Nine Maidens Market and a Healing Well

I walked back to Aberfeldy from Kenmore on Monday 18th July, Nine Virgins Day. The Virgins were daughters of St Donald who all retired to the monastery at Abernethy when their father died, sometime in the eighth century. I don’t know why they were celebrated in the upper Tay valley but a market was held in their name around 18th July until at least the seventeenth century. It was last held in Kenmore but it was moved there from the field at Inchadney a mile or so down the Tay. There’s no sign of Inchadney now, either on the map or on the ground, though it was one of the most important places in the district. There was a ford across the river and a church as well as the market. The church and burial ground have disappeared under trees planted below the Star Battery, a peculiar concrete folly associated with Taymouth Castle, just across the river.

I discovered Inchadney after a friend told me about a well at the base of the scarp that skirts the edge of the Bulls Field, where Nine Virgins Market was held before it was moved to Kenmore. I found the well in wet carr marked by yellow flag and a fallen tree sprouting again in all that damp. It was a perfect little pool, cold and clear and protected by a mossy wall topped with white quartz. According to In Famed Breadalbane, our local history bible, the well was holy and much visited at Beltane, May 1st. It was easy to believe in its special powers when I drank the water. It was perfectly clear and very cold, even on a warm muggy day, with no trace of that slight muddiness of water after rain, even after the downpours we’ve had over these last few days, and weeks.