Some springs are wonderful as to their origin. Who does not know the
legend connected with Tre Fontane, in the vicinity of Rome, where water
bubbled up at the three places touched by St. Paul's severed head? We
do not recollect any Scottish instance of a well coming into being in
this way; but in England we have St. Osyth's Well in Essex, where that
saint was beheaded by the Danes, and in Wales, St. Winifred's Well in
Flintshire. Concerning the latter, Chambers, in his "Book of Days,"
thus writes:--"Winifred was a noble British maiden of the seventh
century; a certain Prince Cradocus fell in love with her, and, finding
his rough advances repulsed, cut off the lady's head. Immediately
after doing this, the prince was struck dead, and the earth, opening,
swallowed up his body. Meanwhile, Winifred's head rolled down the
hill; where it stopped, a spring gushed forth--the blood from the head
colouring the pebbles over which it flowed, and rendering fragrant
the moss growing around." Sweden has its St. Eric's Spring at Upsala,
marking the place where Eric, the king, was beheaded about the middle
of the twelfth century. St. Oswald's Well at Winwick, in Lancashire,
is said to indicate the spot where that famous Northumbrian king
received his death-wound when fighting against Penda, the pagan ruler
of Mercia. On a hill in Hertfordshire, a fountain arose to quench
the thirst of Alban, England's proto-martyr, who suffered there
about 300 A.D. According to a Kincardineshire tradition, a spring in
Dunnottar Castle miraculously appeared for behoof of the Covenanters,
who were confined there in 1685. In Holywood parish, Dumfriesshire,
(so called from its oak forest, sacred even in pre-Christian times),
a fountain sprang up at the intercession of Vynning, the patron of
a well at Kilwinning, in Ayrshire. In Scottish hagiology, fountains
usually gush forth to supply water for baptism. In English legends
they spring up as a tribute to spots where the corpses of saintly
persons have rested. Thus, water issued from the graves of Ethelbert at
Marden, in Herefordshire, and of Withburga at East Dereham, in Norfolk,
and also from that of Frideswide at Oxford. St. Frideswide's Fair at
the last-mentioned place was a noted holiday in the middle ages. It
lasted a week, and, during its continuance, the keys of the city were
in the keeping of the prior, having been handed over by the mayor, who
ceased for the time to be responsible for the peace of the burgh. At
Trondhjem, in Norway, a spring arose to mark the spot where King Olaf
was buried, about the middle of the eleventh century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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