ASCENSION DAY WATER
1806
R. C. HOARE
Itinerary through Wales
I 133.
On a spot called Nell's Point, is a fine well, to which great numbers of women resort on Holy Thursday, and having washed their eyes at the spring, each drops a pin into it. The landlord of the boarding-house told me that on cleaning out the well, he took out a pint full of these votive pins.
1848
Athenaeum
142.
Custom … in the neighbourhood of Banbury, in Oxfordshire … of saving the rain which may happen to fall on Holy Thursday and bottling it as a specific remedy for sore eyes.
1854
N & Q
1st ser. IX 542.
In the parish of Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, there is a notion very prevalent, ...