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Trying different
Springs—Curing all Diseases—Fivepennies Well —Water and Dulse—Special
Diseases—Toothache-Sore Eyes—Blindness—Headaches and Nervous
Disorders—Deafness----Whooping—cough—Goat—Sores-----Ague
---Sterility--Epilepsy--Sacrifice of a Cock—St. St. Tegla's Well — Insanity
— Severe Treatment — Innis-Maree — Struthill — Teampull-Mar — Holy Pool —
Fillan's History and Relics —Persistence of Superstition.
SOME people apply to
different doctors in succession, in the hope that new professional advice
may bring the coveted boon of health. For the same reason visits were paid
to different consecrated wells. On the principle that "far fowls have fair
feathers," a more or less remote spring was resorted to, in the hope that
distance might lend special enchantment to its water. Certain springs had
the reputation of healing every ailment. A spring of this kind is what
Martin calls "a catholieon for all diseases." He so styles various springs
in the Western Isles, and one in the Larger Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde.
Fivepennies Well, in Eigg, had some curious properties. "The natives told
me," he says, "that it never fails to cure any person of their first
disease, only by drinking a quantity of it for the space of two or three
days; and that if a stranger lie at this well in the night-time, it will
procure a deformity in some part of his body, but has no such effect on a
native; and this, they say, hath been frequently experimented." A noted
fountain in the Orkney group was the well of Kildinguie in the Island of
Stronsay. It is situated not far from the beach. To reach it one has to walk
over a long stretch of sand. Its fame at one time spread over the
Scandinavian world, and even Denmark sent candidates for its help. Besides
drinking the water, health-seekers frequently ate some of the dulse to be
found on the shore. A local saying thus testified to the advantages of the
combined treatment: "The well of Kildinguie and the dulse of Guiyidn can
cure all maladies except black death." In the Island of Skye is a spring
called Tobar Tellibreck. The natives, at one time, held that its water,
along with a diet of dulse, would serve for a considerable time instead of
ordinary food.
Other springs were resorted
to for particular complaints. Toothache is distressingly common, and
commonly distressing; but, strange to say, very few wells are specially
identified with the ailment. Indeed, we know of only three toothache wells
in Scotland. One is in Strathspey, and is known as Fuaran Fiountag,
signifying the cool refreshing spring. The second is in the parish of
Kenmore, at the foot of Loch Tay. The third is in Glentruim, in
Inverness-shire. Another well at Kenmore was resorted to for the cure of
sore eyes. In the parish of Glass, close to the river Deveron, is an ancient
church dedicated to St. Wallach. Some thirty yards below its burying-ground
is a well, now dry, except in very rainy weather. Its water had the power of
healing sore eyes. The water of St. John's Well, at Balmanno, in the parish
of Mary-kirk, Kincardineshire, was a sovereign remedy for the same
complaint. Beside the road close to the farmhouse of Wester Auchleskine, at
Balquhidder, in Perthshire, once stood a large boulder containing a natural
cavity. The water in this hollow was also noted for the cure of sore
eyes--the boulder being called in consequence Clach-nan-Sul, i.e., the stone
of the eyes. In 1878, by order of the road trustees, the boulder was
blasted, on the ground that it was a source of danger to vehicles in the
dark, and its fragments were used as road metal. The Dow Well, at
Innerleithen, was formerly much visited for the restoration of weak sight. A
well in Cornwall, dedicated to St. Ludvan, miraculously quickened the sense
of sight. In Ireland, a spring at Gougou Barra, between Glengariff and Cork,
is believed by the peasantry to cure blindness. In 1849, Miss Bessie
Gilbert, a daughter of the late Bishop Gilbert of Chichester, who had lost
her sight when a child, visited the spring along with some of her relatives.
Curiosity, however, was her only motive. Her biographer relates that "the
guide besought Bessie in the most earnest and pathetic manner to try the
water, saying that he was sure it would restore her sight, and entreating
her brothers and sisters to urge her to make use of it."
