----“This may be superstition, weak or wild, But even the faintest relicts of a shrine Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine.”
The Pagan origin of well-worship is now established beyond the possibility of contradiction, and its extreme antiquity is lost in the night of time. This has been satisfactorily shown in a very interesting essay, written with a view to the annihilation of its remains in Ireland, by a Roman Catholic clergyman of distinguished abilities and learning, the late Dr Charles O’Conor. This learned writer attributes its introduction into the British islands, and Ireland in particular, to the Phœnicians, and quotes several authorities to show that if it had not its origin with the Chaldeans, it can at least be traced as far back as to them, and that from Chaldea and Persia it passed into Arabia, thence into Egypt and Lybia, and lastly into Greece, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. In all these countries its vestiges are still to be found, but in none of them at this day so numerous as in Ireland; and it is remarkable that its usages are still identical in the far distant regions of the east with those in our own _Ultima Thule_ of the west. This identity is clearly evidenced by Hanway, in his “Travels in Persia,” in which he says, “We arrived at a desolate caravanserai, where we found nothing but water. I observed a tree _with a number of rags to the branches_. These were so many charms which passengers coming from Ghilan, a province remarkable for agues, had left there in a fond expectation of leaving their disease also in the same spot.” Similar instances have been adduced by later travellers in the east, in reading whose descriptions we might almost suppose that they were depicting scenes in Ireland; and if all other evidences were wanting, these facts alone would be sufficient to establish the conclusion that the worship of fountains in Ireland was of Pagan origin. But we have in our ancient manuscripts the most satisfactory historical evidences to establish the fact. Thus, in Tirechan’s Life of St Patrick, preserved in the Book of Armagh, and St Evin’s Life as published by Colgan, it is stated, in detailing the progress of the Irish Apostle through Ireland, that he came to the fountain called Slan [that is, health], “because it was indicated to him that the Magi honoured this fountain, and made donations to it as gifts to God.” This fountain was square, and there was a square stone in the mouth of it, and the water came over the stone, that is, through the interstices; and the Pagans told him that a certain Magus, who worshipped water as a divinity, and considered fire as a destroyer, when dying, made a shrine for his bones in the water beneath the stone, in order that they might be preserved. Patrick told the assembled congregation that it was not true that the king of the waters was in the fountain, and bade them raise up the stone, remarking that the bones of a man were not beneath it, but that he thought there was some gold and silver appearing through the joinings from their impious offerings; no such valuable offerings were, however, found; and Patrick consecrated the stone so raised to the true Divinity. It may not be unworthy of remark, that the well of Finnmagh is still, as in the time of St Patrick, equally reverenced, though under a different name and with a different faith. It is now called Tober Brighde, or Bride’s Well, having been subsequently dedicated to that saint as well as all the churches in the plain of Finnmagh, and under this name the Druidical well of _Slan_ is one of the most frequented and honoured in the whole of the county of Roscommon.