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Recovery from
Illness—Hydromancy—Mirror—Juno's Pool—Prediction and Cure—Methods of
Augury—Portents of Death—Water like Blood—Springs and National
Annals—Heritable Jurisdictions — Water and Witchcraft — Devil's Mark —Water
Ordeal—Abbey of Scone—Elgin Orderpot—Witch's Stone—Repeal of Penal
Statutes--Witchcraft in the North—Insanity—Wild Murdoch.
"Am I likely to recover?" is
a question on many a patient's lips. "Ask your doctor;" and if the case
looks serious, "Have a consultation" is the answer nowadays. Formerly, the
answer was "Go to a consecrated well," or "Get some one else to go in your
stead, and you will get a reply." There is no reason to believe that every
sacred spring was credited with this power; but many undoubtedly were.
Hydromancy has been a favourite mode of divination. "The conscious water"
could predict the future, and questions connected with health were laid
before it for its decision. The Greeks dipped a mirror into a well, and
foretold health or sickness from the appearance of the watery lines on its
surface. A pool in Laconia, sacred to Juno, revealed approaching good or
evil fortune respectively, by the sinking or floating of wheaten cakes
thrown into it, and auguries were also drawn from the movements of stones
when dropt into it. Springs, therefore, deserved the respect shown to them
by the confiding public. Indeed they not only told of recovery; they
supplied the medicine required to ensure it, and were thus doctors and
druggists combined. Sometimes the omen was unpropitious. In many cases the
prophecy would work out its own fulfilment. There was a well in the Island
of Lewis that caused either instant death or recovery to the patient who
tested its virtues: but a speedy fulfilment like this was exceptional. St.
Andrew's Well at Shadar, in Lewis, was much esteemed for its power of
augury. A tub, containing some of its water, was taken to the house of the
patient, and a small wooden dish was placed on the surface of the water. If
this dish turned sunways, it showed that the patient would recover; but if
in an opposite direction, that he would die. In reference to this instance,
Mr. Gomme, in his "Ethnology in Folklore," observes, "I am inclined to
connect this with the vessel or cauldron so frequently occurring in Celtic
tradition, and which Mr. Nutt has marked as 'a part of the gear of the
oldest Celtic divinities' perhaps of divinities older than the Celts." On
one occasion two parishioners of Fodderty, in Ross-shire, consulted
Tobar-na-domhnuich in that parish in behalf of a sick friend. When they
placed their pitcher on the surface of the water, the vessel moved round
from south to west, as in the last instance, and they hastened back to their
friend with the good news. This was in the year 1832. About the same time, a
woman brought her sick child to be bathed in the well, but was surprised and
not a little terrified to see a strange creature, with glaring eyes, leap
into it as she approached. Love for her child made her brave. Overcoming her
fear, she dislodged the creature, and bathed the little invalid. In the end,
however, she must have regarded the appearance of the creature as a bad
omen, for the child did not recover. The usual way of consulting the spring
in question was to draw water from it before sunrise, and to convey the
water to the invalid's house. The patient was then immersed in it, and if it
remained clear the circumstance pointed to recovery; but if it assumed a
brownish colour, the illness would end in death. In former times a shirt was
thrown into St. Oswald's Well, in Yorkshire, by way of augury. The floating
of the shirt foretold returning health. The sinking foretold death. When a
portion of an invalid's clothing was flung into the Dow Loch, in
Dumfriesshire, the same rule held good. As may be noticed, the augury in
these two cases was the reverse of that in the case of Juno's pool above
alluded to.
