It is an extraordinary thing to consider that there are still literally
thousands of holy wells in the British Isles. Most of these are natural
springs; some open pools like St.Madron's, while others are contained by
a stone edifice, often covered. The majority, however,are in ruins, overgrown
and no longer visited. Some have been desecrated by cattle or human presence.
And yet, many, like St.Madron's, still continue to be a center of pilgrimage
as they were from pagan times.
People visited the wells for their traditional virtues of healing and divination.
If a physical cure was sought, the believer would drink or sometimes bathe
in the water. And in fact,the water of some holy wells have indeed been
found to contain curative properties, mostly due to the presence of certain
minerals. But the healing influence of the wells was due to more than their
medicinal qualities.The well itself was viewed as a shrine dedicated to
the miraculous emergence of living water, in all cultures a symbol of generation,
purification, and the matrix of life itself. To quote Mircea Eliade, "...water
symbolizes the whole of potentiality; it is fons et origo, the source of
all possible existence."
Supernatural qualities automatically cluster about the manifestation of
such a powerful archetype. The holy wells of the British Isles were, in
fact, such popular places of worship in pagan times, that the early Roman
Church took great pains to stamp them out. But, as is the way with an unsuppressable
archetypal force, the form changed while the essential mystery continued
unaltered: the well as pagan temple metamorphosed into a Christian shrine.
The rituals continued down the centuries: country people would make pilgrimages
to the holy wells to seek relief for a variety of ills from rheumatism to
scurvy, broken bones to leprosy. A great many wells were supposed to cure
eye problems, which scholars have traced to the magical perception of the
well as the eye of a god. And the sympathetic link between water and fertility
led, as one might expect, to a number of wells gaining a reputation for
curing childlessness. In Oxford, for example, Child's Well "had vertue
to make women that were barren to bring forth children" , while St.Agnes
Well at Whitestaunton in Somerset gained fame when Henrietta, the wife of
King Charles I, was rumored to have wished for a child there, and became
pregnant soon after.
At the well, the petitioner would leave a token piece of clothing, usually
hung on a bush or a tree as at St.Madron's, so that the healing power of
the well could act upon it. Such a custom led to Scottish healing wells
becoming known as 'clootie wells' - 'clootie' meaning 'cloth.'
The seeker would generally bring an offering to the well - usually a bent
pin,
which gave rise to the number of "pin wells" to be found in the
British Isles. This humble gift was the successor of the great treasures
discovered at the bottom of wells frequented in Celtic and Roman Britain:
at Coventina's well in Carrowbaugh, Northumberland more than 14,000 coins,
bronze figurines, jewelry, glass, pottery, and a human skull were discovered
in the shaft.
The healing power of wells was also accessed through what appears to be
a British equivalent of dream-incubation. The Asclepian temples at which
this form of therapy was practised in the Classical world were situated
at sacred wells and springs; here the sick would fast and take part in rituals
designed to invoke a healing dream. In Roman Britain a dream-temple was
built at Lydney Park in Gloucestershire over several springs, while records
indicate St.Madron's Well was used for this purpose also: in the 17th century,
a miraculous healing was attested to by none other than the local bishop.
A severely crippled man, John Trelille, "upon three several admonitions
in his dreams, washing in St.Madern's Well and sleeping afterwards in what
was called St.Madern's bed, was suddenly and perfectly cured." The
bed of St.Madern (or Madron) was a nearby stone seat which was customarily
used for dream-incubation purposes, no doubt a cold and highly uncomfortable
but perfect medium for the disturbed sleep necessary to give rise to vivid
and easily remembered dreams. Recent research has, moreover, verified this
strange connection between wells and dreams: Earth Mysteries researcher
Paul Devereux, in Earthmind, recounts incidences where people have become
unaccountably drowsy and fallen asleep at the site of a holy well, a phenomenon
he correlates with the mildly radioactive properties found at many of the
well sites.
