66 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



Maughold's Well in the Isle of Man women sat in the 

 saint's chair and drank a glass of water from the well. 

 Here, as at Locmine, contact with the chair seems to 

 have been necessary in addition to the draught. 1 In 

 Germany the same belief in the power of certain wells 

 is equally found. The Amorsbrunnen near Amor- 

 bach in Bavaria is one of these ; the Gezelinquelle 

 near Schebusch, not far from Cologne, is another. 2 

 A Sicilian priest named Maggio, director of the Con- 

 gregazione della Sciabica, writing in the year 1668, 

 mentions that water derived from a spring beneath 

 the altar of the Madonna della Providenza at Palermo, 

 and consecrated yearly on the fourteenth of January, 

 possessed remarkable powers of curing disease. It 

 was given with much faith and devotion to persons 

 who were possessed or bewitched. It was also given 

 to sterile women and to women who were about to 

 bring forth. 3 But in Italy itself at the present day 

 the most valued specific against barrenness is the 

 water of the well of Our Lady of Lourdes. At Perugia 

 in particular the church of Santa Maria Nuova does a 

 profitable trade in Lourdes water, which is said to be 

 sent direct from Lourdes to Rome and there authenti- 

 cated by the pontifical seal. It is drunk in faith by 

 wives desirous of children and also by fathers whose 

 longings for offspring have not been fully satisfied. And 

 it is all the more prized because in Italy there are no 

 fountains having the virtue in question. 4 In this 

 respect the Italians are less fortunate than even the 

 Tusayan of North America. The latter have a legend 



1 F. L. v. 221, citing Sacheverell. 



2 Ant. xxxviii. 300 ; Am Urquell, v. 287. 



3 Archivio, xv. 56. 4 Zanetti, 103. 