Headaches and nervous
disorders were cured by water from Tobar-nim-buadh or the Well of Virtues in
St. Kilda.. Deafness was also cured by it. At the entrance to Munlochy Bay,
in the Black Isle of Cromarty, is a cave known in the neighbourhood as
Craig-a-Chow, i.e., the Rock of Echo. Tradition says that in this cave a
giant once lived. If not the retreat of a giant, it was, at any rate, of
smugglers. What specially concerns us is that it contains a dripping well,
formerly much in request. Its water is particularly cold. Like the St. Kilda
spring, it was believed to remove deafness. Of Whooping-cough Wells, a noted
one was at Straid, in Muthill parish, Perthshire. Invalids came to it from
considerable distances. Early in the present century a family travelled from
Edinburgh to seek its aid. The water was drunk immediately after sunset or
before sunrise, and a horn from a live ox had to convey it to the patient's
lips. This was not an uncommon practice. Perhaps it may have been due to
some vague notion, that life from the animal, whence, the horn came, would
be handed on, vi the spoon and the water, to the invalid. The Straid horn
was kept by a woman in the immediate neighburhood, who acted as a sort of
priestess of the well. A well at the Burn of Oxhill, in the parish of
Rathven, Banffshire, had a local celebrity for the cure of the same
complaint. Sufferers from gout tried the efficacy of a spring in Eckford
parish, Roxburghshire, styled Holy Well or Priest's Well. A spring in the
churchyard of Logiepert parish, Forfarshire, removed sores, and another•in
Martin's Den, in the same parish, was reckoned anti-scorbutic. Another noted
Forfarshire spring was in Kirkden parish, with the reputation of curing
swellings of the feet and legs. Lochinbreck Loch, in Balmaghie parish,
Kirkcudbrightshire, was visited from time immemorial for the cure of ague.
Indeed, there was hardly a bodily ailment that could not be relieved by the
water of some consecrated spring.
Springs were sometimes
believed to cure female barrenness. Wives, anxious to become mothers,
formerly visited such wells as those of St. Fillan at Comrie, and of St.
Mary at Whitekirk, and in the Isle of May. In this connection, Mr. J. R.
Walker, in his article in the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland," volume v. (new series), observes, "Many of the wells dedicated to
'Our Lady,' i.e., St. Mary (Virgin Mary) and to St. Brigid, the Mary of
Ireland, were famous for the cure of female sterility, which, in the days
when a man's power and influence in the land depended on the number of his
clan or tribe, was looked upon as a token of the divine displeasure, and was
viewed by the unfortunate spouses with anxious apprehension, dread, doubt,
jealousy, and pain. Prayer and supplication were obviously the methods
pursued by the devout for obtaining the coveted gift of fertility, looked
upon, by females especially, as the most valuable of heavenly dispensations;
and making pilgrimages to wells under the patronage of the Mother of our
Lord would naturally be one of the most common expedients."
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 folk-cures for the disease in
question, Sir Arthur Mitchell, in an article on Highland Superstitions
bearing on Lunacy in the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland," volume iv., remarks, "For the cure of the same disease, there is
still practised in the North of Scotland a formal sacrifice—not an oblique
but a literal and downright sacrifice—to a nameless but secretly
acknowledged power, whose propitiation is desired. On the spot where the
epileptic first falls a black cock is buried alive, along with a lock of the
patient's hair and some parings of his nails. I have seen at least three
epileptic idiots for whom this is said to have been done." The same writer
adds, "Dr. G , of N--, informs me that some time ago he was called on to
visit a poor man belonging to the fishing population who had suddenly died,
and who had been subject to epileptic seizures. His friends told the doctor
that at least they had the comfort of knowing that everything had been done
for him which could have been done. On asking what remedies they had tried,
he was told that, among other things, a cock had been buried alive below his
bed, and the spot was pointed out." This sacrifice of a cock in Scotland is
of special significance, for it formed a distinctive feature of the ritual
once in vogue in Wales at the village of Llandegla, Denbighshire. St.
