The ancient, holy and healing wells of Bodmin Part two: St Guron’s Well

The most obvious holy well in Bodmin can be found in the the grounds of St Petroc, the Parish church. First mentioned it would appear in the life of the saint Petroc of the 12th century which records that the saint Petroc built habitations where Vuron (Guron) lived in the valley by the well.  Richard Carew was the first to describe in detail of the well:

“runneth thorow the churchyard, the ordinary place of buriall for towne and parish. It breedeth therefore little cause of marvaile that every generail infection is here first admitted and last excluded.”

A. Quiller Couch in their 1894 Ancient and holy wells of Cornwall describes it as follows:

‘‘Near the western doorway of St. Petroc s Church is a plain oblong little building, with a highly pitched roof, and a doorway with a Tudor heading in the southern gable. It was originally built of granite slabs throughout, but has in later times been patched by the insertion of masonry of local stone. The present structure is not of great age, perhaps of sixteenth century date, and contemporary with the two monstrous gargoyles at the issue below, over which is carved a.d. 1545. Another inscription over the shutes is a.d. 1545. The water of St. Guron’s Well is not now poured out at the ancient outlet, which is about seven feet below the surface of the churchyard ; but, collecting, runs never failingly through the mouths of two hideous heads, one horned, the other with pendent ears.”

Quiller Couch refers to Carew by suggesting that his description and link with the burials:

“This prejudice has done much to limit, especially among strangers, the use of this spring of excellent  water. It now comes through glazed pottery pipes from a great depth, and interments in the church- yard have long been discontinued. Night and day, in the driest and hottest seasons, ever flowing, it serves the people with crystal water; a side trough refreshes the passing cattle ; and it lays the dust of Bodmin streets ; it rolls on, with the Priory rivulet, through the valley, past Scarlet’s Well, to pay its tribute to the Camel at Dunmeer.”

Who was St Guron?

Of the saint he says:

“Looking into the misty past, about the middle of the sixth century of Christ’s birth, we see dimly a saintly man, Guron by name, pushing his way, the first Christian missionary to these parts, and settling at Bodmin. The place was then, probably, a deep-wooded glen, through which a constant rivulet ran, surrounded by trackless moors. Here rude Britons dwelt, and fed their cattle on the broad moorlands ; part venatic, part pastoral, in their habits ; heathen, nearly naked, and savage. St. Guron settled down among these wild Celts, unarmed except by the weapons of faith, and the example of a sober, religious, and useful life, assisted possibly by some of the leech’s cunning. He soon commended himself to the rude inhabitants of the valley, and gradually taught them the precepts of Christianity. After a few years he was joined by another holy man, St. Petroc, who watered the seed thus sown, and from the small be- ginnings of this simple hermit’s cell, lived to found a religious house, which grew to be, later, a priory of Augustinian monks, St. Guron resigning his mis- sionary charge to the new-comer. If we may judge St. Guron’s Well. from all that is left us of this age before records, the pioneer St. Guron started in search of a fresh field of labour, and found it at Gorran (St. Guron), on the southern coast of Cornwall.”

Adding:

“We know enough of the simple lives of these early apostles to show that in their choice of a spot for settlement they generally pitched their tents, or built their hut, or digged their cell near a constant spring of water, — one of the primary necessaries of even the most ascetic of lives. It is no great stretch of fancy to think that the good Guron fixed his dwelling by this perennial spring, then welling forth from rocks, under shelter, leafy and umbrageous, and still flowing, with different surroundings, to this day.”

It is believed that St. Guron was a hermit who established his cell where the current St. Petroc’s Church is and he is generally thought to be the town’s founder. It is said that when St. Petroc arrived from Padstow, St Guron gave up this hermitage and it was converted to a priory and moved to the settlement which is now called Gorran.

Interestingly the name St Guron only appears on the OS map of 1880 suggesting it may have had an earlier name, possibly St Petroc. Or rather was it first called St Guron, then St Petroc based on his priory foundation and then afterwards renamed after its founder saint.

Saint Petroc however still has a greater presence here because the church boasts a rare survival am ivory reliquary case which may have contained the saint’s remains. The well had recently been restored in 1891 The conduit house appears to have gained a freeze, which shows a rather headless saint and a cross when it was restored again in 1925. It is now dry but there is a considerable amount of water that flows beneath it, although not always through the evocative gargoyles’s mouths!

Unusual happenings Mary smiles in the Ukraine Source Source New series No 1 Autumn 1994

From time immemorial, the Ukrainian nation has shown a tender and filial devotion towards the Mother of God. In 1037, the grand prince of Kiev, Yaroslas the Wise, consecrated his capital and his country to Mary, and thousands of churches, monasteries and chapels were placed under the protection of the Ma-donna. They sheltered hundreds of miraculous Icons. The Virgin is the Queen of the Ukraine. After the occupation of the western territo-ries of the Ukraine in the course of the Second World War, in March 1946 the Russians mar-tyred the whole Ukrainian Catholic Church, by blood and the sword. Those who remained lived on in the catacombs. Driven to fury by the active and passive resistance of the Ukrainian nation, they unleashed a new attack against the centres of the Marian cult, and destroyed many venerated images of Our Lady in the Ukraine. However, for a long time they did not dare to attack the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Zarvanytzia. They had closed the sanctuary, but they had not touched the icon. So the local inhabitants spontaneously decided to keep watch over the holy image, day and night. In the summer of 1957, a detachment of armed police entered the village, invaded the sanctuary, and despite the lively opposition of the inhabitants, carried off the icon by force. The church bells were rung to summon the help of neighbouring villages but it was too late. However, underneath the chapel of Zarvan-ytzia there was a source of water known as “the well”. On the same day that the icon was confiscated by the authorities, an absolutely identical image of Our Lady was seen reflected in this spring. Everyone saw the face of the Madonna in the water, marked with the deepest sadness. The news of this miracle rapidly spread throughout the whole of the Ukraine, and thousands of pilgrirhs began to pour into Zarvanytzia from all parts of the country. The authorities were disturbed by this enormous upsurge of faith in the people, and despatched a commission of enquiry to the shrine from Kiev. The replica of the miraculous icon re-appeared in the water of the spring, and the members of the official commission of enquiry were com-pelled to testify publicly that they had seen the reflection of the said icon on the water.

During the summer of 1958 a second commis-sion of enquiry was sent to the shrine, this time direct from Moscow. Not long after this visit, the Communist authorities ad-vised the people that the icon would be restored to its place. The pilgrimages of the faithful became even more numerous. Eventually, on 14 October 1958, the long-awaited day arrived when the Soviet authorities returned the icon to the people. The Ukrainians re-installed it in its place of honour in the church of Zarvanytzia, and the Catholics considered this restitution of the icon as a great victory of their faith which the Madonna confirmed by a prodigy. This information was sent to us through the Ukrainian emigration centres of Europe and America. We know some people in England and Philadelphia who have in their possession pho-tographs, sent to them directly from Zarvan-ytzia, which were taken on 14 October 1958. (B.Kurilas, C.SS.R., Notre Dame des Temps Nouveaux )

Extracted from Miracle of Mao; 1988. By kind permission of Augustine Publishing Company, Chulmleigh, Devon.lX18 711L.

Holy, healing and ritual waters of Catalonia: Barcelona Cathedral well and its sacred geese

Barcelona boasts a remarkable Gothic cathedral of Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, which is the shrine of the city’s main saint, St Eulalia. Within the church is spring which I believe may well have been associated with the saint more directly before it was incorporated into the cloisters in 1448 but evidence is hard to find.

This spring is called the Well of the Geese (Font de les Oques) which is a pool with a fountain within water flows from the top and appears to be mineralising as a tufa has developed around it covered in green moss; there is a figure of what appears to be St Michael and a dragon – I think! Its name sounds a particularly unusual one, but it becomes very evident when one visits. For enclosed around the spring head are 13 white geese whose cackling can be heard throughout the cathedral. But why 13?

Why geese?

The number is associated with the patron saint. She suffered persecution for her faith during Diocletian’s reign in the Roman occupation of the area. The Roman governor had her stripped, flogged and tortured as a way to force her to denounce her beliefs. She would not had was nailed to a satire cross and was finally killed when she was decapitated. At this point a dove flew from her mouth but not a goose I would add. However, according another version white geese, flew down to the martyr’s body. She was 13 when this happened. But why white, the colour was due to a snowstorm covering her body, wrapping around her like clothing to protect her modesty.

A pagan origin

This still does not fully explain the origin. However, it would clearly be a pagan survival. In Ancient Rome, geese were considered sacred and devoted to the goddess Juno, the queen of the gods. They also believed that geese acted as intermediaries between the gods and humans. Does this suggest that the site was once a Roman shrine dedicated to Juno and thus a female saint was chosen as a suitable replacement. Geese were also used as a sacrifice, supplicia canum. It is worth noting that there is a tradition of pulling the goose, which is a particular Basque tradition it appears, particularly remembered in the  of The Day of the Geese, also known as Antzar Eguna. Which is a competition held as part of the San Antolin ferstival in Lekeitio in which participants attempt to decapitate a goose  suspended on a rope above the town harbor.

Furthermore, they may have had a functional use beyond sacrifice. You may remember the story of the Gauls trying to invade Rome under the cover of darkness in the late 4^th century. It was the honking of the geese that alerted the Roman guards and prevented it. It is very probable that geese were established to protect the cathedral and may have been there again from Roman times. Bizarrely, it has been claimed that the geese recently prevented an extremist attack on the cathedral!

Dancing eggs

Another tradition associated with the well is The dancing egg (l’ou com balla) which is a celebration of Corpus Christi, the traditional dancing egg is placed of the fountain of the spring which is decorated in red cherries and flowers. It makes the egg dance in celebration.

There is evidence that it was done in the 16th century to do this the egg would have been emptied, with wax used to fill the hole and add some weight. When placed over a water jet from a fountain, the egg starts turning without falling, and thus “dances.” This has spread throughout the city and beyond Catalonia as a tradition.  A curious custom and perhaps one of the oddest associated with a spring!

 

A May day blessing – dressing and blessing St John’s Well, Harpham, Yorkshire

 

This blog post was originally posted in Traditionalcustomsandceremonies.wordpress.com

“In days of old in country ways, In Yorkshire woods, John sang they praise. Each year on the springtime wold, he saw the primroses unfold, the bleating lambs, the breaking sea. God gift to man eternally. Mist-laden nights, the shepherd’s crook, he left for cloister and for book, Through psalm and vigil, fast and prayer he grew in soul and found the three. But as he served n land of Kent. His winging thoughts still northernly.”

St John of Beverley’s anthem

It is a quiet village. Bypassed by a major room which brings excited tourists from York to Bridlington. Harpham lies to the south perhaps sleeping, except on the Thursday nearest the 7^th May when the village and nearby town Beverley celebrate the village’s famous son, Saint John of Beverley. Indeed apart from the fine pub named after the local landowners, it is the relics of the saint which draw people to the village – the fine church and down a lane his old holy well. Although the well is one of two ancient ones in the village, itself unusual, this one is dedicated to the saint. Indeed it is claimed that the saint who was born in the village is said to have struck the ground with his staff and this spring arose

Well established tradition

Despite a claim that the visits to the well go back a 1000 years, the current custom dates back to the 2^nd of May 1929, when the Minster at Beverley decided it was time to celebrate their own saint once encased in a fine shrine in that church, by visiting the place of his birth and paying homage to the spring. The date now moving to the Thursday nearest to the Saint’s feast day, the 7^th of May. John born in Harpham in AD 640, would become an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Hexham and York, being educated at St Hilda at Whitby and retiring back home at Beverley where he was buried and until the Reformation a fine shrine housed his relics. A number of posthumous miracles are associated with the saint in particular his ability to tame wild bulls brought into the church yard. As William of Malmesbury records in his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum:

“Savage bulls are brought up, tied fast, by strong men sweating profusely; but as soon as they enter the churchyard they lose all their ferocity and become, you might suppose, no more than innocent sheep. So they are untied and left to frolic in the yard, though previously they used to go for anything in their way with horns and hooves.”

Well dressed

St John’s Well, the very one said to have been made by his staff is the focus of the ceremony held on this evening. In the nineteenth century the spring was enclosed in its current stonework and surrounded by a circle of railings. During the afternoon St John’s Well is dressed. However, this is not one of those Derbyshire well dressings made of clay and petals, it is sometime for simpler but just as impressive and pleasing to the eye. Around the base of this well are placed primroses and on top of the railings

Blooming Hawthorn crowns the top of the railings, beneath the hawthorn, are three wreaths of mixed seasonal foliage and flowers mainly rosemary, gorse and forget-me-not on each side with another just above the small opening. In other years ivy and adorned with a cross and garlands of tulips and daffodils had been used but the year I went the simple adornment was most effective in the evening sunshine. Similarly in previous years had meant only a slight representation of primroses making the well dressing a little lacking in impact. The year I went it was a glorious attempt. Primroses were still a little short in number in May and so much of the yellow was provided by mimulus.

Well remembered

Inside the church people were gathering excitedly. Dark clouds had threatened all day but as soon as the choir appeared from the church the sun started to shine. This choir which come from Beverley Minster, consisted of 27 men and boys of all ages enthusiastically were gathered beneath the church tower. They were running hither and thither; it looked like getting them to be in an orderly row would be difficult – but the choir master called out and they arranged themselves ready to go. The crucifer appeared and clutching their hymnals they were off through the churchyard down the lane to the church and then across the main road. Unlike similar processions there were no police in their bright jackets obscuring the spectacle. No cars appeared in the time they processed, it is an obscure village after all or was it the miracle of John taming the bullish motorcar. Behind the choir were the rest of the congregation which was added to as the procession went as curious onlookers, photographers and locals who had not managed to get to the church joined in.

In such a small village such a procession was quite a spectacle: with its crucifer holding their cross up high and proud, snaking down the lanes to the well, with the white tunics of the choir shining in the evening sunshine.

