CHAPTER XVII.

RAG WELLS AND PIN WELLS.

The most singular feature of well-worship in Europe is the fantastic custom of offering rags at sacred wells, also pins and buttons, rusty nails and needles, and even shells and pebbles. Rag wells and pin wells abound in Great Britain and Ireland. Many references to these are found in the works of European folklorists. Sir Laurence Gomme has skilfully distributed them geographically and we may adopt his analysis.[55] In the middle and southern countries of England these practices have not survived, but in northern England one comes across several pin-wells. At Sefton in Lancashire it was customary for passers-by to drop into St. Helen’s well a new pin for good luck or to secure the fulfilment of an expressed wish and by the turning of the pin-point to the north or to any other point of the compass conclusions were drawn as to the fidelity of lovers, date of marriage and other love matters. At Brindle is a well dedicated to St. Ellin, where on Patron day pins are thrown into the water. Such pin-wells also existed at Jarrow and Wooler in Northumberland, at Breyton Minchmore, Koyingham, and Mount Grace in Yorkshire.

At Great Cotes and Winterton in Lincolnshire, Newcastle and Benton in Northumberland, Newton Kyme, Thorp Arch, and Gargrave in Yorkshire, pieces of rag, cloth, or ribbon take the place of the pins, and are tied to bushes adjoining the wells, while near Newton, at the foot of Roseberry Topping, the shirt or shift of the devotee was thrown into the well, and according as it floated or sank so would the sickness leave or be fatal, while as an offering to the saint a rag of the shirt is torn off and left hanging on the briars thereabouts.

Pin wells in Wales are met with at Rhosgoch in Montgomeryshire, St. Cynhafal’s Well in Denbighshire, St. Barruc’s Well on Barry Island, near Cardiff, Ffynon Gwynwy spring in Carnarvonshire, and a well near Penrhos. Reference has already been made to the cursing well of St. Aelian. Anyone who wished to inflict a curse upon an enemy resorted to the priestess of the well and got the name of the person proposed to be cursed registered in a book kept for the purpose. A pin was then dropped into the well in the name of the victim, and the curse was complete. Pin-wells and rag-wells are both represented in Cornwall as, for instance, at Pelynt, St. Austel and St. Roche, where pins are offered, and at Madron Well, where both pins and rags are offered.

In Ireland the offering of rags is a universal custom. Among examples of rag-wells may be mentioned Ardclinis, County Antrim; Errigall-Keroge, County Tyrone; Dungiven, St. Bartholomew’s Well at Pilltown, County Waterford; and St. Brigid’s Well at Cliffony, County Sligo.

About fifty years after the Reformation it was noted that the wells of Scotland were all “tapestried about with old rags.” The best examples lasting to within modern times are to be found in the islands round the coast and in the northern shires, particularly in Banff, Aberdeen, Perth, Ross, and Caithness. At Kilmuir, in the Isle of Skye, at Loch Hiant, or Siant, there was “a shelf made in the wall of a contiguous enclosure” for placing thereon “the offerings of small rags, pins, and coloured threads to the divinity of the place.” At St. Mourie’s Well, on Malruba Isle, a rag was left on the bushes, nails stuck into an oak tree, or sometimes a copper coin driven in. At Toubirmore Well, in Gigha Isle, devotees were accustomed to leave “a piece of money, a needle, pin, or one of the prettiest variegated stones they could find,” and at Tonbir Well, in Jura, they left “an offering of some small token, such as a pin, needle, farthing or the like.”

In Banffshire, at Montblairie, “many still alive remember to have seen the impending boughs adorned with rags of linen and woollen garments, and the well enriched with farthings and bodles, the offerings of those who came from afar to the fountain.” At Keith the well is near a stone circle, and some offering was always left by the devotees. In Aberdeenshire, at Frazerburgh, “the superstitious practice of leaving some small trifle” existed. In Perthshire at St. Fillan’s Well, Comrie, the patients leave behind “some rags of linen or woollen cloth.” In Caithness, at Dunnat, they throw a piece of money into the water, and at Wick they leave a piece of bread and cheese and a silver coin, which they alleged disappeared in some mysterious way. In Ross and Cromarty, at Alness, “pieces of coloured cloth were left as offerings”; at Cragnick an offering of a rag was suspended from a bramble bush overhanging the well; at Fodderty the devotees “always left on a neighbouring bush or tree a bit of coloured cloth or thread as a relic”; and at Kiltearn shreds of clothing were hung on the surrounding trees. In Sutherlandshire, at Farr and at Loth, a coin was thrown into the well. In Dumfriesshire, at Penpont, a part of the dress was left as an offering, and many pieces have been seen “floating on the lake or scattered round the banks.” In Kirkcudbrightshire at Buittle, “either money or clothes” was left, and in Renfrewshire, at Houston, “pieces of cloth were left as a present or offering to the saint on the bushes.”

Macaulay in his History of St. Kilda, speaking of a consecrated well in that island called Tobirnimbuadh, or the spring of divers virtues, says: “Near the fountain stood an altar, on which the distressed votaries laid down their oblations. Before they could touch sacred water with any prospect of success, it was their constant practice to address the Genius of the place with supplication and prayers. No one approached him with empty hands. But the devotees were abundantly frugal. The offerings presented by them were the poorest acknowledgments that could be made to a superior being, from whom they had either hopes or fears, shells and pebbles, rags of linen or stuffs worn out, pins, needles, or rusty nails, were generally all the tribute that was paid; and sometimes, though rarely enough, copper coins of the smallest value.”[56]

What may be the ideas underlying these singular gifts?

