Several authorities of the same character as that now adduced may be found in the lives of other early Irish saints, but it is not necessary to our purpose to quote them.
Dr O’Conor shows from various evidences that on the firm establishment of Christianity in various parts of Europe the most severe ordinances of the church were promulgated against the continuance of well-worship in any form. “I have already stated,” he observes, “that well-worshipping has been utterly abolished by the Catholic religion in Italy. The _Fontinalia_ exist no longer; the fountain of Egeria, which I have seen near Rome, is known only to the learned; and I have seen the common peasantry of Castel Gandolfo and Marino washing their linen in the sacred waters of the _Ferentine_ Assemblies of Latium and of Rome!”
In reference to its abolition in England, he adduces a canon made in the reign of Edgar, A.D. 960, by which it was ordained “that every priest _do forbid the worship of fountains_, and necromancy, and auguries, and enchantments, and soothsayings, and false worship, and legerdemain, which carry men into various impostures, and to groves and Ellens, and also many _trees_ of divers sorts, and _stones_.”
He also shows that similar ordinances appear in the Capitularies of Charlemagne, and that amongst the laws of the reign of Ecgbright, A.D. 740, the 148th canon is:--“If any man, following the custom of the Pagans, introduce diviners or sorcerers into his house, or attend the _lustrations_ of Pagans, let him do penance for five years.”
It may be asked, then, how has it happened that the veneration paid to wells has continued in Ireland even to the present day, and to this question it is not very easy to give a satisfactory answer. It may be remarked, however, that no evidences have yet been discovered to show that similar local ordinances were made to destroy their continuance in Ireland, and that it may hence be inferred that the attachment of the Irish People generally to their ancient usages in this instance, as well as in their funeral lamentations, May-fires, and many other ceremonies of a religious character derived from the same eastern and Pagan origin, was too strong even for the power of the clergy to eradicate or greatly diminish. Certain it is, that the pilgrimages to Lough Derg, which, there is every reason to believe, derive their origin from the same source, were abolished by an order of Pope Alexander VI, in 1497, and yet the people returned to them again, and they are at the present moment as numerously made, if not more so than ever. And, in like manner, the pilgrimages to wells, even where discountenanced and punished by the Roman Catholic clergy, as they are now in almost every part of Ireland, are still continued in secrecy, with a tenacity to ancient usages singularly characteristic of the Irish race, and which will ensure their existence for a considerable time longer.