Tag: healing wells

Tobar na Gaoithe Tuath, Iona, Argyll

megalithix

Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference – NM 275 252

Also Known as:

  1. Well of the North Wind

Folklore

A sacred well site that appears to have gone missing sometime in the 20th century — as has its compatriot, the Well of the South Wind.  F.M. McNeill (1954) wrote that,

“this is one of the magic wells of antiquity. It lies north of Cnoc nam Bradhan, not far from the Hermit’s Cell. Here, in olden times, sailors and others brought offerings to charm up a wind from the north.”

No doubt this heathen water source is known to a few old locals.  The magickal act of invoking the wind both here and at its compatriot seems to hint at ancient pre-christian rites that have thankfully been recorded before they were finally vanquished. (the grid-reference cited above is an approximation)

References:

  1. McNeill, F.M., Iona: A History of the Island, Blackie & Sons: Glasgow 1954.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Serpent’s Well, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

megalithix

Sacred Well:  OS Grid Reference – SP 31 27?

Archaeology & History

This legendary-sounding spring of water was described in field-name listings from the 1770 Enclosure Acts, but nothing seems to have been written about it since.  To me at least, there seems little doubt that this site would have been a sacred or legendary water-site. Curiously it is in William Henderson’s collection of northern folk-tales where we find a mention of further dragon lore from the township, albeit briefly, where he wrote:

“Near Chipping Norton, in Oxfordshire, A.D. 1349, was a serpent with two heads, faces like women, and great wings after the manner of a bat.”

In Nigel Pennick’s (1997) overview of dragon legends he copied Henderson’s earlier note, but neither of them gave specific indications relating the legend with our Serpent’s Well.  So, to those of you who live in and around Chipping Norton (where I spent two very good years living with Sir Wilson at the Rollright Stones) – what has become of it?  Where exactly is it?  And does anyone know anything more behind this tale and any further history behind the ‘Serpent’s Well’?

References:

  1. Gelling, Margaret, The Place-Names of Oxfordshire, Cambridge University Press 1953-54.
  2. Henderson, William, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, Folklore Society: London 1879.
  3. Pennick, Nigel, Dragons of the West, Capall Bann: Chieveley 1997.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian