WATER-CURES.
Trying different Springs--Curing all Diseases--Fivepennies Well
--Water and Dulse--Special Diseases--Toothache--Sore Eyes--
Blindness--Headaches and Nervous Disorders--Deafness--
Whooping-cough--Gout--Sores--Ague--Sterility--Epilepsy--
Sacrifice of a Cock--St. Tegla's Well--Insanity--Severe Treatment
--Innis-Maree--Struthill--Teampull-Mòr--Hol y 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 catholicon
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 Marykirk, 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, via the spoon and the water, to the invalid. The Straid
horn was kept by a woman in the immediate neighbourhood, 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 alia, 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-mòr 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-mòr 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 Gaidheal,"
"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
Cnoc-a-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 Bein-mhannach 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
falsehood 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.