Healing and holy have an etymological kinship. The one is commonly associated with matters relating to the body, and the other with those relating to the soul. If the body is healed, it is said to be whole and its owner hale; and if the soul is healed, it is said to be holy. All these words have one idea in common, and hence we need not wonder that healing wells were, as a rule, reckoned holy wells, and vice versa. When speaking of the virtues of such wells, Mrs. Stone, in her “God’s Acre,” puts the point exactly, if somewhat quaintly, when she says, “Before chemistry was born, when medical science was little known, these medical virtues, so plainly and indisputably ostensible, were attributed to the beneficence of the saint or angel to whom the spring had been dedicated.” Many still go to Moffat, Bridge-of-Allan, and Strathpeffer to drink the waters, but probably, none of those health-seekers now rely on magic for a cure. It was quite otherwise in former times. Cures wrought at Lourdes are still believed, by many, to be due to the blessing of the water by the Virgin Mary.
Not far from the highway between Ayr and Prestwick once stood a lazar-house called King’s Ease or King’s Case, known in the sixteenth century as Kilcaiss. Its ruins were to be seen till well on in the present century. According to tradition, the hospital was founded for lepers by King Robert Bruce, who was himself afflicted with a disease believed to be leprosy. This was done as a thank-offering, for benefit received from the water of a neighbouring well. The spring was doubtless sacred to some saint, probably to Ninian, to whom the hospital was dedicated, and we can safely infer that the patron got the credit of the cure. To maintain the lepers the king gifted various lands to the hospital, among others, those of Robertlone, in Dundonald parish, and of Sheles and Spital-Sheles, in Kyle Stewart. The right of presentation to the hospital was vested in the family of Wallace of Craigie. At a later date the lands belonging to the charity passed into other hands. In the third volume of his “Caledonia,” published in 1824, Chalmers remarks, “The only revenue that remained to it was the feu-duties payable from the lands granted in fee-firm, and these, amounting to 64 bolls of meal and 8 marks Scots of money, with 16 threaves of straw for thatching the hospital, are still paid. For more than two centuries past the diminished revenue has been shared among eight objects of charity in equal shares of 8 bolls of meal and 1 mark Scots to each. The leprosy having long disappeared, the persons who are now admitted to the benefit of this charity are such as labour under diseases which are considered as incurable, or such as are in indigent circumstances.” In the time of Charles I., the persons enjoying the benefit of the charity lived in huts or cottages in the vicinity of the chapel. In 1787 the right of presentation was bought from the Wallaces by the burgh of Ayr, and the poorhouse there is thus the lineal descendant of King Robert’s hospital. Mr. R. C. Hope, in his “Holy Wells,” alludes to the interesting fact that Bruce had a free pass from the English king to visit Muswell, near London, close to the site of the Alexandra Palace. This well, dedicated to St. Lazarus, at one time belonged to the hospital order of St. John’s, Clerkenwell, and was resorted to in cases of leprosy. Bruce’s foundation at Ayr recalls another at Stony Middleton, in Derbyshire. The latter, however, was a chapel, and not a hospital. Tradition says that a crusader, belonging to the district, was cured of leprosy by means of the mineral water there, and that in gratitude he built a chapel and dedicated it to his patron saint, Martin.
In glancing at the history of holy wells, it is not difficult to understand why certain springs were endowed with mysterious properties. When there were no chemists to analyse mineral springs, anyone tasting the water would naturally enough think that there was something strange about it, a notion that would not vanish with the first draught. The wonder, too, would grow if the water was found to put fresh vigour into wearied frames. Alum wells, like the one in Carnwath parish, Lanarkshire, would, through their astringent qualities, arrest attention. A well at Halkirk, Caithness, must have been a cause of wonder, if we judge by the description given of it in the “Old Statistical Account of Scotland,” where we read, that “on its surface lies always a thin beautiful kind of substance, that varies like the plumage of the peacock displayed in all its glory to the rays of the sun.”
The petrifying power of certain springs would also tend to bring them into notice. There is a famous well of this kind near Tarras Water, in Canonbie parish, Dumfriesshire. In Kirkmaiden parish, Wigtownshire, is a dropping cave, known as Peter’s Paps. In former times it was resorted to by persons suffering from whooping-cough. The treatment consisted in standing with upturned face below the drop, and allowing it to fall into the open mouth. For more than two centuries and a half, the mineral waters of Peterhead have been famous for both internal and external use, though their fame is not now so great as formerly. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, they were spoken of as one of the six wonders of Buchan. The principal well is situated to the south of the town, and is popularly called the Wine Well. Its water is strongly impregnated with carbonic acid, muriate of iron, muriate of lime, and muriate of soda. The chalybeate spring in the Moss of Melshach, in Kennethmont parish, had at one time a considerable local reputation for the cure of man and beast. Clothes of the former and harness of the latter were left beside the well. Visits were paid to it in the month of May. Another Aberdeenshire health-resort formerly attracted many visitors, viz., Pannanich, near Ballater, with its four chalybeate springs. These are said to have been accidentally discovered, about the middle of last century, but were then probably only rediscovered. They were at first found beneficial in the case of scrofula, and were afterwards deemed infallible in all diseases. In his “Antiquities and Scenery of the North of Scotland,” Cordiner, under date 1776, writes: “In coming down these hilly regions, stopped the first night at ‘Pananach-lodge:’ an extensive building opposite to the strange rocks and pass of Bolliter. There, a mineral well and baths, whose virtues have been often experienced, are become much frequented by the infirm. The lodge, containing a number of bed-chambers, and a spacious public room, is fitted up for the accommodation of those who come to take the benefit of the waters. Goat whey is also there obtained in the greatest perfection.” Almost a century later, another visitor to the spot, viz., Queen Victoria, thus writes, in her “More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands”: “I had driven with Beatrice to Pannanich wells, where I had been many years ago. Unfortunately, almost all the trees which covered the hills have been cut down. We got out and tasted the water, which is strongly impregnated with iron, and looked at the bath and at the humble, but very clean, accommodation in the curious little old inn, which used to be very much frequented.” The Well of Spa, at Aberdeen, was more famous in former times than it is now. There are two springs, both of them chalybeate. The amount of iron in the water, however, diminished very considerably more than fifty years ago—a change due to certain digging operations in the neighbourhood. The present structure connected with the well was renovated in 1851. It was built in 1670 to replace an earlier one, repaired by George Jamieson, the artist, but soon afterwards completely demolished by the overflowing of the adjoining Denburn. The present building, according to Mr. A. Jervise, in the fourth volume of the “Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,” “bears representations of the Scottish Thistle, the Rose of England, and the Fleur-de-lis of France, surmounting this inscription:—
‘As heaven gives me
So give I thee.’
Below these words is a carving of the rising sun, and the following altered quotation from Horace:—
‘Hoc fonte derivata Salus
In patriam populumque fluat.’
“It appears,” continues Mr. Jervise, “that the virtues of this Spa were early known and appreciated, for in 1615 record says that there was ‘a long wyde stone which conveyed the waters from the spring, with the portraicture of six Apostles hewen upon either side thereof.’ It is described as having then been ‘verie old and worne.’ ”