Bourne, in his “Popular Antiquities,” published in 1725, remarks:—“In the southern parts of this nation the most of country villages are wont to observe some Sunday in a more particular manner than the other common Sundays of the year, viz., the Sunday after the Day of Dedication, i.e., the Sunday after the Day of the Saint to whom their church was dedicated. Then the inhabitants deck themselves in their gaudiest clothes, and have open doors and splendid entertainments for the reception and treating of their relations and friends who visit them on that occasion from each neighbouring town. The morning is spent for the most part at church, the remaining part of the day in eating and drinking, and so is also a day or two afterwards, together with all sorts of rural pastimes and exercises, such as dancing on the green, wrestling, cudgelling, &c. Agreeable to this, we are told that formerly, on the Sunday after the Encœnia, or Feast of the Dedication of the Church, it was usual for a great number of the inhabitants of the village, both grown and young, to meet together at break of day, and to cry, ‘Holy Wakes, Holy Wakes,’ and after Matens go to feasting and sporting, which they continued for two or three days.”
Quoting from the “Presbyterie Buik of Aberdein, 19th June, 1607, in M.S.” Dalyell observes:—“In the North of Scotland, young men conducted themselves ‘pro phanelie on the Sabboathes in drinking, playing at futteball, dancing, and passing fra paroche to paroche—and sum passes to St. Phitallis Well to the offence of God and ewill of mony.’ ” In connection with this, a remark from Dr. J. A. Hessey’s Bampton Lecture on Sunday may be quoted. When comparing it with the Holy days instituted in mediæval times, he says, the former perhaps “was even worse observed than the other days, for in spite of the Church, men had a vague impression that it was one of specially allowed intermission of ordinary employments. This they interpreted to mean of more special permission of dissipation than the other days noted in the kalendar.” After describing the island of Valay, near North Uist, where there were Chapels to St. Ulton and St. Mary, Martin says, “Below the Chapel there is a flat thin stone call’d Brownie’s Stone upon which the antient inhabitants offer’d a cow’s milk every Sunday.” That this offering of milk, though made on Sundays, was a pagan and not a Christian rite, can hardly be disputed. At some places, e.g., at Glasgow, Crail, and Seton, Sunday was at one time the weekly market day, but by an Act of James the Sixth, in 1579, the holding of markets on Sunday was prohibited throughout the realm. The Sundays in May were certainly the most popular for visits to springs, but these occurring about the time of the other leading nature-festivals were also in fashion. Sun-worship, as we have seen, was the back-ground of all such festivals. We need not wonder, therefore, that consecrated springs were frequented on a day whose very name suggested a reminiscence of a solar pagan cult.
We have discussed Beltane, let us now look at one other leading nature-festival, viz., Lammas, on the first day of August, to discover what light it throws on our subject. The Church dedicated the opening day of August to St. Peter ad Vincula. A curious mediæval legend arose to connect this dedication with another name for the festival, viz., the Gule of August. At the heart of this legend was the Latin word Gula, signifying the throat. The daughter of Quirinus, a Roman tribune, had some disease of the throat which was miraculously cured through kissing St. Peter’s chains, and so the day of the chains was designated the Gule of August. As a matter of fact, the word is derived from the Cymric Gwyl, a feast or holiday, and we have confirmation of the etymology in the circumstance, that in Celtic lands the time was devoted to games, and other recreations. In Ireland a celebrated fair, called Lugnasadh, was held at Tailtin (now Teltown), in Meath, for several days before and after the first of August, and there was another at Cruachan, now Rath Croghan, in Roscommon. A third was held at Carman, now Wexford. Its celebration was deemed so important that, as Professor Rhys tells us, in his “Celtic Heathendom,” “among the blessings promised to the men of Leinster from holding it were, plenty of corn, fruit, and milk, abundance of fish in their lakes and rivers, domestic prosperity, and immunity from the yoke of any other province. On the other hand, the evils to follow from the neglect of this institution were to be failure and early greyness on them and their kings.” In legendary accounts of Carman, the place has certain funereal associations. “If we go into the story of the fair of Carman,” Professor Rhys observes, “we are left in no doubt as to the character of the mythic beings whose power had been brought to an end at the time dedicated to that fair; they may be said to have represented the blighting chills and fogs that assert their baneful influence on the farmer’s crops. To overcome these and other hurtful forces of the same kind, the prolonged presence of the sun-god was essential, in order to bring the corn to maturity.”
