{"id":17,"date":"2011-07-05T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chalicecentre.net\/blog\/freeing-the-waters-two-rediscovered-holy-wells-of-wales\/"},"modified":"2014-10-14T18:04:12","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T18:04:12","slug":"freeing-the-waters-two-rediscovered-holy-wells-of-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chalicecentre.net\/blog\/freeing-the-waters-two-rediscovered-holy-wells-of-wales\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeing the Waters \u2013 Two Rediscovered Holy Wells of Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Virtuous-well\"<\/a>An age-old tradition links women with wells. In the ancient world sacred springs were regarded as the entrance to the Underworld where the spirits dwelled. Pilgrims visited them to receive oracular utterances from the priestess who was guardian of the shrine \u2013 a practice that was still alive not two hundred years ago in Cornwall. A mediaeval Grail text tells us of the \u201cVoices of the Wells,\u201d which were silenced when the Well Maidens were defiled by an evil king and his followers. Because of this the Holy Grail was withdrawn from the kingdom and its blessings no longer poured freely out into our world. This last weekend I visited two wells in mid Wales that were once lost but recently found again. Strangely enough, the stories of their rediscovery all involve women.<\/p>\n

Ffynnon Ffraid<\/strong><\/p>\n

Winding up through the Cambrian mountains in the hazy heat of early July, I went in search of one of the few holy wells in Wales dedicated to St Bridget. The Irish holy woman who was once the Celtic goddess Brigit is known here as St. Ffraid (pronounced Fride), and a mediaeval Ffynnon Ffraid had been rediscovered not long ago by a woman living in a remote upland farm in these parts. According to tradition, when Bridget was young her duties involved milking cows and making butter in the hafod, the country people\u2019s summer home in the high pastures.<\/p>\n

Brigit of the red kites,
\nBrigit of the moorland,
\nBrigit of the meadowsweet,
\nBrigit of the dragonflies . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

The well was entirely unique in Wales, being covered by stones in the shape of a beehive, but was in a bad state of repair. Annwen Davies and her mother worked for years to get funding for its restoration, but in the end had to use their own savings to get the job done.<\/p>\n

When I drew up into the farmyard, Annwen was not at home, but I found her mother in the kitchen, busy making cakes for her grandson. Warm, earthy, merry and kind, Jasmine Jones offered me lemonade and told me how she and her daughter had the devil\u2019s own job to convince the authorities they had actually found an unrecorded holy well \u2013 and how gratifying it was to prove the \u2018experts\u2019 wrong. But that was in the past \u2013 now she is endlessly surprised and delighted at the visitors who have ever since been making their way up here from all over \u2013 even as far as Australia.
\nJasmine led me through the yard past her collection of stone hedgehogs to the starlings\u2019 nest in a nearby shed where the mother was feeding her gaping chicks. She told me of her sixteen feral cats, her ripening gooseberry bushes, and the time that the snoring in the chapel \u2013 which caused many a sidelong glance in the congregation \u2013 was finally traced to the barn owls roosting in the rafters.
\n(\u201cThey\u2019re the only fully Welsh-speaking, card-carrying Methodist owls in the county!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Brigit of the hafod,
\nBrigit of the creamery,
\nBrigit of the bakestone,
\nBrigit of the speckled bread . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

She apologised for her slow progress up to the well in the garden behind her daughter\u2019s house \u2013 her knee had been bent when she was pinned down by a sheep and never the same since. But she had no trouble heaving away the iron safety gate from the entrance to the little well so that I could look inside.<\/p>\n

\"Ffynnon-Ffraid\"<\/a>It was dim and quiet away from the glare of the sun on baled hay and the noise of the tractor down in the farmyard. The well looked as it must have done in the Middle Ages, covered with mosses and lichens and overhung by a dense thicket of hazel and wild roses. I had to crawl inside, but it was as black as night within. One sandaled foot encountered the shock of ice-cold water from which, unseen, I filled my bottle.<\/p>\n

In the dark of the well-house no time exists. I wondered whether Bridget herself, as 7th century Celtic holy woman, ever walked up here from her Abbey of Llanfride, rumoured to have once stood on the coast of Cardigan Bay. Centuries later, perhaps a procession of white-robed monks of Strata Florida abbey paused here for refreshment en route to Bardsey, the Island of the Saints, or even over to Ireland where they owned land. And what of the bard who lived in the nearby house in the 18th century: Ieuan Brydydd Hir, one of the great classic poets of his time, whose tempestuous life led to him being \u2018incorrigibly addicted\u2019 to a drink much stronger than water, as Samuel Johnson observed.<\/p>\n

Brigit of the beehives,
\nBrigit of the honeycomb,
\nBrigit of the scent of summer,
\nBrigit of the methyglyn . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

I had hoped to spend some time at the well by myself in meditation, tuning into the spirit of the waters, but it felt like it was time to go. Anyway I had already realised that, in the person of Jasmine Jones, I may have met with Bridget in the flesh. For She has many faces and is well-known to abide where there is laughter and an open heart.<\/p>\n

The Well in the Silent Grove<\/strong><\/p>\n

I could not leave this area without a visit to one of the most mysterious holy wells in Wales. Hidden deep within the forestry plantation on the mountain above the ruins of Strata Florida, it has
\nno name, but may have been the \u201cWell in the Silent Grove\u201d described by minister and antiquarian, George Eyre Evans, in 1903:<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . Follow the lane as it wends its way up the valley, with Glasffrwd . . . babbling over its rocky course, on the right. Here you are at once in the heart of the country \u2013 \u2018Alone with the Alone\u2019 \u2013 the sky, water, mountains, trees, rocks and birds. The monks new (sic) well the value of this spot, here were \u2013 nay, still are \u2013 their wells of healing waters, \u2013 iron, sulphur, chalybeate \u2013 used with benefit by the natives to-day. What more truly romantic spot can be imagined or desired than that round \u2018Ffynnon dyffryn tawel\u2019 the \u2018Well of the silent grove\u2019? Here . . . its cool waters still bubble forth, much as they did when pilgrims to the Abbey slacked (sic) their thirst at its welcome brink . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the time of George Evans this beautiful area had been acquired by the Forestry Service who covered it with serried ranks of conifers under which nothing grows and where no birds sing \u2013 a different kind of silence. It wasn\u2019t until the plantation was clear felled in the 1990s that the well came to light again, spotted by an archaeologist, Caroline Earwood, from an aerial photograph. It took her hours to reach it after scrambling up and down steep mountain slopes, fording the stream, and forging her way through dense rows of Sitka spruce. Yet someone must have known about it, for beside the well stood a brown Denby mug without a handle, holding a posy of flowers.<\/p>\n

\"glasffrwd-well2\"<\/a>When I first moved to Wales I knew I must visit this well, which is not marked on any maps. My first attempt ended ignominiously with soaked, muddy legs and a thousand itchy midge bites! The second time I went there with an experienced dowser who had been once before and a woman who was legally blind. After hours of searching, it was the blind woman who found the well.<\/p>\n

On Sunday I found the way marked by forestry poles. Newly-planted saplings of both conifers and deciduous trees were dotted about the valley, poking up above the grasses and purple foxgloves. The brush around the well had recently been cut but not cleared, so it was slimy with dead grass and weeds and its channels choked. I spent some time cleaning it up with only a stick and bare hands, throwing great gouts of mud and slime up onto the banks. In that quiet place I was \u2018Alone with the Alone\u2019 for hours, and the silence was only broken when I fished out a piece of bark that was blocking the pipe to the cistern and the voice of the well returned loud and clear and bright.<\/p>\n

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