There were other ways in
which wells acted the prophet. If a certain worm in a spring on the top of a
particular hill in Strathdon was found alive, the patient would recover. A
well at Ardnacloich in Appin contained a dead worm, if the patient's illness
would prove fatal; but a living one, if otherwise. The Virgin's Well, near
the ancient church of Kilmorie on the shores of Loch Ryan in Wigtownshire,
had an ingenious way of predicting the future. If the patient, on whose
account the water was sought, would recover, the fountain flowed freely; but
if the malady would end in death, the water refused to gush forth. Montluck
Well, in the grounds of Logan in the same county, got the credit of acting
on a similar principle. When speaking of this spring, Symson says, "it is in
the midst of a little bog to which several persons have recourse to fetch
water for such as are sick, asserting (whether it be truth or falsehood I
shall not determine) that if the sick person shall recover, the water shall
so bubble and mount up when the messenger dips in his vessel, that he will
hardly get out dry shod by reason of the overflowing of the well; but if the
sick person be not to recover, there shall not be any such overflowing in
the least." We find a belief in the south-west of England corresponding to
this in the south-west of Scotland. Gulval Well, in Fosses Moor there, was
resorted to by persons anxious to know the fate of absent friends. If the
person inquired about was (lead, the water remained perfectly still; if
sick, it bubbled, though in a muddy fashion; but if well, it sent out a
sparkling gush. Mr. Hunt mentions the case of a woman, who, with her babe in
her arm, consulted the spring about her absent husband, under the guidance
of an aged female who acted as the guardian of the well. "Obeying the old
woman's directions, she knelt on the mat of bright green grass which grew
around, and, leaning over the well so as to see her face in the water, she
repeated after her instructor:
'Water, water, tell me truly,
Is the man I love truly
On the earth, or under the sod,
Sick or well,—in the name of God?'
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 sends up bubbles; but if not, it remains
quite still. The quantity of water in St. Maelrubha's Well on Innis-Maree
varied from time to time. When a patient was brought for treatment and there
was a scanty supply, the omen was considered unfavourable; but when the
water was abundant, the saint was deemed propitious, and the hope of
recovery was consequently great.
The fly at St. Michael's Well
in Banffshire was looked upon as a prophet. In the "Old Statistical Account
of Scotland" we read, that, "if the sober matron wished to know the issue of
her husband's ailment, or the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain,
they visited the Well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly
was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the
anxious votaries drew their presages." At Little Conan in Cornwall is a
spring, sacred to Our Lady of Nants. It was at one time resorted to on Palm
Sunday by persons anxious to know whether they would outlive the year. A
cross, made of palm, was thrown into the water. If it floated, the thrower
would survive the twelvemonth; but if it sank, he would die within that
time. Maidens used to visit Madron Well in the same county on May morning to
forecast their matrimonial fate. They took two pieces of straw, about an
inch in length, and placing them crosswise fastened them together with a
pin. The cross was then thrown into the spring. The rising bubbles were
carefully counted, for they corresponded in number with the years that would
elapse before the arrival of the wedding-day.
Portents of death were
sometimes furnished by lochs and springs. At Harpham in Yorkshire there is a
tradition that a drummer lad in the fourteenth century was accidentally
drowned in a certain spring by a St. Quintin--Lord of the Manor. Ever
afterwards the sound of a drum was beard in the well on the evening before
the death of one of the St. Quintin family. Camden, in his "Britannia,"
tells of a sheet of water in Cheshire called Blackmere Lake, lying in the
district where the Brereton family had lands, and records the local belief
that, just before any heir of that house died, trunks of trees were seen
floating on its surface. Water occasionally gave warning by turning red like
blood. A certain fountain, near the Elbe, in Germany, was at one time
believed to do this, in view of an approaching war. St. Tredwell's Loch, in
Papa-Westray, Orkney, has already been referred to, in connection with its
habit of turning red, whenever anything remarkable was about to happen to a
member of the Royal Family. When the Earl of Derwentwater was beheaded, in
1716, the news spread that the stream flowing past his estate of Dilston
Hall in Northumberland ran with blood. The same was said of the river at
Bothel, in the parish of Topenhow, in Cumberland, on the occasion of the
execution of Charles I., in 1649. There was at one time a well. in
Canterbury Cathedral. After the assassination of Thomas h Becket the
sweepings of his blood and brains from the floor were thrown into it, and
more than once afterwards the water turned red and effected various
miraculous cures. Lady Wilde, in her "Ancient Legends of Ireland," narrates
how one of the holy wells of Erin lost its efficacy for curing purposes
through having been touched by a murderer. The priest of the district took
some of its water and breathed on it thrice in the name of the Trinity,
when, lo! a mysterious change came over it, and it appeared red like blood!
The murderer was captured and handed over to justice, and the well once more
began to work cures.
