The days on which these pilgrimages are performed at such places are
called Pattern or Patron days. The journey to holy wells or holy lakes
is termed a Pilgrimage, or more commonly a Station. It is sometimes
enjoined by the priest, as an act of penance; and sometimes undertaken
voluntarily, as a devotional, work of great merit in the sight of God.
The crowds in many places amount to from five hundred to a thousand, and
often to two, three, four, or five thousand people.

These Stations have, for the most part, been placed in situations
remarkable for wild and savage grandeur, or for soft, exquisite, and
generally solitary beauty. They may be found on the high and rugged
mountain top; or sunk in the bottom of some still and lonely glen, far
removed from the ceaseless din of the world. Immediately beside them, or
close in their vicinity, stand the ruins of probably a picturesque
old abbey, or perhaps a modern chapel. The appearance of these gray,
ivy-covered walls is strongly calculated to stir up in the minds of
the people the memory of bygone times, when their religion, with its
imposing solemnities, was the religion of the land. It is for this
reason, probably, that patrons are countenanced; for if there be not
a political object in keeping them up, it is beyond human ingenuity to
conceive how either religion or morals can be improved by debauchery,
drunkenness, and bloodshed.

Let the reader, in order to understand the situation of the place we are
describing, imagine to himself a stupendous cliff overhanging a green
glen, into which tumbles a silver stream down a height of two or three
hundred feet. At the bottom of this rock, a few yards from the basin
formed by the cascade, in a sunless nook, was a well of cool, delicious
water. This was the "Holy Well," out of which issued a slender stream,
that joined the rivulet formed by the cascade. On the shrubs which