Throughout the West the cult of water was flourishing along with the cult of trees and stones when Christianity found its way to Europe. The holy wells which were then plentiful have since changed their names, but a few have still retained their old names. Thus there is or was a spring called Woden’s well in Gloucestershire, which supplies water to the moat around Wandswell Court, also a Thor’s Well, or Thorskill, in Yorkshire. When the faith and usages of the Celtics and the Anglo-Saxons came in contact with Christianity, together with the still older faiths and customs which the Celt and Teuton had continued or allowed to continue, the new religion did not distinguish between the various shades of beliefs and usages. It merely treated all alike as pagan. Kings, Popes and Church Councils issued edict after edict condemning non-Christian practices. Let us cite some of these. The second Council of Arles, held about the year 452, issued the following canon:
“If in the territory of a bishop infidels light torches or venerate trees, fountains, or stones, and he neglects to abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of sacrilege.”
King Canute in England and Charlemagne in Europe also conducted vigorous campaigns against these relics of paganism. Here is an extract from Charlemagne’s edict:
“With respect to trees, stones, and fountains, where certain foolish people light torches or practise other superstitions, we earnestly ordain that the most evil custom detestable to God, wherever it be found, should be removed and destroyed.”
It was too much, however, to hope for the total eradication of those faiths and customs of age-long existence. Pope Gregory was not slow to realize this, as will be seen from the following extract from his famous letter to the Abbot Mellitus in the year 601:—
“When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine our Brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, namely that the temples of the idols (fana idolorum) in that nation (gente) ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled upon the said temples, let altars be erected and relics placed. For if these temples be well built, it is requisite that they may be converted from the worship of devils (dæmonum) to the worship of the true God; that the nation seeing that their temples are not destroyed may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed. And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, so that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting and no more offer beasts to the devil (diabolo), but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the giver of all things for their sustenance.”
Thus did the early Christian missionaries come to regard the old phase of water-worship tenderly. Adopting what they could not abolish, they blessed the waters of holy wells and used them for baptism of converts and erected chapels or oratories near by or placed an image of the Virgin, or some saint, near sacred trees and rivers or over holy wells and fountains. Thus did the new faith which aimed in principle at the purity of Christian doctrine permit in practice a continuance of pagan worship under Christian auspices. Curious was the result. Under the transformation of beliefs thus unconsciously wrought the simple-hearted Christians beheld in brilliant images of the virgin and the saints fresh dwelling-places for the presiding deities of the waters whom they and their forefathers had venerated in the past. The belief in the miraculous power of water became linked with the name of Madonna or some saintly messenger of God and so enduring was this combination that it gave a new lease of life to the old beliefs.
One by one the old ideas and customs which were firmly rooted in the multitude came to be absorbed into Christianity. A dual system of belief thus sprang up and this is very strikingly reflected in the supplication of an old Scottish peasant when he went to worship at a sacred well:
“O Lord, Thou knowest that well would it be for me this day an I had stoopit my knees and my heart before Thee in spirit and in truth as often as I have stoopit them after this well. But we maun keep the customs of our fathers.”[18]