CHAPTER VII.

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,"