Tegla's Well there, was believed to possess peculiar virtue in curing
epilepsy. Pennant gives a minute account of the ceremony as practised in his
days. The following is a summary:—"About two hundred yards from the church
rises a small spring. The patient washes his limbs in the well, makes an
offering into it of fourpence, walks round it three times, and thrice
repeats the `Lord's Prayer.' These ceremonies are never begun till after
sunset. If the afflicted be of the male sex, he makes an offering of a cock;
if of the fair sex, a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket, first round the
well, after that into the churchyard, when the same orisons and the same
circumambulations are performed round the church. The votary then enters the
church, gets under the communion table, lies down with the Bible under his
or her head, is covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests there till break
of day, departing after offering sixpence, and leaving the fowl in the
church. If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been effected, and
the disease transferred to the devoted victim." As regards the cock or hen,
the ceremony in this case was quite as much a sacrifice as in the Scottish
example. St. Tegla merely took the place of the pagan divinity who had been
first in the field, and to whom offerings had been made. In former times,
sacrificing a living animal was also resorted to occasionally to cure
disease in cattle. An ox was buried alive in a pit, and the pit having been
filled with earth, the other members of the herd were made to walk over the
spot. In 1629, Isabel Young, spouse to George Smith, portioner of East
Barnes, Haddingtonshire, was tried for witchcraft. From her indictment we
learn that she was accused, inter aria, of having buried a "quick ox, with a
cat and a quantity of salt," in a pit as a sacrifice to the devil, the truth
being that a live ox had been so treated by her husband as a charm to cure
his cattle, which were diseased. A remarkable circumstance bearing on this
point is alluded to by Mr. A. W. Moore in his "Surnames and Place-names of
the Isle of Man," under the heading of Cabbal-yn-Oural-Losht, i.e., Chapel
of the Burnt Sacrifice. "This name," he tells us, "records a circumstance
which took place in the nineteenth century, but which, it is to be hoped,
was never customary in the Isle of Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of
his sheep and cattle by murrain, burnt a calf as a propitiatory offering to
the Deity on this spot, where a chapel was afterwards built. Such facts
point to the same notion as that already indicated in connection with St.
Tegla's Well, viz., that disease is due to some malignant being, whose
favour is to be sought by the offering up of a living creature.
In no department of medical
science have methods of treatment changed more within recent years than in
that of insanity. Enlightened views on the subject now prevail among the
educated classes of society; and the old notion that a maniac can be
restored to mental health by treating him like a criminal, or by
administering a few shocks to his already excited nerves, is fortunately a
thing of the past. At least it no longer holds sway in. our lunatic asylums.
In the minds of the ignorant and credulous, however, the old leaven still
works. Lady Wilde, in her "Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland,"
alludes to a method of treatment in fashion till lately among the peasantry
there. When anyone showed signs of insanity `a witch-doctor' was called in.
This potent individual sprinkled holy water about the room and over the
patient; and after uttering certain incantations—understood by the by-standers
to be `Latin prayers '—proceeded to beat him with a stout cudgel. In the end
the ravings of the lunatic ceased, or as it was put, "the devil was driven
out of him." In Cornwall, at St. Nun's Well, the expulsive power of a new
terror used to be tried. According to Carew, the modus operandi was as
follows:--"The water running from St. Nun's Well fell into a square and
enclosed walled plat, which might be filled at what depth they listed. Upon
this wall was the frantic person put to stand, his back towards the pool,
and from thence, with a sudden blow in the breast, tumbled headlong into the
pond; where a strong fellow, provided for the nonce, took him and tossed him
up and down, alongst and athwart the water, till the patient, by foregoing
his strength, had somewhat forgot his fury. Then was he conveyed to the
church, and certain masses said over him, upon which handling, if his right
wits returned, St. Nun had the thanks; but if there appeared small
amendment, he was bowsened again and again, while there remained in him any
hope of life or recovery." North of the Tweed the treatment was hardly less
soothing. When a lunatic was being rowed over to Innis Maree to drink the
water of St. Maelrubha's Well there, he was jerked out of the boat by the
friends who accompanied him. A rope had previously been tied round his
waist, and by this he was pulled back into the boat; but before he could
gather together his all-too-scattered wits, he was in the water again. As a
rule this was done, not once or twice, but repeatedly, and in the case of
both sexes. Such was the method up to a comparatively recent date. Pennant
thus describes what was done in 1772:—"The patient is brought into the
sacred island; is made to kneel before the altar, viz., the stump of a
tree—where his attendants leave an offering in money; he is then brought to
the well and sips some of the holy water; a second offering is made; that
done, he is thrice dipped in the lake; and the same operation is repeated
every day for some weeks." This towing after a boat to cure insanity was not
an isolated instance. Early in the present century, the wife of a man living
at Stromness in Orkney, went mad through the incantations of another female
believed to be a witch. The man bethought him of the cure in question, and,
out of love for his afflicted wife, dragged her several times up and down
the harbour behind his boat. Mr. R. M. Fergusson, who mentions this case in
his "Rambles in the Far North," says that the woman "bobbed about behind the
boat like a cork, and remained as mad as ever."
