I.

The waters of mystery which flow at Lourdes, in France, are paralleled in numberless Welsh parishes. In every corner of Cambria may be found wells which possess definite attributes, malicious or beneficent, which they are popularly supposed to actively exert toward mankind. In almost every instance, the name of the tutelary saint to whom the well is consecrated is known to the peasantry, and generally they can tell you something about him, or her. Unnumbered centuries have elapsed since the saint lived; nay, generation upon generation has perished since any complete knowledge of his life or character existed, save in mouldering manuscripts left by monks, themselves long turned to dust; yet the tradition of the saint as regards the well is there, a living thing beside its waters. However lightly some forms of superstition may at times be treated by the vulgar, they are seldom capable of irreverent remark concerning the well. In many cases this respect amounts to awe.

These wells are of varying power and disposition. Some are healing wells; others are cursing wells; still others combine the power alike to curse and to cure. Some are sovereign in their influence over all the diseases from which men suffer, mental and moral as well as physical; others can cure but one disease, or one specific class of diseases; and others remedy all the misfortunes of the race, make the poor rich, the unhappy happy, and the unlucky lucky. That these various reputations arose in some wells from medicinal qualities found by experience to dwell in the waters, is clear at a glance; but in many cases the character of the patron saint gives character to the well. In parishes dedicated to the Virgin Mary there will almost inevitably be found a Ffynon Mair, (Well of Mary,) the waters of which are supposed to be purer than the waters of other wells. Sometimes the people will take the trouble to go a long distance for water from the Ffynon Mair, though a good well may be nearer, in whose water chemical analysis can find no difference. Formerly, and indeed until within a few years past, no water would do for baptizing but that fetched from the Ffynon Mair, though it were a mile or more from the church. That the water flowed southward was in some cases held to be a secret of its virtue. In other instances, wells which opened and flowed eastward were thought to afford the purest water.