Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/266

256 pay rounds to cure pain or sickness; or sometimes the place selected is a tomb where a saint has appeared, and not infrequently it is one of the "blessed wells—"e. g., the "well of the Blessed Virgin" in the parish of South Kilmaurray in County Cork, where are still shown in a rock near by the print of Mary's fingers and the dint left by the pressure of her knee as she once in her lifetime knelt there in consecrating this well. The mode of procedure in paying rounds at a grave is first to kneel at the foot and repeat a rosary, then to rise and kneel at the right shoulder of the one buried there and repeat another rosary, then to the head and repeat another rosary, then to the left side and repeat a fourth rosary. The person performing the rounds must next go to some neighboring well, whose water is never to be used for any other purpose, and fetch a cup of it to the grave. Into this cup of water he drops a pinch of earth taken from the grave, saying, "In the name of the Father"; then another, saying, "In the name of the Son"; then a third, saying, "In the name of the Holy Ghost." The one who is paying the rounds next goes behind the headstone of the grave, taking the cup of earth and water, and, if the disease to be cured is an external one—e. g., erysipelas—pours a little of the contents of the cup upon the affected part of the body and so bathes it, and also pours a little of it on the ground. If the disease is an internal one, a little of the liquid from the cup is swallowed. What remains of the earth and water is now to be poured back on the portion of the grave from which the earth was taken. Five paters and five aves are then to be said, after which the ceremony is concluded for the time by placing some "token," which may be a cup, a button, or a small coin, on the grave. Where rounds have been paid for many years, the grave is thickly covered with these tokens. After the first rounds have been completed, the whole ceremony must be repeated twice more, the only suitable day for the observance being Friday or Sunday. In some instances three times three rounds are vowed and paid. If the prescribed rites are gone through with at a holy well, the one seeking relief kneels at four different places around the well, always making the circuit, as at a grave, in a sunwise direction. Instead of leaving a token, the devotee, at each of the four stations, with a pebble scratches a cross on one of the top stones of the well wall.

It is said that it is customary among the Scottish Highlanders, when visiting a consecrated fountain or well, either to bathe or to quench thirst, to make the circuit sunwise.