Ganga Mâi.
Ganga Mâi.
Marjan Vidhi: Washing away of sins with the changing of the Sacred Thread.
Marjan Vidhi: Washing away of sins with the changing of the Sacred Thread.
In the village of Chunval, a few miles to the north of Viramgam, there is akundknown as Loteshwar, near which stands a pipal tree. Persons possessed by ghosts or devils are freed from possession by pouring water at the foot of the tree and taking turns round it, remaining silent the while.
There is akundcalled Zelāka near Zinzuvadá with a temple of Naleshwar Māhadev near it. Thekundis said to have been built at the time of King Nala. It is believed locally that every year, on the 15th day of the bright half of Bhādrapad, the holy Ganges visits thekundby an underground route. A great fair is held there on that day, when people bathe in thekundand give alms to the poor. There is also anotherkundclose by, known as Bholava, where the river Saraswati is believed to have halted and manifested herself on her way to the sea.
In Bhadakon near Chuda there is akundcalled Garigavo. The place is celebrated as the spot of the hermitage of the sage Bhrigu and a fair is held there annually on the last day ofBhādrapad.
Persons anxious to attain heaven bathe in the Mrigikundon Mount Girnar; and a bath in the Revatikund, which is in the same place, confers male issue on the bather. There is also akundof the shape of an elephant’s footprintPagaheinon Mount Girnar. It never empties and is held most sacred by pilgrims. People bathe in the Gomatikundnear Dwarka and take a little of the earth from its bed for the purification of their souls. In the village of Babera, Babhruvāhan the son of Arjun is said to have constructed severalkunds, all of which are believed to be holy.
A man is said to be released from re-birth if he takes a bath in thekundnamed Katkale-tirtha near Nasik.
A pond near Khapoli in the Kolaba district is held very sacred. The following story is related in connection with it. The villagers say that the water nymphs in the pond used toprovide pots for marriage festivities if a written application was made to them a day previous to the wedding. The pots were, however, required to be returned within a limited time. Once a man failed to comply with this condition and the nymphs have ceased to lend pots.
The nymphs of a pond at Varsai in the Kolaba district were also believed to lend pots on festive occasions. Persons held unclean,e.g., women in their menstrual period, are not allowed to touch it. Similarly, a pool at Pushkar in Northern India turns red if the shadow of a woman during the period falls upon it.
There are seven sacred ponds at Nirmal in the Thana district, forming a large lake. These ponds are said to have been formed from the blood of the demon Vimalsur.
There are sacred pools of hot water in the Vaitarna river in the Thana district, in which people bathe on the 13th day of the dark half ofchaitra.
At Shahapur there is a holy spring of hot water under apipaltree, called Ganga.
It is held holy to bathe in thekundsthat are situated in the rivers Jansa and Banganga.
The Manikarnika well at Benares was produced by an ear-ring of Shiva falling into it. If one drinks its water, it brings wisdom. The water of the Jânavâpi well in Benares also possesses the same property.[21]
At Sarkuhiya in the Basti district there is a well where Buddha struck the ground with his arrow and brought forth water just as Moses did from the rock.
Crooke says that he was shown a well in the Muzaffarnagar district into which a Faqir once spat, which for a long time after the visit of the holy man ran with excellent milk. The supply had, however, ceased before the visit.
A bath in the Man-sarovar near Bahucharaji is said to cause the wishes of the bather to be fulfilled. There is a local tradition that a Rajput woman was turned into a male Rajput of the Solanki class by a bath in its waters.
The cult of the bath for the purification of the soul is not confined to India and the Indian people. It was also widespread amongst the European people and prevails even to-day on the Continent. We have already seen that water-worship flourished in Europe before the advent of Christianity and that the new faith though antagonistic to it in principle was considerably tolerant in practice. It is not surprising, therefore, that the old practice should, with a varnish of Christianity, survive up to the present day. In an article contributed not long ago to theGood Wordsmagazine, Mr. Colin Bennett observed: “Of all the remnants of ancient pagan worship that which is dying hardest, or more probably has not started to die at all, is the veneration of holy wells and belief in their miraculous properties.”
In the year 1893 was publishedThe Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England, including Rivers, Lakes, Fountains and Springs, by R. C. Hope. Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain a copy of this book, but from the reviews of the work that appeared in theAcademyand in theAthenæumin August 1893, one gathers that although confessedly imperfect Mr. Hope’s catalogue gives 129 names of saints in whose honour English wells have been dedicated. The reviewers give additional instances and point out that if inquiries were made, many more such wells would be discovered. From the list it appears that with the exception of Virgin Mary, who has 29 wells, and all Saints to whom 33 wells are dedicated, wells under the patronage of St. Helen are the most numerous. St. Helen was very popular in England, partly as being the mother of Constantine, the First Christian Emperor, and partly because two English cities, York and Colchester, claimed her as a native. The reviewer of Mr. Hope’s work in theAthenæumsuggested a third reason also for her popularity. She discovered what was reputed to be the holy cross, hence in many parts of England May 3rd, the festival of “The Invention of the Cross”, was called “St. Helen’s Day in Spring”, and became an important day in village affairs. Menor court rolls bear witness, says the writer, that on that day commons were thrown open for the pasturage of cattle, and occupiers of land adjoining rivers well knew that it was the last day for repairing their banks.