Soon the choir reached St. John’s Well and they arranged themselves on the bank opposite and opened their hymnals ready to sing. The rest of the congregation arrived at the well and a silence descended as they prepared. Previous years one of the congregation, a young boy or girl, stooped down and placed a small pot of primroses at the base of the well to add to the others. As the well was fully decorated perhaps this was missed. Once the congregation was in position, appropriately the vicar started with John 7:

“Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

The followed the Collect for St John of Beverley

Afterwards the choir sang St. John of Beverley’s Anthem:

“In days of old in country ways, In Yorkshire woods, John sang they praise. Each year on the springtime wold, he saw the primroses unfold, the bleating lambs, the breaking sea. God gift to man eternally.

Mist-laden nights, the shepherd’s crook, he left for cloister and for book, Through psalm and vigil, fast and prayer he grew in soul and found the three. But as he served in land of Kent. His winging thoughts still northernly.”

It was a short but evocative ceremony remembering this local Anglo-Saxon saint and the gift he gave to the village…once they had done their service they turned around and processed back to the church were a sung eucharist uplifted the spirits more. A delightful event which is nearing is 100 years and long may it be celebrated.

Severed Heads and Sacred Waters – Anne Ross (illus. R.W. Feachem) Source Issue 5 Spring 1998 part two

The River Thames gets its name from the Celtic Tamesis, “the Dark One”, probably the name of a goddess, because rivers seem to have largely been thought of as being feminine by the Celts. This is interesting because Adamnan, biographer of Saint Columba, mentions a river in Scotland called, in Latin, Nigra Dea, “Black Goddess” (Watson 1926, 50). Thus, here the river is the goddess, and so, we may suppose, was the Thames. There is, in fact, a whole series of “black goddess” rivers in the Scottish Highlands. The Nigra Dea of Lochaber is the modem River Lochaidh. So the name of the Thames itself points to an early belief in its dark powers which led, no doubt, to propitiatory sacrifice. It may not be irrelevant here to mention the fact that the ancient Irish goddess Macha, whose form was often that of a crow or a raven, had human heads offered up to her as her due, usually heads taken in battle. These were known as Mesrad Machae, “Macha’s Mast”.

We began by looking at heads and boundaries and this theme recurs when we consider the heads taken from Thames and Walbrook. The Walbrook, “Brook of the Welsh”, a former tributary of the Thames, shared with the larger river an amazing offering of human heads. Moreover, the Walbrook was a boundary river. Many human skulls, most of Iron-Age date, were found in the Walbrook, some forty-eight of which are recorded. They showed no sign of injury and, predictably, they were usually the skulls of men in the prime of their lives, under forty years of age. Human skulls were constantly found when the River Thames was dredged in the nineteenth century, often together with important finds of metalwork, mostly weapons, some of stunning workmanship. One location near Battersea Bridge, famous for its finds of Celtic metalwork, was actually known as a Celtic Golgotha in the nineteenth century (Cuming 1857, 238). Because of the fine quality and richness of the metalwork the extraordinary number of human heads tended to be disregarded. Cuming wrote a paper entitled “On the Discovery of Celtic Crania in the Vicinity of London” -a fine title – but a year later his attention was diverted to the stunning Battersea shield, and he seems to have lost interest in the skulls.

A large number of skulls was then found in the river at Strand-on-the-Green, but this hardly received mention. People virtually forgot about the skulls. Then it came to be realised that the great quantities of metalwork in rivers and lakes in Britain and Europe must be there due to ritual and offering, rather than being casual losses, which is how they were usually described: but no mention seems really to have been made of the human remains that were often found with them. It seems that the discovery of Lindow Man, and the female head found in the same level of the Moss, touched off a new interest in the London skulls. Could these, after all, owe their prolific presence in the waters to ritual, it was asked. In the same light we must consider the skulls at Wookey Hole (Ross 1992, 142-3), and other such finds in watery places.

Forty-eight skulls have been recovered from the Walbrook, and others from Kew and Hammersmith. It is extremely fortunate that about 300 skulls taken from the Thames still survive today in museum collections; and this enquiry has set in motion a new interest in skull collections generally, and in the find-spots. A great many of the Thames skulls were found between Richmond and Mortlake. The same area has yielded major finds of Bronze Age and Iron Age metalwork. Some of the skulls are dated to the late Bronze Age, which demonstrates a convincing continuity of ritual and practice of the cult of the head in connection with watery places. Of particular significance is the fact that rarely if ever were the skulls found together with other human remains. The skull itself, then, is the part that was offered. The continuity of this practice did not end with the coming of the Roman period: there are a few skulls dated to the post-Roman, Saxon, era.

Noteworthy are the ten human skulls and six mandibles which were found in the River Lea, a tributary of the Thames. It is interesting to note that Ekwall suggests, on etymological grounds, that Lea is likely to mean “the river of the god Lugus”. The Lea, then, flows into the “Dark One”, and surely some ancient and profound cult is indicated. Is it by chance, I wonder, that Bran’s head was brought to Londinium as a talisman, and buried in a place where many springs flow, as an apotropaic emblem, in order to keep all invaders away from Ynys Prydein, “The Island of Britain”? It is to Ireland we must turn now for some further dramatic evidence for the cult of the head, as attested by archaeology. The excavation of a destroyed late Iron Age burial at Kiltullagh, Ballyglass, Co. Mayo, has yielded further evidence of the cult of the human head (Cribbin et. al. Emania 1 f.). On the borders of Mayo and Roscommon a quarry opened up in 1991 destroyed important evidence but incidentally revealed some interesting features.

 

The margins of the quarry remained undisturbed, and there were indications that there had been a large mound before operations had begun. The date is in the late Iron Age, and a large stone that was present would seem perhaps to have served as a boundary market An almost identical mound lies undisturbed on the Roscommon side of the county boundary, and excavation of this may cast light on what remains of the destroyed Mayo site. The place was used for burials of some kind, but its particular interest for us here is that it would seem once again to cast light on Iron Age cult practice with regard to the human head. About seventy fragments of human bone were examined, but the singular feature is that they were for the most part skull bones and mandible fragments. The bones were fragmented and had dearly been damaged by the quarrying. Fragments of skulls both male and female were present, seeming to belong to some four people. The fragment of the mandible of a young child, aged about three to five years, was recovered more recently. There is no evidence that the burials were contained in any form of cist, or that they were articulated. Most interesting to us are the skull fragments. It is unlikely that conventional burial was carried out at this site, the amount of bone other than skulls and mandibles being far less than would be expected with a normal burial of up to five people. Some kind of ritual deposit associated with the head cult is indicated. It is now apposite to consider a closely similar skull burial found recently at Raffin, Co. Meath (Raftery 1994, 80). Here an internal bank surrounds circular houses of both Bronze Age and Iron Age date, itself an interesting point. Here also was a standing stone at the base of which were buried a human skull and some animal bones. The skull fragment produced a date of 100 B.C. to A.D. 30. The Bronze Age houses would certainly favour an earlier date for some at least of the site; but Irish sites tended to have a long continuity where ritual activity or superstitious regard kept their significance alive. The Kiltullagh bones included those of pig, cattle, and others. These skull burials beneath standing stones bring to mind such parallels in Gaul in the Roman period as, for example, an altar dedicated to the Celtic Mars at Apta Julia – Apt, Vaucluse. This was found to have a duster of some eight skulls buried beneath it (Ross 1992, 99). The skull at kaffin would seem to have been that of an adult male. Raftery describes the site as an Iron Age hilltop of suggested ritual character (Raftery 1994, 80). There may perhaps have been a monument here comparable in function to the great royal centres. The skull was actually in a pit, the position of which was marked by a squat, naturally-rounded boulder. Emain Macha – Navan Fort – situated on a hilltop near Armagh, is perhaps the most important ritual site in Europe (•ynn 1991, 41 f). The head of a Barbary ape discovered there may perhaps indicate both the worship of the head and the special place accorded to an exotic species. Its presence has led to much speculation about how and why it came to be there. The name of a lough at the foot of the hill – Loughnashade – means, I think, “Lough of the Treasures”. And treasures it did indeed contain. Many have been recovered from it in the past: four magnificent sheet-bronze trumpets have been preserved from a dredging of 1798; it is not in question that these were ritually deposited. The recovery of human skulls also from the lough makes parallels with the Thames and other British rivers, and their caches of skulls and metelwork, very dose indeed. Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, mentions a lakeside festival in Gaul during which votive offerings were thrown into the lake.

We are not told whether these included human skulls.

Another very unusual ritual site forms part of this fascinating Navan complex. It is known as the King’s Stables, and consists of an artificial pool sunk deep into the ground. The evidence shows that this had been constructed for ritual purposes between 1200 and 600 B.C. A layer of charcoal was discovered when a hole was dug during a fencing operation in 1987. The monument survives in reasonably good condition for a small site, and for one of such a great age. Many large prehistoric monuments in the district have been entirely destroyed, and much of value doubtless lost for all time. The artificial pool has a fearsome guardian in the form of a dragon-like creature, and fear of this guardian may have served to preserve the site. There is a tradition that a passage leads from Loughnashade to the King’s Stables. The artificial pond is always full of water, and folk tradition has it that the kings of Ulster “loing ago” used to water their horses there, and wash their chariots. One day a local character decided to drain away the water. He began to cut at the bank and “to destroy its fine round shape”. He had hardly started, however, when the monster appeared, and you could hardly see the water because of its great size. He was never the same again, and was confined to bed for some time after this encounter (Emania 2, 20). Of great interest in this context is the deliberate deposition in the King’s Stables pool of part of a human skull. The skull, seemingly that of a young male adult, showed signs of cutting after the individual had died. It was the facial part of the skull that had been deposited, forming a kind of mask. We may compare this with the skull from Gournay (Lynn 1991, 40).

Similar ritual treatment of skulls is known from other Irish sites. For example, a skull found below the crannog at Lagore, thought to be that of an adult female, lacked the lower mandible, as did a skull found in open water mud to the west of the Late Bronze Age occupation at Moynagh Lough, Co. Meath. The skull of the Barbary ape found at Emain Macha may have been all that was buried there, and may have served as some kind of talisman as did human heads. The Thames skulls and other heads often show a similar ritual treatment. And these skulls, too, were predominantly those of adult males. Skull deposits from Ballinderry raise interesting questions about the use of wet places – which recall Lindow Moss – and it is clear that there is some significant evidence for settlement in such locations in the Late Bronze Age. At the same time there is clearly a continuity of the long-established pattern of using rivers, lakes and bogs, as well as wells and deep shafts, as places for ritual deposits (Lynn, Emania 9, 1991: 40, 41).

These are only some of the seemingly ritual deposits and treatment of heads in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age as attested by archaeology. I have spent some time in discussing these in order to establish a clear and striking antiquity in Europe for the use of the severed human head in Celtic religion, and therefore in Druidic practice. The theme of the prophetic head is well known, and it is interesting to note that one of the incantations for fore-knowledge used by the Druids and esoteric poets of Ireland was called Dichetal di chennaib, “incantation by means of heads”.

As the classics imply, the setting up of human heads in forts and dwellings secured protection – most probably by inspiring fear in the enemy. Even today, in parts of what was Celtic Brigantia (“The High One”, the eponymous goddess of the region; modern Brigid), heads are regarded as bringing good luck or keeping bad luck at bay. The protective fossilised skull of a young woman at Bettiscombe, Dorset, has been discussed in this issue, and there are others in various parts of the country, accredited with apotropaic powers. Stoner heads are often believed to have a potency similar to that of the real skull, and much superstition still attaches to them.

I have already discussed individual wells associated with a head or heads in publications which are detailed in the bibliography. Space does not permit me to recapitulate them all here. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are studded with place-names connecting the human head with some well or source, ford or lake, and the same applies to Ireland. Wales, too, as we have seen, has its own share of these; and here, as in the other Celtic countries, the stories and lives of the numerous Celtic saints contain legends concerning the origin of some spring or well through the power of their decapitated heads.

Perhaps the finest well in this country dating from the Roman period, and containing evidence of skull-worship is that at Carrawburgh, in Northumberland (Allason-Jones and Mckay, 1985). Named Coventina’s Well after the presiding goddess – who was also venerated on the Continent – excavation yielded many sacred objects which had been cast into or suspended above the well. From our point of view, the human skull is the most telling. Whether it was first used for purposes of healing, or of prophecy, or of protection -or any or all of these – we shall never know. Its mere presence at the bottom of a hallowed well in a remote part of Roman Britain adds important evidence to the archaic and deeply rooted association of severed heads with sacred waters.

Finally, I want briefly to tell again the story of my own experience of a severed head and a sacred spring, in the Highlands of Scotland. Like so many wells in this wild terrain, the well was known as Tobar a’Chinn, “The Well of the Head”. The skull is famed for its ability to cure epilepsy, of which there was a great deal in the Highlands in the past. The power of the skull could only operate, however, with the potent waters of a mountain spring. The sacred water must be drunk from the human skull, and so the cure was effected. This well and its healing properties were renowned the Highlands, and people came from the Islands as well as the mainland to obtain the cure.

The well is situated on a mountain-side in a wild region of Wester Ross. I visited the township some years ago, and talked with the guardian of the skull and the well – for guardians are an essential and archaic feature of such healing sites. The skull is allegedly that of a suicide, and was found lying on the ground some two hundred years ago, according to the tradition. The “wise men” of the community recognised that it would have powers to heal epilepsy, skulls of suicides allegedly being very potent in this respect. The waters of the spring were already accredited with healing powers, and it was somehow recognised that the well and the skull together would have magical powers; but always to be invoked in the name of the Trinity. The skull was taken up to the well, and was kept in a small stone dst at its side: and there it remains to this day. The guardian, a local healer, was appointed, and the position has remained in the same family to the present day. The well must not be visited for any purpose other than the healing of epileptics: it is the deeply-rooted belief that the powers of the water are not inexhaustible, and must be expended with great care. The skull, too, must only be used in the healing ritual -otherwise it must lie hidden in its stone container. The healing takes place after the last rays of the sun have left the mountain and before first dawn. The climb, and the descent after the ritual has been performed, must be made in silence. I was privileged to visit the well in the dead of night with the guardian, who explained the ritual to me in detail. He told me that after the healing was completed, and the sacred waters had been drunk from the skull, he “put the prohibitions” on the patient. This is a very archaic feature; it occurs in Old Irish in the form of the word geis, (pl. gessi), meaning a tabu, a prohibition, a ritual constraint. Geas is the word still used in Scottish Gaelic, and it is this that the guardian of the well used. It was a rare and awe-inspiring experience, one which seemed to take me right back into the Celtic Iron Age. It gave me a completely new insight into these ancient beliefs and healing rites, all explained in the archaic Gaelic language. I shall always be profoundly grateful to the guardian who so generously instructed me in this sensitive tradition.

