THE sky was leaden and rain drummed on the branches of tall pines as I plowtered my way through Culloden Woods last week. The burn in spate rushed thunderously, its sound echoing off the trees, and feisty rivulets gouged the track as I approached St Mary’s Well.
The previous day there had been sunshine and stillness when I visited the Clootie Well near Munlochy. Two wells, each commemorating more than one belief system, still attracting people who leave bits of cloths, or "clooties", at these ancient sites of veneration. These are places beyond time.
There are many such wells and "raggedy trees" in the UK, Ireland and Northern Europe, parts of our Celtic heritage later absorbed by Christianity. Indeed, I visited the Munlochy well a couple of days before the St Boniface Fair in nearby Fortrose, a medieval fair successfully revived 30 years ago.
St Boniface (it means do-gooder, so maybe he had a bonnie face) is also known as St Curadan and he worked as a missionary in the area around 620 AD with a family of monks, founding the first church in Rosemarkie, then an important Pictish centre. When Fortrose Cathedral was built it was dedicated to St Peter and St Boniface and the Catholic church next to the Cathedral is also dedicated to both.
The Clootie Well at Munlochy is linked to St Boniface, but that was a case of early Christianity absorbing some of the traditions. Wells are linked to the ancient belief in the power of water and the legends of river goddesses spring from the same source. Allied to the fact that the tree is the symbol of long life and health, you have a potent psychological duality.
After the Reformation, Parliament passed a Bill in 1581 outlawing pilgrimages to wells and other holy places. But such a law was difficult to police and local traditions carried on.
St Mary’s Well is a short stroll in to Culloden Woods, which I accessed from Tower Road, just past the chip shop waggishly named The Codfather, which indicates that Luca Brazzi may have slept with the fishes, but here they fry them.
The Forestry Commission has laid tracks, with the yellow one leading to the well which at various times has been known as The Blue Well, the Well of the Wood or Tobar n’Oige, which is linked to the legendary land of Tir nan Og in Scots and Irish mythology.
It’s said that it was called after a chapel in the locality which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Another story, however, has it that this St Mary actually lived in the Culloden vicinity and went around healing the sick and comforting the poor. She carried with her water from the well, which became linked with the healing.
The ritual was that pilgrims had to walk round the well three times sunwise, though the sullen sky gave no clue when I called of where the sun might exactly be. After the walk, the idea was to drink with cupped hands while making your wish or prayer. Tying a rag to a nearby tree completed the sequence.
Often the rag was part of clothing from someone who was ill and for whom intercession was sought. Anyone who removes a cloot from where it’s tied will, it is said, have transferred to them the illness it represents.
At St Mary’s Well (Tobar Mhairie) at Tarradale, near Muir of Ord, folklore says the water gives peace to those about to die. Another St Mary’s Well on the shore at Tain is said to cure tuberculosis.
The Culloden well is unique in that it has a circular wall, seven feet high, surrounding the actual well, the intent being to cover the modesty of those who wanted to bathe in the water which rises from a square stone basin. It once had a roofed building, seats and a caretaker, also regarded as a priestess.
On the first of May, in accordance with tradition dating back to the Celts, some people still make a point of tying cloots to one of five adorned trees around the Culloden spring. It is said that the sunshine falling on the water at that time provides the curative powers.
Highland soldiers going to and from the Battle of Culloden prayed there, and just up the track from the well is the Prisoners’ Stone, where the Duke of Cumberland’s troops are said to have shot 17 Jacobites who had sought refuge.
One account says that up to 1000 Jacobites were killed at this stone. That may well be an embellishment, but executions so near a place of enduring veneration makes the stone a particularly bloody and ghastly place. For decades after that grim battle, the ghosts of the slain were said to haunt here.
The Inverness Courier reported in 1946 of how six Cameron Highlanders, fighting Rommel in North Africa, had, on the first Sunday in May, tied "cloots" on a well in a Tunisian olive grove. Their wish, as they sipped the water, was that they meet again at the Culloden well if they survived the war. They did, and met there on the first Sunday in May.
The Clootie Well at Munlochy is a much larger affair than the Inverness one. It is an open spring and I counted some 50 trees from which sprouted socks, scarves, hankies and everything from underwear to cuddly toys, the latter bringing a pang to this grandfather’s heart. One T-shirt wished for a successful birth, another commemorated the death of a friend. The stories this place could tell.
Again the Forestry Commission has provided a path to this symbol of more than one faith. The woodland environment of both locations adds to the mix of eerieness and poignancy, the sense of standing at what has been a holy place for a thousand years – and much more.
Stuff and nonsense? Possibly. But the traditions have lived on at Culloden and Munlochy as the centuries have flitted down like leaves. People still make pilgrimages – some for a laugh, others out of casual interest, others to pray or make a wish for someone dear to them in a simple, timeless act of worship. Even if it only offers comfort, it may be worthwhile.
A few, of course, may be the "wacky baccy" crew who believe The Wicker Man film was true, particularly after inhaling a can or two of Diamond White.
The General’s Well on the west bank of Ness Islands is alleged to cure rickets, and at Clachnaharry there is the Well of the Washing Burn, which was believed to cure skin diseases. When the Marquis of Montrose reached Inverness in chains after being captured at the Battle of Carbisdale in 1650 and en-route to his execution in Edinburgh, he asked to be allowed to drink from this well.
Still in Clachnaharry, just over the railway bridge, is a well supposed to have been blessed by St Kessog, where a daily drink kept demons away.
Just above the old Craig Dunain Hospital, the Well of the Spotted Rock was where a weak child, feared to be a fairy changeling, could be left overnight and restored to a healthy normal baby. A well at what is now Raigmore Hospital was used to treat whooping cough.
At Leys Castle, three miles south east of Inverness and now owned by former Caley Thistle chairman Doug McGilvray, Keppoch Well has been covered over for decades. People once placed a stone on a piece of wood and put it in the base of the well. If the wood bobbed up an ill person would recover. If not: grim news.
St Ninians Well at Urquhart Bay was another clootie site, as was St Columba’s Well at Invermoriston, which it is claimed was blessed by the saint so he could baptise converted Druids. And at Caplaich Hill, near Dochgarroch, a Laird of Grant, taken ill while hunting, recovered after drinking the water, which led a Maclean of Dochgarroch to erect a stone basin at the well in 1822.
Craiguck Well on the shore at Avoch is a healing well dedicated to St Bennet and at Fodderty, beside Strathpeffer, there is St John the Baptist’s Well. So you can see how Christian saints, Celts and Druids all inspired the tradition.
The Highlands is rich with legend, whether fairy, ghost or saintly stories.
But the fact that these wells retain enduring fascination and command respect and even worship underlines that many still feel there is more to life than we understand, and certainly more than rampant consumerism.
Perhaps that is the true lesson of the wells in the wood.