That the Gule of August was a Nature-festival may be further inferred from the fact that among many Anglo-Saxon peoples it was called Hlâf-mæsse, i.e., Loaf-mass, eventually shortened into Lammas. Our English ancestors offered on that day bread made from the early grain, as the first-fruits of the harvest. In Scotland, the Lammas rites were handed down from an unknown past and survived till the middle of last century. They were closely connected with country life, and were taken part in, mainly by those who had to do with the tending of cattle. The herds of Mid-Lothian held Lammas in special favour. For some weeks prior to that date they busied themselves in building what were called Lammas towers, composed of stones and sods. These towers were about seven or eight feet high, sometimes more. On the day of the festival they were surmounted by a flag formed of a table-napkin decked with ribbons. During the building of the towers attempts were sometimes made by rival parties to throw them down, and accordingly they had to be kept constantly watched. On Lenie hill and Clermiston hill two such towers used to be built, about two miles apart, but within sight of each other. These were the respective trysting-places of herds belonging to different portions of Cramond and Corstorphine parishes. On Lammas morning the herds met at their respective towers, and, after a breakfast of bread and cheese, marched to meet each other, blowing horns, and having a piper at their head. Colours were carried aloft by each party, and the demand to lower them was the signal for a contest, which sometimes ended in rather a curious manner. Games for small prizes closed the day’s proceedings.
At one time temporary structures formed of sods and sticks, and known as Lammas houses, were built in South Wales in connection with the festival. Inside these a fire was kindled for the roasting of apples. Anyone, by paying a penny, could enter and have an apple. Professor Rhys speaks of other Lammas rites in the Principality. “Gwyl Awst,” he observes, “is now a day for fairs in certain parts of Wales, and it is remembered, in central and southern Cardiganshire, as one on which the shepherds used, till comparatively lately, to have a sort of pic-nic on the hills. One farmer’s wife would lend a big kettle for making in it a plentiful supply of good soup or broth, while, according to another account, everybody present had to put his share of fuel on the fire with his own hands. But, in Brecknockshire, the first of August seems to have given way sometime before Catholicism had lost its sway in Wales, to the first holiday or feast in August; that is to say, the first Sunday in that month. For then crowds of people, early in the morning, make their way up the mountains called the Beacons, both from the side of Caermarthenshire and Glamorgan; their destination used to be the neighbourhood of the Little Van Lake, out of whose waters they expected, in the course of the day, to see the Lady of the Lake make her momentary appearance.” Professor Rhys bears further witness to the connection of Lammas rites with our present subject when he says, “A similar shifting from the first of August to the first Sunday in that month, has, I imagine, taken place in the Isle of Man. For, though the solstice used to be, in consequence probably of Scandinavian influence, the day of institutional significance in the Manx summer, inquiries I have made in different parts of the island, go to show that middle-aged people, now living, remember that, when they were children, their parents used to ascend the mountains very early on the first Sunday in August (O.S.), and that in some districts at least they were wont to bring home bottles full of water from wells noted for their healing virtues.” Another proof that the ceremonies of Lammas-tide had some link with those of archaic Water-worship is to be found in the circumstance mentioned by Dalyell, that, “in Ireland the inhabitants held it an inviolable custom to drive their cattle into some pool or river on the first Sunday of August as essential to the life of the animals during the year.” This was regularly done till towards the end of the seventeenth century. It may be remembered that in Scotland, during the same century, horses were washed in the sea at Lammas, doubtless with the same end in view.