An interesting chapter on Holy Wells is also given inKnowlson’s Origins of Popular Superstitions. On a little island near the centre of Lough Fine there used to be a place for pilgrims anxious to get rid of their sins, the journey over the water being an important part of the business. In Scotland (Tullie Beltane) there is a Druid temple of eight up-right stones. Some distance away is another temple, and near it a well still held in great veneration, says a writer in theGentleman’s Magazine (1811). “On Beltane morning superstitious people go to this well and drink of it; then they make a procession round it nine times; after this they in like manner go round the temple. So deep-rooted is this heathenish superstition in the minds of many who reckon themselves good Protestants, that they will not neglect these rites even when Beltane falls on a Sabbath.”
Thomas Quiller-Couch took a deep interest in the holy wells of Cornwall. He visited many of them and the notes taken by him he intended to weave into a volume illustrative of their history and the superstitions which had gathered around them. Unfortunately the intention could not be carried out during his lifetime, but with the help of these notes a volume was subsequently published on theAncient and Holy Wells of Cornwallby M. and L. Quiller-Couch. This volume is not obtainable in Bombay and in this case also I owe my information concerning the work to the review which appeared in theAthenæumof 10th August 1895. During a pilgrimage of several months’ duration the joint authors were able to discover more than ninety of such wells. From the account given by the authors it would seem that the Cornish wells are rarely haunted by spirits of any kind. They are holy, and cure all kinds of sickness, madness included. They also tell us of the future, provided proper rites are observed, and we may secure good fortune by dropping a pin or a small coin into the water.
Major-General Forlong cites St. Peter’s well at Houston in Renfrewshire, St. Ninian’s well at Stirling with its vaulted cell, St. Catherine’s well at Liberton, St. Michael’s well near the Linlithgow cathedral, and the well of LochMareeas some of the examples. Another sacred well is St. Mungo’s over which the Glasgow cathedral stands. In Ireland “we everywhere find peasants kneeling at sacred wells.” Of the well of St. Margaret under the black precipitous cliffs of Edinburgh Castle Major-General Forlong says that it is exactly such a spot as he had seen in Central India, “where pious persons precipitated themselves from the rock to please Siva or Kali.”[22]
Many of these wells are renowned no less for their medicinal properties than for their sanctity. Their waters are believed to be under the care of sanitary guardians and are held to be extremely efficacious in curing many a distemper.
The use of water for therapeutic purposes is mentioned in the Old Testament, where it is stated that Naaman, who suffered from skin disease, dipped himself seven times in the Jordan and was cured. The New Testament records a case of congenital blindness cured by washing in the River Siloa. Balneotherapy and Hydrotherapy were not unknown in Talmudic times. The Talmud mentions a special season between Easter and Whitsun during which people used to go to the spas to take the waters or mudbaths. The cure lasted twenty-one days. In the Temple a special doctor was appointed to attend the priests for intestinal trouble caused by their excessive eating of the flesh of sacrifices and the treatment prescribed for them was the drinking of the water of Siloa.[23]
In Bombay the Manmala tank at Matunga, the major portion of which has been recently filled up and on which the Sassoon Reformatory now stands, has a reputation for curing measles. People from distant parts bring their children to this tank and the nymphs residing in it seldom fail to cure them of the malady. We are not aware of any other city well or tank gifted with such healing powers, but there are several in the Bombay Presidency. The Folklore notes of Gujarat mention a few. The water of the Krukalaswell in the island of Shankhodwar is believed to cure fever and diseases caused by morbid heat. A draught of the water of the Gomukhi-Ganga, near Girnar, gives one absolute immunity from an attack of cholera. The water of a gozara well (i.e., a well which is polluted owing to a person drowned in it) cures children of bronchitis and cough. There is a well near Ramdorana, of which the water is effective against cough, and the water of the Bahamania well near Vasawad is credited with the same virtue. The water of the Mrigi Kund near Junagadh cures leprosy. The Pipli well near Talawad is well-known for the stimulating effect of its water on the digestive organs. The residents of Bombay, however, need not go to Talawad for this boon. There are in the city the Bhikha Behram well on Churchgate Street and the High Court well on Mayo Road renowned for similar properties of their water. In Northern India hydrophobia is believed to be cured if the patient looks down seven wells in succession, while in Gujarat when a person is bitten by a rabid dog, he goes to a well inhabited by aVâchharo, the spirit who curses hydrophobia, with two earthen cups filled with milk with a pice in each, and empties the contents into the water. In the island of Shiel there is avavcalledThan-vavwhere mothers who cannot suckle their children for want of milk wash their bodices which, when subsequently put on, are believed to cause the necessary secretion of milk.