Summary and Conclusion The ancient Celtic belief in the powers of the severed human head was widespread and deeply rooted; and it was so firmly embedded in the Celtic subconscious that convincing traces of the ancient veneration accorded to the skull are still extant in the present day. The evidence for the antiquity of this cult is found in archaeological contexts from the Bronze Age onwards, and it can even be traced to the Neolithic in some areas which were to become Celtic at a later period. The head was believed to survive death, and to be capable of speech on occasion, and of movement and poetic utterance (Ross 1992, 94 f). Its powers were those of healing, prophecy and fore-knowledge, fertility and protection, according to traditions down the ages. Skulls were often treated in singular ways as in the case of the Irish skulls, and we are unlikely ever to know the full significance of the small parts of human heads which are often found, clearly deliberately deposited, in archaeological contexts. We briefly considered the important group of temples and sanctuaries in southeast France, dating to centuries immediately before the Roman occupation. Here mediterranean influence is attested by the stone temple buildings and the sculpted representations of gods and heroes in the local limestone, for example. Sophistication here combines with potent evidence both for head-hunting and head-worship, and the connection of heads with sacred springs and waters. Today we can still witness faint but cogent traces of this ancient cult, with its roots in Druidism and Celtic tribal society; and we may say that the symbol of the human head, especially in association with sacred waters, truly epitomises Celtic religion. When paganism officially gave way to Christianity, there was a natural fusion of god head and the Godhead. The head of the Welsh Bran the Blessed perhaps symbolises this most poignantly (Jones and Jones, 1977, 49), a head buried in Londinium where the cult of the Iron Age Celts is attested by a dramatic assemblage of human skulls deposited in the sacred waters of the River Thames and its tributaries. Future dredging of rivers, and excavations of Iron Age sites, will no doubt bring to light further evidence of these ancient cults, and perhaps add welcome details to what we can reconstruct of ritual and offering, Druidism, and the nature of the gods invoked.

Bibliography

Allason-Jones, L. and McKay, B. 1985. Coventina’s Well. Chesters Museum.

Benoit, Fernand. 1955. L’Art Primitif Mediterraneen de la Vallee du Rhone. Gap: Editions ORPHYR.

Bradley, R. and Gordon, K. 1988. “Human Skulls from the River Thames, their dating and significance”. Antiquity 62: 503-9.

Bromwich, R. 1961, 1978, 1991. Trioedd Ynys Prydein. The Welsh Triads. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. (New edition in preparation.)

Brunaux, J.L. 1988. The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites, Sanctuaries. London: Seaby.

Cooney, G. and Grogan, E. 1991. “An Archaeological Solution to the ‘Irish’ Problem”. Emania 9: 33-43.11

Cribbin, G., McCormick, F., Robinson, M.E. and Shimwell, D. 1994. “A Destroyed Late Iron Age Burial from Kiltullagh”. Emania 12: 61 f.

Cuming, H.S. 1857. “On the Discovery of Celtic Crania in the Vicinity of London”. Journal of the British Archaeological Association 13: 237-40.

Ekwall, E. 1936. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. London: Oxford University Press.

Hickey, H. 1976. Images of Stone. Belfast: Blackstaff.

Jones, G. and Jones, T. 1977. The Mabinogion. London: Dent.

Koch, J.T. and Carey, J. 1994. The Celtic Heroic Age. Massachussetts: Von Kamecke.

Megaw, R. and Megaw, V. 1989. Celtic Art London: Thames and Hudson.

Lynn, C.J. 1991. “A Burnt Layer beside the King’s Stables”. Emania 9: 33-43.

O’Rahilly, C. (ed.). 1976. Tain Bo Cuailnge (Recension 1). Dublin. Piggott, S. 1968. The Druids London: Thames and Hudson.

Raftery, B. 1994. Pagan Celtic Ireland. London: Thames and Hudson.

Ross, Anne. 1962. “Severed Heads in Wells: an Aspect of the Well Cult”. Scottish Studies 6, part 1: 31-48.

– 1967, 1972. Pagan Celtic Britain. London: Routledge. London: Constable. – 1976. The Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. Batsford.

Rybova, A. and Soudsky, B. 1962. Libenice. Prague. Salviot, E 1979. Glanum Paris. Stead, I, Bourke J, and Brothwell, D, 1986. Lindow Man, The Body in the Bog. London: British Museum Publications.

Tierney, J. J. 1960. “The Celtic Ethnography of Posidoneus.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 60, c.

Watson, W.J. 1926. The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood.

See also: Emania 2 (1987), for articles on Emain Macha and Loughnashade.

AT ST WINIFRED’S WELL PART TWO by Roy Kerridge with Illustrated by Paul Longmore Source

Part two of the Source new series article

Next morning, the plunge pool twinkled under a bright sun. Most of the pilgrims from the Hospice were at the Catholic church at the top of the steep Town Hill. Today was the day of the Procession from Church to Well, led by Edwin, Bishop of Wrexham. To my surprise, traveller-vans kept on arriving, parked haphazardly near the Well. Not all came from Ireland, for I was to speak to travellers of Irish stock who had set out that dawn from towns all over the English Midlands and North. Family by family, they began to gather at the Well, before ascending to the church above.

Far from being reverent, silent pilgrims, many of the Travellers were freckled teenage girls of giggling frivolity, dressed uniformly in fashions reminiscent of the early ‘seventies. White trouser-suits or blouse and tartan hotpants seemed most prevalent, always displaying bare mid-riffs. Instead of buttons, gaudy Celtic brooches held bits of scanty attire together.

Brown or red hair was long and frizzed. Just as Irish pagan festivals of old combined worship with matchmaking, so did these girls combine deference to St Winifred with their quest for husbands.

“Back at the camp, that’s the best place to pick up boys”, a girl in a bright blue trouser-suit told her equally blue-clad friend. “She got those orange platform shoes and the hat from a nab (secondhand dealer)”, a boy joked.

“Ah, Tony, don’t be slagging!”

“D’ye think I ought to get married?” a curly-headed young man asked his friend. “Trouble is, which girl do I choose?”

“There’s Noreen – she’s just got married!” a girl in hot-pants cried. “I’ll ask her what the wedding night was like!”

On my way up to the church, I stopped to admire a rose-embowered cottage with a figure of the Virgin over the door. A bearded man emerged, who must surely have been the model for novelist R.K. Narayan’s Talkative Man. By the time I escaped, the procession was already marshalled outside the church steps, the blue girls with orange shoes prominent among the tinker contingent that made up the rear. Tiny girls, or little tinkers, wore frilly party frocks, and one solemn child in a pushchair resembled a girl in an Italian renaissance painting.

Standing at the church door, Fr Lordan in his robes uttered a warning: “Some of our evangelical brethren will be here today, demonstrating against St Winifred. Do not speak to them or take any tract from them”.

Late-comers hurried from the Hospice, where a special room had been set aside for the Travellers’ dinner. Turkey with cranberry jelly and bottles of wine were served. At last the procession was underway, a large wooden figure of St Winifred held at the fore. Everyone recited the Rosary as they marched, louder still as the protesting Protestants came into view.

Here was the Wales I knew, the Chapel Wales so well depicted in the stories of Caradoc Evans (no relation to Prince Caradoc!). Plain living, if not high thinking, had cast its stamp on the chapel people, who were mainly elderly or middle-aged. Against thousands of marching Catholics, the Church Triumphant, they numbered twenty at most. A large Catholic school above the Well had fallen into ruin – replaced by a larger, newer building over the road – but retained a massive outdoor statue of Jesus.

“You’re going down, boys! You’re going down! You will burn in hell!” a big white-haired man remarked in loud conversational tones, holding aloft a banner demanding “No Idolatry”.

“Mary can’t help you!” a woman cried urgently. “Mary is dead! Jesus is alive!” a man shouted; then, as if ashamed at his own crassness, he rephrased his message. “Mary is in heaven! She is not aware of what is going on here today. Only Jesus can help you!”

In my own view, prayers intended for God reach Him by however circuitous a route. None of the protesters had a word to say against St Winifred,  perhaps feeling that she had suffered enough.

Poor Protestants! Only the Travellers took the trouble to jeer at them; everyone else stared straight ahead and praised the Virgin Mary. The Filipino seemed slightly apprehensive, but took courage from the others. One of them held a doll-like figure of Mary.

I am fond of processions, and this was a very fin one, the Bishop of Wrexham in full red and gold regalia priests in white with red stoles, altar-boys dressed a miniature priests, and charming First Communion little brides. There was the Union of Catholic Mothers with its banners; and there, somewhat inexplicably, stood two Colonial Governors in dark green with plume Napoleonic hats – in reality members of a Papal Orde as I later discovered. The figure of St Winifred was held aloft on a platform by four tall men in red shoulder sashes. Once inside the enclosed Well Field, these me appointed themselves stewards at the now-fenced-o Well. They had their job cut out preventing tinkers an’ their children from jumping into the water. As fast they roared at one abashed traveller, another would • slipping in for a holy wetting. “No Bathing Today” stern notice proclaimed.

A few rings of seats faced a newly-erected whit pavilion in which the bishop conducted an open Mass. Most of the crowd of thousands, clad summery dress, sat down on the grass. Every now an then they rose at the command “All Stand”. The We enclosure was packed to the walls, as Bishop Edw. recounted the Winifred story: “Let me take you back a Wales we do not know”.

Like Fr Lordan, he spoke jokily and colloquially. likable man, the bishop got a bit mixed-up at one po for I clearly heard him say “Winifred was a martyr w preferred death to chastity!”

If the Protestants outside had only known it, the battle may have been already half-won, for in do’ away with Latin chants and majesty, the Winifredians had gained a tea-and-buns Methodist Sunday School flavour, their Marian hymns sung to easily recognisable and hummable tunes of “Blesse Assurance” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”.

Yet, when the Roman Catholics and Evangelic. Protestants become exactly the same, sectarian str may still continue, since the most bitter enmities invariably between people who seem completely indistinguishable to anyone else. The service ended with Holy Communion, t bread administered by priests who stood beneath yellow and white striped umbrellas, so as to recognised among the throng. “The Body of Christ! The Body of Christ!” each priest intoned, as flake after flake was handed out. Finally, the muscular stewards removed the portab fences and a surge of pilgrims poured into the walkway that led around the pool and the open-ended chapel. never-ending circular procession then took place, as t Travellers went round again and again. Gent Hampstead-looking Catholics with well-behaved straw-hatted children formed a contrast to the excitable Travellers. At the statue, each pilgrim paused to kiss the proffered reliquary. Most of them paid to light candles, until the burning wax dripped and fell in deformed twistings, the wicks alight to the last drop. One Traveller produced his own blue night-lights and lit them. Most brilliantly clad of all were a group of Indian Catholics from the Punjab, who gave the Well a look of the Ganges.

All this while, in the cool darkness, the well waters bubbled, forming a musical accompaniment to a group of pure-voiced singers in the minstrels’ gallery above the circulating pilgrims.

Help us, sweet St Winifred, To love and suffer still. Get us grace, whate’er betide, To do God’s holy will. And we gather round thy shrine, Thy blessed praise to tell, While the gifts of God divine Flow from thy Holy Well!

“You’re barred!” a steward shouted at a boy who’d pushed another into the pool. A ten-year-old tinker girl slipped and fell howling into the plunge pool, to be rescued and comforted with the words, “Now you’ll be really blessed!”

Suddenly a brawny man grabbed his six-year-old son by one leg and swung him upside down under the water and out. Already apple-cheeked, the boy turned red as a turkey cock as he bawled his lungs out. Quite unabashed, the father suddenly seized his four-year-old daughter and dunked her in upside down, holding each ankle in a mighty fist. The poor child’s dress fell over her head, as her shrieks joined those of her unhappy but blessed brother.

Again and again, a Traveller boy with a pudding-basin haircut kneeled at the water’s rim and dipped his head under and out, like a diving duck.

Fr Lordan tried in vain to keep order.

“It wasn’t me, Father!” an eighteen-year-old boy blurted. “You’re all as bad as each other!” “Ah no, Father – please bless the holy pictures I bought”.

Relenting, Fr Lordan did so, breaking off to shout “Hey, you!” at another malefactor. ”

Father, I’ve had no luck and can find no work”, a young man pleaded. “Please give me your blessing!”

Of course, Fr Lordan agreed, and prayed solemnly over the youth. I was reminded of the Irish tinkers described by Borrow in Wild Wales, with their piercing cries of “Give us God, Father! Give us God!”

Many of the Travellers first prayed and then threw money into the Well.

Musing over the St Winifred story, an old Traveller shook his head and grumbled “He was a bad man, that Prince Caradoc. A bad man, that. A real bad man”.

I gravely agreed, but had to admit to being a Protestant.

“You must become a Catholic!” the man’s shocked daughter urged me.

“I’m a Maloney!” a headshawled woman told me with pride in her voice.

“So am I”, said her freckled daughter, a pert dark-eyed girl who looked about fourteen. “That is, I’m a Cash-Maloney, as I married a Cash! It’s no use showing us your card, as neither of us can read or write. A lot of us people can’t”.

A kindly resigned-looking old Traveller man named Mr Sheridan waded into the strip well, supported by a walking stick. By now the stewards had gone and the feastday was winding to a close. St Winifred’s special day was over for most people.

“I’ve got a bad leg from hip down to ankle”, Mr Sheridan explained.

“Yes, he’s been in Coventry hospital, but he’s no better”, his wife put in. “But that man over there has been cured by the blessed Saint and he’s here to give thanks this day”.

The Sheridans’ glamorous newly-wed daughter Noreen said that the family had been coming to the Well for fifteen years.

