by Anne Ross
32 Higgon’s Well, Hwlffordd (Haverfordwest), Pembrokeshire. After S. Rees 1992, p.197
I visited Caldey a few days ago (June 2001) and my friend, Brother Gildas, took me to the spot where Pyro’s well was situated, close to a lake full of leaping carp and bright with flowers. The past feels very much in the present here on this timeless island with its long history of Christian sanctity.
33 A wooden love spoon made in the traditional way by Huw Hughes of Felin Gyffin. The art of under-cutting is demonstrated by the five links from which the spoon may be suspended, and the chamber in the body of the spoon in which two spheres roll freely — all made by cutting them free from the surrounding wood
St Dwynwen’s well
St Dwynwen, who lived in the fifth century, was the daughter of Brychan who was both saint and king. She was therefore of high birth. She is looked upon in Wales as the patron saint of lovers (33) and her feast day occurs on 25 January. She is closely connected with Môn (Anglesey), and there are places and wells which still bear her name. A spring called Ffynnon Dwynwen is situated close to the church of Llanddwyn. People who have been crossed in love or wish to arouse an amorous response in the heart of the one they love resort to this well and make a wish there in the belief that their desire will be fulfilled. Some years ago when I was staying with a friend near Bethesda I went to Anglesey on a warm summer’s day with the purpose, amongst other things, of visiting St Dwynwen’s Well. It was a scene of incredible beauty; the great mountains reaching down towards the sea; and the smell of summer flowers filled the air as we walked upon the lush green grass towards the well. The whole island had a timeless quality and one could sense the sanctity of the site and almost feel the passionate pleadings of those who longed to have their love returned. The great medieval poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym, whose birthplace and much of whose life occurred very close to where I live, with only a hill separating us from his family home, made a pilgrimage to this sweet spring and a wish that his — current — beloved would respond to his ardour.
St Winifred’s well
St Winifred was also known as Gwenffrewi, Gwenfrewy and Winefred (seventh century). Her Life (Buchedd) is not by any means truly historical but has attracted to itself numerous fragments or elements of folklore. It is often difficult to separate the two. She was of high birth; her father (Tyfid) belonged to Englefield (Tegeingl), in Flintshire, and her mother Gwenlo was the daughter of Insi, King of Powys. St Beuno, who is connected with Clynnog Fawr, Caernarfonshire, and whose cult seems to have been in North Wales as well (e.g. in Anglesey), was seemingly her uncle. She is supposed to have been raped and killed by one Caradog, a prince. She had been decapitated but her uncle, Beuno, immediately replaced her head on her body and she was restored to life. There were seemingly few physical traces of her violent ‘death’, save for a thin red line round her neck where the head had been struck off.
Her well is situated in beautiful wooded country below the town of Treffynon, known today as Holywell. The spring rushes out of a rock and is channelled into a built well with many fine architectural features. At some stage Winifred went on a pilgrimage to Rome and there is a tradition that she performed numerous miracles during her lifetime. She was so popular that she is commemorated in the works of several Welsh poets and Holywell after her death became a place renowned for pilgrimages, especially frequented by Roman Catholics. The popularity of Holywell has continued right down to the present time. It is known as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales.
St Tecla’s Well
The village of Llandegla, Clwyd is renowned for the presence of a potent well, known as St Tecla’s Well and widely famed for its powers of healing epilepsy. We do not know a great deal about St Tecla but she is described by Pennant (Vol. I, 1784, p.405) as being both virgin and martyr. She was converted to Christianity by St Paul and thereafter was put to death by Nero. Whether this is the same saint or not is in question. However that may be, she certainly achieved a wide popularity on account of the powers of her well in curing the widespread disease of epilepsy, known in Gaelic as Tinneas tuiteam, ‘the falling disease’, which was also very common in the Scottish Highlands. The Welsh terms for epilepsy are haint digwydd or gewynglwyf. Situated in beautiful wooded countryside is the church of St Tecla; about 200 yards from this is the holy well, the water of which rises from a place called Gwern Degla. The sacred water is under the protection of the saint, and people still believe in its powers to heal the distressing ailment.