It was recently brought to my notice that the guardian spirit of a well in Lonavla also possessed the gift of blessing mothers with milk. After that well had been dug, a goat was offered by the owner of the well to the spirit. This offering proved most unacceptable and the waters of the well at once dried up. The owner implored pardon and vowed that no animal sacrifice would ever again be offered, and that milk and ghee would be presented instead. This had the desired effect and the guardian spirit of the water has since been most friendly. “A few months ago,” said my informant, “a young lady was desirous of getting milk for her new-born babe. After fruitlessattempts for a fortnight, she took an oath that she would present to the water-saintghadasof milk and ghee and she was forthwith blest with milk for the infant.”
In the Konkan the water of a well drawn without touching the earth or without being placed upon the ground is given as medicine for indigestion.
There are ponds at Manora in the Goa State and Vetore in the Savantwadi State, the water of which is used for the cure of persons suffering from the poison of snakes, mice, spiders and scorpions.
If a person is bitten by a snake or other poisonous reptile, no medicine is administered to him, but holy water brought from the temple of the village goddess is given to him to drink and it is said that the patient is cured.
At Shivam in the Ratnagiri district people use thetirthaof a deity, or the water in which its idol is washed, as medicine for diseases due to poison. It is the sole remedy they resort to in such cases.
The water of seven tanks, or at least of one pond, in which lotuses grow, is said to check the virulence of measles and smallpox.
A bath in a tank in the Mahim district is said to cure persons suffering from skin diseases.
The well at Sihor in Rajputana is sacred to Gautama and is considered efficacious in the cure of various disorders.
In Satara King Sateshwar asked the saint Sumitra for water. The sage was wrapped in contemplation, and did not answer him. The angry monarch took some lice from the ground and threw them at the saint, who cursed the king with vermin all over his body. This affliction the wretched monarch endured for twelve years, until he was cured by ablution at the sacred fountain of Devarâshta.[24]
The birth of a child under themul nakshatraendangers the life of its father, but the misfortune is averted if the child and its parents bathe in the water drawn from 108 wells. A draught of such water is said to cureSannipator delirium.
One of the sacred tanks of India is “the Lake of Immortality” at Amritsar. The name of the city is taken from the sacred tank in which the Golden Temple is built. Originally, the place was only a natural pool of water and a favourite resort of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion. It was known at first asGuru-ka-chall, but later when the tank was built, the name Amritsar was adopted,amritmeaning water of immortality andsarmeaning a tank. A holy woman once took pity on a leper, and carried him to the banks of the tank. As he lay there, a crow swooped into the water and came out a dove as white as snow. Seeing the miracle, the leper was tempted to bathe in the river and was healed. The woman could not recognize her friend, and withdrew in horror from his embraces. But the Guru Ram Dâs came and explained matters, and “the grateful pair assisted him in embellishing the tank, which has now become the centre of the Sikh religion.”[25]
The tank at Lalitpur is similarly famous for the cure of leprosy. One day, a Râjâ afflicted with the disease was passing by, and his Râni dreamt that he should eat some of the confervæ on the surface. He ate it, and was cured; next night the Râni dreamt that there was a vast treasure concealed there, which when dug up was sufficient to pay the cost of excavation. At Qasur is the tank of the saint Basant Shâh, in which children are bathed to cure them of boils.[26]
There are several hot springs in India renowned for their curative powers. These also are believed to be sacred to certain deities. A typical example is that of the hot kund, calledDevki-Unai, about 30 miles to the south of Surat. Many pilgrims visit the place on the fifteenth day of the bright half ofChaitra, when the waters are cool, to offer money, cocoanuts, and red lead to theUnai Mata, whose temple stands near the kund.It is said that king Rama built this kund while performing a sacrifice and brought water from thepâtâl(nether regions) by shooting an arrow into the earth.
Similarly, the famous hot springs forming one group in a line along the bed of the Tansa river in the village of Vadavli are sacred to the goddess Vajrabai or Vajreshvari, the Lady of the Thunderbolt. According to tradition, this neighbourhood being full of demons the goddess Vajrabai became incarnate in the locality to clear it of the wicked spirits. She routed the whole lot of them, and the hot water of these springs is nothing but the blood of one of the demons slain by her. Her chronicle, orMahatmya, is kept at the village of Gunj, some six miles to the north, and her temple is placed at the top of a flight of steps on a spur of the Sumatra range. A large fair is held here in Chaitra (April). There are other hot springs in the neighbouring villages of Akloli, known as the Rameshwar hot springs, whose waters are gathered out in stone cisterns. In the eighteenth century these springs were much used both by Indians and Europeans as a cure for fevers. In hisOriental MemoirsJames Forbes describes the springs as consisting of small cisterns of water with a temperature of 120°. “Except that it wanted a small element of iron the water tasted like that of Bath in England.” In the Ganeshpuri village, about three miles west of Vajrabai, are the two hottest springs of the group. These are resorted to by people troubled with skin diseases.
