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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Holywell Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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| Funnily enough, I've been to 2 "holy" wells today - both in Oxfordshire. <b>Fair Rosamund's Well</b> (<b>SP436164</b>) was quite uninspiring (Probably cos it was behind a locked wrought iron fence in the grounds of Blenheim Palace's - I hate that!) – I'm sure with a little TLC, it would be quite lovely… A large stone wall with the water gushing out near the bottom, through a metal mesh into a large rectangular pool. Would be such a lovely place to sit peacefully on a lovely sunny day like today… The other - quite a lovely one - by the tiny church in Binsey, and dedicated to St Margaret (<b>SP486081</b>). Within the churchyard itself, it sits recessed into the ground, with stone steps leading down to it… The water is held in a perfectly circular, relatively modern, basin. Looks like it may have had a lid or door over it originally… A latin inscription dated 1874 above it states the English name for it – simply "<b>St Margaret's Well</b>". The legend is that Saint Frideswide, born in 680 to a christian nobleman, was pursued by the Mercian prince Algar, who wanted to marry her. She legged it off to Binsey where she worked as a swineherd for 3 years. Prince Algar, somewhere along the line, was blinded by lightning! Frideswide prayed to St Margaret of Antioch and caused the well to appear. She then cured the prince's blindness using the water. Powerful stuff, eh? ;o) This story sounds familiar to me, although not using the same names… sounds like a christian modernization of an older story, maybe? G x Reply | with quote |  10th October 2004ce 19:01 In reply to: Re: My hero (goffik) |
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