Some springs seemed anxious
to be behind the scenes (though before the event) in connection with various
incidents in British annals. A spring at Warlingham, in Surrey, rises before
any great event in our country's history. At any rate it did so before three
great events in the seventeenth century, viz., the Restoration, the Plague,
and the Revolution. The famous Drumming Well at Oundle, in Northamptonshire,
was also specially active in the seventeenth century. By making a sound like
the beating of a drum, it announced the approach of a Scottish army, and
gave warning of the death of Charles II. In the same century a pool in North
Tawton parish, Devonshire, even though dry in summer, became full of water
at the driest season before the death of a prince, and remained so till the
event happened. Two centuries earlier a certain well at Langley Park, in
Kent, had a singular way of foretelling the future. In view of a battle it
became dry, though rain fell heavily. If there was to be no fighting, it
appeared full of water, even during the greatest drought. A spring at
Kilbarry, in the island of Barra, Outer Hebrides, served the same purpose,
but its mode of augury was different. In this case, as Dalyell records in
his "Darker Superstitions," drops of blood appeared in prospect of war; but
little bits of peat, if peace was to remain unbroken. Walcott mentions, in
his "Scoti-Monasticon," that there was at Kilwinning, in Ayrshire, "a sacred
fountain which flowed in 1184, and at other times, before a war or trouble,
with blood instead of water for eight successive days and nights." When
Marvelsike Spring, near Brampton Bridge, in Northamptonshire, overflowed its
customary limits, people used to interpret its conduct as signifying
approaching dearth, the death of some great person, or some national
disturbance. In these days, when so keen an interest is taken in the
proceedings of Parliament, it is a pity that there is no spring in our land
capable of announcing the probable date of a dissolution. Such a spring
would relieve the public mind from much uncertainty, and would benefit the
trade and commerce of the country.
Heritable jurisdictions were
abolished in Scotland soon after the Stuart rising of 1745. This privilege,
enjoyed till then by many landowners north of the Tweed, was popularly known
as the " right of pit and gallows," the pit being for the drowning of women
and the gallows for the hanging of men. In 1679, a certain woman, Janet
Grant by name, was convicted of theft in the baronial court of Sir Robert
Gordon of Gordonstone, held at Drainie, in Elginshire, and was sentenced to
be drowned in Spynie Loch. In this and other similar cases water was used as
a means of execution. In the case of witchcraft it was called in as a
witness in the trial. The criminal proceedings for the detection and
punishment of so-called witches form a painfully dark chapter in Scottish
history. As Mr. W. H. Davenport Adams pointedly puts it, in his "Witch,
Warlock, and Magician," "The common people for a time might have been
divided into two classes, `witches and witchfinders." The same writer
observes, " Among the people of Scotland, a more serious-minded and
imaginative race than the English, the superstition of witchcraft was deeply
rooted at an early period. Its development was encouraged not only by the
idiosyncracies of the national character, but also by the nature of the
country and the climate in which they lived. The lofty mountains, with their
misty summits and shadowy ravines, their deep obscure glens, were the
fitting homes of the wildest fancies, the eeriest legends, and the
storm—crashing through the forests, and the surf beating on the rocky shore,
suggested to the ear of the peasant or fisherman the voices of unseen
creatures--of the dread spirits of the waters and the air." A favourite
method of discovering whether an accused person was guilty or not, was that
technically known as pricking. It was confidently believed that every witch
had the " devil's mark " somewhere on her person. The existence of this mark
could be determined: for if a pin was thrust into the flesh with the result
that neither blood came, nor pain was felt, the spot so punctured was the
mark in question. This showed, without doubt, that the accused was guilty of
the heinous crime laid to her charge. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his
"History of Witchcraft in Scotland," gives instances of the finding of the "
devil's mark." He mentions the case of Janet Barker, a servant in Edinburgh,
who acknowledged that she possessed this particular mark between her
shoulders. A pin was stuck into the spot and remained there for an hour
without her being aware of its presence. Such, at least, was the way of
stating the case in 1643. With this simple test at command it is not easy to
understand why water should have been required to give evidence. But so it
was. Among various nations the water-ordeal has been in fashion. It was
specially popular in Scotland a couple of centuries ago. Part of the bay at
St. Andrews is still styled the Witches' Lake, recalling by its name the
crude notions and cruel practices of our ancestors. A pool in the Carron,
near Dunnottar Church in Kincardineshire, at one time served a similar
purpose.
