[The following lines are associated with a singular species of
popular superstition which may in some measure, explain the "pale
cast of thought" that pervades them. They are written by a native of
Northumberland. "The Hawthorn Well," was a _Rag Well_, and so
called from persons formerly leaving rags there for the cure of
certain diseases. Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, ridicules a
superstitious prayer of the Popish Church for the "blessing of clouts
in the way of cure of diseases;" and Mr. Brand asks, "Can it have
originated thence?" He further observes:--"this absurd custom is not
extinct even at this day: I have formerly frequently observed shreds or
bits of rag upon the bushes that overhang a well in the road to Benton,
a village in the vicinity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which, from that
circumstance, is now or was very lately called _The Rag Well_. This
name is undoubtedly of long standing: probably it has been visited for
some disease or other, and these rag-offerings are the relics of the
then prevailing popular superstition."--_Brand's Popular Antiquities_,
vol. ii. p. 270.]
"From hill, from dale, each charm is fled;
Groves, flocks, and fountains, please no more.
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