Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

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a pin from clothes, is sufficient. Pins should be dropped
on a Saint's day, if good luck be sought. As Henderson's
Folklore remarks, " The country girls imagine that the well
is in charge of a fairy, or spirit, who must be propitiated
by some offering." Some well-spirits, as Peg O'Nell of
the Ribble, can be more than mischievous. Besides the
dropping of metal, or the slaughter of fowls, a cure requires
perambulation, sunwise, three times round the well. On
Saints' day wells are often dressed with flowers.
Otway has asserted that " no religious place in Ireland
can be without a holy well." But Irish wells are not the
only ones favoured with presents of pins and rags, for
Scotland, as well as Cornwall and other parts of England,
retain the custom. Mason names some rag-wells :—Ardclines
of Antrim, Erregall-Keroge of Tyrone, Dungiven,
St. Bartholomew of VVaterford, St. Brigid of Sligo.
The spirits of the wells may appear as frogs or fish.
Gomme, who has written so well on this subject, refers to
a couple of trout, from time immemorial, in the Tober
or well Kieran, Meath. Of two enchanted trout in the
Galway Pigeon Hole, one was captured. As it immediately
got free from the magic, turning into a beautiful young
lady, the fisher, in fright, pitched it back into the well.
Other trout- protected wells are recorded. Salmon and
eels look after Tober Monachan, the Kerry well of Ballymorereigh.
Two black fish take care of Kilmore well.
That at Kirkmichael of Banff has only a fly in charge.
" The point of the legend is," writes Robertson Smith,
" that the sacred source is either inhabited by a demoniac
being, or imbued with demoniac life." It is useful, in the
event of a storm near the coast, to let off the water from
well into the sea.
This draining off was the practice of the
Islanders of Inn is Murray. The Arran Islanders derive
much comfort from casting into wells flint-heads used by
a