In hot Eastern lands, fountains were held in special reverence. This was to be expected, as their cooling waters were there doubly welcome. In accounting for the presence of the cult in the temperate zones of Europe, we do not need to trace it to the East as Lady Wilde does in her "Ancient Legends of Ireland." "It could not have originated," she says, "in a humid country ... where wells can be found at every step, and sky and land are ever heavy and saturated with moisture. It must have come from an Eastern people, wanderers in a dry and thirsty land, where the discovery of a well seemed like the interposition of an angel in man's behalf." In our own land there are no districts where well-worship has held its ground so firmly as those occupied by peoples of Celtic blood, such as Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Scottish Highlands. A curious instance of the survival of water-worship among our Scottish peasantry was seen in the custom of going at a very early hour on New-Year's morning to get a pailful of water from a neighbouring spring. The maidens of the farm had a friendly rivalry as to priority. Whoever secured the first pailful was said to get the flower of the well, otherwise known as the ream or cream of the well. On their way to the spring the maidens commonly chanted the couplet-- "The flower o' the well to our house gaes, An' I'll the bonniest lad get." This referred to the belief that to be first at the well was a good omen of the maiden's matrimonial future. It is a far cry from archaic water-worship to this New-Year's love charm, but we can traverse in thought the road that lies between. CHAPTER II. HOW WATER BECAME HOLY. Change from Paganism to Christianity--Columba--Spirits of Fountains--Hurtful Wells--Stone Circles--Superstitions regarding them--Standing Stones and Springs--Innis Maree--Maelrubha--Influence of early Saints--Names of Wells--Stone-coverings--Sacred Buildings and Springs--Privilege of Sanctuary--Some Examples--Freedstoll--Preceptory of Torphichen and St. John's Well--Cross of Macduff and Nine-wells.