The well at Struthill, in
Muthill parish, Perthshire, once had a considerable reputation for the cure
of insanity. It was customary to tie patients at night to a stone near the
spring, and recovery would follow if they were found loose in the morning.
An adjoining chapel was ordered to be demolished in 1650 by the Presbytery
of Auchterarder, on the ground of its being the scene of certain
superstitious rites, but the spring continued to be visited till a much
later date. At Teampull-mor in Lewis, in addition to walking round the
ruins, and being sprinkled with water from St. Ronan's Well, the insane
person was bound and left all night in the chapel on the site of the altar.
If he slept, he would recover; but if he remained awake, there was no hope
of a cure. In the Struthill and Teampull-mbr instances, as well as that of
Strathfillan mentioned below, the binding of the patient was an essential
part of the treatment; and in two at least of the cases the loosening of the
bonds was reckoned an omen of good. The mysterious loosening of bonds used
to be an article of common belief. Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions of
Scotland," remarks, "Animals were sometimes liberated supernaturally. In the
Isle of Enhallow, a horse tied up at sunset would wander about through the
night; and while the kirk session took cognisance of a suspected witch who
had exercised her faculties on a cow, the animal, though firmly secured, was
found to be free, and in their vicinity when the investigation closed."
The Holy Pool of St. Fillan
was famous for the cure of various diseases, but specially of insanity. It
is referred to in "Marmion" as
"St. Fillan's blessed well
Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel
And the craz'd brain restore."
It is not, however, a well,
but a pool, in the river Fillan, about two miles lower down than Tyndrum. To
correctly estimate the reverence paid to this sacred pool, we must glance at
the influence, exerted by Fillan on the district during his life-time, and
afterwards by means, of his relics. The saint flourished in the early eighth
century. He was born in Ireland. His father was Ferodach, and his mother was
Kentigerna, daughter of a prince of Leinster. She afterwards came to
Scotland and led the life of a recluse, on Inch Cailleach, an island in Loch
Lomond. According to the Aberdeen Breviary, Fillan was born with a stone in
his mouth, and was at once thrown into a lake where he was ministered to by
angels for a year. He was then taken out and baptised by Bishop Ybarus, and
at a later date received the monastic habit from Muna, otherwise called
Mundus. Devoting himself to solitary meditation he built a cell close to
Muna's monastery. On one occasion, a servant went to call him to supper, and
looking through a chink in the wall, saw the saint busy writing, his
uplifted left hand throwing light over the book in lieu of a candle.
Whatever may be thought of the incident, few will deny its picturesqueness.
In competent hands it might be made the subject of a striking picture.
Fillan afterwards went to Lochalsh, where he dedicated a church to his uncle
Congan, the founder of the monastery of Turriff, in Aberdeenshire. We next
find Fillan in the principal scene of his missionary work, viz., in
Glendochart, in that portion of the glen anciently called Siracht, and now
Strathfillan. This area formed a separate parish till 1617, but was then
united to the parish of Killin. Fillan arrived with seven serving clerics,
and tradition says that he built his church at a spot, miraculously pointed
out to him. The neighbourhood was, and is full of interest. " Glendochart,"
writes Mr. Charles Stewart in " An GaidiLeal," " is not celebrated for
terrific mountain scenery like Glencoe or the Coolins, but has a grandeur of
a different character. Lofty mountains, clothed, here in heather, there in
green ; cloudy shadows frequently flitting across their sides, and serried
ridges of multiplied lines and forms of varied beauty, and along their sides
strangely shaped stones and boulders of rocks deposited by the ancient
glaciers. Along the strath there are stretches of water, its course broken
occasionally by lochs; sometimes wending its way slowly and solemnly through
green meadows, and anon rushing along as at the celebrated bridge of Dochart,
at Killin, with fire and fury."
