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?