The holy wells in Cornwall are very numerous; the greater part were in olden times enclosed

in small baptisteries. Luckily the poor people believe that to remove any of the stones of the
ruins of these chapels would be fatal to them and to their children, and for that reason a great
number yet remain. It is considered unlucky, too, to cart away any of the druidical monuments
(pieces of ancientcy), and many are the stories told of the great misfortunes that have fallen
on men who have so done. The innocent oxen or horses who drag them away are always sure
to die, and their master never prosper. Persistent ill-luck also follows any one defiling these
wells; and a tradition is current in one of the West Country parishes, of a gentleman, who,
after he had washed his dogs, afflicted with the mange, in its holy well, fell into such poverty
that his sons were obliged to work as day labourers. Mr. T. Q. Couch, in Notes and Queries,
vol. x., gives this legend in connection with St.Nunns well in Pelynt:An old farmer once
set his eyes upon the granite basin and coveted it; for it was not wrong in his eyes to convert
the holy font to the base uses of the pigs stye; and accordingly he drove his oxen and wain to
the gateway above for the purpose of removing it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the
well, he essayed to drag the trough from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the efforts
of the oxen, but at length they succeeded in starting it, and dragged it slowly up the hill-side
to where the wain was standing. Here, however, it burst away from the chains which held it,
and, rolling back again to the well, made a sharp turn and regained its old position, where it
has remained ever since. Nor will any one again attempt its removal, seeing that the farmer,
who was previously well-to-do in the world, [63]never prospered from that day forward. Some
people say, indeed, that retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and the
owner being struck lame and speechless.
This St. Nunns well is not the boussening well formerly mentioned, but another dedicated
to the same saint, and is resorted to as a divining and wishing well; it is commonly called by
the people of that district the Piskies well. Pins are thrown into it, not only to see by the
bubbles which rise on the water whether the wisher will get what he desires, but also to
propitiate the piskies and to bring the thrower good luck. This county has many other divining
wells which were visited at certain seasons of the year by those anxious to know what the
future would bring them. Amongst them the Lady of Nants well, in the parish of Colan, was
formerly much frequented on Palm Sunday, when those who wished to foretell their fate
threw into the water crosses made of palms. There was once in Gulval parish, near Penzance,
a well which was reported to have had great repute as a divining well. People repaired to it to
ask if their friends at a distance were well or ill, living or dead. They looked into the water
and repeated the words:

Water, water, tell me truly,

Is the man that I love duly

On the earth, or under the sod,

Sick or well? in the name of God.

Should the water bubble up quite clear, the one asked for was in good health; if it became
puddled, ill; and should it remain still, dead. Of the wells of St. Roche, St. Maddern (now
Madron), and St. Uny, I have spoken in the first part of this work.
The waters from several wells are used for baptismal rites (one near Laneast is called the
Jordan), and the children baptized with water from the wells of St. Euny (at the foot of Carn
Brea, Redruth) and of Ludgvan (Penzance), &c., it was asserted could never be hanged with a
hempen rope; but this prophecy has unfortunately been proved to be false. The water from the
latter was famed too as an eye-wash, until an evil spirit, banished for his misdeeds
by St. Ludgvan, to the Red Sea, spat into it from malice as he passed. The Red Sea is the
favourite traditional spot here for [64]the banishment of wicked spirits, and I have been told
stories of wicked men whose souls, immediately after their death, were carried off to well-
known volcanoes.
Almost all these holy wells were once noted for the curing of diseases, but the water
from St. Jesus