The Glastonbury waters

Under 30 April 1751 Richard Gough noted in his diary that a Glastonbury man, thirty years ill with asthma, had dreamed he would be cured if he drank from certain waters near the Chain-gate on seven Sunday mornings. He did, recovered, and swore to it on oath. The story drew people from all over the kingdom to drink the waters for every kind of illness, and five days later Gough put the crowd at ten thousand. Southey recorded a young man whose king’s evil, brought on by fright at the ghost in Hamlet, was said to have been cured there.