As we have seen, the sinking
or the floating of an object thrown into water in cases of sickness told of
death or recovery. In like manner innocence or guilt could be determined in
the case of persons accused of sorcery. If the person sank, she was
innocent; but guilty, if she floated. King James VI.—a great authority on
the subject—explains why this was so. In his "Daemonologie," he says, "As in
a secret murther, if the dead carcase be at any time thereafter handled by
the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were raging to the
Heaven for revenge of the murtherer (God having appointed that secret
supernatural sign for trial of that secret unnatural crime), so that it
appears that God bath appointed (for a supernatural sign of the monstrous
impiety of witches) that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom
that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism and wilfully refused
the benefit thereof." The Abbey of Scone, in Perthshire, founded by
Alexander I., in 1114, received from him a charter confirming the right of
using the water-ordeal for the detection of witchcraft. The place of trial
was a small island in the Tay, half-way between the abbey and the bridge of
Perth. According to the practices, common at such trials, the accused was
thrown into the water, wrapped up in a sheet, and having the thumbs and the
great toes fastened together. The chances of life were certainly not great
under the circumstances, for, if the poor creature floated, she had soon to
exchange water for fire. The stake was her goal. If she sank, the likelihood
was that she would be drowned. Bundled up in the manner described, she was
scarcely in a position to rescue herself; and the bystanders were in no
humour to give a helping hand. Close to the town of Elgin was once a
witch-pool, known as the Order Pot, so called from its having been the place
of ordeal. Through time it was filled up, mainly with rubbish from the ruins
of the cathedral, in fulfilment, it was believed, of the prophecy of Thomas
the Rhymer that
"The Order Pot and Lossie grey
Shall sweep the Chanonry kirk away."
In the seventeenth century a
woman who was accused of having brought disease on a certain man through her
sorceries was thrown into the pool. She sank, and the crowd, who had
collected to witness the trial, exclaimed, " To Satan's kingdom she hath
gone." The incident is of interest since the view of her case, then taken,
was contrary to the one usually held, as explained above. Perhaps the people
standing by thought that the devil was so eager to get his own, that he
would not lose the chance of securing his victim at once. Elginshire has
another memorial of the black art in the form of The Witch's Stone at Forres.
It consists of a boulder about a yard in diameter and probably marks the
spot where unhappy females convicted of witchcraft were executed. About the
year 1790 some one wished to turn the stone to good account for building
purposes and broke it into three pieces. The breaker, however, was compelled
to put it together again, and the iron then used to clasp it is still in
position. Legend accounts for the breakage in a less prosaic way. When the
boulder was being carried by a witch through the air in her apron, the
apron-string broke, and, as a result, the stone was broken too. The spot was
formerly reckoned ill-omened. It would be too much to say that belief in the
black art has vanished from the Highlands; though, fortunately for the good
sense of our age, as well as for those who live in it, witch pools are not
now in requisition. Pennant bears witness to the fact that belief in
witchcraft ceased in Perthshire soon after the repeal, in 1736, of the penal
statutes against witches. In more northern districts it continued a vital
part of the popular creed till much later. The Rev. Donald Sage mentions, in
his "Memorabilia Domestica," that the Rev. Mr. Fraser, minister of
Killearnan in Ross-shire, about 1750, was much troubled with somnolency even
in the pulpit. He was in consequence thought to be bewitched—a notion that
he himself shared. Two women were fixed on, as the cause of his unnatural
slumbers. It was believed that they had made a clay image representing the
minister and had stuck pins into it. Certain pains felt by him were ascribed
to this cause. Had it not been for the Act of 1736, it would doubtless have
fared ill with the supposed witches.
Witches, however, were not
alone in their power of floating. According to a popular belief in the
north-west Highlands, insane people cannot sink in water. Sir Arthur
Mitchell, in the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,"
volume iv., refers to the case of a certain madman—Wild Murdoch by
name—concerning whom strange stories were told. He was born on the small
island of Melista, near the coast of Lewis, used only for occasional
habitation in connection with the pasturing of cattle. Anyone born in the
island is believed to become insane. The superstition about not sinking was
certainly put to a severe test in Wild Murdoch's case. "It is said," remarks
Sir Arthur, "that his friends used to tie a rope round his body, make it
fast to the stern of the boat, and then pull out to sea, taking the wretched
man in tow. The story goes that he was so buoyant that he could not sink;
`that they tried to press him down into the water;' that he could swim with
a stone fastened to him; that when carried to the rocky holms of Melista or
Greinan, round which the open Atlantic surges, and left there alone, he took
to the water and swam ashore." |
