“The common Gaelic phrase—Am bheil thu dol don chlachan—Are you going to the stones?—by which the Scottish Highlander still enquires at a neighbour if he is bound for church, seems in itself no doubtful tradition of ancient worship within the monolithic ring.”
Rhys[65] gives us many instances of wells near churches, and here it may be useful to add that the Welsh for well is Ffynnon.
Ffynnon Faglan is described as being near a church, also Ffynnon Fair, a wishing-well. Criccieth Church is supposed to have had a well near it at one time. Again, Ffynnon Beris is near the parish church of Llanberis (p. 366), and Ffynnon Elian near to the church of Llanelian, Denbighshire. Then there are St. Teilo’s Church and Well at Llandeilo Llwydarth, near Maen Clochog, North Pembrokeshire.
Wood-Martin[66] refers to the rites at the well of Tubberpatrick, part of the ceremony taking place in the church near by.
3. Association of sacred wells with sacred trees.
—Rhys, and many other authors, give us several instances of a tree by the side of a well.[67]
When we come to deal with well offerings we shall find, in fact, that in almost every case a tree has been a necessary companion of the well, as the well offerings were hung on them.
In many cases, of course, the kind of tree is not specified. When it is, it is almost invariably the rowan or hawthorn. Rhys tells us: “The tree to expect by a sacred well is doubtless some kind of thorn.”[68]
Then again, with reference to Ireland, Rhys, p. 335, quotes a passage from a letter by the late Mr. W. C. Borlase, on Rag Offerings and Primitive Pilgrimages in Ireland, to the effect that a hawthorn almost invariably stands by the brink of the typical Irish “holy well.”
There are also many references to thorn trees in the same position in Wales.