Dr. Oscar Woods, the medical superintendent of the District Lunatic Asylum, Kilkenny, informs me that the superstition has nearly died out since this asylum was opened, about thirty years ago. Dr. Woods gives a different etymology, namely, bright, for galt; the valley in that case deriving its name in contradistinction to that on the other side of the hill, Emaloghue, on which the sun scarcely ever shines. He thinks the superstition arose from persons labouring under melancholy going from the sunless to the bright valley. "Why this place," wrote Dr. C. Smith in 1756,[37] "rather than any other should be frequented by lunatics, nobody can pretend to ascertain any rational cause, and yet no one truth is more firmly credited here by the common people than this impertinent fable." He, however, says that having regard to the awful appearance of these desolate glens and mountains, none but madmen would enter them! Recurring to the meaning of the word galt, a gentleman in Ireland, a professor of Irish, states that geilt is a mad person, one living in the woods, and that gealt is the genitive plural. It is interesting to find, also, from the same source, that the Irish word for the moon is gealach, indicating a probable etymological connection.
As to the origin of this superstition, it appears to be of very ancient date. It is stated[38] that the Fenian tale, called "Cath Finntraglia," or "The Battle of Ventry," relates how Daire Dornmhar, "the monarch of the world," landed at Ventry to conquer Erin, and was opposed in mortal combat by Finnmac-Cumhail and his men. The battles were many and lasted a year and a day, and at last the "monarch of the world" was completely repulsed, and driven from the shores of Ireland. In the battle, Gall, the son of the King of Ulster, only a youth, who had come to the help of Finnmac-Cumhail, "having entered the battle with extreme eagerness, his excitement soon increased to absolute frenzy, and, after having performed astounding deeds of valour, fled in a state of derangement from the scene of slaughter, and never stopped till he plunged into the wild seclusion of this valley." The opinion is that this Gall was the first lunatic who went there, and that with him this singular local superstition originated, followed as it has been by innumerable pilgrimages to the beautiful "Valley of Lunatics" and its wells.
A visitor to this valley in 1845 writes: "We went to see Glenagalt, or the 'Madman's Glen,' the place, as our guide sagely assured us, 'to which all the mad people in the world would face, if they could get loose.' After pursuing for miles our romantic route, we came to the highest part of the road, and turned a hill which completely shut out Glen Inch; and lo! before us lay a lovely valley, sweeping down through noble hills to Brandon Bay. The peak of the mighty Brandon himself ended one ridge of the boundary, while high, though less majestic, mountains formed the other; and this valley so rich and fertile, so gay with cornfields, brown meadows, potato gardens, and the brilliant green of the flax, so varied and so beautiful in the bright mingling of Nature's skilful husbandry, was the 'Madman's Glen.' I felt amazed and bewildered, for I had expected to see a gloomy solitude, with horrid crags and gloomy precipices. Not at all; the finest and richest valley which has greeted my eyes since we entered the Highlands of Kerry is this—smiling, soft, and lovely.
"We took our leave of fair Glenagalt, and assuredly if any aspect of external nature could work such a blessed change, the repose, peace, and plenty of this charming valley would restore the unsettled brain of a poor unfortunate."[39]
The late Professor Eugene O'Curry, in his work on the "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," published in 1873, makes no reference to madness, idiocy, or possession. He refers to a sort of witchcraft under the head of divination, where he gives an instance of a trance produced by magical arts; of the mad rage of the hero, and of how, in the midst of that rage, he was caught, as it were, by the hands and feet, through Druidical incantations.[40]
Returning to England, let the reader imagine himself in London in the early and middle part of the sixteenth century. There, in St. Giles's, might have been seen a physician, Dr. Borde, who, born in 1490 in Sussex, had made some practice in the metropolis, including that of mental disorders. He had been a Carthusian monk, but was "dispensed of religion," studied medicine, and followed the medical profession, first at Glasgow, and then in London. What, it may be asked, would have been his method of caring for lunatics? The answer may be found in a curious book which he wrote, entitled "A Compendious Rygment or a Dyetry of Helth," and published in 1542.[41] There are several references, of much interest, to insanity. One chapter of the book is headed, "An order and a dyett for them the whiche be madde and out of theyr wytte." In it the doctor says, "I do advertyse every man the whiche is madde or lunatycke or frantycke or demonyacke, to be kepte in safegarde in some close house or chamber where there is lytell light; and that we have a keeper the whiche the madde man do feare." The remainder is conceived in quite a kindly spirit. The patient is to have no knife or shears; no girdle, except a weak list of cloth, lest he destroy himself; no pictures of man or woman on the wall, lest he have fantasies. He is to be shaved once a month, to drink no wine or strong beer, but "warm suppynges three tymes a daye, and a lytell warm meat." Few words are to be used except for reprehension or gentle reformation.
This, then, is the way in which a well-intentioned doctor would take care of a lunatic in the reign of Henry VIII. We wish that all the treatment pursued had been as considerate. That it was not so we shall see; but I would first add the curious experience of Dr. Borde in Rome, which he visited, and where he witnessed the treatment of a lunatic which was very singular, and founded on the vulgar notion of his being possessed. He says that to a marble pillar near St. Peter's, persons supposed to be possessed, that is, insane, were brought, and said to be cured. A German lady was the patient when the English physician was the spectator, and he describes her as being taken violently by some twenty men to the pillar, or rather into it, for it appears to have contained a chamber; "and after her did go in a priest, and did examine the woman in this manner. 'Thou devil or devils, I adjure thee by the potential power of the Father and the Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, that thou do show to me for what cause thou doest possess this woman?'" What words were answered, Dr. Borde says he will not write, "for men will not believe it, but would say it were a foul and great lie." What he heard made him afraid to tarry, lest the demons should have come out of her and entered into him. We are not left in doubt as to his belief in the possession of lunatics. "I considering this," he says, "and weke of faith and afeard crossed myself and durst not hear and see such matters for it was so stupendous and above all reason if I should write it." It is certainty a pity that the worthy doctor did not stay longer to watch, and to record in his graphic language, the effect of the treatment.
From the same motives lunatics in Great Britain were bound to holy crosses. Sir David Lyndsay, in his poem called "Monarche," written nearly four hundred years ago, says—
"They bryng mad men on fuit and horsse,
And byndes theme to Saint Mangose Crosse."
To this cross (at Lotherwerd, now Borthwick, county Edinburgh), says an old writer, Jocelin, a monk of Furness, "many labouring under various disorders, and especially the furious and those vexed with demons, are bound in the evening; and in the morning they are often found sane and whole, and are restored to their liberty."[42]