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Re the intriguing tale narrated by Eoin Ross about the Tobar na Reil: although there's nowt to my knowledge of this tale in my own Yorkshire grounds, the unnamed star in the tale sounds familiarly like the Pole Star, traditionally the entrance used by shamans when visitng a number of worlds.  Wells, as we know, have always been vehicles used by such folk, but I'd hazard a guess the Pole Star lurks somewhere beneath the Star Well.  Do y' know if there's any adjacent sites with appropriate folklore; or sites where the airt is North?  Check it out if possible.

Paul Bennett

Eoin Mackay Ross wrote:

Hi and greetings from Alba of the mists.  This is my first posting to the List andhopefully not my last!

Michael Newton in his excellent and scholarly books  â€Bho Chluaidh gu Calasraid (from the Clydeto Callander) Acair, 1999 relates a traditional Gaelic account of a battle between the Stewarts of Appin and the Grahams of Menteith. The fight occurredat a well called Tobar na Reil (the well of the stars) which lies on a pathcalled Lairig an Tiobairt between the Lake of Menteith and Loch Venachar in theTrossachs.
According to Newton,the tradition associated with Tobar na Reil was that if one drank from the wellon a certain night and at a certain hour and when a particular star was shiningone would gain knowledge of the speech of all the creatures of the earth andsea and so understand everything they said. Clearly important information if one lived in the Trossachs an areawhich had more than its share of kelpies, uruisigs and water horses not tomention the odd wolf or two! Unfortunately, but sadly not surprisingly, thestar itself is not named.

Are star wells at all common elsewhere? Do such wells havesimilar traditions attached to them?  Heather and Robin Tanner in their book â€Wiltshire Village† mention a star well in their fictionalepitome of  Kington Borel.  This was rather a serendipitous finding andis the only other reference to such wells that I have located.

Welly anthologists can find a delightful modern poem aboutan Irish well in Gabriel Fitzmauriceâ€s â€A wren boys carnival†Peter Loo Poets, 2000. This book is a greatmaking in celebration of  dinnsheanchasand the genius of rural Ireland.

Eoin