Holy wells were also used as divining pools to learn how an illness would end. Chambers records that a shirt or shift was taken off a sick person and thrown into the well of St Oswald near Newton. If the garment floated the patient would recover, but if it sank there was no hope.
The Shirt in St Oswald’s Well
Printed under 1 July · near Newton
Lore and belief
if the garment floated, all would be well; if it sank, it was useless to hope.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 7. Read the original
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