FOLK-LORE OF FOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND CAVES.
HOLY WELLS.
There is much Folk-Lore in connection with wells, in Wales, and an interesting volume might be written on the subject. Holy Wells were once much frequented by devotees in search of health, omens, or prognostications of coming events; and even at the present day some of them are made use of as wishing wells by young men and young women, who throw a bent or a crooked pin into the well, and wishing at the same time. In the old times when “Gwyliau Mabsant,” or Saints’ Fetes, were in vogue in Wales, wells were sometimes the scenes of great merriment, both before and even after the Reformation. According to an old writer they were much frequented in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The habit of tying rags to the branches of a tree close to the well was well-known once in several places. This was done by people who were suffering from maladies. The rag was first dipped in the water, and the afflicted part of the body bathed with it. Afterwards before going away from the well the rag was tied to the branch of a tree near it. It is also worth mentioning that this ceremony is in vogue in Eastern Countries as well, such as Arabia and Persia. As far as Wales is concerned, some of the wells frequented in times past, possessed medicinal properties; but it must be admitted that some of the superstitious ceremonies which were performed at them, must have come down from pre-Christian times; and it seems evident that water was once an object of worship, or at least of veneration, and that offerings were made either to the water itself, or more probably to the tutelary god of the fountain. This was the opinion of the late Rev. Elias Owen, F.S.A., who had made a special study of the subject all his life-time. That the inhabitants of Great Britain were, in ancient times, given to the adoration of fountains, is evident from the fact that in 960, King Edgar commanded by Canon law “That every priest industriously advance Christianity and extinguish heathenism and forbid the ‘Worship of Fountains, and necromancy and auguries.“” But finding the worship of fountains too strong to put down at once, the priest effected a compromise, by transferring veneration from the tutelary god by dedicating the well to a saint, and building a church on the spot, and baptised his flock in the well; nevertheless many pagan customs of well worship lingered on from generation to generation. At the present day in some places, we find a village pump situated at the corner of the Churchyard, which is not at all a good thing from a sanitary point of view. But we must bear in mind that the well was there before the Churchyard, and that in most of such cases the site of the Church had been fixed upon because of the virtue and attractions of the well.
ST. TEILO’S WELL.
This strong spring rises within a short distance of the ruined church of Llandilo Llwydiarth, near Maenclochog, in Pembrokeshire, and close by, there is a farm-house in which a skull, traditionally called “Penglog Teilo,” (Teilo’s Skull) is kept, and has been kept from time immemorial. This skull is used for drinking water out of from St. Teilo’s Well. In former times St. Teilo’s Well had a wide-spread reputation as a healing well, and the sick from all parts of South Wales resorted to it; but it was considered absolutely necessary to drink the water out of the skull, which had to be dipped in the well, and filled with water, and handed to the patient by the hereditary keeper. The present keeper of the relic is Mr. Melchior, an intelligent farmer, who informed me that his ancestors had been keepers of the skull from time immemorial. How the skull first came there, Mr. Gibby, of Llangolman, gave the following tradition:—When St. Teilo was dying he bade a female servant take his skull from Llandilo, in Carmarthenshire, to Llandilo, in Pembrokeshire, and that if this was done, the skull would be a blessing to coming generations of men who would have their health restored by drinking water out of it. According to another tradition which I have heard, the skull came from Llandaff Cathedral, where St. Teilo was Bishop, though born in the neighbourhood of Tenby. If we believe the old legend, the miracles he worked in death were marvellous; for, “on the night of his decease, there arose a great dispute between the clergy of the three Churches each asserting its authority and privileges for obtaining his body; but at length, attending to the advice of discreet men, they had recourse to fasting and prayer, that Christ, the great judge, who is the true authority, and privilege of holy persons, should declare by some sign, to which of them he would be pleased to commit the body of the saint. And in the morning a certain elder, looking towards the place where the body was, spoke with a loud voice, saying, “Our prayer, brethren, has been heard by the Lord, who deprives no one of his reward; arise, and behold what things have been done by Christ the meditator between God and man, that our dispute might be settled; and as in the life so in the death of the holy confessor, Teilo, miracles should be performed.” For, lo! they saw there three bodies, to which there was the same dimensions of body, the same beauty of countenance; they had the lineaments of the whole frame, without any difference. So peace being restored, each with their own corpse returned homewards, and they buried the different bodies in those several places with the greatest reverence.”
St. Teilo died in the year 566, and people of the present day hardly believe that the relic at Llandilo Llwydiarth is the real skull of this saint, though the skull in question is a very old one, and only the brain pan now remains. About five years ago an old man named John Griffiths, living in the village of Maenclochog, informed me that he well remembered the time when people came to St. Teilo’s Well, from all parts of the country, for the alleviation of their ailments, “and were cured” said he, “by faith.” The same old man also told me that when a boy, he and other two boys who were suffering from the whooping cough, were sent by their mothers early in the morning to drink water from the well out of the skull. They did so and got rid of their coughs entirely. I was told by another person in the neighbourhood, that about seventy years ago, a gentleman from Glamorganshire, drove his consumptive son in a carriage all the way to Pembrokeshire, to try this healing fountain of St. Teilo, but arrived home in Swansea without feeling any better. He had drunk the water from the well, but not out of the skull. His father took the boy all the way to St. Teilo’s Well a second time, and now made him drink out of the skull, and was completely cured of his complaint. When I was spending a few weeks at Maenclochog, some years ago, in quest of information, I accompanied Mr. Melchior to the well one day, and drank out of the skull. But, unfortunately, I did not get rid of my cold, from which I was suffering at the time, but, perhaps, my faith was not strong enough.
THE PRIEST’S WELL.
“There is a well on the Picton Castle Estate, situated near the Red House Cottages, called the Priest’s Well, which the children are (this was written thirty-five years ago) in the habit of decorating with mountain ash (or as it is called “Cayer” in the district) and cowslips on May Day. This is supposed to have the effect of keeping the witches away from those families who get water from the well during the year. The children sing over the well while decorating it “Cayer, Cayer, keep the witches in May Fair.”—Bye-Gones, December, 1874.