It was natural that when the study of folklore had suggested that there was a close connection between the worship carried on in Britain at stone monuments, sacred trees, and sacred wells an attempt should have been made to see whether these three cults had been associated out of Britain with the ceremonials of any of the early peoples for which complete and trustworthy information is available. On this point the traditions of widely sundered countries is amazingly strong. The folklore of the Pyrenees, France, Spain and Portugal regarding sacred wells is very similar to that of Ireland. Borlase writes:[84] “It is interesting to notice that the pre-Christian custom called _dessil_, or circuit around a venerated spot, which is practised in Ireland in the case of one dolmen at least, as well as at wells and Churches innumerable, is found also in Portugal.” In the Pyrenees, too, fairies and spirits are thought much of in this connection. Borlase tells us:[85] “They are the presiding genii of certain wells.” He adds: “It is not in Ireland alone that dolmens are associated with the notion of wells and water springs. The Portuguese names, Anta do Fontao, Fonte Coberta, Anta do Fonte-de Mouratao, and the French names, Fonte de Rourre, and Fonte nay le Marmion, show this to be the case.”[86] In Persia Sir Wm. Ouseley saw a tree covered with rags, and similar trees in the Himalayas are associated with large heaps of stones (Gomme, p. 105). The late General Pitt-Rivers affirms that the customs of well-offerings I referred to in the last chapter are invariably associated with cairns, megalithic monuments or some such early Pagan institutions, and he adds that the area in which traces of well-offerings are found is conterminous with the area of the megalithic monuments.[87] The idea that the waters of certain wells have marvellous healing powers is also not confined to the British Isles, for in a great many parts of Europe, perhaps more especially in France, Spain and Portugal, we find instances. The practice of worshipping in connection with wells and the sacred stones and sacred trees which were associated with them, as we have seen, was indeed in ancient days almost, if not quite, universal wherever man existed. The traditions of the past, therefore, are to be gathered over a very wide area. I quote a summary of the universality of this practice given by the late General Pitt-Rivers in the paper already noticed: