he himself said." Amid all the stir and bustle the spring itself was not neglected, for everyone took care to have a drink. Some used dishes, while others, on hands and knees, sucked up the water with the mouth. These latter were now and again ducked over head and ears by their acquaintances, who much enjoyed the frolic. No one went away without leaving a thread, or patch of cloth on a large briar bush near the spring. Besides St. Fittack's Well, there is another in Nigg parish called Downy Well. It used to be resorted to in May, by persons who drank the water, and then crossed by a narrow neck of land, called The Brig of a'e Hair, to Downy Hill--a green headland in the sea--where they amused themselves by carving their names in the turf. Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities," gives the following particulars about a custom that still prevailed in Cumberland, when he wrote about forty years ago:--"In some parts of the North of England it has been a custom from time immemorial for the lads and lasses of the neighbouring villages to collect together at springs or rivers, on some Sunday in May, to drink sugar and water, where the lasses gave the treat: this is called "Sugar and Water Sunday." They afterwards adjourn to the public-house, and the lads return the compliment in cakes, ale, punch, &c. A vast concourse of both sexes assemble for the above purpose at the Giant's Cave, near Eden Hall in Cumberland, on the third Sunday in May." We do not know whether sacred dramas were ever performed beside Scottish springs; but Stow informs us that the parish clerks of London made an annual pilgrimage to Clark's Well, near the Metropolis, "to play some large history of Holy Scripture." He also mentions that a Miracle Play, lasting eight days, was performed at Skinner's Well in the time of Henry the Fourth. South of the Tweed, springs were often the scenes of festivity. Thus, to take only one example, we find that pilgrims to St. Margaret's Well, at Wereham in Norfolk, were in the habit, in pre-Reformation days, of regaling themselves with cakes and ale, and indulging in music and dancing. What occurred in Ireland down to the beginning of the present century may be gathered from a passage in Mason's "Statistical Account of Ireland" reprinted in the "Folklore Journal" for 1888. After referring to religious assemblies at Holy Wells the writer remarks:--"At these places are always erected booths or tents as in Fairs for selling whisky, beer, and ale, at which pipers and fiddlers do not fail to attend, and the remainder of the day and night (after their religious performances are over and the priest withdrawn) is spent in singing, dancing, and drinking to excess.... Such places are frequently chosen for scenes of pitched battles, fought with cudgels by parties not only of parishes but of counties, set in formal array against each other to revenge some real or supposed injury." In Roman Catholic districts of Ireland,