Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/507

 Corresponde7ice. 483

The well referred to appears to be that known as Mother Pugsley's Well. It is referred to in the following extract from " H. and R. Smith's MSS.," given by Messrs. Nicholls and Taylor in Bristol Past atid Present (Bristol, Arrowsmith, 1882, vol. iii,, p. 152):—

"Mrs. Pugsley died August 4th, 1700, aged eighty. Her funeral was according to her directions, and was ' punctually per- formed to the admiration and in the view of ten thousand spectators.' Her body was borne uncoffined on a litter, with a sheet for shroud, preceded by a fiddler playing a sprightly air, and two damsels strewing sweet herbs and flowers, while the bells of St. Nicholas church rung a merry peal. Thus it was carried to a grave in a field adjoining Nine-tree hill. Dame Pugsley was supposed to be the widow of a young soldier killed at the siege of Bristol, 1645, and buried with military honours on Nine-tree hill. His widow wore mourning all her life, and desired to be borne to her grave with demonstrations of joy at their happy reunion." Here I interrupt the quotation to say that the tradition current at Bristol during my boyhood was that she was married by torchlight at the Cathedral, that the bridegroom was hurried away im- mediately after the ceremony to the defence of his post, and was killed before morning during the attack on the city in the hottest of the fighting, which took place at the angle of the fortifications about what is now Nine-tree Hill and P'remantle Square, but then known as Prior's Hill Fort. The quotation proceeds : " Mother Pugsley's well is within recent memory. It consisted ot two stone basins, one of which contained 'an infallible remedy for the eyes,' whilst the other was especially renowned for making tea. She built a hut over the spot where her husband fell and was buried, which gave her name to the field and well. At her death she bequeathed money for a sixpenny loaf and a ninepenny loaf at Easter, and a twopenny loaf on Twelfth-day, to each of the sixteen women inhabiting St. Nicholas' almshouse. The vulgar supposed her to have been a witch, and they trampled upon her grave. A skull, thought to have been her husband's, was dug up; it had a bullet hole just above the temple." The neighbourhood was laid out for building in 1835, and a house was erected over the well; and I presume it still stands. But within my recollection