May was held the best month for visiting charmed wells in Scotland. In 1628 the kirk session of Falkirk punished a number of people for going to Christ’s Well on the Sundays of May to seek their health, and in 1657 others were rebuked for trusting the well of Airth. The charm required silence on the way there and back, a gift of money and a napkin at the well, and the water was never to touch the ground. Robert Kier of Falkirk added in 1826 that a farmer had lately travelled fifty miles for charmed water to cure his cattle.
Christ’s Well on the Sundays of May
Printed under 20 May · Falkirk and Airth, Stirlingshire
No longer kept
They were obliged, for the preservation of the charm, to keep strict silence on the way, to and from the well, and not to allow the vessel in which the water was, to touch the ground.
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 2, cols. 684-687. Read the original
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