The annals of hagiology are full of the connection between saints and
springs. On one occasion a child was brought to Columba for baptism,
but there was no water at hand for the performance of the rite. The
saint knelt in prayer opposite a neighbouring rock, and rising,
blessed the face of the rock. Water immediately gushed forth, and with
it the child was baptised. Adamnan, who tells the story, says that
the child was Lugucencalad, whose parents were from Artdaib-muirchol
(Ardnamurchan), where there is seen even to this day a well called by
the name of St. Columba. There are many wells in Scotland named after
him. As might be expected, one of these is in Iona. Almost all are
along the west coast and in the Hebrides. The name of Kirkcolm, in
Wigtownshire, signifies the Church of Columba. The parish contains
a fountain dedicated to him, known as Corswell or Crosswell,
from which the castle headland and lighthouse of Corsewall have
derived their name. A certain amount of sanctity still clings to the
fountain. Macaulay, in his "History of St. Kilda" published in 1764,
describes a spring there called by the inhabitants Toberi-Clerich,
the cleric in question being, according to him, Columba. "This well,"
he says, "is below the village, ... and gushes out like a torrent
from the face of a rock. At every full tide the sea overflows it,
but how soon that ebbs away, nothing can be fresher or sweeter than
the water. It was natural enough for the St. Kildians to imagine
that so extraordinary a phenomenon must have been the effect of some
supernatural cause, and one of their teachers would have probably
assured them that Columba, the great saint of their island and
a mighty worker of miracles, had destroyed the influence which,
according to the established laws of nature, the sea should have had
on that water." This spring resembles one in the parish of Tain, in
Ross-shire, known as St. Mary's Well. The latter is covered several
hours each day by the sea, but when the tide retires its fresh,
sweet water gushes forth again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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