The Arabs regard the hot springs at Terka Main to be under the control of a Vali who makes the fire and keeps it burning. Those who go there to be healed of rheumatism invoke the saint and keep up the fire so that the water may be hot. At the Lunatic Asylum of Hamath there is a pool believed to be the abode of a Vali who is the patron saint of all insane people. He appears in the night and blesses the insane by touching them. Even troublesome children come under the spell of his influence. The Arabs take the robes of refractory urchins tothe pool and wash them in it so as to instil wisdom and obedience in the children.
Similarly, the special function of the Altarnum well was the cure of madness. The afflicted person was made to stand with his back to the pool and was then tumbled headlong into the water by a sudden blow in the breast. In the water again stood a strong fellow who took him and tossed him up and down.[27]This ritual appears to be a survival of human sacrifice, while the ritual followed in connection with St. Tecla’s well, renowned for the cure of epilepsy, bears testimony to the practice of offering animal sacrifices to the presiding spirits of water.
In hisTour in Wales, speaking of the village of Llandegla, where is a church dedicated to St. Tecla, virgin and martyr, who after her conversion by St. Paul suffered under Nero at Iconium, Pennant says: “About two hundred yards from the church, in a quillet called Gwern Degla, rises a small spring. The water is under the tutelage of the saint, and to this day held to be extremely beneficial in the falling sickness. The patient washes his limbs in the well; makes an offering into it of four-pence; walks round it three times; and thrice repeats the Lord’s Prayer. These ceremonies are never begun till after sunset, in order to inspire the votaries with greater awe. If the afflicted be of the male sex, like Socrates, he makes an offering of a cock to his Aesculapius, or rather to Tecla, Hygeia; if of the fair sex, a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket, first round the well, after that into the churchyard, when the same orisons and the same circumambulations are performed round the church. The votary then enters the church, gets under the communion-table, lies down with the Bible under his or her head, is covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests there till break of day, departing after offering six pence, and leaving the fowl in the church. If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been effected and the disease transferred to the devoted victim.”
The most famous healing well in England is perhaps the Holywell, the Lourdes of Wales. The story of this well is the story of St. Winefride, the waters of whose fount were declared by the Protestant antiquarian, Pennant, to be “almost as sanative as those of the Pool of Bethesda.” In the 7th century the picturesque valley of Sychnant had as its chieftain Thewith, whose wife was the sister of St. Beuno, and whose daughter, Winefride, was a very beautiful girl, who had many suitors, but who resolved to consecrate herself to God in a life of virginity. One of the most persistent of her suitors was Prince Caradoc, who, enraged at his rejection, made a furious onslaught on the girl, compelling her to seek safety in flight. With drawn sword he pursued and overtook her on the majestic hill which overlooked the town. Here he cut off her head, which rolled to the foot of the hill. Till then, Sychnant had been waterless—its name, indeed, signifies the dry valley, but at the spot where the severed head rested, a copious stream burst forth, forming a well, the sides of which were lined with fragrant moss, whilst the stones at the bottom were tinctured with the youthful martyr’s blood. The head itself was reunited by St. Beuno to Winefride’s body, which was immediately restored to life by the Almighty in response to the saint’s prayers. Winefride subsequently became a nun, dying at Gwytherin on November 3rd, 1660.
Around the Well in Sychnant Valley grew a town which the Saxons named Treffynion, and which became known to the Normans as Haliwell, the hallowed or holy well, to which pilgrims fared from all parts of the kingdom, inspired by the belief that through the intercession of St. Winefride they would obtain spiritual and temporal blessings. Through the centuries preceding the Reformation, the Welsh Princes, the monarchs of England and the nobles of both countries delighted to bestow marks of their favour on Holywell and its shrine and Well of St. Winefride. One of the greatest of these benefactors was the mother of Henry VII., Margaret, Countess of Richmond andDerby, who, in the fifteenth century, erected the handsome Gothic chapel and the Well beneath it. The water was received in a magnificent polygonal basin, covered by a groined arch, supported on pillars. The roof was elaborately carved in stone, and many fine ribs secured the arch, whose intersections were completed with sculpture. On one side of the wall was painted the history of St. Winefride, whilst the arms of the foundress and those of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Catherine of Aragon, and other benefactors were incorporated in the decorations.
Though the church of Holywell was devoted to other uses after the Reformation, and recourse to the well was regarded as a “superstitious practice,” the tide of visitors never completely ceased to flow. In 1629, for example, a spy is found reporting Sir Cuthbert Clifton as being one of a great number of “Papists and priests assembled at St. Winefride’s Well on St. Winefride’s Day.”
The following paragraph from Archbishop Laud’s account of his Province for the year 1633 also shows that in spite of all repressive measures pilgrims resorted in great numbers to the well:—
“The Bishop of St. Asaph returns. That all is exceedingly well in his diocese—save only that the number and boldness of some Romish Recusants increaseth much in many Places, and is encouraged by the superstitions and frequent concourse of some of that party to Holy-Well, otherwise called St. Winifride’s Well. Whether this Concourse be by way of Pilgrimage or no, I know not; but I am sure it hath long been complained of without remedy.”
