>If you had chosen to simply describe what you perceive to be the "English 
>experience," then I wouldn't be objecting here. My concern is that, though 
>you assert that the “English experience” differs from this “Celtic 
>experience,” I don’t think you adequately define what you mean by “Celtic 
>experience.” Without an adequate definition of "Celtic experience," how does 
>one judge the uniqueness of the English experience?

The somewhat polemical stance of the book led me to express things less
carefully than I would now. The word 'experience' should probably have
had 'historical' prefixed to it, in that it referred predominately to
institutions rather than symbolic, ritual or other usages and meanings.
As you know I tend to the view that there was very little racial change,
or shifts in deep mental attitudes, as a result of the Anglo-Saxon
invasions - any more than resulted from the Roman. Probably less, in
fact. However, the distinctions between the structures of the brands of
church organisation favoured in what we have come to call 'England' and
'the Celtic regions' (and remember I try to point out that there were
Irish-type monastic institutions active in the North in the seventh and
eighth centuries) did affect the development of the well-cult in visible
ways.

That was one component of the difference between the 'Celtic' and
'English' experiences. The other was less distinct. In 1990/91 when I
began writing there was next to nothing being written about holy wells
apart from superficial accounts which glossed all sacred springs as
pagan and Celtic (everyone is very familiar with this now). Even careful
compilations of material like 'Sacred Waters' didn't approach the
subject with historical analytic tools. I didn't accept that you could
simply draw conclusions about what had been happening in medieval
England from looking at what was happening in 19th-century Ireland. And
that was as much as I thought about the Celtic 'experience'. It simply
wasn't part of my business to discuss it - leave it to better-qualified
people.

>I noticed your "throw-away" when I read the book (and doesn’t Logan say this 
>as well?). What makes something “look” pre-Reformation? Carroll’s work is 
>valuable because it collects the evidence from modern sources, but he 
>overlooks--or is unaware of--the medieval and earlier evidence. So I would 
>not commend Carroll's work as a model for how to conduct a study of well 
>devotions. As I see it, precedents for the devotions documented at wells in 
>Ireland can be found in earlier texts, and well devotions should be seen as 
>one occasion when a common paraliturigical vocabulary was used.

It must be that he's unaware of the medieval evidence because he states
that there isn't any (and remember his focus is on wider ritual
practices than simply holy wells). And his interest *is* specifically in
that paraliturgical vocabulary which previous commentators, again, took
blandly as evidence of inborn Celtic sympathy with holy wells and such
ritual sites in general. His point was just to point out that, in
language and theological application, it must be post-Reformation in
origin rather than a thing of great antiquity. 

>Grand is distinctive for having been so well developed in the Roman period 
>and leaving  evidence of how it was developed from a fairly simple hill-top 
>site. But my point was that the entire body of evidence from Gaul needs to 
>be considered for the evidence it sheds on common Celtic approaches, 
>including sites in Britain from the same period.

Can you remind me of the references for Grand again? I should look them
up.

>For example, you dismiss the 
>possibility of association between a well and a megalith if they are a 
>half-mile or more apart. 

Well, I do think you have to proceed from the known to the likely and
then the possible. 

>But Celtic folk customs often involve lengthy 
>circuits from one part of the ritual complex to another. 

And indeed in many other cultures. I believe (though I don't know much
about it) that landscape lines, hilltop sites and springs are linked
across wide areas in South America, for instance.

>Similarly, 
>your description of the Cailleach as "one of the aspects of the Mother 
>Goddess" is  inaccurate, apparently based on a popular misconception of how 
>the Irish regarded and interacted with deity figures. 

I'm sure it is, but that particular Scottish site was used in 'Sacred
Waters', if nowhere else, as an example of a pagan well. When I came
across the reference to the Three Cailleacha in the Martyrology of
Tallacht I felt this was too clear an instance of understandable
misconception to miss out in the book. It's like the old canard about
Wanswell in Gloucestershire, which is still being repeated.

>>My approach has always been that there is no reason why the Anglo-Saxon 
>>invasions of England should have made any difference to the well-cult 
>>there, and the greater density of holy wells in Celtic areas is due to 
>>their more recent (especially religious and economic) history rather than 
>>any cultural distinctions between peoples in the way wells were used.
>
>I think it would be difficult to ascertain how many wells were in what is 
>now called England before the Reformation, let alone how they were used. 
>Wells are fragile, often temperamental critters which must be tended with 
>care or they'll be lost, as people on this list can testify. Connections 
>between wells and other parts of a ritual complex are even more fragile. 
>However, there are a number of reasons why Brythonic evidence would be 
>destroyed in Anglo-Saxon areas. Liturgical practices considered "Celtic" 
>were deliberately banned and suppressed. Cultural remnants were suppressed, 
>if not in the Anglo-Saxon era, then in the Norman. Would we today be able to 
>recognize the ritual association between the well in Locronan and the 
>hilltop miles away if the Trome/nie had been suppressed 500 years ago? 
>Probably not. Then how can you be certain that there were no such sites in 
>eastern England? 

I'm not sure which direction you're arguing in here: the fact that you
can tell little about pre-Reformation, and still less pre-Conquest,
English well-cults indeed means that there may have been similar rituals
and devotions in Eastern England. That was exactly the point I tried to
make in LS. I'm not sure that 'Celtic liturgical practices' per se were
suppressed; Celtic patterns of Church organisation were certainly
combated by the Anglo-Saxon church, and this probably had an impact on
the way the well-cult developed in the British Isles. But those are
different from popular devotions which were, so far as I am aware,
usually ignored or, if they were opposed by the authorities, were
described simply as 'superstitions' rather than being associated with a
particular social or cultural group or region. And what 'cultural
remnants' do you mean were suppressed in Norman England? Did they really
include ritual practices at traditional sites?

>One more point: you have characterized--and apparently dismissed--the 
>Brennemans' book as "romantic." 

I don't recall mentioning it - can I plead innocent to that one!

James Rattue