At the pump-tap, a small boy, with a face entirely composed of freckles, drank deeply from the spout, followed by a woman with a large bottle to fill. “I’m taking it to Ireland in a month’s time”. Others dipped their fingers in the pool and crossed themselves, or soaked their rosary beads. A boy with thin twisted legs was lifted from a wheelchair and lowered into the icy depths.

Just as I was leaving, two most devout dark-skinned gypsyish women, mother and daughter, Catherine and Elaine Georgevitch from Yugoslavia by way of Canvey Island, descended fully clothed into the water and traversed the Well nine times before kneeling on St Beuno’s Stone and praying aloud.

“If you want to see more miracles, consult the Seer of Canvey Island”, they told me mysteriously, their dark eyes glowing in fervour.

 

On Canvey Island by Roy Kerridge Source No 6 Summer 1998

The following two posts are related and record the curious case of Nora Arthurs and her Holy wells

Canvey Island in Essex is a mysterious place. London’s east end and Dagenham left behind, the traveller confronts a flat, damp grassland connected tenuously to the shore by a road and a reed bed. Where cattle once waded, red brick bungalows now stand in geometric precision. Here and there an marshman’s cottage stands bewildering among newly sprung suburbia. At the seafront, large pubs and an amusement arcade face not the sand and breakers but an immense turfed-over bank resembling the Mississippi levee. Here and there, warning notices advise passers-by not to open the sluice gates. At high tide, waves lap against the wall, level with the roofs of the houses below. One day, unless a boy chances by with a useful thumb, Canvey Island may disappear beneath the sea and become a romantic Lost Land. On moonlit nights, ghostly cries of “Bingo!” would then be heard among the murmur of the waves. Until that day (pray it never dawns!) the seeker for the mysterious must call at 40, Roggel Road, and ask for Nora Arthurs, the Seeress of Canvey Island. In the garden of her old tumbledown house, beneath a tree, hemmed in by trailer caravans, can be found the most recent of Britain’s Holy Wells. Its presence was divined two years ago with a rod held by a Yugoslavian Roman Catholic named Georgovitch, a gnarled, swarthy, venerable man, whom I met once in Wales. Until the well was excavated, the Seeress made do with her kitchen sink, where Christ supposedly materialised periodically, as long as the tap was kept running. In a Vision, Nora then learned of the existence of the well.

In March 1996, I called at “Mary’s House” where Nora lives, and I knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I went round the back and knocked again. Still no answer, so I opened the back door and found myself in a conservatory-style strip of added-on house, side by side with the famous sink. There, almost as in Alice’s Wonderland, I found another door and knocked. Nora Arthurs appeared, looking like an elderly genial Alice, with long greying hair and spectacles. She spoke with a slight Cockney accent. Don’t stand out there in the cold, come in!” she cried. “Today is St. Joseph’s Day, the nineteenth, and we’re having a prayer meeting. You’re most welcome to take part, even though I can see you’re a Protestant. I am nervous about Catholic doings, as I don’t know how to cross myself or how to handle a Rosary. However, Nora put me at my ease. Despite an electric fire, it was freezing cold in the dingy Mary-decorated front room, far colder than it was outside. Proudly, Nora showed me the shrine she had made, on and around her fireplace, where holy statuettes and pictures crowded around flickering candles. A figure of a scarlet-coated Canadian Mountie looked rather out of place among the saints. I bought that when I was in Canada”, Nora explained brightly. “Now see this statue of Mary? It moves! Look, she’s looking down now, but here’s a photo that shows her looking up! There have been many miracles here. Once a lady came here in a wheelchair, and Our Lady was moved to tears and cured her. Yes, Our Lady, Queen of Heaven appeared in my bedroom and wept. She was dressed in blue.’ Evidently, Nora Arthurs set great store by photography, tapes and other modern paraphernalia. Mary frequently materialised in photographs, but less often to the naked eye. One photograph showed her as a statuette-like dark-haired figure, very beautiful. However, Nora told me that when she and her late husband had seen Mary for themselves, “she didn’t look dark or Jewish at all, but had golden hair with a tinge of red.”

Nora’s first vision of Mary had taken place in 1954, and her husband had seen Our Lord in the same year. Easily led to Visions, Nora showed me Holy Pictures in the swirling marble-square patterns of her tiled fireplace. “There’s Saint Stephen, look, bending over.’ I was taken to see the well, now swathed in black dustbin liners, as its brick wall and dome-like cover await completion. As yet, it had no aura of holiness to me, but time will probably see to that. Mr. Georgovitch had dug deep, far below sea level, yet there was nothing saline in the pure well waters. Stifling an urge to tie strips of cloth to the overhanging tree and make a wish, I followed the Seeress inside.

“The neighbours complained, and tried to put a stop to it, but we went on digging!” Nora Arthurs said proudly. “The police were very nice about it. Soon the well will be ready to receive pilgrims.”

Shyly, Nora Arthurs then spoke to me about Ecstasies. “You mean speaking in tongues?” , I asked Protestantly. “No, no! I never do that. See these photographs, where I’m standing with arms outstretched? That’s me when I’m in an Ecstacy – I get taken over by the Virgin Mary, and she uses me to give messages to her people. I don’t know what I’m saying – it’s the Virgin who comes here and speaks through me.’

We were all given Rosaries. Mine was made of knotted string, as apparently recommended by the Virgin Mary to worshippers in Australia. Clumsily and incorrectly I crossed myself, fumbled with the knotted string and tried to copy everyone else. At first ordinary prayers were recited, with Nora “leading out” and others responding.

All at once, a most eerie atmosphere descended on the cold room filled with kneeling figures. Nora’s voice no longer seemed her own, nor did it come from her mouth, but merely appeared in the room as a whisper of eternity. Nora stood with arms outspread, but as far as the Voice was concerned, she wasn’t there. From beyond the veil of time and space, the voice that was heard at the beginning seemed to speak, in a disembodied whisper. In an earlier time, Nora would have been an Oracle in a cave. “I am the Lord God…l am Mary, Queen of Heaven…Jesus, Son of Joseph, is my Beloved Son, hear me, hear me…”

The Voice often called Jesus “Son of Joseph”, whereas her normal state the Seeress had been careful to speak of St. Joseph as “Our Lord’s Stepfather”. If the east wind the dykes outside could speak, it would sound as Nora k-thurs sounded now. I trembled with the cold as them little Filipino lady sobbed uncontrollably, rocking her knees. Nora Arthurs too had now descended to her knees. Like anxious little mice the two children crept ard on all fours and repeatedly smoothed her dress–over by tugging at the hem.

After a few minutes, to my surprise, the first wave of Ecstacy passed, and Nora Arthurs arose with arms  outspread and spoke aloud with a strong Australian accent. Several worshippers produced small tape recorders and switched them on.

“Oh my children, it is I, Mary, Queen of Heaven! Oh, children, I know you pray every day, but I have a nessage for you, that such prayer is not enough! Go home and pray with your families! Go home and pray with “.-our families!”

Finally the Virgin Mary retreated, the voice became a whisper once more, and then Nora Arthurs shook herself and beamed round the room triumphantly. “Did you all hear that?” she asked, in her normal Cockney Sparrow chirp. “It was the Virgin Mary again. at was my Ecstacy! I’ll find out what she said when I hear the tapes! You know, at first I wasn’t sure if the Virgin should be taped, but then she came to me in a Vision and said that it was all right, they could tape away. Did you hear the whispery voice? Our Lady always comes to me talking like that. The words don’t come from my mouth, But from deep in my chest. Now, before we have tea, the Virgin told me to give you water from the well.”

So saying she poured me a tumblerful from a plastic bottle. It tasted sweet and fresh. “There, isn’t that pure and good? No salt water in it at all. Volunteers then moved the kitchen, and soon tea and biscuits came round in trays. Happily, Nora Arthurs produced wads of miraculous photographs and passed them around, to great admiration. In everyone a saint or a Virgin could be seen, usually in an oddly shaped sunbeam or foliage of a tree. I was reminded of the puzzle-pictures of the comic annuals of my youth -“Here is Robin Hood, but where are his Merry men?Can you help Robin to find seven lof them hidden in this picture?” By turning the page around, you could usually find at least six of the Men concealed in the drawings of the trees, either among the foliage or outlined by curious gaps between the branches. So it was with these photographs. A blob was interpreted as a holy fish giving birth while a finger on the lens became a saint.

All the pilgrims seemed happy and awed at being in the presence of miracle. No one thought it odd that the Virgin Mary should come all the way from the gates of Heaven to tell them to pray with their families. Like Nora Arthurs herself these were gentle, kind-hearted’ people, and I felt better for having met them at all. The money collection had been extremely modest, and it seemed clear to me that Nora Arthurs was no charlatan. She enjoyed what she was doing, and her pilgrims loved her. They called her “Mama Nora”. Someone said that she was the daughter of the Lord of Monickie Castle in Scotland, one of twenty children. Wishful thinking, not deception, may have been the key to her talent. Nor can real divine intervention be ruled out, for Nora certainly knew her house and garden were holy years before the well was discovered.

There are grave and orderly Protestant churches, but formal religion does not suit everybody, and so folk- Protestant prayer meetings are held in front parlours with holy dancing, talking in tongues and beating out of devils. Few ordained Methodist or Baptist ministers take part in such informal rituals, but some of their flock may go along and enjoy coffee and biscuits afterwards. Similarly, as I had now discovered, there is a magic or Shamanic side to Roman Catholicism that is not expressed in church worship. Instead, it erupts in the unlikeliest of places, or even in the likeliest – on Canvey Island.

Note:

Three years have elapsed since Roy Kerridge visited Canvey Island. Mrs. Arthurs was recently sent a copy of  his article and also the following article “New Wells for old” by T.G.H. To date we have not received any response either to the articles nor to our enquiries regarding the current situation.

Should any subscriber have any up-to-date information regarding the Holy Well on Canvey Island the editors would be pleased to hear of any developments.

 

New wells for old by Tristan Gray Hulse

Roy Kerridge’s article about Canvey Island and its brand new holy well has prompted me to look more closely at two questions I am frequently asked once my interest in the whole subject of sacred wells becomes known. “How do holy wells come into being” (or, “How do wells become holy”) and “are holy wells coming into being today?” The second question is easily answered, in the affirmative, and there is an abundance of evidence (though little of it is British.) But, . given their sheer age and the almost total lack of any relevant or reliable information, the origins of most of our British holy wells can only be matters for inconclusive speculation; and therefore it is of considerable interest to look at these modern holy wells whose origins are documented, in case these can offer clues as to the manner in which earlier wells came to be regarded as holy. For convenience, given the vastness of the topic, and to further illustrate the modern cult at Canvey Island, I will confine myself to wells whose sacrality was initiated via visionary experiences. Of course, such origins are not simply a modern phenomenon (1) To take an ancient but little known example on 7th March 1426 an old peasant woman, Vincenza Pasini, met the Virgin Mary on the slopes of Monte Berico, above the Italian city of Vicenza. At the time, Vicenza was ravaged by the plague, and Mary told the woman that if the citizens built a church on the spot, and assembled there in her honour, the pestilence would cease. She added, “As proof of my desire let them come and dig among these dry rocks: there will gush forth a steady spring of water”. And so it happened. As the people dug the foundations of the new church, a healing spring burst forth. (Seglias 1966. The spring dried up in 1507, after a man watered his horse there – a reaction to the profanation of holy wells familiar from the folklore of many countries, including those of the British Isles) Such origin legends cannot have been without relevance to the articulation of more modern examples, but the climate of expectancy and unconscious imitation which undoubtedly influences contemporary apparitions within their specifically Catholic context is ultimately generated by a small number of famous and influential Marian visions dating to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The initiating vision of this sequence, in so far as the specific consideration here is with vision associated sacred water sources, occurred on 19 September 1846, near the hamlet of La Salette, some 55,000 feet up in the mountains of Southern France, when Mary appeared to the animal herders Melanie Calvat (15) and Maximin Giraud (11). Our lady was seated upon a rock, weeping, and she warned the children that if people did not repent of their sins, God would punish France -specifically, in this agricultural region, foretelling crop failure and famine. Afterwards, the children ran to the village to tell their tale and when people climbed to the apparition site, they found a source of water rising from beneath the rock on which Mary had sat. A periodic spring had been noticed at the spot before, but since that day the water has never dried up, and is still in use for healing. (Gillet 1953, 193- 201). Nowadays, much more famous than La Salette and in many ways the paradigm of Marian apparitions, is Lourdes, where in 1858 the Virgin appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous in the Massabielle grotto on the banks of the River Gave, which at that time was little more than the council rubbish tip. During the vision on 25 February Mary told Bernadette “Go and drink at the spring and wash in it”. There was no discernible spring in the grotto, but the child scrabbled in the mud beneath the natural niche within which she saw the Virgin and “washed” her face in and drank of, the muddy water which collected in the resultant hollow. The onlookers that day were scandalised, but the spring, thus uncovered, gathered in strength, and continued to flow -as it does to the present day. The first cure – resulting from the use of the water thus revealed was that of. Louis Brouillette, a few days later, when the sight of his damaged eye was restored and the subsequent history of the Lourdes spring is too well known to need recalling here (Gillett 1953, 202 -13) La Salette and Lourdes, with the so called “Miraculous Medal” apparitions in Paris in 1830, and the visions seen by three children at Fatima, in Portugal, in 1917 (where, too, a holy well was eventually uncovered, though not as a direct consequence of the visions – cf. Source new set no. 4 (Summer 1995),10), have been the most influential modern visions. Their influence – and particularly those at Lourdes – is traceable in the vision sequence of Mary seen by the eleven year old Mariette Beco in in Banneux, in Belgium in 1933. On the evening of 15 January Mariette saw the Virgin, dressed as she had been at Lourdes, standing in the garden. In total, there were eight separate visions. On the evening of 18 January, Mary beckoned the child, and led her to a spring by the roadside, telling her to wash her hands. “This spring” she said “is set apart for me.” On the following night, Mariette was again led to the spring, where Mary said of the water that it was “For all the nations. For the sick. I come to relieve the sick.” Today, the spring is part of the shrine of the Virgin of the Poor, Queen of Nations, as Mary described herself to Mariette, and is still the focus of pilgrimage and healing (Gillett 1953, 261 – 8). Motichiari, near Brescia, in Northern Italy, was the scene of an extended series of apparitions. They began in 1947, when Mary as Rosa Mystica, the “Mystical Rose”, appeared to Pierina Gilli, a nurse. Much later, on 17 April 1966, while Pierina was in the neighbouring hamlet of Fontanelle, Mary appeared to her beside an old well. She said: “My divine son is all love and he sent me to bestow upon this well healing power. Put here a crucifix. The sick people and all my children shall first ask my divine Son to forgive them, then lovingly kiss the cross, and then they should draw water or drink. I wish the sick and all my children to come to this miraculous water.” Appearing again on 13 May 1966, Mary described the well as “the Spring of Grace”. Though the church has never approved the Rosa Mystica visions, it has quietly tolerated the pilgrimages to Montichiari – Fontanelle, where people approach the well in solemn procession (Weigl 1983, 28 – 40, Laurentin 1991, 184 – 5). Mary first appeared to Rosa Quattrini (1909 – 81) in a globe of light above the pear tree in her garden in the village of San Damiano, near Piacenza, in Italy, on 16 October 1964, whereupon the tree suddenly put forth blossom, although it was still bearing fruit at the time. After this, the Virgin appeared to Rosa in “Her Little Garden of Paradise”, as Mary called it, every Friday for the rest of Rosa’s life. In after times, various photographs have been taken at the site, which it is claimed, actually show the Virgin as she appeared to Rosa and other celestial signs. On 20th August, 1965, Mary said, “A great grace will come here: a source of great grace, of living water to purify soul and body”. Following Mary’s instructions, Rosa had the ground near the pear tree excavated, when a spring of water was uncovered. Of her holy well, our Lady said: Come and drink at this well of water of Grace. Wash yourselves! Drink and have confidence in this water. Many will be cured of physical ills (18 November 1966). Drink much water. This water will restore health of soul and body; it will purify you and will free the possessed. Drink much of this water and bathe the ailing part of the body, reciting three Hail’ Mary’s and one Creed. You, act with faith and I will give you all the graces and comfort. (13 October 1967). Though Mama Rosa, as she came to be called by her followers, has since died and though the Church strenuously opposed the apparitions for decades, the pilgrimages to the Garden of Paradise still continue, and many cures have been attributed to the use of the Water of Grace (Osee 1977, 53 – 4, 187 – 8). The events at Canvey Island are frequently closely reminiscent of those at San Damiano, which themselves are among the best known such events within contemporary Catholicism. On 25 March 1976 our Lady appeared to Maria Esperanza Medrano de Bianchini at a little Marian wayside shrine on the hillside above her farm at Cua, near Betania, in Venezuala. Mary told her “I will be your refuge. I am the reconciler of all people.” This, and further visions, led people to gather at the grotto, and on 25 March 1984 Mary appeared to numbers of these pilgrims, standing above the waterfall beside the shrine. People began to use the water, and cures resulted. The local bishop Mgr. Pio Ricardo investigated these claims, and in his eventual report wrote: Either through prayer, or the water from the waterfall there have been not only spiritual graces but extraordinary cures. Among these latter were the disappearance of advanced cancer of the kidneys and the sudden cure of two duodenal ulcers…(&c) …I have obtained certification, diagnoses, analyses and proof of a medical nature in three of the above mentioned cases. Mgr Ricardo has since authorised a church on the site, and on 21 November 1987 he authenticated both the cures and the visions themselves (Laurentin 1991, 53-6). In 1979 the Cistercian monks erected a Lourdes Grotto by a spring near their monastery of Mount Melleray, in County Waterford, in Ireland. Local people would visit the Grotto in the evening to say the Rosary. Then, in 1985, when the rash of “moving statues” occurred at Lourdes Grottoes all over Ireland, the same sort of event was observed at Mt Melleray. Unlike the majority of similar sites, however, Mt Melleray quickly became the location of multiple actual visions of the Virgin. One night an unusual phenomenon was observed in relation to the stream from the spring. “It lit up brightly like a glow worm and remained luminous for quite a while.” A little later, two boys, Tom Cliffe and Barry Buckley, both saw our lady, with “a single rose in her hair.” She told them, “My message is Peace and Prayer”,and afterwards she said, “tell the people the water is blessed”. After which, the spring in the Grotto came to be regarded and used as a holy well (Vose 1986, 38 – 49).

