Heading east down the innocent railway cycle path, you come to some big rocks where you can see over and get a closer view of the pools. 100m further east is where the tunnel goes under the path, and over the wall on your right is where the Wells O’ Wearie used to be. I was too short to see over the wall, or get a pic.
This is the path that takes you from the Queen’s Drive, where you can look down on the wells o wearie, to the innocent railway cycle path, where you can get closer.
This is where the Wells O Wearie used to be, or rather, very close to where the old maps say it was just off picture to the left. They dried up but the ground there is still boggy, and these pools are probably all that is left of a serious of pools, which is probably why modern maps give them as the location. Looking down from above, you can see a tunnel under the innocent railway, the well o weary was located on the far side of that tunnel, and the water came through there, wending its way through a series of pools until it eventually fed into the loch.
Wearie Well
In a saft summer gloamin,
In yon dowie dell,
It was there we twa first met,
By Wearie’s cauld well,
We sat on the brume bench,
And look’d in the burn,
But sidelang we look’d on,
Ilk ither in turn.
The corn craik was chirmimg,
His sad eerie cry,
And the wee stars were dreaming,
Their path through the sky,
The burn babbled freely,
Its love to ilk flower,
But we heard and saw nought,
In that blessed hour.
We heard and we saw nought,
Above or around,
We felt that oor love lived,
And loathed idle sound,
I gazed on your sweet face,
Tull tears filled my e’e,
And they drapped on your wee loof -
A warlds wealth to me.
Now the winter’s snaw is fa’ing,
On bare holim and lea,
And the cauld wind is drippin,
Ilk leaf aff the tree,
But the snaw fa’s not faister,
Nor leaf disna part,
Sae sune frae the bough, as
Faith fades in your heart.
Ye’ve waled oot another,
Your bridegroom to be;
But can his heart love sae,
As mine luvit thee?
Ye’ll get biggings and maulings,
And monie braw claes;
But they a’ winna buy back,
The peace o’ past days.
Fareweel and for ever,
My first luve and laist,
May the joys be to come -
Mine lies in the past,
In sorrow and sadness,
This hears fa’s once;
But light, as thy live, may
It fleet over thee.
Motherwell
Whistle – Binkie
The Piper Of The Party.
‘…Jonet Boyman of Canongate, Edinburgh, accused in 1572 of witchcraft and diabolic incantation, the first Scottish trial for which a detailed indictment has so far been found. Indeed, it is one of the richest accounts hitherto uncovered for both fairy belief and charming, suggesting an intriguing tradition which associated, in some way, the fairies with the legendary King Arthur. At an ‘elrich well’ on the south side of Arthur’s Seat, Jonet uttered incantations and invocations of the ‘evill spreits quhome she callit upon for to come to show and declair’ what would happen to a sick man named Allan Anderson, her patient. She allegedly first conjured ‘ane grit blast’ like a whirlwind, and thereafter appeared the shape of a man who stood on the other side of the well, and interesting hint of liminality. She charged this conjured presence, in the name of the father, the son, King Arthur and Queen Elspeth, to cure Anderson. She then received elaborate instructions about washing the ill man’s shirt, which were communicated to Allan’s wife. That night the patient’s house shook in the midst of a huge, and incomprehensible ruckus involving winds, horses and hammering, apparently because the man’s wife did not follow the instructions to the letter. On the following night the house was plagued by a mighty din again, caused, this time, by a great company of women.‘
From ‘Scottish Fairy Belief’ by Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan (2001) 127-128.
