Saints, Wells and Superstitions – Week 25 of the Oswestry Heritage Comics
Traditions and superstitions can often have very ancient roots indeed. How many of us have thrown a penny into a fountain, stream or wishing well without really knowing why we do it?
In Britain, the worship of springs and water dates back to prehistory. Before the Roman invasion, the native Britons revered springs and rivers as the personifications of deities and spirits, and regarded pools, ponds and lakes as entrances to the other world. Bronze and Iron Age people would make offerings of metal objects – weapons, tools, armour and jewellery – by throwing them into water at sites such as Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey. After the arrival of the Romans, pools, springs and rivers continued to be worshipped. The names of the associated deities and spirits were often “Romanised”, and there are plenty of examples of this around Britain: the British river “Dee” became the Roman goddess “Deva”, the British spirit Sulis, worshipped at the springs at Bath, became the Roman goddess Sulis Minerva, etc.
So by the time Christianity was becoming established in Britain, there was a virtually unbroken tradition of reverence for springs, wells and rivers stretching back right into the depths of prehistory. Very sensibly, early Christian traditions followed the example of the Romans and “Christianised” the earlier pagan traditions, associating the wells and springs not with gods and spirits, but Christian saints. It’s highly probable that St. Oswald’s well already had a religious association with a pre-Christian spirit or deity (perhaps with Brân, who was already associated in mythology with nearby Dinas Brân, at Llangollen). If so, then the re-naming of the spring at the edge of the Maserfield battlefield was following established Christian practice.
Despite the renaming of the well, the pre-Christian – perhaps even, pre-Roman – traditions clearly continued; something the church frowned on. Various edicts by both monks and kings* forbid the worshipping at (or even, of) wells and springs, and speak out against various magic practices associated with such places – including predicting the future, granting wishes and bestowing supernatural powers:
Si quis ad arbores, vel ad fontes, vel ad angulos, vel ubicunque, nisi ad Ecclesiam Dei vota voverit, aut solverit, tres annos poenitiat.” (“If any man makes offerings to trees, wells or crossroads**, or any other thing, other than at God’s church, he must fast for three years.”)
“Poenitentiale of St. Cummin” (c. AD669)
“if any man vow or bring his offering to any well, if any keep wake at any wells, or at any other created things except at God’s church, let him fast three years.”
“Poenitentiale of King Egbert” (Mercia; AD 802-839)
But despite these exhortations, the ancient traditions associated with springs and wells, derived from pagan Roman and British worship, survived. They may have lost their association with spirits like Sulis, Abandinus or Condatis, but the traditions themselves have certainly not died out: according to some recent estimates, British people throw over £3 million into wishing wells, streams and fountains every year.
Tossing a penny into water and making a wish may seem like “just one of the things we do”: a quaint tradition, a trivial and inconsequential part of our heritage. But it’s an echo of a much older time and links us to a way of understanding our world that is thousands and thousands of years old: pre-Christian, pre-Roman and prehistoric.
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