After that, blind and sore-eyed people used to be coming to Mary's Well, and not a person of them ever returned without being cured. But there never yet was anything good in this country that was not spoilt by somebody, and the well was spoilt in this way.
There was a girl in Ballintubber and she was about to be married, when there came a half-blind old woman to her asking alms in the honour of God and Mary.
"I've nothing to give to an old blind-thing of a hag, it's bothered with them I am," said the girl.
"That the marriage ring may never go on you until you're as blind as myself," says the old woman.
Next day, in the morning, the young girl's eyes were sore, and the morning after that she was nearly blind, and the neighbours said to her that she ought to go to Mary's Well.
In the morning, early, she rose up and went to the well, but what should she see at it but the old woman who asked the alms of her, sitting on the brink, combing her head over the blessed well.
"Destruction on you, you nasty hag, is it dirtying Mary's Well you are?" said the girl. "Get out of that or I'll break your neck."
"You have no honour nor regard for God or Mary, you refused to give alms in honour of them, and for that reason you shall not dip yourself in the well."
The girl caught a hold of the hag trying to pull her from the well, and with the dragging that was between them, the two of them fell into the well and were drowned.