The same writer mentions that
three spots, where Fillan was wont to teach the natives of the Strath, are
still pointed out, viz., at the upper end of Glendochart, where the priory
was afterwards built, halfway down the glen at Dun-ribin, and at the lower
end at Cnoca-bheannachd, i.e., Hill of the Blessing, near Killin. Fillan
instructed the people in agriculture, and built mills for grinding corn. Out
of compliment to him, the mill at Killin was idle on his festival, (Jan.
9th), as late as the middle of the present century. Indeed there was a
superstition in the district that it would not be lucky to have it working
on that day. Fillan also instituted fairs for the sale and barter of local
produce. His fair is still held at Killin in January. The miraculous element
in his history did not end with his life. He seems to have died somewhere
about Lochearn, and his body was brought back to Glendochart, by way of Glen
Ogle. When the bearers reached the point where Glendochart opens upwards and
downwards, a dispute arose as to the destination of their burden. Some
wished the saint's body to be buried at Killin and others at Strathfillan.
Behold a marvel! When they could not agree, they found that instead of one
coffin there were two, and so each party was satisfied.
Robert Bruce's fight with the
followers of Macdougall of Lorne took place near St. Fillan's Church, at a
spot, afterwards named Dalrigh or the King's Field. On that occasion, an
earnest prayer was addressed to the saint of the district, and through his
intercession victory came to Bruce. So at least runs the legend. After his
success at Bannockburn, the King in gratitude founded St. Fillan's Priory,
in Strathfillan, and endowed it with the neighbouring lands of Auchtertyre,
and with the sheep-grazing of Beinmhannach or the Monk's Mountain, in
Glenlyon. Indeed, if tradition speaks truth, Bruce had a double reason to be
grateful to Fillan, for the victory at Bannockburn, was attributed to the
presence in the Scottish camp, of a relic of the saint, said to be an
arm-bone set in silver. The relic, however, as Dr. John Stuart shows, in the
twelfth volume of the " Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland," was probably his Coig-gerach or pastoral staff, popularly, but
erroneously called his Quigrich. It is said to have been kept at Auchlyne,
in a chapel called Caipal-na-Faraichd, and when the chapel was burnt to have
been rescued by a person, either then, or afterwards, called Doire or Dewar,
whose descendants became its custodiers. The subsequent history of the relic
is curious. In 1782 it was at Killin in the keeping of Malice Doire. In 1818
it was taken to Canada, where it remained for some sixty years. Through the
patriotic zeal of Sir Daniel Wilson it was then sent back to Scotland, and
now forms one of the treasures in the National Museum of Antiquities, at
Edinburgh.
The sanctity of Fillan thus
distilled like a fertilising dew over the district of Glendochart. We need
not, therefore, be surprised that, in days darker than our own, a thriving
crop of superstitions was the result. It is certainly a striking testimony
to the enduring influence of the saint, that the pool, believed to have been
blessed by him, retained its fame till within the memory of persons still
living. Possibly the pool was reverenced even before his time. Towards the
end of last century, as many as two hundred persons were brought annually to
the spot. The time selected was usually the first day of the quarter, (O.S.),
and the immersion took place after sunset. The patients, with a rope tied
round their waist, were thrown from the bank into the river. This was
usually done thrice. According to previous instructions, they picked up nine
stones from the bottom of the stream. After their dip they walked three
times round three cairns in the immediate neighbourhood, and at each turn
added a stone to the cairn. An English antiquary, who visited the spot in
1798, writes, "If it is for any bodily pain, fractured limb or sore, that
they are bathing, they throw upon one of these cairns that part of their
clothing which covered the part affected; also, if they have at home any
beast that is diseased, they have only to bring some of the meal which it
feeds upon and make it into paste with these waters, and afterwards give it
to him to eat, which will prove an infallible cure; but they must likewise
throw upon the cairn the rope or halter with which he was led. Consequently
the cairns are covered with old halters, gloves, shoes, bonnets, nightcaps,
rags of all sorts, kilts, petticoats, garters, and smocks. Sometimes they go
as far as to throw away their halfpence."