We shall now glance at some traces of Sun-worship in the rites of Well-worship. In countries where the worship of the sun had an acknowledged place in the popular religion, the temples to that luminary were found associated with fountains. In his “Holy Land and the Bible,” the Rev. J. Cunningham Geikie remarks, “The old name of Bethshemish, which means the house of the sun, is now changed to Ain Thenis—the fountain of the sun—living water being found in the valley below. Both point to the Philistine Sun-worship, and both names are fitting, for every sun-house or temple needed, like all other ancient sanctuaries, a fountain near it to supply water for ablutions and libations.” When evidence of this kind fails us, we have another kind within reach, viz., that derived from the employment of fire to symbolise the sun on the principle already explained. At St. Bede’s Well, near Jarrow, in Durham, it used to be customary to kindle a bonfire on Mid-summer Eve. In connection with the same festival a bonfire was lighted at Toddel-Well, near Kirkhampton in Cumberland, and the lads and lasses, who were present, were in the habit of leaping through the flames. In a cave at Wemyss, in Fife, is a well, to which young people at one time carried blazing torches on the first Monday of January (O.S.). The time of day when consecrated springs were made use of has a bearing on the point under review. The water was thought to have a peculiar efficacy either just after sunset or just before sunrise. The moment when the sun was first seen above the horizon was also reckoned particularly favourable. To the same class of superstitions belongs the Scandinavian belief, referred to by Mr. Lloyd in his “Peasant Life in Sweden,” that the water of certain sacred springs, known as Fonts of the Cross, was turned into wine at sunrise.
The survival of rites of archaic Sun-worship in the practice of making a turn sun-ways has been already referred to.
In conclusion, we shall glance at the bearings of the practice on the question of Well-worship. To make a visit to a spring effectual, when a cure was wanted, the invalid had to pace round it from left to right, in recognition of the fact that the sun moved in the same direction. The sun, being the source of vitality, why should not an imitation of its daily motion tend to produce the same result? When speaking of Loch Siant Well, in Skye, Martin says:—“Several of the common people oblige themselves by a vow to come to this well, and make the ordinary tour about it call’d Dessil. They move thrice round the well, proceeding sunways from east to west, and so on. This is done after drinking of the water. Sometimes it was done elsewhere before drinking of the water.” The importance of this motion comes clearly into view in the case of St. Andrew’s Well, at Shadar, in Lewis, referred to in a previous chapter. When the wooden dish, floating on the surface of the water, turned round sun-ways, the omen was a sign that the patient concerned would recover, but a turning in the opposite direction foreboded ill.” In reference to Chapel Uny Well, in Cornwall, Mr. Hunt says:—“On the first three Wednesdays in May, children suffering from mesenteric diseases are dipped three times in this well, against the sun, and dragged three times around the well on the grass in the same direction.” Mr. Lloyd tells us that, in Sweden, a remedy for whooping-cough is to drink water, “that drops from a mill-wheel, which revolves ansols, that is, in a contrary direction to the course of the sun.” These two examples, however, are exceptions to the rule. They may, perhaps, be explained on the principle that what is in itself evil, because contrary to nature, brings good when converted into a charm. To walk round a well widdershins was to commit an act of sorcery. Mr. J. G. Barbour, in his “Unique Traditions of the West and South of Scotland,” recounts the trial and fate of a lonely old woman, who lived in the Kirkcudbrightshire parish of Irongray, early in the seventeenth century. She was accused of witchcraft, and, when convicted of the crime, met her death by being rolled down hill inside a blazing tar barrel. Various were the charges brought against her, one of them being that, at certain hours she walked round the spring near her cottage wuddershins. Mr. Barbour adds, “The well, from which she drew the water for her domestic use, and where the young rustic belles washed their faces, still retains the name of the Witch’s Well.” Faith in the benefit of turning sun-ways and faith in the efficacy of south-running water belong to the same class of superstitions. Both have a direct reference to the sun’s course. The water of a stream flowing to meet the sun, when its mid-day beams are casting their sweet influences upon the earth, must absorb and retain a power to bless and heal. So, at least, men thought, nor were they slow to take advantage of the virtue that mingled with the water. Bodily ailments were cured by washing in it, and it was used as one of the many remedies to remove the evil effects of witchcraft. In this, as in the other rites previously alluded to, we see the influence of a cult that did not pass away, when the sun ceased to be worshipped as a divinity. In other words, Well-worship cannot be adequately understood if we leave out of account archaic Sun-worship, and its modern survivals.