Henderson explains in _Folklore_ that “the country girls imagine that the well is in charge of a fairy or spirit who must be propitiated by some offering, and the pin presents itself as the most ready or convenient, besides having a special suitableness as being made of metal.” Miss Marian Cox in her _Introduction to Folklore_ says that the pins, coins, buttons and other objects found in wells, and generally considered to be offerings, may formerly have been vehicles of the diseases which patients have thought thus to throw off. This suggestion is probably based on the theory put forward by Sir John Rhys in regard to the rag-offerings at sacred wells. He believed that the object of placing these scraps of clothing at the wells was for transferring the disease from the sick person to some one else. The same explanation is vouchsafed in regard to the Indian custom of hoisting flags on trees. But whether or not this explanation is partially true in regard to the rag offerings, it is evidently untenable in regard to the presents of pins and buttons which are unquestionably offerings intended to please the well spirits.

In combating the opinion of Sir John Rhys, Sir Laurence Gomme gives in _Folklore as an Historical Science_ a very significant example. “Among other items,” says he, “I have come across an account of an Irish station, as it is called, at a sacred well, the details of which fully bear out my view as to the nature of the rags deposited at the shrine being offerings to the local deity. One of the devotees, in true Irish fashion, made his offering accompanied by the following words:—‘To St. Columbkill—I offer up this button, a bit o’ the waistband o’ my own breeches, an’ a taste o’ my wife’s petticoat, in remimbrance of us havin’ made this holy station; an’ may they rise up in glory to prove it for us in the last day.’”

“I shall not attempt,” says the author, “to account for the presence of the usual Irish humour in this, to the devotee, most solemn offering; but I point out the undoubted nature of the offerings and their service in the identification of their owners—a service which implies their power to bear witness in spirit-land to the pilgrimage of those who deposited them during lifetime at the sacred well.” Mr. Eden Phillpots in one of his Cornish stories, _Lying Prophets_, confirms this view. In that story rags are offered. “Just a rag tored off a petticoat or some such thing. They hanged ’em up round about on the thorn bushes, to show as they’d a’done more for the good saint if they’d had the power.”

A few more authorities may be cited. These have been referred to in Knowlson’s _Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs_. Grose explains the custom in the following extract:—

“Between the towns of Alten and Newton, near the foot of the Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a well dedicated to St. Oswald. The neighbours have an opinion that a shirt or shift, taken off a sick person and thrown into that well, will show whether the person will recover or die; for if it floated, it denoted the recovery of the party; if it sunk, there remained no hope of their life; and to reward the saint for his intelligence, _they tear off a rag of the shirt, and leave it hanging on the briers thereabouts_ where, ‘I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre rheme in a paper-myll’.”

There is an echo of this theory in the _Statistical Account of Scotland_: “A spring in the Moss of Melshach, of the chalybeats kind, is still in reputation among the common people. Its sanative qualities extend even to brutes. As this spring probably obtained vogue at first in days of ignorance and superstition, it would appear that it became customary to leave at the well _part of the clothes of the sick and diseased_ and harness of the cattle as an offering of gratitude to the divinity who bestowed healing virtues on its waters. And now, even though the superstitious principle no longer exists, the accustomed offerings are still presented.”

Here is one more extract from the Statistical Account of Scotland:—

“There is at Balmano a fine spring well, called St. John’s Well, which in ancient times was held in great estimation. Numbers, who thought its waters of a sanative quality, brought their rickety children to be washed in its stream. Its water was likewise thought a sovereign remedy for sore eyes, which, by frequent washing, was supposed to cure them. To show their gratitude to the saint, and that he might be propitious to continue the virtues of the waters, they put into the well presents, not indeed of any great value, or such as would have been of the least service to him if he had stood in need of money, but such as they conceived the good and merciful apostle, who did not delight in costly oblations, could not fail to accept. The presents generally given were pins, needles, and rags taken from their clothes.”

Professor Rhys himself suggests that a distinction is to be drawn between the rags hung on trees or near a well and the pins, which are so commonly thrown into the water itself. In his opinion only the rags were meant to be vehicles of disease. “If this opinion were correct”, says Hartland, “one would expect to find both ceremonies performed by the same patient at the same well; he would throw in the pin and also place the rag on the bush, or wherever its proper place might be. The performance of both ceremonies, is, however, I think, exceptional. Where the pin or button is dropped into the well, the patient does not trouble about the rag, and _vice versa_.” Hartland is therefore inclined to think that the rags stand for entire articles of clothing which used to be deposited at an earlier time and he thinks that on the analogy of the part representing the whole the rags were intended to connect the worshipper with the deity. The reasoning underlying the rag-offerings, then, resolves itself into the following simple syllogism: My shirt or stocking, or a rag to represent it, stands for me; being placed upon a sacred bush or thrust into a sacred well it is in constant contact with divinity; the effluence of divinity, reaching and involving it therefore reaches and involves me.

A curious detail in regard to these rag-offerings is given by Mrs. Evans in reference to the rags tied on the bushes at St. Elian’s well. These rags must be tied with wool. This detail is not mentioned by the various authorities whom we have referred to, and the reason for using wool remains to be explained. We know that with the Hindus as well as with the Parsis the sheep is a sacred animal. The use of woollen clothes is prescribed in certain Hindu rituals and the sacred thread of the Parsis, which he carries round his waist day and night, is made of sheep’s wool. Probably the same idea led to the use of wool in the English custom of hanging up rags. If so, it affords a further ground for concluding that the rag was not a mere vehicle of disease but a grateful offering devoutly presented to the deity of the well or the tree.

Macedonian folklore furnishes further evidence in this behalf. Travellers in Macedonia often see newly-built fountains decorated with cotton or wool threads of many colours. These threads are torn by wayfarers from their dress on beholding the fountain for the first time. “They alight and after having slaked their thirst in the waters of the fountain, leave these offerings as tokens of gratitude to the presiding nymph.”[57]