> From: Patrick Nugent [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> (It is my sense also -- and I'd be happy to be corrected here -- that this
> specialization in healing may have occurred substantially earlier at the
> shrines of Welsh, Irish, and Breton saints.)
>
That is my sense, too. In fact, there are even earlier stories of
wells and springs being "sained" for Christian use by a saint thrusting a
staff or a hand into a well and rededicating it.
On the other hand, many wells are known, not by a saint's name, but
by what they are good for: such as Eye Well.
> Even deeper roots, though, come from the more general idea of
> patronage--the sense that persons and institutions entered into personal
> [posthumous] relationships with the saints, who would reliably come to
> their aid in time of trouble.
>
Agreed, but I see this as saints' inheriting the earlier function
performed by patron deities.
Francine Nicholson
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