A woman who put a hedge round every country.
A woman to whom right inclines.
A woman greatest in strength and power,
A woman softest (i.e., most generous) about red gold.
A woman by whom is quenched the anger of the king.
A woman who gives sight to the blind.
For the Irish text of this story, see "Religious Songs of Connacht," vol. I., p. 111.
The abbey where the holy well broke out was, according to some, founded by Cathal O Conor in 1216, for the Augustinians, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity.
THE STORY.
Long ago there was a blessed well in Ballintubber (i.e., town of the well), in the county Mayo. There was once a monastery in the place where the well is now, and it was on the spot where stood the altar of the monastery that the well broke out. The monastery was on the side of a hill, but when Cromwell and his band of destroyers came to this country, they overthrew the monastery, and never left stone on top of stone in the altar that they did not throw down.
A year from the day that they threw down the altar—that was Lady Day in spring—the well broke out on the site of the altar, and it is a wonderful thing to say, that there was not one drop of water in the stream that was at the foot of the hill from the day that the well broke out.
There was a poor friar going the road the same day, and he went out of his way to say a prayer upon the site of the blessed altar, and there was great wonder on him when he saw a fine well in its place. He fell on his knees and began to say his paternoster, when he heard a voice saying: "Put off your brogues, you are upon blessed ground, you are on the brink of Mary's Well, and there is the curing of thousands of blind in it; there shall be a person cured by the water of that well for every person who heard mass in front of the altar that was in the place where the well is now, if they be dipped three times in it, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
When the friar had his prayers said, he looked up and saw a large white dove upon a fir tree near him. It was the dove who was speaking. The friar was dressed in false clothes, because there was a price on his head, as great as would be on the head of a wild-dog [wolf].
At any rate, he proclaimed the story to the people of the little village, and it was not long till it went out through the country. It was a poor place, and the people in it had nothing [to live in] but huts, and these filled with smoke. On that account there were a great many weak-eyed people amongst them. With the dawn, on the next day, there were above forty people at Mary's Well, and there was never man nor woman of them but came back with good sight.