[92] Editor’s Notes.
There are two wells or rather fountains, for it is imperative that they should be fed by a stream of running water, in St. Martin’s; one, called “La Fontaine des Navets,” is on the right hand side of the cliff above Saints’ Bay; it is best approached from the Icart road, by the turning to the left down a little lane, opposite Mr. Moon’s cottage. This lane runs just behind Mrs. Martin’s pic-nic house. There are two wells in this lane, but the second, the most southerly, is the sacred one.
The other fountain was called “La Fontaine de la Beilleuse,” and was situated just east of the church, below the farmhouse, belonging to Mr. Tardif. That again, was a double fountain, of which the southern was the wishing well, but it has now unfortunately been done away with, while the upper one has been converted into a drinking trough for cattle. Both these fountains cured the red swellings known as “Mal de la Fontaine.” When I asked why these should be efficacious, and not any other, I was told that it was because they looked east, and were fed by springs running towards the east.—From Mrs. Le Patourel, Mrs. Mauger, etc.
See M. Sebillot’s Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagne, T. I., p. 45:—“Au moment où le Christianisme s’introduisit en Gaul, le culte des pierres, des arbres et des fontaines y était florissant. De l’an 452, date du deuxième concile d’Arles, à l’an 658, concile de Nantes, nombre d’assemblées ecclesiastiques s’occupèrent de la question.”
See also Notions Historiques sur les Côtes-du-Nord, par Havasque, T. I., p. 17:—“De l’usage que les druides faisaient de l’eau des différentes sources est venue le culte que les Bretons ont si longtemps rendu aux fontaines.… Lors de l’établissement du Christianisme, les prêtres les consacrèrent à Dieu, sous l’invocation de la Vierge ou de quelque Saint, afin que les hommes grossiers, frappés par ces effigies, s’acoutumassent insensiblement à rendre à Dieu et à ses Saints l’hommage qu’ils adressaient auparavant aux fontaines elles-mêmes. Telle est l’origine des niches pratiquées dans la maçonnerie de presque toutes les fontaines, niches dans lesquelles on a placé la statue du saint qui donne son nom à la source. C’est pour parvenir au même but que le clergé fit ériger à la mème époque des chapelles dans les lieux consacrés à la religion ou au culte.”
Le Poulain de Saint George.
We have already mentioned the well of St. George as being supreme in its sanctity; indeed we may almost say that its reputation is such that it throws all others into the shade. It stands near the ruined chapel of the same name.
A place of such antiquity and reputed sanctity might naturally be expected to have its legends, though many doubtless have disappeared, but a firm faith still exists in the miraculous properties of the water of the well, and the old people still say that on tempestuous nights, especially during thunder and lightning, the form of a horse, darting flames of fire from its eyes and nostrils, may be seen galloping thrice, and thrice only, round the ruined precincts of the chapel.
Some accounts of the spectral appearance speak only of a horse’s head enveloped in flames, without the accompaniment of a body.[93]
The territory of St. George was also formerly known by the name of “St. Grégoire,” and, though Nicholas Breakspear, Pope Adrian IV., numbers “La Chapelle de St. George” among the possessions of St. Michel in his Bull of 1155, Robert de Thorigni calls it “St. Grégoire” in 1156, but in many places the St. George of the legends seems to have been confused with the “Egrégoires,” the watcher, “l’ange qui veille,” of the old world. It is, according to mythology, “l’Egrégoire” who mounts the white horse that leads to victory, which apparition, in the moment of danger, has roused so many Catholic armies from despair.