An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.
St. Keyne introduced the rather remarkable belief that the first of a newly married couple to drink of the water of her well, whether husband or wife, should in future rule the home. We supposed that the happy pair would have a race to the well, and the one who arrived there first would ever afterwards play the first fiddle, if that instrument was in use in the time of St. Keyne. But a story was related of how on one occasion the better-half triumphed. No sooner had the knot been tied than the husband ran off as fast as he could to drink of the water at St. Keyne's Well, leaving his wife in the church. When he got back he found the lady had been before him, for she had brought a bottle of the water from the well with her to church, and while the man was running to the well she had been quietly seated drinking the water in the church porch!
ST. KEYNE'S WELL.
The story was told by the victim to a stranger, and the incident was recorded by Southey in his poem "The Well of St. Keyne":
"You drank of the Well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the countryman said: