Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/294

 258 Children and Wells.

death of a child with a well, as we shall see, is by no means uncommon, and the association is a very sug- gestive one. In the next example the connection is close enough.

Naughty children must not play near the river Tees at Pierse Bridge, near Durham, especially on Sundays, or the spirit of the river, whose modern name is Peg Powler, will drag them down into deep waters and they will be drowned.^

Another suggestion of a child-and-water connection comes from Essex, where St. Osyth possesses a fountain. It is narrated of this saint that, when a child, she fell into a river and was drowned, but was miraculously restored to life by the prayers of St. Modwen,'^ whose name, to be sure, recalls St. Madron of the well in the west country.

To add instance to instance would be tedious, and quite enough has been presented to show that in the minds of the older peoples of Britain, at all events, there probably existed some mysterious bond of union between children and wells, ponds, and rivers. What was this bond .''

The most obvious answer to the question is that wells cured children's diseases, and were associated generally with children in the folk-mind, because they were originally baptismal fonts, and for this reason their water, being hallowed, washed away children's diseases, just as it purged their souls of Original Sin. " No child," in the words of an old English saying, "thrives until it is baptized."

It is a well-known fact that holy wells were frequently used for baptismal purposes. Indeed, this is one of the points I rely upon for proof that some other link existed between children and wells. But I do not think that the baptismal explanation is sufficient to account

^ Hope, I.e., p. 72. -Hope, I.e., p. 73.