“The Bishop of St. Asaph returns. That all is exceedingly well in his diocese—save only that the number and boldness of some Romish Recusants increaseth much in many Places, and is encouraged by the superstitions and frequent concourse of some of that party to Holy-Well, otherwise called St. Winifride’s Well. Whether this Concourse be by way of Pilgrimage or no, I know not; but I am sure it hath long been complained of without remedy.”
One of the visitors in the year 1686 was James II: and in the following year Father Thomas Roberts was appointed priest in charge. The well has ever since been a favourite resort of stricken pilgrims and the modern tourist in North Wales can still witness numerous pilgrims journeying to St. Winefride’s in the hope ofleaving their infirmities behind them. The deaf, the dumb, the blind and the paralysed have for centuries betaken themselves to this well in search of spiritual as well as physical health and the votive crutches, chairs and barrows left hanging over the well by the pilgrims who have been able to discard them bear testimony to the healing virtues of its water or at least to the faith of the people in such virtues.
In Lilly’s History of his life and times a story is given of Sir George Peckham, Kt., who died in St. Winefride’s Well, “having continued so long mumbling his paternosters andSancta Winifreda ora pro me, that the cold struck into his body and after his coming forth of that well he never spoke more.”
Two recent Holywell cures were reported in theCatholic Times and Catholic Opinionof 21st July 1916. Mr. John MacMullan, whose address was 49 Station-Road, Shettleston, Glasgow, decided to try the water of St. Winefride’s Well after suffering for three years with chronic spinal disease. He bathed in the waters for the first time on July 5th, and again on July 6th, when he experienced a sharp shooting pain all through the body. On July 10th after getting in the well he found that he was able to walk up the steps which descended into the outer basin of the well quite unaided and up to the 12th of July, when he returned to Scotland, he was able to walk about freely.
The other noteworthy case following on a visit to St. Winefride’s Well is that of Miss Elizabeth Stanley of 54, John Thomas Street, Blackburn. She had her hand cut in a mill while working as a weaver and was unable to work for two years. In quest of a cure she made a pilgrimage to St. Winefride’s Well on the Feast of Corpus Christi. “Since her return from Holywell,” it is reported, “she has followed her work without any ill effects and is at present in the best of health.”
While this chapter was being written, a great calamity befell Holywell. Owing to the boring operations of the Halken Draining Company the waters of this famous well that had beenflowing for 1400 years were drained away on the 5th January 1917. The valley of Sychnant became once more “the dry valley”, but to the great joy of the people of Holywell and of the Catholic community everywhere the water was restored to the well on the 22nd September 1917.
A few more healing wells in Great Britain may be noted. The “Hooping Stone” on a farm near Athol, is a channeled boulder which catches rain, and the water, especially if ladled out with a spoon made from the horn of a living cow, cures many ailments. The “Fever Well” hard by is also still in high repute. The Mayor and Burgesses of Shaftesbury still go to dance round the sacred springs of Enmore Green, hand in hand to the sound of music—or did so until recently. They carried a broom decked with feathers, gold rings, and jewels, called a “prize bezant”, and presented to the bailiff of the manor of Gillingham (where are the springs) a pair of gloves, a raw calf’s head, a gallon of beer and two penny loaves.[28]
Another holy well, Roche Holy Well of Cornwall, is famous for curing eye diseases. This well, which is dedicated to the lonely hermit by name St. Conan, is endowed on Holy Thursday, and also the two Thursdays following, with the property of curing eye diseases alike in young and old.
At Chapel Uny rickety children are dipped three times in the well against the sun, and dragged three times round the well in the same direction.
In several instances such miraculous cures appear to be well authenticated. Mr. Colin Bennett says that Jesus Well, St. Minver, and Madron Holy Well, near Penzance, are cases in point. Bishop Hall, of Exeter, who visited the latter well in 1640, absolutely vouches, in his treatise on theInvisible World, for the cure of a man by name John Trelille who had been lame from birth and had to crawl on all fours from placeto place. At last he decided to try the virtue of the waters of this holy well for his complaint and, like Naaman of old, bathed himself in the little spring, afterwards reclining for an hour and a half on a grassy bank situated near by and known as St. Madrne’s bed while a friend offered up simple prayers on his behalf. On the first occasion of this treatment he got some relief, on the second he was able to stand on his legs with the aid of a staff and on the third occasion he found himself entirely cured. It is even said that in later life he enlisted in the army and was eventually killed in battle, having previously done good work for his country’s cause. Others have also been cured of the same affliction in later times by precisely the same means. Close by this well is the ancient oratory of St. Madrne, where on the first Sunday in May a service is still held by the Wesleyans in commemoration of the saintly man who once preached in that lonely spot the word of God. After the service the Holy Well is visited by the people, some of whom, says Mr. Bennett, “go so far as to consult it concerning futurity.”
