WITNESS OF WATER.
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 dead, 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 heard 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 à 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 Marvel-sike 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 hath 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."