Visiting the well after a service in the nearby church a few years ago, I was much impressed by the sense of peace and holiness which seemed still to prevail. In the past a patient seeking the cure must immerse his limbs in the water and wash them, then, in Pennant’s time, make an offering into it of four pence, next walking round it three times while repeating the Lord’s Prayer the same number of times. As is common for wells with the power to cure epilepsy in Scotland and Wales, the healing process begins only after sunset and must be completed before dawn. Pennant comments that this is in order to inspire the votaries with greater awe. I would not put quite the same interpretation on this as it is obviously a quieter time in which to perform rites which were not revealed to anyone other than the supplicant. The darkness would also add a sense of awe to the holy proceedings. During such healings the names of the Trinity were invariably invoked.
Offerings were still made well into the twentieth century and here they consisted of the sacrifice, by some means or another, of a cock; sometimes it was specified that the poor bird must be black. If the patient was male this bird would be appropriate, but if female then a hen would suffer the ultimate fate. The rite was carried out as follows: the bird was carried in a basket round the well (usually this circumambulation took place three times). Then it was carried into the churchyard and taken three times round the church. In Pennant’s record (p.406, op. cit.) a somewhat strange performance then followed. The sick person would go into the church and get under the communion table. He would then lie down with the bible under his head. Next he would be covered with the altar carpet or cloth, and remain there until daybreak. At that time he would leave the church, presumably cured, first making an offering of six pence, and the poor cock was abandoned inside the church. Should the creature die, the cure was supposed to have been successful and the disease would be transferred to the devoted (i.e. offered, given up) victim. We are not told what the ultimate fate of the bird was, but it is not difficult to guess. Today the well is no longer used for this purpose.
Six stone heads were found in the vicinity of the well (34), and with our knowledge of the association of heads, stone or bone and healing waters one may hazard a guess that originally these played some part in the well cult. Be that as it may, they belonged to a local family at the time I visited Llandegla and were kept in front of the old stone house. The daughter of the house, a pleasant and helpful woman, told me that they were once used to secure the ropes and sheeting that served to cover the haystacks. It was shortly after May Day that I visited the house and the stones had just been painted black, which gave me quite a shock. On asking why this had been done I was told that because it was such an important time of year, when everything was being painted and cleaned for the approaching summer, it seemed proper to give the heads a coat of paint too, to ‘smarten them up’. They used to stand in the porch of Rhos Ddigra, the old farmhouse. They have ears, but the backs of the heads are not worked. They are about 11in high.
34a Six stone heads from Llandegla, Clwyd
34b Compare these stone heads from the Gaulish Temple de la Forêt d’Halatte, Oise, France
Sometimes water was drunk out of human skulls. This custom may have arisen because of the belief that to drink out of a human skull, especially water from a sacred spring, would transfer its powers to the one who drank. The presence of the skull in such venerated water would increase the power, whatever it might be — fertility, healing, apotropaic qualities and the ability to ward off disease. The Celtic countries in gen
eral are well served by such venerated waters. Named wells occur widely throughout the Celtic world and have various beliefs and powers accredited to them. In Gaelic several wells are known as tobar a’chinn, ‘the well of the head’ or even with larger expanses of water the loch or lake of the head or heads. This is all in accordance with ancient Celtic belief that the severed head continued to live independently of the body. Wells of beheaded virgins occur in the lives of the saints. The basic story is as follows: the virgin flees from her would-be seducer; he captures her and decapitates her; a well springs up where the head or its blood fell. Sometimes the saint manages to restore the girl to life and she is able to live for many years afterwards. St Lludd was decapitated on Slwch Hill, Brecknockshire and ‘her head, on rolling down the hill, caused a clear spring of water to issue out of the rock where it came to rest’. There was one well, Ffynnon Llandyfaen, in Carmarthenshire, where water was drunk out of a human skull, but by 1815 the reputation of the skull was almost lost. However the custom continued at a Pembrokeshire well and persisted until recent times.
