212
Collectanea,
his son and daughter imbecile. The son survived till 1853, and no other members of the family were affected after the well was restored. ^^ The Newmarket well indignantly removed itself to its present site when "a dirty woman washed her feet in it," and it also gave her the complaint it usually cured. So, also, when the holy well above Oughtmama ^^ was offended, it closed, and broke out lower down the hillside, as the Sruhaunanaeve or " saints' stream," and the water of Killone well refused to boil. The Cunninghams, living near it, spoilt their cooking by using its water, though " they knew it would not boil." John Windele tells of other resentful wells in Cork and Kerry ; for example, the well at Labba Molagga (Cork) ran dry when a woman washed her clothes in it, and at Maunaholtora the well near a dolmen ran dry, and its water refused to boil.^^ The Irish " Nennius " tells a story of ducks that could not be boiled because the water would not get hot while they were in it. In the last century a woman who drew water from a well and saw it did not boil found a fish in it. She took the fish back to the well, and the water then boiled without any difficulty. The mud of the dolmen or " well " of Tobergrania at Ballycroum cured sore or short-sighted eyes, and that of the buUaun or basin at Kiltinanlea church near Clonlara did the same. The well of St. Michael at Kilmihil was once powerful. Father Anthony Bruodin, a Franciscan and author of a history of his order ^'^ full of curious particulars about Clare before 1640, tells how "Lady" Mariana, wife of Thomas MacGorman, of the author's kinsfolk, had in 1632 long suffered from gout. The Archangel appeared to her in a dream, and bade her go to his church and dig where she should see rushes growing near it. Aided by her son and Dermot O'Quaely, the parish priest of Kilmihil, she found the well and was cured. Many other persons got similar relief, but there seems no tradition of any cures by it preserved among the people of Kilmihil,
Offerings. — It is right, on visiting a well, to make offerings of
^* So Mrs. Connors at Fortanne.
^* Pronounced Ooght-maw-ma. It is a weird spot with three ancient churches in a grassy basin on the flank of a terraced hill of bare grey limestone.
^® Windele, Mss. Royal Irish Academy ; Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, vol. iii., pp. 765-9.
^ Propugnaailum Catholiciz Fidei, 1 665.
