In the Pyrenees, too, fairies and spirits are thought much of in this connection. Borlase tells us:[85] “They are the presiding genii of certain wells.” He adds:
“It is not in Ireland alone that dolmens are associated with the notion of wells and water springs. The Portuguese names, Anta do Fontao, Fonte Coberta, Anta do Fonte-de Mouratao, and the French names, Fonte de Rourre, and Fonte nay le Marmion, show this to be the case.”[86]
In Persia Sir Wm. Ouseley saw a tree covered with rags, and similar trees in the Himalayas are associated with large heaps of stones (Gomme, p. 105).
The late General Pitt-Rivers affirms that the customs of well-offerings I referred to in the last chapter are invariably associated with cairns, megalithic monuments or some such early Pagan institutions, and he adds that the area in which traces of well-offerings are found is conterminous with the area of the megalithic monuments.[87]
The idea that the waters of certain wells have marvellous healing powers is also not confined to the British Isles, for in a great many parts of Europe, perhaps more especially in France, Spain and Portugal, we find instances.
The practice of worshipping in connection with wells and the sacred stones and sacred trees which were associated with them, as we have seen, was indeed in ancient days almost, if not quite, universal wherever man existed. The traditions of the past, therefore, are to be gathered over a very wide area. I quote a summary of the universality of this practice given by the late General Pitt-Rivers in the paper already noticed:
“Burton says it extends throughout northern Africa from west to east; Mungo Park mentions it in western Africa; Sir Samuel Baker speaks of it on the confines of Abyssinia, and says that the people who practised it were unable to assign a reason for doing so; Burton also found the same custom in Arabia during his pilgrimage to Mecca; in Persia Sir William Ouseley saw a tree close to a large monolith covered with these rags, and he describes it as a practice appertaining to a religion long since proscribed in that country; in the Dekkan and Ceylon Colonel Leslie says that the trees in the neighbourhood of wells may be seen covered with similar scraps of cotton: Dr. A. Campbell speaks of it as being practised by the Limboos near Darjeeling in the Himalaya, where it is associated, as in Ireland, with large heaps of stones; and Huc in his travels mentions it among the Tartars.”
The astronomical facts given in this book, gathered from a study of the monuments in these islands, can only give us information touching the introduction of the combined worship here.
My investigations have strongly suggested, to say the least, that there were men here with knowledge enough to utilise the movements of the sun and stars for temple, and no doubt practical purposes before 2000 B.C., that is, a thousand years before Solomon was born, and at about the time that the Hecatompedon was founded at Athens.
If this is anywhere near the truth, these men must have been representatives of a very old civilisation.