Other folk practices which almost certainly originated in pagan Celtic times are those associated with holy wells. The cult of springs and wells and votive offerings in water is well documented throughout the Celtic world. In Ireland after the coming of Christianity the wells were invariably dedicated to local saints and so they acquired a veneer of religious legitimacy. Nevertheless, the ritual of the "three visits" (e.g. two Mondays and a Thursday etc.), the recital of a set formula of prayer, the sun-wise circuits ("rounds") of the well, and the practice of leaving a votive offering, all of these hint of an older Celtic world where day to day life was shaped and controlled by hidden forces which had to be regularly placated. Indeed when one looks at the wider spectrum of our traditional folk practices, it becomes little short of amazing how much of the older pagan ritual has managed to percolate right down to our own time despite having had to travel through the filter of fifteen hundred years of Christian censorship.