St Queran's Well

Troqueer -near Islesteps, Dumfries

Obsession? Possibly ... but I just couldn't let this one go when I saw the pictures of it. How wonderful is this?!

Following brief and perfunctory introductions this morning ... mop ... meet floor ... floor ... meet mop. It wasn't a lengthy liaison, and my heart wasn't committed to nurturing their relationship. Before long I was heading across the border in search of this wonderful image of St Queran.

I haven't found out much about this well but St Queran also seems to be St Keiran. It's a bit confusing but there's a little more information here.
It was apparently a place of pilgrimage and had a reputation for healing and curing disease, particularly for women and children.

It is set quite remotely in fields with nothing around it (see extra) and has clearly been dressed at times with ribbons hanging from the trees, although otherwise it seems little visited and was serenely quiet whilst I was there. It was difficult to photograph but the image is wonderful and there is something quite heart stopping to have this image gazing back at you as you peer down. Every so often bubbles come up through the eyes and mouth which is slightly unnerving and affecting.

What mystery pervades a well! - Emily Dickinson

What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far –
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar

Whose limit none has ever seen,
But just his lid of glass –
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss's face!

The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands near the sea –
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet:
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.