Bad Rhiannon, adding an allegedly ~holy~ well. But this isn’t just any holy well, oh no. This holy well is right on the top of a mountain. Ha! a reckless contributor wouldn’t know whether to add it as a sacred well or a sacred mountain. Is it justifiable. Possibly. Read on.
BEN NEWE WELL.
There is a big rugged rock on the top of Ben Newe in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire. On the north side of this rock, under a projection, there is a small circular-shaped hollow which always contains water. Everyone that goes to the top of the hill must put some small object into it, and then take a draught of water off it. Unless this is done the traveller will not reach in life the foot of the hill. I climbed the hill in June of 1890, and saw in the well several pins, a small bone, a pill-box, a piece of a flower, and a few other objects.*
The RCAHMS record says the OS visited in 1968, and ‘offerings of coins [were] still made’.
From p69 of
Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs
W. Gregor
Folklore, Vol. 3, No. 1. (Mar., 1892), pp. 67-73.
*try not to think of it as Victorian geocaching.
The RCAHMS record also mentions WJ Watson’s 1926 ‘History of the Celtic place-names of Scotland’ in which he proposes “The well may be the sacred place (the Celtic ‘nemeton’) preserved in the ‘Newe’ element of Ben Newe”.