Many springs in Macedonia are known and venerated as “sacred waters”; dedicated to St. Friday and St. Solomoné among feminine saints, or to St. Paul and St. Elias among their male colleagues. The water of these springs is regarded as efficacious against diseases, especially eye-complaints. Even so stood enclosed the “fair-flowing fountain built by man’s hand, whence the citizens of Ithaca drew water,” and close to it “an altar erected in honour of the Nymphs, upon which the wayfarers offered sacrifice.” Like the Homeric “fountain of the Nymphs” many a modern “holy spring” is overshadowed by “water-bred poplars or broad-leaved fig-trees, and weeping willows.”[29]
Hundreds of cures are effected even now at the Church of the Annunciation over the Chapel of the well during the Festival of Annunciation at Tenos. During her visit to the place Miss Hamilton saw priests spooning out the sacred water toan eager crowd, one by one, “after the fashion of a medicine-giving nurse.” Miss Hamilton is, however, guilty of repeating a very blasphemous story concerning a spring of therapeutic fame. Up to quite recent times the festival at Kaisariani was very popular among the Athenians and sick people were taken there for cure at the spring on the Ascension Day, the only day on which the spring water ran into the little Chapel, and in a miraculous way a white dove, the Holy Spirit, appeared and wet its wings in the holy water. Then all the sick people drank of the water or washed in it and expected to be healed. One festival day this dove failed to appear, and the priest knocked with his foot and whispered, “Let out the Holy Spirit.” A voice from the hole replied audibly, “The cat has eaten it.” This was enough to suppress the miracle.
The pilgrimage described by Miss Hamilton recalls the vivid scenes in Emile Zola’s famous novelLourdes. In that masterpiece of his the great master of Médan has given us a marvellously animated and poetic narrative of the annual national pilgrimage to the famous Continental shrine. The idea of human suffering pervades the whole story and the woful account of the despairing sufferers given up by science and by man and of the religious enthusiasm with which they address themselves to a higher Power in the hope of relief and hasten to Lourdes and crowd themselves round the miraculous Grotto, is touching indeed. The author, no doubt, accompanies the stricken pilgrims without sharing their belief in the virtues of the water of Lourdes. He witnesses several instances of real cure, accepts the extraordinary manifestations of the healing power of the waters, but tries to account for them on scientific grounds. Be the explanation as it may,Lourdesaffords striking illustrations of the faith of the people in the miracles of the enchanted fountain.
Water-spirits being authors of fertility in general, it is natural that they should be credited with the power of fertilizing human beings as well as animals. In many places the power of bestowing offspring is ascribed to them, and several wells in India have a reputation for conferring the blessings of parenthood.
The Hindus believe that “a son secures three worlds, a grandson bliss, and a great grandson a seat even above the highest heavens. By begetting a virtuous son one saves oneself as well as the seven preceding and seven succeeding generations.” Childless women, therefore, resort to various expedients. Of these pilgrimages to shrines of saints and visits to Faqirs and Mullas who have miraculous charms in their possession are most common. But the most effective charm is water. In many parts of India the water of seven wells is collected on the night of the Dewali, or feast of lamps, and barren women bathe in it as a means of procuring children. A more elaborate ritual is observed by the domiciled Hindus of Baluchistan. There the childless woman takes water from seven different wells, tanks or springs and places into it leaves of seven kinds of fruit-bearing trees. She then doffs her clothes, wraps a cotton sheet around her and sits over the board of a spinning wheel under the wooden spout of a house, with some of the leaves under her feet. Another woman, blest with living children, mounts to the top of the house, and pours the mystical water on the roof so that it trickles over the childless woman through the spout. After the bath she dons new clothes and greets her husband and impregnation takes place immediately. The same ceremony is resorted to in cases in which successive girls have been born, and the birth of a son is assured.[30]
In avavin Orissa priests throw betel-nuts into the mud and barren women scramble for them. Those who find them will have their desire for children gratified. For the same reason, the mother is taken after childbirth to worship the village well. She walks round it in the course of the sun and smears the platform with red lead, which is a survival of the original rite of blood sacrifice. In Dharwar the child of a Brahman is taken in the third month to worship water at the village well. There is also a belief in Gujarat that barren couples get children if they bathe in a waterfall and offer cocoanuts.
In the Punjab sterile women desiring offspring are let down into a well on a Sunday or a Tuesday night during the Dewali. After the bath they are drawn up again and they perform theChaukpurnaceremony with incantations. When this ceremony has been performed, the well is supposed to run dry. Its quickening and fertilizing virtue has been abstracted by the woman.[31]This practice has its counterpart in a custom observed by Syrian women at the present day. Some of the channels of the Orontos are used for irrigation, but at a certain season of the year the streams are turned off and the dry bed of the channels is cleared of mud and other impurities, obstructing a free flow of water. The first night that the water is turned on again, it is said to have the power of procreation. Accordingly, barren women take their places in the channel, waiting for the entrance of the water-spirit in the rush of the stream.
