THE WELL OF FFOSANNA.
This well is also in Carmarthenshire, in the parish of Cyuwil Elvet. There was hardly a well in the county more celebrated in former times than “Ffynon Ffosanna,” and there are traditions still extant in the neighbourhood, that many of the cripples who resorted here, went home healed.
FFYNON BECCA.
Another well-known well of great repute in Carmarthenshire, is Becca’s Well, between Newcastle Emlyn and Llandyssul. This well is still thought by many to possess health-restoring qualities, and its water cured both gravel and diseased eyes. It was much resorted to within living memory.
ST. NON’S WELL, NEAR ST. DAVID’S.
This famous holy well, dedicated to Non, the mother of St. David, Patron Saint of Wales, is situated near the remains of St. Non’s Chapel, near St. David’s, and was formerly much resorted to for many complaints; and Fenton in his History of Pembrokeshire says: “In my infancy, as was the general usage with respect to children at that time, I was often dipped in it, and offerings, however trifling, even of a farthing or a pin, were made after each ablution, and the bottom of the well shone with votive brass.... At the upper end of the field leading to Non’s Chapel there appears the ruined site of a house, probably inhabited by the person deputed to take care of the spring, most likely a lucrative employment in more superstitious times.”
When I visited the neighbourhood a few years ago, an old man at St. David’s informed me that he remembered diseased persons coming to the well, and returning home completely restored to good health, and that without doubt there must be healing virtues in the water of this sacred spring. The old man also believed that St. David was baptised in the well. Pembrokeshire people firmly believe that the Patron Saint of Wales was born in the neighbourhood which bears his name. The Welsh name for the cathedral and the town of St. David’s is Ty Ddewi, which means the House of David.
ST. EDREN’S WELL.
St. Edren’s is situated about half way between Haverfordwest and Fishguard. According to a local tradition there was once a most famous sacred well in the Churchyard, much resorted to for the cure of many complaints, especially hydrophobia; but one time, a woman washed her clothes in this well on Sunday, which caused the spring to dry up as a curse for breaking the Sabbath. Fortunately, however, for poor patients, the healing propensities or virtues of its water were miraculously transferred into the churchyard grass. So people took some of the grass to their homes to eat it with their food, which cured them of their ailments. There was a hole in the church wall to receive the offerings of those who came to procure some of this grass. One old man informed the Vicar, the Rev. J. Bowen, who is an enthusiastic antiquarian, that the sacred well had been closed in order to drain the graveyard, but that there is still a spring in a field outside the wall.