right side of the house, at the south side of the altar." (xlvii. I.)
Cornwall possesses a vast number of holy wells, many of them in very bad repair. That at S. Cleer has been restored admirably; Dupath is in perfect condition; that of S. Guron at Bodmin has been restored; S. Melor's well at Linkinhorn is very beautiful and in perfect condition; S. John's well, Morwenstow, S. Julian's, Mount Edgcumbe, S. Indract's in the parish of S. Dominic, the well of S. Sidwell and S. Wulvella at Laneast, S. Samson's, Southill, Menacuddle, S. Anne's, Whitstone, S. Neot's, S. Nin's, Pelynt, Roche, S. Ruan's, are in good condition, but many are ruinous, or have been so altered as to have lost their interest. That of S. Mawes has been built up, and two great cast-iron pipes carried up from it for the circulation of air over the water, which is drawn away to a tap which supplies the town or village.2
Here is a melancholy account of the condition to which a holy well has sunk: -
"Venton Eia (S. Ia's well), on the cliff overlooking Porthmeor. – This ancient well, associated with the memory of the patron saint of the town (S. Ives), was formerly held in the highest reverence. Entries occur in the borough records of sums paid for cleansing and repairing it, under 1668-9 and 1692-3. On the last of these occasions the well was covered, faced, and floored with hewn granite blocks in two compartments. It is still known as 'the Wishing Well,' from the old custom of divination by crooked pins dropped into the water. For some years past, however, this ancient source of purity has been shamefully outraged by contact with all that is foul. Close to it is a cluster of sties, known as 'Pig's Town,' and the well has become the receptacle for stinking fish and all kinds of offal. Just above it are the walls of the new cemetery. All veneration for this spot, so dear to countless generations of our forefathers, seems to have departed."3
The well of S. Bridget at Landue remains, but the saint's chapel is gone. Stables near the well are thought to have polluted the water, and the well is closed lest the incautious should drink of the reputedly contaminated waters.
There are a good many holy wells in Devon also, but none of mark. At Sticklepath above the well rises a very early inscribed stone. There is a holy well, ruinous, at Halwell, one, probably of S. Lo, at Broadwood, one at Ermington, from which water is still drawn for baptisms, one at Lifton, one at Ashburton, probably dedicated to S. Wulvela. S. Sidwell and S. Anne each has her well at Exeter, and the water of the latter has of late become of repute, and is in request under the form of beer. It supplies a brewery.
When S. Cadoc returned from the Holy Land he brought with him a bottle of water from the Jordan, and poured it into a well in Cornwall. None that I know of bears his name, but that at Laneast is called Jordan well.
There is a very singular custom still observed in connection with a stream in place of a holy well at Gwennap. There, on Good Friday, children seek two spots by a stream to baptise their dolls. This can be due only to a dim reminiscence of baptising in the open.
In addition to the holy wells, there are the pixy wells, where the ancient spirits have not been dispossessed by the saints.
Poughill parish takes its name from a puck or pisgie well.
Fice's well, near Prince Town, has on it "J. F. 1568." John Fitz, the astrologer, and his lady were once pixy-led whilst riding on Dartmoor. After long wanderings in the vain effort to find their way, they lighted on a pure spring, drank of it; and their eyes were opened to know where they were and which was their right direction. In gratitude for this deliverance, old John Fitz caused the stone memorial to be set over the spring for the advantage of all pixy-led wanderers. Alas! the convict establishment has enclosed the moor all round, and now this well, though intact, no longer stands, as I remember it, in wild moorland, but enclosed by a protecting wall in a field.
In a certain large village of which I know something water was introduced by means of earthenware pipes for a considerable distance, and then conveyed to taps at convenient spots by iron and lead.
Now there was one of these taps placed outside the Board school. The master said within himself, "If I go to the tap, I shall have to pay the water rate, which will be very heavy; if I never turn the tap, I surely cannot be required to pay. So I know what I will do. Go to! I will draw all my water from the well in the yard of the farm at the back of my premises."
He did so, and lost his wife and child by diphtheria. Verily even modern Board school masters might learn something from these wild old pure water-loving Celtic saints.
Note.-Book on Cornish Holy Wells: -
Quiller-Couch (M. and L.), Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall. London: Clark, 1894.
CHAPTER III
CORNISH CROSSES
Abundance of crosses-The menhîr-Crosses marked the limits of a Llan-Crosses marked places for public prayer-Instance of a Cornish Dissenter-Churches anciently few and far between-The cross erected where was no church-Which therefore precedes the village church-Crosses as waymarks-The Abbot's Way-Interlaced work-The plait a subject for study.
There is no county in England where crosses abound as they do in Cornwall. Second to it comes Devonshire. Indeed, on Dartmoor and in the west of the latter county they are as numerous as in Cornwall.
Their origin is various.
In the first place, where the pagans worshipped a menhîr or standing stone, there it was Christianised by being turned into a cross. In the second place, crosses marked the bounds of a minihi or llan, the sanctuary of the saint.
Then, again, the Celtic churches were very small, mere oratories, that could not possibly contain a moderate congregation. The saints took their station at a cross, and preached thence. With the Saxons there was a rooted dread of entering an enclosed place for anything like worship, fearing, as they did, the exercise of magical rites; and they were accustomed to hold all their meetings in the open air. S. Walpurga, the sister of S. Willibald, who wrote in 750, and was a Wessex woman, says: -
"It is the custom of the Saxon race that on many estates of nobles and of good men they are wont to have not a church, but the standard of the holy cross dedicated to our Lord and reverenced with great honour, lifted up on high so as to be convenient for the frequency of daily prayer."
In connection with this, I may mention a fact. In the parish of Altarnon was an old pious Wesleyan, and when the weather was too bad for him to go to chapel he was wont to go to one of the crosses of granite that stood near his cottage, kneel there, and say his prayers. He died not long ago.
Bede, some twenty years before Walpurga, says that-
"The religious habit was then held in great veneration, so that wheresoever a clerk or a monk happened to come he was joyfully received, … and if they chanced to meet him upon the way, they ran to him, and bowing, were glad to be signed with his hand and blessed with his mouth. On Sundays they flocked largely to the" (bishop's) "church or the monasteries to hear the word of God. And if any presbyter chanced to come into a village, the inhabitants flocked together to hear the word of life; for the presbyters and clerks went into the villages on no other account than to preach, baptise, visit the sick, and in short to take care of souls" (H.E., iii. 16).
This shows that, in the first place, among the Anglo-Saxons there were no churches except the cathedral and the monastic church, and no parochial clergy. Bede does not actually say that there was a cross set up from which the itinerant clergy preached, and to which the faithful resorted for prayer, but this additional fact we have learned from Walpurga.
So
Misses Couch were misled when they visited S. Mawes, and they give a photograph of a well which is not the holy well. The latter is among the houses opposite the post office, and had an arched entrance, now walled up.
Matthews,