Sir James Frazer says that in Scotland the same fertilizing virtue used to be, and probably still is, ascribed to certain springs. Wives who wished to become mothers formerly resorted to the well of St. Fillan at Comrie and to the wells of St. Mary at Whitekirk and in the Isle of May. In the Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway, women desirous of childrenpray at St. Eany’s Well and the men pray at the Rag Well by the Church of the Four Comely Ones at Onaght. Similarly, Child’s Well in Oxford was supposed to have “the virtue of making barren women to bring forth.” Near Bingfield in Northumberland there is a copious sulphur spring known as the Borewell. About Midsummer day a great fair is held there and barren women pray at the well that they might become mothers.
Some folklorists, Sir James Frazer included, consider that sterility was believed by people to be a disease due, as in the case of other maladies, to the work of demoniacal agency. They therefore include this practice of bathing in wells for the blessings of motherhood in the same category in which they place the cult of the bath based on popular faith in the healing powers of water. But there is probably another explanation for this practice. Students of the rites and customs observed by the Semitic people are aware that procreative power was attributed by these people to the spirits. Professor Curtiss bears testimony to this and he says that even Moslems and Christians of Syria conceived of God as possessed of a complete male organism. It was a common belief amongst the Syrians that the genii, both male and female, had sexual intercourse with human beings and the view that the spirits of the dead may beget children also prevailed. When a man had been executed for murder in Jerusalem, about fifty years ago, some barren women rushed up to the corpse. It may be, says Curtiss, that they felt that, inasmuch as the man had been released by death from previous nuptials and was free, as a disembodied spirit, he was endowed with supernatural power to give them the joy of motherhood by proximity to his dead body. After his recent researches in Syria Curtiss says that this belief in the procreative powers of the dead is still common.
There are three places at the so-called baths of Solomon in Syria, where the hot air comes out of the ground. One of these hot air vents, called Abu Rabah, is a famous shrine for womenwho are barren and desire children. They in fact regard theVali(Saint) of the shrine as the father of children born after such a visit, as appears from the English rendering of an Arabic couplet, which they repeat as they go inside the small inclosure and allow the hot air to steam up their bodies:
“Oh, Abu Rabah,To thee come the white ones,To thee come the fair ones;With thee is the generation,With us is the conception.”
“Oh, Abu Rabah,To thee come the white ones,To thee come the fair ones;With thee is the generation,With us is the conception.”
“Oh, Abu Rabah,
To thee come the white ones,
To thee come the fair ones;
With thee is the generation,
With us is the conception.”
These verses clearly unfold the minds of the women who woo the spirits for the joys of motherhood. May not the corresponding faith of Indian women in sanctified waters be traced to similar ideas? The Bombay and Orissa practices described above do not materially support that view, but the Punjab practice and the belief of the Punjabis that the well runs dry after the bath and that its fertilizing virtue is abstracted by the women bathing in it are very significant.
The Jews also believed in the possibility of conception occurring in a bathin quo spermatizaverat homo. Ben Sira was said to have been the son of a daughter of Jeremiah who becameenceintefrom her father in that way. “Indeed,” says Dr. Feldman, “the Rabbi who expressed himself as a believer in such an occurrence was Simon ben Zoma, a sage of the second century A.D., who devoted a good deal of his time to metaphysical problems, and whose mind gave way in consequence. The question that was asked of him, no doubt sarcastically, was whether the High Priest, who may only marry a virgin, was allowed to marry a pregnant virgin. Ben Zoma answered the question in the affirmative, because, said he, conception was possible in a bath in which a man had just before washed himself.”[32]
This theory, observes Dr. Feldman, was still in vogue even among physicians of the twelfth century. Averroes, an Arabianphysician who died in 1198, records that an acquaintance of his, whosebona fidewas beyond dispute, stated on her oath thatimpregnata fuerat subito in balneo lavelti aquæ calidæ in quo spermatizaverunt mali homines cum essent balneati in illo balneo. Another author explains the possibility of such an occurrence as follows:Quia vulva trahit sperma propter suam propriam virtutem.
“In the sixteenth century,” continues Dr. Feldman, “we find the Portuguese Amatus Lusitanus (1550) making use of the same theory to explain the delivery of a mole by a nun; and, according to Stern, this belief is prevalent in Turkey even at the present day. The Rabbis of the Middle Ages also believed in such a possibility. Even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century this belief prevailed, and R. Juda Rozanes, Rabbi of Constantinople, who, on the authority of Maimonides, considered such an occurrence improbable, was reprimanded by Azulai.”
In Scotland persons who bore the name of the river Tweed were supposed to have as ancestors the genii of the river of that name. Could this curious belief have sprung from similar ideas concerning the procreative powers of the water-spirits?
These conceptions of the generative power of water have their parallel in a Semong tradition. These people, among whom marital relationship is preceded by great ante-nuptial freedom, have a legend of a people in their old home, composed of women only. “These women know not men, but when the moon is at the full, they dance naked in the grassy places near the salt lakes, the evening wind is their only spouse, and through him they conceive and bear children.”[33]
In East and West alike there are oracular wells inhabited by spirits gifted with powers of divination. The instance of the well in Ghoga Street in Bombay has already been noted. There is akundin Baladana near Wadhawan, dedicated to Hol, the favouritemataof the Charans. In thiskund, black or redgagar bedinuspieces of cotton thread are sometimes seen floating on the water. They appear only for a moment, and sink if any one endeavours to seize them. The appearance of black pieces forbodes famine; but the red ones foretell prosperity. At Askot, in the Himalayas, there is a holy well which is used for divining the prospects of the harvest. If the spring in a given time fills the brass vessel to the brim into which the water falls, there will be a good season; if only a little water comes, drought may be expected. In a well in Kashmir those who have any special desires throw a nut. If it floats, it is considered an omen of success. If it sinks, it is a sign of misfortune.