After the ceremony at the
cairns the patient was led to the ruins of St. Fillan's Chapel, about half a
mile away, and there tied to a stone with a hollow in it, large enough to
receive the body, the unfortunate person being fastened down to a wooden
framework. The patient was then covered with hay, and left in this condition
all night. As at Struthill, if the bonds were found loose in the morning, he
or she would recover; but if not, the case was counted hopeless, or at least
doubtful. As the writer of the article on the parish, in the "New
Statistical Account of Scotland," shrewdly observes, "The prospect of the
ceremony, especially in a cold winter evening, might be a good test for
persons pretending insanity." At the time when he wrote, viz., in 1843, the
natives of the parish had ceased to believe in the efficacy of the holy
pool, but it was still visited by invalids from a distance. It was usual,
after the fastening process already described, to place St. Fillan's bell on
the head of the patient by way of helping on the cure. This bell is
quadrangular in shape. Its size and appearance are thus described by Dr.
Joseph Anderson in his "Scotland in Early Christian Times": "It is an
elegant casting of bronze, stands twelve inches high and measures nine by
six inches wide at the mouth. The ends are flat, the sides bulging, the top
rounded. In the middle of the top is the loop-like handle, terminating where
it joins the bell in two dragonesque heads with open mouths." The bell
weighs eight pounds fourteen ounces. In the fifteenth century the relic
seems to have been held in special honour, for it graced the coronation of
James IV. in 1488. After the Reformation, it was locked up for some time, to
prevent its use for the superstitious purpose alluded to above. But, as a
rule, it lay on a tombstone in the Priory graveyard, protected only by the
reverence paid to it in the district. There was a belief that, if carried
off, it would return of its own accord, ringing all the way. In 1798 this
belief was put to a severe test, for in that year the English antiquary,
already quoted, removed the relic. "In order," he says, "to ascertain the
truth or falsehold of the ridiculous story of St. Fillan's bell, I carried
it off with me, and mean to convey it, if possible, to England. An old
woman, who observed what I was about, asked me what I wanted with the bell,
and I told her that I had an unfortunate relation at home out of his mind,
and that I wanted to have him cured. 'Oh, but,' says she, `you must bring
him here to be cured, or it will be of no use.' Upon which I told her he was
too ill to be moved, and off I galloped with the bell back to Tyndrum Inn."
The bell was taken to England. About seventy years later, its whereabouts
was discovered, and it was sent back to Scotland. Like the crozier of the
same saint, it is now in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh.
If we may believe a local
tradition, the Holy Pool lost its miraculous virtue in the following manner,
though, after what the English antiquary mentioned about its water being
mixed with meal, and given to diseased cattle, we see no reason why it
should have been so particular. A farmer who had a mad bull thought that, if
the sacred water could heal human ills, it would be efficacious also in the
case of the lower animals. So he plunged his infuriated beast into the
stream. What was the effect on the bull we do not know: but since then the
virtue has departed from the water. Except for a pleasure dip on a hot
summer's day, no one need now apply at the Holy Pool.
The unbroken reputation of
such health resorts, for centuries, is certainly remarkable. Strathfillan
kept up its fame for over a thousand years. At Gheel, in Belgium, for fully
twelve hundred years, successive generations of lunatics sought relief at
St. Dympna's Well. We must not be too hard on the ages before our own; for,
though in some respects dark, in other respects they had a good deal of
light. Nevertheless, severe things might be said about them. From a
present-day point of view, it might be argued that those, who took their
insane friends to get cured in the manner described, required, like the
patients themselves, a little rearrangement of their wits. |