Dreaming at holy wells was also used as a method of foretelling the future,
possibly an echo of pagan times when, it seems, a female oracle presided
over the well.This ancient practice was preserved down the years, albeit
in a humbler manner, by the custom of country girls who would seek to know
their future husband at the well. For example, a serving-maid of Selby could
not decide which of her suitors to wed, and so sought help from the nearby
"Fairy's Pin Well", which had a reputation for divination. She
drank from its water and asked the faery of the well to give her a dream
of the man she should marry, whereupon she promptly fell asleep and dreamed
that one of her suitors, dressed in festive clothing, approached her bearing
a wedding ring. In addition, the faeries took the maid to Elfland, which
highlights another important feature of the holy wells: that along with
other sacred features of the landscape such as certain megaliths, caves,
trees and lakes,they stand as entrances to the world of spirit - the Otherworld.
This is particularly appropriate because in Celtic mythology the Well of
Wisdom stands at the center of the Celtic Otherworld, the spiritual source
of all, of which the holy wells of Britain and Ireland are mere tributaries.
Early Irish literature tells us how this well gushes up as a fountain in
the courtyard of the palace of Manannan mac Lir, the king of the faeries.Over
the well hang nine magic hazel-trees that drop their purple nuts into the
water. Salmon - the Celtic fish of knowledge and mystic inspiration - eat
the nuts and send the husks floating down the five streams that flow down
from the well. And "the sound of the falling of those streams was more
melodious than any music that men sing" . In the wisdom tale, Cormac's
Adventures in the Land of Promise, Manannan Mac Lir explains that the streams
are the five senses through which knowledge is obtained, "and no one
will have knowledge who drinks not a draught of the fountain itself and
out of the streams. The folk of many arts are those who drink of them both."
Hence it is the healing and wisdom of the Otherworld that has been sought
by petitioners of the holy wells throughout the centuries. This connection
was clearly acknowledged by the Celtic well-pilgrims who would drink the
water in a special cup made from the skull of a severed head, thus creating
a direct link with the dead who reside in the Otherworld. Interestingly
enough, at the well of Llandeilo in Dyfed, Wales, this pagan tradition was
carried on in Christian guise up to this century: in order for the water
to be beneficial, it had to be drunk from the skull of the Celtic Saint
Teilo, whose church stood in ruins about the well.
In some holy wells, the Salmon of Wisdom is recalled by the existence of
sacred fish that are an essential part of the well's magical properties.
In Wales, for example, at the turn of this century, the stock of two "sacred
fish" was replenished in the well at Nant Peris, Llanberis. This well
was frequented by large numbers of invalids in the 19th century, who would
watch the movements of the fish anxiously: if a fish appeared out of the
recesses when water was taken, cure was certain; otherwise the water lacked
any potency at all. And in Ireland, where the thinly-disguised pagan ceremony
of "paying Rounds" is still practised at holy wells, we hear of
the the well of St. Monachan in Kerry, about which was said there was "not
a better well in Munster to give Rounds at; sure there is a salmon and an
eel in it, and whoever has the luck to get a look at them may be sure they
have the benefit of the Rounds."
In folk-tradition, the wells were only visited at special times of the year:
May or at Midsummer were the most popular, two turning-points of the Celtic
year when the gates of the Otherworld were open wide. At these times, too,
those Otherworld denizens, the faeries or pixies, were frequently sighted
at holy wells. It is not surprising then that a guardian of the Otherworld
is usually found overseeing the holy wells of the British Isles. Although
since the Christianization of the wells this figure is generally a saint
of either gender, the well-guardian was originally female. Most dealings
with the Otherworld in the Celtic tradition are facilitated by a female
spirit or goddess. This is particularly so when the Otherworld is located
beneath the earth, which in pagan Britain and Ireland, as in most cultures
worldwide, was always regarded as feminine.
The well, therefore, was viewed as leading into the womb of the earth- mother
herself, a concept graphically illustrated by the presence of the sheela-na-gig
in the vicinity of some holy wells in Ireland. This female "fertility
figure", carved in stone, stands with legs wide apart, holding open
her vagina: close by stands the well - it, too, being an orifice from which
life springs forth.
The sacred well as a miraculous irruption of spiritual power or numen into
the everyday world was also, it seems, viewed as the nourishing breast of
the earth-mother. Some local legends show clearly that the well-water was
special because it was milky or creamy, as if it actually came from the
earth-mother's breast. At the well of St.Illtyd near Swansea, Wales, for
example, close to the magical midsummer time, milk was said to have flowed
forth instead of water. Here, "many who were present testified that
while they were looking at the milky stream carefully and with astonishment,
they also saw among the gravel curds lying about in every direction, and
all around the edge of the well a certain fatty substance floating about,
such as is collected from milk, so that butter can be made from it."