Many other very recent examples might be cited (as, for example, the holy wells at Kerizinen in Brittany, Dozule in Normandy; Porto San Stefano, in Italy; and Stonebridge in Northern Ireland; all of which might eventually be found suitable for discussion in Source -certainly, their stories are fascinating and relevant for the topic under review), but those summarised above are amply sufficient for my present purpose. Regardless of what might be argued for or against the reality of their contexting visionary experiences (and this is certainly not the place for such a necessarily far – reaching exploration – here, it seems reasonably responsible simply to accept the good faith of the visionaries, to accept the at least subjective reality of their visionary experiences, and to allow the external facts of their individual cases to speak for themselves), there seems little doubt that the basic facts were just as reported, that is , in these accounts we are seeing the coming – into – being of numbers of modern holy wells. Which brings me back to Britain’s newest holy well, on Canvey Island, a brief analysis of whose story might help to facilitate any eventual evaluation of such unexpected uncoverings of springs within the whole context of visionary experience, and further help towards any interpretation of the perceived sacrality of specific water sources overall. The first point to be noticed, perhaps, is that Nora Arthurs’ well did not simply “appear”. If it did not exist prior to the Canvey Island apparitions, neither is it coeval with them. Instead, the documentation of the Canvey Island apparitions and its originating visions reveals a climate in which the new holy well was at first anticipated, then, perhaps, expected, and finally all but inevitable. (The following information is taken from newsletters issued by Mrs Arthurs and her supporters, which I collected between 1984 and 1986.)

In “A Short History” of Mary’s House (“as Heaven has named” 40 Roggel Road), issued in 1984, we are told that Nora Arthurs was born in Hammersmith in 1916, and moved with her family to Canvey Island in 1955. Her husband, a Protestant, had three visions of the Virgin Mary before his death bed conversion ten years later. Subsequently, Mrs Arthurs herself saw the Virgin, in the Canvey Island Catholic church of Our Lady of Canvey. In June 1982, while visiting the Spanish apparition site at Garabandal, she again saw Mary, who said, “I will visit you in your home”. Afterwards Mary appeared to her daily at 40 Roggel Road, and in 1983 Mrs Arthurs was instructed by her visions to go public, and “call” pilgrims to Mary’s House on certain stated days. All the Garden, trees, grapevines and The House have The Special Blessing and Protection of Our Divine Lord given (in 1983) when Nora and pilgrims were praying outside during heavy rain. Nora in ecstasy for one hour, was completely dry after returning to The House. No natural protection was given to her. We are also advised that “The Great Visible Sign, Promised by Our Lord, will be given on a future day when all have done Penance and have the correct disposition to receive it”. Newsletter 3 describes the events of 31 May 1984. Water was placed beside the shrine in the house, and through Mrs Arthurs, Jesus spoke as follows: “My children, Listen to Me, Father in Heaven, Who will now Bless this Water. As this Water, taken into your homes, your families, will bring you Great Blessings, Great Conversions, Healings, My children!…My children, I The Lord now Give My Blessing to this water, that it may become Holy and bring Many Joys and Blessings!…My Blessing, children, be with all who use It.” Still in ecstacy, Mrs. Arthurs moved outside, and blessed the trees. Here Jesus spoke again. My children, I The Lord your God, have brought you to the Trees…And, My children, there shall come to these trees Such a Sign, My children, that No Man On Earth shall have doubt or disbelief For What They Will See. And He announced that “on the Next Calling (15 August 1984, at 6 p.m.) shall I, The Lord, give This Sign!!!”2

On 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary, some 400 pilgrims assembled in the garden of Mary’s House. Inside, Jesus again blessed the water through the instrumentality of Mrs. Arthurs, more or less in the same words He had used on 31 May. Then He led the Seer into the garden where an altar had been erected. He spoke again: “Children, all bend your knees and heads. Give thanks to The Lord your God, Praise the Holy Mother Who this day has asked of Me Her Son to give to My Children a Sign at these Trees; that you shall overcome all your sinful ways, that you My children shall be witnesses this very night, come My children…Pray My Mercy, My forgiveness My children…My children I tell you that this night I shall put this Sign here.” Mrs Arthurs remained in ecstacy “for over 3 hours”, but no miracle occurred. Through the Seer Jesus advised the crowd “that your Faith is not strong enough to See The Very Sign And Miracle Under Your Very Faces…The Lord sees in all your hearts not the True Love that you should come with”. But He left them with His blessing, and the promise: “My Children you shall see a Sign when you have done more Penance”. At the Calling on 8 December 1984 Christ again blessed the water, much as before – “use it well and drink For It Is Living Water, My children, and The Lord’s Blessing is within it” – though there is no mention of the Great Sign. At Epiphany (long connected with the ritual benediction of water in the Christian tradition) 6 January 1985 Jesus’ words signalled a change in the Mary’s House liturgy. My children I shall lift up My child (Nora) and I shall take her to the water that it shall too be Blessed this night. As This Water Flows, So It Has My Blessing! My child shall turn the water on and I The Lord your God shall Bless it… I The Lord will Bless the water as it flows from the tap. Nora “in ecstacy went out to the tap and turned it allowing the water to flow”, and as she did so, Christ spoke the words of blessing through her.

The water is next referred to on 16 February 1985, when our Lady adverts to “The Holy Water…The Lord has put Many Great Blessings in The Water that runs Here, through The Tap in This House!, and again Drorriises, “in a little while”, Signs to those of My children Who Come Here and Pray!”

On 20 February 1985 Mary promised “Greater Signs”, and told the pilgrims: “Use the Holy Water , for that will keep you Safe – it will bring many Blessings to you!”, and on 23 February She again recommended use of “The Water from This House that is Blessed by your Father in Heaven”. The water is not mentioned again until 29 June 1985 (though I cannot be certain that I have all the newsletters, as only the earlier ones are numbered), when Mary tells the pilgrims that “your Father in Heaven has filled (it) with Great Mercies and Blessings, healing for many bodies!”. By then, Mrs Arthurs was being deserted by many of her former followers, and Mary says reassuringly, “Believe My Child, Mary’s House will never become lost, because the Lord Chose it!…We will never desert (Nora) nor Mary’s House” – reaffirming what She had said on 21 June as to “how May’s House will be world famous as well as in England, where All will Honour It.” From then until 29 June 1986, when my collection of newsletters ceases, there are apparently no further references either to the Water or to the Great Sign (the visions are largely concerned with prayer and penance, especially as concerned to avert the tribulations of the Last Days, revealed as imminent, and about which many warnings are given.3 Kerridge’s final point, concerning the impromptu, unofficial, and folk-religious aspects of contemporary Catholicism, is pertinent. Under its Canon Law, the Catholic Church regularly investigates the claims of visionaries only when the visionaries themselves make specific claims to participation within areas which the Church, as a dogmatic and teaching entity, has always claimed to fall exclusively within its own remit; that is, it steps in when visionaries, as a result of their visions, insist that the Church adapt their doctrinal formulae and devotional praxis to the new message. Then, in the person of the local bishop (in whom alone rests the competence to judge and authenticate such matters), it investigates, to try to ascertain whether or not there are any signs of genuine supernatural intervention, and, if so, whether the content and requests of the messages can be usefully recommended to the faithful at large.4 Such approbation is given only rarely; of the contemporary visions described or mentioned above, only those of Betania have been authenticated in this manner. Kerridge’s comment about the marginality of the Canvey Island experience is reinforced by the facts that they occur on private rather than Church property (in which case the Church would have had to intervene), and that Nora Arthurs herself has never requested her local bishop to investigate her claims, and thus falls outside his responsibility in such matters, allowing her to operate without ecclesiastical censure, and without in any way diminishing her ordinary status as a member of the Catholic laity. That is, the messages of Our Lady of Canvey Island and her sacred well are promoted by Mrs Arthurs and not by the Catholic Church. As the diocesan official responsible for such matters, the Vicar General Mgr. Arthur A.J. Barrow, wrote to me on 11 June 1996:

“I would wish to state that the Catholic Church has made no judgement as yet on the reported happenings, referred to in Mr Kerridge’s article, and that indeed Mrs. Nora Arthurs has not sought any official recognition. As always in these matters, the Church would caution the faithful to use the prudent norms for discernment as provided by recommended spiritual writers.”

Regrettably, Mrs. Arthurs has declined my invitation either to comment upon Mr. Kerridge’s article, or to supply her own account as to how the Canvey Island holy well came into being; though she informs me that, as far as the well itself is concerned, “all is not yet ready for visitors and publicity” (letter, 8 May 1996). Despite the absence of any comment from Mrs. Arthurs, it seems permissible to make a number of observations. Firstly, as Kerridge informs us, the well was dug only in 1994, but as the newsletters demonstrate, a marked interest in water and the holiness of water has been an integral element of the Canvey Island pilgrimage at least since May 1984, only a year after the Canvey Island series of apparitions commenced. From the outset, the water, like that from holy wells worldwide, was to bring “blessings” and healing to those who used it – the difference here being the subjectivity perceived (that is, perceived only by Mrs. Arthurs, and by her only when in ecstasy) presence of Christ blessing the water.

Despite the somewhat startling change in the manner of obtaining the water (from water in bowls and bottles, to water flowing straight from a tap, which is holy only at certain times and under certain conditions (with which, perhaps, compare the angel-troubled Pool of Bethesda in the Gospels?: John 5, 2-4) – which, at least in so far as this concerns taps and the mains water supply, is unique to the Canvey Island pilgrimage5) the actual or intended use of the water appears to have remained constant over the years. Secondly, there is the question of the Great Sign, promised from the outset of the apparition sequence. Right from 1983 it is associated with 40 Roggel Road, and from 31 May 1984, immediately following the first blessing of the water, the Sign is specifically associated with the trees. Here pilgrims gathered on 15 August, to see the appearance of the Sign, which failed to manifest, although the message for that day seems to make it quite clear that the Sign had been placed there – it was just that the pilgrims had not merited actually to see it. It is noticeable that it is only after the Sign’s failure to materialise that the water blessing is, as it were institutionalised, by use of the tap as an impromptu well. All of this strongly suggests that the expected Sign was in fact to have the appearance of a spring beneath the trees, though in the event its discovery was delayed by some 10 years. Lastly, all of this seems to confirm that somehow Mrs Arthurs ( whether by divine admonition, or by her own innate powers of water divination _ an intuition of her own subconscious, perhaps, mediated to consciousness via the symbolic language of her visions) had known of the existence of the subterranean spring for at least ten years before it was actually uncovered. As Kerridge justly observes, “Nora certainly knew her house and garden were holy years before the well was discovered”,.

