“Here is a curious anecdote that evinces it,” returned the priest--“It is many years since I read it in a black-letter memoir of St. Patrick. The Saint, says the biographer, attended by three bishops, and some less dignified of his brethren, being in this very province, arose early one morning, and with his pious associates, placed himself near a fountain or well, and began to chant a hymn. In the neighbourhood of this honoured fountain stood the palace of _Cruachan_, where the two daughters of the Emperor Laogare were educating in retirement; and as the saints sung by no means _sotto voce_, * their pious strains caught the attention of the royal fair ones, who were enjoying an early ramble, and who immediately sought the sanctified choristers. Full of that curiosity so natural to the youthful recluses, they were by no means sparing of interrogations to the Saint, and among other questions demanded, ‘and who is your God? Where dwells he, in heaven or on the earth, or beneath the earth, or in the mountain, or in the valley, or the sea, or the stream?’--And indeed, even to this day, we have Irish for a river god, which we call _Divona_.--You perceive, therefore, that our ancient religion was by no means an unpoetical one.” * A musical voice was an indispensable quality in an Irish Saint, and “lungs of leather” no trivial requisite towards obtaining canonization. St. Columbkill, we are told, sung so loud, that, according to an old Irish poem, called “Amhra Chioluim chille,” or The Vision of Columbkill, “His hallow’d voice beyond a mile was heard.” While we spoke, we observed a figure emerging from a coppice towards a small well, which issued beneath the roots of a blasted oak. The priest motioned us to stop, and be silent--the figure (which was that of an ancient female wrapped in a long cloak,) approached, and having drank of the well out of a little cup, she went three times round it on her knees, praying with great fervency over her beads; then rising after this painful ceremony, she tore a small part of her under garb, and hung it on the branch of the tree which shaded the well. “This ceremony, I perceive,” said the priest, “surprises you; but you have now witnessed the remains of one of our ancient superstitions. The ancient Irish, like the Greeks, were religiously attached to the consecrated fountain, the _Vel expiatoria_; and our early missionaries, discovering the fondness of the natives for these sanctified springs, artfully diverted the course of their superstitious faith, and dedicated them to Christian saints.” “There is really,” said I, “something truly classic in this spot; and here is this little shrine of Christian superstition hung with the same votive gifts as Pausanius informs us obscured the statue of Hygeia in Secyonia.”