There are also many references to thorn trees in the same position in Wales.
There are thorn trees at St. Madron’s well in Cornwall, and at Chapel well St. Breward in the same county near Bodmin, there is a thorn tree over the well.
Not only are wells often recorded as near sacred trees, but in the case of some we learn that at the chief annual festival they were decked with flowers and garlands, and “encircled with a jovial band of young people celebrating the day with song and dance.” This is recorded of the “blessing of the Brine” at Nantwich (Hope, p. 7).
4. _Well worship and offerings._--Although the traditions and superstitions connected with wells are fast becoming things of the past, in certain parts they are still believed and practised.
Gomme[69] informs us that well-worship prevails in every county of the three kingdoms. He finds it “most vital in the Gaelic countries, somewhat less so in the British, and almost entirely wanting in the Teutonic south-east. In some cases wells were resorted to for the cure of diseases; in others to obtain change of weather or good luck. Offerings were made to them to propitiate their guardian gods and nymphs. Pennant tells us that in olden times the rich would sacrifice one of their horses at a well near Abergelen to secure a blessing upon the rest.[70] Fowls were offered at St. Tegla’s Well, near Wrexham, by epileptic patients,[71] but of late years the well spirits have had to be content with much smaller tributes--such trifles as pins, rags, coloured pebbles and small coins.”
In consequence of this dwindling down of the offering we have chiefly to do with rags, but I think we may learn from the traditions that originally it was an offering of a garment, and to the officiating priest, at the well, or temple with which the well was connected. It is also a question whether the almost universal association of pins with the garment or part of it might not have originated at a time when such an offering--it was probably originally a skin--to a priest without a pin (of bone) to fasten it on would not have been complete. In Kent’s cavern pins of bone have been found associated with bones of palæolithic mammals.
Mr. Gomme tells us,[72] “In the case of some wells, especially in Scotland, at one time the whole garment was put down as an offering. Gradually these offerings of clothes became less and less till they came down to rags.” He also points out, as we have already seen, that “the geographical distribution of rag-offerings coincides with the existence of monoliths and dolmens.”