It would be fascinating to learn exactly when it was that her supernatural visitors told her of its existence, fascinating too, (given the accuracy of Mrs Arthurs’ intuition as to the existence of the well) to learn what has been said in prophecy about the holy well’s future as part of the Mary’s House pilgrimage. complex. As it is, it is instructive to observe the coming into being of a new holy well in such detail, even if several important details are still tantalisingly missing. It may now be asked, what, if anything, can the history of the Well of Our Lady of Canvey Island teach us about holy wells in general. Superficially at least it is remarkably unlike any other, unlike the glorious ..late medieval well shrine of St Winifred at Holywell, with its even more ancient history of pilgrimage and healing, unlike the structural beauty of so many Cornish holy wells, unlike the legend – garlanded ambiguities of many a Robin Hood’s or Arthur’s Well, unlike the sylvan seduction of the half – remembered rural springs evoked so often in these pages by the redoubtable Edna Whelan.

It is highly ironic that, unlike almost the totality of these holy wells, which are readily perceived as “holy”, the Canvey Island well, which numbers would reject outright as undeserving of inclusion with the rest, by virtue of its contemporaneity has an unassailable and impeccable history – we know exactly, and in considerable detail, how it came to be “holy”. In the future, should it survive, at the remove of some two or three hundred years from the painful banality of its suburban setting and all the pathos and bathos attending its origins as described by Roy Kerridge, this history will likely have become a cult legend of remarkable power and telling beauty. The well’s holiness, now accepted as such only by the believing few (their belief buttressed and confirmed by actually using the well, as opposed to just observing it) will come to be accepted, defined by age. The tap as holy well might seem riseable and even offensive at first sight. But, in the first place, divested of its contemporary unsympathetic milieu, the Canvey Island well’s history – its legend to be – will with time be seen to be as powerful and haunting as any well’s origin tale. And secondly, not all wells sprang up miraculously like St. Winifred’s or were discovered prophetically, like Lourdes or San Damiano (or like, it must be stressed, Canvey Island, eventually) some, like Fontanelle, were already extant well structures whose holiness was suddenly revealed or determined in some way, others, like the Mt. Melleray grotto or the Betania waterfall, were natural water sources whose sacrality was similarly disclosed, with these in mind, only the subjective criterion of unsuitability might be objected to an acceptance of the tap-well. Ultimately, the Canvey Island tap and the eventually uncovered spring must be seen as variant expressions of the same holy well and judged, not by our history, but by its own, this new well is as holy as any other holy well – though only future history will tell us whether that holiness is to be a permanently perceived attribute of its waters. Further back in time than Lourdes or La Salette, in the vast majority of instances the history of any particular holy well, if it survives at all, has been transformed into a legend of origin; just as, with time, one imagines that, of Canvey Island, the history of the tap will be allowed to lapse, and legend will only recall Mary’s prophesy of the healing spring beneath the trees in the garden of Mary’s House, subsequently uncovered at the instructions of Mary’s chosen favourite, Mama Nora. This will not be deliberate, nor will it be dishonest; it will simply happen as a result of there being two ways of recording facts of the past, history and legend. More even than by supernatural intervention, wells acquire their holiness through use, through cult, even if perceived supernatural intervention has originally determined the locus, defined the time of origin, and suggested the practices of that cult. Belief plus cult determines apprehension of sacrality, but ultimately it is cult – ritual action through time – which determines an abiding sensation of holiness of place. Cult, whether of wells, or relics, or particular images, and even though normally moderated and manipulated by organised religious structures (of whichever sort) to its own ends and aims, is particularly the province of the folk-religious mentality, which ultimately determines the objects of cult and articulates the appropriate ritual behaviour. And the form of memory appropriate to the folk-religious world-view is not history but legend. In the future, with abundant presently-contemporary documentation at our disposal, we will be able to compare the two methods of recording the past (“urban myths” and the like, observed by contemporary folklorists, confirm that history is unlikely to obviate legend), to their mutual advantage. This is one potentially profitable way by which to approach the maze-like complex of well legends. It goes without saying that one cannot “explain” a medieval legend simply by invoking the example of a similar-seeming and well-documented modern event. There may be little or no real parallel in form, let alone in intent or content; and the technique has led wildly astray far too many folklorists, professional as well as lay, for such a simple comparative method to be of use consistently and regardless of context. Nonetheless, when modern times can be linked back to the times of legend by a continuous discernable thread of interconnecting information it is obviously worth pursuing.

Supernatural interventions are a commonplace of the religious experience, and Christians have documented theirs from the beginning. Numbers of such interventions are recorded in legend as intimately connected with the origins of particular holy wells. Often enough, the development of the cult centres which evolved in connection with these is known in some detail, and reliably recorded (by the controlling religious structure – in the West, the Church); thus, we may have an historical record of immemorial or continuous cult at a well whose origin legend associates it with visionary experience. (Thus, to use an example already cited, at Monte Berico the cult legend tells us that the original Marian message transmitted through Vincenza was ignored, but the a subsequent apparition on 2 August 1428 was heeded by the populace of Vicenza. Historical sources confirfn that the foundation stone of the shrine was laid on the twenty-fifth of the same month; and they confirm, too, that the plague coincidentally ceased around this time). The recording of Christian visionary experience has occurred continually virtually for two millennia, and continues unabated to the present day. Numbers of these modern and contemporary visions are in part concerned with the origins of new holy wells. In the specific cases of holy wells whose origins are associated with visions there is thus a possibility of a discernable continuous thread of interconnecting information, in which the two methods of recording memory, history and legend, do not conflict, but overlap at many points. And using this conjoint continuity of information it seems at least plausible to suggest that what is recorded in a medieval legend connecting the origins of a holy well with a vision of the Virgin Mary is cognate with what is recorded in the history of a contemporary holy well whose origins are completely open to scrutiny, and is associated with visionary experience. This structural continuity, along with the consonance of the Marian visionary experience over centuries, permits us to • use modern examples such as Canvey Island to reconstruct past events associated with certain holy wells with a certain degree of confidence. If the medieval origin legend of a holy well associates it with a vision of our Lady, then the likelihood is that it happened that way. This is certainly the most economical way of assessing available data, without doing violence to any of the facts. A great deal more could be said with regard to Nora Arthurs’ holy well, for instance with regard to particular ritual acts which perennially recur at sacred sites upon which the new-born Canvey Island cult might throw valuable light; but enough has been said here I think to demonstrate the signal importance for holy well studies of the Well of Our Lady of Canvey Island.

Notes on the text:

1. Nor of course are they restricted to Catholicism (for the Greek Orthodox vision-revealed well on Tinos, in 1823, see Source New Series. 4 (Summer 1995) 10), or to Christianity, but can be observed within the context of many other religious systems. 2. The idea of a permanent celestial “sign” miraculously placed within the normal spacio-temporal continuum in witness to the truth of visionary experience and divine admonition is not unique to Canvey Island. Heaven has promised such signs – of an as-yet indeterminate character – for the apparition sites of Medjugorje, in Yugoslavia, and Garabandal, in Spain. (As just noticed, Mrs. Arthurs received her calling as a visionary at Garabandal, and the overall sirnilarity between Canvey Island and San Damiano was noted earlier. Similarly, Roy Kerridge’s mention of the string rosary demonstrates Nora Arthurs’ familiarity with two further vision sequences: the “knotted cord of love”, as the Virgin called it, was the principle feature of the apparitions received by the American seer Genevieve, and was further promoted at the claimed apparition site at Nowra, in Australia. Such overlapping of themes from vision to vision and visionary to visionary is not uncommon in modern Marian apparitional experience. Believers see such correlations as mutually confirmative, whereas, while in most cases there seems to be no reason to doubt the probity and sincerity of the individual seer, it has to be admitted that knowledge of other vision activity is likely to be active on a subconscious level.)
2. Apocalyptic and eschatological concerns are common to large numbers of modern Marian apparitions.
3. Such norms have been in place for centuries, and until the general reform of Canon Law following the second Vatican Council, in the course of which Paul V1 abrogated the Canons prohibiting the publication or dissemination of all private revelations whatsoever without the express permission of the local bishop, the position would have been quite different, and Mrs. Arthurs would have inevitably found herself the object of official scrutiny, and possibly official condemnation. The Church has collected its canons, that is, the disciplinary enactments of local or universal councils, since very early times. Much has been made by some writers of the occasional appearance in canonical codes of the early medieval period of condemnations of wells and their cults. In fact, given that these canons are generally specific and particular in character, it seems certain that these are not to be seen in any sense as blanket condemnations of the well cult within Christianity (in any case, the existence and fame of the Well of St. Menas in Egypt, or the Tre Fontane in Rome, argues for this being inherently impossible), but as responses to particular local conditions – that is, that the condemned wells and their cults were simply unauthorised by local Church authorities, cults without benefit of clergy as it were, a situation which the authoritarian Church of the period was unlikely to tolerate. The sheer quantity of holy wells described in early hagiographical writings argues to the same purpose. The failure to appreciate this obvious explanation derives simply from a common, if understandable, failure to appreciate the exact nature of Canon Law itself.
4. At least I believed this to be true when I first drafted this article, but since then I have encountered the following. Rosa Lopez and her husband Armando began to see visions of the Virgin Mary at their home in Hollywood, in Florida, in 1992. Their home has become an unofficial shrine, and holy water is distributed to pilgrims: Obtained from a fountain fuelled by an ordinary garden hose in the yard, it is supposedly blessed, although its curative powers have yet to be documented (Gurvis 1996, 56).

Further References: Over the past 150 years a vast library of books and articles on Lourdes and La Salette has come into being; and while this is not yet the case with regard to any of the modern visions discussed, there is still a substantial body of -largely ephemeral – literature available for their study. Rather than attempt anything like a comprehensive bibliography (though one would certainly be useful for holy well studies), I here simply note those sources used in compiling these notes. Anyone curious enough to want to investigate the whole subject of modern Marian visions is recommended to start with the book of Pere Laurentin, who has made a lifetime’s study of the subject, from the point of view of a professional Catholic theologian. An alternative view, denying validity to the whole field of Marian visions, is espoused by Kevin McClure: (McClure 1983) Gillet, H.M. Famous Shrines of Our Lady. Vol. 1, rev. London: Samuel Walker Ltd, 1953. Gurvis, Sandra. Way Stations to Heaven: 50 Major Visionary Shrines in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1996. Laurentin, Rene. The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today 2nd ed. Dublin: Veritas, 1991. McClure Kevin. The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary. Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press, 1983. Osee, Johan. Call of the Virgin at San Damian. North Quincy (Mass.): Christopher Publishing House, 1977. Seglias, L.P. Our Lady Chose Her Own Shrine at Monte Berico.Catholic Fireside. Vol. 165, no. 3998 (14 October 1996). 1-2. Vose, John D. The Statues that Moved a Nation. Penzance: United Writers, 1986. Weigl, E.M, Reeves tr. N.C. Reeves & Muske, I. Mary -“Rosa Mystica”: Montichiari-Fontanelle. Cobham (Kent): Pax Christi Publishing Ltd., 1983.

 

The Sacred Springs and Holy Wells of the St David’s Peninsula (part two) Source Issue 5 (Spring 1998) by Julie Trier

Continuing to update the Source New Series articles so finally a complete set is available digitally here is Julie Trier’s second piece on St David’s peninsula copied verbatim from the origin.

Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord: who turned the hard rock into pools of water, and the flint-stone into a springing well. — Ps. 114: 7-8.