The healing and nourishing effects of the holy well waters emanate from
the breast of the earth-mother, so it follows naturally that the spirit
of the well was feminine. At Bath, for example,the local native goddess
Sul gave her name to the Roman hot springs, Aquae Sulis, while in Carrowbaugh
a ruined temple lies over the well dedicated to Coventina, the Romanized
name of another native deity. A votive tablet shows her floating on a water-lily
leaf; while a relief depicts three of her female attendants bearing goblets;
out of one pours a stream of water.
These last figures may be the "damsels of the wells" referred
to in one of the medieval texts dealing with the Holy Grail, about whom
a poignant tale is told that illustrates the demise of the holy well as
a vital sacred center of British culture. The story describes how travelers
in Logres,(the esoteric name of the "Inner Britain"), were served
with food and drink by the damsels of the wells. But an evil king raped
one of them and stole her golden cup and "thenceforth never did the
damsel serve any more nor issue forth of that well for no man that might
come thither to ask for victual." As a result, the wells dried up and
the country was stricken with drought, causing it to become the Wasteland
that could only be redeemed when the Holy Grail was found. "The Kingdom
was turned to loss, the land was dead and desert as that it was scarce worth
a couple of hazel-nuts. For they lost the voices of the wells and the damsels
that were therein."
What were the voices of the wells? Were these "damsels" in fact
oracles, mouthpieces of the wisdom of the Otherworld? The story can be read
on more than one level: it might refer to an ancient priestess order at
sacred wells and its subsequent desecration and appropriation by a male
priesthood - Druidic or Christian. In Jungian terms, it seems to refer to
the destructive force of an over-dominant masculine consciousness and the
patriarchal logos principle that reached its apotheosis in the Middle Ages.
Another result of the desecration of the wells, so we are told, is that
the court of the Rich Fisher, who showered the land with prosperity and
joy, could no longer be found: in other words, the spiritual center of the
culture vanished into the unconscious, where in a materialistic culture
like ours, it can only be accessed through dreams and visions.
But this center is only hidden, not utterly gone; we still come across echoes
of the "voices of the wells" even down to this day. Many Christian
churches were constructed near pagan sacred wells, and the early Celtic
church used them for baptism until the Roman church replaced them with the
font inside the building. A number of old churches contain a crypt or grotto
that opens into a subterranean spring. This place - close to earth and water
- is the innermost sanctum, the hidden holy center of the sacred enclosure.
In Ireland, pilgrimages to holy wells are still an important part of the
Christian year; and an inordinate number of these fall upon St.Brigid's
day, the old Celtic festival of Imbolc on February 1st. Numerous holy wells
are in fact dedicated to this saint, who was once a Celtic goddess, Brighde,
giving rise to the many districts called "Bridewell" throughout
the British Isles today. Another name common to holy wells and subsequently
districts is "Ladywell", as wells once dedicated to pagan goddesses
and their priestesses were rededicated to the Virgin Mary under Christianity.
Such wells are often connected with sightings of a White Lady, a ghostly
figure, perhaps of the displaced well spirit or priestess.
Traces of a well priestess tradition survived till quite late in Cornwall:
at Gulval Well, the seventeenth century chronicler Hals described - with
not a little contempt - the habits of the "credulous country people"
who visited the well for healing and divination purposes. The well was tended
by an old woman who kept the well-site neat and clean, and broadcast the
"virtues and divine qualities of those waters", which she dispensed
in return for a fee. She gave oracles to strangers, and revealed the whereabouts
of lost and stolen objects, including local cattle. For miles around she
was highly regarded as the "priestess of the well", an ancient
calling, of which she was one of the last of her kind.
Even today in some English villages, the local well is still honored by
being decorated at the annual well-dressing ceremony. This ancient ritual
is still enthusiastically practised, and has in fact developed into an intricate
local craft of which local families are most proud. To "dress"
the well, a wooden framework is coated with clay into which flower petals,
leaves, berries, moss, feathers, seeds and cones are pressed to form pictures.
These are generally of biblical subjects and in some villages a service
is held at the well - a latter-day form of well-worship, in truth!
Chalice Center:
Mara Freeman's beautiful new site.