In Kirkmaiden parish, Wigtownshire, the print of the Virgin's knee
was at one time shown on a stone where she knelt in prayer. There was
a chapel dedicated to her in the neighbourhood. In Southend parish,
Kintyre, are the remains of St. Columba's Chapel, standing in the
ancient burying-ground of Keil. In his "Ecclesiological Notes" Mr. Muir
observes, "Under an overhanging rock, close by on the roadside,
is St. Columba's Well, and on the top of a hillock, overlooking the
west end of the burial ground there is a flat rock bearing on its
top the impress of two feet, made, it seems, by those of the saint
whilst he stood marking out and hallowing the spot on which his chapel
should rest." In Bromfield parish, Cumberland, is a piece of granite
rock called St. Cuthbert's Stane, and near it is a copious spring of
remarkably pure water. Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities," says that
"this spring, probably from its having been anciently dedicated to
the same St. Cuthbert, is called Helly Well, i.e., Haly or Holy Well."
Mr. R. C. Hope, in his "Holy Wells," refers to a block of stone
near St. Madron's Spring, in Cornwall, locally known as St. Madron's
Bed. We are told that "on it impotent folk reclined when they came
to try the cold water cure." In the same parish is a pre-historic
relic in the form of a granite block with a hole in the centre of
it. It is known in Cornish as Mean-an-Tol, i.e., the Stone of the
Hole. Its name in English is The Creeping Stone. Sickly children were
at one time passed through the hole a certain number of times, in the
belief that a cure would follow. This superstitious custom recalls what
was at one time done beside St. Paul's Well, in the parish of Fyvie,
Aberdeenshire. Close to the well were the ruins of an old church. One
of its stones was supported on other two with a space below. It
went by the name of The Shargar Stone--shargar signifying a weakly
child. The stone, in this instance, got its name from the custom in
the district of mothers passing their ailing children through the
space below the stone, in the belief that whatever hindered their
growth would thereby be removed. Mr. Hope recounts a tradition
concerning Morwenstowe, in Devon, and its patron saint, Morwenna,
to the effect that when the parishioners wished to build a church,
Morwenna brought a large stone from the foot of the cliff to form
the font. Feeling fatigued by the climb she laid down the stone to
rest herself, and from the spot a spring gushed forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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