THE voice of Christianity was next heard in the land of Demetia (Dyfed), its advent spanning a band of time, possibly AD 400-600. The early presence of the new religion in Dyfed is evidenced by inscribed memorial stones (Thomas 1994, 101-2). Numbers of these can be seen near St Davids, at St Nicholas’ church, Tremarchog, ten miles to the north. One commemorates a lady with the British name Toncetaca, perhaps the wife of an Irish or Irish-named Christian (Thomas 1994, 92-3). Two other stones with single-name inscriptions, now also in the church but found at nearby Llandridian, are probably dedicated to sixth-century priests, Llandridian having possibly been an early Christian enclosure (llan) or churchyard (Thomas 1994, 106). It is interesting to note here that near Llandridian, at Ffynnondridian Farm, is “the consecrated well which characterizes and gives its name to the spot” (Fenton 1903, 15; Jones 1992, 5, 214; see also Part One of this article: Source 4, 18). Llandridian has also been linked with the “wife” (or perhaps more likely, a monastic companion) of St Illtud (Doble 1971, 131). A further inscribed stone, now in the Carmarthen Museum but found near Narberth (Arberth), the ancient royal seat of Dyfed, records an early Christian king, Voteporix (Guotepir). Despite the memorial acclaiming him “Protector” and according him the epitaph of a holy man, it was Guotepir, together with the other four rulers of contemporary Britain, who was angrily denounced by St Gildas, “spokesman for the ideals of the monastic movement”, in his Ruin of Britain (c. 540), for perpetuating “the evils of the age” (Thomas 1994, 82-3, 89; Thomas 1993, 26-30). However, Guotepir’s father Aircol was known as “the Generous” (Lawhir) because he granted estates to the Church. Aircol’s close friend Amon Ddu was the father of St Samson, at one time abbot of Caldey Island (Ynys Byr), where a small monastery had already been founded c. 500 (Thomas 1994, 89-90, 74). The main Christian impetus arrived from the east. Small communities, probably reflecting the first great monasteries of south-east Wales, were established in Dyfed. Royal or well-born children like Samson, David and the later “saints” were educated in such centres (Thomas 1994, 91, 102, 106). They would then set out as missionaries, initially seeking to influence the loc kings. “Adoption of the Faith in royal and noble circl is likely to have preceded any more general conversio of the people” (Thomas 1994, 101, 90). When Christianity had succeeded in percolatin down through society, “ordinary” people may hay found that the simple lifestyle of the “saints”, their clos affinity with the natural world, together with the incarnational message, offered a spirituality that the \ could readily assimilate; its symbolism echoed mu that was already familiar to the pagani, the “country dwelling” Celts. “The most important heritage which Celti Christianity received from the old religion was th profound sense of the immanence of God in the world” “Every well-spring, wood and stone took on a mystic significance” (O”Malley 1992, 8, 4). The Christian Celts in Wales continued to regar pure clear flowing water as a sacred source an symbol of life and wholeness, inG Tudur Aled’ words, coel iechyd and irder byd – an “omen o health” and “the sap of the world” (Thomas 1993 98). It is therefore likely that pre-Christian sacred spring were adapted for Christian rites in Wales befor ecclesiastical councils repeatedly and unsuccessfull proscribed “well-worship” (Jones 1992, 22-3). However, “in this western end of Dyfed conversion to Christianity [was] neither instantaneou nor automatic”; society seemed to be in a state o “spiritual flux” (Thomas 1994, 90). As I described Part One, the chieftain Boia (of the Irish Deisi tribe wh settled the area c. 400: Thomas 1994, chapters 5-7 challenged David when the saint claimed possession o Vallis Rosina, the marshy valley where the cathedr now stands. The importance of this site with its druidi religious focus of hazel grove and sacred stream (“the heart of the pagan camp”: Jones 1992, 25) may have attracted the missionaries. From other regions we hear of similar confrontations and contests of power staged to prove the strength of the Christian God. These often centred upon renowned springs whose healing properties would then be attributed to and the well called after the saint. Alternately, the origin of some springs was ascribed “to the miraculous intervention of a saint” (Bord 1985, 20, 22, 96-104; Wade-Evans 1923, 102). In St David’s case, both his birth and baptism were said to be heralded by the sudden springing of water.

 

The Celtic saints in Wales normally chose to establish their cells and churches near both a river and a spring. It seems certain that the Christian holy men and women who settled by these sacred springs…took water from them to baptise their first converts, symbolically Christianizing them in the process (Thomas 1993, 94). Very little is known about baptism in the early Celtic churches (only one Celtic baptismal rite – by sprinkling of water, rather than by immersion – has survived, in the c. 800 Irish Stowe Missal). However, it is not unlikely that water from the holy wells was used for baptism, as we find so many remains of chapels, baptisteries and indeed existing churches built close to or even over wells (Bord 1986, 94; Jones 1992, 23-8). Francis Jones states that “twelve chapels were erected” around the St Davids peninsula. Of those that can be identified or recalled through historical records or place-names, an estimated seven or eight have well-spring associations. The majority of the old well-chapels have disappeared. Some fell into decay and were abandoned and a large number were deliberately destroyed during the Reformation…It is possible that some of the structures we now recognise as well-chambers may have been in the first instance well-chapels (Jones 1992, 26, 27 n. 26). This may have been the case at St Non’s Well.

St Non’s Well (SM 751244) The story of St Non and St David as it is now known has come from translations and adaptations of the Vita Davidis, originally composed in Latin by Rhigyfarch c. 1081, some five hundred years after St David’s death. It is believed to be “not a simple historical account of the life of the Saint, but a document containing contemporary political-ecclesiatical propaganda attempting to uphold and further the interests of the old Celtic ‘Church’ against the ever-increasing power of Rome” The details contain many hagiological and miraculous incidents, following the set plan to which all the medieval saints’ Lives were written – indeed, it is considered a prototype of many of the later Lives (Bowen 1983, 16-17). “Non or Nonita was thought to be the daughter of a local chieftain, Cynir of Caer Gawch in Menevia” (Owen 1994, 288: Menevia is the Latin equivalent of Mynyw, the oldest Welsh name for the city of St Davids). It is told that whilst out walking, Non, a beautiful and modest virgin, was violated by Sanctus or Sant, king of Ceredigion (Cardiganshire), who happened to be passing through Dyfed. He was the great-grandson of Cunedda, a famous Celtic warrior. At the moment of David’s conception two large stones were said to have appeared at Non’s head and feet, as if to protect her and declare the significance of her offspring. During her pregnancy, whilst Non was praying in a church, the priest (St Gildas, according to the legend: Wade-Evans 1923, 4 – though Gildas and David were in reality exact contemporaries) was struck dumb, as a sign that her child would show great wisdom and eloquence. The story tells that the “magicians” or druids of a local tribal leader (possibly Non’s own father, or perhaps Triphun, a king linked to this region, once known as Pebidiog: Thomas 1994, 90) had foreseen the birth of a boy “whose power would extend over the whole country” (James 1967, 31; Rees 1992, 10). This tyrant was alarmed and plotted to kill Non and her unborn child. When the time came for her to give birth, she “went forth along the path where the place of child-bearing was” (Wade-Evans 1923, 6): could this indicate that she sought a midwife at the well, as I suggested in Part One? However, this line has also been translated as, “the mother sought the predicted place” (James 1967, 31-2). As if to protect her from danger, a ferocious thunderstorm then arose; but within it a serene light shone through the clouds enveloping St Non as she gave birth. Local lore attributes the appearance of the well at this place to the holy birth. During her labour the stone upon which Non supported herself was said to have received the imprints of her fingers. “On that spot a church has been built, in the foundations of which this stone ‘ lies concealed” (James 1967, 32). A ruined chapel now lies in the field adjoining the well enclosure. A large and apparently incomplete stone circle (dated to the Bronze Age) surrounds the chapel, possibly being drawn into the Christian context in the recurrence of the motif of “stones” in St Non’s story, where the circle seems to be represented by the two protective stones which appeared at the time of David’s conception. The foundations of the chapel are very early; the remains of the walls medieval.

The building was abandoned at the Reformation, and used as a dwelling, the surrounding land becoming a leek garden (Rees 1992, 14; Willis 1716, 52-3) – ironically appropriate that the national symbol of Wales should have come to be grown on the birthplace of her national saint! The chapel was demolished to its existing level in 1810, the stones being put to use in local walls (Jones 1992, 29). The upright stone that stands in the chapel’s south-west corner bears a simple incised ring-cross on a stem, similar to an Irish processional cross (Dark 1992, 19-20). In addition to the hagiological pattern, the motifs in the narrative of St David’s birth are part of a pre-Christian tradition in Wales and Ireland in which the birth of a great leader or hero is not only prophesied and threatens to usurp a presiding power, but is also recognised by signs from the natural world: in this instance the turbulence in the atmosphere (Rees & Rees 1961, 223). Equally, in the same tradition, interference with standing stones or anyone within their “sanctuary” is thought to “provoke elemental disturbance” (Rees 1992, 14). It could also be said that in the story of St Non, the well itself had a similarly protective role. This is somewhat reminiscent of the Mabinogion tale “The Lady of the Fountain”, in which a challenge to the well (by the spilling of water onto a sacred slab) produces a life-threatening storm which only those of heroic mettle could survive (Jones & Jones 1982, 143-5, 151-2). This has however been interpreted as a rain-making ritual; and indeed analogous rites were practiced until relatively recently in France (Jones 1992, 52, 117).

Legend speaks of St Non as a healer and peace-maker, as in the saying attributed to her by Rhys Goch: “There is no madness like contention” (O’Malley 1985, 22). There are churches and holy wells dedicated to her at both Altarnun in Cornwall and Dirinon in Brittany, indicating that she, like many of the early Celtic saints, travelled the western sea-ways to further her work of evangelisation. These well and church dedications in other Celtic lands are paralleled by dedications to her son. Indeed, Non and David together provide an example of the cult of two (or more) saints “constantly associated with each other and with chapels dedicated to them in close proximity” (Doble 1971, 145 n. 154). In Brittany, Non’s veneration was widespread. The medieval Breton Buhez Santez Non (Life of St Non), written in the form of a miracle play, tells that after David’s conception, Non left for Brittany to hide her shame. There her son was born and there she lived. Sh• died there on one 2 March, which is now her feastday. The sanctity of St Non’s healing well has alway drawn pilgrims aside on their journey to St Davids. Thy sick were conveyed there in a cart from Nine Wells (se Part One). There their cure was completed; and the were then carried the final three-quarters of a mile t the cathedral to be blessed by a priest (Jones 1992, 26 The water of the well was believed to be efficacious fo eye complaints and rheumatism. The Englis antiquarian Browne Willis reported: There is a fine Well…cover’d with a stone roo and inclos’d within a Wall, with Benches to si upon round the Well. Some old simple People g’ stil to visit this Saint at some particular Times especially upon St Nun’s Day – which they kee holy, and offer Pins, Pebbles etc. at this We (Willis 1716, 52-3). Another report expands upon the well’s properties: There was so much faith attached to this once celebrated well that it was said every wish mad there would be realised on making an offerin• and preserving silence. There is a tradition story of its virtues: it is said to have possessed the qualities of healing all complaints, but it wa added there must be great faith…A perso labouring under the heaviest affliction o lameness with difficulty attained the well upo his crutches; he immersed in this limpid strea and returned home with unspeakable joy, havin left his crutches behind him at the well (Manb 1891, 56-7). Richard Fenton, Pembrokeshire’s gentlema historian, born in St Davids in 1747, describes personal encounter with the well at an early age: The fame this consecrated spring has obtained incredible and still is resorted to for man’ complaints. In my infancy, as was the gener usage with respect to children at that time, I w. often dipped in it, and offerings, however triflin even of a farthing or a pin, were made after ea ablution, and the bottom of the well shone wi votive brass. The spring, like most others in th district, is of excellent quality, is reported to eb and flow, and to be of wondrous efficacy complaints of the eye (Fenton 1903, 63). The well-structure has been reduced in size sin Browne Willis’ day; the benches have disappeared a single stone ledge just below water-level is position like a seat on the back wall of the chamber. A referen• to the well made between 1739 and 1761 notes: “Here a celebrated spring over which is an arched roof, whi Mr Davies, late Chantor of St Davids, not long sin improved” (Jones 1992, 70). Yet curiously a Dr Geor Harries wrote that he “remembers that well without head or cover over it” in his school days during the 1770s, and he recalls: “The head was put on the well by Mr Williams of Trelethin who had a high idea of its waters as a medicine and used it frequently for that purpose” (Royal Commission 1925, 330). Around 1800 Fenton described the well as “arched over”; and its stone hood, which resembles numbers of other well structures in Pembrokeshire, was declared to be “barrel-vaulting of the normal type” by Jones and Freeman in 1856 (p. 233) – though their use of English poses something of a conundrum when they further state that “this covering has an odd effect from the top of the vault being seen outside without any sort of roof over it”! According to Fenton the well was cleaned out in 1810 when (not surprisingly) coins and silver pins were found. In 1951 it was cleared, restored and rededicated by its Roman Catholic owners, and a pilgrimage made to it (Jones 1992, 210). Today the water level stands on average at about two feet. The bed is always strewn with “votive brass” and silver coins, pebbles and shells, whilst flowers occasionally float on the surface. A small niche just above the water in the inner lime-washed wall, probably intended for offerings, currently contains a candle. The well is situated within a walled and paved enclosure through which a stream from a higher spring runs past a statue of Our Lady to join with the well’s overflow. This then passes through the wall, and flows through the chapel field to eventually cascade down the cliff into the sea below. Overgrown masonry close to the well but just inside the chapel field may be the “little house lately built” in the mid-eighteenth century (Jones 1992, 70). Perhaps Fenton refers to this when he states: At the upper end of the field leading to Nun’s chapel there appears to be the mined site of a house, probably inhabited by the person deputed to take care of the spring, most likely a lucrative employ in more superstitious times, when the spring was much frequented (Fenton 1903, 64). A path leading through the well-enclosure is regularly used by walkers making a short detour from the coastal path. Hydrangea and fuschia bushes line the way to St Non’s Retreat House, once a Passionist monastery, beside which stands the chapel of Our Lady and St Non. Built in 1934, its design is based upon the medieval “reception” chapels, many of which topped the cliffs at suitable landing places. Here the multitude of pilgrims, journeying at the mercy of winds and currents, would have been provided with a refuge in which to offer a prayer of thanks for a safe passage, or, on an outward journey, for protection on the waves. The holy wells adjoining several of these chapels would have been sources of refreshment and encouragement to the pilgrims as they f011owed the pathways that converged upon the city of Tyddewi and the hallowed shrine of Dewi Sant.

To be continued

References

Bord, Janet & Colin. 1985. Sacred Waters. Granada. Bowen, E.G. 1983. Dewi Sant, Saint David. University of Wales Press (Cardiff). Dark, K.R. 1992. The Inscribed Stones of Dyfed. Gomer (Llandysul). Doble, G.H. 1971. Lives of the Welsh Saints. University of Wales Press (Cardiff). Fenton, R. 1903. Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire. Davies & Co. James, J.W. 1981. Rhigyfarch’s Life of St David. University of Wales Press (Cardiff). Jones, Francis. 1992 (1954). The Holy Wells of Wales. University of Wales Press (Cardiff). Jones, Gwyn, & Jones, Thomas. 1982. The Mabinogion. Dragon’s Dream (Netherlands). Jones, W.B. & Freeman, E.A. 1856. The History and Antiquities of St Davids. Manby, G.W. 1801. History and Antiquities of the Parish of St Davids. O’Malley, Brian Brendan. 1985. A Pilgrim’s Manual. Paulinus Press. O’Malley, Brendan. 1989. A Welsh Pilgrim’s Manual. Gomer (Llandysul). O’Malley, Brendan. 1992. Celtic Spirituality – St Davids Papers. Church in Wales Publications (Penarth). Owen, George. 1994. The Description of Pembrokeshire. Gomer (Llandysul). Rees, Alwyn, & Rees, Brinley. 1961. Celtic Heritage. Thames & Hudson. Rees, Nona. 1992. St David of Dewisland. Gomer (Llandysul). Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire: Pembrokeshire. 1925. H.M.S.O. Thomas, Charles. 1994. And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? University of Wales Press (Cardiff). Thomas, Patrick..1993. Candle in the Darkness. Gomer (Llandysul). Wade-Evans, A.W. 1923. Life of St David. S.P.C.K. Willis, Browne. 1716. The Survey of the Cathedral Church of St Davids.

