Such fantastic lore was definitely interdicted in
King Edgar's reign, when "stone worshipings, divinations, well worshipings
and necromances" were proclaimed things heathen, and unhallowed; but with
the advent of the Saint-Bishops from Wales, from Ireland, from Brittany,
primitive superstitions were patched upon the new creed, and, to suit
private purposes, the old giants of the Christian faith sanctified holy
well and holy stone, posing by right divine as sure dispensers of the
hidden virtue in stream and granite. But the roots of these fables burrow
back to paganism. Hundreds of weakly infants were passed through
Men-an-tol--the stone with a hole or the "crick-stone"--in the names of
saints; and hundreds had already been handed through it centuries before
under like appeal to pagan deities.
Of Madron baptistery, now a picturesque ruin, it seems clear that until the
Reformation regular worship and the service of baptism were therein
celebrated. The place has mercifully escaped all restoration or renovation
and stands at this moment open to the sky in the slow hand of Time. A brook
runs babbling outside, but the holy well or colymbethra is now dry, though
it might easily be filled again. This interesting portion of the chapel
remains intact, and the entrance to it lies upon the level of the floor
according to ancient custom, being so ordered that the adult to undergo
baptism might step down into the water, and that not without dignity.
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