St Teilo’s Well, Ffynnon Deilo, which I heard called Ffynnon yr Ychen (‘The Well of the Oxen’) — this being its more common name locally — was famous for its waters which used to be drunk from St Teilo’s skull (35) (penglog Teilo). A strong spring rises within a short distance of the ruined church of Llandilo-Isaf, near Maenchlochog, Pembrokeshire. It has a wide reputation as a healing well, and people come from long distances, just as they did to the epilepsy well at Torridon, West Highlands. The skull had to be dipped in the well, filled with water, and passed to the hereditary guardian. St Teilo died in AD 566. When dying, Teilo told his servant to take his skull from Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, to Llandilo-Isaf, saying that by doing this he would be glorifying God and mankind would benefit. Jones also contributes the following information — a youth from Glamorgan who was ill with tuberculosis (about 1840) drank straight from the well in his eagerness to be healed, and went away without being cured. His father then took him back to the well and when he observed the correct ritual, and drank the water from the skull, the boy was completely restored to health. When I visited the well some years ago, the skull was kept in the farmhouse and still used for healing purposes.
The hereditary guardians, the Melchiors, came to Llandilo-Isaf through marriage in the second half of the seventeenth century. Trefor Owen states of the skull ‘I regret to have to say that this relic has now disappeared’. It was actually taken to America, perhaps by someone claiming to be an ancestor, but it has now returned to Wales. Another spring, ffynnon Fwy (‘the Well of Life’), Caernarfon, was subjected to abuse from a man who threw dead animals into it, resulting in the ‘spirit’ of the well taking offence. The water thereafter flowed up only in alternate years. They were fortunate it did not disappear altogether, as it did in the Scottish Highlands when a well or spring was wrongfully treated or desecrated in such a way. Certain other wells, when stones (usually of quartz) were thrown into them, would react by causing a powerful storm. Some of these activities may have been deliberately offensive; in other cases it was the belief that the casting of white quartz stones (fairy fire-stones, as they were called in Scotland) into the well would raise a storm and so bring rain.
The springs at Bath, Aquae Sulis, in Somerset were long famous for their healing qualities, which operated when the sacred water was drunk. It is full of unpleasant-tasting minerals, as I found to my cost when I drank a glass. A fascinating feature of these Romano-British springs, which must have been venerated long before Roman times under the aegis of their Celtic goddess Sulis, was the number of curse-tablets (defixiones) which were found at Aquae Sulis. None of these would seem to have been discovered in Wales, although some wells were used for malevolent purposes. There was no consistency in belief; for example ffynnon y Cythraul, ‘Devil’s well’, had the reputation of being a normal well for healing. On the other hand, ffynnon Pechod (Anglesey) and ffynnon Angau (Carmarthenshire) may have had some sinister background. Nevertheless ffynnon y Pasg (‘the Easter spring’), Denbighshire, would seem to have been solely associated with Christianity.
35a Saint Teilo’s skull, Llandilo-isaf, Pembrokeshire. See A. Ross 1999, pl.4
People who wished to curse their enemies were in the habit of throwing bent pins into the well. In my own tradition a pin, bent or straight, was a fertility symbol and pins were thrown into the waters in order to promote fertility. In Anglesey, ffynnon Estyn had a strange reputation. Formerly the water used to be carried to the baptismal font. In recent times the local people have been unwilling to drink from it, saying that it was once a cursing well. Ceiniogau corff was the name given to the pennies that had been employed to close the eyes of a dead person, and these would be thrown as offerings into the well as the water was drunk. It was believed that to drink the water from ffynnon Fach in Montgomery would be fatal, but that it was safe to bathe in it.
