Human beings are not the only description of animals that
perform pilgrimages to holy wells and blessed lakes. Cows, horses, and
sheep are made to go through their duties, either by way of prevention,
or cure, of the diseases incident to them. This is not to be wondered
at, when it is known that in their religion every domestic animal has
its patron saint, to whom its owner may at any time pray on its behalf.
When the crowd was collected, nothing in the shape of an assembly
could surpass it in the originality of its appearance. In the glen were
constructed a number of tents, where whiskey and refreshments might be
had in abundance. Every tent had a fiddler or a piper; many two of them.
From the top of the pole that ran up from the roof of each tent, was
suspended the symbol by which the owner of it was known by his friends
and acquaintances. Here swung a salt herring or a turf; there a
shillelah; in a third place a shoe, in a fourth place a whisp of hay, in
a fifth an old hat, and so on with the rest.
The tents stood at a short distance from the scene of devotion at the
well, but not so far as to prevent the spectator from both seeing and
hearing what went on in each. Around the well, on bare knees, moved a
body of people thickly wedged together, some praying, some screaming,
some excoriating their neighbors' shins, and others dragging them out of
their way by the hair of the head.
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