With this may be compared the divinations performed by sailors at the fountain of Recoverance or St. Laurent. To know the future state of the weather they cast on the waters of the fountain a morsel of bread. If the bread floats, says Evans Wentz inFairy Faith in Celtic Countries, it is a sure sign of fair weather, but if it sinks, of weather so bad that no one should venture to go out in the fishing boats. Similarly, in some wells, pins are dropped by lovers. If the pins float, the water-spirits give a promise of favourable auspices, but if the pins sink, the maiden is unhappy, and will hesitate in accepting the proposal of marriage.
The most famous modern oracle in Greece is the well at Amorgos. It stands in a little side shrine, where the priest offers a prayer to St. George. Then he draws some water from the well in a small vessel and diagnoses the contents. The rules for the interpretation are quite lengthy, but the answers are usually ambiguous. These answers are given according to the foreign matter in the water. For example, hair denotes trouble and sickness.
Near Kirkmichael in Banff there is a fountain, once highly celebrated and anciently dedicated to St. Michael. Many a patient has by its waters been restored to health, and many more have attested the efficacy of their virtues. But, as the presiding power is sometimes capricious, and apt to desert his charge, the fountain now lies neglected, choked with weeds, unhonoured and unfrequented. In better days, it was not so; for the winged guardian, under the semblance of a fly, was never absent from his duty. If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s ailment, and the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain, they visited the well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the anxious votaries drew their presages; and their breasts vibrated with corresponding emotions.[34]
Similarly, at a Cornish well, people used to go and inquire about absent friends. If the person “be living and in health, the still, quiet waters of the well-pit will instantly bubble or boil up as a pot of clear, crystal-like water; if sick, foul and puddled water; if dead, it will neither boil nor bubble up, nor alter its colour or stillness.”
In his Monastic Remains, More refers to the existence of two wishing wells in Walsingham Chapel. “The wishing wells,” he observes, “still remain, two circular stone pits filled with water,enclosed with a square wall, where the pilgrims used to kneel and throw in a piece of gold whilst they prayed for the accomplishment of their wishes.”
Pennant in his account of St. Winefride’s well says: “Near the steps, two feet beneath the water is a large stone, called the wishing stone. It receives many a kiss from the faithful who are supposed never to fail in experiencing the completion of their desires, provided the wish is delivered with full devotion and confidence.”
Another famous wishing well is in Cornwall, named the Fairy Well, Carbis Bay. After the enquirer has formed his wish with his back to the well, he throws a pin over his left shoulder. If it strikes the water he obtains his wish, if it falls on the bank, he is disappointed. “The little well,” says Mr. Colin Bennett in theGood Words Magazine, “is much resorted to at the present day by tourists and all those who have a sense of the quaintness or romance of such ancient observances.”
The priestess of Gulval Well in Fosses Moor was an old woman who instructed the devotees in their ceremonial observances. They had to kneel down and lean over the well so as to see their faces in the water and repeat after their instructor a rhyming incantation, after which, the reply of the spirit of the well was interpreted by the bubbling of the water or its quiescence.
Just as there are wishing wells, there are cursing wells also, scattered through Europe, particularly in Celtic countries. The Kelts of Bretagne, says Major-General Forlong,[35]still fear not only “our Lady of Hate,” but also the “Well of Cursing.” The belief was, and perhaps still is, that if certain evil rites are performed, and a stone inscribed with the enemy’s name is thrown into such a well, the victim will pine away and die, unless he who has inflicted the curse relents, and removes the baneful charm ere it be too late.[36]
Near the well of St. Aelian, not far from Betteas Abergeley in Denbighshire, resided a woman who officiated as a kind of priestess. Any one who wished to inflict a curse upon an enemy resorted to this priestess, and for a trifling sum she registered in a book kept for the purpose the name of the person on whom the curse was intended to fall. A pin was then dropped into the well in the name of the victim and the curse was complete.[37]
Varied indeed are the virtues of Holy Wells and the wonders connected with them. A peculiar property of the water of St. Keyne is that whoever first drinks of it after marriage becomes the ruler in the household. “I know not,” says Fuller, “whether it be worth the reporting, that there is in Cornwall, near the parish of St. Neots, a well, arched over with the robes of four kinds of trees, withy, oak, elm, and ash, dedicated to St. Keyne. The reported virtue of the water is this, that whether husband or wife come first to drink thereof, they get the mastery thereby.” After his visit to Cornwall Southey celebrated this well in the famous poem, “The Well of St. Keyne.”