35b Location of the ruined church of Llandilo-Isaf
One well, ffynnon Elian, was an outstandingly evil well. It has been suggested that it was pre-Christian in origin. It began as a healing well and then, in the second part of the eighteenth century, it gained a reputation for the ability to punish people, and, more seriously, to kill them. There was a major attempt on the part of the authorities to try to suppress the use of the well for nefarious purposes, but it was fruitless. It cost one shilling to curse somebody, and ten shillings to remove the curse (dad-offrum). To take the curse off, the guardian had to empty the well and hand to the supplicant the slate bearing his name. The supplicant then returned home and had to read on three successive Fridays large portions of the Book of Job and the Psalms. The curse would then be removed. This well, about which so many legends accrued, was finally destroyed.
Charms for curing could also be used for healing at sacred or holy wells. For example, if one suffered from warts and wished to be free of them, there is a specific charm. It consisted of dropping a pin into a holy well and the result would be that the warts drop off or otherwise disappear. Should anyone, however, decide to remove the pin out of the well, the warts would immediately begin to grow again.
36 Llanbadarn Fawr, Ceredigion. The weather-worn cross shaft now within the church. Circa tenth century
Llanbadarn Fawr (The Church of St Padarn the Great) (36)
The lives of the Welsh saints — as of those of Ireland — are a major source for folklore of the church, its saints and relics. They are too numerous to be dealt with in any detail in this book, but cannot altogether be omitted. As a member of St Padarn’s Church at Llanbadarn Fawr, Ceredigion, it is understandable that I should wish to make some reference to our revered and colourful saint, his supposed origins and his legend.
Paternus or Padarn was seemingly born in Brittany. This is queried in for example The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales [OCLW]. Bartram, however, in his Welsh Classical Dictionary claims that he was born in Llydaw, i.e. Brittany.
A certain knight chanced to be passing in the vicinity of Llanbadarn in the early twelfth century on a feast day:
When the clergy and the parishioners were awaiting the coming of their abbott, so that Mass could be celebrated, this knight was there to witness the abbott’s arrival, in the midst of a crowd of other people. What he actually saw was a band of about 20 young men, all armed and equipped according to the local custom. He asked which was the abbott. They pointed out to him a man with a long spear in his hand, who was walking in front of the others. The knight gazed at him with amazement. ‘Has the abbott no other vestments?’ he asked. ‘Has he no other staff to use instead of the spear which he is carrying?’ ‘No’, they said. ‘Upon my soul!’ answered the knight. ‘What I have seen today really is a novelty! I have never heard of anything so odd!’ Without more ado he gave up travelling, put an end to his studies, and went straight back home.
This is followed by some strong imprecations which perhaps it is best not to repeat.
Cors Fochno (Borth Bog, Ceredigion)<
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This has long had a superstitious influence over those who traverse or live in proximity to it. It is, like Lindow Moss (vide Ross, Druids), a raised bog where peat-cutters used to report supernatural happenings and feelings. A pool on the edge of the bog is called Pwll Du (the Black Pool), believed to be bottomless and avoided by the local populace (it is now fenced in). A sinister hag was alleged to haunt the bog and should any peat-cutters steal her peat she would visit their homes at night and breathe sickness and disease over the family. Corpse candles were also frequently seen moving over the bog and it is generally regarded as a place to be avoided by the people.
Magical stones
An impressive stone near Kenfig, West Glamorgan, is known as Samson’s Stone. According to local tradition, St Samson of Dôl, second Abbott of Caldey Island, threw this great monolith from Margam Mountain to its present site. It has at least one interesting legend associated with it although, doubtless, there are many other tales. The legend has it that before cock-crow on every Christmas morning it moves of its own volition and goes down to the nearby river Sker in order to drink. This is by no means a unique legend where standing stones are concerned, but it may be of interest to note that there is a very close parallel in Dorset near to the Iron Age hillfort of Pilsden Pen above Bettiscombe Manor where there is not only a screaming skull but a very large stone near the summit of the hill; this is alleged, every Christmas morning, to roll down to the pond beside the manor to drink. Numerous stones are widely believed to have powers of individual life and movement, and many have unusual legends attached to them.