On the other hand, in some cases, as at St. Madron’s well, noon is chosen on the first three Sundays in May, “not believing that these waters have any virtue if resorted to on any other days of the year, or at any other hour of the day.”
With regard to the August festival, there is a holy well at St. Cleer, near the Hurlers; the festival is held on August 9th.[80] I have no special references to August wells in Ireland, but there is evidence given by Piers[81] that at that time cattle were bathed.
“On the first Sunday in harvest, viz., in August, they will be sure to drive their cattle into some pool or river and therein swim them; this they observe as inviolable as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast will live the whole year thro’ unless they be thus drenched. I deny not but that swimming cattle, and chiefly in this season of the year, is healthful unto them, as the poet hath observed:—
“Balantemque gregem fluvio mersare salubri.”—Virg.
In th’ healthful flood to plunge the bleating flock.
but precisely to do this on the first Sunday in harvest, I look on as not only superstitious but profane.”
I next come to the solstice in June.
There is evidence concerning wells quite akin to that furnished by the astronomical use of the circles, that the May year festivals were subsequently changed to solstitial dates. The well worship does not appear to have been carried on in the cold weather—hence the absence of references to February and November; for the same reason we have only now to do with the summer solstice.
Hazlitt quotes the following from the Irish Hudibras (1689) concerning June worship at a well in the North of Ireland:—
“Have you beheld, when people pray
At St. John’s well on Patron-Day,
By charm of priest and miracle,
To cure diseases at this well;
The valleys filled with blind and lame,
And go as limping as they came.”