TOUCHSTONES

April, 2005

Driving south along the A832 towards the village of Munlochy, Alex Mark and I flashed by a hillside covered in rags. I drove on until I could find a turn around and went back to see exactly what it was. There was barely room for a single car in the pullouts on each side of the road. The trees and bushes of the hillside were covered with bits of clothing as high up as a tall man could reach.

I had no idea what the place was or why there were rags hanging in the trees. At the far right end of the area was a small notice was posted, identifying the place as a “Clootie”, or healing, well. Friends told me these healing wells and a multitude of fairy glens are scattered throughout Scotland. This one, it turns out, is extremely well known and even noted on the maps.

This Clootie Well is said to have been the home of a fairy to which a person gave a gift of cloth before drinking from the health-giving and luck-bestowing water. The well was later incorporated into the Christian religion, and became known as St. Boniface's Well. There is said to have been a chapel on the site, although there is no trace of it today. Whether the origins of the story were pagan or Christian, the waters of the well achieved a reputation for healing sick children, who in times gone by were often brought here and left overnight. It was believed that to achieve a cure you had to spill some water from the well on the ground in three different places, rip off part of your clothing and tie it to a nearby bush or tree, make a sign of the cross and then drink from the well. Tradition also holds that anyone removing a rag will succumb to the misfortunes of the original owner

I returned to this place at least three times. Each time I felt the power and magic of the hillside. On one occasion the water was not running from the spring up the hill down to the water trough, but on the other two visits the water was running free. In the editing for TOUCHSTONES I knew I wanted an image from this place. I looked at several. Some were details of the cloth up in the trees, other were wider views, some made with the 5x7 and some with the 5x12. One of my favorite images was made with the5x7. It shows the well and the cloth at roadside but the wind is blowing so hard the tall trees are waving furiously. I felt that the final image I chose for the book most closely gave the feeling of majesty, mystery and eeriness I had felt at this site. It had all the elements - the trees, the water and the cloth.