NOTE part three was never published Source New Series ended with this publication!

Severed Heads and Sacred Waters – by Anne Ross (illus. R.W. Feachem) Source Issue 5 Spring 1998 part one

In Source New Series the readers were honoured by an academic giant contributing to the discussion of the topic of heads and holy wells. Unavailable for two decades as it was never digitised, the blog now makes this available for the first time in two instalments as the original is a bit too length for a blog post!

JUST a mile down the road from where I live in Wales is a Welsh place-name, Rhydypennau, “Ford of the Heads”. According to local tradition, a battle was fought here against the Romans in the first century, and the heads of those slain were thrown into the ford by the Britons. The ford is situated on the Nant Ceiro, “Stag Stream”, which runs through our grounds. The ford is situated at the meeting of three parishes Tirymynach, “Monks’ Land”, for the terrain belonge to Strata Florida abbey; Ceulanamaesmawr; and Geneu’r Glyn. Nant Ceiro is a boundary stream.

Boundaries and thresholds were of great significance in early Celtic life and religion. For example, one of the important duties of the Druids would seem to have been the fixing and maintaining of boundaries. Caesar says as much in his De Bello Gallico (“Gallic Wars”):

For they (the Druids) have the right to decide nearly all public and private disputes…and disputes concerning legacies and boundaries (Tierney 1960, 271, 13).

Fords, in early Celtic tradition both continental and insular, were places of single combat and of sinister portents. The motif of The Washer at The Ford is well known in Celtic lore. In Welsh tradition, for example, Urien Rheged goes to Rhyd y Gyfartha, “the Ford of Barking”, in Denbighshire, to find out why hounds always barked there. No one else had been bold enough to investigate. Reaching the edge of the ford, Urien can see nothing but a woman washing. The hounds stop their barking, and Urien seizes the washer-woman and has intercourse with her. She tells him to return at the end of a year, when he will receive his son. When he goes back at the appointed time the woman presents him with a son and a daughter, namely, Owein son of Urien and Morfudd daughter of Urien (Bromwich 1961, 459). There are Irish examples of this motif, while the name of the River Clyde in Scotland – Clota, the name of a goddess meaning “the washer” – mentioned by Tacit-us, suggests an early date for the motif.

Fords were places of single combat, rivers clearly forming boundaries between tribal terrains, and thus they acted as neutral territory. In medieval Irish texts single combat between heroes regularly took place at fords. The boy-hero Cu Chulainn, in the epic tale Tain Bo Cuailnge, who protects Ulster from Connacht in the first century B.C. according to tradition, comes to a ford. There he proceeds to cut down the forked branch of a tree with a single blow of his sword. He then drives it into the middle of the stream so that no chariot can pass over the stream. While he is engaged in this work two warriors from the enemy and their two charioteers approach the boy. Single-handed, he cuts off their four heads and impales them on the four prongs of the forked branch. He then writes an inscription in Ogam down the side of the great branch.

The ensuing remarks of the hero, Fergus, make it clear that this is indeed a boundary stream. When someone asks him who could have performed this amazing deed he replies: “The man who could have performed this deed is Cu Chulainn…it is he who would have come to the boundary (criche) accompanied only by his charioteer” (O’Rahilly, 1976, I, 341 ff.). This warlike episode would have applied equally to the Gauls, as attested by the classical commentators. The heads were left at the ford.

This epic tale of the deeds of Cu Chulainn and of how he left the decapitated heads of his enemies at the ford which marked a boundary would seem to cast some light upon the discoveries of human skulls in watery places where they had been deposited in antiquity. I shall return to this theme of severed heads and sacred waters in due course, but first I want to look at some prime pieces of evidence for the cult of the human head itself in antiquity.

We have very good grounds for believing that the severed head was regarded by the Celts as a sacred the classical symbol: writers testify to as much. I have discussed this topic in some detail in my earlier publications (see bibliography); for the present purpose it will serve to look at some new or comparatively new discoveries in Europe and in the British Isles.

An important group of sanctuaries is situated in Celto-Ligurian territory in south-east France in the vicinity of the Rhone delta, and dating to the pre-Roman period. All are within easy reach of Massalia, the Greek trading post established circa 600 B.C., which opened up the Celtic world of the hinterland by means of trading up and down the Rhone. The architecture of the Celto-Ligurian temples is sophisticated, and the cultural influence of Greece is evident. Thus it is remarkable to find that here, where access to classical civilisation was easy, the cult of the human head flourished. One is reminded of the presence of the archaic-looking heads which abound in early Christian churches and Norman cathedrals, the baleful albeit protective gaze of which strongly belies the benign quality of the Christian faith. Some of the best-known of these edifices are at Roquepertuse, situated some twenty miles inland from Massalia. The temple was cut out of limestone, and a great janus-head, painted in red and black, was surmounted by a goose-like raptor of which only the beak has survived.

This is echoed by the large sculpted goose which surmounted the lintel supported by pillars in which head, painted in red and black, was surmounted by a goose-like raptor of which only the beak has survived. This is echoed by the large sculpted goose which surmounted the lintel supported by pillars in which were cut niches for heads or skulls. Forensic analysis has shown that the heads had all belonged to young men in the prime of life (Piggott 1968, 56).

Another temple, associated with a spring and a cave- sacred places for the Celts – was situated at Glanum, near Saint-Remy-en-Provence. Here a lintel with skull- niches was found. This temple, re-used in the second century B.C., is likely to have had an early origin, as may well have been the case with some or all of the other temples. Here too, in the first century B.C. Celtic deities such as Sucellos and the horse-goddess Epona were venerated; the association between horses and sacred waters is well-attested for the Celtic world. The god Glanis was the god of the shrine, “the pure or clean one”. Glan means pure, holy, clean in both Welsh and Irish. (Salviot 1979).

At Mouries, Bouches-du-Rhone, remains of an earlier stone-built sanctuary had been incorporated into Gallo-Greek structures of the fourth century B.C. Here pillars were decorated by figures of horses and riders, and the head cult is likely to have flourished here too.

Another sanctuary at which an earlier temple had been incorporated into a fourth-century edifice is at Saint-Blaise. Here the jamb of a doorway had niches for severed heads or skulls cut into it. Perhaps the most on the northern outskirts of Aix-en-Provence. Here the threshold incorporated a re-used pillar on which are carved in outline twelve mouthless human heads, all but one of which are upright, the other inverted. Here also is the carving on a stone slab of a schematic human head flanked by niches for the display of the real thing. Some fifteen skulls of adult males were recovered here; some of them still retained the large iron nails by which they must have been fixed or suspended from some wooden structure. There was also a series of stone sculptures of squatting warriors, some holding a severed head in one hand and a lance or spear in the other. The temple must have existed as a sacred place well before its destruction in the year 123 B.C.

Hillforts, too, boasted their own quota of skull- trophies, set up, no doubt, as guardians, as in later times. A skull was set meaningfully in the wall of L’lmpernal, the oppidum of the Cadurci, situated near Cahors, Lot. At Bredon hillfort, Gloucestershire, skulls had decorated the lintel of the gateway. When this was set on fire during an attack early in the first century A.D. the heads came crashing down. The head cult is illustrated, too, by a sculpture of a sinister nature from Noves, situated – significantly perhaps – close to the River Durance, the Druentia, a tempting name. The sculpture is of a wolf-like creature of fierce countenance, with a human limb hanging from its lower jaw and an object now broken at either end in its mouth; it is powerfully ithyphallic. Known locally as “le Tarasque de Noves”, the sculpture represents a monster which, according to medieval legend, used to emerge from the river and devour people – leaving, it would seem, their doleful heads intact. Two lugubrious male heads are firmly held down, one by each fearsome talon. The monster may well date from the third century B.C. The story is remembered and marked by an annual fete in July known as the fete du tarasque. Paper replicas of the monster are carried through the streets of Avignon and, from what I was able to gather from an informant who had witnessed the fete, the actual sculpture was sometimes displayed. The legend would serve to link the tradition with the river, and the whole may be based on the discovery of actual skulls in the water (see below). (Megaw and Megaw 1986, 170).

The classical writers amplify the evidence of archaeology in their descriptions of the custom of head-hunting by the early Celts. There can be little doubt that the taking of heads was an essential way of life and an integral part of Celtic religious belief and practice up to the Roman conquests, first of Gaul and then of Britain. Thereafter the taking of heads was banned, as were human sacrifices; but later literary and archaeological evidence demonstrates how deeply- rooted in the tradition this practice must have been. On the Arc d’Orange, Vaucluse, one of a series of triumphal arches set up by the Romans to mark their conquests of the troublesome Celts, the latter are portrayed with human heads hanging from their saddles – just as Diodorus Siculus describes them. Scalps also are depicted.

Heads were preserved with herbs and oils, and kept in chests, by the Gaulish nobles who would not part with them for any sum of money. Their apotropaic and protective powers were clearly appreciated from a very early date: I shall return to this point later. That the skull was used as a drinking cup in solemn circumstances, e.g. in temple rites, is likewise made clear by the classics. Livy, for example (born 59 B.C.), describes how the consul Postumius was lost in Gaul together with his army in a huge forest called Litana, “The Broad One” (early Irish lethan, modern Gaelic leathan). The Gauls ambushed and surrounded Postumius’ two legions and virtually destroyed them. The consul died fighting, spoils were taken from his body and, predictably, his head was severed, and it and the booty were taken by the Boii, the Celtic tribe in question, to their “holiest temple”. “Then, after they removed the flesh from the head (excarnation of skulls and of bodies generally is well attested in archaeological work and must have been widely practised) they adorned the skull with gold according to their custom. They used it as a sacred vessel to give libations on holy days, and their priests and the custodians of their temple used it as a goblet” (Koch & Carey 1994, 31). The libations were presumably sacred water from the springs which served the temples; blood, perhaps, from sacrificial victims; and on occasion the mead or ale which were the favoured drinks of the Celts, although wine-drinking early became popular when supplies became available.

Many rites connected with heads are attested from sacred sites in Gaul and the British Isles in the pre- Roman period. One or two of these can be mentioned in this context. The sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde, a late Iron-Age Gaulish sanctuary situated in Belgic territory, is one of an important series of temples in this region of northern Gaul. The importance of the entrance – the ritual significance of the entrance to such structures is well attested – was here stressed by the erection of a huge portico above the gate. This seems to have been closely similar to the portico at the Rhone temple at Roquepertuse. Here too, at Gournay, human skulls were displayed (Brunaux 1988, 27). The evidence lies in the cervical vertebrae and the incisors that were rcovered; these had become detached and had fallen as the heads rotted. A skull found in the ditch probably originally came from the portico. On either side of the entrance were two huge piles of the skulls of cattle and of weapons (cf. Thames and otherdeposits, infra). The animal heads would likewise have exerted some apotropaic power. Some type of funerary excarnation clearly took place at Gournay, as in Ireland (infra); for example, a skull was cut into the shape of a mask; one thinks of the tin mask found in a drain in the waters of the springs of Sulis at Bath (Aquae Sulis), perhaps intended to fit over an actual skull, or the face of a priest, or that of an idol. Many heads were placed in significant positions in shrines and temples, pits, shafts and wells down the Celtic ages, testifying to the deeply rooted nature of this most Celtic of cults. A few of these will be noted here.

At Odell, Buckinghamshire, the decapitated head of a woman had been placed behind the wicker lining of a Romano-British well, perhaps to protect the waters and ensure a good supply.

At the water-shrine of Springhead, which stands at the head of the Ebbsfleet Valley in northwest Kent, and one and a half miles from the River Thames, traces ofhead-ritual at two periods are evident. The temple ison the site of Vagniacis, which is from a British word meaning a marshy or boggy place – a good description of the site. Four babies were found to have been buried- two on the west side of an early floor and two on the east side of a later floor. This happened in the original room of the Antonine period, and again some ten to fifteen years later in a new floor. In the first floor the baby on the southwest corner had been decapitated: in the later construction the infant in the northeast corner had been decapitated. The excavators supposed that one pair had been offered as a foundation sacrifice, and the second pair at a ceremony of rededication. As is well attested from the dramatic Gournay shrine, constant rebuilding, and thus rededication, must have been a regular feature of Celtic sanctuaries. What happened to the heads is not recorded; excavation did not recover them. It is likely that they were placed in the sacred waters of this impressive Springhead shrine which must have been accorded worship some time before the second century, according to the evidence revealed by excavation.

This is reminiscent of the remarkable Celtic sanctuary at Libernice, near Kolin in Slovakia which dates to the third century B.C. (see Rybova and Soudsky 1962). Consisting of an elongated ditched enclosure, it revealed many traces of quite dramatic cult activity. These included the burial of a woman, perhaps the priestess of the shrine; a shrine at the southeast end, half sunk into the ground and without a roof; a stone block, perhaps an altar: animal and human bones suggested sacrifices; and, most interesting, a human skull lay on the floor — used, perhaps, for libations. Three infants and several animals had been buried in the sanctuary. Severed heads were much associated with waters, and sometimes it seems that a stone idol in the form of a human head could be used. A remarkable head-idol was dug up from a depth of twelve feet beside the Chapel well at Enniskillen in Ireland (cf. Hickey 1976, 28, No. 6). The eyes are represented by deep holes, and the menacing slit mouth is made more alarming by the indication of teeth. The neck is long and pole-like. The idol is thought to date from the pre-Christian period. We have seen that the symbol of the human head and the deep regard accorded to it by the Celts indubitably goes back well into the Iron Age and probably before that period in our prehistory. The connection with sacred waters is likely to have an equally long history. Another aspect of the cult of heads and sacred waters will be considered now, in view of new work that has been done in recent years on skulls found in the River Thames and other British rivers. It is likely that similar results will be forthcoming from the Continent once the significance of these deposits becomes known.

Part two to follow