosemarkie, in the Black Isle, where he died at the age o

In addition to his well beside the Molendinar, at Glasgow, Kentigern had a chair and bed, both of stone. Concerning the latter, Bishop Forbes, in his “ Kalendars of Scottish Saints ,” says, “Kentigern’s couch was rather a sepulchre than a bed, and was of rock, with a stone for a pillow, like Jacob. He rose in the night and sang psalms and hymns till the second cock-crowing. Then he rushed into the cold stream, and with eyes fixed on heaven he recited the whole psalter. Then, coming out of the wa

‘As heaven gives me So give I thee.’ Below these words is a carving of the rising sun, and the following altered quotation from Horace:— ‘Hoc fonte derivata Salus In patriam populumque fluat.’ “It appears,” continues Mr. Jervise, “that the virtues of this Spa were early known and appreciated, for in 1615 record says that there was ‘a long wyde stone which conveyed the waters from the spring, with the portraicture of six Apostles hewen upon either side thereof.’ It is described as having then bee

Epilepsy, with its convulsions and cries, seldom fails to arrest attention and call forth sympathy. In times less enlightened than our own, the disease was regarded with awe as of supernatural origin; and remedies, always curious and sometimes revolting, were tried in order to bring relief. We may assume that the water of consecrated springs was used for this purpose; but, as far as we know, no Scottish fountain was systematically visited by epileptic patients. After enumerating a variety of fol

A Shropshire legend narrates that, on one occasion, Milburga, who is still remembered in the name of Stoke St. Milborough, was riding in all haste to escape from certain enemies. She fell at length exhausted from her horse; but, at her command, the animal struck a stone with his hoof, and water gushed out for her refreshment. In a neighbouring field some men were sowing grain, and the saint prophesied that in the evening they would gather the ripe corn. She instructed them to tell her enemies, o

Some minutes passed in perfect silence, and anxiety was rapidly turning cheeks and lips pale, when the colour rapidly returned. There was a gush of clear water from below, bubble rapidly followed bubble sparkling brightly in the morning sunshine. Full of joy, the young mother rose from her knees, kissed her child, and exclaimed, ‘I am happy now!’ ” At Barenton in Brittany is a spring still believed in by the peasantry. A pin is dropt into the well, and if good fortune is in store, the water send

Some Aberdeenshire lines have the same theme:— “Bloodthirsty Dee Each year needs three; But bonny Don, She needs none.” According to folklore, there is no doubt that rivers are “uncanny.” Beneath their rippling surface dwells a being who keeps a lookout for the unwary traveller and seeks to draw him into the dark depths. A belief in such a being is not always explicitly avowed. But there are certain folk-practices undoubtedly implying it. When anyone is drowned in a river, the natural way to fin

His attempted verse-making seems to have gratified the kelpy, for when he afterwards showed himself in the pool he was frequently heard repeating the rhyme. The fate of the castle was disastrous. At a later date it was entirely demolished, and its site now alone remains. Some six miles from the Kirkton of Glenelg, in Inverness-shire, is the small sheet of water known in the district as John MacInnes’ Loch. It was so called from a crofter of that name who was drowned there. The circumstances are

Probably very few travellers by the Callander and Oban railway are aware of the existence of an interesting, but now neglected holy well, only a few yards distant from the line. It is situated at the entrance of rugged Glen Ogle, and from the spot a fine view can be had of Ben Lawers, Ben More, and Ben Loy. The well is on Wester Lix farm, and is locally known as the Lix Well. The spring rises in one of the many hillocks in the neighbourhood. The top of the hillock had been levelled. Round the sp

“Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost.” Even down to the end of last century, and probably later, some well-educated people believed that the devil had the power of raising the wind. The phrase, the prince of the power of the air, applied to him in Scripture, was interpreted in a literal way. “ The Diary of the Rev. John Mill ,” minister in Shetland from 1740 till 1803, bears witness to such a belief. In his introduction to the work, the editor, Mr. Gilbert Goudie, tells

In many cases it was counted unlucky to cut down trees, since the spirits, inhabiting them, would resent the injury. In the sixteenth century the parishioners of Clynnog, in Caernarvonshire, refrained from destroying the trees growing in the grounds of St. Beyno. Even though he was their patron saint, he was quite ready to harm anybody who took liberties with his grove. Loch Siant Well, in Skye, was noted for its power to cure headaches, stitches, and other ailments, and was much frequented in c

A certain white stone, taken by Columba from the river Ness, near what is now the town of Inverness, had the singular power of becoming invisible, when the illness of the person requiring it would prove fatal. The selection of this stone was made in connection with the saint’s visit to the court of Brude, king of the Picts, about the year 563. Adamnan, who tells the story, thus describes an interview between Columba and Brochan (the king’s chief Druid or Magus), concerning the liberation of a fe

Ninian’s shrine at Whithorn was the scene of various miracles during the middle ages. In 1425 James the First granted a safe-conduct to all strangers, coming to Scotland to visit it; and James the Fourth made a pilgrimage to it once a year, and sometimes oftener. “It is likely,” remarks the Rev. Daniel Conway in an article on consecrated springs in the south-west of Scotland, “that the spots in Wigtownshire, where Holy Wells were, marked the route pursued by pilgrims bent on doing homage to the

An examination of the dates when fire-festivals were held shows that they had a distinct connection with the sun’s annual cycle. When several leading Church festivals fell to be observed about the same time of the year, they had often some features in common. Thus the pagan mid-summer festival had as its lineal successor, not only St. John’s Day (24th June), but St. Vitus’s Day and St. Peter’s Day, respectively the fifteenth and the twenty-ninth of the same month. The kindling of fires was a fea

The grass was then taken into the house, and carefully examined. If a hair was found amongst the grass, it would correspond in colour with the hair of the coming husband. In connection with all such charms, it is certainly true what an old song says that “love hath eyes.” Her Majesty the Queen visited Innis Maree in September, 1877. When describing her visit, Mr. Dixon, in his “ Gairloch ,” says:—“She fixed her offering in the wishing tree, a pleasantry which most visitors to the island repeat,

We have spoken of the guardian spirits of lochs and springs. That such spirits should have been thought to exist is not surprising . Since water is one of the necessaries of life for man and beast, animals had to frequent pools and rivers. What more natural than that, in days of ignorance, these animals should have been regarded as in some mysterious way connected with the spots they frequented. In the same way, fish darting about in the water would be considered its indwelling spirits. It may n

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